Daniel

Perspective of History

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Millennial Studies

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 8

Track: 163

Dictation Name: RR128D8

Date: 1960s-1970s

Let us begin with prayer.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy daily blessings and for Thy providential care. We thank Thee that we can come to Thee weary and worn and cast our every care upon Thee, knowing Thou carest for us. We thank Thee that Thou doest give us rest and refreshing unto our souls. And so our Father, we come unto Thee. Minister unto each of us according to our need and grant us Thy blessing and Thy peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Our scripture today is the eighth chapter of Daniel, “The Perspectives of History.” Daniel 8:

“1In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.

2 And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.

3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.

5 And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

6 And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.

7 And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

8 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.

9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.

10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered.

13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?

14 And he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

15 And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.

16 And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.

17 So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.

18 Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright.

19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be.

20 The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

21 And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

22 Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.

23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.

24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.

25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

26 And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days.

27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king's business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.”

The vision of Daniel, narrated in the eighth chapter has as its scope from the fall of Babylon to the fall of Antiochus Epiphanes. This covers a period from at least 555 B.C. – 164 B.C.; in other words, several centuries. During this time the perspective of the vision is from Shushan in the palace which is in the province of Elam; so that this period of history is seen by Daniel from a particular perspective, from a particular point of view. In effect, it is dominated by Shushan the palace. Why?

We saw last week that the conception of kingship which came to its particular and high point of focus in the Medo-Persian Empire was that of an organic kingship in which the king as the high point of the inherent divinity of the godhead of the universe, of the forces of nature was the man-god of the world, the savior of mankind. When he took office, he summoned the rulers and at a great banquet, having clothed them with his garb, fed them from his table, of his meat, his bread and his wine and they declared unto him, “We be of one body with thee!” to indicate that now they were members of the king’s body and in him found salvation. His law was the infallible law of the universe, the law of the Medes and the Persians which changeth not. This concept of kingship came to its high point in the Medo-Persian Empire.

The king was the law. He himself could not change his law, because having spoken, he expressed the infallibility inherent in the universe and he could not contradict himself, but he could set aside everything that man had previously recognized by his word. We know, for example, that one of the greater monarchs, one of the most famous of the Medo-Persian Empire, decreed it was permissible for him to marry his own daughter, and did so. It became legal. There could be no moral standard beyond his word. He represented whatever god is in the universe.

This perspective dominated history to the coming of the Roman Empire, when although this perspective was absolved into it instead of the organic concept of a world state and a Humanistic society, the legal concept gained eminence. The perspective of the vision therefore, is from Shushan, in the palace.

In the first part of the vision, Daniel declares that he saw a ram that had two horns and the two horns were high, but one horn was higher than the other. The higher came up last, a clear reference to the fact that although the Persian part of this united empire came up later, it gained the eminence. And the ram pushed westward and northward and southward, in other words in every direction except eastward where India was. No beast was able to stand before him and he did according to his will and became great.

Later on in the chapter, we have Gabriel giving an interpretation of this and saying, the ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. We know of course from history that the ram was the symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire, just as the eagle is the American symbol, the bear the Russian, so the ram was the great symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire. In the Bondahesh, one of the major documents of the Persian Empire, the guardian spirit of the empire appears unto the form of a ram with clean feet and sharp, pointed horns. And we have records from ancient documents which state that the Persians bore the head of a ram before the army as a symbol of their empire.

Then as I was considering, Daniel said, a he goat came from the West and the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground, and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And we are told that this is Greece, or Macedonia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king of the empire, Alexander the Great. And it attacked the ram, the Medo-Persian Empire, and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

Again, we have the record of history that the he goat, symbol of the great god Pan, and of Ammon, and of other gods, was the symbol used by Alexander the Great, who used for himself not only this symbol, but also took that of the ram, having conquered Persia. And the he goat was carried, the head of a he goat or an image of the head to signify the presence of Alexander with his armies. You might call it their flag. Alexander the Great very quickly (and it is said that he moved so rapidly that it was as though he touched not the ground) took over the Medo-Persian Empire and moved into India and conquered a considerable portion of India. And it was his intention to go further but his army was near rebellion. They were too far from home and so he had to be content with conquering only so much of that part of the subcontinent of Asia.

Alexander the Great died at the age of 33. And we are told that four notable ones came up to replace him toward the four winds of heaven. And Gabriel declares that four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation but not in his power. Alexander’s empire was divided by four of his generals:

         Seleucus took Syrian, Babylon, Persia and India

         Cassander took Greece and Macedonia

         Ptolemy took Egypt, the surrounding territories and Cyprus

         Lysimachus took Thrace, Cappadocia and the northern part of Asia Minor.

Then we are told, subsequently, out of one of them came forth a little horn which waxed exceeding great toward the South and toward the East and toward the pleasant land. Now, the pleasant land is obviously Palestine or the Holy Land and it can be translated also, “the land of desire” or by some scholars as “the glory land,” the land of the glory that is of God’s people, unto His dwelling place among His people. The reference here is very clearly to Antiochus Epiphanes IV whose dates are 175 – 164 B.C.

Antiochus Epiphanes of the line of Seleucus of Syria, a Greek, was a man who had no faith in anything, declared himself to be the visible god of the world. Epiphanes means the appearance of a god, so that by his name, Antiochus Epiphanes declared himself to be the god of his generation, the incarnate one, the man who represented all the inherent deity and power in the universe.

And he waxed great even unto the host of heaven and cast down some of the hosts and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them. This is a familiar image in scripture. The hosts of heaven and the stars refer to powers—human powers, god-ordained powers. The first such usage we have in scripture, of course, is a familiar one, Joseph’s dream. Joseph dreamed that the sun, the moon and the stars bowed down unto him. And immediately his father and his brothers recognized the meaning of the dream. ‘Do you mean that we who are superior to you in terms of authority are commanded, are destined to bow down to you?’ The imagery thus is a familiar one and we find it used repeatedly in scripture. We find over and over again, when God speaks of judgment both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament as in Matthew 24, that the powers of heaven are shaken and the sun, the moon, the stars fall down, that is the symbolizing the earthy powers. It means that the powers of that age, of that generation are to be shaken and thrown down so Antiochus Epiphanes shook down the powers among God’s people and stamped upon them. Yeah, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host.

He placed himself in the place of God and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away. The godly worship in the temple ceased. And the place of the sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given unto him, that is of Israelites who followed him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression. Because of their sin, they followed him and it cast down the truth to the ground and it practiced and prospered. Again, as Gabriel speaks of this he says his power shall be mighty but not by his own power, y the permission of God in other word, and he shall destroy wonderfully and shall prosper and practice and shall destroy the mighty in the holy people and through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand and he shall magnify himself in his heart and by his peace shall destroy many. And he shall also stand up against the Prince of Princes or the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

Antiochus Epiphanes did exactly that, and he succeeded to a great degree. Most of the Jews and Israelites followed him. In fact, they followed him with enthusiasm. He commanded them {?} and the nation was rapidly becoming Hellenized, adopting the position of Greeks, using Greek names, aping Greek practices, establishing Greek gymnasiums and games so that they were in every respect imitation Greeks. The policy of subversion by Antiochus Epiphanes was imminently successful. It failed simply because Antiochus Epiphanes moved too rapidly.

We have seen in our own day church after church submerged and destroyed. How? By degrees. So that, little by little, heresy is introduced and the people are scarcely aware of it until they wake up one day and find that the church is no longer theirs. One man spoke to me a while back and declared in shock and amazement he did not know what had happened. Suddenly they had found themselves to be outside of the church with they and some 50- other families had helped create, make possible, put up the buildings for, financed and suddenly they woke too late to find that there was nothing but Modernism and Socialism in the pulpit and they were read out of the church for daring to oppose it. They had become aware of it too late because it had come in by such degrees that they had become accustomed to all of it.

The policy of Antiochus Epiphanes was so successful that he moved too rapidly at the final point. He thought that he had so successfully submerged the faith of the people that he had is image placed in the most holy place—in the sanctuary. The shock of this awakened a sizeable segment of people. Up until then, it had been with very little awareness on the part of the people. But this woke enough of them to start the entire Maccabean Revolt. And in the midst of this, God Himself took Antiochus Epiphanes.

We are told that a saint spoke and said how long shall the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transcription of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? How long shall this be? And he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. There’s been a great deal of debate and argument back and forth concerning the meaning of these days, twenty-three hundred days. They’ve all added up to confusion and failure. There is no period which can honestly be said to fit this because there is no such literal period. Twenty-three hundred days is approximately six years and four months.

Now in terms of the typology of scripture, the number seven is the number of fullness, in other words, this period of judgment on Israel for its apostasy. This period falls short of full judgment. Seven years would have been full judgment. It would have meant that God had now decreed the end of the Old Testament dispensation, that Israel was judged and set aside. This, however, did not happen until 66-70 A.D. in the Jewish/Roman War. As a result, the period of time here referred to, means that there is a near full judgment on Israel, that it is not totally cast aside. There is a period of time yet allowed. Christ is to come and only after that will the fullness of judgment come upon it.

This chapter, as we have seen, speaks of Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn. And the little horn of the Old Testament period is thus very definitely identified for us. And we have a little horn in Revelation also for the New Testament age, for the last period of world history. How are we to read this figure?

One of the common errors made with regard to the little horn in both the Old and New Testament is to speak of Antiochus Epiphanes as the anti-Christ of the Old Testament and the little horn of Revelation as the anti-Christ of the New Testament. This is not valid. Because the meaning of anti-Christ in, as this term is used (and it is used very little in the scriptures) is very clearly defined for us in I John 2:22, “He is anti-Christ that denieth the Father and the Son.” And John makes clear that there were already many anti-Christs among them. The anti-Christs appear in the church to subvert it, either pretending to become believers while denying in reality the Father and the Son, or having entered the church, openly denying the Father and the Son. Anti-Christs are church figures. They are within the church to destroy the church. The little horn of Daniel and the little horn of Revelation are political figures. They represent the expression of the human hope, the humanistic hope of creating a one-world paradise without God. Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn of Daniel, began with the ideal of unity and of the brotherhood of man. This, he promoted enthusiastically. But when he found resistance, he killed savagely to enforce it and increasingly revealed his hatred of God and of man.

And we find this same dream in the world of politics today. We find it in Marxism. We find it in Fabianism. We find it in Socialism of every sort. We find it in Democracies. The dream of creating a one-world order apart from God, dedicated to unity and to brotherhood, and turning savagely on all those who deny it. The Bible therefore gives us several kinds of hostilities to saints, to the faith. We have anti-Christs within the church. We have the little horns of the Old and New Testament. We have also the man of sin, still another figure.

This, then, is the prophecy of Daniel concerning Greece, the Medo-Persian Empire, the dream of the empires of man. You can understand from this chapter, the hostility to Daniel on the part of Modernists and Atheists. This is the classic example of predictive prophecy. God, centuries before the event, cites the rise and the fall of these empires and charts their history, declares that Babylon is to fall at the hands of the Medes and the Persians and the Medes and the Persians are to fall at the hands of Greece and Greece is to divide into four parts and out of one of these four parts is to come a conqueror of Palestine who shall for a time, even set up his image within the temple and desecrate it, but shall collapse.

This means very clearly not only predictive prophecy, but that God determines history, that as the Council of Jerusalem declared, known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world, from the foundation of the world. And this, the Humanist does not like. It means that since there is such a God, his dream of this one world order cannot stand. He cannot build his paradise apart from God. God will destroy it. God will confound him. And God has created all things including himself, for His sovereign purpose.

As a result, their answer is on principle, it can’t be true. It’s an impossibility therefore it is not possible. And hence, Daniel is denied. Now, God speaking through Daniel, as He does through all scripture, speaks these words for our comfort, our admonition and our strengthening. And He says to us through this, indeed the little horn of your age is to come. Indeed, men are dreaming now as they did then, of seizing that which belongs to God and they set themselves up as world saviors and messiahs and they dream of their total control of man and history. But it is not they who govern. The government is upon His shoulders, who is our Lord and Savior, who says unto us not a sparrow falls but your Father in heaven knows it. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Such is His total government. Fear not ye therefore, for this God is our God. Therefore will not we fear. Though the earth be removed, though the mountains shake with a swelling thereof, for the Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee for this, Thy Word and for the blessed assurance that our times are in Thy hands and Thou doest all things well. We thank Thee our God that Thou does beset us before and behind with Thy mercies and Thy blessings. And so, our God, we come unto Thee joyfully in gratefulness to cast our every care upon Thee, knowing Thou Lord carest for us. Our God, how great Thou art and we praise Thee, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Are there any questions now?

Yes…

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] And the horn waxed great. That is, it became. This is an old term, an older English word which means ‘increased; grew greater, more powerful.’

Yes…

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, very definitely, we are building up to the same kind of thing.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] No, it builds up, just as through the Old Testament period, you had this dream first expressed clearly by the Tower of Babel, then building up and building up until it comes to focus in this conception of the monarchy which is really a church; an anti-Christian church. This is what ancient monarchy became. Then it is smashed by God, and God speaks through the prophets and of course this is summarized by St. Paul in Hebrews 12 of the Old Testament period as a shaping. This shaping began with the announcement of His Law at Sinai so that the Mountain itself did quake. And this set forth the shaking that was to come to the world. And God says over and over again that He is shaking the nations and I will overturn, overturn, overturn until He comes whose right it is. And St. Paul says that this shaking of the Old Testament period culminates with the destruction of Jerusalem. Soon, he says, this final thing is to come, for the Old Testament period. So that really in a sense, the Old Testament ends, or the period ends with the Fall of Jerusalem, even as the New Testament age begins with the birth of Christ. There is an overlapping there. Some would say the New Testament Era begins with the resurrection, and with considerable truth.

Now, St. Paul says again there is to be another period of shaking so that the things which are may be shakened so that that which cannot be shaken may alone remain. Now again we seen men coming forth with these old pretentions in new guise. And it is appalling the extent to which they are not openly proclaiming them. You have the U.N. We saw recently how Bishop Meyers of San Francisco, Bishop Pikes’ successor, spoke of union with Rome, but as the first step of what he spoke of as the spiritual unity of the human race. So it’s the one-world religion that he was looking for. In the current Saturday Review for July 8, 1967, we have an article, “Paths to Ecumenism” by Augustin Cardinal Bea and Cardinal Bea speaks of precisely this same thing. He speaks of our journey together toward the great goal, which is the full unity of the human family, and he says again in conclusion, that we are marching safely and confidently together toward the great goal of the unity of the human family.

Virtually every church today in the world and every religion is united in UNESCO, as I have pointed out before. Again, as the papers have made clear, for example, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner Saturday, July 8, 1967, page D 2, and it speaks of the Christian Pavilion at Expo ’67 in Montreal, and it is a joint venture; Roman Catholic, United Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Greek Orthodox, and Ukrainian Orthodox, and this is a step towards what is the purpose—to remind man of his to himself, to his fellow men and to his maker. At the same time, we find that United World Religions of Los Angeles is holding dialogs of various religious groups; Protestant, Catholics and other religions, and United World Religions is also sponsoring this concept with a panel discussion of religion, psychiatry, and peace of mind, which includes Protestant, Catholic, Jewish dialogs, and dialogs with other faiths.

This is all a part of one common purpose: Humanistic in line with exactly that which Daniel is talking about, so we are seeing the development of the same concept coming again to its fullness. So we are witnessing that which Antiochus Epiphanes himself set forth. How close we are to the same culmination of this is another question, but certainly we see its development and its rapid capture of virtually every church.

Yes…

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Ah, the Humanists, of course, denied that there is any god out there. However, within the church there are some who do claim to have some belief in God, and some of them say, yes we can know God exhaustively, which is to say that there is a god who is no greater than man and whom we can know totally. Of course, this is an impossibility. We cannot even know totally a rose bush. But they do claim that you can know God exhaustively.

On the other hand, you have the Neo-Orthodox who make a double kind of statement. You can know God exhaustively in His revelation. That’s one side of their statement. So that, God was exhaustive in His revelation, Jesus Christ. In other words, there is no God other than the man, Jesus who walked around. There is no God out there. Or, when they speak of God as “The Holy Other,” there may be something unknowable out there, but He is beyond our knowing so that we cannot posit any statement concerning Him. Now, from either perspective, they are Humanistic. They are ruling God out of the world, a god who is unknowable, who cannot reveal Himself, who has no relationship to the universe might as well be nonexistent. You cannot even say that He exists.

For this reason, Karl Barth refuses to believe that there can be such a thing as a Christian civil government. He refuses to say there can even be such a thing as a Christian marriage because what connection can God “The Holy Other” have with this world? He has no law for this world. He cannot speak to this world. This is the absurdity of this position and of course, it’s radical Humanism.

This is why, for example, Barth denies a Christian concept of civil government and affirms so readily, Marxist Socialism. And of course, this is not an uncommon thing. It passes in our midst very often for what considers itself to be Orthodox of Fundamentalist or Lutheran, and so on. For example, some of you are familiar with my film strip, “Man’s Savior, Christ or the State?” This has been attacked very savagely by some who say the idea that there can be such a thing as a Christian government, or godly requirements for a government in a godly state, is wrong. And some feel that I have no place in the ministry since I speak of such things, that I should be run out of the church. Now, you find this in the most abusive of letters that come in because of that film strip.

Yes…

[Audience] {?} ….So far as the Humanists were {?} … these Christians are {?} They are not {?} but when you talk about {?}, so I don’t know whether {?}

[Rushdoony] Their point is that the realm of faith alone is the realm of concern for the Christian Church. In other words, the act of faith, the experience of faith, so that only a church which concerns itself with salvation has any legitimacy, that God cannot speak to any other realm. Well, this of course is a denial of the whole scripture. It’s a long and involved process whereby they have come to this. It is basically scholastic. It has taken over what is known as Arminianism, and this is expressive of it. It is Neo-orthodoxy and it has largely taken over those segments of the Church which still call themselves Calvinistic. So that this is the ruling opinion. And this is why so much of the clergy goes outside of the Bible for its politics, because this is where you go to the world. You go to the world because you cannot go to God here. This is fantastic.

And then, they go through the scripture and spiritualize away everything that it teaches about these things. It can only have, you see, a message for faith; that is the beginner emotional experience. It cannot give you guidelines concerning the world. And I’ve actually been told by some ministers who claim they believe the Bible from cover to cover that it is wrong to teach the Ten Commandments, to say that there is a law that says thou shalt not commit adultery, or kill, or steal or covet or bear false witness, that we cannot tell Christians they have any such law-binding {?}.

We are in a period of great biblical illiteracy and apostasy.

Yes, is there another question now? Yes…

[Audience] Within that line, I know this, this is a matter of {?}

[Rushdoony] On the Sabbath, first of all. The Sabbath is patterned after the seventh day of creation. However, the first Sabbath in the Bible is the first Passover. And as the Ten Commandments are given in Deuteronomy, Israel is reminded when they are commanded to observe the seventh day, to remember that then the Lord by a strong and mighty arm delivered them from Egypt. The first Sabbath therefore, is the first Passover day. While it’s patterned after the seven days of creation, it has no relationship. In other words, the seventh day doesn’t mark the seventh day chronologically from the beginning of creation.

Now, second, the Hebrew calendar was one of even lunar months, an even number of days, a 365-day year, but divided into months which totaled to 360 days. Now, what happened? The extra five days were, according to the Law, were celebrated as sabbaths, special sabbaths, of the new moons, of the beginning of the New Year and so on. You had two extra sabbaths at the end of six months and three at the end of the next six months and then you started again with the first day of the week. Now what did this mean? It meant that every six months, your first day of the week was different from the time before. In other words, the calendar changed every six months. We can visualize this if we said that from January through June the calendar operated and then you had two or three sabbaths in a row, and then Monday, or Sunday (for us it would be Monday), the first day after that. So you would say, it would be Sunday or Saturday, three days in a row. You see what this did to the calendar. Now, this was the Hebrew calendar, so that there was a change in the seventh day every six months.

Now, Adventists therefore have no way of saying we are perpetuation the old sabbath of creation. The Sabbath came from the Passover. It changed every six months. It commemorated the Day of Salvation for the Old Testament. With the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Day of Salvation for believers became the day of His resurrection because it set forth our deliverance through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ from the power of sin and death; so that we find over and over again in the Book of Acts, the indication and the statement “the first day of the week,” “the Lord’s Day,” and so on, as the day of worship.

Moreover we find they worshiped in the evening and hence of course, you remember the young man in Acts who was sitting in the window at an evening service and he fell asleep and fell out. He was tired. They worked during the day because it was a work day. Therefore, they came to work, from work, to their worship services which were in the first century, at least well into the second century, possibly almost to the end, from work.

Now Paul tells us specifically that the observance of sabbaths and of days and of moons is now ended. But what is commanded? Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together—in other words, the obligation of worship on the Lord’s Day. This was observed. They were not forbidden to work because they were living now in a hostile work in which this was a work day. It was not a holiday. It was not observed as a Sabbath. It couldn’t be. They were an oppressed, persecuted people, both in Judea to the fall thereof, and in the Roman Empire, so that the laws for the Sabbath were changed. Instructions are given concerning worship, concerning giving, concerning a number of things, in terms of this new situation. And it is now the Lord’s Day, or the Christian Sabbath.

[Audience] One of the {?} of … {?} One point. {?}

[Rushdoony] No, there was a long day in Joshua’s time when God caused a miraculously long day in order to give them time to defeat their enemies.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes.

Yes…..

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, it’s a film strip.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, made by Jotham Productions. It’s one of three I’ve done for them:

         “The Necessity of Creationism” in which I speak of the necessity for holding to Biblical Creationism, Six-Day Creationism and its implications for our faith, for politics, for science, for everything.

         The second, “Man’s Savior, Christ or the State?”

         The third, “The Moral Foundations of Money”

         And then a fourth, which is now under production, “The Foundations of Social Order,” which was one of the series of creeds and councils, as you recall.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] They have been shown in a number of places. They are obtainable, I think, for $12.50 a piece, and the film strip projector can also be obtained for a nominal sum. They are provided with a tape or a record for the sound and the film strip of course, and a number of copies of the text. This is less than half the price that is charged elsewhere. I believe in most places, film strips are $35 each and $12.50 is markedly low, and this is a missionary project.

[Tape abruptly ends]