Studies in Eschatology – Zechariah

Will Worship vs God Worship

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Religious studies

Lesson: 8-15

Genre: Lecture

Track: 146

Dictation Name: RR127D8

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is the 7th chapter of the book of the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah 7. Will Worship vs God Worship.

“7 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu;

2 When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to pray before the Lord,

3 And to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?

4 Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,

5 Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

6 And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

7 Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?

8 And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying,

9 Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:

10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.

12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.

13 Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts:

14 But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.”

The most fearful episode in all of the Old Testament history was the fall of Jerusalem. For the inhabitants of Jerusalem it seemed that the city was impregnable. It was surrounded by walls within walls. Walls that had been built up over the centuries; immense, thick walls. It had its water supply within. They did not believe that Jerusalem could be taken. But it was taken. After a long and bitter struggle, with great loss of life. And they saw the captors divide them up as their prey, as slaves. And those of the little children that could not be sold or taken, picked up by the heels and their brains dashed out, as they were herded on towards Babylon. And there in Babylon their captives asked them to entertain them, saying: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” And out of this experience came one of the most beautiful, the saddest, the most moving of all things ever written. Psalm 137.

“137 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4 How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

This had been their experience. As the mourning captives were taken into captivity in Babylon, they remembered Jerusalem, and they observed 4 fast days annually, bewailing their sins, and bewailing the fall of Jerusalem. In the 10th month, a fast day when the siege of Jerusalem was begun, by Nebuchadnezzar. A fast day in the 4th month when the gates of Jerusalem were opened to Nebuchadnezzar. A fast day in the 5th month when the temple was destroyed. And then a 4th fast day in the 7th month, when after the fall of Jerusalem, Gedaliah was murdered, a prince of the house of David, and the end came to Judea.

But now some years had passed. Over 70 years. The temple was now being reconstructed and open to services. And so messengers came from Babylon, from the believing there, and messengers came from the faithful locally, asking: “Shall we discontinue the fasts of the 5th and the 7th months, now that the temple is being rebuilt, and now that again a prince of the house of David, Zerubbabel, is in authority over us? Shall we drop these days of fasting?”

The word of the Lord that came to the people through Zechariah was like a slap in the face. Because the word of God to the people was, one of contempt for all their fast keeping. He had not appointed it. There was not a sentence in the word of god requiring these fasts, and therefore they had no legitimate claim on the conscience of any man, they were against Gods will. To introduce anything for the sake of religion which is not commanded of God is to despise Him and to set aside His word. For His word alone is the authority for what we should do. Anything else is will-worship, a desire to set up what pleases us as pleasing to God.

For 70 years in captivity, they had felt they were superior to their forefathers; did they not fast four times a year in commemoration of the fall of Jerusalem? Did they not fast four times a years to bewail the sins of their fathers? But as Samuel said ages before: “Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”

What was condemned so clearly by God here was the whole of their lives. Because their hope in their fasting and also in their eating and drinking, although they felt they were so holy, they had reference to themselves. Because holiness is not an abstract thing, although the world tends to make it such.

Scholars have written books, as Otto did on The Idea of the Holy. One of the great classics of the philosophy of religion. And yet the thing that is so defective about Otto’s book the Idea of the Holy, and virtually all thinking about holiness is, that it takes holiness as something abstract, a state, a condition which man attains through certain efforts. And this concept of holiness we find not only in Christianity, but we find it wherever we go in all religions. And you find it in the various religions of the world that men have different ideas as to what constitutes holiness. For some, for many it is fasting. For many others it is forsaking the world and becoming hermits. For many others it is forsaking the eating of certain types of foods. For still others, long pilgrimages, self punishment, lying on beds of nails, a variety of things. A variety of services also, working in the slums, involving yourself endlessly in all kinds of social enterprises. All kinds of activities whereby men say: “In this way we attain holiness.” And they are all wrong. And they are guilty of will-worship.

In the law of Moses we read, as for example in Exodus 28:36, in Exodus 39:30, that the vestments of Aaron as High Priest, vestments that became the vestments of all High Priests, included a breast plate on which was written the words: “Holiness to the Lord.” Not holiness in itself, not holiness in the abstract, but holiness to the Lord. And it is this that is so often lacking, because men seek to attain an abstract holiness in terms of man made, essentially humanistic concepts, and feel: “Now I have arrived. I am holy.”

Fasting is very much associated with the Jews and with their history. And it comes across to many people as a distinct shock to realize that in all of the Bible, God only requires one day a year for the Old Testament believers as a day of fasting. This was the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. On the Day of Atonement as the ritual was performed whereby the as yet future atoning death and resurrection of Christ were set forth, the people fasted during the time of ritual throughout the day. But because the meaning of the Day of Atonement was deliverance, the fast was not throughout the day, because at sun down when the ritual ended it was a time of rejoicing, of banqueting. A time of celebration. So even that one fast day annually ended with a banquet.

This was the only fast day required of the Hebrews. And this passed away, as far as being a religious requirement, when our Lord came. Any other fasting was purely a personal matter, in time of crisis, for prayer or meditation, it was not a requirement of God.

But the Jews felt holy by fasting. This was a way of showing how much their faith meant to them: “See, I have gone without food for this day, I have forsaken this that and the other thing for this period of time.” And so, in spite of the words of Zechariah which had at best a temporary effect on Hebrew worship, fasting crept in all the more, until at the time of our Lord we find that the Pharisees boasted of being more holy than anyone else, because they fasted twice in a week. And this is spite of the fact that God had declared long ago that this was an abomination to Him.

Holiness in the abstract is meaningless. And so God said: “They did not hearken to my word. They did not pay attention, the people in times past, to my requirements of them concerning their behavior one to another, to their neighbor, towards me, towards their family. They forsook my word, and they substitute their own word as the way of holiness.” And this amounted to worshipping their own will, rather than God. Because as Saint Paul declared in Romans 6:16, “16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” And if what we serve is our will, then we are slave to our will, and if what we serve is the will of the church, then we are slaves of the church. But if that which we serve is Christ, then we are slaves of Christ, and therein is our freedom, for His will is our perfect freedom.

But men substitute will worship, a worship of their own will as holiness, rather than obedience to God.

One of the women I like least of all to remember was in a parish of mine some 15 years or so ago, and she was a woman who was rarely to be found doing her duties around the house towards her husband and children; and her husband rarely had an ironed shirt if indeed it was clean, and the children did not have the care they should have had, but; if anyone were ill she was one of the first if not the first to volunteer to go and help with their ironing, and with the care of their children, and with their housework. And she was the first always to volunteer if there was anything to do around the church, in fact she was underfoot all the time, every time you turned around she was volunteering for something. Was this holiness? Not to the Lord. For holiness to the Lord would have meant the fulfillment of her obligations in her home. And holiness to the Lord would mean for a man to fulfill his obligations to his household, to his work, to his community unto God.

And thus the word of the Lord to Israel was that their fasting was on the same level as the idolatry of their forefather; and even as it destroyed the present land, or more literally, “the land of desire”, so unbiblical, ungodly religiousness destroys a people.

And so God gave them the choice. The yoke of obedience, or the yoke of oppression. All their religiousness had a past bound perspective. They felt very holy as they observed 4 fast days in a year. “See Lord, how truly repentant we are.” But what did it do? Did it make them more obedient, or did it simply give them a feeling of holiness?

This perpetual concentration upon sins was not a sign of holiness, but of will worship. One of the most likeable men I have known in my ministry was a man who before his conversion had been a sales executive, had made liberal use of his expense account, become an alcoholic for a time, messed up at least two marriages, he was always vague as to how many, and felt that he had been responsible for the permanent delinquency for one of his ex wives, and this man felt so perpetually guilty because of what his life had been like in the past, that he was paralyzed as far as the present was concerned. Was this a sign of humility or holiness on his part, or was it a sign of sin? It was not holiness to the Lord.

Because when God forgives, He forgives. And when God commands He commands. And the perspective of the faith and obedience is in terms of the future, not in terms of the past. Today we see will worship all around us. Church after church, day after day is dedicated to it. This morning, as every Sunday morning, as I was driving to Santa Anna I listened to one or more religious broadcasts. Every Sunday morning I hear some lay leader, today the vice president of some, I believe state project corporation, speaking on “What my church means to me.” I have yet to hear I believe anyone state that the work of God for him was authoritative and binding, and faith for him meant to believe in God and to obey Him. The executive this morning spoke about the fact that all men and animals instinctively are geared for the future and find it hard to believe that there is an end to life in this world, and the church is an excellent place for exploration, and the church means a place where men can decide what is best for the community, and begin to serve the community and explore also the matters of life and death. And so much of what have been said on previous weeks has been on the same level.

“We shall define in terms of our culture and our community what we consider to be holiness. And ipso facto having defined this in terms of our standards, we by our own standards are now holy.”

But the word of the Lord then was: “Therefore it is come to pass that as he cried, and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.” To be heard of God we must hear God. To be heard of God, in the day of crisis as well as in the day of peace and prosperity we must hear God, worship God, and obey Him. Let us pray.

We give thanks unto Thee our Father for this Thy word. And we thank thee that Thou hast summoned us out of the darkness of will worship, unto the worship of Thee. Confirm us our father in our most holy faith, and make us strong and bold therein. That we may move in the confidence that because we have hearkened to Thy word, we have honored Thee by faith and obedience, Thou art mindful of us and our infirmities, and will hear us and will answer our prayers. Our God we thank Thee, in Jesus Name, amen.

Are there any questions at this time? Yes.

[Audience Member] …?... verse 9 …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, one of the sins of course of the Israelites in the days before the fall of the northern kingdom and of the southern kingdom was of course the total contempt of other people. Now of course this contempt is manifested today by the socialists, because they do not show true love to their brethren, they show no charity, they show no justice, charity is not compelling somebody else out of tax funds to give, it is giving yourself. There is a difference between charity and state welfarism. Moreover, charity is not casting off Widows and orphans to the state, but taking care of your own family and responsibilities. And of course today we have less concern for these things then we have ever had before in our history.

So the socialists use these things as a pretext, they are least of all concerned about other people.

[Audience Member] I heard recently that the Bible said love thy brother and so forth, …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, show him of course the statements of our Lord and of Saint Paul in Matthew 19 and Romans 13, what it means to love our neighbor. It means to fulfill, as I have pointed out a number of times, the second table of the law. And this is not a matter of statist action. There is less love among socialists than there is among anyone else.

[Audience Member] …?... Not everybody is our brother.

[Rushdoony] Right.

[Audience Member] And we should try to help others …?... to those who believe and follow Christ.

[Rushdoony] Right. This is a very good point, and it is made over and over again in Scripture, that beyond certain works of mercy and emergency relief, we are not to extend help promiscuously. We are to take care of our family, and then of our fellow believers, because to extend help to those who are for example criminals, who are unwilling to work, “He that doth not work, let him not eat.” Which means, if he will not work, let him starve.

This makes it clear that anything in the way of assistance to those who are unwilling to work or undeserving is an approval of their lives, of their conduct, it is a subsidy of evil, and to subsidize evil is to be one with evil. To be a patron of evil. And we have no right to do that. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Right, I will not give to these various charities, my answer to them is, I give through my church. Because, what they do is to give on the principle that they have to give to everything, and what they give to primarily is not governed by any principle of discrimination, in fact it is in defiance of the principle of discrimination. This means of course, again, the subsidy of evil.

[Audience Member] …?... Interpreting the Bible the way you want to interpret… how do you answer that?

[Rushdoony] Challenge him to show in the Bible where the state is told to take care of these things, rather than he himself. If he is so concerned about the poor and the needy, tell him to do something about it. The Bible tells him what he can do to those who are deserving, it does not tell him that he has the right to demand the state to do it. So tell him: “If you are so full of love for your brethren, you do something for them, don’t try to clobber me into giving through my tax funds. You are trying to rob me and others in order to meet the requirements of your bleeding heart, and this is morally wrong.”

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] There is nothing wrong with it, and in fact it is morally an obligation. And in line with what you have said, a very interesting statement has been made, and in fact he was on TV about 8-10 years ago, giving a very delightful interpretation of this point, Parkinson, who has written The Law and the Prophets and Parkinson’s Law. He was tracing the history of the British civil service. And he said: “Of course in the early days what you did was to get all your relatives into the Civil Service.” And it was a good place, if you got a high office, for taking care of the family. And he said: “Now, this is criticized today as the worst kind of politics imaginable, something terrible.” But he said: “It really wasn’t bad at all; in fact it was pretty good. You took care of your family, but if they disgraced you, you had something at stake, so you landed on them, and said: “Now look, how long am I going to last if you keep disgracing me, or if you start dipping into the till, or doing something that is going to put me to shame?”” So he said: “There was some corruption, there always is. But there was less under this system, because it was a matter of loyalty, and if they intended to stay in that job they had to protect the man, the relative, who put them there.” And he said: “Then we went on to civil service tests. So we took those who passed the examinations.” And he said: “The result was not as good, because you gained a civil servant that was perhaps capable of getting A’s and B’s in medieval literature at Oxford, but they didn’t know anything, for example, about foreign trade or diplomacy or wherever they were in the civil service, and even if they did, they had no loyalty to anybody. They had the job because they had passed a test and there were automatic promotions. So there was no basic loyalty.” And he said: “Now we have declined even further. We have psychological tests.” And so he said: “In England they take them out on a weekend to some castle and they interview them, and they pull all kinds of funny tricks on these people, they may hand them a cigarette, and here he is in a lush office with beautiful carpeting, and there is no ash tray in sight, now what is he going to do? And you judge him in terms of his ability to handle the situation. Well he look around in embarrassment, will he use his pants cuffs, will he use his hand, what will he do, or will he come right out and ask this very crusty, important person: “I need an ashtray.” And interrupt the questions, because the man across the desk will pretend as though there is no problem.” And he said: “What you get when you finish with this kind of testing is somebody who is nervy, and that is about the limit of it. It doesn’t prove that he has any loyalty or any ability.” So he says: “the Civil Service has declined, and the best thing for the Civil Service which has become a deadly bureaucracy would be to clean house on all these people who have passed tests, and get in people who are going to be there only so long as their relative has got a job. Then they have got a stake in protecting their job, and they know they aren’t there for life.”

Now, you get the point. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes exactly. It is man saying: “This is the kind of religion we should have, so therefore, go to, let us build us a tower, and establish this as the world religion.

[Audience Member] Like the tower of Babel.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is that. It is that precisely. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, sacred and holy are basically the same words, they simply come from different languages. Sacred comes I believe from the Latin, and Holy from the German, or from the old Anglo Saxon. But they both mean the same thing, the idea of the Sacred or the idea of the Holy are identical.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?... (Laughter)

[Rushdoony] It’s the same thing yes… yes. It’s just that we have gotten used to the terminology sacred cows rather than holy cows. Just as it seems odd to us to say “Happy Christmas” Instead of “Merry Christmas” it’s just purely a verbal distinction. Yes?

[Audience Member] Going back to this welfare situation, the thought occurs to me that we as Christians had been down through history and were now proper stewards of what Christ gives to us there would be no necessity for these welfare programs now. …?... will we ever regain this ability …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, we not only shall but are beginning to. It used to be that every church through its Deacons funds took care of the needs of its own church. It used to be that Christian parents provided the education for their children through Christian schools, either by privately controlled, parent teacher controlled, or church controlled. In education we are seeing tremendous strides made, as I have said to many of you, many a time, 25% of all grade school children are today in non-statist schools. We are also seeing many of the newer smaller church groups taking an increasing interest in this matter, although this is just beginning, although I believe in the years to come we are going to see a great deal of growth in this direction. In the care of the aged, first; emphasizing that children have an obligation to their parents. The parents are not to be shoved off onto the state, the children have a responsibility. Second, those in the congregation that are needy and are without support, the congregation has some responsibility. Then all Christians have a responsibility, and to be provident, and to think in terms of the future. Now this is getting attention again, when for some years it has not had any attention. We have seen in the last 15 years a radical change in the educational picture, I think the next 15 years will see an equally radical change in the picture as far as charity is concerned.

Now charity of course is in the Christian sense, an object of hatred by the socialists. I have written on this in something that is not yet published, but I think that it is significant that in the Soviet Union it is strictly forbidden for any church or any individual to indulge in charity. So that, a congregation for example, can do nothing for a member in the Soviet Union who is in need. Supposing a member of the congregation has been put into a concentration camp and in a slave labor camp, or the priest or pastor has been put into a slave labor camp; they are not permitted to do something for the wife and family. Why? Because there is a very valid reason. Personal charity binds people together. They don’t want people to be bound together. They don’t want them to have any loyalty one to another, in the family or in the church. This is why of course they require the children to tattle on their parents if anything is said in the home. In every totalitarian country this is routine. They want to invade the home and the privacy of the home, and you get this sort of thing of course in our schools progressively in the encouragement to children to write autobiographical things about what goes on in the home, and what they think of their parents, and testing designed to give the same kind of information.

You de-personalize, by breaking the integrity of the personal relationship in the family, in the church. What do you leave then? Only the relationship between the individual and the state. That is why some people who have been in the Soviet Union tell me that the most startling difference between, say, the streets of Moscow and the streets of New York or Los Angeles is that people walk in absolute silence. There is no sense of community or of communication. So even if people who know each other walk together, they are silent one to another, because of this sense of isolation, of distrust that is created. You only have one relationship, to the state.

So, private charity is totally hated, and legislated against in any totalitarian state. To combat it we have to reestablish progressively the personal relationship, between members of the family, between members of a community, and especially between members of a church or a private association. Now, here again we see how non Christian conservatism is fallacious and wicked. Because, your non Christian conservatism and libertarianism emphasizes the anarchistic individual. And it is hostile to any kind of association, and its attitude is: “Well, you get tangled up with people, you can’t trust them, this or that will happen in any type of group,” and so on and so forth. SO that, when you have people infected with this anarchistic individualism, they are very distrustful of anything that involves a group, community. And this is wicked.

Now, of course, when you have any kind of community, association, if you have, or a family, you are going to have tensions. If you have a church group you are going to have tensions, assuming it’s a Godly church group. You are still going to have some conflict between individuals, some tensions. If you have a private association, if all of us together form a part of an association, there are going to be personal tensions. Because none of us are perfect. I am sure sometimes I’m not the easiest person to live with, at least my wife seems to think so, and I have similar opinions now and then, although we live together very happily. Bu if we became perfectionists, and if we became libertarian, we would have to live in isolation, because this is the logic of their position, and it involves a fearful pride. It says ultimately: “I the individual am the basic unit in the universe, I am my own God, and I don’t need other people and they are only a problem to me.” These people become the biggest problems, because they are guilty of the same kind of sin basically as the collectivist.

Now it is significant that the Bible begins with the Garden. Where man was intended to live and establish a community, that was the purpose. He was given a wife that he might have community. And having sinned, what then is the goal? It is the city of God, the New Jerusalem. A community. Gods purpose for us is not an individual salvation, so that each of us, a la the Mohammedan idea of paradise, is dropped into a garden where we are all by ourselves, except we have these beautiful maidens who come and wait on us; it is a thoroughly masculine idea of paradise. And this is it. You don’t associate if you are a Muslim, with other people particularly, you just have these beautiful women and this babbling brook, and these girls strumming their lire’s and bringing the grapes and dropping them in your mouth and so on, that is it. You are taken out of community you see.

But the Christian goal is precisely community. The city of our God. The New Jerusalem. So, those who say, “I don’t enjoy people, I am not going to associate with them, I prefer to go my own way.” Are sinning. And their sin has the same root cause as the collectivist. It is wicked. Yes?

[Audience Member] In your description of the non Christian conservatism it sounds to me like a theory that I am not terribly familiar with, …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. Robert LeFevre the freedom school, has precisely this kind of thinking, it is anarchistic. He has, there is someone in this area, (Skolumbos?) who has the same ideas, much more ably presented than LeFevre, but the same basic ideas. And this is, they call it Autarchism, but autarchy and anarchy are the same words. And some autarchists or anarchists say they believe in know law but their own, others believe that you are going to get a perfect set of laws, and this will keep things in line, and keep people from clashing with eachother. But I don’t think there is a law that hasn’t been or can’t be broken by any group of lawyers. Ultimately you have to rest on a premise of faith, and a godly association and a godly fellowship. This is your best security. If we pass the best set of laws tomorrow, what would they be worth with our Supreme Court and our courts today? But, if we had tomorrow the same kind of people that we had, say in 1825 in the United States, all the troublesome laws we have today would be no hindrance, they would quickly get around them or dispose of them, and establish their basic character.

So both the Libertarians or autarchists or anarchists who believe in law as the answer, and those who believe in no law as the answer are again fallacious. Because, their looking for some kind of perfect gimmick, law or no law, and this is ridiculous. You have to look to the heart of man, and see: is he moving in terms of God and His word? And this is your best security, as much security as you can have in this world.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, not too long ago, I was talking with a man in San Marino who was describing a very prominent liberal in southern California whose name would be known to all of you, one of the bleeding heart liberals. And he said: “You know, that man doesn’t love a single human being other than himself, he is the most totally self-centered, self preoccupied person alive. You can only take so much of him at a time because of his total absorption in himself, and he knows how totally absorbed he is in himself, how he has no use for his wife or any past wife, or any children, present or past, his only concern is with himself and his public image.” And he said: “Therefore it is a part of his total egotism to present this image of the great humanitarian, and it is a cheap thing for him to put money in every kind of liberal cause, put his signature on every leftist cause, to be one of the prominent bleeding heart liberals of the United States, precisely because this is a cheap way of assuaging his guilt.” And I think he was right. And thus it is with these people, they are hard hearted. They are going to be generous in a way that costs them as little as possible, with your money when they can do it, and when they are so rich that it only helps them tax-wise if they give, they are going to do it and get as much publicity and mileage as they can. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] We have an obligation of decency, and of honesty, integrity towards all men. But we are not obligated to take care of all men. Now of course you talk with anyone, but in a crisis your obligation is to help whom? Yourself, your husband, your family. This is the basic obligation we share. We cannot be bleeding hearts towards all men. Now…

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now, there is a point where it is impossible to think of others. For example, my parents were in the massacres in Turkey. And many of their relatives were killed. When they escaped it was behind the Russian troops, although the Russian troops were not full protection, and after a part of the distance they had to go their own way. Because my father’s house had been used by the Russian general for his headquarters, he was able to get, the Russian general gave him, two horses. Well, now. With these two horses he had a chance for survival, and so he started for the Russian frontier, with of course his mother in-law and her two little children because she had remarried and they were just, oh, 3-5 I believe, or 2 and 4, something like that, my younger aunt and uncle who were more like brother and sister to me, as I grew up with them. And various other relatives, my mothers relatives. Now, they took turns riding on the horses. There were many friends that if they had shared the horses with, they would have never survived. It was a question of being restricted, and it was Godly. They had to think of themselves. So those horses they used until they got to the frontier, just across the river. The only way they could cross the river at that time of the year was using the horses, and my father did use those horses to get as many people across as he could, and was the last one over before the Turkish troops came up.

Now, he had to think selfishly, and it was not ungodly. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Which means, you must love yourself if you are going to love your neighbor. And there is a certain element of holy selfishness, when we are Godly we must think of ourselves and our families, this is our first area of responsibility. So, in a crisis, you are not obligated to everybody under the sun. You are obligated first of all to yourself; if you can do anything more for anyone else then fine, but you are never asked to sacrifice yourself or to be a martyr. In fact when our Lord sent His disciples he said: “If they will not hear you, shake the dust of your feet and go on to the next city.” Don’t stay and be a martyr. There is nothing absurd about the requirements of our Lord, he never asked anyone to stick their neck out, or to sacrifice themselves foolishly, or needlessly. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It’s a good question, I am glad you raised it. First of all, let’s examine the legal status of the draft in our country. The constitution, and it has a long background going back to Magna Charta and to Christian thinking, felt that one of the basic rights of man, one of the basic duties of man was to defend himself and his loved ones. Therefore, this feeling which went back to feudalism, and in feudalism had Christian roots going back to the mosaic law, on your duty, your obligation, your right to defend yourself, and defend your home, so that according to the law of God, Exodus 22 for example, verses 1-4, if someone invaded your house in the dark you had the right to kill him, to defend your property. You still have that right under law, only now it is limited if he comes through the window, not till he breaks in.

[Audience Member] …?... (laughter)

[Rushdoony] Drag him through, yes. Now, the law said, if it were day light then you could not kill him unless he were trying to kill you, in other words, then you could see if he was armed or not and how you dealt with him, so you didn’t just shoot and kill him, you defended yourself if need be. But in the dark you had the right to defend yourself without knowing whether he was armed or not. Now this principle means that the right of self defense is guaranteed by God. So the Constitution said that conscription, the draft, the militia, the drafting of men, was possible only for three purposes: to repel invasion, to enforce the laws of the union, and to suppress insurrection. Those three. Nothing about any foreign war. Indeed until World War 1 no American soldier was used in any foreign campaign except volunteers. They were the only ones who could be used legally. Only volunteers fought in Cuba and in the Philippines and in the Spanish American War. Only volunteers… [Tape Ends]