Sudden Calamities Ahead!

Just over a year ago, leaders of the Group of Eight economic powers declared the global economy in "good condition." Yet, according to a leading financial analyst, in less than a year's time, "The outlook has darkened dramatically… Things have changed for the worse across the board" (The Charlotte Observer, July 5, 2008). A recent United Nations report concluded that heads of nations, heads of financial firms, government planners, and the average citizen all share a growing anxiety over social and economic developments they are powerless to control.

Within this last year, oil prices doubled from $70 per barrel to more than $140 per barrel. This has driven up food prices even while demand for food has soared due to burgeoning populations in India and China. Further, food supplies have been ravaged by unexpected climate disturbances, including major droughts and floods in grain-growing and rice-growing regions in Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia and America. Rising food prices have spawned riots in some countries, and have threatened political stability.

Prices for oil and precious metals are skyrocketing due to increasing demand on limited and diminishing supplies. The financial crisis triggered by bad real estate loans in the United States and Britain is spreading, and threatens to engulf the economies of other nations around the world.

Why are all these events erupting and converging at the same time. Where is it leading? Why are these calamitous events happening now?

Experts ponder the situation and cast about for reasons and solutions, but no one really seems to know what is going on, nor where these events are heading. However, there is a source that makes sense of what is happening on the world stage. The Bible explains why these events are coming together, what lies ahead and who will be affected.

Many in our day think of the Bible as nothing more than a collection of myths and stories. Yet Scripture contains a detailed series of prophetic warnings that are coming alive today!

Ancient Warnings

Long ago, God told the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the twelve tribes of Israel, found not only in the modern nation of Israel but also among the peoples of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and other nations descended from the peoples of northwestern Europe) that they would be blessed if they obeyed His laws—laws He had given them so they could be lights and examples to the world (Deuteronomy 4:1–10). However, God's chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6–7; Isaiah 43:1, 10, 20–21) were also warned that if they chose to disobey God's laws and to despise His statutes, they would suffer severe consequences. God said through Moses: "…I will even appoint terror over you… you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you…. I will break the pride of your power" (Leviticus 26:14–19).

We are seeing those prophecies coming alive today. Britain, the nation that once ruled over one fourth of all humanity, lost its empire and is slowly being taken over from the inside by the European Union. The EU has already appropriated British fishing rights in what were once Britain's own territorial waters, and has redistributed those rights to other European nations. The EU is now looking to appropriate British naval ships for a European naval force. The UN Human Rights Council recently issued a report recommending that Britain should abolish its monarchy (Daily Express, June 13, 2008).

American influence around the world is also on the decline. The U.S. dollar, which has long served as the world's reserve currency, is dropping in value, and may soon be displaced by the euro. The U.S. central bank—the Federal Reserve—was recently notified that it would be subjected to a general investigation by the International Monetary Fund. A German news source stated, "No Fed chief in U.S. history has been forced to submit to the kind of humiliation that Ben Bernanke is facing" (Der Spiegel, June 28, 2008). The pride of America and Britain, two nations that have determined the course of world history for the last 200 years, is being broken, just as God said would happen. But what else is coming just over the horizon?

Sudden Calamities Prophesied!

When you study Bible prophecies regarding the future of Israelite nations, a sobering theme emerges—they will experience a sudden and dramatic change of fortune as God begins to intervene even more powerfully in history. Moses warned that "if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments… all these curses will come upon you and overtake you… The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me" (Deuteronomy 28:15–20). The prophet Isaiah echoed this same theme, writing: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil… because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people" (Isaiah 5:20–25).

Israelite nations that were blessed and given the laws of God—laws that prohibit the sins and abominations of adultery, fornication, lying, stealing, easy divorce and homosexuality—are now sanctioning and promoting evil and perverted behaviors. Isaiah further warns that "Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perversity," God will break the nations of Israel "suddenly, in an instant" (Isaiah 30:12–13).

Other prophets throughout Scripture have the same message to deliver! Jeremiah warns, "Because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it" and because "the word of the Lord is a reproach to them… Behold, I [God] will certainly bring calamity on this people… for the plunderer will suddenly come upon [them]… I will hand them over to trouble [death, famine and captivity], to all kingdoms of the earth… I will cause anguish and terror to fall on them suddenly" (Jeremiah 6:9–26; 15:1–4, 8). Solomon warned, "the borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7). The U.S. has become the greatest debtor nation in history—even borrowing money from potential adversaries. The U.S. and the British-descended peoples have enjoyed living off the resources of the world, but the prophet Habakkuk warns: "… Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you" (Habakkuk 2:7–8).

In a prophetic book that catalogues the sins of the Israelite people (Hosea 4:1), the prophet Hosea delivers this solemn warning: "I have written for him [Israel] the great things of My law, but they were considered a strange thing… Israel has forgotten his Maker… I will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his palaces… Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. In a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off" (Hosea 8:12–14; 10:15, KJV).

Bible prophecies clearly predict that God's chosen people will experience sudden calamities that will effectively break the pride of their power and put them at the mercy of foreign nations, because they have forgotten their God and rejected His laws. America's burgeoning foreign debt, the Western world's precarious dependence on foreign oil that could be cut off at any moment, and the banking sector's fears that the world's economy is facing "total meltdown," appear to be setting the stage for these ancient prophecies to come alive at any moment. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we need to be alert to these prophetic warnings!