Global governments are increasingly gathering in the symbolical waiting room of the world’s hospital where “nations in perplexities” go to die. The news of America’s tragic decline over recent years has taken the country to the brink of its national death. What has happened to this once vivacious, vibrant nation of historic and world renown, a nation that seemed to have known the hand of God upon it? Its diagnosis is clear: the righteous foundations that so magnificently supported its greatness have been carefully dismantled, forcing both the infrastructure and the superstructure to rapidly implode.
With such an implosion, in its place other governmental ideologies continue to arise, vying for a global supremacy that will discard capitalism and whatever remains of any resem-blance to democracy.
The Economy of America
Before observing these global ideologies, and America’s own “heart failure,” we must acknowledge that this nation has known greatness beyond its national peers. Though it may be said by some that there is no such thing as a world currency, the America dollar has been the dominant or reserve currency of the world since World War II. The United States became the world’s largest and most powerful economy on the earth during the post war years. Therefore, other nations agreed for the dollar to become the predominant currency. As a result, all major commodities were quoted in American dollars. Countries had to first purchase American dollars in order to pay for commodities from other nations. Because of this, America has made money from its money in that countries must first buy our currency to make transactions with other countries. America has had a leading edge on the rest of the nations in that we purchase commodities with our own currency. Yet, in being the current world currency, we are able to do what other nations cannot do—we simply print more money to pay for what we buy.
However, the nations of the earth are now rising up against America. The most recent years have revealed even to the atheistic nations of the world that we have lost the character and quality of life we once had. Imbecility marks the leadership; our natural life has been lowered to the level of many third world countries; and we are bankrupt not only economically but also in every virtue of life. The world is now looking to other ideological standards of leadership.
Three other global currencies are rising to take the place of the dollar: the euro of the European states, the Japanese yen, and the Chinese yuan.
More recent years have revealed that government in America has taken hold of a new economic ideology based on the postmodernism delusion that has yielded an out-of-control financial experiment. We have expanded our money supply over 400% in just the past six years. And alarmingly, we have doubled our national debt since 2006. Economic records indicate that it took our nation 216 years to bring us into the overwhelming debt of $8.5 trillion; but in just the past eight years we have more than doubled that amount to $19 trillion (May 2016).
Manipulation of many financial sources has kept inflation amazingly low in the public eye. It is also nothing but the sheer mercy of God that the bottom of our country has not turned into sawdust. Our government has kept its printing presses rolling non-stop, 24 hours a day, printing more than $4 trillion new dollars and yet we still have had to borrow an additional $9.4 trillion. It is only a matter of time when the façade will fall and we will find ourselves under the rubble and debris of it all.
Our country’s own economic failure has produced a growing disdain for the economic concept of capitalism throughout the world. This has been perpetrated intelligently by those who are desiring to destroy America and its spirit of independence, free enterprise, and moral responsibility. It is not that capitalism does not work; rather, “the powers that be” have manipulated capitalism with wide-spread corruption, pride, and greed to intentionally sabotage this ideological method of business. They seek to parade the failure of capitalism in order to demand it be cast aside so that America will embrace a different ideological method of socialism or a coming new method.
Western Thought Leading Up to the Birth of Communism
We need to take a brief journey through history to view the subtle rise of philosophical thought that led to the birth of global communism. The 1600s revealed a weakening of the Roman Catholic Church’s supremacy and influence in Europe. But before the Protestant movement could lay hold of Western culture, we must remember that a number of nonreligious movements began to pervade European thought. These ideologies are found in the writings of René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza. From their writings arose rationalism. Rationalism (which elevates the human mind above any consideration of the supernatural) birthed philosophies and concepts of ethics that promoted the belief that man is “god-like.” The power of the mind in rationalism was now the center of man’s universe; this contradicted the place of God that the Church for centuries had promoted. At the same time, Deism had arisen portraying God as only the Creator and therefore not in any way involved in His creation after its beginning. Then the Enlightenment came with the rationalistic thinking of a number of men who stepped forward in boldness of words attacking the God of heaven. François Marie Arouet was the atheist who wrote under the pseudonym of Voltaire; he was against all religious expression. Jean Jacques Rousseau did not believe in the depravity of man; he proposed that every human is possessed with a spark of deity that simply needed to be fanned into a flame through greater human liberties. He promoted the idea that there was a “noble savage” chained inside of man who needed to be set free, and that man could become his own god.
Out of these men’s writings (and others of their day) came the revolutionary ideas that birthed the French Revolution. The revolution began with a defiant hatred for the established political order, including the Roman Catholic Church (and their belief of God), and declared that for man to be free politically he must also be free from Christianity. This belief destroyed the Church’s central role in European society even unto this day.
But when the 1800s unfolded in the rationalist’s history, there were other men who arose with powerful influence. The German theologians stepped forward on the heels of the French Revolution with the intent to destroy the Bible, denying God and any belief of the supernatural. They strongly promoted the theory of evolution, producing their own rationalistic theory of man from a non-God rationalistic perspective. Salvation was now through the new sciences coming into vogue, the new technologies of the Industrial Age. To them the Bible became a mythological book with an absence of Christ. Man was declared to not be in the image of God.
At the height of World War I, the intellectualism of man brought forth another revolutionary mood that came in the guise of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We must remember that out of this revolution emerged a country and a government that would be based not on a religion, but openly for the first time in history exclusively on atheism. Only a band of about 17,000 people brought forth the horror of communism and this new government in the Soviet Union. Yes, from its beginning it was brutal and built upon the aggression of terrorism, as deep as the terrorism of Islam. This ideology of communism was based on the belief of collective ownership of property, a monstrous dictatorship of the proletariat, and the suppression of the desires and the ambitions of individuality. It would sweep the world in power and influence.
The Rise and Fall of Communism
This ideology was first spread by subversive groups in Europe. Then after World War II it forcefully took over Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, the Baltic States, Romania, and Bulgaria, and overwhelmingly the great nation of China. It so quickly pervaded countries that nearly half of the population of the earth fell under the heel of this system of atheism.
Communism may be simply defined as an economic and social system in which all property and resources are collectively owned by a classless society and not by individual citizens. This definition is based on the 1848 publication entitled the Communist Manifesto by two German political philosophers, Karl Marx (1818-1883) and his close associate Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). This manifesto promoted their ideal of common ownership of all land and capital as well as the doing away of the power of the state. According to communistic principles, the society would be regulated on the fairest of all principles: (1) From each according to his ability; (2) To each according to his needs; (3) Differences between manual and intellectual labor and between rural and urban life were to disappear; (4) This is to open up the way for unlimited development of human potential; (5) Communism would mean that everyone at the company received the same pay regardless of their ability, how much they produced, or how hard they worked.
Nonetheless, it must be declared that there has never been a truly communist state in communistic history. This type of economy results in poor production, mass poverty, and little advancement for the individual. We witnessed this in the 1980s when the Soviet Union had become the product of widespread poverty and rebellions which caused the dissolution of the nation. By 1992 there were only ten nations under the banner of Communism; in that one year five dropped communism and became a dictatorship. Only five nations today identify as being communist: Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea.
But we must remember that when communism is abandoned it is only a matter of time before dictatorship takes control. Communism always leaves a political, economic, and religious vacuum among the people that must be quickly filled. We witnessed this when the Berlin Wall came down beginning in 1989. Some of us may remember that the people in East Berlin were told that the wall was built to protect the population from the fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. But in fact the wall was built to prevent the massive emigration and defection from the East. Once the wall came down a lot of money was given to the east Berliners. Sadly, exactly half the money spent by the East Berliners crossing into the West (during those first exciting months of 1989 to 1990) was spent on pornography. They did not know morally how to live with no restrictions. Communism has truly left its mark of an absolute moral void among its people; it truly has failed in every aspect of society.
Yet “socialism” still reigns as the ideological persuasion taking the place of communism, and we are witnessing this almost daily in the takeover of America.
Socialism shares similarities to communism but to a lesser extreme. It does share social and class equality as the main focus. Instead of the workers owning the facilities and tools for production, workers are paid and allowed to spend their wages as they choose, while the governing body owns and operates the means of production for the benefit of the working class. Each worker is provided with necessities, so he is able to produce without worry for his basic needs. But advancement and production are limited, and because of this there is no incentive to achieve more.
This is where America presently is, and the leadership is driving us more and more into the deep quagmire of socialism. Both communism and socialism are near opposites to capitalism, with no private ownership and class equality, and thus eliminating social classes, genders, and sexual discrimination. A true capitalist environment in a country facilitates competition, and the result is unlimited advancement for opportunities. It must be said that the capitalists have time and time again bailed out the failures of communistic nations since the 1950s. America sent sizable amounts of money to China and Russia in those early years; but now these countries are toying with capitalism in other parts of the world to gain a foothold in other countries’ economy, including our own.
America’s Leaders Call for Another Revolution
America is now in the throes of another revolution, and it is not a revolution to declare independence from another country. It is a revolution to overthrow our national Constitution.
In these most recent years there have been books written cultivating affinities between the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. We are told that they were the “incarnations of the same dynamic force.” But this is not true! Our national history is being rapidly rewritten and reinterpreted by the postmodernists of our times.
In the light of this, we must carefully review the facts. The American Revolution, after declaring its independence, produced a Constitution and a government based on the principles of the Bible and under the fear and reverence of Almighty God. To the contrary, the French Revolution was based openly on everything that was anti-Christian and anti-God. It was strongly and publicly motivated by rebellion against the Church, and it was established upon the ideas of the Deists and the so-called “free-thinkers” such as Descartes and Rousseau. History is very clear that France sought to remove God and to crown the reason of man in God’s place. The French Revolution was a product of the Enlightenment, and thus was exclusively based upon the glorification and deification of man. In contrast, the patriots in America at that time were humbling themselves before God, crying out to Him and beginning to witness the Second Awakening of revival from Heaven.
There is another clear distinction between these two revolutions. The Declaration of Independence (1776) was a list of grievances against the King of England, and it intended to justify an honorable separation from the rule of Britain. Our Constitution (1787) was a charter of government that had to be ratified by the states in order to become the supreme law of the land. Both of these documents were signed in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
The English statesman Edmund Burke made a trip to Paris in 1773 to see what was taking place there. When he returned to England, he warned the British parliament that the political theories of the contemporary philosophers could only produce tyranny. Burke predicted to his constituents that the coming revolution in Paris would be “the most horrid and cruel blow that can be offered to civil society through atheism.” When the Bastille fell into the hands of the revolutionists in 1789, and the Reign of Terror ensued, Burke placed directly the blame for France’s atrocities and ensuing miseries upon its people on the philosophy that denied God. He called it “the terror, an orgy of hate and revenge,” and that it was the product of the writings of the Enlightenment. Yet, the Enlightenment declared that if man was left to himself he would inevitably behave in a rational and just way. But oh, the contrary! Man left to himself will destroy himself.
Yes, the Reign of Terror and its outpouring in France was the outpouring of what Rousseau had called “The General Will,” and as expressed through what John Locke had called “The Social Contract.” This was the belief that a moral consensus among men would be for the good of man. The French Revolution provided a clear and most striking example of humanism unchecked, of man given unlimited power apart from God controlling his evil nature. This same spirit is taking place in America today; man’s nature is being released to do anything he wants, with no restraints, and no God to tell him what to do. David prophetically declared:
Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us (Psalm 2:1-3).
But David also states, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.”
What took place during that Reign of Terror? Among the first items on the agenda of the revolutionaries was the open rejection and the desecration of the Church. It taught the people to scoff the Church, to mock God, and to reject religion altogether. The intellectuals of the time portrayed the churches as reactionary enemies of progress. It is amazing that in public statements the leaders of our country are now defiantly attacking the Christian world. The Christians are now being viewed as the subversive, homeland terrorists, who are wanting to “turn back the clock” on progress to what they think was a better time. Yet, the liberals who control the leadership of our country, the courtrooms, and the educational halls of our land, believe that great social advances have been made with abortion-on-demand, homosexual and lesbian liberation, same-gender marriage, no-fault divorce, and the dissolution of the biblical perspective of the family. France’s “Reign of Terror” is coming soon to America.
The French Revolution quickly turned into religious persecution. The government embarked on a systematic de-Christianizing campaign. Churches were closed and converted to profane uses, like stables for horses. Religious schools were destroyed. The religious press was outlawed. All religious services were forbidden. Priests and nuns were rounded up in large numbers and sent into exile, imprisoned, or executed. The aim of the government was to wipe out every remaining vestige of Christianity. The motto of the French Revolution was “liberty, fraternity, equality.” And it became the proto-communist motto.
Conclusion
During that horrible time in France, God sent a spiritual awakening to America preparing for its birth in 1776. Later when George Washington took his oath to the office of President he added, “So help me God.” This was the spirit, the mood, and the hope of America’s revolution. In England, just across the English Channel from France, God sent the Revivalist movement which dominated the 1700s and kept England from being swept into the vortex of the atheistic philosophies of the French Revolution. Revival held back the tide of the destructive powers of France.
But we are in the throes of French thinking now in America. Though we know that Revelation 18:2-5 is referring to the coming city of Babylon, the Antichrist’s city at the end of the Tribulation Period, we believe the words are appropriate now concerning the collapse of our country. The world will witness with great mocking our demise, and cry,
[America] the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
May God have mercy on us for what is ahead. We claim once again the ending prayer of Habakkuk.