Herbert W Armstrong

   So you see, nowadays we don't have to talk about famine. Someday, someday down the road to causing us problems, we can talk about famine taking place in the world right now. We don't have to talk about economic collapse being a possibility and people looking sort of strange at you when you say that in a very wealthy country.

   And we used to say that in two or three decades there will be economic collapse in the USA. Back then that sounded strange, but for a while it doesn't sound strange nowadays because it could happen in six months or next year, and we know that. We used to talk about World War III twenty years off or ten years off, and now we can tell you, look, it could happen next week.

   I don't think it will, and prophecy does not give that indication, but that possibility is always there. And as those things close in on us, you can sense that some of our brethren are becoming frightened and scared, and there's a certain amount of uncertainty and panic and that type of thing in the minds of some, and it ought not exist. I have to admit that sometimes I'm disturbed by the fear and the fright and the anxiety and the panic, and some of the questions that are asked by members of the Church of God that show that they're pretty uptight and frightened.

   You can sense it when people discuss the end of the age and preparations that have to be made to live on through the final years of this era. People get very uptight about jobs. We have members moving all over the place, going here, running off there.

   You know, got to get that job. Well, you do, but boy, the panic sometimes worries me. Now, you know, jobs are an acceptable form of concern in a time of growing economic chaos and unemployment.

   But the fear that seems to often motivate a lot of our brethren, those fears seem to be hooked into the need, you see, to keep pumping money back into the mortgage company coffers and back into the landlord's pocket and into the little drawer in the cash register in the supermarket. And that seems to be the major reason for the fear, and if that is the major reason for your concern about jobs and the economy and the future, then I can pretty well promise you, you probably will lose your job. You probably will be on the dole.

   You probably will have to have a lot of handouts in the years that lie ahead when unemployment goes up to, I think I can say it'll go over 30 percent, because it hit 30 percent in the Depression. And God says this will be the worst time in all of human history, and if it hit 30 percent then, it's going to have to at least hit 31 percent. It's going to have to be greater, otherwise it will not be the worst time, it would be the second worst time.

   So we have to look ahead to at least 30, 35, 40 percent unemployment. And what's going to happen to your pocketbook when that occurs? Because I, yea, verily, I do believe it will. And I don't believe it will occur after we leave for the place of safety, I believe it will occur before we go.

   I think that can be proved. You know how to secure employment and to keep employment in a time when you've got all these social and economic ills and problems and conditions are deteriorating at breakneck speed and things are not good. You realize the scripture talks about economic chaos, but the kind of chaos that will literally begin to take apart and shatter the economies of most nations on the face of the earth, and they're all interrelated, and that will occur, God indicates, basically before World War III and before this nation falls and before we go into a place of safety and we'll have to live through a lot of that.

   You realize that to some degree, in fact, World War III and the fall of this mighty nation is going to be precipitated by growing unemployment, by astronomical inflation rates, which can wreck an economy and wreck a people and lead to war. It will be precipitated to some degree by the plunging value of the dollar, and as the dollar goes down, it's going to take a lot of currencies with it. And there will be other misuses and things I can't even foresee because I'm no expert in economics, but you can see it happening, and the USA is going to take the blame for a lot of things.

   It's going to be a fairly disastrous time in some ways, and sort of frightening, and yet it doesn't have to affect most of us in a major way. It will affect all of us in minor ways and maybe medium-level ways, and maybe a few of you will be affected in major ways. I think that's possible, and yet you'll survive and live through it, and you can bring down God's blessing on your life and your job and your employment and your pocketbook to the point and to the place, to the extent that you can live through it, if not on quite the same level as you're living now, at least decently and comfortably and still do your part in the work of God.

   Some of you are making yourselves far too vulnerable to certain kinds of curses. We'll talk about that in a minute. The nation of Israel I mean in Judah now, not what God uses Israel, but what the world calls Israel in the Middle East, in Judah, they're fighting triple-digit inflation over there.

   Did you know that? We're fighting double-digit, 12, 13, 14 percent. They're fighting 120 percent or 130 percent. Now when you think about that, some of you get very upset about 14 percent inflation or 12 percent.

   What about 120? Well, they've got indexing and a lot of other things. But what happens to us off in the future some day when and if, and I think it's much more when than if, we begin to have triple-digit, I mean not 20 percent or 50 a year or 85, but 110. Where does that leave you if you're on Social Security and a fixed income? And how do you feed your family, pay off your mortgage, and I think far more important than that, how you want to pay tithes and do the work of God, which is destined, prophecy says, to grow at an incredible pace, unbelievable pace in the closing years of our commission, and it will.

   And if it does, is there a dichotomy there? You see, if the work surges ahead but society is collapsing economically and we're collapsing with it, will the money fall out of trees? I mean, will $10 bills fall out of the heavens like manna fell out of the heavens to feed the Israelites? Well, I don't think it'll happen quite that way. It could, but there's no indication of that. God will use us.

   The question is who and how. Are we suddenly going to have to look to, you know, maybe three issues of the Plain Truth a year? Does that sound logical to you? Three issues to save money? Three? Not six or ten, but only three? Is that the way God will do things? I don't think so. Are we going to have to think in terms of maybe one church service a month because the bills will get so high for lighting and that type of thing in here that we won't be able to afford the hall, therefore we'll cut back all of our congregations to once a month? Does that make sense to you? Doesn't make sense to me.

   I don't think so. How are we going to get the budget in shape if those things are not going to be done? What about the college? Will we roll back the college classes to maybe Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings? And that's all? And maybe fire 90 percent of the teachers because we won't be able to afford to have them teach? I don't think so. That doesn't make any sense.

   How about TV? Will we simply abolish television and do away with radio, because we won't be able to afford it? You know what would happen if we did all those things? There would be no work. Matthew 24:14, would not be fulfilled, and we would bring down not just the curses of God, but he would come down and probably wipe us out as an organization for not doing his will and his work. We'll do the work.

   It may involve some adjustments. I don't think the income is going to drop. I think it will keep on going up.

   In fact, I think that's provable. We may have to trim off some fat here and there in the work of God, and I can see salaries someday perhaps being reduced, you know, 10 percent, 20, 30, 40, 50. How many people would stay in the work of God if their salaries were cut in half? I'd say 90 percent.

   I really think that maybe someday that will happen, and I don't think most people are going to tear their hair out. I know what it would mean, but I'll have to move and a lot of other things. But, you know, what if that happened? About 20 percent of you work in Pasadena.

   What if your salary was cut in half? We'd all be in the same boat. We'd all be moving into shantytown together. I think we could survive somehow, in some way.

   I'll get back to that in a minute if that ever occurs. I'm not saying it would or will, but it might. And there may be other necessary belt-tightening measures.

   But somehow, brethren, the point is this. The blessing of God is going to be set and established upon the homes and the salaries and upon the lives of a sufficient number of members of the Worldwide Church of God, to get this work done in power. Not done sort of in a miserly way, in a limited way, sort of going to pot and, you know, winding down and losing stations and cutting back.

   Not for all kinds of dramatic cutbacks, but done in power. And I hope and I pray that you'll be among those who continue on prospering in a time when these very chaotic events begin to occur. Turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 1. You can prosper.

   That doesn't mean that you'll live better than you live now. You may not live as well. You may and you may not.

   But you can still receive the blessing of God. Isaiah chapter 1, I think you've seen it before. This is talking about economic chaos.

   The first few chapters describe chaos, shattering the nations of Israel in the end of the age, and specifically referring to the U.S. and England and the literal nations of Israel geographically and ethnically and all that type of thing. But in addition it's referring to all nations on earth, because everything's interconnected. And when the dollar goes down, most other monies go down with it, with a few exceptions.

   If the U.S. goes into deep depression, that will generate depression in most other countries. If we have hyperinflation, it will cause hyperinflation in most other countries. So it's a worldwide phenomenon.

   And what you see here will not just happen to us. It'll happen to us, and then we will cause a kind of an effect, a ripple effect that'll go worldwide. And that ripple effect, you see, is to some extent going to generate World War III.

   Isaiah talks in his vision to Judah and to Jerusalem. Chapter 1, verse 1 (Isaiah 1:1). We know Judah is Jerusalem, is the capital of all of Israel, and Jerusalem, used in prophecy, refers to all the nations of Israel, not just to the Jews, but refers to them. And they're going to have all this happen, too.

   It refers to the U.S.A. and Britain and the major powers, and of course to some degree every nation is going to be affected by this, because we do have an interweaving of economic policy and the effects affect everybody. Going on down to verse 5, talking about our nation and all of its problems. Why should you be stricken any more, you'll revolt more and more.

   The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. That's decadence and deterioration on all levels, from the sole of the foot even under the head. There is no soundness in this nation.

   There is no economic soundness, there is no moral soundness, there is no spiritual soundness, there is no monetary soundness, there is no soundness. Now that's our nation. But there are just wounds and bruises.

   These are types, of course, of problems of all kinds, putrefying sores that have not been close-bound up, mollified with ointment. Those are pictures of unsolvable problems. I mean, monumental problems that people are dealing with and nobody can resolve them.

   We have an unsound economy. Now verse 7 says, in the wake of all that, and to some degree verse 6 precipitates verse 7, your country is, or will be, the Hebrew verb would indicate a future as well, desolate. And that's coming.

   Your cities burn with fire, like Sodom and Gomorrah, they were burned with firestorm, and there will be firestorms. Nations will be burned ultimately in nuclear holocaust. Cities burned with fire, land strangers devoured in your presence.

   It's desolate, will be like a beseeched city in verse 8. Verse 9 says, unless the Eternal host had left a small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and just like Gomorrah. Those cities were wiped off the face of the earth for sexual sins. Basically, verse 6 says our nation will be destroyed because we are full of problems.

   We're full of problems, no soundness. And you'll see that the major problems, to some degree, along with the morality, the religion, the sex, one of the big things that will cause this armed intervention from without will be economic problems that we're going to sort of export to other nations. Verse 16 talks to the church of God now, and God gives a brief message to us within this context of problems.

   Wash you and make you clean. That's a call to repentance. Put away the evil of your doings from before your eyes and cease to do evil.

   That's our work and that is our message, preaching the laws of God and the ways of God. Learn to do well. Seek judgment.

   Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Pray for the widow.

   Come now, verse 18. And this is, in a sense, one of the messages preached by us, God truest, teaching us to the world, people wondering how to solve the problems. Let us reason together, says the Eternal.

   Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they be red and odious and horrendous, the serious sins, like crimson, they shall be like wool after baptism and after repentance and after forgiveness. Now verse 19 says this. If you be willing and if you're obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.

   That's in a time, you see, when the whole nation, God says, is full of bruises and putrefying sores and problems, economic problems, no man can resolve. And God says you shall eat the good of the land. How does that happen? That's a promise, but how does that happen? How do we eat the good of the land in an age like this? But if you refuse and you rebel, verse 20 says, at the same time, because we'll have both possibilities, you shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Eternal is spoken in.

   That message has got to be understood. Sometimes we lull ourselves to sleep in a kind of a complacent way when it comes to things like this, and we deprive ourselves of the blessing of living from or off of the good of the land. God says we can eat the good of the land even in a time of terrible economic crises.

   That was possible even in the thirties. My grandfather had a couple of sections of land in the wheat-growing country of western Canada, and he was poverty-stricken. Some of his neighbors were fairly prosperous.

   You know why? Because my grandfather went ahead and he raised wheat for three or four years in a row. When wheat was bringing in twenty cents a bushel. It cost more to buy the seed.

   Twenty cents a bushel isn't a lot of money, and that's the way it was at the time. Oats were seven or eight cents a bushel. Any of you who were farmers back in the Midwest, the Dakotas or Kansas back in the thirties may remember things like that occurring.

   So he lost his shirt. We had neighbors, on the other hand, who didn't go ahead and sow it. They bought cattle instead, and even though beef was being sold pretty cheaply, he still made more money putting cattle out to pasture, and some of the neighbors survived quite nicely.

   My grandfather lost his shirt because there was no price for grain in those days, and oats and that type of thing. You had to almost give it away. So some of them lived off the good of the land.

   He didn't, but some people did. In the future it will be the same principle. I've talked before about a little island off the coast of Canada called Newfoundland, where unemployment has been endemic for thirty, forty, fifty years, and it's always sort of floated along at thirty, thirty-five percent of the population is unemployed in Newfoundland.

   Always. You go into towns along the coast, and of course Newfoundland is way out in the Atlantic, and any time of the day the squares in the center of the villages are full of men and boys in the primal life doing nothing, and it's become in a sense a sociological problem. It's passed on from father to son.

   Nobody works. Everybody lives off the dole, and it just goes on. They don't move into towns to get better jobs, because there are no more better jobs in town than where they are.

   So they live, they produce families to live on the dole, and it creates the sociological phenomena of welfare families who never do anything but live off of welfare, and it becomes sort of respectable, because the work ethic is dead. And yet in Newfoundland, ninety percent of our brethren have jobs. Thirty percent of the other Newfoundlanders don't, but ninety percent of our members, usually ninety-five, do have jobs.

   Now, they're not always the kind of job you would want, and they don't always make the money you would like to make, but they live okay, and their homes are small compared to American homes. No affluency there. A big house in Newfoundland is a thousand square feet.

   Here, that's a little house. You want to have eighteen hundred, at least, don't you? Otherwise you feel cramped. They view a thousand square feet as a big house.

   That's usually two small tiny bedrooms and a tiny kitchen and a tiny living room, and that's about it, I guess, plus the bathroom. They don't have two bathrooms, and nobody has wall-to-wall carpets. Are you kidding? Rich people have wall-to-wall carpets in Newfoundland.

   When you were a kid, what did you have on the floor when you were a kid? Well, they had scatter rugs, or what did they call them? Scatter rugs or some other word. You didn't have any rugs sometimes. I've been in homes of Church of God members twenty years ago where you could see the ground through the separation of the boards in the floor.

   In fact, I was in a home of a member of the Church of God who had built, they had a house on a levee in Natchez, Mississippi, and the house was out on the levee, and they opened up a little hole in the floor and threw their garbage into the river. They live right over the river, and you could see the river. If you sat in the living room, you could look through the holes, and you could see the river rushing underneath you.

   It was scary, but they liked it, and after a while it had a certain charm. You sort of thought, well, this is sort of neat here. The river's right there.

   I used to wonder what happened at flood time, because it was only a couple of feet below them. But you know, in Newfoundland, a thousand square feet is a big house. There are no family rooms.

   They wouldn't really know what a family room was, but you want a family room, you want a big dining room, you want two bathrooms, you want a bedroom for all the kids, you want this and you want that, and 1,800 square feet is not a big house in Southern California. But it is to them. The difference is, they may make $500 a month and pay prices a little higher than what you pay for most goods.

   But you learn in Newfoundland that there's no relation between happiness and money. Did you know that? None. I've lived in enough poor countries to know that.

   There's no relationship between how much cash you bring in every month and how often you smile. There is no relationship, there is none. There may be a temporary, you know when the boss gives you a raise and you come home with a big smile? I mean, there's a temporary thing.

   But I mean, permanent happiness, no relationship at all. No relationship at all. I've seen enough of that to know that.

   If you look in chapter 3, verse 1 (Isaiah 3:1), I want to show you something about the age ahead of us, our time now, but let's say as it escalates. Before World War III is unleashed, there's coming a time of economic chaos, there'll be social ills, there'll be civil disorders, the welfare rules are going to skyrocket, there'll be a lot of people out of work. I won't tell you how many, but as I say, I think it'll have to be over 30% because it hit that in the Depression.

   It doesn't, it is not logical that we would have less at a time when God says everything will be worse. Now, will you be on welfare at that point in time? I'm not talking to widows. God says blessed is the nation that looks after its widows and its women who have no husbands and its elderly.

   And I view welfare given by the country, by the nation, as one of the few things that our nation does, you see, to bring the blessings of God upon the nation when it gives that help in a financial way to women with kids who don't have a husband, to the elderly and others who need that help, and of course the indigent and the ill and the sick. I do feel a little bad when the nation gives that kind of money to men in the prime of life who are strong and healthy and don't have jobs. Then something's wrong.

   I know that those things occur in their temporary periods when a man in the Church of God is going to have to accept welfare and look for a job, and I know all that. It should never be a temporary thing for people like that. That's not how God views it.

   That kind of help is for the widows and the orphans, the Bible says, and a man in the prime of life should simply go and find himself a job. Chapter 3, verse 1, Behold, the Eternal, the Lord, the Host, does take away from Jerusalem, that's all of Israel, and from Judah, that stay in the staff. Now, what's that? Well, notice, the whole, not some, the whole stay of bread.

   That picture shortages in grain, it infers crop failures in the U.S. and Canada, such a nature that the whole state, the economic main state, to some degree based on the Midwestern farms and grain, is going to be removed. The bread basket of the nation is going to be shattered, and then the whole staff of water, God says, will be removed, which indicates pollution. I guess in Southern California it also indicates shortages.

   We've had those before. We're having them in the northeast. And so the basic price of so many commodities is going to go up when they're in short supply, and the demand is high, prices go up automatically.

   And, you know, I'll tell you about how much they'll go up to some degree, generally, in a minute. The Bible discusses staggering inflation rates in Israel. I'll show you that in a minute.

   And as they peak, and the whole world is just sort of, you know, teetering on the brink of total economic chaos, God says Europe is going to intervene in our nation and a lot of other nations. Europe will take control of our nation. And we'll unleash some type of aggressive, convulsive action.

   We talk in terms of World War III. And at that point, when our nation has become tributary to that European power, they're going to go to great efforts to salvage the world's economy, and they will say, we have devastated that economy. They'll say, we're the problem.

   And that will probably be one of the major excuses used to justify that armed intervention. Otherwise the world will collapse economically completely. There will be other excuses, of course.

   There'll be the religious issue and a lot of other things. But that'll be a major one. The Bible indicates they will abolish the dollar.

   The dollar will never be used again. The Bible indicates they may even abolish the gold standard. It says that, you know, during the tribulation, people will throw their gold in the streets.

   Now why? If gold has no value, why throw it? It has a great value, why throw it in the streets? Well, the indication is they will not recognize the value of gold, otherwise there'd be no reason to throw it out. And it's interesting that all kinds of people will have gold, you see. What does that indicate? You have this picture in Isaiah of everybody standing at the door of their house heaving all this gold in the street.

   Well, it indicates, first of all, a lot of people will have gold to begin with. We'll get to that in a minute. Should you have gold? Well, that's up to you.

   But if you're going into the tribulation and into a time after Europe, if you're not going to a place of safety I would say your gold isn't going to be much good then. That's what God says. There may be a kind of a cashless economy.

   It'll be interesting at any rate. I don't want to be around to find out how it works. But it'll be regulated completely, God says, from the office of a coming great European dictator who will view the strengthening and the reinforcing of the world's economy as his initial, at the beginning, at the inception, as his initial major job.

   And that'll be because it'll be in such bad condition. Then there'll be the religious thing coming and a lot of other things, political, etc. But what I want to underscore at this point is that World War III comes in the wake of — I don't mean this is the only cause, but I mean it will be a major cause — in the wake of horrifying economic chaos.

   You're going to have to live through it, pay tithes through it, support the work of God through it, pay your mortgage through it. If you're on a fixed income, what does that mean? Because a fixed income is not going to hold you in good stead. I'll tell you what it means.

   You don't have to be worried about it, because that's going to work out, too, if you're doing your part. Chapter 3, verse 2 (Isaiah 3:2). God will take away the mainstay of bread and water, but he will leave us some of the other mainstays. I'll show that as well in a minute.

   He'll leave some and take away these, specifically. He'll take away the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent and the ancient. All of the main leaders who can maybe solve our problems are going to either die or be voted out of office.

   So we really won't solve any problems, because we'll have no men of experience. And verse 4, I'll give children, immature men, men of inexperience, to be their rulers and princes and leaders, and babes will rule over them. We have a future president who's of great age.

   The age factor comes up with Mr. Reagan a great deal. He's too old, people say, which I find sort of funny. He's old enough or young enough to be Mr. Armstrong's son.

   He really is. He could easily be Mr. Armstrong's son. Yet they say Mr. Reagan is too old.

   Well, I don't think he's too old myself. I'm not in love with some of Mr. Reagan's policies. I think some are very good, and I think some are very bad.

   He's a human being and everything of the kind. But he's not that elderly. But the indication would be, however, that the last president or the final leaders will not be men of age like him.

   So I don't know what that would indicate. Will he be around all that long? It says princes and children, and that certainly is not Mr. Reagan's situation. So you can infer from that whatever you want.

   Verse 5, the people shall be oppressed and hassle everyone by another, not served an elephant shored up in a loving, sharing kind of a community. That used to be what we had. Nowadays we don't.

   People are oppressed by one another, everybody by his neighbor. Hassle, fighting continuously, a new spirit of aggressiveness. Children behave themselves proudly against the ancient, which is sadden in the Church of God you see some of this, the base against the honorable. When a man shall take hold of his brother at the house of his father, saying, You've got clothes left. Look, at least you've not been totally wiped out.

   Everybody else in the family is bankrupt, but hey brother, you've got clothes. I don't, you do. Your business is still working.

   Therefore you be our leader, and let this ruin be under your hand. On that day shall this guy swear, or say, I won't be a healer. Don't ask me to bind up the wounds.

   I can't solve all these problems. I want to heal this country. I won't be a healer, for in my house is neither bread or clothes.

   He's still got the house, you see, not totally wiped out, but no bread and no clothes. Because of the shrinking dollar, because of the economy, or shortages, or inflation, or whatever else comes along. And someday a loaf of bread, God says, is going to cost at least $30 a big loaf.

   I'll show you that in a minute. That's a specific prophecy. God tells you about how much a loaf of bread is going to cost someday, as we come down to the end of this work.

   And the indication is it'll be at least 30 bucks a loaf. Now how's that for inflation? What is it now, about a dollar? Depends, I guess, on the bread that you buy, whole wheat, or white, or something of the kind. But bread is not cheap.

   Someday it'll be terribly expensive. I don't want to be a healer. There's no bread or clothes in my house.

   Don't make me a ruler of this, people. I can't solve my own problems. Four, verse eight (Isaiah 4:8).

   Again, in the aftermath, this is a consequence. It's all hooked together. Jerusalem is, shall be, ruined, and Judah is, will fall, because their tongue and their doings are against the Eternal to provoke the eyes of His glory.

   Chapter 5, verse 8 (Isaiah 5:8), a few more things quickly. Chapter 5, verse 8, the whole context talking about this age ahead of us. Warned of them at Joan house to house.

   Now this isn't in the Tribulation yet. In the Tribulation there won't be a lot of this type of thing going on in our nation, in Israel. Though it will be in Europe, but not here.

   And there isn't anything to even, you know. This is basically for now. Warned of them at Joan house to house, that lay field to field, that fill up the whole country, it says, with houses.

   And, you know, everyone wants a big house, and this makes me think of Southern California. House to house, field to field, you know, everything full of construction. And the picture here is of the big promoters who buy up all the land, and to make the big bucks, you know, it's not wrong to buy land, or to sell a house, or to build a house and a track, or to, you know, be in real estate or anything of the kind.

   God is condemning here an unbelievable spirit of greed that has caused the big promoters to buy land every place you see, and in so doing they wreck the environment, they wreck to some degree the economy, they promote the escalation in costs, and, you know, they're pushing the environment right to its utter limits. House to house, field to field, until there's no room left. These are fancy houses.

   These aren't little old dinky places. This isn't Newfoundland, that they may be placed alone. This is the end result someday, in the midst of the earth, if they survive.

   In my ears said the Eternal host of a truth, many houses shall be desolate, even the great and the fair, the big, the beautiful, the two thousand, three thousand, you know, without an inhabitant. Verse 10, the ten acres of vineyard will yield exactly six gallons of wine. That is not very much wine from ten acres.

   That describes, you know, shortages in that area. And the seed of an omer, that's about ten bushels, will yield an ephod, which is about one bushel. So for every ten bushels you plant in seed, you get about a bushel back, which is economically totally inviolable, and that's chaos.

   And that means a year or two of that kind of a crop, sort of like they had in the 30s, but worse, and our economy would be teetering on the brink. Incidentally, I think, you know, government is now saying we don't have any more surpluses of wheat or grain in the USA. We used to always have a year or two in surplus.

   And now somehow, even though we're not supposed to be selling most of it to the Russians, or any of it, or, you know, that's gotten sort of fuzzy, exactly what we've said we did or didn't want to do with the Russians. Suddenly they're saying there are no more surpluses, and we live literally from crop to crop, from year to year, and there's no latitude left. And what if God, in his divine will, wiped out one full year? I mean, took every state, every state in the breadbasket, parts of the country, from the Dakotas on down into Kansas, and simply wiped it out.

   Wiped it out. Wiped out the crop in Western Canada. Destroyed it completely.

   Then what do you have? Well, you have a little bit of wheat, a little bit of grain here or there that sort of survives. There may be a little bit, you know, there's always a little left over. Six dollars a loaf? Would you say it might be ten bucks a loaf? I mean, how high would the escalation in cost of inflation go in bread? How about twenty dollars a loaf? Did you know that's too low? God foretells that someday a loaf of bread, a big heavy loaf of good whole wheat bread, I mean a large family-style size loaf, will be at least thirty dollars, and maybe thirty-five, and possibly forty.

   I'd say at least thirty. I think that can be provable, and maybe thirty-five, and maybe higher. Scripture says bread will be running at that rate, just before Europe intervenes and our country becomes tributary to that system.

   And again, I want to underscore that there are indications that are very clear that the new economic system, during the Tribulation, that will be put in place by that European power over all of the parts of the world that they will at that point in time govern, will not involve the use of the dollar and will not involve the use of currency as we now know it. Now, I don't know exactly why, but I would tend to say they'll simply get sick of a system with inherent weaknesses, and the international monetary base does have inherent weaknesses right now, and they're going to apparently do away with it. Turn to the book of Revelation chapter 7. That will happen in the wake of World War III, as a result of problems that we'll be living through before World War III occurs.

   Revelation 7 shows how far inflation is going to go. What will your dollar buy in a few years, and what about a pension, and what about welfare? I really doubt if the welfare system will even be extant in the last few months of this age. I think there'll be so many people on welfare that they probably will simply abandon the whole thing.

   That's hypothetical, and I don't know whether that'll happen for sure. What about our widows and people and the elderly who have fixed incomes? What's going to happen to them? Well, I think we can show you what will happen. God will certainly look after them in every way, and they need have no fears at all.

   Revelation 6:1. Before I get to this, even now inflation is taking its toll, and most of you have cut things out of your budget that were in your budget five years ago. But it's been happening progressively, so you haven't really noticed it, you see. But if you think, you're not doing some things that you were doing a few years ago.

   I talked to people who used to enjoy a steak dinner once a week. Now they have a steak dinner once a year, or once every two months, or they've cut back, or they're not quite as flush as they used to be. And it's happening slowly, so they haven't really noticed it, but it has been happening, and in some cases it's more dramatic.

   When I was first married, back in the early 60s, my wife and I would go out virtually once a week, usually Saturday evening, and we would go to a restaurant and we'd have a nice steak dinner. We didn't have any children then, and it was nice. We'd have a steak dinner, and we'd have a nice salad, and that's when I found out what Thousand Islands dressing was.

   Now I've forgotten because it has too many calories, but at that time I thought it was very nice. And, you know, maybe dessert, and it was nice. You know, you could get a steak dinner, you could get a steak for $1.75 in 1962, you know, what they call a small top.

   $1.75, including the salad, and maybe a drink or something was in addition to that. And it wasn't highly expensive, and it was a nice way to relax after church, virtually every Saturday evening. And we knew where the different steakhouses were.

   That was back in the early 60s. And then kids came along, and as the kids came along, we couldn't quite do that in quite the same way. So, you know, we would go out a couple times a month, but then to a restaurant.

   But it wouldn't always be steak. About half the time it would be chopped beef steak, which we discovered was very tasty and less expensive than steak. And fish was less expensive than chicken was, so we began to diversify into things that would cost a little bit less money.

   And, of course, as you get older, you get more abstemious, and you count your pennies more than you do when you're first married and you're young and stupid, you know. Everything like that. I don't mean when you're young, you are stupid.

   I mean, when we were young, we were sort of stupid. But at any rate, then the early 70s came, and in the early 70s, as the kids got older and had bigger appetites, we couldn't even afford that. So by that time, you began to hit the fast food places, because they, you know, it costs less money and is cheaper, and you find out what hamburgers are all about, and you listen to all the wild tales about them.

   They put McDonald's puts cat in theirs, and Burger King puts a chopped rat in their meat, and you hear all these wild stories, and you go back anyway, because you don't have any choice, and you hope, you hope these stories aren't true, and I'm convinced they're not. I mean, you know, I think chopped rat is much more expensive than beef. You know, there aren't that many rats around to chop up.

   Anyway, you hear these wild, wild tales. So for a few years, we were in, you know, in the fast food places, you know, almost once a week with the kids. You know what we have come to now? My wife and I still, on occasion, go to the fast food places, but now we leave the kids home.

   We go alone. Because we can't afford to take them most of the time, and, you know, we may go out to some place like that and get pizza and a salad or something of the kind in a fast food place, and, you know, come home and the kids say, oh, you went out, oh, you didn't take us, and of course my reaction is no, and I can't afford it. You see, so it has happened slowly, you see, from steak on Saturday evening to pizza twice a month all by ourselves, and, you know, next year what will we be doing? Well, I think someday we're just going to have to give up even doing it, and yet I just sort of have this need on occasion to go someplace rather than sit at home, and if it's straw hat pizza, well, it's straw hat pizza.

   But, you know, it sneaks up on you. What have you left out of your income and out of your lifestyle in the last few years? I mean, you've gone all the way from the local steakhouse, and now you're down to Sizzler. I'm grateful that Sizzler exists.

   I really am. One of the few occasions when I can afford steak would be there. Well, you know, in a few more years you're going to have to make some more adjustments in your lifestyle and your diet, and one of the big things, interestingly enough, God says you may have to cut out completely, will be bread.

   Bread. Any kind, anything made with grains. Some of you are going to be chagrined who didn't love that seven grain cereal for breakfast, because it's going to be ten bucks a bowl, and you won't be able to afford your seven grain cereal for breakfast.

   You'll be back to, you know, maybe, I wanted to say pineapples, but I don't mean pineapple or the other fruit. Grapefruit, yes. Grapefruit and something of the kind.

   But whole grains and anything using grains someday will be very, very expensive and beyond most of your grasps, but other things will still be within your grasp. God is not going to starve us to death. He's going to make it rough, though, for a while.

   Chapter 6, verse 1 (Isaiah 6:1), I saw in the lime open one of the seals. This is prophecy ahead of us. And I heard as it were the noise of thunder, and the beast said, Come and see.

   And I saw, verse 2, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow. That's the type of warfare in battle, that it's a white horse, and this is religious aggressiveness and religious militancy. It is not a war that is being fought by a military power or army.

   The white horse in the Bible is false religion growing in power, becoming involved in politics, growing in respect, growing in influence, and growing in power every place. And the Catholics and the Protestants have begun to grow again. I mean, there's more religious influence than ever before.

   All you have to do is look at the bumper stickers on the back of people's cars, and you can see that the Muslims are growing in influence. Religion is growing again, and there is a kind of a revival spirit in the Church of God, but also in other churches. And they have begun to grow in power.

   This is the growth of apostate religion. And they're going to go out and conquer and be involved, and this shows the new rising power of false religion. Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, whatever.

   That certainly is occurring. When they opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red, the color of blood.

   And power was given unto him that sat there upon to take peace from the earth. It doesn't necessarily say immediately he causes wars, but he removes the peace. And wars and rumors of war begin to escalate.

   This picture is growing hostility, and nations and races and peoples being pitted one against the other. Peace is removed, and that finally, when it's removed, they only begin to kill. And it was given unto him a great sword, a great sword.

   And then, as that escalates and grows, and it already is, and we're in both of these, both of those horsemen are now riding. And number five. When he'd opened the third seal, I heard the third beast saying, Come and see.

   And behold, there was a black horse, dark, black, color of death. And he that sat upon him had a pair of balances like a scales indicating scarcity in his hand. And I heard a voice in the middle of the four beasts say, A quart of wheat is going to cost a penny at that time.

   Now, you see, after the tribulation begins, we won't be using pennies, God says. We won't be using the same monetary system. This is in a time when the monetary system is still basically intact, and wheat is being sold as it is now.

   A measure, that is a quart, it says in the Hebrew, for a penny. A quart of wheat in a jar is about enough for the needs of a, well, an average-sized family of four or five people for a day, at subsistence level. And then people could survive on that much.

   It would be only survival, though. But it's enough wheat, let's say, for one very large loaf of bread, a large European-style, a big loaf of bread could come from a quart of wheat. Now, how much is a quart of wheat, that big loaf of bread, that big loaf of bread, going to cost in the end of the age, as we come towards tribulation, and verse 8, as the pale horse is getting ready to ride, and his name is Death and Hell, and a quarter of the world is going to die when he rides? That's the sword in hunger and killing and death, just before that occurs, you see.

   As this age comes to a crescendo, well, a large loaf of bread is going to cost a penny, God says. Now, you may think, boy, what a relief. One cent, you know, that's really a drop in price.

   And, of course, you would be wrong if you think that, because that's not what this says at all. This is a penny as it was in John's day, and this word in the Greek is denarius. And, you know, you get the word for money in most Latin languages.

   It comes from denarius. It's denaro in Italian, and I think it's a similar word in Spanish. And in the year 31 A.D., a denarius was equivalent to a full day's wage.

   That can be proven. Read Matthew 20:2. You've read it before in the parable there. It says, A man who was going out in the field to work for a full day's wage, God said, Give him a penny.

   You can go back in history, and a penny was a full day's wage. That was not one cent, but let's say an acceptable amount of money for a laboring man without a lot of specific skills. A laboring man who worked in the field, a farmworker, would be given about a penny a day, and with that he could live adequately on the level of a farmworker.

   It was a laboring man's salary. Now, that was standard pay for a day. Now, you get the inference here.

   God says, A large loaf of bread some day in the end of the age will cost you the equivalent amount of the full day's salary of a working man. That's why I say $30, $35, $40. Of course, if you're a garbage man, you make much more money than that.

   I'm just talking about a guy who works in a gas station, you see. I mean, a true laboring man who gets an average salary, a little perhaps above the minimum wage. If you even take the minimum wage, on minimum wage, eight or nine hours a day, you're probably making $20, $25.

   I forget exactly. I can't compute that quickly in my mind. But even on minimum wage, this is still about $25 or so for a large loaf of bread.

   Now, that bread, you see, if it takes your whole salary for one loaf, you have nothing left for any vegetables, you'll have nothing left to pay the rent, and you certainly have nothing left for tithing. What does it mean? Well, it means you and I won't be eating a lot of bread for one thing. Will there be other things that will cost less? Yes, because God is going to remove the stack of bread, and what is left, you see, will be horrendously expensive, but he will not remove all of the stacks.

   He'll leave some. It's going to be a hard time and involve some adjustments, but he'll leave some. At this point, you're probably wondering what he'll leave and how you're going to survive.

   And what does God mean in Isaiah when God says, if you're willing and you're obedient, you will live off the good of the land. It means there will be some good left, you see. It will not all be destroyed completely.

   Now, how do you put that together? Well, the answer is in the rest of this little verse right here. You'll find that some foodstuffs will not be horrifyingly scarce and horrifyingly expensive. They'll be higher than they are now, but some will be very high and some will be more moderate.

   So there'll be huge shortages in some areas and moderate shortages in others. And we'll live in what some people call a boom-bust kind of a society that is with mixed phenomena, shortages and inflation in certain areas, prices sky high, and in other areas there'll be sufficient supplies, and in spite of inflation, prices will be a little bit more moderate. And if you're really serving God and doing what you should be doing, you'll be able to squeak through and still live a fairly decent, you know, on a fairly decent level.

   And it's not a paradox at all. It seems that way. Prophecy says someday bread will be out of our grass, but wine and oil, God says, will not.

   Now, that means olive oil, but olive oil was used back then, you see, as their standard fuel. They used it for cooking, but also as fuel. And of course, the question I might have, purely hypothetical, is the olive oil that they use then as fuel, is it a type of the black stuff, you see, that we use as fuel? We use the word oil to refer to both olive oil and, you know, the oil we use in industry that comes out of the oil well, a totally different substance.

   If the word is the same and both of them were fuels, and could one refer to the other? I don't know. But I want you to see what verse 6 says. A boom-bust kind of a society, some things in greater supply, some things totally wiped out.

   Adjustments required, but somehow human beings will be able to live if they'll make those adjustments. I heard a voice in the midst of the forebeast saying, a quart of wheat for a full day's salary, three measures of barley for a full day's salary, but see that you hurt not, do not touch, don't damage, do not create the same kind of a shortage in the oil and in the wine. Does that mean if you're a wheat farmer you should sell your farm and buy a wine store? I refuse to answer the question.

   I'll tell you why, because God basically says he'll bless you where you are, and I don't think God wants us, you know, that kind of mobility, racing around madly trying to work the angles to make sure that we got a job that's going to last. Maybe some of that is okay, but I think people can go too far. But what God is trying to tell us, it's sort of interesting that both were used for fuel.

   Do not hurt the oil and do not hurt the wine, God says. Now, if we were to go into a time of total depression, that is, if everything is wiped out, if everything costs as much as bread is going to cost, you see, we would have horrendous prices, tiny salaries. It would mean this.

   We would have to fire 90% of our employees in the work of God. We would have to turn the Plain Truth, which is beautiful right now, into a little tiny, three times a year, two-page tract printed on beat-up paper like the Jehovah's Witnesses do. Have you ever seen their little tracts? I mean, after about three months the paper is such poor quality, it begins to literally smell.

   If you stick it in, you know, if they come by and they sort of stick it under the door and you stick it in the cupboard after about three months, it'll get moldy. It is very, very cheap stuff. I'm not criticizing them, I'm just saying we would have to go to that.

   And I don't think it is God's will. I see no indication of that at all. But if there's total inflation, triple digit in every area of life, not boom bust, but bust every place, no soundness at all, no areas of prosperity at all, then we would have to go back to that.

   And we would not finish the work of God, we would let the work of God simply fizzle. And we will not have a fizzling work, we will finish the work. Now, I know there will be unemployment.

   I think everything indicates it will have to be over 30% to beat the Great Depression of the 20s and 30s. So that is up to 35 or 40, which means, you know, an awful lot of people out of jobs. And God hasn't called the greater the world.

   And some of you don't have, you know, fabulous backgrounds in the work area. Some of you do, and some of you don't have a lot of training. And yet God somehow is going to deal with that and work with that.

   And I'll tell you how in a minute. But it will not be straight across the board. Some areas of the economy will be somewhat healthy, others will be very, very sick and we'll have the boom bust situation.

   Remember in Newfoundland, we're 30% unemployed over there, chronically unemployed. Virtually all of our members have jobs. And our members are not people of vast education.

   We have some very simple people. They all have jobs. In areas in Newfoundland where the fishermen sit around and catch no fish, our members who are fishermen always seem to catch some fish.

   And God keeps them going. In the Cameroons in West Africa, they got 60% unemployment in the Cameroons. Virtually all of our members, dozens of them, have jobs.

   About 90% have jobs when 60% of their compatriots in their country do not. And we keep the Sabbath and do a lot of things that can create some problems. But you know the 10% that don't have jobs, you know, generally within five or six months God will find them one.

   They'll find one if they look. But the other 90% that do are always blessed, just enough so the 10% that don't are able to live. They don't have a social system there with welfare and all these things, all the freebies going on at all.

   But the brethren with jobs are always blessed so that those who do not have them are helped. And I'll get to the principle of equality. God doesn't mean everybody gets the same amount of money.

   The principle of equality in the book of Corinthians means that God blesses some and others are given less, and it all works out and is enough for everybody. That's the manner of principle. I'll get to that in a minute.

   But in the Depression of the 30s, a lot of Americans were destitute and some were not. Some did live off the good of the land, and we shall, God says, in the years to come. Now how? I want to show you before I discuss that, though, some of the long-range results in world affairs of breakneck, widespread economic chaos.

   Remember in Germany in the 20s, in Germany in the 20s rather, Adolf Hitler made his first bid for power because of the economic problems in the country. You've heard of the famous Munich beer hall putsch. I've been in the beer hall that he putsched his putsch in.

   I guess a putsch is a kind of a... I don't know what a putsch is. I don't know. Anyway, he made his first coup, I guess, bid for power there, and that was at a time when the German market was collapsing and the nation was in financial chaos, and that's why Hitler came to the fore in the early 20s.

   Now he didn't come to power for 10 years, but he began to agitate, and it was at a time when the German market, you see, was literally collapsing as a result of the debacle, the fiasco of World War I. And after World War I was over and pressures we created within that country to some degree — and they blame us for it, by the way, and I'll get to that later if I have time — they went into a time of horrendous inflation, and Hitler came to the fore and said, I'll resolve the problem. The German people must not live with this kind of economic chaos. And it was chaos.

   I mean, those were the grim, dark days when Germans were dealing with inflation unheard of in human history in a civilized country. At the close of 1921, I'll give you some statistics. Prices were 35 times higher than in 1913.

   You think that's bad? That was just the beginning. At the end of 1922, prices were 1,475 times higher than in 1913. You think that is bad? By the end of 1923, hold on to your hats, prices in Germany were 1 quadrillion, 422 trillion, 900 billion times higher than in 1913.

   Can your mind even begin to think in those terms? I mean, the nation was shattered. And the dollar was worth, in 1923, just a tad under a trillion marks, which is awful. And people, you know, those were the times that you've heard of when literally in stores and shops, people didn't count your money.

   You took it in, in a basket, and they weighed your money. You see, they weighed it. They didn't even bother to, you know, go through it one by one.

   Those were the days when women would go to their husbands' jobs and factories and plants with big, huge, you know, laundry baskets. And men got paid at the end of every day, because every day prices went up by three, four, five thousand percent. And they would simply fill baskets with, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of marks.

   And people would run to the stores, because the prices went up every hour. The prices would triple or quadruple on the hour. And every hour made a huge difference in what you paid.

   Well, the German nation was scarred by that, brethren, and the scars have not healed. You need to understand that. That's why the Germans have always been very parsimonious, very abstemious, very, you know, very like this, in a sense, in economic things.

   And it was under Hitler who made his bid for power. It took him ten years. And the reason, ultimately, that he began to persecute the Jews, there are many, many reasons for it.

   And, you know, it was a horrendous thing that he did. But one of the major reasons that he claimed was that he said the Jewish people in Germany directed the economy. He said they were the bankers and the entrepreneurs.

   And he blamed the Jews for the economic woes, because he said they held the economic purse strings. And Hitler said, we must eliminate the Jews so we can cut the purse strings off from the Jews, and then we must punish them for having wrecked the nation. That was one of his excuses that he used to unleash this horrendous bloodbath.

   They went on for 15 years, really, if you go back to the beginning when he began the initial persecution. To save the economy, he said the Jews must be eliminated. Brethren, who's being blamed for the economic woes of the world right now? Not the Jews.

   Americans are. Do you realize that? When the Germans get together and discuss how to somehow do something with the economy of their nation, they yell and scream and carry on about the dollar and our economic policies, and we're getting the blame this time around. That's a little chilling.

   Now, who panicked the most in 70, 71? 72, I should say, when the devalued dollar in the early 70s upset the equilibrium of the European money market? And who panicked the most? The French? Oh, the French don't even bother with things like that. They're too busy drinking wine, enjoying life, walking around in parks, and looking at the sky and writing poetry. You know, the French do enjoy life, and the world can collapse all around them and they take scant notice of it.

   It's just their natures. It's a beautiful trait of character. I wish I was like that.

   You know what the Germans did? They had a fit in 72 when the dollar began to upset this equilibrium because they remember 1922, and they have not forgotten. Now, do you remember in March of 78 when the Germans offered to lend the Americans, we Americans, wasn't it two billion Deutschmarks that they were going to lend us so that we would have the cash to buy back a million dollars, euro dollars, the money that we sent to Europe floating around in Europe, which upsets the economy over there and creates instability? And the Germans keep saying, get your dollars out of Europe. We keep saying, well, we can't afford it.

   And they say, well, we'll loan you two billion Deutschmarks so you can buy your own crummy dollars back and get them out of our country. I don't think we accepted the offer, but I think you began to see the panic in the minds of the Germans who have gone through the worst economic crises of any, really, of any modern nation that I know of, except with some of the nations in South America. Well, the Europeans don't want to see 1922 reoccur.

   That was a time when it took 20 million Deutschmarks to buy a spool of thread and some day you see their greed for power, their greed for economic stability which is very, very strong because of their scars and the memories. And this is in their history books. When they read history, they learn about that.

   You don't. Most Americans have never heard of that occurring. They're going to unleash someday a very convulsive, violent time.

   It'll be based upon hatred for the USA. But brethren that, hatred will have many, many, many, many staves, many props, many sources. And the economic crisis in the world, and they do blame us for it, whether we're totally to blame or not, is immaterial.

   They say that we are is going to be one of the major factors. There will be others. There'll be the intervention of the Pope and the Catholic Church and that white horse and false religion and all the rest of it.

   But this will also be a major one. And the aftermath will be a new economic system. Notice Revelation 13.

   Pretty drastic measures are going to be taken to put things back on a solid foundation and in their own perverted way. The European economists are going to manage that. It's going to become very prosperous over there once again.

   After it's sort of been demolished now, they're going to have prosperity given back to them there. Chapter 13, verse 16, (Revelation 13:16) gives you part of the system that will be established, totally economic. Well, I mean, the whole system won't be, but one of the foundations will be.

   It'll be religious and political, too, and mainly that, ultimately. He caused all. That's the beast.

   I used to call him the beast of Belgium. I don't know where to live. I used to think he lived in Belgium, but I'm not so sure anymore.

   Anyway, whatever beast he is, whoever he is and wherever he lives, he'll cause all, not some. Everybody's going to be named and numbered. Small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand and in their foreheads.

   Whether that is literal or symbolic is hard to say. It could be a letter, a sign, a number stamped in with a laser to identify you, and you go into a supermarket or a store or anything of the kind. It could be a symbolic mark that is a kind of a pledging of allegiance to that European power, involving allegiance to their days, to Sunday, and to their rules and laws and their religious beliefs.

   We're not sure if it's literal or symbolic, but there'll be a mark in the right hand and in the forehead. You think with the mind, you work with the hand, so it could be symbolic. It may be both symbolic and literal.

   But notice, whatever it is, nobody will be exempt. No man, anyplace under that authority, can buy or sell, and that is, you see, an attempt because the regulating, the regulation of buying and selling, of trade, of commerce is going to be so radical and so total, it proves that if you have to have that kind of an antidote to solve a problem, the problem is very, very great, and it means that this will be predated by heavy economic problems. So no man can buy or sell a thing.

   It's going to have to be regulated totally, say, he that has the mark, the name of the beast, the number of his name, and all the things that that implies in the way of allegiance to that authority, to Europe, and coming under total subservience to that power. I must underscore that this indicates and infers total control, I mean dictatorial control, you see, of buying and selling that is the basis of the economy. This is economic control.

   There will also come political control, and as you'll see here, the indication of total religious control. Anyway, that's going to be quite a crisis, and we'll live through it. We'll live through part of it.

   We will still be using pennies, though God says to buy bread, while we're around, they won't be using pennies. Then they'll have this mark, and they'll be buying and selling, but the indication is that they won't have quite the same monetary system. Now, what I want to say, the question we have to deal with is this.

   Knowing that there'll be some jobs available, obviously, because the nation will not collapse totally, but a lot of unemployment. Knowing that the work of God must be done, and yet inflation could destroy us. It could cause a paper to go so high, it could cause the postal rates to go so high that we couldn't even do the work of God.

   Knowing all those things, we're going to have to have members working and have members receiving, in the context of that time, fairly decent salaries. How can we pay the rent, prosper, buy food, pay tithes, and be actively involved? I want to tell you four things that we're going to have to be doing and have to understand, and they all revolve around God and spiritual service to God. I will not recommend some sort of wild, crazy, physical thing you can do, like moving to Alaska and building yourself a survival cabin.

   We have members who have done that, by the way. I like to write them all letters and say, Come back to town, friend, this isn't what God wants you to do. And it isn't what God wants you to do.

   You may have to get out of the smog and go live up at Mount Baldy, but I'd say, Come on down into the valley and work every day in this awful smog and go on back up there at night. To hide out there is not what God wants. I'm not going to recommend you sell your house and buy gold with the equity.

   In fact, Scripture says, as I've already mentioned, someday they'll throw the gold in the street. The time frame seems to be during the tribulation when this beast power regulates everything, and obviously he's not going to view gold as anything that's important. And I don't think it's wrong for a member of the Church of God to have a little gold if he thinks he would like.

   He's got a few dollars and he wants to do a little bit of that. I don't think that is necessarily wrong, but there is a limit and there's also a question of trust, and that is not the mainstay of our planning for the future. I know a member in the Church of God who did sell his house, and who's basing his future on the fact that with $30,000 or $40,000 in equity, he has bought gold about three years ago.

   It's tripled in value, and he's very proud of that. And he's got his gold scattered around in different banks and different safety deposit boxes, because he feels someday the banks will all collapse. He's read Ennore Ruff on all the little books with the green covers, so he's following that right down to the letter.

   And he's got it in different banks so that if this bank collapses, he can run to this bank and grab the gold there. And he mentioned to me that he even has gold in tin cans in his backyard buried, just in case the banks all collapse at the same time, or the government calls in the safety deposit boxes and he loses that gold, but he'll still have the gold in the backyard in the tin can. And I think, oh boy, I really do.

   Again, I don't think that the Church of God would ever say a member who's maybe prosperous or has some equity shouldn't buy a little gold. I don't know. I just would rather not even deal with that as far as giving recommendations.

   But I do know this as far as the end of the age is concerned. God says this, I give you power to get wealth. He doesn't say buy gold and really work through the books on how to prosper in the coming disaster.

   And they had all these neat little methods, you see, all the stocks to buy, just these stocks. And what you do in that area, I guess, is up to you. But that isn't going to get you through, I can promise you that.

   It's not a question of interesting little things you do with your stockbroker or something of the kind. It really isn't. It's basically a spiritual thing.

   So I want to give you four points quickly in that area revolving around God. Be ready. This is point one, be ready and willing to make adjustments in your lifestyle.

   Please be ready and willing to do that. In the years ahead, now, the adjustments will basically have to be minor, but there will be some. There'll be some cutting back.

   There'll have to be. I see no way out of that. God may not require anything major.

   On the other hand, maybe He will. Now, if the work of God were to cut our salaries by 10 percent, would you be willing to cut back by 10 percent? But then, I mean, where do you stop? What if they cut our salaries by 20? Would you say, oh, at that point I've got to sell my house. I'm going to go get another job.

   Well, maybe some people should do that. I don't know. What about 30? Could you survive on half your present salary? I don't mean in the house you live in now or your apartment.

   You'd have to move. My answer is, yes, you could. If you're making $1,000 a month, you could live on $500.

   If you're making $750, you could live on $325. If you're making $3,000 a month, you could live on $1,500. And I know you could because I've seen people that do, and some of them live quite adequately, not fancily, by any means.

   When I went to France in 67, the prices over there in 67 were almost the same as they were here when we left, so our budget really didn't vary hardly at all. It was amazing how the prices there were almost the same as prices here. What I found is that most of the members in France made about half of what people make here.

   Just cut right in half. They made about $250 a month, $300 a month. I was in 67 when members here were making maybe, you know, $500, $600, $700 a month.

   A lot of salaries have doubled since that time. They made about half, and they ate. Most of them had apartments, not houses.

   Very few of them had nice cars. They tended to have old cars, tin cans, you know, two horsepower or whatever they do, Dusivolia, two horsepower, and it wasn't very fancy. But you know, just as many smiles there as here.

   Money doesn't make you happy, brother. It doesn't. And when you get that through, you know, the thick skull, there is freedom.

   Money doesn't make you happy. It is not how many bedrooms you have, how many bathrooms you have, how much cash you have. It is whether or not you've got God's peace in your heart, and God's Spirit in your mind, and whether you're walking with Him and doing your part.

   Now, it doesn't mean you have to change your lifestyle now. It just means you have to be willing for the future. And if you're greedy and house-proud, and you must have more affluence, more and more, and you've got to see your salary always going up, because it will go up as the years go by, you see, but the prices will go up even higher.

   That's the difference. If you always have to have more and more and more, I think you're going to be very, very unhappy. If you learn to put the emphasis in the right place, you certainly will not be at all.

   Philippians 4:10, the time when Paul was cut back materially, chapter 4, he was in jail. And the context talks about materialism, and how the Apostle Paul felt about the spartan fare, the poor meals, the food in jail, about the cold cell he was in, about the clothing that wasn't washed every day, and how he adapted to that. Philippians 4:10.

   He said, I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at the last year care of me has flourished again, wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity. He said, you began to help, and they were sending money and things to him, parcels. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatever state I am therein to be content.

   He didn't say I'm fulfilled, and he did not say I'm thrilled. It is not fulfilling to go to jail. Some people say, yeah, but I'm not fulfilled.

   When I have a one-bedroom apartment and it's very constricted, I'm not fulfilled. Well, God isn't talking about being fulfilled, he's talking about being content. Paul was content in jail, he was not fulfilled in jail, and he wasn't thrilled to be in jail.

   See, life isn't always a question of being fulfilled or being thrilled. You understand what I'm saying? Sometimes you can be content in rather spartan, limited circumstances. Paul said he was, proof of his conversion.

   That was the peace of God flowing through him, changing his life. He said, I know how to be abased, I know how to abound. you have to be adaptable and ready to change your lifestyle, Paul said.

   Everywhere and in all things I'm instructed how to be full and how to be hungry, how to abound and how to suffer need. I can do all those things through Christ who strengthens me, through the, verse 7, the peace of God flowing through him. That was how it was done.

   And verse 19, it says, Now my God will supply all of your need, not all of your wants, but all of your needs, according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ. But you've got to decide, you've got to let God decide what those needs are, you see. And then sometimes he'll take some of them away, sometimes he'll add some.

   You've got to be flexible in this age and learn how to abound, how to be abased, learn how to adapt in your lifestyle and accept some of those cutbacks. When the time comes that they must be made. I'm not saying they will be major, but they'll come, probably basically minor.

   Some of them will be maybe a little bit more dramatic. Second point we have to remember is this, we must never forget that tithing and generous giving to God are the prerequisites of God's blessings, and all the more so in a time of economic chaos. You must not cut back now.

   Cut back in your lifestyle, but don't cut back on God. Some of you immediately cut back on offerings, when you should cut back in your lifestyle when the pinch comes. Rather than give less, you've got to seek ways to give more, you see.

   And when it looks like your job is being phased out or you're not going to get a raise in cost of living or the salary may be cut, the way to reverse things is to somehow give to God a little more at that point in time so God can give you back more. And our immediate reaction is to cut back on God, you see, it gets rough. Your immediate reaction should be to do quite the opposite.

   Malachi 3, we've read about tithing in Malachi 3 before, but I want to show you the context and then show you that it is a prophetical context. It isn't just a principle for God's people throughout the centuries, specifically a principle for us now. Applied to others only in type, but the truth on tithing and giving offerings is given to the people of God in the end of the age, in a time when the tribulation is very near and God then says, do not cut back in tithes and offerings, chapter 3, verse 1 (Malachi 3:1), talks about sending a messenger, preparing the way before the return of Christ.

   And the Lord whom you seek will come into his temple. This is the end of the age. Verse 3, he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.

   That's the millennium. And he says in verse 5, I will come there to you to judgment. That's in the millennium.

   Verse 6, I am the Lord, I change not. That's now and then. From the days of your father you've gone astray.

   Verse 8, within that context, totally prophetical, and there's nothing in the context that is not prophetical. Will a man rob God? Yet, you've robbed me in tithes and in offerings, and you're cursed with a curse. The whole country is cursed.

   He says to bring the tithes into the storehouse, and he'll pour out a blessing, and that is a prophetical blessing. It is specifically a blessing for us now. I will rebuke, verse 11, the devourer for your sakes.

   That's the death angel. And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, and your vine will not cast your fruit before the time in the field. You won't have to worry if you're a farmer about just horrendous crop losses like other people will.

   We've had that occur with crop losses all around, and our farmers have been protected. And all nations will call you blessed. And then he talks about how people criticize him, verse 13.

   Criticize God, verse 16, they that fear God spoke one to another. Is this prophetical? Yes. God hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Eternal, and they that thought upon his name.

   And they, you see, the whole context describing a people who are obedient, who serve, who tithe, they shall be mine when, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him. That is, place of safety, of course. That is prior to it, though, and after we arrive.

   That is a total promise of sparing. The whole context talks about obedience, talks about tithing, it talks about certain blessings that are brought down from God. I think it's pretty clear what God is saying.

   Luke chapter 12. You've got to be generous to God, and God is then generous to you. 12, verse 15.

   Do we cut back on giving to God now? Well, of all times, this is not the time to do that at all. Luke 12:15. He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness, materialism, and the sort of hedonistic outlook we have about wanting more and more affluence.

   For a man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses. It doesn't. If you think it does, you have a very great lesson to learn.

   There are no more smiles per square inch in the USA than there are in some very, very poor countries. He spoke a parable and talked about a rich man. Verse 16.

   He had all kinds of riches, and he thought within himself and said, I have no room left to bestow my fruits. And he said, I'll do this. I'll pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there will I bestow all my fruits and all of my goods.

   So he had his plan, you see, for the future. I'm going to show you this is a prophecy. He had his plan, you see, to live on through the economic chaos that lies ahead.

   He built himself a bigger bond, and he began to hoard. The Bible indicates that it's good to have a little financial cushion. It's good to maybe have a few months in the bank to pay the rent if you lose a job.

   It's good to have a little financial cushion. God says you should set aside for your old age and set aside for your children's children. And so it's good to have a little bit of an investment program sometimes, you know, as long as it is active and the money is being used.

   And God doesn't say it's wrong to invest if the money that you've invested is being used and you have a specific plan for your kids, for your grandkids, you know, something like that, and you feel there is time between now and that time to do that. But this is talking about hoarding. This is talking about the guy with all the gold sitting in his big safety deposit box, and that gold isn't helping anybody.

   Remember God said, I think it was in Matthew, he said, why don't you put your money in the bank and gain interest? At least then the money is being used. But here was a fellow that, in a sense, wasn't using the money that God gave him as surplus to sort of prepare for the future, perhaps in a right balance way. He was simply stacking it up in his own barn.

   So you see, the right type of investment is a totally different principle from hoarding. God condemns those who hoard. A little bit of preparation for the future, a little cushion for the future is one thing.

   And God said, look to the ant. He says, the ant in the summer prepares for the winter. Interesting, the winter lasts how many months in Palestine? About three or four months.

   He doesn't say the ant prepares for the winter, the spring, next summer, next fall, the following winter, the following spring, the following summer, the following fall, and then the summer, and the spring, and the fall, and then, you know, the ant doesn't do that, does it? People say, well, the ant, that's why I got all the gold in the trash can, buried in the backyard. The ant in the summer prepares for next winter, okay? Not for the next thirty-five years at the same time. There is a difference.

   So you see, preparation is one thing, but there are extremes. Hoarding is wrong. I'll say to my soul, verse 19, my soul, you've got all these goods laid up for many years, now you can take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry, because you've got the future all sewn up.

   And God says, ha! You have no idea what's happening in the future. You've got to have your life revolve around me. Some preparation is fine, sure.

   We would not say that, but let's say putting your whole trust in that preparation and doing it in a way that involves hoarding is not God's way. God said unto him, You fool, this thing, your soul, shall be required of you. Then whose shall these things be that you provided? He that lays out treasure for himself alone and is not rich toward God is going to have his come up in some day.

   Then he said unto the disciples, and it was prophetical, for now, before I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or for the body, what you shall put on. And now he means, really, in the years that lie ahead, because you'll see the prophecy here. Life is more than meat in the body than raiment.

   Consider the ravens. God feeds them, in verse 24. Verse 27, consider the lilies.

   They don't toil, and yet God dresses them. Verse 28, if God so clothes the grass that is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the heaven, how much more will he clothe you in the years to come, O you of little faith? Do not be, verse 29, of a doubtful mind. For these things, verse 30, are those things that the nations seek, and your Father knows what you'll need.

   And again, you'll see the prophecy in a minute. But rather, seek you the kingdom of God. That means tithing, that means obedience, that means walking with God.

   Seek that kingdom. And sure, you may do a few things to sort of set some things aside for the coming financial crises and all that type of thing. I'm not going to tell you not to do some of those things, but I'll tell you what, most of us aren't doing a lot of that, because God has given us a promise.

   And he says, seek the kingdom of God. And all these things shall be added unto you. Don't fear, we should not fear, little flocklet, look like bags.

   It says, a purse which will not wear out as the years go by, a treasure in the heavens that doesn't fail. For where your treasure is, that's where your heart is. Verse 35, this prophecy for now, notice, going on.

   Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning. And you like unto men that wait for their Lord when he will return from the wedding. Blessed are those, verse 37, servants, whom the Lord, when he comes, will find watching, but not only watching, praying, giving, being rich, being generous with God.

   And God will be with them, they'll be in the kingdom of God, and you can go on through the context and you see how literal and how prophetic it is. So as we come down to the end of the age, remember to increase giving to God. As some things are phased back in your life, do not phase back generous giving to God.

   Otherwise God will not give generously back to you. That's awfully important. Third principle is this, we need to learn what the principle of equality is.

   God gives surpluses to some and cuts others back, and those who have a surplus need to realize that God ordained that surplus, you see. Purpose that surplus so that it could be shared in part with others. Now a surplus, a blessing means some of it you spend on yourself, of course.

   Some of it you give to the work of God, of course, and some of it you share with others. In Egypt there was a surplus. That was because Jacob and his family had needs, and God created a surplus here so that those who lived in this other area could go over there, and the surplus in a sense was for them.

   In the land of Judah when the early Jewish members went through a time of terrible famine, you know what God did? He created a surplus in corn, and the Corinthian and the Turkish members had a little bit more than he normally did, and that surplus, you see, was not for them. A little bit of it was spent by them, sure. It was basically to be used, and the Apostle Paul went around and took that little surplus and hauled it back to Judea and gave it to the Jewish members, and it was just enough for everybody.

   Now someday we're going to have to come to the point in the Church of God when we begin to move our surpluses around, and we will more and more as that time of need comes. It hasn't quite come to that point. Sometime, someday it will.

   You know, 90% of us have jobs and 10% homes. Those 10% are working and are starting to find work. We'll simply move the surpluses around.

   The widows and the others who have fixed incomes will be blessed by God, perhaps not through money coming to them directly, but there will be a surplus given to somebody else, and that will be moved around to them. And that's a biblical principle. Years back we used to wonder if someday some of the Church members would not flee before others in certain parts of the country because of persecution and things like that, if some of them wouldn't have to pick up and leave months before the Church of God leaves for a place of safety.

   I think that's possible, but if that occurs and we've got to keep people over in our garages for six months and they don't have jobs and we're going to have to feed them, you know what will happen to you? You'll get a raise, God almost promises this, equivalent to the amount of money that is needed to support people that are living with you. That is within a time of crises. That's the principle of manna.

   That doesn't always work this way, but it did in the time of the Jews, it does in any time of crises work that way, and it's a miracle. So you have to learn to begin to share and view blessings in a certain way. II Corinthians 8, notice what it says.

   The brethren in Judea were going through a terrible time, and you will see that God blessed the Corinthians just enough that he didn't give them the same incomes. I'm not talking about, when I say equality or equalization, meaning everybody has the same income. It means there's enough to cover all the different needs.

   The brethren in Africa will always have lower incomes, the brethren here will always have higher ones, the brethren in Europe, someplace in the middle. But we'll be able to move around the surplus and we'll cover the needs. Verse 12, II Corinthians 8 (II Corinthians 8:12), If we do first the will of the mind, we've already talked about that.

   If it's accepted according to what a man has and according to what he doesn't have. So I mean verse 13, not that other men be eased and you burdened, but by an equality. Notice that at this time your abundance in Corinth may be a supply for their want in Israel.

   That their future abundance, when you're going through a rough time, may also be a supply for your want. God says this time you're helping out, you've got a little extra, but he said the next time around they're going to be helping you. So God moves it around.

   There was a time you can prove that. God talks about the crises in Corinth, the whole world was going through a lot of economic crises and famines, sort of a type of RH. As it is written, verse 15, he that hath gathered much hath nothing left over, and he that hath gathered little hath no lack.

   That was in the thing of when the manna fell on ancient Israel, they went out and those who were strong and healthy gathered all they could gather. Those who were a little weaker and slower gathered all they could gather. And yet maybe the slower, weaker ones had more kids.

   So they didn't have quite enough. But God worked it out by miracle so that there was just enough, you see, for everybody. And those who had a surplus shared with those who didn't have that a shortage.

   And it came out so everybody had exactly what they needed. And God says the principle works and he will use it in time of economic strife and always has, and will again. You've got to learn to share.

   Chapter 9, verse 8 (II Corinthians 9:8), God is able to make all grace abound toward you. Verse 9, however, you've got to be a sharing person and you've got to view surpluses as an opportunity to share. As it is written, he that has dispensed abroad and has given to the poor, his righteousness remains forever.

   And he, that's God, will minister seed to the sower, will minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed, so on, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, and you will be enriched in all things to all bountifulness, which causes to us thanksgiving to God. Verse 15 says, thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift. That is this gift of what God calls the gift of equality.

   That is, he moves around the surpluses in times of crisis so that everybody's needs are covered, as it was in the desert in Israel. That will be done to us in the place of safety and to some degree in the closing years now. And the last point I want to mention is this, and of course the moral of what I've just said is that you ought to learn to share, and learn to share a lot.v

   The fourth point is, commit your job to God, and ask God to bless it and to use your job, to make it an instrument. And he will, if you do it the right way. If you're just putting in time in the job you have now, you don't like it, you hate it, you probably will lose it.

   You probably will lose it. But if you view your job as a kind of a calling, and as a gift, and as a way of showing the world a silent witness of what the servant of God is like and does, as a means of growing in character, and you have that sense that the job you've got, even if it isn't glamorous and glorious, is nonetheless a way, a tool that God is using in your life to help you and to build character, and all of those things, God can bless that job and you can keep it through everything. I Corinthians 7, we'll take a whole sermon, I'll give a whole sermon on it in a few weeks or months about jobs and what they mean to God and everything.

   This little principle, then we'll close. Verse 20 of I Corinthians 7 (I Corinthians 7:20), about jobs. Now remember in verse 26 he was talking about the present crisis, so there was a huge crisis in Corinth.

   Brethren were a little unstable, worried about their jobs and what would be done, and God said, okay, verse 20, principle is important, let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. The calling here is talking about profession. Let me give an example.

   Are you called being a servant? Don't care for it, but if you may be made free, use it. What he's saying is this, he said if you were a slave or a servant then and that was your job when you were called, he said don't make a big deal out of it. He said basically stay with it, but if you can get out of it and be, I can guide you into something better, he said okay, go with it.

   What he's saying basically is be very slow to move out of a professional area that you were in when God calls you, because maybe there's a tie between that area, that labor, that job and the kingdom of God and how God is going to work with you, and you can get yourself outside of his will. And that can be sort of dramatic. So he's not saying you must always have the same job, you must always stay in the same profession.

   He is saying be careful and if God will lead you out and God takes you into a new area and you totally change lifestyles and job and employment, okay. He's just saying be careful. He's not saying don't change, he's saying be slow.

   Verse 21 is very clear on that. For he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lord's freeman, likewise I'll see that's called being free as Christ's servant. You're bought with a price.

   You're bought with a price. Do not become the servants of men. Brethren, let every man wherein he is called, again this is job, employment area, in general, therein abide with God.

   That changes everything. The inference is that it is important to God that you work and be employed in a certain area of life. And you can abide therein with God and he can bless you in that area of life and he can sanctify the job.

   We'll talk about that more. And again it doesn't mean that if when God calls you, you're working in a gas station, that it's wrong to accept a job working as a manager in Woolworths or Worco or something of the kind. It does mean be very slow and God can bless you and you can abide with God.

   Now that was in a time of distress then because people were worried about jobs and professions and finally they were saying, I'll talk more in a future sermon about what that means and how God works through jobs and how God can bless it and you can keep a job through everything. Proverbs 28 and then we'll close on that. Ask God to sanctify your job and to work through it and to bless you in it and to bless the company and to bless the bosses and to bless the whole team that you're a part of.

   And of course if God begins to move you out of it then you know God says be willing to move out of it but don't be running madly from job to job and profession to profession looking for the goose that lays the golden egg. Be very slow and careful in those areas and try to rise and do a good job and you know rise to the occasion. Be very much a part of the job in a right way, not a workaholic but you know respect it for what it is.

   Proverbs 28 and verse 20, verse 18 (Proverbs 28 28:18), whoever walks uprightly shall be saved. He that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once. He that tills his land that is really works at it shall have plenty of bread.

   And yet God says you know there's going to be, he's going to take away this stack of bread and yet I'm not going to go to Kansas and tell all our wheat farmers in Kansas, sell your farms and move to town. You know why? Because some will be blessings given in certain jobs. I would never do that.

   They want to move to town, that's up to them. But God says be very slow in doing that. He says here you'll have plenty of bread.

   God will work this out somehow. He'll do it. If you do your part he will do his.

   A faithful man, verse 20, the end of verse 19, it follows after a vain person shall have poverty enough. A faithful man shall abound with blessings and some of you are faithful and some of you are not. Some of you have not been tithing, some of you have been cutting back and there's high time to resolve that problem because you will not be blessed and I'll tell you, you'll be a part of the 35 percent unemployed.

   If you begin to cut back on God, God will cut back on you. This is no time to be putting yourself in a position where you are vulnerable to all kinds of awful curses, economically speaking, because they're coming. A faithful man will abound with blessings.

   He that makes haste to be rich will not be innocent. Don't make haste to be rich, work through, work up. Work in a valid area of the economy and you get rich schemes and you fill your garage full of Ma and Jekyll's syrup or some other kind of crazy stuff.

   That's not what God is talking about. He that makes haste to be rich has an evil eye and considers not that poverty shall come upon him, and all the rest of it. He that, verse 25, is of a proud heart, stirs up strife, he that puts his trust in God shall be made fat, prosperous.

   He that trusts in his own heart is a fool. If you walk wisely, you'll be delivered. If you give to the poor, if you serve, if you share, if you learn to share, you shall not lack.

   Nothing here about survival cabins, about two years of dried fruit in the garage. I know some of our members have three or four months worth of dried stuff in the garage. I don't.

   Maybe I should and maybe someday I will. I'm not looking to that right now. That doesn't seem to be all that important right now.

   The Mormons have that. Every time you go into a Mormon house, be careful of the clothes cupboards and the closets because all the dried food will fall out on you. When I was looking to buy a house, all these houses, all these nice Mormon people started in their houses to move to the mountains to get away from the big earthquake you see that some of them feel is coming, and the closets were always full of the dried food.

   Mine isn't. Maybe I'll put some in there for a few months someday or a couple of weeks. I don't know, but that is not of any great importance at all.

   If you give and you live in a way that is pleasing to God, you shall not lack. He that hides his eyes shall have many a curse. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves, but when they perish, the righteous increases, and so it goes.

   The main point is this. There is chaos ahead economically, but brethren, we have been told that we will live off the good of the land. That's a promise.

   It's a promise from God. He says if you're ready and if you're willing, you'll live off the good of the land. That applies to those in fixed income.

   That applies to widows and the elderly and those who don't have a lot of expertise or background. God will somehow work these things out. He's promised to do it, and you can claim the promise, and when you do claim the promise, you'll see that fulfilling taking place.