By Noel Haynes
A month ago I [preached] a sermon I delivered in our church in Merritt.
I just want to update it now.
The situation in Europe is worsening every day.
Greece is scheduled to repay 30 billion dollars this month. Her total
income is less than that. Her one year bonds are offered at 300 %.
Which means that she is beyond hope.
I said then Italy was on the verge, and since then would have
collapsed if the IMF had not intervened.
The US, UK, and Canada last week made cheap dollars available to the
banks so they would prop up the European countries wit more loans.
All of the European countries have had their credit rating downgraded this week.
The leaders of Germany, France, and the European Central Bank meet
tomorrow to design a fiscal regulatory system for all of Europe, with
sufficient teeth in it that Germany will be willing to provide
financial backing for the other countries through the issue of Euro
bonds.
On friday they will try to sell the plan to the other countries. The
other leaders will have a very hard time accepting the new
regulations, and if they do t, they must get their parliament to
approve ( and some of them most likely won’t), and if they do there
will be riots in every country in Europe because the austerity
measures will be so harsh.
If they can do all that , it could buy them a bit more time, but the
really bad news is that except for Germany, all Europe is going into
recession, so that more austerity measures will not only cause social
unrest, but will exacerbate the downward economic spiral in countries
with already sick economies.
Italy is Europe’s third largest economy. Its population is aging,
workers retire young on very generous govt. pensions, wealthy people
are afraid to invest in their own country and are sending their money
out, instead of creating new jobs, and most Italian’s have found ways
to avoid paying taxes.There is no longer any reasonable hope for
Italy. The world is watching her burn.( Rev. 18 ) And she is going to
take the rest of Europe down with her.
The U.S. has borrowed and spent itself into such a precarious position
, and her financial position is so highly integrated with Europe, that
when Europe collapses the U.S. will also probably collapse. Unless
possibly she is able to borrow massive amounts from China. But the US
is already borrowing 44% of every dollar she spends, and why would
China bail her out when she is determined to replace the U.S. as world
leader? The U.S. is a very resilient country , with huge resources.
Whether she can survive the coming tsunami with only a depression
remains to be seen, but it appears that four more years of the current
administration’s policies would be catastrophic.
In my sermon I referred to the situation in the Middle East as it
relates to Israel. Each day there are new developments.Tunisia and
Egypt now have Islamist governments, dedicated to the destruction of
Israel,as will Libya very soon. Iran probably already has one or two
bombs and is developing the technology to fit them on to medium range
missiles. Every few weeks there are reports of explosions at nuclear
sites, assasinations of key Iranian scientists, and computer worms
which compromise parts of the nuclear technology. Israeli officials
are now talking publicly about the possible necessity of a preemptive
nuclear strike against Iran, and at the same time seem to be trying to
delay the evil day with a variety of covert actions.
I realize that I have belaboured the point a bit, but I want you all
to know that there is a whole lot of historical and current evidence
that we are in the very end times as described by both the Old and New
Testament prophets. So what should we be doing? How Then Shall We
Live?
Jesus told us to stay awake.
We need to be aware of events unfolding around us.I can’t believe how
many Christians I meet that are totally unaware.They seem to neither
know, nor very much care, that Armageddon is so imminent.
Jesus instructed us to be faithful.
Our consciousness of the shortness of time remaining should be
powerful incentive to be about our Father’s business, the discipling
of our neighbours and the nations.
Jesus told His followers to take evasive action.
He told them to flee, when they recognized the signs leading up to the
destruction of Jerusalem, to the hills,in order to “avoid the wrath to
come”
History tells us that the Christians in Jerusalem in 69 A.D. did
exactly that, and that no Christians were caught in the terrible
slaughter that followed.
Given all the evidence, reasonable people should be expecting at least
a short period of intense social upheaval. It seems to me that those
same reasonable people should have a strategic plan of what they will
do when the web is compromised and the grid is down in order to
survive themselves, and be able to care for those around them.