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News From Israel MagazineThe American Economic Colossus: A Foreshadow of Endtime Babylon or Literal Fulfillment? - Part I
The Endtime Money Snare: How to Live Free
There is a way to live free!
A massive global boom in a materialistic-based faith called Mammonism is leading the world into an endtime trap — a global money snare. This book answers tough questions that deal with the hooks and dangers of living during a time when the enemy is setting a deadly snare for the last-days world.
ITEM# 1051 • 352 Pages • Paperback
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to write the book, The Endtime Money Snare: How to Live Free. Its basic message was that the world was being rapidly set up for a trap of endtime significance. In it I posed the argument that many individuals, including hordes of Christians, had already fallen prey to the “fowler’s net.”
Similar to Israel, false gods had been followed who now had ensnared them. “So now I say, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you” (Judges 2:3). So it is today with individual Christians, America and its sibling countries and the Church. Pagan practices and beliefs have gone unpurged. Therefore, most everywhere the “mammon-god” has been given license to lay a snare. And, alarmingly, the apparatus of a snare continues to rapidly gain momentum.
The money trap holds consequences for individuals, countries and the entire world. I observed an interesting phenomenon with this book: It didn’t seem to be very popular in North America. Yet, in its German and Dutch translations, it has met a surprisingly strong response in Europe. Why was this the case, given that Europe is seen today as a secular society while America is the most Christian- professing major nation in the world? Shouldn’t the English version of the book have found a greater reception in America, Canada, Britain and the US? By the end of this article, readers will have formed their own answer as to why this occurred. And the answer may be linked to the topic of this three-part series. Just where do we find the correct parallel to the economic colossus of America (and its sibling countries) — a picture of the future for the entire globe, or actual endtime Babylon?
Endtime Significance
A global economic “trap” is rapidly taking form. The more it grows, the more likely its consequences will be linked with events prophesied for the Apocalypse — the Great Tribulation. (I will yet explain why this is so.) Of course, many facets to the great endtime trap are being prepared for humanity. The mentioned book focused more specifically on the role money and its global systems would play in this regard. Apostasy and spiritual deception play other contributing roles in setting up the world to willingly receive a false Christ. But it is also a certainty that the Antichrist and the beast could not successfully execute their endtime agendas and power plays without the global systems of modern-day money. It would be impossible. Viewing world financial and economic trends, I am persuaded to believe the trigger that finally snaps the money trap shut can only be just around the corner.
In matters such as these, however, one can never really know just what event will eventually prove to be the trigger — the socalled “smoking gun.” And just for whom will the trap spring shut? These are difficult questions. Will the snap be the final pop of endtime significance triggering the worldwide depression and global chaos of the Apocalypse? Or at this time will it only be an occurrence that is a “type” of the final trap that will be sprung as in literally interpreted prophecy? If so, will its terrible consequences affect only one region or country rather than the entire world? And just where does America figure into the equation? Whatever the case, extremely difficult conditions lay ahead for the world, in fact, very likely in the not-too-distant future. The epicenter of upcoming financial earthquakes could very likely lie in America. If so, could it lead to the onset of the conditions prophesied to occur in the Apocalypse? The Bible will be our guide as we study these difficult questions.
Why There Really Is a Trap
Let’s consider the easier questions before we tackle the more difficult ones: Just why is a trap being constructed in the first place? To believe there is a dangerous snare being laid implies there must be a reason. “Do two walk together except they make an appointment and have agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den if he has taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where there is no trap for him? Does a trap spring up from the ground when nothing at all has sprung it?” (Amos 3:3–5). Amos the prophet makes a basic point not remembered often enough by Christians. One can’t fall into a trap if there first is no trapper. Birds will not be snared in a net if there is not first a fowler. There is a fowler (Psalm 91:3), and a lion, “because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). With that said, there still must be someone to trip the trap: a “trappee” for the trapper. This can be both an individual and the collective of a country or the world.
There is a great deceitful fowler — our adversary. His express objective is to trap the world, to trap the faithful, to trap Israel, and most certainly to trap professing Christians. What grieves me most of all — actually causing great concern in my heart — is that Ground Zero for the greatest money snare that has ever occurred in world history to date is today found in the Anglo-Saxon countries, America being the chief of them.1 Is that why Europeans are more attuned to the perspectives being presented here?
Ground Zero for the Mammon Spirit
Could America and its sibling Anglo countries (primarily Britain, Canada, and Australia) be harboring “Ground Zero” of the mammon spirit that is behind the endtime money snare? According to recent trends, the answer is probably yes. Not only are the citizens of these nations being ensnared, they also have fostered and created much of the machinery that is also fowling the world in this respect.
Let’s next turn our sights upon America alone and consider the implications of current conditions for its own citizens and for the world. Here we target two points: 1) Indeed, America is the “Ground Zero” of the global mammon spirit and has become a nation of moneychangers, and 2) A dramatic transition to instability and deterioration has taken place in recent decades. Consider some of these perspectives:
• Ground Zero for the world’s financial snare is found on the North American continent … a significantly large part of it located on a little piece of bedrock called Lower Manhattan. America’s money-center banks are the titans of greed and financial manipulation … literal experts in greed (2 Peter 2:14). This must be evident to anyone who seeks to remain aware of the seasons and times. Those with even a modicum of spiritual discernment and having worked on Wall Street and similar centers of influence will have sensed the hottest fires of mammon for themselves.
• The world’s two major institutions behind financial globalization — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (the most influential global financial transnational organizations in the world) — are headquartered in Washington, and export the same Wall Streetfriendly philosophies around the world.
• At the turn of the last century, the currency of Britain — the pound sterling — was the world’s reserve currency (the money to which most other countries would anchor their own currencies and financial systems). As its economy and financial affairs deteriorated, undermining its ability to maintain its empire “upon which the sun never set,” Britain lost this status to America. By this time the US had long become the world’s leading economy. But today, as one economic observer puts it, “America remains the world’s leading economy because its dollar still serves as the reserve currency,” and not the other way around. The point being made here (and by other experts) is that the US now takes advantage of its reserve currency status to exploit the rest of the world.
• It once was the case that foreigners would accumulate or earn US dollars so they could trade with America to buy “Made in the USA” goods. Today, it is the inverse. Foreigners lend to the US its own dollars so that Americans can buy their foreign-made goods. As a result, America has become the world’s largest borrower, thus ensnaring itself inextricably with the rest of the world.
• As recently as 1985, the United States was still a net lender to the rest of the world. Today, this nation’s net foreign debt now amounts to almost 30 percent of the size of the annual US economy.2 It is the world’s greatest debtor, as it vastly over-consumes in relation to its income.
• In its younger days, earning vast profits on the back of its industrial and manufacturing strengths, the US became the globe’s biggest creditor (lending to the rest of the globe). Now its financial industries account for 50 percent and more of all corporate profits. What greater indicator could there be that it has become a nation of borrowers and lenders — a nation taken over by moneychangers preying on the weak and the enslaved?
• The personal savings rate among Americans has fallen starkly in recent decades and is now the lowest of the world’s major countries. Imagine that America — the largest, and supposedly most enviable economy in the world — borrows almost 80 percent of the world’s savings. How is it that the weak of the world now lend to the strong? As a consequence, as much as half of federal public debt is today held by foreigners. Quips noted historian Niall Ferguson, “A rising proportion of Americans may consider themselves to have been saved in the Evangelical sense, but they are less good at saving in the economic sense.”3
• At one time, America had a great trade surplus with the world (exporting far more than it was importing) because it was a highly productive producer of goods and services. Today, the opposite is true. America maintains a false façade of high productivity by incurring the largest and most chronic trade deficit in history (effectively importing the productivity of foreign workers
and counting it as its own!)
• Today, it is the deliberate strategy and policy of this nation — the one-time standardbearer of probity and honesty to the world — to reduce its debt burdens to the rest of the world by devaluing its currency (a form of deceit.)
• In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Gospel was one of America’s biggest exports. Thousands upon thousands of missionary organizations and boards were in existence. Today, America is the world’s largest producer and exporter of pornography, media and movies (most of which espouse immorality), consumerist culture and consumer brand names.
What to make of the abovementioned shifts and conditions? One could cite many more statistics. Without a doubt, the United States is the money center of the world at this time. Common sense — not to mention Scripture itself — implores the moral mind to sense that something has gone astray, that things are upside down. One doesn’t need to be schooled in the lofty professions to recognize the changing winds, even if ever so subtly. The results are no longer hidden. The lender successfully sells the false promise of consumer freedom (the opposite of Proverbs 22:7), bad is exchanged for good, stewardship is seen as a vice and hindrance, people work to consume rather than consume to live — “Man does not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4) — and of course, one cannot live without bread. However, today winning bread seems to be the prime focus of society.
Points to Ponder
Reading the developments presented, one might well ask: What does all this focus on economic and monetary themes have to do with spiritual issues or prophecy? As a matter of fact, these topics couldn’t be more related and inseparable. When I read through the prophets, both major and minor, I sometimes get the sense that I am reading the headlines of a current business newspaper or an economic journal. Much of the admonitions that the prophets pronounced refer to economic conditions, wealth imbalances, greed, oppression of the poor, commerce, corruption, and so on. These are a natural part of human existence and expression of morality and eternal values.
Back to America: The deterioration outlined, when viewed against history, is quite stark and quick for a nation as large and influential as the United States. What then do these trends imply for America and its siblings on the world stage? What do these conditions foreshadow for believers living in these countries? These are timely, in fact, urgent questions. If there is no turn or change of direction, there may not be much time left to respond both as individuals and as a nation.
But what if there is no turn … meaning that conditions inexorably slide toward their logical conclusion? In this vein, some argue that America is the Babylon of Revelation 18 and that the processes of decline we see to date are the early tremors of its final demise. Others argue that America is headed for a special disciplining from God, all of its own, and will then repent and
turn in direction. Even others see America and its sibling countries still as vibrant instruments of God in the world — advancing freedom, democracy, and good will — and that the best is
yet to come. It goes without saying that these viewpoints are all heavily debated.
We will address these questions in the final two concluding parts of this series. We will first take our lead from the Bible. Israel and Judah both experienced times and conditions as are America and other countries today. As it turned out then, God ultimately pronounced a harsh judgment upon both after they did not heed the many warnings.
For now we can conclude that a rapid downward slide is very definitely evident in America. Are the parallels closer to biblical Israel or future Babylon of Revelation 18?
ENDNOTES
1 That observation is a primary cause for some to believe that America actually is or will be the “Babylon” that is profiled in Revelation 18.This is not my view, though, undoubtedly, any country with a large economy at the time of the events concerning Babylon the Great, will be a major contributor to the global conditions depicted in Revelation 18.
2 US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis,NIPA and International Transactions statistics.
3 Niall Ferguson,“Sinking Globalization,” Foreign Affairs March/April 2005, pg. 70.