Plagues and Pandemics (6) American Continent

The indigenous populations of America were decimated by infectious diseases brought by European conquerors and settlers, who took no responsibility for the harm they were bringing. Recent estimates suggest that the population on the eve of conquest was about one hundred million, with twenty-five to thirty millions of these in Mexican and an equal number in Andean civilisations. Within fifty years, the population of central Mexico had shrunk to a tenth of what it had been.

The first pandemics were smallpox and measles. A few decades later, typhus arrived. Unfortunately, the climate was suitable for the transmission of some of the worst African infections: malaria and yellow fever. These diseases were spread rapidly by slaves brought from Africa.

The scope of this disaster is hard to imagine. The sudden death of three-quarters of the population produced severe economic collapse and repeated human anguish, as entire societies fell apart.

The Europeans travelled to the Americas had a good understanding of quarrantine methods, but they did not bother applying them for the benefit of the people they were conquering, because they considered them to be inferior peoples.

No Real Change

All eyes in America were glued to the television, watching events in Washington DC. Unfortunately, television cameras only pick up what is happening in the physical world. They cannot capture what is happening in the spiritual realms, which shapes much of what happens on earth.

The reality is that the same government-spirits (principalities and powers) are in control today as were in control yesterday. If anything, their power is greater. The powerful spirits of war, violence and power will continue to determine the fate of the nation, regardless of the change in president, and a spirit of lies has dug in with them.

This is why things will not change as much as people fear or hope.

Humility and Revival

I heard an American prophetic leader say that God needs a “strong America” to bring the billion-person harvest that they have been prophesying. This is not true. God could still accomplish his purposes even if America collapsed and disappeared.

We should remember that the greatest revival that has ever occurred in the world through history (many millions choosing to follow Jesus) took place in China:

• under a communist government
• without freedom to worship
• without funding from American Christians
• without the books of big-name evangelical leaders
• without pastors trained in the popular bible colleges and seminaries.
• without American missionaries
• without the protection of the US military.

God does not need “his man” as political leader to bring revival. Having his people in political power might actually be an obstacle to revival.

God does not need a strong America. It would probably be an obstacle to his purposes.

Israel (17) - Britain and America

A strange doctrine has taken hold among Christians that claims that God blesses nations that support the nation of Israel. The biblical basis for this doctrine is Genesis 12:3.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.

The verse is quoted as final proof, without any discussion of who should be blessed. It is not clear that it would apply to a desolate house. There no discussion of what blessing means. Providing military support may not be what God had in mind.

The historic proof of this doctrine is that Britain lost its empire when it stopped supporting Israel. America has been blessed, because it has provided military and political support for Israel.

A closer look at history shows that this doctrine depends on a re-write of history. The British were always ambivalent about the Jewish people, so how did they get such a large empire in the first place? If their policy did not change, why did they lose their empire. For most of the twentieth, the United States was ambivalent about the Jewish cause. During the 1930s, many Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany were refused entry in to the United States. Some of them died later in the death camps. During the Second World Ward did very little to stop they death camps. They could have bombed the rail lines going to them, but chose not to. During the 1950s and 1960s, America was not the main supporter of Israel. Israel's strongest support came from France, trying to perpetuate their role as a big noise in the Levant. The Israel Air Force flew French Mirage fighter planes. Israeli tanks were armed with French guns. If God blesses nations that support the nation of Israel, France should be humming. Instead, they have continued the decline that began earlier in the century and has never stopped.

American support for Israel only got serious in the 1970, when Evangelical Christians got stirred up about the issue and the Middle East became an important theatre of conflict in the Cold War. The Russians were getting involved in many Arab countries, so America supported Israel as a counterweight. America experienced a huge grow in military and economic power during the period from 1917 to 1965 when its support for Israel was weak. The 1950s were probably its best years. When America got serious about supporting Israel, it went into decline, experienced a defeat in Vietnam and long period of stagflation in the economy.

The doctrine that God blesses nations that provide military and political support for Israel does not make sense. God blesses nations that serve and honour him.

The idea that nations can gain blessing by blessing the nation of Israel undermines the cross. It is salvation by good works. Salvation and security come through faith and repentance. A nation that sins freely cannot be kept safe by from evil by blessing the Israeli nation.

Using this doctrine as a prophetic lens will create prophetic confusion. True prophets use a much broader standard for assessing the performance of a nation.

The Problem with the American Economy

The problem for the American economy is that business households have shut up shop and stopped spending. After a couple of decades of borrow and spend, they had far too much debt and need to get their balance sheets in order. This creates a problem for business that produce consumer goods.

In a free economy, this falling demand would not be a problem. When households stop spending, interest rates usually fall. If households are saving more, banks can offer lower interest rates and still get the funding they need. If households stop borrowing, banks have to lower interest rates to attract borrowers. Increasing supply and falling demand both push interest rates down.

When interest rates fall, numerous investments projects, which previously could not make a reasonable return, suddenly become viable. The result is increasing demand for investment goods. Some businesses will respond to that demand by shifting resources from the production of consumer goods to the production of investment goods. This adjustment may take a couple of quarters, but by shifting the mix of production away from consumption to investment, the slack in the economy is quickly taken up.

More important, the resulting build up of capital goods tends to make the economy even more productive in the future. Then when household start consuming again, the extra capital makes the economy more productive, so the demand for extra goods is easily met. There is no need to have a demand driven recession.

Unfortunately, America is not a free economy and interest rates are fixed by the Fed. Although households and businesses are saving more, the Fed has left interest rates unchanged, so the signal that declining interest rates should give to businesses has not gone through. Worse still, the Fed held interest too low during much of the decade. This sent the wrong signal to businesses, and may investment projects were undertaken that would not have been viable, if interest rates had been at an appropriate level. The housing boom was part of that.

Artificially low interest rates caused households to borrow too much and business to produce too many investment goods. Debt eventually catches up, and people and businesses realise that they need to reduce debt. Households stop buying consumer good to get out of debt. This is the cause of the current recession.

In a free market, business would switch to producing investment goods. The problem is that there is already a glut of capital goods, due to past overproduction in response to artificially low interest rates. Demand for investment is also goods declining, which exacerbates the recession.

The Fed has decided that Quantitative Easing is the solution. They are trying to solve the problems caused by too much debt, by encouraging households and businesses to take on more debt. They are trying to solve a problem of too much debt, by creating more debt. It may improve the economy in the short term, but it will store up problem for the future.

When a heroin addict goings into withdrawal, things get messy. One solution is to put them on methadone. It gets rid of the DTs, but it does not solve the underlying problem.

Quantative Easing is a methadone solution. It may provide temporary relief, but it will make the future worse.

Fear of Islam (4) - Impact on America

Some Christians are afraid that Islam will take over the United States. While, the scriptures warn of a struggle between the Islamic nations and the United States, there is no indication that America will be invaded or forced to convert to Islam.

The danger to America comes from a different source and most Christians seem to be totally unaware of it. The Seven Seals of Revelation are a series of tumultuous events that release terrible fear on earth. The people of the world will look for to human governments to rescue them from them these tribulations. This will lead to the emergence of the most powerful human government that has ever existed on earth, referred to later in the book of Revelation as the Beast.

Most Christians believe that the Beast will emerge in Europe, but this is wrong. The Beast develops in a place where a number of states join together to form one. That has already happened in America in 1787 and was confirmed in 1865.

The threat from Islamic terrorism has already produced an amazing aggrandisement of power in the United States. As the fear of Islam increases, especially if it is stirred up by some frightening incidents, the government will demand more and more power to expand the American empire. Americans will wake up one up one day and realise that Islam is still just a threat, but America is actually controlled by a terrible Beast.

The Beast will eventually collapse, not defeated by an external enemy, but torn apart from the inside. The death struggles of the Beast will wreak terrible evil on America. The peace and security that the people are seeking will disappear into chaos and darkness.

God's Nation (2)

In the teaching I referred to yesterday, Bill Hamon said that the founders and forefathers of America made a covenant with God. This is a dodgy claim. The US constitution was not a covenant with God, it is a covenant between men, in which the people said to their political leaders, “We will surrender power to you and serve you, if you will protect us and provide us with the good life”. This is not a covenant with God, but an alternative covenant designed to allow men to live without God. The subsequent history in which God has been squeezed out of American life confirms this to be true.

Bill Hamon said that “the thing” that is coming will "open the eyes of America to see how close they are to losing their freedom". I am not sure if any thing can open the eyes of Americans in this way, because although they do not realise it, they have been freely giving away their freedom for many years. In his book Crisis and Leviathan, Robert Higgs shows how every economic or military crisis in the last two hundred years has led to an increase in state power and an accompanying decline in freedom. Americans have consistently given up their freedom in return for being rescued and protected by the state.

I suspect that another disaster on the scale of 9/11 would simply cause the American people to cry to out the politicians and powers pleading to be rescued. They will gladly hand over further freedoms in return for promises of peace and security. This is perfectly consistent with their covenant made in the US Constitution.

God's Nation

I recently listened several times to a prophetic word spoken by Dr Bill Hamon at an International Prayer Gathering on 26 July 2010. It raised some interesting issues.

Dr Hamon says that God is soon going to “allow a thing to happen” in America that is “greater than 9/11”. He does not say what the thing is. Maybe he does not know, but “a thing” seems to be quite different from John Paul Jackson’s word about a perfect storm, in which a whole series of traumatic events will hit America one after the other. I am not sure what to make of that difference. I suppose that people will assume that the former is the beginning of the latter.

In his supporting comments, Dr Hamon said that “God raised the American nation up for a purpose”. This is not true. In the New Testament age, God does not work through nations. He works through his Holy Spirit dwelling in groups of Christians who love one another. God sets the times for the rising and falling of nations (Acts 17:26) and he uses them to bring about judgments, but nations are not his vehicle for bringing salvation to the world. Since Jesus became the saviour of the world, God works through his body on earth.

Dr Hamon also said that “God is jealous for his nation, that he will arise like a man of war and fight for his church and his nation, like did for his nation Israel. This is not true. God no longer has nations, because he has the body of Jesus living on earth. The United States is not God’s nation. God is jealous for his church and this kingdom, but he is not jealous for a nation.

America

Earlier this month, I spent a week in America. Most of the time I was in Washington DC, looking for the Beast.

Here are some of the things that struck me about America.

• Americans talk very loud.

• Many American men are seriously overweight.

• American people are really friendly and helpful

• America is an incredibly militaristic nation.

An American Prayer

Dear God
You know that oil you put in the crust of your earth. You thought it was enough to last for thirty generations, but you got it wrong. We have used most of it up. We have not wasted it. We have not built a tower of Babel. No, we have done exactly as you said in Gen 11:8,9 and spread suburbia out across the plains.

Anyway, the easy oil is all gone. You didn’t create enough of it. So you had better give us some new cheap energy. We do not care what it is, as long as you do it fast.

So jump to it, God. This is important. We have got more American living to do. Some families have had to stop eating donuts to pay for their gas.

And God Bless America. We deserve it.

Amen

WWGD

What should George Do?

How should I know. I do not even live in the United States.
But there are a couple of things that he could think about.

1. George Bush's role is to defend the United States. The biblical rules for this role are outlined in Defence and War. George has not been appointed as the world's policeman. Tramping round the Middle East in big boots will not bring peace.

2. God does not need to United States to complete his purposes. American civilisation will not save the world. American democracy will not save the world. The United States is currently in danger of becoming part of the problem. Maybe God has stirred up Islam to bring judgment on the United States Empire.

3. Absolute security cannot be achieved, no matter how much is spent on military power. George Bush may not be able to prevent every attack. If American culture is strong then it will survive. Life will go on. The gospel will advance.

4. A relevant passage is 2 Chron 25:8:

Even if you go and fight courageously in battle,
God will overthrow you before the enemy,
for God has the power to help or to overthrow.

Before going to war, you had better be sure that God is on your side. If he is against you, the strength of your forces will be irrelevant.