SUMMARY

In an age where ownership has become the highest illusion, The Great Taking exposes the spiritual and legal deception behind humanity’s obsession with possession. Through Scripture, history, and prophetic insight, this treatise reveals that all property, wealth, and authority ultimately belong to God alone. From Psalm 24’s declaration that “the earth is the Lord’s” to Leviticus 25’s laws of restitution, the pattern is clear: man cannot own what he did not create. Modern systems of collateral and debt merely echo the ancient lie of self-sovereignty, while divine law calls us back to stewardship—living as trustees of God’s dominion rather than lords of our own. To awaken from this fiction is to reclaim true freedom: not ownership, but alignment with the eternal covenant of divine possession.

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INTRODUCTION

There is an unspoken assumption in the modern world: that ownership is the highest form of power. From land titles and patents to digital currencies and intellectual property, the human story has been rewritten as a perpetual scramble for possession. But beneath this structure lies an ancient delusion—the belief that creation itself can be owned by its occupants. Scripture, however, begins and ends with a contradictory assertion:

“The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1, cf. Gen 14:22)

Every legal system built on private title and collateral, every economy founded on debt and contract, ultimately stands upon the soil of divine property. Man may administer it, fence it, and even die defending it—but he never owns it. To confuse stewardship with possession is to enter the heart of The Great Taking: the modern Babylonian system that translates divine trust into human collateral.

In an era where financial systems seem increasingly opaque and centralized, questions about true ownership of our assets have never been more pressing. The Great Taking by David Rogers Webb confronts this uneasy reality head-on, exploring how decades of financial engineering and legal restructuring may have quietly shifted control of individual wealth into the hands of powerful institutions. Drawing on his experience as a hedge fund manager and wall street veteran, Webb warns of a looming scenario in which stocks, bonds, bank deposits, and even debt-financed property could be legally confiscated, leaving everyday investors powerless. This book challenges readers to reconsider not only the nature of money and ownership but also the fragile structures that underpin modern economies, raising urgent questions about security, sovereignty, and the future of personal freedom in an increasingly complex financial world.

This essay explores that tension—the spiritual and legal architecture of ownership. It traces the transformation from covenant to contract, from stewardship to securitisation, and finally, to the prophetic call for restitution: to return what was never ours, to live again as faithful trustees of a world that belongs only to God.

The sin of voluntary corruption—the quiet compromise, the moral fatigue, the cultural assimilation—renders the Church ineffective to be a preservative agent. If we were truly salty, corruption could not spread; if corruption were restrained, then so too would socio-economic and political turmoil lose its soil. Self-preservation and the original FOMO (fear of missing out) leads to nothing good. Unless we return to God’s original path disaster awaits. Scripture gives us the sober equation:

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain that build it: unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”
— Psalm 127:1

When the Church ceases to function as the preserving agent, the city becomes defenseless—spiritually, morally, physically, and crucially in staying with the topic of this post, economically.

THE GREAT TAKING: A SYSTEM OF LEGAL FICTION

“The Great Taking” is not a conspiracy but a codified system—the slow substitution of divine trust for legal fiction. The moment property became something registrable, tradeable, and enforceable in civil courts, it ceased to be the living inheritance of creation and became an asset class.

Modern law functions by fictional personhood. A “person” in law is not a living soul but an artificial entity capable of holding rights and obligations. Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), wrote:

“Corporations are artificial persons, invisible, immortal, created by law for the purpose of society and government.”

Thus, what God created as living stewardship—Adam placed in the garden “to cultivate and guard” (Genesis 2:15)—was translated into a legal person capable of owning and trading that which he did not create.

Roman law also articulated two distinct legal categories of “use”, each defining the boundaries of human interaction with property and ownership.

USUS (Right of Use)

In Roman jurisprudence, usus denoted the restricted right to use another’s property without altering its essence or substance. The holder of this right (usuarius) was permitted to enjoy the benefit of the property—such as dwelling in a house or partaking of its fruits—but lacked authority to sell, destroy, or fundamentally transform it.

• Spiritual parallel: Humanity’s relationship to creation mirrors usus—we are granted lawful use, but not ultimate ownership.
• Biblical echo: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are strangers and sojourners with Me.” — Leviticus 25:23

Theologically, usus captures the essence of divine stewardship: the right to utilise resources responsibly while recognising God’s perpetual dominion over all.

USUFRUCTUS (Right to Use and Enjoy the Fruits)

Usufructus extended beyond usus, granting the right not only to use property but to enjoy its yield and profits (the fructus), provided the property’s core substance remained untouched. The usufructuary thus acted as a trustee—empowered to draw benefit from another’s estate within clearly defined moral and legal limits.

In Roman law, dominium—the right of absolute ownership—belonged solely to the state or emperor, reflecting the theological truth that absolute dominion belongs only to God.

Together, usus and usufructus provided the legal architecture of stewardship, while dominium defined the sphere of ultimate sovereignty. The synthesis of these Roman legal distinctions with biblical revelation underscores a profound truth: humanity was never meant to own, but to manage; never to possess, but to preserve—operating always under the divine title of the true Owner of all things.

The fiction deepened through trust law. In medieval England, land could be held “to the use” of another. The feoffee to uses (trustee) held legal title, while the cestui que use (beneficiary) enjoyed the profits. When the Crown later taxed and regulated these arrangements, the separation of legal and equitable ownership was complete. The principle of stewardship was thus buried beneath the language of title and benefit.

By the time of the industrial revolution, nearly all material creation had been absorbed into this system: land became estate, human beings became labour, and future productivity became collateral. It is no exaggeration to say that the Great Taking is not future—it has already occurred.

WELCOME TO THE MODERN-NOT-SO-MODERN-AFTER ALL

THE LEGAL LINCHPIN: SECURITY ENTITLEMENT AS THE ENABLER OF THE “TAKING”

The security “entitlement” is the legal hinge upon which The Great Taking theory turns. Here “entitlement” is used very loosely, we incorrectly assume true outright ownership. Under this framework, you are not an owner—you are merely a participant in a chain of claims. Your relationship to your assets is mediated by layers of corporate and legal intermediaries who, in times of crisis, possess the right to restructure those claims.

In the fine print of custodial law lies a chilling truth: your entitlement may be lawfully reallocated.

This does not constitute theft, nor does it violate your “rights.” It is the lawful execution of the very legal agreements that govern modern finance. In a declared emergency, the clearing houses and custodians have the authority to reassign the underlying collateral—your stocks, bonds, pensions, cash deposits or even your car and house—to satisfy obligations higher up the institutional hierarchy.

THE ILLUSION OF OWNERSHIP

It turns out that we are not the legal owners at all—merely the beneficiaries of abstracted ownership, the holders of carefully worded permissions dressed up as property rights. The modern system has quietly rewritten the language of possession, and most of us did not even notice.

To “own” a stock, a house, or a deposit in the bank is no longer to possess it in the ancient, tangible sense. It is more like holding a ticket to a music concert. The ticket grants entry and the right to enjoy the performance, but not ownership of the seat you occupy, nor the stadium in which it is held. That belongs to someone else entirely.

You are permitted—not entitled in the true sense—to participate. And that permission can be revoked.

The fine print always includes a clause for “safety,” “stability,” or “systemic continuity.” The house is not yours; it is leased from the architecture of credit. The stock is not yours; it is held in custody by intermediaries whose allegiance lies not with you, but with the clearing systems that own the legal title.

This is the quiet truth: the financial system is a game of musical chairs. As long as the music plays, we dance freely, convinced of our control. But the music is about to stop—and when it does, most will discover that they do not actually have a chair to sit on as the chairs are rearranged. They hold only a beautifully printed ticket, valid only at the discretion of those who own the arena.

It is not theft when the lights go out and the doors close. It is execution of contract—the logical conclusion of a system built on consent to another’s ownership.

The tragedy is not that people were deceived. The tragedy is that they never asked who was really playing the music.

STORES OF VALUE: BROKEN CISTERNS AND THE FORSAKEN FOUNTAIN

Our civilisation prides itself on “stores of value”—portfolios, properties, pensions, and digital currencies—yet these are but broken cisterns, incapable of holding what truly sustains life. We have built elaborate systems of preservation that leak from the moment they are filled.

The prophet Jeremiah delivers a timeless indictment that pierces directly through the illusion of modern security:

“For My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
— Jeremiah 2:13

Isaiah echoes the same grief, describing a people who “draw near with their lips” while their hearts remain far, constructing elaborate defences yet ignoring the Source from which all true stability flows.

“For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
and have not remembered the Rock of your strength.”
— Isaiah 17:10

Our so-called stores of value — gold, equity, property, or digital ledgers — are the modern equivalents of those cracked vessels. They promise continuity but cannot preserve life. They retain form without essence. The tragedy is not in wealth itself, but in the substitution: the displacement of the fountain for the container.

God does not condemn ownership, but idolatrous trust in ownership. The moment we confuse the vessel with the source, our economy becomes our god, and our gods begin to bleed.

To forsake the fountain is to cut ourselves off from the very current that upholds the world. The true economy of heaven is sustained not by collateral, but by covenant; not by stored value, but by living flow.

This is not a flaw in the system. It is the design.

THE EMERGENCY CONTINUITY OVERRIDE

After the 2008 financial crisis, a new generation of settlement architecture was quietly introduced—complete with dormant fail-safe protocols designed to preserve systemic continuity.

Their function is not speculative. It is explicitly described as a mechanism to maintain liquidity and continuity during “systemic interruptions.” In practical terms, it empowers the automatic reallocation of entitlements in the event of a financial emergency—transferring beneficial claims from private investors to secured institutional creditors. When we skipped over the fine-print and agreed to their terms and conditions, this is what we actually agreed to.

In his book Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet, Schwab further elaborates on this idea, stating, there would no more shareholders, only stakeholders, the very institutions/companies and government leaders that make up the WEF.

The language surrounding these mechanisms is deliberately sterile, wrapped in the technocratic vocabulary of “systemic stabilization” and “continuity assurance.” But beneath this bureaucratic veneer lies a moral question: when the system preserves itself at your expense, who truly owns what you believe is yours?

ENTITLEMENT REALLOCATION: THE SYSTEM’S LEGAL RIGHT TO TAKE

Within this framework, the concept of “Entitlement Reallocation” represents the operational arm of the legal structure described above. The separation of beneficial ownership from legal title creates a structural vulnerability that can be activated—not through theft, but through lawful procedure.

When liquidity evaporates and the system reaches a critical threshold of stress, these pre-embedded emergency protocols may execute a systemic reallocation—redirecting the collateral base from beneficial claimants (you, the investor) to the institutional custodians and creditors (stakeholders) whose solvency underpins the network.

It is not chaos; it is order. It is not robbery; it is compliance. And it is not an accident; it is the predetermined logic of a custodial world built upon trust deeds, not ownership deeds.

THE THEOLOGICAL PARALLEL: WHEN MAN USURPS DIVINE DOMINIUM

At its core, this legal phenomenon mirrors an ancient spiritual pattern: humanity’s attempt to assert dominium—absolute ownership—over what was only ever granted as usus or usufructus.

In Roman law, usus was the right to use property without altering it, and usufructus the right to enjoy its fruits without claiming it as one’s own. Dominium, by contrast, was the right of sovereign ownership—reserved to the emperor (the Creator, the Lord God).

Likewise, in divine law, only God possesses dominium:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” — Psalm 24:1

Humanity was granted usufructus—the stewardship and enjoyment of creation under divine sovereignty. Yet when man seeks to claim dominium, systems arise that enslave rather than steward, replacing trust with title, and covenant with contract.

Thus, the “Great Taking” is not merely financial. It is spiritual—the culmination of mankind’s rebellion against the divine law of ownership, transmuted into the legal frameworks of modern finance.

CONCLUSION: THE CUSTODIAL AGE OF POSSESSION WITHOUT OWNERSHIP

The contemporary investor inhabits a world of digital possession and legal displacement. You log into your account and see numbers that suggest ownership—but those numbers signify claims, not deeds.

The architecture of the global financial system has quietly codified a world where the appearance of ownership masks its absence. The Great Taking, therefore, is not a sudden event but a gradual legal transformation—a silent expropriation already completed in law, awaiting only its D-DAY.

The question is not whether you will lose what you “own,” but whether you ever truly owned it at all. And the short answer is: YOU DON’T AND NEVER DID!

DIVINE OWNERSHIP: “THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S”

Ownership, in the biblical sense, derives from origination. That which one creates, one rightfully governs. Genesis 1:1 begins with the divine act of bereshit bara Elohim —“In the beginning, God created.” The Hebrew bara (בָּרָא) implies bringing forth something entirely new, not merely reshaping what existed. Therefore, God’s ownership is not delegated; it is intrinsic. Our so-called “ownership” is not outright ownership but rather stewardship of what rightly belongs to the Creator.

Within this context Haggai 2:8 represents a legal claim by the rightful claimant,

“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Rashi comments that Genesis begins not with a moral command but with an assertion of ownership:

“If the nations of the world should say to Israel, ‘You are robbers for you took the lands of the seven nations,’ Israel can reply: ‘All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased.’” (Rashi on Gen 1:1).

In this rabbinic insight, ownership is divine prerogative, not human right. The very purpose of Genesis is to establish legal standing for divine dominion (ownership). Matthew Henry expands this principle spiritually:

“He that made all still owns all; His hand not only framed but upholds all.”

The conclusion is inescapable — every mortgage, deed, and contract operates under a higher title deed already sealed in heaven.

HOW STEWARDSHIP REPLACES OWNERSHIP

Leviticus 25 reintroduces the divine model of property:

“The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.” (Lev 25:23).

This is the Jubilee Law, a radical rebalancing of economics. Every fiftieth year, ancestral lands were to return to their original families, debts were forgiven, and indentured servants released. The effect was to prevent permanent accumulation—the Great Taking was legally impossible within God’s covenantal economy.

Regardless of whether a society operates under feudalism, democracy, communism, or capitalism, it remains subject to the natural dynamics described by the Pareto Principle. Often simplified as the “80/20 rule,” this principle observes that a disproportionate share of power, wealth, and resources inevitably concentrates in the hands of a small minority. More precisely, the phenomenon can be expressed through the “square root law” or Stevenson’s Law: in any population, the top echelon—roughly the square root of all participants—controls the majority of influence and resources.

This principle helps explain contemporary societal trends: for instance, in the United Kingdom, 55% of households now officially receive more in government support than they contribute in taxes. Even in a system designed to redistribute wealth, the underlying gravitational pull toward concentration persists. Resources and influence flow toward the minority at the top, while the majority remain dependent on the system, illustrating the inevitability of imbalance in any human organisation, regardless of its ideological framework.

The Hebrew word for “steward” or “administrator” (as seen in Genesis 43:19 and Luke 16:1) implies one who manages on behalf of another. The New Testament intensifies this: “It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor 4:2). Faithfulness, not acquisition, is the currency of divine economics.

Thus, stewardship is not a lesser form of ownership but its redemption. To steward is to acknowledge that dominion is exercised under God’s authority. Ownership says, “It is mine to keep.” Stewardship says, “It is mine to manage for His glory.” The shift is not legal only but psychological — from possessive control to participatory trust.

THE HEBREW ROOTS OF “POSSESSION” AND “DOMINION”

Two Hebrew roots define humanity’s relationship to creation: qanah (קָנָה) and radah (רָדָה).

• Qanah means “to acquire, purchase, or redeem.” In Proverbs 8:22, Wisdom declares, “The LORD possessed (qanah) me in the beginning of His way.” Here possession is creative, not exploitative — a holding born of love.
• Radah means “to rule or have dominion.” Genesis 1:26–28 grants man radah over the earth, but not ownership. Dominion is functional authority, not proprietary claim.

Etymologically, qanah later developed into kinyan in rabbinic law—the act of formal acquisition. Yet even in Jewish jurisprudence, every kinyan (purchase) presupposes divine permission. The rabbis often added, “Blessed be He who has given us power to acquire.” In other words, no human kinyan is absolute.

In Greek, the contrast emerges again: kleronomia (inheritance) derives from kleros (lot) and nomos (law) — literally “lawful allotment.” The inheritance belongs to those appointed by divine lot, not those who seize it.

Thus, the language of Scripture itself guards against idolatrous ownership. The words that sustain civilisation contain within them the reminder that all possession is temporary and conditional upon righteousness.

Once again, when properly contextualised we can see why James qualifies his statement in James 4:1-3,

“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.”

Now concider Proverbs 11:24-25,

“One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”

THE MODERN SYSTEM OF COLLATERAL CAPTURE

To understand The Great Taking in our age, one must trace how divine inheritance became financialised. Modern property law rests upon the doctrines of title, lien, and trust, all of which derive from medieval theology but were secularised over time.

When banks issue credit, they do not lend existing wealth; they monetise future labour and secure it with present assets. The borrower’s title is thereby encumbered—legally owned, but equitably pledged. Every mortgage is a microcosm of the Fall: man trades the eternal gift of land for temporary sustenance.

The 20th century introduced a global system of collateralised debt obligations, transforming not just land but human identity into tradable assets. Birth certificates, social security numbers, and national insurance systems function as registration points for human productivity—“the persons” through which the state can claim interest.

This warrants another discussion of the distinction between Admiralty (or Maritime) Law and the Law of the Land…

In legal theory, this is a form of constructive trust. You are the beneficiary, but the legal title remains elsewhere. The state, like Pharaoh, manages the grain in famine and redistributes it through taxation which is thee penalty for those who have sold themselves into slaveryin order to survive (Genesis 47:13-19). Genesis 47 records this archetype: during the famine, Joseph collected all the money and land for Pharaoh, so that the people became his servants. The text concludes,

“Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh.” (Gen 47:22).

Even ancient Egypt understood that sacred stewardship was non-transferable. This also provides us with a clue on how to survive The Great Taking.

The Great Taking today is the total securitisation of creation—the translation of every living thing into a unit of trade. The irony is that this system operates lawfully within its own codes, but those codes are built upon a false presupposition: that man is ultimate owner.

THE SPIRITUAL LAW OF RESTITUTION

In Scripture, restitution is not merely repayment but restoration to divine order. Exodus 22 outlines a detailed law of compensation: if a man steals an ox or sheep, he must restore multiplefold. Yet beneath the surface lies a principle of spiritual equity: theft disturbs harmony, and restitution restores it.

Luke 19:8 records Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who upon encountering Christ says,

“If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.”

The Greek apodidōmi (to give back fully) mirrors the Hebrew shalam (wholeness)—from which shalom (peace) is derived. Restitution, therefore, is peace through justice.

In prophetic terms, The Great Taking must be followed by The Great Restitution. This is not an anarchic overthrow but a spiritual reclamation: humanity returning title to its Creator. The earth will again rest in the hands of its rightful Owner. As Isaiah 61:7 promises,

“For your shame you shall have double… everlasting joy shall be unto them.”

RETURNING TO THE FATHER’S OWNERSHIP

The parable of the talents (Luke 19:11–27) reveals the divine logic of property. Each servant receives resources “to occupy till I come.” When the master returns, he demands an account. The faithful are rewarded, not because they owned the talents, but because they multiplied what was entrusted.

In theological language, this is usufruct: the right to use and enjoy the fruits of property without owning it outright. The early Church Fathers, including Origen and Chrysostom, taught that all possessions are held in usufruct under God. Chrysostom wrote,

“This world is not ours, but God’s; we are but stewards of His goods.”

and 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 paraphrased,

“This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those…who buy [conduct themselves] as though they had no goods.”

To live as a son rather than a slave is to accept this trust joyfully. The prodigal son’s downfall began with the demand, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” His redemption began when he realised that even his father’s servants had more security within the father’s house than he did in his self-ownership.

The restoration of and return to sonship is the restoration of legal stewardship or guardianship.

To be a son is to inherit without possession, to reign without exploitation, to rule as an image-bearer, not an owner.

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF TRUE STEWARDSHIP

If divine ownership is reality, then human law, at best, approximates it. The challenge is to align earthly systems with heavenly order.

In jurisprudence, there exists a maxim: “Equity regards as done that which ought to be done.” This reflects God’s economy. When a man acts as a faithful steward, heaven credits him with ownership in righteousness, though the title remains God’s.

Legally, stewardship redefines liability. A steward is accountable, but not proprietarily liable. He manages on behalf of another. Theologically, this releases humanity from the anxiety of loss—for one cannot lose what one never owned.

Blackstone himself acknowledged this divine hierarchy:

“Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator… for he is entirely a dependent being.”

The problem arises when nations legislate without acknowledging that dependence.

A civilisation that denies divine ownership inevitably collapses into confiscation.

When property becomes ultimate, men become property. The only antidote is a return to the law of trust—not as financial instrument, but as covenant.

This has practical implications. In governance, it calls for trusteeship models over extractive ownership; in economics, for use-value over speculative gain; in personal life, for open-handed gratitude instead of possessive fear. To live as a divine steward is the truest form of sovereignty.

KEY STATEMENT

→ Ownership is an illusion sustained by law; stewardship is reality sustained by grace.
→ The earth was never taken from God—only from our awareness of His title.
→ The Great Taking ends where acknowledgement begins:

“Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine” (1 Chron 29:11).

→ When man returns ownership to God, God restores dominion to man.

DEVOTIONAL PRAYER

Father of all creation,
You are the true Owner of heaven and earth. The land, the breath, the mind, and the spirit—everything returns to You. Teach me to hold lightly what was never mine to grasp. Strip away the illusion of control that has blinded nations, and awaken in me the humility of a steward who lives only to please You.

Where I have lived as though my life were my possession, forgive me. Reclaim my heart as Your territory. Let Your Spirit re-establish Your dominion in my thoughts, my choices, my property, and my influence.

Make me faithful in the little, that I may be entrusted with much. And when the world’s systems tremble, let me stand anchored in Your eternal covenant—that all things are Yours, and I am Yours, and nothing can take what belongs to You.

In the name of Yeshua, the rightful Heir of all things.
Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Where in my life have I mistaken stewardship for ownership—clinging to what was only entrusted to me?
2. How does recognising that the earth is the Lord’s change my view of personal property, security, and legacy?
3. In what ways have I unconsciously participated in “The Great Taking”—placing my trust in man-made systems rather than divine law?
4. What would it look like for me to practise “divine trusteeship” in my finances, relationships, and creative work?
5. How can I return each day to the awareness that I belong wholly to God—and that everything I hold is already His?