Tag Archives: rich

Reject the Drive-Thru Life of the Rich

When we look at the condition of the world today and how everyone – especially the rich everyones – are behaving themselves, all of them trying so desperately to get a leg up on everyone else, we get some notion of what it must be like for a bunch of scroungy vultures gathered around the skeleton of some rotting carcass with a precious few scraps of hard-to-get-at sinew left on it.

For all of my adult life, I’ve considered the wealth and means of the country to be like a big pie with enough shares for everyone, but there are always those who believe for whatever reason that they deserve more than the next guy. They fight like cats and dogs over – not just what might rightfully be due to them – every bit of the pie they can get their greedy claws on – using whatever means at their disposal to get as much of everyone else’s as they can lay claim to. They call it Capitalism but never doubt – it’s premised on evil [1 Timothy 6:10]: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Problem with these types is that while everyone else is out earning their pieces of the available resources, the greedy refuse to do anything to earn any of the pie, they slink into dark places and plot malicious schemes to steal whatever they can. They use their wealth to purchase lawmakers to legislate any and every piece of nefarious lawfare that can give them an advantage to get ahead. I remember when big insurance set out to make automobile liability insurance mandatory. When that garbage was going on, I remember being (uselessly) irate but found myself fighting against everyone – even friends and family – trying to get them to see what a travesty this was. Folks would argue about those poor people they heard about who got their car totaled in a crash by some (you name the minority) with no insurance. These people were the early iterations of Tea Partiers or MAGA types who were – and are – so easily propagandized, and readily jump on board any wagon which allows them an avenue to express their racism and/or stinginess.

I think it was the first time the government got away with mandating that citizens do business with private companies, and I still think it was and is wrong. See I felt, and feel, that if the state should mandate we have insurance, the state should provide it so the profits could be realized by the taxpayers and not some rich corporate political donors, but we all see what happened. By the way it’s not too late to fix that. I have three vehicles of which I can only drive one at a time, so why do I have to insure all of them? Why can’t I just get a policy on myself?

Big insurance is but one of a myriad of lobbies that purchase their own lawmakers (and thus laws), and there are some worse than insurance corporations. The one thing they all have in common is their insatiable greed for what has now become a very few remaining crumbs of the pie. They all see that there’s very little left; it’ll all be gone and there is a horrible battle shaping up for what’s left, but each of them only thinks of themselves and what they individually can get for themselves alone and to heck with everyone else, hence the vulture analogy. A big part of the problem is that each of them think this way and act as though they are unaware the others are all of the same mind as they are. They are getting set up for a frightful melee over the shrinking remnants!

What a miserable existence that must be for the greedy folks of the world! Some of them have connections to government officials like the greedy hedge fund manager who’s a buddy of Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury and found himself overinvested in Argentina’s stock market which was going under – no problem, Scott got Trump to cut a check to Argentina for around 40 billion dollars so his rich associate (and undoubtedly others of the same ilk) wouldn’t lose his shorts. American tax money (debt) going to cover private investors’ gambling debts because they have buddies in the administration! How is that legal??!! I wonder how much of that cash will end up in Scott’s account? Or Trump’s for that matter.

Us Christian folks can only watch on as these crooks dig themselves a dark tunnel into a dark place where they’ll spend their afterlife, so by no means envy them for their wealth! This stage of the journey is VERY temporary and it’ll come to a close way too soon for them. Ask Sheldon Adelson; ask Dick Cheney: for crying out loud, even the richest of the greedy, Jacob Rothschild, has come to a dark close! All for a few short years of having equally corrupt people fawning over them and their opulent lifestyles. And now for them it’s time to pay the piper. What I can’t figure out for the life of me is how on earth all of the ones that are still living can’t – or won’t – see what they are headed for. Such is the allure of Satan’s promises, but alas for them when their time in the flesh is over!

Those of us who put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ take a completely different approach to our choices. Jesus promises us an unimaginably joyous and magnificent afterlife, if we but forego the temptations of what we might otherwise (erroneously) consider happiness here on earth. We trade any and all desire for wealth and its attendant immorality in this life for Jesus’ love and what awaits us on the other side. Speaking for myself, I’ve come to realize that comfort and wealth in this life ain’t what it’s built up to be anyways. There was an old song a long time ago, “A Satisfied Mind” that had a line about there not being one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind, and I’d wager there’s an even lower percentage than that, but everyone has their own battles, and I guess there’s a way for them to just carry on and not think about the cost, the tab they’ll someday be faced with.

Jesus said [Luke 6:24]: “But woe to you who are rich, For you have received your consolation.” Whatever wealth, pomp, fancy ballrooms, or palaces they might enjoy for this short life, they have to make the most of it, because when the fat lady sings, it’s all over. And the enemy of mankind, who gave it all to them will be cast into the same lake of fire with them – for all eternity. Don’t be fooled, that evil enemy hates us for what we have waiting versus what he has in store.

I’m reminded of the story Jesus told of the souls of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus in the next life. [Luke 16-31] As Jesus described the situation, the rich guy was in eternal torment and Lazarus was in glorious comfort in the bosom of Father Abraham. The rich guy was begging and pleading with Abraham to send Lazarus to him with water, even just a drop that might ease his torment. Abraham basically reminded him of their situations in life and how he had lived in luxury and Lazarus had been a beggar so they each were getting what they deserved, and besides God had so arranged a great gulf between their locations no one could cross – NO ONE, NO HELP COULD EVER COME TO HIM FOR ALL ETERNITY! The guy was begging and pleading but it was too late! Never again to see or taste even a drop of water, forever! The unfortunate fellow did not avail himself of God’s offer of salvation and rid himself of his wealth and take up the cross when there was still time – now be honest – have you?

Another thing I thought was interesting about this story was that the narrator (Jesus) never mentioned anything specific that the rich man had done to deserve eternal punishment, just that he had been rich and “fared sumptuously every day” in his former life. It almost appears that being rich itself is damnable, but then when you stop to consider all the evil things that rich people do to get rich in the first place, it’s no wonder.

If you are a believer, just hang on. We have something wonderful waiting on the other side. Jesus has personally prepared our mansions! [John 14:2,3]: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. What an absolutely incredible promise!

Maybe y’all have seen some of the James Webb telescope pictures of the magnificent beauty of some of the stars, nebulas, novae and galaxies, but from the miniscule amount of celestial magnificence we are able to see, if Heaven is going to be anything like this, it’s gonna be a gorgeous place indeed. But according to the apostle Paul, we haven’t seen anything close the real thing yet. [1 Corinthians 2:9]: “But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Those beautiful pictures of the universe can’t even capture it! It’s going so resplendent as to be indescribable with human words! The president can keep that pathetic ballroom.

If you haven’t put your trust in Jesus, by all means, look into what He offers – it’ll be worth your time in the end. The time is getting short. Look at the signs – devastating wars loom which threaten be more destructive than anything in history. Volcanoes which have been dormant, some considered extinct, waking up all over the world. In fact a new one, dead for ten thousand years, just erupted in Ethiopia yesterday. Campi Flegrei in Italy is awakening ominously, and it could be a world changer! So many harbingers. Lots of big churches full of hypocrites are shutting down – only a few with true followers left. We find ourselves heading down that difficult road to the narrow gate where we’ll finally get to see our Shepherd Who waits for us. Time to get right with the Lord, folks, it’s almost over down here.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

There’s a Fine Line Between Recognizing and Hating

For the regulars here on folkpotpourri, I’m sure y’all noticed my last post was somewhat different than the normal opinions and messaging that I normally post, so I’d like to clarify the intent and possibly expound on some of the things it said.

First of all, regulars will already know that the bulk of these articles are Spiritual in nature and yesterday’s post, although still Spiritual in tone, was somewhat of a departure from the norm. I believe that is because so many people seem to be adrift as to what is going on – otherwise well-intentioned people, especially believers are having problems focusing on their proper spiritual direction. Many are being told by purported teachers and pastors that they have a spiritual obligation to follow them in the wrong direction. If the post seemed a bit strongly worded, I think it’s probably because I tend to get somewhat passionate about watching folks seeming to envy the rich and/or follow the wrong leaders. I attempted to post about the fallacy of listening to false prophets and/or media sources that gloss over real and damnable issues – many of which I pointed out – that are happening in this world.

Wealthy people who own most of the traditional media sources and shyster preachers out to make a buck are pointing many otherwise decent people in the wrong direction – the Bible told us this would happen in the last days. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to get folks to use the Word of God to calibrate their Spiritual bearings using the Bible and stop listening to those who are corrupted by the wealth of the world. The apostle Paul warns us that this will happen: [2 Timothy 4:3]: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers… So from this we are warned to discern the types of people to whom we listen. A key point is that folks listen to these types because they want to. Just like taking the mark of the beast, this behavior is voluntary.

Another point the previous post attempted to get across was exactly who Satan has chosen to do his bidding in these last days. Of course, there are many servants of evil out there doing his work, but it doesn’t take a genius to see the people who control the wealth of the world. When Satan took Jesus up on the mountain and offered Him kingship of the whole world, [Matthew 4:8-10]:”Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” so the Lord turned him down, but it would seem that Satan has taken lesser men up there and they didn’t refuse his offer.

So here we are, a select group of wealthy people who support each other in their service to evil have gained control of the nations. From this group one will emerge to rule for a while. For reasons we do not yet fully understand (but reasons that are becoming more and more obvious), he chose people who call themselves God’s chosen people. The problem is, and I’ve seen this – we see it constantly – there are several false prophets who have a surprising number of “Christians” who now believe that in order to serve God, they must support these people, and that is just wrong! They have invented names like “Judeo Christian” and “Christian Zionist” to make their blasphemy a little more palatable, but for folks who read their Bibles, they understand the ruse.

Some of my posts, like yesterday’s, are written to attempt to show folks who seriously wish to serve God that they are being seriously deceived, and from whence that deception is coming. I am not a racist, God knows my heart. Nor do I discriminate against any ethnicity, I merely attempt to point out that where there’s so much smoke, there has to be a fire. It’s no big secret which ethos of society controls the majority of the world’s wealth. These folks spend a lot of time in evil machinations that are solely purposed to deceive, and the Gospels of the Bible are rapt with warnings of what liars Satan and his followers are – the more dedicated to Satan they are, the greater their deceptions: [John 8:44] “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Jesus was addressing the Jews – the ones we would call Zionists today.

Before you get angry with those people, remember what Jesus told us. He warned us against hating, we must pray for them and trust Jesus to bring justice. When He returns, folks don’t have any notion of how great the paradigm shift will become. The wealthiest billionaires will suddenly become the most piteous entities in all of humanity. They will beg and plead for mercy, but the mercy they receive will be commensurate with the mercy they showed others: [Matthew 5:7]: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Whatever you do, avoid envy of these people – remember, they are those who Satan took up on the mountain, and they failed the test. They have accepted a few short years of high living, adultery, lies, and murder for an eternity of joy and peace so intense we cannot even imagine what it’s going to be like. Of all the multitudes of humanity who have ever graced the earth, they are to be pitied most on that Day. Rich men don’t spend any time at all thinking about their forbears, think about guys like Sheldon Adelson, Jacob Rothschild, Dick Cheney – they had their party, now it’ll be time to face God’s justice. Not judging them, they may have made peace with God before their end, but as far as life on this earth goes, it was the end. No more pomp and pageantry, no more adulation from envious people, just the face of an angry God Almighty who can condemn their souls to eternal damnation.

So to emphasize the undercurrent of this post, as of the other one yesterday, I was in no way advocating hatred, I was pointing out the error of following or supporting the wrong people, regardless of what some millionaire preacher might say to the contrary. My intent, as always, was and is to encourage folks to stay on top of their Spiritual beliefs, don’t get pointed in the wrong direction, and don’t necessarily believe anyone who claims they are God’s chosen people. By reading your own Bible, you can tell who God’s people are and those who have rejected His Son are not among them! But don’t hate on anybody – that’s exactly the wrong thing to do, as bad as supporting them. We must pray for them.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

Primer on the Evolution of Economics

When I was a kid, my old dad told me with all sincerity that he believed the “beast” mentioned in the Bible was what we know as communism. Rather than a heartfelt conviction, down through the years I’ve come to realize his belief was the result of our government’s propaganda. The propaganda battle against communism was still being waged after I grew up, the “powers that be” having learned newer and more deceptive ways to present their arguments thus were able to still deceive people even though we were learning how to see through the former, more obvious lies. Now I’m not promoting communism by any stretch, I’m just an old geezer who has spent a lifetime learning just how thoroughly we have been conditioned to regard the various economic systems of the world.

A long time ago when our ancestors were learning how to hunt and gather, somewhere in the process it became obvious that a system of bartering was needed. In the process of bartering, say you were a primitive farmer and you wanted to trade a basket of wild sea oats to your neighbor who was a skilled hunter, for a deer hide with which you wanted to make shoes for your kids. You had the grain ready, but Nimrod didn’t have a deer on hand, so y’all decided that since everyone liked seashells, your hunter buddy agreed to give you a certain number of his shells to hold until he could bring you a deerskin for which you’d return his shells; voila! Primitive currency was born!

As things progressed, people realized this worked for almost everyone and soon it became apparent that the more seashells a person had in his possession, the greater his influence and thus stature in the tribe. Now there were people around, even way back then who considered themselves to be above all this menial hunting and gathering, so they set about scheming ways to obtain a supply of seashells without putting out the effort of the other tribespeople, the tanners, the tool makers, and hunters had to exert to earn their own currency.

It quickly became obvious that keeping a stash of seashells required some effort, what with people, mostly those schemers mentioned above, stealing your shells while you were out hunting or gathering. Lo and behold, the do nothings “volunteered” to hold everyone’s currency for them. They would keep meticulous records of who owed who, and dutifully maintain these and thus alleviate Nimrod and the tanners of the “great burden” of keeping their currency secure, of course, there would be a cost for all their hard work, which incidentally would preclude them from doing their part of the real work that kept the village functioning. They also learned to complain incessantly of the hard work they had taken on so as to make their tasks seem overly burdensome, but due to their dedication to the success of the tribe, they would undergo such tribulation required to fulfill their tasks, but for only a small percentage of the transactions. Rudimentary banking was born.

In order to obfuscate and make their operations appear to be much more complicated than they actually needed to be, they continuously made new rules governing how the actual depositors would conduct business with them, and it got so that in order to qualify for their job, a person had to be taught in special schools exactly how to perform these unimaginably difficult and complicated tasks.. They also kept raising the required percentage of the deposits they would require. They found that they could loan other people’s currency and by of course, charging a wee bit of interest – which would go to themselves – Nimrod found that he could “borrow” some of the basket weaver’s shells, but the basket weaver didn’t get the interest on the loan – you guessed it – the “banker” reaped the profit from the loan of another man’s money. The interest rates exponentially got higher until the bankers, they guys who refused to do an honest day’s work to begin with, became the very wealthiest of the whole village. They never had to work again, but nevertheless complained incessantly about how hard their job was and always have been heard boasting bout how they “earned” their wealth.

Before this new banking arrangement came along, the various tradesmen and hunters used a bartering system that actually worked, Bill the blacksmith could turn out good horseshoes, but he wasn’t much of a fisherman. He traded his horseshoes to the farmer, who in turn traded baskets of turnips for fresh caught catfish back to Bill, and so forth. This was what we call today by the curse word “socialism”. This was also the economic system established by the early Christian church, whereby all of the brotherhood sold their goods and/or properties, and laid the money at the disciples’ feet to be distributed to the group as needed. They served each other’s needs in brotherly love. No bankers needed. Period.

Nowadays the bankers have evolved to essentially own everything and most all of the money – not because they earned anything, but because they learned how to get their grubs on other people’s money. Today they own governments, ever purchasing legislators who ever pass laws to enrich them ever more. Nimrod got lost in the shuffle. People still needed to eat, but the bankers bought up all of Old MacDonald’s property and their corporate farms produce GMO-laced poison that has glyphosate poison in the produce, but that’s another story.

When the economy fails, like in 2008, because the bankers kept stealing more and more and creating debt, the fault was laid on those poor people who were so greedy they actually wanted to live in houses! The crisis was economically horrendous, and completely the fault of the bankers, but guess who had to pay the tab? You got it, Nimrod and the basket weaver who weren’t “too big to fail”.

This is capitalism, folks. The people who benefit from it the most are the same ones who directed our propaganda system to make my old dad believe that any other system – in his case, communism – was utterly evil. It seems to have worked, but don’t forget what Jesus said about rich men. It certainly wasn’t that they’d become “too big to fail” – in the end, they will have been the greatest failure in all of creation. [Luke 6:24]:“But woe to you who are rich, For you have received your consolation.” Do not envy them, for their downfall and destruction will be unimaginable! No – pray for them.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK