America is on the precipice of
economic implosion, according to Glenn
Beck and others. A sudden, catastrophic
transformation will jolt us one morning
upon awakening to the fact that the way
of life we’ve known is gone. The Fox
News show host pronounces the nation’s
doom if his prescription for cure isn’t
followed.
If the cure is not taken, George
Soros and his ilk, the New World Order
titans, will march America’s citizenry
into global gulag–on the broad way back
to Babel. There, all of mankind will,
like John Lennon once sang, “Be as one.”
Beck’s biblical allusions flow
soothingly, once the dire diagnosis and
prognosis for America’s socioeconomic
illness are firmly grasped by his
audience. And, a growing number of
people seem mesmerized by the host’s
descriptions, illustrations, and
analyses.
The Lord God knew that being “as one”
was a humanistic recipe for disaster,
Beck pontificates. The Almighty rushed
to the plains of Shinar–as recorded in
Genesis chapter 11--to spread humankind
throughout all parts of the planet to
avoid exactly what Soros and his buddies
are again planning to foist upon earth
dwellers. After laying out instructions
and suggestions about how to survive
some harsh, even terrifying, interim
times just ahead by storing foods with
long shelf lives and making other
prudent preparations against the
devastation the dollar's demise will
assuredly bring, Beck shifts to
spiritual counsel. He leads into this
phase with his words at the rally, as
mentioned earlier: "Something that is
beyond man is happening. America today
begins to turn back to God. For too
long, this country has wandered in
darkness."
Almost tearful with emotion in his
voice, Beck pleads for Americans to go
to our knees and pray for the nation’s
salvation. Then, with a great inhalation
of patriotic resolve like that of
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and other
of America’s founders, Beck, with
Patton-like motivational rhetoric and
steel in his voice, fortifies his troops
for the battles ahead.
America will triumph through all the
assaults against the republic, he
declares with vigor, “because we are
Americans.” Americans always do whatever
it takes to overcome evil.
Glenn Beck exhorts Americans to
invoke God’s name and help in the
"take-back America" campaign. Good–so
far as it goes.
With his next declaration, the Fox
host frames his proclamation about the
cure he envisions. He declares that the
American people–those like the patriots
in his audience--will do the necessary
sacrificing and make the political and
economic changes essential to set the
U.S. ship of state back on course to a
sound moral and socioeconomic mooring.
America will survive the great crash
that is coming and, he implies, it will
again become the greatest
nation–although perhaps smaller, he
adds--because of the goodness intrinsic
within the American people. We are, he
says, about to “witness miracles.”
And, this is the point where
emotionally hyped fervor and patriotic
resolve—no matter how sincere—depart
from truth that resides within the heart
of God’s prophetic Word. No matter how
well constructed or intensive the
efforts to implement it, Beck’s
blueprint–or any humanistic
blueprint—for saving the republic is
doomed to failure.
To this point, Hal Lindsey’s view of
Bible prophecy and Glenn Beck’s analyses
and forecast for America’s destiny have
run relatively parallel. Both Lindsey
and Beck see a time coming in the near
term when America will suffer financial
collapse. It will be, they each predict,
a time of national and worldwide
societal darkness worse than the
bleakest years of the Great Depression.
Based upon the staggering debt of the
U.S. and of most every other major
nation on earth, theirs is the only
conclusion that can reasonably be
reached using informed rationale.
Lindsey and Beck also envision a
singular moment when America and the
world will change forever. It will be an
instant so calamitous that it will, in
effect, eventuate in a totally
transformed global order for every facet
of human interaction.
This, however, is where similarities
in their view of the future end. Now the
views diverge as dramatically as the
difference between the eternal places
called heaven and hell.
As I wrote in the beginning of
"Scanning a Fearful Future," Glenn Beck
hasn’t overtly interjected his Mormon
beliefs into his foreboding predictions.
Therefore, I won’t address his
pronouncements in regard to his
religious beliefs–that is, except to
again point out that the Mormon view of
the end of human history differs greatly
from what the Bible says about the
consummation of all things encapsulated
by this thing God created for man called
time.
I feel justified in mentioning this
because Beck himself more and more
brings the name “God” and the need for
the exercise of “faith” into his
presentations. However, his consistently
stated viewpoint makes it obvious that
he believes the fate of us all will play
out in an all-earthly scenario, with
America winning the day, if we all
follow his prescription for dealing with
the coming calamity.
Hal Lindsey, like me and those who
believe that Bible prophecy clearly
speaks of what conditions will be like
at the very end of the age, also sees
America and the world headed into an
economic morass. Unlike Glenn Beck,
however, we are of the conviction that
if indeed we are at the end of this
dispensation–the Age of Grace (Church
Age) as we believe is the case--this
nation is beyond anything human
intervention can do to save it. Next
time we will look at what I’m convinced
is God’s view of things to come in the
very near future.