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Month: November 2021

How Do We React To God’s Calamitous Judgment ?

The book of Habakkuk gave us the answer.   Habakkuk complained twice and the Lord answered him twice.  He complained initially on why God had allowed sin to be so rampant in Judah and did not act.  Later when God answered him that he would judge very soon and he complained again on why God would send the Chaldeans, a god-less people who was the epitome of all who opposed Him, to deliver the judgment of Judah.  God answered again that He would also judge the Chaldeans.

Despite all these judgments, God assured Habakkuk that the just would be justified and preserved by faith; and that He will be in complete control.

When Habakkuk caught a glimpse of God’s holiness,  his subsequent godly responses gave us a paradigm on how believers should respond when bad things happen to them.

An article by Irv Busenitz summarized the response well.

  1. Relate the matter to God.
  2. Recognize our own weakness.
  3. Review the greatness of God.
  4. Reaffirm our faith in God.
  5. Rest in the strength of God.

Habakkuk’s prayer in Hab 3 is the most appropriate response towards calamitous judgment such as the current pandemic.  One striking part of the prayer is that Habakkuk would still rejoice even if severe famine hit.

“I have heard all about you, Lord. I am filled with awe by your amazing works. In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy… PESTILENCE marches before him; PLAGUE follows close behind. When he stops, the earth shakes. When he looks, the nations tremble. He shatters the everlasting mountains and levels the eternal hills. He is the Eternal One!.. You marched across the land in anger and trampled the nations in your fury. You went out to rescue your chosen people, to save your anointed ones. You crushed the heads of the wicked and stripped their bones from head to toe.  Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!  I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights.”

The Rev 18 Judgment Of Babylon

How will our Lord judge Babylon by destroying all wealth in one hour as revealed in Rev 18:17 ?

I am convinced that Babylon is America and is represented by New York City.  It is the haunt of every unclean bird, animal and spirit.  Many nations grow rich because of her.  She leads the global alliance of governments (kings of the earth), global companies and all small and medium enterprises in the global supply chain (merchants) and the global shipping lines and ports cum financial centers (those who make their living by the sea) engaged in globalized trade.  Rev 18.  When God judges Babylon, these three groups allied with her will weep as described in Rev 18.

Since the 2008 Great Recession,  the major economies have intervened so much in the financial system and caused so much imbalance which I believe the damage is irreversible. 

The current lockdown in many nations as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic has disrupted the supply chain badly and the energy crisis is compounding the problem further.  Prior to the pandemic, the US was already staring at the collapse of the financial system and had to do QE to the tune of trillions of dollars.  The pandemic induced economic slowdown was the good excuse to do so because the other major economies would also face similar economic slowdown and would have done the same, and the dollar would be relatively unscathed. 

In 2020, the income of 50% of all American workers was USD 34,612 or less.  While the elites and their corporations are amassing so much wealth through manipulation of the financial system with all kinds of tools such as QE, repo, reverse repo, bond purchases and backstopping of all bonds.  The poor and rich divide could not have been greater at all times.  The current supply chain disruption and the energy crisis will cause the relative poor further pain through high inflation.  The financial collapse will happen sooner or later and chaos will erupt.  The elites have the most to lose if it happens.  So it is better for the elites to be prepared now through using political, financial and military tools to prevent the collapse and to control the relative dissenting poor.  We are actually seeing such preparation as the US and her allies continue to make use of digitization technologies to control the supply chain and pass discriminatory laws to exert total control over the population in the name of protecting public health.  (In contrast, China invests in the physical production of every link in the supply chain of products and energy.)

Charles Hugh Smith in his blog explained that the current exponential bull market run is caused by the Fed incentivizing the biggest gamblers that they will be bailed out, should they somehow lose, by offering them unlimited lines of credit and eliminate transparency in market pricing to mask their losses. This implicit guarantee that any bet on markets lofting higher will be a winning gamble rewards those making the riskiest bets. All the risks piling up as trillions of dollars are leveraged into ever larger can’t-lose bets have not evaporated, they’ve been transferred to the financial system. So when risk exceeds the carrying capacity of the system, it will be the system which implodes, not just punters’ riskiest, most highly leveraged bets.

Since the Lord has already foretold that He will judge Babylon by destroying all wealth in Rev 18:17,  it will happen.  Governments will not be able to control trigger events like an earthquake hitting a major financial city, or solar flare disrupting all transformers, or global coordinated cyber attack, etc.  How will our Lord destroy all wealth ?  Will it be a system implosion ? Wil it be a calamitious natural disaster ? How can we weather this event and even rejoice over His judgment ?  Rev 18:19.