End-Time Prophesy

 

END-TIME PROPHESY?

“Repent! The End is near!”

Film at 11

Adapted from Brazil Times blog of August 22 2014

The “Repent!” part is always useful (“he who is without sin” and all that).

The “End is near!” part? Well, maybe.

Years ago there was a program on TV about Biblical prophecy and how it might work out in the real world. In an interview with a Greenpeace spokesman he said, ‘whether there were prophecy or not, whether there even was a God or not, man himself would consume and destroy the earth by his own hand.’

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If you are one who braves watching TV news, chances are you’re aware there is a lot of ‘end is near’ stuff going around...

Pandemics, plagues, and pestilence;

rebellions, wars, and rumors of wars;

active super-volcanoes on all continents;

more earthquakes than anytime on record;

whispers in dark corners of economic collapse;

would-be potentates and pretenders rise and fall;

false prophets deceiving even the very elect of God.

As this is being re-written story of the hour is a pandemic attacking every nation on earth to some degree. I’ve heard enough on TV to think the rest of this story is yet to be told. Sooner or later Christian evangelical types will get another go-around of how all this fits into the newest interpretation of End Time Prophecy. Maybe I’ve become jaded, though, by all the go-around which has gone-around before about how current events portend the future event.

In the 1950’s my older brother had a recording of a big-name evangelist of our denomination detailing the events which were to unfold. Memory includes conflict between America and Russia over Israel, leading (once again) to the war-to-end-all-wars. He confidently predicted the End would come in his lifetime. I Googled him, he died in 2004.

I always worry about Bible scholars who pin the Second Coming of Christ on some specific, physical, historically documented event happening before He returns. For me, basing any interpretation on something which ain’t happened yet is a position which ought be defended. Such a position seems to go against the general thought of Scripture and historical Christian scholarship; these generally propose all has been fulfilled and we ought to be ready every second (even if neither FOX nor CNN cover it).

There was a time in my life when there was a certain level of expectation I’d teach on ‘End Time Prophecy’. “Teach” should be read as expecting me to endorse whatever teaching was popular at that moment.

Never one to accept the acceptable, I came up with guidelines which I -- and apparently I alone -- thought useful:

• The Bible, Old & New Testaments, as we have received it in English translations is directed solely to edification and instruction of the believer. If the reader does not class their self as such, I have written on more interesting topics which you are encouraged to pursue.

• Starting with assumption of the veracity of Scripture, which I do, then there is only one way to know when a prophecy has been fulfilled – when the Book says so. If it says, “this is in fulfillment of the prophesy…”, then you know it is fulfillment of that prophecy.

• Whatever the signs of the End really are, written and historical records indicate the Clergy will miss or misinterpret said signs. From Pharisees of Jesus day and throughout history, the Clergy always seem to be looking at stuff with “preconceived” conceptions. Being of the Clergy at one time in my life, I chose to not perpetuate possible misinterpretations.

• My very limited understanding of the written word leads me to suspect there is a very deliberate and impenetrable spiritual fog surrounding the whole subject. As it says, “now we know in part”.

• Best guess is that when all is said and done everyone will be surprised by how bad were our best guesses, and how many current events we failed to recognize as part of a bigger picture.+

So, maybe a closer look as we watch TV is in order. Somebody might be trying to tell us something, even if it’s only Greenpeace. Just saying.

THE DOLE

 

GOING ON THE DOLE

During the Great Depression (1929-1939) direct relief cash payments (often called “the Dole”) went to those in immediate and desperate need. However, work relief, that is, work on government projects in exchange for relief payments, was initiated in order to allow unemployed workers the dignity of working for a wage, however small. (Wikipedia).

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When I was seventeen my father owned a TV repair business for a short time. It became my first clerical job. For the record, it is then he taught me about being in business, honestly. His selling the business and returning to working in interstate commerce meant I was eligible for Unemployment Compensation. My paternal grandmother was, shall we say, ‘dismayed’. “You’ll be the first member of our family going on the Dole”.

This was the attitude of people who reared families during the Depression. It was, at very best, a disgrace to have to take money from the government. I suppose in her mind only ‘poor white trash’ took the dole. Prevalent in America was a strong work ethic and sense of sacrifice for the common good. This attitude was both a strength and problem President Franklin Roosevelt faced when he came to office in 1932 at the depth of the Depression. There was little work to be had, plenty of sacrifice to be called for.

FDR’s solution was to attack on several fronts. One attack was to create jobs with something called Works Projects Administration (WPA). What a family friend called the “working poor army”. Among WPA projects thousands of men worked for room and board plus about $50 a month – part of which must be sent home. Out of WPA came an amazing amount of infrastructure progress. In this town it meant paved roads and a water system of which we still use part.

All, or at least a significant number of FDR’s projects ended with the beginning of World War II. But, Roosevelt had enabled the nation to survive. It took about eight years, but Roosevelt put people without hope to work, encouraged and financed arts, retained in America a sense of worth. And, it kept my grandparents off the dreaded “dole”. The outcome of all this was what Tom Brokaw coined “the greatest generation” – my father’s.

On the TV machine today we are informed $2800 ‘economic stimulus’ will soon be deposited automatically into our bank account. Those who desperately need this money will quickly see it disappear. Those of us who could easily live without it will get money which we neither needed nor earned. Guess the economy will be helped, this week. But, do find myself wondering if my grandmother might think of all this as America “going on the Dole”?

MINIMUM WAGE

THE MINIMUM SOLUTION

Expenses rise to meet and exceed income,

no matter what the income comes to be.

(paraphrased from “Law and the Profits” by E. Northcote Parkinson)

If the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 (S. 53, as introduced on January 26, 2021) is enacted at end of March 2021, it would raise Federal minimum wage in annual increments.  The wage would jump to $9.50 this year and reach $15 per hour by June 2025. (Wikipedia)

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The subject, may I say controversy, of minimum wage has come up again. As of this writing Congress is still debating (okay, fighting) over the matter. Talk is that if it is raised to $15/hour it will end poverty on earth forever, so some such argument.

In this uneducated, not-an-economist observation of little over 60 years, raising the minimum wage has never solved anything. Maybe he who is ignorant of history is solving the wrong problem? Or, maybe old men just get stuck in the past.

In the fifth grade (why do I remember these things?) our teacher explained the “wage-price spiral”. Apparently if wages go up, prices go up; if prices go up, wages go up. Who knew?

When I turned 16 a minimum wage of $1.15 per hour was paid this high school kid with no experience in anything. It had only recently been raised from $1 per hour. This raise, Congress assured, would solve the poverty problem on earth forever. About this time someone introduced me to McDonald's hamburgers, they were fifteen-cents – another nickle for cheese.

The last raise mandated by Congress was from $6.55 to $7.25 effective July 24, 2009. This increase of $.70 would certainly be the solution! At that time Computer Central had one employee to whom we were paying minimum wage, a 15 year old high school student who started his first job with us on a work-study program. We also had another employee who had been with us for a while. Our son Nathan insisted that to be fair the experienced employee should receive an equal raise. If you do the math, this was a total increase of $200 a month.

Employee #1 – $.70 X 20 hours X 52 weeks = $728

Employee #4 – $.70 X 40 hours X 52 weeks = $1456

Additional employer taxes (est) @ 10% = 216

Now, do the math with 1,000 employees or more.

We, as did almost every other business in America, raised our rates in order to stay in business. When was the last time a McD’s burger was fifteen-cents? For the record, Nathan did not take a raise.

In the sure and certain knowledge few will read my ramblings, and even fewer agree with anything I say, may I respectfully suggest raising wages leads to price increases.  If I have to raise what I pay you, I also will have to raise what it cost others to live. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll need more income. Why not have wages follow prices, instead of Congress arbitrarily pre-ordaining the rise in wages and thereafter prices?

Here’s the thing. I get Social Security. Each year it may or not be increased a small percentage because cost of living has or has not gone up. What if we’d do this with minimum wage, raises following cost of living? That is, minimum wages follow, but do not force prices up.

According to my fifth grade teacher if prices don’t go up, wages don’t go up; if wages don’t go up, prices don’t go up. Who knows, maybe my idea could break the wage-price cycle long enough to end poverty on earth forever!