Template:Covetous practices
What made America great?
America became great not because of what the government did but what the government did not have to do for people because they were already doing it of, for and by themselves through the charity in their hearts instead of through the collective force of government. America became great because of the philanthropic voluntary association of the people, by the people and for the people in a republic.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French diplomat, political scientist, and historian who explored America to understand the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies.
His "Democracy in America" (1835) published after his travels during the market revolution which radically transformed the fabric of American life and the world can give the objective student insight into what was the true America vision.
He sought the greatness and genius of America in her harbors, rivers… in her fertile fields and forests… her mines and her vast world commerce, but it was not there. Neither was it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution. The secret of America was righteousness.[2]
But all Americans were not righteous. There were snakes in its garden as well. There is always both good and bad men and women in every nation, race or society.
What exactly was going on in the hearts and minds of Americans? What were the righteous doing that blessed the whole nation and world? What is it that our modern generation and even our Churches fail to do today? What have we lost sight of and what have we embraced in its place that has torn the very fabric of our modern society and eroded the soul of America so it is no longer great today?
It was private charity and voluntary associations and a general practice of loving their neighbor as themselves that made America great. The found universities, seminaries, constructed churches as centers of charity. Education was free to those who could make the grade without student loans that picks the pockets of future earnings. Alumni made this possible through charity. They distributed books, dispatch missionaries, establish hospitals, schools, even prisons through charitable associations of, for and by the people.[3]
Once Tocqueville could see what Europe had failed to grasp he could foretell the future of a people who lose sight of the spirit that made them a great people and degenerate into sheep being led to their own slaughter.
- “Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Volume 2
American has steadily looked away from its own industry and personal sacrifice and looked more and more to governments to solve its problems. Most of those problems that now plague society have come from the sloth and wantonness of the people.
Men and their ideas crept[4] into our thinking generation after generation until we were not only willing to believe a lie[5] but defend it.[6]
- “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown ... the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint... It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold... they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Volume 2
Socialism will take us farther from that charitable practice and centralize governmental power through public welfare instead of Private welfare, which will make it easier for a few to control the whole government system and everyone dependent upon it.
The Constitution of the United States did not make America great and it does not guarantee freedom. Remaining free is the responsibility of the people. Through the contract clause the Constitution guarantees your right to contract away your freedom by applying for benefits at the expense of your neighbor.
- "I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there…in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there…in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there…in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." ― Alexis de Tocqueville
It is not good to desire to take from your neighbor without their daily and freely given consent.
Polybius, Plutarch, Jesus and Peter, among others, warned us about such schemes 2000 years ago and that of course is why the Ten Commandments forbids making those contracts or coveting your neighbor's good or anything that is your neighbor's. To set up any kind of system to obtain benefits at your neighbor's expense would certainly be classified as covetous practices.
"If plotters again destroy your Republic, they will do it by your greedy and ignorant assent, by your disregard of your neighbors' rights, by your apathy and your stupidity." Taylor Caldwell, Devils Advocate
In the New Testament, Peter talks about Christians becoming Merchandise because they would become covetous. But he also talks about those practices cursing our children.
- "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:" 2 Peter 2:14
We see a similar warning about cursing children back in the Old Testament.
- "I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.” Ezekiel 5:17
So, why did God say these things about children being robbed and parents being robbed of children?
Does it have to do with the same message we see in Galatians 5:15 about being careful to not be Biting one another less we be devoured one of the other?
Was it because the message of God was changed by the Sophistry of men?
- "And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that [are] round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them." Ezekiel 5:6
They had judged for themselves to do something God called wicked instead of doing what God saw as good. In fact the workers of iniquity called good evil and evil good.
What was it that they were doing that was so wicked that it would cause "fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers" as we see in Ezekiel 5:10
Is there a deeper meaning than the Modern Christians should want to know about the early Christian conflict with Rome? There has always been two welfare types in society. One was dependent upon charity and the other used force. One bound the people together with honor and virtue and the other with contracts and force.
- "Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent." Revelation 2:4 5
Today, every child is born thousands of dollars in debt to their national governments, and they will be required to pay that debt back with greater and greater amounts of their labor and service, plus interest. They are literally born in bondage because of the sloth and covetousness of their parents.
- "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville
This is because governments are allowed to borrow against the future because what they take is never enough for their appetite. But then the appetite of the people for benefits offered by that government, seems unrestrained. If people were following the precepts of the Bible, they would restrain their appetite as Proverbs 23 tells us. We would also not be coveting our neighbor's goods even through the power of government. We would live by charity and not by force, like John the Baptist and Christ said.
You see this was the Christian conflict as Rome and Herod offered Socialist systems of welfare like the Corban of the Pharisees and the government of Herod. History is repeating itself.
We have desired Free education, Free healthcare, Free Welfare and many other things at the expense of our national neighbor through the authority of men who call themselves our Benefactors, just like the nations all around us.
Jesus told His Apostles, when He appointed to them a kingdom, that they were not to be like the kings of the the other nations who exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.[7]
The spread and acceptance of Socialism, which "advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole" and not in the hands of the individual and their families, is without a doubt a covetous practice.
Have we cursed our children with this, covetously desiring benefits from men of exercising authority or have we lived as God said, by "Fervent Charity" and love for our neighbor as commanded by Moses and Jesus?
We have need of repentance.
- "The love and respect of your neighbors must be gained by a long series of small services, hidden deeds of goodness, a persistent habit of kindness, and an established reputation of selflessness." ― Alexis de Tocqueville
Enslaving our neighbors
Is our desire for benefits, or what was once called the dainties of the kings and Fathers of the earth, at the expense of our neighbor "Covetous Practices"?
Rand tells Bernie why you only have negative rights and that positive rights require enslavement of others.
In the video, Rand Paul makes a good point about thinking you have the right to force someone to provide you with benefits like healthcare. If you have a right to force someone to provide what you want, then you must believe in slavery. In a Democracy, you have a right as the majority to force the minority to provide for you what you want, which is why early Americans sought to form a Republic and until the early 1900s, democracies were considered to be a bad form of government that always fail, except by men like Karl Marx who like democracies because they lead the people to communism. So, no one can think they have a right to healthcare and the right to force others to provide it for them, unless they think it is okay to covet their neighbors goods, labor or resources. That is why socialism must be considered a "covetous practice".
The Bible talks about coveting as an evil practice and sin from the beginning to the end. Christ, Paul and Peter all condemned coveting, which is desiring to or wanting to take from your neighbor for your personal benefit.
It is clear that all socialism by nature is coveting what once belonged to someone else so that its value is converted to your benefit. No where does the Bible say or suggest that coveting is okay if the person is rich and you desire his stuff or possessions.
And if it is wrong to force people to contribute to your desire for healthcare, then it should also be wrong to force people to contribute to your education or the education of your children. It would also be wrong to force people to provide welfare for your parents, even if it is legal to do so.
All Public Educational systems are socialist institutions. They are welfare, and so is Social Security, which has been bankrupt for years.
There is no rational Christian argument that may justify desiring to force your neighbor to contribute to what you want. Do you try to justify coveting and still pretend to be a Christian?
- "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." 2 Peter 2:3
Should we be seeking a righteous way? Should we, if we love one another, be attending to the Weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith which include caring for the needs of our neighbors and the widows and orphans of our society through Pure Religion in matters of health, education, and welfare. We are NOT to provide for the needy of society through the Covetous Practices and the men who call themselves benefactors but who exercise authority one over the other like the socialists do.
The Way of Christ was like neither the way of the world of Rome nor the governments of the gentiles who depend on those fathers of the earth through force, fear and fealty who deliver the people back in bondage again like they were in Egypt. Christ's ministers and true Christians do not depend upon systems of social welfare that force the contributions of the people like the corban of the Pharisees which made the word of God to none effect. Many people have been deceived to go the way of Balaam and the Nicolaitan and out of The Way of Christ and have become workers of iniquity.
The Christian conflict with Rome in the first century Church appointed by Christ was because they would not apply to the fathers of the earth for their free bread but instead relied upon a voluntary network providing a daily ministration to the needy of society through Faith, Hope, and Charity by way of freewill offerings of the people, for the people, and by the people through the perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies according to the ancient pattern of Tuns or Tens as He commanded.
The modern Christians are in need of repentance.
"Follow me!" —Jesus the Christ.
- One of the most important things to do is to become involved in a network of Charitable Practices. Everyone should want to join a Living Network of Love and Charity.
- If you think you have a calling to be a Minister of God or you might want to dedicate your life to Christ as an Ordained Minister of His Holy Church, contact us to start the process of discipleship and become the benefactors who exercise only love, NOT authority.[8]
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"Will history ask when reviewing our generation “What manner of men had lived in those days...who had so eagerly surrendered their sovereignty for a lie and a delusion? Why had they been so anxious to believe that the government could solve problems for them which had been pridefully solved, many times over, by their fathers? Had their characters become so weak and debased, so craven and emasculated, that offers of government dole had become more important than their liberty and their humanity? Had they not know that power delegated to the government becomes the club of tyrants? They must have known. They had their own history to remember, and the history of five thousand years. Yet, they had willingly and knowingly, with all this knowledge, declared themselves unfit to manage their own affairs and had placed their lives, which belonged to God only, in the hands of sinister men who had long plotted to enslave them, by wars, by "directives," by "emergencies." In the name of the American people, the American people had been made captive.”
― Taylor Caldwell, Devils Advocate, set in a dystopia where North America has become a Communist dictatorship.
- "The history of the birth of freedom... Are men to be ruled by God's law, or the whims of dictator..? Are men property of the state? Or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today. " The 1956 movie “The Ten Commandments.” -Cecil B. DeMille (Producer/Director).
What makes you property of the State is your covetous practices through forms of socialism and the sloth, Wantonness and self-righteousness it feeds in you. What sets you free os to be born again in The Way of Christ. That is to heed His word and repent, seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness by coming together as He commanded, in His name through charitable sacrifice in the love of one another to attend to the weightier matters.
Covetous practices in context
The word translated covetous practices in the Greek text of the Bible is pleonexia [9] also translated covetousness and greediness which appears 10 times in the text.
- Mark 7:22 Thefts, covetousness <4124>, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
- Luke 12:15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness <4124>: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
- Romans 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness <4124>, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
- 2 Corinthians 9:5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness <4124>.
- Ephesians 4:19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness <4124>.
- Ephesians 5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness <4124>, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
- Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness <4124>, which is idolatry:
- 1 Thessalonians 2:5 For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness <4124>; God is witness:
- 2 Peter 2:3 And through covetousness <4124> shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
- 2 Peter 2:14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices <4124>; cursed children:
- ↑ Proverbs 28:16
- ↑ " I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there… in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there… in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there… in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville
- ↑ "Americans group together to hold fêtes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, dispatch missionaries to the antipodes. They establish hospitals, prisons, schools by the same method. Finally, if they wish to highlight a truth or develop an opinion by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association." Alexis de Tocqueville 1840, 596.
- ↑ Jude 1:4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
- ↑ 2 Thessalonians 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
- ↑ Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
- Proverbs 12:16 A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame.
- ↑ Luke 22:25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;
- ↑ Matthew 20:25-26 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
Mark 10:42-43 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
Luke 22:25-26 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. - ↑ 4124 ~πλεονεξία~ pleonexia \@pleh-on-ex-ee’-ah\@ from 4123; n f AV-covetousness 8, greediness 1, covetous practices 1; 10 1) greedy desire to have more, covetousness, avarice