WORLD NEWS & PROPHECY
America's Economic Transformation Will It Wreck the U.S. Economy? We would do well to learn an economic lesson from 3,000 years ago recorded in the pages of the Bible. It reveals the dangerous path America seems determined to follow.
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t was about 1050 B.C. and Israel was unhappy. After a couple of centuries of relative freedom under the leaders who represented God, they looked at the other nations around them with envy. Some of these nations were powerful and wealthy. They had kings. They had armies. They had capital cities where power and wealth were centered. The Israelites wanted that too. Just as it is today, or was until recently, Israel was surrounded by nations that hated them. It seems they were always fighting the Amalekites or the Amorites or the Moabites or, worst of all, the despised Philistines who occupied the coastal area known today as Gaza. It wasn’t that Israel really had to fear these other nations. Whenever the Israelites were ruled by righteous judges, God protected them. He had often fought their battles by evening or more than evening the odds. Samuel was the latest of those judges, and under his leadership God had just given them victory against Philistine attackers (1 Samuel 7:7-13), even restoring several cities the Philistines had earlier captured back to Israelite control. But that was not enough. The Israelites chafed under 22 Beyond Today
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the rule of God through His judges. They wanted to be like the nations around them. Israel experienced a time of peace and prosperity under the rule of Samuel. But as Samuel aged, his two sons, Joel and Abijah, departed from his righteous path. The elders of Israel came to Samuel with a set of demands, saying: “Look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). God told Samuel to accommodate the people’s desires. But in doing so, God zeroed in on the key defining issue: “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (verse 7, emphasis added throughout). Israel’s rejection of God as their king set them on a rocky uneven path where their welfare was dependent on the character and integrity of a human system of government. This decision ultimately led to failure and their downfall. In verses 9-18 God showed what this would look like. He also told Samuel to “show them the behavior of the
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by Mike Kelley
