6 Feb 2023

Will Gold replace the Petrodollar?

For decades, foreign nations have tried to get away from the dollar. They disliked America’s financial dominance by holding the world’s reserve currency. The dollar has its great dominance in the oil market. The petrodollar system is essentially the global practice of exchanging oil for US dollars rather than any other currency. This means that no matter what country is buying the oil, they pay the oil-producing country in petrodollars, which are denominated in US dollars.

The dollar-based system survives on trust. People know it’s not going to lose any major value in a short period of time. Because there are so many dollars in circulation, traders can move huge mountains of cash in various transactions in a matter of seconds. In 2018, the average total volume of treasury securities traded per day was over 547 billion US dollars. A dealer in France can get a dollar-based loan and buy $200 million worth of steel out of Australia.

China has tried to convince the world that its renminbi would make a good replacement for the dollar. President Xi traveled the world, making one trade agreement after another that promised both nations would use their own currency for trade. Nothing happened because few people trust a currency that is completely controlled by the Chinese government. If a financial crisis occurred in China that caused the value of the renminbi to collapse, holders of the currency would suffer major losses.

A key driving force in why nations wanted to get away from the dollar is the American practice of using it as a weapon against other nations. Since 1990, the use of sanctions by the United States significantly increased, and since 1998, the United States has established economic sanctions on more than 20 countries.

The Russians had their bank accounts locked up because of their invasion of Ukraine. It’s not just thugs and dictators that have to toe the line with American policy. Banks in Switzerland long had a history of secrecy with money. Uncle Sam said open your accounts so we can look for American tax dodgers, or we will kick out the dollar trade system. Switzerland had no choice but to comply.

In many Latin American nations, it is very hard to open a bank account. The Fed assumes that anyone who sends money south of the border is dealing in drugs. You are a criminal until proven innocent. Many of the laws that were established after 9/11 have motivated the US government to stick its nose into everyone’s personal business.

Another motivation for a dollar replacement is the massive national debt and trade deficit the US has with the rest of the world. Our current debt has reached $31.4 trillion, which was only $13 trillion in 2010. Our trade deficit is equally out of control. Each month foreign countries ship us $100 billion more in Goods  than we ship to them.

International bankers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that a gold-based system is the only way to wrestle control from America and put the US on a financial diet. Gold has no counterparty risk. If a nation has a ton of gold in a bank, there is no one in Washington who can press a button and make it worthless.

No rich nation should ever allow gold to leave its border. When you read about countries selling off their reserves, it’s because they’re in a state of economic collapse. What allows a nation to retain its gold is a financial system that makes gold transactions on a fractional reserve system, the same way the dollar operates. A nation may have gold worth on the market $10 billion, but it can back a banking system of $100 billion.

If a nation suffers high inflation, the citizens can be protected by the value of gold soaring in price. India has suffered many financial calamities over the years. Millions survived the hardship by having their core assets in gold.

One overhanging reason why we need a financial system is related to what happened during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The world had a massive meltdown with losses reaching, in one report, $26 trillion. The Federal Reserve is the only entity that could produce dollars, so it made good all these losses. A little over a decade later, the world is right back to those same levels of derivative and leverage.

I don’t know what role the Antichrist would play in a gold reserve system. Since he will be the man with all the answers, he may introduce several of its key components.

“Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zephaniah 1:18).

–Todd


Nearing Midnight and the Doomsday Clock

Jesus set Heaven’s end times clock, foretelling when the second hand of eternity will reach near the midnight hour for the inhabitants of planet Earth. He did so by giving God’s heavenly family the assurance that we will be snatched up before that time; we will be rescued from this planet of rebels doomed to suffer His righteous wrath and judgment.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

The phrase “these things” refers to the issues and events of prophetic significance that have long since begun to “come to pass.”

Todd Strandberg, founder of Raptureready.com, and I have for decades written our commentaries on “these things” for the “Nearing Midnight” section of this website. We have tried, in effect, to show the progress toward that midnight hour. We’ve presented what we believe is not a “doomsday clock” but a heavenly horizon marquee announcing the great event that all who believe in Jesus Christ for salvation are swiftly approaching.

It is more than intriguing that, while we look at all the wickedness being done by the evil men and seducers who are growing worse and worse, secular watchers of mankind’s nearness to the same midnight hour perceive that time is almost up.

Such came starkly into view with the most recent setting by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist Doomsday Clock” watchdogs:

A panel of international scientists has warned that humanity’s continued existence is at greater risk than ever before, largely as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has been since it was established in 1947 to illustrate global existential threats at the dawn of the nuclear weapons age.

Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin, said the clock had been moved forward from 100 seconds to midnight, where it had been for the previous three years, “largely, though not exclusively, because of the mounting dangers in the war in Ukraine.”

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality. Ninety seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly.” (“Doomsday Clock at record 90 seconds to midnight amid Ukraine crisis” | World news | The Guardian)

The secular doomsday clock watchers hope that, by posting the warnings of impending nuclear war and other catastrophes, they can somehow avert reaching that midnight hour they so fear. This is what, for example, those who believe they can institute the so-called Great Reset believe they, in their god-like confidence in their own ability, can accomplish.

But there is one thing and one thing only that can help mankind avoid the coming judgment and wrath of that midnight hour. That is repentance and turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to die as a sacrifice for the sin into which humankind has been born since the fall in Eden’s garden.

God has set the doomsday clock, and His second hand hasn’t stopped moving toward that midnight moment. My own belief, along with many of God’s watchers on the wall of Bible prophecy, is that clock’s second hand is much closer to the 12 than the 90 seconds away the authorities of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently placed their second hand.

The people of earth are on the cusp of being thrust into that midnight hour. You don’t want to be one who is left behind to suffer that time of horror Jesus Himself said will be the worst of all human history (Mathew 24:21).

Here is how to avoid that fate and instead go to be kept within the safe harbor of Jesus Christ when He calls all believers to Himself.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

30 Jan 2023

The Danger of Chat GPT

There are big changes coming to the internet over the next year. As more powerful artificial intelligence software programs emerge, the search industry market will be transformed by machine learning Internet searches replacing ones that used to be carried out by text alone.

The recent launch of OpenAI’s AI chatbot ChatGPT has the search giant Google running scared, according to reports from The New York Times. Now, the Times says Google has plans to “demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year” and unveil more than 20 projects powered by artificial intelligence.

As recently as December, we’d heard Google execs were worried that despite investing heavily in AI technology, moving too fast to roll it out could harm the company’s reputation. But things are changing quickly. Two weeks ago, Google announced it was laying off more than 12,000 employees and focusing on AI as a domain of primary importance.

Artificial intelligence (AI) Search is based on a combination of machine learning, where recommendations are made based on previous searches and buying decisions. The natural language processing (NLP) at the heart of the likes of Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, which aims to understand, in real-time, complex patterns in human speech that come out in searches more conversationally, leads to spelling errors or ambiguous terms that must be decoded.

According to Google, 27% of mobile users search online through voice commands around the world. The future of audio search is very bright. Researchers have found that 71% of consumers prefer to perform search queries by voice instead of typing.

Visual search is on the rise, too, with 62% of millennials preferring visual search rather than using Google, Pinterest, Amazon, and other similar search engines. However, semantic search still dominates, where a search query aims to not only find keywords but to determine the intent and contextual meaning of the words a person is using to search.

AI computers will continue to become smarter over time; we will likely become very dependent on them. Some people use their smartphones so much that they might as well have them implanted in their bodies. Because of the mark of the beast fears, I would be against chipping any implants into people.

I would never have Alexa or Siri in my house. Some people had their systems hacked, and they were sued. Other people have talked about doing something like setting up a gym in part of the house, and a fitness supply magazine would show up in the mailbox a few days later.

A key danger of trusting Open AI Apps is that they were designed by flawed people. A company may claim its software has no political agenda, but this is commonly found to be a lie.

I tried to sign up for some AI Apps, and all of them wanted me to join their club before they would let me use their service. Since I had an Amazon Prime account, I thought it would be easy to log into Alexa. I was asked for one load of data after another. Alexa wanted access to all my contacts, and it wanted to track my movement by pinging my smartphone.

I decided a less intrusive way to find out about these Apps would be to search YouTube for reviews. I quickly found a video of Ben Shapiro asking open chat some probing questions. Most of the answers are standard liberal talking points. He asked what a female is and was told, “A female is someone who ‘identifies’ as female or exhibits characteristics associated with the female gender. When asked if a male could be a female, the short answer was “yes.”

Shapiro then asked a series of questions about abortion, and the App danced all over the subject. In one answer, two contradictory statements were made: “No, it is not morally acceptable to terminate the life of an unborn human. It’s a serious decision that should be made with great consideration.” The satisfying answer about abortion is the result of what a mad parent would do if they found that a computer was telling their daughter to get an abortion.

The designers of software related to the performance of Joe Biden had no ambiguity. You cannot generate a negative answer about Biden. His presidency is such an open dumpster fire, the only option is to lie outright about his performance.

Chat GPT has many flaws, but it has many pros, like being able to instantly create issues of any context requested. You could ask the program to write a 2,000-word article about a panda that won’t be an airline pilot, and it could do it in three seconds.

I think, going forward, the worst advice anyone could get is being told that the mark of the beast is a good idea. Because Chat GPT will have a profound ability to deceive people on a personal level, it will prove to be extremely dangerous.

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Rev 13:16-18).

–Todd


Supreme’s Sodom Decision

It was a déjà vu moment. I tuned in early one morning in January 2023 to a Bible teacher I’ve long listened to—Les Feldick. He was talking about how the Lord might soon decide to give America over to a reprobate mind, as mentioned in Romans 1:28, because of the acceptance of and even enthusiastic embrace of homosexuality within society and culture.

Les mentioned the year he was taping the program as 1995.

That triggered my memory of an article I wrote about his T.V. program on a similar topic years earlier. I had written the particular commentary in 2015, come to find out upon researching the matter.

It was amazing how in 1995, Les had laid out almost precisely how things had developed by January 2023 in the direction of inviting God’s judgment. We were headed, Les said back then, down the same track of Sodom of Lot’s day.

I’ve written many times about sensing the same track our nation has taken and how America must have been the nation Jesus was thinking about when He gave the days of Lot prophecy recorded in Luke 17:28–30.

Immediately below, I have placed that 2015 article I wrote upon hearing that first program Les did in 1995. My commentary at the end of that article is written for this Nearing Midnight column in January 2023.

Supreme’s Decision (Written in 2015)

Early this morning, I was listening to a Bible teacher teaching on prophecy and how it looks like America and the world are at the end of the Church Age (Age of Grace). He was talking about U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The teacher was in the book of Romans, and he was in the first chapter. The teacher was Les Feldick presenting his then-weekly teaching by way of his Through the Bible television ministry. The year the program was produced was 1995. I was listening to his teaching Friday, June 26, 2015—twenty years later. A Christian TV cable network is running the series daily at 5 a.m.

Les, as I understand, is now in his mid-80s and, I’m sure, still teaching somewhere in Oklahoma. I met him at the annual Tulsa Mid-America Prophecy Conference seven or eight years ago.

Today, a few hours after I listened to him teaching from that video recording back in that year two decades earlier, I heard on network television the announcement.

It was Pete Williams of NBC News—whom you might remember as the Pentagon spokesperson during the first Gulf War—standing near the wildly cheering crowd. The NBC correspondent—an avowed gay—had to clear his throat of emotion before answering the anchor’s question about what had just happened at the Supreme Court.

He enthusiastically gave the requested report, almost shouting to be heard above the jubilant throng screaming their approval of the court’s decision.

The decision was 5 to 4, with the swing vote coming from Justice Kennedy, Williams said. The United States would now require every state to accept same-sex marriage as constitutionally validated.

Twenty years earlier, Les Feldick had dealt with what I was now hearing from Pete Williams on Friday, June 26 of this year [2015].

Les said during that early-morning program, recorded in 1995, that every time he read through Romans, chapter 1, he couldn’t help but think of the almost insane decisions that come out of the U.S. Supreme Court. He said that the insanity really began back during the days when Earl Warren, the former governor of California, was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The Warren court, Les said, had rendered the most destructive decisions in American history. He mentioned the decision to remove prayer and Bible reading from public schools in 1963 and 1964. He talked about Roe v Wade, issued in 1973, opening up the nation to the slaughter of babies in the wombs of America’s mothers.

He compared the Warren Supreme Court’s decision-making and the resultant chaos to Paul’s condemning words in his letter to the Romans.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:18-32).

Les Feldick, in that lesson recorded two decades ago, saw the Supreme Court as demonstrating that God’s Word is absolutely true. When people move away from God, their minds become reprobate—upside-down—in their thinking. They make foolish, unthinking, unreasonable decisions. And, the Supreme Court, the majority of those nine men (not all were reprobate in thinking) seemed to try, like Lucifer himself, to usurp the throne of God—the Creator of all things.

There were ramifications, in my view, from those earlier Supreme Court decisions. John F. Kennedy was assassinated; Vietnam would eventually take 50,000 American lives; the Great Society began the financial collapse of the U.S.—and the world, for that matter; Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, as was Robert F. Kennedy; a slide into abject immorality and cultural rot continues today as a result of those decisions that have exacerbated other aspects of national life.

Friday, June 26, 2015, is another historical milestone demarcation of mankind’s foolishness. The decision to, in effect, tell the Creator that the Supreme Court knows what constitutes marriage, so He should just butt out, is the ultimate insult in testing God’s patience. It is an act of rebellion that demonstrates this generation has reached a level of reprobate thinking like that reached by the earth-dwellers of Noah’s pre-Flood day and Sodom’s days of Lot.

I’ve received a number of emails stating that such a Supreme Court vote making mandatory that all states allow gay marriage will bring instant retribution from Heaven. This is what we are now to expect. The United States will now reap God’s judgment and wrath in short order.

Looking at what happened almost immediately following the 1963 and 1964 decisions by the Warren Court—considering the apparent consequences listed above—it would seem that such predictions have credence. I’m not at all sure there is a valid comparison to be made from then to now, however.

What happened in those earlier years, with those consequences that befell America, I’m of the conviction, involved corrective action—a call by God to this nation imploring that there be a turning from such rebellion. A question to ponder is: Does time remain sufficient enough to even warrant a call in the form of corrective action? Has the Lord just decided in this obviously late, late hour to turn America over to a “reprobate mind,” as the Apostle Paul (Romans 1:28) indicates for a rebellious people who have turned their backs on Him?

Paul tells God’s thoughts about those who treat the Lord with contempt.

“But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5).

Despite this warning of God’s judgment and wrath accumulating, we get a look into the Lord’s merciful patience.

“What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:” (Romans 9:22).

The Apostle Peter explains God’s patience—the reason He hasn’t ended mankind’s rebellion to this point.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

All who name the name of Jesus Christ should not be caught up in the cares of this world, in becoming more and more like the world system of materialism. While we must live in this world of quickly declining morality, we should be aware of what the forces of evil are perpetrating. We should stand against those powers and principalities, both human and supernatural, just as written in Ephesians 6:12.

The buying, selling, planting, the marrying—heterosexual or otherwise—is a way of life that is going to end in one stupefying microsecond. The Christian will stand before his or her Lord and give an account of whether we have been working and watching for Christ or whether we have been caught up totally in the cares of this world, with callous disregard for being salt and light as we see the end of the age approaching.

“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34-35).

The only court that is going to matter ultimately is that which renders the Supreme’s decision on how we, individually, have lived within or apart from His governance.

Make sure you aren’t one whose head is stuck deeply into the proverbial sand of worldliness and apathy.

(Fast forward from 2015 to January 2023, when I present this current commentary.)

America’s march down that same road Sodom took toward perdition continues. As a matter of fact, the pace of movement has increased significantly.

Les Feldick again was heard questioning in the 1995 program I heard this January 2023 morning whether the Lord might see fit to give America as a nation over to the reprobate mind of Romans 1:28.

Does the word “woke” strike a chord of recognition in regard to his question? It does with me.

The insanity perpetrated by the purveyors of wokeness fits the definition of the reprobate mind. We say that people have gone completely crazy with things that make no sense or totally run counter to normal thinking and activity.

Today, homosexual relationship is not only condoned but is instituted into law by federal government. Same-sex marriage is now stamped by the supreme law-arbitor—the Supreme Court—as normal and must be accepted nationwide under penalty of law.

Government leaders, educators, and even physicians declare that men are women if they want to be, and women can be men. The transsexual madness extends to public schools where school administrators and teachers are even helping children make decisions—including medical decisions—to change their gender. All this is done most often while hiding from parents the insanity being perpetrated upon their children.

The woke adherents today declare that men can become pregnant and that it’s okay for adults to have sexual relations with 5-year-olds. Those adults who want to do so are not to be any longer called pedophiles but MAPs (minor-attracted persons).

Drag Queens are now applauded for parading in front of children of kindergarten age, while these performers invite the little ones to touch these perverted men’s sexual anatomy. And this wickedness is carried on, even in some apostate denominations, while parents look on and cheer. How much more like that ancient city of Sodom must it get before God says, “Enough!”?

God created man and woman, but the woke declare that gender is a choice, as is the choice of whether to murder babies in the wombs of their mothers—and even after birth—through the abortion process.

Two U.S. presidents, Barack Obama in 2009 and Joe Biden in 2022, walking hand in hand with the woke purveyors of the Sodom-like drive to move America as far from God as possible, have bathed the White House in the LBTQ+ rainbow colors. Joe Biden signed into federal law December 13, 2022, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This requires the U.S. federal government and all U.S. states and territories to recognize the validity of same-sex marriage else face severe legal consequences.

Be absolutely assured, though; it is not the U.S. Congress or the Supreme Court that will have the final word on this upside-down, anti-God evil. It is Heaven’s court, where the Supreme Being sits on the throne, that will make the decision on this end-of-days Sodom society and culture.

Jesus Christ will say, “Enough is enough,” and will call the Church into Heaven. Judgment will then cascade upon a God-rejecting nation and world. Again, here is what Jesus says about the Rapture that will bring this world system crashing down in judgment and wrath.

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).

However, God’s mercy is great, and there is still time for repentance by any and all who are rebels in this present Age of Grace. Here, again, is how to turn from the sin that invites God’s wrath and instead make the sinner now a child of God.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry