March 6

America's Financial Destiny

The U.S. national debt and trade deficit are simply out of control. I've been watching his slow-motion train wreck for some time now, and I'm stunned how the numbers are able to keep going from bad to worse.

Our national debt now stands at $8.27 trillion. The red ink has continued to increase an average of $2.17 billion per day, and our personal share of this debt is $27,688.

The trade deficit is an even bigger problem. Last month, the Commerce Department reported the goods and services deficit America has with the rest of the world widened in 2005 to a record $725.8 billion. The deficit for 2005 was up 17.5 percent from that of 2004, which had set a record of $617.6 billion.

What is particularly scary about these figures is how they've lost their meaning to the public and political leaders. We're fighting a war on terrorism so the national debt is of no importance. The average consumer could care less about maintaining a balance in trade. The price of an item is the only thing they worry about.

The people who manage the financial system have done an amazing job of servicing our debt. Every single working day, the world has to invest $2.8 billion in the United States to keep the system going. Of all the savings that exist in the world today, 80 percent of that amount is invested in America.

It's not madness that keeps the money flowing into our monetary black hole. Because the dollar is regarded to be the global reserve currency, nations use it to store wealth. As long as the buck remains stable, the world will keep buying up our debt.

The recent controversy over the port sale to the Arab company the United Arab Emirates is heavily connected to our trade deficits. Oil-rich Gulf states currently make $240 billion selling us petroleum productions. From a business sense, its only reasonable that they would take some of that money and purchase American assets. Last year, China caused a stir by trying to buy Unocal. It has over $700 billion in Treasury debt.

Because we have lived with huge deficits for so long, they seem to be viewed as a volcano that constantly rumbles, but never explodes. At some point, this exponential curve in debt accumulation will have reach a breaking point. The only questions are what will be the trigger and how hard will be the landing.

The most obvious trigger could be the fact that the world just simply runs out of money to service our debt. Other possibilities might be a geopolitical event such as China invading Taiwan, a spike in commodity prices, or the collapse of a major hedge fund.

One possibility that has been heavily talked the past couple months is Iran's plan to switch its oil trades from dollars to euros. By opening an oil Bourse priced in euros, the monopoly of the dollar on the global oil market will come to an end. The concern is that nations will dump dollars to convert to the euro. As of last report, there is no indication that Iran will be able pull off this stunt.

If the world were to lose confidence in the dollar, the first indication would be the exchange rate. Right now, the euro can buys 1.20 dollars.

It's anyone's guess how far the dollar would tumble after suffering a loss of confidence. It would be a case of panicked investors trying to dump U.S. securities pitched against central banks that would be trying to hold up the sagging greenback. With over $4 trillion of debt in foreign hands, there would be quite a spectacle.

Knowing how bad a dollar crash would affect our nation, it's always been my hope that this house of cards would hold together until the rapture takes place. Once millions of Christians are removed from the earth --- particularly from North America --- nothing can be done to save the U.S. economy from collapse. The Great Depression only caused a 10 percent decline in GDP. The rapture would likely be responsible for a 30 to 40 percent drop in GDP.

An economic implosion of our nation is almost required by Bible prophecy. During the tribulation hour, the focus is on Europe. America has no lead role in the end-times.

The realization of the precarious financial state of our world has helped keep me focused on the eternal realm. The riches of heaven are not based on a mountain of debt. God believes so strongly in being free of any obligations, He sent His Son to pay the ultimate debt with His own blood.
--Todd

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The Next Foreshock!

A number of years ago, I put together (was general editor of) a book with a number of prophecy scholars, broadcasters, and writers. That book was called Foreshocks of Antichrist. The compilation of chapters dealt with issues and events of the times, issues and events the other authors and I believed significant in considering prophecies that surrounded the coming of Antichrist to power, as foretold in chapters of the books of Daniel, Revelation, 1 John, and others. That was about 1996, I think, and I believed, at the time, that conditions could not ripen much more so far as the world’s being ready to reap the bitter harvest the Antichrist will bring was concerned.

I was wrong, of course, which proves we must never be too quick to think that things can’t get much worse. They can, and have, gotten worse, since my great colleagues such as Dr. John Walvoord, Dave Breese, Zola Levitt, and many others, dissected the issues of our time with the omniscient scalpel of God’s Word in that Harvest House book a decade ago.

Back then, Israel was in a peace process –just as now. Then it was Yasser Arafat, Yitzak Rabin, and Bill Clinton working on the Oslo Accords. Peace was in the offing, and some thought this was the covenant in the making that would bring Daniel 9: 27 to fruition. But, Rabin, prime minister of Israel, was assassinated, and Bill Clinton soon fell into the Monica Lewinsky quagmire that exposed his infidelities and held the nation’s rapt attention for months.

Earthquakes came again and again, seemingly in greater numbers and intensities. The Middle East teetered constantly on the edge of igniting into major conflict in that region, and beyond. It looked more and more as though the world could not move into a mode that was any more prepared for the coming of Antichrist and his global dictatorship. But, I was wrong. Things could get worse –much worse.

The next shocker that stepped up signals of the prophetic times occurred Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Giant, fuel-laden passenger jets slammed into the twin World Trade towers in lower East Manhattan, and into the Pentagon, and another aircraft headed for the nation’s capital was forced into a Pennsylvania field by heroes on the plane. Planet Earth seemed to go into an even higher level of stage-setting for the coming Antichrist. Fear spread among Christians and non-Christians alike, and churches –you will remember—were filled the following Sunday. I, myself, was asked by my pastor to speak to my own church about these startling events. It was a time of trepidation about the future and reflection on how to best cope under the changed circumstances. It was a foreshock that had overshadowed other terrorist attacks and other events of recent times. Terrorists from the Middle East –the land of the Bible, and of Bible prophecy—had turned up the heat on the Armageddon boiler.

Things seemed to settle. Then came fears of Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction. This meant, also, an economic stranglehold on the oil supplies of the world, if he could get into position to hold Middle Eastern oil hostage, and to threaten Israel and other of his neighbors. The tension again was raised. The fast track to Armageddon seemed back on track.

Fear that Armageddon lay right around the next geopolitical corner was not assuaged, while George W. Bush and the American military planners and state department forged military alliances for the assault on Hussein’s Iraq. The alliances were less numerous than those put together by the first President Bush to be sure, but nonetheless, they were more powerful in ability to accomplish the task due to advancing technologies for war-making.

The battles for Iraq succeeded, but the larger war on terrorism rages still, while the whole world waits for the next proverbial shoe to drop.

Europe looked like the next major foreshock to the coming tribulation and Antichrist’s regime of global government. The talk and actions of trying to forge an EU Constitution had all of us looking with great wonder at developments, in consideration of prophecies in the book of Daniel. But, again, the foreshock –for the moment—has seemed to fizzle just a bit.

The greatest tsunami ever to be recorded, following the great quake in the Indian Ocean, stunned Asia and the rest of us as well. More than 285 thousand people are believed to have lost their lives –maybe even more. This event, combined with the most prolific and record-setting hurricane season in the history of record-keeping, sent national and international news media to us at raptureready.com, and to others who study prophecy in an almost frenzy of wanting to know if God was telling Planet Earth something.

So, the foreshocks, when they manifest themselves –the birthpangs—continue to get stronger. The longer the lull between contractions, the more shocking the calamities that follow seem to be. This might be the potential Caldera-supervolcano of foreshocks --silent, seething, building, swelling, while God’s cup of wrath fills to the brim.

We are in a lull. The lull has brought, in Todd’s and my view, apathy among Christians that itself dangerously smacks of endtime prophecy: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Mat. 24:44).
--Terry