Tonight on The Hal Lindsey Report
The 2016 World Economic Forum, held annually in Davos Switzerland, ended last week. It displayed a bizarre blend of panic and political correctness.
Each year, the WEF brings together more than 2,500 of the world's elite, including many heads of state. They discuss pressing issues facing the world. These are the movers and shakers of business, government, and academia whose actions often have great impact on world events.
This year's discussions were chock full of political correctness, but there was also evidence of a bit of panic. Many of the world's elite were puzzled by the fact that the world appears headed into a recession.
They were convinced that the new technologies, something they repeatedly referred to as "the fourth industrial revolution," should have rescued the world's masses from poverty and need by now. Instead, the world stands on the brink of another recession.
The fact is that the computer and robotics age has made life easier for those at or near the top, but, in many ways, harder for those at or near the bottom. It is allowing industry to produce more, but with fewer people. More products, fewer paychecks.
Technology has given us a dramatic increase in convenience, but not much progress toward ending poverty and hunger.
But Oxfam International, one of the organizations covering the WEF, observed that in the world today, "62 people own the same as half the world." In other words, 62 individuals own as much as 3.5 billion people in the world.
And the bewilderment on display at Davos this year shows that the ancient prophets were right. The Apostle John said in Revelation 6 that as we reach the end of this Age, the cunning rich will grow richer and the hapless poor will get poorer.
Recently, the West began the process of releasing Iran from all the sanctions that had been retarding its march toward nuclear weapons. We even released more than $100 billion dollars to the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.
All based on empty promises from a nation whose leaders brag about deceiving its enemies, namely us!
But for most Americans, it's already "out of sight, out of mind." Even those who opposed the Iran nuclear deal have moved on to other issues.
But in Israel, the issue is as real as rock.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently admitted that Hezbollah has 70 to 80,000 rockets (all aimed at Israel, by the way), "...and much of it supplied, obviously, across the border from Iran through Damascus." Yet he and President Obama proudly pushed the Iran deal through.
Because, I think, to most Americans and Europeans, Iran having nuclear weapons is simply "theoretical." We don't feel threatened by it (though we should), so who cares? But Israel will be the target of those Iranian nuclear weapons once they're created. They care.
And one reason they may feel a little more insecure nowadays is some disturbing information discovered in some emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In one of the recent email dumps from the State Department, it was learned that Secretary Clinton once considered a plan calling for the United States to incite Palestinian protests against Israel. And many of these protests lead to violence against Israel.
The plan was suggested by then-Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Pickering. His idea was that fostering the Palestinian uprising might force Israel to the peace table.
We have no evidence that Secretary Clinton accepted that plan, but we now know that she considered it.
Finally, there is an almost palpable, universal, subconscious feeling that something catastrophic is looming in our planet's immediate future. Hollywood films often reflect the underlying fears of their audiences. For several years now, there has been in increasing sense of doom at the movies.
Today, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic themes have also invaded television. An amazing number of TV series are now set in an apocalyptic future. NBC just premiered a new comedy called, "You, Me, and the Apocalypse."
People have a sense of expectancy that something big is about to happen. But nobody knows what it may be.
Fear of the unknown is mankind's most basic fear. For stability now, we need a sure hope for the future. The Book of Common Prayer calls it, "...a sure and certain hope."
The good news is that we can have that sure and certain hope. Titus 1:2 calls it "...the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago."
What can be any more certain than a promise made by Almighty God, who cannot lie?
This week, I'll tell you more about that "sure and certain hope" in these unsure and uncertain times.
Don't miss this week's Report here Sunday.
God Bless,
Hal Lindsey
