At last! We are just about the last country to comply with the new banking rules concerning how much cash reserves that banks must retain in case of bank runs and financial problems. Some of you may know the implications of this.

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/sm0232.aspx

When God fixed the price of “a homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver,” it established both a silver standard and a barley standard, both derived from the land itself. The silver-barley standard was based upon the production from land, but not upon the land itself. Land belongs to God, and the divine law makes God’s created land inherently priceless. It can only be valued according to its productive ability. Hence, the biblical economy is not built upon a “land standard,” any more than on a gold standard.

Instead, it is built upon barley and silver. Barley is a product of farming the earth, while silver is a product of mining the earth. These two things represent all production from the land, and so they form the silver-barley standard. But it should be kept in mind that the true economic standard in Scripture is based upon ALL production and is not limited to barley and silver. Anything that has value is money or wealth, and this true money may be represented by currency.

The fact that 50 shekels of silver was the equivalent of a homer of barley was meant to establish the relationship between the amount of labor to mine and refine a shekel of silver and the labor needed to produce a homer of barley. It also presumed a non-inflationary economy.

The net effect of God's claim to ownership of all He created is that men cannot speculate on something they do not own. More than any other factor, this establishes a stable economy that is based upon production and labor—true wealth that man owns—rather than speculative wealth which leads to inflationary and deflationary cycles.

When nations on earth refuse to recognize God as the Creator, their governments assume ownership of that which God has created. The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, recognizes God as the Creator, and so its government recognizes His ownership of all that He has created.

...When God divided up the land of Canaan for the families of each tribe, He removed from most of the land its speculative value. He did this by telling them that they had no right to buy and sell land, except houses built in urban areas (Lev. 25:29). Lev. 25:23, 24 says,

23 The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

As Creator, God held the right of eminent domain. This means that the people’s privilege of land ownership was conditional upon their obedience to the law of God.

They were living on someone else’s land, and so they did not have unlimited freedom to use the land as they pleased. For the same reason, they were not free to worship other gods or to prefer the laws of those other gods.

For this reason, when Israel failed to recognize God’s right as Creator and Land-owner, He took them to the Divine Court and sold them into servitude to various other nations, according to the provisions of the law. Finally, in the great captivity to Babylon, Jeremiah explains the legal basis of this sale. Jer. 27:5-7 says,

5 I [God] have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight. 6 And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnez-zar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. 7 And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his grandson . . .

God then commanded the people to submit to the divine ruling and admit their guilt. However, they refused, because they thought God was pleased with their religious rituals in the temple and did not believe that God would judge them. So they refused to believe the prophecies of Jeremiah and only made matters worse for themselves.

The point is that the divine judgments upon nations as well as upon individuals is based upon His rights as the Creator. It is imperative, then, that all men recognize God as Creator and submit to His laws. Man has no right to disagree with God or to legislate His own laws that define morality in a contradictory manner.

The land laws of the Bible are the basic economic laws for a Kingdom nation. Included in God’s land ownership is His ownership of all mineral rights. We see this plainly in Haggai 2:8,

8 The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

God’s ownership is also seen in the law of the tithe. Whenever man derives income from God’s labor (creation), he must give God a tenth of it for the support of Kingdom government. This includes farming, ranching, mining, fishing, and lumbering. The tithe is not based upon one’s own labor, but upon God’s desire to see a return on His own labor. The tithe is also an important recognition of God as the Creator and Owner of all that He has created.

God owns the land, and man is His steward. While we may talk of our personal ownership of land, we must keep in mind that we mean ownership under God. Our ownership is limited by God’s rights. We do not own the land per se; we own only our labor—that is, our improvements or that which we have built on God’s land. God owns His own labor, and man owns his own labor.

Every citizen of a Kingdom nation that is ruled by biblical law is supposed to “own” a piece of land as his inheritance. This is clearly seen in God’s command to Joshua to divide the land of Canaan among all the families of Israel and the “mixed multitude” among them who had joined themselves to the Covenant (Ex. 12:38; Num. 11:4; Isaiah 56:6).

The land is not to be taxed or taken away by government, because government did not create the land. Only God Himself can disenfranchise the people as a whole if they continually violate His law.

Land ownership is a basic property right in the Kingdom of God. That is, it is a God-given privilege, because it is granted by God and can be removed by God alone. But in the relationship between government and citizens, land ownership is a right, not a privilege.

Privileges can be revoked by the one granting them. Rights cannot be revoked. Land ownership is a privilege given by God, but a right to be protected by government.

One’s land inheritance is the common man's “golden parachute,” because he always owns something of value and can return to the land if he loses a job in the city.

If he loses the land through poverty or by court order (to pay for a crime/sin), it must always return to him or his heirs in the Year of Jubilee. It is the divine “reset button.” The loss is not permanent as long as the Covenant remains. There is always another day to start over with a clean slate.

In Micah 4 we see a prophecy that the “mountain” (that is, the KINGDOM) of the Lord will be established at some point in the future. Daniel called it the “stone” kingdom (Dan. 2:35). In the coming “stone kingdom” every family will have its own land inheritance as a basic right. So in Micah 4:4 we read,

4 And each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

The impact of this law upon a nation's economy is enormous. The first law, of course, is God’s right to own all that He created—including man. The second law is derived from it—man’s right to inherit land under God and to be its steward. God remains sovereign; man is given authority. As long as man does not usurp God’s sovereignty, he enjoys all privileges of citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

Biblical usury does not have the same definition as in modern times. Today, “usury” is charging more interest than is allowable by man’s law. Biblical usury is all interest. The basic law against usury is found in Deut. 23:19, 20,


19 You shall not charge interest to your countrymen, interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. 20 You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countryman you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

“Foreigners” in this case refer to non-citizens of the Kingdom—the equivalent of unbelievers. Such people are those who live by a different set of moral laws established by someone other than Jesus Christ. If one was to give them an interest-free loan, they would have no twinge of conscience in loaning it to someone else at interest. A Kingdom citizen has no obligation to provide such a person with an interest-free loan. In such cases, charging interest is optional.

Biblical law makes a distinction between non-Israelites living in Israel and those living elsewhere. Any non-Israelite who came to live in Israel was to be treated by the same laws as all others, even as he was obligated to abide by the laws of the Kingdom. Lev. 25:35-37 makes this clear:


35 Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. 36 Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your country-man may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain.

In other words, if someone is in need, whether an Israelite or a foreigner, he was to be treated without oppression. Hence, Scripture makes it clear in so many places that the Israelites were not to oppress foreigners.

...
It is truly unfortunate that traditional Jewish thought has so often missed this lesson and has justified the oppression of non-Jews. Even today, this kind of lawless behavior permeates the Israeli state in their treatment of Palestinians. In New Testament times, the Apostle Paul was hated and persecuted by the priests of the synagogue, primarily because he treated non-Jews as equals, rather than as second-class citizens. (See one such story in Acts 13:42-52.) They accused him of being a law-breaker for going against the traditions of the elders, when in fact the Jews had destroyed the law by their traditions (i.e., interpretations of the law).

This lawless attitude of the Jews toward non-Jews was a big factor in later years when the Church rejected the law of God. Instead of casting out the “traditions of men,” by which the Jewish leaders misinterpreted the law, they ignorantly thought that the divine law actually was discriminatory; hence, they discarded the law itself as being inferior to the love that Jesus proclaimed.
...
Most Christians no longer think that usury is a sin. Though the Roman Church borrowed money at interest very early in its history, it always officially considered usury a sin until recently. On June 27, 1942, the Church established the Institute for Works of Religion (the Vatican Bank), funded by the donation of Mussolini in 1929.

Most Protestants and evangelicals had already cast aside the law of God and saw no harm in usury. In fact, many justified it by a unique interpretation of Jesus’ parable in Luke 19. In that parable, the “nobleman” went on a journey and left varying amounts of money in the care of his servants. When he returned, two of the wiser servants had increased the money by trade—that is, lawful business.

However, the third servant had a warped view of his master (who represented Jesus Himself). We read,


20 And another came, saying, “Master, behold your mina [a certain type of money], which I kept put away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow.”

In other words, this foolish servant did not really know his master at all, and hence he was afraid to increase the “mina” by lawful trade. Further, he accused his master of being “an exacting man,” who was essentially a THIEF, reaping what he did not sow. So the master judged this servant by his own words:


22 He said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know [perceive] that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down, and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Then why did you not put the money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?”

In other words, Jesus said, if you really thought that I was an unscrupulous tyrant that reaped where others had sown, then why did you not just put the money in the bank in order to collect interest on the money? That way, I could have increased my wealth by robbery.

Interest on money was the equivalent of reaping where one has not sown.

This parable employs irony. One cannot take this as a command to charge interest on money. In fact, it teaches precisely the opposite. Only an unscrupulous businessman would engage in the practice of usury, because charging interest is theft. It is reaping where one has not sown. It is unlawful profiteering on other people’s labor.

But because the Church discarded the law of God, many have come to sanctify theft in the name of Jesus. Because of this, we allowed the practice of usury in our modern banking system. And hence, God put us into bondage to Mystery Babylon through the Federal Reserve Act, which put the entire nation and the Church itself into captivity.

It is therefore important that we repent of our sin and obey God by faith. If we have faith in God, we will be obedient to Him and accept His ways, rather than accept the ways of our Babylonian masters. When we repent, then God will deliver us from Babylon and establish us in true prosperity under the laws of His Kingdom.

When God fixed the price of “a homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver,” it established both a silver standard and a barley standard, both derived from the land itself. The silver-barley standard was based upon the production from land, but not upon the land itself. Land belongs to God, and the divine law makes God’s created land inherently priceless. It can only be valued according to its productive ability. Hence, the biblical economy is not built upon a “land standard,” any more than on a gold standard.

Instead, it is built upon barley and silver. Barley is a product of farming the earth, while silver is a product of mining the earth. These two things represent all production from the land, and so they form the silver-barley standard. But it should be kept in mind that the true economic standard in Scripture is based upon ALL production and is not limited to barley and silver. Anything that has value is money or wealth, and this true money may be represented by currency.

The fact that 50 shekels of silver was the equivalent of a homer of barley was meant to establish the relationship between the amount of labor to mine and refine a shekel of silver and the labor needed to produce a homer of barley. It also presumed a non-inflationary economy.

The net effect of God's claim to ownership of all He created is that men cannot speculate on something they do not own. More than any other factor, this establishes a stable economy that is based upon production and labor—true wealth that man owns—rather than speculative wealth which leads to inflationary and deflationary cycles.

When nations on earth refuse to recognize God as the Creator, their governments assume ownership of that which God has created. The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, recognizes God as the Creator, and so its government recognizes His ownership of all that He has created.

...When God divided up the land of Canaan for the families of each tribe, He removed from most of the land its speculative value. He did this by telling them that they had no right to buy and sell land, except houses built in urban areas (Lev. 25:29). Lev. 25:23, 24 says,

23 The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

As Creator, God held the right of eminent domain. This means that the people’s privilege of land ownership was conditional upon their obedience to the law of God.

They were living on someone else’s land, and so they did not have unlimited freedom to use the land as they pleased. For the same reason, they were not free to worship other gods or to prefer the laws of those other gods.

For this reason, when Israel failed to recognize God’s right as Creator and Land-owner, He took them to the Divine Court and sold them into servitude to various other nations, according to the provisions of the law. Finally, in the great captivity to Babylon, Jeremiah explains the legal basis of this sale. Jer. 27:5-7 says,

5 I [God] have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight. 6 And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnez-zar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. 7 And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his grandson . . .

God then commanded the people to submit to the divine ruling and admit their guilt. However, they refused, because they thought God was pleased with their religious rituals in the temple and did not believe that God would judge them. So they refused to believe the prophecies of Jeremiah and only made matters worse for themselves.

The point is that the divine judgments upon nations as well as upon individuals is based upon His rights as the Creator. It is imperative, then, that all men recognize God as Creator and submit to His laws. Man has no right to disagree with God or to legislate His own laws that define morality in a contradictory manner.

The land laws of the Bible are the basic economic laws for a Kingdom nation. Included in God’s land ownership is His ownership of all mineral rights. We see this plainly in Haggai 2:8,

8 The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

God’s ownership is also seen in the law of the tithe. Whenever man derives income from God’s labor (creation), he must give God a tenth of it for the support of Kingdom government. This includes farming, ranching, mining, fishing, and lumbering. The tithe is not based upon one’s own labor, but upon God’s desire to see a return on His own labor. The tithe is also an important recognition of God as the Creator and Owner of all that He has created.

God owns the land, and man is His steward. While we may talk of our personal ownership of land, we must keep in mind that we mean ownership under God. Our ownership is limited by God’s rights. We do not own the land per se; we own only our labor—that is, our improvements or that which we have built on God’s land. God owns His own labor, and man owns his own labor.

Every citizen of a Kingdom nation that is ruled by biblical law is supposed to “own” a piece of land as his inheritance. This is clearly seen in God’s command to Joshua to divide the land of Canaan among all the families of Israel and the “mixed multitude” among them who had joined themselves to the Covenant (Ex. 12:38; Num. 11:4; Isaiah 56:6).

The land is not to be taxed or taken away by government, because government did not create the land. Only God Himself can disenfranchise the people as a whole if they continually violate His law.

Land ownership is a basic property right in the Kingdom of God. That is, it is a God-given privilege, because it is granted by God and can be removed by God alone. But in the relationship between government and citizens, land ownership is a right, not a privilege.

Privileges can be revoked by the one granting them. Rights cannot be revoked. Land ownership is a privilege given by God, but a right to be protected by government.

One’s land inheritance is the common man's “golden parachute,” because he always owns something of value and can return to the land if he loses a job in the city.

If he loses the land through poverty or by court order (to pay for a crime/sin), it must always return to him or his heirs in the Year of Jubilee. It is the divine “reset button.” The loss is not permanent as long as the Covenant remains. There is always another day to start over with a clean slate.

In Micah 4 we see a prophecy that the “mountain” (that is, the KINGDOM) of the Lord will be established at some point in the future. Daniel called it the “stone” kingdom (Dan. 2:35). In the coming “stone kingdom” every family will have its own land inheritance as a basic right. So in Micah 4:4 we read,

4 And each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

The impact of this law upon a nation's economy is enormous. The first law, of course, is God’s right to own all that He created—including man. The second law is derived from it—man’s right to inherit land under God and to be its steward. God remains sovereign; man is given authority. As long as man does not usurp God’s sovereignty, he enjoys all privileges of citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

Biblical usury does not have the same definition as in modern times. Today, “usury” is charging more interest than is allowable by man’s law. Biblical usury is all interest. The basic law against usury is found in Deut. 23:19, 20,


19 You shall not charge interest to your countrymen, interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. 20 You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countryman you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

“Foreigners” in this case refer to non-citizens of the Kingdom—the equivalent of unbelievers. Such people are those who live by a different set of moral laws established by someone other than Jesus Christ. If one was to give them an interest-free loan, they would have no twinge of conscience in loaning it to someone else at interest. A Kingdom citizen has no obligation to provide such a person with an interest-free loan. In such cases, charging interest is optional.

Biblical law makes a distinction between non-Israelites living in Israel and those living elsewhere. Any non-Israelite who came to live in Israel was to be treated by the same laws as all others, even as he was obligated to abide by the laws of the Kingdom. Lev. 25:35-37 makes this clear:


35 Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. 36 Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your country-man may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain.

In other words, if someone is in need, whether an Israelite or a foreigner, he was to be treated without oppression. Hence, Scripture makes it clear in so many places that the Israelites were not to oppress foreigners.

...
It is truly unfortunate that traditional Jewish thought has so often missed this lesson and has justified the oppression of non-Jews. Even today, this kind of lawless behavior permeates the Israeli state in their treatment of Palestinians. In New Testament times, the Apostle Paul was hated and persecuted by the priests of the synagogue, primarily because he treated non-Jews as equals, rather than as second-class citizens. (See one such story in Acts 13:42-52.) They accused him of being a law-breaker for going against the traditions of the elders, when in fact the Jews had destroyed the law by their traditions (i.e., interpretations of the law).

This lawless attitude of the Jews toward non-Jews was a big factor in later years when the Church rejected the law of God. Instead of casting out the “traditions of men,” by which the Jewish leaders misinterpreted the law, they ignorantly thought that the divine law actually was discriminatory; hence, they discarded the law itself as being inferior to the love that Jesus proclaimed.
...
Most Christians no longer think that usury is a sin. Though the Roman Church borrowed money at interest very early in its history, it always officially considered usury a sin until recently. On June 27, 1942, the Church established the Institute for Works of Religion (the Vatican Bank), funded by the donation of Mussolini in 1929.

Most Protestants and evangelicals had already cast aside the law of God and saw no harm in usury. In fact, many justified it by a unique interpretation of Jesus’ parable in Luke 19. In that parable, the “nobleman” went on a journey and left varying amounts of money in the care of his servants. When he returned, two of the wiser servants had increased the money by trade—that is, lawful business.

However, the third servant had a warped view of his master (who represented Jesus Himself). We read,


20 And another came, saying, “Master, behold your mina [a certain type of money], which I kept put away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow.”

In other words, this foolish servant did not really know his master at all, and hence he was afraid to increase the “mina” by lawful trade. Further, he accused his master of being “an exacting man,” who was essentially a THIEF, reaping what he did not sow. So the master judged this servant by his own words:


22 He said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know [perceive] that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down, and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Then why did you not put the money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?”

In other words, Jesus said, if you really thought that I was an unscrupulous tyrant that reaped where others had sown, then why did you not just put the money in the bank in order to collect interest on the money? That way, I could have increased my wealth by robbery.

Interest on money was the equivalent of reaping where one has not sown.

This parable employs irony. One cannot take this as a command to charge interest on money. In fact, it teaches precisely the opposite. Only an unscrupulous businessman would engage in the practice of usury, because charging interest is theft. It is reaping where one has not sown. It is unlawful profiteering on other people’s labor.

But because the Church discarded the law of God, many have come to sanctify theft in the name of Jesus. Because of this, we allowed the practice of usury in our modern banking system. And hence, God put us into bondage to Mystery Babylon through the Federal Reserve Act, which put the entire nation and the Church itself into captivity.

It is therefore important that we repent of our sin and obey God by faith. If we have faith in God, we will be obedient to Him and accept His ways, rather than accept the ways of our Babylonian masters. When we repent, then God will deliver us from Babylon and establish us in true prosperity under the laws of His Kingdom.

The trial of Nevada rancher and leader of the Sagebrush Rebellion, Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a co-defendant ended yesterday in a mistrial. Why? Because the government had lied out of its ass to the judge and hidden evidence that would have significantly aided the defense. In other words, in a legal system that has reframed “adversarial” to mean “win at any cost” the prosecutors decided to put Bundy away and they decided that a little perjury was no big deal.

..."We are examining the use of yuan instead of the US dollar for trade between the two countries," Iqbal said, adding that the use of yuan was not against the interest of Pakistan. Rather, it would "benefit" Pakistan.

It would also show that world that when it comes to Asia, the "superpower" of significance is no longer the US. And so, as China's influence grows, the long-term plan highlighted key cooperation areas between the neighboring states including road and rail connections, information network infrastructure, energy, trade and industrial parks, agriculture, poverty alleviation and tourism.

The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) plan marks the first time the two countries have said how long they plan to work together on the project, taking the economic partnership to at least 2030. China has already committed to investing $57 billion in Pakistan to finance CPEC as part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative to build a new Silk Road of land and maritime trade routes across more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa.

...The two nations also agreed to establish and improve cross-border credit system and financial services, strengthen currency swap arrangements as well as establish a bilateral payment and settlement system.... in yuan that is, not dollars.

Thousands of people across Israel have joined marches against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the fourth consecutive week, demanding his resignation following several corruption allegations.

Protesters gathered on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevardon Saturday, carrying signs reading “big business, politicians, and the underworld” and “go home, corrupt ones!”

“I came to be like everybody, against the corruption, and against the government and against the liars and against all the stories you can hear about,” a female protester told Ruptly.