Usury: The Forgotten Abomination

The concept of usury is derided as an archaic redundant dinosaur in the modern world. The very definition of usury has been twisted and perverted to mean a reasonable interest on a loan. This, however, is in complete contradiction to the Biblical definition of usury (Ezekiel 18:8) which is any interest on a loan. Any talk about banning usury is dismissed by the secular world to be an excuse for “Christian crusades” to make the world “religious”.

Usury is a means of making profit from credit. Credit is the loan that is owed to the lender. Credit always has an element of liability to repay the creditor. Once a person is in debt, the person is liable for the credit to another as long as debt remains. This keeps the person in debt slavery. As strange as this may sound, nothing could be further from the truth: debt enslaves.

The moral basis of repaying one’s debts is that no person is entitled to what others have. When one borrows from another what one does not have, one has a moral obligation to repay, not a right to have what others have. Wanting what others possess amounts to covetousness, violating the 10^th Commandment given by God. God owns everything in the earth and decides what each person has. Humans are mere stewards, and therefore, the concept of private property is against the Bible.

Since one has a moral obligation to repay one’s debts, it follows that making one more indebted, through charging interest on a loan, is a violation of God’s laws. God has made this extremely clear: Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him. (Ezekiel 18:13) Some have tried to justify usury, on the pretext that the Jews were allowed to charge foreigners usury (Deuteronomy 23:19-20). However this was only because these foreigners lived by charging usury upon others, and thus to charge them usury was to make them repay what they charged others. It is not a justification of charging an interest on a loan to make profit.

Charging an interest on a loan for one’s own profit is a means of holding another in bondage. The spirit behind it is the spirit of mammon – one of greed, covetousness, materialism and pride. It is from Satan, the prince of the world. Debt dominates and bonds the person in debt.

The whole modern banking system in the West runs on usury. Many people in the West are in debt because banks charge them interest on their loan, whether the loan is for a house or a car. The banks make the profits by “rewarding” interest to people who put their money in the bank. Almost everyone, if not all people have some money in the bank because the bank is the vehicle for utilising and protecting money. I am in no way justifying interest from depositing money in the bank, but  in the West, there seems to be no other way but to put money in the bank, particular in Australia where I come from. Banks set up penalty fees as a “punishment” to those who leave them and the big four banks in Australia work together to dominate and control customers with their money. No doubt, one needs to have some money in this world. Money is not evil in itself for money. Rather, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. That is why the devil uses material possessions to tempt people.

For those of you who have not come to Christ, you are following mammon, an abomination to God. God, because He is just, will need to punish all sin just like how a just judge has to punish murder because he is just. Material possessions have no eternal value. Your eternal destiny is the most important of all. You are living a life of sin and are headed for eternal damnation, which should above all things, concern you because it is a place of torment and suffering. If you fear it, you should. If you don’t, I pray that you will heed my warning and urge you to check out Way of the Master's The Greatest Gamble immediately.  I am not trying to scare you, but I am speaking what God who does not want anyone to perish.  I pray that you repent and I want to see you in heaven.

If you think you are right before God when you have not repented and put your faith in Jesus, you are not right with God because all have turned away and none that seek after God (Read the whole of Romans). But because God so loved the world, He gave His own Son to die to pay the penalty we owe God so that we may be justified through faith in Him alone. It is not that once you have been saved, you are sinless, but that you have left your old life of sin and death, and entered the new life in which you thirst for righteousness.

To those who are saved, you must wake up to the spirit of mammon and that it pervades the whole banking system of the world. Capitalism runs on debt and the notion that what one possesses is one’s own, rather than from God.  I pray that the whole Church wakes up to the abomination of usury and private property.