Why the World’s Financial Markets Will Recover
The world’s financial markets will recover in order to crash again many years from now. That future crash is foretold in Revelation chapter 18. And the market that crashes in that future will be entirely different, and be in entirely different circumstances, from the present day.
Revelation chapter 18 is about, among other things, the collapse of world trade many years in our future. For future strong, luxurious trade to develop, as is described in that chapter, is required a recovery of the present day level of trade and finance, for there cannot be healthy luxury trading without healthy financial circumstances. No matter how weak and bankrupt the present financial crisis will become, it has to recover to reach the high levels that is described in Revelation 18. “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more…” [18:11-13] and there follows 23 items of trade. “The merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury” [v.3]. The question is, “How long before our stricken market will recover to this level”? The discouraging answer is “We cannot tell but it might be a very long time”.

The Timing
The timing of that future crash certainly seems to occur after the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Not only so but it also seems to occur after resentment to the demands of Jesus as ruler of the Kingdom of God on Earth generates enough opposition to be organised into a military action against him. “These [ten kings] will make war with the Lamb and the Lamb will overcome them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings and those who are with him are called, chosen and faithful” Revelation 17:14. How long will such a series of events take? Quite a long time, if we are not mistaken.
Step 1. The return of Jesus to the earth can occur at any time. There is nothing in Bible prophecy that is required to be fulfilled before his second advent. However, we do not know if his return is to be tonight or years away. So that interval of time is unknown.
Step 2. The proclamation of the Kingdom, “the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”, follows the return of Jesus. It seems absolutely sure that the proclamation of the Kingdom is not the first event after the arrival of Jesus. Clearly, the resurrection of the faithful is a priority, the gathering of the living believers and “the marriage supper of the Lamb” follows and occupies some time. Habakkuk 3 and Isaiah 63 provide some detail of endeavours that seem to occupy Jesus in his journey through Teman and Edom on his way to Jerusalem. There is potential for years to be involved in step 2.
Furthermore there is the conversion of Egypt in Isaiah 19:16-25 to consider. If this effort takes place around the time, before or after the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, a period of time needs to be allocated. Step 3. How many years will it take for resentment against the rule of Jesus from Jerusalem to build and for a military force to be arranged to fight him?
How long will it take for this process from Step 1 to 3 take? Some will say, It can/will happen quickly. Agreed. But has believers’ expectations taken longer than thought? Always. So we cannot tell how long the recovery of our markets will take, but recover they will.

Can’t Stop Israel - It Is A Shame About Its Leaders
No matter how much turmoil engulfs Israel, the country just keeps rolling along. Tourism has reached near record levels. Unemployment is near record lows. The currency is booming. Migration is healthy. The population keeps expanding. Overseas investments break records. It leads in medical research. It provides the USA with more technological inventions than any other country.
These are attributes with which God has provided Israel for its survival as a nation. It is a continuing miracle. The Muslims are no closer now, with all their accumulated oil wealth, to “wiping Israel off the map” as they were sixty years ago. Two weak and unbelieving Israeli Prime Ministers have offered to hand over sovereignty of 95% of the West Bank to the Palestinians for a starting point of a Palestinian state and twice the Palestinians have turned down the offer. They want all or nothing. Perhaps God has put into their minds an impossible dream. There is a Biblical precedent for such an idea, “The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in her midst, and they have caused Egypt to err in all her work” Isaiah 19:14. So while foolish Israeli leaders try to give away large portions of the Holy Land to their enemies, God very likely has “mingled a perverse spirit” in the midst of the Palestinians to prevent an Israeli self-inflicted injury.
The USA Foreign Secretary Condoleezza Rice has made 14 trips to the Middle East in an American effort, among other things, to put pressure on Israel to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinians, making land concessions. Since the clear purpose of God is the reduction of Israel’s enemies and the expansion of Israel [see Obadiah v.18], this USA policy is contrary to God’s will. It is a plain possibility that the USA’s financial calamities have a direct link to this challenge of God’s will.
With the removal of Olmert as leader of the Israeli Kadima party and the government, will his replacement be any better? Along with USA President George Bush, Olmert was desperate to take his place in history as maker of Middle East peace by compromising Israeli security in making huge concessions to her enemies. In their narrow view, perhaps they see no other way out. It seems certain that God will have removed both of them before they can do irreparable damage. Again we ask, Are their successors any better?
We see little hope at present. Neither country exhibits any appreciation of Christian purpose or Biblical destiny. Neither country will disappear as each has a future role to play but both countries, in the meantime, will suffer from their moral and spiritual neglect of God’s will and purpose. The following is a typical statement from one Israeli institute.
Israel at Sixty: Asymmetry, Vulnerability, and the Search for Security - Gerald M. Steinberg [Jerusalem Centre for Public affairs]
Sixty years ago few observers gave Israel much chance of survival. The small Jewish society faced a huge asymmetry in power, demography, and other factors. This asymmetry has not changed, but Israel has survived through the combination of intense motivation to restore national sovereignty - an equal place among the nations - and finding the necessary strategies and tactics, adapted in each period to changing threats.
Israel’s unique situation - a small and vulnerable country surrounded by many large and hostile neighbors - led to its ambiguous nuclear deterrent policy that has been in place since the 1960s, and can be expected to continue as long as rejection of Israel’s legitimacy and threats to national survival continue. Israel can look back on sixty years of warfare and terrorism with the knowledge that these threats have been overcome.
There is no sense of Israel’s heritage, of its destiny or of God’s overriding care. Clearly, there will have to be a drastic change. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes” Ezekiel 36:26-27. Zechariah 12:9-11 describes the occasion when this will occur, “In that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn.” God’s special blessing, in this unique way, will save Israel.

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