Don’t Lose Hope

Well, good afternoon. We few, we happy few. The remnant's still here.

We've been going to church a lot the last few days. We're just here two days ago for atonement. And we'll be back in church in about three more days on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. So, hope everyone has a safe trip. Some of you will be leaving tonight and tomorrow and the rest of us on Monday. So, we'll be at our various sites. Took my son and daughter to the airport yesterday and they were already in Maui. And things went well for them on their flight, they said. So, others have already left and gone away too. So, it's just kind of biding time and we'll be there soon. Just a few announcements. The announcement of bulletin mentions things coming up after the Feast of Tabernacles.

This one announcement regarding the Beef and Board's senior outing is self-explanatory. I think that payment is coming up due right immediately after the Feast. Some of you probably have already sent your check-in to pay for that. Actually, we've got enough seats on this. I don't know if it's been announced this way, but this senior... It's really more than just a senior's outing. It's for anybody who wants to go right.

It's the Beef and Board's church outing. We probably should rename that. We always subsidize the seniors. Are we able to be subsidized this year? Myself? Are we as seniors? No, we're not to that point yet. Good. So, I'll pay full freight. But we are subsidizing the seniors this year, as we always have done. But any other church member that wants to go, we have plenty of tables. We have to pay full freight. But you're welcome to go on this date, which is Sunday, November 23rd, for the outing, which is the sound of music. I don't think we've seen that one there. Most of us have seen the movie a dozen times or so. But if you want to see it on the stage live, that'll be the Beef and Board's and the meal as well. So, get that in afterwards. We've got the Winter Family Weekend and the Ladies Book Club.

And we have one prayer request here today. Chris Vincent just sent this up before, just as we were starting, asking for prayers for her mother, Polly Graham, who, as you know, has been in a nursing facility for some time. But she's developed a cellulitis from a spider bite on the inside of her right arm. And the nurses had called and said that it was getting worse. So please remember Polly Graham in your prayers. That would not spread any further and God would heal her and not create a difficult situation here at this particular time for her and for her family. So please keep that in your prayers.

I've got my pink and my white newspapers here today, so some of you know what that means. I write every two weeks. I write a newsletter, kind of a, just a news, it's an e-newsletter we call it, to a growing list of subscribers to it from the World News and Prophecy list. It goes out every two weeks. I write it, send it over to the home office, and Aaron Booth gets it formatted and mails it out. We've got about 26,000 subscribers that get this e-newsletter via email into their mailbox every two weeks. And I make some comment or write a short 600 words about something going on in the news. And sometimes I make it personal. Sometimes I make it a little light. Sometimes it's a little heavy. This past week it was rather heavy because we were NR in the midst of a financial crisis, which we probably all know about to one degree or the other.

It depends on how much money you got invested in the stock market these days, and if you've been paying any attention to it. But we are in a major crisis. I wrote that as the subject of my e-newsletter this week. And about halfway down, I got to the point where I said, look, is this just like any other crisis? 1987, they're comparing this one too. I was around in 1987. There was what was called Black Monday. It was right after the Feast of Tabernacles, some of you may remember.

We happened to be in Italy at the time. And the stock market took a big dive on a Monday, 1987, October something that year. And I remember it very well because I needed some cash, a traveler's check, to get some dollars at the time. And I couldn't find anybody for about 24 hours to cash my traveler's checks. No bank, no merchant, nobody would give me any money because the American stock market had taken such a dive that they didn't know what the dollar was worth for a period of time.

So I was caught for a few hours. In 1971, there was another little blip or crisis in the summer of 1971, and I happened to have been overseas at that particular time. And I remember that it was a great fluctuation in the exchange rate of the dollar at that particular time. That was when Richard Nixon took the American dollar, the U.S. dollar, off of any metal, all gold, all silver, in terms of backing the dollar and made a major change at that particular time. And that created a little blip in there. Of course, the big one was 1929, and I was not around in 1929, so I don't remember that one.

I just read about that. I don't think anybody in this room was around to you that remember at that time. I'm not going to have anybody raise their hand. Well, okay, a few words. At least one was in 1929, whatever you may remember that. But that was the big stock market crash at that time, and that then precipitated over a period of several years what we call the Great Depression.

And believe me, I heard about that growing up in my home. My parents grew up during that time, and I heard that at least once a week, something about the Depression and how good we have it today for my mother who lived during that period of time and suffered in the poverty of that particular period of time, my dad as well. I say suffer, they got through. They were very self-sufficient living in the rural South during those years, and they made it through fine during that period of time. But those have been the ones that we kind of measure by, and with what is taking place this week, just since the first of this month, it is being compared to the big one of the 1930s.

And so in my letter, I said, is this just like any of the others? It will be a temporary drop, and the market will come back after all it always has. America is always bound to back. After all, we are the United States of America. And in our lifetime, it has always been number one. General Motors, the US dollar, the American Army, the American economy, Washington DC, the White House, the Capitol. These are all the symbols and the pedigree of the American century and the American greatness that we have all grown up with.

And so I raised that question, because that's really what you get to. My newsletter, World News and Prophecy, is not supposed to just be another Wall Street Journal or another CNN or anything like that. We're supposed to take a little bit different approach. Our focus is from Bible prophecy, and the Bible is our guide.

And I made the comment that this could very well be a major change that is taking place that will lead this world to some changes that we have known about from Bible prophecy. Sometimes you can criticize if you want, but we qualify a little bit, because we'll use words like it could be, or perhaps, or things like that. And we will qualify, because when you deal with our world, Bible prophecy and things, you learn from your mistakes, and you also learn that we're not perfect. So I tend to think of it as a little bit of humility that we take toward the subject, and not necessarily that we know every event and how it's going to fit into the Rubik's Cube of Bible prophecy.

So we do qualify somewhat how we say certain things. But I did make a pretty strong statement that this was...my personal feeling is that this is not just like any other crisis of the past. And that it could very well lead to the beginning of certain things that we have talked about. And I don't have to go to the Bible to back that up, as I will show you here in a few minutes. One subscriber or someone...it was put...Aaron Booth put it on the...we have a WNP World News Prophecy Facebook page, and he always puts it up there to kind of give it more readership.

And someone from his college days, an ambassador in the past, wrote him a critical little comment. How can you say, he said, that this financial crisis is tied into Bible prophecy or caused by Bible prophecy? Well, what a stupid thing to say. What a stupid thing to say.

And I...that came back to me and I thought, well, that's interesting. You're always going to get that, especially from some who may have been a part of the church in the past. And certainly they just jettison their beliefs, and they've lost understanding. But it's a good question. How do I know? How do we know? How do we tie it into the things of the Bible and Bible prophecy? Is it just, you know, a quack approach to news and history that we have in terms of what we say and think?

Or indeed, are these things really, truly rooted in the prophecies of the Bible? And are we living, especially in this particular situation, or should we understand it from certain key principles that we can know from Bible prophecy? I'd like to go through a few high points of that subject today, because I don't want to take for granted that any of you may fully be briefed and versed in the particular subject of Bible prophecy. And why do we say that this particular crisis might be a very key critical event that is taking place that is going to lead to certain fulfillment of critical prophecies?

Why this particular one? And so I wrote down a few scriptures. Actually, this is what I began to work on a few weeks ago. You may remember I said I was going to talk about it about three or four weeks ago and decided to give something else. But I thought we needed some comment on this today because of the severity, really, of what has happened this week and where we are exactly in the nature of things.

I mean, as I said a while ago, I don't have to go very far to back up some of the things that I've said. I brought in a few papers from the last few days. This is this morning's Wall Street Journal. And again, it's a full banner headline. Speaking of yesterday's wild swings, which was the worst day ever on the American stock market in terms of its biggest change. I watched it at 9 o'clock when 930 when the markets opened, and it dropped 500 or 600 points right away.

And then it came back up, and then I happened to be watching it when President Bush entered the Rose Garden and gave a little talk yesterday. And they had a little ticker right next to him. And as he was talking, it was going down, down, down, down, down while he was giving his speech. So he didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence at that point.

And then it went back up, and then it wound up in the negative at the end of the day. But it was over a thousand-point jump and spread, biggest spread that it's ever had in its history. Wild day caps, worst week ever for stocks. Dow swings 1,019 points in the index's most volatile session that was yesterday. Despite fire sale prices, buyers mostly stand back. From what I learned, or just in listening, yesterday was large, in part due to a lot of computer-generated trading that kicks in when things get to a certain point.

And there's really nobody that really knows to explain it completely. This morning's Financial Times newspaper, Market Crash Shakes the World. And the pictures are traders from Tokyo, Frankfurt, London, and New York. And they've all in various states of shock and dismay of reflecting the crash. And they are calling it a crash, a global market crash in all of these markets. U.S. stocks suffer worst week since depression. G7 move expected after record volatility. That's the nations that are the finance ministers that are meeting this weekend in Washington to try to sort things through.

So those are just today's headlines from the premier news, financial newspapers in the English-speaking world, and how they are covering it. And again, you don't have to go very far to find other statements in terms of how this is changing how people view America. My critical stance on this has been not so much to worry about the stock market, although I do comment about that a little bit later, but to recognize how the world is going to react to it.

My personal feeling, and at this point, my personal hope, is that it comes back.

Okay, because I'm tied up in it pretty heavy. And sorry, some of you, in terms of our retirement accounts. So I hope it comes back. But I've been watching how is the rest of the world looking at America? And that's where I'm kind of looking, because if it comes back, and I think that it will, and I think the global economy is going to recover from this, but I think it will be a different economy.

One writer in Financial Times this week said that it's not the end of the world, but it is the end of a world. In other words, the present financial world, as it has been since the end of World War II, and out of this, there's going to be a different financial structure governing the conduct of affairs. I think that that can very well be the beginning toward some of the things that we read about in the Bible.

I don't think we'll see that next week, next month, maybe even next year. I'm not, again, trying to even put a timetable on any of this, but I think that it's going to be different. Why do we say that it's going to be different for America, and the American influence is going to be different? We have our worldview rooted in the Scriptures. Economists, as I read all these articles, economists describe what has taken place from an economic point of view. They're very smart, and you have to either be trained in their jargon or read a lot of it and study to really even understand what they're talking about.

Mark to market, point spread, Lebor Index, all of these things most of us just don't understand because we're not economists. We don't really understand how the markets work in the financial ups and downs of the last few weeks of why that it has really happened. But they can explain it. They know in certain ways, and they look at it from an economic point of view. And they write and explain it from that point of view. That's their world. There's another school of thought that will look at what has happened, and they explain it from a kind of a historical geopolitical point of view.

And they look at the ebb and flow of empires. Russia was down. Russia's been back up. America's been riding the crest, and things are changing there. And they write about it from that point of view, from a historical geopolitical point of view. And that has certain angles, accuracies, inaccuracies, biases, and all. When we write about it, when we explain it in our publications, and let's say from the Church of God perspective and the historical perspective of our life, we write about it from the viewpoint of Bible prophecy.

We go to Matthew 24, and we look at what Jesus said in answer to the question put to Him by the disciples, what will be the signs of Your coming and of the end of the age when they put that question to Him.

And He goes through this list. We read Revelation. We read the ancient prophets. We read the Old Testament, the New Testament. And we explain our world, and have our worldview, and explain history and the future from the viewpoint of Bible prophecy. That's not how an economist explains it. That's not how a historian explains it, or a geopolitician. But it's how we explain it. So there's three different points of view.

And when you understand, I think all of them, when you put them together, and on the right foundation, the Bible says that the Word of God is the foundation of knowledge and of understanding. Then you have the ability, I think, to properly understand economics, history, geopolitics, and everything that you build on top of it from the point of view of what the Bible says.

And we have had this point of view that has guided us through the years. Carl gave a split sermon here a few weeks ago, and he gave you a PowerPoint, and he went through a number of the basics of the subject of American Britain and Bible prophecy, a fundamental understanding that we have had in the Church regarding our country, our nation, our present world, why it is the way it is, and what the Bible says, how we got here, and what the Bible says about how we're going to go from here.

I didn't hear all of his sermon that day, and I don't know all of the scriptures that he turned to, but there are several that highlight our understanding. And I can't go through all of them today, but I did want to hit some of the high points to take us through just a few to help us understand by background why we say what we do, why we understand, have the understanding that we do.

The United States and Britain, or as we have termed it in our current booklet, The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy, is an understanding. It's not a fundamental doctrine. You should understand that, brethren. We have 20 fundamental doctrines in our booklet that define what the United Church of God believes. You will not find that in there, except as it relates to the blessings of Abraham. But it is an understanding that we have had, and we teach it as that.

So in terms of doctrine, understanding, understand that that is something that is a little bit different than, let's say, the fundamental beliefs that we have regarding the doctrinal beliefs of the Church. But regarding Bible prophecy and an understanding of the Bible, that's where it falls. And I think that it is a correct one. I think that it does reflect, indeed, what God has done in the past, beginning with Abraham, with his descendants, on down into our modern world.

In Genesis 17, there is one of the many episodes where God appeared to Abraham, and he made specific promises that dealt with spiritual and physical blessings. And again, I'm not going to go through all of those in detail. We'd need a sermon for each one. But Genesis 17, when Abraham was 99 years old, and God appeared to him and said, I am the Lord Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, is one of those places here where God establishes his covenant and makes certain specific promises regarding Abraham and his faith.

He said in verse 2, I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. We have understood that that means that from Abraham came many nations. Many different nationalities in that sense. Then, as well as now, in our modern world, he was a father of many.

No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. So, he even gets specific down to the level of kings. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you, and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. An everlasting covenant, full of promises that could not be reneged, were made to Abraham by God. Those promises involved the spiritual promises of grace, which were ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Those spiritual promises because Christ was born to the tribe of Judah, one of the descendants of Abraham. Judah was one of the sons of Israel, Jacob. And Christ's birth, life and death, fulfilled the spiritual promises through Abraham. But there was also a strain of the promise that dealt with race, or the physical promises that were made. And those promises you can trace through the Scriptures as well, part of which are even brought out here in this section of Genesis 17, that dealing with nations and kings. Later on, you can see it expanded and other aspects of the promise were made as it was passed on to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and then Jacob passed it on to his sons.

In fact, when you go down to Genesis chapter 49, you see that Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, who himself had God appear to him and reiterate these same promises to him as it kept it all in the family. When Jacob is dying, he calls his sons around him, and he tells them what will befall them in the latter days.

In verse 1 of Genesis 49, Jacob called his sons, and he said, I'm going to tell you what will befall you in the last days. He goes through each of his sons around his bed there, and he makes certain statements about them. When he comes down to verse 22, we find where the statements that are made to Joseph, the next to the youngest son of Jacob, are made.

Now, in the story, earlier on, there's the story of Joseph's sons having that promise passed on to Ephraim and Manasseh. So, when you read from that point on here, as you do in verse 22 about Joseph, you have to realize that Joseph's sons and their descendants are the inheritors of this part of the blessings. In fact, that's where the line, the racial or physical promises went as they were split off at this particular point.

The scepter didn't depart from Judah. The promise of grace, the spiritual promises were fulfilled through the line of Judah. You can trace that through the Scriptures right down to the Gospels and to Jesus Christ. The physical part were spun off to the descendants of Joseph. Again, all of that's fully covered in our literature and I think in a way that goes through the Scriptures and nails that down. So, we're touching just the high spots of it here. But Jacob said to Joseph, verse 22, he said, Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well.

His branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him, and hated him. But his bow remained in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. And so to Joseph, he has said he will be a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall.

This is a clear picture of Joseph prospering as a fruitful bough of grapes or a tree of figs or fruit. That's what is being pictured here. Ample supplies of water to feed that and to produce that harvest. Abundance here, physical, national blessings. And the branches run over the wall. Imagine a courtyard where this bough would be. And the abundance is so great that it goes out and it goes beyond its boundaries, which is a very good description of the impact of Joseph's descendants.

You know, when you even look at Joseph, the character in history in Genesis, Joseph was in Egypt and his wisdom, along with God's blessing and guidance, preserved a gentile nation, Egypt, at that time. And so even in the literal life of Joseph himself, it fulfilled this verse because Joseph was a blessing in Egypt at that time, as we know in that story.

Israel, at its height, was a blessing even within the Middle East. We're talking about ancient Israel and what took place in its own history there. And the modern descendants of Joseph in America and Britain, the English-speaking peoples of the last two centuries, have been a blessing to this world, a tremendous blessing to this world. In terms of a fruitful bough and our branches have run over the walls. America and Britain have not been perfect. They have, both through their histories, you can find where they made their mistakes nationally in terms of policies and the way various peoples have been dealt with. I'm not saying that American and Britain and the English-speaking peoples have been the paragons of virtue.

But by and large, and on balance, the world, the last 200 years, has benefited from the United States. In fact, just this morning's Wall Street Journal, there was, on the editorial page, a headline and an article, The World Will Miss Our Hay Day. The world will miss our heyday. It was written by a lawyer in New York. I didn't write this. None of our writers wrote it.

But she goes through in this particular article, and she talks about this past week and what's taking place. And it's a very interesting article. She said, it's almost like nothing has changed. We don't talk about it unless someone brings it up. It'll be like Will Rogers. I'll read the newspaper to you here.

We don't talk about it unless someone brings it up, but even then, when it is brought up, everyone would prefer to discuss the latest on Sarah Palin, or laugh about Tina Fey's portrayal of her, or to speculate about whether the movie W, coming out next week, will be accurate or merely comical.

So while the economy is hardly an unmentionable, it still is discussed in hushed tones or worse with forced smiles. Like this really isn't happening. We can't really be in freefall. Capitalism as we know it can't be over. This is what she writes. She mentions in New York City how things for some haven't changed, because one of the upscale restaurants in New York City, a place called Perce, where a meal for two costs $900, is still having people waiting in line.

And she mentions a lingerie store on one of the avenues of New York City, where $400 plus bras are still going out the door, selling like hotcakes. For some, there's no depression yet. She mentions that, but she says, and places like Jonathan Adler Candle Shop still sells candles for $68. Perhaps we're all in shock, because a $700 billion rescue made up of funny money that we're borrowing from the future, and anyone else who will give it to us, is an astonishing thing.

And secretly, deep down, we feel in our bones that the likely efficacy is minimal, because it's hard to bail out yourself. Then she goes on to talk about her mother. This particular writer is not invested in the stock market, but her mother is, because of her retirement accounts, dependent upon what is taking place there. She told her mother, she said, to do something. She said, for the first time, I've been like an adult. I told my mother to do something, anything, to be safe financially, for the first time in my life.

But the scary thing is, she goes on, is not what will happen to individuals, although a jobless, miserable mass is a very sullen thought, but what this economic crash says about America. Anyone who is not too drunk with despair right now knows that this all signals a bigger realignment that our place, our significance in the world, speaking of America, is diminishing. Eight years of this waste-roll, spendthrift administration, so it tells you who she's voting for this year, has bankrupted us all of our standing and our capital.

It's all gone. Apparently, on Wall Street, the bankers now have a saying, Dubai, Shanghai, Mumbai, or Goodbye. In other words, the future is no longer here in America. This is a state of affairs that ought to leave not just us, but the entire world deeply stricken with grief. In the history of empire, no country has ever wielded its dominance as gently and judiciously as the United States has.

Even those abroad and afar who feel they suffered as a result of American foreign policy ought to know that this planet as a whole will fare far worse, under China or whatever country comes next, and would have suffered greatly had the Soviets won the Cold War. The American century from World War II on, really only about 60 years old, has been a very good time for everybody.

The world is about to be a much sorrier place. I read that this morning. Wow! I could go through this whole stack of statements that talk about the fact that America and the new financial world, a global downturn in the power of the West, the financial crisis marks out a new geopolitical order. On and on and on it goes to describe that one central fact that things are changing for America and the financial picture of the world. What we read here in Genesis is changed. It seems to be changing. Now, that doesn't mean America is going to turn into a bunch of soup kitchens next week. That's not the point and I don't think that's going to happen.

Changes like this tend to take a period of time to sort out. After World War II, Great Britain was bankrupt. But they sloughed along. Actually, they were bankrupt in the 1930s. They had to fight World War II on borrowed money. Their empire was gone, certainly by the end of World War II.

But they went on. And it took a while for that decline to really sink in. It took another 10 years in the Suez Crisis in 1956 before they recognized what indeed had taken place. They were no longer a world power. They've had a blip back up in recent years, but nowhere near what they had. Decline is relative. And with other nations such as China and India and Brazil and Russia even making a resurgence, their rise is relative to us, is also makes a decline for us.

We're still very powerful. We are still the most powerful economy in the world. America still matters and will matter. We're too big to let fall for the rest of the world. We are the consumers of the Chinese goods that are being manufactured over there. So I don't think that things are going to happen overnight in this way.

But the experts, and I think that that is corroborated by what we read in Bible prophecy, say that things are going to be changing. In Leviticus 26, there is another major prophecy of this story that talks about the blessings and the cursings that God said would be upon Israel.

You can understand these from the duality perspective of prophecy of type and anti-type, how Israel of old ancient Israel followed this pattern and they ultimately declined and went into captivity. And these prophecies we read from a dual perspective that they have application for the modern descendants of Israel, Joseph in particular, and they speak to us. When we look in Leviticus 26 and we read verse 18, God at this particular point in the prophecy, where He has gone on to say that if you keep my Sabbaths, if you don't engage in idolatry, walk in my statutes and laws, He enumerates a number of blessings.

But down in about verse 14, He begins to turn the corner and shows the curses for disobedience. And He comes down to verse 18 and He says, after all of this, if you do not obey me, after warnings, after cries for repentance sent by the prophets, He said, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

We've understood this particular verse to speak to the fact that there would be a period of seven times, which would amount to 2,520 years, that would fall over the story of Israel and these physical promises, all of which the nation of Israel and Judah of the past never fully realized, according to what we read in Genesis. And this particular prophecy shows us that there would be a punishment of seven times with a prophetic year of 360 days. Seven times 360 takes you 2,520 years into the future. We date it from the time of the fall of Israel, and it comes out to the early 1800s.

And the beginning of the rise of America as a force and a power in the world, when these promises then begin to be unleashed in a powerful way, at that unique point in world history, and particularly American and British history. Because in 1803, America purchased this land called the Louisiana Purchase from France. Thomas Jefferson enacted that and opened up the American West, and essentially put us on the path to a nation that was going to stretch indeed from sea to sign it shining.

Sea. And that marks the period when the seven times came to an end. And America rose to its greatness along with Great Britain, to form what we know of the last 200 years and call the American and British centuries, or the centuries of the English-speaking peoples. And that has been our story. Now, that is it in a nutshell, and I think that that understanding has been correct.

I have no problems with that. This prophecy goes on, and verse 19 talks about that because of sin, the nation would have the pride of its power broken. We are seeing that these sins are still the same today. Sabbath breaking, idolatry, morality and problems that are still the same today, and the same punishments, the same causes are still there as a result of those symptoms. He goes on, and down in verse 21, God makes another statement. Then, if you walk contrary to me, and you're not willing to obey me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins.

Seven times more. We've always understood that that did not mean another 2,520 years. Because of the construction of the Hebrew and the sentence structure, we've always understood that that referred to an increasing intensity of punishment, not another 2,520 year period that we can demonstrate from history. But an intensity in the last days of plagues and problems that go on. This is mentioned as well one other time here through this particular section, the idea of seven times, more plagues, more problems that will be sent.

He goes down to list these down through here because of our sins. He goes down to verse 24. He says, I will also walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. In this long prophecy of blessings and cursings, God seems to be giving a warning that there would be a rising level of intensity of these punishments upon the people in the time of the end. That has been our fundamental understanding, and again, I think that that is correct. How that is increased over a longer period of time, I think only God knows.

I think we are in a period where we can certainly make some evaluations based on our history, based on what is taking place, and based on what we see in our world today. And again, to take a view of this world from the view of Bible prophecy.

In Deuteronomy 15, there is an interesting statement that God makes that I think does fit our particular time. Deuteronomy 15 talks about the cancellation of debt every seven years, and the year of release that would be every seven years from debts. Beginning in verse 1 of Deuteronomy 15, and this was a principle, this was how the nation was to be established and set up based on the seven-year cycles and then ultimately every 50 years, the year of the Jubilee. But it gets to how you conduct... Really, this first part is really an economics lesson, a basic economic structure for the people of God, anciently.

And the principles are still valid. But down in verse 6, it says, In this section, there is an economic principle, and God is basically saying, don't borrow from nations. You will be so prosperous because of your blessings.

You'll have such an abundance, you'll have a surplus account that you can lend to other nations. Then don't be a borrower. Again, you don't have to be an economist to know that our current situation, in recent years, actually recent decades of American economic history, has been the fact that we have sunk deeper and deeper into an economic debt. We have become a debtor nation. There are different ways by which they measure the debt.

By any different reckonings, it's 800 to 900, is it, Carl, billion dollars, that represents the account deficit that America has. The fact that, in large part, our standard of living has been financed by China, by Saudi Arabia, by other countries, because we have sold them our bonds and our treasury bills, and they bought them and they hold our dollars. It's an amazing game. When Congress passed the $700 billion bailout the other day, you know how that basically works?

Here's how it works. The Treasury Department prints up $700 billion worth of treasury bonds. They cart them down the street to the Federal Reserve, who gives them $700 billion that they have printed, that has been printed, and that's how it works. Then they have to sell those to places like China and other nations. Those are just, those are indentures. Those are debts that we owe going way out into the future. But they're cranked out. Yes, friends, our government cheats. They do what you and I can't do. They have a printing press and they print money.

That is the most basic how it works. And it is held up in the world economy primarily on confidence. Confidence in America, by other countries, and it is a very large shell game, but confidence is at the heart of it. And as long as they have confidence, and right now they hold a lot of our dollars, we're too big to be left to fall. We owe them too much. There's a saying at our level of economics that if you owe the bank $100,000 and they want to call that in, they can do it and demand it from us, if we're into economic straits.

But if we owe the bank $10 million, they need to loan us another million dollars just to keep us going because we owe them too much money for them to let us fall. That's kind of how it's working in the world economy right now. We're too big to be pulled out. To be a hole, there'd be too big a crash. China's middle class would go back to serfdom, and the communist Chinese leadership would be hung as they were marching on them in Beijing.

They have built up tremendous strides in China in the last 20-25 years. They've built up a middle class that they did not have before. But it's been done because we buy what's made in their workshops. Another story in itself that is repeated down the road. Other nations have financed our spending binges of recent years. It is interesting. Let's make this one comment.

As this particular administration winds down to its last days, the George Bush administration seems now to be destined to be bookended by the two of the biggest crises of our time. September 11, 2001, just a few months into Bush's first term, 9-11 hit. It has defined his eight years in office. No question about that. To be honest with you, George Bush won in 2000. As we know, that story barely won. The Chads of Florida and everything else.

He got into office. But the first few months of his administration were not marked by anything significant. There was not anything for him to do. He didn't really have a plan. If you might recall, in early August of 2001, he had given a national speech on stem cell research. An important subject. But that was it. And you remember what he was doing on the morning of September 11? You all saw the pictures. He was in Florida reading books to kids. Nothing wrong with reading books to kids.

I'm looking forward to reading them to my grandkids. But that's where he was when the planes hit. And again, his administration was kind of adrift if that changed. And the rest is history. Now, at the end of his term, we have this going on. And this is big. And it is bookending his administration. That's all I'm saying. Whoever wins this election, the cake is already baking. All the ingredients are already mixed for whoever wins and comes into office in January.

Their promises today about what they're going to give and provide are virtually meaningless. Virtually meaningless. They're going to inherit a different world and a different set of circumstances, and they're going to have to run to catch up. The cake, as I say, is already baking. All the ingredients are already mixed for the next administration. So we've come to that point to look at the administration in this particular point in time. There's another prophecy to look at. Micah chapter 5. It kind of parallels Genesis 2049. I'll quickly just go to it so you folks know where Micah is. You're the smart ones. You're still here.

So quickly, get over to Micah chapter 5 and verse 7.

Don't tell anybody. I'll deny that I just said that, okay? Micah 5 and verse 7. This parallel is what we read about Joseph back in Genesis 49. It's a prophecy of Israel in the last days. Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples. Of course, Jacob here, at this point in the prophecy, it's talking about Israel. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. That name, remember, was put upon the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. He said, Let my name be on them. The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, like a dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass that tarry for no man, nor wait for the sons of men, like dew on the grass. This is imagery for prosperity. Again, speaking of the economic, political, military blessings that Jacob has, and in the midst of many peoples, what Great Britain and America has done in those 200-plus years with the commonwealth, with foreign aid, with all the expansions, they have been, by and part, a blessing among the nations, like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass. Verse 8, The remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep. This imagery is speaking to, again, the power and the strength, even from a military point of view, like a lion among the beasts. Even to this day, there is no nation with the military power that America has. No one can airlift a battalion halfway around the world like America can, even to this very day. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't do it. They don't have the capacity. They don't have the planes. They don't have the wherewithal. Nobody has the fleet that America has patrolling the oceans of the world, keeping the lanes open and doing what they do to this point.

Like a lion among flocks of sheep, who if he passes through, both treads down in tears and pieces, and none can deliver, your hand shall be lifted against your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off. And then it changes. It shall be in that day, says the Lord, that I will cut off your horses. The prophecy and its implications change at verse 10, because then now it speaks about the fact that God will intervene to cut off your horses from your midst and destroy your chariots.

The military option will not be effective. I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds. I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no soothsayers. The witchcraft that has been passed off in our society has reached, I think, an all-time high, in all of its forms and guises. I have no question about that. I think it was in late August that I was starting to see the Halloween gear go up in the stores. And that has become a holiday as big as Thanksgiving. I don't know that it rivals Christmas, but it's commercially driven. But it's again dealing with sorcery, witchcraft, and all these things that are talked about here.

Your carved images I will cut off, and your sacred pillars from your midst. You shall no more worship the work of your hands. Keep in mind, idolatry in our age is not some wooden totem or a stone image. Idolatry, quite frankly, is the influence, the life, the style that we have created, that we are all subject to as well, that teaches us to focus more on the things that man can do, make, build, and create, rather than the things that God provides, does, and blesses us with. He says, I'll pluck your wooden images from your midst.

I will destroy your cities, and I will execute vengeance and anger and fury on the nations that have not heard. Micah 5 is a very key prophecy of Israel in the latter days. And it shows things turning very quickly, along with many other prophecies that would show that same element of things changing very quickly.

And again, this financial crisis has, even though it's been going on for over a year, and there were many voices out there saying that it's not over, it's going to get worse. But many thought Bear Stearns falling back in March, that was the end of it. But it wasn't. And even in September, it looked like it was going to, you know, nobody really knew.

And then, boom, October hit, and here's the October surprise. And what, you know, I got one of my brokerage statements in the mail yesterday, and I just put it in a file, and he wanted to open it. Because it closed on September 30th, and it doesn't even take into account. It was down then. It doesn't even take into account the last 10 days. I don't even want to look at it. Well, I think, you know, one person said that if it begins to rebound, and we all hope that it does, that it will take five years to recover the losses of the last 10 days.

It will take five years. So there's been a loss for everyone who has invested in that way. How do we look at and handle this? This can seem very grievous. It can seem very gloom and doom. I think, from a practical point of view, folks, we all have to be responsible with what we have. Let's make sure we handle our debt well. Get out of debt if we can. Don't take on any unnecessary debt. Use those credit cards only with the intent of paying them off in full in 30 days and not having to live on it. Greed is not good, despite what some might say. Debt financing, debt leveraging is not good.

I pulled out an old article that Mr. Armstrong wrote back in the early 1980s. Some of you may remember it. Prepare now to reduce your standard of living. I was cleaning up my files and I kept that one. We may have to reduce our standard of living. It just may have to happen. But don't panic. Don't panic. I'm not going to give you any financial advice because I don't have any to give. If I did, I'd be making the decisions and hopefully in six months or six years, be riding pretty high. I don't know where to go and where to invest it. I could look back and wish that I'd made certain decisions six months ago. My broker and I played the phone call tag all week whenever they get in touch with each other.

She was trying to call me and I was trying to call her back. She was doing these just hold-your-hand type calls. I'm unsure. I was busy with other things. I had the Day of Atonement to get ready for and whatever. I tried calling back.

Finally, I got through to her secretary yesterday. I said, look, tell Kim I'm not panicking yet. She said, you know, she's got other people to talk to. I said, you know, steady as she goes, we're not worried at this particular point in time. But I, you know, I don't know. You don't know. I'm not anybody's financial counselor. You know, I'm glad I don't have the debt other than my home to worry about at this point in time.

And I'm glad I've got a job. I'm glad you've got a job. And let's all manage everything well and proper. There is a lesson for us to learn, I think. I can read these prophecies. I can read about punishment that God is going to inflict upon this world. We can read about the Tribulation. Go back to Leviticus 26 and God gets very specific that he's going to punish modern Israel for its sins.

And brethren, we don't want to look at that as this world is going to get what it's got to come into them. Don't ever want to take that approach. That's not God's approach. When God talks about correction in the Bible for sin, it's always a positive step that is finally being taken. God is very patient. You read the story of God dealing with either individuals or with Israel as a nation. He was always very patient with them. He sent prophet after prophet, urging Israel and then Judah to repent. And finally, after 200 years in the case of Israel, longer for Judah, they didn't repent. He sent them into captivity. One at the hand of the Assyrians, Judah at the hand of the Babylonians. But it was after pleas of repentance. And finally, when God did act, that was a positive step because it was a step toward repentance and change.

And that's what it will be when God finally steps in. And he does begin to change in this world. So, you know, when we look at events, whether this is the harbinger of some of these prophetic events to come or setting some up that may take a few more years to come to fruition, I don't know. But we can look at that and should look at it in a positive step, even though there are times of stress and trial, that when God does begin to intervene in this world, it will be a step toward the direction of the kingdom of God. And toward the time when all of the suffering, when all of the problems, and all of the mismanagement of human rule and government and history will finally be resolved. And the steps will be on a direct path that we can chart step by step from the Bible, leading to the time of the kingdom of God. So let's just say that this time is that time. I'm not saying that it is, but let's just say for the sake of discussion here that it is. Would we look at it as a positive or as a negative? If we know the Bible in prophecy, we should look at it as a positive and look at it with hope, no matter how much. I have long felt that the people of God are going to be a part of what's taking place in those times and that God's not going to spare us. Okay? So let's not get our boots and our bags packed to some place of safety, necessarily. That's another subject.

God's people are going to be right in the middle of it. There's a fascinating story, and I want to take you through just the highlights of it here in Jeremiah, chapter 32. I love Jeremiah. He's my favorite prophet to study. Jeremiah did something at a time in the history of the nation of Judah that was so amazingly full of hope. Let me set quickly the stage for you. Jeremiah is in prison in chapter 32.

He's in prison because he has prophesied the Word of God, and he said to King Zedekiah of Judah, This nation is going to go down. This nation is going to be taken captive by the Babylonians. And you, Zedekiah, you're going to be taken captive to Babylon. And this nation is going to cease to exist. It was not a patriotic decision. I could turn you to an article here. I've got to be sure I saved that one. I read one yesterday that showed about how this week in some of the Arab countries, they were gloating over America's problems. Of course, you remember on 9-11, they were dancing in the streets. I read that and I think, well, any message that talks about sin and blessings and curses is not going to be a popular message.

And it's going to make whoever's saying it lumped in with terrorists and those who are unpatriotic. But that's exactly what happened with Jeremiah. And it got him in prison. The Babylonians were outside the walls of Jerusalem. They were pounding the walls. And Jeremiah was in prison because the king didn't like his message. And so, in order to kind of keep him close, you know how the old saying, keep your enemies close? He put him in prison. Now, the prison was basically kind of a house arrest within, it seems, the king's palace here. So he probably had a courtyard and a place that he could, you know, had freedom. And even people could come to see him because when you go through Jeremiah 32, you find that Jeremiah, in verse 2, it says, he shut up in the court of the prison in the king of Judah's house.

Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up saying, why do you prophesy? Verse 3, saying, thus says the Lord, give this city to the hand of the king Babylonians, and he shall take it. It's not a popular message. Got him put in prison. And while there, Jeremiah had a premonition or a vision from God down in verse 6. God's word came to me saying, behold, Hanom, the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you, his cousin. God's saying, your cousin's going to come in here, and he's going to say, buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it. And so what happened? Verse 8 says, then Hanom, my uncle's son, came to me. So it happened. As it goes on, Jeremiah then said, I knew that this was of God. And he came in, verse 8, Jeremiah's first cousin. And he said to Jeremiah, please buy my field, that is in Anathoth, which is Jeremiah's home, a few miles to the north and west of Jerusalem, which is in the country of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is yours and the redemption yours. Buy it for yourself. And Jeremiah said, well, I knew this was from God. Now stop and think about it. The stock market in Judah had crashed. The real estate market was zip. You know why? Because the Babylonians were literally outside the walls and the gates. Was that a time to buy? You could certainly buy low. But was it a time to buy? This is a real story and a real situation. What did Jeremiah do? Verse 9, he counts out 17 shekels and buys the plot of land. Let's say he had 17 bucks. He pulled his purse out and bought a plot of land for $17. And he says, in verse 11, I took the purchase deed that was sealed according to the law and the custom that was opened. So it went through all the title search, closing, real quick, right there on the spot. They sealed the deal. And I gave the purchase deed to Baruch, who was his personal assistant, in the presence of my uncle's son, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the purchase deed before the Jews who sat in the court of the prison. So it was well-witnessed. And I charged Baruch and I said, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, take these deeds as purchase deed which is sealed in this deed that is open and put them in an earthen jar, that it may last many days. For thus, verse 15 says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards will be possessed again in this land. This is why God wanted him to buy it. And he did buy it. And Jeremiah could have said, You know, I think I want to save my money. I think I'll just put my money in this jar and bury it outside. He did a very practical thing and he did something that was based on hope. Hope. This is a story, really, of hope.

And he goes on. The rest of this is a very interesting chapter to read. I recommend you read it over the next few days. He prayed for understanding from God. What does this mean? Why did you want me to do this? And what are you taking? What's going on here? This was a sign to Jeremiah written down for us of God and his promise that the people would return. As he said in verse 15, there will be fields and vineyards possessed again in this land. This is when everything was crashing around. And there was a promise from God. Verse 26, God gives an answer to Jeremiah of what was going to take place. He talks about the problems of the nation, the people, idolatry, rebellion, and the fact that it was a stench in his nostrils and all. And that they were going to be taken into captivity at the hand of the Babylonians in verse 36. He says, It shall be delivered to the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword of the famine and by the pestilence. Behold, then, I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in my anger, in my fury, in great wrath, and I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me. I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and all my soul. For thus says the Lord, just as I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.

When God begins to set his hand to chasten and to correct, it is always with a positive result in mind. And that's what we have to remember, even at this time and for whatever time in the future. This is truly an epical period of change that we are living through. And how it all will sort out and what it will mean one year, two years, five years from now, I don't know.

I am not a prophet, I am not a prognosticator, I am not an economist. Again, as I said, if I knew the right investments to make next week, maybe I'd come out ahead. But that's not my...as I said at the beginning, our view on all of this is not that of an economist or historian, it is that from Bible prophecy. And what God says he is doing today, and he will do.

Jeremiah made an investment in hope. Hope that was based on his conviction that God would complete the work that he'd begun with Israel, with Judah, even when all appearances at his time showed that he won't do it. That's what hope is. Hope is our conviction that God will do what he said even when it doesn't look like it. We cannot point to any single thing going on in our life that we can say is God working with us or God's blessing. When all things look negative, hope is a conviction that God is going to make it right and God is going to turn around. When God begins to intervene, hope is buying into what we believe.

This is what Jeremiah did. He bought into what he believed and looked for. It is the only action. Hope is. Hope is the only action that can escape the chaos of the moment.

So I guess my message to us here to wrap this up is let's keep hope. Let's don't lose hope.

Not so much in the stock market, not so much in the financial decisions made by finance ministers, treasury secretaries, and leaders. Let's be prudent. Let's be very wise in our own stewardship of what we do have.

But above all, this is the time for the people of God to have a positive hope in the promises of God and understand what it all means. This is what makes it a positive story and a positive hope and not a message of gloom and doom. When we properly apply it and understand why we have the blessings that we do, what that means, what are the obligations, how God is working with us, and how He's going to work with us in the future. When God does begin to set His hand to intervene along the fault lines of biblical prophecy, rather than that will be a major step closer to the time of the kingdom of God, the very time to which we are all heading out here in a few hours to get a foretaste about as we keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

That's what any of these prophetic events mean when they begin to row. So, let's be wise as serpents. Let's not just throw away and ignore what the Bible prophecies tell us. Let's use that as indeed what they are. Points of understanding of God, His plan, this world, our history, what's taking place today, and what God is going to do in the world to come. That's how we place it all. That's why I write the way that I do, and we in the church write and have the approach that we do. And it's all based on hope, the hope of God's Word, the hope and the sure hope of God's promises here.

So, that's something for us to think about as we head off to the Feast of Tabernacles. Let's enjoy the feast and our time, and let's keep watching at the same time.