Daily Devotional for Wednesday October 15, 2008

The Coming Judgment of God on this Nation - Part 1

(2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation Chapter 13)

The coming judgment of God on this nation, the rise of the anti-Christ, and the hope of the last days remnant.

Part One of Two.

***The Daily Devotional the next two days is going to be very different. On Monday night's TV program, I dealt with the coming judgment of God on this nation, a very logical strategy for how the anti-Christ will come on the scene, and the hope of those true followers of Jesus Christ in these last days. It was one of those nights when the Holy Spirit came upon me as I was speaking, and shared a powerful word with the TV audience. It is a word that I must share with you as well. Be prepared, since it is a difficult word. You will need to pray over part one today, and part two tomorrow. Please, it is critical that you read BOTH parts so you have the full word. May the Lord bless you richly as He prepares you for what is ahead, and how you can make your life count for Christ in these last days.

--transcript from Liveprayer TV program of Monday, October 13, 2008--

For those people who have not been watching the program for very long, I'm not one of these guys who walks around downtown with a sandwich board saying the sky is falling, God's coming and He's angry. But you don't have to be a Biblical scholar, you don't have to have read much of the Bible to understand that God is a God of love, a God of grace, a God of mercy, and that He's also a God of judgment. When you look back thru the Bible we see God's hand of judgment often coming down on His very own people. Why? For their rebellion, for their rejection of Him. Look at the children of Israel. Incredible sexual immorality, worshipping every false god and idol that man created out of his own evil imagination, total rebellion to God and His Word. His judgment fell and His wrath fell.

Now we know at the end of the book the ultimate judgment of God is coming on this world. I submit to you that in the Bible you don't find the words United States of America. I know some Bible prophecy people try to find the United States in different prophetic passages. I personally don't accept those conclusions. Of course Bible prophecy is very subjective and you can almost make it say anything. But I totally reject the cases that some make to claim that the U.S. is in the Bible. It's not. The country is only 232 years old. It was founded on the Word of God. Founded by people who believed God, believed the Bible, and believed in Jesus. Now it's a totally humanistic, secular society that rejects God, rejects the Bible, rejects Christ, and lives in total rebellion to God and His Word.

Gross sexual immorality. We legally commit infanticide 4,000 times a day. This is a nation that is wicked and in utter rebellion to God in every sense of the word. Why would we be so naive to think that God won't judge this nation. His judgment can come in many forms. It can come in the form of a natural disaster and wipe out the nation. That could happen. It could come in the form of God allowing our enemies to take us captive. That's how He would normally judge the children of Israel. People say we have a great military, how can that happen? It's happened to great militaries before my friend. You don't have to be much of an historian to go back to the nations that have come and gone, great civilizations that have come and gone.

I put forth a case six months ago and believe God's judgment on this nation is going to come using the economy as His instrument. What better way to shake up a nation and affect every man, woman, and child alive. If you don't think everybody's attention was fully directed to the economy the last few weeks, you weren't paying attention. Eight trillion dollars. Eight trillion dollars. That's what was lost . The Dow Jones down 40%. So it's not a hard case to make. Because I was heavily involved in financial markets back in the '80s before I rededicated my life to the Lord and went into full-time ministry, I understand how fragile the markets are. I think many Americans have had their eyes opened very wide over these past few weeks to the smoke and mirrors our economy operates on.

These companies purport to have hundreds of millions of dollars and there are obviously legitimate dollars flowing and assets there. Yet they all carry tremendous debt. It's all leveraged. And the problem is as long as the game continues, everything's fine. The smoke and mirrors is effective as long as the game continues. But when the games come to a grinding halt, you saw what happened. You have General Motors, probably the bell weather company of this nation, losing a billion dollars a month. Now they have $11 billion in reserves, but if they're losing a billion dollars a month, they have less than a year. General Motors!

How many of these well respected household names have you seen fail over the last few months? Bear Sterns, Wachovia Bank, Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, AIG, humungous corporations generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year. But when the game came to a stop, they're not even worth anything. Hundreds of billions of dollars thrown in by the government to bail out these companies. And I know it's the housing sector that gets the blame. But that was simply the trigger that stopped the game. It was just the one part of the economy that got exposed and caused everything to come to a halt. Once that happened, the whole house of cards began to fall down. The economies of the rest of the world are the same. They are no different. You saw the same thing in Great Britain and Japan and other countries.

We read in the Book of Revelation how in the last days we're going to have a one world government, a one world economic system, ushering in the rule and the reign for a short period of time the anti-Christ. People have always wondered how could that be possible. The United States government isn't going to merge with European governments, the Russian government. The U.S. economy is separate from the Italian economy, from the Chinese economy. However, if there's one lesson we've learned throughout this economic chaos we've been living out the last few week, it is how incredibly connected, intertwined, the economies of the world are.

There's another very troubling aspect to all this, something not very many people are talking about. What has happened in Europe, what has happened in Asia, what has happened in the U.S., has been a quick answer to try to solve some of the economic crisis. These government have basically taken over the banking system. Nationalized the banks for a lack of better description. Pure socialism. It's all been done under the pretense that once things get better the banks will pay the governments back and the governments will dissociate themselves.

Oh, really!!! Let me throw this out on the table. The take over of these banks by these governments, including our own, has resulted in the nationalization of these banks. These banks aren't going to be in a position to pay off these loans any time soon. These governments are going to be pretty much controlling the banking system, and the longer they are in, the harder they will be to get out! You've already got nationalized health care in Canada, the U.K., and it's a nightmare. By the way, If Barack Hussein Obama becomes the next president, trust me, he'll be pushing for national health care. So now we've got the government controlling the health care system. The government's getting heavily involved in the real estate market now. This is exactly how Communism works my friend. The government runs everything. You either work for the government or you are nothing.

Part of Senator Obama's great economic plan is to redistribute the wealth. What does that mean? That means take from the people who produce and give it to the people who don't. Communism. Capitalism is going to be an afterthought pretty soon. So what's the next step. Once we cross this line, what becomes the next step. It's a logical step. It's to align ourselves with other governments around the world. We've already got the U.N., Nato, and other alliances. The next step is to get aligned politically with foreign governments. Barack Hussein Obama is not the anti-Christ. I know a lot of people like to think that, but as we move more into a socialistic society, where all of this current activity leads, it will become much easier job for a single charismatic individual to rise up and make the case for all people of the world to follow him.

I see this happening economically before I see it happening politically. Once it happens economically, the political part will fall right into place since ultimately politics is nothing but about money. So money rules the day. So I look for a single individual to rise out of possibly even this economic crisis. It's very possible. I don't care that all the markets were up last night. The flaws and the problems of this economy still exist and one human being could have the ability to rise up out of this crisis and come up with all the answers to all the world's economic problems and be this great orator, planner, and organizer, and group all these economies of the world together. That's what the one world economic system in the last days is going to be.

Once the economies are collectively secure the political unification is no big deal. The money rules. I've always had a personal problem seeing one guy coming up basically ruling everything. I could never quite figure out how that could happen. I see it perfectly now. Now am I not making the case that we are in those last moments and the antichrist is coming. First of all only God knows when that will happen. And I'm not sitting here tonight making that case now, but I am definitely sitting here tonight telling you how that could easily come about. Just this past weekend we had all the high-ranking economic officials from all over the world in Washington DC. I submit to you, if there was one individual who could have walked into that room and said, I've got the answer boys, and it was a real answer, that person would have had incredible power.

That's how the antichrist is going to come on the scene. How he's going to come on the scene, not with an army, not with tanks or nukes, but with the wisdom, satanically inspired charisma, and rise up and say I've got the answer follow me! After WWI, the German people were broken. Their national pride was destroyed. They were economically depressed. Their country was destroyed. It was out of the ashes of WWI that an Austrian painter, not even a German, rose up out of those ashes and said, "Follow me, I will lead you back to greatness. Follow me and I will make this nation great again. Follow me and we will become a dominant world power again." In their brokenness and despair the German people said we will follow you. That man? Adolph Hitler!!!

I'm more focused on the fact that what we're seeing right now is the beginning of God's judgment on this nation. I firmly believe that. I don't doubt it for a second. It's clear to me. Look at what's happening this year. We have floods, fires, hurricanes, all the natural disasters we have experienced continually throughout the year. Have we had national disasters before? Of course. I'm just saying the non-stop disasters since the beginning of the year, factor in the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, ,factor in the coming election. I'm telling you that the rumblings are there. I guess the next logical question is what do we do? D we take all the money out of the bank? Do we stay in the house and wait to die? What do we do?

***Don't miss the conclusion to this special word tomorrow as I finish this incredible message. I will deal with how we as Christians rise up in these last days to call nations to repentance and help lead the lost and hurting masses to faith in Jesus Christ. We have one of the greatest soul winning opportunities in the 6,000 year history of the human race before us. God has blessed us to have the greatest communication device man has ever created and harness it to bring His Truth to a hurting world and share the hope and love of Jesus Christ with the lost. Please, don't miss this incredible conclusion tomorrow!

In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller