With the UK government in a state of chaos after a string of thoroughly misguided decisions, we are clearly witnessing the judgment of God on our nation.

The latest foolish move of the present Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer – appointing Lord Mandelson as Ambassador to the US – has come back to haunt him after further revelations of misjudgement… For example, in admitting that he appointed Mandelson despite knowing he had remained friends with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein after the latter’s conviction of child sex offences.

As his position hangs by a thread, in the words of a colleague, he may wish to reflect on his even more shocking earlier move in recognising a Palestinian state – effectively rewarding terrorists whose declared policy is the destruction of Israel. By choosing that path, we have set out on the road to self-destruction, which I will duly explain.

The moral morass in which we now find ourselves is led by a heavily atheistic left-wing government falling over each other to promote themselves while paying little attention to ensuring that justice and righteousness prevail, with plans to further liberalise the mass slaughter of the unborn while at the same time threatening the frail and elderly with euthanasia.

I note from a book I’m currently reading titled Angels Push!  that following years of corruption in the Philippines, President Fidel Ramos came to power in the 1990s and introduced a Moral Recovery Programme in which weekly Bible studies became compulsory in government institutions including the police and armed forces, leading to significant improvement in society.

One of Britain’s greatest sons, William Wilberforce, following his conversion to Christ, held out two over-arching ambitions for his political career – to end the slave trade and encourage a moral awakening, by which he meant a return to our foundational Judeo-Christian values.

Significantly, just two years after the 1807 Abolition of Slavery Bill was passed in Parliament, he was among the founders of a movement dedicated to taking the gospel, which had so transformed the Gentile world, back to the Jewish people who had first shared it with us. The Church’s Mission among the Jewish people (CMJ) is still focused on that calling 217 years later.

The blessing or cursing of nations is very much dependent on how they treat the Jewish people (Genesis 12:3), described in the Bible as God’s “treasured possession” or “the apple of his eye.” And those who touch the apple of God’s eye will be severely dealt with, as in: “I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them.” (Zechariah 2:8, see also New Living Translation)

Similarly, those nations who scattered his people around the globe and who divided up his land (think Palestinian state, for example) would be brought to trial (Joel 3:1f). In fact, nations who refuse to serve Israel will perish and be “utterly ruined” (Isaiah 60:12).

So it is that today we see once-thriving Western nations like our own (and even America) in deep debt while Israel’s economy is – relatively speaking – thriving despite having to invest huge resources in defence.

Wilberforce’s concern for the Jews, however, is not widely reflected in today’s UK church. This needs urgent correcting as we are the nation’s conscience and if our government, of whatever hue, fails to honour Israel we will continue down a dark and slippery path to destruction.

Meanwhile our Houses of Parliament – once the envy of the world both for its architectural grandeur and as a model of democracy in action – is literally crumbling. The cost of restoration work needed to ensure it remains habitable is estimated at almost £40 billion and could take half-a-century. A union chief says successive governments have “kicked the can down the road,” thus putting off the evil day.

But the day of reckoning has come. A nation greatly blessed by the gospel of Christ has chosen to turn its back on God. As Jesus made clear in his Sermon on the Mount, that equates to building our house on the sand. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:26f)

Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; To the Jew First, A Nation Reborn, and King of the Jews, all available from Christian Publications International.