Now last week, in lieu of a single selected news article about current events, instead I brought to your attention some trends. And these trends focused around the US, EU, China, and Russia – primarily. And I was working mostly off of the work of Dr. Michael Burry, a medical doctor turned investment manager, who predicted the housing market crash and Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist who predicted the Ukraine invasion. Last week I summarized for you the things they are looking at, and of course, I mixed in the observations and statistics of other sources, it wasn’t limited to those two, but the point is that these guys, guys who have shown themselves to be not too shabby at predicting bad things are saying that there are some very bad things ahead.
So we looked at some trends. And the trends pointed to something that many people are either unaware of, or underestimate – and that is that Russia and China having a ticking-clock for their geopolitical aims. Both the populations of the Great Russians and Han Chinese are due to implode, if not collapse by the year 2100. Now, I know that Americans don’t think 80 years into the future – the Russians and Chinese do. And this population collapse means that, barring some unforeseen future game-changer, Russia and China, if they want to expand, are going to have to do it within a short period of time.
But not only do they have a demographic countdown to defeat, but they have political and economic countdowns. Russia, post-Putin and after the cadre of Soviet era political leadership die off, are going to be in a leadership crisis.
China might be facing a more immediate threat, and that is that they are on the brink of an economic collapse that could take a lot of countries down with them. They are big and strong and they love to rattle the sabre – but internally, they are coming apart at the seams, and President Xi is living in his own deluded world of self-isolation. Because, you see, the problem with autocratic leaders who shoot the messenger, is that eventually you run out of messengers, and then you’re playing politics in the dark, and that is a dangerous game.
We also noted how because of this ticking-clock, the West has a high incentive to just play the waiting game. The US, and Anglophone Alliance, the EU, NATO, the Quad, all these anti-Sino-Russian alliances, are poised to just wait out China and Russia, and allow their own corruption to rot them from the inside-out.
But the West is not looking so lusty and lithe, either. As the West continues on its post-Christian adventures, societies are fracturing. The US and western Europe are facing waves of immigration that are disrupting their social fabrics. Collapsing birthrates and a general failure to thrive are causing western Europe to grow weaker and less stable, with long-term economic stagnation and negative societal change predicted for the forseeable future – however, this could change rapidly if nationalists in France and Germany can shore up their growing popularity and go the way of Hungary and Poland.
And the US – well, you guys hear me talk about the US all the time: we’re not in a population collapse yet, but as the Boomers age out of the workforce and begin to put their assets to work in real estate, experts are predicting that Millennials who aren’t yet homeowners and Gen-Zers are going to be unable to purchase homes and will be stuck as a renter-class, squandering their wealth, and unable to actually build the kind of economic security needed for a strong middle class. This is to say nothing of the social upheaval and government mismanagement. When Americans are actively talking about the possibility of a civil war, then you know things are not going swimmingly.
Given all these trends, I have a thesis: the world is approaching complete economic disaster and a third world war.
That’s what I think is likely. Is this a prophecy? No. Do I have any special insight? No. Do I have access to secrets? No. Anyone with a public library has the same access to information that I have. Do I say that there is certainly going to be an economic collapse and a third world war? No. But I believe we are approaching those things. And I think that they are very likely to happen. And I think that economic collapse is more likely than WWIII in the short-term.
Again, I am not a prophet nor a prophet’s son; I’m just telling you where I see the trends going.
Now, that’s what we did last week – we got a crash course in the trends in world events. But this week we’re going to consider, how Christians should respond. How should we live? What should we do?
Now, I want to be clear; I’m not a prophet. I’m not a prophet’s son. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m suggesting that there are things Christians can and SHOULD do to protect themselves against economic disaster and rampant inflation.
Now, before we get to the basic steps that I think all Christians should take, let’s stop and ask an important theological question: should Christians focus on world events and spend their time prepping for disasters, or is that too worldly a pursuit? Does preparing for hard times and possibly disastrous times evidence a lack of faith? Does it show that our love is for this world and the things of this world?
Well, there are many who will tell you that such is the case. And I will say, that it is certainly possible that Christians can be so focused on preparing for the worst that they fail to keep their trust in Christ and they become hoarders and miserly. Both of those tendencies are sinful and, indeed idolatrous. Lack of faith in God to protect and deliver His saints according to His will and relying on our own wisdom and skill alone, is idolatry, as it worships the self. Hoarding is greed, and greed is explicitly called idolatry.
And Dr. David Jeremiah writes very brilliantly on this topic. In an undated online article he encourages Christians, saying this: “It’s good to be prepared, and we should take every sensible precaution in these evil days. But our true deliverance is in the King of kings and Lord of lords. God is in control, and nothing will happen without His permission.”
And Dr. Jeremiah I think hits the nail on the head. Can preparing for hard times, even disastrous times be sinful? Of course it can. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t wise to do it wisely! Just because something CAN be sinful doesn’t mean that it inherently IS sinful. Seeking wealth isn’t bad – being greedy and avaricious and miserly and covetous is. Seeking a houseful of kids and grandkids isn’t bad – idolizing blood-relations is. Wanting a group of intimate friends isn’t bad – relying on the approval of friends over the approval of God IS. These three things I just listed, wealth, children, intimate friendships – these three things are positive goods, that the Bible tells us are gifts from God that we should seek. But gifts from God can be turned to evil and sinful purposes.
The same is of course true for preparing for hard times. Because here’s the reality. Unless you live literally hand to mouth on the streets, naked, you are, to some degree a prepper. If you do anything whatsoever to protect yourself against future hardship, you too are preparing and are therefore a “prepper”…not to be confused with a “preppy” but that’s a rabbit trail we shall not go down…yet.
Everyone is a prepper because everyone except for the poorest of the poor who live in abject and utter poverty, everyone stores up and everyone prepares and stockpiles against future want and lack, and just the vicissitudes of life! Being a “prepper” is not a black or white, yes or no thing. We all are preppers, it’s just a question of degree. It’s a spectrum.
And the Bible literally tells us to do this. The Bible commands us to go to the ant and learn from him. Ants work in the summer to prepare for the winter. Jesus says to work in the day, for night is coming when no man can work…now I know that’s about something else, but the point remains the same. The wisdom the bible offers is essentially this: make hay when the sun shines. Or if you’re one of those bad Christians who watched Game of Thrones, the Bible warns us that “Winter is coming”. When you have the opportunity to gain wealth and to store up goods against future want, you should.
Can this become destructive and idolatrous and cause us to live in fear instead of faith? Of course. And of course, as none of us know the future, there is the danger of looking foolish if the disaster never comes. But most people aren’t all that worried about looking foolish.
So, with all my caveats and disclaimers out of the way, how would I advise Christians?
I would advise Christians to do 3 main things on a preparedness side:
1) Reduce dependency on the US dollar. The US dollar is facing major inflationary pressure. The government thinks it can print its way out of inflation. Think about it this way. If you have $100 today, and inflation on necessary goods like food and housing inflates at a rate of 7% per year for the next ten years, in 2032, your $100 will only have the purchasing power of about $55. Maybe that number is high – maybe there will be cycles of inflation, as there were in the late 60s through 1980. No one knows the future, but anyone knows that when you print money while there is a shortage of goods that prices are going to go up. Diversify your assets with devices that can hedge against inflation. Talk to a trusted financial advisor. But don’t leave the majority of your savings just in a lump sum of US dollars in the bank. Also, have some cash on hand, hidden safely away, as the chances of bank runs in the future might be relatively high.
2) Seek to become as food independent as is practically possible. Stop mowing so much yard and put in a big garden. Plant fruit trees. Raise chickens, pigs, and cows. Can your produce. Buy bulk meat and have a generator ready. Have a few months’ worth of dried-goods and shelf-stable foods stockpiled. Have emergency water. Have a woodpile or some other way to heat your home in case of disruptions in gas or propane supplies, or just to reduce the cost of heating. Train yourself to live with less. Use less air conditioning to save money in the summer, and turn the heat down in the winter. Go hunting and fishing. Learn to butcher meat.
3) Develop networks of family, friends, and neighbors who can support and help eachother. Don’t try to do everything on your own. Form co-ops for gardening. Form pig clubs, or cow clubs. Expect things to get expensive and hard. Find people who will help you and whom you can help.
And now I want to give some advice on the being a Christian side. Let’s say you do the things I suggest here. You diversify your assets and aren’t tied entirely to an unstable dollar. You put in a garden and some apple trees. You have chickens and you buy a half-hog and you’ve got some rice and beans stored up. Great. Let’s say you go hog wild and you go all the way and you make your home into a modern day Noah’s ark. Cool.
What are you going to do to love your neighbors? What are you going to do to love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you going to invite the impoverished into your home? Are you going to share your hard-earned bread? Are you going to lay your silver and bitcoin at the apostles’ feet? Are you going to clothe the naked and invite the cold into your home in the bleak midwinter?
Or will you hoard your wealth and your precious toilet paper and watch while the world burns? And again, I could be entirely wrong. Maybe the world won’t burn. Maybe President Biden and the Congress and all the economic elite really do have it all under control and we will return to our regularly scheduled financial prosperity any moment now. Maybe. I pray that we will. I don’t want to live through hard times! I’m lazy and a coward. I like nice things. I just think that things are unlikely to get significantly better before they get significantly worse. So what will you do, Christian?
Are you going to share and share alike?
And most of all, we have to think of the one thing that people often ignore in this conversation. And that’s missions and missionaries.
If the world really does go to pot and economies crumble and starvation and war terrorize the globe, then what about missionaries? If things become truly hard and truly awful, sending missionaries might become eminently more dangerous and wildly more expensive. Will missions still be a value and a priority if it costs us significantly more? Will we actually give when it hurts?
Americans are pretty generous. But there are good reasons to believe that the majority of American generosity is generosity out of our wealth and not generosity out of our poverty. Poverty generosity is the test of how much we value something. And, truth be told, missions work, especially overseas missions, provides no short-term, real world benefit to the giver. Do missions do long term good that redound to practical benefits? Of course?! Christianizing a country should make it more prosperous and more humane and a better neighbor and trade and safety should increase in the world.
But that’s 100 to 500 year thinking. In the here and now, ministry, all ministry, really, is, from a business perspective, a huge waste of money. From a hard-nosed, penny-pinching perspective, when we look at missions not in the afterglow, but in the cold light of morning, they are money-pits.
Missions are not places to store treasures on earth but means whereby we store up treasures in heaven. But if hard times produce hard men, and hard women, too, then will these hard men and women, who are experiencing hard times want their money in the here and now or in the hereafter?
Hard times produce hard people. And there’s something to be said about hard people. But hard people aren’t always kind people. And hard people aren’t always good people. There’s nothing wrong with being tough and self-reliant. There is something wrong with being cold-hearted and self-centered.
In closing, I’d like to quote a very insightful theologian friend of mine, Rebekkah Scott. Talking about Christians and prepping she said this, “"Resist myopia," is what I usually come back to. Think of others when the world goes to heck. And in the meantime, before things get bad, one has to leave room in the management of their resources to live by faith. Go ahead and prep. Fine. But give to missions, too. Buy dinner for your friends. Do profligate things for others, and every once in awhile for yourself. Don't sink every last cent you have into the preps.”
I think she gives some pretty good advice and advice we would all do well to heed. And so, we spent last week talking about trends, and today we spoke about how we should respond. Next week we’re going to talk about where this all MIGHT be headed. Next week we’ll talk about Ends.