Networking Prophecy

Who can do without the Internet today? Many conveniences have been born of current networking technologies. Can we ever again do without online banking? What of the social media networks that allow us to stay in touch with friends? Will we ever go to the library again to research an essay? When was the last time we used a telephone book, and what of the convenience of online shopping?

Lastly, not to be overlooked, is the “marriage saver.” Disputes and debates can now be settled almost instantly by doing a web search. No need to argue.

All in all, who would dislike the many conveniences of a networked world? Readers will know that its many benefits come at a price. Indeed, the rise of “networked man” has many repercussions. Do we know what they are and what facilitations they hold for the prophetic timeline?

A Time Such as This

Just what is the most incredible dynamic of worldwide networking trends? Without a doubt, it is the amazing speed of their adoption and application. One may be excused for not being aware of the sizzling pace. There are many developments and much complexity. Likely also playing a role in the complacency regarding networking, is that many of us may be nonplussed by the speed of change and innovation. After all, isn’t rapid change normal today?

Well yes … but, only recently. One must understand just how unique and extraordinary are our times. A historical perspective is needed. When modern-day developments are benchmarked against the human time line upon earth—over many millennia—the stunning rapidity of advancement seen in our day becomes starkly evident.

In fact, the pace of change is so sudden one would not be faulted for holding some suspicion. Bible readers (most certainly those that allow the Bible to speak literally) would be particularly sensitive and discerning. Bible-believers, after all, are prompted to discern the times … to know the season of the Lord’s return. They are charged to “watch” for the dangers to their faith as well as the signs of the times.

To someone holding millennial perspectives—both retroactively as well as prophesied—today’s networking phenomenon would stick out like an enormous anomaly. From such a millennial vantage point, it would be indefensible to not regard any of the “sudden” trends of the last several hundred years as being prophetically significant.

While we must take all of our perspectives and conclusions from the Bible (not going beyond what it says: 1 Corinthians 4:6), we can nevertheless still be reasonably alerted to trends and developments that “enable” or will “precede” actual fulfilled prophecies.

So doing, we identify at least five or six characteristics that alert us of possible prophetically enabling trends: 1. Acceleration (particularly so after 1948, that being the point that God’s timepiece, Israel, again became a sovereign entity in its original land); 2. A seeming improbability and inexplicability of its emergence … at least at first; 3. Catering to humanism, “lust of the flesh” and political expediency; 4. Having scope for worldwide impact (i.e. not just applying locally or to North America); 5. Likely having confluence and interconnection with other accelerating trends (happening contemporaneously); and, above all, 5. Suddenness and rapidity.

On the basis of these indicators, the phenomenon of globally “networked man” definitely qualifies as a “prophetically enabling” trend. We will explain further.

Prophetically Significant Phenomenon

We have often written of the rapid trend of financialization—this referring to the increasing capture of human activities in the form of financial transactions and the imputed financial value of all actions and forms of assets. It is one of the most significant of all “prophetically enabling” trends, in our view. (The 2001 book The Endtime Money Snare: How to Live Free [now out of print] focused on this very development).

The aspect that we wish to focus upon here, is that the financialization and consumerization of last-day man would not be possible without the advance of networking. A major user of networks are, of course, payment cards—i.e. credit or debit cards. This is hardly news, as it is a facilitating technology already some 40 years old.

However, networking developments have today moved far beyond financialization trends, facilitating networks of all kinds—as already mentioned, the Internet, also burgeoning Internet tracking recording technologies, new payment systems, telecommunications, social media (i.e. Facebook) and many others. These systems are all being embraced rapidly. For example, Facebook today has more than 500 million users, of which half log on every day.

As a result, data volumes are exploding. Network technologies are supporting new services and conveniences. More data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of the human race, according to Forbes.com. Much higher data volume … many countless multiples of current levels … are surely ahead.

Intersection by the Smartphone

Before exploring future trends further, it is first key to recognize that it is a relatively recent electronic invention that has encouraged the embrace of a “networked” world: namely, the Smartphone. It brings together the camera and a video screen, with telephone and Internet connection. In our opinion, it very well may represent “the end of technology.”

Taking this view, we have explored one of the prophetic implications of the Smartphone (“the culture of self”) before in the article “Prophecy and the End of Technology” (MCM, June 2015).

Here, we reproduce a pertinent excerpt:

We ask this question: Just what technologies must yet emerge so that pre-millennial Bible prophecy can be fulfilled? Nuclear power sufficient to blow up the entire habitations of mankind already exists. Globalism and a global community of mankind already exist, attributable in part to telecommunications technologies. Flight was invented a little more than a century ago (i.e., fulfilling Isaiah 60:8). What is missing?

[…] technology has at least one more role to play in the prophetic timeline of the world. […] The most pivotal technological developments over the past several decades, as everyone will know, have been the Internet and the personal cell phone. […] Crucially, these two developments have lately converged into one leading edge—the Smartphone.

That was the significant development—the merging of the cell phone with a web-enabling interconnection.

Why was this significant? This merging opens the gateway to the ultimate ‘dotage upon the individual’ (the self), though within a centrally controlled, global nexus of connections. The Smartphone is a personal device. And thus, it becomes the direct channel between the world and the individual’s personal world. The technology coming into existence allows a mass personalization through a complete monitoring of your needs, likes and identifications.

 

While the “prophetic enablements” of the Smartphone technology are already both gargantuan and global, more significant developments are in prospect.

To get a sense of the pace of change, we quote this expert source: “The Smartphone is revolutionizing our world, causing an explosion of connectedness. By the end of 2017, over two billion mobile phone or tablet users will make some form of mobile commerce transaction. Ninety-five percent of mobile Internet users look up local information on their phones for the purpose of calling or visiting a business. It is estimated that mobile devices will account for 27% of commercial transactions by the end of 2018, representing 1 out of every 4 US retail e-commerce dollars.”1

What is the next “prophetically significant” extension for the Smartphone? It is already underway, and it is “live streaming.”

A Future World of Full-time Video Coverage

Consider that by the end of 2017, it is anticipated that nearly 80% of all photos taken in the world will be taken on Smartphones. Many of these are networked … perhaps sent to friends to view. It is sobering to realize that it was little more than a decade ago that people would use cameras that required film development. Now, virtually all pictures are digital.

What is livestreaming? This refers to the viewing and sending of live video. Readers may already be viewing videos and movies over the Internet. Today, some 75% of all data traffic on the Internet is attributable to video. Given the mass proliferation of the Smartphones, it will be no surprise that the most livestreaming will be consumed through the Smartphone platform.

However, the “livestreaming” of our focus here is a real-time broadcast feed. An example of this would be the news network CNN, sending a live, real-time broadcast over the Internet. More news networks are now rolling out such platforms. Wherever a Smartphone user may be, they will be plugged into real-time video broadcasting.

The next development will be that everyone with a Smartphone will be able to broadcast their own “live video” to anyone else live … even the whole world. South Korea is a leader in this field. AfreecaTV, a popular app in that country, allows anyone to freely broadcast live video. Media experts predict that this technology will soon catch on everywhere else. It is very possible that the day will arrive where most everyone in the world has a Smartphone that is “networked” and continuously “livestreaming.”

The recent (and most-watched in history) boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor illustrated a new reality in this regard. Newer social media livestreaming capability has made it easier to instantly share live feeds of the fight, making it impossible to control “bootleg” viewing of the match. This is an indication of how far livestreaming has already advanced.

Given the advancing state of livestreaming, we think of the Bible’s prophecy of the “two witnesses” found in Revelation 11. Scripture indicates that it will be a global media event, as shown in these verses:

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them (Revelation 11:7-11).

It may very well be the case that the world will view a “livestreaming” of the Two Witnesses on their Smartphones. Possibly, they may even be sending each other gifts purchased online through Amazon or eBay.

The technological features of the Smartphone seem to best fit the prophecy mentioned in Revelation 11. Real-time viewing of the Two Witnesses by many people all over the world, and the two-way communication being implied, point to the emergence of a device with the capabilities of the networked Smartphone.

Thoughts to Ponder

The renowned author and historian, Niall Ferguson, recently published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, entitled “The False Prophecy of Hyperconnection: How to Survive the Networked Age.”2 Taking a secular position, he points to the dangers of a networked world. By his reckoning, the Internet hasn’t achieved the promises of the technocrats and the high-tech industry. Their pitch was that networking would make the world a better place of equal-opportunity. In fact, just the opposite is occurring in his view.

Technology and invention can provide conveniences that do not require moral compromise. But we have to again ask: Is there any significance to be found in the rapidity of changes? Was the technology explosion delayed in world history until a time such as this?

“Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything?” (Amos 3:5).

We may enjoy all the conveniences of the digital age. However, the connectedness that it spawns ultimately will exact a vulnerability upon humankind. It will be used as a trap and coercion to worship the Antichrist. This is seen in Revelation 13. The Second Beast, “[…] forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark […]” (verses 16-17).

The writer of Ecclesiastes says that “[…] no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9:12). That may already apply to most people upon earth today … whether Christian or not.

As for those who are earthdwellers during the Tribulation period, “Terror and pit and snare await you, people of the earth. Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare” (Isaiah 24:17-18).

For those Christians of the last-days before the Rapture, Christ provides both a warning and a reward concerning snares and traps. First the warning: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36).

But finally, we can appropriate the blessed promise given to David: “Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:6-8).

Extra

Some took the view that debit cards, for example, were evil because they led to a one-world financial system that a world ruler could use to lead mankind astray and to force obedience to him. This is a debatable view. We would take the position that it isn’t systems or weapons that are evil, but rather are reflected through the motivations of humans or angels.

For resources on “endtime economics” and to subscribe to the free newsletter, Eternal Value Review, visit Wilfred’s website www.eternalvalue.com or contact him at: staff@eternalvalue.com

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. His 2002 book The Endtime Money Snare: How to live free accurately anticipated and prepared its readers for the Global Financial Crisis. His newest book, Global Financial Apocalypse Prophesied: Preserving true riches in an age of deception and trouble, looks further into the future.

1 www.invespcro.com/blog/mobile-commerce

2 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-08-15/false-prophecy-hyperconnection

Tempting, Tantalizing Wealth

Which statement is true: Wealth is booming worldwide today, or wealth is corroding?

Gauging by popular indicators, wealth is surging. Stock market indices have been rising, hitting new all-time highs in some countries. And, spectacularly, real estate values have been soaring to previously unimaginable levels around the world, from Sweden to Canada to Australia. Surely, wealth must be booming.

Indeed, some people are becoming very rich; the already-wealthy growing incredibly wealthy. The share of wealth of the “one percent” (the wealthiest 1% of people) is definitely rising. But, seen from the vantage point of historical wealth theory as well as Biblical values, we take a completely opposite perspective. We conclude that worldwide wealth is corroding.

Moreover, we identify many prophetic parallels. The wealth trends that we are witnessing today fit hand-in-glove with the prophecies of the Bible.

People like rising wealth. In fact, they like the “appearance” that wealth is rising. No distinction is made between these two developments. More is better, whether false or real. As such, in our modern financial world, few understand the true essence of wealth. It can mean anything from jewels and natural resources, to over-valued baseball card collections or high-flying financial investments.

Centuries ago, wealth was perceived much differently. Then, wealth tended to be considered as the direct ownership of material things (gold, land, flocks, stores of food, slaves … etc.). Wealth represented in the ownership of a flock of sheep (for example) did not have a primary expression in the form of money. Today, wealth is more likely to be defined in financial terms. Yet, whatever the changes in perception and forms of riches down through the ages, actual wealth really hasn’t changed at all.

At its core, wealth is nothing more than the totality of the physical creation and the collective productive capacity of mankind’s labor—both present and future. We can define these types of wealth as either created or of human origin. Both forms of wealth are finite at any given point of time. The earth already exists with its minerals, oceans and landmasses. As well, the labor supply is static at any one time. After all, there are only so many people of potential working age on earth at any given moment. And, all of us are bound by the same 24 hours each day.

We see that the world’s wealth has a maximal physical or productive potential. It is fixed at any one moment. Yet, the volume of real wealth can change over longer periods of time.

The most important and sustainable means of increase is through growth in the earth’s population. The more people there are, the more hours of human labor that are available in the world. The greater the potential amount of labor, the greater the opportunity to create wealth. (Another wealth-creating factor is productivity. For the sake of simplicity, we will not examine its influence.) The main point is that without labor, there can be no prospect of human income; and without savings, there can be no true human-derived wealth. This is an important concept and is foundational to understanding the deceptions behind modern day financial and wealth trends.

Three Important Truths about Wealth

There are three important truths about human wealth. First, it is inextricably tied to human labor. Ultimately, the value of all wealth rests on the foundation of income—someone’s labors somewhere on earth. Second, wealth can only be accumulated when we consume less than our labor produces. Third, if we exchange our savings for a promise of payment in the future, the underlying support for that liability ultimately depends on the labors of another human sometime in the future. The inviolable fact of God’s creation is this: There can be no human wealth without human labor, whether present, past or future—either accumulated as savings in the past, or an exchange for the promise of savings in the future.

With that conclusion, we can emphatically state that human wealth in the world is corroding today. Why? Because the pool of human labor is on the verge of declining. There are number of causes. We will focus on just two.

Anti-Familialism

Increasingly, people are choosing not to have children … to not form families. It is prevalent not to marry today. The result (due to this and other reasons)? Fewer children. This has now become a worldwide trend … from the Third World to Europe.

Again, the result? The world’s population is aging. The most significant impact of this development is that future retirees will be relying on the support and economic output of a following generation that is much smaller. The impact of this aging phenomenon cannot be escaped. The retiree to work ratio, as a result, is expanding rapidly. One way or another, all wealth and income will need to be supported by this following generation. However, the total pool of labor per capita will be lower!

Unavoidably, what that means is that the foundation of world wealth is on the path to corrosion. Policymakers also realize this. Their response? Pump up (inflate) the value of assets (house, stocks and bonds) in price, so as to make it look like wealth is increasing. It is an attempt to cover up the problem … to kick the can down the road for someone else to worry about.

The reality is that the accumulation of real wealth is a slow-moving process. Viewed very simply, human wealth in the world expands as the working population grows, and our incomes and labor exceed our consumption.

Many financial institutions—mutual fund management companies, for example—like to convince their clients that financial markets create limitless wealth. They would have us believe that stock and bond markets supposedly build wealth all on their own, independent of incomes, savings and human labors. And, of course, each mutual fund company likes to claim that it can extract more of this wealth out of the markets for its clients and its own profit than any other mutual fund company.

While these may be attractive concepts that sell billions in mutual funds and other investments, it is a total fallacy that financial markets create wealth. Neither do the financial industries. The truth is that they do not. By and large, their business is more concerned with the transfer of wealth. That’s not to say that financial services do not have value or are unimportant. But, to the extent that these industries promote the perception of “value” as wealth, or their ability to create wealth apart from human labor, they are mostly bamboozling us.

Foundations of Modern Financial Wealth Are False

Today, wealth is viewed as the “market value” of financial paper, securities and assets. Wealth, therefore, is entirely independent of the fruits of labor. Poof … voila … and more fictitious financial wealth can be created with the blink of an eye. That is a perspective that is supported by supposed experts. We quote an article that famously laid bare this shift to disregard underlying income and savings as the real underpinnings to wealth.

“Securitization—the issuance of high-quality bonds and stocks—has become the most powerful engine of wealth creation in today’s world economy. […] Overall, securitization is fundamentally altering the international economic system. Historically, manufacturing, exporting, and direct investment produced prosperity through income creation. Wealth was created when a portion of income was diverted from consumption into investment in buildings, machinery, and technological change. Societies accumulated wealth slowly over generations. Now many societies, and indeed the entire world, have learned how to create wealth directly. The new approach requires that a state find ways to increase the market value of its stock of productive assets.”1

That quote may prove to be a little too technical for some, but everyone will have understood what is meant by “learning to create wealth directly” and “increase the value of its stock.” What is intended here is that by simply “pumping” (inflating) both the price and the pool of financial assets (independent of labor output and savings), wealth can be created. This is totally wrong and the most heinous of deceptions.

Shocking Decline in Creation of Life

The second “labor” (wealth) corroding development we will mention is a shocking one. Men’s sperm counts are collapsing … around the world!

Researchers, led by Dr. Hagai Levine of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined thousands of studies and conducted reviews of 185 other studies. These included 42,935 male participants who provided semen samples between 1973 and 2011. The chosen studies were well distributed over the nearly 40 years of the study period and among 50 different countries.

What did the researchers determine? They discovered that men’s sperm counts in the Western world have fallen by 59% over the past 40 years. Ponder on this incredible statistic. If the count decline were to continue at the same pace in the future, men’s sperm counts would be at zero in only 4 decades! It is not just a Western problem. There are indications that declines in sperm counts are occurring globally.

The impact of this development is shattering in many ways. The rate of child conception will be lower … if not already. And, should counts continue to deteriorate, world populations would begin to decline and age at a much more rapid rate. As we have pointed out: World wealth is tied to labor. Declining population growth will therefore further undermine the foundations of world wealth.

Points to Ponder

Financial wealth is booming during our generation. How can this be, when real wealth is creeping along at a fraction of that rate? Here again, we see that the main driver behind this apparently huge rise in wealth has been nothing more than a boom in the perception of value.2

If apparent wealth (perceived financial wealth and otherwise) is rising much faster than underlying income growth and savings, then something potentially very dangerous is occurring. It gives rise to a very deceitful environment, one in which claims on true wealth—the ownership of human labor, past, present and future—are being misrepresented. It allows the world to fall for an enormous bondage to fictitious financial wealth, even as true wealth is being hoarded by a select few as never before.

James (the half-brother of Jesus) uttered a prophecy about the last days: “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days” (James 5:1-3).

Here, James reveals that wealth will in fact erode (rot and corrode) in the last days, meaning that wealth will decline and disappoint. Moreover, James also indicates that wealth (false and corroding as it may be) will be hoarded and concentrated in the hands of a few.

We cannot know with any certainty whether he foresaw our day today … in other words, this exact time. The “last days” can be said to have started with the appearance of the Church. But, the trends we are witnessing today align with the prophecies of James. In fact, given that we are living in the age where Jews are in the early stages of returning to Israel (this a fulfillment of last-day prophecy), and how these corrosive wealth trends are truly global, we would do well to discern current developments as having prophetic pedigree.

As such, these are the necessary preceding developments that lead to the final fulfilled prophecies such as we find in Revelation. “They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out: ‘Woe! Woe to you, great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin!’” (Revelation 18:19).

While the world celebrates the “appearance” of booming wealth, even while at the same time its fundamental foundations are crumbling, what attitude should Christians take?

We are to continue to live our lives free of the love of money.

We are to keep our minds on heavenly things. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:1-2).

For resources on “endtime economics” and to subscribe to the free newsletter, Eternal Value Review, visit Wilfred’s website www.eternalvalue.com or contact him at: staff@eternalvalue.com

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. His 2002 book The Endtime Money Snare: How to live free accurately anticipated and prepared its readers for the Global Financial Crisis. His newest book, Global Financial Apocalypse Prophesied: Preserving true riches in an age of deception and trouble, looks further into the future.

1 John C. Edmunds. Securities—The New Wealth Machine. Foreign Policy. Fall 1996, p. 118.

2 An increase in general debt levels has played a major role in the explosion of financial market values. Though net wealth does not increase, the number of claims upon wealth still increase as do many other distortions in the world economy.