Oct 13
Globalization and the Current Economic Crisis
With the state of the global financial markets in such turmoil, I’m sure that most of you folks naturally have assumed that Terry or I would address this issue. I am absolutely amazed at how quickly the monetary health of the world has deteriorated. Stock markets around the globe have been in an absolute free fall. The Dow Jones experienced its worst one-week plunge in history.
There is growing concern that the crisis will spread to other sectors of the economy. The lack of credit is decimating the auto industry. Investors on Wall Street have priced the stock of General Motors and Ford to levels that indicate the strong possibility of default. At one point, GM traded as low as $4 and Ford went below to $2 per share.
The nation of Iceland has probably been hit the hardest by the crisis. Home to just 300,000 people, Iceland epitomized the global boom in easy credit. Its banks have most of their business overseas, and they amassed a balance sheet that is 200 times the GDP of the whole Icelandic economy.
The boom has now turned into a bust. The situation has become so dire, Iceland 's government has been forced to nationalize the nation's top three banks. The whole country is said to be on the brink of bankruptcy. The potential losses are in the tens of billions, and Iceland only has a total GDP of $2.4 trillion.
I've long said that economic hardship is the mother's milk of prophetic progression. For this particular crisis, it might be better said that economic hardship is the steroids of prophetic progression. Over the past two decades, there has been an incremental movement towards the global economic system predicted by the Bible. In the past few days, we have seen a sudden leap forward. If the players in this tragedy didn’t act so clueless about what is going on, I’d assume they were part of a pre-arranged plot.
For the first time ever, central banks around the world joined together for a coordinated interest rate cut. The G7, normally nothing more than a photo opportunity for world leaders, has laid out a plan to make international banks more interconnected in the lending of money.
Many world leaders are calling for tighter control. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi proposed the idea of closing the world's financial markets while they "rewrite the rules of international finance." French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, ``all actors must be supervised. We want a new world to come out of this [crisis]."
The U.S. Treasury Department’s role in American society has greatly expanded in the past the couple months. The world's largest bank is now in Washington D.C., with assets of $1.4 trillion. There is now a proposal for the government to take an ownership stakes in certain U.S. banks.
I think the greatest indication of the Fed's growing power is a new loan it gave to insurance giant AIG. When AIG received the initial $85 billion bailout loan, there was a huge amount of media attention to the process that led to the largest-ever federal loan to a non-bank. This past week, it became clear that AIG needed more money, so the Fed quietly handed over another $38 billion of taxpayers' money.
It’s been very nerve wracking to see the stock market plunge 40 percent since its high set last year, but I think something far more worrisome is on the horizon. When the Antichrist comes to power, he will utilize what is commonly called the mark of the beast to control the global financial system. Unless you have the mark, you can't buy or sell anything. Because anyone who receives the 666 mark is automatically damned, anyone on earth during the time of the mark will have to suffer martyrdom or extreme hardship to maintain his or her faith.
“And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name” (Revelation 14:11).
Man now has the technology needed to establish a global, cashless community. At this stage, the only thing really missing is the political will to set the mark into motion.
I believe the mark of the beast will come at the mid-point of the tribulation. The fact that we are seeing economic force push for its implantation indicates to me that the time of the rapture must be very near.
"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28).
-- Todd
Change “Change” has been the mantra for as long as I can remember when it comes to presidential politics. “We need change in Washington” is the hue and cry from the echoing lecterns of the political stump, and this presidential election season has produced, I think, the most hyperbolic call for change in the history of the republic. The call for change comes from both of the major candidates. However, the candidate of one particular party continues to bluster for change, yet, at least to my listening ears, hasn’t given one clear definition or any details of the change, what it will mean for the nation, or how it will be accomplished. It is empty rhetoric. Or, might it be much, much more predictive of rearrangements that will profoundly alter the way life is lived in America and the world?
Please understand that I am not even in the slightest suggesting that Senator Obama, Senator McCain or anyone else will be the one who will one day be Antichrist. Let’s get that out of mind at the very outset. That person, to become “the beast,” will, I’m convinced, not even be recognized as fitting the mold put forth by Daniel or John in the Revelation until the Church (body of Christ comprised of the born again) is suddenly caught up to be with Jesus (1 Cor. 15: 51-52 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18). We get the assurance that the man of sin, also called the son of perdition, will be revealed when the Holy Spirit, resident in all Church Age believers, is removed as restrainer, and that action by rapture. God the Holy Spirit will, of course, not leave this world, for He is omnipresent. But He will, when the Church is removed, begin a different office of activity on planet Earth.
That will be some change! He is presently restraining evil, the passages in 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2 tell. When He removes from his office of restraining evil, life on earth will be… Well, let’s let the Lord Jesus tell us: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21).
Whenever this election’s presidential candidate who is most vociferous about wanting to change things is asked for specifics, he deftly dances around the question, both about what he insists be changed, and how he proposes to change it. I think most of us would agree, regardless of political or religious persuasion, that there definitely needs to be change in Washington, D.C., and in America. There needs to be change--radical change—for the entire planet, as a matter of fact. But the right kind of change, when it is implemented, will be very specific, having plain speaking and consensus acceptance at its heart.
The ideal society will come with the return of Christ. Presently, however, evil runs rampant, with fallen minds motivating and ruling over both the governing and the governed at all levels of society, culture, and controlling authority. Yet God the Holy Spirit still oversees and influences the consciences of mankind. There is coming a time when a great deal of that supreme governing authority will be lifted, and Jesus foretold what would happen following that lifting. The Book of Revelation, Chapter 4-20, tells the whole story of what happens from that twinkling of an eye moment forward.
All humanistic politics are infected with sin-induced rebellion and sinfulness against the Creator of all things. So it is with America and the American political system. There is recognition by both major candidates and their parties that change is needed. But most of the rhetoric, the invective, the droning mantra, has been directed not at the core causes of the tumult, but toward the compounding economic issues during this political season. Those pocketbook matters are what have gripped the citizenry of America, and by the tremendous influence the U.S. exerts, are what have inflamed the fears of leaders and the peoples of the world.
So, the real problems–problems that are the root of what ails the United States of America and the rest of the world—are covered over by the love of money, which, as we know, is the root of all evil, according to God’s Word.
The issues at the heart of the sin-sickness engulfing all nations is wrapped in “change” that brought on exponential growth of immorality –the pushing away of Almighty God and the embrace of unrighteousness. In America, for example, “change” started the spiral downward. It began in earnest when God was summarily dismissed by judicial fiat from the classrooms of America. All that is happening now, immersing all of the world’s powers in boiling economic distress and perplexity, is based in refusal to adhere to God’s prescription for living righteously. These principles are found, of course, only in His Word, the Bible. In actuality, that Word is Jesus Christ, himself.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).
Change, then, is something that should be undertaken with great caution. The reordering that resulted from the Supreme Court decision to remove God from the classrooms of America’s public schools and the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973 are core moral value changes out of which have come the great turmoil that is spinning America and the world out of control.
One party in particular has been at the heart of foisting that deleterious “change” upon this nation, whose founding fathers established America upon principles existing within the Ten Commandments. Anyone who is intellectually honest will recognize that fact after earnestly looking into the matters involved.
That political party’s leadership, including its candidate for president this election year, supports keeping God out of public places, especially out of public schools. That party and its candidate supports abortion rights, which have resulted in the legalized murder of more than 50 million babies since 1973. That party and its candidate for president supports through the legislative process, or, if that doesn’t work, through judicial edict, making homosexuality a special classification of lifestyle that they want to be off limits to criticism by Christians and others who see homosexuality as unnatural and debauched.
Considering such destructive thinking, the question one must ask is whether such a party, or the candidate it endorses, should be trusted to offer any sort of change that will benefit America or the world America so profoundly affects.
--Terry
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