This past week brought reports on President Obama's effort to compile a database that has detailed information on schools, communities, financial institutions and businesses by race. The purpose of the database is to identify areas where there have been inequalities in the treatment of minorities in this country. Essentially, "the first black president has built a quasi-reparations infrastructure perpetually fed by racial data that will outlast his administration." President Obama will be able to realize his dream of spreading the wealth around even after he leaves office.
The election of President Obama was supposed to demonstrate that the United States has moved beyond racism. BHO was heralded as the great uniter of the people of this country. Instead, our president has done more than any other person to stir up racism and division. This is as Jesus told us things would be like prior to His return. He said in Matthew 24:7 that one of the birth pang signs of His soon return would be, "nation will rise against nation" (NKJV). The Greek word translated "nation" is pronounced "ethnos" so this is referring to racial conflicts. President Obama is doing his best to fulfill the prophecy Jesus gave us that there will be increasing racial conflicts as a sign of His soon return. But the mentality behind this database provides even more evidence we are close to the return of Christ...
Apparently this racial database will be used to prove discrimination in housing, employment, and schools even when there have been no complaints. It will then provide the basis to force institutions to implement racial and economic justice as defined by the database administrators. The database is already being used to make cases against: "banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds."
The database doesn't just use census data which can become outdated quickly, it collects data on individuals regarding credit history and location by zip code. If a zip code has less than 50% "non-white population," it will be considered segregated and become the focus of the social justice police. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has the task of providing everyone’s credit status sorted by race (who knew this would be part of their mission). Since we don't have to provide our race when we apply for a credit card, their data mining has to use other sources such as social media to determine a person's race.
This kind of information tracking of individuals is unprecedented. It is not what happens in a free and open society, it's what happens in a police state. The mentality to collect and use this kind of data is the spirit of Antichrist. Today it is race data, tomorrow it will be political and religious affiliation. The vision of George Orwell in 1984 of a tyrannical government tracking our every move is coming to fruition in the government of Obama.
The Bible tells us that in the time before Christ returns during the Tribulation, there will be a worldwide government that controls people to the extent that, "no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Revelation 13:17). This means that anyone who has not sworn allegiance to the government of the Great Leader will not be allowed to participate in the economy. They will be ostracized from society. Tyrants can not tolerate any opposition and anyone who has not pledged their support will be punished.
We are seeing the beginning of this spirit of Antichrist in the government of President Obama. What we are seeing today in BHO foreshadows what is to come under the Antichrist during the Tribulation. The spiritually discerning have been able to see this for some time and for those who are watching, the pace of developments revealing a spirit of Antichrist is increasing.
Most people in this country are in denial that tyranny could happen here... they think God has blessed us so much and our government has too many checks-and-balances for a totalitarian ruler to emerge. But we have recently seen our constitutional rule of law yield to the whims of an oligarchy in recent Supreme Court rulings. And we have seen Congress yield their authority to the President because they are effectively of one mind. This is exactly how the Antichrist comes to power, see Revelation 17:13.
The Bible makes it clear that worldwide tyranny will happen prior to Jesus returning so the United States will not be immune to totalitarianism raising its ugly head. "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36).
Monday, July 27, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Deception
There were multiple news stories this past week that are noteworthy from a prophetic perspective. The common thread tying them all together is the growing sense that things are not what they seem to be. The ruling elite wants us to just accept the narrative being trumpeted by the mainstream media at face value. They don't want us to question the story we're told and marginalize any who do as radical conspiracy theorists. The amazing thing is that the propaganda is effective, most people just accept the official party line as-is not wanting to believe that their trusted institutions could be so brazenly deceptive.
We apparently now have a deal with Iran that will lift the economic sanctions on them in return for their promise not to build a nuclear weapon any time soon. It remains to be seen if Congress can do anything to stop this agreement from being implemented. Once upon a time in this country when we were governed by constitutional rule of law, the U.S. Senate had to ratify any treaty negotiated by the President. Well things are changing rapidly with the trend of representative bodies like Congress yielding their power to a more centralized authority, like the President. This foreshadows the spirit of the Antichrist where, "these are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast" (Revelation 17:13).
PREDICTION: So given this trend and the times we are in where all power is being centralized, it is likely Congress will be impotent in stopping the Iran deal. [Note: this will be a new feature of this blog to make predictions based on the trend and what the Bible says of the times preceding the return of Christ... Predicting the path of this world is getting easier all the time.]
The official narrative of the Iran deal is that it makes peace in the Mideast more likely. President Obama is still trying to earn his Nobel Peace Prize. The peace rationale of the President and his fellow humanists must be that the Iran deal makes it harder for Israel to attack Iran in order to thwart their nuclear weapon development because such an action now goes against the international will. This is as if throttling Israel is all that is needed to prevent war in the Mideast. What naive, irrational thinking. In reality, this Iran deal will ignite a nuclear arms race in the Mideast with Saudi Arabia certain to nuke-up while it empowers Iran as the world's foremost sponsor of state terrorism to fund more conflicts. Both factors make war in the Mideast much more likely and represents a security threat to Israel. Indeed, Jesus said one of the signs of His soon return would be an increase in "wars and rumors of wars" (Matthew 24:6, NKJV). By the way, there will be national repercussions for actions that threaten Israel's security, "for he who touches you [Israel] touches the apple of God's eye" (Zechariah 2:8).
Another noteworthy development in the news was the terrorist attack on the U.S. military reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee where four Marines and a Navy petty officer were gunned down. Our government spokespeople and mainstream media pundits are all advancing the story that the terrorist was acting alone and was not directed to perpetrate his murderous attack by any Islamic organization. While this is probably technically true, it totally ignores the bigger picture that the Muslim religion inspires most of the terrorism in the world. The idea that this most resent domestic terrorist was a lone wolf is a derivative of the more general narrative that Islam is a religion of peace. Most independently thinking people who are not duped by the propaganda of the ruling elite know better. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, "you will know them by their fruits..." the fruit of Islam is oppression and death.
And then we have the story about how Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider is effectively selling baby organs which is both illegal and immoral. While this story went viral on social media, it was initially ignored by the mainstream media. They eventually had to start reporting on it in order to do damage control on behalf of Planned Parenthood. It is obvious to all but those caught-up in the humanist world view that stories which don't advance their agenda just don't get reported. So those who trust the mainstream media to tell them everything they need to know are willfully blind to what is really going on.
It shouldn't be a great surprise to us that abortion proponents who have no respect for human life in the womb so cavalierly regard baby body parts resulting from their operations as commodities to enhance their revenue. You'd think that there will be criminal ramifications from these revelations and there may be some token Planned Parenthood representatives going to prison but don't expect this to make any changes to their operations. The "right" of a woman to kill her unborn child is too ingrained in our corrupt culture to reverse. It will take the Lord pouring out His wrath on our nation to change the direction of our culture. The Lord did warn us on 9/11/2001 and this nation appeared to turn back to Him for a couple of weeks then it was back to the path away from Him that we have been on for some time. For those who work to advance our abortion culture, "it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones" (Luke 17:2).
The time-frame of Christ's return will be characterized by deception. "Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13). Our ruling elite and their mainstream media sycophants represent themselves as though they are acting in our best interests when in reality they are faithful to an ideology that hates their Creator and seeks to harm Him by oppressing His people. They lie to advance their agenda because in their mind, the end justifies the means. So we can expect more deception from the high priests of humanism. This is just one more thing that has us followers of Christ looking forward to His return. Come soon Lord Jesus, this corrupt world sorely needs Your intervention.
We apparently now have a deal with Iran that will lift the economic sanctions on them in return for their promise not to build a nuclear weapon any time soon. It remains to be seen if Congress can do anything to stop this agreement from being implemented. Once upon a time in this country when we were governed by constitutional rule of law, the U.S. Senate had to ratify any treaty negotiated by the President. Well things are changing rapidly with the trend of representative bodies like Congress yielding their power to a more centralized authority, like the President. This foreshadows the spirit of the Antichrist where, "these are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast" (Revelation 17:13).
PREDICTION: So given this trend and the times we are in where all power is being centralized, it is likely Congress will be impotent in stopping the Iran deal. [Note: this will be a new feature of this blog to make predictions based on the trend and what the Bible says of the times preceding the return of Christ... Predicting the path of this world is getting easier all the time.]
The official narrative of the Iran deal is that it makes peace in the Mideast more likely. President Obama is still trying to earn his Nobel Peace Prize. The peace rationale of the President and his fellow humanists must be that the Iran deal makes it harder for Israel to attack Iran in order to thwart their nuclear weapon development because such an action now goes against the international will. This is as if throttling Israel is all that is needed to prevent war in the Mideast. What naive, irrational thinking. In reality, this Iran deal will ignite a nuclear arms race in the Mideast with Saudi Arabia certain to nuke-up while it empowers Iran as the world's foremost sponsor of state terrorism to fund more conflicts. Both factors make war in the Mideast much more likely and represents a security threat to Israel. Indeed, Jesus said one of the signs of His soon return would be an increase in "wars and rumors of wars" (Matthew 24:6, NKJV). By the way, there will be national repercussions for actions that threaten Israel's security, "for he who touches you [Israel] touches the apple of God's eye" (Zechariah 2:8).
Another noteworthy development in the news was the terrorist attack on the U.S. military reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee where four Marines and a Navy petty officer were gunned down. Our government spokespeople and mainstream media pundits are all advancing the story that the terrorist was acting alone and was not directed to perpetrate his murderous attack by any Islamic organization. While this is probably technically true, it totally ignores the bigger picture that the Muslim religion inspires most of the terrorism in the world. The idea that this most resent domestic terrorist was a lone wolf is a derivative of the more general narrative that Islam is a religion of peace. Most independently thinking people who are not duped by the propaganda of the ruling elite know better. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, "you will know them by their fruits..." the fruit of Islam is oppression and death.
And then we have the story about how Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider is effectively selling baby organs which is both illegal and immoral. While this story went viral on social media, it was initially ignored by the mainstream media. They eventually had to start reporting on it in order to do damage control on behalf of Planned Parenthood. It is obvious to all but those caught-up in the humanist world view that stories which don't advance their agenda just don't get reported. So those who trust the mainstream media to tell them everything they need to know are willfully blind to what is really going on.
It shouldn't be a great surprise to us that abortion proponents who have no respect for human life in the womb so cavalierly regard baby body parts resulting from their operations as commodities to enhance their revenue. You'd think that there will be criminal ramifications from these revelations and there may be some token Planned Parenthood representatives going to prison but don't expect this to make any changes to their operations. The "right" of a woman to kill her unborn child is too ingrained in our corrupt culture to reverse. It will take the Lord pouring out His wrath on our nation to change the direction of our culture. The Lord did warn us on 9/11/2001 and this nation appeared to turn back to Him for a couple of weeks then it was back to the path away from Him that we have been on for some time. For those who work to advance our abortion culture, "it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones" (Luke 17:2).
The time-frame of Christ's return will be characterized by deception. "Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13). Our ruling elite and their mainstream media sycophants represent themselves as though they are acting in our best interests when in reality they are faithful to an ideology that hates their Creator and seeks to harm Him by oppressing His people. They lie to advance their agenda because in their mind, the end justifies the means. So we can expect more deception from the high priests of humanism. This is just one more thing that has us followers of Christ looking forward to His return. Come soon Lord Jesus, this corrupt world sorely needs Your intervention.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Greece
The economic situation is Greece is being watched closely by people in the financial markets because it has the potential to trigger a much broader crash than what is happening there. Now that the Greek people have voted against implementing the austerity demanded by their European Union creditors, it remains to be seen if Greece will exit the EU or not. We have learned today that the EU has agreed to another bail-out of Greece in return for some scaled-back austerity in an effort to reboot their economy. This will only delay the inevitable since people still don't trust their banks.
If Greece ends up exiting the EU, they will have to stop using the Euro for their currency and will probably start using the drachma again. This means that depositors who currently are not able to get their Euros out of their banks will have their Euros converted to drachmas. They'll find the purchasing power of their drachmas to be less than what they thought they had in Euros.
What is more likely as demonstrated by the latest EU bail-out band-aid is that the EU stake holders will come up with some plan to enable Greece to stay in the EU. The EU experiment of "unity in diversity" can not be allowed to fail. Indeed, the global ruling elite look to the EU model of national collaboration as what they want to expand worldwide. Since austerity has been taken off the table for Greece, it is highly likely that the Greek banks will be required to impose a bail-in on their depositors giving them a 30% haircut. The impact on depositors will be the same as exiting the EU but unity will be preserved and Greece will not have to start printing drachmas.
We know that the EU ruling elite love the bail-in solution to government debt problems because it has already been done in Cyprus and they are forcing all European nations to adopt bail-in legislation. As a matter of fact they are doing this with some urgency requiring their member states to have such legislation on their books by early August or face legal action. It looks as though they think they might have to use it as early as September. This either means there is some economic event planned by the ruling elite which sounds awfully conspiratorial or that even secular authorities know about the economic pattern of the Shemitah.
One way we know that we are close to the return of Christ is the growing spirit of Antichrist as God removes His restraint of evil in the world. The wealth-destroying bail-ins that we'll be seeing in Europe is just one more example of the spirit of Antichrist who, "shall destroy many in their prosperity" (Daniel 8:25). When people don't trust in God for their well being they have to trust in something and this usually ends up being human government. We will see the spectacular failure of human government during the coming Tribulation.
Greece has gotten into debt troubles because of their government's love for expensive social programs coupled with their citizen's proclivity for tax evasion and fraud. One of the Greek islands has almost 500 people fraudulently getting benefits for being blind. This is why the Greek people have consistently voted down any suggestion of tightening their government spending, too many people are making a good living on the dole.
Government overspending eventually has consequences as seen by what the Greek people are going through today. Their government debt is 353% of GDP. That sounds bad but the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is even higher at 370%. One reason why the EU is anticipating more bail-ins is that other European nations are almost as bad or worse. Germany, who is supposed to have it's financial act together has debt at 302% of GDP, Britain is at 546% and Ireland is more than 1,000%.
All the debt we see among the nations of the world sets the stage for the economic system of the Antichrist when total control over everyone in the world will be imposed, "no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Revelation 13:17, NKJV). For people to embrace this draconian level of control, some great economic crisis has to happen. And this financial disaster may be triggered by some other significant event like a major war or a natural disaster.
Christians watching for Jesus to return hope the Rapture of the Church protects us from the coming economic new world order. Indeed, the Rapture may well be the event that triggers it. When millions of people instantly vanish from earth there will be great confusion, uncertainty and panic among those who remain. This will be the opening Satan is looking for to raise up his man with a plan. People will embrace the Antichrist and his solution for economic world order because there will be no alternative that they can see. The mark of the beast will require them to swear allegiance to the world ruler and most will happily do this so they can buy groceries. Those who don't will be regarded as enemies of the state. The economy of the Antichrist will not be much fun and will fail spectacularly as described in Revelation 18.
While economic cycles come and go, there is a growing expectation that the next one will be significant. We already have a worldwide economy so a global solution will be required to fix it when it crashes. When you look at all the debt and other measures for the health of the economy, it is amazing that our house of cards has not yet fallen. It is God who holds the economy together and allows it to fail in His timing to serve His purpose. For those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior, this is all good. "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
The best way to prepare for the coming world economic calamity is to have Jesus in your life. Do not think you can put off this most important preparation for what is coming.
If Greece ends up exiting the EU, they will have to stop using the Euro for their currency and will probably start using the drachma again. This means that depositors who currently are not able to get their Euros out of their banks will have their Euros converted to drachmas. They'll find the purchasing power of their drachmas to be less than what they thought they had in Euros.
What is more likely as demonstrated by the latest EU bail-out band-aid is that the EU stake holders will come up with some plan to enable Greece to stay in the EU. The EU experiment of "unity in diversity" can not be allowed to fail. Indeed, the global ruling elite look to the EU model of national collaboration as what they want to expand worldwide. Since austerity has been taken off the table for Greece, it is highly likely that the Greek banks will be required to impose a bail-in on their depositors giving them a 30% haircut. The impact on depositors will be the same as exiting the EU but unity will be preserved and Greece will not have to start printing drachmas.
We know that the EU ruling elite love the bail-in solution to government debt problems because it has already been done in Cyprus and they are forcing all European nations to adopt bail-in legislation. As a matter of fact they are doing this with some urgency requiring their member states to have such legislation on their books by early August or face legal action. It looks as though they think they might have to use it as early as September. This either means there is some economic event planned by the ruling elite which sounds awfully conspiratorial or that even secular authorities know about the economic pattern of the Shemitah.
One way we know that we are close to the return of Christ is the growing spirit of Antichrist as God removes His restraint of evil in the world. The wealth-destroying bail-ins that we'll be seeing in Europe is just one more example of the spirit of Antichrist who, "shall destroy many in their prosperity" (Daniel 8:25). When people don't trust in God for their well being they have to trust in something and this usually ends up being human government. We will see the spectacular failure of human government during the coming Tribulation.
Greece has gotten into debt troubles because of their government's love for expensive social programs coupled with their citizen's proclivity for tax evasion and fraud. One of the Greek islands has almost 500 people fraudulently getting benefits for being blind. This is why the Greek people have consistently voted down any suggestion of tightening their government spending, too many people are making a good living on the dole.
Government overspending eventually has consequences as seen by what the Greek people are going through today. Their government debt is 353% of GDP. That sounds bad but the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is even higher at 370%. One reason why the EU is anticipating more bail-ins is that other European nations are almost as bad or worse. Germany, who is supposed to have it's financial act together has debt at 302% of GDP, Britain is at 546% and Ireland is more than 1,000%.
All the debt we see among the nations of the world sets the stage for the economic system of the Antichrist when total control over everyone in the world will be imposed, "no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Revelation 13:17, NKJV). For people to embrace this draconian level of control, some great economic crisis has to happen. And this financial disaster may be triggered by some other significant event like a major war or a natural disaster.
Christians watching for Jesus to return hope the Rapture of the Church protects us from the coming economic new world order. Indeed, the Rapture may well be the event that triggers it. When millions of people instantly vanish from earth there will be great confusion, uncertainty and panic among those who remain. This will be the opening Satan is looking for to raise up his man with a plan. People will embrace the Antichrist and his solution for economic world order because there will be no alternative that they can see. The mark of the beast will require them to swear allegiance to the world ruler and most will happily do this so they can buy groceries. Those who don't will be regarded as enemies of the state. The economy of the Antichrist will not be much fun and will fail spectacularly as described in Revelation 18.
While economic cycles come and go, there is a growing expectation that the next one will be significant. We already have a worldwide economy so a global solution will be required to fix it when it crashes. When you look at all the debt and other measures for the health of the economy, it is amazing that our house of cards has not yet fallen. It is God who holds the economy together and allows it to fail in His timing to serve His purpose. For those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior, this is all good. "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
The best way to prepare for the coming world economic calamity is to have Jesus in your life. Do not think you can put off this most important preparation for what is coming.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Yielding Sovereignty
While we have been distracted by gay marriage becoming the law of the land, most of us have not given much thought to the massive yielding of national sovereignty represented by Trans Pacific Partnership. The U.S. Congress has given President Obama "Fast Track" authority to negotiate a trade agreement with the nations involved in the TPP. What is curious about how this came to be is that it took congressional Republicans to pass the laws giving President Obama the power to agree on a new trade treaty without the need for Congress to approve.
Another curiosity about the legislation related to the TPP is the secrecy that has surrounded it. Just as with Obama Care, it looks like the TPP legislation has to be passed before the public will be permitted to learn what it will do to us. Of course most people don't really care assuming that our government will only act in the best interest of its citizens. However, most realize at this point that Obama Care has not lived up to the promises of its promoters so we should expect Obama Trade to likewise be harmful. What other possible reason could there be for the intense secrecy?
On the surface, it would appear as though congressional Republicans supported TPP to facilitate more free trade which is good for all, right? But we are learning in dribs and drabs what is driving it and, as with Obama Care, it appears as though crony capitalism is at play here where major multi-national corporations are pushing for TPP to happen. True-free trade would accommodate the participation of any size company but huge corporations lobby for regulations as barriers to keep their smaller yet usually more innovative and nimble competitors from participating in the market.
The trend in this age is consolidation of powers and we are seeing that play out in huge corporations assimilating or crushing their competition with the help of governmental regulations they write themselves. This is not good for either the consumer or for workers. The era of too-big-to-fail companies reveals that our economy is closer to socialism than it is to true-free market capitalism. Once upon a time the government broke up monopolies but today we see the government sanctioning market oligarchies. As President Eisenhower warned about the "military-industrial complex," we should likewise beware the government-industrial complex.
While congressional Democrats are hardly immune from crony capitalism, in this case they opposed TPP fast-track legislation because their labor union constituents were obviously a bigger factor. The U.S. does not have a very good track record in preserving jobs with our trade agreements. Since labor unions are major donors to congressional Democrats, they had no choice but to oppose the TPP. It is pretty obvious to all that the TPP will cause the U.S. to lose jobs because Trade Adjustment Assistance providing benefits to U.S. workers effected by international trade was part of the TPP fast-track legislation. Apparently multi-national cooperation is more important than U.S. jobs.
It also appears as though the TPP is about more than just trade. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Congress that the TPP, "says it’s designed to promote the international movement of people, services and products; basically the same language used to start the European Union." The European Union is the classic modern model of nations giving up their national sovereignty to a multinational central authority and it involves more than just trade. It looks like the world's ruling elite are now ready to expand the EU model to other parts of the world. The fact that the European Union is not working so well as demonstrated by Greece is beside the point, progress is only seen in nations yielding their sovereignty in the interests of working together. How else will we be able to realize the peace on earth that the nations seek after?
The Bible tells us that the peace the nations manage to work out for themselves in the time-frame of the Lord's return is a false peace. "For when they say, 'Peace and safety!' then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape" (1 Thessalonians 5:3, NKJV). There will not be peace between the nations until the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ returns to rule. Human efforts to organize peace between nations apart from God will fail miserably. As Pax Romana was oppressive, Pax Romana Renatus (revived) will be even more terrible.
The Bible says that the nations of the earth will be governed by ten rulers just prior to establishing the global government of the Antichrist. "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast" (Revelation 17: 12-13, NKJV). Since Congress has given President Obama power to be an active participant in the TPP, he is no-doubt a candidate to lead it. Given the phase of history we are in, it is likely that President Obama will be one of the ten kings of Revelation 17.
Even though it seems like every day the news has yet another disturbing development, Christians can draw strength from the certain knowledge that our Lord will come for His Bride before the consequences of mankind's rebellion fully metastasizes. In the meantime, we see people every day who have not experienced the love of Christ in their lives. We should be fervently praying for those we know who need Jesus in their lives and do what we can to help them see the love of God before it is too late.
Another curiosity about the legislation related to the TPP is the secrecy that has surrounded it. Just as with Obama Care, it looks like the TPP legislation has to be passed before the public will be permitted to learn what it will do to us. Of course most people don't really care assuming that our government will only act in the best interest of its citizens. However, most realize at this point that Obama Care has not lived up to the promises of its promoters so we should expect Obama Trade to likewise be harmful. What other possible reason could there be for the intense secrecy?
On the surface, it would appear as though congressional Republicans supported TPP to facilitate more free trade which is good for all, right? But we are learning in dribs and drabs what is driving it and, as with Obama Care, it appears as though crony capitalism is at play here where major multi-national corporations are pushing for TPP to happen. True-free trade would accommodate the participation of any size company but huge corporations lobby for regulations as barriers to keep their smaller yet usually more innovative and nimble competitors from participating in the market.
The trend in this age is consolidation of powers and we are seeing that play out in huge corporations assimilating or crushing their competition with the help of governmental regulations they write themselves. This is not good for either the consumer or for workers. The era of too-big-to-fail companies reveals that our economy is closer to socialism than it is to true-free market capitalism. Once upon a time the government broke up monopolies but today we see the government sanctioning market oligarchies. As President Eisenhower warned about the "military-industrial complex," we should likewise beware the government-industrial complex.
While congressional Democrats are hardly immune from crony capitalism, in this case they opposed TPP fast-track legislation because their labor union constituents were obviously a bigger factor. The U.S. does not have a very good track record in preserving jobs with our trade agreements. Since labor unions are major donors to congressional Democrats, they had no choice but to oppose the TPP. It is pretty obvious to all that the TPP will cause the U.S. to lose jobs because Trade Adjustment Assistance providing benefits to U.S. workers effected by international trade was part of the TPP fast-track legislation. Apparently multi-national cooperation is more important than U.S. jobs.
It also appears as though the TPP is about more than just trade. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Congress that the TPP, "says it’s designed to promote the international movement of people, services and products; basically the same language used to start the European Union." The European Union is the classic modern model of nations giving up their national sovereignty to a multinational central authority and it involves more than just trade. It looks like the world's ruling elite are now ready to expand the EU model to other parts of the world. The fact that the European Union is not working so well as demonstrated by Greece is beside the point, progress is only seen in nations yielding their sovereignty in the interests of working together. How else will we be able to realize the peace on earth that the nations seek after?
The Bible tells us that the peace the nations manage to work out for themselves in the time-frame of the Lord's return is a false peace. "For when they say, 'Peace and safety!' then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape" (1 Thessalonians 5:3, NKJV). There will not be peace between the nations until the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ returns to rule. Human efforts to organize peace between nations apart from God will fail miserably. As Pax Romana was oppressive, Pax Romana Renatus (revived) will be even more terrible.
The Bible says that the nations of the earth will be governed by ten rulers just prior to establishing the global government of the Antichrist. "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast" (Revelation 17: 12-13, NKJV). Since Congress has given President Obama power to be an active participant in the TPP, he is no-doubt a candidate to lead it. Given the phase of history we are in, it is likely that President Obama will be one of the ten kings of Revelation 17.
Even though it seems like every day the news has yet another disturbing development, Christians can draw strength from the certain knowledge that our Lord will come for His Bride before the consequences of mankind's rebellion fully metastasizes. In the meantime, we see people every day who have not experienced the love of Christ in their lives. We should be fervently praying for those we know who need Jesus in their lives and do what we can to help them see the love of God before it is too late.
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