Recently I wrote Last chance to change. I’ve been ringing the alarm bell since before the crash in 2007. I showed how to recover from it. And now I’ve been ringing the alarm bell since late last year. No one seems to be listening.
And now here it is. It pains me to see this happening, because I know it was avoidable.
Home prices turn down - 2nd time around
S&P: Why we downgraded our U.S. outlook– Posted by Katie Benner – April 25, 2011 11:07 am
RUTH MARCUS: Agency’s warning could prod the political system into action – Apr. 26, 2011
Thank you, Standard & Poor’s.
The rating agency’s warning about the possibility it may downgrade the credit rating of the United States is a welcome wake-up call.
Standard & Poor’s lowered its assessment of U.S. Treasury securities from “stable” to “negative” — meaning at least a one-in-three chance the U.S. debt rating could be lowered within two years.
I wonder if people think that this is simply capitalism “weeding out” the weak, and that they (the rich smart ones) will be left standing and they will be able to pick up bargains as they scratch through the detritis of other people’s broken lives.
They are cynical, evil… and wrong. This collapse is not like the last one. This one will seem to have no bottom.
Imagine a tree that is full of berries.
Now strip all the berries from that tree until only 5 berries remain, far out of reach. That is what this collapse will be like.
But it will be like a man shaking an olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel. – Isaiah 17:6 (Bible in Basic English)
Some Christians are fatalists. “Get with the program” I can hear him say.
Is God passive? Is it Godly to be passive? Is it loving to be passive?
No, not even one major figure in the bible was a fatalist. Even Jesus Christ, knowing what was being asked of Him, prayed for an alternate destiny if it was possible.
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” – Matt 26:39
Each and every major figure in the bible fought for their people, to save them. Moses argued with God to save the nation on three occasions… but in the end the whole of the adult nation died in the desert, and only the children survived. Should Moses never have tried? Should he have given up?
But in the end it was as God said it would be. The whole nation of adults died. So does that prove the fatalists right? No. Not at all.
How could I live with myself if I had not spoken out all these years and urged people to change. It’s disappointing to discover that I was wrong… that we would never change.
No matter how many miracles… even when the miracles were in the USA and a response to the prayers of the US pastors – as we saw when the gulf oil crisis was meant to go on for 6 months, but when the pastors there came together to pray, it was resolved with a few days. You can read about it here: Governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Florida prayed – and received!
But the world has remain steadfastly blind and deaf. Why? I’ve been struggling to understand that. Why? Is it because we don’t think we have done anything wrong? Is it because we think that we are doing our best and therefore we will succeed? Is it because we believe we will always survive and always land on our feet? Is it because we believe that God loves our countries more than He hates our sin?
God is absolutely holy and cannot tolerate sin
Perhaps this is why… perhaps it’s because we don’t believe there is a God Who is absolutely holy… and therefore we cannot imagine that He cannot tolerate sin and we remain unaware that He is violently opposed to our sin.
Who is to blame for this? At least in part, our churches have lulled this world and it’s inhabitants into a deadly sleep when some of them became overly seeker friendly and refusing to tell the truth…
7 And these also stagger from wine
and reel from beer:
Priests and prophets stagger from beer
and are befuddled with wine;
they reel from beer,
they stagger when seeing visions,
they stumble when rendering decisions.
8 All the tables are covered with vomit
and there is not a spot without filth. – Isaiah 28:7-8
We taught that God is a nice guy and that Jesus Christ is our boyfriend. We began tolerating what God does not tolerate. “Toronto” said nothing about Jesus Christ, the cross or the need to repent. Instead Toronto taught that “the father” is blessing us.
The fact is that God is utterly and absolutely holy and He is violently opposed to our sin.
God is not a post-modern God
Whether we believe that or not, doesn’t matter. God is not a post-modern God.
Postmodernism is a movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. More specifically it is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problem of objective truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It involves the belief that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place. – Postmodernism, Wikipedia
I sometimes share scripture with Christians and they tell me “that’s your opinion”. Is it my opinion? Let me say it again. God is not a post-modern God. He is the One Who invented the meaning of the word “sin” and He is the only One qualified to define the meaning of the word sin.
YHWH is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His truth is absolute and it doesn’t matter whether we agree with it, or not.
The solution is Passover… and Jesus Christ is the perfect Lamb of God
I put it to you that the solution to the financial crisis in 2007 is the same solution to what is now here in 2011. And no it’s not Ben Bernanke.
The solution is actually much much older! God showed it to Abraham and to Moses. Abraham said to his son “God will provide a Lamb for Himself” and Moses and all the Jews in Egypt sacrificed lambs at the very first passover.
So what is the solution? Should we try find enough lambs for 6,852,472,823 people alive in mid-2010? No. We don’t need to begin slaughtering lambs right across the world. Not at all.
Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. He is the perfect spotless Lamb which God required. And the most interesting thing is that when they had done the passover sacrifice, they were able to leave Egypt – which represented bondage.
We desperately need to encourage faith and prayer in Jesus Christ. Not Jesus Christ my boyfriend, but Jesus Christ the atoning sacrifice who reconciled us back to God and released us all from bondage and the heavy weight of sin which brings death into our lives.
If you think this is overly negative, you will change your mind in the future. If we do not change in our hearts, not merely external changes, our shopping malls will be almost totally empty.
Cry out to YHWH
Jesus Christ saved us in 2007, not Ben Bernanke as some claim. Jesus Christ can do it again in 2011, but we need to cry out in faith to YHWH, holding up and showing what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf.
Jesus Christ is our strong tower, He is our shield, our ever present strength… but unless we run to Him and take shelter in Him, all is lost.
I will leave you with this scripture
Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. – Isaiah 26:20
Faith + Hope + Love 