The Mystery of the Shemitah (25 page)

The American Empire

Emerging from the ruins of the Second World War, America stood at a high pinnacle of world history. It was the greatest financial power, the greatest industrial power, the greatest commercial power, the greatest political power, the greatest military power, the greatest economic power, and the greatest cultural power on earth. The world’s financial order, economic order, and political order were now led or driven by the American superpower. Its economy drove the world economy, its industry filled the world’s markets, its culture filled the world’s consciousness, and its military stood watch over the world’s nations.

Some called it the “American Empire”; others, the “American Century”; and others, the “Pax Americana.” Its rise had begun with the Shemitah of one world war and had now been sealed in the Shemitah of another. And it was just then, in the same year that had birthed the American superpower, that the idea of a World Trade Center was born.

But the Shemitah has two edges. To a nation that by and large upholds the ways of God, it comes as a blessing. But to a nation that has once known the ways of God but now rejects and defies them, the Shemitah comes not as a blessing but a judgment—and brings not a rising but a fall.

What happens if, from the pinnacle of 1945, we move forward the same span of time, another twenty-eight years, to the fourth Shemitah? Where will it bring us?

Chapter 22
The FALLING

The Fall

M
OVING FORWARD THE
same length of time as before, four periods of Shemitahs, twenty-eight years from America’s zenith of power in 1945, we are brought to the year 1973. It is, of course, another Shemitah year. Unlike the first two cases, it wasn’t marked by a world war. But was it significant? Very much so.

In the midst of its blessing, ancient Israel had begun driving God out of its government, out of its public squares, out of its culture, out of the instruction of its children. America had done likewise—beginning in the early 1960s as America banned prayer and the reading of Scripture from its public schools. The rulings were symptomatic of a larger removal of God from American culture. What followed was a decade of tumult and chaos. The nation was moving—slowly at first, and then with increasing speed—away from God and the ways of God.

The Blood of the Innocent

But 1973 would be a watershed in America’s spiritual and moral descent. It was at the beginning of that year that the nation’s highest court legalized the killing of unborn children. In the case of ancient Israel it was the killing of the nation’s most innocent, its little children, that would ultimately lead to national judgment and destruction:

And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols. . . . So they left all the commandments of the LORD their God. . . . And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire . . .

—2 K
INGS
17:15–17

If the comparison seems severe, we must consider this: Israel killed thousands of its children; America has killed millions. At the time of this writing, the number of unborn children killed is estimated at over fifty million. If this was a cause for judgment concerning ancient Israel, a nation that had once known the ways of God but had now turned against them, then how could it be any less a cause for judgment concerning America, a nation that had likewise once known the ways of God but had now turned against them?

The Long Decline

The Shemitah had begun in September 1972 and would continue until September 1973. The Supreme Court decision was issued in the midst of the Shemitah on January 22, 1973. The Shemitah can be linked to a nation’s rise—or to its fall. The last two Shemitahs of this cycle—that of 1917 and 1945—were turning points concerning America’s rising. But the Shemitah of 1973 was a turning point concerning its fall. It was the year America ruled it legal to kill its unborn children.

Only eleven days before that decision the stock market had reached its peak. In that same month it would change momentum and begin a long decline that would last into the autumn of 1974, having 48 percent of its worth wiped away. The collapse would then combine with a severe and crippling economic recession. It is worthy of note that the connection between the Year of the Shemitah and the collapses in America’s financial and economic realms appears to grow more intense and consistent in the cycles immediately following the critical year of 1973 than in those preceding it.

The Collapse of Bretton Woods

The Bretton Woods system, established at the end of World War II in 1945, was based on tying the world’s major currencies to the US dollar and the US dollar being tied to the gold standard. But by the 1960s America did not have enough gold to back up its dollars. The dollar had weakened. In August 1971 President Nixon removed the US dollar from the gold standard. And in the spring of 1973 the bonds tying the world’s currencies to the dollar were irrevocably severed. Bretton Woods, which, at the end of the Second World War, had epitomized America’s hegemony over the world’s financial and economic order, had collapsed.

Bretton Woods was joined to the Shemitah in its beginning. So it would be joined to the Shemitah in its end. Again, the Shemitah had brought about a collapse. And again, it had touched the world’s economic and financial realms.

“Before Your Enemies”

As America turned from God, over the long term its position relative to the rest of the world continued to deteriorate. The Bible cites several signs of God’s favor on a nation. One of these is economic prosperity. Another is military power and victory. At the end of the Second World War America stood at the pinnacle of both economic and military power. But now its “almighty dollar” was weakening, and a series of crises was causing a deterioration in its economic power. What about its military power?

As the nation began driving God out of its life in the 1960s, its military fortunes began to change. The change had a name: Vietnam. For the first time in over a century and a half—some would say for the first time
ever
—America had lost a war. What year did America lose its first war in modern times? It happened in 1973, the Year of the Shemitah. America’s greatest military victory had taken place in the Year of the Shemitah. So too now did its most traumatic military defeat.

Four Shemitahs, twenty-eight years, earlier America had won the Second World War, its greatest military victory. That day was August 15, 1945. So America’s first military defeat in modern history took place on the anniversary of its greatest military victory—a sign concerning the removal of God’s blessing—and yet another manifestation of collapse in the Year of the Shemitah.

The Cycles of the Fourth Shemitah

Behind the rising and falling of America is a mystery of Shemitahs. The key turning points of that rise and fall were each connected to the Shemitah year. Each of these turning points took place during the fourth Shemitah from the last turning point—intervals of twenty-eight years.

•
 
The cycle of superpower—
America’s rise to world power begins in the Year of the Shemitah 1917 with its entrance into the First World War. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah in the year 1945. In 1945 America’s rise to world superpower is completed.

•
 
The cycle of Bretton Woods
—At its pinnacle of power America becomes the center of a new world financial and economic order, the Bretton Woods system, at the time of the Shemitah 1945. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah in the year 1973—the year that the Bretton Woods system undergoes its final collapse. It begins and ends with the Shemitah.

•
 
The cycle of war—
On April 15, 1945, the empire of Japan surrenders. The Second World War is over. Having won its greatest military victory in history, America stands at the pinnacle of military power. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah, in the year 1973—the year America loses its first war in modern history. The war is over on April 15, twenty-eight years after its greatest victory—to the day.

The Cycle of the Tower

But there was one more connection in the mystery. At America’s apex of global power an idea was born that would parallel that apex. America, the now undisputed center of world trade, would build a World Trade Center. The building would embody the new American-led financial and economic world order. After many delays and obstacles the vision of 1945 would finally become a reality. The year was 1973. It had been conceived in the Shemitah, and in the Shemitah it would be finished. From the conception to the completion was, again, twenty-eight years, and, again, it was the fourth Shemitah.

The Testament and the Fall

What happened in America in 1973 was as critical as that which happened in 1917 and 1945. The ramifications of a nation, founded and blessed by God, so dramatically turning against the Word of God in making legal the killing of its unborn children, are immense. For a similar sin of violence against its children, an ancient nation was brought into judgment and destroyed.

It was the same year in which America legalized the killing of its unborn that the nation would suffer its first military defeat in modern history. That same year would begin a long-term financial collapse that would combine with one of the most severe economic recessions in its history. And that same year the global economic order that had been founded with America as its pillar suffered its final collapse.

And then there were the towers, conceived in America’s crowning moment, to stand as monuments of the nation’s new global supremacy. But they did not stand at the time of America’s pinnacle but twenty-eight years later in 1973, a turning point of a very different nature.

It was the year of the soaring towers that testified of the nation’s ascendancy. But it was also the year that America began legally killing its unborn children. The World Trade Center was a symbol, on one hand, of a nation’s ascending and, on the other, of its moral and spiritual descent. It was a monument to a nation’s glory on one hand and a testament to its sin and shame on the other. It was a memorial of a nation’s fall, marking the year America began killing its most defenseless. The towers would bear witness of two glaringly different realities, each in deep conflict with the other. And the days of their coexistence would be numbered.

The Last Cycle

What happens now if we move forward one last cycle, twenty-eight years, to the fourth Shemitah? Where will it bring us?

It will bring us to 2001—to the Shemitah of 9/11—in which the monument to America’s ascendant glory and unmatched powers would be destroyed. The testament of the American-led world order would be cast down. In 2001 the cycles that had begun in 1945 would come full circle:

•
  The towers had been conceived in the Shemitah of 1945 at America’s apogee. On the fourth Shemitah, twenty-eight years later in 1973, they were completed. For twenty-eight years they stood. On the fourth Shemitah after their completion, in the year 2001, they were destroyed.

•
  In the Shemitah of 1945 America had defeated all of its enemies and emerged from the ruins of other nations victorious and unrivaled in military power. On the fourth Shemitah, twenty-eight years later, it suffered its first military defeat in modern history, on enemy soil, in 1973, on the same date of its apogee. Twenty-eight years after that, on the fourth Shemitah, in 2001, the enemy would come to America, and the nation would suffer destruction on its own soil.