IT'S NOT TIME TO LOOK DOWN BUT UP

Do not invest your hope in a man and his ingenuity. President Bush, a few months ago in his prime-time televised address to the nation asserted that the country was experiencing a mere economy slowdown and not a recession. Capitalizing on ingenuity of American people, he assured the audience and viewers that the economy will pick up without delay. Nevertheless, things changed tremendously ever since as the economic situation worsened day by day. Addressing the nation again about the financial bailout of $700 billions on 9/23/2008 he told his prime-time audience and viewers across the country that the economy was on the blink of collapsing; $700 billions were needed immediately to bail out defaulting investment banks.

The White House, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank endeavor to convince the American people and world that, with this bailout, things will better, the economy will pick up for the good of all of us. They ignore that tomorrow is not ours. It belongs only to God Almighty. This is the admonition of the Apostle James to people who boat about tomorrow,"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that". As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."' James 4:13-17

The country has been caught up in a web of internal and external debt. The budget deficit grows bigger everyday. With the collapse of housing industry, the American dream so long cherished sinks in oblivion. Millions of homeowners are losing their houses to foreclosures. Businesses are closing down, the rate of unemployment is galloping. Hopes invested in capitalism as the sole working and viable economic system model began dwindling. Many remedies are being proposed to bail out the economy in terminal stage. As the world has become a global village so has the world economy. It is so interlinked that a failure in one country such as the United States everything else crumbles. It’s like a card castle. You take out one card the whole castle falls apart. The stake is too high for both the domestic and world economies.

Could this be the end of Wall Street and capitalism as economic system? It transpires from Jesus’ prediction recorded in Luke 21:25-28 that prior to His coming there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken…Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. The solution to the problem we are facing cannot be found in the most prestigious reference books on economics shelved at the US Treasury Department and at Federal Reserve Bank but in the Bible whose the acronym is: Brief Instructions Before Leaving Earth. God has the answer. His unlimited and incommensurable knowledge permits Him to know the end from the beginning. He predicts the future without fault. If the world leaders would not trust their human incapacity to solve the problem they would heed Jesus’ advice and look up. The answer cannot come from earth but from heaven.

Warning rich greedy oppressors, the Apostle James said,"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvfesters hace reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you." James 5:1-6

In the article “The End of Wall Street” published in The Wall Street Journal dated 9/24/2008, the Morgan Stanley spokeswoman uttered the following words, “The world had changed and you can mark that down as the understatement of the year. According to the Wall Street Journal which reported her, she was explaining the company’s decision late Sunday night to convert back into aa bank holding company some 75 years after the Glass-Steagall act sundered the House of Morgan into J.P. Morgan, the bank, and Morgan Stanley, the investment firm. Under pressure from the Federal Reserve Bank, Goldman Sachs made the same choice this weekend.

And so, reported the Wall Street Journal, in a single week, the era of the independent investment bank has ended. Wall Street as we’ve known it for decades has ceased to exist. Six months ago, says the same Journal, there were five major investment banks. Two – Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – have failed, Merrill Lynch is selling itself to Bank of America, and now the last two are becoming commercial banks… This year’s market turmoil, concludes the Journal, had called into question the viability of the investment-banking business model as far back as March, with Bear Stearns’s collapse. The Fed gave the remaining banks access to emergency lending, but it was clear from the start that this taxpayer lifeline wasn’t sustainable without a greater degree of federal oversight.

The words penned by the prophet Daniel under divine inspiration tell us unequivocally that the world system stained with sin must come to an end. The prophet says, “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” Daniel 2:44-45

The events that are taking place around us in all aspects of life: social, economic, military, diplomatic, moral, just to mention a few are but prompting us to the climax of the world history. Jesus is coming to establish His kingdom of genuine equal opportunity and justice for all and do away with a greed based capitalism which has impoverished millions and enriched just a cream of the society. There is an urgent need for a new world order, Christ-centered and not man-centered. Let's all the pilgrims join the Apostle John the beloved in uttering, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

Penned by Samuel M. Ntawiniga