Wednesday, July 3, 2013

A sermon for the 4th of July 2013

I was invited to speak at a 4th of July celebration event of friends.  I figured, why not blog it as well?  So here it is:

Promises and Judgment
What is the first promise in the Bible?
Trick Question: Actually the first promise in the bible is the very first verse:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This is a promise God made to Himself and it begins his plan to glorify Himself by His works and the keeping of his promises.
So let's ask that question a little differently: What is the first promise God makes to mankind in the Bible?
Genesis 1:28 - And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it...
So how is this a promise?  It really is a command.  But with every command of God there comes a promise because His integrity will not allow him to command something he made to do something it cannot do.  His command brings the promise of the ability to obey the command.

God's words are full of promises.  He promises and then he performs them.  He never breaks a promise.  Not to himself and not even to the least of his creation.  Before His first command to man we see his promises to the birds and animals and fish.  He keeps his promises to the atoms and quarks, to the planets and stars, to the angels and to the demons and to creatures we can't even see.  This is all to His glory.

The proper roll of business is to implement the commandment to subdue the earth.  It does this by making promises which collect the wealth and talents and labor of people into a unified vision that creates more wealth and moves man down the road to domination of this world.
As a side benefit, business produces profit.  God is a god of profit - His word will never return void.  He will always make a profit in what he does - in other words, the fruit of His actions are good - this is the true definition of profit.  These works produce blessings that in turn produce more blessings and the ability to do more works.  The proper fruit of business is thus to create good healthy clean honest profit.
Profit is not the goal, it is the fruit.  The goal is to fulfill the first commandment.

Historically, man collectively gets off track when profit becomes the goal.  The profit is perverted - not profit for God or God's glory, but profit for the individual self above all others.  This kind of error is characterized by the phrase "I will profit myself at the expense of others."
We see this when people use "other people's money" to make a profit.
We see this when people commit fraud for gain and sacrifice integrity for profit.
We see this when governments or businesses inject themselves into every transaction of a particular type in order to make profit without labor or service.

So what does this have to do with the 4th of July?

Much of the following content below comes from a DVD entitled "The Money Masters" which covers the history of banking and money and explains what is actually happening to us financially via a giant fraud.

Ben Franklin once said: "The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution."

Understanding money is a key issue to understanding promises and how we achieve the commandment to subdue the earth.  That's because money represents promises.  All of society hinges on the making and keeping of promises and every unit of money represents the keeping of a promise.

Jesus warned us about "the leaven of the Pharisees".  What was he talking about?

In the temple when Jesus was clearing His father's house of leaven before the feast of First Fruits, he turned over the money changer's tables and said "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves" One thing that is rarely taught is what exactly the money changers were doing that caused Jesus' anger.
In Jesus' day, the Pharisees insisted that only the temple shekel was an acceptable form of payment for tithes and offerings.  Roman coins certainly were not acceptable - how could God accept a currency with some evil roman emperor's face on the front? 
The money changers of the day (and I am sure some were Pharisees) horded the temple money so that they could corner the market on this medium of exchange.  By doing so, they could charge high prices to the people that would have to trade for them so they could make their gifts to God at the temple.  The money changers apparently had an inside track with the priesthood that allowed them to cheaply reacquire these shekels once they were spent in the temple.  Thus, the money changers had a pretty profitable business by inserting themselves into every gift to God.

Today we have the same situation.  Every transaction uses the US dollar and every dollar in circulation is created out of a loan.  The Federal Reserve Bank, which is neither Federal or has Reserves for the public, pays the printers a few cents for paper money which it then loans to the US government with interest so that our government can then spend it into the economy.  It is thus impossible to pay off the debt for the currency because there aren't enough dollars in existence to pay the principle plus the interest.
The US Government, in turn, maintains a complete monopoly for the Federal Reserve on money issuance.  Even BitCoin and NorFed have been shut down by the US Government to prevent there from being any alternative for us to use to legally pay our debts and keep our promises.
Thus we are in a system that mathematically guarantees it will eventually rob us of all our wealth and make the money changers the "masters of the universe".
This system of fractional reserve lending using fiat currency has now been picked up by every nation on earth.  The IMF is the central bank that encompasses all the national banks and is the head of this hydra.  This system is a modern day tower of Babel reaching to infinity with its fraudulent promises - sounds like a pyramid scheme to me!
One could go into much detail how this happened and why but the fruit of it is what we are seeing now in America.  Goods get cheaper and of poorer quality.  Things constantly break once the warranty runs out instead of lasting 100 years like they could do if they were properly made.  Promises are broken as businesses collapse under the tax and regulation burdens of government and the economic pressures of an ever devaluing currency.  Short term exploitation of resources dominates over long term stewardship. 
People borrow worthless paper to buy real property only to obtain a warranty deed and a fee simple title which entitles them to no true ownership of anything.  You get to pay property taxes but you don't get to mine the land or use the water or even hunt the game without license.
We live as serfs, homeless in the land our fathers conquered - as was predicted by Jefferson if the central bankers have their way.
The leaven of the Pharisees my friend is the hypocritical and deceptive making and breaking of promises in order to promote self over others.  Such leaven leads to poverty and death.
The twists that society contorts into due to this evil leaven creates needless wars, biological weapons, weather control, earthquake creation, nuclear horrors, contaminated and GMO foods, toxic drug cartels and even designed obsolescence.
No wonder Jesus prophesied:  "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars".  This is the direct fruit of the leaven of the Pharisees.  It is the logical conclusion of the breaking of promises on a massive scale.

God has two cures for this.  They are repentance or judgment. 

Repentance requires breaking one's pride and confessing to God and man that we simply cannot keep our obligations and promises.  We must fall on God's infinite mercy and turn from our wicked ways.  This will, in the short term hurt.  We will be publicly shamed and will suffer the wrath of the wicked as their profit schemes are threatened by our collective repentance.  But once Satan's wrath is blown over, blessings will be restored.

Dr. Jonathan Hansen has written a book entitled "The Science of Judgment".  In his book he points out that every nation has a cup that is the measure of sin God will tolerate before Judgment must take place.  Once the cup is full, the ax will fall, but not till after God has given that nation many warnings and chances to repent.
The reason God finally must execute judgment to an unrepentant nation is simply so that the innocent are not doomed.  God will always provide hope for man in the form of a remnant and He will execute judgment as needed to ensure this remnant persists through all time.  This is all to His glory.

Another interesting book entitled "The Harbinger" presents an interesting idea that shows how 9/11 was a warning of coming judgment and shows how Isaiah 9:10 has been invoked by our congress as words of encouragement but which in fact were part of a larger prophecy of judgment on Israel.  Israel did not repent and the Assyrians ultimately destroyed the northern kingdom and scattered the 10 tribes to the nations.  Events following 9/11 closely match the prophecy and its application to America.  I won't spoil the book for you but needless to say it is quite interesting.

So America is most likely facing severe judgment for its sins and we know them well: Abortion, Fraud, Murder, Adultery to false gods, warmongering for profit, narcissistic pursuit of hedonistic pleasure including homosexuality, infinite self entertainment, and perversion of all things from what they were purposed for by God.

Bombs bursting in air are not going to fix it, nor will flag waving, protest marches or election activities.  Our votes are not even counted by people anymore - we cannot hope to elect good leaders until after a solution is found.

What will change things is true repentance for each of us individually and much time on our knees beseeching God for mercy and deliverance.  It may be that His mercy will be expressed in judgment with a remnant preserved for the future.  In a way, judgment is mercy.

I  can only end with a great example of the spirit of humility we must take hold of to recover from this calamity.  The words of our National Hymn - something you will never hear at a football or baseball game or on TV:

  1. God of our fathers, whose almighty hand
    Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
    Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies,
    Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise.
  2. Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
    In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
    Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay,
    Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.
  3. From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence,
    Be Thy strong arm our ever sure defense;
    Thy true religion in our hearts increase,
    Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace.
  4. Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way,
    Lead us from night to never-ending day;
    Fill all our lives with love and grace divine,
    And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.

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