Moral sin leads to national disaster

Unfortunately, nations and secular institutions refuse to recognize how important it is to base material efforts on sound spiritual principles. Only this ensures the long-term prosperity and progress of a society or an institution. The source of the demonic contamination that oppresses a nation must be removed before any reform effort can take permanent effect. If the spiritual foundations of a society are tainted, no matter how well-intentioned actions are taken, the long-term result will always be failure. Psalm 127 states it like this in memorable words:

1 Unless the LORD builds the house, Those who build it labor in vain; If the Lord does not guard the city, the guard is watching in vain.

Undoubtedly, the serious economic and social crisis that the United States and the other nations of the world are currently going through is due to the violation of those spiritual principles that base the lives of the peoples. The greed of large corporations and their executives; the use of lies and trickery to take advantage of consumer ignorance; the runaway consumerism of the common citizen; the rulers' collusion with the industrial sector to violate financial laws — these are just a few of the persistent sins that have devastated the world economy recently.

Between October and December 2008, the United States lost almost a third of the value of its economy! Trillions of dollars disappeared almost overnight from the national economy, all due to collective disobedience to the sound principles of God's word.

All economists agree that one of the greatest financial disasters in human history has been due in large part to the rampant violation of basic principles of morality, ethics, and common prudence. The sixty-four thousand dollar question is: How is it possible that in one of the most sophisticated nations on earth all financial monitoring and analysis systems could fail so obviously for so long? It was only when the crisis broke out that analysts began to point out the elements of gross immorality that had been in sight everywhere. It is as if the entire nation was just waking up from a deep trance! The violation of spiritual principles had brought the most powerful nation in the world to its knees through one of the greatest and most shameful disasters in all of its history. All of this reminds us of the sober verdict of the apostle Paul in Romans 1:28: "And since they did not approve of taking God into account, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do things that are not convenient."

Sadly, even the citizens themselves, at the individual level, had collaborated towards the financial crash. They had long spent more than they earned, living off credit cards, refusing to save, and buying mortgages that they obviously couldn't pay at some point. Unfortunately, for many people who complained bitterly about the misconduct of corporations and their executives, the apostle Paul's words were all too applicable: “For which you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are that you judge; for in what you judge another, you condemn yourself; because you who judge do the same ”(Romans 2: 1).

As if all this were not enough, in the midst of that great institutional crisis in the United States, the largest financial scam in its history came to light. Bernard Madoff, one of the most admired funders in the entire nation, turned out to be one of the greatest con artists who ever lived. The great financial pyramid that this man had maintained for decades finally collapsed, taking with it fifty trillion dollars from some of the most powerful families and institutions in the nation, as well as from other countries. Again, everyone wondered how this man could have fooled so many people for so long, including the most powerful supervisory institutions in the country, who had been alerted several times about the great possibility that Madoff was, effectively, carrying out a very sophisticated pyramid.

Reading about this story in the newspapers for the first time, I immediately thought that the great scam this man had carried out was pretty much the same thing that financial institutions across the nation had been doing for the past several years; that is, cheating the consumer through a vast pyramid of national proportions. Interestingly, soon after, comments began to emerge from financial analysts around the world observing the same thing. In his outrage, through this scandal God was prophetically denouncing the institutions of the nation about their immorality and their exploitation of the people.

What we are observing on the world level at this time indicates that God is speeding up his prophetic clock. Truly dire times await us if humanity persists in running amok after its own material gods and ignoring the laws of the true God. If nations want true prosperity and security, they have to begin by settling accounts with the King of all the earth. They would do well to heed the psalmist's wise counsel: “Now, O kings, be wise; admit admonition, judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with trembling. Honor the Son, so that he will not be angry, and you may perish on the way; Because suddenly he inflamed his anger. Blessed are all who trust in him ”(Psalms 2: 10-12).