BLOG

The Financial Crisis and God's Solution

Remember all of those people, including government economic advisors and the president himself, who assured us two years ago that the recession was over and that things have turned around?

I know of people who believed them and who made plans accordingly. I suspect that they regret it now. But their faith in the "experts" did indeed pump some money into the economy and make it "less bad." So we can thank them for sacrificing their personal futures for the good of the country. Any time someone spends more money, it is good for the economy in general, even if it sacrifices the individuals who do it.

It is often argued that we have been through past recessions and always came out of it at some point. While that is true, this current recession is the first GLOBAL recession. The world's economies have been linked together by this world-wide Babylonian system. When one falls, they all fall.

Iceland and Ireland collapsed financially, but they were relatively small economies. Greece was next, and they had to be bailed out twice (so far). At the second bailout, it was stated that they would not be able to bail out any other country. Yet Spain and Italy were in serious trouble as well, and people began dumping their bonds. No one would buy their bonds except at high interest rates (6.3%). So a few days ago the European Central Bank announced that it would buy their bonds to stabilize the bond market. Note that this is technically not a "bailout," but merely a bond purchase.

As bad as it is here in America, it is much worse in Europe right now. In fact, since 2007 the problem has shifted back and forth between America and Europe at least twice. It started here, then went there, then back again, and now it is back to Europe. We seem to be competing for the title of the worst problem.

Meanwhile, the price of gold and silver continue to rise with each crisis as more and more people lose confidence in the currencies of all nations. Gold is close to $1700/oz now. Silver is currently underpriced just under $40 but is due to rise quickly within the next few months.

Last Friday night, after the stock market closed here, Standard and Poor's announced that America's credit rating was being dropped from AAA to AA+. This caused a seismic reaction world-wide, and stock markets tumbled on Sunday. Today when the market opened in New York, the market immediately dropped a few hundred points on top of the 1400-point drop in the past ten days.

The Israeli stock market had to be shut down because of the panic. It dropped 7% yesterday.

The talk now is about "double-dip recession." In between the two recessions, the government provided stimulus packages, which prevented one long, continuous recession. It started in 2007 with the subprime mortgage crisis, followed by the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. These collapses froze most bank lending, which prevented the economy from receiving fresh supplies of new money (debt).

Keep in mind that the only way to put more money into the economy is to BORROW it. That's the achilles heel of our financial system, thanks to the Federal Reserve Act. When the people stopped borrowing and started paying off debt, trillions of dollars were removed from circulation, and suddenly there was a recession--a shortage of money (at least on main street).

Government then made up the difference as much as possible by increasing its borrow-and-spend policy. This slowed down the problem and even stabilized it at the same "bad" level. But then came the reaction, and the pendulum swung to the other side. Government spending and debt is evil. Austerity is good.

So now what? As people make payments on their debt, money is removed from circulation, and not even government is allowed to replace it with stimulus programs. The result? Greater recession and less money for the economy to function smoothly.

Everyone seems to know that the problem is TOO MUCH DEBT. But what is the solution? The Democrat solution is to raise taxes to reduce government debt. The Republican solution is for the government to stop borrowing and spending money. The real solution (for starters) is to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, give the power to create money back to the Treasury Department where it belongs, then cancel all bonds held by the Federal Reserve, and begin issuing debt-free US Notes. [We may also have to reclaim the Treasury Department, which I suspect was foreclosed upon in 1933 and taken over by the owners of the Fed. But since they foreclosed in secret, their supposed ownership could simply be ignored as unenforceable.]

Until we do this, our debt problem will not be resolved. Neither stimulus nor austerity will resolve this problem. We cannot save the system as it exists. It must be replaced with a non-usury based system as God mandated in His Law.

Two days ago (Aug. 6), Texas governor Perry conducted a Day of Prayer for rain in Houston. I watched part of it and heard a prayer that God would show us where we have sinned. In Lev. 26:19 God says that if we persist in sin ("transgression of the law," 1 John 3:4), "I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze." In other words, He will withhold the rain.

Our big problem is that either we do not believe Lev. 26:19 or we do not understand what sin is. Insofar as the economy is concerned, the root sin in America and the world is USURY. See Exodus 22:25,

²⁵ If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest.

This is confirmed in Lev. 25:36, 37 and Deut. 23:19, 20. This law seems preposterous to the world--and even to Christians today. We have been Babylonianized in our thinking. It was the same with the Judahites while they were in Babylon thousands of years ago. That is where they learned the sin of usury, and they caused a huge problem recorded in Nehemiah 5. It says,

¹ Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers... ⁶ Then I [Nehemiah] was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. ⁷ And I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers and said to them, "You are exacting usury, each from his brother!" Therefore, I held a great assembly against them.

Nehemiah put a stop to the practice of usury.

Prophetically speaking, we have arrived at the same point in time. Though God is setting us free to "return" and rebuild the Kingdom of God, we have still not shaken loose the Babylonian ways of running the economy. We have left Babylon, but we took its business practices with us and have tried to apply them in the Kingdom of God. It will not work.

Read Nehemiah 5, because this is the key prophetic story that applies to us today. Babylon has been falling since the end of our Jubilee Prayer Campaign (Oct. 7, 2006). But many Christians still do not know how to establish the Kingdom upon the laws of God. Even if we should have great revivals and fill the stadiums with praise and worship, it would not teach people the ways of God, nor would it show people what sin is. If we had great healing ministries, it would break the sorcery of Big Pharma, but it would not give us a non-usury banking system.

I want "revival" as much as anyone, but if this is not followed by obedience and conformity to the mind of God, we will continue as Christians in captivity to Mystery Babylon. More evangelism only gives Babylon more Christians to rule over. We need Christians who are schooled in the ways of God, having the skills to build and lead the Kingdom of God.