Russia 's President Vladimir Putin recently travelled to the capital of Iran to conclude a pact with five countries bordering the Caspian Sea, stipulating that no other country be allowed to interfere militarily or politically in the affairs of this Caspian bloc of nations. Some observers understand this pact as a warning to the United States not to carry out any military action against Iran .

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has been invited to Moscow for further talks. Only a short time ago he was allowed to vent his anger against America inside our own borders, perhaps chiefly because the United Nations (UN) headquarters is located in New York City. As US News and World Report Editor-in-chief Mortimer Zuckerman observed, "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to America to stick his thumb in our eye and deliver a sanitized version of 'Death to America and the Holocaust Never Occurred'" (October 8, emphasis added throughout).

Naturally, both Russia and Iran oppose the eastward movement of NATO. Iran is counting on Russia and China to oppose any proposed future sanctions against Iran by the UN Security Council. According to the Financial Times, "Russia and China have resisted every attempt to agree to a UN sanctions resolution for six months and may never agree to anything that bites" (October 27).

Further, The Guardian (London) tells us that a resurgent Sino-Russian political embrace is already well under way (October 12). " Moscow and Beijing are closer now than in the Communist period…They have frustrated Western hopes for sanctions or other tough action on disputes ranging from Burma and Darfur to Iran. They are blocking a solution on Kosovo." Russian-American tensions are clearly on the rise, alarmingly so.

We've looked briefly at the international front. Now consider some of what is happening on the American domestic scene and how it is viewed from abroad.

Alan M. Webber is founding editor of business magazine, Fast Company. On a recent business trip to Europe he heard some disturbing thoughts about the United States. At one gathering in Austria the observations came in the form of laments. "You used to be such a great country…What happened to the great idea that once defined America?"

Now consider Mr. Webber's comment on America, viewing the country from afar: "You realize how far the United States has drifted from its promise, how large the gap is between what we profess and what we do...how diminished our economic superiority has become; and how worn our once impeccable image has become."

The dollar is currently viewed as a second-rate currency in Europe. The euro is looked at as towering over the once vaunted American dollar. Alan Webber asks: "Is there a point where diminished prestige actually becomes diminished economic leadership?"

Summing up he concluded: "In America, it's business as usual. We've simply learned to accept our way of life, rather than confronting the reality of our decline. Maybe that's what happens to once-rich, once-powerful superpowers as they gradually decline. They lose track of their own standards" (USA Today, October 19).

Most disturbing today is the stubborn persistence of our moral problems: abortion, pornography, adultery, male and female homosexuality and out-of-control national and personal debt—to name just a few. In response to the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, one correspondent wrote to a major American newsweekly: "Why does it perplex us when these violent eruptions take place? One needs only to channel surf the television any night of the week to see show after show dealing with murder, rape, stalkers, violence toward police, gangs, war and domestic violence."

We don't seem to want the Ten Commandments in our schools or in our public buildings. We break all ten of them in ways we don't even realize anymore. Yet they provide the crucial key to a much needed moral awakening. Summing up God's spiritual laws as revealed in the Bible, they reflect proper love and respect for both God and neighbour.

While you and I cannot change the world, Jesus Christ does tell us that being a light to the world is important (Matthew 5:14-16). To be a proper example each of us needs to apply the moral values embodied in the Ten Commandments. We also need an understanding of what biblical prophecy reveals about the moral decline of the United States and other Western nations and the results we can expect from it.