Expositional Lectures

The Law And Man

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 2-12

Genre: Speech

Track: 072

Dictation Name: RR117A2

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Our Lord and our God, according to Thy Word we come unto Thee mindful of all of Thy past and present mercies and blessings. Mindful our Father that Thy Word is true, and that our lives founded upon Jesus Christ, and grounded day by day on Thy infallible Word. Ever blessed assurance of Thy care, and of Thy kingdom. According to Thy Word we open wide our mouth that Thou might fill them. Speak to us the words that we need and grant us Thy peace, in Jesus Name, Amen.

Our scripture lesson is from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, verses seventeen and following. Matthew 5, seventeen and following.

Mat 5:17-48 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. (18) For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (19) Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (20) For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (21) Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: (22) But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

(23) Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; (24) Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. (25) Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. (26) Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. (27) Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery: (28) But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (29) And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (30) And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (31) It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: (32) But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. (33) Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: (34) But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: (35) Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. (36) Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. (37) But let your communication be, yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (38) Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: (39) But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. (40) And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. (41) And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. (42) Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (43) Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. (44) But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (45) That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (46) For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (47) And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? (48) Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

This passage has caused no end of confusion in the minds of many people. And has been the cause for many Pharisees in the Church. Certainly the modernists and pacifists have made extensive use of certain aspects of this particular passage. And it is important for us to understand this as a unit, in order that we may combat these heresies and more than that, understand what it is that our Lord expects of us. First of all, as we approach the subject that our Lord here spoke of, the law and man, it is well for us to note that there has been two heresies concerning this subject that have beset the Church. One can be termed ‘legalism’. Legalism or work salvation. It is that doctrine whereby men say that they can be saved by their own work. That they are perfectly able to keep the law of God and say to God, alright Lord, I have kept Your law perfectly, open up heaven, I’m coming. I have saved myself by my perfect obedience of the law. Now the fallacy of course with this position is that it involves a belittling and a perversion of the law of God. Anyone can keep the law, provided he can first redefine the law. So as to make it impossible for him to break it. This of course is the essence of all warped religion. This is the essence of Pharisee-ism, this is the essence of Talmudic interpretation. It reduces the law to the level where it is virtually impossible for anyone to break it. It is possible for me to jump over any church, provided I can build that church, and if I build it to my scale, two or three feet, I can jump over it very easily. And I could obey any law, provided I had the right to redefine that law.

And this is {?} the essence of all legalism. And it takes God’s law and it alters it completely. It makes into something which it is not. Legalism therefore cannot condoned by any Christian. Legalism says that a man can save himself and that a man can perfectly observe God’s law. This is not so. But, in avoiding legalism, we cannot fall into the other great heresy, antinomianism. Anti-nomian, nomos, law. In other words, the position of being anti-law. Now, antinomianism begins with a perfectly honest premise, it says, we are saved by faith. It is the grace of God which saves us, and not the law. This is true. Then it goes on to draw a completely illogical and anti-Christian conclusion from this, and says, therefore we no longer needed the law. The Bible says we are dead to the law (this is true), therefore we need not keep the law.

Now we are dead to the law only as a handwriting of ordinance is against us. Only as an indictment against us. The law has been fulfilled in its indictment, its punishment. The indictment of the law against us as sinners is that we have disobeyed God’s law and the penalty is death. And having accepted the death of Christ as our death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ as our resurrection and our regeneration, we are dead to the law indeed as a indictment, but alive to it as a rule of life and as the way of life. The law is the righteousness of God. Have we been saved that we might now kill and commit adultery? That we might steal and bear false witness in court? This is nonsense. But unhappily, antinomianism tends to this and it has gone so far as, many a time, {?} and now, {?}.

During the Colonial period, there was a time when antinomianism began to predominate in New England until the authorities finally put it down. And the antinomians said we are saved by the grace of God, we are dead to the law, therefore marriage is no longer necessary for us, because marriage represents law. And property and everything else, these are things that are a part of the world of law and we are dead to the world of law. And the result was not only moral, but social disorder. Antinomianism does not have to be carried that far to see its trouble. If it go no further than saying we can forget about the law, it leads to a situation such as we have today. Where law and order have no real significance, even among those who profess to be solid, believing Christians. Because they have been content to say we are dead to the law, which they are, as far as dead to …{?}. But they are alive to it as far as far as their need for sanctification is concerned. Now, it is necessary for us therefore to avoid these two great evils. Antinomianism and legalism. Our Lord, of course, in this passage, prohibited clearly any setting aside of the law. And He said anyone who did, if he were truly saved, would be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven. And any who set it aside as the Pharisees did, and substituted a man made work, a man made law or reinterpretation of God’s law, had no place in God’s kingdom. Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then He proceeded to take the law and to make it clear that this legalistic interpretation was impossible. Because the true biblical meaning of the commandments He said, was something that applied inwardly and outwardly. Thou shalt not kill, but it is not enough to say, I’ve kept the law, if you have not killed a man. If you have, without cause, hated him, or wished him dead, or harbored malice against him, you have been guilty of violating this law.

You have said, I have not stolen, you have not kept the law if you have in anyway coveted what is your neighbors, or if you have sought through roundabout means, and socialism is one of them, to take what is your neighbors from him and have it given to you, or to any one else. It is not enough to say I have not committed adultery physically with anyone, if you have lusted after any woman or, conversely, any man, in your heart. Because then you have broken the law. Now our Lord by this interpretation made it clear that the Pharisaic interpretation was invalid. But the law from the beginning required an inward as well as an outward righteousness. And so our Lord systematically went through and declared, I come, not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, to keep it perfectly in my own person, and to establish it all the more fully. It was not His purpose to set aside one jot nor one tittle of the law. Thus the law of God stands, as the law for man in society. It requires justice, and justice cannot be set aside as both the antinomians and ultimately the legalists both do, and replace with feelings. Because what they say is, oh, we are above the law and we can substitute goodwill and love and all kinds of noble feelings that we have in our heart, for the law. But any feeling we have in our hearts that goes contrary to the law, is an ungodly feeling. And though we may call it love, if it violates the law it is not love, because love, according to Scripture, is the fulfilling of the law. Thus antinomianism and legalism are barred. And the first aspect of the relationship of law with man is that it must govern society and govern human relationships.

But then we come to a second aspect, a second paragraph as it were, in this sermon. Verses 38-42. And immediately this put many people into confusion. Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: ) But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. This of course is the shorter Bible of the pacifists. Does it mean what they say it does? And the answer clearly is no. What did our Lord mean by it? First He upheld the law. He said he had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And He did not give anyone who was His followers the right to change that law or to displace it, to the slightest degree. But, our Lord knew that we live in this world very often under circumstance where there is no rule of law. Now, eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is the rule of law, of justice. The punishment must fit the crime, that’s the significance of that. But what if you don’t have that situation? What if instead of law governing society, injustice prevails? I’ve seen situations where I was more fearful of the court than I was of {?}. I’ve known some judges, and I would rather take my chances with a hoodlum than some of those judges. And I suspect this will become, increasingly, the situation in our society today. Now, the reality that our Lord was speaking to was this, the Judeans and the Galileans were living under Roman rule. Not under their own law, not under the rule of law.

They were not citizens. They were subjects. And as subjects, they had very little in the way of any rights. At any moment, Roman officials could tap them on the shoulder and say, you’re going with us a mile. We’re putting you to involuntary services, we are drafting you. For compulsive labor or whatever we choose. Or we are taking your coat, or your substance, or your animal. And we’re taking your money. Lend it to us. The word that is used each case is compulsive. If a man compels you. Some of the words are indeed technical words for this kind of compulsory requirement on the part of the Empire. So the one who strikes thee on the cheek is evil and has the power of compulsion. The one who sues thee is evil and has the power to compel you. The one who requires compulsory service of you for a mile again is evil, and has the power to require it of you. And the one who takes or demands of you money, has the power to do so. What is the sensible reaction? You’re not under the rule of law. And can you say, I have to go on the basis of justice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? But justice is not ruling. And how can you demand justice of injustice? How can you go to some of our men on the Supreme Court and expect justice of them? In such a case, resist not evil. Settle without a court. And go along with it. Go a second mile. Outwardly be cooperative, don’t aggravate them. You’re a Judean, the Roman officials can put their hand on you and require you to do this. And you know what happens if you show any signs of resistance, they make you go ten miles instead of one.

Be cooperative, be ready to go the second mile, you’re better off in the long run. ..{?}..

The rule of law is affirmed by Christ. But where law does not rule, where injustice rules, we are to be realistic. There’s no foolish ideas in the Bible. When our Lord sent out His disciples, and commissioned them to preach, He warned them that they would have trouble, but He didn’t tell them to stand up and take martyrdom, He said, if they reject thee in the one town, shake off the dust of thy feet and go to the next. Don’t stay around and be abused if you can get away. This is realism. And it is fantastic to turn something that is so obvious, and in a situation where the Word indicates this is compulsive, {?}. But the first relationship of man to law is, that in a godly society the rule of love, justice must prevail. Second, where injustice rules, we are to bend with it without surrendering to it. We are to be realistic, it is godly to think in terms of survival, provided it isn’t just survival we’re thinking of. And third, because our Lord recognized that in the second situation, the rule of injustice, we were dealing with enemies, he went on to say, you have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemy, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may the children of your Father which is in heaven. Now what did our Lord mean by this third category? Love your enemy. These are the people who are abusing you, compelling you into situations that are certainly not desirable. They have the power.

The love of enemies {?} previously means simply keeping the second table of the law. This is the first and basic meaning. Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet. Respect your neighbors right to life, to property, to the sanctity of his home and of reputation, in word, thought and deed. Love them. Because they allow injustice to rule and they believe in injustice, you must none the less stand in terms of justice. You can’t expect them to give it to you. The unjust will not give you justice. But all the same maintain an attitude of justice, as a witness, and as your way of life. And pray for them. And remember, they can be converted. This is the commandment of our Lord. It is the real {?}. Our Lord pointed to the full meaning of the law, and he pointed to it realistically, in terms of a world where often anti-law rules. We are to find in Jesus Christ our Savior, and in His law a way of life. And as we try to teach that law we are to remember that of course, Christ alone can kept it perfectly. We cannot surrender the law because we are not perfect in our keeping of it, but we are to remember that as we keep it, we need not be fearful because often, in our frailty, our keeping of the law is folly. And often we fall short of the perfect standards of God. We are instead to take courage and strength from the fact that since God is our Savior, we shall stand as Calvin said, at the tribunal of a judge who is also our advocate, and who has taken us under His faith and protection. And since the judge {?} giver of the law, He’s our Savior and protector. We stand indeed in a very blessed relationship to the law, which is an expression of God’s righteousness and nature. The law is now our light, and the sword of the law is our God.

Therefore we need not be fearful. Though the earth be removed and though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. For the Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy gracious Word, and we thank Thee for its plain speaking and for its realism. We thank Thee that Thy Word {?} true, is a Word we can live by. A word we can grown strong by, a word which is our authority, that Thy truth, Thy justice, however it’s used by men {?}, for coming from Thy very throne. Make us strong therefore in Thee and conquer them {?}. {?} the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and His saints. In Jesus name, Amen.

Do we have any questions now? Any questions? Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The question is, in a {?} with the Soviet Union, how would a Christian tithe. Because in such a country you are robbed, really, by the State, so that you have a very modest income. I would say in such a case you would not figure your tithe in terms of a growth, but in terms of the actual amount you receive, so that after the {?}has taken his share from you, you will give in terms of that. Because the rest is not real income, it’s just pretend.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. They don’t have the Church, and that is true. In such a case, it is, I would say, yours to use for the Lord’s work in whatever fashion it can be used. There is a great deal underground there, the visible church in the Soviet Union today of course is just a front, it is a compartment of the Soviet Union, it is maintained for propaganda purposes, it has no reality. Particularly in those areas where tourists can go. However, there is a fair amount of underground religious activities, there are people, for example, copying Bibles, they are not {?}. The only way you can have a Bible there is to have someone copy that portion of it for you.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. And a great many believers there are doing precisely that. They are helping having the Bible copied in circulars. This is a tremendous work. They are doing the most work there, by the way. They are subsidized. Any other questions?

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I believe the ecumenical movement in all the churches today is not genuinely Christian, I believe it is working for a one world church, and then a one world religion. And I believe they are working together in very close union behind the scenes, towards that end.

Yes, I believe there is another question?

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I think we have to go along with them, because its futile to go to the courts we have now. What justice can we get from most of these courts? Sure, occasionally some judges over one, that are good men, but on the keel, what happens? We’re far worse off then we were before. And it is really futile to resist when evil sits enthroned as it does. Now I’m not saying we should stop resisting for I believe there’s a lot of resisting that we can do, politically especially. There’s a great deal of resistance that can be done in the political arena, because we still have a great measure of opportunity there. But in the legal ground, in view of the fact that our court, which I believe along with the churches are the most perverted areas of American life, are so far gone what can you do?

And this is so deep and so far reaching, in insurance cases, for example, the kind of thing that prevails is appalling. And this is established by the court. And this goes way, way back a good number of years, before World War 2, when this perversion began. I just brought to mind something that I’d forgotten about years before, but I recall how this whole business of liability took the turn it has in recent years. It happened in the thirties, when I was a youth worker in San Francisco, and a church in the neighborhood, about the same time we had our daily Vacation Bible School and picnic at the end of it, also had one, and these kids went from this church to the same area we were going for a picnic, and there was this one kid who had been nothing but problems through the entire time, and finally he’d been such a problem the day before the picnic, that the superintendent of the daily Vacation Bible School sent him home and said, you’re through. You’ve been a destructive influence the whole time. Now he sneaked back the next day to go on the picnic. And he was ordered away from the church and from the premises, by the youth worker, but after they had all piled in the cars to go to the picnic, he got on to the back bumper of this one car and hung on, this was in the thirties, latter part of the thirties, to the spare tire. And they stopped at a signal, and a car came along and hit them, a drunk. And the boy was injured. His parents, it was the first they knew in the car that he was there, the parents found that the man who had run into them was drunk and had nothing, so they sued the church. It was rejected by every court except the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the boy’s parents, to the tune of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, that was the landmark decision, and that how all of your liability cases have opened up, and I remember at the time, because I knew the incident from the beginning, the shock it created. It was a deliberate overturning of all of justice.

Deliberate. There wasn’t a judge in the country until it hit the Supreme Court, that could make sense of the case, they threw it out. Now, this is the kind of entrenched evil, just as insignificant a thing as that, that we face. So that we cannot expect justice of unjust men. We cannot expect Earl Warren{?} to think like a Christian. So we have to deal with that reality. In areas where we can do something we must do it.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I’ve forgotten now.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] After all, the Supreme Court surrender after ‘36, and with one or two replacements, within a year, it was changed. And I believe the year was ‘39.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Very good. Before I do, I’ll give you one point that I ran across just this last Tuesday along the other line, as to what {?}. This is a news item from Sunday, January 23, this is Gladys Kyle, 38, the mother of 11 children, {?}, represents Chicago on the nation wide, 28 member Advisory Council for the War of Poverty. A recipient of aid due to dependent children, and an active {?} worker. Mrs. Kyle says, that she has not seen her husband since 1957, when they were separated. Her eldest son is 21, her youngest children are 5, 4, and 2 years old. Now, I submit that she is as fine an appointment as any we’ve seen in the last 5 or 6 years. And the government is running true to course in appointing her. What are you going to get by appealing to people like this? Now this question of swearing. It does not have reference to the court. But it had reference to the casual taking of oath that was so commonplace.

People were swearing by this and that and taking oaths apart from the courts of law. And so what our Lord did was to ban this kind of oath taking. Oath taking was only to be as required under legal procedure. So that apart from that, our word is to be our bond, there is to be no needless oath taking. Oath taking is something before God, before duly constituted authorities, so that the only places where an oath legitimately can be taken, since it is under God and before God, are in some court of law or civil authority, and in the church.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. ‘Course, that is an extension of some kind of civil authority. So it’s fully legitimate for a Christian there.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Right. And this has been because some groups have had scruples about swearing even under those circumstances.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I think it regrettable that it isn’t.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well, the commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness, of course, does require us to bear witness to the truth and does require of us an oath on court of law, and the Mosaic law did require an oath of witnesses.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] An interesting point, but by the way, since we’re on the subject of oaths, and this involves, of course, not only truth telling but perjury. The biblical law required that anyone who was a perjured witness should be punished by the same punishment as the person against whom he swore falsely, would receive. If it were a capital offense, in other words a murder trial, and a witness were guilty of perjury, he would die. If it were a civil offense and there was, say, five thousand dollars involved, the perjured witness was guilty to the tune of five thousand dollars. This was the Mosaic law. And this was once Christian law, but unfortunately today, perjury has really no practical penalty in the United States except in a very few cases where the Federal government is involved. And witnesses I’ve seen rebuked by a judge for very obvious perjury and trapped in it, and just let go without any punishment. Because it’s not taken seriously any longer. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Because they are, of course, social gospel advocates and second, this is a part of a tremendous effort to organize agriculture. Now, one of the problems about socializing agriculture is this, that agriculture is a little harder to organize than industry because the farmer is, as long as he is paying his own workers and as long as he can to any degree do the work himself, a little beyond the control of some organizers.

And California agriculture has been fairly independent. Hence there has been an all out move to organize farm labor, first to prevent the {?} from coming in, second to insist that American labor be employed, third organized American labor, because it can be controlled. And thereby to control the farm. And the idea of course is to break him, because if you can organize agricultural labor, then you can destroy the farmer. You can say, we’ll have a strike against you unless you meet our terms. In which case the man is faced with the fact that his crops, which have to be picked in terms of the day, are going to rot on the vines or on the trees. And he is helpless. So this idea of the total control of these farmers is behind this. And it emanates from the big labor bosses and their desire to reach out to these people and have them in their power. It’s a very serious thing, and a tremendous amount of money has been spent in this effort, and as I stated, this began by borrowing {?}. And of course, what can a farmer do? Supposing you set, as the wages, a particular sum, let us say, three fifty an hour. But what if the man is not making that much money out of his grapes? And in the last ten years, it’s been impossible from year to year, to know what the price of grapes would be. They’ve been very, very low, many years, and in other years they’ve done very well on them. The same is true of peaches. And peaches I think, one year in three they have made money in the last ten years. And in the other years they’ve barely gotten by or taken a loss. Now, the price of picking has varied in terms of what the farmer can make and the supply of labor.

The farmer will be completely helpless if the price of labor does not fluctuate in terms of the price of his produce. He has no way of getting by then. He is hogtied completely. Now, one thing this has done is to lead to the mechanization of agriculture steadily, which is not all to the good. In fact, there’s some very serious drawbacks, but that’s another question. But consider cotton. Cotton pickers were invented. Because it became increasingly impossible to contend with labor. It was becoming organized, steadily, there were strikes, there were problems, and what can you do if your cotton gets rained on? You hope maybe it’ll dry out between that rain and the next one, but it, perhaps becomes set under third grade as a result, you’ve lost money. So, cotton pickers were invented to get away from the problem of farm labor that was paralyzing cotton producers. Now, the amount of cotton that is picked by hand is very small. But the weight is tremendous, because a cotton picker, even though it’s one of our best means of mechanized agriculture, leaves at least half the cotton, or lets say at best a third, because it depends on the size of the vines and so on, outtake, it leaves it on the vine. So that you have wasted a tremendous amount in the process of using your mechanized picker. Now they have invented mechanized pickers for almonds and walnuts and other things. So that we are destroying agriculture steadily, by introducing wasteful methods to get away from this total control. And because agriculture is so sensitive to market and bounces up and down so rapidly, from year to year, labor control is the death of free agriculture. And this is the issue. And these people, Socialists, want to see free agriculture destroyed. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. The Federal Government is involved in this, it’s cooperated fully. It cooperated by eliminating the {?}. So they are cooperating because this means more power to them. More control over the people. And when people are drunk with power, of course, they only want more and more power.

Two or three years ago there was a concerted effort on the part of the Federal government to break the cattlemen. The cattlemen have been the most independent element in the United States in the realm of agriculture. As soon as the war was over, they threw off control. And the Federal authorities warned them, they said if you drop control, if you don’t let us control the price of meat and so on, why, you’re liable to have a terrible collapse. And they said, that’s alright, we’ll take it, we’ll depend on supply and demand. Well of course, they did have a tremendous crackup. In 19, the year 1951, beef hit a top US price of thirty six cents a pound, on the hoof. Fantastic price, this was top grade beef. But with this controls were now removed, you see there was a tremendous demand and the price shot up. But every Tom Dick and Harry across the country that had a little extra acreage was in the cattle business. Next year it dropped to eleven cents top price, on the hoof. And as low as four cents for inferior grade. Now, cattlemen have to have fifteen cents a pound, on the hoof, to break even. So they took a beating in 1952. A terrific beating. But what happened? Supply and demand readjusted the situation. And it knocked out the marginal producers, many of whom were in California, who were using extra acreage to graze some cows on, well they sold out, it wasn’t profitable. Next year the price went up to eighteen cents. A very good price. And since then, consistently they have done well. Well, two or three years ago, with the drought in the Soviet Union, drought in China, and in much of South America and elsewhere, the beef shortage throughout the world was critical. One of the most fearful shortages of meat in our era.

And in Europe beef from South America and Australia was selling for up to two dollars a pound in some instances. Just very ordinary cuts. And strangely, foreign beef was being bought at the same time that the {?} prices was being dumped on the American market. And without the usual inspections, apparently. Why? To break the American cattlemen. To force him to look for control from the Federal Government. Now they haven’t succeeded yet, but they hope, systematically, by one tactic or another, to break down the farmer and the cattlemen, so that they can be controlled. Because in order to control man, you have to control what he grows, what comes out of the ground in the form of minerals, and the Wilderness Bill has taken a major step towards that end, and third you have to control money. When you control these three things you have man completely in your power. And so you have today, this systematic attempt to control and hence, the effort to break the backs of these great producers in the valley, and hence the rallying of all these Socialists around this cross{?}. I understand {?} has come out in their support and is going to write a book or pamphlet about the matter. And certainly every issue lately of the People’s World has been full of stories about the strikers at {?}. It is a big issue. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. There are three basic texts of the Old Testament. There is the Masoretic text, which in Hebrew, then there is the Samaritan Pentateuch, which is justifiable to Moses, which the Samaritans had, which is basically the same as the Masoretic with minor difference which the Samaritans introduced. It’s not a significant text.

Then there is the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation, which was made in the Intertestamental period, between the closing of the Old Testament canon, and the New Testament. Now, the basic text of course is the Masoretic. It is the Hebrew text. The Masoretic text has been confirmed over and over again in its validity, for example, the Dead Sea scroll, Isaiah, for example, is exactly the same, point for point, word for word, as the Masoretic text. The Septuagint is a translation, but it is a very important text for this reason, that it was translated by people who were close to the original meanings of the words. And therefore very often, we know what an original word meant, because we know how they translated it. And this is important, because words change their meanings, we’ve seen tremendous changes in English in the last four hundred years. For example, farmer once meant tax collector. And silly was once a very kindly term, it meant dear or sweet or innocent. But you couldn’t tell your wife that she was silly now, without getting into trouble. The word has changed its meaning. Now, it is through the discovery of old manuscripts, inscriptions, and documents that we have been able to find out, in some many instances, the original meanings of biblical words where there is a question mark as to interpretation. The Septuagint has been very, very valuable, because here you have a translation of the whole thing. And for example, one word that is very important, and the Septuagint has been very helpful in the translation of it, is fornication. Because the Septuagint makes clear what is involved in the meaning of this word and the way it translates.

Well, our time is up now, and we stand dismissed.