The Garden of the Nations

A mole in a garden patch is an eating machine. With a super-sensitive nose for the most succulent and tender, the ripe and the ready, they forage through a maze of tunnels that channel the "scents of the soil." Thus it knows exactly when its target tasties are ready. The young plants aren't worth the effort, and the mature, old-age, over-ripe plants are tough.
The mole in my garlic planting is like an underground scythe, moving and mowing according to a mysterious inner rhythm. And the Lord said to me, "Do not harm or kill the mole. Just watch."
Earlier, the Lord had said to me, "I bring down nations with a mole."
Surely not this mole in this small garlic patch. So then, what is the mole that You are talking about? And what do these garlic plants represent---since they are presently disappearing one by one into the earth---and the survey flagging I have used to mark each plant? What does it all mean Lord? Could the mole be representing money? It certainly has invaded all of modern life. But money, itself, doesn't consume or eat up someone's productive labor.
"The mole is the interest on borrowed money. All debt is intended to grow, and as it grows, the interest costs grow, like on the national debt of the United States, and the debt plus interest can eat up every house, farm, business, city, nation... That is the "mole" that brings down nations, and it has the "scent of the nations" that are ripe and ready."
"The flags are nations and they will reveal the sequence of early and later victims. They will also reveal the survivors. I will speak to you later with more detail. For now...
"The mole is in "The Garden of the Nations."
"

The Mole

Early in the morning as I looked out over the garlic beds, home to a single mole, Yahweh spoke to me:
"Baruch, what do you see?"
"Lord, I see devastation. Tall vigorous garlic plants are down. Their colored tags lie there in the mud like flags marking the graves of the fallen. All that is left, a memory, of what had stood in the row. They have vanished, swallowed by the earth. Several others are toppling over on their sides. There are heaves and craters among the plants. The orderly rows are broken and confused... The remaining plants seem to be shaking and quivering...is it the ground shaking or the morning breeze?"
"Baruch, I bring down nations with a mole."
"Lord, I have labored long and hard over this garden, your garden and your garlic."
"Yes, so it is. And this is my hand, that you might see."

Moles, Voles, and Other Creatures of the Burrow

The first Fall rains in Israel bring a flush of new green growth as seeds germinate that waited through the hot dry dormancy of summer. It is a veritable explosion of lush greenery. Many small creatures that have been holed up in their burrows then come forth to sample and browse the abundant salad bar. One such hungry sleeper came out of a stone retaining wall at the rear of my garlic patch, secretly nibbled and gnawed on a tender garlic shoot, pronounced its organic goodness quite delicious, and promptly burrowed into the middle of the nearest garlic bed, a return to the "Garden of Eden."
Only after 3 plants had suddenly vanished did I know something was amiss, leaving a void in the row like the plants had never ever been there. Then a fourth garlic bulb and shoot disappeared leaving a small, but telltale hole. This was pushing the limit of hospitality and blessing and welcome: after all, they, the burrowers, do quite an admirable loosening and tilling job on the heavy soil. And the laborer does deserve his wages...
But a fifth very large plant, slowly being pulled down and seemingly swallowed by the earth, necessitated calling the curtain down on the "fifth act." Enough. That was it. Caught red-handed, the marauder was clearly developing a major appetite for organic garlic. The "trail" was easy to discern: from the burrow opening at the base of the stone wall, to a new entrance at the side of the nearby garlic bed, and thence down the row, underground, a few heaves of the soil here and there marking the tunnel, and of course the MIAs.
But how to send this grazer on to browse other pastures? Perhaps a strong flushing of this "garlic mine" would accomplish the goal? And though I do appreciate the culinary commendation of my unknown guest---no doubt an accomplished expert of healthy, tasty greens---it was time to settle the check and move on.
I am watching...
This latest story of the garlic, as I ponder it, seems to reveal some other important hidden matters. Over the last year or so, a number of people I thought were healthy, thriving "plants" in the garden of my life, just down and out disappeared. The earth just seemed to open up and "swallow" them, almost overnight, with nary a trace, just a void, like did they really exist?
Perhaps they had a hidden "burrower"---a complaint, a suppressed desire, a consuming lust, a grudge, or hidden agenda. Maybe a nettlesome thorn, an inner infection, something unbalanced and out of joint, hidden, but nevertheless actively gnawing away at their "life", whatever, it was pulling them down into a hole, a void. Then like overnight, poof, they were gone.
I wonder if a good flushing of those underground tunnels by a strong stream of live water might have saved... For sure the burrowers, hidden denizens of the underground---mole, vole, or mouse---can wreak wreck and ruin.

Israel & Mammon

Yahweh said to me: Baruch what do you see?
I see a paper tower, like an inverted pyramid, ascending to heaven, tottering and bulging, dripping glue, held up by one old man. A tower of paper so heavy its fall will crush the world. And Jacob is so small...
Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel---
Unless I build the house, they labor in vain. And for vanity they do labor mightily!
What have you built O mighty man? A house of paper, making millions of souls your slaves to money and debt... And you would claim I built this house? Watch my breath consume it. Watch the wind carry the ash to the far corners of the earth!
You mock my instructions... I mock your creations!
Smoke, mirrors, sleight of hand, magic, and illusion can disguise iniquity for a season from the eye already blinded by greed, and from the eye blinded by fear, and from the heart bound in a lust for power. Watch me dry up your wells of "credit" until you are utterly bankrupt. Who will loan to you even a crust of bread in the Day that I have appointed?
Your covenant with Mammon cannot save you. A prince who cannot deliver. Go on and covenant with all the world's bankers---see if that league will save you! What pride you have, a full-blown confidence in the covenants you make: covenants of politics, covenants of money, covenants with false messiahs, covenants of stubbornness and hardness of heart.
So you have anointed a new President! You elected George Bush, and what did his Presidency amount to? Religious jubilation became a cup of bitter tears! And how will you manage to drink the next cup? What will your political jubilation taste like with the cup I have appointed? The leadership of "success" is no leadership from Me. The leadership of "alliances" is no leadership from Me!
Consider what my dealings with Israel have been---consider long and hard, then repent. I use kingdoms for My purposes. Your mighty men...I oversee and I employ for my purposes... Think not? Watch!
You who call yourself a Christian: do you walk as your Jesus walked?
You who call yourself a Jew: do you walk in the ways of Torah, my teaching and instructions?
You all walk in the ways of your father the devil himself: Satan is the god of your principality of money, and his ways are your ways. Your covenant with money can yield only death and destruction.
So come let us see if your riches will profit in the Day I have appointed---a day of burning, a day of thirst, a day of fainting, a day of dark stumbling! Show me your derivatives; show me your best financial stuff! When I plow, it is well not to be standing in the middle of the field!
Your fatness is no fatness from me: I appoint it for the day of slaughter. Your pride is no glory from me: I appoint it for the day of sucking-up dust.
Heap it all up with the cleverest bankers---I will have it all in the end. Who among you has the cattle on a thousand hills?
Leave off this iniquity of gathering interest on money, interest on houses, interest on lands, interest on all things...
Where is the man of my Wisdom and my Vision? Where is my son of Israel? Arise beloved Joseph from your sleep---show these puny pharaohs my Spirit, my Wisdom, my Ways... Show forth my economy and my provision.
And return to me, the God of Israel. And see if I will open my storehouses... In returning to me, in resting in me, and in silence, you will be saved. A remnant.