Thoughts on APEC, the Islands of Hawaii, and Our Response as a Church
Peter Goodgame
September 8, 2011
(Listen to this article along with a few heartfelt
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When I first heard of the APEC conference that is coming to Honolulu in November of 2011 there was something in my Spirit that said, “This is important and you need to pay attention and be involved.” I’ve always been a student of history and I enjoy trying to figure out the “Big Picture” questions that the world faces and that the Church is a part of. Inevitably I was drawn into the subject of economics, which is a complicated field of study, but absolutely essential to understand if you want to have a clear view of what has been happening on this planet. My fascination with economics peaked around 2003, before subsiding for a number of years, and then I was led back into it last Summer of 2010 in conjunction with several dreams, and a few prophetic encounters that I will now begin to share.
You see, when I look at global trends and institutions such as APEC, the issue for me has to do with pursuing a Heavenly perspective, and not getting caught up in worldly interpretations. God knows men's hearts and He sees the true motivations and goals behind everything. As God's people He invites us to see things from His perspective. Way back in 1999 I started publishing articles on my website at www.redmoonrising.com. Underneath my banner I was led to put these words, which have always remained there:
The 'Signs of the Times' cannot be understood without first understanding the 'Times.'
In effect I was saying that we can’t truly know what is going on prophetically if we are looking at world events through a lens that is distorted. We live in a society that trains us up with prejudices and preconceptions from the moment we begin to think. This happens in every culture, including American culture, and also in our Church culture. If we are to see the world clearly, from Heaven’s perspective, we have to be willing to let go of these deeply embedded worldly prejudices, which sometimes masquerade as “spiritual truths” in the Church.
Anyway, that slogan remained underneath my front page banner for years before I was given a spiritual confirmation of its meaning. It happened last September in Spokane at the Healing Rooms conference. My wife and I were part of a dinner that we attended with other Healing Rooms directors from around the world. Bill Johnson gave a short message based on a text that I had never heard before, 1 Chronicles 12:32, which reads,
“And of the children of Issachar,
which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel
ought to do;
the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their
commandment.”
Bill Johnson spoke briefly about the role of the “Children of Issachar.” Out of all Israel they were the only tribe that truly understood the “Times” in which they were living, and this perspective gave them the wisdom to know what Israel was supposed to do, and the authority to lead “all their brethren.” Bill Johnson’s point was that we need to be “Sons and Daughters of Issachar.” We need to seek Heaven’s perspective on the Times in which we live, which will lead to a clarity of purpose on what we should do. As Bill preached I was reminded of the slogan on my website, and then as we left the building we all passed by Bill and his wife Beni who prayed a blessing over each of us. It was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had of feeling the tangible anointing of the Holy Spirit impacting my body – it was a Holy Ghost witness to the brief message that he had preached.
We need the “Children of Issachar” to rise up in the Church today. We need a clear vision and we need a clear direction as we go deeper into these end-times!
My background is in end-times prophecy, and I am in agreement with many Bible commentators today who say that the present state of the Church in America today is best described by Jesus in His message to the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22. If we examine this Church we can begin to understand the source from which this Church has been so terribly deceived. Jesus says to them,
“I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew
thee out of my mouth.”
Jesus doesn’t admonish them for lack of effort, but for the fact that their efforts are all in the wrong direction. They are DOING the wrong things… things that cause Jesus to want to vomit them out of His mouth! Their works are disgusting to Jesus which is why He uses such hard language. Now how can this be? Well, perhaps they have fallen under the influence of the false teachers warned about in 2 Peter 2. Peter writes that because of their teachings, “the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” If we apply this to the Laodicean Church we can understand that for Jesus it is better that the Laodicean Church do nothing and be COLD, than to continue in their lukewarm works that bring dishonor to His Name. The warning from Peter continues and he writes that these false teachers will bring covetousness into the Church and “make merchandise” of God’s people. If we look closer at the Laodicean Church we find that it all goes back to covetousness – a desire to possess.
At one time in Jesus’ ministry He was approached by a man who wanted Jesus to help him negotiate his share of the inheritance from his brother. Jesus rebuked him for this and then began to teach, saying, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth NOT in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
This warning from Jesus is completely lost on the Laodicean Church, because their hearts reflect the very OPPOSITE sentiment when they say, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of NOTHING” (Revelation 3:17). Their hearts have been polluted with covetousness and they don’t even know it. Jesus said that those who try to serve God and Mammon end up blinded by darkness, and that is what Jesus says of the Laodicean Church: they are blind. Like the seed sown among thorns the Laodicean Church is caught up in the “deceitfulness of riches” and has become unfruitful (Matthew 13:22).
So what is the answer? What SHOULD the Laodicean Church do? Here is what Jesus says:
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” (Revelation 3:17-19)
Jesus speaks to this Church with righteous anger and profound sadness, and He speaks in a language that it can understand: the language of Commerce. The end-times Laodicean Church is a Consumer Church that believes that everything that it needs can be bought in the market place, at 7-Eleven, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart. It is as if Jesus is saying to them,
“I know how you think and that you believe that commerce is the answer to every problem, well there is a sale on in Heaven right now, and I’m selling pure gold, white robes, and eyesalve for your blind eyes. But only for a limited time! Because if you don’t turn to Me and get a revelation soon, and repent, I will vomit you out of My mouth!”
Elsewhere the New Testament rarely speaks of heavenly gifts as up for sale. In fact, Simon the Sorcerer was rebuked for trying to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit from Peter. So when Jesus uses the language of “I counsel you to buy from me…” we can see that He is going out of His way to communicate with the Laodicean Church in a language that they can understand.
I recently came across a book published last year in 2010 by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, a Yale Divinity graduate who is also a United Church of Christ minister. This book speaks to these issues explicitly and is entitled, Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul. Here is what is written on the inside of the cover:
“What has
become of the Christian Church? Once devoted to forming character and
conscience among its followers, the contemporary church has let the
marketplace take control. Churchgoers demand entertainment, not edification.
Pastors, desperate to grow membership rolls, treat their churches more like
companies and their congregations more like customers. In an effort to cast
a wide net for souls, churches have sacrificed their ability to transform
Americans’ self-serving impulses for the better…
[The author] has witnessed firsthand the Church’s lapse into
consumerism. Where it once shaped desires, the church now merely satisfies
them. Where it once dispensed religious counsel, it now offers up mere
therapy… Thieves in the Temple is an incisive critique of
today’s movement away from true religion, showing how desperately we need a
new religious reformation.”
Okay I’ve proven my point. The American Church is deceived by its great wealth and is burdened by covetousness and a self-absorbed consumer mentality. Leaving the Church aside for the moment I want to turn now to what has been happening to the ENTIRE WORLD right in front of our noses.
We have witnessed the global triumph of Capitalism! We have essentially defeated the evils of atheistic Communism, and Free Enterprise has been enthroned over the nations! Global institutions have been established such as the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization. Their agenda has been to push back the sovereignty of nations and to offer maximum freedom to the global merchants and financiers and their huge piles of capital that shift around the world looking for places to touch down where they can suck up maximum profits. As a result power has trickled out of the hands of democratic governments and has been consolidated into the hands of the financiers that control the credit and money supplies that are the lifeblood of this global system.
In all of the history of the world we have never seen such unfettered greed, such rampant injustice, and such huge inequalities between rich and poor. But this situation has gone largely unnoticed by the American Church. Why? Because we have supported this system! We’ve been deceived by riches and corrupted by greed ourselves, so we lack a perspective to address and diagnose it!
If we were to take a poll of your average American Christian and ask, “What is the greatest enemy to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world today?” I am sure we would get a varied response. Some would say “Radical Islam,” others would say “Socialism” or “Communism,” and others might mention “Liberals” or “The Illuminati.” I believe that none of these threats match the power and wickedness of the great spiritual enemy of the Kingdom of Heaven that is described in Revelation 17-18, known as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” The final words that describe her show how successful her career of deception will be,
“…for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” (Revelation 18:23-24)
This “Queen of Babylon” is a great end-times Jezebel and it is the global merchants who are at the heart of her system. Furthermore, in opposition to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, this woman’s deception penetrates all the nations of the earth. These deceptions even penetrate into the Church itself, which is why a voice from Heaven cries out in Revelation 18:4, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Jesus gave the Great Commission to His disciples saying in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
In Matthew 24:14 Jesus predicted the triumph of the Gospel as a necessary pre-condition to His Second Coming, saying, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
However, Jesus also predicted that when the good seed is sown the devil will come in and sow tares, or weeds, among the wheat. The deceptions of Babylon represent a parallel ideology, an ideology of covetousness, commerce and consumerism, completely given over to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which penetrates “all nations” alongside the spread of the true Gospel. The time is soon coming for a showdown and a separation between the two, because every time a Jezebel appears on the scene to seduce the people of God there is always an Elijah sent to combat her.
This analysis of “Free Market Globalization” probably sounds extremely harsh to the ears of most American Christians. Hasn’t the triumph of free markets also brought with it an amazing amount of freedom and prosperity to the world? Aren’t the negatives far outweighed by the positives? In the long run isn’t it all worth it? Again I think we, as Americans, are incredibly blinded by our own propaganda. But let’s look at it from Heaven’s perspective. Yes it seems that prosperity is increasing and poverty, at least as it is measured in terms of money and available goods, is decreasing. But Jesus said specifically that "quality of life" was never intended to be measured in that way! I think the point that Heaven is trying to make is, yes, the world is producing much more “stuff,” but at what cost? How is our “love of money” and our pursuit of materialism affecting our relationships, both with the Creator and with each other? The truth is that if our hearts are set on worldly things then we can’t even begin to comprehend the spiritual cost that we have paid as a result of our present New World Order of Economic Globalization.
All of this relates to the APEC conference that is coming to Honolulu in November. APEC is simply an arm of the World Trade Organization that is dedicated to bringing absolute freedom to the global merchants and removing all barriers to the free flow of trade. What’s wrong with this? Well, from the very beginning critics have pointed out that there is a dark side to Capitalism and as an ideology it contains several potential weaknesses if it is taken too far:
1. Capitalism is promoted as an ideology of Freedom, but Justice can easily become a casualty.
2. Capitalism, as the very name implies, values and empowers Capital over Labor. In other words, money can easily becomes more important than people in a capitalist system.
3. Capitalism often views Money, Land and Labor as mere commodities to be bought and sold at will, while the truth is that none of these can be viewed that way without disastrous long-term consequences.
That’s only scratching the surface. For the moment let’s consider how Land has been turned into a commodity all over the world. This is a very recent phenomenon historically. It used to be that land was held in stewardship by the lord, chief, or leader of the community, and used for the common good by the people. Whether we are talking about feudalism in Europe, or tribalism in other areas of the world, this was how land was used. There is actually a Biblical basis for this, because that is how the Promised Land of Israel was divided up after the Exodus from Egypt. Each of the twelve tribes was given their territory, and in turn every family was given a portion of land to maintain throughout the generations. Land could be bought and sold, but every fiftieth year, on the year of Jubilee, land was returned to its original owner.
This concept of stewardship goes back even further, I believe, to the Division of the Nations in Genesis 10. Every nation was sent out and in this way every family on earth took possession and dominion over the earth. I believe this was a Divinely-guided process and, for instance, I believe that the Hawaiian people in fact have a Heavenly mandate to possess and care for these Hawaiian Islands. The right term here is “stewardship.” The earth is the Lord’s but the nations of the earth were given the authority to steward over and care for the lands in which He placed them. The global system of greed and mammon-worship that is represented by the Queen of Babylon in Revelation 17-18 is the exact opposite of the Heavenly ideal in this regard, because this relatively new global system views Land as simply another commodity to be used merely as an investment and a means to get rich. I stated earlier that this spiritual force, the Queen of Babylon, is like a global end-times Jezebel and if we look at her career in the Old Testament we find support for what I have just been saying.
In 1 Kings 21 we read the incredible story of how King Ahab attempted to purchase a vineyard from Naboth the Jezreelite. But Naboth refused to sell saying, “The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.” This caused Ahab to go into a depression that was noticed by his wife, Queen Jezebel. She mocked him for not having the guts to simply take what he wanted – after all, wasn’t he the King! Rolling her eyes, she told him, "Don’t worry Ahab, I will take care of the situation for you." She then orchestrated events so that Naboth was falsely accused of a crime and then stoned to death, after which Naboth’s vineyard was handed over to King Ahab.
Let’s look again at the end-times Queen of Babylon. Just like Jezebel she is marked as a corrupter and seducer of kings, and just like Jezebel she has an intimate connection with merchants and trade (Revelation 18:3). You see, Jezebel was the daughter of the King of Tyre, who is accused in Ezekiel 28:16 as being filled with violence as a direct result of his widespread trade and commercial ambitions. In the same way the Queen of Babylon, whose merchants are the world’s great men, is said to be responsible for all the blood shed violently upon the earth (18:24). The connection between commerce and violence also appears in James 4, where it specifically mentions covetousness as the source of all violence. The economic ideal of unending and perpetual economic growth is absolutely dependent on stirring up the spirit of covetousness, and goes directly against the Biblical ideal that “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).
With all of this in mind let’s look at world history over the past 500 years or so. Yes, Christianity has been spread almost throughout the whole world, but with it something else has also been spread, something that in fact has nothing to do with true Christianity. There has been a mixture. The Gospel is penetrating all nations, but so are the sorceries of the Queen of Babylon and her ideology that looks at everything, even the Land we depend on for our very lives, as a mere commodity to be coveted and taken at will and exploited for material gain.
I’ve lived in Hawaii since 1986 when I sailed over here from the West Coast at the age of 13 with my parents and younger brother. I’ve always known that there is something special about the Hawaiian people, their Spirit of Aloha, and their value for Ohana – the family. But I’ve found that there is also something deeply tragic that sits within the soul of the Hawaiian people. It is the lingering memory of an injustice that won’t truly be erased until judgment and restitution comes through the final victory of the King of Kings at the end of the age.
I recently read a book about the first missionaries who came to Hawaii. I read that in His grace God paved the way for the spread of the Gospel in this land, because just before these missionaries landed in 1820 the entire pagan religious system of kapu had been overthrown by the Hawaiians themselves, and the pagan temples had been torn down. In about seven years the message of the Gospel was spread to every island and the leaders of the Hawaiian people embraced Jesus Christ and instituted laws that were based upon the Bible. This cultural transformation was absolutely remarkable in such a short period of time, all because a group of missionaries gave their lives to obey the words of Jesus.
The interesting thing, and something that struck me as odd when I first read it, was the title of the book that recounted these events. The book is called Grapes of Canaan: Hawaii 1820 – The True Story of Hawaii’s Missionaries. The author based the title on the view that the missionaries held of the islands as a type of Promised Land and Vineyard of the Lord. In reading their story I was struck by the fact that the missionaries’ biggest challenge in spreading the Gospel did not come from the Hawaiian people, but from the haole (foreign) merchants of Honolulu whose hearts were set on extracting profits from the land and from the people, who viewed the spread of Biblical values as a threat to their agenda!
Eventually, over the following decades, the direct descendants of the early missionaries became merchants themselves, falling under the deceptive spell of covetousness and the love of money. Their motives led them to eventually come into conflict with Queen Liliuokalani, who often took the side of the Hawaiian people and the lower classes against the profit motives of the "Christian" businessmen. The “Vineyard” that is the island paradise of Hawaii was eventually taken over by force by a group of these businessmen and their heavily armed mob, with support from U.S. Marines, on January 17, 1893. I won’t go into the details of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but I will say that the parallels between it and the story of Jezebel’s theft of Naboth’s vineyard run deep. If there is anyone who can truly understand the greed, corruption, and terrible injustices perpetrated globally by the spirit that is revealed in Revelation 17-18, it is the Hawaiian People.
That is why I am working with a small group of fellow believers here in Hawaii to seek the Lord and to begin a spiritual preparation for the upcoming APEC conference that will be held in Honolulu on November 7-13, 2011. If this message resonates with you, please feel free to contact us. There is much more to be said on this subject, and much more to be done. It is time for the Sons and Daughters of Issachar to arise, to share their vision, and to seek the Holy Spirit for what we must now do.
Aloha in Jesus’ Name!
Peter Goodgame
pgoodgame@hawaii.rr.com
Additional Resources
The Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
The History and Meaning of the Hawaii State Motto: http://www.netstate.com/states/mottoes/hi_motto.htm
Book: Thieves In the Temple
Book: Grapes of Canaan: Hawaii 1820
Video: The Century Of The Self,
"The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests? The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays, who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud. Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal."
Quotes
"There is a spiritual force behind this world scene which, by means of "the things that are in the world," is seeking to enmesh men in its system. It is not merely against sin therefore that the saints of God need to be on their guard, but against the ruler of this world. God is building up his Church to its consummation in the universal reign of Christ. Simultaneously his rival is building up this world system to its vain climax in the reign of antichrist. How watchful we need to be lest at any time we be found helping Satan in the construction of that ill-fated kingdom." —Watchman Nee, Love Not the World, from Chapter 1: The Mind Behind the System
"That interdependence of all men, which is now in everybody’s mouth and which tends to make all mankind One World, not only is the effect of the market order but could not have been brought about by any other means." —Economist Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, (quote taken from the biography Friedrich Hayek, by Alan Ebenstein, page i)
"Between 1890 and 1929
America moved decisively into the corporate industrial age... Times Square —perhaps the most brilliant symbol of this new consumer order— was
created. As the investment banker Paul Mazur put it in 1928, a "staggering
machine of desire" had been erected. A new cultural climate also appeared to
propel and sustain this new economic order. Behavior "opened up" to match in
some degree the opening up and expansion of the commodity markets. Qualities
once seen as subversive and immoral and as existing on the margins of
American culture gradually moved to the heart of that culture -- carnival
color and light, wishing, desiring, dreaming, spending and speculation,
theatricality, luxury, and unmitigated pursuit of personal pleasure and
gain. These qualities were "consumerist" and are today thought of by
many Americans (and by people wanting to come to this country) as the
most seductive features of American life and as somehow intrinsic to
what it means to be an American." —From the book
Inventing Times Square, pp.99-100
"We must shift America from a “needs” to a “desires” culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old are entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs." —Paul Mazur, Lehman Brothers, (quote taken from the Century of the Self video)
"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today is expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats- his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies. These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only “forced draft” consumption, but “expensive” consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption." —Economist Victor Lebow, 1955
"We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. “We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.” Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity." —Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, (pp. 80-81). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.
"Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne. This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets "things" with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns "my" and "mine" look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution. Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." —A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Kindle Edition (available for FREE!) (pp. 21-22).
"Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." —The Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:17-20
"True prophets have an
utter contempt for materialism." —Leonard Ravenhill
"And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all."Revelation 18:11-14
"Your merchants were the world's great men. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray." Revelation 18:23