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Thomas Jefferson
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Today’s Feature
Exodus Chapter 23
- ‘You will not spread false rumours. You will not lend support to the wicked by giving untrue evidence.
- You will not be led into wrong-doing by the majority nor, when giving evidence in a lawsuit, side with the majority to pervert the course of justice;
- nor will you show partiality to the poor in a lawsuit.
- ‘If you come on your enemy’s ox or donkey straying, you will take it back to him.
- If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen under its load, do not stand back; you must go and help him with it.
- ‘You will not cheat the poor among you of their rights at law.
- Keep clear of fraud. Do not cause the death of the innocent or upright, and do not acquit the guilty.
- You will accept no bribes, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and is the ruin of the cause of the upright.
- ‘You will not oppress the alien; you know how an alien feels, for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt.
- ‘For six years you will sow your land and gather its produce,
- but in the seventh year you will let it lie fallow and forgo all produce from it, so that those of your people who are poor can take food from it and the wild animals eat what they have left. You will do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
- ‘For six days you will do your work, and on the seventh you will rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the child of your slave-girl have a breathing space, and the alien too.
- ‘Take notice of everything I have told you and do not mention the name of any other god: let none ever be heard from your lips.
- ‘Three times a year you will hold a festival in my honour.
- You will observe the feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one will appear before me empty-handed.
- You will also observe the feast of Harvest, of the first-fruits of your labours in sowing the fields, and the feast of Ingathering, at the end of the year, once you have brought the fruits of your labours in from the fields.
- Three times a year all your menfolk will appear before Lord Yahweh.
- ‘You will not offer the blood of my victim with leavened bread, nor will the fat of my feast be kept till the following day.
- ‘You will bring the best of the first-fruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God. ‘You will not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
- ‘Look, I am sending an angel to precede you, to guard you as you go and bring you to the place that I have prepared.
- Revere him and obey what he says. Do not defy him: he will not forgive any wrong-doing on your part, for my name is in him.
- If, however, you obey what he says and do whatever I order, I shall be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.
- My angel will precede you and lead you to the home of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, whom I shall exterminate.
- You will not bow down to their gods or worship them or observe their rites, but throw them down and smash their cultic stones.
- You will worship Yahweh your God, and then I shall bless your food and water, and keep you free of sickness.
- In your country no woman will miscarry, none be sterile, and I shall give you your full term of life.
- ‘I shall send terror of myself ahead of you; I shall throw all the peoples you encounter into confusion, and make all your enemies take to their heels.
- I shall send hornets ahead of you to drive Hivite, Canaanite and Hittite out before you.
- I shall not drive them out ahead of you in a single year, or the land might become a desert where wild animals would multiply to your cost.
- I shall drive them out little by little before you, until your numbers grow sufficient for you to take possession of the land.
- And your frontiers I shall fix from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, for I shall put the inhabitants of the territory at your mercy, and you will drive them out before you.
- You will make no pact with them or with their gods.
- They may not stay in your country or they might make you sin against me, for you would serve their gods, and that would be a snare for you!’
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SnyderTalk® Commentary
Take a close look at Exodus 23: 1-8:
- Don’t spread false rumors.
- Don’t give untrue evidence.
- Don’t follow the majority in wrongdoing.
- Don’t side with the majority to pervert justice.
- Don’t show partiality to the poor in a lawsuit.
- If you see your enemy’s ox straying, take it back to him.
- If you see the donkey of someone who hates you falling down because of a heavy load, help the donkey. Take some of that load on yourself.
- Don’t cheat the poor.
- Steer clear of fraud.
- Don’t cause the death of an innocent person.
- Don’t acquit the guilty.
- Don’t take bribes.
These aren’t the Ten Commandments. They are simple instructions about right living. These are things any “red blooded American citizen” ought to know instinctively because they should have been hammered into our brains from the time we were tiny infants. After all, this is a “God fearing nation,” isn’t it?
Just look at what has come to light over the past 18 months. Congress ordered banks to make loans to people who could never repay. Banks interpreted that edict as a green light to loan as much money as they could without regard for a person’s income, job status, net worth, etc. As you would expect, many borrowers couldn’t meet their debt obligations. When the market collapsed, many of them weren’t able to repay, and they blamed the banks. I’m not excusing the banks or Congress, but do you think an average person with no job or with a low-paying job has the intellectual capacity to understand that he can’t afford to buy a $400,000 house, for example? Of course he does.
Congress passed senseless legislation. The president signed it, and it became law. Bankers made loans without doing due diligence. Appraisers inflated the values of properties being sold. Real estate agents took their clients to see the “right lenders”; banks selected the “right appraisers”; and people who could not service their debt obligations signed notes as if they were legitimate buyers. It doesn’t stop there. Investment bankers snapped up those loans, bundled them, and sold them in the global market as investment grade securities. Buyers of those bundled notes were betting that people at every level in our country had done their jobs properly, but they were wrong.
Let’s keep going. Members of Congress got sweetheart deals on their own properties from lending institutions. Those loans were bribes pure and simple, and those members of Congress are still in Washington. In fact, some of them are currently overseeing the financial reform overhaul we keep hearing so much about. That’s a scary thought, and they expect to be re-elected—and probably will be. After all, this is a “God fearing nation,” isn’t it?
Why stop there? Bernie Madoff made off with billions of dollars of other people’s money because they thought he could work miracles. His deal was almost too good to be true. I’m not talking about unsophisticated investors either. Just look at this sampling of Bernie Madoff’s clients who lost money investing in his Ponzi scheme:
- HSBC
- Access International
- Fortis Bank
- Man Group’s RMF division
- Tremont Capital
- Pioneer Investments
- Palm Beach Country Club
- Leonard Feinstein
- Mort Zuckerman
- Fairfield County, Connecticut
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Jeff Katzenberg
- Tufts University
You can see a more complete list by clicking on the hyperlink above.
I’ll mention just a few more problems:
- We’ve kicked Yahweh out of our schools.
- We’ve legalized abortion on demand for no other reason than convenience.
- We’ve legalized homosexual marriage.
- We’ve turned immoral behavior into entertainment for the masses.
- And we’ve targeted Yahweh’s people for ridicule.
I bring these things up to make a point. The United States of America is NOT a “God fearing nation.” You have to ignore mountains of hard evidence to draw any other conclusion. That means the phrase we like to recite is nothing more than a vacuous slogan. I’ve presented a smidgen of the readily available evidence suggesting that our nation is as godless as it can be. Thankfully, we live in a representative republic, so we can change things fairly quickly at the ballot box, but it takes prayer and effort to make a difference.
The next time you catch yourself thinking that Yahweh is on our side, ask yourself this question. Why would He be? We’ve abandoned Him. Still there is hope. Remember this promise:
“Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, ‘I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. (He’s referring to the Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7: 12-14)
What did Yahweh mean when He said “My people who are called by My Name”? He meant what He said. Yahweh said that when His people who are called by His Name, Yahweh, humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, He will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land.
Do you see the problem? Most people in the United States don’t even recognize the Name Yahweh, and they certainly don’t know that Yahweh is the Name He’s talking about because most Bibles substitute the phrase “the LORD” where Yahweh’s Name belongs in the verses I quoted above. With Yahweh’s divine assistance, we can solve that problem. If you see the problem, then you should do something. What role will you play?
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News Items of Interest
- Dealing with America’s fiscal hole
- Important step? Hamas declares new ceasefire: launching bid for massive aid for Gaza Strip
- U.S. general: al Qaeda in Iraq becoming less foreign
- The Jew from Kuwait
- Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
- HASHEM: the Name I wish the author had relied less on human logic and had turned his attention to Yahweh’s Word which tells us to declare Yahweh’s Name to the world. Isn’t it amazing how many apparently good reasons there are not to obey Yahweh’s simplest command? Why should anyone have a problem telling people who God is by Name—especially since Yahweh told us to do it in no uncertain terms? Yahweh is not an egocentric athlete. He is the Creator, the Sovereign of the universe, and our Savior. His Name is important for reasons that we don’t understand completely. If Yahweh had wanted us to disguise His Name, He would have told us Himself, and we wouldn’t need to resort to convoluted logic.
- Shalit becomes pawn in Palestinian power struggle
- Palestinian struggle to return to basics
- NATO bucks trend, views Israeli army as model for modern warfare
- Sodom is the nation’s capital
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His Name is Yahweh
There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh. His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5. If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should. The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.
Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org
