Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation, & Authority, Volume III, 18.

“I am hoping to give special time to prayer and Bible study on the voyage [back to England from China]. Darling, I do want our whole life to be an ascending plane – not resting in anything we have learned or felt or attained, but a pressing on and up…

“May God save us from limiting the Holy One of Israel.

“We go working on, feeling our weakness and personal need, feeling the weakness and poverty of the church and the unreality or at least extreme shallowness of its consecration, feeling the power of the one united front of the world, the flesh and the devil. Do we not want more really to meditate on God, to gaze on Him, to take in what we are even now competent to take in of His greatness, His resources, his assurances, and promises? Dwelling thus on Him, should we not be enabled to grasp more of the heights and depths of His character and purposes and be more ready and able to do His will?”

Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission
Volume II,394-395

J. Hudson Taylor, in a letter to a member of the China Inland Mission, 1879

Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, Volume II, 267

The two great powers in their waning years share a number o characteristics: Wealth, luxury, wantonness; a populace addicted to violent entertainment and government subsidies; arrogance; imperial over-extension; heavy-handed government regulation; the debasement of the currency; high taxation; mental and spiritual exhaustion – and much more.

Recently, however, some have dared to compare America with Babylon, that ancient city-empire which crushed the kingdom of Judah and was later destroyed by the Medes and the Persians.

In the Book of the Revelation, the apostle John seems to join Rome and Babylon in a combined image of dissolute despotism. The great whore pollutes the entire globe with her impurities, serenely confident that she is the world’s only superpower, safe and secure in her haughty position.
“On her forehead a name was written: Mystery. Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and of the Abominations of the Earth.”

Then, almost without warning, we hear “a loud voice, saying, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, fallen…’”

The terrifying wonder of this collapse centers upon its suddenness: “Therefore her plagues will come in one day.”

Seeing the awful catastrophe, the kings and merchants of the earth cry out, “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that might city! For in one hour your judgment has come.”

Europe totters on the brink of an economic abyss. American government bonds have been downgraded in a once-unthinkable demotion. Dozens of states face bankruptcy. Massive cuts in military spending have been announced. Commenting upon the 500-point decline in the stock market last week, one analyst said that he was “surprised” by the “velocity and scale” of the sell-off.

Is it possible that many will be unprepared for the “velocity and scale” of the fall of the West and of its erstwhile mighty leader?

We praise you, O God; we acknowledge you to be the Lord.

All the earth worships you, the Father everlasting.

To you all angels cry aloud; the heavens, and all the powers therein;

To you Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;[1]

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of your glory.

The glorious company of the Apostles praise you.

The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise you.

The noble army of martyrs praise you.

The holy Church throughout all the world acknowledges you:

The Father, of an infinite majesty;

Your adorable, true, and only Son;

Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.[2]

You are the King of glory, O Christ.

You are the everlasting Son of the Father.

When you took it upon yourself to deliver man, you humbled yourself to be born of a virgin.

When you had overcome the sharpness of death, you opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.

You sit at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

We believe that you will come to be our Judge.

We therefore beseech you, help your servants, whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with your saints, in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save your people, and bless your inheritance.

Govern them, and lift them up forever.

Day by day we magnify you;

And we worship your Name ever, world without end.

Be pleased, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy jupon us.

O Lord, let your mercy be upon us, as our trust is in you.

O Lord, in you have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

Te Deum Laudamus (“We praise you, O God”), adapted from the Book of Common Prayer, 1928 edition.

This was my favorite praise song when I was a boy.

The one thing we need is to know God better… If we know Him, then we rejoice in what He gives not because we like it, if pleasing, not because we think it will work good, if trying, but because it is His gift, His ordering; and the like in what He withholds or takes away. Oh, to know Him! Well might Paul, who had caught a glimpse of His glory, count ‘all th ings’ as dung and dross compared with this most precious knowledge! This makes the weak  strong, the poor rich, the empty full; this makes suffering happiness, and turns tears into diamonds as the sunshine turns dew into pearls. This makes us fearless, invincible.

If we know God, then when full of joy we can thank our heavenly Father, the Giver of all; when we feel no joy we can thank Him for that, for it is our Father’s ordering. When we are with those we love, we can thank Him; when we yearn for those we love, we can thank Him… Oh, to know Him! How good, how great, how glorious – our God anf Father, our God and Savior, our God and Sanctifier – to know Him!

Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, Volume Two, page 202.

Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown, by David Wiedemer, Robert A. Wiedemer, and Cindy Spitzer.

Lavishly praised by world-class experts, this hard-hitting book predicts that the financial crisis of the past few years will turn into an even greater, even total, financial meltdown.

Briefly: The authors explain that our economy is a multi-bubble economy, in which “six co-linked bubbles have been growing bigger and bigger, each working to lift the others, all booming and supporting the U.S. economy”: The real estate bubble; the stock market bubble; the private debt bubble; the discretionary spending bubble; the dollar bubble; the government debt bubble.

Part I describes the coming economic and financial tsunami.

“The first four of these bubbles began to burst in the Bubblequake that rocked the U.S. and world economies in late 2008 and 2009. Next, while most people think the worst is over, the coming Aftershock will bring down all six bubbles in the next two to four years,” totally changing the economic face of the U.S. and of the world.
Houses are still over-priced, and values must fall dramatically. The stock market is over-priced, fueled by money created by other bubbles and by the Fed. Assuming a constantly-growing economy, consumers and corporations took out loans they thought would be covered by ever-rising asset prices, which have since fallen, creating a private debt bubble.

Private spending accounts for 70% of the nation’s economy, but the collapse of the private debt bubble further restricts money available for non-discretionary purchases. Meanwhile, the US dollar rose in apparent value because of “rising demand for dollars to make investments in our bubbles.” Now the falling bubbles will eventually create falling-value dollars.”

Worst of all, “the whopping U.S. government debt bubble is currently the biggest, baddest, scariest bubble of all.” Eventually, the foreign buyers who have supported this bubble will no longer buy, and the withdrawal of their funds will being the whole house of cards tumbling down.

Just as the rest of the world profited from the U.S. bubble economy, so will it be devastated when all the bubbles burst. This will set off a world-wide “Bubblequake” that will wipe out trillions of dollars around the globe and deal a heavy blow to the economies of Europe, Russia, India, China, and the Asian “tigers” which have grown along with the U.S.

Foreign investors are discovering that the U.S. is a poor risk, with low returns; already, they have begun diverting funds elsewhere. When this trickle becomes a flood – which the authors predicted would happen sometime in 2011 or 2012 – we shall see a “triple double-digit”: Double-digit unemployment; double-digit inflation; double-digit interest rates. As I write this, we already have the first; the second may be upon us, if we factor in food and fuel; and the last is almost inevitable, as the PIIGs are beginning to discover.

For a variety of reasons, inflation will run wild, and the dollar will lose most of its value.

“Politically and socially, it’s bound to be a difficult time.”

Surprisingly, however, the authors predict that “the U.S. will suffer the least,” followed by Western Europe; Japan and Eastern Europe; then, China, India, and Brazil. Most of all, of course, “the poorest, most underdeveloped countries in Africa and elsewhere will do quite badly indeed.”

“None will suffer the pain of crushed expectations more than China,” as its exports to the U.S. and Europe dry up; its U.S. dollar holdings evaporate in value; its own bubble-economy will burst “with devastating force”; and “massive unemployment… and inflation” will occur “as the government is forced to print more money.” “All of these difficulties will create a populace that is much more supportive of political change in China.”

Likewise, the countries of the Middle East will be devastated, “and like China, the global mega-depression will likely accelerate political turmoil.”

Part II of the book offers helpful advice on how to avoid the dangers of the coming “Bubblequake” and even profit from it. Much of their suggestions seem quite sound, though of course no one really knows.

They see continuing job openings in “the necessities sector”: Health care, education, food, basic clothing, transportation, government services, and utilities, for example.

Part III offers “A New View of the Economy”

Using what they term a STEP (science, technology, economics, politics) evolution model, they predict a paperless financial system and a “single international currency.”

One of their more intriguing calls is for a U.S. government that cannot borrow money, and thus must make “massive and spending cuts,” which will be “coupled with big increases in taxes.” (Try telling that to the Democrats and Republicans in Washington!). Jobs will be scarce; loans will be hard for businesses to get; the economy will become “a little bit chaotic for a while.”

Eventually, foreign investors will find the U.S. attractive again, but not before “the difficult economy” creates “social unrest, but not chaos.” “Life will be much better than in the Great Depression, but it will feel much worse,” because our unrealistic expectations will be so utterly crushed.

Finally, the U.S. will become more productive, but we shall first have to “say goodbye to the age of excess.”

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was the authors’ constant reminder that they predicted much of this in 2006, as if they were the only ones. They fail to point out that many others, notably the people at Marin Weiss’ Safe Money Report, saw the same troubles coming.

Generally, however, I found Aftershock to be quite illuminating and persuasive, though not fully. The authors have far more hope than I do that the outcome of all this will be a healthier, happier society. What if social turmoil becomes chaos, followed by the imposition of martial law? If history is any clue, economic depression will spawn riots, revolutions, and wars. The U.S. already cannot keep the peace around the world (if it ever should have tried to do so); who will replace it? The U.N.? China? Russia? Iran?

It seems as if the party is almost over.

G. Wright Doyle

Comparing the Past with the Present

Before,I magnified myself; now, I hide in Christ.
Before, I craved man’s praise; now I crave to please Him.
Before, I worked for results; now I want God’s will to be done.
Before, I preached in my wisdom; now I depend on the Holy Spirit’s power.

Before, I loved to talk about the affairs of the world; now, I love to meditate silently on Him;
Before, I delighted in human friendship; now I delight in spiritual fellowship.
Before, I sang to please my ears; now I sing out of my love for Him;
Before, I prayed with my feelings; now, I rely on faith to win the victory.

Before, I liked to judge people; now, I examine myself in the Lord.
Before, I reveled in busyness; now I learn to wait patiently.
Before, I examined the Bible for interesting tidbits; now, I enjoy the Spirit’s illumination.
Before, I wrote using my experiences; now I depend on the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

From The Diaries of John Sung: An Autobiography, translated by Stephen L. Sheng.

When we run into difficulties, we need to remember that the real foe is not a person, pain, or predicament we are currently facing, but the evil spiritual armies which seek to oppose God and his work in this world. They are doomed, of course (“One little word shall fell him”) but they can inflict considerable damage on their way to inevitable defeat.

I am trying to remind myself of these truths this morning.

My knees are bothering me again, which means that I probably can’t go out to see some people I thought I needed to visit.

The cursor on my lovely little mini computer keeps hopping around, forcing me to rein it back in and return to the place it should be. Things also get deleted or enlarged without my written permission.

Lack of sufficient sleep has dulled my mind and drained energy.

Dori is several hundred miles away in another city, partly immobilized with a broken wrist and (as of yesterday) a mild cold. She is with loving friends, however.

Someone quite close to me is in a relationship that could become extremely painful, but thinks it’s God’s will to continue on, which may indeed be true, but will require extraordinary faith in God.

Despite having done quite a lot of reading on Ephesians in recent months, and having taught on it several times before, I don’t feel ready to for the one-week, 30-hour seminary course that begins in Taichung next Monday.

And so forth.

As it happens, however, I have come to the final pages in a marvelous handbook to the Greek text of Ephesians, and thus to the text I quoted above.

Just when I need it, Paul reminds me that the things I listed above (and others I have not mentioned) are not really obstacles; they are  occasions for winning victories over the enemy by relying on God’s mighty power. If I will only equip myself with the weapons which he supplies, I can accomplish his will in spite of opposition.

Furthermore, the passage from the same letter on which I preached last Sunday (1:1-14) speaks eloquently of God’s manifold grace and our privilege and duty to praise him at all times, as I reminded them.

And Psalm 25, on which I am to preach this Sunday, promises guidance, forgiveness, and deliverance for those who wait upon the Lord in faith.

So, now is the time to “practice” what I  “preach,” and praise the Lord of victory and mercy, trusting in his sufficient grace to me (and others) in Jesus Christ.

At the end of his letter, however, Paul does ask the folks in Ephesus to pray for him. Could I do the same?