Scripture

“The people of Israel have sinned again and again. So I will judge them. They sell into slavery those who have done no wrong. They trade needy people for a mere pair of sandals.”

~Amos 2:6, NIRV

Quote

 I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back.

~Leo Tolstoy

I was talking to a man a few weeks ago and we were discussing the Jews. He said in reference to the Jews, “They believe in taking care of their own.” I said, “Actually, they do not. The law of Moses and scripture command them to take care of their own but they don’t.” Read the Old Testament carefully and you will see the facts: Jews enslaved other Jews. Amos said, “You sell the innocent for the price of a pair of new shoes.” Every prophet dealt with this problem of oppression and injustice.

• Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. {Zechariah 7:10}
• Practice justice between a man and his neighbor, do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow. {Jeremiah 7:5}
• How terrible it will be for you who make laws that aren’t fair! How terrible for you who write laws that make life hard for others! You take away the rights of poor people. You hold back what is fair from my people who are suffering. You take for yourselves what belongs to widows.You rob children whose fathers have died. {Isaiah 10:1-2}
• How terrible it will be for those who plan to harm others! How terrible for those who make evil plans before they even get out of bed! As soon as daylight comes, they carry out their plans.  That’s because they have the power to do it. If they want fields or houses, they take them. They cheat people out of their homes. They rob them of their property. {Micah 2:1-3}

There are more scriptures, many more but you get the idea: the Jews were horrible at oppressing the weak and helpless. We are not talking about Jews oppressing Gentiles but oppressing each other. The practice has always produced a powerful aristocratic class. In Jesus day, this elite group were known as Sadduccees. A prime example would be Ciaphas.

A good example of their oppression was the control of the Temple. In Jesus day, the Temple was paramount to Wall Street. It was a money making scheme for the Sadduccees [rich elite Jews]. They made money on livestock and banking [exchange of money]. They controlled the priest and the priest controlled the inspection of the sacrificial animals. The animals the pilgrims brought were ususally rejected. This forced them to buy an animal from the Temple stockyard. Of course the rich Jews had buyers everywhere who would buy the rejected animals for a discount. These same animals would later be sold as acceptable sacrifices. It was a corrupt money making racket. When it comes to taking advantage of others, the Jews wrote the book and yes they will take advantage of each other.

• A glimmer of hope. Incriminating facts are being uncovered on Hillary and Trump is closing the gap if there is a gap. I do not trust the media and I do not trust polls. Newt says Hillary is going to jail one way or the other. Are Americans stupid enough to elect a criminal? We will find out a week from today. We elected Obama and Clinton; how intelligent is that? Not very!
• Today is supposed to be the last extremely warm day [89*]. I carried a jacket to Ty’s game last night but didn’t need it. We are running our A/C in November and I don’t remember doing that before. We desperately need rain. The swamp on Targum is almost dried up and I have never seen that before.
• Revival begins Sunday morning. We will have five services.
  • Sunday 10:15 and 6:00
  • Monday-Wednesday at 7:00
  • Children’s Church and Nursery for all services.
• GOLDEN GIRLS are meeting on November 12 this month at Cracker Barrel. On December 3, we are inviting all our Senior adults to join us.
• I have a computer problem at the church office. My computer crashed 3 months ago and so I was using my lap top but it got corrupted and I lost four of my main programs so I hooked up an old one. It is an antique and it is slow as Christmas. I hate slow computers. It takes me twice as long to do the blog.

REVIVAL

November 6-7

with Wade Morris