Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000403B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:08 Before the break, we were hot and heavy 00:11 on a discussion of the economic situation 00:15 in the world. 00:16 And of course, we want to do because it's our interest 00:20 as well as our responsibility here 00:22 trying to see how does this effect 00:23 religious liberty, civil liberties, 00:26 and indeed, the tail end of the human story, 00:30 Great Controversy thing. 00:31 We're always coming back to that. 00:32 Yeah. 00:34 And I brought up what I think is very significant, 00:36 Revelation pretty much gives an economic market 00:40 to the very end time events, 00:42 economic collapse, and economic exploitation. 00:46 Yes, those are themes in the Great Controversy. 00:48 And I am not a theologian, 00:51 but I believe that a lot of theologians 00:53 have not given it the emphasis that they have. 00:57 Incidentally, that's one of the turning points 01:00 when I was in college. 01:02 The Great Depression, 01:03 reading about the Great Depression, 01:05 and how the despair, and the like 01:07 led to the rise of Hitler, 01:09 I could not help but go back to the Revelation 01:11 to understand that. 01:12 And that's why I made actually my career choice, 01:15 I wanted to go into banking or go into government 01:19 in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. 01:21 But the thing that I was talking 01:24 about that economic theory has come full circle 01:26 because you have got economic theory, 01:29 which is economic theory 01:30 is what is translated into policy. 01:33 Then for me that despair, that lack of solutions told me, 01:37 I thought actually the Jesus would have come by now. 01:40 And I decided... Oh, that's another story... 01:42 That's another story. But for me... 01:43 I never expect that look in the mirror 01:45 and see the sort of dissipated, "Oh, God, mercy." 01:48 Yeah, but for me the despair... 01:50 One of the things people are not even aware 01:52 that Hitler was seen as a messiah. 01:54 Of course, yes. 01:55 Hitler was seen as a messiah because of the desperation. 01:59 And I believe that we are coming to that time. 02:03 Patrick J. Deneen, he's a political philosopher, 02:07 Notre Dame. 02:08 He wrote a recent book just came out this January, 02:11 Liberalism Has Failed. 02:13 And he says that there is no remedy to liberalism, 02:16 he speaks about economic liberalism, 02:18 the economic things 02:19 and that liberalism promised the things 02:21 that it cannot deliver, 02:22 it cannot deliver prosperity to everyone. 02:25 And he says after this, 02:27 there will come an authoritarian regime 02:32 that is going to come after that. 02:34 And so for me, I wonder what is going to come, 02:38 can Western civilization or liberal democracy 02:40 survive another 2008 like financial crisis? 02:46 Can it survive that? 02:50 I'm very pessimistic. 02:51 In a way, some time when I think of it, 02:52 it makes me scared. 02:54 Well, the world might survive it. 02:56 You know, when we're talking 02:57 about the return of Jesus Christ 03:00 in the end of the Great Controversy, 03:02 you know, that is what it is, and it will happen. 03:06 But just because we're in an apocalyptic type scenario, 03:10 it doesn't mean this is the one, 03:12 many Christians including early Adventists 03:14 thought it was their time. 03:15 The New Testament writers thought it was their time. 03:18 I think Jesus Himself thought it was that time. 03:20 Remember, He said, 03:22 "People are going to see this happen now." 03:24 Yes. And I got to explain that. 03:26 To me, what explained that best was C.S. Lewis, 03:29 who I don't generally care for, 03:31 he said, he'd rather have a God who was wrong... 03:34 Sorry, who didn't know than who was wrong. 03:37 Jesus didn't know, He had ascended to His Farther. 03:40 Yes. 03:41 He said, "Only the Father in heaven 03:42 knows the day and hour." 03:44 But Jesus saw 03:46 that the conditions could have been met there, 03:48 the apostles saw that the troubles 03:52 caused the destruction of Jerusalem 03:54 that was sort of the end of the world for them 03:55 was about to happen, World War II, you know... 03:59 But you know what... 04:01 Hundreds of millions or what is it about... 04:02 Yeah, like some million people dying, 04:04 that was pretty apocalyptic. 04:06 And I can see that, 04:08 you know, I don't have to go to the Internet, 04:09 but I go to the Internet and FEMA camps 04:13 and globalist plans 04:14 for a 500 million surviving population. 04:18 You know, people are inclined to make that happen 04:20 that's a dim future. 04:21 But, you know, the world may go on, 04:24 but one thing that I say, 04:26 and I tell people in meetings, "I'll stake my life on this. 04:30 The world that you know is about to pass away." 04:34 And this is what's implicit, in the 2008 collapse 04:38 and that financial compounding disaster, 04:42 it's coming at us like a steam train, 04:45 the construct of the modern economic order 04:49 which at the end of the day, the US is based on, 04:51 it's not an empire, it's like... 04:54 I made the comparison years ago, 04:56 it's like Venous, 04:57 it's a trading empire, it exists on monetary tentacles 05:00 out through the world. 05:02 Yes, it does. 05:03 And the arms are withering, the control. 05:07 And now I have to get a Roman analogy 05:09 that the legions are marching hither and yon 05:11 to try to hold it together, but the center cannot hold. 05:15 Yes, yes. 05:16 The center cannot hold, but the idea of end of history 05:19 that we're coming at the end is very interesting that... 05:23 I'm sorry to interrupt but remember Francis Fukuyama? 05:26 That's actually what I was going to... 05:27 That's what... 05:28 He said, people have misquoted him. 05:30 He said, "We'd reached the end of the historical process." 05:32 Yes. That it all worked itself out. 05:34 Well, he was a bit wrong, 05:36 but people are inclined to think that where do we go 05:38 because everything is a little experiments of... 05:40 That I fear that people did not read. 05:41 A lot of people they kept, they caught that phrase, 05:45 but I think they did not understand 05:46 what Fukuyama what saying 05:48 because I actually read the book. 05:52 The end of time phrase 05:54 was first that's Hegel's phrase, 05:57 it's the Hegel in relation to the French years. 06:00 It's actually Hegel who spoke about the end of history. 06:04 That the French Revolution has actually brought 06:06 the evolution of history to an end, 06:09 it is Hegel's term, and Karl Marx repeated it. 06:13 And as I was saying, you know, other segments 06:15 that you have this response to the French Revolution 06:18 both the Great Awakening 06:21 was a response to the French Revolution, 06:24 and Hegel responds also and says, 06:26 "History has come to an end." 06:28 And we as Adventists, 06:29 we believe that since the French Revolution, 06:33 we're believing in the end time, but Hegel too, 06:36 of course, he was a theologian, believed in the same thing. 06:40 And so Fukuyama was actually saying, 06:42 of course, he doesn't give this apocalyptic perspective. 06:46 And so one thing that fascinates me 06:48 is where all these philosophers, 06:50 they look at it, and they're saying, 06:52 "You know what," we've come to the what, 06:55 "We've come to the end." 06:57 And to me, it gets me back to Revelation. 07:00 Revelation speaks of... 07:02 Is it 3:10 or 4:10 where it says, 07:05 "I saw four angels holding back the winds of strive 07:09 that they may not blow on the earth." 07:12 When you actually understand the basis of the economy, 07:15 the problems that we have in the economic area, 07:18 it's actually scary 07:20 because the American economy, 07:22 yes, it has been expanding for the past 10 years, 07:25 but after it expands for so many years, 07:27 there is always a depression on the corner. 07:30 When you look at the Chinese people... 07:32 Or bubble bursts. Yes, the bubble bursts. 07:33 The Chinese also been 07:35 officially stimulating their economy. 07:39 And it's now the second major economy in the world. 07:43 If something happens in China, 07:45 and China holds a lot of American debt, 07:49 the American treasury things. 07:53 China is responsible 07:54 for most of the economic boom in Africa 07:58 and the like, it has been spreading around. 08:00 These two economies if something happens to them, 08:02 we're going to have a great depression 08:06 or not be even close to what has happened. 08:08 Let me put Ellen White who's a very... 08:10 Let's use a prophetic figure, there's no question. 08:12 And she spoke to church members, and she said, 08:15 "The day will come when you will... 08:17 You have failed to do it before, 08:19 but you will throw your money at the church, 08:21 and it will be worthless." 08:22 Yes. 08:24 I believe that could easily happen. 08:26 I'm just talking about structural... 08:28 Forget prophecy, but just structurally 08:29 about economic things and where we're heading. 08:32 Yes, it's scary. 08:34 Why is a dollar worth a dollar? People don't think about. 08:37 It's only worth a dollar 08:38 because a critical group of people 08:41 are willing to accept it 08:42 as a dollar's worth of something. 08:44 Yes. It's nothing but a... 08:47 It actually rests on faith. It actually rests on faith. 08:50 In the early days, it rested on the full faith and credit, 08:54 but it also rested on barter between countries even that 08:59 like Australia when they started, 09:00 they got Spanish... 09:02 They went doubloons of Spanish coins, 09:04 and they chopped out the middle and made a smaller coin. 09:06 So they had a monetary system 09:08 was piggybacked on someone else's. 09:11 I know it is Zimbabwe, who got itself out of trouble 09:13 by going to the dollar 09:14 which had an established recognized value, 09:16 and then things were fine for a while. 09:18 And the dollar used to be based on Fort Knox, 09:21 I made an allusion to it in earlier program, 09:23 it's not based on Fort Knox anymore, 09:24 it's just a construct, it circulated around, 09:28 and based on the day's trading, and all the rest, 09:31 the consensus established. 09:33 If the mood of the world population shifts, 09:38 like that it could be gone. 09:39 But another thing too 09:40 is that when you look at the global economy, 09:43 we don't even fully understand it, 09:45 it is so interdependent... 09:47 Well, it's an organic process and... 09:48 Yes, it's very independent. 09:50 It is actually taken a form of its own, 09:53 and I think this is what makes us scary. 09:54 If we actually understood... 09:56 You know, I think people who followed closely, 09:58 the financial crisis is that the people 10:00 who have constructed the derivates and the like, 10:03 those financial instruments they are not even, 10:05 they don't actually know what they created. 10:08 Well, I remember the treasury secretary 10:10 when the collapse came, 10:12 he came before Congress, literally trembling. 10:14 Yes. 10:15 And the Bible says, "Men's hearts failing them 10:17 for fear of what's coming upon the earth." 10:19 Yes. 10:20 To me, I think the most scary thing 10:23 is that the modern structures, 10:25 the modern institutions that supposedly created by men, 10:29 we actually don't know, fully understand them, 10:32 we don't understand the system. 10:34 And if this is system was supposed to collapse, 10:36 I don't think we actually have remedies to it. 10:39 And that's why to me like the English Revolution 10:42 and the like are important, 10:43 they kind of help us understand 10:46 the foundations of this civilization. 10:48 And I think that one point that is not fully recognized 10:51 is our God is part of that equation. 10:54 And when we understand 10:55 that God is part of the equation, 10:56 we can see that the absence of God 10:58 has created the current crisis. 11:03 It's worth remembering that, 11:04 for Jesus, economic systems were not really the main story, 11:09 spiritual realities are transcendent, 11:12 but when money was needed by His little traveling band 11:16 who really didn't have a particular source of income, 11:21 the Bible says that they were cared 11:22 for by a number of women as they traveled around 11:25 but not much mention of money, 11:26 but when they needed the tax money, 11:29 they found it in a fish, and Jesus said, 11:32 "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar, 11:34 but unto God what is God's." 11:37 There's no question though that we need money 11:39 and a tenth of it 11:41 as of all of our positions belongs to God, 11:44 and we have an obligation to provide for the widows, 11:47 for the needy, and of course, for our families 11:50 who are needy of course. 11:52 But money is not to be confused with earthly security 11:58 and heavenly certainty. 12:00 Money is the Lord's. 12:03 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-09-27