The Mystery of the Shemitah (17 page)

9/11 and the Ancient Mystery

The link between 9/11 and Elul 29 raises an inescapable point: Had the events of 9/11 not happened, there would have been no collapse of the stock market. And if the attack had not happened at the time it happened, then the stock market would not have collapsed at the time it did. And if the stock market hadn’t collapsed at the time it did, there would have been no great financial collapse in the Year of the Shemitah. Nor would there have been any transformation of the financial realm. Nor would there have been a connection between Wall Street and Tishri. Nor would the mass nullification of the nation’s financial accounts have taken place on the exact day appointed from ancient times for the wiping away of a nation’s financial accounts. It could have taken place in a more precise way. Without the calamity of 9/11 happening when it did, the ancient mystery of the Shemitah could not have been fulfilled as it was fulfilled on the exact day at “the end of seven years”—Elul 29.

What this means is that even the timing of 9/11 had to be part of the ancient mystery of the Shemitah. If that sounds like a radical proposition, remember 586 BC when the armies of Babylon brought destruction to the land of Israel. And yet the secret of its timing was tied to the mystery of the Shemitah—so too with what took place in September 2001, the timing was tied to the ancient mystery.

The Global Mystery

What does it reveal? It reveals that the mystery of the Shemitah touches every realm of life, involves the entire world, and alters the course of history. It is not of natural origin or explanation—but supernatural. In view of this, let’s look again at the description of the Shemitah in its greatest and most far-reaching manifestation:

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  It operates on an epic and global scale, transcending national borders and involving every realm of life.

•
  It involves the political realm, the cultural realm, the sociological realm, the military realm, and even the natural realm.

•
  Though it directly impacts the financial and economic realms, its outworking can be triggered and accompanied by events of entirely different realms.

•
  It can manifest in the form of a cataclysmic event.

•
  It can wipe away not only financial accounts but also physical realities, buildings, walls, towers, and cities.

•
  It can alter the landscape of nations and powers.

The Shemitah’s manifestation in September 2001 was astonishingly precise, stunning, and world-changing. But it would be followed by yet another manifestation of the ancient mystery, equally precise, equally stunning, and equally world-changing.

Chapter 14
The SHEMITAH and the GREAT RECESSION

The Second Shaking

T
HE MYSTERY OF
The Harbinger
reveals an ancient template of national judgment now replaying in modern America. This template reveals a specific progression from the moment of the nation’s first shaking in the form of an enemy strike, to the day of its destruction. Two of the keys involved in this progression are these:

1.  If the nation rejects the first shaking and warning it of judgment, there will come another, and another, until the nation either returns to God or descends into the full end of judgment.

2.  “The Isaiah 9:10 Effect”—The attempt of a nation to defy the course of its judgment, apart from repentance, will, instead, set in motion a chain of events to bring about the very calamity it sought to avert.
¹

In the days after 9/11 Americans flocked to houses of worship to implore God’s blessing on the nation. Some thought it could be the beginning of national revival, a massive return to God. But it lasted about three weeks. There was no revival. There was no repentance. And without repentance there could be no revival. In the years after 9/11 America’s moral and spiritual apostasy only increased in intensity, depth, and speed.

The Seeds of Collapse

In the wake of 9/11 America attempted, as did ancient Israel, to defy the calamity, to beat back its effects, to rebuild, and to come back stronger than before. The first act of this attempt took place in the financial realm. In an effort to avoid economic catastrophe and induce recovery, the Federal Reserve began a progressive series of extreme slashings of the nation’s target interest rate. This would set off a chain reaction of financial and economic repercussions that would alter the American and global economies. It would help create or spur on an explosion of credit and debt, a mortgage market boom, a housing market boom, and a stock market boom.

But the ancient principle, the Isaiah 9:10 Effect, was set in motion. The nation’s attempt to defy one calamity would end up bringing about the next. It would all lead to the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression.

When did it begin? It happened on September 17, 2001, with the first of the series of post-9/11 slashings of the nation’s interest rates.
That day was Elul 29, the Day of the Shemitah.
Thus one Shemitah would set the stage for the next, and the seeds sown in one collapse would bring about the next.

Firstfruits

Since reaching bottom in the autumn of 2002, the stock market had been on a continuous and massive rise. But in 2007 a new Shemitah was nearing its start, and the ancient mystery was about to once more manifest. As its opening day drew near, there appeared more and more signs of economic danger. The rate of housing foreclosures and loan failures increased dramatically. Those institutions backing up the failed loans and mortgages found themselves in crisis. With the Shemitah’s commencement just one month away, a liquidity crisis broke out in the banking industry on August 9, which some would point to as the beginning of the global crisis to come.

The first concrete sign and foreshadowing of what would soon engulf the American and global financial markets took place in Britain and yet was triggered by what was happening in America. In early September 2007 Britain’s fifth-largest mortgage lender, Northern Rock, collapsed. It was the first bank run in British history in nearly one hundred fifty years. The collapse of Northern Rock has been called a “harbinger” of the global financial collapse. Indeed, many timelines of the global implosion begin with this day.

When did this first collapse take place? It happened on September 13, 2007. On the biblical calendar it was Tishri 1—the first day of the Shemitah.

What about the stock market? Was there any sign in the financial realm that the Shemitah had come? The stock market had been steadily rising for years. The Shemitah began in September 2007. On October 10 the stock market reversed its momentum and began to collapse. Not long after that, the economy fell into a recession.

The Start of the Shemitah and the Collapse of 2007

The Deepening Storm

As the Year of the Shemitah progressed, so did the stock market’s collapse. In the spring of 2008 Bear Stearns, one of the most prominent global investment firms, collapsed. The signs of the Shemitah began multiplying and production decreased, as did commerce, labor, and trade. As the Shemitah progressed to its climactic end with the approach of autumn, so too the global financial crisis began rapidly escalating.

In early September the two corporations that either owned or backed half of the American mortgage market collapsed and were seized by the government in one of the most dramatic interventions since the Great Depression. With the Shemitah now two weeks away from its conclusion, the fourth-largest investment bank in America, Lehman Brothers, began to collapse. Its fall would trigger a global financial and economic implosion unseen since the days of the Great Depression.

The Seven-Year Cycle of Shakings

•
  The first shaking of America involved a physical destruction and collapse. The second shaking would involve destruction and collapse in the financial and economic realms.

•
  The mystery of the Shemitah is based on a cycle of seven years.

•
  The first shaking of America, the attack of 9/11, took place in the year 2001. The second shaking, the financial collapse, took place in 2008—a cycle of seven years.

•
  The financial collapse would happen in September 2008—a cycle of seven years to the
month
of 9/11.

•
  The collapse begins the second week of September—a cycle of seven years to the
week
of 9/11.

•
  It is as America commemorates the
seventh year
anniversary of 9/11 that the second shaking, financial implosion, is being set in motion on Wall Street.

Elul 29, 2008—the Day of Nullification

The global financial collapse reached its peak on September 29, 2008. That morning the opening bell was struck to begin the trading day at the New York Stock Exchange—but the bell refused to ring. Observers took it as an omen. What followed the “omen” would surpass even the crash of 2001. It surpassed
every crash
in Wall Street history in magnitude. It was the greatest stock market point crash in American history. On that day the ancient mystery had again manifested.

•
  The greatest crash in world history took place in the Year of the Shemitah, 2008.

•
  It happened in September 2008, the time of the Shemitah’s climactic end.

•
  It was connected to the biblical month of Tishri, the month of financial repercussions. The crash was sealed with the sound of ram’s horns that evening as the Feast of Trumpets began.

•
  The crash constituted a mass nullification in the financial realm “at the end of the seventh year,” the very time ordained in the Bible for the mass nullification of the financial realm.

And yet the mystery would become even more stunningly exact. When did this greatest of all stock market crashes take place?
The greatest crash in stock market history took place on Elul 29, the Day of the Shemitah—the Day of Nullification!

The greatest financial collapse in American and world history took place on the very day given in the Bible to wipe away the financial accounts of a nation. The collapse not only fell on Elul 29, but on the one Elul 29 that comes around only once in seven years, the one twenty-four-hour period in seven years appointed for the mass nullification in a nation’s financial realm.

It just happened to occur on the exact appointed day and down to the exact appointed hours in which the cancellation of financial accounts had to be accomplished. It was finished by late afternoon, before sunset, the time by which the nullification had to be completed.

2008: Elul 29—Biblical Day of Financial Collapse