The death of Queen Elizabeth ii inspired a phenomenal outpouring of grieving, sympathy, nostalgia and gratitude from people worldwide. Scots, Englishmen and others came out in masses, filling streets in mannerly throngs to pay respect as her flag-draped casket passed by on the way to her palace, where innumerable blooms had been laid.
But at this historic and somber ending of an era, a small minority responded very differently.
“So how do I feel about the passing of Queen Elizabeth?” wrote New York Times contributor Indrajit Samarajiva. “The same way I’d feel if Adolf Hitler got to die in his sleep. … I’m glad the Queen is dead. I’m only sorry she got to go peacefully.”
Those who voiced ugly sentiments such as this associate the Queen with a grotesque, wholly evil view of British history. They consider British colonialism the apex of exploitation, white supremacy, even genocide.
Sadly, this has become not merely an acceptable view, but in many circles—especially elite circles—the mainstream view.
In September 2017, Third World Quarterly, the leading peer-reviewed academic journal of scholarship and policy in international studies, printed an article titled “The Case for Colonialism.” This article challenged the notion that Western colonialism was evil. It was, in reality, “as a general rule, both objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate in most of the places where it was found.” The author argued that its flaws must be weighed against its benefits, against how people would have done without it, and “in light of the grave human toll of a century of anti-colonial regimes and policies. The case for Western colonialism is about rethinking the past as well as improving the future. It involves reaffirming the primacy of human lives, universal values, and shared responsibilities—the civilizing mission without scare quotes—that led to improvements in living conditions for most Third World peoples during most episodes of Western colonialism.” It reviewed the social, economic and political gains produced by colonialism: “expanded education, improved public health, the abolition of slavery, widened employment opportunities, improved administration, the creation of basic infrastructure, female rights, enfranchisement of untouchable or historically excluded communities, fair taxation, access to capital, the generation of historical and cultural knowledge, and national identity formation, to mention just a few dimensions.” These benefits of colonialism, particularly British, are undeniable. Britain truly was a blessing to the world!
However, this article on the publication’s website was soon pulled, replaced with this message: “This Viewpoint essay has been withdrawn at the request of the academic journal editor …. [T]he journal editor has … received serious and credible threats of personal violence … linked to the publication of this essay” (emphasis added).
Some academics claimed the article frightened them. “This is not just an offensive piece. It is a call for violence,” one said. “I am really scared about the future …. Are academics seriously considering advocating colonialism? I don’t feel safe in academia anymore.” Some called on Princeton to revoke the author’s PhD. “Fifteen of the 34 members of [the] editorial board resigned, two petitions demanding a retraction gathered over 16,000 signatures, fellow academics accused him of promoting ‘white supremacy,’ and the editor eventually withdrew the essay under death threats from Indian nationalists ….” (Times, Nov. 30, 2017). The mainstream view of imperialism today is that it was so evil that anyone who even suggests it had good points should be executed!
Tellingly, these academics fix all their hatred on the British Empire. They don’t complain about China or Russia or the Holy Roman Empire. That reveals the real author of this hatred: a being who hates Israel—and who hates the God who founded Israel. He hates Ephraim and Manasseh, and he hates the benefits God has brought to humanity through these birthright nations.
Satan is passionate in his hatred for physical Israel. Yet he is even more hateful toward spiritual Israel. As fierce as his animosity is for the British Empire, it burns even hotter for the God Family Empire.
We need to be passionate in our love for that godly Empire.
In recent years, the Holy Roman Empire has received positive press in Europe, and its history promoted as a banner for Europeans to rally around. Former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Europeans needed more passion for that empire and its history. Gerald Flurry responded, “Well, I think we [God’s people] have to go around saying, … we need more passion for God’s throne! … If [Guttenberg] can say it about that satanic organization, can’t we say it about God’s own throne? Don’t we all need more passion about this throne?” (Sept. 10, 2018).
Assess your level of passion for the God Family Empire and the throne of God!
Greatness Springs From Passion
The Prophet Daniel wrote of this Empire, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
The God Family Empire, ruled from the throne of David, will govern all people, nations and languages. They will serve Christ and benefit from His rule even more than God’s people do today.
“But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever” (verse 18). We will be there, serving alongside our Husband from that throne. “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (verse 27). This truth should inflame our genuine passion!
We need a passion for that God Family Empire, Mr. Flurry said. Passion is an intense, driving feeling or conviction; ardent affection; love; a strong desire for or devotion to something. It goes beyond intellectual appreciation and academic understanding, and penetrates to the heart.
Mr. Flurry was talking about an unnatural passion—a passion we must let God build in us. We need God to shape our thinking and desires.
“What made Churchill so great?” Mr. Flurry asked in the November-December 2021 Royal Vision. “Some historians will tell you that it was primarily his passion for empire.” Churchill was enamored with the good the empire could do for the world.
Such altruistic thinking should stoke our love for God’s Family Empire. We need godly “imperialistic” thinking: zeal for spreading God’s civilization to humanity, our hearts and minds full of the heroism, splendor and vision of God’s Empire.
Daniel 2 prophesies of a succession of four world-ruling empires, Gentile powers led by the devil. But then it shows how God’s Empire—the fifth world-ruling Empire—will ultimately prevail! “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (verse 44). This Kingdom will not be left to human beings. That always causes problems—even with the British Empire. Governments in this world are proving themselves hopelessly inept and corrupt. God says no more of that! This Kingdom will be ruled by perfect God beings!
Think of the grandeur and splendor of this coming Empire! It is almost here. Most of the leaders have been prepared and await coronation. (Read all about this in the final chapter of Mystery of the Ages.)God is in the final stages of training rulers to fill imperial offices. This magnificent vision should animate our lives daily.
The history of the British Empire can supply lessons and inspiration. It does give us insight into God’s imperial rule. There were problems, however: That empire was human and imperfect; it made mistakes in carrying out its imperial mission. Still, it was blessed by God. It did represent God fulfilling His promise to Abraham (as proved in The United States and Britain in Prophecy).
Thankfully, we are part of an Empire directly led by God, and we are preparing for Christ Himself to rule as King over that Empire! It is a perfect Empire. We can be unapologetically, 100 percent passionate about it!
Godly Ambition
Contrary to what today’s anticolonialists would have you believe, peoples throughout Africa, India and the Caribbean were largely ignorant of much basic knowledge. Before the British arrived, they engaged in many horrific practices. They suffered terrible diseases for ignorance about sanitation and hygiene. Few people were literate. They needed to be educated.
The Victorians “dreamt not just of ruling the world, but of redeeming it,” wrote historian Niall Ferguson. “It was no longer enough for them to exploit other races; now the aim became to improve them. Native peoples themselves would cease to be exploited, but their cultures—superstitious, backward, heathen—would have to go” (Empire, emphasis added throughout).
This lies at the heart of godly empire thinking. Empire thinking is firm, wholehearted belief in our cause and in the benefits we can bring humanity. We need faith and conviction in the rightness and nobility of God’s way—conviction to our bones about what we represent.
At the apogee of the British Empire, the people were passionate about it. And as long as they truly believed in the Empire, it grew. When they brimmed with confidence in their ways and institutions, it flourished. Such belief produces boldness and builds ambition.
The stories of the great military leaders who had built the Empire resounded throughout Britain. These heroes “were held up to the nation as examples of how men of courage and determination could shape the destiny of that noblest achievement of mankind, the Empire,” William Manchester wrote (The Last Lion).
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Now a government is like everything else: to preserve it we must love it. … Everything, therefore, depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education ….” How true that is of this God Family Empire! We really must love it. And we must work to educate ourselves, to establish and inspire that love.
Read the biblical psalms to capture the spirit and fervor and excitement we need for God’s imperial plans. They brim with passion for the throne of David and the God Family Empire.
Read, for example, the last psalm David wrote: Psalm 72. It is “for Solomon,” but it clearly foreshadows Christ’s millennial rule. “He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor” (verse 4). That is a magnificent, heroic cause you can believe in: the end of oppression, all peoples receiving good government and true justice. The verses that follow describe the glorious blessings that will follow worldwide.
David believed deeply in this. He was passionate about it, and that passion produced wonderful fruits in his life. It motivated him to write royal songs to God, to institutionalize praise, to study and meditate on God’s law, as well as to administer it and teach it. It stirred him to build a house for God, to turn Jerusalem into a light to the nations! He was passionate about the throne from which Christ will govern the world!
David had empire-building passion. This produced in him the same gallant qualities that it did within the British people, but on the spiritual level that we need.
David was sincere, convicted, wholehearted. Satan’s world makes us cynical, negative and faithless. Such thinking grips us and encrusts our hearts in doubt and fear. God’s truth, and this vision, provide a hammer to break that crust, to cleanse the heart and get it beating again with pure passion for a noble cause!
The more we build such passion, the more it will invigorate and regenerate our lives. The more it will diminish our selfish tendencies and expand and ennoble our thinking and ambition. The more we will grow spiritually.
As Kirk Emmert wrote, Churchill believed in “the fostering of civilization as the highest purpose of empire” and said that “empire civilizes both the ruled and their rulers” (Winston S. Churchill on Empire).
Jeremiah 1:11 describes a barren branch on the tree of Jeremiah’s commission that then began budding, blossoming and bearing fruit. That is true of this Work—but it’s also true of our individual lives as we get behind what God is doing. That branch will blossom all the more, and we also will bear more fruit individually.
Building this passion will make us people of strength, faith, conviction and firmness—people of boldness and ambition as David was. Such passion forges courage. It leads to action. When you are passionate about something, it changes your life!
Modern Israel is suffering the curse of broken pride in our power (Leviticus 26:18-19). This has turned us away from building our nations and serving the world and toward self-loathing, wavering, apologizing and destroying. The Laodiceans are also cursed with a broken will, and they cannot do the Work of God!
It takes strong will and passionate belief to do God’s Work. We need it as a Church, and in our individual lives.
Passion Produces Action
Passion for the God Family Empire inspires practical changes in our lives. It starts in the way we govern ourselves as representatives of the Empire and how we use our time.
If you have vision, you will purify yourself (1 John 3:1-3). If your heart is full of love for what God is doing, you will be significantly protected from satanic temptations. It was when Britain’s Victorian-era upper class lost their vision of empire that they became entrapped in sin, self-gratification and immorality.
When we have Empire passion, we educate ourselves. We are in growth mode, challenging ourselves. We are striving for regal, stately communication—a royal standard in our speech, our conduct, our work, our interactions with others.
If we have this passion, it will change the way we conduct our marriage and family life. It will have a tremendous effect on our child rearing. We are rearing tomorrow’s leaders! Isaiah 54 depicts how this Empire will keep growing and growing—and our children (“thy seed,” verse 3) are being trained for tremendous opportunities. We must teach them to think big, to set their sights on the horizon, to know in their bones that they are part of something great. God is preparing for them a royal inheritance!
God tells us to eschew fear, shame and timidity (verse 4). Have confidence and passion in your heart, and instill that conviction in your children. They too are destined to be part of Christ’s Bride! (e.g. verses 13, 17).
Winston Churchill was born in November 1874, right as the British Empire was near the apex of its might and majesty. This had a formative impact on his thinking. What sort of environment are we providing our children? We want to rear future God Family Empire builders! We need to instill in our children a love for God’s royalty, God’s government and law, God’s Family Empire.
Empire passion will also infuse our Christian fellowship, our time with God’s people, our contributions to and participation within our congregation. How much does your fellowship reflect Empire passion? We must think beyond ourselves. We must be driven if we are to be ready to govern nations!
Representing the Empire
One amazing aspect of the British Empire was how so few governed so many. In 1800, England was home to only around 7.7 million people. By the turn of the next century, that figure had swelled to about 30 million. But remarkably, this island nation was governing over 450 million people—more than a quarter of Earth’s population!
From an island of 50,000 square miles, the English ruled an empire greater than 14 million square miles.
In many places, a very few Brits were ruling a lot of people. In Uganda in the 1890s, about 24 British officials governed 3 million East Africans. In India, 900 civil servants and 70,000 soldiers governed a nation of more than 250 million. And from India, the British Empire governed an entire hemisphere: from Malta through the Middle East to Australia to Hong Kong.
The reality of these young men being sent to far-flung colonies and territories to represent the Empire and to rule is quite amazing. These were some tough men! Their passion for Empire inspired a willingness to march to the ends of Earth to promote it.
“[M]ost of the youths grew into shrewd men; the level of performance was very high,” Manchester wrote. “And many of them could scarcely be envied. Often they started out living in leaky mud huts, rarely seeing anything of their countrymen …. They often had only the vaguest idea of the boundaries defining their territories, or the size of the populations for which they were responsible. In Uganda, six months was added to home leave because an Englishman had to walk 800 miles to reach civilization. While on leave he had to choose an English wife in a hurry, because it might be years before he saw another white woman. … It is difficult to condemn men who followed their star when the temptation to slacken was immense, who daily wore their quaint little uniform of white shorts and white stockings … but dressed for dinner whenever possible, to keep a sense of order, and carried collapsible little flagpoles wherever they went, so that the fluttering Union Jack would always remind their wards of their distant Queen” (op cit).
God’s Church today is small. Every member counts. How are you doing at manning your little outpost of the God Family Empire? The way you keep your home and conduct yourself at school or at work matters. The Apostle Paul says that “we are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20)—representatives of God’s Empire to this dark world.
But we are not just any ambassadors: We represent David’s throne, the throne from which God will rule the world! We are royal ambassadors of the King of kings! That is a reality that should daily, continually, inflame our hearts.
What does it mean to be royal? It comes down to representing the throne of God in a way pleasing to God. It is recognizing your duty to others, expanding the scope of your moment-by-moment thinking as wide as possible—beyond the horizons, beyond the stars—recognizing your responsibility to the world on God’s behalf. We tend to think so small. We must vanquish our myopia. Royal thinking, empire thinking, is big-minded thinking! It seeks to extend God’s rule globally!
Do you yearn to rule? This is why God called us!
Empire Courage
When Churchill was 25 years old, reporting on the war in South Africa, a train he was riding on was sabotaged by Boers. Three cars were derailed, but the locomotive was still on the rails. Churchill assessed the situation, then found a civilian engineer, the only man who understood the machinery. He had a superficial face wound, and he was hysterical.
“His face was cut open by a splinter, and he complained in bitter, futile indignation,” Churchill wrote of the incident. “He was a civilian. What did they think he was paid for? To be killed by bombshells? Not he! He would not stay another minute!”
Manchester wrote about how Britain’s future prime minister handled the situation: “Churchill lectured him on duty. Then he congratulated him. This, he told him, was the chance of a lifetime. He might even be rewarded for ‘distinguished gallantry.’ Besides, he assured him, no man could be hit twice in one battle. This absurd fiction quieted the driver and they went to work” (op cit).
Algis Valiunas wrote, “The potential for heroism, Churchill suggests, lies dormant in the hearts of ordinary business-minded men … whose defining characteristic is their fear of violent death, who have need sometimes of a stirring word” (Churchill’s Military Histories).
This engineer found exceptional bravery within simply because of some words from a young man who thought like a leader. What kind of impact can we have on those around us if we let God use us?
This is the way David thought. He slew giants to defend God’s Empire. His nobility inspired others to become giant slayers. You see this same spirit, passion and inspirational courage in many of the great men and women of the Bible.
Passion for God’s Empire makes you courageous. The Laodiceans became cowardly and abandoned their duty to the world. But those within God’s faithful remnant believe in our cause. We are fueled by our sense of duty to God and to the world, and God gives us courage!
“Churchill was said to have always wanted to be where the shooting was,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “In principle, that’s the way it should be with us. We always want to be where the fighting is—to help and serve, and never flee from this inspiring responsibility God has given us!” (op cit).
Such empire thinking encouraged hordes of Brits. “The British soldier was given a small island for his birthplace and the whole world as his grave,” Manchester wrote. They traveled the world over to realize this vision of Empire, and many had to die in service to it!
Empire must be fought for. Passion gives us an enthusiasm to sacrifice for the God Family Empire—to do whatever is required to serve its ends and advance them.
“Under Victoria one regiment or another had been in action every year, somewhere on five continents, fighting from Aden and Afghanistan to Zululand and the Zhor Valley,” Manchester wrote. “They were almost always victorious. One reason was their sublime, unfathomable courage. … An astonishing number actually enjoyed courting death.
“Their epitaph may be found today on sinking gravestones: ‘For Queen and Empire.’ It is inadequate. They died for more than that. So vast an Empire, so vigorous a society, could have been neither built nor held without staunch ideological support, a complex web of powerful beliefs, powerfully held. Alfred North Whitehead defined a civilization in spiritual terms, and Christopher Dawson … said: ‘Behind every great civilization there is a vision’” (ibid).
To whatever degree that was true of Britain, it must be a thousand times truer of the God Family Empire! We must have powerful beliefs, powerfully held. We must hold tight to this majestic vision of empire. Everything springs from this passion. A heart full of passion for the God Family Empire is the heart of a lion—a heart willing to defy tyrants and resist armies—willing to be incinerated or fed to lions or sawn in half.
A Vision You Can Believe In
Read the inspiring prophecy of Isaiah 60, a vision of millennial Jerusalem, the headquarters of the God Family Empire. It depicts the Gentile nations exalting God and His Family, grateful for His rule. These peoples will be our beloved children. We will love them and care for them, educate them and help them to grow in godliness, responsibility and prosperity.
These peoples will bring us honor, glory and even wealth (verses 5, 11). Many prophecies speak of riches flowing into God’s imperial headquarters, all peoples contributing to the magnificence of Jerusalem! And they won’t be resentful about contributing to God’s Empire, but overjoyed, praising God for it (verse 6). They will only be giving back to God out of the abundance of prosperity with which He has blessed them. This Empire truly will be a blessing to all nations.
How this world needs God’s rule! Passion for the throne is passion for Christ’s rule. It is zeal for His righting the wrongs and correcting the injustices of this world. It is passion for Christ extending salvation to the entire world and to every man who has ever lived! This is a vision you can believe in!
Isaiah 9:6-7 beautifully describe this Empire. It is a family Empire, with a Son who marries and then has children and becomes an everlasting Father. He will sit on the throne of David, bringing righteous rule, peace, order, judgment and justice—forever! The passage concludes, “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this”! God has the will, the conviction, determination and confidence—He has the zeal, the passion to bring this magnificent vision to pass!
Draw on Him daily and allow God to fill you with His passion. Give everything you can to building your faith, your conviction, your confidence, your passion. And let that motivate and inspire you to help our Father and our Husband build the God Family Empire!