commentary: In the Wake of an Unnatural Disaster (Part Ten)


John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 19-Mar-16; Sermon #1313c; 11 minutes

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I hope you appreciate that you are living in the midst of a revolution. It has not yet passed into the shooting and killing each other stage but it is advancing in that direction. I do not know whether it ever will reach that, but I believe it is more likely that it will than unlikely. The presidential campaign is adding to the drama, but the revolution that is very definitely underway is the one that has triggered the vast changes in this nation’s moral standards. The causalities in this revolution have been great.

I have been giving you brief accountings of the progress of this revolution in my commentaries each week. Those accountings have been mostly drawn from among the common folk who have little to defend themselves with from the moral assaults because they either didn’t care or their attention is diverted elsewhere.

Or even if they did care by being more than casually interested because they did attend a church fairly consistently, but their church didn’t really prepare them because the church leadership was in much the same state as the parishioners. They weren’t being given hard-hitting messages firmly based in the truths of God. They were pretty much fed what amounted to little more than mental mush.

In the past two weeks though I read a blog post written by a very famous American person in which he said something quite interesting. His article did not mention morals, though from my point of view, morals were very much in my mind. Morals are involved those because in his brief blog post, what former president Jimmy Carter said was this. I am paraphrasing because I didn’t write it down word for word, but it set my head buzzing.

Our 91-year old former president said that we no longer have a true representative democracy in the United States of America. We are being ruled by an unelected oligarchy. Thus it doesn’t matter much who are the personalities and names in office because the unelected oligarchy are the real rulers who hold the power. That is quite an admission.

"Oligarchy" means, "rule by a few." In other words, Jimmy Carter was saying that a small group of very wealthy and powerful men who do not hold any elective offices have stolen governmental power primarily through their ability to manipulate those in the elected office through their wealth.

Very bluntly, we have government by bribery. It is very interesting that those in the elected offices have learned how to remain in office by the same means. They bribe the voters by means of social programs operated by robbing from Peter to pay Paul. (I am beyond Jimmy Carter; now you are hearing John Ritenbaugh.)

There is no doubt that on the surface we appear to have, at the very least, a socialist form of government. Socialism appears on the surface to be a fair system because we are required by God to take care of the poor, aren’t we? Jesus said, “The poor you always have with you.” Thus, having poor in a community is a reality even under God, and yes, we are commanded to take care of them. But did you ever notice the Bible gives absolutely not even one iota of a hint that that form of social welfare He commanded was either systematically central government-ordered or -operated? In God’s system, given in the Bible, each person is to take it upon himself to take care of those in need personally within his own family and community.

We are witnessing in our time a major, major weakness of a republican form of democratic government. The weakness is that when avaricious, elected men, as representatives of the people, devise a means by which they can tap into the public treasury and use that money as bribes to buy their way into office, they will in all probability keep winning elections because the uneducated voters either do not care or do not understand where all these “free gifts” are coming from.

The government’s education system, beginning in kindergarten and all the way through elementary school and on through high school, is not free. Whether we like it or not, it is paid for through taxation in order that children can be educated into the government’s system. How trustworthy, how moral, is the government when the officials are bribing their way into office? How trustworthy is the government?

The latest idea being floated around during these primary elections is that some are beginning the push to make college education free. If approved, I guarantee it will be as "free" as the lower educations we are now paying for through taxation.

Large blocks of voters don’t seem to grasp, or are so warped and covetous in their thinking that they do not seem to care, that those gifts from the government aren’t free. There ain’t no free lunch! That is a reality. Wealth through taxation is being stolen from those honestly earning a living. Socialism isn’t fair or it would be commanded in God’s word of truth. You won’t find democracy there either. God Himself is the sovereign Ruler, but Israel overwhelming rejected Him in I Samuel 8.

Remove all the fancy rhetoric the Democratic Party is almost continuously using to persuade the voters, and all of history’s examples overwhelmingly show those willing honestly face the issue is that socialism is a vastly immoral man devised system of the distribution of other people’s wealth. They steal from one to give it to somebody else in order that they retain power.

And so the United States of America is 19 trillion dollars in debt, compiled largely through avaricious stealth, but the whole nation is so caught up in the system that keeps these people in office that for years now they have been simply printing paper money with no real wealth backing it.

Because of this immorality, we are living in a hollow empire under the leadership of thieves kept in office by lies. Is there any end of our immorality? Like Judah in Isaiah’s day, we are sick from the bottom of our feet to the top of our heads. God is rejected and as a nation, we’ve lost our way.

I opened last week’s commentary by quoting Romans 1:18-20, and so today, because it is so meaningful in terms of what we are living through, I will close with it today. Our times do not give any person who loves God’s way any hope that it will be resolved into what we desire. It is doomed!

Divine retribution is to be seen at work, falling from heaven on all the impiety and wickedness of men and women who in their wickedness suppress the truth. For all that can be known of God lies plain before their eyes; indeed God Himself has disclosed it to them. Ever since the world began His invisible attributes, that is to say His everlasting power and deity, have been visible to the eye of reason, in the things He has made.

The judgments of God are already occurring.

JWR/aws/dcg

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