THE NEW INTERNATIONAL WORLD ORDER

Chapter 30 – The Rise or Fall of American Empire?

By

Doug Krieger

“The nadir of the existing international financial system coincides with simultaneous political crises around the globe. Never have so many transformations occurred at the same time in so many different parts of the world and been made globally accessible via instantaneous communication. The alternative to a new international order is chaos. 

“Not since the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy half a century ago has a new administration come into office with such a reservoir of expectations. It is unprecedented that all the principal actors on the world stage are avowing their desire to undertake the transformations imposed on them by the world crisis in collaboration with the United States.

“The financial and political crises are, in fact, closely related partly because, during the period of economic exuberance, a gap had opened up between the economic and the political organization of the world.

“In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.

“The extraordinary impact of the president-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order.” (“A Chance for a New World Order,” former Secretary of State, Henry A. Kissinger, International Herald Tribune, the Global Edition of the New York Times, January 12, 2009)

As the international economic crisis unravels – notwithstanding President Obama’s “stimulus package” set to descend on President’s Day, Feb. 16, 2009, upon our indebted landscape, allegedly in time to bail out massive foreclosures and stem the tide of some 600,000 joining the ranks of the American unemployed in January, 2009 (with 1/2 of some 3.6 million unemployed since the start of the recession in December, 2007 taking place in the last three months—“January Unemployment Rate Hits 7.6 Percent: What You Need to Know,” Liz Wolgemuth, U.S. News and World Report, Feb. 6, 2009) – a sense of impending disaster in the minds of a miniscule remnant (mainly astute politicos who know what’s up and a few economists of the Vienna School who see the tsunami coming) stands isolated and bewildered beside the world’s euphoria enveloping its masses—masses whose messianic delight awaits the change for a better future…hope is on the way?  Behold:  The gamble of the century and the $800B+ would-be boondoggle?

The stimulus package is an expression of failed FDR-style WPA projects which had to await World War II to bring America, and the world, out of the Great Depression.  It can be argued otherwise, but the strange popping sound of the Japanese asset price bubble of several decades past can be heard in the background.

The entire political imbroglio surrounding the stimulus seems to have been temporarily overshadowed by the trillions pouring into this obscene indebtedness, derivative disaster perpetrated by scandalous banking bandits who leveraged bogus subprime mortgages and ARMs, as President Obama says:  30 to 1!  Now, the unraveling of this high stakes gambling must be confronted at all costs; however, stopping the bleeding (some $516 Trillion Dollars of bleeding) by acquiring Countrywide by Bank of America (now below $4 a share), or Bear Stearns by J. P. Morgan Chase via federal monies - then AIG’s disaster, coupled with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…yes, the hemorrhaging stopped, or are we imagining things because we’re able to somehow sustain the patient (for now) by multiple transfusions.   

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of late 2008 seems like ancient history.  The first $350 billion “went somewhere” – Secretary Paulson of Goldman Sachs fame was in control…there was no oversight and we’ll probably never know…never mind, we’ll simply keep the transfusions going no matter how bloody the wound which refuses to coagulate.  Ah, but President Obama assures:  We’ll have oversight next time around for the final $350bn and wait until you hear the speech from my new Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner.  We did and…

“The comprehensive overhaul of the government’s financial bailout plan announced Tuesday (February 10, 2009) is designed to succeed where other plans have failed by unifying a sometimes piecemeal set of policies. But as outlined by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the plan was disappointing in its dearth of detail.

“Since the financial crisis began unfolding in September, efforts to resolve it have involved multiple agencies including the Treasury, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. A shotgun approach to fixing the problem has tried everything from pouring money into the banking sector to helping homeowners renegotiate mortgages to save their homes.

“‘Everything was scattershot, hit and miss,’ said former Fed governor Frederic Mishkin. ‘Now the feds have to go in big time and get this mess cleaned up. I think that there's an understanding in the administration that this is what needs to be done. But, boy, the details surely matter here.’” (Geithner plan wide in scope, short on detail – Wall Street (dropped 382 points after Geithner’s speech) disappointed by long-awaited revamp of bank industry bailout, John W. Schoen, senior producer, msnbc.com)

Our world seems to cater to socio-economic calamities like pillars of stone erected in remembrance of those times never to be forgotten—lest we repeat the sins of our past—the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the sinking of the Lusitania, the San Francisco Earthquake, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 to name but a few.

Some disasters lead to greater tragedy, rarely are they alienated from each other—one leads inexorably to the next and somehow they’re all interconnected, with spare exceptions.  Even with divine interventional warning we, trapped in this immediate dimension, cannot find the wherewithal to awaken and prepare for the inevitable.  Listen to the seven-week lead up to 9/11 – David Wilkerson’s “Towers Have Fallen and We Missed the Message” given on September 27, 2001 from Time Square Church in Manhattan:

“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the twin towers of New York City were destroyed. Five days later right outside the door, you can still see the smoke pouring out of the ruins. I looked out my window because when I prepared this message in my study I overlook the whole scene and the smoke this morning was drifting over the Statue of Liberty and all over New Jersey.

“I stood there last night weeping and begging God for mercy. Mercy for the grieving families who lost loved one.  Mercy for those still digging in the ruins, retrieving bodies and mostly body parts. Mercy on the workers – the police, the fireman, the volunteers who openly weep at the indescribable destruction.

“Times Square Church was given a site at ground zero. Pastor Carter tells me that the tents were put there – this church was the closest to ground zero and to the disaster. Workers were working and are still working 24-hours around the clock and still working, feeding and ministering and being there in this time of horror.

“But you see, Times Square Church was warned a calamity was coming. We are now in the seventh week of a visitation of the Holy Spirit and if you have been coming to this church you know that even weeks before that the Holy Spirit moved on the pastoral staff here to cancel everything.

“We cancelled the Mission’s Conference, we cancelled the Youth Conventions, we cancelled every speaker. We cancelled everything to come and call this body to prayer. We started with two weeks of prayer and those weeks of meetings continue this week again – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and stopping only when God says to stop.

“But something indescribable has been happening in this church in this past seven weeks. Every service, as you witness today, a holy hush – a silence from the throne has come to this auditorium. There was one night when we sat for one hour in total silence and nobody could move. I remember putting my hands on my knees to stop them from trembling because of the awesome presence of God.

“As the pastors began to pray and you remember if you’ve been here, you’ve seen the pastors weeping and wailing. I’ve seen Pastor Neil laying here crying out to God. We were repenting. We were crying out to God and then the Holy Spirit spoke clearly that it was happening because a tragedy was coming – a calamity was coming to this city and to the nation and we didn’t know what it was. Suddenly a calamity struck the nation and especially here in New York City.

“One network anchorman said this, and I quote him, ‘Just think of it. Our two symbols of power and prosperity have been smitten in one hour.’

“He didn’t know he was quoting from Revelation 18:10, ‘…Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city!  For in one hour is thy judgment come.’” (“The Towers Have Fallen and We Missed the Message,” Pastor David Wilkerson, Sept. 27, 2001)

Wilkerson’s prophetic utterances continue to go unheard – both by saint and sinner – America’s earthlings can hardly be dissuaded from their worldly entanglements.  The celestial ball, like the Pink Slip Party goers of Wall Street, who gleefully celebrate after getting fired from their jobs, abides undiminished as the inane festivities and their gaiety go swirling along intoxicating and enchanting the revelers behind her impregnable Homeland walls.  So, if the revelers will not hear – perhaps the saints shall:

“People don’t like to hear this, but we’re headed for perilous times—just a few years away from a collapse like the world has never known. When that happens, all who preached prosperity are going to disappear because the people will say, ‘Your gospel has failed me.’ When that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus, and I want everyone I’ve preached to to have faith in the keeping power of Jesus Christ. I want them to know Him in His fullness. I want to know that I’ve done it in love, in grace, that they would know the difference between the holy and the profane.” (“The Dangers of Gospel Accommodation,” delivered by David Wilkerson to the Assemblies of God, 1996)

“Just a few years away from a collapse like the world has never known” – indeed, 9/11 or the current economic tsunami?  Wilkerson’s not far off on either pick.  Never mind, the party goers view all this gloom and doom as pure happenstance, a good guess in difficult times, the glass remains half full, and worse, there’s this bizarre glee upon the faces of those about to be destroyed by the wave! 

What calamitous event – what global lethality - awaits our murky and uncertain future?  Is it Kissinger’s opportunistic moment, an epiphanous convergence when economics merges with political expediency wherein the world, led by the imaginative USA, places a capstone upon its globalization or, forbid we fractionalize into smaller spheres of parochial particularism signifying nothing but domestic mercantilism and enduring fratricide?  Are we, by our own financial disgust, on the verge of a New World Order, led – of course – by the same merchants of the earth from whence this earthly clod derives its present congestion?  Can we imagine the collapse of the current world order, as Henry conjectures as but the inevitable and most logical consolidation of globalism’s finest hour?

I am neither relieved nor economically pacified by this prospect – for though we await our extremity (and that within a very short time), our despair will follow hard on its heels…there can be no greater predicament than to choose between financial disaster and a rigid globalism reflective of an insidious form of socialism as a prelude to dictatorship.  Why is it that “peace, peace” is announced by such machinations, then “cometh sudden destruction?”  We await the government’s intervention as our final panacea to liberate us from our affliction and produce a better day for us and for our world…

“The government is expected to announce Monday (February 9, 2009) a plan that analysts expect will include lifting soured mortgage assets off selected banks’ books, possibly along with guarantees against other losses and maybe more direct injections of cash (no matter who shall pay the creditor?) . . . No one knows what will work because nothing like this has happened in living memory.  But getting it wrong could trigger a replay of what happened after Lehman Brothers collapsed last fall (2008) – the stock market in free fall, seizure of the credit markets, ripples of layoffs.  Perhaps even a run on other banks - so many customers rushing to pull out their cash that it would make the bank run in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ look like, well, a feel-good holiday movie.  ‘The banks are at a terrible junction,’ said Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. ‘The bottom is falling out.  Almost every area of the credit markets, we’re finding people unable to repay their loans.  That means many banks are basically insolvent.  If one big bank implodes,’ he said, ‘the reverberations could be endless.’

“‘What would happen if one of the nation’s big banks, the kind that manages hundreds of billions in assets, went down?  That would probably cause a complete meltdown of the American financial system,’ said Andreas Hauskrecht, an associate professor of money, banking and finance at Indiana University.

“No one has ever lost money in an account insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.  But no one has ever seen a bank that size (e.g., Citigroup or Bank of America) go under, and news of a giant bank’s downfall probably would touch off a panic in which even depositors with money in safe banks rush to get it out. 

“But there’s a bigger economic problem:  Other lenders, who trust few people these days anyway, would stop trusting anybody.  Businesses, unable to borrow money day to day, would fail, with worldwide consequences.  It doesn’t take an economics degree to realize that would be nothing short of catastrophic for the economy.” (“Banks on the Brink – Government Scrambles to Prevent System from Falling off a Financial Cliff” – Stevenson Jacobs and Eric McClam, Associated Press, The Sacramento Bee, February 8, 2009)

And, after numerous financial cal-de-sac style scenarios to nowhere, a concluding remark by Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands, bemoaning our economic state of affairs:

“It’s a can of worms!” (Ibid.)

Likewise, what if the Obama “stimulus package” is not passed by the Congress, or if it is mutilated?  And so it came to pass….

“‘The numbers are … quite frankly truly frightening,’ Christina Romer (the head of the White House Council of Economic advisers) said of job losses and deflationary spiral that she predicted would follow if a stimulus package fails to win congressional passage.  ‘That’s the thing that’s in the back of my mind.’ … The stakes for the Obama administration’s bank bailout (different from the “stimulus plan” and involving the other half or $350Bn of the “bank bailout” under Bush) proposal are high, economists say.  Regardless of the specifics of the differing economic plans pending in Congress, no spending stimulus is likely to have much long-term effect unless the bank bailout works.” (“Bank Rescue Plan Readied,” Bee News Services, Sacramento Bee, February 9, 2009)

Yet the prophetic condescension of David Wilkerson is heard above the depressing news—news with faint hope and plenty of angst.  Are we to witness Kissinger’s New International World Order sooner rather than later?   Some have predicted something beyond the resemblance of the Great Depression—for our “economic sins” this time around far exceed the sins of the fathers.  The stakes are much higher, for globalization has brought our world together with travel and communication systems feeding the frenzy.  When will the bread lines form?  When will the rioting begin?  When will the gangs fan out across our suburbs and the gated communities stand their guard?  Oh, don’t be so smug—then again, “touch not the oil and wine” of the wealthy and their toddies who watch over them will not be harmed by the collapse…yes, many a scenario could be written here prior to the New International World Order….

7 DEADLY SCENARIOS

I rarely read fiction – though some atheists declare most of the Bible to be such; I don’t.  But viewing “7 Deadly Scenarios” intrigued me.  A military strategist called a “futurist” – laying down various scenarios in a sort of prophetic fashion; now, that should be interesting.

Andrew F. Krepinevich is president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a consultant to secretaries of defense, the CIA, the Homeland Security Council, and the Joint Forces Command.  In sum, Krepinevich’s job is to outthink the unthinkable—prepare viable responses to hideous unraveling which could negatively impact America and the so-called Free World.  In his February, 2009, release, 7 Deadly Scenarios, he repeatedly sets in motion the seeds of destruction, then details the crisis and the possible outcomes and options, given the political will of the American people and their ever-insecure and politically sensitive leadership. 

Islamic radicalism peppered by Jihadists gone religiously mad is a constant and reoccurring theme throughout the text; however, these Islamists do their greatest dastardly deeds upon major U.S. cities like San Diego, Chicago, San Antonio (especially) and Boston in which tens of thousands perish from suitcase-style nuclear devices smuggled in from the former Soviet Union’s financially desperate mafias and what have you.  In this scenario America remains relatively imprisoned by incompetent military analysts in mortal fear of striking back at Islam for some inexplicable reason—i.e., surely by now we’re able to fabricate a reason for bombing Damascus or Teheran?

Krepinevich has more plausible contagions when millions of Mexicans march toward America’s imploding health care systems as a result of an A-Flu virus gone berserk.  Again, in sum, our bungling of Katrina is predictable, as once again we display utter ineptitude during a natural disaster.  Mercifully, the devastation caused by the avian-flu virus hardly surpasses the percentages of Americans who perished in the 1918 Spanish Flu (this time around 3 million expire). 

He’s got China’s growing civil unrest igniting a global showdown – a bit more realistic, but it, along with his ideas of Jihadists creating a total loose cannon on the Indian subcontinent somehow do not give credit to the militarists in both Pakistan and China who are well able to control their errant populations. 

Finally, several more of Krepinevich’s scenarios revolve around the Middle East:  Armageddon and Who Lost Iraq?  Another scenario, Just Not-on-Time could be considered a third Middle East meltdown wherein a Black Friday cyber attack devastates North American, and consequently, world commerce—again by militant Muslims (proving that manhunts for Osama types just don’t work).  Naturally, his Armageddon fascinated an “Armageddon theology” type guy like me!  Of course, I’m looking for possible Biblical parallels, while ever on the ready to be accused of fomenting the end of the world as we know it.   

I wasn’t disappointed – somewhere around April 2-3, 2014, a salvo of rockets are fired from the West Bank into Jerusalem and strike and severely damage the Al-Masjid El-Aqsa mosque or “Dome of the Rock.”  This in response to Israel’s allegedly disproportionate response to rocket shelling of her northern tier whereby she launches a Mossad-style counter attack in which “Hezbollah’s number-two man, Mohammad Rida Zahidi” is captured and spirited away via helicopter—and, in the process, the Israelis kill several dozen members of Hezbollah and a number of Quds Force members; likewise, Israel captures two Quds Force officers present at the time.  The whole operation is shouted from the rooftops by the Arab media as an awful shame to the Anti-Zionist Front, while the Jerusalem Post headlines:  “Senior Hezbollah Henchman Captured” and “Greater than Entebbe.”

Fascinating indeed, when Krepinevich’s Armageddon scenario reaches this point:

“In response (and you’d have to read the book to be brought to this point—suffice it to say, one action makes for a reaction until we get to this part of the scenario), on June 17 (2014) the Israeli Navy moved to blockade the coast of Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.  The Israeli Air Force is rumored to be making preparations to disrupt or destroy the transportation and communications infrastructure of Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.” (P. 157) (Note:  The same belligerents aligned against Israel in the Oracle of Damascus scenario as found in Zechariah 9 and Isaiah 17).

And again, as the IDF on July 1, 2014, calls up massive numbers of reservists…

“Israel appears to be on the cusp of all-out war against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and perhaps Iran…Slow Squeeze calls for a massive aerial bombardment of the transportation and communication infrastructures of Lebanon, Gaza/West Bank, and Syria, partly to inflict comparable economic damage on Israel’s enemies and also to hopefully stem the war supplies reaching Hezbollah…A third option—what some are calling the Armageddon Option, involves Israel taking action against the source of its travails:  Iran.  If Israel pursues this course of action, it will be the first direct attack by one nuclear power against another.” (pp. 159-60)

Worse yet, Krepinevich gives Iran’s response to all this…

“Perhaps most worrisome is the June 29 (2014) speech given by Rushtani (current ethereal President of Iran) in which he alludes to the coming of the twelfth Imam.  Some have interpreted this to mean that the Iranians are willing to light the fire of a large-scale conflagration, one that would extend from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean to the Iran and involve the possible—and perhaps even likely—use of nuclear weapons.” (P. 161) (Krepinevich conjectures that by this time Iran has nearly a dozen such weapons and various forms of delivery.)

WASHINGTON’S RESPONSE TO THE BURDEN OF DAMASCUS AND GOG-MAGOG

Krepinevich has Washington’s military elite offering, in the end, nuclear options as non-starters with Iran in that her nuclear program is so deeply scattered and buried in her soils.  Furthermore, basing American ground and air forces in Israel, the USA would risk being drawn directly into the inevitable conflict.  America, in this initial confrontation seems paralyzed:

“Where does this leave the United States?  Diplomatically, it is running out of time.  Militarily, its options seem remarkably limited, given that its armed forces are considered to be far and away the world’s finest and most technically advanced.  To be sure, the U.S. military is, at this point, the only armed force capable of exerting a significant, and perhaps decisive, influence on the outcome of this crisis or the war that may follow.  The problem has to do with inadequate numbers of key military capabilities and a dearth of allies who are both willing and capable of contributing.

“In the meantime, the Middle East slides toward a war that, in retrospect, few heads of government seem to want, none seem capable of avoiding, and all will likely come to regret.  History may not repeat itself, but the echoes of 1914 can increasingly be heard, exactly one hundred years after they led the world into the abyss of war.” (pp. 167-8)

Krepinevich is amazingly accurate insofar as the initial triad of conflicts concerns—i.e., the Oracle of Damascus.  The USA is NOT directly engaged in the commencement and end of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.  However, neither is Iran so predisposed—at least not directly, though perhaps indirectly through her support of Hezbollah and Hamas, and for that matter, Syria and Lebanon. 

Both the USA and Iran are fighting proxy wars in any event—their indirect involvement in this “end of the war” is just that; however, their direct engagement is strategically unnecessary and premature, ipso facto, let Israel and Krepinevich’s AZFs (Anti-Zionist Forces – Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the Stronghold of Ephraim/Palestinian Authority) slug it out; then we’ll come in to orchestrate the peace as Iran goes literally ballistic with the onset of the Gog-Magog War confronting the West (the Merchants/Ships of Tarshish) with her commercial allies, Sheba and Dedan (the nations of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula and Gulf States, in particular). 

Indeed, it is NOT farfetched to assume that Turkey whose populous has recently extolled the likes of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his outrage over Israel’s current response in Gaza, to align with Iran against the West’s precipitous pre-positioning of forces in the Middle East after the post-Oracle outcome; to wit:

“When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill.  I know very well how you killed children on the beaches.” (“Turkish Prime Minister Walked out of a Davos panel to Protest Moderator’s and Peres’ Attitude,” The Journal of Turkish Weekly, January 30, 2009)

Furthermore, it’ll be a no-brainer to conclude that the Turks and Persians, let alone, by this time, the overthrow by the Muslin Brotherhood of Egypt’s failed secular state, along with Sudan and Libya, will be all the more infuriated by the outcome of the Burden of Damascus—here’s one scenario that Krepinevich should put in his sequel to his text; and here’s the new title:  Whoops, I Left Something Out!

There is every Biblical reason to affirm that America’s engagement in the second of these prophetic wars will be substantial—she will predispose her military might throughout the region as a specific response to Israel’s debilitating or Pyrrhic victory from the Oracle.  Her ruse will be to bring peace to the region once and for all—but war will follow in her train for she will conclude that a formalization of the US-Israeli Strategic Alliance is both mandatory and necessary in light of Islam’s militant revival after the Burden of Damascus.

THE RISE OR FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE?

Thirty chapters of the “Rise or Fall of American Empire?” has been a mind numbing endeavor of the past, immediate and prophetic future of a “mixed multitude” whose legions’ expanse, as Rome’s, resembles the “God of Fortresses” who dwarfs all the armies of the world combined.  We’ve journeyed through Rise or Fall from May, 2007, to our present – February, 2009 (22 months and 30 chapters) – through America’s economic heights, world contempt, up through to her immediate economic implosion and finally to the world’s tacit approval during her last changing of the guard.  From her people’s frustrations with one of her most unpopular Presidents to the messianic figure whose name vaguely resembles that of her pernicious foe, Obama vs. Osama.   

We’ve repeatedly – to the point of being ludicrously obnoxious – rebuked the false prophets of prosperity and excoriated the American patriotic prophets who acclaim her benevolent innocence, while they attest to a united Europe to be the seat of Antichrist…an ill-conceived thought which is as geopolitically preposterous as it is scripturally corrupted, misleading and, in sum, a waste of time!  Again and again we lambasted our beloved brethren who so vociferously announce America’s departure and prophetic absence as if they were intrinsically bound together as a Gordian Knot…i.e., the “secret rapture” proves that America is NOT mentioned in Bible prophecy!  From “Bye, bye Babylon” via nuclear exchange, natural cataclysm, pathological pandemic, unto the aforesaid economic tsunami – Why America Must be Destroyed! 

The chickens have come home to roost – has a whole new meaning now that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright entered the history books.  But his damning of America remarks nearly cost President Obama the election – so we watched as one preacher after another bit the dust…Hagee’s demise, in particular, was remarkable because it was the American Jews who defended the comments he made about the Holocaust which were grist for the media’s annihilation in the tit-for-tat between their darling, Obama, and their unrequited love, John McCain.

In point of fact, the entire election confirmed Babylon’s mixed multitude is also quite fickle when it comes to moving her from a Republic to a full-blown Empire—notwithstanding her artful denial of the same.  All the platitudes of democracy unfurled from sea to shining sea cannot conceal the true nature of her quest for greater and greater governmental involvement in the affairs of her people, be it banks to houses; education to automobile manufacturing; and everything in between.  This National Socialism – minus, in the main, racial infractions – altogether befits the “mixed peoples” of Jeremiah 50:37 who are in her midst – the same metaphorical, yet deliberate allusion to Babylon’s ultimate manifestation for “they are insane with their idols!” (Jeremiah 50:38).

Listen – aside from Scripture’s demand that the latter-day Babylon be destroyed by fire in one hour – aside from our beloved evangelical brethren who see America’s dismissal as a result of either a secret rapture (because she is gilded with golden saints – for “Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, that made all the earth drunk…the nations drank her wine; therefore the nations are deranged” (Jeremiah 51:7) – which obviously “swings both ways” from beauty to beast) or as David Wilkerson decries her whoredom shall be judged by nuclear holocaust – either and all ways, we evangelicals intuitively know that Babylon most definitely fits America’s description so succinctly that to construe otherwise is a virtual denial of huge portions of Holy Writ, as well as geopolitical reality. 

That said, rumors of her impending death have overextended themselves – unfortunately, many an American prophet, as we have glaringly derided time and again, simply cannot or will not bring themselves to conclude her destruction shall abide just prior to their divine deliverance from Babylon (Revelation 18:4); nor that it is she who cradles within her bosom the Man of Sin, whose initial outburst will expose himself as the False Messiah, the anti-Deliverer, whose declarations to impose his peace upon the Middle East at Israel’s ultimate expense generates this ignoble protest:

“The voice of those who flee and escape from the land of Babylon declares in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of His temple” (Jeremiah 50:28).

Just as there is a latter day Israel assembled in their ancient homeland, Eretz Israel, to rebuild their temple – notwithstanding Zionist haters of Islam who wish to “wipe Israel off the map,” nor Peace Now of Israel who loathes their own peculiarity; nor well-intentioned righteous Christians outraged at Israel’s “apartheid state” – even so, there is a Mystery Babylon whose final revival shall contest the Almighty’s preference to the uttermost.  It too has a unique physicality whose description is unmistakable (Rev. 18).  No, to the chagrin of most American prophets, Babylon the Great abounds – live with it: 

“You have indeed been trapped, O Babylon, and you were not aware; you have been found and also caught, because you have contended against the LORD” (Jeremiah 50:24). 

She shall persist until her final termination in Revelation 18—at the extremity of Daniel’s 70th Week, at the conclusion of the final half of that Great Tribulation enveloping the whole earth.  They who so piously wish to avoid her sins and plagues cannot, by their own boisterous protestations to the contrary, escape her venomous tentacles nor shall her drunkenness and those intoxicated by her escape the view of the righteous—for the godly shall testify against Babylon ‘till they be raptured from her presence and the trampling asunder of the Holy City which that Great City despises! (Revelation 11:11-12)  “Flee Babylon!”  “Escape Babylon!”  Dear friend and foe, you cannot recuse yourself so easily.  You shall not hear the sound of the Last Trump – the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet which shall commence the Wrath of God and the Lamb poured out of the seven vials during those THIRTY DAYS until the 1,290th day, the final days of transgression and abomination, until the “second woe” is passed (Revelation 11:14) – when you hear “a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here,’ and they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them” (Revelation 11:12-13) (i.e., the close of the 42 months, the time, times and half a time, the final 1,260 days of Daniel’s Seventieth Week or the 3.5 days of Revelation 11:9, 11).

The trial is about to begin.  You shall find yourself as Babylon the defendant (for it is she who is on trial here), or as the emboldened witness, set to testify against that Great City and Destroying Mountain. 

Bel is readied to be shamed once and for all (Jeremiah 50:2) – the “perpetual covenant that will not be forgotten” is about to join in your testimony against that Great City.  And why, pray tell, do our Lord’s words (Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39; Revelation 3:3, 11) announce His imminent coming just prior to Armageddon’s final conflagration and divine intervention on the day of His vengeance?

“‘Behold, I am coming as a thief, Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.’  And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon” (Revelation 16:15-16). 

…for is it not after the sixth bowl and the drying up of the Euphrates to prepare the “kings of the east” who together with the dragon, the beast and the false prophet (Revelation 16:13) gather themselves together “to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Revelation 16:14) – at the very extremity of the Great Tribulation?  Surely, the Lord announces His resurrection and rapture of the saints prior to Armageddon’s fury.

Say not your exit nor escape can be by your own making – you cannot escape Babylon until you hear:  COME UP HERE!  Armageddon’s conclusion abides the One Who comes either as a thief, or as the Bridegroom for His bride – oh, “Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15).

No, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings” (Revelation 10:11).  Indeed, He who stands upon the sea (over the Beast) and upon the earth (over the False Prophet) is He who is “clothed with a cloud…And a rainbow was on His head, His face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire” (Revelation 10:5, 1).  Yes, the Son of Man demands that we eat the little book held in His hand and commence the Testimony of Jesus for He stands victorious over the Beast and over the Second Beast! 

As much as I revere our beloved brother David Wilkerson, I must boldly declare his timing is tragically off – but not his spirit!  He sees her inferno and the final deliverance of the saints as we – and boldly does he proclaim in the very heart of Babylon the Great with grace and unmitigated righteous gall against her sins and plagues and the accommodations made by the Laodicean compromisers of the Prosperity Gospel; therefore, it shall not be a stretch for this man, nor for all those who instinctively witness to the Lord’s testimony, for we who name the name of the Lord have been called unto that “great and terrible Day of the Lord!”  Not to endure the Devil’s wrath (Revelation 12:12) any longer – but caught up as was that first “male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron” – even to God and to His throne (Revelation 12:5) having suffered for our sakes and conquered death to lead many sons to glory!

Brother Wilkerson’s removal of America via nuclear holocaust is akin to the dismissal of America from the final prophetic sequence—a misconstrued attempt to eliminate America from Bible prophecy; notwithstanding, Wilkerson is utterly keen on her immediate whereabouts!  To think, as a pretribulationist as he, that we would NOT be here for such a witness doesn’t preclude the courage of his convictions to testify against that Great City (witness Jack Hook’s Babylon the Great is Falling or R. B. Comb’s similar protestations against Babylon in America the Babylon—both of whom are pretribulationists and utterly clear on Babylon’s whereabouts and destruction).  But the pretribulational rapture of the Church prior to her destruction and the subsequent burning of Babylon the Great via the aforesaid Wilkerson’s nuclear attack “in one hour” completely obfuscates the Church’s – let alone Israel’s – final testimony to both Principalities and Powers (the Church) and the Gentile World Powers (Israel). 

The final harvest will be the greatest the earth has ever known (Revelation 14:14-16) – do you think for one minute that a David Wilkerson will not testify throughout this final conflict?  All of God’s judgments are redemptive in character—turning many to repentance; for He is not willing that any should perish.  Is not this the final prophetic witness to the nations foretold by all the prophets?  Therefore, to follow in their train is to gain Messiah’s character and grace to help in time of need.

A CONCLUDING WORD…

Saint and sinner, the Wilkersons and the Kissingers, know it’s nigh game over…the present order is passing away…an uncertain day approaches…all of us know, some of us have felt its pending doom—our days of endurance have commenced.  Over a billion of earth’s 6.5 billion souls survive on scarcely .28 cents per day or, if you would, barely $100 per year. 

In a tsunami the waters initially rush out and expose wide swaths of shoreline prior to their overwhelming flood.  You can run but you cannot hide from its wake.  Perilous times are upon us—some already have succumbed to the New World Order…whether they admit it or not.  Now, very shortly, the leaders of the world shall once again convene to resolve the matter.  Initially, the waters recede – deflation, as in the Great Depression, will be our immediate lot.  Depletion of asset values – be they real estate or your 401k – will accelerate; the low tide will be as far as the eye can see. It was in 1961 that I found myself at Cannon Beach, Oregon, where I awoke to view the Pacific Ocean, only to find its complete disappearance.  In shock I awoke my friends—stupidly, we all ran down to find the sea!  Thankfully, it was a lunar phenomenon and lowest tide of the year…by the way, we did find the ocean; only to run like crazy as the tide’s inevitable inertia commenced in earnest.

This deflation may be accompanied by a stagflation prior to a staggering deluge of hyper-inflation wherein a day’s wages will pay for a loaf of bread or a single meal (Revelation 6:5-6 – “So I looked, and behold a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.’”).  Do not think that this inflation, wrought by a conglomerate of monetized debt to governmental interference and excessive borrowing beyond all limits to forestall the inevitable, will enable you to pay off your liabilities nor will it increase your asset values; instead, it will so overwhelm our international monetary system that a New World Order will be our final lot.

More and more – much more since the election of President Obama – the nations of the earth (especially Europe and China/Japan/South Korea/India) will look to the United States of America to bail them out.  How incongruous is this?  The nation which led them into this financial malaise will be the nation to whom they look for solutions and deliverance.  As my father-in-law once said:  It is what it is – and, if you can be, you will be! 

What will our appearance be after all is said and done?  And while all Ponzi Schemes are revealed and our economic houses collapse around us, there will be that final and prophetic triad of wars which will distract for a season, only to come rushing in as the tsunami it really portends to be:  The Oracle of Damascus, The Gog-Magog War, the Armageddon Campaign.

Rise or Fall of American Empire? has an answer:  She will rise all the more until her final demise in Revelation 18 – this is the Bible’s forecast, the ultimate scenario.  What you and I do with that geopolitical and Biblical reality remains to be seen – therefore, I leave you with the same Scriptures which David Wilkerson announced to his congregation relative to these same frightful considerations:

“But know this that in the last days perilous times will come:  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.  And from such people turn away!” (II Tim. 3:1-5)

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.  Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?  Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (II Peter 3:10-13).