ASSESSING THE LAST DECADE

I can scarcely believe that a full decade has gone by since I first heard God speaking from Amos through the word “I will spare them no longer”. The summary of what I heard is in audio form on the home page of the website, and in printed form in the website articles. It was a word for the nation, it was stark and its fulfilment was just a matter of time – “I will spare them no longer”. I might add that the word seemed equally addressed to all the western nations, not just our own.
In reading further around Amos I became aware that the fulfilment of that word of judgement in his own generation took 25 years or so, and so I became very interested in what those 25 intermittent years looked like. It seemed to me they would hold very significant pointers to the path we were likely to follow as a nation. They would be years in which the withdrawal of God’s favour in certain areas would become more and more obvious. So I attempted to analyse them from the historical and prophetic writings. The analysis emerged as a paper with the title “Countdown to Chaos” (on the website).
After ten years it’s time to appraise that analysis and see if it is indeed relevant. That is what I hope to do in the next few weeks, and hopefully publish the conclusions. Maybe, however, some reading this column might have insights you’d like to offer? Please do!
My first and immediate thought is that the title “Countdown to Chaos” has certainly not been wide of the mark. “Chaos” is a word used with great frequency in newspaper columns in connection with the nation, but it is also used frequently by others who are accustomed to more sober judgements. At the very least “chaos” is no exaggerated term for the current financial affairs of the nation.
The main points of the "Countdown" analysis of the road to judgement under Amos were 1) Political Disintegration, 2) Political Incompetence, 3) Political Corruption, and 4) Devastating Foreign Intervention. It was these that brought about major national collapse. Perhaps I should have made more of economic and social collapse as a specific issue, for it was certainly part of the “Countdown” in Amos’ day. It has equally been part of our journey in the last decade.
In the column last week I pointed to the bleeding sore of Middle Eastern war that followed the 9/11 attack. Political incompetence and corruption has completely surrounded that saga during this last decade, both here and in the USA. More needs to be said on that, and on all the other characteristics of the “Countdown”. It may be that a revision and a more precise analysis need to be made of those crucial characteristics.
It is not a pleasant task but has got to be done. We need to monitor where things are going.


Bob

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AMERICA UNDER SIEGE

The British Empire lasted at most three centuries. In the 18thC it was “accumulated”, in the 19thC it was extended and “enjoyed”, and in the 20thC it was lost. Such is the pattern of empire that world history presents without exception: empires come and go, no matter how big and powerful. The USA has never had an empire of the British kind, but it has had vast global influence for about a century, the 20thC. Its climax has already been passed, however, and decline has set in. Though, like Britain, its influence will still be significant to a degree, it will no longer dominate the world. The proud title “Greatest Power in the World” is rapidly being washed away. That title is extremely unlikely to survive with any reality even the first half of the 21stC.
The first decade of the 21stC has already clearly demonstrated that. The USA has become embattled with militant Islam and as a consequence ventured into two crippling wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, with little success, draining its economy on a huge, unsustainable and daily basis. Those wars are the real and significant outcome of the twin towers bombing – a bleeding and poisonous sore. On the economic front the US has been plunged into an enormous and unprecedented national debt by persistent high level reckless financial gambling, with the prospect of more debt to come, and with much of its industrial heartland now wasteland. In a mere fifty years it has travelled from enormous wealth to enormous liabilities.

And then there is China, with a much, much greater population and a much greater wealth and military potential moving ahead very rapidly and highlighting the American decline even more.
If one looked at Europe as an entity, one would have to draw a similar conclusion of great decline.
Those who make a study of the decline and fall of empires constantly point to the fact of moral and social collapse (especially, though not exclusively, among the ruling classes) as a powerful contributing factor to decline. Empires collapse when powerful exterior pressure is exerted on them at the same time that their own social strength and cohesion has been sapped by indolent, selfish and pleasure loving lifestyles. It certainly happened to biblical Israel and Judah, to Assyria and Babylon and to Rome. We can see it very clearly in our own times among the powerful and over-proud major nations.
The biblical prophetic message provides the clearest statement of this repetitive historical process; that’s why it is so relevant. That’s why its constant call to come back to God and his ways is so important. The human tragedy lies in its blind and proud rejection of God.


Bob

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VERY DARK CLOUDS PERSIST

It has been a pleasure in the last two or three columns to have written about the great things God has been doing in our world, and to reflect on the even greater things he has yet in mind. But the prime reason for this site was to bring to mind the less palatable truth that God’s judgements are in the world, and threaten to increase. Paul put the basic issue very simply: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Our age has certainly suppressed the truth about God: we cannot watch the consequences of that disdain of God with complacency. Its that more than anything that bring the dark clouds of judgement.
Man without God sows the seeds of his own destruction through his own godless behaviour. In other words, his behaviour itself brings judgement and disaster. The most obvious example of this truth at the moment is the extreme fragility and danger of the economic chaos in which we live. Few would or could deny that the vast debt and the threat of further collapse can only be placed at the feet of gross human self interest, not least amongst those who in positions of responsibility have simply had an eye to personal gain. Even the chaos of trillions of debt has not brought about any real repentance. Every human effort to find a way through comes to grief on the hard rock of our human nature. This debt is an extremely threatening cloud – another crash (much feared by economists) and the situation would be utterly catastrophic for society.
“Utterly catastrophic” – That’s the scenario God seems to be pointing to. The same sort of scenario has been conjured up by both the B.P. oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the volcanic ash. Superimposed on England the spill would stretch from Cornwall to the North Sea – much the greatest of such disasters yet seen - a disaster part human, part natural, but catastrophic. The volcanic ash (conveniently out of the news and forgotten) also gave us a glimpse of the real possibilities of the utterly catastrophic to our modern world.
None of these threats have gone away: a second crash is all too possible; the spill will continue until August at the earliest, and a greater volcano waits to erupt with vastly more ash. They lurk around. The clouds hover. Men do not read them; they have no fear of God before their eyes. The signs are of a massive and destructive storm.


Bob

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