The Third World

The Heathen Rage

Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing?
—Psalm 2:1, NAS

Len Griehs

World population has almost tripled since 1950, growing from 2.5 billion to about 6.5 billion today. Even if the slowdown in growth that began in 1990 continues, world population will exceed nine billion people by 2050.

A study by McKinsey Consultants suggests that over the next twenty years, 94 percent of that growth in population will occur in countries with emerging economic markets. Countries with advanced economies will account for only about one percent of the increase in population.

Among the largest of these emerging markets are China and India. With a combined population of 2.4 billion people, they account for almost forty percent of the world’s population. More people live in China than in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa combined. Adding those who live in east and south Asian developing countries, we can account for over half of humanity. If these demographic projections are correct, India will have more people than China within the next thirty years. Certainly Asia will become the world’s demographic power, if not the world’s economic power.

At the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers argued that our world is in the midst of a transformation as profound as the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. He said that today’s transformation is being driven by technological change in communications as well as the entry of billions of Asians into the world economy.

Communication technologies have always played a key role in human history. Consider the impact of writing, printing, the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. Today the Internet is reducing the marginal cost of collecting, storing, accessing, and transmitting information to almost zero. More than one billion people have access to the Internet and more than one and a half billion can access information through cell phones.

This acceleration in the speed of communication accompanied by the decline in the cost of transporting information around the globe has resulted in a four-fold increase in the number of workers available to the world economy. The untapped potential is even bigger than anything that has happened to date. We are globalizing the economy as we enter the Information Age.

The End of the Industrial Age

The Industrial Age began in the 1700s in England with the invention of the steam engine. Within two hundred years England’s workforce committed to agriculture had dropped from 75% to less than 10%. By the 1920s, manufacturing had replaced agriculture as the world’s leading industry.{FOOTNOTE: Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press: New York, 1974.} Before World War I, cross-border trade and investment as a share of economic output reached an all-time high—even higher than today. British East India, the first corporation, was formed at that time to promote international trade. Arguably the two World Wars were merely disruptions in the world’s transformation to globalization that began with the Industrial Revolution.

By 1950 75% of the available labor pool was engaged in some type of manufacturing. Then with the advent of the technology industry the importance of manufacturing began to decline. Within ten years, only 50% of the world’s labor pool was engaged in manufacturing. By 2000 this had declined to 16%.{FOOTNOTE: Raj Aggarwal, Firestone Chair and Professor of Finance, Kent State University in Globalization and Outsourcing.}

Data regarding spending on capital equipment, published by Global Insight, an organization that collects information from 120 industries in over two hundred countries, shows this decline in the importance of manufacturing. Beginning in 1991, the annual global spending on computing and communications exceeded spending on all other capital equipment.

Thomas Friedman, in The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, suggests a three-stage transformation that occurs during globalization. The first stage occurs as countries develop and control services and information; the second stage is a shift from country-based to company-based control; the third stage is a shift from company-based to connections/people-based control. At the third stage nation states are irrelevant in the conduct of commerce or the accumulation of wealth.

With the rise of the Internet and technology, distance is no longer a barrier to participation in the pursuit of economic wealth. This has resulted in an Information Revolution akin to the Industrial Revolution. It has transformed external and internal business relationships. It is driven by technology rather than transportation, and has accompanied, if not caused, a decline in socialism around the world as people rush to participate. No better example exists today than that of China and India, two countries with emerging population growth.

It has taken almost one hundred years to restore the cross-border trading and investment as a share of economic output to the same levels as in 1905. With the fundamental forces in operation, the only thing that could slow or reverse it is another World War.

“Chindia”

Today China is the second largest and India is the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power. The Chinese economy is growing and expanding its ties with the rest of Asia. While development is particularly strong along the coast, poverty remains throughout the interior regions. This has caused instability in China’s social system and could result in major political change. China remains a reforming communist country with little regard for World Trade Organization rules.

Manufacturing has been rapidly moving to China, resulting in a great negative impact on other countries such as the United States. Manufacturing in China is low-cost, high-quality, and reliable. Chinese companies are becoming increasingly sophisticated and building global brands.

India is quickly closing the gap between itself and China. The value of its goods and services (gross domestic product) is about $630 billion. Services account for one-half of India’s economic activity with the other half equally split between agriculture and manufacturing. India’s real growth in GDP was the highest in the world in 2003, and remains among the fastest growing economies in the world.

As in China, a wealthy class is emerging in India. This upper class is estimated at about 50 million; a middle class is estimated at 250 million; a poor class is estimated at 400 million and a class in severe poverty of some 350 million. Unlike China, India is a democracy with a free press, a strong and independent judiciary, and an advanced educational system.

India is becoming the high-quality “back office” of the world, with more CMM level 5 certifications than any other country¹.

The types of work being outsourced to India include software services, customer relations, finance and accounting services, medical tourism, engineering and design, and research. U.S. companies have no difficulty servicing customers 24 hours a day using Indian companies.

In both India and China these four forces—population shifts, technology, globalization, and outsourcing—are transformational. They are making these emerging nations into world powers as nothing has done before. The result is a change in the religious, social, and economic world for the remainder of this Gospel age.

Failure of Christianity in China and India

End-time prophecy speaks of God gathering the nations to pour out the “fire” of his indignation. Of course that “fire” need not be literal. God will give everyone, including those who have not known him, the pure language of his truth: “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people [who felt his wrath] a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent [shoulder to shoulder]” (Zephaniah 3:8,9).

When nineteenth-century missionaries from Christian nations were sent to China, raiders used both Protestantism and Catholicism to aggressively strip the country of its resources, and most Christian churches went underground. When Communism took hold and The People’s Republic of China emerged, Christian churches became even more reclusive. The result was a poor showing for Christianity; there are only thirty million Christians (3% of the population) in China today.

Christianity entered India at about the same time as it did in Europe. Tradition says the apostle Thomas preached in India, but there is little evidence to support that contention. Most converts heard the message from missionaries who arrived during the fifteenth century European commercial explorations.

The Portuguese were the earliest explorers to arrive. Vasco da Gama commanded the first venture, circling Africa and arriving in 1498. Pope Alexander VI, the secular pope of the Renaissance, had encouraged Portuguese explorers. Alexander was anxious to restore credibility to the church after the Middle Ages and ordered explorers to forcibly baptize converts wherever they went. As a result, da Gama and others fought wars against the local Indian rulers, and forced Roman Catholicism on Syrian Christians who had been worshiping God for centuries.

During the transition of India to British power beginning in 1600, missionaries were not allowed to enter until some two hundred years after British rule began. These missionaries did not force conversion and only a small minority of the population was converted. The result is that India has only 30 million Christians (2½% of its population) spread throughout Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Manipur, and Mizoram, with a large community in Mumbai. When ruling parties changed in 2004, more tolerance was granted to minority religions such as Christianity, but the U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom still cites much religious intolerance there, including frequent attacks on Christian minorities.

As in the past changes are likely to occur in world politics as economic power shifts from the “Christian” west to non-Christian nations. The countries wielding demographic power and dominating the global economy will not be driven by even the appearance of Christian values. Perhaps the biggest change will occur in the small nation of Israel. Today Israel is supported by evangelical Christians from western nations who wield a dominant role in world politics. Soon power will shift to the east. The influence of Israel’s current supporters will wane and be superseded by those with little regard for either Christ or Judaism.

Jacob’s Trouble

“Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say: Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn thee about, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed most gorgeously, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them handling swords: Persia, Cush, and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his bands; even many peoples with thee.”—Ezekiel 38:2-6, Jewish Publication Society (1917 translation).

No scriptural passage describing the last great battle preceding the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth is as descriptive and informative as that found in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Here, the final overthrow of earth’s current order is pictured in the invasion of a restored holy nation by Gog (of/and) Magog.

Written in about 600 B.C., these two chapters detail the historic invasion of the Middle East by the Scythians from the north during the reign of Josiah. Ezekiel compares it to the battle that will be fought against Israel at the end of this present evil age. The difficulty is that many of the nations contained in his record no longer exist. Without attempting to identify all these nations, one important fact stands out: None of the invaders Ezekiel names are plaguing Israel today. Many of them were those farthest from Israel in Ezekiel’s day. Prophetically this suggests that the fulfillment will come after the current issue of land rights has been settled and Israel is no longer warring with its Arab neighbors. The battle is waged by the world outside the Middle East coming against a fairly peaceful and holy nation restored under the headship of God.

Gog and Magog

“Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” Some translations render “chief” in verse 2 as the proper name “Rosh … prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.” Supporters of this translation thus connect it with Russia. A popular evangelical idea suggests Russian leaders directing forces from the United Nations against Israel. Newer translations, including the Jewish Tanakh, render the Hebrew as “chief prince” because the term ROSH appears 456 times within the Old Testament and never as a proper noun. Example: the “first” or “chief” day of the Jewish calendar is called ROSH HASHANAH.

So is identifying Gog and Magog with Russia incorrect? Perhaps not. But perhaps it should include China as well. Modern Russia began in the ninth century with the entry of the Rus, a tribe of Vikings, into what is now northwestern Russia. According to the medieval Primary Russian Chronicle, a certain Viking prince named Rurik was hired by the Slavs to bring order to their country. By the tenth century the group had developed a flourishing state known as Rus. This area included parts of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Of course no such nation existed at the time Ezekiel wrote his prophecy.

One of the earliest references to Magog is found in the writings of Hesiod, “the father of Greek didactic poetry.” He identified Magog as the Scythians in southern Russia during the seventh century B.C. Hesiod was a contemporary of Ezekiel.

Some two hundred years later, Herodotus of Harlicarnassus, known as the “Father of History,” wrote extensively about the Scythians. He described their reign of terror in southern Russia from the tenth to the third century B.C.

Another well-known source is Josephus Flavius, who records that the Magogians were called “Scythians” by the Greeks. “Magog founded the Magogians, thus named after him, but who were by the Greeks called Scythians. But even the Scythians, who delight in murdering people and are little better than wild beasts, nevertheless think it their duty to uphold their national customs.” (Josephus, Antiquities 1:6:2).

The Great Wall of China, in an eighth century reference, was called Sud Yagog et Magog (The Rampart of Gog and Magog). Marco Polo, Venetian traveler to the Orient in the thirteenth century A.D., seemed to hold to the idea that the Mongolian people were part of Magog. He further listed the names of “Gog and Magog” as “Ung and Mungu” in China (Polo Travels:87)

The term Mongol may be derived from the term Magog. In India, for example, Mongol becomes Moghul and a large part of China was known as Mangi when the Europeans first visited it. The word Mongolian is one that is frequently used to denote the whole population of inner and northern Asia.

How does this fit with Ezekiel’s prophecy? The land and people today occupying “the land of Magog” are likely those who migrated via southern Russia to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, central and some of northern and southern China. Today these are the Chinese people.

An Economic Battle

Ezekiel 38:10-13 (CEV) states why Gog and Magog have an interest in the regathered nation of Israel: “When that day comes, I know that you will have an evil plan to take advantage of Israel, that weak and peaceful country where people live safely inside towns that have no walls or gates or locks. You will rob the people in towns that were once a pile of rubble. These people lived as prisoners in foreign nations, but they have returned to Israel, the most important place in the world, and they own livestock and property. The people of Sheba and Dedan, along with merchants from villages in southern Spain, will be your allies. They will want some of the silver and gold, as well as the livestock and property that your army takes from Israel.”

In Ezekiel’s day, silver, gold, livestock, and property represented multiple sources of economic wealth. The Hebrew can mean anything that is acquired or achieved, either physical or intellectual.

Alvin Toffler has been one of the world’s most influential futurists since the publication of his 1970 landmark book Future Shock. He anticipated, long in advance, today’s computer revolution, as well as cyber-warfare, cloning, the fragmentation of the family, cable television, satellites, customized products, the speed-up of daily life, niche markets and the rise of the “knowledge economy.” Military strategists from Washington and Paris to Beijing and Moscow have studied his and his wife’s recent book, War and Anti-War. Some of the ideas expressed in the book are worth considering when discussing how things may transpire as Ezekiel’s prophecy begins to be fulfilled.

“Can the world make a peaceful transition into what we’ve called a ‘Third Wave civilization’—a knowledge-based economy and society? Unfortunately, the world cannot undergo so profound and accelerated a transformation without conflict. … If you haven’t factored conflict into your forecast, it’s likely to be wrong. Conflict, of course, doesn’t have to be violent. It may just take the form of corporate politics. … It may be social, religious, or cultural conflict in a community or country. But whatever form it takes, no significant change can occur without it. When you add the speed of change we’re now experiencing to all the changes in technology, economics, family life, demography, ecology—and you put all these together, you have a recipe for conflict—and escalation. When the industrial revolution began in England it triggered fifty years of political conflict with the ‘landed gentry,’ the agrarian elite trying to maintain its economic and political power against a rising group of commercial and industrial interests.”—“Looking at the Future with Alvin Toffler,” a series of four columns in USAToday.com, February 2000.

Could it be that Israel gains some proprietary and envied technological or intellectual advantage that the then well-established powerhouses in Asia find attractive and that this triggers a war? Economic pressures are used today throughout the world to bring nations to their knees and force them to conform to desired rules and regulations. Perhaps this is the key to understanding how Israel might become isolated. In his 1942 (revised 1968) exposition, Jacob’s Trouble, the late A. O. Hudson described a scenario that seems an eerie predictor of today’s environment:

“Most wars of conquest in history were waged with an economic motive, to gain possession of natural advantages or sources of raw materials or the control of trade routes. … The great commercial powers of the world, trained to think only of acquisition and profit, but necessarily having to consider effects upon the human populations involved, who are both their customers and their sources of labour, have other weapons in their armoury which are employed to the full before resource is had to naked force. Terms such as economic sanctions, withholding of credit, tariff barriers, cold war, had no meaning to the Scythian marauders of Ezekiel’s time but they do have a meaning today. Perhaps the first sign that Gog’s army, drawn from all the world, has begun its march to the place where it is to meet its end might well be the launching of a planned and unprecedented economic aggression aimed at cutting off the Servant Nation’s links with the remainder of the world and forcing it to agree to its enemies’ terms. A stranglehold upon the trade and production of the Holy Land might be tightened over, perhaps, a period of years.”

It is significant that the list of enemies of Israel appearing in Ezekiel 38 contains none of the Semitic race. By comparing them to the Table of Nations listed in Genesis 10, one can see that the nations of Ezekiel 38 that descend from the North originate from Japheth and those from the South are from Ham. Could China and India be part of Gog and Magog? The peoples of both countries trace their ancestry to Japheth. Both are rising powers that will soon dominate world economics. It could well be that Russia and modern China will emerge from the land of Magog and lead the nations against Israel in Ezekiel’s final battle.

If so, the current rise of the eastern countries is surely evidence that God’s plan is swiftly moving ahead. We can be assured from the prophecy that God will bring these spoiling nations to their knees: “He gathered them together in a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

1. Developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, CMM (Capability Maturity Model) is a set of rigorous standards for software development based on five levels. Of some seventy companies worldwide that have publicly acknowledged reaching the highest rating of Level 5, about fifty are in India, according to the SEI and Gartner Inc.

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