They couldn’t have lived more disparate lives or set more vastly different examples for their people. Perhaps the only things they shared in common were that they both recently died and they were both well-known heads of state of nations who repeatedly made the news during the last 20 years or so. Outside of that, Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, and KimJong-il, North Korea’s “dear leader” dictator, held values and led lives that were as different as light from darkness, good from evil.

Havel lead his people in a bloodless “velvet revolution” that not only freed his nation from communism but also helped pull the entire Central-Eastern European region back into the civilized world that cherishes human rights, personal freedom, economic opportunity and a chance for individual fulfillment.

Kim Jong-il on the other hand, was a renowned communist tyrant. He oppressed his own people and any other poor unfortunates who fell into his hands. He treated his people like mongrels, despised dogs – inadequately fed and frequently kicked in order to keep them in fear and cringing submission. Hundreds of thousands have died and are dying of hunger in a country that is nothing but one large concentration camp populated by guards and prisoners.

As the Scriptures say:

When the righteous triumph, there is great rejoicing, but when the wicked come to power,
people hide themselves (Proverbs 28:12 Holmen Christian Standard Bible).

And…

The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot (Proverbs 10:7 English Standard Version).

During this brief period, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas entirely, considering it ‘a popish festival with no biblical justification’, and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior.
See http://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs4.htm

The bottom line is that the celebration of Christmas is merely a human tradition having no divine sanction. Its origins rest with the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-300s A.D. Would Jesus himself condemn the Christmas celebration? Consider this comment that he made regarding man-made religious traditions developed, supposedly, for the purpose of honouring God:

These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God (Matthew 15:8-10 New Living Translation).

How ironic. What the Bible does teach about true spiritual holy days and practices in the Law of God, for example in Leviticus 23, people mostly ignore and fail to reflect upon. While what the Scriptures do not teach—or even teach against—that, people do. And, they do such things while justifying themselves by saying they’re honouring God and Jesus. We should rather consider carefully what the Scriptures are actually telling us:

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they [Mary and Joseph] brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel [and now throughout the entire world], and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:22-25 English Standard Version).

Of course, for many people any excuse such as Christmas is a good excuse to go shopping and to have a party. But the fact remains that Jesus and his apostles were the original Christmas grinches! They didn’t keep it. Rather they kept the Holydays found in Leviticus 23. Christmas is nothing but bait and switch humbuggery. The sooner this world learns to discern between true biblical reality and the popular alluring counterfeits such as Christmas masquerading as a Christian festival, the sooner we will experience a global blossoming of genuine peace on this earth. As Jesus taught:

Do not think that I have come to do away with or undo the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to do away with or undo but to complete and fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until the sky and earth pass away and perish, not one smallest letter nor one little hook [identifying certain Hebrew letters] will pass from the Law until all things [it foreshadows] are accomplished. Whoever then breaks or does away with or relaxes one of the least [important] of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least [important] in the kingdom of heaven, but he who practices them and teaches others to do so shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness (your uprightness and your right standing with God) is more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-20 Amplified Bible).

Finem respice! Principiis obsta!  Yeah, you know I must be an antiquity since I did indeed study Latin in the 8^th grade in public school. But a little Latin and a love of history and the Bible does give me something of an edge when it comes to discerning the World Tomorrow. After all, as King Solomon the Wise once wrote:

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10,

English Standard Version).

Finem respice means “consider the end,” while Principiis obsta translates as “resist the beginnings.” I lifted these Latin phrases from Milton Mayer’s 1955 book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Mayer’s book was all about how the Nazis used the human nature and cultural characteristics of the German people in order to manipulate and gradually subvert them in order to ensure their acquiescence to, and then compliance with their evil program of world war and genocide.

Most of us are somewhat familiar with a small portion of Mayer’s book in which he relates the observation of a German university professor during the 1930s and 1940s who remarked that the Nazis first targeted the Communists, then the Socialists, and next the Jews, etc., but the professor did nothing because he wasn’t one of them. Mayer wrote:

Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

Of course, as the Nazi program unfolded, the pastor and the professor and  others like them, found themselves being isolated and then targeted. But by then it was too late as there were too few left to effectively stand and resist with them.

You see, at the beginning of the Hitler regime in 1933, the Nazis didn’t seem all that bad—a little uncouth, maybe. But after all, they had great ideas about how to rescue the economy, get people back to work, and restore some of Germany’s lost pride. So most Germans hopped aboard the Nazi Volkswagen and went along for the ride. But, of course, there was a catch, wasn’t there? There was a price to be paid in blood. Millions of Germans had their lives and families destroyed by the Second World War. One must foresee the end in order to resist, or even to perceive the mild beginnings of oppression and tyranny.

The recent Dec. 9-10th emergency Brussels meeting of the European Union marks a critical new beginning for that supra-national body. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the press at the end of the conference “This is the breakthrough to the stability union.”

The breakthrough that 26 or the 27 European Union members agreed to was about agreeing to create a new inter-governmental treaty by which all the participating nations will have to submit their national budgets for approval by the European Commission bureaucracy, which will have the authority to veto it and order it to be revised.

The new treaty will also create an unspecified “automatic correction mechanism” that will punish any country that breaks the new European Commission fiscal rules. At least, that’s where it starts.According to the European Central Bank’s president Mario Draghi:

“It’s a very good outcome for the euro area, very good. It is going to be the basis for much more disciplined economic policy for euro-area members. And certainly is going to be helpful in the present situation.”

Well, I’m glad Mr. Draghi thinks so.  However, as of December 12^th the world’s financial markets have not been as thrilled as Mr. Draghi with this outcome. But then, neither was Great Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron.  His was the sole dissenting voice to this newly promised Euro discipline, and he forcefully resisted this push by Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and France’s President Sarkozy.

Cameron tenaciously defended his refusal to go along, saying to the press at the close of the Brussels conference on Friday:

What was on offer [by Merkel and Sarkozy] is not in Britain’s interest so I didn’t agree to it. We’re not in the euro and I’m glad we’re not in the euro. We’re never going to join the euro and we’re never going to give up this kind of sovereignty that these countries are having to give up.

Some of the French, though probably a minority, actually agree in principle more with the British Prime Minister than with their own president. Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who has just announced his candidacy for the upcoming French presidential elections in April-May 2012, dismissed the Merkel-Sarkozy deal that would bind the countries that use the euro ever more closer together, including giving officials in Brussels control over national budgets, remarking:

“We’re falling in line behind interests that are not those of France. I think we need more courage than that!”

Simon Heffer, a prominent English Euroskeptic, wrote in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper as quoted by newstatesman.com:

“What we are witnessing is the economic colonization of Europe by stealth by the Germans. Once, it would have taken an invading military force to topple the leadership of a European nation. Today, it can be done through sheer economic pressure.” This is, he says, the “rise of the Fourth Reich,” in which Germany is “using the financial crisis to conquer Europe.” Fiscal union, favoured by some as the long-term solution, “would make Europe effectively a German empire” and lead to “a loss of sovereignty not seen…since many were under the jackboot of the Third Reich.” http://www.newstatesman.com/print/201111240017

The motivating force behind the new German push is neither Nazism nor an overly ambitious or aggressive German lust for European domination. Rather, paradoxically, it is fear – fear of the present and fear of the past.

Any student of modern European history over the last 300-400 years knows that whenever there has been a strong continental European power seeking to assemble a coalition of European states under its hegemony, whatever the reason, the end result has always been disastrous for regional peace and freedom. Has human nature changed? Can a leopard change its spots? Are the Germans still Germans, the French still French, and the United Kingdom still British?

If you would like to learn more about what is going to happen in the future and Bible prophecy, check out my video presentation “Who Will Be King” on http://cogwebcast.com/

And then, there was a report about how the U.S.’s congressional super committee composed of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats failed to agree on how to begin to cut the U.S.A.’s trillion-dollar budget deficit. Presently, for every dollar the U.S. federal government spends, it must borrow 36 cents. That means 36 percent of its budget must be financed by borrowing the money from the financial markets!

But, is it really news that the political situation in the U.S.A. is deadlocked and the nation divided. Most Americans know something about their unsustainable budget fiasco. They also know they are lacking the sound leadership to do something about their predicament, so their confidence in their elected representatives in Congress is at an all time low.

But it was the last part of this particular CBC news story that caught my attention. To conclude the reporting on the American impasse, the CBC cut away for a comment on the super committee’s failure by Christine Lagarde, who is the head of the International Monetary Fund. She remarked somewhat cryptically that this American bad news is especially ill-timed considering the extremely delicate situation in Europe.

Really, CBC ignored the biggest news story in the world at this moment that should have been last night’s lead. This story is about the unraveling of the European financial system, the Euro, and possibly the European Union itself, and how this is going to profoundly affect the lives of all of us living here in North America and everywhere else in the world.

Do you remember that it was the financial crisis of the 1930s that lead to the rise of the Nazis in Germany, the fascists in Spain and Italy, the militarists in Japan, and the isolationists and appeasers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France? The final outcome of all that economic volatility and bad or inadequate political leadership in the 1930s was the Second World War.

Craig Alexander, who is Senior Vice President & Chief Economist of the TD Bank Group (one of the major Canadian banks), sent out an unusually sober briefing on November 21, 2011, to the bank’s investing clientele, observing:

The European debt crisis is like the Energizer bunny. It keeps going, and going, and going. Financial markets remain gripped by events in Europe; and, this is entirely appropriate. If Europe loses control of the situation the resulting government debt defaults could lead to European bank failures that could, in turn, create a global financial crisis akin – if not worse– to that in late-2008.

There have been several recent key developments. First, major European banks now face the very real possibility of failing in the near future. As Porter Stansberry wrote in the S&A Digest last Friday:

Most of Europe’s major banks are insolvent. But only in the last week have they lost most of their access to additional funding. Their key source of funding has been U.S. money-market funds. But these funds are bailing out of Europe as quickly as they can. The result is a run on Europe’s banks. This crisis is now past the point where the authorities can hope to control the situation. We are now days (not weeks or months) away from the first major bank failures.

The United State’s renowned investment “Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffet, while traveling in Japan on November 21, commented about the Euro zone crisis stating:

The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working.

The bottom line for Mr. Buffet is that the survival of the European Union (EU) itself is “in doubt now.” Buffet is following the European situation closely because he has more the U.S.$2 billion invested in Munich Re, a German re-insurance company.

Even that old staid Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, —where I once had a bank account during my 1970s student days in Switzerland—believes that the Euro sovereign debt crisis is now so bad that it will require a dramatic, massive intervention by the European Central Bank to cover the losses:

We seem to have entered the last days of the Euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the Euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.

Something dramatic is going to happen—soon—that is going to reshuffle the world’s geo-political-financial deck of cards in order to save Europe’s house of cards. Some astute financial commentators are expecting that we will see the most massive government intervention in history to the tune of trillions in order to adequately monetize the bad European debt. This is going to mean big time inflation.

As Mr. Alexander wrote in his investment news update:

The recent developments leave the end game for Europe still unclear. A default by Greece is inevitable, but that is old news now. The worry last month was about contagion, and the risks on this front have clearly intensified. European leadership still appears to be lacking. Despite announcements of new plans to address the crisis in mid-July and late-October, implementation of those policies has not occurred. Progress needs to be made urgently…. It seems the final outcome in Europe will be some form of a fiscal union and the launch of Eurobonds—but this will not happen soon. If the political system cannot deliver this end game and conditions start to spiral out of control, the ECB will step in and act as lender of last resort. This would arrest the financial crisis but also create a new set of economic and financial problems. We’ve gone from a world of banks too big to fail, to a world of countries too big to fail. The implication is that three of the top financial themes will be volatility, volatility, and more volatility.

A series of soon-coming events are going to affect your life and my life—and not for the good! Just think. Over the last few weeks the German Chancellor and the French President forced the democratically elected prime ministers of Greece and Italy to step down and to be replaced with unelected European Union bureaucrats, whose self-interest and obligations for their position rest with the EU rather than the people they are now governing.

There’s a lot I could say about how what is presently going on in this world is leading to a dramatic fulfillment of biblical prophecy. How Germany is using and will continue to use its pre-eminent financial position to achieve what it could not gain in Europe by force of arms both 72 and 97 years ago. Wealth is power in 2011. Watch out!

The spiritual bottom line to our current financial crisis, really, is that neither the 99.9% of this world’s elite nor the average person in the street really believes in using the teachings and instructions written in Bible as a basis for organizing our financial and social systems. Why? Because they don’t really believe that the God of the Judeo-Christian scriptures actually exists or that He has the authority to instruct us on what should be done. So, we ignore the cornerstones of the biblical economic system with its periodic secured and unsecured debt forgiveness and mortgage write-downs, real property asset re-allocations (see Deuteronomy 15:1-11 and Leviticus 25:9-18), as well as the responsibility to establish sound money based on a combined gold/silver standard (Ezekiel 45:10-12).

These elements of the divine economy would have prevented the perfect financial storm fueled by debt, fiat paper money, greed, and fraud that is soon to hit this world. We have ignored God at our peril and will pay the consequences. Nevertheless, our merciful God is not out of the picture and He does have a plan to pick up the pieces after humanity will have proven itself incapable of organizing a financial and political system that is just, equitable, fair, and just plain works without regularly throwing the entire world into a state of economic volatility with its recessions/depressions and sometimes war. As the prophet said so long ago:

Remember this, you sinners; consider what I have done. Remember what happened long ago; acknowledge that I alone am God and that there is no one else like me. From the beginning I predicted the outcome; long ago I foretold what would happen. I said that my plans would never fail, that I would do everything I intended to do (Isaiah 46:8-10 Good News Translation).

This is better news than anything you will hear, see, or read about over the next few years.

Presently making the media rounds, Dr. Jacques Pepin’s newly published book entitled, The Origin of AIDS, tackles the question of how one of the modern world’s deadliest disease plagues took root and spread.

Having already killed approximately 32 million mostly young people with about another 30 million or so currently infected with the eventually fatal HIV virus that causes AIDS—no one seriously questions the importance of understanding how this disease originated. After all, if humanity could avoid spawning similar epidemics in the future, it certainly would spare us untold suffering and sadness. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/health/18aids.html?pagewanted=all

But the problem in identifying the origins of the AIDS epidemic has been that, apparently, whether directly or merely indirectly implicated, it is the medical establishment’s professionals and related healthcare agencies/businesses that are guilty of playing a key role in creating this plague of death!

So you can understand why the medical establishment is more than a little touchy about publicly acknowledging its role in facilitating, presumably unknowingly, such a horrendous disease. Nevertheless, the truth has a way of becoming known despite the usual cover-ups, obfuscations, and denials issued by those who have something to hide.

Dr. Pepin’s book seems to be getting a relatively warm though cautious acceptance by the mainstream media and medical establishment because it only indirectly points the bloody finger of guilt and responsibility at the doctors and their medical bedfellows.

An earlier exposé on the origins of AIDS by a 1999 book called The River: A journey back to the source of HIV and AIDS, which was written by investigative journalist Edward Hooper, was vigorously maligned by the medical establishment because Hooper argued that the HIV virus was inadvertently spread to about one million Africans living in the Congo by an experimental polio vaccine. This vaccine, experimentally developed in the United States in the 1950s by Dr. Hilary Koprowski was said to have been manufactured in what was then the Belgian Congo using as substrates (growing medium) virus-contaminated chimpanzee kidney cells.  See http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/origins-aids/

Well, whether one believes Dr. Jacques Pepin and/or Edward Hooper, it seems highly probable that both an imperfect understanding of medical science and the practice of medicine itself did indeed play key roles in facilitating the AIDS death of millions. To his credit, Dr. Pepin personally admits that he unknowingly helped spread the HIV virus during his time serving in central African field hospitals by administering injections with inadequately sterilized needles.

As the Judeo-Christian Scriptures state: “When pride comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom,” Proverbs 11:2 Holmen Christian Standard Bible.

If you didn’t already realize it, the doctors are not God! They are merely fallible mortals whose pride can lead them to make serious mistakes. You should take responsibility for your own health and seriously question and research any and all procedures, drugs, and vaccines with which the medical establishment might want to treat you.  Seriously consider the risks of that flu shot or whatever other therapy is recommended. Who knows? Maybe by taking a small dose of healthy skepticism you’ll avoid becoming a guinea pig for the medical establishment’s next plague! An ounce of prevention may well be worth much more than the latest medical “cure.”

Essentially, Halloween, just like the drugs that get you high, may start out by just having a little fun, but as a gateway to the spiritual world it, too, can lead to unanticipated, but entirely natural consequences that flow from a series of bad choices.

Americans are estimated to spend about $2.5 Billion on celebrating Halloween this year while Canadians will certainly spend, maybe a tenth of that, say $250 Million. But are we spending all this money on “good, clean fun”?

Halloween imagery mostly is comprised of themes connected with death, witches, evil spirits, and the power of darkness. Where does all this black and orange stuff come from? What is the origin of the holiday? And does it matter?

The Apostle Paul warned the people of God then living in a place that was at that time the heart of darkness:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18 English Standard Version).

Yes, our present society is working hard to suppress the truth in our time as well. Halloween does indeed lie at the heart of a centuries-old conspiracy to substitute deception for truth, darkness for light. If you would like to really understand this issue then check out my video called Divided Loyalties. I guarantee to you that this eye-opening message is no smoke and mirrors trick but a real sweet treat for your mind, having no possible threat of cavities for your soul.

“for most of human history economic power has been determined by demography” (A Game of Catch-up, 09/20/2011).

Without the slightest bit of doubt, for developed nations like the United States, the European Union, Japan, and even Canada, financial, red ink problems will get much worse in the years immediately ahead as the Post World War II baby-boom generation shifts from paying taxes to the state and instead starts receiving old-age pension cheques from these same governments.

A similar problem, though with some different twists, will also start to hit China at about the same time due to their “4-2-1” social experiment over the last few decades—otherwise known as the one-child policy.

The practical effect of restricting Chinese families to having just one child means that eventually four elderly grandparents and two retirement-age parents will have to rely financially on the support that can be provided by just one child.

The Chinese government is not stupid. They avoided creating a pension black hole–otherwise known as a taxpayer-funded social security scheme—by requiring Chinese families to continue their age old tradition of looking after each other and providing for their own welfare rather than relying on the government. Consequently, strong traditional family structures are the norm in China, having as its basic characteristic the lifelong marital union between a man and a woman.

But the Western developed nations like the United States and Canada have prized individualism—rugged or otherwise—above all traditional family values. Since the 1970s we, too, like the Chinese have engaged in our own profound social experiment, which is sometime referred to as the sexual revolution. In effect the West’s collective historic societal/ moral perspective morphed from the old-fashioned values encapsulated in the motto “In God We Trust” into the post-modern, non-judgmental anthem “Do Your Own Thing” and its corollary “In Our Governments We Trust to Bail Us Out of Our Folly.”

And what has been the end result of the Western World’s social experiment with family morals and social ethics? How about national bankruptcy! Curiously, the Social Trends Institute, a liberal think-tank based in New York and Barcelona, came to the conclusion that the only way to save the Welfare State model with its generous retirement pensions and its multitude of government-funded programs as embraced by the Western developed world is to return to the traditional family structure that has as its base a married mom and dad with their kids. They’re talking about us going retro. You know, like the 1950s-60s American sit-coms “Leave it to Beaver” or “Father Knows Best.”

Entitled “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend,” the Social Trends Institutes makes these poignant observations:

“The wealth of nations is inextricably associated with the health of families… The global retreat from marriage and from family has depressed economic growth and has deeply hurt two generations of children.”

“Evidence drawn from Europe and North America indicates that children who are raised in an intact married home are more likely to excel in school and be active in the labour force as young adults.”

“An abundant social-science literature, as well as common sense, supports the claim that children are more likely to flourish, and to become productive adults, when they are raised in stable, married-couple households.”

“American children who are raised outside an ‘intact married home’ are two to three times more likely to suffer serious social and psychological problems.”

The report then cites the calculations made by Penn State University sociologist Paul Amato that IF America enjoyed a “My Three Sons” level of family stability then:

1. “The nation would have 750,000 fewer children repeating grades.”
2. “1.2 million fewer school suspensions.”
3. “Approximately 500,000 fewer acts of teenage delinquency”
4. About “600,000 fewer kids receiving therapy”
5. Roughly “70,000 fewer suicide attempts every year.”

Next, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend” mentions the work by four Swedish researchers who discovered that Swedish children living in single parent homes were 50% more likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol. And they said:

“It is not just the quantity of children that is in decline. It’s the quality of their lives.”

The Western developed world can’t pay its bills because it has been severely reducing the number of its children! The Social Trends Institutes estimates that the developed world is missing at least 60 million children! (All quotes from Neil Reynolds, “Family breakdown is one cause of our economic woes,” The Globe and Mail, Oct. 3. 2011.)

The loss of 60 million lives is probably a low estimate. For the United States alone, from 1970 to 2007 there were 48,106,910 abortions. According to AbortioninCanada.ca there have been about 3 million abortions in Canada since 1969. In just the USA and Canada that makes for 51 million fewer children.
Of course, you have to compound that figure to estimate the true loss of human capital since an aborted baby will never have any children of its own.

Just think of it, President Obama. If just half of the 48 million aborted American babies had lived, then those people should now be in their prime working years. If they would be paying annual social security and other taxes in an average amount of just $3,000 each that would have meant an extra $72 BILLION into the U.S. Treasury. Also, if those aborted children had lived and had generated just an extra $10,000 per year of productivity to the USA economy it would have added an extra $240 BILLION to the gross domestic product. But if that figure was an extra $40,000 per year that would have added almost $1 Trillion of extra economic activity on a yearly basis.

But no, America embraced the “do your own thing” philosophy and devoured over 48 million of its own young because it was just too inconvenient for its immoral parental refusniks.

Do the math. Why are so many of the nations of the Western developed world now staring bankruptcy in the face? Sure budgetary irresponsibility plays a role. But how much of our problem rightly belongs to our stubborn rebellion against our Creator and His moral logic that governs our Universe, including human affairs?

Our whole world’s economic system is wobbling. The potential for its actual collapse is strong. For two generations we have thought we can do our own thing while we turn our collective backs on God’s morals and ethics. We are now beginning to really pay the price. We have destroyed our future economic prosperity through immoral selfishness, lust, and pride. Even a liberal think-tank can see the facts. We would do well to take seriously this warning from one of God’s prophets and change our ways and turn to the knowledge that the Judeo-Christian scriptures teach about what is right and what is wrong as the basis for our social policies while there is yet time.

The LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish… My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children (Hosea 4:1-3, 6 English Standard Version).

Silvercorp is a mostly China-focused precious metals miner whose shares trade on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges under the symbol SVM. The company is considered so significant by the financial industry that its stock is included in the calculation of several bellweather S&P/TSX indices.

Taking advantage of a generalized public suspicion about the reliability of the financial statements of some Chinese businesses, this group of anonymous accusers, who are part of what Silvercorp’s chairman labels the “short and distort industry,” has been able to successfully effect wild price swings in the stock’s value by spreading allegations that Silvercorp’s chairman, Dr. Rui Feng, vociferously rebuts as lies.

Is this a classic smear campaign orchestrated by a group of false witnesses to make huge profits from engaging in what is known by the financial industry as “short selling”? In Silvercorp’s case these rumors are estimated to have wiped out at least temporarily about $1.5 billion from the company’s total value in stock.

Legitimate short-sellers regularly make bets or speculations on information derived from market research or maybe just following up a hunch with old-fashioned on-site investigation. Bad financial news resulting in under-performing quarterly results will drive down the price of a stock. Short-selling a Company’s stocks in such instances is a fair game and legal in most Western countries. But to deliberately spread false rumors and lies in a campaign to manipulate a stock’s price is, however, explicitly illegal. The British Columbia Securities Commission is looking into the Alfredlittle.com allegations.

“Simon Moore,” who claims to be the managing editor of Alfredlittle.com, in his defense of the authors’ use of anonymity in writing their inflammatory reports, states that the allegations were compiled by Chinese nationals who are “risking their necks” in a nation without our standards of freedom of speech. It is true that China does lack the rule of law according to Western standards.

Yet, It’s amazing how much money could perhaps be made from “bearing false witness against your neighbour.” The anonymous Alfredlittle.com short-selling authors admit to having a motive to benefit financially from what they call “truthful allegations.” Profiting from a string of accusations while hiding behind a shield of anonymity is suspicious. But where does the truth lie in this matter? It’s hard for the stockholders to tell, isn’t it?

Did you know that the Judeo-Christian scriptures talk extensively about this issue? Human nature has not changed over the millennia and getting to the bottom of highly charged accusations was already a major issue 3,400 years ago. Read what Moses wrote in the Law of God:

From the viewpoint of the Scriptures, anonymous accusations or denunciations of a crime were inadmissible in any legal proceedings against God’s people in ancient Israel. And, the punishment for transgressing the law and accusing someone falsely was to be appropriate to the damage caused by the false accusation. If you were a false witness guilty of accusing someone falsely of a capital crime, punishable by death, then you would receive that just punishment yourself. If you accused someone falsely of a property crime, then you would have to make the appropriate restitution to the victim.

According to Jesus of Nazareth, bearing false witness or lying is such an important issue that from a spiritual perspective it becomes a life or death issue (cf. Matthew 19:17-19). In fact, the fate of “all liars,” of all who knowingly convey untruth by word or deed, was to be tossed into the lake of fire, which is the second death. (Revelation 21:6-8) Eternal death, that’s definitely not worth risking for the sake of making just a few millions dollars through a fraudulent smear campaign.

If you would like to know more about this subject in detail, go to my video on this subject posted online at: http://cogwebcast.com/sermons/video-archives/divine-directives-the-ninth-commandment/