Many people who like to follow prophetic trends, often ask: When will global financial markets finally crash? When will financial systems end up a smouldering ash heap … and, unlike the mythological Phoenix, never to rise again?
And so, we now come to a third part of our study of endtime money trends. In prior articles, we highlighted the various asset types … the boosting and inflation of wealth on the earth today. We concluded that mankind has come a long way in magnifying worldly riches and setting up sophisticated, global systems of money and wealth. In a previous part, we also briefly explored the rarified world of “Big Money” and the super-wealthy. The extreme stratification of wealth seen worldwide today, we concluded, is in alignment with the conditions and scale prophesied in the Bible.
At this point in human history, we identify a massive, hyper-intensive system of commercialism … perhaps at the very apex of perversion, materialism, humanism, and idolatry. The entire globe is subsumed and captured by a corrupt monetary system and net of financialization, with globalism and globalization being the handmaidens.
And, crucially, from within this late stage emerges a small group of ultra-rich people. Seen worldwide, wealth distribution today (taken in all its forms and guises) may be the most uneven and extreme ever in history.
A surprising reaction to the world’s global commercial colossus, is seen in Christianity itself. It cannot be denied that countless individual Christians have been lured and deceived by earthly perspectives … therefore becoming trapped.
Many churches have become quite comfortable in the cozy embrace of worldly wealth and affluence. Some even believe that the world’s wealth will be given for the church’s disposal, to take over the economic structures of the world and thereby force obedience to “Christianity” (loosely defined). This is an eye-opening strategy. Why? In form, it is the exact tactic that the False Prophet will enforce upon the world … limiting “buying and selling” (Revelation 13:7). Both use financial power and techniques to bring about religious goals.
We return to the worldwide economic colossus. Just what will happen to the world’s pumped-up edifice of mostly paper wealth? What does the Bible foretell for the elites of this era? Who, if anybody, will be the beneficiary of the “wealth of the wicked” (Proverbs 13:22)? We will return to these topics. The Bible provides the answers and gives us specific information about future outcomes.
Worldwide Wealth Collapse
What happens to the fabricated façade of the world’s wealth? A portion of it will collapse and disappear. However, we must note that the Bible speaks of different kinds of wealth. Some of it will survive, and is mentioned to play a role in the Millennial period (as we will show). Another type will completely disappear, never to reappear again.
Anyone surveying the course of the world’s debt-based financial systems today, will no doubt conclude that a massive collapse of the world’s financial system is inevitable at some point. No one can know exactly when this will happen. Mankind’s greed and selfish indiscipline alone assures that this will occur.
According to the Bible, we learn that a colossal destruction of the world’s economic systems will take place; likely in the latter half of the 7-year Tribulation period and the early Millennium.
Scripture clearly states that a time of wrath will come where God says He will bring down the pride of mankind. However, as part of this unfolding, there are possibly as many as six different judgments involving collapses or wealth overturns—all of them yet to occur in the future.
Isaiah sheds light on some of the different manifestations of the “day of the Lord” (referring to the Tribulation period, or possibly just the second half of this period). “The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled), for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty, and all the oaks of Bashan, for all the towering mountains and all the high hills, for every lofty tower and every fortified wall, for every trading ship and every stately vessel. The arrogance of man will be brought low, and the pride of men humbled; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols will totally disappear” (Isaiah 2:12-18).
Here we see that sovereign economies and nations (symbolized by trees, cedars and oaks), global trading systems (figuratively as ships), and individual nation states, greater or lesser (mountains and hills), will be brought low.
A number of collapses are yet to take place inside this “day of the Lord.” Here, in no particular order, are these separate judgments (or wealth turnovers) that all lie ahead for Israel and the world. We count at least five that are pre-Millennial, and one that takes place thereafter.
1. Wrath upon Israel/Jerusalem. Jerusalem is overcome, while the remnant escapes into the wilderness. While Israel may be a rather tranquil area of the world (in a relative sense) in the first half of the Tribulation, following a covenant with the Antichrist, anyone hoping to remain unscathed and safe from loss in the second half will be disappointed. When the Antichrist breaks the terms of his covenant with Israel (this to occur in the middle of the 7-year Tribulation period, according to a number of scholars), Jerusalem faces destruction and Israel flees.
2. Wrath upon All Mankind. This category includes judgments on individual nations, as well as globalism itself. Ultimately, this is completed at Armageddon and in a short period of time thereafter. Not only does God “consume the whole earth” (Zephaniah 3:8), but Israel also plays a role in exacting judgment upon the nations and peoples that have persecuted her (Micah 4:13; Jeremiah 30:11).
3. Wrath upon the Great Whore. Revelation 17 reveals that Mystery Babylon, the Mother of Prostitutes, will be burned by fire. Whatever wealth this religious entity represented, as part of the grand ecumenical movement of religion and money, she will come to naught. “They [the 10 kings] will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire” (Revelation 17:16).
4 & 5. Wrath and Judgment upon Mammon/Commercialism. It is not generally well understood that the judgments upon commercialism and the manmade pride that derives from these “Babel-like” systems, take more than one form. First, consider that there may be several stages in the collapse of Babylon the Great.
Also, Ezekiel mentions that a re-emergence of Tyre (or a type of Tyre) will occur at some point. Tyre was the center of a global trade system in the ancient world (600 to 500 BC), and can be seen to foreshadow a globalized trade system (globalization) of the last days. It was ultimately destroyed by Alexander the Great in 332 BC.
Ezekiel says that Tyre “[…] will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth” (Isaiah 23:17). How this fate connects with the judgments of Babylon the Great is not entirely clear. There seem to be different judgments upon Mammon/Commercialism.
For example, in the case of Babylon the Great, its wealth is “[…] never to be found again” (Revelation 18:21), while that of revived Tyre is only never to be hoarded again, but is to “go to those who live before the LORD” (Isaiah 23:18). The Psalmist also refers to this event, “The city of Tyre will come with a gift, people of wealth will seek your favor” (Psalm 45:12). These are different results, and therefore must refer to more than one judgment.
The demise of Babylon the great city appears to be separated into at least three judgments or events. We note that “death, mourning and famine” will overtake Babylon in one day (Revelation 18:8). This is mentioned only once. Yet, sudden collapses and destruction of wealth are said to occur in “one hour” three separate times. Each of these involve three different groups of people (Revelation 18:10, 17, 19—nations, kings and merchants). While these three depictions could very well refer to the same event, the fact remains that they take place in one hour, while the overall process of destruction of Babylon the Great takes place over a day. This suggests that the downfall cannot be reconciled in one event, but rather multiple events—plausibly as many as three.
At the end of all these wealth overturns mentioned to this point, there is one more great and final wealth overturn that occurs at the start of the Millennium period and thereafter. Crucially, it is the great wealth transfer to Israel. While Israel and Jerusalem are raided and sacked in the Tribulation period, in the end, all and much more is returned to her.
A large part of the world’s riches that are not destroyed in the Tribulation period, flow to Zion. Even here, there are at least two types of flows: 1. What is apparently seized as part of the “threshing” of the nations that rise against Israel. These are the “ill-gotten gains” of the nations (Micah 4:13, translated as “illicit” profits) that go before the Lord. 2. Other flows to Israel are more a type of tribute, resulting from Israel’s dealings with the rest of the world. For example, “Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come” (Isaiah 60:5; cf. v. 11; 61:6; 66:12; Zechariah 14:14).
Thoughts to Ponder
The merging of God and Mammon—figured as religion and materialism, faith and globalization, in bed together—is the final capstone of mankind’s deception. This is reflected in the religious and commercial Babylon, shown to rise in illicit cahoots in Revelation 17 and 18. It is the final, globe-spanning religion.
Considering all of the above, one may wonder why it is not the rich Laodicean church that is particularly reprimanded by Christ. In fact, the apostate religion’s church and its many daughters—shown as Mystery Babylon the Whore in Revelation 17—are well on their way to a full union with commercial Babylon of Revelation 18 (in this writer’s opinion).
Since this is an impossibility—“You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24)—it is really a movement in which Mammon has successfully robed itself in the garb of religion and apparent “Christian godliness” (2 Timothy 3:5).
Wilfred J. Hahn is a global economist/strategist. Formerly a top-ranked global analyst, research director for a major Wall Street investment bank, and head of Canada’s largest global investment operation, his writings focus on the endtime roles of money, economics and globalization. He has been quoted around the world and his writings reproduced in numerous other publications and languages. His 2002 book The Endtime Money Snare: How to live free accurately anticipated and prepared its readers for the Global Financial Crisis. A following book, Global Financial Apocalypse Prophesied: Preserving true riches in an age of deception and trouble, looks further into the prophetic future.
Do you have questions or other perspectives, you can contact Wilfred at: staff@eternalvalue.com. Please note that for reasons of volume and investment securities regulation, he cannot give financial advice.