Apostolic End Time Truths

Friday, January 30, 2009

Cashless Society

Prophesied cashless society: It's almost here Hal Lindsey - www.worldnetdaily.com


When I read the headline to Jerome Corsi's story, "Economic meltdown excuse for 'new world'" at WorldNetDaily yesterday, my first thought was, "What took them so long?"

That thought was immediately followed by the realization that the timing is just about perfect. Corsi zeroed in on comments by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – specifically, Schwab's comment that the global economic crisis was a "transformational crisis" useful in reshaping a "new world."

One of the scarier quotes in his piece was from a professor Nouriel Roubini who said the global banking system was "effectively insolvent," which, to my untrained ears, sounds a lot like "bankrupt."

The last time this happened was in 1933, forcing the federal government to ban private ownership of gold so it could be confiscated and used to satisfy the government's creditors.

That was the national bankruptcy that predicated the Great Depression, which allowed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration to ram through the socialist "New Deal" policies that economic historians say made the Depression both longer and deeper than it needed to be.

During the Depression, FDR had more or less unhindered ability to push through whatever socialist legislation he deemed necessary. People were in pain and were willing to accept almost anything the government proposed if it would make it stop.
It was this same economic pain that convinced the Germans to go along with Adolf Hitler's madness during the 1930s.

After more than a decade of economic depression, as long as Hitler's policies were keeping factories busy and the economy humming along, he was free to do whatever else he pleased.

One of the first things I expect to see introduced as a consequence of this "transformational crisis" is the elimination of cash as a medium of exchange. This is a step that governments and banks have been trying to take for almost two decades without success.

There are good and logical reasons for the elimination of cash. It will essentially wipe out the cash dependent drug trade. It will remove the incentive behind most petty crimes. Paper money is dirty, spreads diseases and it is expensive to print and expensive to handle.

Electronic money addresses all of these issues in a single stroke. The difficulty rests in overcoming public resistance to the idea. But desperate times call for desperate measures, as the saying goes, and when the times get desperate enough, public resistance will evaporate like summer rain.

The Book of the Revelation foretells the events that will take place during the final seven years of human government before the Second Coming of Christ. It records the judgments of what popular culture has come to call the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

One of these judgments is symbolized by the rider on the black horse: "When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" (Revelation 6:5-6 NIV)

The symbols of wheat and barley are representative of a day's food and a denari was a day's wage for an average worker. The oil and the wine are symbolic of a wealthy man's food. So in that day, it will cost all of a workingman's wages to buy a day's food. However, the wealthy will be relatively unaffected during this judgment. This is a textbook description of a modern economic depression.

During Revelation's predicted Tribulation period, the global system will be presided over by a single political authority in the person of the antichrist. The Apostle John forewarns that his control over the economy will be absolute: "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." (Revelation 13:16-17 NIV)

This is one of the most famous prophecies of Scripture, especially today. Even in 1969, when I wrote in my book "The Late Great Planet Earth" about the Mark of the Beast and the numerical value of his name – 666 – it was difficult to understand just how such control over every individual on earth could be accomplished.

However, it is only in the light of the exponential leap in today's technology that this crucial end-time prophecy can be fully comprehended.

The one necessary element for which I have been looking for more than 50 years that would make this prophecy possible is now becoming clear. It was the mystery of just how the economies of the world would be forced under the central control of one small group.

So now let us return to the enormous relevance of Klaus Schwab's above-mentioned comment that "the global economic crisis" is a "transformational crisis" useful in reshaping "a new world."

If the present economic crisis continues to spiral downward into a world depression, as experts reluctantly admit will happen, it can indeed be the "transformational crisis" that forces the world to accept a totally centralized control of a cashless society. All that remains, then, is for the anointed leader the Bible calls the antichrist to step forward and take over.

The Apostle John, under the inspiration of God's Spirit, predicted these things 2,000 years ago on the small island of Patmos. Now what seemed impossible for nearly 20 centuries is developing right before our eyes.

It is important to remember that all of these predictions were linked with a series of events that lead to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He is coming very soon. It is time for everyone to receive the gift of pardon He died to purchase for us. As Jesus promised, "Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." (John 3:18 NIV)






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