Jubilee and Our Current Economic Troubles

This all started with the 2008 banking crisis. Banks were over extended and the government stepped in to save the day, without anyone truly dealing with the underlining problem of greed and covetousness. Everyone acted as if this was the first time anything like this had ever happened. These giant financial “bubbles” form in our economy because we are all greedy and covet; we are far too rebellious to keep the sabbatical and Jubilee years. These giant “bubbles” reoccur approximately every 60-70 years like clockwork. It is amazing how God thinks of everything! If we followed His plan of Sabbatical years every seven years and Jubilees every 49 years it would break the cycle of these financial “bubbles”.

Unfortunately our founding fathers never put the idea of Sabbatical Years and Jubilees into our constitution; instead they went with the Common Law of Bankruptcy, a kind of individual Jubilee. But alas this allows the general economic debt “bubbles” to form. Is it possible, since they put so many other Biblical laws in our legal system that Jubilee was left out because of the sin of slavery? Obviously even though they were brilliant and great men they were also a touch rebellious and we are continuing in that rebellion.

Everybody from the top on down yelled that it was the bankers fault; but that is not true! It is all our faults! We elected the congress that told the bankers that they had to make it easier for the poor to get loans; so the bankers created the sub-prime loans. And because of discrimination laws these loans could not be just for the poor; anyone could get a sub-prime loan. This brought in the housing market sharks and flippers. Thus the giant “bubble” of debt formed.

Every 60-70 years, give or take a few, like clockwork, we do this. We are now in the fourth repeat over the past 240 years. Let’s note this historically recorded cycle starting with the Dutch tulip bulb collapse Feb 1637; French Revolution led to almost total economic collapse in Europe 1789-1799; English bank rate changes that led to 6 year depression 1837-1843; Collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange May 7 1873; New York stock market crash in 1929.

It is human nature to be greedy and covet. That would be why God addresses that as one of His Top Ten complaints with His Ten Commandments. In the Messiah’s example to us as how to pray He included, “forgive us our debts as we forgive are debtors”. It is easy to ask God to forgive US our sins but not so much to forgive our brother. We were told to forgive our brothers 70 x7 which interesting enough is 10 Jubilees.

“Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Matt. 18:21-22

In light of scripture it does it not stand to reason that the longer we take to forgive each other for causing this mess, the longer the recovery will take? None of this is going away until we stop blaming and start forgive. If we set our slaves free every 7 years and forgave debts every 49 years we would adjust our lifestyles accordingly and there would never be a panic or collapse of the economics system.

Forgiving does not mean that we should reelect and rehire those who set this horrible mess up or who support the continuation of this system. It means that these governmental positions are best filled by God fearers who will be brave enough to tackle the status quo and change the system.

As far as keeping Sabbatical years and Jubilees, have no fear, the King will return and impose that. What will we do? Like Israel of old we will howl because of our greed and covetousness.