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God's Labor Laws, part 1

One of the most basic laws of nature is the Law of Labor. This was discovered and developed during the Protestant Reformation a few hundred years ago, and it became the foundation of the American concept of government and justice.

After an introduction, America’s Declaration of Independence says in the second paragraph,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Jefferson’s original language was, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable,” which, by using the word “sacred,” implied a divine origin. However, this was altered to make these truths “self-evident.” The “pursuit of happiness,” according to later Supreme Court rulings, referred to one’s labor. They said that all rights came from God, that labor was our most sacred property right, and that governments were instituted to protect those rights. Governments have the power to grant privileges, but only God grants rights according to His laws.

So we find that the law of God defines all rights. Anything that violates the law of God is not a right. This is why ungodly men worked so diligently to overthrow the American government more than a century ago and to discard the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution established by its authority.

First, in 1913 the right to create money was taken from the Treasury Department and given to a private banking consortium known as the Federal Reserve Bank. By 1933, with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, America was declared bankrupt, and the government was given into the hands of its creditors. The ungodly creditors then turned our Christian Republic into a Secular Democracy.

These new “owners” of the government then began to dismantle the original Republic and usurped the right to grant rights according to the laws of men. The distinction between rights and privileges was blurred, and the government soon began to issue “civil rights” (from government) instead of “natural rights” (from God).

The Failure to Apply Natural Rights Equally

The deeper problem of the earlier Christian Republic is that the natural rights of man, though recognized officially, were applied unequally. Because slavery had already been forced upon Georgia and other British colonies, the delegates from the southern states would not sign the Declaration of Independence in its original form as written by Thomas Jefferson.

The list of grievances against King George III stated in the Declaration of Independence originally included this (as a reason for separating from Britain):

“Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every Legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of our people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

After the Revolutionary War, the founders of the new nation tried again to abolish slavery. In 1784 Virginia and Maryland ceded part of their territories to build the nation’s capital in Washington D.C. This was to establish the final borders of each new State,

“not only that ‘they shall forever remain a part of the United States of America,’ but also that ‘after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States’—and that those fundamental conditions were ‘unalterable but by the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled’…” [John A. Logan, The Great Conspiracy, pp. 3, 4]

Two delegates from each state then met in 1784 to draft the Articles of Confederation. The provision was that both delegates had to be present in order for either vote to count. The majority intended to outlaw slavery, but the vote was very close. It happened, then, that one of the delegates from New Jersey was delayed in his journey, which meant that his fellow delegate was unable to vote as well. Both intended to vote against slavery. Because those votes were lost, the Articles of Confederation institutionalized slavery in the American government and the Constitution perpetuated it.

After this, the northern states enacted laws prohibiting slavery in their territories, and with the addition of each new state, the issue arose as to whether it should allow or prohibit slavery. This issue continued to fester in the nation until the War Between the States.

Meanwhile, during American expansion, another problem also arose, this time in regard to the Indian populations. Countless treaties were signed and broken on a regular basis. The Indians were unaware that the treaties were written for “men,” while legal terminology did not include Indians in the legal definition of “men.” In other words, the principle that “all men are created equal” did not apply to Indians, even as it did not apply to black slaves.

Hence, this subterfuge gave the US government the option of breaking those treaties at will. The combination of this unequal application of the “natural laws” of God eventually brought divine judgment upon the nation.

Divine Judgment

The law of God brings equal justice that is in direct proportion to the seriousness of the offense. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21:24) means that if we enslave others in an unlawful manner, then we ourselves will be enslaved. The War Between the States (1861-1865) was the first evidence of divine judgment, bringing much bloodshed on both sides.

The conclusion of the war brought the 14^th and 15^th amendments, which seemed to abolish slavery. However, once again the lawyers tricked the people by using legal terms which the people interpreted according to common language. The 14^th amendment actually established equality to all “citizens.” Most of the people were thus changed from American nationals to US citizens. Without realizing it, people became equal slaves! The condition of the black slaves no doubt improved, but the condition of the populace in general was reduced to “citizenship.”

In other words, people were no longer truly under God, but under government, and once again this was accomplished by legal sleight of hand. It also set the stage for the economic slavery that was imposed upon the people in 1913 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. By removing from the government the right to “coin money and regulate the value thereof,” as the Constitution provides, the power shifted to the consortium of private foreign banking families.

The Federal Reserve Act marked the time when America came fully into bondage to the final form of Babylon that is described in the last half of Revelation 13 as the beast from the earth. Biblical descriptions show that it is a financial beast. It causes everyone to worship its “image.”

What is that image? People have made it too complicated and have often missed the obvious meaning. The image is simply money. When Jesus was asked if they should pay taxes to Caesar, He showed them a denarius, a coin. He asked them, “Whose image and superscription hath it?” (Luke 20:24 KJV). Whoever owns the money puts his image on it, and by the laws of labor we are required to render to him whatever is his according to his labor rights.

No one can buy or sell (Revelation 13:17) without using the money that is issued by those who create it. When people worship mammon (money, wealth, material things), they have the mark of that beast and its system. All that they do with their hands and with their minds is to obtain money and that is how they come to worship the beast through his image. Bible law tells us the solution. We are to bind His law upon our hands and upon our forehead (Deuteronomy 6:8).

The number associated with this “mark” is 666 (Revelation 13:18). The only other time that this number appears on the surface of Scripture is in 2 Chronicles 9:13,

¹³ Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold.

So the number is associated with gold, or money both here and in Revelation 13:18. All numbers have both a negative and positive side to them, of course, depending on the context and the use of each number. We do not have time to study this fully. It is enough at the present time to see that 666 is associated with money, and that the one issuing the money determines the standard by which wealth is measured. Men may use money without worshiping it, even as Jesus did, but if one is motivated by the love of money (1 Timothy 6:10), he has the mark of the beast, rather than the mark of God.

Slavery as a Labor Law

Slavery is a lawful principle of biblical justice when imposed by the court to pay a debt caused either by some disaster or by sin. The laws of men, however, have used slavery as a way of enriching themselves through conquest. Man’s laws of war allow him to steal the labor of others, stealing their land, their gold, their grain, and their people.

Men and nations go to war to increase their power and wealth. God goes to war to right wrongs and to enforce the rights of God and men. This is the difference between a righteous war and an unrighteous war. God’s wars establish justice; men’s wars establish injustice.

Then there is the big gray area, where religious people who are ignorant of God’s law believe that their form of slavery is advocated by God. The early colonists in America bought slaves who had been kidnapped by ungodly men and shipped away far from home to be sold unjustly. Such slavery is judged by the laws forbidding kidnapping (Exodus 21:16). To steal a man, as the law puts it, carries the death penalty. It is a serious crime. Yet the Roman church throughout the centuries saw nothing wrong with owning slaves, and when certain Reformers discovered the principles of liberty in the law of God, the church opposed their assertions vigorously.

Unfortunately, many “Protestant” churches, such as the Church of England, were more concerned  with a change of leadership than with a change in their (moral) understanding of biblical law. That is why slavery has been so difficult to eradicate, even among Christians.

Yet the coming Kingdom is designed to set all of creation free from the slavery of corruption, so that it might enjoy the liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:19-22). The children of God are the ones called to lead the rest of creation into that liberty. They will reign with Christ, but they will use their authority to set people free, not to enslave the world.