Global Inequality
Signposts are all around us of Christ’s soon return. Today, I’d like to share a few signposts with you.
Everywhere you look, there are headlines about higher prices, and as a result the consumer is being squeezed. Any shopper who has visited a supermarket recently can testify to this.
The Consumer Index reports that fruit and vegetables, poultry, fish, eggs, and even baby diapers, have all risen in prices in the last few months. Have you noticed the spike at the pump? Gas now costs an arm and a leg!
As if that was not bad enough, the supply chain is being interrupted. Shortages are popping up across the supply chain as the pandemic creates havoc with shipping, demand, supply, and all the other levers of the global economy.
Here are a few commodities that are in short supply
Chicken…Yes, even chicken. The Wall Street Journal reports that major fast food chains are, paying steep prices for chicken and suppliers are having trouble keeping up with the demand.
In addition, summer is here, but anyone looking forward to a refreshing dip in the pool to cool off may be in for a big shock. A chlorine shortage threatens to put a halt to your swimming.
And then there is the gas shortage. Millions of people who have been stuck at home for more than a year are expected to hit the road for much-needed post-pandemic vacations this summer. But at times gas is hard to find, and the prices have risen considerably.
Update:
Florida, Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina declare states of emergency over gas shortages as people panic buy.
Friend, we are in for a rough road ahead.
But while the poor is getting poorer, the rich is getting richer…by far.
While the rest of us face this debilitating pandemic, the wealthy are boarding private jets and heading for the velvet hills with champagne glasses in hand.They jet off to exotic destinations like the Maal-deevz, Morocco, Angullia, or St. Barts in the Caribbean.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon, is building a super yacht so big, it needs its another yacht attached with a helicopter pad to help support the entire monster.
Elon Musk owns not one but two private jets, this of course is in addition to his rocket ship which he’s building to take wealthy tourists to Mars.
In order to jealously guard his privacy Mark Zuckerberg has a penchant for buying up surrounding properties to his homes. He purchased homes in Hawaii, Palo Alto, and San Francisco, California, and also purchased additional properties in each of those neighborhoods in order to ensure his privacy.
Billionaires’ fortunes grew by $3.3 billion a day last year as the poorest half of humanity saw their income fall.
Yes indeed, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer in these times before Christ return.
The intense passion for money getting, the thirst for display, the luxury and extravagance–all are forces that, with the great mass of mankind, are turning the mind from life’s true purpose.
They are opening the door to a thousand evils. Many, absorbed in their interest in worldly treasures, become insensible to the claims of God and the needs of their fellow men. They regard their wealth as a means of glorifying self.
They add house to house and land to land; they fill their homes with luxury, while all about them are human beings in misery and crime, in disease and death. {9T 90.3}
By every species of oppression and extortion, men are piling up colossal fortunes, while the cries of starving humanity are coming up before God.
There are multitudes struggling with poverty, compelled to labor hard for small wages, unable to secure the barest necessities of life. Toil and deprivation, with no hope of better things, make their burden heavy.
When pain and sickness are added, the burden is almost unbearable. Care-worn and oppressed, they know not where to turn for relief. {9T 90.4}
The Scriptures describe the condition of the world just before Christ’s second coming. James the apostle pictures the greed and oppression that will prevail. He says:
“Go to now, ye rich men. . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.”
James 5:1-6. {9T 91.1}
Amen? Amen!
God loves you.