IBL14: Church Law

Appendix: Law in Western Society

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Religious studies

Lesson: 10-10

Genre: Lecture

Track: 146

Dictation Name: RR130CC146

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is Leviticus 21:17-23. Leviticus 21:17-23, the Law in Western Society. With this lesson we conclude our studies in Biblical law which has occupied us almost 3 years now. Next week we shall begin a brief series on the Biblical doctrine of psychology, or the nature of man, what is man. and then the Doctrine of redemption.

Leviticus 21:17-23

“17 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.

18 For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,

19 Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,

20 Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;

21 No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.

22 He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy.

23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the Lord do sanctify them.”

We have spent some time in going through Biblical law. And this morning what we shall consider is the role of that law in Western society, how did the church apply the law? What was its attitude towards the law? Of necessity, it will be a brief survey, and we have of course touched on this many times. We have dealt with the fact of restitution in Western society, and many other aspects of the law as they were applied well into the modern era.

Very clearly, the evidence indicates, and it would be a many-volumed work to trace its history, that the early church felt the law of God was binding on all believers. This was carried to the nth degree in some areas. It was felt to be so binding that areas of the alw which we have not particularly considered in our three year survey, were very definitely applied. Thus, in the Old Testament is peaks of the priests portion of the meat. Certain cups that always were to be given to the priests. Well into the 9th century of the Christian era, Christians still kept that law, so that certain portions of every cow or of every lamb which they butchered, were according to the laws of Leviticus regarded as the portion for the pastor.

Moreover, since in the Old Testament the priesthood was of Aaron, a heredity priesthood, in the early church, and we have hints of this in Acts, that many priests came into the church, the tendency was to make many of these who were the priesthood of Aaron, the clergy in he early church. And to make it a hereditary fact.

Then too, many of the apostolic company, Timothy, Titus and others, it was assumed that any one of their children who was worthy would be continued in the office of a missionary, or an office, or a teacher, whatever office they fulfilled. So that, in many areas, this attitude that the ministry was hereditary, it was in a family, although going into the hands of whatever son was spiritually worthy; this continued, in fact it continued in some areas up until World War 1.

Here I can add a personal note, in that in Armenia this was the custom, and my Grandfather was a priest of a long line of priests where it was hereditary. Whichever son in the family was deemed by the family and the community to be worthy of carrying on the family inheritance, was then examined and ordained. In the rest of the world, this dropped out fairly early in the centuries.

Another aspect that was continued in the early church for a long time and for several centuries throughout all of Europe, was the matter of animal sacrifices. Now again, this seems surprising and startling to us. Did not Hebrews declare that animal sacrifices were done away with? Very true. But what it was, was a memorial service. The believer brought the animal to the door of the church, and there it was offered as a memorial to Christ’s atoning work, and a portion of the animal give for the work of the ministry. Hear for example these words from one such ritual, and I quote. This is just a portion of the animal sacrifice service at the door of the church.

“For through Thy blessed prophet Moses, thou enjoinedest on Thy people Israel to offer up to Thee sacrifices of their flocks and sheep and other pure animals. Bringing them to the door of the tent of witness to the Levi priests who should lay their hands on them, and pour out their blood on Thy holy altar Oh Lord. and thereby sins were expiated and petitions fulfilled. Yet is all this Thou prefigurest as in a shadow the things to come, that true salvation which Thou hast graciously given us through Thy coming into the world. For Thou Thyself all merciful and beneficent Lord, through Thy forseeing spirit declarest by the prophet saying: “I accept not of your steers the Vow, but offer thou a sacrifice of praise to God, and with willing mind tender unto God a bloodless victim. For is there not the saying that the sacrifice of God is an afflicted spirit? And a humble spirit doth God not despise? So now, we that have sinned and are unworthy, humbled in our hearts, fall down before Thy infinite pity, and supplicate for Thy abundant love of mankind and mercy, and for Thy unfailing promise which Thou madest to Thy beloved ones, to our fathers. Condescend oh Lord to this our offering, and accept it from our hands. Even as Thou didst the whole burnt offerings of Rams and steers,a nd as thou didst the inummerable offerings of fat lambs. Graciously grant our petitions, that we may not become the sport of our enemies, but rather rejoice in Thy salvation. For if Thou weighest all the mountains and the plains in thy hands, and holdest heaven and earth in the hollow of Thy hand, and sittest in the height of heights on the throne of the Cherubim, and the abysses are not hidden from Thee, and all four footed animals, and all that have the breath of life suffice Thee not for whole burnt offering, how dare we to presume before Thee and to offer sacrifice?”

Now there is nothing unchristian or unscriptural in that. It was a memorial. And we have remnants of the liturgies of animal sacrifices from various parts of Christendom in the days of the early church, and well through the centuries, at least for 8 centuries. All this gives us some idea of how strictly the church regarded the law. Even animal sacrifices retained, but changed into a memorial service to commemorate the blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, this strict adherence to the law was recognized by their persecutors. And this is why our scripture was chosen. Our Scripture, Leviticus 21:16 following, deals with the requirements for the priesthood of Aaron. The priesthood of Aaron had to be unblemished. There could be no physical blemishes on the man, and of course it was assumed, no spiritual blemishes. They had to be men of God. But they could not be eunuchs, they could not be cripples, they could not be physically deformed in any respect, because in their ministry they were types of Christ who was to come. Therefore the early church felt that even as the Old Testament Priesthood was a type of Christ, the New Testament ministry was a representative of Christ, and therefore had to be without blemish also. And therefore the same requirements that are here in Leviticus were applied to the ministry.

This was known as I indicated, to the Romans. And accordingly the romans when they embarked on their persecutions, immediately decided the easiest way to wipe out the church was to eliminate the clergy by castrating them. Then they would have no valid ministry in terms of their law. And although this does not appear in your history books, this was one of the most common treatments of the clergy in the early church. And so the church did face a problem, and as a result there were various meetings of the churches to deal with this problem. And accordingly it was decided and it was entered into the records, the Canons of the first council of Nicea in 318, to make it a worldwide ruling, confirming all that was done before, that when it was done this way by persecutors, it did not constitute a blemish. Therefore such men could remain in the clergy. Gods law did not have such situations in mind.

They also had to deal with a similar situation with regard to virgins who had been raped. Because again it was the policy of the Romans to rape the Christian virgins wholesale in order to say: “Well, you people put so much store by chastity and virginity, and your whole system of marriage and dowry rests on your law with respect of these things; we will make a mockery of it.” And again, the church fathers as they met ruled that no blemish could be ascribed to a girl who had been so raped. The Canons of the early church thus are full of such crisis as these. Dealing with situations where the Romans, deliberately to show their contempt of them when they did not kill them, did things to offend the law of God.

We find of course the early church ruling on all kinds of problems of the day, abortion was condemned, transvestites were condemned, divination, astrology, witchcraft, all these things. Restitution was required of offenders in terms of the Old Testament Law.

It is interesting moreover, as we go through the Canons of the early church that survive, how they regarded the Lords day. Remember in those days it was not only a day of worship, but it was a work day. It was not a holiday in Rome, and they were a persecuted people. Therefore their services were in the evening after the conclusion of work, when they gathered together in homes to worship. So of course they could not condemn people for working on the Lords day, and Saint Paul had made clear that those regulations were no longer valid, God had in His mercy set aside that particular aspect. But the kind of ruling they passed with regard to the Lords day is especially significant concerning their faith, because, remember, they were living under persecution. Fasting on the Lords day was forbidden. Why? Because every Lords day celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and therefore it had to be a day of rejoicing. And mourning for any reason on the Lords day was forbidden. It was a day in which to rejoice before the Lord.

Interesting too, the Canons of the early church show that those who condemn marriage were themselves condemned. Now, the world of Rome had a great deal of emphasis on Sacerdotal Celibacy on the part of some of the pagan priests. Remember, the vestal virgins of Rome. And so some of the converts seemed to feel that this would be proper of the clergy of the church. But in the early church those who condemned marriage for the clergy were themselves condemned. Vegetarianism was condemned. And other like ideas that came from India were similarly condemned by the early church.

Now, the law of the day was very clearly Roman Law. And there are many people who say that Roman law continued to the modern age, in which we have Roman law as basic to the law of most western nations. In a sense this is true, and in a sense it is a radical perversion. We can understand something of what happened to Roman Law by studying the Theodosian Code. The dates of the Theodosian Code are approximately 313-368. It is Roman Law.

Now it is interesting to see what one scholar, C. Dickerman Williams, has said concerning the Theodosian code, and I quote. This is Roman Law, as it was codified at that time. “The Thodosian Code and novels, (novels being the aspect of the law, summarizations, additions) concern a period in history much like ours in many of its problems. But in that day it was no longer possible to attempt to solve problems by greater centralization and officialdom. At the time of the earliest edict included in the code, the centralization of society could go no further because it was already complete. An area which was for its inhabitants the entire world, had been welded into a single organization. Social, Economic and Religious activities were administered or rigidly controlled by the state. The authority of the emperor was unchallenged. The edicts compiled in the Theodosian code represent the often desperate efforts to make the system work. But during these years it was the tendency to disintegration that was irresistible. The enactment designed to keep the organization together failed. Within only a few years after the last of the edicts, the empire had been shattered into a thousand fragments. Thus, that era, unlike ours, was one of disintegration, albeit a disintegration that was most involuntary.”

Well, we can disagree with Williams when he feels that it was unlike our age. But in other words, the essence of Roman law was centralization. Totalitarianism. This was all there was to it virtually, every problem, every area of life was totally controlled by central bureaucracy. This centralization only aggravated irresponsibility on every other level. And it led to the destruction of all resources in eh empire.

Let us see what William says on that aspect, and I quote: “Now the empires problem was shortages. Shortages of grain, of materials, and of men. Throughout the Mediterranean basin, agriculture had been operated to supply the distant mistress of the world. The rewards of the consumer had been too attractive, those of the producer not enough. Lands especially in Italy had gone out of cultivation. Areas in Africa from which Rome had drawn grain and meat for centuries were becoming desert. Spain and other countries had been deforested to provide fuel for the public baths of Rome. The decline of the Roman Empire is a story of deforestation, soil exhaustion and erosion. From Spain to Palestine there are no forests left in the Mediterranean littoral. The region is pronouncedly arid instead of having the mild, humid character of forest clad lands, and most of its formerly bounteous, rich top soil is lying at the bottom of the sea.”

Now, the emperors were helpless as they tried to reverse this trend, because the very centralization they worked to gain made it impossible to do anything but to aggravate the evil. And as a result the farms increasingly went out of production. The little farmer disappeared. Italy for example, wound up in the hands of just a handful of estates. And even those began to collapse and fail.

As a result, it was as I pointed out before, possible for wandering tribes of barbarians to bring about the fall of Rome. The empire had disintegrated because of its inner decay. The gigantic bureaucracy had stifled and destroyed all production. Roman law fell apart, it ceased to have any relevancy. The kind of law that the code of Theodosius represented disappeared. When they talk about Roman law they are not talking about the code of Theodosius, they are talking about the code of Justinian.

Now about a year and half ago we dealt with Justinian and Theodora. And we saw that what they formulated in the law was Biblical law. So that, when they talk about Roman law today they are talking about the code of Justinian. Christian law. Moreover, when they talk about pagan law and its influence on western civilization, they very often talk about Anglo Saxon law and its influence on western society. But again they are dishonest or ignorant.

Let me quote from a Harvard professor as he talks about the laws of Alfred the Great, in England. Now, Alfred was a Saxon king. Listen to what this Harvard professor writes, and I quote: “Here are a few characteristic laws included by Alfred in the code which he drew up on the basis of old customs, and the laws of some of the earlier Saxon kings: “If anyone smite his neighbor with a stone or with his fist, and he nevertheless can go out with a staff, let him get him a physician and do his work as long as he cannot himself.

If an ox gore a man or a woman so that they die, let it be stoned, and let not its flesh be eaten. The owner shall not be liable if the ox were want to push with its horns for two or three days before and he knew it not. But if he knew it and would not shut it in, and it then shall have slain a man or a woman, let it be stoned. And let the master be slain or the person killed be paid for, as the (Witton?) shall decree to be right.

Injure ye not the widow and the step children, or hurt them anywhere, for if ye do otherwise they will cry unto me and I will hear them, and I will slay you with my sword, and I will cause that your own wives shall be widows and your children will be stepchildren.

If a man strike out another’s eye, let him pay 60 shillings, and 6 shillings, and 6 pennies, and a third part of a penny as bot” (That meant compensation in Saxon) “If it remain in the head and he cannot see anything with it, let 1/3rd of the bot be remitted. If a man strike out another’s tooth in the front of his head, let him make bot for it with 8 shillings. If it be the canine tooth, let 4 shillings be paid as bot. A man’s grinder is worth 15 shillings. If the shooting finger be struck off, the bot is 15 shillings, for its nail it is 4 shillings. If a man maim another hand outwardly, let twenty shillings be paid him as bot. if it can be healed, and if it half fly off, then shall 40 shillings be paid as bot.”

Now, that is simply the law of Exodus and Leviticus, slightly altered in terms of shillings, and with the word bot introduced, and witton, court or parliament of the Saxons. And yet hear we have a marvelous scholar, Frederick Austen Ogg telling us that this was old-Saxon law. All you can say for it is that it is either dishonesty, or ignorance, or a combination of both.

In other words, the law of the western world was Christian law. The Roman law was Christian law. The Saxon law was Christian law. Biblical law. This did not mean there were not pagan survivals, but the basic law of the western world was the law of God as given through Moses. And this is the law by which we were ruled. The Biblical law of taxation prevailed in the United States up to the war of Independence, and in many areas well beyond the war of Independence. The biblical law did not fully go out as the criminal and civil law until after 1860, and it still lingers in our law.

Moreover, there was another area whereby Biblical law influenced western society, through the Jews. This is a very interesting story. Months could be spent on this alone, as well as every other aspect that we are now discussing. When Rome fell, the cities fell. Rome itself dwindled from a city of a couple million, to a handful of 500 living in the ruins. How were the cities rebuilt throughout Europe? Well, they were rebuilt by merchants. Merchants. Who were the merchants? In a few areas like the south of France, they were the Syrians, or the Syrian descendants of the ancient Phoenicians, now Christian. In much of Europe it was the Jews.

The Jews were the traders, the businessmen. So they would come to the crossroads, and half a dozen Jews would build houses there and establish a fair, so that the people would come there from the manor houses, the farms, the castles, to do business. The law of the cities for centuries was the Law of Moses, as the Jews established it. Until the time of the crusades the cities were ruled by the Jews, they were the major inhabitants of the cities. They ran them, in terms of Biblical law.

And the mark of Biblical law on urban law remained for countless centuries, well into the 19th century. The Jews were thus very powerful in that they ran the cities and controlled them for centuries. This was one reason for some of the hostility to the Jews that came after the Crusades, and one reason why so many of the Old Testament food regulations disappeared, because people as they became hostile to the Jews associated many of the Kosher laws with the Jews, and especially in Germany the Saxons there were very, very partial to pork. It was a part of their ancient pagan diet. And thus their hostility to the Jews made them discard the Biblical laws, with regard to diet, but not other areas.

Then with respect to the law of the tithe as I have indicated, it prevailed in much of the world, right into the last century, especially in America. an English scholar, W.K. Jordan had pointed out in 3 volumes how with the puritans especially the tithe became very important, and how great its influence was in England. In England for example, education, schools for all the poor were provided by the tithe, welfare, all welfare was out of tithe money, workhouses to provide a puritan job core retraining of those who were poor were set up and prevailed in England into the last century, so that people who were poor or jobless, could get on-the-job training in these workhouses. Hospitals, medical care, all of this provided with the tithe money.

Moreover, in terms of God’s law, this country was founded. John Cotton, who was assigned by the puritans to frame the first law code in New England declared the beginning as he wrote a preface to what he was doing, and I quote: “The more any law smells of man, the more unprofitable.” The more any law smells of man, the more unprofitable. And therefore they turned to scripture for their law. And you can go to the law codes of the colonies, and you find it is just the Old Testament enacted. And a very common motto you find on these law codes, is Isaiah 33:22 “For Jehovah is our judge, Jehovah is our lawgiver, Jehovah is our king; he will save us.”

Consider for example, this passage from the New Haven colony logs, and incidentally the law codes, if you go back to the law codes almost to the middle of the last century, you will find that in many of the states the law would be in one column, and in the margin there would be the proof texts from scripture. So that the law would be justified by a passage from scripture. The New Haven colony law made this general statement: “This court thus frames, shall first with all care and diligence provide for the maintenance of the purity of religion, and suppress the contrary according to their best light and direction from the word of God. Secondly, though they humbly acknowledge that the supreme power of making laws an repealing them belongs to God only, and that by him this power is given to Jesus Christ as mediator, and that the laws for holiness and righteousness are already made and given to us in eh scriptures, which in matters moral, or of moral equity may not be altered by human power or authority. Moses only showed Israel the laws and statutes of God, and the Sanhedrin the highest court among the Jews must attend those laws, yet civil rulers and courts in this general court in particular, being entrusted by the freemen as before, are the ministers of God for the good of the people, and have power to declare, publish, and establish for the plantations within their jurisdiction, the laws he hath made, and to make and repeal orders for smaller matters, not particularly determined in scripture, according to the more general rules of righteousness, and while they stand in force to require due execution of them.”

What did they say? Well, very briefly: “God has already given the law. Where we come upon problems that are not fully covered by scripture, we are according to the more general rules of righteousness laid down in scripture, to decide these little affairs.”

Now this was their standard of law. But they also recognized this: to have a people who can live under Gods law, you have to have a people redeemed by God through Jesus Christ. And hence it was that they laid stress upon the need for a pure church. A church which would faithfully preach the doctrine of salvation, declare that there is none other name under heaven by which men may be saved then by Jesus Christ. And our problem today is that we have neither the law of God or the proclamation of Gods saving power in Jesus Christ. Humanism has taken over in church and state. And you have the disintegration of society.

And today men seek the solution by means of politics. And this is the liberal fallacy, and it is the conservative fallacy. It is the belief that by electing somebody, or by repealing a law or by passing a law you are going to change society. But can it be done? The old proverb: ‘You can’t make a good omelet with bad eggs’ is still true. Fulton Louis the 3rd recently named at least 6 congressmen in Washington who have pot parties in their homes regularly. One of them was from California. Someone else pointed out that that wasn’t anything unusual, across the country you had bad apples in high places. One man pointed out that in the New Hampshire house of representatives, you had one man convicted of using the mails to defraud, another arrested for stealing an ambulance while drunk and speeding through town, and a third convicted of statutory rape of a mentally retarded girl of 15. All three convicted, and all three still sitting in the House of Representatives in New Hampshire.

At least we can say of New Hampshire that they convict somebody.

Now, what can you do, when you have people like that in high places and low places? I was tempted to bring a statement made about what a successful politician today had to be made by Unruh, but I hardly would have dared to put it up here for you to read, let alone pass it around. And yet he was right. The character of the people today being degenerate, the saying of scripture: “Like people like priests, and like priests like people.” They get the kind of representatives they deserve.

Long ago in the Old Testament, Rab-shakeh as he stood before the walls of Jerusalem mocked the Jews for the stupidity of their trust in Egypt. And he said: “Now behold thou trustiest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt. On which if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it. And so is pharaoh, king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.” The future does not rest on pierced hand politics, but with the sovereign and triune God, His saving power, and His absolute law. The need therefore is, for men women and children to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and then to know that the redeemed man lives in terms of the law of God. Then and then only, when redemption and the law go hand in hand, will we see a change in he affairs of men and nations. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that through Jesus Christ Thou hast made us new creatures, and has given us a way to walk, and the rules thereof, and such glorious promises concerning Thy word and Thy law. Teach us so to walk our father, that in faithfulness to Thee we may hold aloft the banner of Jesus Christ, summoning men, women and children, to Thy so great salvation; and to the way of sanctification by law. That we may see again Thy righteousness prevail, Thy truth manifested in men, women, and children; in nations, schools, churches, institutions. And thy righteousness cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea. Bless us in this purpose, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now? We only have a few minutes because I did want to conclude today even though it meant going at some length.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the evils of the early society have been greatly exaggerated. It is easy to go, for example into Watts, and find tragic examples of poverty and bad living and so on, on the part of the Negros. And yet the fact remains that the average income in Watts is $10,000 per household. What is the problem? It is a moral problem, it is a spiritual problem. Now, in the early years of the industrial era, because there had been a decline spiritually, you had the kind of thing that Hogarth portrayed in his picture Gin Alley. This is from an earlier century. Gin alley was an honest picture of London in Hogarth’s day. The problem there was moral and spiritual. It was a radical collapse.

This is not to say there have not been social problems in every age, it is not a perfect world. But the people who emphasize these problems are perverting the situation. The real problem was not these problems, but the sin in the heart of man. And many of these problems were products of sin, not industrialism. Actually industrialism increased the earning capacity of the poor of England, markedly. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the Reformation is a classic example of that. When you realize how degenerate Europe was, in the hands of Tyrants, physically degenerating, diseased. And then suddenly the Reformation begins to work a dramatic change. This can happen, it has happened before, it can happen again. It happened several times in the middle ages.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] How could there be what?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. You see, the turnaround comes as an individual is changed. As he is redeemed, regenerated by Jesus Christ. You do not have that kind of turn-around when people are contented. It comes only when people are shaken, shaken to their foundations. Now this earthquake was the beginning of such a shaking, because something of the lack of confidence of modern man came out in the vast number of psychoneurotic consequences for many people, because of that earthquake. So you see, only when the confidence of humanistic man is shattered can he be brought to his knees and to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Mhmm, I think it is interesting that in the most recent issue of Realite, which is a French periodical in English, and which is not in any sense Christian, there is an article by Arnold Toynbee who again is not Christian; but Toynbee says that over and over again in history, society has gone so far with moral degeneracy, and then it has been shattered by its sense of guilt, by the consequences of its course. Then he says that Rome had two centuries of this kind of degeneracy, and then it turned and became Christian. It turned from its sexual license to an extravagant asceticism in many cases. And he says we are at the same point that Rome was, and he says: “I do not think we will have to wait two centuries for a turnaround.” He feels that it will come very quickly. I think he is right.

Now, by quickly, it can be 5 years or 25, but I think Toynbee, and he is a competent scholar, without being a Christian recognizes that it is a radical breakdown or a turnaround, and he thinks the turnaround will come.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Scripture says that there is a sorrow unto death, and a sorrow unto life. The sorrow unto life is the sorrow that leads to repentance and regeneration. Now, what you see around us is sorrow unto death, but in Gods time the sorrow unto life will come, regeneration, and reconstruction. The kind of revival we have been having in recent years, Billy Graham and so on, doesn’t lead to anything. We will deal with that in a few weeks as we go into Biblical Psychology, but with all the Revivals we have had we continue to go downhill because it has not been a root and branch kind of thing.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] God gives people opportunities over and over again. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the rapture mentality believes that “Well, it won’t happen to us.” And the answer to the rapture mentality is, “Well why should God have spared you from tribulation, when he didn’t spare Christians in other countries?” Where they are going through fearful things. So the rapture mentality has no concept of reconstruction, just to be snatched out of the situation, and it leads to a basic responsibility. Now, regeneration is rebirth. It means life. Life means growth. Therefore, regeneration requires sanctification, it requires growth in terms of the law, in terms of obedience to God. So where there is true regeneration there is inescapably growth. And where there is no growth, you have cause to wonder: “Is there life here?”

Our time is really over, but I would like to make an announcement of our Chalcedon guild meetings this week, and urge you to attend the Thursday meeting at 8 O’clock at the Santa Monica Woman’s club, with the Reverend T. Robert Ingraham from Houston speaking on war against life, and myself on Magic and Abortion. Then the same meeting will be repeated on the 12th, Friday, this coming Friday at 8 O’clock in Whittier. There are announcements of these meetings at the lectern in the back, as well as on the Christian school seminar in May. We do urge you to come out to these meetings Thursday and Friday, and to bring others as well.

I think there are no other announcements, let us bow our heads for the benediction. And now go in peace, God the Father God the Son and God the holy Ghost, guide you and protect you, bless you and keep you, this day and forever, amen.