Regarding the "crash" (collapse of peace and economic prosperity in the USA and beyond) which some people (including myself) see on the horizon...

underlying cause:
- millions of individual unsaved Americans, a collective nation turning gradually further from God (we were never God's chosen people, and we were only a "Christian nation" in the sense of being composed of a high percentage of people espousing Christianity or judeo-christian morality (e.g. one might just as well say that we used to be a "Caucasian nation" or some other such originally shared characteristic), and not in the sense of possessing a divine national charter)

proximal causes:
  ==>> abortion (twenty thousand precious unborn humans murdered per week in America)
-> recognition of homosexual 'marriages'
-> abandoning Israel
cultural factors leading to the decline
- divorce, homosexuality and the breakdown of the family
- removing the Bible from the public square (especially schools) and requiring secularistic science teaching
- affluence --> laziness (engineering school enrollment, etc)
- feminism (more girls now going to college than boys, divorce epidemic, etc, cf. Mohler articles such as http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/10/23/feminism-unfulfilled-why-are-so-many-women-unhappy/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/09/newsnote-where-are-the-young-men/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/05/newsnote-masculinity-in-a-can-fight-club-at-church-and-the-crisis-of-manhood/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/10/28/the-divorce-divide-a-national-embarrassment/)
- media evil: Hollywood movies, tv shows, pornography, etc

factors in the predicted coming economic collapse of the USA and subsequent one-world government
Global:
- sovereign debt (of many nations, e.g. Greece, Spain, Ireland, Britain, and the USA...)
- oil dependency - for transportation, food growing and transporting, manufacturing, energy, etc
- nuclear Iran (dilemma: if pre-emptive attack of Iran, risk losing 'world goodwill', if wait/sanctions, risk nuclear war and/or an EMP-bomb attack against Israel, Europe, USA, etc) http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-time-to-act-against-iran-is-fast-approaching/?singlepage=true
USA:
  - national sovereign debt - $14 trillion and growing - now equal to 100% of the 2010 GDP
- continued expansion of government entitlement programs like welfare, unemployment, disability, medicare, etc
- social security collapsing due to borrowing - e.g. paying out more than it takes in, starting 2010 http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539411/201007061804/Are-Overdue-Reports-Concealing-ObamaCare-Impact-On-Medicare-.aspx
- the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - approximately $1 billion spent so far
- the subprime mortgage crisis due to Clinton-era FreddieMac/FannieMae intervention - http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/09/29/who-caused-the-biggest-financial-crisis-since-the-great-depression/
- 12 million illegal immigrants taking up millions of dollars in local services
- high personal credit card debt, $8000 average per household
- the Obama $700 billion 'stimulus' bill of 2009
- the national healthcare bill of 2010, taking effect gradually over the next 5 years
- Bush tax cuts expiring in 2011

Predictions
  - something will trigger a global economic meltdown
- runaway money-printing / inflation will occur in USA and the dollar will lose most or all of its value (cf. Argentina, Zimbabwe)
- some level of national turmoil will occur, especially acutely in the cities with riots when gas and food run out
- Christians will experience major persecution

At some point, the world will transition to a one-world Islamic government and everyone who accepts the new world leader will receive an implanted RFID microchip allowing them to buy and sell.  However, the timing of the transition is not known... the USA meltdown might occur many years before the world transition, or within a few weeks or months.   God might grant many more years to the earth before bringing the final end of the age.

Recommendations
- http://tim223.xanga.com/722854326/preparing-for-the-coming-distress/ (Rejoice in Jesus Christ all day long!    and prepare in a few prudent earthly ways)
- Pray for revival in the USA...
- More ideas: www.transitionus.org  ,  www.postpeakliving.com

There are thousands of books and internet articles offering advice on 'how to survive the coming economic collapse'.  Here are some thoughts of my own.  Please feel free to leave your comments below, including any extra advice you have!

The list below is in descending order by increasing importance.  First, some 'secular' preparations (for what they're worth), then the far-more-important spiritual preparations.  (I was going to make it a top-10 list, then I thought of one more..

'Under the sun' preparation
11. Save money into diversified financial investments - nonperishable food, items like manual tools that enable work without electricity or gasoline, solar power setups, real estate, gold/silver/etc, weapons (which could be traded for food in an emergency), cash (especially non-dollar currency like euros), and traditional investments like mutual funds, stocks, and bonds in case "The Crash" is somehow many decades away.  Consider that gasoline may be unavailable, cash may be worthless, food scarce, and violence prevalent.  Stock a 'disaster-supply' closet in your house, which might be useful for many other situations besides economic collapse.

10. If possible, invest in a place that you could potentially grow/raise your own food (a backyard garden, a farm, a distant piece of rural land, a rooftop, whatever).

9. Seek education, including languages, music, trade skills, books, and general learning.  Especially learning about how people have survived past times of economic hardship - the Great Depression, many other overseas times of hardship, etc.. and education about low-energy living, gardening, raising domestic animals, machining without electricity, etc.  If you have education, you can always teach others, in times of economic hardship.  Even more important (from Proverbs), seek wisdom.

8. Invest in strong relationships with friends and neighbors - building an interconnected network of friends in all walks of life, especially including people geographically nearby...  helping them in large projects whenever possible / whenever they have need and inviting them to help you likewise, having people over for meals, etc.  Read the book "African Friends and Money Matters" by David Marantz, and watch the documentary "The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil" - they emphasize the value of networks of acquaintances in helping everybody get through tough times together.  Get to know your local police and fire departments and town government officials.
Spiritual preparation

7. Give away as much as possible - or as Randy Alcorn puts it, 'send it on ahead to heaven'... as Jesus puts it: "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:20).  "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys..." (Luke 12:33)  Since it will likely be taken away from us anyway within a few years, give away as much as possible so it can have a good effect while you still have it.  If God leads, there may also be a place to save for one's parents and children and future medical care, with diverse investments as mentioned above, just in case such investments may come to fruition (Proverbs 6:6, 10:5).  But once that percentage is invested, give away everything else!
As Paul puts it: "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed." (1 Timothy 6)

6. Cultivate strong relationships with other local believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, from many different church backgrounds.  Pray with them, have dinner with them, laugh with them, go fishing with them, pray with them, share with them, etc.  We all need each other, to sharpen and encourage each other in these pagan days and the darker days to come.

5. Become educated about the Persecuted Church around the world.  Build relationships with them if possible, learn their stories, pray for them, imitate their faith.  A common request from them is "Don't pray that the persecution would stop, instead pray for boldness and faith for us!"  As Ronald Boyd-MacMillan says, "we need them and they need us."  We can help them in many ways, and their example to us can strengthen our faith.  When persecution comes here, we will then be prepared to welcome it as Jesus instructs (Matthew 5) and as the author of Hebrews says: "For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one." and "Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body." (10:34, 13:3)

4. Make disciples of all nations - i.e., evangelize your friends and neighbors; take every opportunity to point them to Christ.  They will spend forever in Hell unless they repent and turn to Christ - you know the truth about God and His salvation - will you share it with them?   Pray that God would open their eyes and give you opportunities to share.  Let's take as many people with us to eternal happiness that we possibly can / that God 'works mightily in us' to evangelize and disciple them.

3. Memorize lots of Bible passages - because the time will likely soon come when we Christians will be on the run and thrown in jail in this country, as it has happened throughout history and is currently happening throughout the world, and as Jesus and others specifically predicted would happen - Mark 13, 2 Timothy 3, etc.   If we have Bible passages memorized, they can sustain us in the times of darkness, and we can teach them to others in prison, and the word of God will keep right on spreading.  Psalm 37, Romans 8, James 1, Matthew 5, etc etc.  These will surely be spiritually useful even if economic hardship never comes.

2. Practice not-worrying about stressful situations.  As James says, "Count it all joy, brethren, when you encounter trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."   If you are in the habit of turning over your worries to God during these days of ease and prosperity, the habit will serve you well in the dark days of the future.

1. Delight in your Lord Jesus Christ!  As Jesus said to Martha, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is really necessary'.  This is that one thing.  Cultivate a strong, intimate, growing-deeper-every-day love/trust relationship with Him - delight in Him more and more each day, seek to better understand the indescribable treasure/hope/inheritance we have in Him.  Read daily His written Word the Bible not as a book of ancient history but as God's love letter to You.  Become a 'christian hedonist'; one who lives and obeys "for the joy set before him" (Hebrews 12:2). Ask God for deeper knowledge of Him.  Discover Him.  Where will you be one million years from now?  Where at that time will be all your earthly possessions and earthly worries? Whom have you in heaven besides Him?  And out of all the things you desire here on earth, what can compare to Him?

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.
...
Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."

Jesus wept.

So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?"  - John 11:5-6, 32-38

Lord, if only you had done such-and-such differently, this tragedy would never have occurred!

And instead of telling us, "Yes, I am fully aware of that... I have bigger and better plans than you can comprehend", He simply comes and weeps alongside us.

"America the Beautiful"?   Or  "America the Dying"?

I realize that both might be true.   But which do you think is most accurate?

Paul wrote this about 2000 years ago -

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.  (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3)

It just so happens that the Democrats are currently proposing a "Department of Peace and Nonviolence".   Heh.  You can't fault the Democrats for neglecting the cultural mindset.  Our postmodern culture (about 50% of America and 80% of Europe) is clamoring for exactly that - peace, safety, nonviolence, dialogue, etc.  Anything but war.

Why?

Why is the current generation (in the West) so extraordinarily passionate about 'peace' and 'dialogue', that they are willing to give up their freedoms to ensure safety for themselves?  (Example: New York Times' reaction to Virginia Tech shooting: "We need more gun control..")   Gone is the attitude of a former generation: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  And even more importantly than their freedoms, they're willing to give up the truth itself.

I think it's not only because the folks in the West are tired of war (which they/we certainly are... the last century has been very violent), but also that since they have given up believing in God and the Bible (i.e. since the West has become "Post-Christian"), they no longer have any ground for truth at all.  Their proposed alternative source of verity is "truth by consensus."  All must come to the table and have an equal voice - only thus may truth be found, says the Postmodern West.

But the Muslim world believes in no such thing.  Rather than "truth by consensus," they have their Quran which gives them truth.  And when the West invites them to the table, they see it as Allah giving them the world.

How should we Christians respond?   We should keep untiringly presenting the Truth we have been given from God... the Gospel of Jesus Christ... the teaching of the Bible... the power of God for salvation!  We should share it with love and respect.  And if/when the culture ostracizes or persecutes us for daring to suggest that there's only One Way to God (and that Islam is not that Way), let's rejoice and keep right on sharing the Truth regardless.

"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me..."  --  Jesus Christ

I came across this very interesting thought in my readings today, from this article.

Now I want to relate a story. Some years ago I viewed the 1993 Academy Award movie of the year, Schindler's List, the Steven Spielberg story of Oskar Schindler, the Nazi war profiteer, who shortly after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 began to use the Jews of the Krakow ghetto as workers in his pots and pans factory. At first he saw them only as chattel to be used to line his own pockets, which he did quite successfully, becoming exceedingly rich. But as the war dragged on, and as he increasingly witnessed Nazi atrocities being inflicted against the Jews of Poland, increasingly did he begin to use his own wealth to bribe Nazi officials and army officers to give him more and more Jews for his factory that the Nazis had turned toward the end of the war into a munitions factory and that, by Schindler's personal instructions, became a model of non-productivity in the Nazi war effort. Though it virtually bankrupted him personally, he saved over twelve hundred Jews from certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

I recount this story line only to say that I was struck by some statements put in his mouth toward the end of the movie. The war has just ended, and having worked for the Third Reich, both he and his Jewish factory workers realize that the Allied authorities might search for him. As he bids farewell to them, they present him with a letter signed by each of them that they hope will help him before the Allied authorities.

At this moment Schindler suddenly becomes very sober and quietly says: "I could have done more. I could have done more!" He begins to sob. "I could have done more. I didn't do enough. This car-why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people." Pulling off his lapel pin, he exclaims, "The pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people! One more. I could have bought more people! But I didn't." His knees crumble and he sobs heavily.

As his words - "I could have done more! Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. The pin. This is gold. Two more people. One more. I could have bought more people. But I didn't." - seared themselves into my mind as I sat in the darkness of that theater, I suddenly became convicted that many Christians-I among them-are going to be asking similar questions at the Great White Throne Judgment: "Why did I not do more to reach the lost for Christ? Why did I think I had to have that more expensive house, that more expensive car, that snowmobile, that ten-speed bicycle that hangs most of the time in my garage? Why did I not use more of my resources for the cause of Christ?" More poignantly, "Why was I not more committed to Christ's cause? Why did I esteem my own self-preservation so highly? Why was I not willing to go myself?" In that Great Day I fear that many of us will have no answers to salve our smitten consciences.

May God raise up in our day, while divine patience still grants us time, a multitude of men and women who will boldly dare to go into this lost and dying world where no man has ever gone before with the liberating law-free gospel of God!

"If Satan troubles us, Jesus Christ
You who are the lion of the grasslands
You whose claws are sharp
Will tear out his entrails
And leave them on the ground
For the flies to eat."

-- Afua Kuma, Christian songwriter and poet from Ghana

There may be some humor in the reading of that song, by Christians more used to a different type of CCM... (and maybe more used to thinking of Jesus as a "tame lion" or a velvet stuffed lion)...  but there is also a lot of truth behind the metaphor...

February 10, 2007

A gang was marching to battle on a public thoroughfare in Ste. Geneviève des Bois (one of those Parisian banlieues whose bucolic name covers a snake pit of social problems). Fifty men armed with baseball bats, lead pipes, shovels and what-all, spilled from the sidewalk onto the road, blocking three cars. Somewhat like the Crusaders who massacred European Jews on their way to battle Muslims in Jerusalem, the punk jihadis attacked a woman trapped in the second of the three cars. A heroic young man—25 year-old Jalili—jumped out of the third car and ran to the woman’s rescue. The thugs beat him into a coma. The police have arrested two of the assailants, one of whom was in possession of the woman’s cell phone. They are looking for the cad who bonked Jalili on the head with a shovel, causing the brain hemorrhage that left him in a coma.

I added the word 'heroic' above...

There is crime everywhere... scenes like this are too common throughout the world.  However, the action of that brave young man is very uncommon...   what an awesomely brave thing to do... to run into a crowd of fifty armed men to rescue someone... knowing that you're probably running to your death...

... and to be ready at a moment's notice to do so.   I'm sure he didn't wake up that morning thinking "I'm going to be a hero today"... it just happened.

I've been thinking some today about this verse -

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 1 John 4:18

I suspect that this is closely related to how Jesus summarized the whole of the Law:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." 
Matt. 22:34-40

This "lack-of-fear" (e.g. for God) is not because God is some jolly old grandfather who loves everyone equally / in the same way...  on the contrary, just eight verses before 1 John 4:18, we read that "...God... sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins".   The Biblical God is a God of "wrath"  and "vengeance" as well as love, who cannot ignore sin, but who (at infinite cost to Himself) chose to pay the sin-debt Himself, on my behalf.

But with that understood, once we have humbled ourselves and begged God to save us, and once we have subsequently been immediately adopted into the "family of God" and been given an inheritance and all the privileges of sonship, why do we fear?   Why do I fear?

Fear for the Christian is a symptom that there is something wrong...  the normal Christian life is a life of trust and belief, belief and trust, synonymously...  not a life of fear.

Because really, if God is the one looking out for me, if everything that happens in my life is first "approved for entry into my life" by a perfectly loving God, then there is no reason to fear.

...just something I need to keep preaching to myself all day long, every day, because I forget it so easily...

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies;

Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Just as it is written,
"For your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  -  Romans 8:28-39

Let's keep our European brethren in prayer... this article shows some of the deep issues they're currently wrestling with... and we will be wrestling with soon ourselves, if we're not already.