Sunday, October 29, 2017

The pathetic state of racism and inequality in America

Why God Hates Inequality
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
To view this on my web site, click here :-)



In a continuation of my ongoing efforts to bring authentic Christianity into the 21st century, which includes a personal relationship with Jesus Christ combined with an opposition to injustice and inequality, I wish to bring to your attention a newspaper headline posted a couple of months ago on TheRoot.com by Monique Judge, an on-line acquaintance of mine. The headline reads, “#Flint: An Update and a Reminder That It Has Been 1,196 Days Since the Mich. City Had Clean Drinking Water”. Some selected highlights are as follows:



“....Many government officials have been charged with crimes in the subsequent fallout, but the city is still without a permanent solution that provides an ongoing source of clean water for the people who live there. When the parties were unable to come to an agreement in June, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality filed a lawsuit against the city after the City Council refused to approve a long-term water contract with the Great Lakes Water Authority, out of Detroit. The suit alleges that the city is endangering public health....“There are some helpful things happening in the meantime. Mayor Karen Weaver’s office told the Daily Progress that since March 2016, about 2,700 homes have had old water lines replaced through the FAST Start Initiative, a program with a goal of replacing nearly 20,000 lead-tainted water lines in the city by the year 2020....According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Michigan State University, which received a four-year, $14.4 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced Tuesday that it will be using the first installment of that grant to establish a registry of Flint residents who have been exposed to lead since the crisis began in 2014. It will use the $3.2 million to connect people to programs that can help minimize the health problems associated with lead exposure, which include effects on brain development in children. The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that it will forgive $20.7 million in water debt that the city of Flint incurred through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund....Flint has come a long way, but there is still much more work that needs to be done. With help and support like this from federal, state as well as local entities, Flint will indeed bounce back. Too bad that help hasn’t come in the form of potable water dripping from the faucets.”



Formerly middle class people, plus a whole lot of poor folks including people of color, are having their most basic rights taken away by a runaway government and their out-of-control police departments. Access to running water is a fundamental human right. Period. End of story. To forcibly remove – by turning off or forcibly cutting off – anyone's access to running water is a crime as far as I am concerned. The Bible says in the Book of Proverbs chapter 29, verse 7, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. That's God's take on poverty in a nutshell. “The poor you will always have”, Jesus said not long before His crucifixion, “but you will not always have me”. The poor are humankind's responsibility, starting with the churches and its volunteers. Shelter falls into the same category as water – it too is a basic human right. Even the earliest humans from 100,000+ years ago slept in caves, long before the invention of written language, and before the discovery of fire and the wheel. Moreover, I wrote in my 2011 book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto”, which is still available in paperback from this website (or as an e-book on Kindle from here), that people everywhere have The right to affordable housing and the fundamental right to shelter regardless of economic status. We have a responsibility as a civilized society to end homelessness.” 

 

Here in the city of Atlanta where I live, there are lots of boarded up and abandoned houses (there's plenty out in the suburbs, too, but most of those aren't on the bus line). There are also a lot of homeless people, mainly because Georgia is one of those states whose minimum wage is still stuck at a paltry $7.25 an hour. Any way you slice and dice it, a single person who makes minimum wage and works 40 hours per week can't afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in Atlanta, even though the most basic 1-bedroom rents for 'only' about $450-500.00 monthly. So there are a slowly growing number of squatters who are living in these abandoned houses, nearly all without the benefit of water or electric hook-up. Others live in their vehicles, if they're lucky enough to still have one. When the police catch them, and they do so routinely, they are taken directly to jail. OK, now let's review this. The cops catch some luckless squatter who is camped out in a house that nobody wants. Since that person is considered to be a trespasser under Georgia law, and since the majority of the squatters are also usually black, they are taken immediately to a city or county jail where it will cost the taxpayers upwards of $60.00 a day to detain them.



So, evidently there are some who think it's better to spend $60.00 a day to house otherwise harmless petty criminals than it is to let them sleep in abandoned structures at night where they are bothering no one. No one seems to care about the fact that incarcerating these people is an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers. I understand that they're trespassing on someone's property, but if that is something that must be enforced then why is the structure abandoned and in disrepair? The answer, brothers and sisters, is greed. The property owners, many of whom live out of state or overseas – and who want nothing to do with these properties because they owe back property taxes on them – will not hesitate to press charges against some poor homeless man, or a homeless single parent with small children, for sleeping on a front porch on a rainy night. They can't be there themselves, so they make donations to the local Fraternal Order of Police, or “lobby” the local Congressional representative, and the trespassing laws are rigidly enforced as a result.



The Bible has plenty to say about this. For example, in Exodus chapter 23, verses 6-9 it says, “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous. Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know what it is like to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.” In Psalm 9 verse 8 it reads: “He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the people with justice.” Psalm 106 verse 3 says, “Blessed are they who maintain justice, who constantly do what is right.” There are lots and lots of examples like these that make abundantly clear that God stands for justice, fairness and equality, such as Zechariah chapter 7 verses 8-10, and I quote: “And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah; 'This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts, do not think evil of each other.'



Does America deny justice to poor people? Given the fact that many nonviolent offenders who get caught up in the “criminal justice” system wind up languishing in jail for months or even years waiting for a court date because they can't post their bail bonds, I would say absolutely America denies justice to poor people. “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.” For those who didn't realize this, these are the very words of God as dictated to Moses during the ancient Israelite's 40 years in the desert. Today in our government at the state and federal levels, we have exactly the opposite. Only today, we give them the innocuous-sounding name “lobbyists”, which excuses nothing! It's all still a bunch of bribery! “Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know what it is like to be aliens....” All Americans are descended from first-generation immigrants at some point in their past, however distant that may be. You can already see where I'm going with this, and I've brought it up before – the extremely harsh treatment of undocumented foreign nationals, the majority of whom are people of color, by the majority of American citizens. It's all race-based and everyone knows it deep down in their hearts. It's time to call a spade what it is – racial prejudice – and get it over with. There I just wrote it, or said it if you're watching this on You Tube, for all to see and hear. It's way past time for America to confront its issues with racial prejudice and get over all this nasty racist stuff. There will be no racists in heaven, all you Christians with your stinking Klan robes! You cannot love God while despising his creations! So forget about it!



This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.” As before, this is exactly what the USA, an allegedly “Christian nation”, is doing as I write this. Does the US show “mercy and compassion”? On the contrary, we have the largest percentage of people in jails and prisons-for-profit of any nation in the world. America is first in incarceration, but when it come to education America truly sucks, and people are just getting things off the ground with ways to change that. But until this occurs, it is time for the US middle and working classes to put our collective feet down and say ”no more”. Let there be no mistake, America is ripe for mass civil disobedience, even for outright revolution. Moreover, as I just proved, this is all based on the Bible, not some ideology. The conditions and circumstances in which the middle and working classes find themselves has become truly intolerable!


Personally, I am a very patient and thoughtful man. I work hard each day to be slow to speak and quick to listen because I know from experience that there is much wisdom to be derived from living my life this way. But by the same token, I am a Christian man and Web evangelist who stands against social injustice and economic inequality, and whose patience is at its end. Just as surely as Jesus preached against the political and religious establishment of His day, in like manner I will do the same in the present day in order to emulate the man I regard as my personal Lord and Savior. So, if you truly care about the deteriorating state of our nation, if you are really concerned about the issues that we are faced with collectively as a people, and if you want to make a stand against social and economic injustice – and since it's in all our best interests to do so – you owe it to yourself to stand up in the face of power and say, “That's it! You're done!!” You know why? Because if Jesus Christ were to return this very day, that's what He'd say. And the ones who are having the homeless thrown in jail for trespassing on their dilapidated properties would be the first ones Christ would send straight to hell.

Monday, October 23, 2017

50 Informative and Motivational Bible Scriptures on Work and Labor

50 Informative and Motivational Bible Scriptures on Work and Labor

Free book excerpt #14 from author, blogger and on-line pastor Rev. Paul J. Bern

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The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” by Rev. Paul J. Bern.

Watch the video at http://youtu.be/VZguRDJmCqc


Chapter Eight; Apocalypse Soon?

This chapter will be the conclusion of the first half of this book, “Explaining the Manifesto Part One: Stating the Problems”. In the first half of this book, I have explained and documented certain basic facts regarding the fate that awaits the entire US middle class if we don't stand up as a united people and do something about our situation. I have shown my dear readers that the US middle and working classes are gradually being liquidated by the ultra-rich through a systematic confiscation of wealth. It is the top 1% of those who hold somewhere between 95% and 99% of all the wealth in this formerly great country, and much of this wealth used to be squarely in the hip pocket of the middle class. It is they who have out-sourced a large portion of middle class jobs to the third world while leaving good hard-working Americans out in the cold. It is the wealthy who are foreclosing on our homes and throwing everything America owns into a pile sitting at the curb. It is the wealthy who have looted our pension funds, who are driving our health insurance costs through the roof, who have been pillaging the Social Security coffers in Washington, and who are the paymasters for all the lobbyists in Washington. It is the wealthy who have turned war into a stalemate for profit as the infrastructure back home in America crumbles to dust while our schools deteriorate. It is the wealthy who have turned America into the world's largest arms merchant and flooded the global market with every imaginable kind of gun that one could ever hope to have, and often with no questions asked. It is the wealthy elite who have more people behind bars than any other country in the world, due in large part to the fiasco known as the “war on drugs” that has been ongoing since the 1970's. 

There can be no doubt that American society is coming apart at the seams as a direct result of all the financial shenanigans that is going on in Washington or on Wall Street. Here is a list of those signs as posted on the Internet a couple of years ago. Since then, things have only gotten worse. How much longer are we going to put up with this?

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.

2) As the stock market recently went over the 23,000 mark, surging to an all-time high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $70 billion in annual bonuses last year. Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.

3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth." As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.

4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.

5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2012)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.” President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.

6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed. This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come."

The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking….” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year.

Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.”

7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared “healthy” and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”

8) As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services."

9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before." In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history… The public debt topped $10 trillion back in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $21 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations."

Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt." Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high.

10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world. Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children. Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis.

11) 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat. One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use food stamps… to EAT!

If you didn’t think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat…” Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America."

The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed back in December 2008, which means these numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009-2012. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then. This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.

12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. “The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey." And now President Trump and his conservative friends want to end Obama-care too? This is completely nuts!

13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”

A 3-year-old Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance. The 30 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2018, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon.

Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death. Economic Imperial blow-back has hit the mainland. And the clock is ticking louder by the day…

And here’s two more facts for you:
14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders. Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!

15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the “uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence." So let’s break down these numbers.

You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death. While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed. We are sitting on a powder keg! We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society.

The unraveling of American society is not the only thing that's going on. The US dollar has been the standard world currency since the end of World War Two. However, there are increasing signs that the dollar's status as the world's chief form of currency is being challenged....

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Watch the video at http://youtu.be/VZguRDJmCqc

Sunday, October 22, 2017

America's Debt Issues and the Bible

The USA Crosses the Forbidden 666 Barrier
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
To view this from my website, click here :-)



The 2017 fiscal year for the budget of the US government just ended late this past summer, and the results are in. The Lame Stream (sorry, I meant 'main stream') media and various other “presstitutes” are dutifully reporting what they're told to report, while not having the slightest inkling as to the Biblical meaning and spiritual significance of what they publish and report on. And yet despite all that, the headline on Saturday morning's CNN's website reads, “Deficit for 2017 hits $666 billion”! Now just to be clear about this, CNN is not exactly my favorite news source, but Fox and all the other old mainstay networks are even worse IMHO. But the fact that the federal budget deficit (not to be confused with the 'national debt') is the same number as the “mark of the beast” from Revelation 13, verses 11-18 has gone unnoticed – THAT is what surprises me a great deal. But in another way, this occurrence doesn't surprise me at all. My reason here is simply that it seems like the whole world is going in that direction.


The similarities between the economic monstrosity known as 'debt' and the moral monstrosity of the Antichrist and the number 666 are striking. Both fly in the face of God because they are devoid of any love or compassion, and because they challenge the Supreme authority of God. There is plenty of scripture to back this up. Let me start in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament and work my way forward from there, and I quote: “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else would he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate.” (Exodus 22: 25-27) As you can see, it is not a sin to borrow money or lend it at interest provided the terms are affordable and reasonable enough. I can remember being taught as a child that it was a sin to borrow money. All the adults in my life at that time were proud of the fact that everything they owned – excluding the lots their hand built houses were built on – was bought and paid for. They built the houses themselves, and even their cars were paid for. It was a world that simply no longer exists.


The CNN article goes on to say, “The deficit reached 3.5% of the size of the economy, or GDP. In 2016, the deficit was 3.2% of GDP. The deficit reflects the gap between how much the government brings in and what it spends. Accrued deficits over the years contribute to the country's debt held by the public, which in 2017 rose to $14.667 trillion. But as a share of the economy, it actually fell slightly to 76.3%, down from 76.7% in the year-ago period. (Those figures don't include the money owed to government trust funds like Social Security.)“ At this rate, and if nothing is done – a frightening possibility considering the current state of the US Congress – the interest on America's 'national debt' would exceed 20% of GDP by 2030 if the CNN figures are accurate, and I should hope they are! But if we set that aside and look beyond all these things, we can find the real underlying causes of America's indebtedness problems.


For this, we'll stay in the Old Testament and skip over to Deuteronomy chapter 15, verses 1-11, and it reads as follows from the NLT Bible: “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel your debts. This is how it must be done. Creditors must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites. They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord's time of release has arrived. This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites – not to the foreigners living among you. There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. You will receive this blessing if you carefully obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow! You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you! But if there are any poor people in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year of release is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin. Give freely without begrudging it, and the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. There will always be some among you who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.


OK, let's take this from the top since there's so much in this one paragraph. “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel your debts. This is how it must be done. Creditors must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites.” So right off the bat we see the entire US mortgage industry has compelled an entire country into sin. After all, this certainly applies to all nations, not just Israel. In America, we either pay interest for 30 years or we rent, that's how dwellings and commercial buildings of various types are bought and sold. So, we are faced with the choice of paying, say, $200,000.00 or more for a new basic model 3 or 4 bedroom house here in Atlanta where I reside, or renting. With interest figured in, the total price for that house over 30 years would be approximately $333,000.00 dollars. So, the Bible is telling us that a good-sized portion of that excess $133,000.00 in interest on our hypothetical $200,0000.00 mortgage is sinful, meaning it's sinful to charge people that much interest or to make that much profit on one stinking' house! This, my dear readers, is why capitalism as we have known it is unsustainable. Capitalism is unsustainable because it's sinful! This is the Scriptural 'proof of the pudding' right here in Deuteronomy.


They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord's time of release has arrived. This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites – not to the foreigners living among you.” So this time of forgiving of debts is called the “time of release” in my NLT Bible, and my NIV calls it “the Lord's time for canceling debts”. At the time this was written, the ancient Hebrew nation was at the latter stages of their 40 years of wandering in the desert, but prior to the time of taking possession of the land the Lord was going to give them, since Moses was still alive at this time. As this was applied to the Hebrew nation from the time of Moses, so it remains with modern America. If it were against the law for any loan to be of more than 7 years duration, there wouldn't be any poor or homeless people. But the rich would lose most of their ill-gotten gains, and the entire mortgage industry would have to be extensively restructured. Now you know why nothing ever changes.


The only way to stop this gross injustice – which amounts to legalized loan sharking – is to refuse to go along with the system. Passive resistance can be a very effective tool in forcing change to come about at the societal level – that is, nonviolent resistance. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a master of this very thing, which freaked out the FBI and the “Department of Justice” to such an extreme they enlisted the aid of the CIA to have King killed. So how do we take an cue from Rev. Dr. King's playbook? One of the most effective things we could do today about our rigged economic system would be for everyone to boycott their student loans. If we stop paying on our homes and our cars, the bankers and finance people foreclose and repossess. But with the student loans – and other unsecured loans like your credit cards – if we walk away as a united people, there's nothing for them to take back. It would be tantamount to a national strike, and we wouldn't even have to leave our homes!Wow, wouldn't THAT be something!! Moving right along....


There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. You will receive this blessing if you carefully obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.” Just as God Almighty gave what was then known as the “Land of Canaan” to the Hebrew nation – or Israelites, they mean the same thing – during the time of Moses, I am certain that God gave what become North America to the early settlers “as a special possession” too. The Bible even spells out the payoff for following the commands and tenets of the Lord Almighty in this regard: “The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow! You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you!” Isn't that the position America was in up until the 1980's or so? Weren't we the largest money lending nation in the world? Look at us now! We're the largest debtor nation. We've gone from one extreme to the other! And it's all because of America's sins! What sins, some may ask? We're the world's largest arms maker and exporter. We're the largest producer of pornography, the largest consumer of illegal drugs, and we have the most people in prison of any other country in the world – by more than triple the #2 nation, which is Communist China. Until America repents of these things by getting to the root cause, her problems will continue to get progressively worse!


But if there are any poor people in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year of release is close at hand.” God despises anyone who despises the poor! Sometimes when I'm in downtown Atlanta at the main train station waiting on a bus to take me out to my neighborhood, I sit and watch the homeless people – and Atlanta has plenty of them because wages are extremely low – beg for money. I give them all my spare change if they ask for it, and I have been known to buy people sandwiches who are in need. But the vast majority of the passers-by won't even acknowledge them if approached, and will even step up their pace to get by the beggars faster. This is one reason I have never cared for the meme “conservative Christian”. It's because they seem to be consistently too conservative to give. They all seem to be too busy 'conserving' to have a single ounce of human compassion. Such individuals risk being judged harshly by the Lord, and some will be condemned.


If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin....That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.” This means if someone who is in a position to help people fails to do so, even if it's nothing but loose change, and the homeless man or woman cries out to God against that individual, they will have committed sin against God. Sin is defined as breaking God's commandments. Therefore, all sinners are essentially lawbreakers. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't want to spend my life as an outlaw. I want to follow God's precepts in order to obtain my eternal reward that awaits me. Since America is collectively in sin, as I already explained, the repentance will have to start with each individual. Those at the top – America's top 1% when measured in wealth – are certainly not going to repent of their sins. They're making too much money to want to repent, and their end will be eternal judgment. But the rest of us can collectively stop these practices of financial corruption, one person at a time. We can make up our minds to live debt-free. And yes, it can be done. Like former president Obama said, “Yes we can!”

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Trump's American Empire, His Big Mouth, and the Bible: a Study In Contrasts

President Trump's Christian Supporters Would Get
Offended If I Told Them What Was Really In the Bible
by Rev. Paul J. Bern
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I met a man not too long ago who insisted that the King James Bible is the only legitimate version of the Bible available. As far as he was concerned, all other versions currently in print, including my NIV, NLT and Amplified Bibles were “not from God”. I don't care to elaborate on this much except to say that I don't agree with such an egocentric viewpoints as that. All I can do is pray for that man, because there will be no egocentric people in heaven! But I'm using this example to make the point that there are a lot of conservative right-wingers like that individual who have some views about the Bible and Christianity that are totally inconsistent with Scripture. Since these people's beliefs are in fact totally inconsistent with Scripture, then the question becomes why do religious extremists on the right (and Christianity has lots of them just like the Muslims do) get away with proclaiming what Jesus would or wouldn’t support (such as endless wars and inequality)? The answer is simple: Most conservatives have not read the Bible. Not even once! Of the ones who do, an overwhelming number of Christians are astonishingly illiterate when it comes to understanding the Bible's teachings.


On hot-button social issues, from same-sex marriage to abortion, Biblical passages are invoked without any real understanding of their context or true meaning. What America needs is Christianity without the dogma, and faith without the spiritual pollution of conservative politics. Nondenominational Christianity, with the 2 greatest commandments of Jesus Christ (see Matthew 24, verses 34-39) being first and foremost – and viewed from a nonpolitical perspective – would be far closer to what Jesus originally taught than the ultra-conservative slant being espoused all over the right-wing media today (and a heck of a lot of 'churches'!). That's why it's vital as we live in these Last Days to help the helpless whenever possible. In so doing, we become ambassadors for Christ while living our lives in complete accordance with God's will instead of our own. It surprises me how little many 'Christians' know about what is still the world's most popular book!



So how much do secular Americans know of the book that one-third of the country believes to be literally true (like I do)? Various surveys that I pulled up on the Internet show that 60 percent of Christians can’t name more than five of the Ten Commandments; 12 percent of adults think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife; and nearly 50 percent of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple. A 2013 Gallup poll showed 50 percent of Americans can’t name the first book of the Bible, while roughly 82 percent believe “God helps those who help themselves” is a biblical verse. So, if Americans get an F in the basic fundamentals of the Bible, what hope do they have in knowing what Jesus would say about endless wars, the decimation of labor unions, unfair and illegal taxation, universal health care, and Snap benefits? It becomes easy to spread lies when no one knows what the truth is.



I think that's probably why the 'Christian Right' is constantly re-branding Progressives and those on the Left – who want free public higher education, Medicare for all and wealth redistribution – into traitors to their country or party just because they disagree. The truth, whether conservatives like it or not, is not only that Jesus was a meek and mild liberal Jew who spoke softly in parables and metaphors – except when He threw the money changers out of the Temple in Matthew 21, verses 12-13. But, when one reads down a couple more chapters in any of the 4 Gospels, it was the religious conservatives (the Pharisees and Sadduccees) who had Jesus killed! The fact that He rose again on the morning of the third day tells me everything I need to know about Jesus' view of political conservatives. American conservatives, however, have morphed Jesus Christ into a muscular macho warrior, in much the same way the Nazis did with Hitler, as a means of combating “terrorism”, which has become a synonym for American world domination.



Knowing the Bible requires a contextual understanding of authorship, history and interpretation. For instance, when Republicans were justifying their cuts to the food stamp program back in 2013, they quoted the 2nd book of Thessalonians: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” One poll showed that more than 90 percent of Christians believe this New Testament quote is attributed to Jesus. It’s not! This was taken from a letter written by Paul to his church in Thessalonica. Paul wrote to this specific congregation to remind them that there were too many people in the congregation that were freeloading off that church. Only a few were doing all the work and making the majority of the financial contributions, and everybody else was just hanging around for the free food (see 2nd Thess. chapter 3, verses 6-15). What Paul did say is that anyone too lazy to work shouldn't expect anything at dinner time, and that's just common sense, not politics.



What often comes as a surprise to your average Sunday wine-and-cracker Christian is the New Testament did not fall from the sky the day Jesus ascended to Heaven. The New Testament is a collection of writings, 27 in total, of which 12 are credited to the authorship of the apostle Paul, four to the Gospels (Luke also wrote the Book of Acts), and the balance with the remaining apostles. What we do know about Jesus, at least according to the respective gospels, is that Jesus’ sentiments closely echoed the social and economic policies of the political left in the 21st century. The Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 read like a Progressive Christian mission statement: “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is kingdom of heaven,” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called 'Sons of the living God'.” Jesus also said, “Judge not, or else you shall be judged, for you who pass judgment do the same things yourselves”, and “Sell what you have and give it to the poor, so you can have treasure in heaven” (I'm paraphrasing here). Sounds an awful lot like wealth redistribution to me, a societal woe that urgently needs to be addressed if ever there was one. So when Republicans, our current president included, accuse president Obama and Progressives like myself of being brown-skinned socialists who wants to redistribute the wealth, they meant Jesus, who they would surely crucify if he were to return today!



Biblical illiteracy is what has allowed conservative wing-nuts like president Trump to get away with shaping their image to resemble that of Jesus, like Washington is doing us a great big favor by being in charge. That's why politicians on the right can get away with saying 'the Lord commands' that our health care, criminal justice, public schools, retirement pensions and transportation systems, together with all the rest, should be run by corporations for profit. When the Christian Right believes it’s channeling Jesus when they say it’s immoral for government to tax billionaires to help pay for health care, education and the poor, they’re actually channeling atheism. When the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and “the real Alex Jones” insist the poor are worthless, immoral and lazy, that’s not Jesus, it’s atheism! It's impossible to love God while simultaneously despising his creations! The price this country has paid for biblical illiteracy is measured by how far we’ve moved toward atheism’s “utopia”. In the past three decades, we’ve slashed taxes on corporations and the wealthy, destroyed labor unions, deregulated financial markets, eroded public safety nets, and committed to one globalist corporate free-trade agreement after another. With the far-right, Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Koch brothers' Citizens United, the flow of billions of dollars from anonymous donors to the most reliable voting bloc of the Republican Party – the Christian Right – will continue to perpetuate the Biblically incompatible, anti-government, pro-deregulation-of-business, health-care-for-none-but-the-rich, Tea Party American version of Christianity, and I for one have had more than enough!!



Friday, October 13, 2017

Free book excerpt #13 from Author and Pastor Paul J. Bern

"Sole Survivor" by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Now available in print, digital and audio formats. Offered on Amazon or from our website

Watch the video at http://youtu.be/5Bxi7x0nUc0


  Chapter 5

Restoration by God, Driven Away by Man

I finally got out of jail on the night of December 17th, 1999 after an agonizing 4 month wait to get my court case done and over with. The main thing I remember about that night was how incredibly cold it was. I had been arrested in early fall near the end of September, and all I had on were casual slacks and a polo shirt. After treating myself to a full sit-down dinner at an all-night restaurant across the street from the jail, I was forced to make my way on foot to the nearest place that I was sure would be open all night, which was the community hospital on the suburban east side of Atlanta about 2 or 3 miles away. So off into the freezing cold I went as I hiked over to the hospital. The two main things that motivated me to get there were the lack of outer clothing and the fact that I was already a nervous wreck from having spent those 4 months in jail without the benefit of my bipolar medication. The clinic there – and it barely qualified as such – were giving me 2 different medications that I had never heard of. They did just barely work, but they were a poor substitute for my regularly prescribed 'meds'. I recall getting to the ER about 3:30 AM that morning. To make a long story short, I spent the next 13 days at an inpatient clinic right down the street from the hospital. While I was there I got stabilized on my regular medications, and I managed to get back in touch with the district manager where I had been working when all this mess first started. I had contacted him when I was first brought to jail, trying to raise some bail money. They could not help me with that, I was told, but my job would be kept open for me until I was released. They stayed true to their word and rehired me upon my release. That Wang Global district manager's name was James Dean. God bless you, James, wherever you are.

I checked out of the hospital on a blustery Friday afternoon, and I started back to work the following Monday morning. This gives me pause with regards to God's eternal mercy, the loving way He chastises us but then restores us – but not always immediately, because His timing is always perfect. Did you ever notice that about God? His timing is always letter-perfect and never too late. Had that gone any other way, when I got out of jail I could have immediately become homeless, wandering the streets without a coat when the outside temperature was around 35 degrees, and having lost the new job I had just acquired 5 months before. Instead, and by the grace of God alone, I had landed on my feet and I was able to miraculously pick up where I had left off before all the trouble started. I give Jesus all the credit for my success, and I give him all my praise, thankfulness, and honor!

I worked that entire year, right up until Christmas time. That's when they laid us off. But it was the way it was done that bothered me the most. One day a month or two beforehand, a 15-passenger van pulled up and parked in front of the office, and these 15 technicians from the Philippines get out and enter the office conference room. The door gets shut behind them, and it isn't until the next day that the rest of us found out they were there as our replacements. The senior techs, and by this point I was one of them, were instructed to train one of them apiece. One of them said it was unfair, and he refused to train any of them, saying he could make his job last at least a week longer by not having a replacement trained and ready to go. To no one's surprise, he was fired on the spot, right where he stood, and it didn't seem to matter to him. To this day I regard this as a good example of what can and should happen to racists in the workplace.

I spent the next six months searching like crazy for a replacement job. Unfortunately, the dot-com financial crash was happening right around this time, and the computer/IT industry had pretty much came to a standstill. So I did what lots of other technical professionals like myself were doing at the time: I went back to school to get my Microsoft certification. I already had my degree, plus an A+ certification and two Dell certifications, so for me the Microsoft certification made sense (remember, this was back in 2001). But instead of making me more marketable like I thought, what few job offers I did have seemed to evaporate. All together I went for over 14 months without drawing a paycheck. My saving grace during this time was that I had substantial savings, otherwise I would surely have been homeless by that time. But homelessness escaped me when I used the small pickup truck that I owned at the time to go to work as a private contractor for a courier company. I had to take a substantial pay cut from the $35.00 per hour I had been making as a Dell service contractor, but by now my savings balance was nearly depleted. By dodging homelessness the way I had, I thought I had dodged a bullet, but I had only delayed the inevitable for a few more years. I will have more to say on that in the next chapter.

This book is available on-line from the author at www.pcmatl.org/books-and-donations (free shipping, tax deductible) for $12.95. 



Watch the video at http://youtu.be/5Bxi7x0nUc0 Thanks so much!

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Las Vegas and the Bible: an Indictment of American Culture

Why We Have Guys Like Stephen Paddock and
Incidents Like the Las Vegas Shooting: a Spiritual Diagnosis
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
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All week long, everyone has the same question, especially the police at the local, state and federal levels – why? Why did this man kill 58 people and wound or maim 500 more? What motivated this seemingly mindless mass slaughter? A shooter's reasons, however sick and twisted, usually become clear within a day or two. A suicide note, a manifesto, a series of social media rants, a phone call – even police reports and court dockets can provide insight into what drives a warped mind to commit such a violent act. Usually, someone close knows something or realizes, in retrospect, that they missed the warning signs. But 64-year-old Stephen C. Paddock flew low under the radar. He avoided interaction with many of the people around him, and his manner was direct and brusque by all accounts. He was known to stay up all night gambling, but it was as if he was the only reveler at his own party.


Clark County Nevada Under-sheriff Kevin C. McMahill seemed almost apologetic Friday afternoon when he told reporters that despite running down some 1,000 leads, investigators still haven't come up with "credible information" concerning Paddock's motive. Chasing down all those leads "helped create a better profile into the madness of this suspect," McMahill said, but "we still do not have a clear motive or reason why." The previous evening, Sheriff Joe Lombardo summed up the mystery man this way: Paddock "spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and living a secret life, much of which will never be fully understood." But I maintain that much of the mystery surrounding Mr. Paddock's can be cleared up. What Sheriff Lombardo was lacking, along with most, if not all, of the other investigators, was a Bible. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean.


You shall not murder....” (Exodus 20: 13). That's the most obvious example, but there's more than just this alone. “The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery', 'Do not murder', 'Do not steal', 'Do not covet' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Lev. 19:18) Love does no harm to his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13, verses 9-10) Based on these verses we can conclude that Mr. Paddock was either a person completely devoid of love, or he had completely suppressed all his capacity to love. Yet he had the presence of mind to get his lady friend out of the country with a cool 100 grand before carrying out this diabolical plot of his. I'm no psychiatrist, but it appears Mr. Paddock made a conscious effort to turn off that part of his brain. This is the same as selling one's soul to the devil, as it is written: “Jesus said to them, 'If God were your father you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own, but he has sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'” (John 8, verses 42-44)


The law enforcement folks, as I wrote at the beginning of this week's message, are still asking 'why?' everybody was so clueless about this mad assassin. The FBI reportedly has interviewed Mr. Paddock's girlfriend, who evidently flew back to the US from the Philippines at her own expense, or I should say Mr. Paddock's, since she undoubtedly had a credit or debit card from Mr. Paddock to defray her expenses, and she apparently knew nothing of her late boyfriend's intentions. But the words of our Lord and Savior are very clear: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.” Remember when the press and the police interviewed Mr. Paddock's brother? He said at least twice during the interview, “He had no affiliations of any kind, especially not churches, so I can't imagine what made Steven do this!” So we now get a clearer picture of this man. Though no one is born a murderer, this guy Mr. Paddock evidently turned himself into one gradually, over the years, until he became a cold-blooded killer. He did this to himself, and it appears he did it on purpose. It was a conscious effort on his part. Steven Paddock consciously turn himself into an atrocity so he could commit atrocities, and evidently for sport. In short, Mr. Paddock rented that Las Vegas hotel room because he was going on safari, and his game was human beings. I realize writing this the way I'm doing is not politically correct. I'm not trying to be politically correct. What I am doing is explaining the mass shooting in Las Vegas in Biblical terms.


This all started back in 1962 when the USA took prayer out of her public schools. Stephen Paddock would have been in the fifth grade at that time. Seven years later in 1966, America had its first mass shooting. On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman, a former U.S. Marine sharpshooter, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened fire on persons indiscriminately on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed fifteen people (including one unborn child) and injured thirty-one others; another victim died in the hospital, and a final victim died in 2001 from the lingering effects of his wounds. The incident ended when police reached Whitman and shot him dead. Mr. Paddock would have in the 11th grade at that time, and he was surely affected by this incident. It may have even planted the seeds in his mind for the Las Vegas mass shooting decades later. But the US Supreme Court banned public prayer in all government buildings – not just schools – due to the Constitutional separation of church and state. Unfortunately for America, this ban has been taken too far.


It was 27 years later, in 1999, when America suffered her first mass shooting in a school, Columbine High School in Colorado. That's what happens in just one generation when God and his Son, Jesus, together with the Holy Spirit, are forcibly removed from our nation's schools. You wind up with a bunch of godless, atheistic kids without a conscience – or who can willfully turn theirs off and back on again without remorse, since the end always justifies the means to such people. That's exactly what Stephen Paddock turned into, and in his case it was clearly voluntary. And why did this occur? There we are, back to the original question yet again. Yet the answer has been staring us right in the face the whole time. We kicked God out of our lives. The ban on prayer in schools back in 1962 was passed with the lobbying of Congress from just a few individuals from the O'Hare family of Pittsburgh, Pa., and later Austin, Texas, a mother (Madelyn) and her two sons. The rest of America sat back and let this happen. America's churches sat on their hands. Their pastors, bishops and elders railed against the prayer ban from their pulpits, but when the sermon was over, everyone went home to their black & white TV's. There was some public protesting of the 1962 prayer ban, but not nearly enough! Even back then, people would rather sit and watch television, voluntarily surrendering their brains to an electronic box. They then proceeded to shut off their consciences so that they wouldn't be bothered no matter how much violence they were looking at. These plastic religious people would rather be entertained than get out in the streets and protest against evil!


So, when you spend the last two generations removing all semblance of prayer or the mention of God, and especially of Jesus, from a society, that society immediately begins to drift away from God. When this was done in America's schools, we programmed an entire generation against the knowledge of God. We have been drifting morally as a nation for well over half a century at this point, and this is what you get, America! We have done this to ourselves, and we have no one but ourselves to blame. America has forgotten about God! Gun control is not the answer, although mandatory gun registration should be the law of the land. We have similar laws on the books today, but they have too many loopholes. But more than that, we have to put God back in America's schools if we want to remove the potential for violence. We must allow the love of Christ Jesus to return to our governing bodies and educational system. Otherwise, our 'society' will ultimately break down. Last but not least, we need to clean up the violence on America's TV and movie screens and from the video games you and your children are playing. Turn off your cable TV and stream Christian content on the Internet instead. Get a lot pickier about what you – and especially if there are kids in the house – watch on TV or what video games you're all playing. There's an encyclopedia of subliminal messaging contained in those TV shows, commercials and video games – even in movies – that's designed to program people's minds. That could be what happened to Mr. Paddock, but it's likely no one will ever know for sure.


Stephen Paddock, and his predecessors Dylan Klebold at Columbine High and Charles Whitman at UT Austin, were godless human beings, and godlessness leads people to commit atrocities (sorry, but the word 'tragedy' just isn't strong enough). Here in America, it happens most often with guns. In Europe and the Middle East, where gun control is very strict, bombings are the weapon of choice for those who have surrendered willingly to Satan to willfully commit mass murder. In all these cases, as best as I can tell, these individuals had willfully turned off their consciences in order to commit these crimes and atrocities. There is no other explanation. The solution is to address the source of the problem, which is our nation's schools and the way children are being educated right from Day One. Insert the Prince of Peace into our homes and schools and we will know peace. No Prince of Peace equals no peace.


Monday, October 2, 2017

Free book excerpt #12 from Web pastor and Progressive Christian author and blogger Rev. Paul J. Bern

"The Apostles In Plain English Vol. 1: the Apostle Paul” by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Find out more by clicking here



Which Is Better, Being Lawful Or Being Faithful?

[Galatians chapter 3, verses 1-14]


As we begin this week's study we'll be looking at the first half of Galatians chapter three. In it the apostle Paul continues to take the church at Galatia to task because of certain heretical teachings that were going on at the time. Newly converted Gentile Christians were intermingling with newly converted Jews who embraced Christ as the Jewish messiah. Evidently the non-Jews were being instructed by unnamed Jewish converts to practice and live their new faith while also adopting the Jewish customs of their new brethren in Christ Jesus. Paul continues with his blistering criticism of this practice as we begin at verse one.

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing – if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? Consider Abraham: 'He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness'. [Genesis 15:6] Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the Gospel in advance of Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you'. [Genesis 12:3] So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Gal. 3, verses 1-9)

Here we see Paul summing up his point in one sentence when he wrote, “Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” Since the observation of the Law of Moses – the first five books of the Old Testament – was fulfilled by the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Paul is simply stating that to continue observing the Old Law and its customs is both pointless and unnecessary. The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ is the embodiment of the new law, replacing the old. After spending all the time converting them and teaching them and founding a church, Paul is clearly exasperated with the church at Galatia because they had strayed from what he taught them was the Spiritual foundation of that church, none other than Jesus himself. It is not possible to obtain salvation through Christ by our good works alone, although it is good that we all do so whenever and wherever we can. We can do so only two ways according to Scripture; the first is by maintaining a totally committed faith in Christ and his Salvation, and the second is by grace that God bestows upon us through his Son. Grace is defined as unmerited favor, the spiritual equivalent of a free pass. Even though none of us deserves it due to our sins, grace is given to us freely as a token of God's love for us when we accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So if you ever need evidence that God really does love you, just think about His grace as you bask in its warm light. If you are already a believer, just focus on that in your mind. And if you aren't yet a believer, now would be a good time to become one. Simply ask Jesus to come and live inside your heart, and to stay there forever.

The other thing the apostle Paul explains (or more likely reiterated) to the church at Galatia is the concept of unity between Jew and Gentile when he wrote, “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith”... Paul is clearly citing this as another reason to put away the traditions of old and replacing them with the then-new concept of Jesus Christ as the Jewish and Gentile messiah and as the Son of God. If any of you read my studies on the book of Romans, Paul touched on that same topic when he wrote, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of Son-ship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs with God and co-heirs with Christ ...” (Romans 8: 15-17) So you see, Paul was literally telling the Galatian congregation that they were already adopted into the family of God, and that there was nothing extra or special that they needed to do to join the family. Moreover, since our adoption into God's eternal family is through Jesus Christ, whose lineage can be traced all the way back to God, that makes us all Jewish by adoption just as it says in Romans. I don't know about you, but I find the prospect of being an adopted Jew quite appealing. If that is the genealogy of my Lord and Savior, then that is good enough for me. Let's continue now and conclude today's study beginning at verse ten.

All who rely on observing the Law are under a curse, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.' [Deut. 27:26] Clearly no one is justified before God by the Law, because 'the righteous will live by faith'. [Habakkuk 2:4] The Law is not based on faith; on the contrary, 'The man who does these things will live by them'. [Lev. 18:5] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.' [Deut. 21:23] He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Galatians 3, verses 10-14)

The apostle Paul repeatedly quotes the Old Testament – or more accurately the Law of Moses, which was still very much the religious tradition of that time in that part of the world – in order to finish making his point. Paul's literacy was the exception rather than the rule in those days, and he uses his educational level to his advantage right here. Clearly, Paul writes, “ … no one is justified before God by the Law, because 'the righteous will live by faith'...”. This is the crux of the matter, which is that no one can enter into God's kingdom – or the third heaven, as Paul called it – based on their good deeds and legalistic achievements. The only way to salvation is through our uncompromising and undiluted faith in the saving power of the blood of Christ. There is no other way by which any of us may enter heaven, and there are no exceptions allowed based on the teachings of Christ. If anyone tries to tell you any different, get away from those people and those churches because they are teaching a false doctrine, and they will be held accountable. But it is the truth, Jesus said, that will make you free, and anyone who is free in Him is truly and irrevocably free. And that's the best news of all.

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