Studies in Political Philosophy

Incarnation and History

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: Incarnation & History

Genre: Speech

Track: 13

Dictation Name: RR124G13

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

1 John 1:1-18 deals with Incarnation and History. Matthew and Luke, as they begin their Gospels, give us the story of the virgin birth, but John goes far deeper. He begins not only with the presupposition of God’s miraculous Son, the miraculous birth to which he refers in verse 18, “the only begotten son,” but he goes much further to tell us what Jesus Christ was from all eternity.

The virgin birth, after all, is feted{?} by John as the starting point of faith, not a high point, not a peak of faith, a presupposition, something that you begin with, and so presupposing that which has already been declared by Matthew and by Luke, John goes much further, and he gives us the essence of the doctrine of Christ.

John presupposes faith as he opens us these things. He does not deal with people as though they were rational men who are to be convinced of truths by logical argumentation. He declares unto them the truth, because nothing else is the truth. John does not ask his readers to have an open mind, because when you approach the truth, you do not approach the truth with an open mind, but with an obedient mind. Does mathematics call for an open mind, or an intelligent mind? When you approach geometry, trigonometry, algebra, any area of mathematics, do you approach it with an open mind to say, “I will determine for myself whether this is right or wrong before I accept it and before I study it.” How are you able to judge? Instead, you approach mathematics with an intelligent mind, not an open mind, with a mind that says, “Here is a discipline, a learning, and it’s not for me to sit in judgment on it, but to study it.”

And so John speaks to the intelligent mind, not to the open mind, and although the birth of Christ is greater, the person is greater, and so he begins with the person, and in the first four verses, he gives us the true nature of Jesus Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”

This Jesus Christ who dwelt among us, says Paul, is eternal. He was with the Father before the world was, before all things. He is co-eternal with the Father. He is the second person of the Trinity, but he is a person distinct from the Father and the godhead, though in perfect union with him, but he is God. There are three persons in the godhead, but one God. The Word was God, and the Word, the Son, was creator of all things. “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” So declares John, this Jesus of Nazareth who walked among you was, before the foundation of the world, and the whole creation was made by him. He is the source of all life in every form. He has life{?} in himself. In him was light, and the light was the light of all men. So that Jesus Christ, who indeed has been declared unto you was born of the Virgin Mary, and was very man of very man, was also, declared John, “very God of very God.”

Then John goes on in verses 5 through 11 to speak of the revelation and rejection of Jesus Christ. He was God before all creation. He created all things, but men, although the light of Jesus Christ shines in the darkness, the darkness comprehends it not.

Darkness can neither comprehend it in the sense of understanding, nor of grasping it, of putting it out, of being able to surround it, so that in neither sense is the darkness able to comprehend Jesus Christ. He is beyond their understand and he is beyond their putting out, for he is the Lord and by him were all things made that are made, and John, a man sent from God, gave witness to him. He came as a witness to bear witness of the light that all men might believe through him. Jesus Christ is the true light “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” The relationship of Jesus Christ to humanity is that of creator. All men were made by him, and every man has his mind, his existence, his being by the direct work of Jesus Christ, and yet, when he was in the world and the world was made by him, the world knew him not. They refused to recognize him. They turned their shoulders on him.

He came moreover, not only to the world, but unto his own, his kinsmen according to the flesh, Israel, and his own received him not. They also turned their back on him, because mankind was fallen and was in sin, and therefore, refused to recognize their creator. It was not a failure of understanding. It was an evil intent. It was not that it was not sufficiently explained to them. It was that they refused to understand, and this is the problem to this day. People continually want to make excuses for mankind, but as Paul declared in the first chapter of Romans, all men as men, wherever they live, whether in the heart of the African jungles, in Asia, America, or South America, the invisible things of the world are known to them, are written on the structure of their being because they were made by God, and this testimony was implanted in their being, but they suppressed this truth, they hold it down in unrighteousness. This is not knowledge that they cannot know or have not heard, but that they refuse to know.

But then John goes on to declare, in verses 12 and 13, that acceptance of Jesus Christ is the course of power. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” So that even as our Lord’s birth was a miracle, in that his birth was not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but directly of God, so our regeneration is a miracle that is compared to the Virgin birth. It is of God. It is not of the blood. We have no natural right to regeneration, to salvation, nor is it of the will of man who cannot will ourselves into heaven. It will of God{?}, so that the source of our power, the source of our regeneration is from above.

And then he goes on to describe the essence of what took place. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” The eternal word, the eternal secone person of the Trinity tented, tabernacled among us. We beheld his glory, the very glory of the second person of the Trinity made incarnate, very man as well as very God, and the incarnation {?} all grace and truth, as well as the person of God. And John testified, confirming this.

And then St. John, the Apostle, goes on to say, “And of his fulness,” his inexaustible grace and power “have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” This word was truth incarnate. This idea is fantastic to the Greeks, fantastic to all paganism, because for all paganism, truth is a proposition. Two plus two equals four. That is the truth.

There was a riot last year in August, in Watts. That is the truth, and truth in this sense, truth of an accurate reporting of certain things which is truth in the eyes of pagans, of all non-Christians, is a truth without any power to save, a truth without any right or wrong necessarily to it, because what merit, what power, what holiness, what righteousness is there in the truth? There was a riot in Watts last year, but this truth is imbued with all power, and this truth is a person, Jesus Christ. Grace and truth are a person, and this person came and dwelt among us.

“No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” And with this verse, John’s declaration concerning the incarnation in history comes to {?}. No man can see God. God, the invisible one, the creator of all things, God who is a Spirit, no man can see, but the second person of the Trinity, very God of very God, in him God has been declared unto man.

The word “declared” in the Greek is very interesting. We have that Greek word also in English in the word exegesis. What is exegesis? Exegesis is that interpretation of a passage when you {?} out the meaning of every word, and of the totality, accurately and fully. So that when you exegete a passage of scripture, you bring out its true meaning faithfully and read nothing into it. When you read something into the text that is not there, you are guilty of isogesis. The work of the Supreme Court, for example, {?} exegesis of the Constitution, but we no longer have an exegesis of the Constitution. We have an isogesis in that the Supreme Court reads something into the Constitution that is not there. An exegesis brings out the meaning faithfully, adding nothing to it nor detracting anything from the meaning of the text. Now, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, he hath declared God. He hath exegeted God. He hath fully and faithfully, adding nothing to it nor subtracting anything from it, brought out the meaning of God, and therefore, he could say to his disciples at the Last Supper, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” He is the truth, incarnate, and because Jesus Christ is the truth {?} is with him, and the truth of history.

Therefore, we cannot know history anymore than we can know ourselves, who are the actors in history, apart from him. Today we are told {?} society is the evolving truth of history, and this is a direct challenge {?} scriptures, because Christ is the truth, he by whom all things are made, and the scriptures affirm the finality of Christ. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the totality, everything in history. By him were all things made, “and without him was not any thing made that was made,” and known unto God are all h is works from the beginning of the world, so that all history is in the hands of Almighty God, so that Jesus Christ is the meaning of history, and the meaning of history is to be found in Christ, not the man or the state, and today, the {?} of all man is to find another meaning in history than Jesus Christ, that is the desire {?} always to provide his own meaning. When the parent says to the child, “You disobeyed me. I commanded you to do something and you broke my commandment,” the disobedient child says, “I did because I wanted to.” I did what seemed, in other words, right and logical, and sensible in my own eyes, and so with man, he saith to God, in effect, “History is going to mean what I declare it must mean, and I will establish my own conception of truth, my own conception of the goal of history, my own conception of what constitutes true society, the great social, or the great community, or the goal of history. I will be my own truth,” and so instead of deriving the meaning of history in him, thou whom all things were made, the meaning that derived from the creature.

The implication of this is clear-cut. John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What these people today are saying, whether they are Marxists, or Fabians, or welfare economists, or members of the Great Society, or progressivists, or pragmatists. They are saying In the beginning was the word, and the word was with man, and the word was man. They make man the reason and the power of the universe, and when they turn to the scriptures, they make Christ human so that man can become God, and all these modernists who preach week in and week out, and destroy the diety of christ, it is with one purpose. So they can deify man and the fate. For us, they make Christ’s divinity the divinity of all men so that all men can claim divinity, and it ends up with one thing either course they take. The state, the Great Society, the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the word, the light that lighteth every man, but John declares, “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” God has declared it, and all meaning, all history is declared and exegeted fully in Jesus Christ, and you cannot go outside of Christ in order to understand the meaning of all things.

We cannot read history, therefore, in terms of man’s plan, or Satan’s plan, and as we saw a few weeks ago, those who want to read history in terms of Satanic conspiracies real, though these conspiracies are, are saying that the meaning of history is in Satan, and they become guilty of worshipping Satan, but at the peak point of all conspiracies in history, when the Sanhedrin gathered together and purposed to crucify Christ, and saw this as the fulfillment of all their plans and conspiracies, the Apostle John declares that they knew not that at that very moment, they were destroying themselves and fulfilling the plan and purpose of God. Whereby Jesus Christ died for the remission of the sins of his people, and to destroy the power of sin and death by his resurrection. So that even at that moment, John summons us to {?} the plan of the synagogue of Satan {?}. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.”

It is God’s purpose, declared in Jesus Christ, that we must read history by{?} How we read history, therefore, reveals our faith. Are we going to see history as the Marxists and the Fabians see it? Or are we going to see it as something that Satan endlessly manipulates and we must stand there quivering, waiting for the blow to fall, or are we to see it in terms of Jesus Christ, “by whom all thing were made and without him was not anything made that was made?” Either John’s declaration is true, and we have to read history in terms of Jesus Christ, or we must be honest and forsake the whole of scripture, because this is no halfway faith. How shall we read history?

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” and having been born again of him, let us move therefore, not in terms of fear of Satan, but in terms of the power and the purpose of God, for this is our calling and this is our victory. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy sovereign word, and we thank thee that thou art the Lord of history, the master of the whirlwind and the storm, and even in the storm that is gathering round us, thou art the Lord, and the storm shall move not in terms of the purposes of Satan and his cohorts, but in terms of thy holy purpose, and thy saving plan. Make us strong and faithful, therefore, unto thee, that we might be resolute unto victory, that we might, in all things, know that thy purpose is declared, is exegeted, not in the conspiracies of men, but in thine incarnate word, Jesus Christ, as recorded in thy written word, the scriptures. Make us strong in faith that we may prevail and conquer. In Jesus name. Amen.

Before we have our questions, I’d like to call your attention to a pamphlet, I promised to give you some information on last week. I mentioned that a very fine pastor had done some exhaustive work on Billy Graham and others like him, pointing out his connection with the National Council of Churches, how he has given thousands, I believe as much as $67,000 in a single campaign, to the Council of Churches, and how he has, in various ways, compromised the faith. The title of this is “Evangelicalism, the New Neutralism,” and the author, William E. Ashbrook. Single copies are .35, three for $1.00, 25 per hundred, and they can be ordered from the Reverend William E. Ashbrook, 115 West Weisheimer Road, Columbus 14, Ohio. Yes?

[Audience] There is a movie out now about {?} something about {?} Jesus Christ, and it shows {?} and they picture Jesus as a revolutionary of {?} I haven’t even seen it yet, but a real revolutionary. The main thing that’s based on St. Matthew {?}. I don’t personally remember {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, this is all, of course, a total perversion of everything in scripture. The new line of the far left and of the National Council is that the Bible is not concerned with metaphysics or with truth. It is simply concerned with action, and so Jesus didn’t believe in an unchanging truth. He was for a new truth for each age. He was for perpetual revolution. In fact, Harvey Cox, one of the leaders of this school, who teaches at Harvard, at Harvard Divinity School, mind you, has one sentence in his book, The Secular City, in which he said, “Jesus is a mobile man.” In other words, he was a man who was perpetually in motion, believed in perpetual change, and of course, the ideal for Harvey Cox and for the National Council increasingly, is the urban man who lives in an apartment and is completely rootless. This is the man of the future, and secularization is the fulfillment, they insist, of the Gospel.

Now, of course, this is not any more nor less than a total perversion, and in terms of this, the Gospel becomes world revolution. The idea in all of this, of course, is to take over the churches and to destroy them from within, and what they have done is to work very slowly in order to brainwash the people, to get them to accept the new meanings they give to words. For example, all of us think of the word humanism and humanitarianism as good words, don’t we? And if you speak of a man as a great humanitarian, you’re saying something fine about him, but if you will check Webster’s Dictionary for the definition of humanitarianism, you will see that the basic meaning of the word is one who denies the diety of Christ and Christianity and who believes in the divinity of man, but what they have done is to take that word and try to make it cognate with everything that’s good and noble and idea, and little by little, introduce that as a secondary meaning while retaining the first meaning. So now you have two meanings in the dictionary, and this is how, steadily, they destroy words, and how they destroy the very text of the Bible. They take and reinterpret and reinterpret, just as the Constitution has been reinterpreted by isogesis until it means its direct opposite. We don’t have Constitutional government any longer, and we’ve had the weird thing in California in the past week of having a part of the Constitution declared unconstitutional.

Now, I have no doubt that very soon, we will be told that vast portions of our Constitution are unconstitutional, the U.S. Constitution, in terms of the UN Charter, or some other higher law of the supreme court. In other words, these reinterpretations of Christ are a total perversion, designed steadily to brainwash people, and the thing we must do is to stay away from these things as far as possible and warn people about them, and to break with every church that is a part of this National Council, World Council conspiracy against Jesus Christ. Yes?

[Audience] Russia had a very interesting meeting the other day of social workers and administrators and social welfare {?} down in Long Beach {?} organization {?} and he told {?} meeting of a seminar, sponsored by the NCRA, and {?}, and all of the people who were interested in {?} you know, the new social worker type, and he said they were all there {?} social work, but the two lecturers were Saul Alinsky, and somebody by the name of Booth{?} from Detroit, who was a real rabble-rouser. and he said it was an eye opening experience, because all they talked about {?} the Negros and Mexicans, and among them, the {?} black nationals and they talk about revolution all they can, and he said a {?} were there to train them how to go into {?} and take over {?} established order {?}so they were quite {?}, you know, {?} National Council of Churches {?}, and he said the {?} non-profit foundation.

[Rushdoony] Yes, he has already stated, Saul Alinsky has already stated that practically all his support for his program of revolution, breaking the power structure, as he calls it, virtually all his funds come from the churches. This is very true, because the Gospel according to the churches is no longer Jesus Christ. It is revolution. Yes?

[Audience] Was {?} Billy Graham, I mean, {?}

[Rushdoony] No, you can’t make a flat judgment of all of them. A number of them have that compromising stand but others definitely do not. The one who is most militant against any compromise and the most consistent in his hostility to compromise, to any social gospel is John R. Rice. He puts out a little weekly, The Sword of the Lord, and he has been quite militant in his hostility to these things. Yes?

[Audience] {?} not accepting {?} told me that {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s true. Our new slugs are not accepted across the border. Speaking of revolution, if you have not seen the new American Opinion for May, the lead article on Watts, the fact that another explosion is due in Watts this summer, I heartily recommend that you read it.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, they state the areas, Southgate, Linwood, Downey, that are expected to go up in flames this time, because their program is to move out progressively into white areas. Yes?

[Audience] {?} can figure out {?} but {?} the point being that as Christians, {?} these things {?} in history, {?} very concerned about the things that are transpiring around us today {?} education {?}

[Rushdoony] No, because out faith has to be relevant to history, and therefore, we must be concerned with these things. We must do battle against the powers of darkness, but we cannot ever believe that the power is with darkness. So that we must contend for the faith. We must apply the faith to every area. We must move out into politics, economics, every area, education, but we must never, never feel that the initiative belongs to the enemy or that they are going to prevail.

[Audience] Well, what I’m trying to bring out, it seems to me that we approach the sort of a thing {?} down through history since I became a Christian {?} many months {?} but and today we are {?} with that, and have a real interest in this, but I {?} and I know this is wrong but I don’t know how to discuss the topic.

[Rushdoony] Yes. I know what you’re talking about. Some Christians who feel that the way to show that they have faith is to separate themselves totally from the world that they do nothing about the evil that goes on around them. Now, there are a lot of these ultra-fundamentalistic groups on college campuses. Their attitude is that they’re not going to concern themselves about anything, applying their faith, or fighting what they get. They’re simply going to have prayer meetings and try to build themselves up spiritually, and the result is that they surrender more than any other Christian group, because the minute you say “I’m not going to fight,” you’ve surrendered. Then you end up making peace with them.

This past week, I was with a lot of campus groups in the Midwest, speaking on different college campuses, speaking to groups great and little, and I was scheduled to speak, among other things, at their intervarsity group, and I told the man with whom I was going I was not happy about such a meeting because I’d never found much response with such groups. Only once where I could say the response was possibly good, because such people were not interested in having the faith made relevant. They just wanted to know how they could escape more. In other words, some gimmicks about prayer life and that sort of thing, but no real application of the faith, and it was really something. It was the one negative response I had on the trip, because I had this group of college kids, and their faculty sponsor, and the area coordinator. The area coordinator was working for a doctorate in guidance and counseling, mental health. The faculty sponsor was as leftist and as strong a believer in the mental health movement as you could find, and when I spoke out against these things and pointed out the Christian attitude had to be one of hostility to these things, because they were another Gospel; socialism, a mental health movement, and all these things. The reaction was one of hysteria, and this faculty sponsor who was a young woman was practically screeching most of the time during the question period, and not letting any of the students have a chance, and the attitude of the students was one of shock, just plain shock. “Well, why can’t I believe in the biblical morality and in the morality of more, principia ethica?” “Because,” I said, “one is totally atheistic and relativistic and the other says there is an absolute moral law by God.” “Well, why can’t you bring the two together?” and that was it over and over again. “Why can’t I be a good Christian as long as I read so many verses a day and have a prayer life, and then be a socialist and believe in everything the world teaches in its moral code and everything else, as long as my devotional life is maintained?” and I finally got one boy to say that the scripture was the absolute law of God and totally binding, and there could be nothing else but what could have any authority with him, unless it were in conformity with it, but he waited until no one else was around him before he hastily said, “Yes,” and dashed off.

Now this is what happens. These people are the ones who talk about their faith being so pure, but by refusing to apply their faith, they surrender it. They are the worse element. I was very right before I went into that meeting, I said I wasn’t happy about such groups, because I know what they are. They are the holier-than-thou, but they are the worst ones when it comes to surrender. You can speak to liberals and you challenge them. They know that what you say is contradictory to what they hold, but these people, it’s not either/or, but both/and, and you can’t deal with such fuzzy-minded thinking. You can only send it to hell where it belongs.

[Laughter]

[Audience] If we’re not really against these things, and this is an active faith, we’re not for them.

[Rushdoony] Right. Right. Yes?

[Audience] Would you hold that {?} teaching {?} there is a big movement like that but are they in the same category?

[Rushdoony] Well, I’ll give you a reference next week because that’s a big question on another pamphlet, and if I fail to, remind me. It goes into the healing movement and tans{?} movement and analyzes them very carefully from a biblical, theological point of view, and that’s better than giving an off-handed opinion. Yes?

[Audience] Now, what you were talking about, my question before was {?} I was thinking of different groups that I don’t know if they’re considered churches, but I have never heard a name of a church connected with them, but there are many churches that have {?}, that consider, you know, like the Jews will say they’re the chosen people, and the {?} and they can find all the verses in the Bible.

[Audience] {?}

[Audience] No, no that isn’t what I was thinking of, and they know their Bible from beginning to end, but they will not accept any people into their so-called church, only whites, because they’ve been chosen, the chosen people. Now, if you’re a Christian, can’t you be a Christian and you can be other nationalities, I mean, other religions?

[Rushdoony] This could be a British Israelite group. There are a number of such groups that are very restrictive, and this is false, because the Bible says that there will be the elect of God in the eternal kingdom of God out of every people, tongue, tribe, and nation.

[Audience] Well, that’s what I thought and {?} put a corner on this.

[Rushdoony] You cannot. When you put a corner on God’s grace, you’ve cornered yourself out of it.

[Audience] {?} Well, this is quite interesting, I really like {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes?

[Audience] I’m getting back to a question {?} eternal. Christ promised to return. Is this, what confuses me is if everything was proper in the first place, why return?

[Rushdoony] Christ made history, made the world in the beginning. Man fell unto sin. Christ came into the world to save man from sin. Then, the end of history Christ will come to end this world and this creation, and to usher in the eternal and new creation. So that he is as it were, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of history, and Alpha and Omega means not merely the beginning and end, but the A through Z, as it were, the totality. The ABC on to Z of history, so that his second coming brings history to a conclusion, and it says to us very vividly that he by whom all things were made, and he by whom all things were saved is he by whom all things will come to their fulfillment, and have their new and eternal destiny.

[Audience] And it will be those who not believe him {?} out of circulation.

[Rushdoony] Right. It will lead them in hell.

[Audience] {?} they think they’re trying.

[Rushdoony] They’re not, it’s the idea of trying and being decent is a veil to what we were discussing, that they will not know him. It’s not a failure of knowledge. It’s a failure of will. They don’t want to know him. They refuse to know him. They want life on their terms. They’re not saying Not Christ at the word but me as the word, and history has to be understood in terms of what I say. When I was at one college campus, the young man who was with me taking me around, and I hope he’s recuperating, because we were driving every night, but one, until 3:30 in the morning to get from place to place and get in all the meetings, and it was raining every night. If fact, they were having floods all over the area, so it was a wild and hectic week. At any rate, he was arguing with this minister, who was a total compromiser, and every time he came within a hairs-breadth of forcing him to admit the truth, but he ducked around the issue and he said, “Oh, but don’t you see, Fred, that you’re arguing because you’re emotionally involved,” and that was his answer. In other words, when he reached the point each time he had had to admit, “This is the truth, and I am a liar because I refuse to stand in terms of the truth,” he was changing the whole focus of the argument and getting into something personal, and this is the way it is with all men who refuse to believe, whether they’ve heard of Christ or not. It is a failure of the will, and they maintain a public front and say, “You see, I am such a respectable person. How could God ever look down his nose at me? How could any man look down his nose at me? Well, God does and I think I’ll take God’s perspective.”

[Audience] Is the {?} complete faith the answer to the {?}

[Rushdoony] Not complete faith because none of us have that. Any kind of faith, yes, and that’s all it requires, because the thief on the cross, you see, was a man who was a murderer and a thief, probably a revolutionist, and when they began, he and the other thief were mocking Jesus. “You think you’re so good, so great. Look where you are. You can’t save yourself.” But this thief was stricken. He knew, and although he’d never studied theology, perhaps never had a single Bible lesson in all his days, he knew the truth as every man does, all man suppress it in unrighteousness, and he turned finally and said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom,” and Jesus said to him, “Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise, this very day before sundown.” Now, that’s all it took, and that’s all it takes with any man, but as Paul says, they hold down the truth, they suppress it in unrighteousness, because they can’t change.

I think one of the most vivid examples of this I ever had was a young man who came to me, afraid he was going to die. A big, burly young man whom everyone called “Pop” because he had been named after Pop Warner, the football coach at Stanford by his father, who had once played under Pop Warner, and I’ve forgotten the name of his condition, but it was a varicose vein of the throat and digestive tract, so that when he drank, and he was a heavy drinker, it would cause the vein to break and he’d hemorrhage very badly, and so that every time he started drinking heavily, he’d start coughing up blood and sometimes it would just come pouring out of his nose and mouth, and so he was frightened and he came to me, and I talked to him very plainly about the faith, and he knew it was all true, and he knew what he had to do in order to live, and I told him, “Warner, you know yourself and you know your own nature and your sins,” and I said, “What you need to do is simply to pray and ask for God’s saving power and help to throw off your drinking and become a new creature in Christ.” When I finished, he said, “Rush, how can a man humble himself to pray, to ask God for anything,” and he got up and left. Now, he wanted some other answer than to submit to God. He was God in his own mind, and that was it, and this is it with every man. Who’s going to be God? God or myself, and what men are saying is, “I am my own God,” and this was the temptation of Satan. “Ye shall be as God,” your own God. No one that is determining good and evil for yourself, and Calvin once said many, many people who are guilty of this sin, who are tearful sinners, nonetheless are outwardly very fine citizens. Why? They’ve made themselves their own gods, and on their own, they say, “I like to have a good home life, a man’s happier that way. I like to be a good citizen. After all, life is better that way and more profitable for me.” So, Calvin said, these men often put some believers to shame with their conduct, their outward conduct, but in their heart, this is the reality. They have said, “I am God, not God,” and this is the sin that men must confess, the sin must overthrow and submit themselves to God and say he alone is Lord, and he alone, therefore, can be my savior. I cannot save myself.

Well, our time is past. We stand dismissed.

End of tape