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a year from its date of sale. Jf
neither he nor his relatives were
able to redeem the property within
a year, then the new owner, who
may have made significant prop–
erty improvements, had permanent
Peru's President-elect,
Alan Garcia Perez, told
foreign banking concerns
last August that bis nation
would allocate only 10
percent of its export
earnings to make interest
payments. The financia)
world took a deep breath
and quickly tried to
analyze the situation.
possession of the property (Lev.
25:29-31 ).
The Price of Disobedience
God offered the ancient nation of
Israel an economic system that
eliminated the financia! upheavals
of depression, of runaway inflation,
of skyrocketing interest rates and
ever expanding debt. Sadly, neither
ancient Israel
nor any modern na–
tion
has applied God's laws. And,
as a result, we have suffered tumul–
tuous economic upheaval in near
50-year cydes. Witness the eco–
nomic crises of the 1780s, leading
to the rise of Napoleon; the 1830s;
the l880s; and the Great Depres–
sion of the 1930s that led to the
rise of Hitler and World War II.
God's law is almost totally un–
known among the nations ·or this
world. Today, it is secular govern–
ment that determines rights to in–
heritance, property and transfer of
property- rigbts, that, in reality,
God reserved to himself as the
owner and Creator of the earth and
all that is in it. Jesus Christ, of
course, recognized the temporary
authority, for good or evil, of this
world's governments, when he re–
fused to become involved in a prop-
14
erty dispute in bis day (Lul(e
12:13-14).
God's government has not yet
been restored over the earth. In–
stead, God has allowed the nations
free choice-just as he has allowed
us free choice as individuals- in
arder that humans might learn the
lessons of going their own ways.
One need only look at the world
economic scene today to see what
kind of choices humanity has
made.
This generation, your Bible re–
veals, will live to see the financia!
world run out of last-minute loan
packages for Latín American
debtor nations drowning in a sea of
interest payments.
The world will be rocked by con–
sequent unparalleled economic, so–
cial, political and religious turmoil.
lt
will take just such an unprece–
dented tragedy to bring this world,
wallowing in violence and greed, to
its senses. It will be a catastrophe
of our own making-the conse–
quences of disobedience to im–
mutable laws the Creator God set
in motion.
The Jubllee Year
God's jubilee offers humans what
they have needed-and what no
man-devised system of economics
has ever been able to give us-a fi–
nancia! clean slate: the chance men
have only dreamed of, to begin anew
and learn from past mistakes.
The jubilee year will be a corner–
stone in the reestablishment of
God's government on earth (Luke
4: 16-19). The "acceptable year of
the Lord" that Jesus quoted out of
Isaiah 61 is the restoration of the
jubilee year. The term
"family farm" will once
again have meaning in re–
gions we now call the in–
dustrial world (Zech.
3:1
0).
lt
should be noted that
God gave ancient (and
unconverted) Israel tbe
right to charge foreign
nations reasonable interest
on short-term loans (Deut.
23:20) and the right to re–
quire repayment without
having to release the debt
at the end of seven years
(Deut. 15:3). But under
t}:le coming government of
God, salvation will be
opened to the entire world,
and all will begin to live by
the revealed Word ofGod.
All will have debt for–
given.
God will create fair and equi–
table borders and place all peoples
in their rightful inheritances (Acts
17:26). God's laws will be
enforced
with equity throughout all nations
(lsa. 11).
No more will nations be trapped
in a web of debts and painful
choices. Instead, the peoples of the
new
Latín America and of the
whole
new
world tomorrow will
prosper and fulfill the national
roles the Creator God has set out
for them, without being weighed
down by burdensome debts.
The young people of Latin
Arnerica and of the whole world
can look to a future of promise, not
of pain. No longer will people be
living a way of "get" and selfish–
ness. Selflessness, generosity and
cooperation will be the normal way
of conducting business.
For an additional in-depth look
at the refreshingly new socíety that
will soon be enforced on our now
troubled planet, why not write for
our book
The Wonderfu/ World
Tomorrow: What
lt
Wi/1 Be Like
if you have not already read it. It
is free of charge and without any
obligation to you. You have never
read anything quite like it!
o
The
PLAIN TRUTH