Is the Demand that the Rich Pay Even Higher Taxes Covetousness? I Say Yes!

This is from something I posted elsewhere a few years ago.

I did a search for the keyword covet in the Holy Bible and found 39 related verses.  God hates covetousness and included it in the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:17

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.Exodus 20:16-18

Perhaps I posted the above after a rather strong response to the following in another chat room.

The good xxxx members on the Chat Room The Soapbox are at it again.  Well, I guess I started it by asking, Who is John Galt?  I just posted:

True, the productive industrialists in Atlas Shrugged were interested in making a profit. However, to make a profit they had to employ people and produce a product or in Dagny's case provide rail transportation. Profitable companies not only create jobs, they provide a return on investment to their share holders who invested their venture capitol in the company. 

In Atlas Shrugged the govt and far less able industrialists created regulations to artificially limit productivity by the able and to re-distribute money from a successful company to a failing company. 

Atlas Shrugged takes it's title from Atlas who holds the earth of his back. The productive industrialists got tried of being exploited by a corrupt govt and failing businessmen and shrugged their collective shoulders and disappeared. Their businesses were zeroed out, no debts and few resources left to be looted by those who coveted their profitable businesses. 

Tonight I heard a small business owner saying she may have to close her business and let her employees go. She is likely just the tip of the business closing iceberg.

Back to coveting, it is destroying our country.

A year after "The Bible" was aired as a mini-series... still interesting!

Our POTUS.

A character from the mini-series.

2014 Movie Noah - "Clouds without Rain"

A very contemporary example of "clouds without water" would be the movie industry. The reasonably Bionically sound movies from decades past such as King of Kings, Bathsheba with Gregory Peck and The 10 Commandments with Charleston Heston seem to be passe. 

Today’s Hollywood/ Hollyweird seems to have caught religious fever, however, will the movie makers adhere to God’s Word or with it just be “Clouds without Water”? The mini-series “The Bible” was highly acclaimed last year and a shorten version of it, “The Son of God,” was released to theaters last month. There were deviations from the Text but on the whole, and in my opinion, it was a reasonable presentation of God’s Word.

And then there is the new movie “Noah.”

“Box Office: 'Noah' Winning Over Faith-Based and Mainstream Moviegoers”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-noah-friday-matinees-691984

“The wait is over! Noah Movie opens today! Let’s flood the theaters and show Hollywood we want more movies that tell biblical stories”!

Really, BACs should attend the movie? I haven't seen the movie, however, I've read reviews and it seems that Noah is recast as an ecologist on steroids who considered killing his own grandchildren less they pollute the regenerated Earth. Shades of Agenda 21? Also, the fallen Angels assisted Noah both in building the Ark and in fighting off his enemies. After that, they were given their wings back and ascended to heaven somewhat akin to Dorothy clicking her red shoes and returning to her home in Kansas.

Proverbs 25:14, “Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.” While there was plenty of water from above and the fountains of the deep, the movie Noah rather echoes the Proverb.

Far more worthwhile than Hollywood’s version of Noah is "Noah and the Last Days" produced by Living Waters and Ray Comfort.

 “Ten signs of the end of the age. Indisputable evidence that we are living in the last days.”

https://www.youtube.com/user/thewayofthemaster - trailer

http://www.noahthemovie.com/ - full movie

Ray comfort interviews people on the street, asking them what they thought will be their final destination. He is very talented at pointing out how we are lost without the saving grace of Jesus.

We are living in the age of the apostate church of Laodicea, the seeker friendly church. Joel Osteen and his mega-church comes to mind. In my opinion, the closest he comes to the Word is when he waves the Bible around as he presents his prosperity gospel. Full disclosure, I've only watched Mr. Osteen a few times, so perhaps I’m being a little hard on him, however…. No rain here.

The seeker friendly church leaders should consider the following verse: 2 Peter 2:21, “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” How much worse is it for those who turn thousands away from Biblical truth?

The Holy Grail Want-a-be

"Historians’ Explosive Claim: They’ve Found the Holy Grail"

The Holy Grail Want-a-be

"Spanish historians claim they’ve discovered the 2,000-year-old Holy Chalice, the biblical cup that Jesus Christ used during the Last Supper." 

Rather than being the Holy Grail this looks more like a chalice that would be found in the Roman Catholic Church. Rather than expensive regalia, Jesus walked his ministry in sandals and homespun for 3 1/2 years. The cup used during the Last Supper would likely be a common piece of pottery.

Jesus displayed such great humility that he even washed the disciples feet that fateful night; a task usually reserved for a household slave.

This brought to mind a post from last year.

"The Pope's Red Shoes"

Manginalizing Israel by a Major Seller of Electronic Bibles

I have long had the dream of visiting Israel. In preparation for this I've decided I should learn little bit of Hebrew and ordered a set of lessons which are still in the box they came in.

For years I used an electronic Bible sold through Franklin electronic so I thought I would check for a translator that I could carry with me. I did a search of the Franklin electronic website for Hebrew and came up two translators one with 14 languages and one with 17 languages. The amazing thing to me was that Hebrew was not one of the languages although Arabic and Turkish are on both translators and one had Farsi as well. Talk about marginalizing Israel while selling electronic Bibles.
 
Model Number: EST-5014R Translate to and from 14 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish

Model Number: EST-7117 Translate to and from 17 languages:Arabic, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese

The Saturday Night Live version of the second coming of Jesus, DJesus Uncrossed

I rarely watch Saturday Night Live as it has little redeeming value and is too far left of center my opinion, however, however this February I was watching the Sean Hannity Show on FoxNews and Sean was very distraught. Sean showed parts of the parody trailer, "DJesus Uncrossed" shown the night before on Saturday Night Live. And I quote from the trailer, "The parody was a spoof mash-up of Quentin Tarantino movies, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained." In the trailer the DJesus character is shown first rolling the rock from the tomb and saying, "Guess who's back." He then invades the Roman guard and with a sword and slays dozens. The moderator says, "He may be wearing sandals but he can still kick a##." DJesus also kills many more with an assault rifle. Peter organizes the apostles into a Roman killing militia.

The trailer/spoof is extremely blasphemous and Sean Hannity couldn't quit saying they wouldn't dare do this to Mohammed. Also, it is extremely violent and has very rough language.

The trailer ends with the DJesus character saying "No more Mr. nice Jesus." Shades of Isaiah 61:2 after the comma?

http://www.joe.ie/movies/trailers/video-christoph-waltz-is-djesus-uncrossed-in-saturday-night-live-parody-0034313-1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2pK60VlnJ8

I'm sure the intent of the producers of the above trailer was to ridicule Jesus and in turn his believers. However, I wonder if the producers realized that there was a germ of truth in their spoof. As in the trailer, Jesus will return to exact vengeance with a two edge sword. However, the two-edged sword will be the word of God and not a physical sword.

The irony of the fact that this trailer was shown Saturday night on the eve of our reviewing Chapter 19, "Return of the King" was not lost on me. It is my very strong opinion that there is an undercurrent of feeling in the United States/ throughout the planet that something is very wrong in the world; that events are spinning out of control. There's been considerable talk about the extreme weather, earthquakes, wars, diseases and more.

There are a lot of people rushing to and fro likely to compensate for their anxiety over feeling that they have little control over their lives much less world events.

Nevertheless, as a believer I recognize that we are in the end days. Soon we will be caught up to the wedding supper and watch the seven year tribulation from the mezzanine. I have little apprehension for the future other than the desire to bring more people into the kingdom while there is still time.

Added Later:

Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks "DJesus Uncrossed" might have been the product of an unconscious understanding on the part of skit's producer(s) of Jesus coming as the lion of Judah.

As an aside, I read the link you posted. It included that "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) declaring the "violent depiction of Jesus" in Djesus Uncrossed deplorable." The irony of CAIR adding their condemnation is interesting as the Islamic version of Jesus is of a very violent man. In his book "Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist" Joel Richardson writes, "Even more shocking to many readers was the revelation that Islam teaches that when Jesus returns, He will come back as a Muslim prophet whose primary mission will be to abolish Christianity." There is no moral equivalency between the Jesus of the Bible and the Islamic version of Jesus in the Quran who will convert by the sword, so CAIR is hypocritical as usual.

"The Boy in Striped Pajamas", the Ultimate Victim of Replacement Theology

Replacement theology promotes the concept that when Israel rejected her messiah she forfeited the promises/ covenants made to her by God and these passed to the Church which became “spiritual Israel.” The concept of replacement theology marginalizes Israel and the Jewish people making it easier for the world to turn its back on the Jews, most notably during the Holocaust. For the Christian, it implies that God can't be trusted so there is no guarantee that He will honor our salvation.

Set during World War II, the movie “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” involves the growing friendship between two 8-year-old boys separated by a fence in a concentration camp. Bruno is the son of the commandant of the concentration camp where Shmuel is imprisoned. Shmuel’s crime is being born a Jew.

At the start of the movie Bruno is living in his home in Berlin playing with his many friends. The little boys run down the street playing airplane while being impervious to the Jews being loaded into a transport truck. Bruno goes home to learn that his father is being transferred to the country. At first the family members don’t realize that what they call a nearby farm is really an extermination camp and Bruno’s father is the commandant. Bruno has no friends so he hikes through the woods to what he thinks is a farm and meets the boy in the striped pajamas. They become friends separated will by a fence and far more than either one of them knew.

One night several high-ranking officials of the Nazi party are shown a propaganda movie depicting how well the Jews were being treated in what was called a work camp. Bruno watches the propaganda movie and believes it. The next day he asks his little friend in the striped pajamas about all the kids in the camp and all the fun they had. Shmuel had no idea what Bruno was talking about.

A few days later the boys arrange for Shmuel to bring an extra pair of “striped pajamas” for Bruno. The upshot is that Bruno sneaks into the concentration camp. Shmuel and Bruno search the camp looking for Shmuel’s father who disappeared a few days before. The boys make the mistake of entering a building that is holding dozens of men about to be herded into the gas chamber.

Meanwhile back at home Bruno’s mother realizes that he is missing and breaks up a meeting between the commandant and his minions. Ironically they are discussing the status of the ovens. The commandant and his subordinates start to back-track Bruno to where he had crawled under the fence to get into the concentration camp.

The movie ends with the door to the gas chamber being sealed and crystals being dropped into the chamber as Bruno’s father frantically looks for him. Sad as the ending of the movie is, Bruno’s father was about to learn the deadly efficiency of his camp of termination.

Added later:

There was a scene in the movie where Bruno betrays his friend Shmuel, the boy in the striped pajamas. Shmuel was cleaning crystal glasses in the commandant’s house as he had small hands. Bruno stops to talk to Shmuel and asks if he wants something to eat. They are discovered by one of the Nazis and Shmuel told the officer that Bruno gave him the pastry. With the Nazi screaming at both the boys, Bruno denied even knowing Shmuel. Guilt over his betrayal was part of the reason Bruno later offered to help Shmuel find his father. That guilt leads to the tragic conclusion of the movie. To me the movie was like peeling an onion, as one layer is pulled away, there is another beneath it.