Over the last few years, we have witnessed an alarming downturn in world affairs. Due to the effects of COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and economic turmoil besetting markets worldwide, the Doomsday Clock—created in 1947 by a group of well-known scientists who founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, men like Einstein and Oppenheimer—recently advanced to 90 seconds to midnight. The clock has never been closer to their conception of The End of All Things, self-destruction through nuclear Armageddon.

For Americans, the conjunction of these crises with a weak administration and a petty, divided Congress does not bode well. The Biden White House, more inclined toward socialism than any administration in the nation’s history, has proved ineffective on multiple fronts. Meanwhile, congressional representatives of both parties waste valuable time engaging in political theater while legislation languishes.

Yet, the United States—still the world’s foremost power—does not exist in a vacuum. Despite the government and its citizens doing a lot of navel-gazing, other nations have not been idle. Indeed, the weakness these nations observe in Washington, DC, has emboldened traditional foes and even allies to believe they can act purely in their own self-interests and not face severe sanctions from the World’s Policeman, Uncle Sam. This perception has become a reality in several places around the globe.

The People’s Republic of China is America’s principal foreign enemy. As the premier proponent of Communist world domination, China faces off against the purported Champion of Democracy in strategic areas like the East China Sea, southern Africa, Central America, and Southeastern and Central Europe. As an economic powerhouse, it uses exports and investments to increase its influence in regions underserved or ignored by the West. Its broad generosity softens the fact that China has been increasingly asserting its leadership to resolve longtime diplomatic tiffs, as between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and has quietly boosted its defense budget 7.2% in 2023. Newly appointed for an unprecedented third term, President Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

While China’s power is growing, it is still no match for the U.S. Its economy is large, but its 2022 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) lags behind America’s GDP by about $6 trillion per year while having to support over four times its population. Per capita GDP, a better indicator, tells the tale: China’s is $19,338, whereas America’s is $69,288.

The Chinese military budget, though growing, is about 35% of America’s ($293 vs. $816 billion). It fields more personnel and floats more naval vessels than the U.S., but it trails America in aircraft, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. A war with China could severely damage the U.S., but America’s superior reach, doctrine, and experience would likely prevail.

During the Cold War, the communist Soviet Union was America’s bogeyman. It tried to match U.S. influence at all points, but its power disintegrated after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Its successor, the Russian Federation led by Vladimir Putin since 2000, has regained some of the U.S.S.R.’s former influence—enough to be considered a Great Power or nearly so.

Then came its incursions into Georgia and Ukraine, attempts Putin framed as reclaiming stolen territory for Mother Russia. The five-day war with Georgia in 2008, in which Russian troops stopped within thirty miles of Tbilisi, its capital, emboldened Putin to believe that regaining Russia’s sphere of influence was feasible. The seizing of the Crimean Peninsula and parts of the Donbas region in 2014, which Western nations did little to hinder, persuaded him even more. The February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was the logical result. However, Russian prestige has slipped precipitously in the year since, revealing its military’s weakness against a determined though outmatched foe supplied with Western money and older arms and munitions.

What about Europe? The church of God has long taught that the Beast would rise from there and conquer the nations of modern Israel, including America. Is that prediction currently viable? While “united” under the European Union, most member nations are struggling economically, burdened by corpulent welfare budgets; are contending with millions of refugees and migrants; can boast only tiny, underfunded militaries; and can be held hostage by energy exporters. Europe is probably at least a generation or two from anything more than a middling status on the world stage. Remove NATO from the mix, and it sinks frighteningly close to plunging into the Third World.

The Islamic world’s power is fractured, so much so that the Trump administration could broker treaties between Israel and a handful of Muslim nations. Terrorism has declined in recent years, a sign that jihad has lost its momentum after its ablest leaders were taken off the board by U.S. and allied militaries. The only nation among them that still poses a threat is Iran, but its pariah status and domestic turmoil have hampered it.

So, where are America’s enemies? God blessed Abraham’s descendants with so much wealth, resources, and strategic advantages that, even showing pronounced signs of decline, the U.S. remains unrivaled by any nation on earth. However, it does have a significant foe—itself.

Abraham Lincoln foresaw this in his 1838 Lyceum Address, speaking specifically of troubling incidents then undercutting the rule of law and the Constitution:

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

His words echo in principle what John Adams said of the Constitution in a 1798 letter to the Massachusetts militia: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” As Americans’ immorality spreads and political ideas hostile to the Constitution entrench themselves in our seats of government, we realize that these former presidents were right. The nation grows weaker internally as many of its citizens agitate for total freedom from traditional morality and vote for politicians who prefer Marx over Madison.

The nation’s internal state is reminiscent of God’s description of Judah not long before it fell to the Chaldeans:

Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. (Isaiah 1:5-6)

Then God predicts what will happen to the people depending on how they react to His advice to return to morality: “‘If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword’; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:19-20). He makes similar warnings in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.

Will Americans heed God’s warning? Will they deal with the enemy within? The opportunity remains—there is still time—but sadly, history warns that national repentance is rare. Despite the tide of immorality, however, individual repentance may spare some from the wrath to come (Zephaniah 2:1-3).