If you watch the world news or are a student of history or geography or enjoy reading about different cultures, you may have noticed the effects of a certain underlying theme. This theme affects all Gentile nations today.
You may have never thought of it, but it is nevertheless there. Chiastic reading as presented in Chronicles shows us this situation.
The world’s nations today can be thought of as being in one of three groups. The nations of China, Japan, and India, for example, can be thought of as different from Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and even France, which in turn can be thought of as different from Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.
Do you realize what that difference is? The three aforementioned groups of countries are the way they are, because of their reaction to something—something universal and global.
It’s the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. All Gentile nations of the world can be thought of as being the way they are, because of their individual reactions to the gospel.
The First Group of Nations
The nations of China, Japan, and India, as well as nations like Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka never accepted the gospel. There were always a few people that would listen to the occasional missionary over the many centuries, and become Christian, but until the late nineteenth century, Christians were always less than 1 percent of the population of those nations. And even after a century and a half of protestant missionary effort since the 1850’s, teaching that to be a Christian is to have relationship with Christ rather than practice a religion, these nations taken as a group are still not even 10 percent Christian.
Why is that? It is because all those nations have their own moral code, embedded in their cultures. Many people when told the gospel, think they must practice some religion. So why change religion to a different moral code when the ones they have already work perfectly well in their views? These moral codes come from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
This is why the gospel has failed to take over these nations, keeping these nations from being Christian nations up to this time.
The Second Group of Nations
Unlike the eastern nations, the nations of Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and even France accepted the gospel. There were, at one time, servants of Christ mixed in with the general population of church-goers, to the point these whole countries went to church.
Why aren’t they Christian now? What happened?
Egypt, Yemen, and Libya were then taken by Islam in the eighth century AD, and the populations of those nations fell away over the centuries. And what of France? France did what other western European nations did: they thought they were too intelligent and educated to “shackle” themselves to a God they convinced themselves was a myth, and so with manmade arguments starting during “The Enlightenment” in the eighteenth century AD the peoples of western Europe fell away as well.
Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, as well as France, and Turkey, and the UK, and Morocco, and Spain, and many other nations all have in common that they were once Christian nations, but fell away.
The Third Group of Nations
Finally, the nations of Canada, Brazil, and Argentina, and Mexico, and the United States, and Uruguay, are all Christian nations today. They do not officially forsake their faith (except for certain parties on the political Left in these nations), but except for a few exceptions are free to worship Jesus Christ. One would think that these nations would be filled with churchgoers and have many servants of Christ. Sadly, the one thing all these nations have in common is that their populations are drifting away. Why? To pursue wealth of course, as well as to worry about what they will eat and drink.
All these nations started as Christian nations, but have been engulfed by the pursuit of wealth. The land they occupy was discovered starting in 1492 by brave people seeking wealth—new trade routes to the east. They were settled first by people seeking gold, then by people seeking a “better” life. What is the reason most immigrants coming to the New World have given as to why they are immigrating? A better life; more opportunity. These nations were born in, and grew up in, the seeking of wealth.
And what is the American dream? Is it not to own your well-built house and have some land around it? What is the third God-given right stated in the United States’ Declaration of Independence? Is it not the pursuit of happiness?
There is nothing wrong with having wealth. And in a Christian nation such as what the United States has been in the past, blessings from God are good and may be many. However, it seems in the Americas, those that have wealth, forget God and pursue more wealth. Those who do not have wealth forget God, and at least pursue food and drink.
Three Groups, Three Courses of End-Time Events
Each Gentile nation falls into one of these three groups. If you study the histories of the nations, this will become apparent to you. It is the nations’ relationship to the gospel in the last many centuries that defines how they are today, and defines what they will go through in the end times.
The things to be endured will begin with the Second Signpost. The Second Signpost will set into motion not only what these three groups of nations endure during the Signposts but how they will be judged during the Great Tribulation. (We’ve already plainly seen in Scripture a facet of the puzzle: Rev. 16:12 and Dan. 11:44)
The time for the great reaping of souls for the kingdom of God will not be during the Great Tribulation, it will be during the remaining three Signposts. The greatest potential for harvest is in the eastern nations like China or India, where fully half of the human race lives, and most of them have never even heard of Jesus Christ.
How will God deal with each of these three nation groups in the end times? It will be first to encourage as many people as possible, in a way catered to each of the three groups of nations, to come to Him. And then it will be the plagues and judgments of Revelation, again catered to each of the three parts.
How can we know all this? It’s right there in His Word, read chiastically.
The three groups of nations are the three parts of the great city. They will be gathered at the end, to Israel, by the three unclean spirits coming out of the dragon, the Antichrist, and the false prophet.
Who is the great city, the Harlot? It is all the world—everyone who is not a servant of Christ.
Just as Daniel Revisited tells us the meaning of what is happening in the Middle East right now, Revelation is telling us the meaning of the news events going on around the world right now, in real and identifiable ways.