King James Bible Investments was established as a place for family, friends, acquaintances and other Christians to be informed about world market conditions and as a place to preserve their capital by investing in the only form of real money, gold and silver.

Biblical records show that gold and silver are the first and oldest form of money, the only money that has not failed, and a source of omega replica notable value for over 5000 years! Can you name one fiat currency that has lasted through even a few centuries let alone a few millennia like gold and silver? We think not!

• The Hebrew word for money is “keceph”, which is translated to mean “silver.”
• The King James Bible mentions gold 417 times, silver 320 times, and money, which is mentioned 140 times, refers to physical silver and gold. Not once does it mention a paper currency.
• Gold and silver are mentioned all through the bible as real wealth, even through the end of Revelation.
• From Genesis to Revelation, gold and silver are the only God-ordained monetary assets that will maintain their purchasing power until the day of the Lord’s wrath.

Gold is the first, and most frequently mentioned metal in the Bible, as at Genesis 2:11. From the beginning, it has been a noble metal, highly valued for its weight, rarity, durable non-tarnishing luster, shimmering beauty, ductility, and malleability. A number of Old Testament Hebrew terms refer to gold, such as zahav, charuts, kethem, paz, seghor, and ophir. In the New Testament, the Greek words khrysos and khrysion are used as reference to ornaments, coins, and gold in general.

Gold's rarity, throughout history, and even in Biblical times, gave it a monetary value, which made it useful in commercial transactions, as well as a measure of wealth and prominence. The color and luster of gold, and its resistance to oxidation or tarnishing, makes it valuable for jewelry and ornamentation of all kinds. In early Biblical times, it was found in its native purity in gravel deposits and riverbeds. It was easily separated and recovered because of its great weight. In the book of Job (28:1,2,6) mining and refining operations are mentioned.

In the construction of the Tabernacle, built by Moses, Exodus 25, 30, 37, and 39 describes using gold being beaten into plates for overlay, sheets, and even thread used in garments used by the high priest. In The Most Holy, the Ark of the Covenant, was gold.

Solomon's Temple, extensively used gold in its d飯r. As is done with several modern coins, even ancient Israel evidently mixed an alloy with gold to harden it. (I kings10:16). David set aside 100,000 talents of gold for Solomon's Temple. A talent is about 75 pounds! The Temple's lamp-stands, utensils, forks, bowls, pitchers, basins, cups, etc, were all made of gold and silver, with a very few being made of copper. The cherubs in the Most Holy, the alter of incense, and even the entire inside of the house was overlaid with gold. By today's prices, the gold in Solomon's Temple would probably be valued at $50 billion.

Solomon received large amounts of gold from the King of Tyre (120 talents), the Queen of Sheba (120 talents), and from taxes and revenues from his own merchant fleet. First Kings says that the weight of gold that Solomon received in one year, was 636 talents of gold. The incredible amount of gold that was transacted and used in David and Solomon's day is unbelievable…but true.

When Israel captured cities, God commanded that they not use the captured gold and silver for themselves. Evidently the captured gold was re-refined to purify it. The exception was Jericho. Its gold and silver were turned over to the priests and used for sanctuary use, according to Jos. 6:17-19, 24.

Gold was so valuable and cherished, that in the Bible, gold is likened to wisdom, faith and knowledge. Psalms says that God's laws and commandments are more desirable than gold. (Psalms 19: 7-10, 119:72, 127) Psalms also says that while gold has great value, it is unable to give life. (Psalms 49: 6-8) Job says that no amount of gold can buy the wisdom that comes from God. (Job 28: 12, 15-17,28) The Apostle peter said ones' faith is of greater value than gold, which can withstand fire, but be worn away by other means. (I Peter 1:6,7) No amount of gold can deliver one in the day of God's anger. (Zep 1:18) The point is that gold is the most valuable thing one can possess, according to the Bible, other than knowledge, faith, life, and righteousness.

Even in Biblical times then, TANGIBLE WEALTH, as opposed to spiritual wealth, has always resided in gold, and silver. Throughout recorded history, gold and silver have been actual wealth, as opposed to currencies made of various things, such as mulberry leaves, bark, cigarettes in WW II, sea shells, and other trivia, but mostly PAPER. History, in all faiths and in all books of wisdom, and various holy books, have all used gold and silver as the ultimate form of tangible wealth. In all races, and throughout all of recorded history, gold and silver have been wealth, stability, and irrefutable riches.

Today, as well as in past history, governments, kings, rulers, and charlatans of all types, sizes, and sorts, have used paper "instruments," as the sophisticates call them, to hoodwink, steal, and defraud innocents. Be they paper dollars, promises from hundreds of treasuries throughout history and the world, or worthless bonds and stocks. All such "instruments," are as good as the issuers of such, and no more. A piece of paper, with scribbling or a beautiful imprimatur, is only as valuable as its issuer. An IOU on a piece of scrap paper, given you by a trustworthy individual, is far more valuable than a million pieces of currency from a bankrupt kingdom or nation.

Promises from a used car salesman or government bureaucrat, can be honest or dishonest; valuable or worthless. The same is true with papers of all sorts. A home is a tangible thing, which can be lived in, raise kids in, sleep in, love in, and die in, but a piece of paper can be destroyed with the flick of a match. Tangible vs. fluff, in other words. Leadville Johnny Brown, on a cold morning on Fryer Hill, in Leadville, Colorado, burned a hundred thousand paper dollars, when he started fire in his stove. Molly had hidden it there so he wouldn't waste it. Gold and silver won't burn, and if Molly Brown had hidden an equal amount of gold and silver, Johnny couldn't have started that fire.

It continually amazes me, that by far the majority of all populations of all nations, throughout history, have believed the empty promises of their elected officials and leaders. The common man, has always been fooled by those richer, smarter, or better dressed than themselves. They have gone along with the shallow plans and edicts, and used their rulers monies to save. They have sent their kids to their ruler's public schools, while they sent their own to private ones. The majority, has usually been wrong in all matters of state, it seems. Throughout history, this has been so, be it in Biblical or modern times, the majority has usually been proven wrong in their choices of rulers or savings devices. When everyone does something, I usually do just the opposite. I look at all the new cars whizzing by my door, and am appalled at the wealth poured into them. They lose value with every mile. My three old Mercedes ('73, '74, and '85) give me great joy, incredible reliability and economy, and go up in value with each month. My two '41 Plymouths, equally. New cars, T bills, bonds of any kind, and paper dollars, are absolutely the worst thing one can do with surplus assets.

If you are religious or an atheist, one can determine from any holy book or history, but especially the Bible, that gold and silver are true tangible, physical wealth, which will not burn, and have never lost their desirability, or ability to purchase things. Gold and silver have always been a measuring rod to determine value, and compare things with, or scads of graphs and charts wouldn't be comparing how many stocks one can buy with gold, or how many dollars it takes to buy gold and silver. When long lost ships are discovered beneath the oceans or seas, their recovery isn't for their rudders or deck planking, which long ago have disappeared. It is for the gold, which after a thousand years beneath the briny deep, is still brilliant, beautiful, and untarnished. History is not wrong.

I am always amused by the expression, "When everything else fails, try reading the directions." Us guys hate reading directions or asking for advice or directions when we are lost. We think we are so damned smart. My clients and other dealers' clients may be, but most guys and gals are as dumb as wedges when it comes to investing and protecting themselves is concerned. They all consort with their advisers who have fancy offices and nameplates on their doors, with diplomas neatly framed on the walls. When one is a "licensed financial advisor," one might think that they might contact me occasionally, rather than the continual in and out of stocks and bonds. Not so. One might think that the majority of people everywhere, might notice that "Gold Medal Flour," or the Lone Ranger's horse and bullets, weren't named for dollars or euros. When an Olympic medal winner stands proudly to receive his or her award, they aren't given hundred dollar bills. They are given the gold medal. Yet the public continues to ignore what continually stares them in the face, and even in the Bible's pages. Gold and silver are true wealth, with which to protect yourself.

            Why would someone want to buy real gold or silver or other precious metals?

Why would someone want to buy real gold or silver or other precious metals? There are two primary reasons. The first is that coins or bars of these metals have a durable, tangible and intrinsic value which derives from their future utility in industry as well as their perceived value as a financial instrument. Owners of precious metal coins or ingots may use them as a form of savings, but they sacrifice an interest on the savings, since such coins and ingots bear no interest. An important counterpoint to the loss of interest is that the asset value of each coin does not correspond to an obligation of another party which may be defaulted. The second reason to own precious metal coins is to have an asset which is private or anonymous. One man may choose to spend $100 on a dinner out, the other may choose to buy $100 worth of gold. The one man has spent his money, the other has saved it, privately. Although we live in a computerized world with ever less financial privacy, the owner of a precious metal is exercising a long tradition of financial privacy.

An observation which justifies the ownership of precious metals as a form of savings is that over time, all printed monies of all nations tend to experience inflation. Prices rise slowly, and the purchasing power of the money falls slowly. Governments and their citizens tend to enjoy inflation at low levels since it allows them to pay long term debts back with inflated currency. A positive side of mild inflation is that it tends to encourage savers to place their money into interest bearing investments and assets such as homes and stocks, in the hopes that the value of their investments will grow faster than inflation. A corollary to that is that everyone knows that only a fool would stuff their money into a mattress for 20 years. But precious metals, over the long term, tend to generally hold their value just about even with inflation. There are occasionally periods where the value of precious metals does not rise with inflation, but those are usually followed by periods where the price of the precious metals rises, sometimes suddenly, and usually finds a new equilibrium price near the level dictated by inflation.

For persons living in smaller countries where governments have a history of destroying the value of the currency, precious metals, primarily gold, represent an asset which can easily be sold but which will not suddenly lose value in a currency collapse. Even in modern times, families in many nations in economic trouble have been able to preserve their savings, through holding that savings in gold, rather than their local currency. Those families did not do this by suddenly converting their savings into gold during a financial collapse, they did this during the good times preceding the collapse, by slowly buying gold each time they had spare savings.

Small countries who get into trouble with their national debt, and print up a lot of new money trying to fix things, and then see a dramatic collapse in the value of their currency, are usually able to let a bunch of folks go bankrupt, borrow a few billon dollars from the International Monetary Fund, print a new currency and start over. They are usually much more concerned about arranging bailout loans than they are about the option to confiscate gold or regulate or tax sales of gold.

America is in a very different situation. We are already borrowing about $500 billion dollars per year from foreigners. This is about 5% of our entire economic activity (GDP). If America would get in trouble with the national debt, print up a lot of new money trying to fix things, and then see a consistent drop in the value of the currency, yes, many of us could go bankrupt, but who would bail us out??? If the dollar upon which we all have relied is losing value, the central banks of the world might prefer that Americans begin to save in other currencies such as Yen and Euros, but just as likely is that Americans begin to consider saving in gold. If this happens, the US Government and Federal Reserve Bank will certainly see that a rush away from dollars and into gold, by American citizens, is a vote of no confidence for the dollar. The temptation will be to restrict and regulate gold markets for Americans, trying to force them into holding dollars. But the real solution is for the Government to manage its spending and the FED to manage back real trust in the dollar.

The situation in silver is even more dramatic. Near the end of World War II, since America had been a large silver producer, and had also accepted silver as payment for war supplies, the United States Treasury (including circulating coin) and the US Strategic Silver Reserve held close to 10 billion ounces of silver. Since then, silver has become an essential component in thousands of modern products, and even though the amount of silver mined each year has grown, the demand for silver has grown so much faster, that most of those 10 billion ounces of silver reserve have been used up. As a matter of fact, the ongoing availability of silver from reserves has tended to keep the prices for silver low, and so the global mining industry has not made large new investments related to silver. In essence, the world has been experiencing a shortage of silver for several decades, and this has been hidden by the consumption of reserves. Now, those reserves are gone. Silver known to exist in vaults is only about 150-500 million ounces…2% to 5% of the reserves we once had. Enough to cover a couple short years of typical silver deficit, but that is not enough time for the global mining industry to build mines to produce an extra 200 million ounces per year of silver. A shortage of silver is now eminent. Certain silver investors have recognized the emergency situation in silver several years ago.

The situation with silver is that an acute shortage of silver (leading to certain industrial companies closing down production lines if they can’t find silver) may now occur almost simultaneously with inflationary erosion in the value of various global currencies, particularly the dollar, and a trend away from financial investments such as stocks and bonds into commodities such as energy, food, lumber, metals, etc. In any financial environment, the rise in price caused by an acute and structural shortage in silver will attract new interest in silver investment, but this could even be more dramatic in a poor economic environment where inflation is once again high. Many of the world’s poorest nations are still prolific savers. If even 1% of the savings generated in one year were to attempt to invest in silver, the price of silver would easily move to over $100/ounce. Historically, most serious investment advisors would advise owning about 10% of an investment portfolio in precious metals. If Americans now tried to convert even 1% of their portfolios into silver, massive increases in silver prices could occur.

     Did you know that in 1980, 7 of these 100 oz. bars could buy a comfortable house? Silver at it's sustained peak was valued at about $45 / oz. It's now around $6 / oz. Will silver go up in value or will real estate prices decline? Perhaps both will occur. Regardless, wouldn't you like to own some physical silver and buy a house with it in a few years?

“Great opportunities are not seen with your eyes. They are seen with your mind. Most people never get wealthy simply because they are not trained financially to recognize opportunities right in front of them.” -  Robert T. Kiyosaki  -  Rich Dad/Poor Dad.

MORE VALUABLE THAN GOLD?

By James R. Cook

When I started Investment Rarities thirty-two years ago, silver analyst Jerome Smith was already a legend. In those years he made a series of price predictions for gold, silver and platinum that were phenomenally accurate. In 1967 he recommended his readers buy silver at $1.29 an ounce. In 1971 he recommended gold at $42.00 an ounce. In 1977 he recommended platinum at $147 an ounce immediately before it shot up to $1,000. In his 1982 book Jerome predicted that within our lifetimes silver could very well be worth more than gold. I recently revisited that prediction to determine the exact basis for which Smith had made this amazing claim.

In the 1970s Smith and silver were synonymous. Here’s how he described his uncanny track record. "In 1972, when I wrote the results of a five-year study of silver in a book that has since been regarded as ‘the bible’ on silver, I said that in the coming decade, ‘silver would double in price and then double again.’ Only a few of the many who read that in the early 1970s believed me. And I was wrong. Instead of doubling twice, it doubled three times over on an annual average price basis."

In 1980 silver climbed to $50 and fell back to under $8 the ensuing year. Then in 1982, Smith claimed, "I expect the price of silver to be in the $100-plus per ounce range by 1985." Smith based this bullish conclusion on five primary causes.

1. Industrial demand for silver was exploding.
2. Mining production of silver was less than consumption.
3. Silver production couldn’t be greatly ramped up because 75% of new silver came as a byproduct to base metal mining.
4. Since silver was used in such small amounts in its many applications, a price rise in silver would not reduce the demand.
5. The government had sold off most of its two billion ounce hoard in a way that kept the price down. Now that it was gone, free market forces would re-establish the true price at much higher levels.

Smith went on to predict, "Fundamentally, the outlook for silver is more bullish from 1982 on than for any other commodity I know of – including the much-ballyhooed strategic metals. Silver in 1982 is a cheap precious metal on the way to becoming a scarce and expensive strategic precious metal within this decade."

How could this premier silver analyst, who had so accurately predicted the price rise for silver, gold and platinum in prior years, miss the mark so widely in the 1980s? For one thing, his 1972 book on silver was read by the Hunt Brothers, who claimed it was instrumental in their driving up the price of silver. In that sense, his accurate prediction was a self-fulfilling prophecy more than it was a shortage of silver. To some extent, Smith underestimated the above-ground supply of silver going forward.

However, the greatest reason that Smith’s predictions failed to come to pass has been outlined many times by today’s premier silver analyst, Theodore Butler. In the 1980s, the world’s supply of above-ground silver was rapidly being depleted and the price should have been moving higher rather than stagnating. Ted Butler became the first analyst to pinpoint why. The world’s remaining stockpiles of silver, mostly in foreign government hands, were being leased out and then sold off at low prices. This selling kept the price depressed. In this process, the silver market was oversupplied. No thought was given to getting the best price. Free market mechanisms that would have lifted the price of silver were overwhelmed by a glut of silver sold off by the banks and brokers, who leased the silver from foreign governments and others. They sold it off differently than would the true owners. They were more interested in the silver lease rate than the price. Some might even have wanted the price to stay low.

Ted Butler also pointed out a second crucial fact. A few large trading houses and banks had been able to get a stranglehold on the silver futures market. Their finances dwarfed the size of the silver market, and it was highly profitable to take the short side of futures transactions and cash in when the price dropped. (They could sometimes engineer the drop by lowering their bid prices.) This could also be highly profitable for them in writing options.

These two artificial market tactics acted somewhat the same as price controls. Ted Butler has pointed out that, by holding the price down, these manipulations have made silver all the more attractive to silver buyers because of the resulting low price. In that sense, he echoes Jerome Smith’s claim that the market always has its way. Said Smith, "The longer and greater the interference, the more sudden and precipitous the market reaction will be. All the more quickly prices will move all the lower or all the higher – opposite the direction of the control – to bring the demand made and the supply offered into balance." This is what Ted Butler means when he says the price of silver must explode.

In the spring of 1972, I first read Jerome Smith’s influential book, Silver Profits in the Seventies. Probably no paragraph I ever read influenced me more than these words, "Truly outstanding investment opportunities occur only occasionally. In general, the better they are, the rarer they are. Such opportunities are normally long term in their maturation and by careful study can be foreseen long before they come to the attention of most investors….. The very highest profit potentials occur whenever there is a convergence of two or more primary causes. Such as is with silver today."

Fast forward to 2004 and, more than ever, silver has a number of primary causes for extreme bullishness. Not the least is a dangerously low world supply of silver. We are likely on the eve of a critical shortage, and the price doesn’t reflect that fact. This shortage has been camouflaged by an artificially low price brought about by leasing, and by the big Eastern market makers’ chokehold on silver in the futures market. (Market-making is supposedly not allowed.) This is why Ted Butler says that silver offers the greatest opportunity for gain that most people will ever have. Usually a shortage is made visible by the price. Not this time. Today’s silver price signals nothing. We will run out of the world’s most crucial metal without any warning (except from Ted Butler) and the price will have to explode. The silver shorts and the silver users will be blindsided.

One thing Jerome Smith never contemplated is the huge increase in demand from India and Asia for consumer products that use silver (electronics, appliances, autos, etc.) This skyrocketing demand means that the deficit between silver produced and silver used will remain a problem into the future and aggravate the coming price rise. Furthermore, the booming growth in world populations means that, by definition, this metal, so critical to modern civilization, will be utilized all the more.

Nor did Jerome Smith anticipate that the U.S. government would sell off every last ounce of the billions of ounces of silver they once owned, including the 100 million ounce stockpile for military and strategic purposes. He would have enjoyed the fact that the government (which he disdained) now finds it necessary to buy the silver they need for their coinage programs in the open market.

One thing that Jerome Smith forecast seems to be happening only now. He assumed that, because of money and credit expansion, a rise in the inflation rate would cause investors to pour into silver. We’ve been inflating for decades and, for one reason or another, it is just beginning to catch up with consumer prices. People are definitely buying more silver than they were a few years ago. The silver story is getting out, and the surge in buying will definitely impact the price. In the future these private buyers could very well be the source of silver for desperate industrial users.

Jerome Smith also made this observation about the price ratio of silver to gold. "Both gold and silver emerged in markets as money and served as money, by weight, long before any government put an imprint on either metal. A 16-1 ratio, or close to that, held from the 4^th century B. C. until the last quarter of the 19^th century – over 2,000 years. The markets quickly adjusted to the 16-1 ratio when gold was set free in 1968, and again in 1980." Now the ratio of silver to gold is 60-1. A return to the historic ratio would put silver at $25 per ounce.

From the early 70s to this day there have been numerous claims that silver usage in photography would be replaced by new technology. In today’s era of digital photography, the cheaper throw-away cameras still hold a huge market share. Jerome Smith seemed to be looking ahead to this day when he wrote about "new consumer products co-existing with earlier similar ones while total market demand for old and new increases."

Jerome Smith was a best selling author. On the book jacket of his Silver Profits in the 80’s, there is the following paragraph written by me. "Since I have prospered as a consequence of Mr. Smith’s predictions, it is natural to continue to give significant weight to his current sentiments… If Mr. Smith’s predictions are correct (and his forecasting record demands that we pay heed) silver may be the best single investment opportunity any of us may ever be faced with."

It didn’t work out that way. By 1985 I had given up on silver. I switched my company’s emphasis to gold, and kept it there for fifteen years. Then in the summer of 2000 I came across the writings of Ted Butler. He explained why silver hadn’t lived up to its promise. He showed why Jerry Smith was more right than wrong. He exposed the price manipulation of silver and presented a powerful argument as to why the price of silver was bound to rise dramatically. Ted Butler replaced the late Jerome Smith as the dominant thinker in the silver market.

Ted Butler has added fuel to the fire. He has shown that leasing is bogus. He has argued that the short sellers will be squeezed and the manipulation must be broken. He has suggested that the industrial users will panic when they see a shortage in the silver supply and will have to buy silver no matter what the price. He has pointed out the necessity of holding actual, physical silver to get the greatest gain with the least risk.

Will silver be more valuable than gold some day, as Jerome Smith suggested? There’s around four billion ounces of gold above ground and around one billion ounces of silver. All that gold is worth 200 times the silver. Yet 150% of each year’s silver mine production is necessary for vital industrial purposes. Most of the silver ever mined is used up and gone forever. There’s been a silver shortfall every year for 20 years but the price has failed to reflect this, despite the fact that a shortfall is one of the most powerful influences in establishing a price. Ted Butler believes that silver is the most undervalued commodity on earth today, and perhaps ever in history. Jerome Smith was right about silver’s promise. It may not overtake gold as he suggested, but nobody who owns it today is likely to ever complain.

“Great opportunities are not seen with your eyes. They are seen with your mind. Most people never get wealthy simply because they are not trained financially to recognize opportunities right in front of them.” -  Robert T. Kiyosaki  -  Rich Dad/Poor Dad.

• Arne & Lila Britz – Parents
• Bonnie Britz – Technical help
• Mohamed Ghaleb – Technical help and friend
• Jason Hommel -- Jason Hommel of www.linkjesus.com is a fellow Christian who understands how the unjust fiat money system is doomed for judgment and that silver and gold will find favor again as a true form of wealth. He has a rare combination of understanding gold and silver's role in biblical application and relation in today’s fiat money system.
• Norm Franz – Biblical economist who has an extensive background in business development. As a former monetary economist and investment company president, Norm is a recognized authority on money and wealth. His recent book, Money and Wealth in the New Millennium, is an eye-opening read and prophetic for today’s world economic situation. I strongly suggest that every Christian who has any interest in finance, the stock market, or money in general  read his book!