Lying, cheating and stealing

I love to read history of all periods, and I continue to study the human condition and how we all treat each other. We all have different capacities for this people watching and certainly our backgrounds and life experiences contribute greatly to this endeavor. It is also interesting to watch how people in the world get what they want and at what price they pay in foisting human suffering on others to get it.

Throughout history people have devised ways to get what they want in various and sundry ways. Some decide early in life that they will honor God and try and raise an honorable family, playing by the rules of life and seriously trying to assist their fellowman in whatever way possible. They believe that in the end, a man when he is old, can look back and feel a since of pride that what he has accomplished in life has been done by the working together with his faith, his wife and family, his society, and by the sweat of his brow (KJV). In general he has done this knowing that he has not done it by lying, cheating, and stealing.

Then if you look on the world scene, whether it be a highly developed nation or a Third World country, the dynamics of lying, cheating or stealing to get what you want are all the same.

When we see a totally ruthless dictator like we have in North Korea, we are all appalled at all the human suffering with which he has plagued his country. It is said that when a North Korean mother has a child that dies of starvation, that she ties her child around her neck and carries it close to her as long as possible due to the fact that people are digging up newly buried babies and performing cannibalism to have something to eat. This is all done under the smiling dictator who has untold millions stashed away while his countrymen, whom his propaganda machine says he loves, starve to death.

It is recorded in history that Stalin was having a meeting with all his generals when he nodded to one of his aids to bring him a live chicken. Stalin took the live chicken and proceeded to pluck out all the feathers in front of his generals. When he had completed his task, he reached into his pocket and took out several grains of corn. He then sat the chicken down on the floor next to his boot and as this naked, shaking chicken cowered around his feet, he then reached down and allowed it to peck the few grains of corn from his hand. He then looked up and said, Gentlemen, this is how you control people.

Then we have the company man who, with his or her God-given skill, works their way up to the top of a large airline or some other corporate ladder that is legally protected with several well-thought-out golden parachutes that allow a bailout at any time with all the company gold. This is all under the we love the employees banners that dot their offices. They love their employees, but they love them because they can be stepping stones as they climb over them, and the backs of their families, up the corporate ladder. This man or woman surrounds himself with all his lawyer generals and have meeting after meeting, and write document after document, on how to never hold them responsible for lying, cheating, and stealing. They are the Stalins of our time!

There is one thing about lying, cheating, and stealing that is the same the world over, no matter who is doing it, and no matter what banner they have over their leather chairs. Blood-stained money never washes clean. Gods Word says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Any man or woman who lies and cheats to steal other peoples money, whether it be in employee benefits, or retirement benefits, or peoples freedoms in North Korea, will one day reap the whirlwind. When you make a pact with the devil, you never get a good deal, never!

All you CEOs who are buying another castle in Spain, or another yacht in the Bahamas, you need to enjoy it while you can, because one day you and I will answer for all our sins. There is forgiveness, but then you would have to come clean, and not rob that which belongs in part to those who entrusted you with looking out for them!

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