Where is All the Confidence?

We have written much about how our system is based on faith and confidence....and I mean our monetary system.  We all just agree to agree that our paper money that is given to me today will be able to buy something I want tomorrow.  And when we put our money in the bank we have confidence that we will get it out to buy something further down the road.

When confidence in the system wanes, it can be problematic.

So this article is noting a trend that we need to pay attention to.

Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest level since May 1980, adding to concern that weak employment gains and volatility in the stock market will prompt households to retrench.

“The mood is very depressed,” said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington,Massachusetts. “Consumers are very fatigued and very uncertain. In the short term, people are going to pull back on spending.”

See it here;  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/u-s-consumer-sentiment-falls-more-than-expected-to-54-9-in-michigan-index.html

Now remember friends, when a society worships Mammon (god of wealth and material goods) they constantly fret about whether or not their god is going to come back to power.  He had been so good to us for the last 6 decades and now he seems to be in a slump.  So we watch for all the indicators that he isn't dead...consumer spending, borrowing, retail sales, new car sales, stock market gains, etc...

One day before Christ returns Mammon will be totally destroyed.  What we are seeing now is simply the foreshadowing of what is coming in The Tribulation.

Where is our faith and where is out confidence as believers in Jesus Christ?  Are we running with the pack looking for Mammon or are we focused on Kingdom things and listening for what Christ wants us to do in these Last Days before He comes for us?

The End of Israel

Maybe you have seen in the news that Israel has approved building another few thousand homes in the West Bank.  They desperately need them because they have no place to live as their population continues to grow.  Of course this is making the Arabs really angry because they hope that the West Bank will be part of the territory in their new state they hope to declare in September...with the United Nation's blessing.

The isolation of Israel from the rest of the world is going to continue.

The article below is very interesting because it asks the question of how Israel can survive alone as the world's sentiment turns against them and as the Arabs/Muslims get ready to make another push to make Israel vanish back into the diaspora.

How can a tiny nation, hated wherever it resides, possibly survive? This has been the paramount question governing Jewish life for two millennia.

During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the country lost more than 6,000 of her finest soldiers, which was 1 percent of her total population, the equivalent of 3 million losses pro-rated for America’s population. A devastating start on the road of independence.

So when one recalls the reality that faced Israel in 1948 and where the country is today, it is nothing short of a miracle. Every other people so conquered and exiled has in time disappeared. Only the Jews defied the norm. Twice.

But, I fear, never again. That’s why Israel’s worst-case scenarios matter today, even if the peaceniks continue to protest against occupying anybody except the cafes in Tel Aviv.

Maybe imagining nightmarish scenarios is only the fantasy of some pessimist writers. Maybe Israel will live through a very quiet period ahead and the worst-case predictions will never materialize.
But Israel’s enemies are working for a future that is clear to them: a world without Zionism, a world without Israel.

In the mindset of the Islamic multitudes and Western appeasers, the goal is clear: they want an Israel that packs up and goes away. They dream about millions of Israelis with their suitcases in a long march that lead them to ships and aircraft. Destination: diaspora.

The Jewish houses left with everything in them, the Israeli postal offices empty, Yad Vashem closed, the Wailing Wall destroyed, the registry archives in Cesarea and Beth Shean vandalized, the Jewish bookshops toppled, the Knesset used by alley cats and the electric cars abandoned along the way like a huge flock of dead birds.

Call it the evaporation of the the State of Israel. The Jews would return to their homeless status in Russia, France, America, Poland. In Warsaw they might rebuild the ghetto. From Baghdad to Haifa, tens of thousands of miles covered only by the voice of Al Jazeera.

Can it happen? God forbid not. But if we peer into our hearts, can we really be completely sure that Israel will see its centennial in 2048?

See it here; http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/12/how-israels-end-will-look/

Of course we Bible believers know that Israel will never completely vanish again because God promised that once they were brought back from all the nations and Israel started to bloom again...which it has...that they will never be destroyed as a nation again.  Also we know that in Ezekiel 38 as the nations gather to destroy Israel, God himself will come and fight for her and destroy the gathered armies...and that event will be a watershed event for Israel and the world.

However, let us also remember that the OT prophets said a day was coming, during the last days, when 2/3 of the Jews will be wiped out in another Holocaust...when the Antichrist starts his extermination program against them during the Tribulation.

What we are seeing is foreshadowing of these two events.

Even so....come Lord Jesus!

Let the Persecution Begin

Do you remember when Michelle Bachmann's husband got heat a few weeks ago when it was revealed that his Christian Counseling Business would dare to suggest that the Holy Spirit can "heal" homosexuality?

So we are getting a glimpse of how it will be.  If things keep going the way of the militant homosexuals who DEMAND that not only do we accept their sex lives but we EMBRACE and CELEBRATE their sex lives....it will soon be illegal to read the passages from Romans 1:27 and others within church.  Why?  Because it will break some sort of anti-hate law that will soon be coming...and the first thing that churches will be threatened with will be to lose their tax free status if they refuse to conform....which means they would have to pay taxes on all the money that comes in the offering plates and the congregants would be disallowed the deduction on their income taxes...which means a powerful blow to the way a church does business.

As we move towards this time when the right will become wrong and the wrong become right, we have more evidence of this movement in today's headlines.

Starbucks CEO Cancels on Church Linked to Conversion Therapy

Starbucks CEO and founder Howard Schultz canceled an appearance at Willow Creek Community Church after an online petition brought attention to the church's association with conversion therapy.

“Though Starbucks confirmed Schultz no longer planned to be there, the company would not attribute it to a campaign launched last week calling on Schultz to denounce the church’s stance before the event,” reports the Tribune.

The petition posted to Change.org drew more than 700 signatures and noted that Willow Creek maintained a long relationship with Exodus International, which teaches that gay people can be “cured” of their sexual orientation. The church ended its association with Exodus in 2009.

Here it is; http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/08/11/Starbucks_CEO_
Cancels_on_Church_Linked_to_Conversion_Therapy/

So what about us?  Will we cling to the Bible and continue to tell people about how Jesus came to deliver us from sin and that their is healing for ANYTHING through the power of the Holy Spirit?  Or will we follow the "tolerance" crowd who says that everything is OK because if you were born with a desire...then in must be OK to satiate that desire?

The Bible says that the lines will be drawn in the last days.  During the Tribulation, those left on earth will be given a choice to take the mark of the beast or die.  The foreshadowing we are seeing today is giving us a choice;  either we embrace the homosexual sex life and ignore biblical teaching or we stand firm and insist that people who claim to have the Holy Spirit can in fact be changed.

Where are we going to stand?  I think we need to make up our minds BEFORE that day comes...just like Daniel did BEFORE he was hauled off to Babylon.

Riots in London

So what's up with all the looting and burning going on in the UK?  Why are all the teenagers and young adults so unhappy?  And could this be a foreshadowing for what may soon be coming to a city near you?

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.

Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.

They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.

They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.

They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.

The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html#ixzz1UkJCQWaa

And of course we also have the bottom layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations.

I had a reader recently ask me if I thought it a good idea for the government to set up some WPA or CCC like they had during the depression?  These were programs where men were given jobs to build parks, lay sidewalks, pick up trash, ....do whatever necessary and the government would give them a few dollars so they could eat and buy some clothes.

Friends....do you really think that the folks today living on welfare and food stamps would show up someplace at 8AM to pour cement or actually work doing ANYTHING?  Of course not!!  If we have been giving food, money and housing to folks for 60 years....why would they want to work for it tomorrow?  They would be angry and I'm guessing would soon start behaving like the folks in the UK....rioting.

The Bible clearly tells us that if a man won't work then he shouldn't eat.  But the liberals and unions around us wanted to trump that.  The unions didn't want the hungry taking their jobs of picking up litter or pouring concrete and the liberals thought it would be degrading to the poor and may feel like punishment to them if they were asked to work....so they just wanted to GIVE them the food, clothes and rent...until they could get "back on their feet again".

Last week I heard a woman say to me, "My unemployment runs out pretty soon...I better go start looking for a job."  Yet she had been on unemployment for over 6 months!  Wasn't she supposed to start looking right away on day 1?

The fact is that we have created a monster by assuming we can pay people to do nothing.  Remember why the Israelites were told by God to leave the corners of their fields unharvested....it was so the poor could go harvest it themselves and thereby not starve.  God did NOT tell the farmers to harvest the food and deliver it the the poor....and that is exactly what we have been doing.

Solar Storms Build for 2013 Peak

Evidently we had a really big solar explosion yesterday but planet earth got "lucky" since the explosion wasn't directed at earth.  The next explosion may be pointed at planet earth....which could prove problematic for all of us tech-savvy inhabitants riding this blue rock hurtling through space and spinning around at 1000 mph on a tweaked axis.

Solar flares like the huge one that erupted on the sun early Tuesday will only become more common as our sun nears its maximum level of activity in 2013, scientists say.    

Flares such as this one could become the norm soon, though, as our sun's 11-year cycle of magnetic activity ramps up, scientists explained. The sun is just coming out of a lull, and scientists expect the next peak of activity in 2013. The current cycle, called Solar Cycle 24, began in 2008.

Earth got lucky with the most recent flare, which wasn't pointed directly at Earth; therefore, it didn't send the brunt of its charged particles toward us, but out into space. However, we may not be so fortunate in the future, experts warned.

See it here;  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44093505/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Yes we have blogged about these solar storms over the last 3 years.  The Bible tells us that strange things will be happening in the sky about the time of Christ's return...so for that reason we keep looking up.

The other reason to pay attention to this possible solar explosion is to remind us how fragile and helpless we are.  We need Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe who sustains everything, to keep this world going around and to keep our electricity, food and water flowing.  We like to BELIEVE it is our own intelligence that sustains us....but that belief is simply wrong. 

Small Quake Hits Pierre, SD

Many of you have heard me talk about the extreme flooding that is currently going on all along the Missouri River from Montana through North Dakota and South Dakota.  I was in Pierre a few weeks ago visiting family and went to see the enormous amount of water they are spilling through the dam.  Of course they are spilling the most water EVER in an attempt to keep the lake behind the dam from becoming too high...and potentially going over the dam.

I walked right up to the massive spill tubes and words can't describe the pressure of the water shooting out those tubes at 70 mph.  They have carved new cliffs along the spillway.  And this water is expected to shoot out of those tubes for months!...ultimately spilling into the already flooded Mississippi River.

I will remind you that those tubes are underneath the Oahe Dam which is the largest earthen dam in the USA...and they were laid in there back in the early 1950's, when the dam was built, and to my knowledge have never been used til now.

So it is VERY INTERESTING that a small earthquake shook Pierre, SD yesterday...and the quake was centered 3 miles west of town....which just happens to be right out by the dam.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - The USGS Earthquake Center has confirmed a rare South Dakota earthquake centered near the state's capital city on Tuesday afternoon.

The center says a magnitude 3.4 quake hit three 3 miles west of Pierre at 2:45 p.m. CDT.

No damage has been reported, but people in the city reported hearing multiple booms.

The USGS says the last earthquake recorded in South Dakota was on Feb. 7, 2007, when a 3.1 magnitude quake hit 15 miles west-northwest of Wall. 

Here it is; http://www.kcautv.com/story/15237843/small-earthquake-hits-3-miles-west-of-pierre

I couldn't help but think of what those "multiple booms" could have been?  Could there have been a "boom" that took place around the dam?  Are those 60 year old cement tubes all still functioning correctly?  If one of them started coming apart, would the Corps of Engineers be able to swoop in and fix it?  If a dam like that ever broke and covered the entire central USA with 12 feet of water within hours and knocked out the entire power grid in Kansas City....would America be able to put itself back together again?  Who would loan us another $trillion dollars to repair the damage? 

One thing for sure people.....WE ARE IN CONTROL OF NOTHING!  A few earthquakes, a few floods and a few droughts and a few solar storms and we will be reduced to a third world country...asking ourselves how we could have been so stupid to put 100% of our faith in technology and science...when God clearly demands faith in Him and Him alone.

If the Federal Government was a Family....

Many of you have heard of the financial guy named Dave Ramsey who is a regular on Christian radio stations.

A reader sent me this Dave Ramsey quote to help us better understand the current pickle the Federal Government is in.

"If the federal government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand"

Amazing to think about. 

But please remember one VERY important difference between family and federal government.....THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OWNS ACCESS TO THE PRINTING PRESS AND CAN DEVALUE OUR MONEY BY PRINTING MORE ANY TIME IT CHOOSES.

Hat tip to Diane B.

London Riots

So what is eventually coming for America?  Check out the riots that are currently happening in London if you want to see what's on tap for Los Angeles, Oakland, Houston, Minneapolis, etc....

LONDON (AP) — Violence and looting spread to new areas of London on Monday — and to a second major British city — as police and politicians struggled to contain the disorder during a third day of rioting in the capital, which will host next summer's Olympic Games.

The worst unrest in London in decades saw buildings, cars and garbage dumbs set ablaze and police officers pelted with bottles and fireworks, as groups of young people and police clashed in neighborhoods across the capital.

NOW PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH:

The violence began late Saturday in London's northern Tottenham district when a peaceful protest over the police's shooting of a suspect turned violent, leaving parts of the high street charred and its shops looted. But some have blamed the unrest on unemployment, insensitive policing and frustration across Britain over the government's austerity budget, which will bring deep cuts to social services and welfare payments.

Here it is; http://news.yahoo.com/uk-police-arrest-over-200-london-riots-continue-170520562.html

What caused the riots?....deep cuts to social services and welfare payments!  What do you think will happen in America when food stamps, subsidized housing and student loan programs all get cut back in an attempt to balance the budget?  We have blogged much on this already and now we are seeing the unrest that started in Greece spread to our sister country of England.

With 46,000,000 people currently on food stamps...how many rioting folks do you believe it would take to disrupt a country of 300,000,000 Americans?

Study Confirms Children are Liars

This headline was pretty random, but caught my attention.

Lying is part of child's development, study confirms       

Only a fifth of 2-year-olds were able to lie. But by age 4, 90 percent were capable of lying. The rate peaked at age 12.

See it here;  http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44065064/ns/today-parenting/

90% were confirmed liars by age 4!  I'm guess the other 10% just smarter liars and probably spotted the hidden camera in the corner and figured out they were being studied...so kept their lying a secret.  : )

Of course Jesus told us all long ago that when we lie, we are simply speaking our native tongue because we are all children of the devil who also happens to be the father of lies.

But leave it to some psychologist to attempt to put some type of scientific spin on what every Christ following, biblically literate parent already knows....we are all born as evil, selfish little liars who would just as soon put a knife in someone during a fit a rage when forced to share our toys...if we could.  This is not a LEARNED behavior....this is what we are BORN WITH!

Only by God's redemptive work on the cross are we saved from our wretched selves and transformed into a new creation.

Thank you Jesus for the work you did.

Dollar Will be Gradually Discarded by World

If you happened to be on a desert island today and away from any news....let me inform you USA had their credit rating lowered on Friday afternoon AFTER the markets had closed...and today the U.S. markets got hammered and lost more than 5% of its value, with the DOW Industrial Average down over 600 points.

So will the pounding continue or could the market go up by 600 points tomorrow?  Who knows??  No one knows what the market will do on any given day.  It's all currently being driven by the hourly headlines and the next headline up could tank it more or turn it around.

However, the U.S. is in a bad spot long term.  That's not a headline...it's a fact.  We have had the blessing of having the world's ONLY reserve currency for the past 70 years...which means we had a built in demand for U.S. dollars that ONLY we could have.  But what will happen if the world's investors and nations start shifting OUT of U.S. dollars and want to hold their safe wealth someplace else....like Switzerland, Australia, or Lithuania?  Suffice it to say that when that happens it will be a further drag on the USA.

In comments emailed to CNBC, Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, said the currency is “gradually discarded by the world,” and the “process will be irreversible.”

“I think the most pressing issue facing the U.S. at the moment is to reflect on the crisis which happened in relation with the debt ceiling," Guan said. "They should get a clear understanding that the continuous decline of the debt service capability will inevitably result in the outbreak of a sovereign debt crisis.”

The editorial called for “international supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars” and the introduction of “a new, stable and secured global reserve currency.”

It also noted that as its largest creditor, Beijing has every right “to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets.”

See it here;  http://www.cnbc.com/id/44050325

Notice the stuff I put in bold?  Debt crisis, discarded by the world, process is irreversible, international supervision on the printing of U.S. dollars, China DEMANDING that the U.S. address it's debt problem, etc....  This is really serious talk by the biggest lender the USA has. 

This $16 trillion debt we have is not going to go away on its own...and the looting that went on in London last night and the rioting that has gone on in Greece over the last months is what WILL happen to us when we are forced to come up with a realistic budget that doesn't allow for borrowing money from other investors and other nations.

 

Lender Warns Borrower

By now most of us have heard that Standard and Poors has downgraded the credit rating of America to AA+ from AAA.  Of course this downgrade was the FIRST TIME EVER!

Since China is our largest lender and currently holds more of our IOU's than any other one nation....they are less than pleased that the value of the paper IOU's we gave them in exchange for their hard earned wealth, may be declining in value at a rapid pace....so they gave us a warning.

BEIJING (AP) — China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, demanded Saturday that America tighten its belt and confront its "addiction to debts" in the wake of Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

China currently owns $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury debt, the largest stake of any central bank. The commentary carried by the state-run Xinhua News Agency was Beijing's first official response to the S&P decision.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," Xinhu

It said the rating cut would be followed by more "devastating credit rating cuts" and global financial turbulence if the U.S. fails to learn to "live within its means."

"China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," it said.

See it here;  http://news.yahoo.com/china-blasts-us-over-credit-rating-downgrade-090534430.html

Did you catch that last paragraph...."...has every right now to DEMAND the...."?  We have become slave to the lender, EXACTLY as the Word of God says.

What happens in this financial mess going forward is anyone's guess.  If the Lord wants the USA to be around in all it's strength for more years to fulfill HIS purposes...then we will, in spite of our gross misuse of our assets and resources.

However, if this nation is in the early stages of judgment and we are destined for destruction....the downgrading and warning may be the first big sucking sound of a once great nation now stuck in sinking sand...and we will perish because our leaders and our people are lacking knowledge of the Word of God.