Studies in Eschatology – Zechariah

For Every Oppressor a Destroyer

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Religious studies

Lesson: 2-15

Genre: Lecture

Track: 141

Dictation Name: RR127A2

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, we give thank unto Thee that our times are in Thy hands. For indeed oh God, Thou doest all things well. Teach us to commit ourselves into Thy keeping, give us faith day by day to yield unto Thee sovereignty in our lives, to know indeed that the government is upon Thy shoulders. We thank Thee that hitherto Thou hast blessed us, and we know that for us the best is yet to come in Jesus Christ. And so our Father we gather together to praise Thee, to rejoice in Thy word; and to behold wondrous things out of Thy law. In Jesus name, amen.

Our Scripture today is from the 1st chapter of the book of the prophet Zechariah, 18-21. For every oppressor, a destroyer. Zechariah, the next to the last book in the Old Testament. Zechariah 1:18-21, for every oppressor, a destroyer.

“18 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns.

19 And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.

20 And the Lord shewed me four carpenters.

21 Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.”

Two great evils that have characterized human activities in culture after culture and plague us even in the church are activism and quietism.

First of all, to deal with activism. There is a kind of activism that feels a responsibility for the entire world. Such activists feel that anything that occurs anywhere in the world is their responsibility and they must do something about it. If there is a problem in Africa or Asia they must be concerned, they must act. And so little by little the activist feels a world of responsibility which makes him in his own thinking comparable to God. If he relax, if he relaxes at all in his vigilance, somehow the world is going to fall apart. And so upon himself and other like minded activists, the mantle of God as it were is assumed to have fallen, and the world will not function if they do not keep up their perpetual concern, their perpetual activism. Such activism is of course, playing at being God. It is wrong, and it is foolish.

On the other hand, there is a great deal of quietism that has over and over again possessed men. And men, playing God on the one hand with their activism, become disillusioned and turn then on the other hand to a total unconcern about the world. And they deny that they have any responsibility except to concern themselves about their own soul. And very often you have with this quietism, indeed almost always, mysticism. One of the great evils that has plagued human history. And with the mystic the concern is not with the material world, not with other people, not indeed even with themselves, but total withdrawal from all things, and seeking absorption, disillusionment, disillusion into the absolute. Into the universe. The disillusion into the universe and a disillusionment with the world.

Quietism is again a great evil, and basic to every quietism there is also a fearful pride. Even as the activist assumes himself to be a God, so the quietist says: “I will be one with the ultimate power of the universe.” And he identifies himself with God, whom he defines as being unconcerned with the universe.

Between quietism and activism, what course should the people of God take?

Zechariah had an answer to this, in a revelation from God which he describes in these 4 or rather concluding verses of Zechariah, 18 following, the latter part of the 1st chapter. Zechariah was speaking to a handful of Israelites who had returned from captivity. For 70 years the land had been idle, and what once had been a flourishing country with many, many cities, a great deal of industry, vineyards and orchards, was now a waste land. The trees had taken over the farms. Wild animals roamed where once people had dwelt. And animals that had disappeared for a few centuries apparently returned and took over the land. Into this a handful of people came, some 40,000. The task of reconstruction seemed to be hopeless. Jerusalem was a heap of ruins, impenetrable by horseback. They had begun their task of reconstruction with the building or rebuilding of the temple, the second temple. But the temple was so insignificant a structure compared with the first temple, the temple of Solomon that their efforts at reconstruction seemed feeble by comparison, and they were deeply discouraged.

On top of that as they began to rebuild they felt the threatening’s of the people round about, because their ancient enemies wanted by no means to see the Israelites restored and their kingdom reestablished, and so as they turned from one side to the other, they saw only hostility. The Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Samaritans in the North, the Egyptians on the south, the Philistines on the west, and the Ammonites and Moabites on the east. They were totally encircled by enemies. They were a handful, some 40,000 against millions. And as they faced this and they realized how overwhelming a task it was, they were filled with despair, and to them came the vision through Zechariah.

“Then I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold four horns.” We deal here with symbolism that was once familiar to everyone. Throughout most of history until fairly recent times, it was no problem for anyone to understand the meaning of horns. They signified power, authority, dominion, majesty and might. Many an ancient crown was characterized by horns. The Persian empire during its period of greatness, had on the crown of the emperor two horns. We are familiar with it also from pictures of the Vikings. Because when the Vikings moved out and ranged across the world, throughout Europe, North Africa, Iceland, Greenland and North America, the Viking warriors had helmets adorned with horns to signify their dominion and their power. Who could stand before them? They swept the world before them. And so they wore horns to signify their power.

Horns were a familiar symbol. We meet with the symbol of horns repeatedly from one end of Scripture to the other. For example, we read when Hannah, rejoicing because God had given her the gift of Samuel, the son for whom she had prayed so long, sang her beautiful song which was echoed centuries later by the Virgin Mary, and she said: “My horn is exalted in the Lord.” Again in Psalm 89:17 we read: “For thou art the glory of their strength, and in Thy favor our horn shall be exalted, for the Lord is our defense and the Holy one of Israel our king; the enemy shall not exact upon him nor the son of wickedness afflict him, and I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted.”

The symbolism of the horn occurs hundreds and hundreds of times in the Bible, and countless tens of thousands of times in the world at large. Thus, everyone understood immediately the significance of this. Four horns. And then it is spelled out: “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” Here are the powers of the ungodly world round about you. These are they which have scattered you and broken you. These are the enemies who surround you, indeed you are surrounded by power, and you a small handful of 40,000.

“And then the Lord showed me four carpenters.” The word that is translated as carpenters has a more general meaning in the Hebrew, it can also be rendered as smith, because it means not only a worker in wood but in stone or in iron. “Then said I, what came these to do? And he spake saying: “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head. But these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.” The meaning was immediately apparent to every Israelite. Here were four smiths coming, who could dehorn every horn. Who had the power to do it. So that, even as they had been surrounded by oppressors, by the providence of God destroyers for these oppressors had been raised up by God also. So that for every oppressor there is in the providence of God, a destroyer.

Age after age, history testifies to this. And the Scripture gives us abundance of evidence. When Israel was oppressed in Egypt, God himself using the forces of nature destroyed Egypt. When they entered into the Promised Land, he used the Israelites themselves to destroy the Canaanites. Age after age when they were threatened by enemies, God raised up someone to destroy the enemies. God raised up the oppressor Assyria, and then destroyed them with Babylon. And then Babylon was destroyed by the Medo-Persian Empire, and the Medes and Persians were destroyed by Alexander the Great, and Alexander the Great also was destroyed by other powers, so that every age, every oppressor found that there was a destroyer for him. And so God said to this handful, to the 40,000 who were there, feeling hopeless as they faced the task of reconstruction: “The powers are around you, but God has already appointed the destroyers. Have no fear, your task, therefore awaits you.”

This then is the meaning of this vision. God declares that for every oppressor there is a destroyer. So that, in every situation we can face our problems, our adversaries in this confidence: That God has from all eternity ordained the means of their destruction. Today those who represent the cause of Christ are a handful. Virtually every church the length and breadth of this country and around the world is given over to evil, is given over to the powers of darkness. So that we face a monstrous evil everywhere in the church, and power is in their hands, they are among the horns that oppress us. And as we look at the governments of the world we see them almost universally given over to socialism to communism, to welfarism, to every kind of evil.

And as we look at education, we see again the schools in the hands of evil; on all sides we see the horns of the enemy, power in his hands. And like those who were the returning captives, we who have dedicated ourselves to the task of reconstruction seem so small and impotent by comparison. And all that we represent, and all that we hope to do can be snuffed out by them in a moment. But God says to us: “For every oppressor there is an appointed destroyer.” So that our task is reconstruction. God has given us a calling and a responsibility. And what we cannot do God does not ask us to do. What we can do, God requires us to do. And it is His purpose, His ordination, that evil shall not prevail.

The kingdoms of this earth are not ordained to become the dominions of the powers of darkness. The Lords prayer concludes with a sentence which is not only our prayer, but it must be an article of faith: “For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen.” For Thine is the kingdom. This we must believe. If we doubt it, we are doubting God. If we surrender the world into the hands of evil because we do not believe that God is able to destroy them, we are again doubting God, we are denying Him. This must be an article of faith: “For Thine is the kingdom.” And in terms of this we must continually stand.

The task of reconstruction before us then is our responsibility. That which we can do, that we must do, with all out might. And day by day as we approach God in prayer, it must be an article of faith with us when we declare: “For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen.” Do you believe this? Then, you must live in terms of it. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that for every oppressor round about us there is an appointed destroyer. So that we have the freedom of thy calling, and the freedom of Thy government to undertake our appointed task and calling. Strengthen us and confirm us therefore in the task of reconstruction, and make us bold therein. In the certainty that thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. No man and no power is able to seize these things out of Thy hands. Teach us therefore to work in our appointed calling, confident unto victory, knowing our Father that Thou art for us, and therefore, who can be against us? In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions at this time? Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Whose responsibility?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, right. Yes. Very definitely. He was going to be responsible for everything, including that which was not his responsibility; he was going to assume a role that was forbidden to him. And this of course is I think a very good point that you have made, even like Uzzah, today, we want to take on responsibility that is not ours.

One of the tragic things I’ve seen so often is, that some women feel that they are responsible for everything, from the babies in Africa to the Eskimos in the arctic circle, and they avoid responsibility to their own children and husband; and this is considered to be enlightened womanhood nowadays. If you don’t believe this, just talk to or visit the homes of some of the women in the league of women voters. It is amazing the world wide responsibility they assume, and the local responsibilities they sometimes fall short on.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Not at all, but it is wrong to feel that the whole government of the world is on our shoulders, and unless we become eager beaver activists the world is going to fall apart. There is a difference between Godly charity and Godly concern, and an ungodly feeling that everything is our responsibility, which is an impossibility. We simply cannot assume responsibility for everything. And this is why the preaching which is directed at making us feel guilty if we don’t have a bleeding heart for every cause and every purpose is wicked. It would be wrong for me to tell you you are not good people if you don’t feel badly about the starving people in India, and all the deserted babies in Africa, and there are a lot of them, it would be downright wicked for me to tell you that you are responsible for them, because you are not.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Good. But, we do have responsibilities, first of all in our own home, then in our own spiritual fellowships, and then in our communities to a lesser degree. We do not have world wide responsibilities other than proclaiming the gospel. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes and the missionary programs have become downright wicked. The purpose of a missionary program is to preach the gospel. What have we made it? Well, we made it extensively, everything else under the sun. We have, among other things, established an education program. Now, this in itself has done incredible damage. It is one thing for Christians in a missionary field to set up their own schools as they become Christians and as they grow, and to train their won, it is another thing for us to go in there and establish schools according to our pattern. Because, what do we do the moment we create such schools? Well, when we go say into the heart of Africa or Asia and establish a mission school, immediately what we are establishing in that school is an American standard of life and an American standard of education which has no relevancy to the life in their village. And when they go back they are very unhappy. And we take the best of these students and we bring them to this country to colleges and universities, and when they go back it is impossible for them to live among their own people, and we support them, because it is impossible for them to get back to the same standard of living. And what do they become, most of them? Leaders of revolution. They are the communist leaders almost uniformly.

Then what do we do? We also because we are so full of human love, and it is thoroughly humanistic love, we set up mission hospitals. Now, I can understand why many fine missionaries find this a good thing, because certainly it brings people too you, because they are coming to you perpetually for sickness and so on. But what do we do? Again, we destroy the fabric of local life. For example, here are people, say in the jungle of Africa, who are living according to a certain standard of living, which is very meager, very poor, but that is all they know. And until they are converted, they are not going to be capable of much else, but we go in there, and instead of having a very high death rate they suddenly have a very low one. So they have a population boom, but they don’t know how to provide food for them, all they do is to destroy the jungle around them, they lay waste to natural resources, and they are demanding handouts from us.

Until you change their way of life by faith, to change their way of life by medicine or by education brings destruction ultimately upon them rather than good. So I do not believe in any kind of mission except the old fashioned mission that confined itself to the proclamation of the gospel. And the damage we have done through these other kinds of missions which are now almost the only kind we have, is fearful, and it is no wonder that we have created revolution everywhere. And it is no wonder in Africa for example that 1/3rd of all males are in the cities, waiting for UN handouts. That is, in so called free Africa, which is the un-free part of Africa really. Because, we have schooled them to having everything. They are not capable of living as they once lived, in many parts living near the jungle they are forgetting how to hunt. After all, why go out and work hard to hunt food when the white man will provide?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] no it is not true, we had far more converts in every part of the world when we were simply preaching the gospel there. What we are doing now is what we did in China unfortunately, almost from the beginning, creating rice Christians there, and elsewhere creating hand out Christians. In other words, they are Christian only so long as they can get a handout, and they are going to be favorable only so long as they can go there and get free medical treatment and the like. So we have destroyed our missionary work to a great extent with this method of perpetual gifts. One kind of grant after another. I have hear missionaries actually say that when they arrive on their particular field, a new field for their particular church, the first thing that they were asked when the natives came around was: “What do you have to give us?” In other words, a handout. That is what they expect the missionary to be. And this is altogether wrong.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The answer to that is, some of the first en who went there, to the heart of Africa like Livingston, Robert Moffat and many another, were able to teach those natives, among the most primitive in all of Africa, far more than I would say 99 out of a 100 people in the churches of Las Angeles today understand about the Bible.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They understood. They understood, because man is created in the image of God. There is nothing that man is better capable of understanding than the word of God. But it’s a moral depravity on the part of man that keeps him from understanding. And so, when these men went there with only one purpose, they were not there to present western education or western medicine to them, they were there for one purpose, to tell them that God had created heaven and earth in the beginning, that the world had fallen in to sin, and that God had provided a savior. They understood it. They translated the Bible into their languages, and the people were able to read and to understand it.

There is less understanding of it today because we are not teaching it and we are teaching everything else under the sun. But they understood. For example, there was one particular group of peoples, I believe at the tip of south America, who Darwin in his day said were the most sub-human people that existed, that it was impossible for anyone ever to give them any comprehension of anything abstract, anything religious, anything intellectual. Some missionaries took up the challenge when they heard Darwin describe these people, among whom he had been, as so backward. And they went there, and they made very fine Christians of them. And did demonstrate very clearly that these people had the capacity, they were creatures of God. And Darwin who was a rather small souled sniveling sort of character, which is letters clearly reveal, at this point was man enough to recognize that they had proved their point, and to send a fairly good sized donation to the missionary society. And this challenge has been taken up a number of times, and it has been very very clearly met. They can, and do understand.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, someone who is a mental defective, that is another question, and yet it is how much understanding they can have, but those who are capable of the most elementary understanding have been taught that there is a God, and He is our savior. And they have understood it. So that, some who have worked among the mentally defective as missionaries, have indicated some really surprising things. But there is a limited extent to which they can understand. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, of course, this was about 100 years ago that this was done.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, of course a great many people who have become converted have also become extinct, because failure to have any resistance to various epidemics, for example the tribe of Indians whom John Elliot converted, and there were villages and communities, farms whole areas of New England own by the Christian Indians; all of them were wiped out by various epidemics ultimately, so that although the Bible had been translated into their language, there is no one living now to whom that language is native.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The Book of Numbers? Oh, the significance of numbers. Well, we cannot take all numbers symbolically, but there are some numbers that are used symbolically. And the numbers 7 and 10 are used as numbers signifying fullness. For example, today the number 10 is significant because our numerical system is on a 10 base, and our numbers are 12345678910, and they are all contained in 10, and then you begin to count again, 10+1, 10+2, 10+3, and so one to double 10, and then double ten plus one and so on. So the number 10 is seen as the number containing all numbers, and has always been used in the Bible and out of the Bible as the number of fullness. Then, similarly, the number 7. The number 7 once was the basis of the numerical system. It used to be at one time, 1234567, and then 7+1, 7+2 and so on, to double 7. So, the number 7 also was a number signifying fullness. The number 4 is used also as a number indicating fullness in terms of the earth, the four corners of the earth, on all sides, north, south, east, west.

So various numbers are used symbolically, but we have to beware of pushing this too far, not all numbers are and some people try to do that.

Now there are some numbers that are occasionally used, symbolically. For example, 12. The 12 tribes of Israel. And since the 12 apostles were called to indicate they were the new chosen people of God, the new Israel of God, the number 24 came to signify in Revelation the 4 and 20 elders, the fullness of the church of both the Old and New Testaments. But this doesn’t mean every time you encounter the numbers 12 and 4 it has such a reference, but it does and it is clear from the context when it does.

[Audience Member] Is there a number for man?

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is a number for man, I am glad you brought that up, because the number of man was 6. He was created on the 6th day, and this was his number, and so the number of man is given to us in Revelation as 666, which means the multiplication as it were of 6, adding of 6’s together, but unable to reach what it aspires to be, 7, or fullness, or God. So 666 stands not so much for a person, but for the epitome of man, of humanistic man, aspiring and pretending to be God over creation. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] He is speaking of the ancient Hebrews, the two kingdoms, the kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, and he singles out Jerusalem the capital as the city of David. So this referred to those people then. Now its significance is the true people of God, ourselves.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] To cast out the horns of the Gentiles, that is the people outside, the others. So that…

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They were altogether peoples, in other words it was Hebrew versus Gentile, and Gentile meant everyone else. Now in terms of Scripture we are the true Israel of God, the true church is. So that, today, no one except the Christian has a right to the term Israelite. And of course, I believe it was Pope Pius the 12 who said that spiritually we are all Semites, which was a good expression, in that we are religiously the Hebrews of today, the chosen people of God, and we cannot speak of the Jews as Gods chosen people, they are not, they are cut off. When they denied Christ. So that for us the Gentiles are those who do not believe. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the temple of Solomon was destroyed because of their unbelief, they put their trust in the form of religion, and as Jeremiah said in the days before the fall of Jerusalem, many people were saying: “Oh, nothing can happen to us, why the temple of God is here at Jerusalem. God won’t let it happen to His people.” and so, they were destroyed and the temple was destroyed. And then the second temple, did not have certain of the things that the first temple did, because in the first temple there were a number of things from the desert journey, a pot of manna, Aarons rod that budded, the Arks, the tables of the law of Moses, things like that. Those were never recovered, they were destroyed. So that, the second temple lacked certain of the things that the first had, and of course the second temple was finally destroyed with the fall of Jerusalem in the Jewish Roman war of 66 AD. It was profaned twice before its fall, one during the Maccabean period by Antiochus Epiphanes, and then by the Zealots or the revolutionists themselves, early in the Jewish Roman war. They themselves profaned and destroyed the temple.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the Saracens were a particular group of Mohammedans, perhaps the most superior group of Mohammedans that ever existed, and for a time they were extremely powerful in the Middle East. The Saracens gained ascendancy for a while partly because they had captured so many of the Christian countries and had taken into their harems Christian women, and these women took with them a superior culture, and their children became very, very superior. This gave to the Saracens for a while a very superior civilization, but after this influence was diluted, then they went right back to the hog wallow of Islam, and Islam declined very rapidly after this influence debated. But their power was in a sense a borrowed one, and these women were responsible for it. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the Druids represented a pre-Christian religion that was very powerful throughout much of Europe, and it was destroyed, gradually, as Christianity entered into the land. It was militantly anti-Christian. There is a great deal of mythology about it, and of course a great deal of silly talk about them. But they were a pre-Christian religion, they were probably a fertility cult.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, they apparently did worship various forces of nature, of which sex was very powerful, and various natural bodies in the heavens. They did have apparently some developed science, and Stonehenge apparently was important for astrological use rather than for religious use. For a long time it was believed to be a Druid temple. But it was actually an astronomical observatory.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good point. The devil is often portrayed in popular portrayals of him as having horns. And the purpose of it of course goes back to this imagery, in the fact that the devil claims to have the power and the dominion. And therefore, he is portrayed as having horns. But he is also portrayed with a tail to make… to debase him, so that at the same time they portrayed him with horns they portrayed him with a tail to in a sense degrade him.

Now, there is a very famous statue that Michelangelo did which has horns on it, does anyone know which it is?

[Audience Member] Moses?

[Rushdoony] Moses, yes. And Moses is so portrayed by Michelangelo because he was trying to portray him of a figure of almost godlike power. and Michelangelo being a neo Platonist was trying almost to show Moses as an incarnation of God, and hence the budding horns.

Some statues of Zeus for example, ancient Greek statues, will show the locks of hair coming up almost like horns, like ostensible horns.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the same is true of Neptune. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, Islam is a very, very low and debased kind of religion, and most of the Koran copies you get are translated with a great deal of discretion by scholars who are trying to put the best book forward for Islam. And basically the God of Islam is nothing but blind necessity, their belief is more in various spirits, evil spirits, Gins that they have to beware of. There is no sense of personal responsibility in Islam, and it is totally given over to fatalism. It has a very low moral standard, it is particularly debased religion, and morally, since so many perversions are actually approved of by Mohammed, there is not much you can say for it. It is one of the lowest religions history has seen. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, that of course is altogether wrong. All primary responsibility is Gods. Mans responsibility is a secondary responsibility. Just as God is the first cause, and man is a second cause, so Gods responsibility is primary and absolute, and mans is secondary and conditional. So that his statement is utter nonsense. He is thereby saying that man is part of God, and God is only part God.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The religion of revolution, the chaos cults are rising up on all sides of us.

[Audience Member] Well, this is being taught in our protestant churches at least today, that we are the only hands that God has, we are the only voice that God has. And this is being taught in the literature all the way through.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and of course this is fearfully wicked, and it is humanism to the enth degree, and it is saying that man is the incarnation of God in this world, because he is the hands, the eyes, the nose, the ears of God in this world, and without him God cannot exist in this world. Therefore, God is incarnate in man. Man is the extension of God. It involves a fearful wickedness of pride.

Well, our time is.. Yes, one more question?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] From, I heard stories of that hard winter in the 80’s from the Indians, and I also read about it is various books. It…

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It was throughout the Midwest, the inner mountain area and the far west. It was very, very far spread and it was fearful in its destruction.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, this great blizzard, this hard winter was just total in its destruction. I am still going to try to remember to bring that picture of Charlie Russell’s of the last cow, last of a heard of 5000.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Audience Member] Waiting for a Chinook.

[Rushdoony] Waiting for a Chinook, that is the name of the painting of this half starved cow, the circle of Coyotes sitting around him. And when this was in response to the owners of the ranch in the east who wired out to know how many of their cattle, 5000, were still alive. And this was the only one, Charlie Russell painted its picture. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] There just isn’t anything, that is the sad thing. You only encounter occasionally here and there in another work, and then in passing, but it is one of the most dramatic aspects of our American history.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, yes. There are a number of events like that that changed American history that you can only describe as acts of God. For example, when the Pilgrims and the Puritans landed in New England, New England had had the previous winter a deadly epidemic that had virtually wiped out the Indians. If this had not been the case they would have been wiped out themselves after landing, because the Indians would have been so strong, militant and hostile, that there wouldn’t have been a survivor. But they landed in an area that was virtually deserted, because that epidemic had been there the previous winter. And you can go through American history and you find a number of such dramatic events. Now a few of those from the early years were written up by an attorney a few years ago, Timothy J. Campbell, I have forgotten the title of his book, but it is well worth reading. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience Member] In the late 1880’s there was a terrible drought, in Southern California, and it was followed by a flood that was so severe that it took people months to come down from the north. …?... I’ve hear how they had to drive the cattle over the cliffs because they cut up the ones that they felt that could keep and save, and the others were just driven over a cliff …?... And then that fall was a flood …?...

[Rushdoony] It could have been the aftermath of the hard winter throughout the west. I am going to try if my family can remind me to look for that picture, Waiting for a Chinook, and bring it next week. Well, our time is up now.