Fighting the Four Evils

Usury is ubiquitous in the modern world. The whole global financial system is trapped in a spider web of usury. No wonder it has been called "The Web of Debt", which is of course the title of author and lawyer Ellen Brown's book.  Usury does not only affect the person who is actually charging usury on loans in the modern world. It affects people on a mass scale. It also affects not only borrowers and lenders who are actively borrowing and lending. It affects also what can be called 'passive lenders'.  Passive lenders are those who are not actively charging interest or usury on loans, but benefit from usury as a result of receiving a gain on investments or bank deposits. They have a bank account, which accumulates usury on it. Since almost everyone in the west invariably has a bank account, including people borrowing money to buy a house, almost everyone is a usurer, not by choice, but as a result of the actions of others.  That precisely is the situation in ...

In some parts of Africa, a witch would get a piece of human flesh and secretly slip it in the meal of a person who he invites to his house. If the invitee eats the flesh, he incurs a "flesh-debt" which he owes to the witch for life. The spirit of witchcraft practiced by such evil, vile, abominable and superstitious people is indeed real, manifesting in the belief that a person owes something to oneself because one says or thinks so. Witchcraft is not an exotic thing that only people in 'backward' and 'uneducated' tribes practice. No, it is a manifestation of the fleshy desire for independence from God by seeking power to do things apart from him. Romans 8:7-8 makes it clear that the flesh cannot obey God, but loves only to sin, reject God, therefore seeking to be independent of Him: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. The fles...

Many in the modern western Church are in debt, and the things they are in debt for are non-necessities, rather than 'basic needs', a term subject to much abuse, especially when speaking about  being in debt. They do not understand the spiritual implications of debt, thinking that it is simply an amount of money to pay to another person, just as one pays money to the person who sells him food. This is indeed a manifestation of the heart of the problem of such Christians. They think that there is nothing wrong with being in debt, or make exceptions for indebtedness. Such is itself the manifestation them being under the spirit of mammon, to believe that one can serve both God and mammon, in their double-mindedness, in trying to serve two diametrically opposing masters: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). You may ask, how does ...

The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth (Psalm 37:21). The Bible makes it absolutely clear that the wicked borrow and do not repay. This is contrasted with the righteous, who show mercy and give, as indicated by the word 'but' in Psalm 37:21.  Borrowing money and no repaying is a manifestation of pride and self-seeking, using that which was given to one for one's own interests. It is to assume that what one has in one's hands belongs to oneself, such that one can do as one chooses with it. This indeed is the spirit behind the doctrine of private property, a doctrine of demons, which panders to the flesh which thinks that the good things it receives are deserved by it, rather than that it is the precise opposite of what it deserves. It is a manifestation of envy, s elfish a mbiti on and hatred of righteousness, which a re of the flesh (G alatians 5:19-21).  This is contrasted with the righteous person who shows mercy ...

The article Five Myths about Jubilee is enclosed in the square brackets. My response is interspersed in between the paragraphs enclosed in the square brackets. [Found in Leviticus 25, the biblical practice of Jubilee is becoming ever more prominent in discussions about justice, poverty, and debt relief .] Jubilee is indeed found in Leviticus 25. That it is found in the Old Testament does not mean that it does not apply, or should not be applied in terms of its underlying principles. [Many evangelical authors mention Jubilee as a biblical example of debt forgiveness and redistribution of land. It has also gained popular attention in the news media.] The purpose of Jubilee is debt forgiveness to teach a spiritual lesson about forgiveness. It is not a means of having one’s “rights”, or endorsement of “rights” which the world, and also many Christians in the west would like to make it out to be. [Jubilee has been offered by several sources as a solution ...