Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-27-26

There was a time when governments, from kingdoms and principalities to major nations, ran their economies on the gold standard. That meant using gold bullion or, when solid gold became impractical to exchange, gold coinage. And when coins became too onerous to create relative to values, systems were developed to represent deposits in banks or government vaults. Eventually silver entered economic systems, both to elasticize the currency (being more common and less valuable as a commodity) and to facilitate manipulating trade and exchange values, for good or ill.

There is something reassuring when a nation’s currency has real backing – that a dollar in your pocket is worth… well, a dollar. We hope so. But we all know that is not so. We hear statistics that (for instance) a 1958 dollar would purchase only 17 cents in today’s marketplace; and so forth. The US, and many countries, have gone on and off the gold standard through the years. Reasons have included artificially countering effects of depressions and wars, which might be forgiven as rationales, to engaging in irresponsible and suicidal spending sprees. The United States, though not alone, is a national poster child for this economic anarchy and legal brigandage.

Not all economists consider a false currency reserve or planned inflation to be a negative practice, to coin a phrase. Some see deficit spending to be a wise policy, the best way to fuel a growing economy. Others of us consider it to be a ticking time-bomb at best – and horribly dishonest at worst. No way to run a household, or a country. (Also: who profits besides the amorphous “future economy”? Bankers, moneylenders, and currency manipulators make huge profits while average citizens invariably tighten their belts.)

So basically (Reductio ad absurdum, almost) we have, at least in the United States, money in our pockets that is intrinsically worth nothing. Not worth the paper it’s printed on? Well, coins are starting to sound like plastic when we toss them; the penny is extinct; we can not exchange dollars for gold or silver at banks as we once could. The government no longer has a ghost of a system where “reserves” in Fort Knox and elsewhere match the “money” in circulation.

We truly have an economy where values – prices, loans, debt repayments, etc – represent a massive system of silent agreements regarding what “money” is “worth.” No true context beyond agreed-upon lies. One major factor that keeps the US economy afloat is our dominance of the world financial system. We impose the dollar as the international unit of exchange. Transactions, exchange, and trade have to be filtered, and often manipulated, by arbitrary decisions by international bankers who at the moment are US pawns (or vice versa, more the case).

This situation lies behind (though seldom discussed in the news) Trump’s foreign policies. There is also the looming threat of BRICS – a new international standard of exchange based on the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Notice that the US, Europe, and Canada are not included in this revolutionary proposal – reflecting our growing impotence. Our economy would “tank” if we lose control of the international monetary (and fiscal) structure.

If it sounds like I know what I am talking about, I scarcely do. But I might know a little more than Federal Reserve board members, which is scary. And I never will understand the Bitcoin world. “Let’s invent coins that don’t really exist but people can be convinced they should shell out their life savings for…” Huh?

However I do understand what gold is. I have held it; I know it has been the primary medium of exchange through history, in virtually all societies; that it is valuable to own, to behold, to use in lavish decorations and fine art; that men and women and groups and nations have fought over it, sometimes to deadly ends.

Gold is real. Gold is precious – increasingly not only rare but likely close to disappearing, even as undiscovered lodes. Gold is poetic – symbolic of wealth, of beauty, of desire. The Bible itself frequently refers to gold as a metaphor: value; purity; able to be refined; beautiful to behold; constituents of temples and tabernacles.

But the Bible also warns against lusting after such material units of value and wealth. It is a “perishable thing” by which we were not “redeemed from the empty way of life.” The “gold is mine, declares the Lord of Hosts.” “Their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Jehovah.” And so forth.

There are more than 400 references in the Bible to gold! As I have cherry-picked, it is described both as something pure and legitimately to be desired, a positive symbol beyond its physical attributes. No less is it described as a symbol of lust and sin, a distraction from holy things, and a false god.

One of the last references, and one of the most quoted Bible passages about gold, is in the Book of Revelation’s description (21:21) of Heaven. “The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.” The Bible does not cite “as of gold,” or “the color of gold,” but gold itself!

Many people read that promise and marvel at how glorious Heaven will be. Properly so. But let us think about a larger truth. Gates and towers and thrones may be of gold, but this passage refers to streets. And here is my thought: we walk on streets; they often are dusty and literally looked down upon, certainly taken for granted; common.

I read Revelation 21:21 and I wonder whether Christ wants us to consider that life with Him for eternity will be so wonderful that Heaven’s golden streets are not special in themselves, but that Heaven itself will be so special that even the streets will be of pure gold!

Now there is a Gold Standard we all can embrace and look forward to!

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Click: City of Gold sung by Yvonne St Germaine