WWUTT 1755 Q&A Is Student Debt Forgiveness the Year of Jubilee?

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Responding to a question from a listener about the recent Biden decision to forgive student debt and how some progressives connect this with the year of Jubilee. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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So you have probably heard that President Biden is going to forgive student loan debt. There are some progressive
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Christians out there really twisting the scriptures, saying that this is commanded of us in the
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Bible, but it's not when we understand the text. This is
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When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.
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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today.
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We had a scheduling conflict. We had a meeting during the time that she and I usually give to recording this program, so she wasn't able to be on with me this time.
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God willing, she'll be back next week. She sends her love, and we love to respond to your questions on the
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Friday edition of the broadcast. You can send those questions via email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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I have one question here that's really going to take up the bulk of our time, but first,
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I wanted to say thank you to those people who have been donating to When We Understand the
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Text. I really don't give a big push for money.
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The most that's ever said is a tag that Becky will do at the end of a devotional lesson just saying, hey, if you want to support the ministry, here's how you can do it.
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You go to the website. You can send a check -in, and we've had people mail us checks. It actually comes to my mailbox here at the church.
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Or you can donate via PayPal, and we're not a nonprofit organization.
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When I was pastoring the church in Kansas, which was the church where I started
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When We Understand the Text out of, you could have given to the church, and that would have been a tax -deductible gift because it was donating to a nonprofit.
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And then the church would give me whatever I needed, whether it was paying for online space or paying for a booth to go to G3 or something like that.
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They kept an expense account for me, or they kept an account for me where those what donations came, and then
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I was given whatever I needed for stuff that would pertain to When We Understand the Text.
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I don't have that anymore, though, so whatever you donate just comes to us, and it's kind of on an honor system.
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You're just trusting that Becky and I are not going to do something irresponsible with that money.
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Most of the time, the gifts are just, hey, $20 bucks here, $30 bucks there, or somebody just gives $4.
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Just might get a gift of a few bucks, but we appreciate every dollar that is donated, even if it's just a few dollars, because you've thought of us, and that $4 is probably paying for a burrito for our kids or something like that.
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So it just fills us with joy every time, and Becky and I will lay in bed next to one another with our smartphones, and we get the same updates whenever something is donated to PayPal.
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She's attached to the account, too, so she'll get an email about it, and we'll read the emails together, and our eyes will fill with tears, and we are just so touched at the generosity of so many people who have felt touched by this program, and so that's why you give, because you want to bless us since we have blessed you.
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This gift comes from Tim, and he says, Thanks for all you do. I enjoy your daily podcast and am blessed by them greatly.
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I'm praying this gift will help where needed in your ministry. If you're ever near Nashville, Tennessee, and he puts in parentheses,
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Lebanon, the pizza is on me. I'm actually eating pizza while sending this, he says, graciously in Christ, Tim.
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I thank you so much for that, brother, and my wife thanks you as well. I want to send a special thanks also to Michael in Davidson, North Carolina.
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He did not have a note attached to his gift, but he gave very generously, and we thank you,
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Michael, and we're praying for you. Because of the wonderful, generous gifts we've received from several people recently,
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I want to do something and show you what we're doing with what you've given to us, and so I'm going to make a video.
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I don't want to put a timeline on it, because I don't know when I'm going to get to this. Soon, though. I've got another construction project that I have to finish in our living room.
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When I'm done with that, I'm going to move on to this next project, and I'm going to make a video so that everybody can see what you've given is going to this project, and I'll talk about it and show you the whole thing when
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I get to the video. I'm going to post it at www .tt .ext,
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okay? That's the extra what channel, where I throw extra videos that aren't like the usual teaching
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Bible videos, which is on the main channel, youtube .com slash www .tt.
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That's where all the main videos are. I've got this extended channel where I'll throw my sermons on there, or if I'm responding to some other theological thing, and I'm talking to a camera, and it might be a little bit longer than those short videos, it goes on the extra channel, or you might interpret that as the extended channel, since those videos are longer.
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www .tt .ext, so if you go to youtube, subscribe to that channel, and whenever I get this video done and posted,
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I'm going to share with you. We'll share with our contributors how this money is being used to help the ministry of when we understand the text, and even the devotional lessons and things like that.
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I am committing to doing five days a week. We continue with our study in Galatians this coming week,
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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then I'm starting in the book of Song of Solomon on Thursday. That's September 1st, isn't it?
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Yeah. The first is this coming Thursday. So, Song of Solomon, that's the next Old Testament book, and then, of course, the
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Q &A on Friday. Now, one consistent contributor will regularly send a donation in and attach a verse of Scripture that corresponds with the donation.
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Alberta, who just gave $5 .39, so the passage of Scripture Alberta attached to that was
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Matthew 5, 39 through 48. Let me read that to you here from Jesus in the
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Sermon on the Mount. I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
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And if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also. And whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too.
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Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your
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Father who is in heaven. For he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
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And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the
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Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly
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Father is perfect. Thank you for that wonderful reminder, Alberta.
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And as providence would have it, that's a great passage as we lead into this question that I received here from Ronnie in Indiana, Dear Pastor Gabe, thank you for your videos and for your podcast.
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I was wondering if you were planning on doing a video responding to some of these terrible and unbiblical arguments on social media about Joe Biden's student debt forgiveness plan.
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I see so many people twisting scripture and taking it out of context to justify this plan.
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Like for example, in the Lord's Prayer where it says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, therefore we need to be willing to forgive student loan debt or equating the canceling of student debt with the year of Jubilee in the
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Old Testament. Is there any similarity at all with the year of Jubilee and student loan debt forgiveness?
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Or do these people just not know what they're talking about? Thank you again, Ronnie. Well, in case you don't know what
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Ronnie is talking about, maybe you've not been keeping up at the news or maybe you just don't even understand what all of this student debt forgiveness is about.
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Let me read to you here from the editorial board of the Washington Post. They wrote the following, after weeks of anticipation,
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Mr. Biden announced that he will extend the pause on student loan payments until the end of the year.
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So just to kind of recap, the student loan payments have been on hold, which happened during COVID, and then they were supposed to resume this month,
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I believe, but the pause has been extended until the end of the year. So those who have student loan debt don't have to resume paying on that debt until the start of 2023.
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So the editorial board continues, he will also forgive up to $10 ,000 for those making less than $125 ,000 a year and up to $20 ,000 for Pell Grant recipients under that income threshold.
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Both measures are ill conceived and misdirected. The Post went on to say that Biden's plan, quote, takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees, unquote.
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You know, I had to do a double check and make sure that I was reading the Washington Post when the Biden administration has lost the
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Washington Post. You know, they really messed up. The leftist Washington Post acknowledges this plan robs from the poor and gives to the rich.
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Furthermore, those families who worked hard to pay off their debt, they don't get anything. Your tax dollars pay off someone else's debt, but you don't get anything from that if you are responsible and you don't have any debt.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, quote, Democrats, student loan socialism is a slap in the face of working
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Americans who sacrifice to pay their debt or made different career choices to avoid debt.
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A wildly unfair redistribution of wealth toward higher earning people, unquote.
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Author Diana Butler Bass replied, quote, It's not socialism. It's a biblical jubilee.
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I thought all of you GOP types believe that America is a is a Judeo -Christian nation, unquote.
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Now, how about that argument? Many progressives have been making a connection between student loan socialism and the year of jubilee in the
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Old Testament. Is there any validity to that? The answer is absolutely not.
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There is there's no similarity whatsoever between student loan socialism or or forgiveness is the code word they use there, the cover word they use.
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There's no similarity between that and the year of jubilee. What is the year of jubilee?
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Well, we read the laws concerning jubilee in Leviticus, Chapter 25. So let me go there.
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I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. Let me start at the beginning of the chapter, because this is
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God telling Moses what Israel is to do pertaining to years of Sabbath and then the year of jubilee.
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Yahweh then spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them,
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When you come into the land which I am giving to you, then the land shall have a Sabbath to Yahweh.
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Six years you shall sow your field and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its produce.
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But during the seventh year, the land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to Yahweh.
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You shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord from your harvest you shall not reap and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather.
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The land shall have a sabbatical year and the Sabbath produce of the land shall be for food for you and your male and female slaves and your hired man and your foreign resident.
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Those who sojourn with you, even your cattle and the beasts that are in your land shall have all its produce to eat.
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OK, that's the law pertaining to the Sabbath year. Now, here's the law of jubilee starting in verse eight.
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You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years so that you have the time of the seven
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Sabbaths of years, namely 49 years. You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the 10th day of the seventh month on the day of atonement.
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You shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus set apart as holy the 50th year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants.
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It shall be a jubilee for you. And each of you shall return to his own possession of land and each of you shall return to his family.
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You shall have the 50th year as a jubilee. You shall not sow.
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You shall not reap what grows of its own accord. You shall not gather in from its untrimmed vines, for it is a jubilee.
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It shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce out of the field on this year of jubilee.
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Each of you shall return to his own possession of land. If you make a sale, moreover, to your companion or buy from your friend's hand, you shall not mistreat one another.
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Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your companion. He is to sell to you according to the number of years of produce.
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In proportion to the extent of the years, you shall increase its price. And in proportion to the fewness of the years, you shall diminish its price.
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For it is the number of crops it produces that he is selling to you. So you shall not mistreat one another, but you shall fear your
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God, for I am Yahweh your God. You shall thus observe my statutes and keep my judgments so as to do them, that you may live securely on the land.
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Then the land will yield its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it.
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But if you say, what are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our produce, then
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I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years.
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So you shall sow the eighth year and eat old things from that produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.
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Now, for the sake of length here, I'm going to stop reading there. But where God goes on to instruct
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Israel, he says the land shall be redeemed. You're not to plant on the land. Anybody who has borrowed land or bought land from somebody else, they are to return that land in the year of Jubilee.
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If there is anybody who is poor, they are to receive. If there is anybody who is enslaved, they are to be set free.
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There is kindness that is to be extended to the sojourner. So there are other laws and regulations pertaining to the year of Jubilee that God goes on to give to Israel.
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And if anyone has any debts, they are to be forgiven. Now, this system was set up to prevent any like predatory loans or even that someone would incur a whole bunch of debt, like acting irresponsibly and getting a whole lot of debt.
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This system was to keep somebody from going into really deep debt or to keep somebody else from taking advantage of the poor.
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This is the mercy that God had shown to Israel. And he ties that in in Leviticus 25.
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The land belongs to me, and I'm giving it to you. And you were once slaves in Egypt, and I set you free.
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So you're supposed to set your slaves free. You had debts that I forgave you of.
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And so you are to forgive those who are indebted to you, just as God had forgiven.
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So the Israelites were to do with one another. And this was a type and a shadow, even of a greater forgiveness that was to come.
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The forgiveness of Christ, who died on the cross for our sins. So as it says in Colossians chapter two, that these things were types and shadows.
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The substance belongs to Christ. Jesus fulfills the year of Jubilee. And we have more than just this 50th year of Jubilee.
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We have an eternity of peace with God because our debts have been forgiven by Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
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This year of Jubilee pointing us to a greater Jubilee that we have in Jesus our
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Lord. Here's the thing, though, regarding the year of Jubilee that we read about in the
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Old Testament. There is no evidence that Israel ever honored it.
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They never kept the year of Jubilee. In fact, they had a hard enough time keeping the Sabbath years.
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So remember, working the land for six years and then you rest on the Sabbath, the land gets rest and you get rest.
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They weren't even doing that. When Israel was sent into Babylonian captivity at the end of Second Chronicles, when the
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Jews are given over to the hands of the Babylonians, how long were they there in exile?
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Do you remember? It was 70 years. Why that long? Why did
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God decide that they would be in exile for 70 years? Because according to Second Chronicles 36, it was one year for every
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Sabbath year that they missed. That would be 490 years. So for 490 consecutive years, they had not been honoring the
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Sabbath year. Therefore, when God sent them into Babylonian captivity, it was one year for every
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Sabbath year that they missed. So given that they were not even keeping the Sabbath years, they certainly weren't keeping the year of Jubilee.
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And we don't have any indication anywhere in the Old Testament that there was ever a time that Israel was obedient to the year of Jubilee.
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Israel would have to be in obedience to God for 49 consecutive years.
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And then there would be the year of Jubilee. So in that 49th year, that's a
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Sabbath year. The year of Jubilee, that's a Sabbath. So you have two consecutive years where there is no planting or harvesting, which is why when we read in the law there in Leviticus 25 that it says
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God will provide for you for three years. In that sixth year, God would bless you with enough produce to last you that Sabbath year plus the year of Jubilee and then going into the next year as you begin to sow and harvest again.
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But Israel did not keep that. There was never 49 consecutive years that they were keeping the law of God.
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There was constantly falling into sin and then repenting of sin. And it was just this cycle.
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Even in like the utopia years when Solomon was reigning, when things were as great in Israel as they would ever be, even that wasn't 50 years.
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That was only like 30 or something, right? And then what happened at the end of Solomon's reign? He raised up high places to false gods to honor his pagan wives.
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And so God said to him, I'm going to tear the kingdom from your sons. And it was split into the
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Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom made up of the 10 tribes of Israel and then the Southern Kingdom, which was
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Benjamin and Judah. And so while there was that unrest in Israel, of course, there was never obedience that was keeping
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Sabbath years and keeping the year of Jubilee. Israel was always wicked. They always had wicked kings during that time.
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Judah only had eight righteous kings during that period of time. So again, we don't have any indication that Israel ever kept the year of Jubilee.
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And suddenly there are people out there arrogantly stating on social media that this student debt forgiveness is our year of Jubilee.
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I mean, that's just blasphemous. That is a blasphemous treatment of the word of God to say, hey, look, debt forgiveness in Leviticus 25.
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Well, we can do that. We're going to forgive the debts of those who have student loans.
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It's not the forgiveness of all debt, which would really be a year of Jubilee if everybody's debt was forgiven.
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No, we're just a certain few under this number. And really, the people on the high end of that number, it's an incredibly unjust socialism with no similarity whatsoever with the year of Jubilee.
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To watch people twist the scriptures the way that they're doing to justify their socialism, it's just painful and blasphemous.
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Like I said, Peter warned about this in 2 Peter 3, 16, that the ignorant and unstable twist the scriptures to their own destruction.
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They need to repent of this because they are playing with fire. Consider some of these other statements that I've pulled from social media that people are saying about student loan debt forgiveness.
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This gal's name is April. She didn't have a last name or a location where she was from, but some of her tweets were very popular.
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She said, bold of Christians to be mad about student debt forgiveness while professing a faith that is literally based on forgiving debts.
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Who knew that taking out a high interest loan you're going to force your neighbor to have to pay back is exactly like Jesus willingly laying down his own life as a ransom for many.
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Wow. I have never made that connection before. I'd have been an idiot to make that kind of connection.
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Consider how Daryl Harrison of the Just Thinking podcast responded to this gal. He said,
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Christianity is not literally based on forgiving debts. It's based on the righteousness of a holy and just God who of his own volition put to death his only son so that the sin debt you and I owe him is not only forgiven, but is paid for by his propitiatory death.
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Amen to that, Daryl. April, this gal that I mentioned here, she has preferred pronouns in her
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Twitter bio. She's the host of a podcast that deconstructs Christianity, and she understands neither what student loan forgiveness means nor what
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Christianity means. And because progressives are ignorant about these things as well, of course, she received thousands of likes on social media.
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She made another tweet in which she said, quote, worship pastors are probably scratching Jesus paid it all from their set list this week because apparently, oh, praise the one who paid my debt is considered woke now, unquote.
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Listen, the debt you owed God because of your sin, if you live to be a million years old, you could never pay that back your student loan debt.
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You can pay that back. Progressives like April think God freely paying the debt you owe him because of your sin is the same thing as the government forcing your neighbor to pay the debt that you owe somebody else.
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This next one comes from Shane Claiborne. Some of you might be familiar with that name. He's he's a heretic who lives in Tennessee, one of the writers and founders,
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I believe, of Red Letter Christians. He said, quote, if you're mad about Biden forgiving student debt, just wait till you hear what
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Jesus did, unquote. Biden did not forgive student debt. He foisted it on other
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Americans. Is that what Jesus did? The sins that we committed against God, did Jesus make other people pay our debts?
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Because if Biden's debt forgiveness is like the forgiveness that Jesus gives, no one is saved.
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I'd sure like to hear Claiborne explain what he thinks Jesus did, because my understanding is that Claiborne denies penal substitutionary atonement.
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The understanding that Jesus sacrificed himself as a substitute in our place for our sin.
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He was a propitiation. Meaning that he satisfied the wrath of God so that all who believe in him will be forgiven their sins and have everlasting life with God.
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Romans 3, 23 to 25, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
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God put forward as a propitiation through his blood to be received by faith.
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Claiborne doesn't believe that. He believes the death penalty killed Jesus, even wrote a book about it.
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And that's why we need to be against the death penalty, because the death penalty killed Jesus. That is his central evangelical doctrine to oppose capital punishment.
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It's what his whole ministry is about. Anyone who is not against the death penalty should be excommunicated by their church.
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He's actually said that. So rather than putting to death a murderer who was on death row,
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Shane Claiborne believes you deserve to be excommunicated from your church because you disagree with him on this social issue.
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That sentence is worse than being on death row. Conflating student debt forgiveness with the cross of Jesus Christ is a false gospel.
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Folks, this is no different than the prosperity gospel. The heresy that because Jesus died, you get money.
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Jesus did not die for you to get free stuff. He died so that you might be free, free from the bonds of sin and death, free to worship
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God, free to live for him. Titus 2 14 says that Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
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I will never grow weary of saying this, repent and turn to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
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His sacrifice does not mean that you don't have to pay back your education loan. If you believe in Jesus, it means your sin debt is paid and you won't go to hell.
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You have fellowship with God and eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our Lord never confused that message with socialism.
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That is an eternally deadly mistake. These liberals do not believe the
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Bible. They know just enough Bible to be dangerous. They're more like Satan quoting scripture to Jesus in the wilderness closer to that, even though Satan knows more scripture than they do.
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They do not even believe what it is that they quote. And they're not even quoting it.
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I mean, you go and look at some of these responses that they have on Twitter. They're all loaded arguments.
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It's gaslighting. They don't even quote the scripture or desire to understand it in the right context.
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They don't care about you. They don't care about anyone else. They want to sin and they want someone else to pay for it.
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No one forced Jesus to pay for our sin, and he didn't give it to someone else to pay for our sin.
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He willingly laid down his own life. John 10, 18, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
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I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge
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I have received from my father. The father gave his son as a sacrifice.
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It's John 3, 16. And Jesus submitted to the will of the father. And now by his sacrifice, if you ask forgiveness for your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
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1 John 1, 9. He is just to forgive you because the debt has been paid by Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Not only is Joe Biden's student debt forgiveness, nothing like the gospel.
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It's nothing like student debt forgiveness. Biden did not cancel anyone's debt.
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He transferred the debt to millions of Americans, many of whom chose not to pay liberal institutions for expensive degrees.
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I have a family member who racked up tens of thousands of dollars of debt. It's probably over $100 ,000 of debt.
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In order to earn two master's degrees in psychology, and she just posted on Facebook this week that she wants to get a house in the woods and become a witch and cast spells.
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And that's not even a joke. That's whose college education you're paying for with Biden's plan.
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As for me, you know, sharing my own testimony of college, I wasted four years of college and most of my friends were wasted for four years of college.
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You did not want to pay my student debt and you would not have wanted to pay.
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You would not have wanted to pay the debt for any of my friends either. We lived irresponsibly as most college students do.
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And when I got out, it took a while, but I paid back every penny. I paid it back myself. I had no student loan debt when
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I got married. Now, before I asked Becky to marry me,
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I went to her parents and I asked her dad if he would give me Becky's hand in marriage.
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And you know what he said to me? These were the first words he said to me when I asked him permission to marry his daughter.
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He said, you know, she comes with a dog, right? That's the first thing he said.
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She had picked up a stray lab, a black lab right when we started dating.
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It was like right at the beginning of our dating relationship. So, yes, I knew that she was going to come with a dog. His name was
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Sparky. He was a good lab. The next thing her dad said, he was sure that I understood that she had a lot of student loan debt.
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And I told him I was ready to pay off every penny. And I did. A couple of years ago, just two years ago, we got all of our debts paid off.
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So right now we have no debt, no credit card debt, no car loans, nothing but the mortgage on the house.
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But that's equity. That's that's quite a bit different than just taking out a loan. So I made many personal sacrifices to pay off my debt and to pay off my wife's debt.
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And I did it with joy with my own debt. I kind of grumbled at myself for making stupid decisions, but I never blamed
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Becky for anything. I paid off our debts with joy. Paying my wife's debt is not the same as paying my neighbor's debt.
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If you think that's the same thing, you are really confused. Love your neighbor does not mean pay off his student loan debts.
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Now, maybe you do want to pay off your neighbor's debt, but that's that's up to you.
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That is your freewill offering. Being forced to pay your neighbor's debt is not loving your neighbor.
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In fact, giving him a free handout might be the worst thing to do for your neighbor. Maybe your neighbor needs to learn the value of personal responsibility and hard work.
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We need to get out of the mindset that after high school, you need to go to college.
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It is unlikely that you need to go to college. I didn't. I didn't need to.
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Anyway, I wasted those four years. The first two years I went to community college, and that wasn't that bad.
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And I got out of that two years of college not owing any debt. It was when I went to the four -year college and then the university.
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That was where all of my debt came from. Men, consider going to a trade school or becoming an apprentice and learn a rewarding, sustainable profession.
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Young women almost never need to go to college unless you want to become a doctor or a nurse or a lawyer or something like that.
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Ladies, my advice would be to marry young, be his helpmate, have children, and homeschool them.
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Let dad bring home the bacon. Now, I'm just offering wise counsel here. The Bible doesn't say this.
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You may not be sinning by taking out a loan and going to college, but are you sure that's the wise thing to do?
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Romans 13 .8 says, owe no one anything except to love each other. And understand
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Psalm 37, 21 to 22, the wicked borrows but does not pay back.
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But the righteous is generous and gives. Let me read a few more of these bad
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Twitter takes here. This is Zach Lambert. He's a false pastor of Restore Church in Austin.
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He posted the meme of the guy who has to choose between two buttons.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? This is this cartoon meme, and you have these two red buttons, and there's usually something that's over the buttons.
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And then the guy is wiping sweat from his brow because he doesn't know which button to choose. If you're familiar with memes on the
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Internet, surely you've seen this one. OK, so Zach Lambert posted this. And over one button is the statement.
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The Bible is literal. And over the other button is the statement. God is against debt forgiveness.
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The tweet has tens of thousands of likes and climbing. And Zach Lambert has the guy there, like wiping the sweat off of his forehead.
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The irony about this meme is that it's self -defeating. Zach Lambert is the guy sweating in this meme.
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Lambert does not believe the Bible should be taken literally. And yet he believes, according to the Bible, that God is for student debt forgiveness.
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He's the guy sweating in this picture. It is hilarious that neither he nor the thousands of people who like his image realize that another
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Zach. This one is Zach Hunt made a similar statement. He said, Remember, kids, the parts about a talking snake are literal, but the parts about forgiving debts are just metaphor.
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Really? Who made that argument? Name somebody. What Christian did you hear?
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Make the statement. All the passages about forgiving debts are just metaphorical. Name them. Our operators are standing by a side note for you here.
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Zach Hunt once called me an antichrist. Tyler Huckabee, editor for Irrelevant Magazine and my number one fan said, quote,
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Christians on this website are literally like we can't just forgive our debtors, unquote.
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Name one. Name one. Tyler, show me one Christian that said we can't forgive our debtors.
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That tweet got over 80 ,000 likes in 24 hours. That is just ridiculous.
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I tell you, if there's anything the student loan payback to buckle has shown us, it's that most people's college education was a waste of of your money.
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Author DL Mayfield of Portland said, quote, The Bible is unclear about a lot of things, but not predatory loans, unquote.
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This was also I mean, this tweet had over like 60 ,000 likes the last time
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I looked at it. A better way to word this would have been to say the Bible is clear about a lot of things, including predatory loans.
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And if she were to have said it like that, well, I would agree. The law explicitly says that loans with a high rate of interest are unjust.
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In fact, if you want to get really specific, you can charge interest to a foreigner, but not your brother.
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Deuteronomy 23, 19 to 20 says you shall not charge interest to your brother interest on money, food or anything that may be loaned at interest.
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You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your brother, you shall not charge interest. Now, if you go back in the story of Joseph, the story in Genesis of Joseph and his brothers,
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Joseph did this. He did not charge his brothers for their grain at all, but he did charge the
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Egyptians for grain, even though he was a ruler of the Egyptians. Ezekiel 18, 13 lists a number of sins, and one of them is lending money to his brother at interest.
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Such a man will not live. He will surely be put to death. His blood will be on himself.
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Proverbs 28, 8 says he who increases his wealth by interest and usury gathers it for him who is gracious to the lowly.
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In other words, if someone accumulates great wealth through high interest loans,
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God will take from him and give to a man who is more generous with the poor. So we understand that those who are generous with the poor will receive much in the kingdom of God.
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Those who have gained a lot through interest and unjust usury, they'll perish.
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That will be among the judgments that will be brought against them. So yes, predatory loans are unjust, but it's also unjust to force everyone else but the predatory lender to pay them back.
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Mayfield made a catchy tweet, and if she actually took her own words seriously, she would be holding the government and the universities accountable rather than marching with the rest of the left to force the burden onto other
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Americans. Mayfield thought it was necessary to add that caveat. The Bible is unclear about a lot of things.
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That was the way her tweet began, because she's LGBTQ affirming. She has preferred pronouns in her bio and a pride flag.
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She also believes parents should have the rights to mutilate the sexual organs of their children and turn them into the opposite sex if they want.
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You know who agrees with her? Melissa Moore, Beth Moore's daughter. That was what my latest
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What video was about. Mayfield is a monster. So is Melissa Moore. They just want everyone to know
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God doesn't like loan sharks, but we're just going to ignore the rest of those passages about homosexuals burning in an eternal fire if they don't repent.
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Remember, according to J .D. Greer and Ed Litton, the Bible whispers about sexual sin, but it speaks loud and clear about loan sharks.
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Apparently, John of the Post Mill posted a list of evangelical institutions, seminaries and churches who received federal loans during the covid lockdowns on the list includes.
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These are organizations that have received the federal loans during the covid lockdowns.
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The Gospel Coalition, Nine Marks, Christianity Today, Sojourners, a few of the
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Southern Baptist seminaries, Dallas Theological Seminary, the ERLC, the churches of Tim Keller, David Platt, Mark Dever, Greg Rochelle, J .D.
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Greer, Matt Chandler, David Dark of America Magazine, which is a Jesuit publication.
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He said, wow, this is really bad optics for all the white God talkers who've spent the last 24 hours trying to shame their fellow
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Americans. That was a very racist statement, incidentally. Now, this this actually is not bad optics.
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Paycheck Protection Program loans, what what were referred to as PPP loans, they're not the same thing as high interest student loans.
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The government shut down the country during a pandemic, which we now know was a huge mistake and and has really harmed our economy.
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But at the time, hey, many Americans thought it was the right idea. But because of the government shutdown orders,
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Americans couldn't go to work. So the PPP loans were really a form of disaster relief.
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They are nothing like the student, the student debt, nothing like school loans.
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Now, I was opposed to churches accepting PPP loans. But if Christianity today or the
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Southern Baptist Convention accepted a PPP loan, that is solely on them. That does not reflect on me as a
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Christian one bit. But of course, David Dark is a Marxist, so he sees everybody in the same categories.
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If one person in that category is guilty of it, then everybody is. You heard him make his racist statement the way that he did.
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And though I may disagree with the decision that some institutions made to take out one of those PPP loans, it's not the same thing as taking out a high interest student loan to get a gender studies degree at a university for secular humanism.
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You know, it's wild that there are progressives out there making reference to the year of or equating the forgiveness of sins with the forgiveness of student loan debt.
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It's hey, it's right there in the Bible. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, right? Ignoring the fact that in some translations that comes out, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
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So we're not talking about money debts there in the Lord's prayer. You know what else is in the
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Bible? The call to be holy as God is holy. Remember that passage of scripture that Alberta recommended?
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It's Matthew 5, 48. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That's in the
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Bible. Where's the call to obey that? Faith alone in Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
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That's in the Bible. God created us male and female marriages between a man and a woman and to get divorced and remarried for any reason other than sexual immorality is to commit adultery.
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According to Jesus, that's in the Bible. You know what else is in the Bible? That adultery deserves the death penalty.
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So does rape, homosexuality, witchcraft and abortion. Are the progressives calling for a year of Jubilee ready to accept those other parts of the law?
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Allie Beth Stuckey had a great comment. She said, quote, the same left who shrieks about Christian nationalism when somebody uses
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Psalm 139 to condemn abortion is actually out here saying that we should support transferring student loan debt from the rich to the poor because of the year of Jubilee in ancient
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Israel. Amazing unquote. James 2, 10 says this for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
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But these progressives think that they're keeping one part of the law and are therefore innocent of all their other lawlessness.
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It is an astonishing level of ignorance and arrogance. Colossians 2, 13 to 15 says to Christians.
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You were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. But God has made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
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This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.
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That's for everyone who believes in Christ Jesus. But for those who do not believe in Christ, your debts are still counted against you.
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The government cannot save you. Repent and believe the gospel.
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Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Do not repent.
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And you will perish in an eternal hell under the righteous judgment of God, paying off your debts forever.
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I thank you once again for turning into the program this week. And thank you so much for your generosity and kindness.
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Those of you who have donated to us through the website, www .utt .com.
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Once again, you can go there, click on the give tab. If you would like to give us a gift, let me wrap up with prayer.
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And that's it. I want to say right there, let me wrap up with prayer and we'll be dismissed.
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Because that's how I finished my Bible study. That's how I finished Sunday school or sometimes even the end of a sermon.
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You can go about your business. Whatever else you're doing today, listening to another podcast. You got some work you got to do.
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Thank you for listening to the program. I am grateful for every single person who has chosen to make this a part of your daily or weekly
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Bible study. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the kindness that you have shown us in Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. All of us deserve hell because of the rebellion that we have done against God.
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The debts that we have stacked up because of the sins that we have committed, breaking your law, going our own way.
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You gave us the body and the mind that we have to glorify you. And instead of glorifying you, we glorified ourselves instead.
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And for this, we deserve eternal judgment. But you are gracious to us by giving your son
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Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Our debts are paid by Christ. Jesus paid it all.
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All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
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May we sing the old hymn with joy, knowing that Jesus paid our debt and through him we have everlasting life with God.
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Now that is not only changing our state and our relationship with you, that should also be changing our lives that we would live in such a way that would be pleasing to the
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God who saved us. So teach us not only the truth of this gospel, but may we walk in it today.
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We walk as Jesus walked, as it says in 1 John, that we must live as he lived.
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Jesus said to his disciples, John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commands.
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Teach us to do that today. Understanding the scriptures for what you intend them to mean, not reading our cultural experiences into the word of God.
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We submit to you, to obey you, to worship you as you have said you are to be worshipped.
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That we may be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. It's in Jesus name that we pray.