May 8, 2017 (Monday)
Pete Seeger sang a popular ditty: “How do I know my youth is all spent? / My get up and go has got up and went / But in spite of it all I’m able to grin / And think of the places my get up has been….” One of those places was Lordsburg, New Mexico, in the year 1970.
Our family of seven had piled into our station wagon and we were on our way to Disneyland, when we stopped in Lordsburg for gasoline. The attendant called me to the rear of the car and showed me oil on the pavement, underneath the shock absorber. “This is bad,” he moaned, “the desert is no place to be when your car breaks down. I can put new shock absorbers on your car and you’ll be safely under way in no time.” Well, I looked over my wife and five children and, even though I didn’t have money to spare, got the job done, suspecting all the while that I had been tricked into buying something I didn’t really need.
The next year, my Deacon friend, Burl Brooks, took the front seat out of his new Pontiac to make a bed for Louise, his wife, who had been disabled by lung damage in a medical accident. She wanted to see California, so off they went. They had a great time. When they returned, he reported the wonderful trip, saying, “I had no car trouble except having to get new shock absorbers.” “Where did you get them?” I asked. “Lordsburg, New Mexico! he said.”
So we had both been “conned.” The crook running the service station sized up the car with the older gentleman whose wife was sick in bed in the car, and he took a good look at the family with five children from three to fifteen, and sprang the deadly desert story as he sprayed a little oil under the car to make them think something was wrong with it.
WARNING! DANGER! BEWARE! SCARY PLACE!
The con artists today are at work everywhere, on the internet, in the regular mail, in e-mail, especially on the telephone, and in many other ways. I had some friends in Houston who lost their entire life savings through one of those scams. I have other friends who have felt the pain of loss and the embarrassment of having been fooled. I’ve received some calls myself. I was not smart enough to identify the call as a scam, but the crooks didn’t do all their homework and I asked enough questions to keep from being scammed.
What does the Bible say about all this?
Leviticus 19:11
‘You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.
Leviticus 19:13
‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning.
Mark 10:19
“You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, DO NOT DEFRAUD, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'”
You could be the object of a scam. It won’t be expected. Beware!