Liberty, Economics, and the Laws of Money
August 19, 2024
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Marlene McMillan
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/19/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer: Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. And while there are, I know so many major events that are happening all around the world and seem to increase by the day, one of the common threads that run through almost everything that we hear, government law, public policy, international relations, one that impacts every person who’s listening right now and anywhere in the world, I’m going to say as far as that goes, is that area referred to as economics. Economics naturally involve such practical components such as finance and banking, debt and spending jobs, investments, and so much more. And at the heart of all these things is what we refer to as money. Yeah, money or currency. Though most of what we use today is what we call fiat or paper money, and I’m going to say soon moving to a digital currency.
Sam Rohrer: And we will explain more of that if you get into the program. But biblically, we know that the love of money, the love of money, is the root of all evil. But it’s not money itself, but it’s the love of money. The love of money, and the power of money is at the heart of, well, it’s at the heart of a lot of things. Covetousness, envy, bribery, the distortion of justice and corruption of all types. You’ll find a thread of money that runs through them all, and the Bible speaks clearly to this. Money has power, money has influence, and people will literally sell their souls for the love of money. Money is properly used and understood, though can be used for good to help the poor, to benefit the many, to literally advance the cause of truth and liberty, more improperly understood and used by the evil can become the tool for tyrannical control to advance death and destruction. So today on this program, I’ve asked recurring guest Dr. Marlene McMillan, known as The Lady of Liberty and forgiveness, and the author of the book we’ve talked about many times here, mountains of deceit, how the dialectic process has infected the culture. Well, she’s joined me again here today for a focus on this area of money on which Dr. McMillan has done an incredible amount of speaking and teaching. And I’m entitling this program Focus today, Liberty Finance and the Laws of Money. And with that, Dr. McMillan, thank you for being back with me.
Marlene McMillan: Oh, thank you for having me. What we’re going to talk about is so important because money really is spiritual and money matters with everything that we do.
Sam Rohrer: Boy, it surely does. And you’ve done a lot of speaking. So I’m really glad you’ve carved out time to be with us here. But we’re going to do a couple of things here next segment, and we’re going to talk about what you refer to as the immutable laws of money. Really great. We’re not going to get them all in ladies and gentlemen that I’ll tell you we’re going to go into part of the way and then there’s the application of the laws of money in segment three and four, and I’m looking forward to that. But just to get us going here at this point, would you illustrate the connection, if you can, a bit between money and liberty and the larger area term commerce and economic activity that literally, as you said, and I tried to explain, touches the lives of literally every living person?
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so a person who is able to control, pay for their own needs, a person who is in control of their finances in many ways is a free man who is in control of their life. If they’re not able to deal well in that area, no matter how lovely of a person they are, how honest or whatever, if they don’t know these immutable laws of the universe, especially the immutable laws of money, then they become dependent on people who either do know them or know how to manipulate them. So if we want to have liberty in every area, then we cannot be economic serfs. We cannot be slaves to our ignorance of how money works. So a lot of what I’m about is teaching these basic principles and even teaching parents how to teach them to their children and then raise up a generation of people who are not dependent on predatory economic systems that are designed to make everybody dependent on centralized civil government.
Sam Rohrer: All right, you put money right in the middle of either freedom or liberty or bondage and control and so relationship and stay with it because it does. We will build that out. But take a couple minutes here in this first segment that we have yet define if you can just briefly some of the distinctions between these key terms, for instance, like money versus currency or fiat money versus tangible money like gold and silver. Just a couple of those things that you think might help people to understand what we’re talking about.
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so first of all, we want to think of money as a means of exchange. Now people have so much emotion in their views of money are attitudes toward how all this work is formed very early. And so I want folks to just think in general, money is the means of exchange. So if we decide to trade rocks or pencils or marbles or our time, all of those things, we’re making an exchange. Then if you build it further out, okay, what really, let’s talk about the difference between what should be considered money and what is considered fiat. So fiat means it doesn’t have any inherent value. So we think of money as being something that actually could be weighed, minted, it’s real, it has substance to it, and it has value like a gold coin. It’s not just what’s imprinted on it. The gold itself is valuable where paper, money, paper, how valuable is the paper itself?
Marlene McMillan: It’s the symbol of what it stands for. So that as we move into digital currency, then you have to look at it and say, well, what are those digits actually worth? Do they have inherent value or is it only people’s face and belief in it? So we have a little teaching that basically says gold is the money of the kings. Silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants, debt is the money of slaves, and trust is the money of the Freeman. So as we move more to a debt-based economy, then we all become more slaves, even if we appear to be wealthy.
Sam Rohrer: Wow, that’s very, very profound. And ladies and gentlemen, I know you probably were not able to write that down. Again, I encourage you, stay with us as we go through this program today. These things will be built out further. And again, this program was going to be available and you’re going to be able to get a transcript of it, and I encourage you to do that on our website. stand@thegapradio.com. We’ll be back in just a moment. Dr. Marley McMillan. And our theme today, Liberty Economics and the Laws of Money, and we’ll be right back starting to identify these immutable laws of money. Well, like the law of gravity or the law of reaping and sowing, or the law of choices and consequences. There are laws. There are laws that govern the running of literally every aspect of God’s creation that he God put in place and they exist because God put them in place.
Sam Rohrer: When it comes to the matter of money, there are laws that govern what that is as well, how it functions, how it can be used as a tool either for good or for evil. In fact, money and how it is used is so significant that scripture speaks more about finances and money than even it does about prayer or heaven. Now, think about that. So Marlene, let’s go into this in one of your money presentations, what we’re talking about today, liberty, economics and the laws of money, you make this statement, ignorance about money makes a person more likely to be prey to those who know how to game the system of money and who want people to stay ignorant. I thought that was pretty profound. You then identify and present nearly two dozen immutable laws of money about which we should not be ignorant. And I know you can’t share them all, but let’s just begin to go down through them if we can. Lemme just ask you the first one, for instance, what is the first immutable law of money that you’ve identified? What would it be and why is it so important? Then we’ll just begin working our way down through.
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so first of all, you can’t change the immutable laws of money. Now, Christians have thought that in some ways money’s dirty or it’s not spiritual. So they have not dealt with these areas, which has allowed other people to take over the finances. And so it has left Christians and conservatives very ignorant many times of how these immutable laws of money works. But first of all, we have to acknowledge that they exist. They’re like gravity. And people say to me, well, where do these apply? In other words, just at the local level, just in the United States, where do they apply? And I’m like, well, anywhere gravity works, anywhere gravity applies is a good beginning to understand that these laws are not going to change for you for what you wish it were or for anything else.
Sam Rohrer: Alright, now let’s just move into the second one. Well, I’ll just go from there. What about the, I’m going to call it the second immutable law of money. The first one being they’re there, you can’t change them, don’t try to change them, identify them and work in accordance with them. And then we’ll get into the application of these in the next segment. But what about the second immutable law of money?
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so I’m going to put two and three together because two is you get more of what you talk about and three is you become what you think about. So whatever you talk about money like oh, if you say I’m poor, I’ll never make it. All these things that tells your brain to accept that as true instead of giving your brain the problem of how do I solve it? So let’s look at it this way. If we raise a child, they want money to go buy a new bicycle or whatever, if we teach them to say, okay, how can you make that money? Then that’s different from teaching them to think about who can I go beg from to get that money? How can I talk somebody into even giving me that money? Money? It’s very different mindset of how do I make that money?
Marlene McMillan: And then of course in certain cultures it’s how can I steal that money? And then we get so far as many times making theft legal. So the difference is are we raising a generation of government dependence where government dependency is becoming respectable instead of being a last resort? I mean, I understand the safety net issues and all of that, but if we’re going to have the peace and prosperity and liberty that we want to have, then we have to really pay attention. What are we saying? What are we talking about? What are we thinking about? What are we drawing into our lives or accepting as normal? Is debt normal or is there a way to see debt as an enemy instead of as our normal?
Sam Rohrer: In addition to what you’re talking about, clearly gets into work industry versus laziness and dependence, and there’s so much more. I think you’re listening to me, you get that idea. Let’s go to number four right now. You say this, number four is what you wish for others God will make happen for you. That’s interesting. Explain that please.
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so part of what I teach deals with the idea of bitterness and forgiveness. And I can’t talk about this without talking about how gratefulness attracts blessing and bitterness attracts curse. So we have people in one of my books on forgiveness, I use the quote, it’s not original with me, but the idea that bitterness is drinking poison or unforgiveness, it is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to get sick. When in reality all you’re doing is hurting yourself. So when you wish others to have trouble, when you rejoice when someone has a legal problem, I mean whether you like a certain candidate or not, or you like things that happen in your community or not, and people reap the consequences of what they’ve, your response to it really matters. And if you wish that person well, I hope they just lose their house and I hope that they lose everything they’ve made. You are sowing into these immutable laws.
Marlene McMillan: Basically, you’re putting your own self at risk. Now, this is the very big thing to talk about in this short of time, and I’ve written a little book called The 31 Plus Blatantly Ignored Causes of Poverty. It’s a little innocent looking book. I mean, it’s got large print and it looks like it’s written, oh, it literally was written for people who don’t read, but the principles in it, people with PhDs blown economist look at this book. People in other nations that are leaders of finance look at this book and they go, oh wow, this is so simple. And so that’s a lot of what we’re talking about here is what are you thinking about? Are you drawing prosperity and blessing to you or are you repelling it? And by the way that you curse others, thus cursing yourself.
Sam Rohrer: No, I think that’s a great one. Number five, let’s go on with that. You say this number five principle. You reap what you sow. You reap later than you sow. You reap more than you sow. Everyone has seeds to sow thoughts, love and talents are seeds. It ties in with what you’re saying. Build further on that. Those are really profound thoughts.
Marlene McMillan: So if we plant tomato seeds, we do not expect to get an orange tree. So if we plant in daily habits in our lives, the habits that will lead to poverty, why are we surprised when we get poverty? We’ve got to start looking at even our attitudes. The way I was raised to read a book a day. I’m not expecting other people to do that. That was one of the things I was raised to do. But there’s a cumulative effect. So a child who instead of sitting mindlessly in front of television or video games, is taught to actually build something. Well, their first forays with some wood and nails and all might result in some pinched fingers or something. And the results might not be perfect, but they could become an absolute master. But it’s not about the wood, it’s about learning to solve the problem.
Marlene McMillan: Learning to understand, you’ve got to think through, measure twice and cut once all the planning that sows teaches somebody to be more thoughtful in what they’re doing. So one thing relates to another, and part of what I deal with is putting together these seemingly unrelated concepts into where they apply for life. So I want people to think of what they carry within them, not what, oh, I don’t have all these things. The victimhood world teaches you to focus on what you don’t have. Instead of, oh, I can play basketball better than other people. I can, I’ve got a strong back. I can go mow the neighbor’s lawn, or I can go pick up the trash in the neighbor’s yard. I can go do something. And when you get in motion of cleaning, making things better, improving instead of waiting for someone to come and improve your life, it’s kind of like Jordan Peterson when he says, make your bed. Now that may seem very basic, but start with worship dishes, clean up after yourself, and in the process of self-responsibility, you will sow into your life the idea that other people will see you as responsible and will help you.
Sam Rohrer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure all of you listening right now, if you have children, you did what Marlene was talking about, we did with our children, our grandchildren. You’ve done that. You build in this thinking biblical principles and it will work itself out. Okay, when we come back, we’re going to shift gears. We only went in just a few of these immutable laws, but when we come back, we want to shift gears into applying the laws of money and for the bounce of the program. We’ll walk through those and I think you’ll be highly encouraged. Well, if you’re just joining us right now, our theme today is liberty economics and the laws of money. Now we’re all connected. We all need money to live. Government promises money to everyone, do they not politicians promise all kinds of money to people. Nothing works without money.
Sam Rohrer: There’s a lot of people who don’t understand what it is or that the Bible, frankly, as we’ve already talked about, speaks more about money than it does even about prayer in heaven. So it’s a very, very important thing. My special guest right now, Dr. Marlene McMillan, has spent a lot of time writing and teaching on this subject matter, and you can find information about this and a whole lot more on her website@whylibertymatters.com, why liberty matters.com. So we’re going to go further into it because Marlene, you had identified, and we only just hit just a couple of these immutable laws. You said you have a little booklet and you can comment again on if you want, that people can find, I want share in just a second where they can get that. But then you move into applying the laws of money. And therein is where I want to spend the balance of the program because like the laws of gravity immutable, that’s why you use that term.
Sam Rohrer: You cannot change gravity, reaping and sowing consequences, blessing and curses. You’ve taken, laid out. They apply individually, they apply to nations frankly as Deuteronomy 28 talks about. But there are principles that can be identified that it helps to make these laws of money a tool, I’m going to put it this way, a tool for blessing. At the same time, there are things there that give us evidence of what a warning sign of judgment connected to money that should be avoided. Now, as a part of your extensive presentation, and it is extensive, you focus on how to apply these immutable laws. So let’s just do that in segue here if we can. But before I do that, where can people get that last book where you identify these laws, how can they best get that?
Marlene McMillan: Okay, they go to Y, that’s WHY liberty matters.com. And then there’s a products page, and the book is called 31 Plus Blatantly Ignored Causes of Poverty. And it’s so worth it. We have people buy these by the case and actually give them as presents. They’re used in homeless shelters, they’re used in different places like halfway houses and places like that to teach the information that gets someone out of that mindset of dependency and victimhood. And they work well for both the no matter where your stage, your economic level of prosperity or not, they work for everybody.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, excellent, excellent. Alright. That’s why liberty matters.com. Okay. Now the first applicable principle you’ve identified happens to be the same as the first immutable law of money that you identified, which you said is this. You can’t change the immutable laws of money no matter how hard you try. But then you move to the second principle where you say this, you not others or your circumstances determine whether money flows toward you or away from you. And that’s probably tied into the attitude part you talked about, but explain that a little bit what you mean by that.
Marlene McMillan: Okay, so one of the definitions of government is that government is the flow of power and force. So when you are self-governing, attracting the responsibility that allows you to be a good steward. So I’m going to merge two thoughts here that I think we’ll get to it as quickly as possible as we can in this format. And that’s also the idea that wealth flows to the best steward. So we live in a world of unreality where people are told, oh, it’s just wrong that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everybody needs to be equal. Well, first of all, I challenge is equality, all it’s correct up to be. That’s a story, that’s a longer story. But when you come back to look at the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 and other places this is referred to and what ended up happening, the person who was the best steward had more added to him.
Marlene McMillan: The person who was the moderate steward still had more added, but less at the level he could manage. The one who was not a steward, who just kept it but didn’t make anything, had it taken away from him. In the parable of the talents, not only do the rich get richer, the stewardship is rewarded and sloth is not rewarded, is punished. So why do we think that we can write laws that will take from the rich and give to the poor, and somehow that will make the poor wealthier? So I have an empowering question when in the history of the world has taking from the rich and giving to the poor made the poor richer. If we want to make the poor richer, we follow the immutable laws of the universe and you teach them how reality works and their internal talent. It’s a huge job. And I get people would say, I’m very idealistic in this world, but we are either going to create more government dependency or we’re going to come back to the basics on which liberty is built.
Sam Rohrer: Absolutely. Okay. Here’s principle number three. Ladies and gentlemen, listen to this. You say this, Marlene legalized plunder is still plunder. The laws cannot make the immoral moral. Legalizing theft may change its label or earthly consequences, but it is still theft. And those who justify it or participate in it will still reap the long-term generational and eternal consequences. When I was in office, Marlene, we didn’t call it plunger as much as his legalized theft because properly understood biblically there is no money that government has except they take it from the people and they can craft all different kinds of ways to and justify it. But we always said that’s why I wouldn’t vote for tax increases because it was just simply legalized theft because the money did not belong to government. So build this out a little bit because that’s profound that you stated.
Marlene McMillan: Well, a lot of what we have going on is that even graduate level economics is taught like it’s called Keynesianism, is one of the views and we’re not going to go into all of that. But my point is that even in graduate level economics, one of the premises is that nations can do what individuals cannot. So what they put in the mind of the economists is that that nations can go into debt, nations can borrow money at massive scales, and it’s not going to hurt us like an individual family knows eventually that they cannot borrow their way out of debt. I mean, they might try it one time or two, but eventually they’ll get the message. You cannot borrow more than you can pay back. In fact, debt puts you into slavery and is a never ending problem. So when we as a nation try to make laws to justify debt, then we are going against the immutable laws of the universe and we’re in essence legally stealing from or plundering future generations and that will come back and eventually bite us. And that’s pretty well the place we are now as a nation.
Sam Rohrer: It is at 35 trillion in debt, something is going to happen. And I think we’re seeing it probably happen right now. But here’s another one again, it ties into what you just said about the steward, their wealth flows to the best steward. Again, you commented on that, but it doesn’t seem right that the person who has the most gets more, but that’s exactly what Jesus build out. So there is a reward to proper stewardship, isn’t there?
Marlene McMillan: Well, yes there is. And see if people understood the stewardship side, then they would not be as prey to all of the hatred and class warfare and Marxist division that is trying to ruin our nation. Because if you can divide the people and keep them fighting each other instead of looking at how they carry the solution within them, if you can keep them busy on things that don’t matter, then in the end their focus and their energy goes to the wrong place. So people don’t perish for lack of vision. I mean, I’m sorry. People do perish for lack of vision, not for lack of money. But if you’re focused all the time on somebody’s got to give me something, it’s the other guy’s fault. You never look and say, oh wow, what is my responsibility? And victims go around begging somebody else to solve their problem. The problem is with that is that civil government is not designed to solve those problems. Those are things that relate to the family. Well, first of all, you are responsible yourself, your individual responsibility, your family, your local, your community. And when you start looking at the federal to solve what should be handled locally, you have a whole breakdown of culture.
Sam Rohrer: Yeah, you do. Ladies and gentlemen, and again, we’re talking now in the next segment, stay with us. We’ll come back and go through as many as we can of these remaining principles, the application of biblical principles of money, and then we will give a summarization here just briefly, but stay with us. We’ll build out some more of these principles, important principles of money. Well, Marlene, let’s continue on in the application of some of these biblical principles on money. These been very, very excellent. Again, ladies and gentlemen, these you can get on her website@widelibertymatters.com wide liberty matters.com. There’s a fifth principle, and again, it’s worth repeating. It ties into something we said in the other segment, but you’d say you reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow. You reap more than you sow and you normally reap in the same seeds that you sow. And that’s true. But you commented on the fact that there are other things, seeds that you can sow that leads to, well, not just money, but anything, build out what you actually mean by this one in its application
Marlene McMillan: So people have more within them to offer. If we only think of having one currency, see a lot of, even our education system is set up for people who are good, they’re book smart, but it doesn’t mean they know how to make things. So what have we ended up with a deficit of welders or people who know how to actually do things and make the plumbing run and the cars run and all those things. So that’s kind of what Mike Rowe is all about in dirty jobs. So we have to come back to the idea of teaching every child. If you’re not book smart or you’re not capable, you’re terrible at sports, there’s something else God has given you, has empowered you with that you are spatial with, that you’re super good, you’re better than anybody else. And it’s not a competition, it’s a matter of finding your kingdom purpose. So we get rid of all that competition language in that way, and we teach a child to see early on that God has endowed them for what his call is for their life, and give them a vision of their kingdom purpose, help them find it early, and then educate them to be able to do the best with what they have to reach that kingdom purpose. So it’s really quite exciting and it kind of fits in with the other things that following the immutable loss of the universe.
Sam Rohrer: Yeah, it really does. That is so very, very practical as many parents think that it used to be that for instance, going to college was the only thing that could produce a job, but now frankly, it’s just like you say, somebody who knows how to work with their hands and the plumbing or the welding or the electrical actually are of great value. And a lot of them, we found it during covid when people were losing their jobs, including many attorneys and others, that these trades, these things with your hand, they were actually producing something that earned honest money and income and it’s a wonderful thing. So I just underscoring what you are saying here. Number six, you say this wealth can be had without sorrow. Why don’t you comment on that? Because I think again, the attitude about money, if money is dirty only and it’s only viewed in that sense, in the pursuit of it, it only going to bring harm if that’s the mentality. But you’re saying that no, that actual wealth can be had without sorrow. What are you trying to say there?
Marlene McMillan: So Proverbs 10 22 says, the blessing of the Lord makes rich and no sorrow comes with it. People need to think about this because see, you always riches are from the tree of life and not like humanly designed ways of attaining wealth that come with curse because the world’s methods are from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they’re mixture. And so that mixture means that they get blessing, but they get trouble also.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, that’s great. I’m going to jump down to principle number 10 here. This is one that I’ll just read it. There is more than enough money in the world. There is no lack of money in even the poorest countries of the world. A lot of people have a tendency to think that giving or money, whatever the zero sum game, that there’s only a limited amount. You’re saying there’s no lack of money even in the poorest countries of the world. That’s a rather interesting thought.
Marlene McMillan: Well, not only is there no lack of money, there’s no lack of talent or resources, why do nations want to come in and exploit these poorer countries? Because they’ve got natural resources. They want to buy the resources of the country and in the process enslave the people. So when the people in those countries get the idea of their value in God’s eyes and they realize their natural endowments, they’re brilliant people. They just haven’t had anybody talk to them or get the idea within them that they’re not dependent from outside sources. I mean, it is tragic what we’ve done. And that’s another story. Those are things we can talk about another time. But the point right now is if you change somebody’s circumstances, if circumstances determined outcomes, then you could take a homeless person, put them in a mansion, and they would become rich. Well, there’s got to be more to it than that because you can take a person who has this understanding within them, put them in very support circumstances, and it might look bad for a while that eventually they’ll have cleaned up the place, they’ll have changed the culture around them instead of letting the culture change them.
Sam Rohrer: Excellent. Number 15, I only just a little bit of time left here, but this goes to motivation principle number 15, seek the highest and all below it will follow ties into Matthew 6 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven. That is profound. Explain that.
Marlene McMillan: Yes, we can get so caught up in the pettiness of daily living that we forget what we’re about. And you have the statement about the immediate, the demands of the immediate sometimes take over what is important. And so I understand this, I homeschooled all seven of my children. I ran businesses and we had a ministry and it was a very active household. And the immediate needs can just be overwhelming and you can forget what are we really about? And so I think no matter where you are in life, you have to come back to keeping your priorities straight, seek the things that money cannot buy. A lot of the happiness that we’re told if you just had more money, well, money in itself is just a tool. So what are you going to use that tool for? What’s your purpose in acquiring it? And as a nation, we better look at this because if you are given liberty as a nation to use for the advancement of the gospel, the advancement of the kingdom, and in the process you start using it on own lust, what does that mean from a stewardship standpoint? Because all wealth and wealth and riches and money, they’re all different, but they’re all given to individuals and then to nations with a kingdom purpose. And if we refuse to fulfill our kingdom purpose and we squander those resources on play and lust and waste and indulgences, then in the end we do not deserve to have those resources. Now that’s a hard teaching, but somebody’s got to say it
Sam Rohrer: And you just said it, ladies and gentlemen. We say it on this program because what have we just talked about here today? Concept of money comes right off the pages of scripture. So God knows what he’s talking about. Those are laws he has set up. Nobody changes them. So let’s work with it. Fear God keep his commandments and he brings blessing. The website for all of this information that you can find, why Liberty matters.com, I encourage you to go there, get these 31 principles and other things that you can find on the site about money. And then this program, again, archive form all of our programs. standinthegapradio.com and on our app, get it, get the transcript, read it, listen to it again, and send it to a friend.
Recent Comments