Habakkuk 2, eschatology and the Donald Trump Trend in the USA

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD) Department of Liberal Education, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia 

       There are historians like the Catholic Church in main, some Jewish commentators especially Rashi of the Middle Ages, sometimes Redak, nearly all Calvinistic theologians and other Protestant theologians who are operating with an allocation of the messages of prophets for their day and their day only. They are “hanging the prophetic clothes in a locked-up past closet” with only key principles like a modern poem’s wisdom that is applicable to us”.

       Then there are your so-called Holy Spirit self-filled Charismatic theologians that are interpreting the prophets with a “gut-feeling” looking with one eye at the newspaper and Television. They have been doing it this way for quite some time and one image has been given many different names, depending on which generation was speaking with this mode.

       Then the latest theological trend is to deny even that the events happened as the prophets were trying to portray them to happen in those days and that the whole Old Testament is just a human book and written as propagation material, a concoction of only human input. Message deniers one can call them and this trend is leading to nihilism, rejecting the messages completely no matter what.

      The problem started when the biblical studies meetings included speakers from Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and these days even other religions, to contemplate and speak about subjects of the Revelation of God in the Old Testament and New Testament. The result is a consistent “switching off” of cardinal points and an evasion of those points that could “offend” any of the “other persuasions” and thus, like in Elijah’s day, an “ecumenical message” of mixture Baalism is presented as the actual prophetic message of the Old Testament prophets. This cannot work. If it is more important to dine or drink tea with people who are denying the truths of the Bible or the prophets than the prophets themselves, then do not speak at all about the prophets.

       Seventh-day Adventists follows an understanding that the prophets saw things from their own time sometimes in patches, throughout the history of mankind (sometimes in patches) to the time of the end or the eschatological days (nearly always or at least in patches). The patches are mixed and seamed together, so the reader has to know which is which. You have to read very carefully to see if terms of “forever”, “always” and so forth are used telling you that it is no longer any World Order of this earth but that heaven’s eternity has started in that patch. Catholics, Jews and Protestants though see these terms as merely “metaphors” or “an over-excited prophet” or a “prophet carried away in his imaginations” as S. Driver use to say about Isaiah.

       For Seventh-day Adventists God is in control of history and periods were allocated for things to happen. All were foretold and if one look at some of the patches of the prophets, one can see the actions depicted as history unfolded it. The patch is only recognized when the history happened.

       The events in the USA currently with the strange behavior of Donald Trump (USA isolationism syndrome) and his electoral voters somehow finds an echo in Habakkuk 2. Trump represents the agony of Baby-Boomers who can feel the rug of power being pulled from under their feet. He wants to turn history back from the millennial thinking to the heyday of Baby Boomers. The power, given to any ruler, is from God and for a purpose, to fulfill prophecy as predicted. Does Habakkuk include a prediction of Trump to be impeached in his future, should he be successful? Or is it the whole of the USA that will loose it's international current admiration and current appeal? Much of this one has to wait for history to happen to establish the interpretation or recognize the signal in prophecy.

        The Distanzangaben in prophetic interpretation are those long periods of time allocated to a year-day principle where one year consists of 360 years. That is how the long period of 490 years ended exactly to the time of Christ, thus foretold and exactly fulfilled in Daniel 9:24-27. But there are other exact long periods in prophecy given (Distanzangaben) like 1260 years (Daniel and Revelation) and 2300 years as well as 1290 and 1335 at the end of Daniel. They are the “appointed times of God” shown to the prophet of coming events spread out in the corridors of past and future history.

        So far Adventists could recognize with a host of Jewish, Christian and Protestant scholars from various denominations (see Le Roy Froom, The Prophetic Faith of our Fathers) in the history of interpretation. These conclusions cannot be just overlooked and shelved.

        For this reason, the Habakkuk 2 notes written in 2008 initially, has such a contextualization for today that they are presented untouched for others to see how close the understanding of 2008 (below on Habakkuk, then composed) is touching the reality of 2016 with Donald Trump of the USA (as portrayed by the media) in mind.

In 2008, this writer understood from Habakkuk 2 that:

God gave Habakkuk a vision for the appointed time of 1798 and when this finished another World-Order of a secular kind will be. "For there shall be another vision for the appointed time" (Habakkuk 2:3). This is 1798. "It shall not fail, though it tarry, wait for it, for it shall surely come, it shall not delay". The pope in captivity for the deadly wound in 1798 will be "puffed up his soul is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4). Then Habakkuk describes the Anglo-American western forces from verse 5, the new World-Order after the Holy Roman Empire: "he whom wine betrays, a haughty man whose dwelling shall not remain, who widened his desire like the netherworld, and he is like death and shall never be sated, and he gathered all the nations to himself and collected to himself all peoples (as one can see in the poem of the Statue of Liberty). Daniel expects the USA to fall in Daniel 11:45 last part "and he shall come to his end and no-one for him". A parable will be against them "Woe to him who increases what is not his. How long? And who loads himself with a beam of mud" (Habakkuk 2:6). Why mud? Daniel saw in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that the last empire will be a mixture of clay and iron, democratic and autocratic ruler styles mixed. It appears that "those who bite you [USA] arise suddenly and those who startle you awaken". "And you shall become plunder for them" (Habakkuk 2:7). "Since you have cast away many nations all remaining peoples shall cast you away" (Habakkuk 2:8a). The day the USA shall reverse its policy of global involvement, the world will think that they are cast away and that will trigger the casting away of the USA. USA isolationism or homeland focusing will inaugurate their downfall. The USA will be rejected "because of the blood of man and the violence done to the land, the city, and all its inhabitants" (Habakkuk 2:8). The war with Iran is still ahead and also that northern power of Daniel 11:44. A woe is then spoken about the future USA "woe to him who gains evil gains for his house to place his nest on high [space station] to be saved from the hand of an evil one" (Habakkuk 2:9). There are military objectives to the space-station project. Isolationism and moving the focus from global interests to homeland interests means "to cut off many peoples" (Habakkuk 2:10). "Woe to him who builds a city with blood and establishes a city with injustice" (Habakkuk 2;12). Nations shall be restless with vanity (Habakkuk 2:13). Because of the Latter Rain the "earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord" (Habakkuk 2:14). Perverted actions made them a disgrace (Habakkuk 2:15-16). Alcohol was used for the perversion and he became full of disgrace instead of honor (Habakkuk 2:16). The cup of the right hand of the Lord shall be turned upon him (Habakkuk 2:16) and disgrace upon his glory. Syria and Lebanon shall be violent and there shall be blood of man and violence in the land, a city, and all its inhabitants (Habakkuk 2:17). What is the value of a graven image (Habakkuk 2:18). The USA will make an image for the first beast says Revelation 13. Woe to one who speaks to metals and stone and wood as if it is living (Habakkuk 2:19). Icon worship is the downfall. The Lord is in his Holy Temple and the whole world is to be silenced before Him (Habakkuk 2:20).

Source: Adapted and contextualized from Koot van Wyk, Prophetic Analysis of Salvation. Vol. 11 (Chongni, Sangju, South Korea: Louis Hester, 2014 [unpublished manuscript]), 65-66.  

Note: the commentary on Habakkuk was written in 2008, thus eight years before the events that is taking currently place in the USA election.