WHAT THE BIBLE REVEALS ABOUT "DEALERS"

THEY ANTAGONIZED THE CONSTITUTION

Blasters at irrefutable constitutions are not new. Two to four thousand years ago the Bible Economics prophets knew their spirit, methods, and pernicious influence. Isaiah charged:

"They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant" (Isa. 24:5).

He added, then, as we do now, "The earth languisheth under them."

The covenant they blasted contained incomparable laws, equitable economic principles, the cream of which America's God-fearing forefathers crystallized into a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that have challenged the admiration of all the world's liberty-loving people.

The Bible Economics passage inscribed on our famed Liberty Bell, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," showed the reverence of the Declaration of Independence composers and signers for the Pattern Divine which inspired it. They wisely built upon irrefutable verities; upon principles which can never be outmoded, adapted, as they are, to every economic contingency.

Isaiah charged those of his day, who tampered with the everlasting covenant with cursing, defiling, devouring, desolating the very earth by their course (meaning the people thereon), so that the merry-hearted sighed; joy was darkened, and the mirth of the land was gone.

He saw the difficulty, even for God, of making the people joyous while they were unspeakably oppressed by iniquitous economic legislation.

Solomon, reputed the world's wisest man, warned against any complicity with the "meddlers" who were given "to change."

DESECRATION OF THE TOMB: SARCASTIC ASPERSIONS ON THE FATHERS

Amos, a minor prophet, rebuked kings, princes, judges, who, in their antagonism to God-given economic laws which restrained their selfish ambitions, even dug up the bones of one king and desecrated them by burning them into lime (Amos 2:1). Besides, they tried to break the last vestige of the influence for rightly ordered economic life the fathers had bequeathed to their children. These king-prince-judge meddlers with the God-given wisdom of the past were unhappy. It persisted, even after they desecrated the king's tomb. Burning bones could not destroy truth.

They wanted a vote of confidence, to make repudiation of the constitution unanimous. Hence they cast sarcastic aspersions upon the economic principles the children had inherited from their fathers. But there is no progress away from truth even if a "Horse and Buggy Age" passed it on to succeeding generations: for, as Saint Paul said, "We can do NOTHING against the truth, but for the truth" (II Cor. 13:8). At these recreant rulers Amos hurls the word of God:

"They have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept His commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked" (Amos 2:4).

For this, he added, God would send fire upon Judah which should devour the PALACES of Jerusalem (Amos 2:5).

THEY MADE INTEMPERANCE EASY: FREEDOM OF SPEECH SUPPRESSED

He also accused the rulers of making the temptation to drunken debauchery easy for the young Nazarites:

"But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink" (Amos 2:12).

Further, they suppressed freedom of speech:

"And commanded the prophets, saying, prophesy not" (Amos 2:12).

Despite the ban, Amos courageously exercised the right of constructive criticism of recreant rulers, and in consequence was hated, abhorred, charged with conspiracy, and commanded to flee the realm -- all this for his fidelity to the God-given constitution of economic justice.

FORE-VIEWING A SUICIDAL POLICY OF TODAY

This omniscient Volume very frequently protests against rulers who oppress the poor and make widows their prey. Yet it astonishingly depicts the conditions of today -- the anomaly of the rich oppressing the rich, a type of "oppression" which Solomon said "maketh a wise man mad" because of its alliance with bribery. "A gift destroyeth the heart."

He pictured the origin, characteristics, and fruitage of this anomalous oppression:

"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the RULER:

"Folly is set in great dignity, and THE RICH SIT IN LOW PLACE" (Eccles. 10:5, 6). He dramatically pictures one of its effects:

"I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth" (Eccles. 10:7).

There is a subtle hypocrisy when wealthy advocates of "Share the Wealth" grow more wealthy by it -- the sharing of their own personal wealth being remotest from their thoughts.

Quite to purpose, and without violence to the words of Christ in an accommodated sense, such zealots for "Share the Wealth" could be asked:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (Matt. 7:3-5).

BRIBERY AND DICTATORIAL AMBITION

Wherever charges of bribery by notorious political spoilsmen are true; or wherever legislation is timed for votes; or relief given at the cost of stultification of conscience, or as a bribe for the sacred franchise, Bible Economics administers rebuke upon such conditions.

"In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes" (Ps. 26:10), delivers its reproof, whoever is involved.

And when dictatorial ambition would repudiate the wisdom inherited from the fathers, eternal, like God the Author, there is a command to forbear:

"Remove not the ANCIENT LANDMARK which thy fathers have set" (Prov. 22:28).

A landmark is not only "an object that marks the boundary of a tract of land, or familiar object that serves as a guide to a locality," it is also "any fact or event that helps to recall other facts and events."

"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen" (Deut. 27:17).

What of those "miners," and "sappers" of the nation's bulwark, the constitution, their bill of rights, and guarantee of economic justice?

Solomon, reputed wisest of men, said:

"My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:

"For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?" (Prov. 24:21, 22).

THE LARGER LIFE MISNOMER

So, too, does the promise of larger life to the forgotten man by a more equitable distribution of wealth sharply conflict with the lucid teachings of Christ. He was the Prince of life; lived an incomparable life; was without money to pay His tax; appointed a thief as His treasurer, had not where to lay His head; and was so poor a tomb must be donated for His burial. Yet He offered men life "more abundant," and gave and gives "what is really life" to millions.

He taught that a man's life consists NOT in the possession of an abundance of material things, but in fellowship with God. He commanded those men who had eaten, without labor or money, His miraculously-created bread, and forthwith wanted to force Him to be King of free bread distributors (not seeing in the miracle-bread broken and freely distributed a symbol of His body broken on the cross to give spiritual bread to the world) -- "Labor not for the meat which perisheth" (See John 6:14, 15, 27).

NO ARBITRARY DIVISION OF OTHERS' WEALTH

Christ surprised one who wanted Him to use His authority, arbitrarily, to force a brother to divide with him his inheritance. He gave no word of condemnation to him that had the inheritance, but by stingingly condemning the covetousness and envious greed that prompted the request for its division, showed the fly in the "share the wealth" ointment, whatever the pretext for it. Yet He achieves in His followers, without force, except the constraint of love for His Person, the disposition to bear each other's burdens, according to capacity and opportunity, and so fulfill the law or rule of Christ. In other words His economic objective is achieved, not by law, but by grace.

THE POLICY OF SCARCITY MAKING FOR PROSPERITY Crop restriction, and interruption of the law of animal fecundity, have no place in Bible

Economics. Meat was created by God for the use of them that know the truth.

The promise of Bible Economics concerning abundance is:

"And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground" (Deut. 28:11).

God promises to multiply the seed sown; that garners shall be filled with all manner of store; that there shall be no miscarriage in the stall, thus inspiring David's petition for animal increase:

"That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets" (Ps. 144:13).

The major economic prophet, Isaiah, describes his sufferings under the policy of scarcity which the kings of his day prescribed -- not for themselves but for the people, while their own eyes stuck out with fatness-

"My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me" (Isa. 24:16).

Immediately he traces the cause of his near-starvation to the rulers and their merciless policies:

"The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously: yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously" (Isa. 24:16).