Sunday, April 26, 2009

A Biblical view of oaths

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So Help Me God: A Biblical View of Oaths
David G. Hagopian


Contemporary culture faces a growing integrity crisis. The bond of a person's word is flippantly broken. A Biblical view of oaths and promises calls us to a higher, if not more painful, commitment to our word.

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..."

"I take thee to be my lawful wedded wife and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be thy loving and faithful husband, in sickness and in health..."

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States..."

How often we have heard those oaths uttered during trials, weddings and inaugurations. But how seldom it is that people actually honor such oaths as evidenced by the incidence of perjury, divorce and demagoguery. And it doesn't stop there. Sadly, people--even Christian people--violate their oaths and vows at whim, as though truth were fungible and their promises, dispensable. By so doing, they demonstrate culpable ignorance of, indifference to, or callousness for their Biblical responsibility to honor their word in general and their oaths and vows in particular. Simply put, we have become a society and a church without verbal integrity, a society and a church without those who honor their oaths.

For that reason, it is important to examine what Scripture has to say about our responsibility to honor our oaths. After defining what constitutes an oath and proving that Scripture does not forbid all oaths, we will provide Biblical guidelines for taking oaths, and refute common excuses people proffer for violating their oaths. This article, then, is intended to be a concise overview of what the Bible has to say about oaths.
Oaths Defined
Perhaps there is no better place to begin this exposition of oaths than by explaining what we mean when we speak of oaths. In simple form, an oath is a promise. More particularly, an oath or promise is simply an agreement entered into between one person and another whereby the one taking the oath (1) explicitly or implicitly appeals to God to witness and sanction what he has said or committed himself to, and (2) calls God to judge and avenge His name if what he said is false or what he committed to do never comes to pass.[1]

>From this definition we can see how pervasive oaths are. When one signs a form swearing that the information it contains is true, he is making an oath. When a bride and groom promise to remain married till death do them part, they are making an oath.[2] When a party enters a contract, he is making an oath. When a courtroom witness swears to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he is making an oath.
The Third Commandment
With this understanding of oaths, we need to know what Scripture has to say about them. The Scriptural point of departure is the third commandment, which is translated in the King James version as "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Many Christians incorrectly assume that this verse merely teaches that we shouldn't curse using the name of God.[3] Indeed, the third commandment does teach that we should not curse using the name of God. But it teaches so much more.

So just what does the third commandment teach? To begin with, the phrase "the name of the Lord thy God" does not refer only to the literal name of God. Rather, the name of God refers comprehensively to God, including God's literal name, anything by which God makes Himself known, and ultimately, God Himself. In short, to call on the name of God is to call on God Himself!

While the name of God is used comprehensively to refer ultimately to God Himself, the phrase translated in vain means "falsely" (Isa.59:4). So the verse could be translated in at least two different ways: (1) Thou shalt not swear (utter) the name of God to a lie, or (2) Thou shalt not swear (utter) the name of God falsely. The basic meaning is the same: we should refrain from appealing to the name of God to confirm or bear witness to a falsehood.[4]

The third commandment, then, primarily forbids appealing to God to confirm a falsehood. But as with all of the ten commandments, the greater includes the lesser. The sixth commandment, for example, does merely prohibit unjustified killing; it also prohibits murderous and malicious feelings (Matt.5:21-24).

In the same way, the command not to call upon God to bear witness to a falsehood also forbids all lesser forms of irreverence for the name of God. Thus, the third commandment prohibits any lack of fear, honor and reverence for God and any profanation or abuse of anything by which God makes Himself known, especially in our speech. We should refrain from doing anything which detracts from the glory due the name of God in our lives. But the third commandment not only forbids certain conduct; it also affirmatively requires that we at all times fear, honor and reverence God and His most holy name as well as His titles, attributes, ordinances and works, especially in our speech. The third commandment, therefore, primarily requires us to honor our oaths and forbids us from violating them. When we appeal to God by means of oaths, we must honor God by honoring our oaths.
In Defense of Oaths
Through the years, some Christians have taught that the third commandment in particular and Scripture in general forbid all oaths. To bolster this contention, they marshal forth passages such as Matt. 5:33-37 and James 5:12 wherein we find the oft-quoted command, "swear not at all." And at first blush, these passages appear to forbid all oaths.

By carefully interpreting these passages, however, we will see that Christ was merely correcting Pharisaical and scribal abuses and misinterpretations of God's standards when it come to oaths. When interpreted in light of the general context of Scripture as a whole and in light of the particular context, we will see that far from forbidding all oaths, Christ (and James) forbade only unlawful (unbiblical) oaths.[5]
The General Context
The general context of Scripture, when studied carefully, reveals that God does not forbid all oaths.

First, Scripture commands us to swear by the name of God on certain occasions. In Deuteronomy 6:13, for example, Scripture commands God's people "You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name." Far from prohibiting all oaths, Isaiah tells us that "he who swears in the earth shall swear by the name of God" (Is. 65:16). God sanctions lawful oaths to such an extent that He promises to build up those who swear by His name (Jer. 12:16). Even in the mundane affairs of life, such as confirming the truth between disputing neighbors, God commands His people to swear before Him (Ex. 22:10-11). Because Scripture commands God's people to swear by His name, it cannot forbid all oaths. God does not command what He simultaneously condemns!

Second, Scripture also teaches us that swearing is an act of confession and religious worship. We already saw in Deuteronomy 6:13 that God commands us to swear in His name precisely because swearing in God's name is but one way to worship and fear Him (cf Deut.10:20). Isaiah confirms this connection between swearing and worship; when he prophesies about the Assyrians and Egyptians coming into a covenantal relationship with God, he says that they will swear in the name of God. (Is. 19:18). Calvin explains that "by swearing in the Lord's name they will profess his religion."[6]

But exactly how is swearing an act of confession and worship? When we duly swear in God's name, we confess several things about God. To begin with, we confess that God exists. Moreover, we confess several of God's attributes as revealed to us in Scripture: we testify that He is omnipresent and omniscient, that He is eternal and immutable, that He is just and true, that He is powerful and wrathful. By confessing His existence and attributes, we also confess that He is the Supreme Judge over all the earth and that we are accountable to Him for all that we do and say. Though the word of men may fail, the word of God never fails. Though men may fail, God never fails. By taking oaths in God's name, we confess God to be the ultimate arbiter of truth, and we worship the God of truth in spirit and in truth.

Third, Scripture offers us many examples of those who swore, examples we are commanded to follow.

God Himself swears. David, anticipating the eternal priesthood of Christ exclaims under the inspiration of the Spirit, "The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, Thou art a priest forever..."(Ps. 110:4). The author of Hebrews tells us that God swore not only by demonstrating that what the Psalmist anticipated in Psalm 110:4 had been fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 7:21), but also by telling us that God swore when He made His covenant with Abraham: "For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself" (Heb. 6:13).

While it is true that we will never be perfect this side of eternity, we are nonetheless commanded to imitate the perfection of God and to be like God (Matt. 5:48, Eph. 5:1). If God upheld His Word with oaths in His name, and if we are commanded to imitate God, then if the occasion arises, Scripture permits us to swear lawfully in the name of God. As such, Scripture cannot, without contradicting itself, forbid all oaths.

What is true of God the Father is equally true with respect to God the Son for three reasons. First, the deity of Christ implies that what is true of God is true of Christ; hence since God swore, Christ swore.

Second, if you were to read Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 7:21, referred to above, you would observe that in Psalm 110:4, God swears that He will provide an eternal high priest (anticipation) while in Hebrews 7:21, God has honored His oath (fulfillment). God the Father made the oath; God the Son fulfilled it. Thus, the very life of the Son was the very fulfillment of an oath made by the Father.

Third, Christ actually undertook an oath when questioned by Caiaphas, the high priest as recorded in the gospel of Matthew. After Christ remained silent during the accusational phase of his trial, Caiaphas charged Christ, exclaiming, "I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself..." (Matt. 26:63:64a). Literally translated, Caiaphas said to Christ "I swear You [call on you to swear]" or "I charge You." In the rabbinical form of directly affirming an oath, Christ responded to Caiaphas. In other words, by answering Caiaphas' adjuration, Christ undertook an oath that what He was saying was true.[7] Thus, by virtue of His deity, priesthood, and trial, Christ swore.

And just as Christians are commanded to imitate God, so Christians are commanded to imitate Christ. "[T]he one who says he abides in Him," writes John, "ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked" (1 Jn. 2:6). The example of Christ teaches us that under some circumstances, we may take oaths. Since the Living Word perfectly abided by the written word, and since the Living Word swore, the written word cannot forbid all oaths.

The Word of God not only records the examples of the Father and the Son; it also records for our benefit and instruction the example of the Apostle Paul who often supported what he said with oaths: (1) "For God...is my witness..." (Rom 1:9, Phil. 1:8); (2) "But I call God as witness to my soul..." (II Cor. 1:23); (3)"...God is witness..." (IThess. 2:5); (4) "you are witnesses, and so is God..." (I Thess. 2:10); and (5) "I adjure you by the Lord..." (I Thess. 5:27).[8] As you can see, there is no shortage of Biblical proof that Paul took oaths. But the Bible doesn't record the example of Paul for our idle theological speculation. Rather, we are commanded to imitate Paul as he in turn imitated Christ (I Cor. 4:16, 11:1). If the need arises, Scripture permits oaths.

>From this brief overview of Scripture, we have seen that Scripture commands God's people to take lawful oaths, informs us that taking an oath is an act of confession and religious worship, and commends to us the examples of the God the Father, Christ, and Paul, all of whom took oaths. Thus, to interpret Christ (and James) as forbidding all oaths is to foist contradiction on Scripture itself, as well as on the Father, Christ and Paul since, on this interpretation, they all swore contrary to Scripture. The general context of Scripture, therefore, does not support the notion that Scripture forbids all oaths.
The Particular Context
What is true of the general context of Scripture as a whole, is also true of the particular context of the passage in question: this passage proves beyond doubt that Christ is simply correcting Pharisaical abuses of and glosses on the Law. Christ constantly contrasts what the ancients said about the Law with what God says about the Law by repeating the formula: "Ye have heard that it was said...But I say unto you..." The Pharisees, for example, taught that the Law only forbade murder; Christ taught that the Law, properly understood, also forbade hate. The Pharisees taught that the Law only forbade adultery; Christ taught that the Law, properly understood, also forbade lust. The Pharisees taught that one was to love his neighbor and hate his enemy when the law affirmed the former but never even taught the latter![9]

Likewise, Christ corrected Pharisaical misconceptions about oaths. From this passage, it appears that the Pharisees thought that one could swear as often as he wished as long as he did not do so falsely and as long as he did not swear in the literal name of God. Christ's opponents appeared to swear frequently and round-aboutly. Christ attacks both of these errors head on by showing the Pharisees that heaven, earth, Jerusalem and even their own heads have their ultimate reference point in God: heaven is the throne of God; the earth is His footstool; Jerusalem is the city of the Great King; and it is that King who controls even the hair on one's head! In other words, when they swore by heaven, they swore by the God of heaven because the universe and everything in it is stamped with His glory.[10] By swearing in those ways, the Pharisees failed to see that one still takes the name of God in vain no matter how he wishes to dress up his words.[11]

"But," says the opponent of oaths, "how does your interpretation jibe with Christ's teaching that anything more than a simple yes or no is of evil?" The interpretation advanced in this article is perfectly consistent with Christ's teaching when that teaching is properly understood! In the New Testament Greek, the genitive case is used when Christ says that anything beyond yes and no is "of evil." What Christ means is that anything beyond yes and no -- an oath or a vow -- has its origin in evil; in other words, oaths arose as a result of evil or the Fall.[12] It is distrust, dishonesty, and inconsistency which make oaths necessary in the first place. If there were no sin, oaths would be unnecessary. But just because oaths are occasioned by the Fall doesn't necessarily make them evil in and of themselves.

To suggest that this is the case is to commit the genetic fallacy, assuming without proof that what is true of the genesis (origin) of something is true of the thing itself. After all, civil government became necessary only after the Fall (to restrain the social manifestations of sin); yet civil government is not evil because of that fact. In the same way, just because oaths became necessary after the Fall as a result of evil, does not mean that oaths, therefore, are evil.
Biblical Guidelines for Oaths
If Scripture only forbids unlawful oaths, it is important to distinguish lawful from unlawful oaths. Fortunately, Scripture, as our rule for all that we believe and do, provides us with clear guidelines so that we can distinguish lawful from unlawful oaths both as to whether we should undertake oaths and if we do undertake oaths, what the content of our oaths should be.
Should You Take An Oath?
Suppose you are confronted with a situation where you are contemplating whether or not you should take an oath. Here is a partial list of Biblical guidelines for taking oaths.

1. The object of the oath must be Biblical. It almost goes without mentioning that one cannot bind himself to do that which Scripture forbids, since no one can bind himself to sin.[13]

2. What you are about to say must be true, or you must do what you are about to promise. In addition to undertaking a Biblical objective, you must also speak the truth and do what you say you will do. "If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out his mouth" (Num. 30:2). If, therefore, you know that you are about to utter a falsehood or you know that you have no intention of absolutely honoring your word, then you should not take an oath.[14]

3. The oath must be necessary. Even if what you say is true or you will honor what you promise, you should not swear if swearing is unnecessary (Ex. 20:7). Scripture forbids all superfluous oaths (Matt 5:33-37, 23:16-22). There must be an adequate reason why appealing to God is necessary (e.g. Ex 22:10, 11). We should purge from our vocabulary sayings such as "swear to God" or "honest to God" unless the occasion is so serious and solemn as to necessitate an oath. Calvin rightly commented that "God's name is rendered cheap when it is used in true but needless oaths. For then it is taken in vain."[15] Remember that oaths are acts of worship and as such, should not be uttered on trivial occasions. The third commandment condemns all unnecessary, colloquial and irreverent swearing which has nothing to do with the solemn acts of worship commanded in Scripture.[16] So what makes an oath necessary according to Scripture? In one way or another, all of the oaths sanctioned in Scripture glorify God and edify others.

4. You must be prepared to abide by your oath no matter how your personal interests or circumstances may change. In addition to having a Biblical objective, intending to keep your word, and making sure that your oath is necessary, you should also realize that you must keep an oath no matter how your personal interests or circumstances may change (Ps. 15:4, 24:4). If you are not prepared to stand steadfastly by what you have promised, no matter what happens, then you should not make a oath.[17]
What Should Be the Content of Your Oath?
Provided that you abide by the Biblical guidelines for taking oaths, you should make sure that the content of your oath abides by the following principles.

1. The oath must appeal to God alone. Scripture emphatically commands us to swear only in the name of God (Deut. 6:13, 10:20; Jer. 5:7; Zeph. 1:4, 5). In no uncertain terms, God forbids swearing by other gods because swearing is an act of religious worship; when people swear by other gods they violate the second commandment. God is so angry with those who swear by other gods that He declares that He will "cut off" those who do so (Zeph. 1:4, 5).

Although oaths must appeal to God alone, there are a variety of ways in which one can appeal to God in the context of an oath: (1) "give glory to the God of Israel" (Josh 7:19); (2) "as the Lord lives" (Judg. 8:19; Ruth 3:13, 1Sam 14:39; II Sam. 2:27; Jer. 38:16); (3) "The Lord do so to me and more also" (Ruth 1:17; I Sam. 14:44; II Sam. 3:9, 35; 1Kings 2:23; II Kings 6:31); (4) "May the Lord be true and faithful witness" (Jer. 42:5); (5) "I adjure you by the living God..." (Matt. 26:63); (6) "I adjure you by the Lord..." (I Thess. 5:27); (8) "But I call God as witness to my soul..." (II Cor.1:23); (9) "...God is witness..." (I Thess. 2:5); (10) "You are witnesses and so is God..." (I Thess. 2:10).

2. The language of the oath must be unequivocal and unambiguous so as to be clearly understood by all parties. The great Reformed theologian, Charles Hodge, alludes to the story of a commander who swore to citizens of a besieged city that if they surrendered, not a drop of their blood would be shed. After securing their surrender, the commander then burned them all at the stake![18] We should never secure oaths by means of linguistic chicanery.

To help reduce the possibility of using equivocal and ambiguous terms, we should: (1) reduce oaths to written instruments (when possible), (2) define in those instruments any terms that warrant definition (so as to preclude later linguistic revision), and (3) make sure that there is a meeting of the minds as to the material items and conditions of these instruments.[19]
Breaking Oaths
Generally speaking, to break an oath is to violate the third commandment and to trample on the holy name of God. As with many divine commands, there is no shortage of wasted genius when it comes to cunning excuses and self-serving rationalizations for breaking oaths. Before examining some of these excuses, it is important to point out that if you were to abide by the Biblical criteria for making oaths, you would never find yourself in the position of reneging your oath!
Illegitimate Reasons for Breaking Oaths
Change in Circumstances
As strange as it may seem, some claim that changing circumstances exonerate them from honoring oaths previously made. Nothing could be more contrary to the entire tenor of Scripture when it comes to oaths. In Psalms 15:4 and 24:4, for example, David asks who can ascend to and dwell on the hill of God? In addition to having integrity, being righteous, speaking truth, and refusing bribes -- just to name a few -- the one who has sweet fellowship with God is the one who "swears to his own hurt, and does not change" and the one who "has not sworn deceitfully." If you make a vow, no matter how your circumstances may change, you are to do "all that proceeds out of [your] mouth" (Num. 30:2, Deut. 23:23).

Not only is this excuse unbiblical, it is also illogical because it flies squarely in the face of the very reason why we undertake oaths in the first place: we take stock of our circumstances and bind ourselves to the truth of our word or to a particular course of action, knowing full well that our circumstances may change with time. If ever there was a Biblical character who could have used this cop out, it was Jephthah. But instead of violating his oath to consecrate his daughter to temple service,[20] he rightly declared, "I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back" (Judg.11:35). This excuse is also untenable because the initial oath could have provided for possible contingencies. Just because it didn't, one cannot unilaterally claim to be released from his obligation. The conclusion simply does not follow on the basis of the premise.[21]
Oath Which Is Impossible to Perform
Perhaps the one who argues that changing circumstances alleviate him from his obligation to honor his oath is really saying that the oath is impossible to perform and consequently, he cannot perform it. The danger of this argument, though, is that it is particularly susceptible to rationalization: most people say something is impossible (that which cannot objectively be done) when they really mean that it is undesirable (that which one subjectively does not want to do). Obviously, one cannot violate an oath simply because he does not desire to perform his obligations under the oath.

So the real question becomes: when, if ever does impossibility -- properly defined -- excuse performance of an oath? To answer that question effectively, it is important to distinguish between two different situations. First, the easy case: if one knows the oath will be impossible to perform before he makes it, he should not make it and cannot thereafter seek recourse in this excuse. It is sinful both to make and break such an oath.

Second, the difficult case: what if the oath is possible when made but subsequently is rendered impossible? As stated above, before you ever make an oath, you should think through any possible contingencies ahead of time and provide for them. Some contingencies are so obvious that if you did not provide for them, you should nonetheless be held accountable to perform your oath. Aside from planning ahead for possible contingencies, perhaps you will still find yourself in a situation where the oath, as promised, is technically impossible to perform (e.g. the beneficiary of the oath has died). In such a situation, you should consider whether there is another course of action which will fulfill the intent of the oath (e.g. performing the oath for the benefit of the beneficiary's heirs).[22]
Violation of An Oath Negates the Oath
The claim that violating an oath negates the oath in its entirety is completely without Biblical warrant. Nowhere in Scripture will one find support for this kind of sophistic reasoning. In fact, this excuse can easily be reduced to absurdity. If a courtroom witness, for instance, swears to tell nothing but the truth and subsequently utters false testimony, is he thereafter free to perjure his testimony to his heart's content? If a secret agent swears to secrecy and thereafter violates his oath by committing a single act of treason, is he then free to commit treason without restraint? If a spouse violated his marriage oaths and vows by committing a single act of adultery, is he thereafter free to multiply his adulterous acts? How absurd! Precisely!
Oath Involuntarily Imposed by Legitimate Authority
In numerous instances, individuals in Scripture were forced to take oaths. Nowhere is this practice condemned, provided the oath doesn't require what God forbids or doesn't forbid what God requires. In fact, God actually sanctions involuntarily imposed oaths. When one sinned, for example, he could be "made to take an oath" calling for God's justice to be done (1Kings 8:31, 32; II Chron. 6:22, 23). Scripture is replete with oaths imposed by lawful authorities (Ex. 22:7-11; Neh 5:12, 19, 21; 8:25; 13:25). And as we saw above, Christ, as our perfect example, even submitted to Caiaphas, the high priest, when Caiaphas charged Christ to answer him (Matt. 26:63, 64). This excuse cannot withstand Biblical scrutiny.
Oath Made to Unbelievers
As with oaths imposed involuntarily by legitimate authorities, so Scripture sanctions oaths to unbelievers, provided the object of the oath is not sinful. (Ezek. 17:16,18,19; Josh. 9:18,19; II Sam. 21:1).
Oath Made Under Distress
Many oaths, due to the solemnity and seriousness with which they should rightly be uttered, will be uttered under distress. But the distress with which Jephthah uttered his vow, for example, did not alleviate his responsibility to honor it (Judg.11:35). David well recognized this truth when he declared "I shall come into Thy house with burnt offerings; I shall pay Thee my vows, [w]hich my lips uttered [a]nd my mouth spoke when I was in distress" (Ps.66:13, 14).
A Legitimate Reason To Break Oaths
Having refuted the most common excuses people proffer for violating their oaths, we must now turn briefly to the only biblical reason for violating an oath: if the objective of the oath is sinful. Since one can never bind himself to sin, such an "oath" is invalid from its inception and consequently, is not binding. By definition, one cannot break a non-existent oath. The sin, in such a situation, is not in breaking an unlawful oath, but in making it. Thus, Herod was under no obligation to kill John the Baptist, since he could not bind himself to commit murder. The real lesson here is one of prevention; you shouldn't make such oaths to begin with.
Conclusion
Hopefully we can better appreciate what Scripture has to say about oaths. Since this essay has defined what an oath is, explained how the Biblical view of oaths is rooted in the third commandment, demonstrated that Scripture does not forbid all oaths, delineated guidelines for taking oaths, and refuted common excuses for breaking oaths, we can see that oaths are serious business. We should not rush headlong into making oaths, and we should make sure that we honor the oaths that we make. "Where an oath is falsely taken," warns R. L. Dabney, "it is a heaven-daring attempt to enlist the Almighty in the sanction of the creature's lie and is thus, either the most outrageous levity, or the most outrageous impiety of which he can be guilty."[23]

It is always dangerous to engage in "heaven-daring" behavior. Lest we forget, the third commandment contains a promise, a promise of punishment for those who violate it. The third commandment chillingly pronounces that "the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." Since God will punish those who take His name in vain, we would do well to realize that it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Instead of invoking God's wrath and judgment, we must resolve ourselves to be those who honor God in all that we do and in all that we say.

But how can we ever begin to honor the name God in all that we do and say? By owning up to the only One who did just that--the One whose very life fulfilled the covenant promises of God. By speaking the truth and honoring His word, He paid the penalty for our disobedience. Apart from Him and His enabling hand, we have no hope. But with Him we have help in our time of need. May we implore His grace as we learn to honor our oaths. May we, along with the courtroom witness, learn to cry aloud "so help me God."
Notes

[1]
While this article does not deal specifically with vows, it would be helpful to distinguish oaths from vows. While an oath is a covenant entered into between man and man, a vow is a covenant entered into between man and God whereby the one taking the oath explicitly or implicitly appeals to God to witness and sanction what he has promised and to judge and avenge His name if the one vowing breaches what he promised to do. Many promises can be both oaths and vows as pointed out in note two.
[2]
Many people refer to the words exchanged by the wedding couple as marriage vows. Actually, they are oaths and vows: promises made between the spouses and promises made by each spouse to God.
[3]
For the sake of clarity, this article distinguishes between cursing on the one hand and swearing on the other hand. Cursing, as used in this article, refers to using vulgarity. While swearing can sometimes be used so that it is synonymous with cursing, swearing, as used in this article, means undertaking an oath.
[4]
Hodge, Charles, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), Vol. III, p. 305.
[5]
While some Christians erroneously teach that Scripture forbids all oaths, still others erroneously teach that Scripture only sanctions public oaths (i.e. oaths given in a public context, usually extracted by public officials). This view simply does not accord with the full weight of Scripture. Many oaths in Scripture are made between private individuals acting solely in a private capacity: Abraham to Abimelech (Gen.21:23); Abraham's servant to Abraham (Gen.24:31); Isaac to Abraham (Gen. 26:31); Jacob to Laban (Gen.31:53, 54); Jacob to Joseph (Gen.47:31); Reuben to Jacob (Gen.42: 37); David to Jonathan and Jonathon to David (I Sam. 20:1-42); David to Shimei (II Sam. 19:21-23); Boaz to Ruth (Ruth 3:13); Obadiah to Elijah (IKing 8:10). Add to this list the oaths of Paul in the text of the article (which those who maintain this view mistakenly claim were made in a quasi-public capacity). The private/public dichotomy simply does not hold up to Biblical scrutiny.
[6]
Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John T. McNeill, ed., (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), vol. I, p. 389.
[7]
This view can be supported further by noting that the Hebrew word for oath is rendered in the Septuagint (e.g. Gen. 1:5 and Num. 5:19) as orizw or exorizw, the latter of which was used in the imperative mood by the high priest. For more on the rabbinical oath and the exchange between Christ ant the high priest, see Hodge, p. 308. Moreover, with striking similarity, Paul solemnly charges the Thessalonians to read his epistle to all the brethren: "I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren" (I Thess. 5:27).
[8]
See note 6 above.
[9]
In fact, the concept of hating one's enemies seems to have been taught by two different schools of Jewish thought prior to the time of Christ: some of the rabbis (Aboth R. Nathan and R. Simon B. Yochai) and the Essene community (The Rule of the Community otherwise known as the Manual of Discipline). The important point, for purposes of this article, is that Christ is not refuting the Law itself; rather, He is refuting scribal and Pharasaical misinterpretations of and accretions to that Law. That is the particular or local context of the passage in question.
[10]
This interpretation is confirmed by another passage in the gospel of Matthew (23:16-23). In that passage, Christ teaches the Pharisees that when they swore by the altar they swore by everything on the altar, that when they swore by the temple they swore by the God who dwells in the temple, that when they swore by heaven, they swore by the throne of God.
[11]
Calvin, John, Calvin's Commentaries,, David W. Torrance, ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), vol. I, p.193; vol.III, p. 312.
[12]
Calvin, John, Calvin's Commentaries, vol. I, p. 193. The King James Version accurately conveys this idea when it translates the phrase "of evil" as "cometh of evil."
[13]
This point is addressed in more detail below.
[14]
Neither should you lie apart from taking an oath. You are not free to violate a simple statement any more than you are free to violate an oath. Both simple statements and oaths should be inviolable.
[15]
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 390.
[16]
Hodge, p. 306, 307.
[17]
This point is addressed in more detail below.
[18]
Hodge, p. 312.
[19]
The field of contract law provides additional methods of ensuring that the terms of an oath are agreed to by both parties.
[20]
Keil and Delitzsch carefully demonstrate that Jephthah never vowed to kill his daughter, as many just assume or read into the text. Keil, C.F. and Delitzsch, F., Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol.II (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988, pp. 387-395.
[21]
It is also important to note that this excuse presupposes the lesser-of-two-evils moral theory by assuming that God would place us in a situation where we would have to choose between violating a lawful oath or keeping our oath in the face of another sin. God never places His people in a position of choosing between evils. Such a view is mistaken for three reasons: (1) The God of scripture is the God of this created order; the one who commands you to obey Him is the one who created this world to work in harmony with His word. Scripture and your situation are not at dagger points with each other. (2) God tells us in His word that with every temptation, He will provide a way of escape; in other words, sin is never inevitable for the Christian. (3) If all humans must choose between evils, then the Biblical doctrine of Christ is seriously compromised. Scripture teaches us that Christ was tempted in every way as we are tempted, yet is without sin (Heb.4:15). So either Christ was tempted with a tragic moral choice (from which he could not escape and thus chose the lesser of evils -- sinned!) or he was not faced with every human temptation (in which case Scripture contradicts itself). For more on the refutation of choosing between evils, see Frame, John, Medical Ethics: Principles, Persons, and Problems (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publ. Co., 1988), pp. 8-10.
[22]
The law of wills has an analogue known as the doctrine of cy pres; according to the doctrine of cy pres , if a provision in a will would be impossible or illegal to effect, courts will attempt to construe the provision according to the next best charitable purpose.
[23]
Dabney, R.L., Systematic Theology, (St. Louis, MO: Presbyterian Publ. Co., [2d. ed. 1878], republished by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), p.364.

David G. Hagopian has a B.A. in history from the University of California, Irvine, and a J.D. from the University of Southern California. He is a senior editor of Antithesis. Copyright © by Covenant Community Church of Orange County 1990

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Lying Semite Judge



The Speeding Judge



Dates of show: Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, 2008

In a case which has deep resonance for Britain and the entire civilized world, the whole of Australia has been glued to the media in recent weeks, following the story of an eminent judge who has ruined his reputation because he tried to lie his way out of a speeding fine that would have cost him about 36 pounds sterling . At the age of 70, he is about to go to jail for a minimum of two years because he failed to cough up 36 quid at the right moment. On the face of it, you can’t call his disaster a tragedy. A tragedy, according to classical principles, is a fall from high degree because of some great flaw. Marcus Einfeld, the judge in question, was certainly of high enough degree: none higher. Queens Counsel since 1977, Australian Living Treasure 1997, United Nations Peace Award 2002, the list goes on. He retired a few years ago but he has continually been brought back to judge important cases about refugees because the Australian legal system can’t do without his experience and prestige.



Or anyway it couldn’t. In 2006 a speed camera in Sydney caught his silver Lexus doing 6mph over the limit. At this point we have to forget about the dizzy speed of the car and try to slow down the thought processes going on in his head. There he is, at the top of his profession, with a national, indeed international, reputation for wisdom. This is the man who was the founding president of Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. In 1987 he headed the Commission’s enquiry into the living conditions of aborigines in the border area of New South Wales and Queensland and he wept openly at evidence that a young aboriginal boy who had been denied a proper rugby ball had played instead with an old shoe.



Those were famous tears, and there is every reason to think that they were sincerely felt. As a judge of great matters of justice, Marcus Einfeld had deservedly been revered for many years. He had a right to think of himself as the very incarnation of the law. Now here he was, with a speeding ticket in his hand, facing a fine of a paltry £36 for havingexceeded the speed limit by a lousy 6mph. And right there the fatal error begins to take form. It wasn’t so much the £36 fine. He could afford that. It was that the penalty points would bring him closer to losing his licence. Somehow the top judge and national treasure didn’t see himself in a position where he was not allowed to drive.

Unusual, that. Many 70 year old men of his exalted rank are very content to be driven, rather than having to do the driving. They have a man with a cap to drive them, so they can say, from the back seat: watch out for the speed cameras, Bruce. Perhaps Marcus Einfeld is one of those strange men – there are thousands of them in every country and they are nearly always men – who need to have a driving licence just so that they can get points on it, who think that the whole purpose of driving is to drive as far over the limit as they can and still get away with it, and still keep going for as long as the licence lasts even if they don’t get away with it.



But the judge was only 6mph over the limit, which scarcely made him a boy racer. He must have thought the prospect of getting yet more points on an already point-scarred licence was an awful lot of inconvenience for practically nothing, and he must also have thought – and here the other half of the fateful mental pattern comes into play – he must also have thought of how easy it would be to get out of it. All he had to do was say that someone else was driving the silver Lexus that day. So he said he had lent the car to an American friend, Professor Theresa Brennan. Satisfied, the magistrate dismissed the case, and the judge walked free. In just such a way, King Oedipus believed himself to be in the clear when he left Corinth.



If he – I mean the judge, not King Oedipus --had said that he had lent the car to an Australian government secret agent whom he could not name without rendering him vulnerable to attack by terrorists, Marcus Einfeld might still be enjoying his place at the top of the heap, admired by all. But Professor Theresa Brennan was an actual figure, who could be traced. When a newspaper did trace her, it turned out that she was no longer in existence. At the time of the speeding incident she had already been dead for three years.



It was probably already too late for Marcus Einfeld to save his career. Yet he might conceivably have climbed relatively unbesmirched out of the hole he was occupying, and even drawn some sympathy for the depth to which he had dug himself in by telling one of those little fibs that almost everyone tells over small matters. But like president Nixon in the Watergate scandal, the judge, although trying to cover up an infinitely smaller crime – dodging a £36 fine instead of okaying acts of black-bag espionage against a rival party in clear defiance of the Constitution of the United States – the judge chose to go on digging himself further towards the centre of the earth.



He said he didn’t mean that Theresa Brennan. He meant another Theresa Brennan. A Greek chorus at this point might have said that the Judge was anything but a natural liar, because he lied so very badly, just like most of us. Further proofs of his amateur status followed in quick succession. Finally, in a skein of inventions that we needn’t bother to unravel, he managed to implicate his own mother, aged 94, when he claimed to have been using her Toyota Corolla that day, so he couldn’t have been at the wheel of his silver Lexus.



Alas, there was security camera footage to prove that his mother’s Toyota Corolla had not emerged from the garage of her apartment block between daylight and dusk. We were left with the thought picture of a team of trained investigators examining a whole day’s worth of CCTV footage to establish that a Toyota Corolla had remained stationary throughout. With that thought picture, and with the thought picture of a man of true stature with his life in ruins.



Did any of this really matter? Well, obviously the original offence didn’t matter much. At 6 mph over the limit, the judge wasn’t going to hurt anyone. And the first lie shouldn’t have mattered much either. People really do lie all the time. Often they lie to protect themselves, sometimes they lie to protect their loved ones, and there is even such a thing as a saving lie, a lie that wards off the dreadful consequences of the truth. Ibsen wrote a play about that, called The Wild Duck. None of this means that lying is a virtue. Almost always, it’s a vice, to be avoided. But it’s a universal vice, and its prevalence is the very reason why any properly functioning legal system has a harsh law against perjury, because a court is where the lies have to stop, or there can be no justice.



And what the judge did was knowingly to put himself on the road to perjury. He was on the road at only 6mph over the limit and he could have stopped himself by coughing up 36 quid, but there was an inner momentum. Just why that should have been so is a question he’ll be occupying himself with for the next two years at least. Everyone else will be thinking about it too, but his will be easily the finest mind concerned with the subject. He doesn’t need me or anyone else to tell him that a judge who commits perjury, over no matter how trivial a matter, has sinned against the spirit of his profession.



That’s why his case really is a tragedy, and not just a farce. It’s a tragedy because he not only fell from high degree, there really was a tragic flaw: a capacity to forget, at the critical moment, the central ethical precept of the calling to which he had given his life. Suddenly, belatedly, and for almost no reason, he put himself in the position of a doctor who is arraigned for selling body parts, and, because he was selling only fingernails, defends himself by saying it hadn’t been him that sold the fingernails, it was Professor Theresa Brennan, or another Theresa Brennan, or his mother at the wheel of a Toyota Corolla. The doctor wasn’t supposed to be selling anything, so he should have owned up.



But the Judge doesn’t need to hear that from me, or from any other of the thousands of Australian experts – editorial writers, television commentators and philosophers of all descriptions – who are now picking this matter over. The Judge is already hearing about it from himself. He’s hearing about the fatal road that led from the speed camera to the truly tragic climax, which wasn’t the moment when one of his fellow judges had to send him down for three years, two of them without parole. The tragic climax came when the distinguished Judge Marcus Einfeld found himself on the telephone to his mother saying: “Mum, remember how you lent me your Toyota that day?” and she said “Marcus, what have you got yourself into?” And suddenly he was a little boy again, as all men are when the truth they must face is about a mess of their own making.


Lying Semite Judge

The Speeding Judge



Dates of show: Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, 2008

In a case which has deep resonance for Britain and the entire civilized world, the whole of Australia has been glued to the media in recent weeks, following the story of an eminent judge who has ruined his reputation because he tried to lie his way out of a speeding fine that would have cost him about 36 pounds sterling . At the age of 70, he is about to go to jail for a minimum of two years because he failed to cough up 36 quid at the right moment. On the face of it, you can’t call his disaster a tragedy. A tragedy, according to classical principles, is a fall from high degree because of some great flaw. Marcus Einfeld, the judge in question, was certainly of high enough degree: none higher. Queens Counsel since 1977, Australian Living Treasure 1997, United Nations Peace Award 2002, the list goes on. He retired a few years ago but he has continually been brought back to judge important cases about refugees because the Australian legal system can’t do without his experience and prestige.



Or anyway it couldn’t. In 2006 a speed camera in Sydney caught his silver Lexus doing 6mph over the limit. At this point we have to forget about the dizzy speed of the car and try to slow down the thought processes going on in his head. There he is, at the top of his profession, with a national, indeed international, reputation for wisdom. This is the man who was the founding president of Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. In 1987 he headed the Commission’s enquiry into the living conditions of aborigines in the border area of New South Wales and Queensland and he wept openly at evidence that a young aboriginal boy who had been denied a proper rugby ball had played instead with an old shoe.



Those were famous tears, and there is every reason to think that they were sincerely felt. As a judge of great matters of justice, Marcus Einfeld had deservedly been revered for many years. He had a right to think of himself as the very incarnation of the law. Now here he was, with a speeding ticket in his hand, facing a fine of a paltry £36 for havingexceeded the speed limit by a lousy 6mph. And right there the fatal error begins to take form. It wasn’t so much the £36 fine. He could afford that. It was that the penalty points would bring him closer to losing his licence. Somehow the top judge and national treasure didn’t see himself in a position where he was not allowed to drive.

Unusual, that. Many 70 year old men of his exalted rank are very content to be driven, rather than having to do the driving. They have a man with a cap to drive them, so they can say, from the back seat: watch out for the speed cameras, Bruce. Perhaps Marcus Einfeld is one of those strange men – there are thousands of them in every country and they are nearly always men – who need to have a driving licence just so that they can get points on it, who think that the whole purpose of driving is to drive as far over the limit as they can and still get away with it, and still keep going for as long as the licence lasts even if they don’t get away with it.



But the judge was only 6mph over the limit, which scarcely made him a boy racer. He must have thought the prospect of getting yet more points on an already point-scarred licence was an awful lot of inconvenience for practically nothing, and he must also have thought – and here the other half of the fateful mental pattern comes into play – he must also have thought of how easy it would be to get out of it. All he had to do was say that someone else was driving the silver Lexus that day. So he said he had lent the car to an American friend, Professor Theresa Brennan. Satisfied, the magistrate dismissed the case, and the judge walked free. In just such a way, King Oedipus believed himself to be in the clear when he left Corinth.



If he – I mean the judge, not King Oedipus --had said that he had lent the car to an Australian government secret agent whom he could not name without rendering him vulnerable to attack by terrorists, Marcus Einfeld might still be enjoying his place at the top of the heap, admired by all. But Professor Theresa Brennan was an actual figure, who could be traced. When a newspaper did trace her, it turned out that she was no longer in existence. At the time of the speeding incident she had already been dead for three years.



It was probably already too late for Marcus Einfeld to save his career. Yet he might conceivably have climbed relatively unbesmirched out of the hole he was occupying, and even drawn some sympathy for the depth to which he had dug himself in by telling one of those little fibs that almost everyone tells over small matters. But like president Nixon in the Watergate scandal, the judge, although trying to cover up an infinitely smaller crime – dodging a £36 fine instead of okaying acts of black-bag espionage against a rival party in clear defiance of the Constitution of the United States – the judge chose to go on digging himself further towards the centre of the earth.



He said he didn’t mean that Theresa Brennan. He meant another Theresa Brennan. A Greek chorus at this point might have said that the Judge was anything but a natural liar, because he lied so very badly, just like most of us. Further proofs of his amateur status followed in quick succession. Finally, in a skein of inventions that we needn’t bother to unravel, he managed to implicate his own mother, aged 94, when he claimed to have been using her Toyota Corolla that day, so he couldn’t have been at the wheel of his silver Lexus.



Alas, there was security camera footage to prove that his mother’s Toyota Corolla had not emerged from the garage of her apartment block between daylight and dusk. We were left with the thought picture of a team of trained investigators examining a whole day’s worth of CCTV footage to establish that a Toyota Corolla had remained stationary throughout. With that thought picture, and with the thought picture of a man of true stature with his life in ruins.



Did any of this really matter? Well, obviously the original offence didn’t matter much. At 6 mph over the limit, the judge wasn’t going to hurt anyone. And the first lie shouldn’t have mattered much either. People really do lie all the time. Often they lie to protect themselves, sometimes they lie to protect their loved ones, and there is even such a thing as a saving lie, a lie that wards off the dreadful consequences of the truth. Ibsen wrote a play about that, called The Wild Duck. None of this means that lying is a virtue. Almost always, it’s a vice, to be avoided. But it’s a universal vice, and its prevalence is the very reason why any properly functioning legal system has a harsh law against perjury, because a court is where the lies have to stop, or there can be no justice.



And what the judge did was knowingly to put himself on the road to perjury. He was on the road at only 6mph over the limit and he could have stopped himself by coughing up 36 quid, but there was an inner momentum. Just why that should have been so is a question he’ll be occupying himself with for the next two years at least. Everyone else will be thinking about it too, but his will be easily the finest mind concerned with the subject. He doesn’t need me or anyone else to tell him that a judge who commits perjury, over no matter how trivial a matter, has sinned against the spirit of his profession.



That’s why his case really is a tragedy, and not just a farce. It’s a tragedy because he not only fell from high degree, there really was a tragic flaw: a capacity to forget, at the critical moment, the central ethical precept of the calling to which he had given his life. Suddenly, belatedly, and for almost no reason, he put himself in the position of a doctor who is arraigned for selling body parts, and, because he was selling only fingernails, defends himself by saying it hadn’t been him that sold the fingernails, it was Professor Theresa Brennan, or another Theresa Brennan, or his mother at the wheel of a Toyota Corolla. The doctor wasn’t supposed to be selling anything, so he should have owned up.



But the Judge doesn’t need to hear that from me, or from any other of the thousands of Australian experts – editorial writers, television commentators and philosophers of all descriptions – who are now picking this matter over. The Judge is already hearing about it from himself. He’s hearing about the fatal road that led from the speed camera to the truly tragic climax, which wasn’t the moment when one of his fellow judges had to send him down for three years, two of them without parole. The tragic climax came when the distinguished Judge Marcus Einfeld found himself on the telephone to his mother saying: “Mum, remember how you lent me your Toyota that day?” and she said “Marcus, what have you got yourself into?” And suddenly he was a little boy again, as all men are when the truth they must face is about a mess of their own making.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Maxgxl is it a panacea? Does it work on everyone?

I have been taking Maxgxl for about 45 days...I started as of pain in my heart every day that was excruciating and very scary....after about two weeks my pain disappeared and has not returned...my upline, Giselle Jones, used to suffer horribly with Fibro Myalgia and Asthma and was almost finished with her marriage as a result..

After taking Maxgxl for less than a month her pain subsided and her moods softened the asthma went dormant....Her marriage was saved and her pain disappeared as of this amazing Glutathione boosting product!!

Bloodtests prove it works on everyone!!! http://www.maxgxlscam.com

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT MAXGXL


I have received many questions about Maxgxl and have decided to keep an ongoing list so that when asked a particular question which I have already answered one can find the answer below.


1.Can Maxgxl be taken by patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy?


Yes….Maxgxl can be used by patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The only slight contraindication is that those who are on a chemotherapy which involves a Platinum derived agent such as Cis-Platinum they should not take their Maxgxl 24hours before or 24 hours after receiving their Platinum based chemotherapeutic agent. Once the 24 hours is over they may resume the Maxgxl and it is only this one particular chemotherapeutic drug.


2. A patient recently has developed canker sores in his mouth and throat while taking Maxgxl and wonders is this might be an allergic reaction. The sore disappeared after stopping the Maxgxl.


Canker sores are usually caused by viruses and can be single lesions or a collection of many throughout the mucous membranes of the mouth. I see these frequently in the office and would think that it is very unlikely that the patient’s symptoms are related to the Maxgxl. When something new like this occurs the best approach is to stop the Maxgxl until the symptoms have completely cleared up and then reintroduce the Maxgxl once again. If the sores were to come back immediately then I would consider that the person is having a reaction to the Maxgxl however if the sores come back in several weeks or months then I can say that the person’s canker sores are just part of the normal attacks viruses have against our bodies..


3.Can patients who have had a transplant take Maxgxl?


Patients who have received a transplant organ are in a particularly precarious situation. They are constantly being monitored for “rejection” of the donor organ. Sometimes one can go for years before an organ is rejected. Since we have no studies whatsoever using Maxgxl in transplant patients it is contraindicated to give Maxgxl to anyone who has received a donor organ.


4. Can patients who are taking blood thinners also take Maxgxl?


Many patients are now taking “blood thinners” as part of their prescription drugs. The commonest blood thinners are low dose aspirin and a drug called Plavix.

Maxgxl does not interfere with these medications in any way. The more complex question involves the drug called Warfarin or Coumadin. This is a more complex blood thinner and patients on this product need to go to the lab every 1 to 4 weeks to measure how thin their blood is. This test is called the INR. It measures how thin one’s blood is with the higher the number indicating the thinner the blood. The INR level can vary considerably depending on one’s diet and any other medications that one is on. Even for healthy patients the INR will vary month to month. Maxgxl is not known to affect the INR however it is simply good medical practice to repeat one’s INR about 7 to 10 days after starting Maxgxl as a precaution to see what the INR level is. It is not uncommon for the doctors to adjust the dosage of Warfarin after the patient has an INR done but certainly being on Warfarin does not mean you cannot take Maxgxl. It just means looking more closely at the INR for the first few weeks to make sure there is no major change in the level.


5. Some people have developed “heartburn” while taking Maxgxl and can Maxgxl be taking by someone with stomach ulcers?


Maxgxl does have an irritant effect on some people with “sensitive stomachs”. You know who you are and already you get heartburn from pizza, tomato sauce, alcohol, spicy food etc. I am one of those people and so I do not ever take Maxgxl on an empty stomach. It you have a sensitive stomach it is better to take Maxgxl after a meal. If it is the middle of the afternoon perhaps a yogurt may be enough to coat your stomach prior to taking the Maxgxl. For those who claim to have ulcers one should get more information. Was the ulcer actually noted on a gastroscopy exam or upper intestinal Xray? We now know that ulcers are caused by the H.Pylori bacteria in the stomach and if that is the case one should take the 7 day course of medication (the HP Pac) from your doctor to treat the ulcer and then follow the above instructions to guard against further stomach upset. Dr. Keller did mention the product Gaviscon which is an antacid which foams up in the stomach to cover the lower esophagus and it can also be used to combat the heartburn which sometimes comes with Maxgxl.


6. I have a customer who is on the following medications from their doctor. These medications include: Lipitor, Glyburide, Altace, Plavix, Indocid, Plaquinal, Norvasc, Aricept…and any other meds you can think of. The customer is suffering from: Diabetes, Hypertension, Alzheimers, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Hypothyroidism, Depression….and any other disease you can think of.


Maxgxl is a nutritional supplement. It works to increase the Glutathione is every cell of the body. Glutathione is essential for the life and energy of our cells and drugs such as those mentioned above are not influenced by Maxgxl in any way. Also those suffering from any disease should not worry about Maxgxl affecting them in any untoward way. It is very safe to take Maxgxl when you are taking any and all of the drugs listed above. It is important to note that the sicker one is the more Maxgxl they may need. If one does not notice a significant improvement in wellbeing after 2 or 3 weeks on the product then one should increase by an extra package per week until one reaches 5 or 6 packages or until the person feels much better. When taking Maxgxl it is important to “listen to your body” and take additional product when your body is asking for more.


7.When one has a prolonged “cold” should they cut back on their dosage of Maxgxl?


This question was recently asked of me and I wanted to clear up some confusion that may occur here. Sometimes when one starts on Maxgxl there can be a rapid period of detoxification. This detoxification can present with symptoms similar to a “cold” with nasal congestion, headache, muscular aches and pains and general fatigue. If this is prolonged then most likely detoxification is taking place and one should reduce their consumption of Maxgxl to as little as 1 capsule per day for the first 10 days and gradually increase by 1 capsule per day every 10 days. On the other hand if the person genuinely has a viral infection presenting with a “cold” with fever and nasal congestion the appropriate thing to do would be to at least double their dosage of Maxgxl.


8. I recently had a question about a patient with a weak heart on oxygen therapy who was worried about how his heart would react to Maxgxl. He was at the time on 17 prescription medications. He is overweight and can walk only very short distances before he is very short of breath and must sit down and rest.


In Dr. Keller’s CD he mentions Congestive Heart Failure as an example of health challenges which can affect us. The heart has millions of muscle cells and the function of each cell is to contract in unison to allow the heart to pump blood properly. In Congestive Heart Failure the heart is floppy and does not pump properly. The 17 medications that the patient is on would not interfere with Maxgxl. Maxgxl has a different mode of action as it will work on each heart muscle cell to make it more efficient in its ability to pump blood properly. The Maxgxl can only enhance the quality of life and improve the heart’s performance.


9. A patient with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) was wondering about the use of Maxgxl and if it might interfere with ongoing treatments he is receiving and if the product would help him.


Lou Gehrig’s disease is a poorly understood progressive degenerative neurological disease which has no cure. There are treatments available which may slow down the progression of the disease however I am not aware of any pharmaceutical product which arrests the disease into complete remission. There are no clinical studies on the use of Maxgxl in the treatment of Lou Gehrig’s disease at this time however I have heard many anecdotal reports of Maxgxl being effective in other neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease. The product certainly cannot hurt the patient and may improve the quality of life that remains. The disease is however a major challenge and the sicker one is the more Maxgxl they require. I would start with the usual 2 packages per day and if no untoward effects with detoxification I would gradually increase the dose of Maxgxl by one package every 2 weeks until the patient experiences an improvement in general wellbeing or until one reaches at least 2 packages 3 times per day.


10. Can women who are breast feeding take Maxgxl.


When any new product which is ingested applies to any regulatory body such as the FDA in the United States or Health Canada they supply the regulatory bodies with their clinical data to show that the product is safe to take. Most pharmaceutical companies do research on the persons who are most likely to take the product. In the case of most drugs the product is studied on those over 12 years of age, but they usually restrict the study from including pregnant women and nursing mothers. Because Maxgxl was not studied on children, pregnant women and nursing mothers we do not have permission to use the product on this group. As noted above in item number 3 the product was not studied in transplant patients. For this reason Max International does not give permission to distributors to promote the product in this group of people.


11.A person who has just started on Maxgxl indicated that she now has problems sleeping. What can this be caused by?


I found this to be an interesting question since I see people in the office each day who present with sleep disturbance. I remember the first convention meeting I had with Dr. Keller addressing the audience and asked “how many people feel that the Maxgxl product is not doing much for them”. I would estimate that 90 hands may have gone up out of the 500+ in attendance. He then asked “of those people with their hands up, how many of you are starting to dream once again”. This time many of those people put their hands up again. In effect Maxgxl helps put one into REM Sleep (rapid eye movement sleep). This simply means that the person is having a more restful restorative sleep and that is something that many people will say happens when they take Maxgxl. So for the person who says that Maxgxl is affecting their sleep they should not take the product within 5 hours of sleeping. They should then do their own study of 5 days on the product and 5 days off and then repeat this to truly understand if it is connected with their insomnia since insomnia is a very common condition and I am not convinced that Maxgxl is causing the insomnia. If indeed there does appear to be a connection to the insomnia then I would cut back on the dosage and take 1 capsule per day for 2 weeks and gradually increase by an extra capsule every 14 days.


12.Patients who are about to undergo surgery often ask if they can stay on Maxgxl up to the time of surgery.


Any surgical procedure results in the cutting through of tissue in the body. This cutting process activates several systems in our bodies one of which is the clotting system to stop the bleeding and allow healing of the tissues which need to reunite. Again on a microscopic level we are looking at tissues that want to heal and rejoin to repair the tissue which has been cut by the surgeon. Maxgxl can only enhance the healing process and allow the tissue to repair itself in a more timely fashion but also activate our immune system to help keep the wound clean and avoid infections.


13. A 76 year old patient with Polymyalgia Rhuematica (it is an inflammatory condition affecting muscles and joints) had been on prednisone and her pains were under control however when she began the usual dose of Maxgxl of 1 package in the am and another in the pm she could hardly walk and the pain was extremely high in the next 2 days. Is there a relationship between the prednisone and the detoxification that would explain her symptoms?


One must remember that the longer we are alive the more toxins we can ingest from the air we breathe, the water we drink and the foods that we eat. Toxins are also being absorbed through our skin from a host of chemicals and cosmetics that we use daily in our environment. I have seen cases of extreme lethargy, muscle pains and weakness that can occur within the first few days of taking the usual dose of Maxgxl and at this time the only explanation that I can give would be that we are suddenly releasing stored up toxins into the blood stream which cause these symptoms. The cause of Polymyalgia Rheumatica is like many conditions we see in medicine that are very poorly understood so the condition itself might even be caused by some as yet unrecognized toxins in our system or cells and again Maxgxl is helping to clear this. In such cases one would cut back drastically in the dose and might even consider 1 capsule daily for 2 weeks and gradually increase or even do as low as 1 capsule Monday. Wednesday and Friday and gradually increase the dosage.


14. A distributor wanted to know if Maxgxl could help a young person with leukemia.


Leukemia is a type of blood cancer where the bone marrow starts to produce cells in a very abnormal fashion. One can have a huge increase in white blood cells and at the same time a decrease in red blood cells. The disease is often fatal however some treatments have been successful with newer chemotherapies and with aggressive treatments like bone marrow transplants after total body radiation.

We do not have any studies at this point in time to talk about the use of Maxgxl in treating any disease. It will certainly help every cell live to its full potential and on a theoretical basis it would make sense that it could be of help to the bone marrow but without studies we simply do not know what it can do. Also if a bone marrow transplant is under way this would be considered a “transplant” and Maxgxl is not sanctioned for use in transplant patients. I do know of one patient who has had a bone marrow transplant for leukemia and is doing well and who has decided to use Maxgxl despite the company not sanctioning its use in such situations however they are doing so against our advice. The patient says that the Maxgxl has improved her sense of wellbeing despite her bone marrow transplant for leukemia.


15. A distributor has asked if Maxgxl could be of help in a patient with Cystic Fibrosis.


Until this past decade many persons afflicted with cystic fibrosis did not live past their teenage years because of the constant risk of lung infections which eventually prove fatal. These patients are treated with long term antibiotics and special inhaled concoctions of medications to help support their lung functions which are constantly under challenge from infections as the lungs have extreme difficulty in keeping clear because of the constant buildup of mucus in the lungs. The second highest area of concentration of Glutathione in our bodies is in our lungs with the highest level of concentration being in our liver. It would only make sense that by taking Maxgxl and increasing our Glutathione level we would have a better immune system working in our lungs to help keep infection at bay. Each lung cell would work to its maximum potential by improving the “cellular health” of the lung tissue. I did ask this question to Dr. Keller more than a year ago and he indicated that Maxgxl should of help in this condition.

This information is predicated with the statement that Maxgxl is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition at this time until we have completed clinical trials on specific health challenges.


16. A young person has some difficulty in swallowing tablets and wondered how Maxgxl can be taken?


The absorption of Maxgxl does not seem to be affected by the presence of food. For that reason the Maxgxl capsules can be opened and put into soft foods such as ice cream, applesauce, or yogurt. The dosage of Maxgxl in children has not been studied. It would probably be best to simply start with 1 capsule in the morning after breakfast and only increase the dosage every 3 weeks after observing the person’s behaviour. One would then take 1 capsule in the morning and 1 capsule in the afternoon. If the child’s weight approaches 110 pounds then one could eventually go as high at 1 package twice a day.


17.

Does Maxgxl help women with the symptoms of Menopause?


Maxgxl is not intended to “diagnose or treat any medical problems” however there are anecdotal reports of it helping with hot flashes and insomnia during menopause. I have recently learned that Cordyceps has been used to treat menopausal flushing in women for many years and this may explain why Maxgxl has a positive effect on hot flashes in some women.


17.

Does Maxgxl have an effect on Diabetes?


Once again Maxgxl is not intended to “diagnose or treat any medical conditions” however the anecdotal reports seem to indicate that those with Diabetes have higher blood sugars for about 3 weeks on the product and then afterwards the diabetes appears to be in better control.


17.

When one is taking chemotherapy what would be the appropriate dosage of Maxgxl?


The general rule for the use of Maxgxl is that the sicker one is the more Maxgxl that is required!! Healthy persons with minor health challenges seem to do well on 1 package of Maxgxl (3 capsules) in the morning and 1 package (3 capsules) in the afternoon. Those who are very ill can significantly increase this dosage however the sicker one is the more toxins they may already have in their body. In this case the chance of some adverse reaction is quite high as many toxins begin to be mobilized from the deep tissues and may flood the body causing nausea, weakness, sinus congestion and muscle pains. If this should happen one needs to start at a very low dose of 1 capsule per day and gradually work up by increasing an extra capsule every 7 to 14 days. I would think it would be reasonable to slowly increase one’s dosage to 2 packages three times a day.

Again as Dr. Keller has said, always listen to your body and see how you are feeling.

Remember if the chemotherapy is Cis-Platinum one should not take Maxgxl for 24 hours before or after that particular chemotherapy.


17.

A patient has visited her doctor and after describing symptoms of muscle aches and pains and breathing problems, is told that she has severe inflammation in her body and wonders about the dosage of Maxgxl.


The effect of Maxgxl appears to be dose related. As a general rule one should take 1 package of Maxgxl in the morning and a second package of Maxgxl in the afternoon. Those who are very ill should gradually increase the dosage and “listen to their body” as to how they are feeling. It is very reasonable to increase the dosage of Maxgxl by an extra package every 7 to 10 days until they are taking 2 packages 3 times per day. If the desired improvement is found one should stay on the increased dosage for a month or two and then slowly decrease the dosage and again “listening to their body” as to how they feel will know what dosage to stay at.


17.

A distributor has recently asked if Maxgxl can be given to persons with Hemochromatosis and Thalasemia.


Hemochromatosis is a condition where the body stores Iron in large amounts in the liver and bone marrow. In many cases there are no symptoms though if left untreated it can cause eventual disease when the Iron stores are very high. Thalasemia is a hereditary problem with the production of blood cells and most people with this disorder are asymptomatic from the mild anemia that is associated with the disease. I do not feel that Maxgxl will have any effect on these 2 conditions and certainly will not cause any ill effects to take Maxgxl when one has these diseases. I believe that Maxgxl can improve the general well being of individuals who have these diseases and certainly improve their “cellular health” which has many positive benefits for the own health.






I hope that this is helpful and answers your question…..Dr. John Kindle M.D.


Last Updated on October 7th 2008

Won`t get fooled again?? The oilmen are magicians!

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—
Released: 4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM
Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center
Reston, VA 20192
Phone: N/A

* Read FAQs about the Bakken Formation.
* Listen to a podcast with the lead scientist on this topic.

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

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3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Oil in North Dakota and Montana

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Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold.
The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.

For a podcast interview with scientists about the Bakken Formation, listen to episode 38 of CoreCast at http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Understanding D23

Understand this and you understand everything. Get this out to the world and you will change everything FOR THE BETTER! -- Dick Eastman

Understanding D23

by Dick Eastman

Dick Eastman against Ron Paul, all soi-disant Aryans who think they are Jews, and the Hebrews out ancient Judea who have undermined Western Civilization from its inception as they did the Pagan Roman and the Christian Byzantine Civilizations.



Someone wrote:
"I read the other day that Ron Paul is a crypto Zionist. What do you think.? Certainly a disappointment. All talk no action. We simply need money created via Atricle I Sec 8 Par 5 of the constitution as per Lincoln. And kick every dam Jew out of the country as was true many years ago in England. People need to know and undestand that Jew is NOT Israel and never was. Anglo-Saxons are Israel. Modern Jews are either Edmites or Khazars, steming from Japheth, a mongolian tribe."

To which I reply:
Ron Paul is serving the interests of the Jewish -- I mean Hebrew -- they have been doing the same thing since Pompey took down Israel for Rome and Jews went to Western Europe and elsewhere and encouraged the vandals and visigoths and others to take down Rome -- and succeeded, except for the TRUE christian western civilization at Constantanople which lasted as the true center of Christianity -- in the lands where Paul founded the New Testiment Churches -- until 1453 -- the Jews destroyed Rome with their influxing of "barbarians" -- and they also brought about the destruction of true Christian Western Civilization through their bases at Venice, Naples, Genoa -- the Crusades were their doing, the owned and controlled Popes like they were Presidents of the the United States -- the crusades were always against the enemies of the Jews, with Constantanople heading the list. The Crusades of children were just scams to get thousands of French and German children 12 and under for sex slavery. Often the Jews would destroy a town of peasants by paying a mendicant fryer to have a vision of a Crusade led by the men of that village and the Crusade would be sent off fight and be annhiliated -- often against other European cities targeted by the Jews or against the Hungarians whose language was unrelated to all others in Europe -- just as the US youth/soldiers have been sent on an absurd meat-grinder war against Afghanistan and Iraq and eventually against all Islam -- as the Chinese and India elites and the Jews (Venetian and Spanish Jews relocated in the City of London) etc. -- the Aryan stuff is disinformation fed by the Jews themselves -- Mossad runs the Aryan groups just like they are the real al Qa'eda organization -- I know you won't believe me because you are bonded and committed to other good people whom the Jews have put under the same delusion -- Aryan supremacism is merely a reflection of themselves -- they have given you all their faults to destroy you -- but I know you will be offended at my saying this, still I know it is true. The truth of what I say is the fact that the Bible JHebrews I am talking about have the same doctrine that we ascribe to the Talmudic Khazars (the Khazars existed, but they and the diasopra Jews are in fact the same by intermarriage and long alliance)

Here is the verse from Deuteronomy 23:

19 Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:
20 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. [ King James Version, taken from http://scriptures.lds.org/en/deut/23 ]

or this version:

"Thou shalt not lend to thy brother usury, nor corn, not any other thing: But to the stranger. To thy brother thou shalt lend that which he wanteth, without usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all thy works in the land which thou shalt go into to possess."

or this, Lamsa's translation from the near-east Peshitta texts:

You shall not lend with interest to your brother: : interst of money, interest of grain, and the interest of anythingthat is lent with interest; To a foreigner you may lend with interest; but to your brother you shall not lend with interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you set your hand to in the land which you shall go in to possess.

Or my favorite translation, the (Old) American Standard Version of 1901:

Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thaay brother: interst of money, interest of victuals, interest of anything that is lent upon interest. Unto of foreigner thou mayest lend lend upon interest; but unto they brother thou shalt not lend upon interest, that Jehovah thy God may bless the in all that thou puttest they hand unto, in the land wither thou goest in ot possess it.

Or this, the very trustworthy (from my own evaluation with interlinear translations) New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1984) prepared by the Jehovah's Witnesses scholars:

19 You must not make your brother pay interest, interest on money, interest on fod, nterest on anything on which one may claim interest. You may make a foreigner pay interest, but your brother yhou must not make pay interest; in order that Jehovah you God may bless you in every undertaking of yours on the land to which you are going so as to take possession of it.

This is the most important verse of the Bible to any Historian, Sociologist, Conspiracy Theorist, Zionist or anti-Zionist -- bar none.

Clearly the Jews sees usury as poison. Clearly the Hebrews, the masters of deception, the ones who poisoned the leven of the bread of Egypt, who blocked the Jordan River upstream so they could cross it downstream "by the hand of Jehovah Almighty," who had the whore Rahab, whose brothel was part of the city wall of Jericho, who, as an infiltrator, have the walls undermined as the Hebrews marched around the city as a distraction, so that when the horns were blown, the walls were simply pushed down from inside, allowing the slaughter of the gentile population by the armies of Joshua; whose prophet Elijah poured crude oil, which looks like dirty water, over the alter -- claiming he was pouring water on the alter -- to cause "fire to come down from heaven" and even "burn up the water" after the prophets of Baal failed to have their god ignite their alters -- all a hoax -- the prophets of Baal were put to death by the people after that trick. (read 1 Kings 18: 17-40 if you don't believe me). I worked as a roustabout on Texas Oil fields after leaving the doctoral program at Texas A & M and I used crude oil like this to burn brush almost 30 years ago. There is no question in my mind that that is what Elijah did.] And so they reserve the poison of usury for the gentile only.

Think of that. They know usury destroys a people and so they avoid it for themselves and inflict it on their enemies. They avoid it so they may be blessed and possess the land (eventually) of those against whom they use it. But now consider this if the Jews have avoided usury among themselves and have used it as a weapon for possessing the land in the hands of others AND if they have been the ones controlling the credit system of our society since Roman times -- and they have -- even since before Vespasian's son Titus destroyed Jerusalam in 70 C.E., way back when Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) conquered Jersulam in 63 B.C. sending Hebrews all over the Empire, including Western Europe where they, never forgetting their enemy, encouraged the various "barbarian" invasions of Rome, exactly as they fomented the Crusades against Byzantium and, secondarily, Islam, and exactly as they foment (with, for example, the false-flag 9-11 attack that mobilized the American installment of the Crusades (look also at the bombing of the King David Hotel, the bombing of the USS Cole, the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel) Oi Vey! So let's get to the point already -- which is: Usury -- interest capitalism -- the credit monopoly -- the Rothschild interests -- the Money Power -- finance Capitalism -- call it what you like -- has always been, in the hands of its masters -- a weapon of plunder and conquest by people who know better than to touch the poison themselves. This means that usury -- i.e. our financial system and the world's financial system -- exists purely as a weapon of Jewery against mankind.

And now you know enought that you have to die. Or do you want to discuss overthrowing One World Zionism for a world-wide system of independent nations with economies not geared to usury and war. If the latter may I recommend the American populist movement (not the Democratic Party brand which is phony) and Social Credit and a return to the interpretations and readings of the Declaration and the Constitution in line with the ideas of Jefferson and Paine?

Hoping to hear from you when I get back on line next Friday -- if you and I and the internet are still around next Friday -- I am

yours in friendship,

Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington


Every man is responsible to every other man

Populist Nationalist Social Credit Brotherhood of American Citizen Peacemakers of All Races and Creeds -- This is our Common Ground!!!

this mesage originally posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frameup/ and to Jeff Rense

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Simple irrefutable agreement established

Certified Copy Confirmed delivered 79 254
867 681
Karen Pederson current item Registered item RW 79 237
591010 CA
SITE 7,BOX 26,RR3
Barrhead, Alberta.,


February 13, 2009 A.D.

Asseveration of Truth and Notice of Demand for Re-Payment.
*2nd Notice *Confirmation of agreement

It is agreed with no dispute to the facts that Leon Papadopoulos, Jeannie
Papadopoulos of 13432-81 St., Edmonton Alberta T5C1N7 and Robert Masse of
11438 -93 St. of Edmonton, Alberta on or about 7 th day of Oct 2007 did
visit your property and approached both you and your wife about an extension
of two months to our agreement to purchase your property at Barrhead
Township road 582 and Range road 30:
W5 range 2 township 58 Sec.7 west NE quarter(69 acres approx)and W5
Range 2 township 58 Sec.7 NE quarter (49 acres approx.) in order to sell
our house in Edmonton.

It is agreed with no dispute to the facts that in front of us three
witnesses Robert Masse, Leon Papadopoulos and Jeannie A. Papadopoulos that
both you Ken Pederson and your wife Karen Pederson agreed to our verbal
contractual offer.

It is agreed with no dispute to the facts that Mr. Ken Pederson remarked
³It is no problem TO GIVE YOU A TWO MONTH EXTENSION. We have had no one else
even looking at the property and no serious offers so it is no
problemÅ .We¹re just happy to have you folks buying it. No Problem! ³
It is agreed with no dispute to the fact that Mrs. Karen Pederson also
verbally agreed to the extension with remarks about how delighted she was
that we were buying the property and that they were lucky we were serious
buyers because no one else had made an offer and that they wanted us to buy
the land and that if we needed extra time it was not any problem. This was
offered cordially and happily by both Mr. and Mrs. Pederson.

It is agreed with no dispute to the facts that upon receiving witnessed
confirmation of accepted offer, that we all shook hands.

It is further agreed upon with no dispute to the fact that your wife hugged
me, being Jeannie A. Papadopoulos, and indicated to me about how exciting it
was going to be to have us as neighbors and upon going out the door after
our coffee and eating a flat pumpkin cheesecake that had failed as a recipe,
Karen Pederson gave me a pumpkin from her garden for our daughter Christy!
She also spent time showing me her artwork on rocks and discussing how happy
she was that we were going to be purchasing their land.
It is agreed upon with no dispute to the fact that no contact was made by
Mr. and Mrs. Pederson by phone or personal visit to annul this verbal
contract or change it in any way.

It is also agreed by you with no dispute to the fact that on the date that
came for that extension to take place; that you did violate our witnessed
verbal agreement of allowing an extension and did not keep your agreement.
You refused to answer our calls and did take our deposit of $15,000!

It is agreed by you with no dispute to the fact that you did refuse to
answer our calls and did take advise from your real estate agent James
Hambling who deliberately interfered in our private contract.

It is agreed upon, with no dispute forthcoming from you, that you did in
awareness of what you were doing brake your verbal contract with us.

It is agreed with no dispute that you will return our depost of $15,000
that you kept in bad faith as you have violated our verbal agreement and you
will return the same $15,000 within 10 days from the day of receipt of this
demand notice.

This good faith asseveration of the truth and demand for repayment of our
$15,000 deposit is to indicate to you in irrefutable awareness that you have
no law or process that allows you to keep our money as you are in violation
of our contract. We have three good witnesses to your two and hope you will
in good faith submit to the above stated facts by tacitly accepting them as
true accurate and correct as far as the writer is capable of being aware.

We will wait ten days time for you to offer evidence that anything in this
asseveration of facts is in error or untrue by providing evidence to the
effect that would prove the above facts or a fact is not true.

If you fail to answer with proof that the facts, offered above, are untrue,
as honorably offered ,you severally and jointly wave the condition of
requirement of your signature and submit to a consent judgment in the amount
of $15,000.00.

. I am contacting you privately according to scripture which tells us to
approach our brothers and sisters privately and to get their agreement as
opposed to going thru the court process of argument.

Matthew 18:15-20 is that direction and advise we are following in obtaining
this contractual agreement and submission to the facts by you.

May Gods wisdom direct you!
On behalf of Bob Massey, Leo Papadopoulos and Jeannie Papadopoulos ( the
author of this letter)
It is hereby understood that you will return said funds and respond
honorably


Signed this day at Edmonton Alberta___________________________________..

From Jeannie A. Papadopoulos, 13432-81 St. Edmonton Alberta T5C1N7

You are hereby honorably noticed that we have confirmed our above agreement
and as in keeping with our Saviors advise, confirmed this covenant of terms
and facts to be true without error with witnesses. As of honor, we
ministering in Christs name, do herein offer three further days notice
that this agreement, herein witnessed and confirmed, will be posted under
³private agreement notice² in a multiple of media of good intent
officially performing the function of my calling . It is my duty to let
others be aware of your private submission to the established and
irrefutable facts.

You will get a registered notice and copy of the ad when it is posted to
further establish our good faith in accepting your compliant abundant
awareness and acceptance of the herein stated facts.

Blessings upon your forgiveness Lev.6:2-5 and look forward to the resolution
part of our agreement in the form of a consent judgment in the amount of
$15,000.00 being paid out by you to me with no argument as to your witnessed
agreement

The Stephan;s were unlawfully charged and convicted of failing to provide the neccessaries of life...This is the corrected Wikipedia article

{{short description|Charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life for his son Ezekiel}} {{Use Canadian English|date=July 2021}} {...