The temptation to do that which is unethical and immoral always exists. Lying usually follows yielding to temptation. Lying to hide sin and avoid punishment is a trait that binds all societies and family groups. No one can say, “I do not lie.” Me included.
Lies are told for many reasons. Lies are told for profit. Fortunes have been made with lies. Pyramid schemes Is an example. A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or selling products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal. The Ponzi scheme is another profit based on lies. In a Ponzi scheme participants are promised returns on “investments”, supposedly into stocks or goods, but which are actually paid for by new investors, while a central leading figure takes a portion as profit.
Such schemes are as this proverb states, “a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.” An international list of just these two schemes, pyramid and ponzi are exhausting and depressing. Sadly even governments have been and still are at least partially based on financial schemes.
Personally, I will guard my financial actions with others. 19:1 states, “Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse.” Concerning the quickly approaching day of judgment the prophet Ezekiel proclaimed, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming… They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be an unclean thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of the LORD’s wrath. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it has made them stumble into sin. They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their detestable idols and vile images. Therefore I will turn these into an unclean thing for them.” (Ezekiel 7:5, 19-20)
