Set your House in Order
The Flaming Sword Newsletter
By John Torell
June 2000
This month I am going to deal with a subject that I have never before written on, but in private counseling I have dealt with it to a degree. It is the subject of preparing for death. The Bible tells us that all of us will have to face death, unless we are living at the very end of times and taken up by Jesus.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: . . .
There are several aspects that most Christians never think about while they are living and in good health: what is going to happen to the family, what effect will this have on the kingdom of God and is it possible that the kingdom of Satan can benefit from the death of a believer in Christ? I want to start the discussion with the last question first.
HOW THE DEVIL HAS DECEIVED THE CHRISTIANS
Have you ever asked yourself this question: How have the World Government leaders been able to keep their wealth from generation to generation? The few families who are running the World Government for the last 400 years just keep going and going from generation to generation: the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Bronfmans etc.
WHERE DID ESTATE TAXES COME FROM?
In 1898 the World Government convened a congress in the city of Basel, Switzerland, where the final manifesto on how to secure control over the entire world was presented and approved. One of the methods chosen to enslave all people under a World Government regime is taxation. Here is a portion from their approved text:
“The tax upon the poor man is a seed of revolution and works to the detriment of the State, which in hunting after the trifling is missing the big. Quite apart from this, a tax on capitalists diminishes the growth of wealth in private hands in which have in these days concentrated it as a counterpoise to the government strength of the people – their State finances……
“A tax increasing in a percentage ratio to capital will give much larger revenue than the present individual or property tax, which is useful to us now for the sole reason that it excites trouble and discontent among the people…..
“Purchase, receipt of money or inheritance will be subject to the payment of a stamp progressive tax. Any transfer of property, whether money or other, without evidence of payment of this tax which will be strictly registered by names, will render the former holder liable to pay interest on the tax from the moment of transfer of these sums up to the discovery of his evasion of declaration of the transfer. . . .”
One hundred two years later it is obvious that what was proposed was appropriated, since in all nations the progressive tax is the law of the land. Sales tax is levied on all products sold and estate taxes remove a large chunk from the family and transfers it to the State. Thus the common people are prohibited from building up any savings from generation to generation. When a person dies, the heirs must pay taxes on their inheritance.
It is noteworthy that just recently the American Congress passed a law repealing inheritance taxes and immediately the World Government told President Clinton that this is unacceptable. Therefore Clinton immediately issued a statement that he would veto this bill. Since the media is controlled by the World Government, very little has been spoken about this. After all, if the people found out the truth, it would spell trouble for the World Government.
HOW THE WORLD LEADERS AVOID THEIR OWN TRAPS
Leaders in the World Government do not pay any taxes, despite their enormous wealth. For hundreds of years they have been able to tax and steal from the masses of people on the earth, while they set their own rules.
Here is how it is done:
Switzerland : Centuries ago, the secret banking system was set up in this nation to hide the assets of the super rich world elite. It does not come free; there is a hefty charge to have a Swiss account, but it is very small compared with the taxes in the various nations. It is ironic that the riches of dictators like Stalin and all other dictators of the Soviet Union and their leadership had bank accounts in Switzerland and so did the German Nazis.
Arab heads of state do not trust their own banks; their wealth is in Switzerland. Every major Mafia boss, drug dealers from all over the world, heads of state from all nations, the rich and the famous, including the CIA and most of the Intelligence services from the different nations keep secret bank accounts to hide their dirty dealings.
There are some other small nations willing to hide wealth for people, such as Monaco, Luxemburg, the British channel islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, and lately some of the small Carribean island nations, including Belize.
FOUNDATIONS: The assets of the super rich are transferred to Foundations, which then run the businesses, regardless if they are factories, banking or trading companies. There are no inheritance taxes for a foundation so the people who founded it can then pay themselves salaries, purchase homes, cars, airplanes, boats, etc. which are used by them, but there are no taxes to be paid, since they do not own them personally.
The leadership of the foundation can then channel the money into all kinds of projects which will benefit the World Government. This is how the destructive left wing organizations are making a living and thus advancing the plans of the World Government. (This is how the Mormon Church is set up. The Mormons brag that they have no salary paid clergy. What they do not tell the public is that the Twelve Apostles and some other elite leadership are furnished large upscale homes at no cost, free transportation, free food and clothing, etc.)
TRANSFERS: The families making up the World Government do not wait for a person to die and then transfer the inheritance to the next generation. If they did, they would have to pay taxes. Instead, one child is selected to be the heir of the family estate and while the parents are still living, the estate is handed over to the heir. The parents will still run the family business, but when they die off, there is no transfer at all. (You have just witnessed this in Syria, where dictator Hafez al-Assad died this month. For years Assad had been grooming his oldest son to take over, but this son was killed. The 2nd son in line, Bashar, was recalled to Syria from England and groomed to take over .
In the United States they developed “Living Trusts.” A trust can be revocable or irrevocable. The assets of a family are transferred to a Living Trust. The father and the mother become “Trustees”, and then children and grandchildren can be added. Whatever kind of enterprise is involved, the Trustees run the business like normal and pay themselves salaries which they have set.
A Living Trust must pay regular taxes, but are totally exempt from inheritance taxes. When a trustee dies, the remainder of trustees elect a new leader, unless this has been specified beforehand, there are no forms to file with the State, and the next generation of trustees take over. Thus the family assets are not lost in taxes. When the grandchildren have become trustees, they can form a new Living Trust, to which they transfer all of the assets and include their children and grandchildren.
Is it any wonder that Jesus said this:
And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.
And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.
Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.
So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
“SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER”
These were the words spoken to King Hezekiah by the prophet Isaiah. The king was sick and the prophet told him that he was to die. Hezekiah began to weep and pray to the Lord, and God extended his life for 15 more years. But he still had to set his house in order.
Many Christians do not want to talk about their death in the future. For some reason some of them feel that it is unbelief to do some kind of preparation. Others claim that they are going to live until Jesus comes back for them in the great catching away as described in I Corinthians 15:51-58 and I Thessalonians 4:13-18. The apostle Paul believed with all his heart that Jesus would come back in his lifetime.
My great grandmother who lived in the 1800’s believed so strongly that Jesus was going to come back in her lifetime, that she placed her bed so she could watch the eastern sky from her bed. But so far Jesus has not come back and the Bible says that no man knows when this will happen. (Matthew 24:36)
Other Christians become depressed when they think that someday they are going to die, others get real upset with family and relatives who they say “are just waiting for me to die, so they can grab my possessions.” Instead of taking action while they can, these Christians just drag their feet day after day, month after month, year after year, until one day they die and leave the family with the mess.
IT IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND CRUEL NOT TO PREPARE
As a pastor, I have witnessed many times people who die and nothing has been prepared. Not only is the surviving family grieving over the loss of a loved one, they now must face the unpleasant task of dealing with a funeral director, buying a casket or having cremation. The funeral industry know how to exploit the grieving. They insinuate that if they want the best for the loved one who died, they should buy a top of the line casket, plus many little extras they have, not to forget the grave or an urn to entomb the ashes. Before long, the price is getting up above the $10,000 mark.
Once the funeral is over, comes the next unpleasant surprise for the surviving family. They must now go to court to get the estate settled, and if there has been a long illness and large bills for hospital costs and the person who died is on Medicare or Medical (California), here comes the demand from the State, “we want our money for the hospital costs.” The surviving spouse must now fill in a form listing all the remaining assets.
If this was the last parent to die, the State will demand property to be sold to pay off all hospital and care costs. If the family has a larger estate there will be estate taxes to pay. Some children have been forced to sell all assets just to pay the inheritance tax. All this pain is caused by the person who died because he/she chose not to prepare.
I know of a widow in our ministry, who lost her husband some 15 years ago. The man had been a pastor/evangelists for many years and he was very cruel to his family. When he died, he left his wife and son with nothing. The wife had to borrow money to pay for the funeral and it took her ten years to pay the loan.
The man’s relatives demanded a “decent burial” but refused to pay for it. The man left no life insurance, and since his wife was elderly and sick, she had to survive on his small Social Security check. People in our church have for the last 15 years supported this woman or she would have been living on the street.
WHAT A RESPONSIBLE CHRISTIAN SHOULD DO
Early in life, take out a life insurance policy that is large enough to pay for your funeral.
When people get married, the husband should carry a larger life insurance that will not only handle a funeral, but also give at least two years support for the wife and children. Most people do not live in the same place all their lives, but move, sometimes from State to State. Regardless of this, when a man and woman get married, they should make a decision of what they want to do with their bodies at the time of death. It is prudent to buy a cemetery lot or if cremation is going to be used, to decide where the ashes will be stored. (I do not recommend scattering the ashes over the sea as this was done to criminals and ungodly people living in Israel. Jeremiah 16:1-4).
Many respectable funeral homes are selling a “funeral package in advance,” which can be paid for over time with installments. Thus, when the time of death comes, there are no decisions to be made, it is all pre-arranged and paid for.
Instead of making a testament (will), I recommend a “LIVING TRUST,” that is revokable. There are attorneys who specialize in setting up Living Trusts. If the children do not turn out to be following Christ, they can be excluded from the trust and at the same time others can be added in. But once you have this Living Trust in place, you have cut the State out from deciding what to do with your estate and stopped the World Government from getting taxes from your estate.
As a Christian you do not want to leave your estate to be used in the kingdom of Satan. If your children or family are not Christians, or if they are living a carnal life, you know that they will spend your estate on pleasures and foolishness. When you get to heaven, you do not want to find out that your children “rocked & rolled” with what you left them. If this is the case, you want to find some type of ministry where you can invest your hard earned money to win souls for Christ. Here again you must be very careful and investigate the ministry to see if it has integrity and that it is really doing the will of God.
Early in life, you should start to groom an heir to your life ministry. You do not have to be in a full time ministry to groom someone. God told every person in Israel how they should prepare their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-25) If you do not have any children, find someone younger than you, who you can train for the kingdom of God. Make disciples!
SATAN’S PEOPLE WORK ON LONG TERM GOALS
This is something that the Christians have not understood. Nimrod knew that the rule of Lucifer over this world would probably not come in his lifetime. (Genesis 10:8-10) But Nimrod was willing to sacrifice his life to get it started. For thousands of years men and women have lived on this earth, dedicated to continue to build on something which they they will never see come into existence during their life time.
Old line families like the Fuggers (1300), the Rothschilds and the Warburgs have labored generation after generation so that some day their descendants will be able to live when Lucifer becomes ruler of this earth. In the Bible we find this teaching in Revelation 13:1-18. The Devil’s servants (slaves) are willing to give their lives for him. This is the reason that Communism survived in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1990, and in China from 1948 and continuing. This is how Hitler built his 1000 years Reich which only lasted 12 years and then was reduced to rubble.
CHRISTIANS NEED TO WORK ON LONG TERM GOALS
Many Christians that I know only live for today. They are simply drifting from day to day. Whatever they feel for the moment, that is what they will do. The Devil loves this and keeps them going in circles. They never accomplish anything, never finish any projects. They call this life style “being led by the Spirit.” What they have not understood is that God is “NOT THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION.” (I Corinthians 14:29-33)
When we read the Bible, we can see that God is a God of order and He is building a very elaborate kingdom. The question is, are you going to be part of His kingdom or are you going to be “a loose canon that drifts all over the deck of the ship”
The Christians in America do not have a very good track record. All the major universities in America were born out of flaming revivals and were created to educate young men and women to serve Christ in this nation. Satan perverted the next generation and today these schools stand as breeding grounds for infidels and perverted people, like the Clintons.
During the last 200 years as God was working in the hearts of men and women, great revivals began and gave birth to colleges and Bible schools. The evangelist Dwight L. Moody gave birth to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and BIOLA in Los Angeles. Today they are burnt ash heaps teaching unbelief and liberalism to young people.
Seminaries, born by the work of humble pastors who gave all they had to educate another generation to preach a pure Gospel, are today flourishing institutions, void of all Biblical soundness and producing a crop of “light weight preachers,” who have no belief in the Bible, but should rather be called “Social Behavior Engineers.” WHY? Because the previous generation did not safeguard their estates and thus they were lost!
To my knowledge there is only one institution in America which has been able to hold its position, and that is the “Bob Jones University,” now in the leadership of the third generation.” I do not agree with their stand on the Holy Spirit, and they have some wrong teaching on the question of race, but when it comes to all other Biblical standards, they are “holding the fort.” They took a lot of heat when Governor Bush spoke there. Then all “hell” broke loose for them.
WHAT I AM DOING
I do not have to be a genius to figure out that someday Jesus is going to call me home. Since I do not know when Jesus is going to come back, I will do what he said, “OCCUPY TILL I COME!” (Luke 19:12-26) God has given me a number of very sincere Christian men and women and I have been training them and grooming them for some time. This is an ongoing work which I will continue until Jesus comes for me.
I want the work that I am doing to survive me, and be brought not only into this century, but into the next and then until Jesus comes back, whatever comes first. But for this to happen, I must labor and make sure that there is another generation coming behind me that can continue, and then to drill into their heads that they must do the same, or it will be lost with them. This is how Jesus himself set up his program for the church. You may read it yourself in Matthew 28:18-20.
I pray to God that some of you reading this letter will wake up, if you have not already done your preparations. Very few people today have ears with which to hear. I want to close by giving you this scripture reference: Matthew 13:1-23
KNOW THIS! YOU ARE EITHER BUILDING THE KINGDOM OF GOD OR YOU ARE BUILDING THE KINGDOM OF SATAN THROUGH DEFAULT!
In this newsletter I wrote about revocable and irrevocable Living Trusts. A brother in Christ and a close friend of mine who has worked for a Government agency as a lawyer, wrote to me and told me that there were some facts that needed to come forth, so that people would have correct and complete information on the subject. Due to his sensitive work for the Government, he asked me not to use his name. I have known this brother in Christ for almost 20 years, and he has been a regular supporter of our ministry for almost that long. His letter follows: [Remember this was written in 2000 the laws may have changed]
Thursday, June 22, 2000
Dear John:
Your latest newsletter regarding how to save estate and gift taxes was very good.
However, I want to clarify the use of the Living Trust.
This is a very complicated field and one should contact an attorney who is highly experienced in estate planning. There are several in the area who are very good. They are expensive, but as the old saying goes, “the expensive attorney is the best attorney.”
You are absolutely correct that the Living Trust can save money for the family when one person and/or the spouse dies.
Basically, the Living Trust does not automatically do this for one.
It is a question if one puts the trust out of his or her control. For instance, the Living Trust can be revocable or irrevocable. Because people do not like to lose control over their money, the revocable trust is the most popular. Rarely does one see an irrevocable trust.
The Revocable Trust can be revoked on a person’s deathbed or at any time between that moment and the creation of the trust.
The Irrevocable Trust is an outright gift. There must be an annual gift tax return filed if this gift is made in any year that is more than $10,000. A good way of depleting an estate to avoid transfer taxes is making gifts of $10,000 or less annually to all the people the donor wishes. No gift tax return is required unless the gift is $10,001 or more.
In the Irrevocable Trust, the donor must have made a completed gift and must have relinquished all control over the gift.
Congress has passed several laws where one can gift property to the children and have a life estate (the right to enjoy the income or to live on the property for life). For instance, one can deed his residence to his children and retain a life estate with the right to live in his own home although he has given up his title and ownership.
Now: the Revocable Trust can also be used to save taxes. It depends upon the remainder man interest. If the remainder man is a child, (or remaindered are the children), there is no saving of estate taxes.
If the remaindered are the children, then the entire trust is includible in the estate. That is because the trustors have a revocable interest at the time of death.
However, if the remainder man is a charity or a church, then it is tax-deductible to the estate. In other words, the Estate Tax Return will include the entirety of the trust and then will list the amounts given as charitable gifts as deductible items.
Presently, for the years 2000 and 2001, there is a $675,000 Unified Credit in every estate (this amount is increasing every year until it becomes $1,000,000). As much as this amount can be placed in a “Bypass” Trust and passed to the children free of taxes. It is not unusual to see appreciating property (i.e., real estate) placed in the Bypass Trust where the recipient is young and likely to enjoy a long life. Fixed assets such as bank accounts are likely to be placed in the trusts belonging to the surviving spouse.
Thus, in many instances, the Bypass trust passes to the children while the balance passes to a qualified charitable trust or directly to a charity with no further restrictions. Then, the entire estate trust is free of taxation. To have access to a charitable remainder, there are many rules that must be followed to make it a qualified charitable gift: so, see your attorney.
I have seen such returns where millions of dollars were not taxed because of such a charitable deduction. In one such case, all of a farm was given to the county to create a county park.
The above is very simplistic.
I do not advise your readers to make out their own trust. Each situation is different and each family is different and has to be “tailor-made” to fit the circumstances.
Sincerely yours,
A Church Member
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