A Coming Crash
A Coming Crash
"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." (Php 2.9-10)
"The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever." (1 Jn 2.17)
"Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens...so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful." (Heb 12.26-29)
When our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, returns to be earth's rightful and true King of kings and Lord of all lords, every kingdom, empire and political system will lie in shattered and ruined obeisance before Him...including Western Capitalism.
A major reason why many Christians today cling passionately to "Dominion Theology" and belief in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture, is because they "want their cake and eat it". They require that their preferred and self-sanctified political-economic system remain intact right through to "the end". Now that may be convenient for them...but it is not Biblical.
After being "disembowelled" by an iceberg, and whilst lying doomed in an icy ocean, maritime engineers still maintained that the "Titanic" was unsinkable. No doubt political, financial and "prophetical" pundits will continue to predict Capitalism's recovery from its last recession, even in the hour before its final disappearance beneath the murky waters of history.
"Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing...they lead my people astray, saying, 'Peace (you're safe and sound),' when there is no peace...When a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall." (Eze 13.3, 10-12)
Every such political-economic "system" has always lain under the weighty judgement of the Lord, because they are always something significantly less than or altogether opposed to the Kingdom of God. On top of this, all man-made "kingdoms" (especially religious ziggurats) carry within themselves the sin-seeds of their own destruction. Even as you are reading this essay, Capitalism is fracturing and imploding under the pressure of the immense stupidity of concentrating nations' wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, "whitewashing" over the chasm-ic (and now unbridgeable) divide between the have's and the have not's, and rampant consumerism and inflation!
(In fact, Capitalism is a system which has never actually worked with integrity. In the 1800s it thrived, fuelled by conquest, theft of land and assets, and the destruction of Indigenous Peoples. Then during the 1900s it created an almost constant state of global warfare, and lived off economies based on death and destruction.)
Unlike Communism, Capitalism has not openly nor consistently opposed and persecuted Christianity. Nevertheless, its "doctrines" have slowly but surely permeated and eroded the fabric of faith, seriously distorting and compromising our "kerygma" or core values and message. E.g. Conspicuous and vainglorious consumerism has aided and abetted a hyper-prosperity "gospel". "Free-market" extremism has devalued and weakened the Biblical virtues of social responsibility and the Common Good.
In the 1700s, Cotton Mather (Puritan preacher, 1663-1728, New England), warned that gold and God had drawn Europeans to North America. He prophesied that "religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother. There is a danger lest the enchantments of the world make them forget their errand into the wilderness."
Capitalism is going to come crashing down. Like the Philistine's idol "dagon" it is going to fall "on (its) face on the ground before the ark of the Lord...head and hands broken off"! (1 Sa 5.1-5) It will not rise again. There will be no miraculous recovery or economic turnaround.
So, what's to be done...bearing in mind that there is no "escape hatch", and the Church will never rule the world, until its rightful Ruler and Saviour returns to govern His People and the nations?
"You are my Son...and I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron sceptre and you will dash them to pieces like pottery." (Ps 2.8-9)
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." (Mt 25.31-32)
Well, according to the Scriptures, the Lord is not unacquainted with caring for His own People, often under the most adverse and trying circumstances.
We should expect that as the economies of this world's kingdoms falter, recede and collapse completely, the economy of the Kingdom of God (which is steadily approaching) will actually strengthen. The question will be to what extent, if any, we are in fact "shareholders" and participants. If we have been faithfully "banking" and investing into God's economy, then we can quite legitimately expect to be "paid out"...even sometimes through the agencies of organisations and persons who appear to have no connection whatsoever with the Lord.
"Whoever sows generously will also reap generously...And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (2 Co 9.6-8)
"My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Php 4.19)
(1) Providence.
"The Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field." (Isa 32.15)
In a time of great ultimacy and significance and adversity (such as The End) God's People should not be surprised to discover that their budget-ed money goes further, their vegetable gardens produce much more than usual, and that their fruit trees and hens yield prodigiously. We will still have to be prudent, dig and compost the soil, prune and tend our orchards. But we will not be expecting amiss or presumptuously if we hope to reap more than we sow.
Prior to years of famine in the days of Joseph, God gave "years of abundance (and) the land produced plentifully...(he) stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure". (Ge 41.46-49)
"In times of disaster (the blameless) will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty." (Ps 37.19)
In our days of 24/7 supermarkets stocking every kind of food (in and out of season) it is all too easy for us to forget,
"Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, and the full kernel in the head." (Mk 4.27-28)
And the One who alone produces life and growth, is well able and willing to multiply it and make it abundant beyond the usual, the "normal".
(2) Prevailing Providence.
"Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and greatly increased in number." (Ge 47.27)
"I have ordered the ravens to feed you there." (1 Ki 17.4)
"I have commanded a widow in that place (Zarephath) to supply you with food." (1 Ki 17.9)
Unlike the human race which so often responds to change as if nothing at all has happened, God has a phenomenal and infinite capacity to "change gear" when needs be, and the power to over-ride so called "laws" of nature and existence.
"Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard (wonderful) for you." (Jer 32.17)
"He brought out his people with joy...he gave them the land of the nations. They took the fruit of other men's toil." (Ps 105.43-44)
It is not too difficult for the Lord to counter-mand the natural inclinations and reactions of unbelievers, scavenger birds, and poverty-stricken widows. Such in turn become the agents of His kindness and provision. In these Last Days it is not going to be God's ability in doubt, but our faith. Will we be ready, having consciously cultivated the capacity to really expect the unexpected, permitting Him to position us by faith and not by our one-dimensional "sight", and so receive our daily bread from the most unlikely and improbable sources?
(3) Miraculous Providence.
"God rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them bread from heaven. Mere men ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat." (Ps 78.24-25)
"He satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock, and water gushed out; like a river it flowed in the desert." (Ps 105.40-41)
"All at once an angel touched Elijah and said, 'Get up and eat.' He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank." (1 Ki 19.5-6)
"Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." (Mt 17.27)
"I have food to eat that you know nothing about." (Jn 4.32)
My personal belief and expectation in the last of the Last Days, is that God's care of His People will on occasions completely eclipse and rend null and void our ability to understand and explain. I have lived "by faith", without wage or salary, for 25 out of the past 40 years of Christian ministry. On occasions we have been unable to rationally explain gifts of money or food which have come our way. I do not doubt that in some instances we have received help from the Lord via His holy angels.
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?" (Heb 1.14)
"Some people have entertained angels without knowing it." (Heb 13.2)
So, no matter what, the Lord will provide. But God is also presently crying out to His Church to take prophetic responsibility and foster and build and cultivate more and more ways of living mutually, cooperatively, communally. (Read Chapter 3 of www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz)
"Local churches need to begin to discuss and explore ways of practically living together more collectively and cooperatively. For example, groups of families tending and living off one large vegetable garden; the pooling of transport, machines and tools. Creating a church 'storehouse' where gifts of food and clothing (and other life-necessities) can be collected and distributed to each according to their need, as the days darken and persecution intensifies."
We must permit God to sever our superfluous ties and prudently detach us from debt to a system that is doomed to go down...lest through unholy entanglements we are sucked down with it.
"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great...the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries...Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins...O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come." (Rev 18)
I am by no stretch of the imagination advocating complete separation from the world and society. After all, right through to The End of this Salvation Age, the Church's mission is to be thoroughly present to mankind, to be,
"The salt of the earth...the light of the world...yeast all through the dough." (Mt 5.13-14, Lk 13.21)
It is not about retreating to live on stockpiled baked beans in fortified stockades. It is all about living for The One and only Saviour, Who will hold out His offer of eternal salvation to everyone until all of this world's clocks stop ticking. And if He requires us so to live, then He will reveal to us and train us in that necessary way of life...the lifestyle of the Kingdom of God. And Heaven help us if we are so off-beam, so unprepared that we are startled to discover at the last minute that the Lord has all the while been trying to tenderly shepherd us back to our own Biblical roots?
"All the believers were in one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had...There was no needy person among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Ac 4.32-35 See also 2.42-47)
At The End, the Church and the world will appear unlike anything ever seen before. The devil will do his worst, but God our Saviour will eclipse and transcend all of that rotten-ness with His beautiful holiness and His irresistible power. (1 Ch 16.29)
Waves of unparalleled revival are going to sweep all before them (though not so much within the Church) across whole cities and provinces, which have hitherto been laid low in the horror of sin's slavery.
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Isa 9.2)
It will be (and more so) as in the days of the 1940s Hebridean (northern Scotland) Revival in which "75 percent were gloriously saved before meetings" for "the presence of God was in homes, meadows, moorland, even public roads"! And the Church will be His "house of prayer for all nations", serving the "lost" and newly saved, rather than itself. Off its high-horse at last and living upon its knees, incarnating and expressing hourly the finest aspirations to pray, as if they were commonplace.
"To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them." (John Calvin, Reformer, 1509-64, Geneva)
"The man who mobilizes the Christian Church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history." (Andrew Murray, pastor-teacher, 1828-1917, South Africa)
"Our prayers lay the track down which God's power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails." (Watchman Nee, apostle, 1903-72, China)
And in the midst of all of this - holy and evil, creative and destructive - He who "cares for you" (1 Pe 5.7) will care for you.
"God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?'"(Heb13.5-6)
