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General Hossein Salami, the head of the IRGC - before he was recently killed by Israeli strikes - had repeatedly threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”. He described Israel as a “cancerous tumour” that must be “destroyed”.

This is not a new concept - to destroy Israel. It goes back nearly 3,000 years…

Here is what God has to say about our world today, just before the end of this age:

Mankind Has Never Had Real Peace!

The apostle Paul was inspired to give this warning:

But All Can Look Forward To Real Peace

Wars and Inflation

Studies have shown that in the past year this world experienced more conflicts – including full blown wars – than in any other year since the end of WW2. The history of mankind since the Garden of Eden has been one of brutality and bloodshed to one degree or another, but hostilities in days gone by generally affected thousands rather than millions, and their overall effect tended to be more geographically contained. But now we live in a 'global village' and what happens on the other side of the world does affect us, often quite dramatically:

There are no real winners in warfare, as wars always result in destruction of cities, of agricultural land, displacement of the population, leading to shortages and inflation. Notice these two horsemen highlighted in chapter 6 of Revelation, and what they were foretelling to happen:

Following on from the red horse of warfare in verse four, we're warned of severe food shortages of some kind ... and it is the COST of food that is highlighted. Aggressive confrontations between nations don't happen in a vacuum, but result in a multitude of negative outcomes, including lack of food due to prices rising beyond our ability to pay. Hyperinflation, as opposed to mere inflation is where prices exceed a rise of 50% in month, and a classic example is what happened in Germany after the first World War.

As is so often the case in war, the German government funded its war effort in WWI through borrowing, with debts of 156 billion marks by 1918, which was substantially increased by 50 million marks of reparations payable in cash and in-kind (e.g., with coal and timber) under the May 1921 London Schedule of Payments agreed after the Versailles treaty. In 1923, five million marks would have been worth around $700 in the January of that year, but only around one thousandth of one cent just nine months later:

All you need to do is to rephrase the "reparations payable in cash" to something like "prop-up the banks / rectify the Covid shortfall / pay off the National debt" and you have the present world situation in a potential nutshell, as it teeters on the edge of a financial precipice. There is nothing behind the money being printed, at its heart, it's a confidence trick – all "smoke and mirrors", and ready to collapse whenever that confidence goes.

Hyperinflation

What happened to the currency of the Weimar Republic was over one hundred years ago now, but it would be foolhardy to think it can be assigned to the history books and could never happen again. To get a better idea of what hyperinflation might mean to you and me today, imagine that during the time it took to drink a cup of coffee, the price of that cup of coffee doubled. Although extreme, this becomes the reality of hyperinflation, where prices change so rapidly that everyday items rise exponentially and money becomes worthless virtually overnight or even in the course of a working day. And during the 20th century there were 17 instances of hyperinflation across the globe, including Europe, South America and Africa:

The worst case of hyperinflation ever recorded occurred in Hungary in the first half of 1946. By the midpoint of the year, Hungary’s highest denomination bill was the One Hundred Quintillion pengo, (one, followed by twenty noughts) compared to just a 1,000 pengo bill, two years earlier! At the height of Hungary’s inflation, one study estimates that prices doubled approximately every 15 hours.

Another extreme case, and only 30 years ago was with the Yugoslavian dinar between 1993-1995. The steepest rate of inflation during this period was in January 1994, when prices rose an eye-watering 313 million percent over the month, with prices doubling approximately every 34 hours.

The Zimbabwean dollar was introduced in 1980 to directly replace the Rhodesian dollar, introduced 10 years earlier at par (1:1) to the US dollar. Twenty years later prices were doubling every 24 hours – reducing the Zimbabwean dollar to one of the lowest valued currency units in the world. After being "redenominated" three times – i.e. changing the face value of the notes in circulation – by the end of 2008 a 100 trillion dollars banknote didn't even cover a simple bus fare, and it's been reported that the price for a loaf of bread rose from Z$2 million to Z$35 million overnight.

Just a few years ago massive amounts of hyperinflation were ravaging Venezuela. It's been reported that the annual inflation rate for Venezuela in 2018 was up to 80,000%, meaning a doubling of prices nearly every two weeks. It became more profitable to use the banknotes to make various crafts to sell, as they were effectively worthless on their own. (wikimedia.org)

Inflation still ravages this South American country, and the outlook for 2026 is not looking good.

Cause and Effect

We're not experiencing such dramatic inflation in most nations – YET. But even today many young people in the western world are reticent to plan a family, because unlike society in the mid 1900s, it now takes two incomes to keep a roof over one's head. That's even if they could consider taking out a mortgage – the average length of such debt now being 30 years! Becoming a home owner seems an impossible dream. Many rented properties are also out of their reach, as they are faced with high rents, low wages and the rising cost of living, The weekly bill for groceries rises inexorably, with food banks increasing by leaps and bounds for those that have difficulty feeding themselves, let alone their families Multiple thousands in both the US and UK are now deemed homeless, and struggle to find a roof over their head each night.

What has happened to these two great nations of modern day Israel – the recipients of the blessings promised to Abraham – that has brought about this dire situation? What's really driving this curse of financial instability that is robbing so many of the basics necessities of life? And what does the future hold? If its true that there's a cause for every effect, we need to find that cause!

Mr. Armstrong comments on the cause, in a Co-worker letter, January 20, 1983:

A Spiritual Problem

As Mr Armstrong brings out in his January 1980 Plain Truth article "Prepare to greatly reduce your standard of Living", the real problem is the way we have been living. In this article he points out how the reasons for the blessings being removed from the English-speaking peoples of Ephraim and Manasseh are very much spiritual in nature when he says:

Many times people rack up debts by seeking to fill a 'hole' in their lives, that in truth can only be filled with a relationship with our Creator. But society is in ignorance of the existence of the true God, let alone the need to be in contact with Him. In years gone by, it was common for the average man and woman on the street to have a working understanding of the scriptures – including a belief in an actual devil, and many written works – including novels – contained references to Bible passages which they rightly expected their readers to be familiar with. But not so today! For instance, how many people could explain or clarify the meaning of the word "righteous" in Mr. Babson's summing up? Being a spiritual hunger, no amount of 'retail therapy' ....gadgets, fashion items, new cars or computer equipment will satisfy for long, so we reach for our credit cards and go on the hunt once more. A quote recently seen on the internet puts it in a nutshell:

"People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used".

The Desire for More

The groundwork for all the misery we see today – including rampant inflation leading to every kind of hardship – was laid possibly eons before the first human beings walked the earth. If there is one overall spiritual motivation for mankind, it is the drive to be wealthy and/or "be someone". Lucifer was not content with his present status and sphere of influence (Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28), and cunningly influenced Adam and Eve to adopt the same frame of mind, as recorded in Genesis 3:1-5.

Wanting more was the background to Nazi's Germany's "Lebensraum" or "living space" – i.e. a concept of expansionism and also nationalism. It became a geo-political goal of Imperial Germany in World War I – the "Greater German Reich" and, supported by the Nazi element, it was a leading motivation for initiating WW2, the deadliest military conflict in history, with an estimated death toll of around 70 million.

In the early years of 1930's Joseph Stalin instigated a five-year plan of collectivisation of agriculture in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine. Land-owners – if not liquidated – were forced to relinquish their land, personal property and houses to collective farms. This led to a massive drop in production and food shortages – some peasants even destroying their cattle and crops in rebellion! It has been estimated that up to 8 million people died from starvation during this time. All due to one man's greed.

It's the lesson of the two trees: Get versus Give – "me, myself and I" – the ubiquitous satanic broadcast that subtly influences mankind's decision-making processes. From a news clipping this month, entitled "It is now too late for Britain to avoid financial Armageddon".

As Mr. Micawber's famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness proclaims to any with ears to hear: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." (from Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield") Or as is put in modern parlance: "If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep is your downfall."

It's certainly not a new predicament: back in New Testament times, Paul wrote to Timothy that he needed to be aware of the wanting ever more attitude and the major spiritual problems it can result in:

And even further back in time this principle was understood: "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." (Proverbs 22:7) and "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." (Proverbs 21:17)

King Solomon's extravagance should certainly tell us that physically 'having it all' does not equate with happiness. His personal 'pursuit of happiness' ended in great disillusionment, as we know. "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Physical Wealth of No Lasting Value

But even though we might run our finances in line with God's way – not spending what we don't have and so piling up a mountain of debt and misery – such prudence on its own will not save us in the difficult times ahead. All the banknotes tucked under the mattress, all the gold, silver, stocks and shares, derivatives, bonds etc will be totally useless when famine stalks the land, via currency devaluation or otherwise. But we have no need to fear for our lives or that of our families, as we've been given solid assurance that God will take care of His people, and although we may indeed have to reduce our standard of living – possibly to a great degree – there are numerous encouraging passages in the Bible that talk of God's protection. Here are just two of them:

Further on in his co-worker letter of January 1983, Mr. Armstrong writes:

And what we will teach to rectify the despair of warfare and poverty, and how we will teach it will be the subject of the next Pastor's Report.