 |
“It’s almost as if you can hear the ice cracking beneath our feet”
People often ask me, “Where is the United States in End Times Bible prophecy?” When I reply, “The Bible makes no indication that the U.S. is a significant player in prophecy,” they respond, “Why? What happens to us?”
To be honest, I don’t know.
While I do believe we are living through the events Jesus talked about in Matthew 24 as signs of the “last days” before His return, I don’t know why the United States — the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth in the history of mankind — is not ever clearly mentioned in Bible prophecy concerning the last days. I don’t know because the Bible doesn’t tell us.
We could, God forbid, be devastated by a nuclear war. We could be hit by decapitating terrorist attacks. We could be hit by massive natural disasters. Or we could face a series of economic disasters. Consider just two potential scenarios that could render the U.S. a non-factor in the last days:
Scenario #1: the U.S. could implode economically after the rapture.
The rapture is an event described in I Thessalonians 4-5 when true followers of Jesus Christ are snatched away from the earth and meet Jesus Christ in the air at a time when the rest of the world has been saying there is “peace and safety.” How many Christ-followers in the U.S. would disappear in the “twinkle of an eye,” according to the Scriptures? We don’t know for certain. It could be 10 million. It could be 25 million. It could be 50 million, 75 million, or more. The point is the rapture will have a devastating and irrecoverable impact on the U.S. in many ways. Consider, for example, how hard the American economy was hit when nearly 3,000 Americans were lost on 9/11/01. Now imagine the impact the loss of millions of Americans due to the rapture would have on the U.S. economy. Think we have a subprime mortgage crisis now? Imagine what the U.S. banking and real estate system will look like when millions of Christians disappear and can no longer pay their mortgages, or their credit card bills, or buy other goods and services. Our economy would implode, and suddenly America would no longer be the economic superpower it has been for a century.
Scenario #2: the U.S. economy could melt down in a Great Depression before the rapture.
Such a melt down would emasculate our economic and military power and thus radically reduce our influence in the world. On October 16, 2008, I wrote about “the implications of this financial apocalypse.” Things have only worsened since then. I am praying that the Lord would have mercy on us. But we cannot rule out the possibility that the Lord will remove His favor from our nation and allow us to be rocked to our core economically. Decisive action should be taken to strengthen our economy and help American businesses small and large grow and create more jobs. But the President’s hastily-crafted multi-trillion dollar spending plan will not save the day and revive our moribund economy.
Most Members of Congress haven’t even read the 1,100-plus page bill they are voting in favor of, says Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat. The Obama administration is rushing through this massive and expensive bill without giving the people’s representatives the time to read it and consider its merits. Why? The whole thing smacks of European socialism and risks making our economic situation worse, not better. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the real price tag of the bill is actually $3.27 trillion over the next ten years. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has offered an alternative plan that creates twice as many jobs for half the price of the Obama plan. Why is Congress not allowing a full and fair debate about The American Option Act? Why do most Americans not even know about this alternative? The feverishness with which the White House and Congressional leadership are acting is unnerving. They are rushing so fast to spend an unheard of amount of money without giving the people of the country much less their elected representatives the opportunity to read it, study it, debate it, much less amend it. In the process, they risks piling more than $3 trillion worth of crushing new debt on top of the more than $10 trillion of debt we’re already handing over to our children.
What does the future hold? It’s almost as if we can hear the ice cracking underneath our feet. I don’t know if the Lord will allow us to plunge into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. But humanly speaking, you and I have very little influence to stop the current course of events. So we must pray. We must turn to the Lord and seek His mercy, His grace, His favor on our nation and our leaders, lest we see the current economic crisis take us into a financial death spiral.
In my last political thriller, Dead Heat , I wrote on p. 154:
What Bennett had never really considered carefully until now was the possibility that something else might devastate the American people, rendering them ineffective heading into the last of the last days. A financial downturn on Wall Street. The sudden collapse of the dollar. The beginning of another Great Depression. A series of devastating earthquakes. Or hurricanes. Or other natural disasters, like a tsunami. [Or ] the most cataclysmic terrorist attack of all time — five nuclear warheads. And there might be more to come. None of it was clearly prophesied in the Scriptures. Not that he could find. But perhaps he should have foreseen the neutralization of America by more carefully reading between the lines. If so, what else was he missing? What exactly was coming next?At the same time, we need to keep our eye on the global economy as well. We need to be aware of just how much suffering and geopolitical instability is being created by this global financial crisis. Russia’s stock market, for example, is down 75%. The value of the Russian currency — the ruble — is down about 30%. Will we see anti-Semitism surge as a result? Will Russians blames Jews for their economic troubles? Will they blame America as well? The European economy, meanwhile, is experiencing the worst contraction in decades. Spain’s economy, for example, is the worst in 15 years. Whom will Europeans blame? Are Europeans likely to draw closer to Israel? To the U.S.? If the global economy continues to sink, expect more tensions with Europe and expect Europe to turn against Israel in sharper and more painful ways.
Related Links
World economic crisis is top security threat says U.S. officials G7 powers converge on Rome as economic crisis rages Senate inquiry invokes Great Depression fears Russia’s stock market is down 75%, while the value of the ruble is down 30% European GDP shows worst contraction ever German Economy Contracts Severely Amid Global Crisis Japan recession may be worst in 50 years Japan economy seen shrinking at 10 pct pace in 4Q Spain’s Economy Shrinks Most in More Than 15 Years Estonia’s economy sinks 9.4 pct in Q4 “The Disasters Ahead: What happens if Russia’s and China’s economies and governments lose their footing?”
