Koenig’s perspectives on Bible prophecy and world issues Jun 2012

The next summer of recovery is upon us and the only thing certain is that there will be no economic recovery this summer just like there was no recovery in the previous summers under the Obama administration. The latest official unemployment figures have just gone up again and the number of first time seekers of unemployment benefits are also climbing again.

The average American family has lost 39 percent of their net worth in just the last three years. That 39 percent figure does not include inflation so the real loss of net worth since 2008 is nearing 50 percent. This loss of wealth hit the middle-class the hardest, the upper-class did not experience any fall in net worth at all.

A couple of years ago I warned people that most Americans will need to figure out a way to live on about half of their present income, this still seems to be the case, although it can get temporarily worse than even that. This is not over, we are still living beyond our means as a nation. We are still adding over a trillion dollars to our national debt each year. (That figure does not include the four trillion in increased entitlement liabilities that are added each year.)

Four years after the big crash we still are on stimulants. This year the social security tax has been cut once again and it is making Social Security go broke quicker than it would have. I am sure that they will be calling for even more stimulants before the fall election. They claim they cannot make spending cuts during bad economic times or it would make matters worse but they have said that for four years.

Stimulus so far have added five trillion dollars to our national debt. So how long can you just keep adding to the national debt to aid an economic recovery when the economic recovery never comes? At what point does the increased interest on all that new national debt become more of a drag on the economy than the stimulation of more borrowed money to spend? We probably will soon find out.

Do you realize that if interest rates just climbed three or four percent from the artificially low rates manipulated by the Federal Reserve that we would be in a new financial crises? There is no question that interest rates will rise. The Federal Reserve is just betting our farm that there will be a major recovery and more income first. Meanwhile the low interest rates means that most people who save money will continue to lose net worth each year due to inflation.

The bottom line is that you have seen nothing yet. 2012 will seem like the economic good old days in a few years. At some point nobody is going to lend to America at interest rates that we can pay, and drastic cuts will have to be made in government spending. Either that, or government defaults or hyper-inflates. All of the three scenarios will bring civil unrest.

Europe also continues on its own version of economic insanity. Greece gets to vote this weekend on a new government and the choice that the Greeks make might remove Greece from the Euro or if the vote indicates that the Greeks will accept more austerity measures it might even calm the markets some. Even so, the socialist labor unions are not going to allow big cuts to happen, so at best the Greeks might get to kick the can down the road a few more months.

Spanish banks are now being bailed out with $125 billion to keep them from going under and now Italy is saying where is ours? The debt situation in Europe is not going to have a good outcome. Even George Soros gives the present financial system in Europe about three months.

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I have not heard much about Iran lately. The Iranian talks are just a stall for more time to continue their nuclear weapons program. The flash point for this whole area might now be Syria. Iran and Russia are openly backing Assad against the West and the Sunni backed resistance. NATO is increasingly talking about using military force against Assad. This could have all the makings of a world war as Sunni and Shiite nations become drawn into the conflict first through Syrian proxies. If conflict spreads, active weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and Iran suddenly becomes critical problems that NATO will have to deal with.

I do not think Russian troops will directly get involved in the fighting in Syria since Russia’s conventional capabilities are not up to the task at this point. Russia will protect certain vital interests in Syria even if they have to use veiled nuclear threats. That probably will limit the NATO action against Syria but Sunni action against Syria is harder to predict and this conflict could go on for quite some time. I do expect Russia will use this crisis for their advantage in parts of Eastern Europe.

Putin is increasing becoming Stalin like. There is a very good likelihood that Putin will be the Gog of Ezekiel 38 but that war probably does not occur during this decade.

It seems that the military dictatorship in Egypt is not quite ready to give up power. Those running the armed forces do not want the Islamic clerics taking over the state like in Iran. We will have to stay tuned to new developments there.

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One thing that maybe should concern you that is not being talked about much is the condition of the Fukushima nuclear site in Japan. Fukushima is one major earthquake or one explosion away from a nuclear fire that would spew radiation into the atmosphere of such intensity that it could depopulate Japan and possibly the west coast of the United States. That is one way to get rid of the Left coast. I am not saying it is going to happen, but who really knows? There are many hundreds of nuclear fuel rods cooling at Fukushima and some are sitting in a pool on a roof of a very damaged building in a location where there has been reactor core melt downs. These highly radioactive rods will need to be cooled with water for many years. Any disruption to the cooling process and the spent fuel cores will burn and spew highly radioactive particles into the atmosphere. At the very least that would mean a tremendous increase in cancer in the northern hemisphere.

Human beings continue to prove to be very stupid creatures even though they like to think that they are so smart. In the twentieth century they thought they were smart enough to create safe nuclear power but we now see that they were not. They also never found a place to store nuclear waste from these power plants, so they just kept the waste at nuclear reactor sites in pools. Sometimes they even put these pools on the roofs of reactor buildings built in very active earthquake zones! Humans must have a death wish. Keep your ears opened to the latest at Fukushima, the nuclear crisis there has really just begun.

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Temporary Peace will be achieved in the Middle East when the Vatican administrates the holy sites in Jerusalem. In fact, this area will become Vatican II. The plans have been in the works for decades. Here is some food for thought for you. There are three major end time players in the last days called the Harlot, the Beast/Antichrist and the False prophet. Which of the three are fulfilled through the Vatican Papal System? I think one is a certainty, two out of three is a likelihood, and all three are a possibility.

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I have been emailed a number of times on my view of “The Harbinger” book. My view is that God did not make a covenant with America at its founding. According to scripture, God only has one covenant nation in this world and that nation is Israel. People that see America fulfilling historical Bible passages about events that happened in ancient Israel need to take a course in hermeneutics before they start writing books. If you want more discerning views about “The Harbinger” here is an article from Apprising Ministries , and for the finer details you really should also read this view from T.A. McMahon at Berean Call.

I think both ministries have good biblical discernment, while on the other hand, certain alternative news sites promoting this stuff probably do it because it brings in the bucks. Even if their motives are pure, their theology in this area sucks. Now if one of these people supporting The Harbinger” theology would use sound biblical exegesis to contradict what was said in the above articles, I would gladly like to read that article.

That is not to say that America is not going to see more judgment if we stay on our current path. Or that America should not be warned that it is on a path to destruction. Some are warning America without making up stories and making scripture conform to their own novel, as if they are anointed to be America’s prophet.

America’s demise if we continue down this road is obvious, but the conjecture that America is fulfilling the same scriptures given to Israel is quite simply another one of many well-meaning but presumptuous theories that are flooding the bookstores and the Internet these days. Why? Because certain people believe they receive direct special or spiritual knowledge and then they search the scriptures for something to support their esoteric conjectures. If the scriptures don’t quite fit, they get out their shoehorn. Or maybe using someone’s paraphrase will do the trick.

 Don Koenig founded www.thepropheticyears.com website in 1999 after almost thirty years of independent study on the Bible and learning from many astute teachers within Christendom. Don created his website to write about Bible prophecy, biblical discernment and his Christian worldviews. Don wrote a free Revelation commentary ebook in 2004 named "The Revelation of Jesus Christ Through The Ages". The World and Church and Bible Prophecy section of this website was started in 2007.