Y2K and You!
by Larry Hodges
"And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, 'Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come, and the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more'"--Revelation 18:9-11.
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or many years we have read the above Scripture and have wondered at its implications and meaning. I do not at all mean by this to suggest that Y2K (Y=year, 2=2, K=thousand or year 2,000) carries the full implication or meaning for the above scripture. However, there can be little doubt that Y2K, if all goes as many expect, will meet at least some of the qualifications for its fulfillment. There is no doubt that the United States of America has been the leader among the nations where the selling of merchandise is concerned.Babylon means "confusion" and has its origin in the plains of Shinar with the building of the "tower of Babel." This tower was built for at least three reasons. 1. An effort to reach unto heaven independent of God. 2. An effort to make a name for themselves. 3. An effort to keep from being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth so that they might rely upon each other rather than upon God. Until this time the earth had been of one language and one speech. It was the first indication, so far as we have record, that man might do whatever he thought to do--that there was nothing he could not do, or nothing he thought he could not do. "The Lord said, 'Behold, the people is one and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do'" --Genesis 11:6. So God intervened in things and brought confusion--Babel.
The following is a quote from Issue No. 6 of TSL written only months ago. It seems as if man can do whatever he wills to do. He has traveled to the moon, has cloned animals, threatens to clone man, and with today's technology, presumes even to reverse the effects of Babel and the confounding of languages with the aid of the computer. One may block a text in French or Spanish or any other language and key in the language desired and, presto!; you have translated from one language into another. The babel of the of the plains of Shinar, reversed with a keystroke! Except, that is, for God!
The Y2K problem is the modern technological equivalence of the ancient tower of Babel. It is man's persistent attempt to reach unto heaven via his own means--technology. It is man's attempt to make a name for himself, once again by his own bootstraps. It is man's attempt to gather together as one global community rather than continue being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. It is also man's ultimate attempt at independence from God (Except that God has a will and a purpose that is very much involved in the affairs of man.). And technology has been the means by which man has sought to gain all this. This is a generation of "techies", "techno-nerds" and "computer geeks", as they refer to themselves. The computer has been the image before which they have fallen down to worship, for by its means they have boasted that there is nothing man cannot do! "Whatever we can imagine, we can do!", has been voiced more than once.
But back in the infancy of computers, we now learn, were the very seeds of its own destruction! At that time a megabyte of memory, we are told, sold for somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,000 dollars! Space, therefore, was very much in demand. So in order to conserve space wherever it could be conserved, someone decided that it would be a good idea to encode the year date using only the last two digits instead of the whole year. After all, the year 2,000 was so very, very far away anyway, it seemed. So computers were encoded to read the last two digits of the year with the idea that 19whatever would always be the first two digits. So now, with the advent of the year 2,000, on January 1st, all the computers will read the last two digits of 2,000 as 1900 and recognize that as an error and shut down. Personal computers hardly figure in this thing at all. It is the large main-frame computers that governments, banks and large corporations use, as well as the utilities and telephone companies that are largely at risk.
Now you and I are looking at spiritual things and have kept our focus upon that almost to the exclusion of anything natural, but it seems that there is no part of the earth that shall be completely exempted from the catastrophe that may befall man on January 1, 2,000. Let me hasten to say here that I do not believe, for a moment, that God's people will find themselves in the same predicament as the rest of the world as it reaps what it has sown. I believe there will be as much of a distinction made between God's people and the world concerning Y2K as there was between the Egyptians and God's people in Goshen when Egypt (a type of the coming world judgements) was suffering under their plagues at the hands of Moses and Aaron.
How much tribulation are we to expect in Y2K? How extensive will it be? What areas of life will it touch? How long will it last? The answers to these question may prove to be surprising and they will not be known for certain until Y2K. This phenomenon may be as universal "as it was in the days of Noah." The scope is universal. The intensity may be severe and the "experts" (those who introduced this mess) say the effects of it will last for from three to four years. My own guess is that it might last for 3½ years or 42 months or 1260 days.
The nature of the problem is that there are literally billions of lines of computer code which must be tested and corrected, and the compliance must be 100% or else those computers which are compliant can be corrupted by those that are not compliant. It is not just a matter of any one company focusing only on its own problems. For example, suppose you are the man in charge of solving your compliance problems in your company and you reach your goal and get 100% compliance. What happens January 1st when you pick up the phone to call one of your subsidiaries and there is no dial tone? How do you then transfer funds from one company to another?
The problem is at least twofold. The computer systems are so inter-related and networked with each other that they overlap each other and it is often difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. Also, there just is not enough time remaining to get the job done, according to those who have the figures and should know. What this means in cold, hard facts is that the code by which modern technological comforts are enjoyed is broken. The date at which this will become apparent is irrevocably fixed and the computer industry has a history of not meeting deadlines on time.
What is dependent upon this compliance thing? Your water, your electricity and your telephone, for starters. But remember, we have not understood or much cared about how interrelated and interdependent so many things are. For instance, there may be no groceries or goods on the shelves, not because there is no food or goods in the fields or in the factories, but because there may be no communication and therefore no way to get them to market. Food is ordinarily shipped via railroad into New York city on a regular daily basis with no thought as to what is involved in doing that. But in Y2K the railroads may not be working, because the switches which control what trains are on which tracks have in them computer chips that won't work. Trucks that normally haul produce may not be able to get diesel or gasoline from pumps which operate electrically because there may be no power, due to the faulty chips which normally operate the power plants.
Aside from the main-frame computer failure throughout America and much of the modern world, there is also the "imbedded chip" problem to be considered. It is thought by many who should know, to be as big a problem, if not bigger, than the main-frame computer problem. Our society has chips imbedded in many things throughout our homes, businesses and factories about which we have never given a thought. If it has a date, or can be set to a date or time, then it will probably fail to operate, come Y2K.
Like what, for instance? Coffee makers, cam-recorders, the elevators in all those sky scrapers in all our big cities, practically all the expensive equipment that hospitals use, such as drip machines, X-ray equipment and radiography machines, CT scanners, the intensive care unit, neonatal unit, patient-record databases, blood bank dating systems, in fact, the whole range of technological medical equipment hospitals use. Whether we are willing to give up the doctor and hospital and trust God only may soon no longer to be a relevant question. It may be answered for us. The hospitals and doctors may be largely shut down! Ambulances, fire trucks, emergency units and the police at every level--federal, state, county and city--may be out of business. Airlines may be grounded, probably months ahead of Y2K due to the insurance companies not allowing flights because of the risks involved. Prisons and most jails may not function properly, if at all. Imagine trying to feed so many discontented and disgruntled inmates in a prison or jail where there is no water for drinking or for sewerage use, where the air-conditioners are not working or the heat is not on, there's no food, and the great heavy doors will not open or shut electrically, as they were designed to.
Record-keeping of all kinds may be lost. Alarms in banks and other financial centers may cease working. High security buildings such as apartments and condominiums which require passwords, may not allow the residents in or out. Because there may be no Postal Service, there will be no more newsletters going out from anyone. Jobs, any jobs, may become a thing of the past as everyone finds they have been affected in some way by Y2K. If not directly, then indirectly. Probably the hardest hit by all this will be the elderly and the very young. Deaths may ensue because of inefficient care or a lack of it altogether.
The effects of Y2K promise to be devastating, to say the least. I heard one authority say that if tomorrow was Y2K, the economy would not grind to a halt. It would snap to a halt! GM was going to close one of its plants, so before closing it, they rolled the clocks in the robotic chips forward to 2,000 and all the assembly lines and the robotic arms making the cars just stopped--the entire plant was dead in the water! GM is a huge company, and its failure alone would have dire economic consequences for this country. Just multiply that by a world-wide factor and you have chaos beyond imagination. And we used to wonder what it was that caused men's hearts to fail them for fear of looking on those things coming on the earth?
We will probably have martial law imposed by local as well as other authorities because of roving bands of looters and those who wish to benefit in whatever way they may from the chaos. I fully expect President Clinton to use this crisis to remain in office (if he hasn't been impeached already) beyond his normally legal two terms. Such is allowed in times of a real national emergency and this is made to order for it.
Probably one of the saddest things to be witnessed will be the shock and dismay in which we will find many of those who were so sure they would be raptured out of all this. I was asking the man who does the collating of my books and newsletters how much of his business is dependent upon computers or chips and he said, "All of it, praise God!" He believes he will be raptured so that he will not have to suffer at all. He seems to have no concern for those left to suffer through these things.
The first thought some have is that they should store up enough food and water to last for at least six months. The video we watched advised this approach. I do not. If I cannot trust God in the crunch, when shall I trust Him? Any way, some of the horror stories they are telling blows gaping holes in the food-storage theory. A famine in which half of America starves! If there is famine because of Y2K, you can forget about storing food, because there will always be those who didn't store food, and you will then be forced to choose between killing someone to keep him from taking your food or allowing him access to it. There is no choice for the Christian. Christ lays down His life for others.
Not all "Christians" are of the Christian mind. Once, some years ago in Florida, I was shown the preparedness of a so-called Christian organization. They showed me their food pantry with its canned goods reaching literally from the floor all the way to the ceiling. It looked like enough to last a long time. When I asked, "How are you going to keep those who are hungry from taking your food?" I was told to follow him, and he took me to a closet filled with rifles and ammunition! Dumfounded, I asked, "Are you planning on actually killing people in order to keep your food?" The answer was, "If it comes to them or us, its going to be them." That my brother, sister is certainly not the response of a Christian heart at all, but times such as this will show without a doubt what has been living on the inside. That which has been hidden will show itself.
Taking the implications to another level of discomfort, our entire Navy, Air Force and practically all of our Military is computer-driven. We, as a nation, have taken great pride in the boast that we are the most technologically advanced nation on earth, and it is so, but we will also therefore be the most affected by Y2K of any nation on earth! America has forgotten that God is her defense and has trusted in her vaunted weapons of destruction as if they were her defense. A callous, hard, humanistic, unheeding mind-set prevails presently in America with an open, "give us Barabbas and do away with Christ" attitude, except for a sold-out remnant. God has not only been removed from our schools but also from our national heart in an open rejection of His rule, His standards, His morals and His blessing.
China, Communist China, has a standing army of 200,000,000 men (Does America even have that many bullets?)! ["And the four angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month and a year for to slay the third part (2,000,000,000) of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand" (200, 000,000) --Revelation 9:15,16.] Notice, these four (universal) angels were prepared for a day (1st), a month (January), and a year (2,000) and it is all planned and prepared to the very hour (mid-night)! This does not indicate that China will definitely attack on a given date (there is no certainty that China will attack at all), but that there has been preparation made for an hour, a day, a month and a year. Sounds very much like Y2K, doesn't it? China's navy is the only world-power navy that is not computer-dependant or computer-driven.
Because China is so backward technologically, it will only suffer in the area of economics, but it will be in a most favorable position militarily. China is a great nation with more than 1.2 billion population! It is communist, so it is known as Red China. The U.S.'s symbol is the eagle; Russia's is the bear; China's is the dragon.
Are we to believe it is merely coincidental that at the time we believe God will bring forth the manchild company, there is a "great. . .red. . .dragon" on hand also, ready to attack and devour? We have for so long looked through the glass of our own imagination at a distant, always in the future, "great tribulation," that we have some difficulty accepting the notion that it may at last be at hand in the form of Y2K. Think of it! Against the stark backdrop of such chaos and universal turmoil, God may bring to the world stage, front and center, His sons-in-waiting, who shall begin to rule and reign with an iron word and divine compassion. As He had a deliverer prepared for the day of Egypt's plagues, so He has deliverers ready for the day of the plagues on that world of which Egypt was the type. Only now Himself is our Goshen! A more sure, safe and protected Goshen has never existed.
When these pressing straits are viewed in the context of George Washington's Vision, we find that they hold startling and sobering conclusions for our consideration. In short, Washington saw by vision, the outcome of the Revolutionary War in which he was at the time involved; he saw the conflict and outcome of what was later to be called the Civil War, and he saw also another great conflict which occurred on American soil. I will quote the last part of his vision which concerns the third and final conflict involving America and being fought on American soil.
"Again I heard the mysterious voice saying, 'Son of the Republic, look and learn.' At this the dark, shadowy angel placed a trumpet to his mouth and blew three distinct blast, and taking water from the ocean, he sprinkled it upon Europe, Asia and Africa.
"Then my eyes beheld a fearful scene. From each of these continents arose thick black clouds that were soon joined into one. And through this mass there gleamed a dark red light by which I saw hordes of armed men. These men, moving with the cloud, marched by land and sailed by sea to America, which country was enveloped in the volume of the cloud. And I dimly saw these vast armies devastate the whole country and burn the villages, towns and cities which I had before seen springing up.
"As my ears listened to the thunderings of the cannon, clashing of sword, and the shouts and cries of millions in mortal combat, I again heard the mysterious voice saying, 'Son of the Republic, look and learn.' When this voice had ceased, the dark shadowy angel placed his trumpet once more to his mouth and blew a long and fearful blast.
"Instantly a light as of a thousand suns shone down from above me and pierced and broke into fragments the dark cloud which enveloped America. At the same moment the angel upon whose head still shown the word, 'Union,' and who bore our national flag in one hand and a sword in the other, descended from the heavens attended by legions of white spirits. These immediately joined the inhabitants of America, who I perceived were well nigh overcome, but who immediately taking courage again, closed up their broken ranks and renewed the battle.
"Again, amid the fearful noise of the conflict I heard the mysterious voice saying, 'Son of the Republic, look and learn.' As the voice ceased, the shadowy angel for the last time dipped water from the ocean and sprinkled it upon America. Instantly the dark cloud rolled back, together with the armies it had brought, leaving the inhabitants of the land victorious.
"Then once more I beheld the villages, towns and cities springing up where I had seen them before, while the bright angel, planting the azure standard he had brought in the midst of them, cried with a loud voice: 'While the stars remain and the heavens send down dew upon the earth, so long shall the Union last.' And taking from his brow the crown on which blazoned the word, 'Union', he placed it upon the standard while the people , kneeling down, said 'Amen.'
"The scene instantly began to fade and dissolve and I at last saw nothing but the rising, curling vapor I at first beheld. This also disappeared and I found myself once more gazing upon the mysterious visitor who, in the same voice I had heard before said, 'Son of the Republic, what you have seen is thus interpreted. Three great perils will come upon the Republic. The most fearful for her is the third. But the whole world united shall not prevail against her. Let every child of the Republic learn to live for his God, his land and Union.' With these words the vision vanished and I started from my seat and felt that I had seen a vision wherein had been shown to me the birth, the progress and destiny of the United States." End of Quote.
I am not a prophet, nor do I in any way consider myself a prophet, but one needs not the prophetic mantle to see that other countries could not pick a more favorable time to attack America than when her communications are in a shambles, her economy is in a depression, and her military is in a technological stupor. It would be like getting into the ring with a blind Mohammed Ali whose hands are tied behind his back. Sooner or later he will go down. America is not well liked by nations I have visited.
According to some very worried senators and economic heads, Y2K will mean a fairly severe depression, the likes of which this country has not known since 1929. We will, if Washington's vision is true, be involved in a major conflict on our own soil (there may even be nuclear strikes), be very nearly defeated but with the strength and power of God, rout the enemy from the land and in the process clear away a good deal of deadwood and debris from a backslidden, compromised nation, both naturally and spiritually.
In all of this, let it be known that even though carnal men continue to fight carnal wars with carnal weapons, the battle shall be won in the heavenlies and not on the battlefield with bullets. Neither our warfare nor our weapons are carnal, but they are mighty through God! The Waldenses, who were persecuted unto death for 1,000 years, were repeatedly and mercilessly assaulted by Roman Catholic armies. In every instance, the men went not to their weapons but to their knees. The battle was first fought and won there in the heavenlies before ever engaged in on earth. Preston Eby has recently written an excellent article on the absurdity of a son of God engaged in carnal warfare. You should read it. His address is: P O Box 371240, El Paso, TX, 79937.
It seems to me that at this time when there is such a great expectation that God is about to bring His Son into manifestation in His sons, it is much as Jane Leade has said it would be in the book, A Good Report From a Heavenly Spy. "This shall be the standing up of the great prince Michael and will be as the appearance of Moses against Pharaoh, in order that the chosen seed may be brought out of hard servitude. Egypt doth figure this servile creation under which Abraham's seed groans, but a prophet and the most prophetical generation will the Most High raise up who shall deliver His people by the force of spiritual arms."
It requires spiritual arms to gain a spiritual victory. The fact is, the victory has already been won; there is need now to enforce that victory from the only place it can be enforced--from the throne of God and His Christ!
I was sharing some of this information with one of my sons and his wife recently and I could see that the magnitude of this thing was so great that it just couldn't seem to sink in. Indeed, one of the problems has been that the automatic response is, "Oh, they'll fix it.", or "Don't worry, Bill Gates will fix it." But the "experts" say that it simply cannot be fixed. In fact, let me say here that what is written about Y2K in this article is based almost entirely on the testimony of worried, concerned experts and congressmen--some of the same kind of people who created this fiasco in the first place, so admittedly, their wisdom is a bit open to question. We won't really know for certain if what they are saying is true as to scope and intensity until Y2K. But our trust is not in men, thank God, but in the living God of the ages and of Y2K. He is possessor of heaven and earth! But if things turn out to be really bad, this nation will know beyond a rational doubt that it has been taken to the divine woodshed. And though no chastening for the moment seems pleasant, yet afterward. . . ! Afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and to this agree the words of Washington's vision.
It is no accident that this chaotic event is coming when it does. That is, the year 2,000, the fortieth jubilee. 40 x 50 =2,000! Or, the 120th (120 is the number representing "the end of all flesh.") jubilee since Adam fell. 120 X 50 = 6,000! There is little doubt or argument that America has earned any chastening it may suffer. We have arrived at the very best that man has been able to produce. Y2K is the very crowning glory to the best efforts the carnal mind has been able to produce.
Man has been given more free reign than most of us would ever have thought God would grant, and the result has been the greatest, clearest and most undeniable man-caused devastation ever known in man's entire history! God has literally ensnared the wise with their own wisdom. The thing wherein they gloried has been their shame. But don't expect to see repentance on the part of man. We read in Revelation the repeated phrase, "And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood" which neither can see nor hear nor walk; Neither repented they of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornication nor of their thefts" --Revelation 9:20,21.
If it is God's intention to thus remove from the earth the rebellious and those fully set in their hearts to resist God, then He only does it that He might yet be more merciful by bringing them ultimately and finally to the inevitable place of brokenness and yieldedness . . . and peace.
But as all these measures are being meted out to those who oppose themselves, who for so long have, as it were, shaken an arrogant fist in the face of a long-suffering, compassionate Creator full of tender mercies, God will have His Moses and Aaron on hand to bring a much needed and long awaited deliverance. The time may have finally arrived, as it always does, when those who have so stoutly and resolutely resisted God, must at last learn that the longsuffering of God is not an unwillingness to execute judgment. And let us understand that it is with a merciful God that they have to do; One Who is not willing to simply leave them in such a contemptible and loathsome state, and that for those who are His own, the same things produce in them an even greater purity and cleansing.
Hear the prophetic voice from another time, long before such things as we are presently faced with could even have been imagined. "Dispensationally the fulfillment here concerns us much. We saw how in this view the saved butler prefigured Gentile Christendom. Here we see how this liberated people, whose eyes were opened to behold the Vine, even while ministering it to the world, unfaithfully keeps to itself the secret of what the true Joseph has done for it. But a time comes, in the providence of God, when the rulers of this world, represented in Pharaoh, begin to be sorely troubled. Visions haunt rulers, of weak things destroying strong, of hungry creatures eating up the fat and flourishing. The oxen strong to labor are seen to be consumed: and, what is worse, the thin and hungry ones are none the fatter for it. The seven good ears, of which it is twice noticed that "they came up upon one stalk," are devoured by the poor and weak, in whom is seen no bond of union. The strong and good, having union among themselves, are destroyed by those who are alike in misery, but have no bond of fellowship.
"Surely it is an awful dream, which the world's rulers are beginning to see, and not without perplexity. What does it portend? Such is the question this day with some to whom the butler has given the cup, but who do not know Joseph. It portends a trouble, which the world unaided cannot meet; one for which the learning and counsels of Egypt will find no remedy. For God Himself shall bring all Egypt to such self-despair as will render the need of His Elect Servant's presence and help plain to all. Sooner or later, in spite of all its boastings, the world will discover that it needs Christ; that neither its present rulers nor magicians can solve their own riddle. Sooner or later they must confess their own weakness and admit that a power not in them,--the government of Christ and His Spirit,--alone can save the world.
"Blessed be God, the day is at hand, when the Despised One shall rule: the night has been dark, but the light of day cannot be far off. When the night is darkest, the morning is at hand; and the child is born, when the travail pains are sharpest. The world has long travailed and been in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the Son of God (in His sons, LH), and the redemption of the body. His day shall surely come. Then, while earth bows itself, shall His Virgin Bride be given to Him." End of Quote by Andrew Jukes, Types in Genesis.
It is against such a backdrop of utter futility and hopeless despair among the leaders of the world that God chooses to unveil the thus far hidden but crowning work of His hands, and we see the manifestation of the sons of God for which the whole creation has so long groaned and now does so in even more earnest. We are clearly told that when ye see these things begin to come to pass, we are to look up, for it is all nothing but the sign that our redemption draws nigh!
There remains roughly 14 months before the other boot drops and we know for sure what Y2K holds. It's a bit "as it was in the days of Noah," when he preached that a flood was coming, the date was fixed (120 years) and there was nothing that could be done to avoid it. He preached and prepared an ark into which only eight souls entered and were safe. We at least have enough forewarning given out of pure mercy to help some to enter the true Ark of safety before the time comes. For there finally came a day when God shut the door and the waiting period was over.
I hesitated to share the things written here because I did not wish being guilty of causing undue alarm, but I came to the conclusion that it is not undue. Those on our mailing list are mature enough to know and understand that their hiding place is the Lord Himself. Also, "But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand" --Ezekiel 33:6. Let us not forget the promise of the Lord Himself, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations . . . and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age" --Matthew 28:19,20.
My own personal feelings concerning Y2K is that it will be in scattered pockets; worse in some areas than in others. Some have advocated storing up food in order to be a witness and a help to the lost. I believe we need to hear individually from the Lord for ourselves. He will evidently deal with us in a very personalized way, as usual. It is not a time to panic or to become frightened. It is the Sunday morning we have long awaited with all its attending implications and glory.
END OF MESSAGE