Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday June 30, 2009

In response to my response to an article in the newspaper, I received several letters assuring me that decent people do not wish to read after anyone who has ever broke the law. I of course thought for a few seconds on this and a flood of respectable people ran before my mind's eye. Today I am sharing some of those thoughts and images with you.

The ebb and flow of history gives a vastly different picture of what a true criminal looks like. Dante's Inferno puts murderers in near the lowest place in hell. Do you know whom he places in the lowest realm? Usurers. You may ask, "What is a usurer?"

A usurer is held in such low esteem that Pope Clement V decreed that Persons who accepted interest of loans could receive neither the sacraments nor Christian burial calling the claiming of the right to usury a heresy and abolished all secular legislation which allowed it. Pope Sixtus V condemned the practice of charging usury/interest as "detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred cannons and contrary to Christian charity"

The Bible utterly condemns the practice witnessed by :

Exodus 22:25 If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

Deuteronomy 23:19-20 Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Leviticus 25:35-37 And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.

Ezekiel puts the usurer in the same batch with murderers, rapists and others whom we desire to have lunch with. Ezekiel 18:13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.

In the current fiscal crisis which threatens to submerge the free world, not one commentator has addressed the root of the problem. The problem is twofold, the lender and the borrower; God puts the burden on the lender. Personal spiritual growth will deliver the borrower from living by the demands of his belly, getting his own desires at any cost.

An interesting site on the subject: http://www.affil.org/consumer_rsc/usury.php

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2009 Use with credit

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