Chapter 5 Joshua’s Altar

Part 3 Fear, Faith and Foolishness

Pride before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Pr 16:18

Cain would not walk by faith according to the direction of God, but sought the city-state to supply him with the social security he lacked under God. In order to seduce others to join his government of men over men, he appealed to the spirit of Cain in every man’s heart. Having abandoned faith in God and His ways, the people chose good and evil for themselves and continued in their own ways, which led to more corruption and sin.

Abraham faltered during a famine and left the path of faith and returned to Egypt. The refugees from Egypt in their faithless fear built their golden calf to bind the people in a scheme of the common purse, which was an abandonment of God’s way. In the days of Samuel, The Nation of Israel called for a king and, eventually, returned to the bondage of Egypt under a succession of the ruling elite. When Christ came, He preached again the kingdom. Some men followed His gospel of liberty from the sin that had followed man from generation to generation, and some men continued to sin.

… when they said, Give us a king to judge us… the LORD said … they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. 1 Sa 8:7

The people took pride in their new government. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and God found the people's or Israel's ways corrupt. They did not want the people bound together by poverty of wantonness, the fear of faithlessness, and the entanglement of a sworn and contracted allegiance to men. God wants men to be bound together by the light chains of faith, hope, and charity, the true covenant of His Law of Love.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These [be] thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Exodus 32:8

It is never the apparent affluence, nor the dominant institutions created by the hands of men, that makes man great. “We estimate men as great not by their wealth but by their virtue.”¹ It is the spirit by which men move that engenders them to sin or salvation. The nature of the contrivances, schemes and institutions of men are the evidence of what is already written on their hearts and minds, the evidence of their faith.

If men turn from the virtue and wisdom of God, they turn also from His ways and from God himself. They reject His laws and make new ones for their neighbors.

And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that [were] round about them, [concerning] whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. 2 Kings 17:15

History continues to be filled with stories and examples of men turning from the ways of God to the ways and benefits of man-made systems. Men bind themselves in many ways, in all sorts of secular religions, city-states, kingdoms, democracies, monetary systems, corporate entities, and institutions. Through all sorts of contracts, compacts, constitutions, and covenants, men apply for comfort and the illusion of peace and promises.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 2 Peter 2:2

Rather than seeking the Truth of God’s kingdom on earth, men heed not his prophetic warnings and follow after their own pernicious ways.

When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou [be] a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat. Proverbs 23

From the beginning, many have faltered in the path of righteousness and, by the voice of the people, they have cried out for someone to stand in the place of God as a ruling judge. They have looked to systems of compulsion and prayed for the benefits they offer rather than simply follow God in faith, hope, and charity.

…voice of the people… Nay; but we will have a king over us; 1 Sa. 8

Warnings of the prophets and the sayings of the wise fill volumes of books, often unread or misunderstood in today’s modern society. The land, the lives, the gold and silver, wealth or inheritance of each man and woman and their children have been entrusted to others. The people no longer own the beneficial interest of their lands and labors. They must pay tribute annually for their “use”. Men and women are in the service of governments who exercise authority and compel the taking of a portion of their labor each year as it was in the days of the bondage of Egypt. People desire the apparent benefit from this gain and usury. They apply, beseeching the common purse modern City-State, for the civil and social security supplied by the compelled contributions of their neighbor.

According to the 1995 “Who pays what and when?”² report of the Congressional Budget Office, there has been a steady rise in the Estimated Lifetime Net Tax Rates during the 20th century.³ Actual tax rates are higher since net tax rate is the actual tax rate less “government payments, such as those for Social Security or welfare”.

The net tax rate was 24 percent in 1900 with an actual tax rate of 28 percent, but Social Security and many other public entitlements were non-existent at that time and, therefore, were not yet being subtracted. Also, during the early part of that century, there was no income tax on ‘wages and salaries’. Wages and salaries were not income but compensation.⁴ To tax the labor of an individual was unconstitutional without his consent, but with the offer of Social Security and other tax-funded lucrative entitlements this all began to change.⁵

When government transfers in the form of paid benefits began to increase,⁶ the net tax rate continued to rise. In 1980, even with the subtraction of benefit payments, which were at an all-time high, the net tax rate had reached 37 percent. The actual tax rate on labor income alone was an unprecedented 51 percent. “But to enjoy the now-prevailing rate of purchases in relation to income, future generations would have to pay lifetime net taxes at a rate of 78 percent. That is more than twice the rate for today's newborns.”⁷

If benefit payments remained the same at 13 percent and government expenditures did not increase, the actual tax rates would exceed 90 percent over the life of the taxpayer. But the report goes on to say, “the General Accounting Office estimates that, with no change in policy, the federal deficit would exceed 20 percent of gross domestic output in 2025, and the federal debt would exceed 200 percent. (The corresponding figures in 1994 were 2 percent and 53 percent.) Similarly, the Social Security and Health Care Financing Administrations project that current policy would exhaust the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare.”⁸

The use of phrases like “Policy changes, tough choice, and fiscal responsibility” have been heard through the centuries. The Budget Office suggests, “Most people expect Policymakers to make the tough choices needed to put the nation's fiscal house in order.” This rhetoric is not new. Millenniums of repetitious history have shown this to be a false hope and a vain dream. When you offer men appointments of power, then men who desire power seek those offices. When you maintain the responsibility of dominion and only offer offices of service, the seats of governance remain occupied by servants.

The houses that men construct for themselves depends on either the love of charity in its contributors or upon the covetous nature of their own hearts. Each man makes his choice and then plays or pays his part. Every man loves his neighbor as himself or covets his neighbor goods by application and participation. That which is needed to fulfill the hopes and desires of the citizenry is given freely or taken by the agents of the people. Though many cry “LORD, LORD” in the vestibule of their religious institutions, their deeds betray the repository of their true faith and homage.⁹ The people do not love their neighbor, but covet their goods of their house. The name of the Lord is but vanity in their mouths.

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned [against] thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! Behold, [is it] not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? Habakkuk 2:9-13

People are looking everywhere but to God. The most powerful governments in the world are the ones that offer insecure, faithless people social security at a vain and usurious price. People do not trust in God but in the governments that they make for themselves.

Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up; Jer 18:15

Over and over, it is vanity, pride, and arrogance that turns men from the path of our Father in heaven. They claim that they pray to God in Heaven while they apply to the gods that men have chosen for themselves. The gods of the gentiles distribute the grace of their benefits amongst proud people, but those benefactors guarantee their treasury’s bounty ultimately at the point of a gun, contrary to the sayings of Jesus.

… testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Eph 4:17

The ruling elite and the powers behind them cause millions to labor as human resources and send millions of their sons to fight and die in the name of patriotism, where the State is your Father. The voice of the people has chosen a new benefactor¹⁰, a new father¹¹ and new gods.¹² The people become weaker and the powers of the world grow hungry for more authority and control. The masses become more frightened and are assured that they cannot afford freedom and that liberty is a danger. They are told they need stronger and stronger governments to maintain their safety and comforts.

These institutions that have replaced the charitable altars of God deceive and placate the people until the weight of their own chains consume them in debt, despotism, and death.

Abraham exited the systems of civil powers and saw that it was proper to set up another system. In that godly order men relied upon the daily exercise of charity, hope, and faith.

Moses led the people out of bondage and taught these same godly ways to called-out ministers who served the people.

Jesus redeemed the people from Herod’s compulsory Corban and the altars of the world order of Rome. What was this world of Rome where Jesus walked the earth and preached His kingdom of God at hand?

For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) 1 Corinthians 8:5