Studies in Political Philosophy

The Wine of Astonishment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: The Wine of Astonishment

Genre: Speech

Track: 16

Dictation Name: RR124H16

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou art on the throne and that thou art a living God, that we can come to thee in confidence that thou dost not only hear, but answer prayer, that thy word is truth, and thou hast declared that thou art our savior and our redeemed, our shield and our exceeding great reward. In this confidence, our Father, we come to thee to submit ourselves to thy word, to the discipline of thy Holy Spirit, to the care of thine providence. Guide us and bless us, prosper us according to thy word, and make us every faithful in thy service. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture today is Psalm 60. The Wine of Astonishment. Psalm 60. “O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again. Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh. Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me. God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver; Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me. Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom? Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies? Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.

A great many people go to the Bible and are continually disappointed because their perspective is humanistic. They go to the Bible expecting a lot of sweet nothings, and they do not find them. A few years ago, a very prominent woman went through and compiled a shorter Bible, made up of the passages which she, from her humanistic perspective, could find inspiring, and she indicated that she struggled hard to find something in every book of the Bible. She came up with a scant 90 or 100 pages in large type, wide margins, and big spacing, and even then she was misinterpreting and misunderstanding those passage which she found understandable and inspiring from her perspective.

So such people, God, if he is {?} is merely an idea, the idea of the beautiful, the good, the true, something to stay up there and be inspiring and otherwise to leave us alone, but this is not the living God. God is either merely an idea as he is for most people, or he is the living, reigning, overruling God. He speaks in this Psalm. Verses 6-8 are a declaration of God’s message through David to Israel. There are no sweet nothings in those three verses, because Israel faced a catastrophe and God did not tell them, “Contemplate the beautiful, the true, and the good,” or “Sit in meditation and contemplate your navel and rise above the material things of the world.” The living God is a God who acts, and instead of offering dying or fearful men, sweet nothings, he offers action. This living God speaks through us prophetically through Psalm 60, a psalm of David. The Hebrew superscription calls it a golden, or secret, or mystery psalm, one of six Psalms so titled; Psalm 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60, Psalms which are special and prophetic significance in understanding God’s ways.

In order to understand this Psalm, it is necessary for us to examine its historical situation. 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Chronicles 18 give us the situation and the outcome. David has been newly made king. It had been a long, hard struggle for David, a struggle for survival in which very few people shared. The nation, by and large, started out and was content to be silent under Saul’s tyranny. Then, David became monarch of the United Kingdom, and the people as a whole, without any sacrifice or any repentance on their part, were moving from tyranny to justice, but suddenly the picture grew totally focused, a triple alliance moved against David; Moab, Edom, and Philistia, from the West, from the East, and from the South, with Syria in the North becoming involved. Thus, they had three armies in the field against them from three directions, with a fourth planning to move against them from the north.

In addition to this triple attack and invasion with a threat of a fourth one, a severe earthquake struck the land and leveled it. In this situation, David wrote this Psalm. In the first five verses, we have the cry in calamity of the people of Israel. The first result was a defeat for Israel we they met their enemies, and they cry out, “Thou hast scattered” or “Thou hast broken us.” They recognize God’s sovereign hand and recognize that behind all things stands Almighty God, and so they cry out, “Restore us, turn thyself to us again.”

In verse 2, they cite the earthquake, for at the same time as the invasion and earthquake leveled the land, leaving great rifts and continual shaking, “Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.” The cities were leveled. People were homeless. The ground was continually quaking, and great, wide rifts or breaches were on all sides as men contemplated the total catastrophe, a triple invasion and this devastating earthquake, in horror. Except for the armies in the field, they stand a ruined nation.

Then, in verse 3, avid declares, God has made them to experience, “hard things.” You have given them the “wine of astonishment,” the wine of staggering, to drink. They have been jarred out of their self-sufficiency and out of their sense of power, and their only hope is in God, for unto themselves they have nothing. They are a ruined country.

In the fourth verse, David declares that the banner of God’s truth and his promises is their one hope and standard. They have all the promises of God’s word, to the repentance and to {?}, and so in the fifth verse, because God had declared previously, “Call upon me in the day of trouble,” they now take him at his words. At this point, God answers David and speaks to him, in verses 6-8. In verses 6-7, God declares, “I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver,” and strange assertion, is it not?

But God, in answering, dealt not with the present, but pointed to the past, and the significance of his declaration was that it took them back to the time when Jacob, having left Chaldea, returned to {?}, and before he went in, God declared unto him that he was going in, although fearful of his life and in danger of being killed, as one to whom the land would be given and to his generations after him. Every place his foot set upon should be his, and his children’s children as long as they were faithful to him, as long as they believed, and as long as they obeyed, the land was theirs, and so he reminds them of Succcoth where Jacob stayed before crossing Jordan on the return, and of Shechem where Jacob stayed on his return after crossing the Jordan, and of Gilead and Manasseh, the east Jordan area, and Ephraim, the West Jordan area to the north, and Judah, the West Jordan area to the south. These things God gave to Jacob and to his sons, on condition of their faith and obedience, and by this, God declares that he will only defend what is his own and what acknowledges him, only those who acknowledge God’s absolute power and sovereignty, for none else can claim his care. These things are mine, saith the Lord. “The earth is mine and the fullness thereof,” and I give to whom I will and they retain it only upon obedience to me.

Second, God, in the concluding verse, the 8th verse, turns to the enemies of Israel. “Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me.” A magnificent verse. This is simply an old fashioned war shout, a war tonk{?}, a war tonk{?} of absolute contempt for one’s enemies, and God declares that those who are his slaves and servants he saves and exalts, but his enemies he abases. Moab declares God is my washpot, or wash basin, the kind that slaves use to wash his master’s feet. God says I will wipe my feet on Moab. Moab was located in the area adjacent to the Dead Sea, and God says Moab is simply a wash basin on whom I will wash my feet. Over Edom I will case out my shoe, for on Edom I throw my shoe. Edom is my shoe shine boy and slave, and so when I come in as the conqueror, I toss my shoes to him and say, “Take care of them, boy.” A most significant declaration, because Edom claimed to be the chosen people of God. Edom was the other son, Esau, of Isaac and claimed the life by blood to declare {?} to be the chosen people of God, but casting one shoe as Ruth 4:7-9 and other passages make clear, was significant and symbolic of disinheritance, and God declares Edom is disinherited and is simply my slave. Philistia triumph thou because of me. Tender me your shouts. Shout allegiance at my order, hail me the conqueror. This is God’s declaration.

With this, David then continues in verses 9-12, as they march into battle, the battle that ended in a most significant victory, with 12,000 Edomites slain in the battle of the Valley of Salt{?} alone. Petra, the fortified city, a strong city, must be taken. “Who will bring me into it, into Edom? Into Petra? It is God, declares David, who cast us off because of our self-confidence, because of our trust in ourselves rather than in God. Man’s help is vain, but God’s help is omnipotent help. With “God, we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.” Treading or trampling was an emblem of violence, subjection. This is God’s answer, not an answer sweet and noble thoughts. There are many false religions abroad that give you reams and reams of literature filled with sweet nothings, noble thoughts, noble ideas, that amount to nothing, but this is the God who replies by fire, scripture declares. This is the God whose answer to David is not sweet nothings, but the assurance that if they stand in terms of him, their enemies shall be used by God as his slaves, and his wash basin.

This then, is the mystery Psalm of David, the Psalm that speaks concerning the mystery of history, that declares its {?} and it speaks to us as a frustration of the ungodly. Whenever outwardly they cease to be at the point of triumph, God destroys them, for he protects his own. How clearly it seemed impossible to the enemies of Israel, not that they were attacking Israel from four sides, and the severe earthquake had laid waste the cities and left the ground trembling and was {?} in it, how impossible it seemed to them that Israel could be victorious, but they were, and how impossible to seemed to Herod as he sent his troops into Bethlehem and into the regions thereabout to kill all children two years old and younger, and the Christ child survives, but he did, and how impossible it seemed to the Sanhedrin as they crucified Christ and mocked him, that this one should be their judge and destroyer when he rose again from the dead, but he did, and Jerusalem was destroyed, with not one stone left standing upon another.

The frustration of the ungodly was declared, but more than that, their abasement and defeat, for the enemies of God this Psalm declares, shall be destroyed. The first two enemies cited, Moab and Edom, have a significance in scripture, a symbolic significance. These two were related peoples. They spoke almost the same language as the people of Israel. They claimed to be the true chosen people, and we know that the Herods, for example, claimed to be the Messianic line, and more than one Herod claimed to be the true Messiah, and so they stand before those who, in every age, claim to be the true people of God, but are not, for theirs is only an outward claim of blood or of form, as it is with Jews and with modernists and unbelievers who are within the church, for as Paul declared, the true sons of Abraham are those who share his faith.

And so God declares, this is the destiny of the false church, of the outward church, of those who claim outwardly to be the chosen people of God, and Philistia was the great, open enemy of the people of God for centuries, and God says to us in this Psalm, one of the mystery Psalms, or seeker Psalms that reveals history. God says to us in this Psalm that the enemies of the people of God, within and without, God shall destroy. He summons us to remember that when we walk by faith, we inherit the earth. The ground we tread upon he gives to us. God humbles these people and rejoices, and he compels even Philistia to shout, “Hail to the conqueror.” He expects us to rejoice also. We are not to be prey and victims to the heresy of love, for as we have seen previously, according to the scripture, we are indeed to love our neighbor and our enemies, and we are to give to them, the requirements of the second table of the law, to respect their right to life, home, property, and reputation in word, thought, and deed, and we are not to rejoice over our enemies when he {?}, but we are to rejoice over the fall of God’s enemies.

And David also declares, “Do I not hate them that hate thee? Ye, I hate them with a perfect hatred,” and God rejoices at the downfall of his enemies which he decrees, and he summons us to rejoice also, for he is the living, reigning, overruling God, and we are to rejoice in his handiwork. When men are guilty of high-handed evil, striking at God’s law, God moves against them in judgment, and rejoices as he defeats them, and we are required to rejoice with him.

Therefore, as we face a world not unlike David’s, and as we face the threat of the enemies within and without, this Psalm speaks to us, and its declaration is very simple: first, prepare for God’s victory, and second, rejoice in God’s victory. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thy word unto us is not the sweet nothings of humanists, but the word of the living God, and we thank thee that thy word is truth, that Moab, Edom, and Philistia are now dust and ashes, only a memory, and the enemies that confront us today shall soon only be a memory, but thou, Lord, art the living God, and thou shalt make of them thy washpot, thy slaves, and thy conquered people who must hail thy triumph. Give us faith therefore, to prepare for thy victory, and to rejoice therein. In Jesus name. Amen.

Before we have any questions, I promised to give you the information on the book on the healing of tongues and the modern tongues movement, and the title of it is, The Modern Tongues and Healing Movement, by Dr. Carroll R. Stegall, Jr., P.O. Box 1203, Ft. Walton Beach, FL and the price is $1.00 a copy, and I think you will find it worthwhile. Then, another item that I think is of interest, a new book on the new evangelicals, Billy Graham, Christianity Today, Fuller Seminary and the like, Biblical Separation Defined, by Gary G. Cohen, published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, just newly published, $1.50, and this can be ordered from Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Order Department, Box 185, Nutley, NJ. In that connection with respect to Billy Graham, I think it is of interest to remember briefly that I cited this National Council Study Book for their triennial convention this December in Miami, for the world by Colin Williams, a booklet which calls for world revolution as the gospel, and declares that the family, like the tribe, is something that belongs to the past. We must prepare for the new morality. For it is significant that the main speaker of this December meeting which will adopt this program is Billy Graham. This is known as compromise.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience] {?} young people {?} on television {?} and I’m understanding {?} he’s also {?}. I wonder if you had any comment on moral rearmament?

[Rushdoony] Well, moral re-armament is moral disarmament. It is anti-Christian to the core. Its basic faith is the one world religion.

[Audience] There were definitely {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s his sin with moral re-armament. It is patriotic in every country, because it believes in one worldism, and its attitude is encourage every people to love their country, but also to love every other country as well, because they want the one world order and the one world religion, basically.

[Audience] We have a song about Joan of Arc {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience] The religions of this {?} armament {?} and apparently {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, but the Bible also defines who our brothers are. They are our fellow believers. We are never told that the ungodly are our brothers. In other words, there is a special kind of relationship with our fellow believers, and our Lord said that he was closer to those who were believers than to his own family, because at the moment that he made that statement, his family, his mother and brother and sisters, were not believers, and so he declared, “They are not my family, those who believe in me and who hear me are my family.” Now, we are to be charitable and law-abiding in our relationship to the world, but that we cannot speak of the brotherhood of man. This is not at all biblical. It is anti-biblical. You hear all kinds of weird things about what is in the Bible, and things that are never there, and amazingly, the other day, I ran across the same thing with regard to the Constitution by a National Council of Churches writer. He spoke very feelingly about the great passage in the Constitution which speaks about equality, and that all men are created equal. Well, there’s not a word of that in the Constitution. He hadn’t bothered to read it.

[Audience] Declaration of Independence.

[Rushdoony] Yes. It’s in the Declaration of Independence, and it was taken from the Virginia Bill of Rights, and in its meaning, as it was intended in both documents, it was speaking in particular of those who were citizens of the country, so we cannot put a universal construction on it. They didn’t at the time, because they certainly didn’t include the Negros. They didn’t even count them as citizens or as anything but property. So you can’t give a meaning to the word that they did not, at that time, put upon it.

[Audience] As we follow along with this brotherhood, are we not advised {?} obviously, or we assume {?} particularly among {?} they were not adverse, at least the Christians were not.

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are summoned to carry the Gospel to all peoples, but this is another thing, them counting them as brothers. We are offering them the opportunity to become brothers with us in Christ, but we know that they are actually our enemies until they are converted {?} God and they hate us, and this is the reality that you have to face when you deal with unregenerate people, because we have become so humanistic that we don’t want to face the truth about men, and we fail to realize that the people to the world are not like us. We have, even our unbelievers in our midst have, in their background, senses of Christianity and have grown up in a Christian culture and a Christian environment, but I think if I began to tell you some of the ordinary facts of life that the tourists don’t see that which we find in anthropological books, many of which are under lock and key at university libraries, about some of these people, all of you would become so offended you would never return, but these people are moral monsters, because they are unregenerate. They hate God. They hate everything that you and I consider as decency, and this is bred in them from countless generations back. These people are not our brothers, but we hope, by the grace of God, they will become brothers, and we extend to them the Gospel.

I would say these people who talk most about brotherhood are those who have it the least, and that’s why I was delighted just recently when George Crocker dealt with this liberal double-talk in one of his columns. How many of you saw that column? Well, I think I’ll read it because it is choice. This is George Crocker’s columns for May 22, in the Examiner, Sunday Examiner, once a week his column appears.

“Prejudice? Not at all. Why some of my best friends are liberals. I mean, they talk liberalism. I mean, I’m invited to dinner parties at which charming people certify their own credentials as liberals. This is done by dropping into the conversation the stock clichés about ghettoes and by going on record in favor of forced integration of public schools in residential areas. There was this gentleman who was sipping a cocktail and munching hors d oeuvres as he expounded on the need to close the cultural gap. Integrated housing was the answer, he thought. If different races live in the same block or apartment house they will observe how others deport themselves and all inequalities will tend to disappear. “You have a good idea there,“ I said. “Think of all the people who should benefit by watching how you and your family deport themselves. What a shame that your home is tucked away in Hillsborough.” “Now Bill, I’m not {?} to lead the way.” He glared at me as though I had struck a low blow. There was a lady at my right at dinner who spent the entire salad course telling me about an article she had read. The author, a sociologist, had explained why the {?} segregation in the schools must {?}. In a mixed classroom, the less bright children are stimulated by the bright ones, but the latter are not pulled{?} down at all. The culturally deprived ones (it was her term, not mine) acquire better habits by emulating the ones from better homes, but the latter are not led into work habits by associating every day with the farmer. “{?} has discovered this,” she informed me. “Yes, yes,” I said, “I am familiar with the theory.” She was chewing a piece of {?} and endive. My tone seemed to disconcert her. The tempo of chewing decelerated then stopped. “Do you dispute it?” she asked. “Tell me,” I replied, “don’t you think the theory should be tested by people {?} not by people who don’t believe ?” She put her fork down. “Now, I know what you’re getting at. Yes, we do send our son to a private school. We can afford it, and, well, I don’t {?} it because I’m the mother, because the pediatrician has said it’s {?}. Our son has an unusually quick mind and he should have special attention, and well, we believe in integration and all that.” “No need to explain,” I told her. “The Kennedy’s never do, nor the Roosevelts, the Strantons, the Lindsays, nor a thousand other rich liberal clans I could name.” I was mistaken. Lindsay has been smoked out of the bushes. Last month, a {?} asked, “Why do you send your four children to private schools instead of New York public schools?” The chairman quickly adjoined the meeting. Last Sunday, Lindsey was ready when the question came on TV. Because he is mayor, he said, he wants his children to have the highest degree of privacy. He neglected to mention his children went to private schools before he was mayor, too. The sociologist theory is being tested in this country, but not on the children of the Lindsays, or of any other wealthy liberals I know.” Which I think is well-put.

[Audience] Back {?} about a year or so ago, they placed full-page ads in Los Angeles {?} you have to remember they were trying to join up the communist {?} with America. They were educating and {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but this is not new. Buckman, the founder, was trying to get Stalin and Roosevelt, and everybody else together in the thirties. So, this is simply an old strategy of approaching everyone and saying, “Let us all unite. Our differences are not important.” In other words, the condition of union is simply the condition of being human, which is a weird {?}. The lowest common denominator.

[Audience] {?} compromise {?} you can’t compromise the truth.

[Rushdoony] Yeah. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?} You told us once before that {?} that Christ never did say, “I am my brother’s keeper.” I think they misprint it over and over, this is the answer to Christ’s statement “I am my brother’s keeper.”

[Rushdoony] Our Lord never said, I am my brother’s keeper. The only appearance of anything resembling that in the Bible is in Genesis when Cain said to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and it’s fantastic that people insist that this is in the Bible.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, but it is not in the Bible. It is a question raised by Cain, and every Cain in history has either said, “I am my brother’s keeper,” or treated his brother as though he were inferior and needed a keeper, but he wasn’t interested in doing it. In either case, it is treating your brother, or your neighbor, or enemy as an inferior. Now, let’s examine that question as these liberals use it. I am my brother’s keeper. You are immediately saying your brother needs a keeper and you are the elite. So, it is a denial of the very equality they affirm. It’s like Orwell’s Animal Farm in which they have a revolution to establish equality, but a little later they say some animals are more equal than others. Well, these people say, “We are more equal than others.” In other words, “We are the superior ones. We are the elite, and because we are our brother’s keeper we have the right to teach him.” So, this becomes a justification for ruling the rest of us for their welfare. It’s a thoroughly demonic assertion. The next time anyone says that, just challenge them to find it, and tell them it isn’t there and they are liars if they claim it is, or fools to believe that it is in the Bible.

[Audience] I just saw it written up, I didn’t hear anybody say it.

[Rushdoony] It’s often say, too. Yes?

[Audience] can you tell where the people get the idea that they will say, granted, {?}. Now, after that, they were not white. Was it because of those states where people, of their skin, the color or something? The reason I ask is, there is an older man that teaches, saying that, “Sure, Christ is white, but beyond that, all of the people came from Negro.” Now, this talks about so much {?} Yes, and this older man, he’s {?} this Negro man, and he claims he knows his Bible from end to end, but where does that thought come from?

[Rushdoony] I don’t get the . .

[Audience] Well, he said Cain’s wife was from the land of Nod, which is a Negro country, and so all of Cain’s children were Negro, and Noah’s wife was a Negro and all of Noah’s three sons were a Negro, and they all had Negro wives, and so we’re all descended from Negro, you know. This is the theory, I guess.

[Rushdoony] The Bible doesn’t say a thing. It doesn’t say that Cain got his wife from the land of Nod, or any such thing.

[Audience] They’re written their own Bible.

[Rushdoony] I think the answer to this is Solomon’s answer, “Answer not a fool in his folly,” because if we spent all our time answering all the nonsense that people talk about we won’t have time for the truth.

[Audience] This is true, but there is an older white man from the South that says the very same thing, he goes on the same theory. Now, I’ve heard him on TV two or three times.

[Rushdoony] It just goes to show you what TV has become, that’s all.

[Audience] Well, you know, it confusing. Especially if people, that don’t go back and try to find it in the Bible.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but the point is people believe what they want to believe, and people are ready to believe nonsense like that without going to the Bible are not really interested in knowing the truth about the Bible. So that there always, the Bible says, itching ears that are hungry for every kind of nonsense, so I wouldn’t worry about that kind of thing and who believes it.

[Audience] When someone questions you about it, I said, “I can’t find it in the Bible.” I said, “I don’t know the Bible too well, but,” I said, “I {?} is if we’re going to be in the Bible,” and I said, “I can’t find it.”

[Rushdoony] Yes, and tell them that they are foolish to believe such nonsense.

[Audience] Well, it’s been going on for a number of years.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, that’s true, but you see, there is a lot of nonsense going around, and some of it very, very extensive, but we shouldn’t waste our time, and people who do believe that, we shouldn’t bother with them. Now, there are people, and this is very widespread in case you haven’t encountered it, who believe that the earth is hollow and there is a civilization living deep down inside the earth, and Admiral Burch{?} supposedly discovered it, and this is all classified knowledge. Of course, this first came up about, oh, I think in the 1880’s or 1890’s was the first time this was propounded, only then the opening was up in the North Pole. In the newer version that’s going around, the opening is at the South Pole, and you’d be surprised how many fools they find who are ready to go along with that, and anyone who wants to believe it is, my answer is get out from under their presence as fast as you can, because they are fools, and you can’t rub against pitch without getting tar, and you can’t involve yourself with a fool without becoming foolish. So, leave fools alone. It just gets you involved in all kinds of nonsense.

[Audience] Well, I’d rather not, I don’t like {?} but what are you going to do when {?}

[Rushdoony] I insult them, that’s what I do. That takes care of it. They don’t bother me.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I know. For a long time, I was full of courtesy, but I found that it didn’t work. They only kept taking advantage of me by the hour, and the more courteous I was, the more I was imposed on, so I thought if this is what courtesy produces, then there should be some plain speaking, so I’d tell them off, and it worked.

[Audience] {?} other subject {?} but I don’t know why {?} scripture {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience] {?} who use the opponent’s tactics and just say, “Where in the Bible do you find it?” and they change the subject, and you say, “Now where in the Bible did you find it? Tell me what page, what chapter, what verse? That put them on the defensive.

[Rushdoony] Yes, except that I found, too, with some, they’ll pick up a passage which doesn’t mean anything like that, and proves to their satisfaction that it means what they say. But you’ll run across some weird ones sometimes, and I just have no patience for them anymore. I wore out my patience about ten years ago. Yes?

[Audience] Sometimes, however, you {?} a clever one, and the argument is really {?} in that it’s a leading question, {?} with some other type of person, but sometimes they use this because, for instance, our British Israel friends {?} at this point and they tried with all {?} to prove that God and Christ were white, because their point is that you’re born into the kingdom of Israel, you’re white {?} white man {?}, and so {?} thing, and don’t come up with the right answer, you’re wrong. I don’t care how you get {?}

[Rushdoony] I never waste time on any British Israelites, because anyone who believes such nonsense is not going to believe the truth. They are psychologically, mentally, emotionally, morally geared to believing a lie, and you can only hope that God will jolt some of them, because there are a few with good sense among them, out of it eventually, but most of them? They’re not wasting time on. That’s my attitude, because when a person can go through the word of God, which proclaims the truth of God and the saving power of God, and reads such nonsense out of it, write them off, and I think that does them the most damage really. I know that in New Orleans I ran across one such woman who had terrorized a number of the groups who said she was the wife of one of the most prominent citizens of New Orleans and I understand quite a headache to her husband, who doesn’t share her ideas, and she was uncouth in the way she kept bringing up her British Israel items into the discussion at every point. So, I finally told her, I said, “I think your line of reasoning is stupid. It is impossible intellectually. No intelligent person can hold it, and I have no intention of answering any question you raise from now on out. Well, it cleared the air, although it certainly didn’t improve her disposition, but she shut up. Yes?

[Audience] You mentioned the word “petra” in {?} and it isn’t in the scripture. Now are those interchangeable? A few years ago, I remember Dr. {?} talking about Petra {?} saying something from {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes, Petra is the capitol city of Egypt, and sometimes is used as synonymous with Edom, as sometimes we speak of Moscow, this and that, and London, this and that, but Petra was the capitol, and those of you who’ve seen pictures of it know what a remarkable city it was because the major buildings of Petra, which was located in the canyons surrounded by sharp {?} on all sides, were carved right out of the mountain, and so the treasury building and the other buildings are simply a part of the mountain, just as Mount Rushmore you have the statues carved out of the rock of the mountain, here huge buildings were carved out. It’s an amazing city.

[Audience] {?} is there something you {?}

[Rushdoony] No.

[Audience] {?} excavated it {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, the significance of Moab in scripture, and of Edom, is as I indicated, they represent those who are outwardly within the church but are not of the church, who claim to be the church, as it were. So that Ezekiel does deal with them in that sense. Ezekiel in particular, but Edom is around us today. The National Council of Churches is one branch of Edom, and those bishops like Pike who claim to have the apostolic succession and therefore, they are true bishops of God, they are Edomites.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. They would reject it totally, but they would know what I was talking about.

[Audience] You mentioned Petra and the buildings were carved out which were used as official buildings, and all of the things that I’ve read, which is not very much, they were described as tombs.

[Rushdoony] No, these were official buildings, a temple, treasury, and other buildings. Huge things, the whole mountainside, the whole cliff.

[Audience] {?} there last year {?}

[Rushdoony] It was once very rich country, a country of vineyards, but it’s now barren and desert. Yes?

[Audience] Regarding {?} we were talking about, is there any {?} connection between the {?} and {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. A great deal of parallelism. You might say that on this three-pronged fork of Zionism, British Israelism, and Premillennialism, Mormonism could be a fourth prong, because it is a parallel doctrine, and very, very definitely a dangerous one. It is a totalitarian kind of system. It believes, of course, that there is going to be a Messianic kingdom, with its capitol at Independence, Missouri, Harry Truman’s town, and that all of us are going to be slaves of the Mormons in that {?}. Mormons have always, from the beginning, worked for power on both sides of everything so that they have always been prominent in both parties, and in both liberal and conservative circles, so that it’s easy to find prominent Mormons on the liberal side and prominent Mormons on the conservative side. This is a strategy of power, I believe, and there is a long history of it, and it’s something to beware of.

[Audience] Do you think it’s {?} from the Books of Mormon{?}

[Rushdoony] What’s its name?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I don’t know him. I’ve known very few Mormons that I’ve felt I could have any confidence in. By and large, having lived in Mormon country in Nevada, I have a deep suspicion of them, as almost anyone who’s lived in Mormon country does have.

[Audience] I was going to ask that, too, in regards to people who run for office. Some people would say, “Well, {?}, you know, but again, {?} you know their background. {?} Actually, it’s going to come out {?}.

[Audience] A specific {?} point of what you brought out about Mormonism would be the John Edwards {?} who at one and the same time {?} the other time in 1950-51 was the director of the American Institute of Cooperation, which is the American {?} socialist {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, our time is up. I’d like, by way of conclusion simply to call this little book to your attention. Pass the Poverty Please by Patty Newman and Joy Wenger. If you want to have a good analysis of what’s going on today as well as something of the fearful immorality of our present domestic policies, I would say this book is almost without equal.

End of tape