Money – Part 3

Good day to you reading this article on money and how its profound effect on each of us.

I hope that you have been reading the first two articles on money, the gold standard and the effect that it has on our daily living. So the question comes up from various groups: Should we be under a gold standard? How will we ever be able to pay for the national debt? When money goes into circulation, why is it a debt? Which is better, financial or industrial capitalism? What is usury? What would happen if a constitutional money system were put into place and that money would be created debt free and interest free?

In the last article, I tackled the gold issue and what the Bible says about gold, the gold standard and how gold has become an idol to man. It is so sad that a metal created by God such as gold has become so idolized by man and the things that man would do to have possession of that metal.

There is a saying that He who own the gold, rules—That saying has nothing to do with the Golden rule, but it does give us thoughts that the person or people “calling the shots” own the gold so to speak. Enjoy it now for one day will come when the system will crash, and those precious items will be thrown into the streets.

How will we ever be able to pay for the national debt? We won’t, plain and simple. It’s the same as the dog trying to catch its tail—The dog has a better chance of catching the tail than us ever paying off the debt.

Look at Deuteronomy 28:13 (NIV) The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. Folks, we are the tail and not the head so the cycle of paying off the debt will not happen until the money system as we know it today finally breaks or fails.

Debt is debt and one must pay it back or must be forgiven and you can bet your dollar that the Federal Reserve System or people behind this system will not forgive the debt. Under the present debt-usury system, the extra burden of usury (Interest) forces workers and businesses to demand more money for the work and goods to pay their ever-increasing debts and taxes. This increase in prices and wages is called inflation. This inflation benefits the moneylenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so they cannot finance or help the next generation, who must then borrow from the moneylenders, and pay a large part of their life’s labor to the usurer.

Let us utilize the Lord’s words, The Lord will make you the head, not the tail and this would be done by supplying an adequate supply of interest-free money so little borrowing would be needed and prices established by people and goods (the head) and not by debts and usury (the tail).

 What is usury? According to Merriam-Webster,

Definition of usury

1: the lending of money with an interest charge for its use

2: an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest

3: archaic: INTEREST

Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance finds usury in the Old Testament 22 times and 2 times in the New Testament.

God is very detailed in the who, what, where, how and use of usury—Let’s examine his word –

Exodus 22:24 (FF) “If you lend money to My People, My poor among you; you shall not be to them like a usurer. You shall not put upon them usury.

The above is “the who”—My People including the My poor.

Leviticus 25: 35-37 (FF)” But if your brother becomes poor, and his hand fails among you, you must help him like a foreigner and settler, and let him live with you. Take no usury or increase from him, but fear your God, and let your brother live with you. You shall not lend your money to him at usury, and you shall not lend him food at increase;

God shows the importance of the second commandment which doesn’t stop at just loving your fellow brother but helping him get “back on his feet”. Mere words of growth and encouragement mixed with physically helping your brother in his or her time of need.

Deuteronomy 23:20-21 (FF) You shall not take interest from your brothers; — interest upon money; interest upon food; interest upon anything which can be lent at interest. You may charge interest to foreigners; — but from your countrymen you shall not take interest, so that your Ever-Living God may bless you in every endeavor of your hand in the country which you are going to possess.

 God defines the rules of usury and outlines who will receive the interest and who will not, the circumstances and the outcome of following God’s instructions.

As we follow the use of the word “usury”, please turn to Nehemiah 5 and read the entire chapter. Is this happening in your country? “My People” are having to borrow to pay the tax, go hungry, mortgaging our businesses, land, houses or selling our possessions to make ends meet. When reading Nehemiah, the second statesman of that name, you will see that he was a man of character, persistence and most of all, prayer. Nehemiah , through God, fully answered the problem of usury.

Isaiah 24:1-2 (NIV) See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants—it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.

The NIV version says the Isaiah first four chapters describe the last days when God will judge the whole world. At that time he will finally and permanently remove evil. Amen!

Turn to Ezekiel 18: 8, 13, 17—In each of the verses, God addresses to Ezekiel the importance of My People not to lend at usury, or take excessive interest for if he does, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head. This is carried down in the linage to the son and the son’s son so that He keeps Gods laws and follows Gods decrees.

Jesus tells the parable of the Talents in Matthew 25: 14-30 with the emphasis on verse 27 and utilizing the Wycliffe Bible Commentary, if the servant really feared the risk of business ventures, then he should have deposited the talent with the bankers so that it would have drawn interest. Although Israelites were forbidden to extract interest from each other, they could do so from Gentiles. Therefore the talent was taken from the lazy and rebellious servant and given to the one who was most able to use it profitably.

As God says to My People in Deuteronomy 28: 12b: (NIV) You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The repercussions are explained in Deuteronomy 28:43-44 (FF) The foreigner who is amongst you shall climb up above you from station to station, –but you shall sink lower and lower! He shall lend to you, — he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail!

The key to enjoying the blessings from God is to utilize those blessings and riches and to glorify him first. Pray to God and thank him for all that you have for it can be taken away as quickly as it is has been given. Usury or the use of usury unto thy brother is outlawed, so if you want the Lord thy God to bless you then abstain from usury to thy brother.

May God Bless You and May You Bless God in All that you Do.

Jeff