An Examination of Biblical Precepts Involved in Issues at Hand |
Chapter 26 ends with the promise of perish among the heathens or prosper at the hand of the Lord, all according to their attitude toward His statutes and judgments and laws as given in this book of Moses. Clearly, the sacrificial laws and ordinances were fulfilled in Christ. Col. 2:14. However, His laws, statutes and judgments as applied to modern society are the only ones that will bring prosperity to any people, for all good things come from above. Ps. 33:12.
As the people followed the law of the Lord as given in this book, they would greatly prosper. Their promised and actual prosperity should excite feelings of thanksgiving. The benefits of the Lord to His people should lead to His people desiring to give something to or do something for Him. This concluding chapter establishes Gods framework for outward expression of the feeling of thanksgiving to the Lord.
Some opening points
God establishes value
First, this chapter follows chapter 26 which promised serious results of sin and blessings for right living. Chapter 26 ends on a very high note, promising Gods people tremendous blessings for faithful obedience. We saw that those promised blessings looked forward to Christ, which gives us a very close tie with the next point.
Second, this chapter assumes that people to whom the blessings are promised in chapter 26 love God enough and are thankful enough for His goodness and benefits that they will give to Him well over and above what is required of them in His Word. And the requirements were quite high in the Old Testament some reckon the required payment to God was as high as 30% of ones total income. But the promised blessings at the close of chapter 26 look forward to the Gospel Church pity those professed Christians who only love God enough to give him the left overs.
Third, this chapter deals with things over and above the covenant responsibilities as presented previously. The laws given in this chapter were outside the laws of the covenant. The things of this chapter were not commanded, but were freely given out of love for and reverence for the God of the covenant.
Fourth, though a person, of his own free will, did things over and above what was required by God, he was not permitted to do those things in a manner that pleased himself. He was still bound by the Law, which required the best of him, and not the leftovers, v. 1. In other words, the free-will offering did not have to be given, but if the individual freely gave to God, the gift had to conform to Gods law.
This is no good to me any longer, so I will give it to the church or to the missionaries.
Note: Man is never free from Gods laws. Man is never left to himself in determining how to serve God, nor how to live. Moreover, even mans highest and most holy emotions must be brought into conformity to Gods Law-Word. Gods Word has an instruction for everything, and those who love God are expected to follow those instructions. 2 Cor. 10:5.
Fifth, the law shows us that it is not a sin to refrain from vowing, but once a vow, i.e., promise, is made, it is sin not to follow it through. (Deut. 23:22-24; Pro. 20:25; Ecc. 5:3-5.) Neglect to keep a vow, though it was a free-will vow or promise, had to be atoned for with a sin-offering. (Lev. 5:4ff.)
This chapter deals with vows; it deals with giving ones word, primarily to the Lord promising to do something above and beyond the requirements of ones profession love for God. It also applies to giving ones word to others.
No doubt Solomon had these laws of the free-will vows in mind when he said,
1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. 2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter [any] thing before God: for God [is] in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. 3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fools voice [is known] by multitude of words. 4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for [he hath] no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. 5 Better [is it] that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. 6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it [was] an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? 7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words [there are] also [divers] vanities: but fear thou God. 8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for [he that is] higher than the highest regardeth; and [there be] higher than they. (Ecc. 5:1-8.)
Sixth, in Leviticus 27, we are told that not all people are created equal before God, for God Himself places differing values on individuals. We are equal in the sense that we are all sinners before God, sinners who can only come to Him through Christ, but equality ends there. Though the worshiper had to appear before the priest for the priest to value him or her, the individuals value was already established by God. It would have clearly been rebellion against the Lord God for the priest, the worshiper or for a bystander to question the value of any individual.
Keil introduces this chapter:
... The objects of a vow might be persons (vers. 2-8), cattle (vers. 9-13), houses (vers. 14, 15), and land (vers. 16-25), all of which might be redeemed with the exception of sacrificial animals; but not the first-born (ver. 26), nor persons and things dedicated to the Lord by the ban (vers. 28, 29), nor tithes (vers. 30-33), because all of these were to be handed over to the Lord according to the law, and therefore could not be redeemed. This followed from the very idea of the vow. For a vow was a promise made by any one to dedicate and give his own person, or a portion of his property, to the Lord for averting some danger and distress, or for bringing to his possession some desired earthly good.Besides ordinary vowing or promising to give, there was also vowing away, or the vow of renunciation, as is evident from Num. xxx. The chapter before us treats only of ordinary vowing, and gives directions for redeeming the thing vowed, in which it is presupposed that everything vowed to the Lord would fall to His sanctuary as corban, an offering (Mark vii. 11); and therefore, that when it was redeemed, the money would also be paid to His sanctuary. (On the vow, see my Archoeologie, § 96; Oehler in Herzogs Cycl.) (Keil, The Third Book of Moses, 479, 480.)
Keil also points out that this chapter assumes the person or property will be either redeemed or purchased, according to the value fixed by the law. If neither redemption nor purchasing were to take place, what would be the use of making the vow and establishing the value of the person and/or property?
Those to whom this chapter speaks have experienced some great blessing from the Lord, or they would not be making the vow. Evidently, they were prospering financially, although the Lord did not exclude those who were not having financial prosperity, v. 8. Provision was made for the poor to express their love for the Lord through the vow.
Though at one time in America, ones word was his bond, we no longer realize the importance and seriousness of vows and promises. Vows and oaths in Bible times and in Eastern cultures were extremely serious.
Vv. 2-8, in the family
Note that everything starts in the family, and works out from that starting point. Here we have God placing His value on the individual family members, the persons.
V. 2, Children of Israel..., When a man... Unlike the preceding laws that applied to all who dwelt in the land, the following laws concerning vows only applied to those who worshiped the God of Israel. The pagans could not worship the Lord God as the Israelites were commanded to do; however, a pagan could convert to Israels God, e.g., Rahab and Ruth. Nevertheless, though the following laws concern fulfilling ones vow to the Lord God, the general application of keeping ones word applies to everyone regardless of his or her relationship to the Lord God. In dealing with the unsaved, we should be aware that they are not bound (they will be accountable to the Lord God) by the indwelling Spirit to keep their word as are His people.
Gill, on the other hand, says that every male includes even Gentiles. Thus those who did not serve Israels God could be grateful enough for Israels Gods blessings that, in their zeal, they could make a vow to give something special to the Lord God. (See 2 Ki. 5.)
I know folks who very lightly give their word, yet as soon as they say it, what they said is forgotten. Sadly, my experience has been that the unsaved have a more dependable word than do many who claim to worship the Lord God.
singular (v. 2) means wondrous, marvelous, extraordinary, valuable or something above and beyond ones responsibilities, above ones abilities, beyond ones power to do. It can refer to something hard or difficult to do.
The singular vow was something set apart for the Lord. The vow was an uncommon vow the man, through uncommon zeal for God and His service, devotes himself, his children, his cattle, his house or his property, to the Lord, i.e., to the Lords service in the Lords house, e.g. chopping wood, cleaning, and other menial tasks. But it was not Gods plan that His house be cared for by people other than Levi, so rather than the thing vowed being actually given to the Lord, the like equivalent in money was given, and the funds used for the maintenance of the house, 2 Kings 12: 4, 5. (By the way, King Jehoash became upset and took corrective measures when the priests misused the funds, vv. 6ff.)
If a person is really dedicated to the Lord, let them externally and visibly declare it with a vow, and keep that commitment.
I am guilty of, in the heat of the moment, giving my word to do something. Then when the moment cools, I understand that my vow was far more than I would have done otherwise. However, I have kept my word anyway, sometimes at great expense.
Vv. 3-8, the Lord establishes the value of the individual who gave him or her self to the Lord. The valuing was not left up to individual, so no one could say, Whats the matter? Dont you think I am as valuable, or as good, as that other person?
Obviously, under the law, all are guilty of sin, and, as such, are condemned to eternal death unless they have been converted through faith in the Redeemer. But in this chapter, we are plainly told that all persons are not equal in value before the Lord here on this earth, regardless even of their skills and abilities. The Lord establishes the value of the person who made the vow. Neither the priest before whom the person appeared nor the individual could establish the value of the one who vowed God Himself established the value.
Value established
First, The rate is the same for persons of all ranks. To the poor the gospel is preached. The great and wealthy have no place here above the poor; all stand as sinners to be redeemed by the same blood, and bound by the same cords of love. (Bonar, Leviticus, p. 496.)
The opinion that the rich are to be taxed more than the poor and the graduated income tax are the results of sin; that is, income redistribution is clearly socialism at work. Such ideas are totally ungodly.
Second, of the male from 20-so determine
60 he was valued the highest, for he was the fittest for labor.
[S]hekel of the sanctuary... Exodus 30:12, the Lord established the value of the money, and the priests the religious leaders were responsible to keep it at its proper value. (Lost value of money, inflation, is fraud or theft. Those who do it are thieves of the worse kind.) The value of money, hence, is a Godly, religious function, which would explain why the wicked are so determined to keep the value under their control. It was not and is not a function of the civil government, nor of individuals, nor of banks; rather, it is a function of God, and, basically, it should be established by a free market the law of supply and demand where God controls the supply. The actual value was not established in the sanctuary, but it was the duty of the priests to see that the money was not debased, and that it retained its full value. God requires a perfect balance and a just weight. (See Lev. 27:25.)
Honest money
Deuteronomy 25:15 But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Keil/Delitzsch:
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.
The duty of integrity in trade is once more enforced in vv. 13-16 (as in Le 19:35-36). Stone and stone, i.e., two kinds of stones for weighing, {cf. Ps 12:3} viz., large ones for buying and small ones for selling. On the promise in v. 15b, see De 4:26 5:16; v. 16a, as in De 22:5 18:12, etc. In the concluding words, v. 16b, all that do unrighteously, Moses sums up all breaches of the law. (Polished stones were used for the measuring standard. Stones would not rust, and the smooth surface would show if they had been tampered with.)
See Gods curse against those who debase money, Pro. 11:1, 16:11.
Observe: Those who do not believe the Law of Moses is for us today are suffering the same curse of those Laws being violated as are those who hold to the validity of those Laws. In other words, whether or not one believes the Law applies today, the Law is very much at work. Watch the prices of food and fuel skyrocket, as Gods laws of finances are dismissed as unimportant since Christ.
Mat 23:13, is the first verse of a long passage of woes and curses pronounced upon religious leaders and all who follow them in a way that is not of God, biblical.
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
These religious leaders had the keys of the Kingdom of God of their day. It was their responsibility to unlock the secrets of the kingdom of God to their generation. In Matthew 16:19, keys were given to Peter to unlock the secrets of the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, for the Gentiles. Acts 2 records Peter using the keys to unlock the Kingdom for the Gentiles.
Christ refers to the keys in Matthew 23, as he exposes the religious leaders as irresponsible key holders who lock people out by misusing their authority. The Godly purpose of keys is to unlock the doors to knowledge and wealth as the laws of God, as given through Moses, are presented and applied for the people, whether in the church or in the classroom. However, the religious leaders were refusing to teach the laws of prosperity and peace to the people. Rather than using the keys for the profit of the people, they were using their keyspower and authorityto assure the people that they could succeed without the laws of God as given through Moses, and to enrich themselves.
23:13, these religious leaders have taken away the key of knowledge, as they ignore, even militate against the law of God. They have turned the understanding of the Old Testament over to the experts, who now tell us that the laws (obviously, not the sacrificial laws, new moons and holy days) there are not for the church age, the age of grace. They have locked out their followers from the glorious promises of the law and of the gospel, and have thrown away the keys.
Furthermore, we can also say that many have corrupted the gospel so badly that not even the Lord would recognize it. I had a pastor friend tell me, I know what it says, but this is the way I was taught by men I respect. I have taught it this way, and I will not change now.
We see in Lev. 27, that a major responsibility of religious leaders is to see that the monetary system stays honest. Some good messages today from every pulpit against theft would solve a lot of our debased currency problems. But the pulpits cannot preach such things because covetousness controls the people and the pulpit. Multitudes of religious ministries, are supported by the States fiat money scheme.
Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. (1 Sam. 2:3.)
Notice that the Lord judges by real weight, not by what is apparent. (Rev. 20:12; 22:12. Bonar.)
A major role of the civil authority is to enforce honesty in society, resulting in honest money. (Cf. Rom. 13.) It has been over a century since honest money has existed in our country, as the state and bankers destroy the wealth of the people in order to enrich themselves.
Lev. 27:3, twenty years old even unto sixty years old was also the age a man could go to war.
Third, v. 4, a femalethe value given here was 60% of the males, and was equal to the value of a servant, Exodus 21:31, and was the value of the Lord Jesus, Matthew 26:15. Remember, the Lord God, not man, established these values; therefore, no man could be accused of undervaluing or overvaluing anyone. The womans value was not as high, for she could not be as productive with her labor as a man. (She is only 60% as physically strong as a man, and made so by the Lord God. Cf. 1 Pet. 3:7.)
Fourth, ages 5-20 yearsthe females value is only 50% of the males.
The one under 20 is not making the vow, but his/her authority is saying, Let the value of such a one be upon me. I will pay it. That person, accordingly, pays as determined by the Lord.
The younger persons were not capable of as much work as those over 20, so their values are less. Moreover, the value of females under 20 was a smaller percentage of the males than the males was over 20 because the younger female was capable of less work in proportion to the male.
Fifth, ages one month to 5 yearsher value was again 60% of the males.
If a man devotes his child to the Lord within this age group, the value is established by the Lord for the age. Samuel was a good example, but rather than being redeemed with money, he was actually given into the Lords templeservice.
Observe: Though neither the male nor female of this age group was capable of any service of value, the female was still valued at only 60% of the males. The Lord clearly, by fixing the value of each, tells us that the male was/is worth more than the female, both before men and before Him. God created man first, then the woman; God primarily revealed/reveals Himself to and through men; God chose men to be the priest to Himself. In the family, community, society and in the church, God chose and chooses men to lead, and work and speak through. Society is suffering greatly for lack of men to take the spiritual lead, as intended by God.
Sixth, ages 60 and aboveshe is worth 66.6% of the males value, the highest point of any age of her life. Though both the males and females value drops at age 60, she retains a greater proportion of her value than does the male.
Observe
1) Women are equal to men in the work-place; therefore, they should receive equal pay. Such an idea is an attack against Gods word, which is why it is promoted so heavily in our modern, post-Christian era. The Lord places the value of a woman at 60% of a mans at the height of the work career. Though fallen man hates the idea, the fact remains that the Lord establishes the values, not man. Thus clearly the Lord establishes the womans value in the work force as 60% of a mans.
Of course, this law assumes the man is working and not just showing up on the job to collect his pay. (The union pusher used to tell us when I worked out of the Steam Fitters local, Dont work yourselves out of a job. 60% of normal working capacity was more than enough for the union that was concerned that the job last as long as possible for its members. That was in the late 60s when wages were high and cost of living much lower than today, e.g., union scale over $14.00 per hr., and a new, loaded out, top of the line Ford, Chevy or Dodge was only $5-6,000, and a very good house around $20,000.) Obviously, there are women who do the same evil thing not much more than showing up to collect their pay.
Are not those who demand equal pay for equal work charging God with unrighteousness, as they try to make every one equal? (Rom 9:14, 20.) Are they not saying to the Creator, What doest thou? (Job 9:12, Dan. 4:35.)
The Womans Value
Did not Paul say that the proper place for the woman is, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed, Titus 2:5? Her responsibility to teach the young greatly increases her value. Titus 2:3. The Wise Man said that in the home, her price is far above rubies. Pro. 31:10. I see no place in Scripture where such a value is given to a man in the work place nor in the home.
In the home and in her older teaching ministry, the womans value is so great it cannot be measured, but in the work place, she is only 60% of the mans value, e.g., the man gets $10.00 per hour while the woman gets $6.00 for the same job. If a woman wants to be paid what she is worth, let the Lord value her worth, and then let her go to the place where her worth cannot be measured because it is so great in the home. Of course, such an idea of a woman in our evil, anti-Christian society and in the compromised church is thought to be blasphemy, worthy of stoning.
2) The woman who remained where she has the most value, in the home instead of the work-place, retains her value 66.6% more than does the man above the age of 60. She is more capable of managing the affairs of the family, and is if great use and service. She is not worn out by the work-place as is the man, nor did the Lord intend for her to be. According to John Gill,
... so Jarchi observes, when persons come to old age, a woman is nearly to be reckoned as a man, and quotes a proverb of theirs, an old man in a house is a broken potsherd in the house (some interpret the word, a snare or stumbling block, that is in the way); an old woman in a house is a treasure in a house, a good sign in a house {p}, of great use in the management of the affairs of the family. [{p} T. Bab. Eracin, fol. 19. 1. vid. Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 198. 1.] (Online Bible.)
We might note that when she stays home, she not only retains her value, but, many times, she also retains her family. Many times, the home school movement is proving the validity of the above statements concerning the womans value in the home vs. her value in the work-place. Who can measure her value in the home?
Sadly, I hear reports of Godly Christian home-schooling mothers who are looking forward with great anticipation to the day when they can ship their children off to college; a day when they think they will no longer have the responsibility of the children. 18 years old?? The evil thinking of these families is that the children must go to a good college to find a suitable mate. (I know of no good college that is not taking government funds; therefore, are required to submit to the States ungodly standards.) Rather than building up their houses, these foolish mothers are pulling them down with their own hands:
Proverbs 14:1 Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.
I have a very good pastor friend who has eight children, and only one boy went to college for training in the ministry. The oldest girl just got married, as she was content in hers father home waiting for the right man. At 33, the Lord sent her a very godly man.
Our modern age thinking is corrupt beyond imagination. All attempts to reform it Scripturally are met with open mockery and hostility, particularly from within the body of Christ:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (as revealed in his word.)
We either accept Gods Law-Word as it stands, or we are pagan, anti-Christ, humanists.
I have observed that many times the unsaved are more tolerant of Christians who want to be family and Biblically oriented in their thinking and actions than are professed Christians. The pagans expect Christians to be different. However, Biblically based thinking among many Christians is anathema, for Biblically based thinking and actions shine the light on their anti-Biblical attitudes and actions.
3) Jepthahs vow, Judges 11:30. We cannot look at this chapter concerning the free-will vows without considering Jepthah. I, like the rest of you, like to think the best of the situation, so I offer three views:
First, we must say that Jephthahs vow should have been redeemed according to the value given here by the Lord, Judges 11:30 . By Jephthah not keeping the vow as required by Leviticus 27, we are shown the level to which Israel had fallen away from God. He, like so many since him, knew the law concerning vows, but he forgot, overlooked, ignored, was ignorant of the fact, &c., that the spirit of the law that was/is to preserve life, not take it.
There are those who become more concerned that every point is upheld that they forget that the Lord gives his law for mans benefit. Mark 2:27. They kill, as Jephthah did, rather than make alive.
Second, at the risk of being accused of trying to explain away difficult passages, I present Bonars comments concerning Jephthahs vow:
Bush remarks, The rules of mortality are the principles on which these rates are graduated. Hence, those in the prime of life are first noticed; and of these the males, being capable of most service, are rated highest. It appears to me clear that Jephthahs daughter (Jud . xi. 30) may come under this rule. Her father vowed to dedicate to the Lord (ver. 31) when he should return victoriousthinking, probably, of some of his domestic comforts and luxuries whatsoever cometh from the doors of my house. Jephthahs daughter, like young Samuel, was simply set apart personally to the Lord; and the clause, I will offer it as a burnt-offering, should be understood, as many have rendered it, I will offer also to Him* a burnt-offering, as if to say, I will load His altar with many gifts of thanksgiving. Hengstenberg (Egypt, and Books of Moses) supports the opinion that there was an institution of holy women in the tabernacle, who, like Anna the prophetess, spent their time in prayer and fasting. At all events, Exod. xxxviii. 8, and 1 Sam. ii. 22, ought to be rendered, The women who ministered at the gate of the tabernacle, the word being ; just as in Num. iv. 23, 35, 43, when speaking of the Levites. The Midianites, Num. xxi. 40, were women (ver. 35), and were set apart for the Lord.
There seems to me a mistake generally fallen into here by commentators. They suppose that these shekels of money were paid in order to free the offerers from the obligation of devoting the person. Now, surely, the whole chapter is speaking of things truly devoted to God, and cases of exchange and substitution are referred to in ver. 10, 13, 15. As for persons devoted, there was no substitution allowed. The mistake has arisen from supposing that this amount of money was ransom-money; whereas it was an addition to the offering of the person, not a substitution. If a person is really to be dedicated to the Lord, then let him give this external, visible declaration of it. Let him bring these shekels of money, according to his age, in token of his having given up the world and devoted himself to God. Hence, Jephthahs daughter could not be redeemed; she is the Lords, and there is no alienation of His property.
* Several critics have pointed out similar instances of the suffix so used. Thus, Judg. I. 15, Thou hast given to me. Isa. xlii. 16. Jer. xx. 7; Ezek. xxix. 3; Micah v. 4. The principle laid down in ver; 11, would of itself be sufficient to prevent the sacrifice of Jephthahs daughter. In Romaines works, there is a view given of the matter. substantially [sic] the same as above. Charles Wesley, in a hymn on Judg. xi, 31, sings:
His hands he washed not in her blood;
But gave his child, his hope, to God
Hope of a long-continued line,
Hope of the Promised Seed divine.
In other words, Jephthahs daughter, like young Samuel, was simply set apart personally to the Lord. She was not killed. The above development by Hengstenberg tells us that fathers in the Old Testament had tremendous authority over their children, for they could give them permanently into the service of the Lord. We do see that confirmed in the situation with Samuel. Notwithstanding, the Lord later called Samuel to Himself and His service. One wonders what would have been the situation with Samuel if the Lord had not called him? But we cannot develop nor dwell on What ifs.
Third, Jephthahs society had sunk so low that human sacrifice was accepted, and he did offer his daughter as a burnt sacrifice as stated by the passage.
We will not know the truth of the matter until we get to speak with Jephthah and his daughter.
Counting the Cost
Bonars closing summery for this section is far too good to overlook:
What do we learn from this ? Let us remember how it is written that the price of a slave, gored to death, is, in Exod. xxi. 32, reckoned at thirty shekels; and that, in Zech. x. 12, the same price is weighed for the prophet in his typical character; and then in Matt. xxvi. 15, paid for Jesus. If such was the manner of making over a slave to another, have we not here the manner of making over persons to the Lord? But the Lord gives no price for them. True; because the Lord is not the gainer. It is a privilege to be taken into the Lords service; and the man is therefore represented here as buying his admission into the Lords service. It is all to shew how precious is the Lords service ! Men often sacrifice a large sum in order to get a servant to do their work; but lo ! it is reversed here. We might well sacrifice all we have in order to be permitted to serve the Lord.
Oh, it is no common blessedness to be allowed to stand in Thy presence and worship Thee, Lord God Almighty! (Emp. added. Bonar, Leviticus, 497, 498.)
Pay and sacrifice in order to serve the Lord? Lower my standard of living to serve God? How unheard of in our day of covetousness and materialism! How contrary to the fallen nature to actually pay the Lord God for the privilege of serving Him. Is it any wonder that the Old Testament laws that apply to every day life are hated by the world, the flesh and the Devil? These laws mean sacrifice to serve God. The flesh tells us that the Lord should pay us to serve Him: After all, am I not doing Him a service? (Cf. 2 Sam. 24:24; 1 Chron. 21:24; Lk. 14:28.)
Thus those who enter into the ministry because of what might be in it for themselves or because it pays as much or better than something else they could do are in rebellion against the Lord God: Full time service to the Lord God is to cost the server. Here we see that God does not pay an individual to work for Him; the individual pays, sacrifices, for the privilege of serving for the Lord. Remember, this was a free-will offering the individual was not under any command to serve the Lord in this manner. Hke new the cost before he made the vow.
We should keep in mind that the Levites were born into the service of the Lord, and the other tribes were commanded to tithe to the Levites, which, if Israel obeyed the command, made Levi a very wealthy tribe. How long did Israel remain faithful to that command, and where did Israel leave Levi financially when Israel departed from the Lord his God? The vows mentioned in this chapter were over and above what was required of the individuals by the Command-Word of God.
One wonders if Levi became so rich when all the tribes fulfilled their responsibilities, that Levi forgot God? Then, as today, prosperity led to compromising the teaching of the law, and the people departed from their God, and judgment ensued. The downgrade of society can be directly attributed to the compromised preaching of the word of God.
The Christian religion of Scripture costs the worshiper to serve his God. It is evident that Christ refereed to this law in Luke 14:
And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Vv. 25-33. See also, Hag. chp. 1.)
According to our Lords words, a costless religion is not the Christian religion.
We must not overlook the grace of God at work in the heart of the worshiper: That grace is plainly evident in both the Old and New Testaments, e.g., Exodus 36/Philippians 2:13. When the Lord places the desire to serve Him in the heart of an individual, the cost involved to the individual must be the least of his concerns. If the Father of our Lord Jesus calls, He will supply.
The Poor
V. 8, the poor man who did not have the money to give as valued upon him by the preceding law, was not prohibited from expressing his gratitude to the Lord in the free-will vow: The poor man appears before the priest with his desire to offer himself, and he makes his financial inability known. The priest then values the man, keeping in mind the general rules just given in vv. 3-7. Gills comments:
according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him; he was to examine into his circumstances, and as they appeared to him he was to put a value on him, which was to be paid, but not less than, a shekel; for if he could not pay that, it was to remain as a debt until he could {q}; and it was the ability of him that made the vow that was to be inquired into, and according to which the estimation was to be made, and not of him that was vowed: so it is said in the Misnah,
ability is regarded in the vower, and years in the vowed, and estimations in the estimated, and according to the tithe of the estimation: ability in the vower, how? a poor man that estimates a rich man, pays the value of a poor man; and a rich man that estimates a poor man, pays the value of a rich man: if he is poor and afterwards becomes rich, or rich and afterwards poor, he pays the price of a rich man {r};
but the sense which Jarchi gives is, that a priest in such a case was to judge according to what a man has, and so order him to pay, but was to leave him so as he might live, a bed and bolster, and working tools, and if he had an ass he might leave him that.
According to his ability... The Lord does not expect anything from His people above their ability. Now, the Lord may provide ability over and above what one normally has, and if so, then the Lord expects that ability to be properly used for His glory.
Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Pauls statement is based on the Old Testament law as found in Leviticus 27: According to his ability:
Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. (2 Cor. 8:11, 12.)
Conclusion
First, the Lord has established the value of men, women and children. Modern laws must reflect those values, regardless of how outdated man many consider Gods word.
Second, only his laws of valuing people and money will work. Note that as the humanists ideas of the value of people have taken over society, mans ideas of the value of money has also taken over society. We are living in the end results of man saying Gods Old Testament laws are not for us today, and do not work in our modern age. (Gold at almost $2,000 an oz. and still climbing !! It will take a while, but that intentionally devalued, empty, fiat paper dollar will be showing up in a great way in everything, as the State inflates the monetary supply beyond anything seen since Germany. GET OUT OF PAPER.)
Third, those who are called by God to serve God through the Lord Jesus Christ will be willing to make the sacrifice, and pay the price to stand for Christ and righteousness as revealed in His word. Serving the Creator is a privilege. It is God who bestows the privilege upon those He calls to serve Him, and that servant, in this case, should be paying God for the privilege. It is the wickedly proud man who feels he is bestowing the privilege on God by serving Him, and the God should be rewarding him. How many today have answered the call of money rather than the call of the Lord, as they expect the Lord to reward them for being His servant:
Luke 17:10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
Fourth, every person will be valued on an individual basis, and held accountable by God according to his ability; that is, for what he has, not for what he has not.
President Barack Obama was in the Oval Office when his telephone rang.
Hello, President Obama a heavily accented southern voice said. This is Archie, down here at Joes Catfish Shack, in Mobile, and I am callin to tell yall that we are officially declaring war on yall!
Well Archie, Barack replied, This is indeed important news! How big is your army?
Right now, said Archie, after a moments calculation there is myself, my Cousin Harold, my next-door-neighbor Randy, and the whole dart team from Hooters. That makes eight!
Barack paused. I must tell you Archie that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.
Wow, said Archie. Ill have to call ya back!
Sure enough, the next day, Archie called again. Mr. Obama, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!
And what equipment would that be Archie? Barack asked.
Well sir, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Harrys farm tractor.
President Obama sighed. I must tell you Archie, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also Ive increased my army to one and a half Million since we last spoke.
Lord above, said Archie, Ill be getting back to ya.
Sure enough, Archie called again the next day. President Obama! I am sorry to have to tell you that we have had to call off this here war.
Im sorry to hear that said Barack. Why the sudden change of heart?
Well, sir, said Archie, weve all sat ourselves down and had a long chat over Sweet tea, and come to realize that theres just no way we can feed that many Prisoners.
SOUTHERN CONFIDENCE CANNOT BE SHAKEN
And will soon be followed by Martial law, enforced by the Military.
Witnesses Describe Mob Attacks Outside Wis. State Fair
Read more: http://www.wisn.com/news/28774396/detail.html#ixzz1UNKzBhWy
WEST ALLIS - Witnesses tell Newsradio 620 WTMJ and TODAYS TMJ4 of a mob of young people attacking innocent fair-goers at the end of the opening night of State Fair, with some callers claiming a racially-charged scene.
Milwaukee Police confirmed there were assaults outside the fair.
Witnesses accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night.
Authorities have not given official estimates of the number of people involved in the attacks.
It looked like they were just going after white guys, white people, said Norb Roffers of Wind Lake in an interview with Newsradio 620 WTMJ. He left the State Fair Entrance near the corner of South 84th Street and West Schlinger Avenue in West Allis.
They were attacking everybody for no reason whatsoever.
It was 100% racial, claimed Eric, an Iraq war veteran from St. Francis who says young people beat on his car.
I had a black couple on my right side, and these black kids were running in between all the cars, and they were pounding on my doors and trying to open up doors on my car, and they didnt do one thing to this black couple that was in this car next to us. They just kept walking right past their car. They were looking in everybodys windshield as they were running by, seeing who was white and who was black. Guarantee it.
Eric, a war veteran, said that the scene he saw Thursday outside State Fair compares to what he saw in combat.
That rated right up there with it. When I saw the amount of kids coming down the road, all I kept thinking was, Theres not enough cops to handle this. Theres no way. It would have taken the National Guard to control the number of kids that were coming off the road. They were knocking people off their motorcycles.
Another witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said, it was like a scene you needed the National Guard to control....
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/126825018.html
The incidents Thursday night come as the State Fair Board has worked to increase diversity at the annual fair, expanding its entertainment lineup and attempting to appeal to a younger, more multicultural audience. Diversity was a priority for former State Fair Park Chairman Martin Greenberg, who spoke of making it a place of inclusion, not exclusion. ...
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/126828998.html
Comments: Any honest person could see that the attacks in WI were race related, and all the news reports bear this out, Police: Race a factor in State Fair violence. http://www.wkow.com/story/15239520/police-no-hate-crimes-in-these-state-fair-arrests
Black on white is not considered a hate crime; however, white on black, or even a white suspected of having a bad thought toward a black, will be charged and prosecuted for hate crimes. This has been the case for years. http://thefiringline.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-121173.html
No doubt, law enforcement is fearful of starting riots if justice is given to blacks here in the US. My opinion is that the reason we have not yet had Britains riots is because of the welfare payments, as well as the SSI payments. And folks know how to work the system to get the SSI payments, so they will not have to go to work. (Updating Betties information with the SS office so if anything happened to me, she could draw on her first husbands SS, we were offered SSI payments, which we refused.)
Where are the hate crime laws with which officials are so quick to charge any anti-sodomite person?
Fears of more violence after worst London riots for years
(Reuters) - London braced on Sunday for more violence after some of the worst riots in the British capital for years which politicians and police blamed on criminal thugs but residents attributed to local tensions and anger over hardship.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/07/us-britain-riot-idUSTRE7760G820110807
Comment: How much influence does our right to bear arms prevent similar events as they are having in England?
Air Force Involved in Raid of Las Vagas Gun Store
8/22/11. The raid resulted in no arrests nor charges. They are getting the American people used to seeing Military Police enforcing law.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2767115/posts
Verizon reports sabotage as workers continue strike
August 09, 2011|By Taryn Luna, Globe Correspondent
Verizon Communications Inc. reported a dozen cases of sabotaged cable lines and warned of delays in repairs and customer service on the second day of a strike involving about 45,000 employees. ...
http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-09/business/29868702_1_myles-calvey-striking-workers-electrical-workers
Headlines for only one day on Drudge:
* Air rage businessman threatened to stab pilots after being refused alcohol...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029093/Air-rage-businessman-threatened-stab-BA-pilots-refused-alcohol.html
* One year old shot in head in South Chicago
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-one-hurt-in-south-chicago-shooting-20110823,0,2978813.story
* Man Asks Pedestrain for $1, Stabs Him Repeatedly When He Says No (Long Island)
* 6 shot at youth bball game... (Philly)
http://articles.philly.com/2011-08-23/news/29917768_1_critical-condition-shot-multiple-times-fourth-shooting
The intentional results of Statist education are coming to pass. Call me paranoid if you like, but the handwriting is on the wall:
Daniel 6:22 And thou [O Western Christian], hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; 23 But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: 24 Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. 25 And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. 26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. 27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. 28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the [pagans and Muslims].
But sadly, there seem to be no Daniels today in high places to intervene for Gods people. Certainly, there is a Great High Priest to intercede before the Judge of all Creation, and it is that Judge that is allowing the just reward for Christian Paganism to come to pass.
But the Lord will not let the lack of Christian self-control chaos reign. He will provide oppressive civil authority to control sin.
What lies ahead? Martial Law, just as sure as I am sitting here typing this in. Either Christian self-control will again reign, or Martial Law will be enacted. The goal of the wicked for many years now has been Martial Law. Already the Posse Comitatus act is being openly violated in many parts of the country, with no objections from the population. The conditions are being formulated to get the American people to request Martial Law, thus driving the final nail into the coffin containing the Posse Comitatus act.
Note: Society is NOT THE SAME today as it was in the last depression. Almost all Christian influence of self-control has been intentionally destroyed by the education and religious systems. The depression of our day is bringing anarchy, all according to the plan to strengthen the State. Are we ready for such a thing? Are we ready for no electricity as Obama shuts down coal powered generating plants?
Pro. 4:23, Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Pro. 3:1, the Wise Man speaks of actively doing the law, forget not my law. Then he tells us what is required to forget not my law. Whether young or old, everything that the world, flesh and the devil can gather together is designed to win our heart.
The primary requirement throughout all scripture is for the heart, or thoughts and imagination, to be controlled by Scripture. Christ certainly did not present anything new when He told us to protect the our heart. This is the place where all sin starts.
The education system, the antinomian religious system, as well as many other things, have done a magnificent job in removing Christian self-control from society.
Theft and violence are rampant, as even air conditioners are stolen for their copper content. A man was electrocuted while trying to steal copper wire that was hot. Others are skilled enough to steal copper wire even while hot. Rampant gangs of kids invade small stores and do a good amount of damage while stealing. Random beatings and killings are becoming more common.
Only the Gospel of Grace that writes the law of God into the heart brings freedom, because it causes men to want to fulfill their responsibilities.
Religion without Gods binding of the heart to his law is just that, religion. The inner heart will delight after the law of God, Romans 7:22.
The only obedience that pleases God must begin in the heart. Outward formality and godliness will not please him:
Ezekiel 33:31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.
Thanks so much for your effort! All the fellows that come to the Bible Study take it to their churches.
Dean Engelman, First Friends New Hope Baptist, Maxwell, IA.
Dear Bro Need
Enclosed is $25 towards the cost and postage of 25-50 copies (as you are able) of your booklet The Other jesus, THE GOSPEL PERVERTED to be freely distributed as God leads in my travels as an over the road truck driver.
Your Friend in Christ,
Dexter Ulman, Scottsville MI. John 14:12-17, av
Note: If you can use some of these booklets, let me know.
Safety Deposit boxes being confiscated by the government.
British government begins stealing its peoples bank deposits ahead of the global financial collapse.
The contents of safety deposit boxes were stolen by the British government from Park Lane Safe Depository in Park Street, Hampstead Safe Depository in Finchley Road, and Edgware Safe Depository in High Street, Edgware....
The British government came up with the idea back in 2006. The British government needed new money and the only new and real money was being held by the people in safety deposit boxes. The government cant tax what is sitting for years in thousands of safety deposit boxes so they decided to confiscate it all. The confiscation of the peoples money was codenamed Operation Rize. Operation Rize being code for Ruse. The ruse is the British government labeling all safety deposit box owners as criminals in order to steal the valuable contents of their safety deposit boxes. Every safety deposit box in the largest vaults in London were ordered raided based entirely on the British governments assertion that a handful of safety deposit box owners were suspected of being corrupt.
Why is this significant for people in the United States? The U.S. government is preparing to do the same in the United States. ...
http://presscore.ca/2011/?p=3598
Safety Deposit Box? Clean it out before the US government does it for you. Your valuables are safer on your property in a hole in the ground than they are on the US governments banks property.
Proposed rule on farms called absurd
Written by Sonny Riddle, 08/12/11
A new rule being proposed by the federal Department of Transportation would require farmers to get commercial drivers licenses.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is a part of DOT, wants to adopt standards that would reclassify all farm vehicles and implements as Commercial Motor Vehicles, officials said. Likewise, the proposal, if adopted, would require all farmers and everyone on the farm who operates any of the equipment to obtain a CDL, they added. ...
http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/3739-proposed-rule-on-farms-called-absurd
Observation: We have some very good friends who go to a sound, gospel preaching church. The church attracts home schoolers. Our friends are greatly distressed because all of the mothers are looking forward to the day when their children will all be gone, and they can go into the work place. Whether or not these families intentionally mean it, they give the impression that their children are a bother to them. Moreover, these families cannot understand why our friends are not anxiously looking forward to the day their children are out on their own. And they are probably thankful that they restricted their family to only a few children.
People fail to realize that ideas have consequences. There is an anti-family attitude even among strong, conservative Christians who are no doubt saved, and believe all points of Christian Doctrine. The anti-family attitude allows the spirit of abortion to rule this nation.
Abortion WILL NOT stop until Gods people change their attitude toward their families.
See Sanctity of Life, at http://www.biblicalexaminer.org/w200502.html#Sanctity%20of%20Life7
Garden
These past few months have been taken up by the garden, without much time to do anything else. We have been overwhelmed with blackberries. A groundhog is helping himself to the beans and cabbage. We have eliminated three so far, but this one is smart. Groundhogs are very destructive, and very hard to get a good shot at.
September should be taken up with traveling. We need to make a trip to Ohio and Indiana to see family, whom we have not seen for quite some time, then be back to work the polls for the governors WV election. We need to get all our traveling done before the weather gets cold enough to start heating our house. Last year, we spent a lot of time at Betties sons house in PA last winter, and ended up heating this house with the heat pump rather than the wood stove. Not a good idea !
Time is passing far too quickly, and there seems to be more to do than ever.
By Thomas Williamson
One argument that is often used by Christian fundamentalists who favor the removal of Palestinian Arabs from Israel and its occupied territories, is that the present-day Palestinian inhabitants are newcomers in those territories, who therefore have no right to live there and should be asked to leave.
I am not sure just what difference it makes, how long a certain family or ethnic group has lived in the area. In America and most other civilized nations of the world, a homeowner who is a recent immigrant from another country has the same property rights as someone whose family has lived in that country 200 years.
I have a confession to make - my family has only lived in the State of Illinois since 1958, and I have only owned my home in Chicago since 1982. By the standards of some Christian Zionists, that makes me a squatter and it means that I can be dispossessed of my real estate without compensation and forced to leave the state.
In reality, the Palestinian Arabs, as an ethnic group, are not recent arrivals in Israel - they were there before the beginning of the modern Zionist movement at the end of the 19th Century. To make this point, I will quote entirely from Jewish authors and sources.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism in the last decade of the 19th Century, stated, We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. . . . Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. Why would Zionists be discussing the question of removing Arabs from Palestine back before the year 1900, if there were no Arabs to remove?
Nahum Goldmann, a Jewish Zionist leader, commented in 1970, Even Theodor Herzls brilliantly simple formulation of the Jewish questions as basically moving people without a home into a land without a people is tinged with disquieting blindness to the Arab claim to Palestine. Palestine was not a land without people even in Herzls time; it was inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who in the course of events, could sooner or later have achieved independent statehood, either alone or as a unity with a larger Arab context.
Ahad Haam, a Zionist writing in 1891, stated, Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and suddenly they find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause, and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination.
There were differences of opinion among Zionists as to how to handle the Arabs who were already in Palestine. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi states, An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in 1907 . . . called for a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after 30 years of settlement activity . . . Like Ahad-Haam in 1891, Epstein claims that no good land is vacant, so Jewish settlement meant Arab dispossession . . . Epsteins solution to the problem, so that a new Jewish question may be avoided, is the creation of a bi-national, non-exclusivist program of settlement and development. Purchasing land should not involve the dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should mean creating a joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy modern technology. Schools, hospitals, and libraries, should be non-exclusivist and education bilingual.
The great Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann said in 1919, All fears expressed openly or secretly by the Arabs that they are to be ousted from their present position are due either to a fundamental misconception of Zionist aims or to the malicious activities of our common enemies.
I need hardly say that we Jews will be meticulously and scrupulously careful to respect the sentiments of any religious group or sect in Palestine.
The Zionists are not demanding in Palestine monopolies or exclusive privileges. It always was and remains a cardinal principle of Zionism as a democratic movement that all races and sects in Palestine should enjoy full justice and liberty.
Palestine must be built up without violating the legitimate rights of the Arabs - not a hair of their heads shall be touched.
It is not our objective to seize control of the province of Palestine. Nor has it ever been our objective to turn anyone out of his property.
Weizmann spoke of the legitimate rights of the Arabs, but nowadays Arab-bashing Christian Zionists insist that Arabs in Palestine have no rights and should be forcibly removed.
Leah Rabin, widow of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, wrote of established Arab communities in Israel in the 1930s in her book Rabin: During the late 30s, Arabs and Jews coexisted peacefully - much of the time. . . . When we drove to Benyamina to see my Aunt Nettie, we passed through the mysteriously silent Arab villages and cities, and I was always a little uncomfortable. But my father was never concerned and would jump out and cheerfully ask for directions in halting Arabic.
Noam Chomsky, in The Fateful Triangle, said, In 1936-39, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt. . . . David Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In internal discussion, he noted that in our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us, but he urged, let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. The truth was that politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves . . . The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside. Ben-Gurion, a future Prime Minister of Israel, recognized that the Palestinian Arabs were already in Israel and that they were there first.
Benny Morris, Israeli historian, says, David Ben-Gurion of course was right. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.
David Remnick, in a review in the New Yorker, May 5, 2008, says, In 1988 [Benny] Morris published The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, which revolutionized Israel historiography and, to a great extent, a nations understanding of its own birth. Relying less on testimony than on the newly available documents, Morris described how and why 60% of the Palestinians were uprooted and their society destroyed. . . . The book features a map that shows 389 Arab villages, from upper Galilee to the Negev Desert. Morris revealed that in 49 of these villages the indigenous Arabs were expelled by the Haganah and other Jewish military forces; in 62 villages, the Arabs fled out of fear, having heard rumors of attacks and even massacres; in 6, the villagers left at the instruction of Palestinian local leaders.
Nathan Chofshi, a Russian Jew who was present during the Israeli war of independence, said, We, Jews, forced the Arabs to leave cities and villages. In the last analysis, these are the bare facts which strike our eyes: here was a people who lived on its own land for 1,300 years. We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees.
Ehud Sprinzak, political science professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says, The Jewish state . . . was, and still is, one of the most unnatural states in modern history - a state of newcomers, the vast majority of whom arrived after the colonial power had clearly established itself. . . . The fact that the Jews in Palestine were a small ethnic minority of mostly new immigrants, and that a much larger native community questioned their very right to the land, was not allowed to hobble the great dream. (The Ascendance of Israels Radical Right, pp. 12, 24)
Albert Einstein (Jewish) said, I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Why would Einstein advocate any agreement with the Arabs, allowing them to remain in Palestine, if they were all squatters with no rights?
Norman Finkelstein, American Jew, describes Palestine as originally overwhelmingly Arab: Zionism did not come to use force despite itself. The recourse to force was not circumstantial. It was inherent in the aim of transforming Palestine, with its overwhelmingly Arab population, into a Jewish state.
Martin Buber, Jewish philosopher and Zionist who died in Jerusalem in 1965, believed that It didnt matter if the Arabs had been in Palestine for hundreds of years or for just a few generations. They were there, they were human facts, and they had to be accommodated. In fact, Buber, reasoned, the Jews were the interlopers, the newcomers, and as such it was incumbent on them to establish and earn the trust of the Arabs.
Israeli General Moshe Dayan, in Haaretz, April 4, 1969, stated, We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish state here. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. There is not one place in this country, that did not have a former Arab population.
So we see that the Christian Zionist teaching that the modern Palestinians are newcomers who recently migrated into the land during or after the war of Israeli independence in 1948 is a myth. Based on this realization, we should reject the Christian Zionist doctrine which supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from modern Israel and its occupied territories, for the following reasons:
1. The Bible makes no mention of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians as part of the agenda for Christianity or Christians. I challenge anyone to produce any teaching from the Bible that says that we as Christians should persecute or discriminate against
Palestinians, or any other racial or ethnic group. No such teaching exists.
2. The Bible presupposes that, even in Old Testament times under the Hebrew theocracy, there would be non-Jewish people living in Israel. Oppression of non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel is forbidden in Exodus 12:49, 22:21, 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, 25:35 Numbers 15:14-16, 26,, Deuteronomy 10:18-19, 23:7, 24:17, 27:19. Ezekiel 47:22-23 provides for a division of the land of Israel between Israelites and the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you. The notion that only Jews can live in Israel, and that the Palestinians must be expelled, has no Scriptural foundation whatsoever.
3. Expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland is a violation of international law as codified in the Geneva Conventions. As Christians, we cannot support violations of basic human rights against any ethnic group, including Palestinians.
4. Support for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a threat to world peace. This policy on the part of American Christian Zionists causes the entire Arab and Muslim world to hate America. It prevents the achievement of a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and the Arab nations which would be beneficial to Israeli Jews, allowing them to prosper and live peacefully instead of having to endure a constant state of warfare.
5. Expulsion of Palestinians is a violation of the official policy of our American government in favor of an independent Palestinian state.
President Bush clearly and consistently called for the establishment of a Palestinian state as an integral and essential part of his war on terrorism in the Middle East. Support for a Palestinian state is the official policy of the United Nations and of every country in the world, including the United States and Israel. We have no scriptural basis for opposing that policy.
6. Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians violates the Golden Rule: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. If we would not like to be forcibly, brutally ejected from our homes and property, and forced to flee without compensation to refugee camps, how can we conscientiously advocate doing this to others, of any race?
7. The movement for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is based on falsehoods. It is simply not true that the Palestinians are all recent immigrants in Israel and its occupied territories. As long as we as Americans are not willing to deed all of our real estate back to the Indians who were here first, it is hypocritical for us to bring up that issue anyway.
The purpose of this article is NOT to say that Jews do not also have a legitimate presence and property rights in Israel - they certainly do. Both Jews and Arabs have historical claims on Israel that go back for many centuries. The answer to the dispute between the 2 groups does not lie in a total expulsion of one group or the other from their homeland. We would not handle racial disputes in America that way - why should Palestine be handled any differently?
Editors note: There is a huge amount of money to be made from promoting false theology: Dedicated to the natural an and spiritual restoration of Israel, i.e., send us your money. www.visionforisrael.com
FROM STEVE KROFT (60 Minutes)
This article about George Soros is written by Steve Kroft from 60 Minutes. It begins to piece together the rise of Obama and his behavior in leading the nation along with many members of Congress (in particular the Democrats, such as the election of Pelosi as the minority leader in Congress)
If you have wondered where Obama came from and just how he quickly moved from obscurity to President, or why the media is selective in what we are told, here is the man who most probably put him there and is responsible. He controls President Obamas every move. Think this is absurd? Invest a few minutes and read this. You wont regret it.
Who is Obama? Obama is a puppet and here is the explanation of the man or demon that pulls his strings. Its not by chance that Obama can manipulate the world. I dont think he knows how to tie his shoe laces. After reading this and Obamas reluctance to accept help on the oil spill you wonder if the spill is part of the plan to destroy the US ?
In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it./ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Who Is George Soros? He brought the market down in 2 days. Here is what CBS Mr. Steve Krofts research has turned up. Its a bit of a read, and it took 4 months to put it together.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. George Soros
George Soros is an evil man. Hes anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good. He killed and robbed his own Jewish people. What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral values, and a sociopaths lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an elitist World class philosopher, despises the American way, and just loves to do social engineering and change cultures.
György Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary. Soros father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of the Esperanto language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity. The Schwartzs, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the Gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s
When Hitlers henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary to oversee the murder of that countrys Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds.
Soros has repeatedly called 1944 the best year of his life.. 70% of Mr. Soross fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect During an interview with Sixty Minutes Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his best year.
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors. SOROS: Yes. Thats right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many, years. Was it difficult?
SOROS: No, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it.
KROFT: No feelings of guilt?
SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power.
In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble. Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian, Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until Poppers death in 1994. Two of Poppers most influential teachings concerned the open society, and Fallibilism.
Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. (Then again, I could be wrong about that.) The open society basically refers to a test and evaluate approach to social engineering. Regarding open society Roy Childs writes, Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Poppers advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess.
In 1956 Soros moved to New York City, where he worked on Wall Street, and started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency speculation. Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings, and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.
In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for The American Thinker she says, Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically, almost overnight.
In 1994 Soros crowed in The New Republic, that the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire. The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then head of the House Banking Committee, to be one of the greatest social robberies in human history. The Soros Empire indeed. In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia. At the time, Malaysias Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad, called Soros a villain, and a moron. Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people.
The website Greek National Pride reports, Soros was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia, Ukraine and Myanmar [Burma]. Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.
France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars. Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for illegal market manipulation. Elizabeth Crum writes that the Hungarian economy has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more financially stable and westernized. Soros, deliberately driving down the share price of its largest bank, put Hungarys economy into a wicked tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.
My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and gluttony have a global reach. But what about America? Soros told Australias national newspaper, The Australian, America, as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is out, he said, adding that the time has come for a very serious adjustment in Americans consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the power to bring this about.
Soros: World financial crisis was stimulating and in a way, the culmination of my lifes work.
Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil , in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields. Obamas largesse towards Brazil came shortly after his political financial backer, George Soros, invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Pet rob ras).
Tait Trussel writes, The Pet rob ras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil, but it is a bad deal for the U. S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U S could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security and independence.
A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch.com. Their mission: This blog is dedicated to all who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits of George Soros. Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is the same: the destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will one day be made to stop preying upon the worlds poor, that justice will be served.
Back to America. Soros has been actively working to destroy America from the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years ago, news sources reported that Soros [is] an extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and on. This is off-the-chart dangerous. In 1997 Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote, Soros uses his philanthropy to change or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. His open society is not about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and entitlements.
Perhaps the most important of these whistle blowers are David Horowitz and Richard Poe. Their book The Shadow Party outlines in detail how Soros hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel. Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting moderate Democrats for years. The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which recently became the Obama Administration.
Discover The Networks.org (another good source) writes, By his [Soros] own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia , Croatia , Georgia , and Yugoslavia . When Soros targets a country for regime change, he begins by creating a shadow government, a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup.
November 2008 edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which Soros gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U. S.) should do after taking office: I think we need a large stimulus package. Soros thought that around 600 billion would be about right. Soros also said that I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U. S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights.
Although Soros doesnt (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party as well.
Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100 million dollars. According to an article by The Baltimore Chronicles Alice Cherbonnier, the Carlye Group is run by a veritable whos who of former Republican leaders, from CIA man Frank Carlucci, to CIA head and ex-President George Bush, Sr.
In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, Dick Cheneys old stomping grounds. When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time. In 2008, Soros donated $5,000,000,000 (thats Five Billion) to the Democratic National Committee, DNC, to insure Obamas win and wins for many other Alinsky trained Radical Rules Anti-American Socialists. George has been contributing a $ billion plus to the DNC since Clinton came on the scene.
Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that werent bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA. And I mustnt forget to mention Soros involvement with the MSM (Main Stream Media), the entertainment industry (e. g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influences most of the MSM. Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soros NEMESIS.
As Matthew Vadum writes, The liberal billionaire-turned-philanthropist has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run their own lives.
Richard Poe writes, Soros private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5 billion, continues undermining Americas traditional Western values. His giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization, sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social engineering.
Some of the many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) that Soros funds with his billions are: MoveOn. org, the Apollo Alliance, Media Matters for America, the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA (Project on Death In America), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go to DiscoverTheNetworks. org.
Poe continues, Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia.
Without Soros money, would the Saul Alinskys Chicago machine still be rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious activities? Would Big Money and lobbyists still be corrupting government? Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals?
America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barack Obama is leading the way.
The words of Patrick Henry are apropos: Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
These days, Patrick Henrys sentiment is more than just some quaint hyperbole from long ago. Its a slow burning, but intense, glow that fires our courage and heart.
Above information researched by CBS Steve Kroft. Forwarded to me, but the article is posted at several locations: Posted, 8/6/10, http://cctaxpayers.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-is-george-soros-steve-kroft.html. Posted, 6/24/10, http://www.thedcpost.com/?p=9194
By Bettie Need
Lately I have been feeling some sadness at growing older. After living a very active life for over sixty years, emotions similar to empty nest syndrome have been creeping in. Nothing really desperate, mind you, just thoughts like: Is this all there is to life at this age? Why am I already feeling lonely, as if I were truly alone, as when a spouse dies? My husband and I enjoy each others company, and we are busier than ever this summer, with the garden overflowing; but there is a longing for something else. I ask myself if I am being discontented, which I consider a sin, or if there is something about aging that I am just discovering for myself.
When my first husband and I were married long ago in North Carolina, we received a beautiful set of china from the church members. We packed them away carefully and took them with us wherever we moved. One year we moved five times! When we finally settled down long enough, my husband told me that whatever of our possessions we did not use in six months would be discarded except of course, seasonal items like winter clothing. Not wanting to break our expensive china by constant use, we had kept it in its packing box, but my husband said if we did not use it within six months, out it would go! So we used it often. Even after my husband died I used the china many times. Four years after he died, I began to feel like the packed box of china someone with an abundance of valuable life experiences which were not being used or shared with others. I spoke of this to my pastor and his wife Is this all there is to life, now at this stage?
I remember when we had to take the car keys away from my parents (who lived next door to me) when they became too incapacitated to drive safely. That was a traumatic moment for them, and a sad one for me, to admit that my parents were really getting too old to perform some tasks that had been second nature to them. I laughingly told them that now we could pretend they were very wealthy and could afford a chauffeur me! I believe my parents probably felt that was the beginning of the end of their lives. Am I at that stage of aging where I begin to think life is past and there is little reason to live, too? (My hips are now bad enough that I can no longer ride a motorcycle with my husband. Old has set in.)
Not wanting to resort to psychology, I began wondering what Gods Word has to say about my encroaching swamp of despair. Does God have anything to say about what women feel as they grow older? I did not know for sure, but I was willing to search. And so, I went to the beginning Genesis.
Genesis 2:18-24 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Aha! Of course! Adam needed a wife! Eve was needed. That is what I am feeling a need to be needed. But I know my second husband needs me he tells me every day that I am the perfect wife for him. Do I need any more than him? (Proverbs 31:10-31 describes a perfect wife and how her husband and children praise her.)
Children. My husband and I have five three of mine and two of his. Gods Word also shows the biological urge in womenthe need to have a baby. In Samuel 1:2-20, Hannah yearns for children. In Genesis 30:1, ... when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. (A desperate need to have children!) God did answer both Hannah and Rachel by opening their wombs. Psalms 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.
Another way women are needed is stated by the Psalmist: Psalms 22:9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mothers breasts. Psalms 22:10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mothers belly.
A baby needs its mother for sustenance in the womb and for nursing. After weaning, most mothers yearn for another baby. Women love being needed!
Gods Word also tells us children need mother and father: Deut. 6:7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Parents are to teach children every minute of the day how to love and obey God.
Okay! I have been there and done that! But does the Bible say anything about empty nest syndrome? Every empty nest woman needs to be needed, but her children are gone and no longer need her. God does address the issue, though not as I thought. Husband and wife are to maintain their own relationship of marriage throughout the child training years. I saw that a woman needs Gods Word to be implanted deep in her life. Here is Gods plan for husbands and wives:
Eph. 5:15- 27 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
I Tim. 5:8-10: But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.
Families are to provide for their own households in physical and spiritual ways. My first husband and I maintained our relationship during the child training years by having date nights when we would spend time together assessing the spiritual and physical needs of ourselves and our children. When I was 52 years old, he was killed, and I was at a loss. No one was left at home who needed me! That was when I spent a lot of time with my pastor and his wife for encouragement. Then I discovered how an overlooked passage in Titus could apply to me:
Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
I discovered a new need I had older women need to pass on life skills to younger women. I was to be like the good widow in I Tim. 5:10. What a blessing God has given older women in meeting this need! I have had many years happily encouraging younger wives and mothers, even having young ladies sent to me by my sister in Brazil for mentoring. Sadly, many churches do not avail themselves of this plan of God for encouraging their younger women. Some younger women think they will be looked down upon if they are not super-woman, so they do not ask for help or advice from the elder women. And even more sad it is that many older women shun this plan of God. They say, I have done my share of taking care of house and children, and am going to take care of my needs now! How they miss out on the blessing that comes from encouraging other women in righteousness, so that Gods Word is not blasphemed!
Another blessing is thrown away when children no longer need, or value their parents in their own lives and in the lives of their own children. Dear friends of ours lament the fact that their children have no room in their lives for them, except as guests at Christmas to bring gifts to the grandchildren. These friends are missionaries who have rich experiences which may bless their children and grandchildren, but their own offspring deny them the chance to visit more than once a year! The children take out the good china only at Christmas! They are content to be an island unto themselves.
As we get older, we need to be needed by the younger generation, especially the grandchildren. We hear of so many younger people professing their need for the older generation for the financial aid they can give, especially for college. There is certainly nothing wrong with needing financial aid, but the need to be needed goes much deeper than money. Praise the Lord, my husband and I have children who welcome our interaction with our grandchildren! Psalm 78: 1-8 is one of my favorite multi-generational passages:
Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
So where does all this bring me to at this time in my life? What about my desires to be needed? Granted, I am needed by my husband, though we are not part of a bustling family life like I yearn for as I remember my childhood. So what does God say about where I am right now? I am finally brought to:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-14: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God. I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. God has made everything beautiful in His time. Though I need and desire the companionship of our children and grandchildren, my greatest need is my need of Gods presence, in whom alone all my needs are met at every season of my life, to God be the glory!
See titus2joy.blogspot.com & practicallyprettybydesign.org
Were back on the E-word again and its still about electricity.
Recently we read - in a printed newspaper, not online - that the Congressional action to eliminate our old fashioned light bulbs would kick into gear next year when all 100 watt bulbs would cease to be available. By 2014 well lose the rest of them (40 watts, 60 watts, etc.) and then bulbs made in China will take over our lighting. Well lose the familiar incandescent bulbs for the new CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs.
We have an old house with old lighting fixtures. Guess what, the new bulbs, the CFLs, dont fit in them! Fixtures which have lasted 100 years or even 50 years should be kept working in old houses as part of the historic architecture as long as there arent any problems with them.
We do have some CFL fixtures in the new addition. We dont like them. At our age we like brighter lights so we can read better or see stray hairs or pick up a pin or whatever. The CFLs do not give a good bright light for reading or much of anything else.
We also dont feel comfortable with the mercury gas contained in these new bulbs. Its easy to drop a light bulb and break it, again, particularly as we get older, but the CFLs have a gas that is not safe for your health.
Finally, we dont like the price. We have some of the old bulbs which have been in use for years. The CFLs are supposed to¬ last 10 years, supposedly justifying the high price, but guess what? They dont last. Weve heard people comment that some of the CFLs didnt last a year and we can vouch for that since weve already replaced some in our new CFL fixtures.
And last but not least, we dont like Congress telling us what to buy, forcing manufacturing plants to shut down which produce a product weve all used for decades and which employed Americans to manufacture it. Congress and the administration give lip service to improving jobs and the trade balance and would you believe - these new CFLs are made in China!
Unless Americans complain about not being able to buy American and unless they complain about not wanting to use CFL light bulbs, the light will go out on a product which has been in use safely for well over a century.
Were doing our part and youve just read it.
Editorial, Moorefield WV Examiner, 8/17/11
Obama to scrap testing requirements because too many students failing [Drudge Report, 8/8/11]
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/duncan-states-will-get-school-testing-wa
Why can anyone, especially Christians, justify leaving their children in those dens of iniquity, where the emphasis seems to be on education in drugs, alcohol, sex, &c. But our school is different is not an excuse to sacrifice children to the devil.
Paper for Gold
The central bank, FED, is printing money like there is no tomorrow, while they deny any monetary value of gold. Yet they are using their paper, printing press money to purchase gold: Demand for gold pushed holdings in ETPs to a record 2,216.8 metric tons on Aug. 8, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Investors assets in the products were 2,211.1 tons on Aug. 19, more than all but four central banks. Central banks are also adding to gold reserves for the first time in a generation....
Get out of paper. Even the banks know they are destroying any value left in the paper, and are using the printing press to print paper to purchase gold. Why dont you understand what is taking place?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-22/gold-goes-off-charts-as-gartman-sees-prices-for-metal-heading-parabolic-.html
Jobs
Where have the jobs gone, and who sent them there?
GE will move its healthcare headquarters to Beijing, and will invest about $2 billion across China. 7/26/11.
http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-26/business/29817324_1_ge-healthcare-x-ray-business-china-last-year
GE Healthcare cutting 81 jobs at its Milwaukee and Waukesha facilities.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/128260038.html
In January, President Obama named General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the Presidents Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, an economic advisory board focused on job creation.... http://cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20047212-503544.html.
In addition, it has been commonly reported that GE paid no taxes to the US government.
We hear talk of wanting to develop high technology, but we see that once the technology is developed, it is shipped to China, along with the jobs. Beyond question, Americas once powerful manufacturing base is being systematically destroyed.
The President has just confirmed that the DC earthquake occurred on a rare and obscure fault-line, apparently known as Bushs Fault. The President also announced that the Secret Service and Maxine Waters continue an investigation of the quakes suspicious ties to the Tea Party. Conservatives however have proven that it was caused by the founding fathers rolling over in their graves.
-copied-
Ecclesiastes 7:16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
1. It is not good to be more nice than wise. Beware of overstricness, zeal, and forwardness in religion. Do not be too severe in observing, censuring, and punishing the faults of others beyond the rules of equity, without giving any allowance for human infirmity, extraordinary temptations, the state of times, and other circumstances. Or,
2. By being more just than God requires, either laying those yokes and burdens upon a mans self or others which God hath not imposed upon him, and which are too heavy for him, of which see on Mt 23:4, or condemning or avoiding those things as sinful which God hath not forbidden [more holy than God!], which really is superstition, but is here called righteousness abusively, because it is so in appearance, and in the opinion of such persons. So he gives them the name, but by adding over-much, denies the thing, because righteousness, as well as other virtues, avoids both the extremes, the excess as well as the deficit.
3. By an imprudent and unseasonable ostentation or exercise of righteousness where it is not necessary, as if a protestant travelling in a popish country should publicly profess his religion to all whom he meets with, or when a man casts the pearl of reproof before swine, against that caution, Mt 7:6. So this is a precept that men should manage their zeal with godly wisdom, and with condescension to others, as far as may be. But this is not to be understood, either,
1. Of such prudence as keeps a man from the practice of his duty, but only of that prudence which directs him in ordering the time, manner, and other circumstances of it. Or,
2. As if men could be too good, or too holy, since the strictest holiness which any man in this life can arrive at falls far short both of the rule of Gods word, and of those examples of God and Christ, and the holy angels, which are propounded in Scripture for our imitation.
Be not wise in thine own conceit; that is, think more of men nor of ourselves than that which is written; be not proud against one another, 1 Corinthians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 10:12.
(Matthew Poole)
Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Interesting statement. Self-destruction:
1. Beware of overstricness, &c.
2. Do not try to be more holy than God requires; that is, more holy than God.
3. Manage zeal with godly wisdom.
We do not normally connect the above points with sin, but the Wise Man said they can lead to destruction.
With apologies to Joyce Kilmer
I think that I have never heard
A singer lovely as a bird.
A bird, who clad in colored vest
Nestles in its treeborne next
A bird that beckoned by the skies
lifts its feathered arms and flies
A bird that calls out in rejoice
To bathe the heavens with its voice
Theres little doubt that God conferred
His sweetest songs upon the bird
But must these minstrels eer desplay them
Saturday morning at five AM?
-copied- and in recognition of the one just outside our bedroom window.
by DAVE MACPHERSON
When I began my research in 1970 into the exact beginnings of the pretribulation rapture belief still held by many evangelicals, I assumed that the rapture debate involved only godly scholars with honest differences. The paper you are now reading reveals why I gave up that assumption many years ago. With this introduction-of-sorts in mind, lets take a long look at the pervasive dishonesty throughout the history of the 179-year-old pretrib rapture theory:
German scholar Max Weremchuks work John Nelson Darby (1992) included what Benjamin Newton revealed about John Darby in the mid-1820s during his pre-Brethren days as an Anglican clergyman:
J. N. Darby was a very subtle man. He had been a lawyer, or at least educated for the law. Once he wanted his Archbishop to pursue a certain course, when he (J.N.D.) was a curate in his diocese. He wrote a letter, therefore, saying he had been educated for the law, knew what the legal course would properly be; and then having written that clearly, he mystified the remainder of the letter both in word and in handwriting, and ended up by saying: You see, my Lord, such being the legal aspect of the case it would unquestionably be the best course for you to pursue, etc. And the Archbishop couldnt make out the legal part, but rested on Darbys word and did as he advised. Darby afterwards laughed over it, and indeed he showed a copy of the letter to Tregelles. This is not mentioned in the Archbishops biography, but in it is the fact that he spoke of Darby as the most subtle man in my diocese.
This reminds me of an 1834 letter by Darby which spoke of the Lords coming. Darby added, concerning this coming, that the thoughts are new and that during any teaching of it it would not be well to have it so clear. Darbys deviousness here was his usage of a centuries-old term - Lords coming - to cover up his desire to sneak the new pretrib idea into existing posttrib groups in very low-profile ways!
In the spring of 1830 a young Scottish lassie, Margaret Macdonald, came up with the novel notion of a catching up [rapture] of Spirit-filled church members before Antichrists trial [tribulation] of non-Spirit-filled church members - the first instance Ive found of clear pretrib teaching (which was part of a partial rapture scheme). In Sep. 1830 The Morning Watch (a journal produced by London preacher Edward Irving and his Irvingite followers, some of whom had visited Margaret a few weeks earlier) began repeating her original thoughts and even her wording but gave her no credit - the first plagiarism Ive found in pretrib history. Darby was still defending posttrib in Dec. 1830.
Pretrib promoters have long known the significance of her main point: a rapture of church members BEFORE the revealing of Antichrist. Which is why John Walvoord quoted nothing in her revelation, why Thomas Ice habitually skips over her main point but quotes lines BEFORE and AFTER it, and why Hal Lindsey muddies up her main point so he can (falsely) assert that she was NOT a pretribber! (Google X-Raying Margaret for info about her.)
NOTE: The development of the 1800s is thoroughly documented in my book The Rapture Plot. Youll learn that Darby wasnt original on any chief aspect of dispensationalism (but plagiarized the Irvingites); that pretrib was initially based on only OT and NT symbols and not clear Scripture; that the symbols included the Jewish feasts, the two witnesses, and the man child - symbols adopted by Darby during most of his career; that Darbys later reminiscences exaggerated his earliest pretrib development, and that todays defenders such as Thomas Ice have further overstated what Darby overstated; that Irvingism didnt need later reminiscences to clarify its own early pretrib development; that ancient hymns and even the writings of the Reformers were subtly revised to make it appear they had taught pretrib; and that after Darbys death a clever revisionist quietly made many changes in early Irvingite and Brethren documents in order to steal credit for pretrib away from the Irvingites (and their female inspiration!) and give it dishonestly to Darby! (Before continuing, Google the Powered by Christ Ministries site and read Americas Pretrib Rapture Traffickers - a sample of the current exciting internetism!)
Charles Trumbulls book The Life Story of C. I. Scofield told only the dispensationally-correct side of his life. Two recent books, Joseph Canfields The Incredible Scofield and His Book (1988) and David Lutzweilers DispenSinsationalism: C. I. Scofields Life and Errors (2006), reveal the other side including his being jailed as a forger, dishonestly giving himself a non-conferred D.D. etc. etc.!
Brethren scholar Harold Rowdons The Origins of the Brethren quoted Darby associate Lord Congleton who was disgusted with...the falseness of Darbys accounts of things. Rowdon also quoted historian William Neatby who said that others felt that the time-honoured method of single combat was as good as anything to elicit the truth from Darby. (In other words, knock it out of him!)
Tim LaHayes The Beginning of the End (1972) plagiarized Hal Lindseys The Late Great Planet Earth (1970).
Charles Ryries The Living End (1976) plagiarized Lindseys The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and Theres A New World Coming (1973).
After John Walvoords The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation (1976) brutally twisted Robert Gundrys The Church and the Tribulation (1973), Gundry composed and circulated a 35-page open letter to Walvoord which repeatedly charged the Dallas Seminary president with misrepresentation, misrepresentations (and variations)!
The Fundamentalist Phenomenon (1981) by Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, and Ed Hindson heavily plagiarized George Dollars 1973 book A History of Fundamentalism in America.
After a prof at Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God in Florida told me that the No. 2 man at the AG world headquarters in Missouri - Joseph Flower - had the label of posttrib, my wife and I had two hour-long chats with him. He verified what I had been told. But we were dumbstruck when he told us that although AG ministers are required to promote pretrib, privately they can believe any other rapture view! Flower said that his father, an AG co-founder, was also posttrib. We also learned while in Springfield that when the AGs were organized in 1914, the initial group was divided between posttribs and pretribs - but that the pretribs shouted louder which resulted in that denomination officially adopting pretrib! (For details on this and other pretrib double-mindedness, Google Pretrib Hypocrisy.)
Since 1989 Thomas Ice has referred to the Mac-theory (his reference to my research), giving the impression theres no solid evidence that Macdonald was the real pretrib originator. But Ice carefully conceals the fact that no eminent church historian of the 1800s - whether Plymouth Brethren or Irvingite - credited Darby with pretrib. Instead, they uniformly credited leading Irvingite sources, all of which upheld the Scottish lassies contribution! Moreover, Im hardly the only modern scholar seeing significance in Irvingisms territory. Others in recent years who have noted it, but who havent mined it as deeply as I have, include Fuller, Ladd, Bass, Rowdon, Sandeen, and Gundry.
Greg Bahnsen and Kenneth Gentry produced evidence in 1989 that Lindseys book The Road to Holocaust (1989) plagiarized Dominion Theology (1988) by H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice.
David Jeremiahs and C. C. Carlsons Escape the Coming Night (1990) massively plagiarized Lindseys 1973 book Theres A New World Coming. (For more info, type in Thieves Marketing on MSN or Google.)
Paul Lee Tans A Pictorial Guide to Bible Prophecy (1991) plagiarized large amounts of Lindseys The Late Great Planet Earth (1970).
Militant Darby defender R. A. Huebner claimed in 1991 to have found new evidence that Darby was pretrib as early as 1827 - three years before Macdonald. Halfway through his book Huebner suddenly admitted that his evidence could refer to something completely un-rapturesque. Even though Thomas Ice admitted to me that he knew that Huebner had blown his so-called evidence, prevaricator Ice continues to tell the world that Huebner has positive evidence that Darby was pretrib in 1827! Ice also conceals the fact that Darby, in his own 1827 paper, was looking for only the restitution of all things and the times of refreshing (Acts 3:19,21) - which Scofield doesnt see fulfilled until AFTER a future tribulation!
Tim LaHayes No Fear of the Storm (1992) plagiarized Walvoords The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation (1976).
This was when the Los Angeles Times revealed that The Magog Factor (1992) by Hal Lindsey and Chuck Missler was a monstrous plagiarism of Prof. Edwin Yamauchis scholarly 1982 work Foes from the Northern Frontier. Four months after this exposure, Lindsey and Missler stated they had stopped publishing and promoting their book. But in 1996 Dr. Yamauchi learned that the dishonest duo had issued a 1995 book called The Magog Invasion which still had a substantial amount of the same plagiarism! (If Lindsey and Missler ever need hernia operations, I predict that the doctors will tell them not to lift anything for a long time!)
In 1996 it was revealed that Lindseys Planet Earth - 2000 A.D. (1994) had an embarrassing amount of plagiarism of a Texe Marrs book titled Mystery Mark of the New Age (1988).
My book The Rapture Plot reveals the dishonesty in Darbys reprinted works. Its often hard to tell who wrote the footnotes and when. Its easy to believe that the notes, and also unsigned phrases inside brackets within the text, were a devious attempt by someone (Darby? his editor?) to portray a Darby far more developed in pretrib thinking than he actually had been at the time. I found that some of the additives had been taken from Darbys much later works, when he was more developed, and placed next to or inside his earliest works! One footnote by Darbys editor, attached to Darbys 1830 paper, actually stated that it was not worth while either suppressing or changing anything in this work! If his editor wasnt open to such dishonesty, how can we explain such a statement?
Post-1995 - Thomas Ices article Inventor of False Pre-Trib Rapture History states that my book The Rapture Plot is only one of the latest in a series of revisions of his original discourse.... And David Reagan in his article The Origin of the Concept of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture repeats Ices falsehood by claiming that I have republished my first book over the years under several different titles.
Although my book repeats a bit of the Macdonald origin of pretrib (for new readers), all of my books are packed with new material not found in my other works. For some clarification, The Incredible Cover-Up has photos of pertinent places in Ireland, Scotland, and England not found in my later books plus several chapters dealing with theological arguments; The Great Rapture Hoax quotes scholars throughout the Church Age, covers Scofields hidden side, a section on Powerscourt, the 1980 election, the Jupiter Effect, Gundrys change, and more theological arguments; The Rapture Plot reveals for the first time the Great Evangelical Revisionism/Robbery and includes appendices on miscopying, plagiarism, etc.; and The Three Rs shows hypocritical evangelicals employing occultic beliefs they say they have long opposed!
So Thomas Ice etc. are twisting truth when they claim I am only a revisionist. Do they really think that my publishers DONT know what Ive previously written?
Re arguments, Google Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts and also obtain The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation (AuthorHouse, 2006) by media personality Joe Ortiz.
For years Harvest House Publishers has owned and been republishing Lindseys book Theres A New World Coming. During the same time Lindsey has been peddling his reportedly new book Apocalyse Code (1997), much of which is word-for-word the same as the Harvest House book - and theres no notice of simultaneous publishing in either book! Talk about pretrib greed!
This is the year I discovered that more than 50 pages of Dallas Seminary professor Merrill Ungers book Beyond the Crystal Ball (Moody Press, 1973) constituted a colossal plagiarism of Lindseys The Late Great Planet Earth (1970). After Lindseys book came out, Unger had complained that Lindseys book had plagiarized his classroom lecture notes. It was evident that Unger felt that he too should cash in on his own lectures! (The detailed account of this Dallas Seminary dishonesty is revealed in my 1998 book The Three Rs.)
Tim LaHayes Understanding the Last Days (1998) plagiarized Lindseys Theres A New World Coming (1973).
More than 200 pages (out of 396 pages) in Lindseys 1999 book Vanished Into Thin Air are virtually carbon copies of pages in his 1983 book The Rapture - with no updated or revised notice included! Lindsey has done the same nervy thing with several of his books, something that has allowed him to live in million-dollar-plus homes and drive cars like Ferraris! (See my Google articles Deceiving and Being Deceived and Thieves Marketing for further evidence of this notably pretrib vice.)
A Jack Van Impe article The Moment After (2000) plagiarized Grant Jeffreys book Final Warning (1995).
Since 2001 my web article Walvoords Posttrib Varieties - Plus has been exposing his devious muddying up of posttrib waters. In some of his books he invented four distinct and contradictory posttrib divisions, claiming that they are either classic or semiclassic or futurist or dispensational - distinctions that disappear when analyzed! His futurist group holds to a literal future tribulation and a literal millennium but doesnt embrace any day imminency. But his dispensational group has the same non-imminency! Moreover, tribulational futurism is found in every group except the first one, and he somehow admitted that a literal millennium is in all four groups! On the other hand, its the pretribs who consistently disagree with each other over their chief points and subpoints - but somehow end up agreeing that there will be a pretrib rapture! (See my chapter A House Divided in my book The Incredible Cover-Up.)
Since my Deceiving and Being Deceived web item which exposed the claims for Pseudo-Ephraem and Morgan Edwards as teachers of pretrib, there has been a piranha-like frenzy on the part of pretrib bodyguards and their duped groupies to discover almost anything before 1830 walking upright on two legs that seemed to have at least a remote hint of pretrib! (An exemplary poster boy for such pretrib practice is Grant Jeffrey. To get your moneys worth, Google Wily Jeffrey.)
FINALLY: Dont take my word for any of the above. Read my 300-page book The Rapture Plot which has a jillion more documented details on the long-hidden but now-revealed history of the dishonest, 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised-until-the-real-bad-stuff-happens pretribulation rapture fad. If this book of mine doesnt move you, I will personally refund what you paid for it.
http://poweredbychrist.com/Pretrib_Rapture_Dishonesty.html
Also, see Death of the Church Victorious for more documentation of the origins of Dispensational Raptureism. Bro Need
* Speak only if it improves upon the silence. Mohandas Gandhi
* Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mohandas Gandhi
* If you are going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill
* Coincidence is Gods way of remaining anonymous. Albert Einstein
* Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. Albert Einstein
* Bessie Braddock: Sir, you are drunk.
Churchill: And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober. Winston Churchill
* Remembering that Ill be dead soon is the most important tool Ive ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Steve Jobs
* A leader leads by example not by force. Sun Tzu, The Art of War
* There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for. Mohandas Gandhi
* The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Albert Einstein
* Im not an atheist and I dont think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesnt know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. Albert Einstein
* Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. Albert Einstein, What Life Means to Einstein
* I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Letter to Harry S. Truman. Albert Einstein, The culture of Einstein
* Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein
* You should be the change that you want to see in the world. Mohandas Gandhi
* Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years
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