by Dr David Jeremiah
“Greece sneezes and Portugal catches a cold. Portugal coughs and Spain falls ill. Spain runs a fever and Italy comes down with the flu.”1 They call it financial contagion. . .the corrupting, fast-spreading influence of debt on the world economy. The debt virus has infected an economic system that is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The most noticeable evidence of financial contagion is the continued borrowing of money by governments for the purpose of living beyond their means. As global financial earthquakes continue to increase in frequency and intensity, many are beginning to wonder if we are on the threshold of Armageddon!
Armageddon. It’s a ten-letter word that is often misspelled and mispronounced, and it is just as often misapplied. It can refer to three things: the place of a future “final and conclusive” war between good and evil; the name of that specific battle; or a massive conflict or confrontation.2 Of course, as Christians know, the word Armageddon is from the Bible, designating the world’s final, climactic battle that will be fought on the plains of Megiddo.
Drawing its power from that biblical imagery, in today’s common usage the word refers to any event of cataclysmic proportion, such as that experienced by the major stock-trading boards in October 2008. 3
I chose to use that word in the title of this book because it pictures the catastrophic conditions that will prevail on the earth in the end times, and because many of those conditions are beginning to be visible today.
The ten chapters of this book are about these end-time occurrences and the financial warnings that are pointing us toward the Armageddon of the Bible. While that Armageddon is still in the future, the trembling of our financial foundations is a call for us to “awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).
I believe that much about the future of this world has been revealed to us in the prophetic pages of the Bible. We begin with a look at the state of the American economy, which is still deteriorating and threatening to collapse. Although there are glimmers of hope, unemployment is at near record highs in most of the country, and in my home state of California, it continues to rise.
In October 2009, according to the Labor Department’s report, the National Unemployment Rate had risen to 10.2 percent, more than doubling the rate when the financial crisis began to be evident in December 2007.
These cold numbers translate into some 15 million real people—sisters, brothers, neighbors, maybe you—who are unemployed and looking for work. Forty-four percent (6.5 million) have been unemployed for more than twenty-seven weeks. Add to that another 9.1 million workers who have become “involuntary part-time workers” since their hours have been cut, and another 2.3 million who have given up looking for work.4
According to my calculations, that means there are 26.4 million would-be workers in our country today in some degree of financial distress related to unemployment. Rising unemployment has added to the already burgeoning crisis in Social Security and Medicare with benefit payments projected to exceed payroll tax revenues in 2010. Unemployed workers do not contribute to Social Security or Medicare programs, so the number of recipients is rising while the number of contributors is falling. In addition to the unemployment tragedy, more than 11 million homes nationwide are now “underwater”—that is, worth significantly less than the mortgage owed on them. According to the Federal Reserve, the collapsing housing market has produced a $7 trillion loss in value from late 2006 through the end of 2009. 5
While most of us are understandably concerned with the impact of the American financial crisis, we cannot ignore the global economic meltdown that seems to be herding us in the direction of a new world order and a one- world government.
The idea of a one-world government is as old as the Book of Genesis and as current as the United Nations. Our world is ripe for globalization. When the Cold War ended with a widespread thaw in hostilities, the nations and their economies began the process of trying to conglomerate from separate nationalistic entities into one heterogeneous unity.
Politicians, economists, scientists, and futurists have long sought such a supranational unity. The eight-year struggle to ratify a reform charter/constitution for the European Union is a good example of the difficulty inherent in combining twenty-seven separate national identities into one coherent unit. The European Union was ultimately successful in adopting a constitution-type government in November of 2009 opening the door for a stronger and more centralized government in Europe.
Reversing a promise by global leaders in April 2009 to end the recession, only China, France, Germany, and Japan were into the recovery stage by the end of that year. Today Canada, Italy, Greece, Great Britain and the U.S. are still struggling to check the downward trend of the economy.
Historically, it has been the economy of the United States which has recovered earliest and has been able to “pull the rest of the world out of its funk.”6 This time around, it is hoped that China will lift the U.S. out of recession. If neither of these two nations can rise to the challenge, there seem to be few options left on the horizon.
Could we be standing today on the edge of a recession from which no one economy, no one nation, no one union will be able to extricate the world? The Bible predicts that such an era is coming. Fueled by the world’s economic convulsions, the only answer will seem to be the unification of the nations under one economic system and one world ruler.
One would expect such a process to begin with the gradual consolidation of wealth and power, both nationally and globally. Today as we witness the merging of banks and the centralization of financial regulations, we cannot help but wonder if the Antichrist is waiting in the wings, ready to make his entrance onto the stage of this desperate world.
When he finally appears, the world will embrace him. He will be the ultimate Financial Czar—Satan’s CEO, and he will deceive the world with a promise of stability and order. When the whole world is singing his praises, he will unveil his master plan for the destruction of all those who refuse to fall down and worship him and his idol.
In those final months of his evil reign, no one will be able to buy or sell without his special identification mark implanted in his or her forehead or hand.
From his center in the ancient rebuilt city of Babylon, the Antichrist and his partner, the False Prophet, will regulate the commerce of the world until Almighty God brings it all to an end “in one hour.”
Then there will at last emerge a one-world government and a one-world economy that will be the ultimate answer to the longing of the human soul. The Bible assures us that a golden age of unprecedented peace and prosperity is coming. What the Antichrist will have failed to do with his militaristic and computer surveillance, Jesus Christ will do by His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
In light of all that is happening and all that is going to happen, how should we organize our schedules and live our lives? I have called the last chapter of this book, “Keep Your Head in the Game and Your Hope in God!” This is the instruction that God has etched upon my own heart. In these desperate days, this is my prayer for you!
1 Caroline Baum, “Greek Contagion Myth Masks Real Europe Crisis,” Bloomberg Business Week, Businessweek.com, 9 May 2010, (accessed 10 May 2010).
2 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., 2003, 67.
3 Allan Roth, “The Stock Market – One Year after Armageddon,” CBS MoneyWatch.com, 9 March 2010, http://moneywatch.bnet.com/investing/blog/irrational-investor/the-stoc-market-one-year-after-armageddon/1188, (accessed 25 March 2010).
4 “Bureau of Labor Statistics: Economic News Release/ Employment Situation Summary,” U.S. Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS.gov, 5 April 2010,(accessed 26 April 2010).
5 Stephanie Armour, “Underwater mortgages drain equity, dampen retirement,” USAToday.com, 24 March 2010, (accessed 25 March 2010).
6 Bill Bonner, “Don’t Count on China,” Fleet Street Invest.com (U.K.), 26 August 2009, http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/daily-reckoning/bill-bonner-essays/china-rescue-world-ecnonmy-54115.html (accessed 26 August 2009).
Armageddon. It’s a ten-letter word that is often misspelled and mispronounced, and it is just as often misapplied. It can refer to three things: the place of a future “final and conclusive” war between good and evil; the name of that specific battle; or a massive conflict or confrontation.2 Of course, as Christians know, the word Armageddon is from the Bible, designating the world’s final, climactic battle that will be fought on the plains of Megiddo.
Drawing its power from that biblical imagery, in today’s common usage the word refers to any event of cataclysmic proportion, such as that experienced by the major stock-trading boards in October 2008. 3
I chose to use that word in the title of this book because it pictures the catastrophic conditions that will prevail on the earth in the end times, and because many of those conditions are beginning to be visible today.
The ten chapters of this book are about these end-time occurrences and the financial warnings that are pointing us toward the Armageddon of the Bible. While that Armageddon is still in the future, the trembling of our financial foundations is a call for us to “awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).
I believe that much about the future of this world has been revealed to us in the prophetic pages of the Bible. We begin with a look at the state of the American economy, which is still deteriorating and threatening to collapse. Although there are glimmers of hope, unemployment is at near record highs in most of the country, and in my home state of California, it continues to rise.
In October 2009, according to the Labor Department’s report, the National Unemployment Rate had risen to 10.2 percent, more than doubling the rate when the financial crisis began to be evident in December 2007.
These cold numbers translate into some 15 million real people—sisters, brothers, neighbors, maybe you—who are unemployed and looking for work. Forty-four percent (6.5 million) have been unemployed for more than twenty-seven weeks. Add to that another 9.1 million workers who have become “involuntary part-time workers” since their hours have been cut, and another 2.3 million who have given up looking for work.4
According to my calculations, that means there are 26.4 million would-be workers in our country today in some degree of financial distress related to unemployment. Rising unemployment has added to the already burgeoning crisis in Social Security and Medicare with benefit payments projected to exceed payroll tax revenues in 2010. Unemployed workers do not contribute to Social Security or Medicare programs, so the number of recipients is rising while the number of contributors is falling. In addition to the unemployment tragedy, more than 11 million homes nationwide are now “underwater”—that is, worth significantly less than the mortgage owed on them. According to the Federal Reserve, the collapsing housing market has produced a $7 trillion loss in value from late 2006 through the end of 2009. 5
While most of us are understandably concerned with the impact of the American financial crisis, we cannot ignore the global economic meltdown that seems to be herding us in the direction of a new world order and a one- world government.
The idea of a one-world government is as old as the Book of Genesis and as current as the United Nations. Our world is ripe for globalization. When the Cold War ended with a widespread thaw in hostilities, the nations and their economies began the process of trying to conglomerate from separate nationalistic entities into one heterogeneous unity.
Politicians, economists, scientists, and futurists have long sought such a supranational unity. The eight-year struggle to ratify a reform charter/constitution for the European Union is a good example of the difficulty inherent in combining twenty-seven separate national identities into one coherent unit. The European Union was ultimately successful in adopting a constitution-type government in November of 2009 opening the door for a stronger and more centralized government in Europe.
Reversing a promise by global leaders in April 2009 to end the recession, only China, France, Germany, and Japan were into the recovery stage by the end of that year. Today Canada, Italy, Greece, Great Britain and the U.S. are still struggling to check the downward trend of the economy.
Historically, it has been the economy of the United States which has recovered earliest and has been able to “pull the rest of the world out of its funk.”6 This time around, it is hoped that China will lift the U.S. out of recession. If neither of these two nations can rise to the challenge, there seem to be few options left on the horizon.
Could we be standing today on the edge of a recession from which no one economy, no one nation, no one union will be able to extricate the world? The Bible predicts that such an era is coming. Fueled by the world’s economic convulsions, the only answer will seem to be the unification of the nations under one economic system and one world ruler.
One would expect such a process to begin with the gradual consolidation of wealth and power, both nationally and globally. Today as we witness the merging of banks and the centralization of financial regulations, we cannot help but wonder if the Antichrist is waiting in the wings, ready to make his entrance onto the stage of this desperate world.
When he finally appears, the world will embrace him. He will be the ultimate Financial Czar—Satan’s CEO, and he will deceive the world with a promise of stability and order. When the whole world is singing his praises, he will unveil his master plan for the destruction of all those who refuse to fall down and worship him and his idol.
In those final months of his evil reign, no one will be able to buy or sell without his special identification mark implanted in his or her forehead or hand.
From his center in the ancient rebuilt city of Babylon, the Antichrist and his partner, the False Prophet, will regulate the commerce of the world until Almighty God brings it all to an end “in one hour.”
Then there will at last emerge a one-world government and a one-world economy that will be the ultimate answer to the longing of the human soul. The Bible assures us that a golden age of unprecedented peace and prosperity is coming. What the Antichrist will have failed to do with his militaristic and computer surveillance, Jesus Christ will do by His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
In light of all that is happening and all that is going to happen, how should we organize our schedules and live our lives? I have called the last chapter of this book, “Keep Your Head in the Game and Your Hope in God!” This is the instruction that God has etched upon my own heart. In these desperate days, this is my prayer for you!
David Jeremiah
May, 2010
2 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., 2003, 67.
3 Allan Roth, “The Stock Market – One Year after Armageddon,” CBS MoneyWatch.com, 9 March 2010, http://moneywatch.bnet.com/investing/blog/irrational-investor/the-stoc-market-one-year-after-armageddon/1188, (accessed 25 March 2010).
4 “Bureau of Labor Statistics: Economic News Release/ Employment Situation Summary,” U.S. Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS.gov, 5 April 2010,
5 Stephanie Armour, “Underwater mortgages drain equity, dampen retirement,” USAToday.com, 24 March 2010,
6 Bill Bonner, “Don’t Count on China,” Fleet Street Invest.com (U.K.), 26 August 2009, http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/daily-reckoning/bill-bonner-essays/china-rescue-world-ecnonmy-54115.html (accessed 26 August 2009).
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