Homer Kizer Ministries

April 4, 2011 © Homer Kizer
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You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, the bath containing one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your mina. (Ezek 45:10–12 emphasis added)

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1.

This world continues to embrace technological advances that it cannot afford, advances that are truly astounding in their nature and scope and cost. Super diamonds are being fabricated that will shortly be incorporated as semi-conductors in circuitry that will operate hundreds of times faster than silicon chips and operate without the heat problems associated with silicon, thereby making possible humanoid robotics that will outthink and outmaneuver their creators. Tens of millions are spent to “capture” dark matter particles [WIMPs]. More moneys are spent on research and development projects to make communications faster, more reliable, and more intrusive … the brave new world that is about to open will be a world able to make war without humans firing bullets at other human beings, a world in which drones fight drones in “real” computer simulations, a world without men, a world only limited by the amount of money available for implementation of yet unimagined technology, a world of artificial intelligence—the expectation is within fifty years human beings will create computer simulations in which sentient beings explore questions of their own creation in their world of pixels. Programmers will be gods to these thinking, reasoning, self-aware characters in simulated worlds like our own world.

But will enough money be available for the research to continue?

The limiting factor that has been placed upon humankind isn’t technology, nor imagination, but money. Every activity has costs associated with it. The question has been from the beginning, can these costs be paid or absorbed? If the answer is, No, then a king is to make peace with his adversary while his adversary is still far from him. For ultimately, wars are won by who has the most monetary staying power. The people who fight a guerilla war spend little and can field a military force for generations whereas the people or nation that send tanks and jet fighters into action spends much and needs to win quickly. The cost of British military actions in North America in the 18^th-Century were dear enough to the Crown that the Colonials were destined to win if Washington could keep his army in the field. The same was true in WWII: if Nazi Germany could not win by 1943, Germany was destined to lose for Germany would run out of money to field an army by spring 1945. The destruction of German cities was ultimately unnecessary. The scheme by which Hitler was financing the war had a time-limiting factor, spring 1945. Actions would conclude when Germany could no longer pay for soldiers or pay for ammo. And the same will be true in Afghanistan: when the United States can no longer afford to field an army there, Iran and the Taliban will win, which isn’t to say that either will win. What happens will have Greek ideals, especially democracy, prevailing throughout the world, with neither the United States nor Iran being able to suppress democracy in the region for the demonic king of Greece will stomp the demonic kings of Persia.

When Pharisees plotted how to trap Jesus—the trap almost perfect—into teaching sedition against the emperor or against the high priest, they asked Jesus, “‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar’” (Matt 22:17); for paying taxes would seem to be giving honor to Caesar that rightfully belongs to the Lord; would be transgression of the first commandment. But Jesus, wise enough not to place Caesar over the High Priest nor the High Priest over Caesar, asked to see the coin for the tax … the coin wasn’t of the temple, but was a denarius. And Jesus asked, “‘Whose likeness and inscription is this’” (v. 20). They answered, Caesar’s, and Jesus said, “‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’” (v. 21).

Christians have long understood what Jesus said to mean that Christians are to render unto God honor, faith, charity, good works of every sort against which there is no command—and this understanding is true. But when Christ Jesus becomes the King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ Jesus will also represent Caesar. So what Jesus said has an additional aspect: Jesus made an important distinction between the things of this world, including its currency, and the things of God. The money of this world isn’t of God … there is a currency of this world and there is a separate, distinct currency that is of God, a currency of just weights and balances, of just weights and measures, the currency of the Millennium when this world is taken from the spiritual king of Babylon and given to the Son of Man.

A clipped coin becomes fiat money, for it no longer represents as a commodity its face value. Likewise, the coin of the temple was fiat money, the reason Jesus thrice cleansed the temple, for the coin required to be used by temple officials had its value established by decree rather than through its worth as a commodity. But most importantly, Jesus afforded recognition to two currencies, two monetary systems—one unjust, one that was to be just. One of Caesar, one of God; one of this present world, one of the world to come.

The moneys used by central banks, with the U.S. dollar being the reserve currency of this world, belong to this world and are not of God. And the answer to the most important question of our age—will there be enough money for research of every sort to continue, for social programs to provide safety nets for the poor, for nations to make war with one another—lays in the separation of Caesar from God; for the money of this world has become the creation of rational minds and is very much like characters in a computer simulation. National currencies that are legal tender for all debts public and private exist for only as long as their users believe that they exist. When doubt enters, the fiscal creation collapses: the suspension of disbelief ends and the entirety of the world’s fiscal house collapses, with this “reality” being on the verge of playing itself out as the U.S. Senate refuses to pass a budget for the year that began six months ago and as the House displays an unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling without the Federal government committing itself to meaningful fiscal reforms.

Of course, the state of U.S. finances can change in hours: an agreement between House, Senate, and Whitehouse could come at anytime, but without an agreement, the Federal government will partially shutdown in less than a week, thereby setting the stage for President Obama to usurp the authority of Congress and begin to fully rule by decree in the name of the people and under the color of saving the nation from those rascally Tea Party Republicans.

The question of whether there will be money enough to provide social safety net programs, or to make war around the globe, or to continue research that will ultimately lead to humankind’s own destruction hinges on the U.S. dollar remaining the world’s reserve currency. But each U.S. dollar is, today, a certificate of debt, not wealth.

The greatest con-job perpetrated on humanity since the serpent told Eve, You shall surely not die, has the Adversary causing debt to be called wealth: the person or the nation that holds a cache of U.S. dollars holds many certificates of debt, not making the person or nation wealthy but impoverished, for this person or nation has paid for U.S. research and development of super diamonds as well as the housing of the urban poor and cash for clunkers and the numerous social welfare programs politicians have used to empower themselves. The United States of America is the greatest debtor nation the world has every seen, but that debt is unredeemable unless the debt holders come to the United States and begin to take from Americans those things that they have purchased with Federal Reserve Notes [FRNs]. And nothing short of world war would come from America’s debt holders attempting to redeem the certificates of debt that they hold. Thus, these certificates are effectively unredeemable, and because FRNs cannot be redeemed, the United States of America has committed fraud on a previously unimaginable scale—

It takes a moment for a person to wrap his or her mind around the reality that the person who holds two FRNs has twice as much debt as the person who has one FRN. As Americans, we want to believe that the person who has two U.S. dollars has twice as much wealth as the person who has one, but FRNs are not U.S. dollars even though they function as U.S. dollars in that they are, by decree, legal tender for all debts public and private.

In making the U.S. dollar the world’s reserve currency, and then transforming U.S. dollars from being certificates representing a fixed amount of a commodity [e.g., 1/35 of an ounce of gold] to being certificates of debt only redeemable in the good faith of the United States of America, those individuals and nations who hold U.S. dollars hold nothing tangible. They hold the reputation of America; they hold an illusion, a dream, a promise of greatness, an unfulfilled promise; for despite how great the United States seems to be, the nation has turned its back to the Creator of all things made and uses instead a fiction of the Adversary as the basis for its seeming greatness.

Those Americans who believe in American exceptionalism believe in what their eyes see and their bodies experience, but they do not believe God, nor do they believe in just weights and measures … in the 20^th-Century and following the creation of the Federal Reserve, America separated itself from the nations of this world to become a superpower beyond imagination, but in doing so, America, which was never of God, moved so far away from God that when the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs, American Christians will not only lead the rebellion against God (see 2 Thess 2:3) but will be utterly wiped out. For God will not be mocked, especially by a people that profess to worship Him—Christians are to have just weights and just balances and are not to pawn their debt off as wealth, offering to the world certificates of debt that are unredeemable in any commodity but blood, then requiring that the world sell to Americans oil and sweat [the labor of impoverished peoples] for these certificates of debt, so that American politicians can ensure themselves of adequate campaign contributions and a dependant electorate.

Through the institution of representational democracy, America has defrauded its own citizenry … what is truly exceptional about the United States of America is that this nation has gotten away with a simulated currency for as long as it has. A shutdown of the Federal government will, however, bring to an end America’s long exemption from paying for what the nation consumes. For the United States of America shall not prosper before God through its use of false weights and measures; through calling debt wealth; through its fiat currency that is backed by nothing more than the debt of the nation.

The life savings of Americans are invested in negotiable FRNs, thus leaving all Americans as General Motors stockholders were in 2008, before President Obama declared their stock worthless. And as GM stockholders meekly did nothing about having their stock decreed worthless, American citizens will do nothing about having their life savings decreed worthless. But that might not be the case with all peoples as world war erupts between Arian and Trinitarian Christians and between Islam and Judaism following the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death.

 

2.

When the people of Israel traversed the wilderness, following the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day, the Lord spoke to Moses and said, “‘You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them: I am the Lord’” (Lev 19:36–37). But Israel did not do all that the Lord commanded, with the moneychangers of the temple producing a fiat currency that was exclusively accepted by temple officials for offerings and sacrifices … when Jesus thrice cleansed the temple, it was because the temple had become a den of robbers, with the moneychangers and those who sold pigeons being in collusion to defraud Israelites who had undertaken commanded pilgrimages to Jerusalem through the temple establishing fiat money, coinage not worth its face value as a commodity.

Fiat currency is money that has its value established by decree; e.g., the coinage accepted in Herod’s temple. Any money that is declared to be legal tender for debts public and private is fiat money, and when this money is used as the currency of a nation, the money forms a fiat [by decree] currency. Presently, all national currencies, including the United States dollar, the Euro, and all reserve currencies are fiat currencies, or simply, funny money, certificates of debt that pass as wealth … U.S. tri-clad coinage is assigned worth greater than the value of the metals composing the coins, and as such is fiat money after the example of the coinage accepted in Herod’s temple.

When a nation or a people has just weights and just balances, the money of the nation or people will have a fixed value; e.g., a one ounce gold coin will be worth one ounce of gold, which in turn will be worth a certain amount [a defined amount] of the wet measure or of the dry measure of the nation or people. This ratio will not change: the particular gold coin when employed as a medium of convenience will buy a certain amount of wheat this year and the same amount of wheat next year and the same amount of wheat fifty years from today; the same amount for as long as gold is the medium of convenience. There will be no currency speculation, no varying exchange rates: a one ounce gold coin marked by the Spanish government will buy the same amount as a one ounce gold coin marked by the Russian government or by the Canadian government, for the one ounce coin will be worth its value in gold. Likewise, a silver coin will be worth its weight in silver, or a copper coin will be worth its weight in copper. Money will only serve as a medium of convenience according to the standard measure of the land. Possession of any medium of convenience will only represent wealth when that medium is converted into the measure of the land; hence gold jewelry will be as convertible as gold coin. Unmarked gold ingots or unrefined gold dust will be as convertible as gold coinage, with a coin only representing its worth as a commodity. And for Israel in the future—in the Millennium—the homer will be that standard measure.

Why gold? No reason in particular. An example is needed, one that is recognizable. But anything that is more portable than grain or oil or pulses could be used as the medium of convenience that represents the standard measure of the land, the homer.

But there is an open problem in all monetary schema that are based on wealth being the possession of commodities: when a hard currency standard is the rule of the land and money is merely a medium of convenience that represents the standard measure of the people or the nation, the nation will inevitably be unable to conduct business as “business” is presently conducted in this world. Rather than homers of wheat being exchanged directly, the person who desires to acquire more homers of wheat than he or she has will give an equivalent value in the medium of convenience for the desired homers, which than can be used as the wheat would have been used to acquire homers of oil or homers of pulses [peas, beans, etc.]. But in such a monetary system, not possessing a homer of whatever prevents an exchange from occurring. There can be, in a system of just weights and measures, no negative transactions, no red ink. Every exchange adds to or takes away from a positive balance, and will always leave the person making the exchange with a positive balance; Hence, research and develop can only occur when a person or a nation has a large enough positive balance that the person or nation can convert existing assets into that research and development and still have assets. Moneys cannot be spent that do not exist; for money represents (stands as a marker for) possessed commodities.

Again, buying and selling as the world presently understands the concept will no longer exist for there will not be enough of any one medium of convenience to support the development of super diamonds.

A system of just weights and balances will seem like a return to the stone age; a return to life as Amerindians knew life. Even life as Amish farmers and craftsmen know life will take a hit, but nowhere near as great of one as modern Americans will take.

When money merely represents a medium of convenience that supports an even exchange of property, money cannot be bred as cattle are bred to produce more. Nor can money be used to defraud through devaluation [inflation] of its worth; for the face value of the money will represent its worth as a commodity. And governments will be constrained through either having or not having enough of the medium of convenience to go to war or to fund Head Start school programs; for the medium of convenience can be exchanged at anytime for a certain number of homers of wheat or oil or beans. Neither individuals nor nations can spend what they do not have; for the money itself will only have value as a commodity. It will be the homer, a defined commodity measure, that represents wealth. And a government will not be able to launch 200 cruise missiles in a humanitarian mission without destroying an equivalent amount of national wealth, thereby impoverishing the nation. War will not be conducted for financial gain … there will never be any gain in destruction of assets.

Under a system of just weights and measures, the consumption of assets will leave a nation impoverished … when more homers of wheat are consumed than are produced, the nation is poorer than it was before, and recognizably poorer. Hence, when a nation produces a bomb and explodes it, the nation will be much poorer than it was before. But this is not the case in a debt-based fiat currency system, in which wealth seems to come through the production of greater debt. Therefore, in a monetary system like that of the United States, the production of war materiale—items that will be produced in the nation but not consumed in the nation—will seem to increase the wealth of the nation, for debt is called wealth. The great prosperity of the second half of the 20^th-Century came from America’s space race, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War: in all three, a large amount of industrial production originated in the United States, but was consumed elsewhere, effectively leaving Americans with the wages paid for this production but with nothing to show for these wages but an accumulation of certificates of debt that other nations accepted as payment for commodities that enriched the lives of Americans. Thus, America farmed out its debt, leaving its citizens with commodities (in particular, oil) that came from other lands and leaving these other lands holding America’s debt.

And we have returned to super diamonds: technological research and development have costs that represent a destruction of real wealth. However, when these costs are in a fiat currency, and especially in a debt-based currency such as the U.S. dollar, the amount of money spent on research and development represents an “investment” through the cancelation of many certificates of debt … the more certificates of debt that are in circulation, the greater the debt of the nation, not the greater the wealth. Again, the person who possesses two certificates of debt in a fiat currency system actually has holds twice as much debt [i.e., the debt of the nation] as the person who possesses one certificate of debt. Hence, the accumulation of certificates of debt removes the nation’s debt from circulation: an Arab oil sheik who holds in his national bank a hundred billion U.S. dollars holds a considerable amount of the nation’s debt, with his accumulation of American debt not representing true wealth for him, but representing real debt that the American government should be obliged to pay but doesn’t have to pay because the certificates have been removed from circulation.

When U.S. certificates of debt are only redeemable in the good faith of the United States of America, the person or nation who holds these certificates holds nothing but hollow promises to pay in additional certificates of debt. For as long as these certificates of debt remain out of circulation, they effectively do not exist: a little interest is paid to the person or nation who buys Treasury Notes as a bribe to the purchaser to keep these particular certificates out of circulation. Likewise, a little interest is paid to American citizens as bribes to keep U.S. dollars from being circulated. For as long as banks sit on billions of dollars, they effectively cancel American debt, thereby protecting whatever real assets they have acquired. Likewise, when large American or multinational corporations park their certificates of debt in money market accounts, they protect themselves from accumulating even more debt in a perverse fiscal world that will have them making profits payable in greater debt—the corporation that pays taxes reduces its accumulation of American certificates of debt, which again, do not represent true wealth but real debt. Thus, as the Vice President has said, Paying taxes is patriotic.

Americans have been conditioned to expect normalcy: the accumulation of U.S. dollars representing wealth. And this would be the case if the nation employed just weights and measures. But when the nation passes FRNs off as U.S. dollars, which are constitutionally defined as a specified amount of a commodity, America commits fraud against its citizens and against the world … again, when the U.S. Federal government inserts into global circulation many certificates of debt [U.S. dollars], the Federal government doesn’t borrow real money from the world’s citizenry, but persuades the world’s citizenry to accept its certificates of debt for the commodities of this world, thereby acquiring tangible assets for markers of debt that can only be redeemed through the Federal government removing these markers from circulation. For as long as these markers remain in circulation, with these markers being traded as if they were a commodity, the Federal government can consume the commodities of this world, such as crude oil or chrome or diamonds, without paying for these commodities. And there is no way that an oil sheik can recover the crude oil he sold to Americans once that oil has been refined and burned as gasoline: the oil sheik is left with empty clay domes and mounds of U.S. certificates of debt that are, of themselves, worthless unless the oil sheik can continue the con by convincing U.S. farmers to send him shiploads of American cereal grains, with the farmers, when receiving a mound of certificates of debt, having to surrender much of that mound to the Federal government that then removes these used certificates from circulation, thereby canceling that much of the U.S. debt.

Hence, when a firm spends U.S. dollars in research and development, with the American government funding these efforts, no true wealth is spent: certificates of debt are given to the firm, then taken back from the firm. Debt is created, then negated—and super diamonds are produced through fiscal magic. National wealth is created through a fiscal shell-game that doesn’t have a pea under any of the shells. But as long as transactions occur quickly and the mark believes that there is a pea under one of the shells, the system works and the gambler is greatly increased in goods and services.

But when a hard currency is the standard, industrialization will always be inhibited by a lack of the medium of convenience: if gold is this medium of convenience, and if there is not enough gold in circulation for a business to conduct its business, then that business’ activity is curtailed until more of the medium of convenience can be put into circulation, a reality that hampered American industrialization at the end of the 19^th-Century—

In Israel in the Millennium, the medium of convenience will represent a specified number of homers, the standard measure. If those homers do not exist, then no medium of convenience can represent them. If those homers are destroyed/consumed, they will no longer exist; thus, no medium of convenience can represent them … there will be no futures market where bets on next year’s grain harvests are made. Nor will there be speculation moneys available for research and development of terminator-type androids. Such research projects will be stymied, as will be all forms of warfare.

When a one ounce gold coin equals in value its weight as a metal, then the removal of that coin from the pool of preferred mediums of convenience does not diminish the number of homers of wheat or peas from the national inventory and therefore has no effect on the nation’s worth: a homer of wheat will still be a homer of wheat, and a homer of oil will still be a homer of oil. If a person wishes to exchange three homers of wheat for a homer of oil, and if the person having the oil agrees to the exchange, the person desiring to make the exchange will deliver to the person who has the homer of oil the three homers of wheat. And the person desiring to make the exchange will not cast away wheat in a humanitarian mission that seeks to overturn another nation’s government.

In a system of just weights and measures, no money is needed: exchanges can be directly made in the standard measure of the land. Money will only exist as a medium of convenience. The blacksmith need not be paid in money, but can be paid directly in homers. And the blacksmith can then pay for his coal in homers, which might be bulky and awkward to transport, but will represent real worth. Money will only be for convenience.

When a one ounce gold coin equals in value its weight as a metal, conversion of the gold into jewelry or into a frying pan does not diminish the worth of the nation. Whereas finding additional gold would make more of the metal available to be made into cooking pots, finding more of the metal would not increase the number of homers of wheat or oil or pulses in the land, and would not therefore alter the worth of a homer; for the medium of convenience only stands as a portable homer of wheat or oil or pulses. If gold were to become so plentiful that every person truly had a gold frying pan [Julia Child once cooked on a gold frying pan and said that it cooked wonderfully], then gold would retain its worth as a commodity, but would probably no longer be wisely used as a medium of convenience representing the portable homer. Gold’s worth would remain the same as it was, but its abundance would make it a common item and not of itself precious, as happened with aluminum early in the 20^th-Century.

When streets are paved with gold, the metal would not be a wise medium of convenience representing the portable homer.

In the Millennium—the thousand years when the Son of Man shall rule this world—gold will be plentiful and the homer shall be the measure by which exchanges of property are made, with this homer remaining constant throughout the thousand years. A homer of wheat in the first year of the Millennium will represent in volume the same amount of wheat as a homer represents in the last year. The medium of convenience used to represent this homer will certainly change with the abundance or scarcity of more portable commodities.

But the destruction of any system of just weights and balances is built into the system: whereas a carved wood bowl by Homer might represent a homer of wheat at the beginning of the thousand years, obtaining that same carved wood bowl from its owner three hundred years later might require a hundred homers of wheat, meaning that the wood bowl increased in value a hundredfold as such bowls become rare. Hence, the wood bowl could be used as a medium of convenience throughout these three hundred years at a negotiated value. A transaction would occur, but buying and selling as was done at the temple in Jerusalem or as is presently done in this world should not occur: the bowl would always be worth its value as a bowl (as a commodity), but if greater value is attached to the bowl, that bowl would then represent fiat money and the beginning of the destruction of just weights and balances.

If a 300-year history of a bowl by Homer adds worth to the bowl, worth greater than the commodity value of the bowl, someone will have to determine this increase in value, with this increase coming by decree regardless of whether the decree is established in an auction or in a museum. The bowl as a commodity represents a small amount of value. When the bowl as an object is of much greater value, nothing real has been created: the person might just as well have scattered a certain number of homers of wheat to the birds … if history is subtracted from what the person desiring to acquire a 300-year old bowl by Homer is willing to give to obtain ownership of the bowl, the bowl will be worth what any other wood bowl is worth. It will be the history that has acquired worth, thereby setting the stage for returning to a fiat currency before the thousand years expires, meaning that even when the Son of Man reigns over Israel in the Millennium, the house of God will have to be cleansed with the merchants driven out before the end comes with the great White Throne Judgment. For placing tangible value to the history of a commodity opens the door to assigned worth.

Maintaining just weights and balances when any transactions occurs will be nigh impossible. Only in the absence of transactions can just weights be maintained …

Today, what is my signature on a carved bowl worth? Not a lot. What will my signature be worth after the Second Passover liberation of Israel? Even less, possibly. But any assignment of value to my signature adds intangible worth to a commodity that has intrinsic worth as a commodity—is a creation of wealth through the strokes of a pen, is the beginning of fiat wealth through the decree of an appraiser, or of an auctioneer, or of an art collector.

I did not sign rifles I made in the 1970s for I sought to avoid the increased value of a commodity due to the signature on the commodity: I sought to let the commodity—the rifle—represent its worth as a rifle. But when I began to place woodware in art galleries in the 1990s, I signed the pieces, for it was the expectation of the gallery owner that the work be signed by the artist. However, when I first started carving bowls in the Northwest Coast tradition, Bill Holm, artist, lecturer, and curator of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the Tomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum on the campus of the University of Washington, came to Fairbanks where I then was, looked over my bowls, and said in a passing comment two hours later, “The photographs never show the bowls as round as they are,” which was his indirect way of telling me that original bowls were always bowls first and sculptural art second … to the peoples of the Northwest Coast, bowls were always commodities. They were thought-of as commodities, utilitarian items. A signature on a bowl would not have increased the worth of the bowl as a commodity, nor would have improved the sculptural aspects of the bowl. A signature would have been worthless.

Over the centuries there has been a belittling of pre-contact Amerindians because they did not buy and sell, or hold ownership positions in property as Europeans did. There was certainly a continent-wide trading network: an axe forged by Lewis & Clark’s blacksmith at Fort Mandan crossed the Bitterroot Mountains and was in the hands of Nez Perce seven months before Lewis & Clark crossed these same mountains on their journey of discovery. But when the worth of an item remains constant as is the case in any system of just weights and balances, there is no buying and selling as modern nations understand the concept. Money serves only as a medium of convenience for exchanges of commodities. Wealth is not calculated in an acquisition of money, but in the productivity of the land or of herds. For gold is inedible. Wheat is not. Gold will not keep a person warm in the winter. Gold will not clothe the person. Thus, without conversion of gold into a useful commodity, gold is fit for nothing. However, the scarcity of gold lends itself to gold serving as a medium of convenience that functions as a portable homer. But in the future, a stainless steel knife blade from this present era might be more scarce and better serve as a portable homer than gold, a metal that doesn’t oxidize quickly and return to being the dust of this earth within the lifetime of a tree.

 

3.

In the Millennium, the standard unit of measure will be the homer, a fixed amount by volume and/or by weight … the barley sold at Bancroft, Idaho, in 1995, I believe, weighed light, giving more bushels per hundredweight than usual. There was considerable concern by the local farmers, who were getting the bushels per acre that they expected, but who were not getting the tonnage needed to make a profit. So in even a system of just weights and balances, volume and weight will need reconciled year by year; so hard rules cannot be crafted in advance even though hard principles can be stated.

What must be resisted in the Millennium is the assignment of worth based on the history of the item, or based on who the creator of the item is. A commodity must maintain its worth as a commodity, not through an arbitrary decree of worth. … This is really what it means to have just weights and just balances when the context expands beyond an exchange of cereal grains. A carved wood bowl has worth as a commodity, and that worth must be maintained (or diminished according to deterioration) for as long as the bowl retains its usefulness as a “bowl.” A knife blade has worth as a commodity: the artistry that goes into crafting a fluted knife blade is ascetically pleasing and will represent an expenditure of labor beyond that necessary to produce a utilitarian blade, but when ascetics are assigned tangible worth, the beginnings of a fiat currency are again in play, with that currency enslaving a people through unjust weights and measures.

The unsigned muzzleloading rifles I built in the 1970s will retain their worth as rifles for as long as they function as rifles, but when they cease to function, their collector value will not support their continued existence. They will return to being the dust of this earth, the production of an unknown smith in a bygone era. But the bowls sold through galleries in Fairbanks, Juneau, Sitka, Seattle were never used as “bowls” so they were not purchased for their value as utilitarian commodities, but for their value as sculptural objects, something pleasing to the eye; something that would hopefully escalate in worth as the fiat currency used to purchase them decreased it worth. Their owners hope that they made an investment that will increase in value at the same rate or at a greater rate than the dollar decreases in value. I hope so, too; for I have unfinished bowls that could be placed on the market at some future date. But from a theological perspective, they are commodities whose worth is in them being bowls à la what Bill Holm brought to my attention spring 1990.

How is it that after a thousand years, when Satan is loosed from his chains, he can go forth and quickly convince humans born of God and born filled-with and empowered by the breath of God [pneuma Theon] to rebel against the Lord? … There will be a suppressed yearning for the abundance that comes from passing debt off as wealth. There will be latent envy of what America and Americans have seemingly accomplished through the nation’s use of unjust weights and measures. There will be worldwide desire for the intangible that is today identified as American exceptionalism. But what’s exceptional is that the world simply cannot have what Americans have; for the world will not support global consumption of commodities on America’s scale. Despite how much I would like to see every person have the good things that this world offers to Americans, because the world conducts its business in certificates of American debt the reality is that America’s lifestyle is unsustainable and unobtainable by anyone else.

In the 1960s, I would have said the problem of world poverty could be resolved through a greater insertion of Capitalism into the developing nations of this world, with the national government of impoverished nations needing to get out of the way and let their citizenry exploit whatever resources that were available to them. Then in the 1970s, living on the edge of the world, being able to look westward and see tomorrow which looked a lot like today, I began to realize that America was truly exceptional, for this nation transformed a depression into possession of the world’s wealth, a feat comparable to placing men on the moon …

On a flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor, which was then my home port, a Japanese fish buyer complained that this was his third trip that summer into Dutch for the cannery couldn’t seem to process product to his company’s specifications. He said the problem was American unwillingness to modify how Americans had processed the product in the past, and he said [his exact words], “The only cure for STUPID is KILL!” … Perhaps the fish buyer’s knowledge of the English language didn’t permit him to more tactfully say what he wanted to express, but what he expressed is how God will address the intransigence of American Christians who absolutely refuse to use just weights and measures, expecting the impoverished peoples of this world to continue supporting lifestyles derived from calling debt wealth.

The American Christian with a cell-phone, a late model automobile, a full refrigerator and freezer, and money in the bank will sincerely believe that God has blessed the Christian. But how has God blessed this Christian? Does the Christian know to keep the commandments of God? Does the Christian have sons and daughters that wait until marriage to engage in sexual relations? Does the Christian have high blood pressure, cancer? Does the Christian have a purity of mind that is comparable to that of Christ Jesus? Or does the Christian engage in the commerce of this world to support the practices of this world?

If God had truly blessed the Christian, he or she would know to keep the commandments and would be in a position to keep them. The Christian would not be tethered to this world by financial strings or by electronic devices. The Christian would not be concerned about wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and global disasters, but would be satisfied by the things that the Christian has, even if that is hunger; for the person who is dead knows no hunger.

Because the Adversary remains the prince of this world and the Christian continues to bodily dwell in this world, it is not possible for a Christian to truly escape from the world’s system of unjust weights and measures. But certainly the Christian doesn’t need to support the Adversary by trying to accumulate the things of this world through acquiring the debt of this world … the accumulation of debt negates real wealth, regardless of whether that debt is in government certificates or through contractual obligations. Only when a Christian owes nothing and holds no certificates of national debt is the Christian debt-free and truly blessed by God. But this is not how Christians, especially American Christians, have been taught to think. Rather, they have been trained as if they were Pavlov’s dogs to a conditioned reflex, that of claiming they have been blessed by God when God has had nothing to do with their acquisition of the things of this world or with calling debt wealth.

There is no mistake in the preceding paragraph: Christians who are quick to say that they have been blessed by God when they refused to keep the commandments have not been blessed by God. Rather, they have been rewarded by the Adversary for continuing in disobedience. And for their stupidity, there is only one solution: kill!

Sabbatarian Christians are perhaps the worst offenders when it comes to giving God credit for their acquisition of the things of this world through calling debt wealth and thereby defrauding the global community. Sabbatarian Christians are quick to blame Satan for whatever goes wrong in their lives, and they are equally quick to give God credit for what seems right in their lives—and they truly do not want to be told that those “good” things they have came to them from the Adversary … John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Thus, in striving to have the finer things of this world, does the Christian not strive for the things of this world and therefore strives as a child of the Adversary? For those things for which the Christian strives are NOT of God, but are of this world (v. 16).

The Christian who begins to salivate for the finer things of this world before those things are obtained through the Christian inheriting this world have a reflex response from a distance, how Ivan Tolochinov, Pavlov’s assistant, described the phenomenon of dogs beginning to salivate at the sight of food. The Christian who strives for the finer things of this world has been trained by the Adversary to value the things of this world more than the Christian values the things of God. This Christian will perish in the lake of fire if the Christian doesn’t go against his or her conditioning and begin to spurn those things which previously caused the Christian to salivate. This means, in its rawest form, that the Christian who will inherit the kingdom of God will not seek to accumulate the things of this world, nor will place any value on those things which the Christian has previously acquired.

Debtis merely a tool used by the Adversary to enslave the people of God, but when debt is recognized as debt, the people of God will strive to avoid debt as the Amish strive to avoid debt. Therefore, the Adversary, more subtle than any man, has convinced this world to call debt wealth, thereby convincing the people of God to strive to obtain debt and certificates of debt that will keep the people of God as his slaves even beyond when they are liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover; for Christians, at a time when they should not buy or sell, will continue to do so until God stops them either through martyrdom or via persecution.

Continued in Part II.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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