[Darris McNeely] In a recent BT Daily, I coined a term called the "Abrahamic Doctrine," kind of a take-off of what from American history is the Monroe Doctrine, essentially saying that no foreign power can have dominating influence in America's Western Hemisphere, a long-standing policy of the United States government. Why is that a connection? Why is that important to understand? Well, as I was explaining, there are two island nations in the Caribbean right now in which we are seeing a great deal of unrest. We talked about Cuba in the last one. I wanna focus down here on the right, Haiti and the Dominican Republican.

In recent days, the president of Haiti was assassinated. Haiti is a tragedy of the modern nations, and to see the people there go through the political unrest on top of the poverty, the grinding poverty, that they have it just makes your heart go out to them. We have members in the United Church of God and Beyond Today followers on the island of Haiti, and so this is pretty close to home. But some people think that there may be other factors under the surface that are behind the unrest in Haiti and even protests in Cuba, other powers trying to assert influence in both of these areas in order to gain a control over them.

I pointed out that the very fact that these two nations occupy a key place on the strategic waterway that impacts, historically and even today, the commerce, the well-being, of the United States of America and how this points out something that we see from the Bible that is called the...as I call it, at least...the Abrahamic Doctrine as a part of the Abrahamic blessings that God made to Abraham and his descendants. In Genesis chapter 24, beginning in verse 59, is a statement that Bible scholars and teachers have long understood to be talking about the blessings that Abraham, not only in the ancient world, but with a modern application, where it is said to Rebekah, the wife of Isaac and mother of many of the sons of Israel, that they bequeathed to her a blessing. "May you be the mother of thousands, of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them." The gates of those who hate them, interpreted to be strategic geographical places, cities, ports, waterways, passes that control commerce, that control influence and politics throughout history. Very important part of geography and geopolitics.

When we looked at what is taking place in the Caribbean with the nations of Cuba and Haiti, we can, I think, read more into what is in Scripture closer to understand that those events of mass protests in Cuba, the assassination of a president in Haiti, do make a difference, and can sometimes trigger even larger events, and are of great concern for policymakers in the United States. And, for those of us that do watch current events, Bible prophecy, understanding the role of the promises to Abraham in a modern sense, to understand that unrest in these two nations can tip the balance and the influences of power in the world in ways that a lot of people just do not imagine, then it brings us closer to the reality of certain key principles of the Bible and the reality of why these things are important in the world today.

That's BT Daily, join us next time.