Jamming of the Mind
Anyone working in the business world will be familiar with the current marketing jargon. Advertisers talk of market share. For example, Coca Cola, the world’s largest beverage company, sometimes calculates its sales in terms of share of the total of all the liquids that the entire world consumes. On this basis, they figure that only a small percentage of all liquids drunk by humans is a Coca Cola product. Conclusion? The sky is the limit for “market share,” if everybody can be expected to only drink Coca Cola beverages.

Marketing strategists extend this concept to other measurements—for example, “share of wallet.” But the most invasive and deadly concept in terms of endtime spiritual entrapment is “share of mind.” Leading marketing professionals use this concept to great effect upon unassuming consumers.

The Bible tells us about the cosmological battlefront for share of the human mind. Said Christ: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Our Lord leaves nothing to interpretation here. It is plainly said: We are to love the Lord our God, with “ALL” our minds … and 100% “share of mind.”

Satan, on the other hand, counters with lies, diversion, distractions and the gently-probing question, “Did God really say […]?” (Genesis 3:1). This relates to the rebellion of Satan and his fallen angels against God.

Looking at trends today, we can be sure that Satan has mastered the technique of capturing “share of mind.” The proof? The “share of thought” that God Almighty, His Son and His truths attract in our time—whether in so-called Christian nations or not—is probably at an all-time low. Christ too foreknew that in the day He would return, he would not find much faith on earth, saying: “[…] when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Share of mind will be near zero. Why?

The reality is that very few people will even be aware of this grave development. The truth and vital facts of eternal significance are being crowded out of the modern mind as never before. On the one hand, information about the gospel is available more than ever; on the other, people are too distracted being amused, preoccupied and self-absorbed. In contrast, Satan is an effective and deadly “marketer,” capturing people’s attention (share of mind)—in other words, jamming the mind’s bandwidth.

How tragic. He, who is the source of all knowledge and truth, through whom all things were made (Hebrews 1:2), who is worthy of all glory and honor (Revelation 5:12), is largely an afterthought today.

In fact, deductively, the “share of mind” assault that we are discussing is a development of the end times. How so? As mentioned, very little faith will be found on earth when Jesus returns. Why? Because the Bible tells us that “hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close […] suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34-35).

Why the Mind Is an Endtime Target

We next continue with two key questions: Why is the human mind such an important aspect of Satan’s endtime strategies … of spiritual warfare? And, why have Satan’s strategies been so successful?

The human mind is a strategic focus in the cosmic battle for at least three important reasons: First, our faith involves the mind. “Come now, let’s reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18). Faith, belief and obedience are connected to reasoning. As Apostle Paul admonished, we are urged to use our mind … to not put our brains on the shelf. Said Paul: “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15). Our minds should remain consciously involved.

In contrast, cultic religions try to immobilize and to disable the mind … to circumvent the natural safeguard of the skeptical human. Not so, God. Yes, it is true that our minds are not able to fully capture His greatness and His ways. But that does not mean we do not accept logic and reason to support our beliefs. Our Lord also allows us to question and to inquire after truth.

Another reason for the human mind being in Satan’s crosshairs is that it is the place of spiritual battle. Whatever thoughts gain access—whether through eyes, ears or spirit—it is there in the mind that they have their impact upon our hearts and soul. In fact, what the Bible calls the heart is what our mind chooses to believe and pursue.

Our thoughts rank in eternal importance just as much as our real and physical actions. Christ made this point very clear in this saying, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Here we see that the evil thoughts of the mind, if allowed to linger and not repulsed, become an actual sin of the heart (whether there has been physical consummation or not).

Lastly, the thought world of the mind, soul and spirit of man, finds its interface in the brain, a fleshly organ that learns and adapts. This grey matter can become habituated to lifestyle, thought patterns, thinking processes and addictions. Like a muscle that becomes stronger through exercise, so the synaptic pathways of the brain can be become trained and expert, whether doing good or bad.

To the extent that we have allowed our brain to train bad thoughts and behaviors, we need to undo them. Apostle Paul refers to this as renewal. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). This is not necessarily easy.

In conclusion, we have identified the main reasons why the human mind is the logical point of assault of our Enemy. It is there that we consciously “[…] choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). There we have the essence that exercises faith and chooses a relationship with God; it is the spiritual war zone. And, lastly, through our physical brain, our mind can entrench behavior and responses that we may have to strain to unlearn.

Jamming the Reception of the Human Mind

Without question, the mind of modern-day humankind is under assault. We will briefly investigate some of the tactics. The attacks and incursions are increasing and effective as perhaps never before. Moreover, a global communications machinery has rapidly taken form that will play a pivotal role in enabling the Antichrist and the Beast to deceive the world.

Let’s review a few of the developments that serve to “jam” the bandwidth of people’s minds today.

1. Media Concentration. What is meant by this term? Concentration of media ownership is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media. When we last wrote about this phenomenon almost two decades ago, a concentration trend was already proceeding rapidly. At that time, less than 10 firms—all of them global giants—dominated world media; whether radio, television broadcasting, cable, print or the internet. They included such world-spanning companies as Sony, News Corporation, Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, Bertelsmann and others.

This industry is always changing, as media takeover and acquisition activity remains high around the globe. Today, the following companies would number among the world’s media conglomerates: National Amusements (Viacom and CBS Corporation), Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, Sony, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, Hearst Communications, MGM Holdings, NBCUniversal, Turner Broadcasting System, New Fox, Grupo Globo (South America) and Lagardère Group.

It is difficult to keep up-to-date with this fast-moving group. Rupert Murdoch—arguably one of the world’s most powerful media moguls, who built News Corporation—famously predicted that the world would have only three large media companies in three years.1  This has not happened … yet.

Nonetheless, the concentration trend continues apace. The big “media” whales are trying to swallow each other with multibillion-dollar deals. Recently, Comcast and Disney have been skirmishing to buy 21^st Century Fox. Time Warner, another media behemoth, is being swallowed up by AT&T.

Why is this concentration trend continuing? Firms are building and consolidating distribution channels to the entry ways of the mind—the eyes and ears of mankind. We can see that a massive and unified information machinery is taking form around the world. Of course, this would be good if they were all disseminating the gospel to the four corners of the world, and other vital and/or God-honoring material.

However, as is well-known, media owners and their professional staffs are largely dominated by secular humanists. Mostly, the messages carried by the media are being determined by consumer wants and the demands of corporate profitability. All of the large global media firms are public companies, and therefore must satisfy their shareholders. Generally, high share prices and earnings is what matters to these global conglomerates, not purity and high morals.

In one way or another, it is the interest of commerce that drives the message. As the head of Westinghouse once put it (which at the time owned CBS, the television network), “We are here to serve advertisers. That is our raison d’être.”2

For a number of reasons, this global concentration trend has great significance for the world today. We can conclude that this development is playing a key role in a “mind jamming” strategy during these last days. Clearly, it is not accidental that this process has played out over such a short period, having largely occurred in accelerated fashion since the early 1980s.

Back then, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had been contemplating new ownership rules that would further open the doors to yet more concentration. One congressman made a prescient observation at that time, that will not be lost on those that recognize the prophetic season of our time. Speaking at a congressional hearing in opposition to the FCC’s proposal, John McCain, who was worried about the possible effects of continuing concentration, commented, “At some point, you’ll have many voices—and one ventriloquist.”

Though he may not have known it, Senator McCain’s words line up with prophecy. Indeed, there will be only one ventriloquist behind the world’s systems. And increasingly, this voice—Satan’s—is becoming more coordinated and pervasive than ever before. Already, he has been behind the degradation of once popular values and the invasion of humanist philosophies in mass media today.

In the next of segment of this four-part series, we will continue our expose of the many mind-jamming assaults upon the human mind that have accelerated over the last half century. Are these developments simply coincidental? Or can we discern a pattern? Without a doubt, the condition of human minds today is as compromised and disabled as ever before in the timeline of mankind.

 

About the Author: 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. You can contact him at staff@eternalvalue.com.

 

1 Big three will run world’s media, says Murdoch. The Australian, February 13, 2004.

2 Advertising Age, February 3, 1997.

End-time Shipping Trends
(Shipshapewaters Part II)

We closed Part I of this series with the statement that Bible prophecy speaks of a future time where the world will be deeply preoccupied with trade and commercialism, and that the “trading ship” played an irreplaceable facilitating role.

The world of ocean-going cargo ships may seem mundane … so slow and ancient. Therefore, it may seem reasonable to assume that things were always as they are today, especially as it applies to trans-oceanic shipping—the second oldest form of transport in world history. That perception couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Shipping has been a hotbed of activity and change. In fact, global shipping has been completely transformed over the last six decades. It represents another one of those fast-moving, exponential time pieces of the last days that mark the “season” of our times.

The volume of marine shipping has exploded over past decades, at least doubling every decade since 1945 (at least, up to the point that the Global Financial Crisis struck). Yes, this is a characteristic of a fast-globalizing world. But the globalization of the world’s economies couldn’t have happened so quickly, if it weren’t for the advancements of the 20^th century taking place in marine cargo shipping.

Here, several crucial developments have occurred. For one, the size and capacity of container of ships has become larger … now more than 25 times the capacity of ships in the early 1950s. As well, computerization has greatly improved the efficiency of shipping. But by far the greatest development has been containerization. It is a trend that has revolutionized cargo shipping.

As recently as 60 years ago, docks would load ships with nets dangling from the end of a grappling hook, and lashing items one by one into the ship’s hold. It was a sweaty business relying upon heavy labor (stevedores). It could take as much as two weeks to unload a ship. The shipping of merchandise around the world was slow, cumbersome and relatively expensive. But that world has disappeared.

The shirtless longshoremen of Singapore are long gone. Shipping rates are commoditized, quoted over exchanges. Shipping ports are characterized by high-rise gantry cranes that move containers between trucks and ship deck. These containers, for the most part, are standardized “boxes” that are 20 or 40 feet long (called TEUs, for “twenty-foot equivalent units”). You see them stacked on truck trailers, railcars and ships. This form of cargo shipping was invented only recently—in the 1950s.

Today, approximately 90% of cargo moves by containers stacked on transport ships. Now, most ships can be unloaded overnight. The time and cost to ship cargo overseas is only a fraction of what it once was.

Over 200 million containers are now moved between ports each year. The world’s container fleets have continued to increase despite slowing world economic growth. Over the past six decades, world shipping cargo volumes have boomed, growing two to three times faster than world economic growth. Nations are now more linked and unified through trade than ever before in world history.

Why are these trends significant? It aligns with the type of conditions that the Bible describes in the end times. More than ever before, conditions in world trade fit the description of the endtime events depicted in Revelation 18, where ship captains are shown as the cornerstone of a worldwide trading colossus.

Yes, despite the modernity of our age, over 90% of world trade is still carried in the hulls and on the decks of ships—the modern-day world equivalent of the “ships of Tarshish.” No matter the advancements of modern transportation (motorized trucks, trains, and aircraft), ships are still the backbone of world commerce.

What’s Shaping Up for the Future?

The Bible says that the spirit of Tyre, that ancient city whose name was synonymous with Tarshish, shipping, trade and idolatry, will again re-appear on the world stage. “At the end of seventy years, the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth” (Isaiah 23:17). Tyre has never re-emerged upon the world scene in any literal sense.

Likely, the Bible is referring to the spirit behind Tyre—a greed-infused emphasis upon materialism and commerce as the raison d’être for mankind’s existence. In fact, Ezekiel identifies this very spirit as being Satan himself (see Ezekiel 28:12-19). Assuming that this interpretation is correct, we can anticipate that the “spirit of Tyre” will be a mark of the endtime world. The very same spirit is clearly identified in Revelation 18, which describes a worldwide colossus dependent upon trading ships.

Is that time in the near future? Based on the evidence of trends of just this past half century—even just the past few decades—we would be unwise to not recognize the signs of the times. Even shipping trends cry out their message.

It would not be sensationalist to conclude that the time described in Revelation 18 is already in clear view. As we have shown, world trading activity has literally boomed unlike any other period ever before in history. And, moreover, the world trading system is as dependent as ever upon ships, despite the emergence of other advanced forms of transport.

Rocking the Boat

A large part—a third—of the world’s trade network is destroyed at the time of the second trumpet (Revelations 8:9). Later, the entire trading system—at least its central hub, Babylon the Great—is destroyed in one hour.

That same time is depicted in this Old Testament prophecy:

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 (ship of Tarshish) 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).

Clearly, “every trading ship” will be affected. But before all this can happen, a worldwide trading and shipping colossus must emerge. And, we see that happening before our very eyes today.

Points to Ponder

Why does the Bible prophesy that Babylon the Great—an entity that is identified as being intensely trade-oriented—will come to destruction? Is there something inherently sinful about engaging in trade or shipping? No. It is the spirit of Tyre behind it that God finds offensive. It speaks of an earthbound, materialistic, greedy, idolatrous, self-determined, manmade existence apart from God.

While ships are specifically identified as playing a role in endtime prophecy, they also provide some rich object lessons for Christians. As someone once wrote: “A Christian is to the world as is a ship to the water. Woe to the ship if the water should get inside of it.”

A similar lesson is found in the story of Jonah. Like him, we have all been given a mission greater or smaller. Yet, the call of the world can seem more alluring. We might then choose the ship that leads to the starry lights of Tarshish (and storms) —the commercial culture of our time that seems so prosperous and serves the world’s elites.

Jonah jumped on a ship to Tarshish, traveling in the opposite direction from Nineveh. He chose personal indulgence over the path of obedience. However, his choice led to insecurity, volatility and danger. It is perhaps for a similar reason that many of our vessels face gale winds in our lives. Though children of God, we may be traveling in the wrong direction and on the wrong ship.

It is better to be about the Lord’s business and to sail in the path He has set before us. Events in our lives may not transpire in the way that we might anticipate. We may be exposed to the sweltering heat of the desert, as was Jonah. But, at least we have the privilege of participating in God’s cosmic plans and entering His eternal kingdom.

In Jonah’s case, his mission couldn’t have been more important. The world’s second great empire, Assyria, was being warned. As it turned out, Jonah’s mission deferred God’s final judgment upon this nation for some time. Why? They listened to Jonah’s warnings, repented and received a reprieve.

Unfortunately, before long, Nineveh returned to its former ways … and much worse. The result? This great kingdom disappeared from the world stage virtually overnight, the only one of the Old Testament nation powers that no longer exists today.

As we can see from evidence all around us—even from shipping trends—the world is hurtling toward its chosen destiny. The signs are all around us. Will God tarry in His judgments? The world has already been given its “sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4; Luke 11:29).

Someday, there will be no more seas (Revelation 21:1). There will also be no more temptation and the entreaties and deceptions of Mammon, as the New Jerusalem will descend, and His servants will be present with Him forever.

About the Author: 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. You can contact him at staff@eternalvalue.com.