By Daniel Downs
The national debt was $10.6 trillion. According to Rep. Steve Austria, the national debt will increase another $1.1 trillion as a result of recent stimulus-bailout legislation. If we add the previous $800 billion bank bailout legislation, a more accurate figure is $2 trillion raising the national debt to $12.5 trillion. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) reports that foreign ownership of the national debt was around 30 percent. But at the beginning of the year, it increased to over 50 percent. If that were not bad enough, the Congressional Budget Office reports that Congress will spend $1.2 trillion more than it will receive this year. Again, if we add the recent stimulus bill, the numbers climb to over $1.7 trillion more than last year and all of it on credit. The U.S. government not only owes around $6 trillion to foreigners, the two largest creditors being Japan and communist China, but Congress intends to spend $2.1 trillion more than it can repay. When we compare the national debt to the total national economic productivity or Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is estimated at a little over $14 trillion, it becomes apparent that politicians assume they have right to spend nearly all of the people’s wealth on credit.
Sadly, America is a debtor nation. As we will see, this type of compulsive spending for the cause of secular, socialist, and global agendas is a curse of divine justice. The following then is what the penmen of God had to say about this matter.
One of the more pertinent illuminations of ancient wisdom comes from the writer of Proverbs, who many scholars believe King Solomon was its author. King Solomon wrote:
Do not be among those who become guarantors of debt. (Pro. 22:26)
The federal government is a guarantor of student loans, bank loans, business loans, mortgage loans, loans to foreign governments, and other types of loans. For decades, the federal government has been bailing out bank and Wall Street because of bad lending practices to corporations and foreign governments. It is part of the purpose of the Federal Reserve, federal deposit insurance, and federal loan guarantee programs. Taxpayers have been footing the bill without even realizing it. Maybe now it will be understood that working taxpaying Americans are ultimate bailing out all these rotten practices for the benefit of those in power. As Austria has pointed out, the average Joe or Juanita benefits little. It should be apparent that profit over people is not working well for most Americans.
It is important to note that the Hebrew word used for debt in the above verse refers to interest bearing loans. In the modern vernacular, the proverb could be rewritten thus: “Do not be among those who guarantee interest bearing bank or payday loans for anyone.”
The law of Israel prohibited loans with interest. At the same time, the law also required society to give loans to the needy or poor. According to the laws governing credit and debt, all outstanding loans to fellow citizens had to be canceled every seven years. Only loans to foreign nations or foreign individuals were exempt from God’s law of debt forgiveness. (Ex. 22:25; Deut. 16:1-11)
If the covenant people were faithful to covenantal law, God promised a specific kind of blessing: they would become creditor to the world but not a debtor. However, if they did not follow God’s law, the Jewish nation was promised judgment. One aspect of the promised judgment was that they would become debtors and foreigners would consume their productivity. (Deut. 28:44, 33, 38)
Right now, foreigners either through financial debt or through an on-going international trade imbalance consume over 50 percent of economic productivity of Americans. By importing more foreign goods and services than exported, more of working America’s wealth goes to foreigners. What America exports more than it imports is military related goods and services. Yet, that too is more allusion than reality. For example, Congress gives Israel $2 billion in aid for the purpose of Israel using most, if not all, of it to purchase military equipment like airplanes from American companies like Lockheed. That $2 billion is part of the public debt borrowed to fulfill the aforementioned allusion. It is taxpayers funding the purchase of weaponry for the sole benefit of only a few Americans.
Another voice of ancient wisdom and enlightenment was the priestly prophet Isaiah. During an earlier stage of his preaching for God, what appears to have been a message addressed to the whole world is recorded in chapter 24 of the book by his name. The following are a few excerpts relevant to our discussion:
“Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word…. The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgress laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth and those who live in it are held guilty…. So it will happen in that day, that the Lord will punish the host of heaven on high, and the kings of the earth on earth.” (Isa. 24:1-3, 5-6a, 21)
Isaiah probably had in mind the law of credit and debt when he wrote that God was going to waste the earth and cause it to be despoiled. (24:3) This divine punishment will be the result all inhabitants polluting the earth. The earth becomes corrupted because of the perpetual violations of the eternal covenant and its laws. (v. 4) Because all people are as guilty as the next guy, all would experience what God means by making the earth completely laid waste. (v5) The peculiar result is stated by the prophet this way: “The buyer will be like the seller, the lender will be like the borrower, and the creditor will be like the debtor.” (v 2)
Many scholars, Jewish and Christian, claim the eternal covenant refers only to the 663 laws written in the books of Moses or Torah. This is not the case. The eternal covenant began with Adam and his sons. It was perpetuated through Noah, later though Abraham, expanded to a national model of society through Moses and Israel, expanded again with the priesthood and the royal bloodline of David, and more fully completed through Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. The moral law of the eternal covenant is still in effect today just as it was when most of the laws of the American colonies and later the states and the nation conformed to it.
What makes the prophecy of Isaiah so interesting is the fact that it has been happening in our lifetime. For example, most workers today produce goods and services that they or others within their companies sell. All workers in turn buy things they want or need from other sellers. Seller and buyer are virtually the same.
Okay, it could be rightly argued that it has always been the case since ancient times. Not so with banking, which didn’t exist universally? In banking, depositors lend their money to banks often believing that they will earn more money through interest. This belief is erroneous because banks only pay interest rates near the inflation rate. Bank CDs pay little over the inflation rate as well. Therefore, banks only allow depositors to keep the same value of their original loans also called deposits. Banks take the depositors loans and lend to borrowers at higher interest rates in order to make a profit. Depositors are very kind people because they lend money to needy bankers so that they can earn a living without having to do much strenuous labor.
We can apply the same to the national debt. Taxpayers hold the gigantic public debt in the federal government who lends to as well as borrows from the American people and from foreigners. Government borrows by exchanging paper bonds of specified value for money of equal value with a promise to repay at set interest rate, which rate is usually a little more and sometimes less than the inflation rate. As with depositing wealth in federal banks, lending wealth to the government is not very profitable, especially for individuals. It is an allusion because the feds inflationary program consumes any real profit. The actual beneficiaries are institutions of government and corporations. (By the way, Federal Reserve Banks, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac are unconstitutional and illegal corporations, and so are any other institutions incorporated by the federal government. The records of the Constitutional conventions prove it. Their existences are monuments to criminal acts against the Supreme Law of the Land.)
Another golden nugget of ancient enlightenment reveals the likely outcome of unethical and lawless financial acts against God’s eternal covenant. As it was written by the author of Proverbs:
“The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” (22:7)
To whom then is the America enslaved? Is the imperial government enslaved to both the global agenda of its politicians as well as to foreigners? Are we the people really free? Are we not more like indentured servants to a corrupt government, corporate powers, and foreigners? Consider that foreigners now own a significant percentage of all industries and physical capital. Moreover, federal and state governments have seriously considered leasing our highways to foreigners to fund their transportation departments.
Isaiah 24 also sheds light on Revelation 13. When the beast or anti-Christ arises, he will gain control over the global economy. When this global dictator does, all–both buyer and seller–will become truly equal. They both will be subservient to him. None will they be able to buy or sell without giving allegiance to this dictator and his politics of change. Here is secular egalitarianism at its worst.
This is the end result of a globalized economy regulated by a unified world government fostered by world socialists on Capitol Hill, in state government, corporations, and universities of America. It is part of the divine judgment and the eventual end to their grand schemes whether called secularism or socialism or globalism or democracy.
As depicted by Isaiah 24, the eternal covenant will still stand after they have perished from the earth.