FOREWORD

By Dr. Augustine Tan

This timely book by Brother Jedidiah Tham should find a wide audience in these perplexing times, when more than two-thirds of the world find themselves in the throes of financial crisises. We in Asia experienced it first since July last year. Several countries here suffered a triple deflation of assets — currencies, stocks and property. The contagion has spread to Russia and Latin America. American exports to Asia are down, affecting profits and employment in firms that deal with Asia. Its stock market is reeling and the latest scare from its Long-Term Capital Markets is causing anxiety about the degree of speculative activity that is hidden from the view of central banks. The American Federal Reserve (central bank) had just lowered the funds rate by a quarter percent, hoping to stabilize financial markets. Instead, Wall Street and global stock markets continue to tumble. Japan, the second largest economy in the world, is on the brink of economic depression, threatening to pull Asia and others down with it. What is going on? Is the world poised on the precipice of economic depression?

Brother Jedidiah has aptly titled his book The Great Economic Earthquake, delving into Scripture for explanations. God has indeed promised to shake the world (Hag. 2:6–7; Heb. 12:26–29). The shaking is physical, social, political, biological and economic. It would take another book to detail what has been occurring. Earthquakes have been increasing in frequency this century, fires have burnt huge acreages of forests, weather patterns have changed dramatically (El Nino, La Nina…), strange new diseases defy healing, incredible famines continue to kill millions; here, on our doorstep, 100 million Indonesians face starvation. This year alone, several leaders have fallen or been voted out. Sin is exalted and multiplied throughout the world: ‘ethnic cleansing’, wars, explosion in divorce rates, abortions, pornography, lies and deception by the President of the US.

God’s shaking has a definite purpose. Brother Jedidiah says it’s a wake-up call. Christians are not spared the shaking for judgment begins with the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17). Worldliness, covetousness, greed, uncleanness and pride must first be shaken off the Church before He release His new anointing that will enable us to take the nations for Him and prepare the Bride of Christ.

The Book of Revelation warns that Babylon (man’s economic, social and political system) will be destroyed. Greed has multiplied indebtedness: Long-term Capital Management borrowed and invested 40 times its own capital to gamble on financial derivatives. Many people, including Christians, have over-mortgaged. Many mortgage their homes in a rising market and invest in the Stock Market. When stocks rise, they borrow against the stocks and buy some more. It does not take much of a decline in stock prices to bankrupt them. Banks, in turn, become insolvent when their creditors cannot pay. The credit crunch produces a recession, which can lead to a depression. Globalization means the contagion can spread like the Plague to engulf the world. Wake up Christians and seek the Lord. Do not be destroyed with the rest of the world. The spirit of Babylon is the spirit of confusion. It will be through confusion and ghastly mistakes that terror will be multiplied on the face of the earth.

I prayerfully commend this book for Christians to read and pray over. The Lord has sent yet another prophet to sound the trumpet.

Dr. Augustine Tan
Senior Pastor, Hephzibah Christian Fellowship

CHAPTER 3 - Future Files

The largest global electronic-transfer system is CHIPS, the New York Clearing House Interbank Payment System. CHIPS is a privately owned centralised data system of 11 large New York banks. It offers services to 142 participating banks around the world, and through them, serves thousands of others. This electronic money web operates through two Unisys A-15J mainframes computer in Manhattan and handles more than 150,000 international transactions per day. The speed of this huge volume of daily transaction via CHIPS is at the rate of $2 billion a minute.

Peter Passell wrote an article ‘Fast Money’ in the New York Times dated 18 October, 1992, stating that “the computer system is the heart of global capitalism.” The electronic cash passes through the mainframe systems is, as Passel described, “weightless photons through the electromagnetic ether.” James Grant, the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, states that a treasury bill “no longer exists except as an entry on a computer tape.” People buy and sell blips on an electronic screen. A multi million-dollar transfer across the globe cost merely 18 cents at the speed of ten seconds. The foreign exchange of currency trading, according to the Bank of International Settlements, is now estimated about $640 billion per day . . . . . 

These new mammon-related economic activities of buying, selling and lending of monetary products worldwide have become businesses in themselves. This is the modern interpretation of Jesus’ remark that the last days of this dispensation is liken unto the trading activities of buying and selling in Lot’s days.

Bite of a Cobra 

A legend says installment debt started in 1856 when Isaac Singer gave away his $125 sewing machines on installment payment basis. The prudent debt ratio should be ranged between 15–20 percent. Keep a cash saving of minimum 20 percent to act as a buffer cash flow for emergency payments. The Bible warns about the dangers of a high debt ratio: “Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty?” (KJV, verse 7: “shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee and awake that shall vex thee…”) The word ‘bite’ is nashak which means to lend upon usury; to oppress with interest on a loan as well as to strike with a sting of a serpent! The word debt in the scripture is graphically described as a venom of a cobra!

CHAPTER 4 - Future Investment in the End-Times

“…the merchants of the earth have come rich through the abundance of her luxury…merchandise of gold and silver…” - Rev. 18:3, 12

 It is noteworthy that in the middle of the tribulation period, the trading of precious metals like gold and silver is still a viable economic activity.

One of the prime investments in the end-times will be in precious metals. Once while pondering over Matthew Chapter 25 on the parable of the ten virgins, I was struck by the remark, “…go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves” (v.9). I asked the Lord, “What is the commodity that a virgin (representing the bride of Christ) should possess before the coming of the bridegroom? The Spirit whispered, “Read on.” “And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one…” (v.15). My eyes fell on the word ‘talent’. A talent in those days was 3,000 shekels (silver coins) or equivalent of 1,200 ounces of silver. The commodity investment should be in precious metals!

CHAPTER 7 - The Final Countdown

“The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.” - 2 Thess. 2:8

 The triumphant return of Christ Jesus marks the eschatological finality and resounding victory in the closing chapter of human history. Everybody is curious about the future. As the clock of history winds down, we sense that the end is approaching nearer. We all want to know what lies ahead. Eschatology is the theological term for the study of the ‘end times’. It comes from the Greek word eschatos, meaning ‘last’ or ‘last things’. This chapter covers the prophetic eschatological developments in the final days of humanity . . . . .

End-time Drama 

There is a prophetic plumbline in the marvellous book of Isaiah. The pivotal scripture that distinguished the future trends of events: “They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily” (Is. 2:19).

In the coming days, there will be two simultaneous waves of God’s manifestations on the earth: the terror of the Lord and the splendour of His glory. The world will be gripped by the fear of tumultuous happenings while the church will be enraptured by the glory of His presence.

The coming economic earthquake will usher in the epoch of the rise of the Antichrist. The emergence of the rule of the Antichrist precedes the period of the great tribulation. However, his temporal dictatorship will only last a short-seven year period. Subsequently, his fatal downfall is sealed at the Battle of Armageddon as foretold in Scripture (Dan. 7:26). The great tribulation refers to that eschatological period of God’s wrath. Wrath is mentioned 13 times in the Revelation. It is a time of future global retribution, called in Rev. 3:10 the ‘hour of trial’, and in 6:16 ‘the wrath of the Lamb’. It is an awesome period of the dealings and the judgements of God upon the nations. The fiery punishments and sufferings experienced in this tribulation is somewhat similar to the ten plagues that afflicted Egypt in Moses’ days (Exodus typology) . . . . . . .