Human Nature In Its Second Estate

Tyranny

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 10-11

Genre: Speech

Track: 19

Dictation Name: RR131K20

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Our Scripture is Genesis 10:8-12. Genesis 10:8-12, and our subject, tyranny.

Genesis 10:8-12

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

There is no question in my mind that the King James version is the best, the most beautiful, and the most faithful translation of the Old and New Testaments. This does not mean that it is perfect. As I have on other occasions pointed out, there are problems in translation. Some of the words that we encounter in the Hebrew are used only once or twice, of birds, plans, and animals, which long ago became extinct. And as a result, the translators had no idea what was intended and they very often gave English names for them, out of their own mythology sometimes, and out of their own guessing. And so you have references to the Leviathan, to the unicorn, to the dragon, and other things which have no real meaning as far as the original text is concerned. Now the same is true occasionally on a very few occasions of certain words. The meaning was not entirely known because the words were used only once or twice in all of the Scriptures.

As a result, there were problems in translation. Now over the years some of these problems have been cleared up. As archeology has turned up tablets with inscriptions and extensive knowledge been developed of many of the ancient tongues of that time. Many of which have the same words. It has become possible to determine what some of these words are.

We have such a problem in this text. The text begins by reading, and Cush begat Nimrod, and he began to be a mighty one before the Lord. Alright, a mighty one in the earth. The word that is translated, a mighty one, is actually the Hebrew {?}. What does that mean? A long time ago Luther made a guess as to its meaning and he was quite right and everything that has transpired since then has confirmed his guess. That he was accurate. Actually, the meaning is, Cush begat Nimrod, he was the first tyrant upon earth. The first tyrant in or on the earth. Now the word tyrant appears in Hebrew in a couple of words. This particular form {?} is one. Another is in Genesis 6:4, {?}. Which is translated as giants. There were giants in the earth in those days. {?} has been demonstrated to come from {?}, to fall upon or to attack. So that instead of saying that in the days before the Flood there were giants, what the text in Genesis 6:4 is actually saying is, that in the days before the Flood, when every imagination of man’s heart was wholly evil, there were tyrants on the earth. And here another word, meaning tyrant, is also used. Nimrod. He was the first tyrant after the Flood. Thus the Scripture tells us there was a growth of tyranny before the Flood and second after the Flood, which led to the Tower of Babel.

Now having determined that the meaning in these two cases and in particular here with respect to Nimrod, is tyrant, it is important to understand what the word tyrant means. And here I think the English word very clearly tells us what the word in ancient pre-Christian times meant. Because our English word tyrant comes from the Greek, tyrranos, and it literally means one ruling without the authority of God. The word, in other words, is directly religious in its meaning. A tyrant is anyone ruling without the authority of God. Now his rule may be kindly, but he is a tyrant if he rules without authority. Therefore both in the biblical sense of the word and in the original sense of the English word, anyone, whatever his authority or his position, if he rules without divine authority, is a tyrant. This means not only someone in Washington, London, Paris or Moscow, as a head of state or an officer of state, but it means a teacher, a husband, a wife, an employer, anyone who rules contrary to God’s authority, to God’s law word. They are then a tyrant. The religious framework of the word has been dropped. And a tyrant now is someone who rules contrary to the wishes of the people. In its original meaning it was contrary to God’s law. Now the purpose of our text is to depict the growth of tyranny. Man was in revolution against God in the Garden of Eden and was cast out. He made himself god. Man seeks apart from God to create his own social order, a paradise on earth.

And the result leads, as the next chapter of Genesis shows, to the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel in its very name tells us as well as its structure, what was intended. The Tower of Babel was a step pyramid. Sometime ago we spent a couple of weeks in analyzing the Tower of Babel. Just to review briefly some of the highlights of it. The Tower was a step pyramid so that each successive floor, and there were many ziggurats, as the name of them originally was, that type of structure, was recessed a little from the floor before. So that when you looked at it from a distance, it looked like a step ladder up into heaven. The tope of the Los Angeles city hall is built in ziggurat style. Look at it when you go by it sometime. It is recessed so often, so that it has, to a limited degree, the step ladder effect. Now the purpose of this was to indicate different levels of the ruling hierarchy or bureaucracy of the world order that was planned and was in process of creation. You arose in your degrees, you were first degree, second degree, third degree and so on, and on the highest floor you were the highest degree and there you were one of the ruling elite. The hierarchy that governed all things. Moreover, the name Babel {?} means God. And {?}, the gate of God. In other words, the purpose of this was, by means of a world government, to establish man as his own god and world ruler. Governing all things in independence of God. However God confounded the builders of the Tower of Babel and he called the name {?}, which means babble, confused, indistinct, babbling. Incapable of vocalizing and making sense.

In every age, every Tower of Babel that man builds is intended as an attack on God and a claim to be his own god. Thus as we analyze the significance of tyranny, of rule without God and in violation of God’s law, as it began after the Flood with Nimrod, he began to be a tyrant on the earth. We find first of all, in every age, tyranny is a dream of paradise without God. And it leads to an ultimate meaninglessness. Separation from God becomes, as we have seen, separation from meaning. As a result, humanism can never accomplish its purpose. Because in the very process of seeking it, it destroys purpose, it denies meaning. Because it is bent on eradicating God’s world meaning. Thus the closer man comes to building his Tower of Babel, the closer he draws to his own confusion and scattering. One of the ironies of the history of Rome, which is too seldom pointed out by historians is, that the Caesars began to claim to be God. And the Senate would deify every dead Caesar, every dead Emperor. The claim became progressively more and more extreme. When St. Paul said of Jesus Christ there is none other name under heaven by which men may be saved, he was taking a statement that was applied to the Caesars and applying it to Christ as the only true Savior. Because it was the thesis of the Roman government that there was none other name than the name of Caesar by which men could be saved, and this is why the conflict between Christ and the Caesars was inescapable. Who was man’s savior, Christ or the state? But the closer the Roman Empire came to realizing its dream of total power, the more it was destroying all meaning, until finally, as William Carol Bart, the historian of Stanford has said, there was no meaning left and the millions of Romans had no desire to defend their empire against the tens of thousands of barbarians. Rome was not destroyed, it collapsed. Nothing had meaning anymore.

This is why no Tower of Babel that man has ever erected, whether it was the original Babel, Babylon, Assyria, Caldea{?}, Rome, or any dream of it since then, none has ever been completed. It commits suicide always. But on the other hand we must say second, that the urge to build a Babel is basic to revolutionary man. Every man without God is a would be tyrant. A would be builder of the Tower of Babel, because it is an aspect of his warfare against God. He dreams of power, he dreams of playing god over man.

Recently, in testimony before the house committee on science and astronautics, Dr. James Watson expressed his fears of what were beginning to happen, and he said in this testimony, and I quote, “Though many people will look with horror at any test tube work with human eggs, others will breath more easily that something is being done to prevent the world from being crushed by overpopulation. Until a few years ago this latter group was relatively a small one and without favor in virtually any political circle. Today however, taboos which would have seemed unbreakable just a decade ago, are rapidly being overturned. Witness the recent action of the United States in overwhelming passing legislation that would promote family planning. Even more significant was the action of New York State in making abortion the right of any woman who desired them. There furthermore need not exist the coercion of a totalitarian state, when there already are such wide spread divergence’s{?} as to the sacredness of the action of human reproduction.” Unquote. Dr. Watson thus was desperately afraid of what the end would be, knowing the kind of things that were being planned experimentally. He feared that ultimately man would become total expendable.

We must say third then, that man’s revolt being essentially anti-God, he will systematically assault everything that represents God, especially His law. Communism breeds a very radical contempt of God and of law, in order to gain power. To overthrow the status quo. And then it has a problem. How to handle the people whom it has made lawless. Several generations were spent by the Marxists in the old Russia, bringing about a framework, a mentality, that would be conducive to lawlessness.

The only way it can cope with that lawlessness, even if it desired to be otherwise now, is through total terror. There is nothing can hold the people except total terror. In this respect that famous scoundrel, Voltaire, who, incidentally, never said I disagree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That he never believed in. that was ascribed to him by someone who wanted to make him a little more respectable. Voltaire had sense enough to know the implications of unbelief. He thoroughly despised Christianity. He regarded it as the infamy that should be wiped out, as far as any influence on intellectuals and rulers was concerned. But, he felt, it was necessary for society. On one occasion, when he was at a table with a number of his philosophic friends, and they were ridiculing the idea of God and of morality, his servant came in to bring refreshments, and he immediately shushed everyone. And only after the valet or servant left, would he permit them to go on speaking, and they said, what’s the matter? And he said, are you fools? If my servant thinks there is no God and no law and no morality, he will cut my throat and steal everything I have. Why shouldn’t he? Therefore, such knowledge must be kept from the common people.

But man cannot do that when he denies belief. When he denies God. There is no satiation of the anti-law, the anti-God drought{?}. The more he relaxes the boundaries, the further he is determined to push them. He wants to destroy everything that smacks of God. Just to exam the newspapers, for example, here in Los Angeles in the last three or four or five or six years is very revealing. The film fare that is produced. Six years ago the type of movie that is being shown {?} houses now was only shown at a few very far out stag affairs.

Just the other day the newspapers listed nine theaters showing a film which was dedicated entirely to bestiality. Moreover, these theaters, seven of them opened at noon and continued until after midnight, two opened at 9:45 in the morning and continued until early morning and closed down for about an hour or so in order to clean the place. And in other cities, such acts of bestiality are now a part of nightclub fare. There is always an intensification of the urge to destroy law. To violate God’s commandments. Because, we must add next, it is basic to man’s revolution to exclude God totally from His creation. To abolish His law and even the memory of God from the earth. This means that everything must be man made. This is why Dr. Watson was so frightened. Man himself must now give way, in the thinking of these people, to {?}. Man as he exists, and he reproduces himself, still inescapably feels guilt. Still feels that there must be something beyond. He has a conscience, and so there must be a manufactured man brought about, {?} is the first step, but not enough. And so they are probing, before they have even remotely arrived at {?}, it’s something beyond {?}. To create a man wholly man made. Who’ll be incapable of imagining that there is a god. And so man becomes expendable.

Our text says that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Again, what is the meaning of this text? Here Dr. Loophold{?}, a very brilliant Old Testament scholar, has pointed out, very clearly in terms of his linguistic research, its meaning. And I quote. “What the phrase then means in this connection is that the gross violation of men’s rights, that this mighty hunter of men became guilty of, did not elude the watchful eye of Him when mercy regards the welfare of men, the Lord. But the fact was openly before Him. Even if He did not at once proceed to take vengeance upon the despot. So the expression mighty hunter does not refer to his exploits in bagging game. In fact, since {?}, in verse 8 means tyrant, or despot, {?} of verse 9 should be rendered as a tyrant or despot of hunt, which plainly indicates that men and not beasts were hunted.” Unquote. Nimrod. A tyrant on the earth. The beginning of tyranny. A hunter of men. A tyrannical hunter of men. This is the end result of humanism. But in every age the end result of man’s anti-God revolutions and actions, is ordained by God to be a confusion, a collapse, a scattering. Because there can be no unity, no cohesion, no progress apart from God, every attempt by revolutionary men to unite reality and men without God, leads instead to a radical fragmentation. Go to, let us build us a tower to unite men, to make a one world order. But the end result was a confusion and a scattering. Thus while there is development in evil, the end thereof is death. It is a development towards suicide and death. Man in the state of depravity is under sentence of death because of his sin. And every step he takes in his evil brings him closer to that final sentence. So that as God declared in the beginning, dying he shall die. Whatever the form of man’s revolution, its substance is death.

Thus tyranny, rule without God, begins by abandoning God in order to have life on its own terms. And ends as death without God, without hope.

Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, who hast called us out of the world of tyranny and death, to be Thy sons and the glorious heirs of liberty. Conform our hearts unto Thy word, that we may grow in Thy liberty and that we may make it the fabric of our homes, of our work, and of our societies. Unto the end that Thy name may be magnified and Thy kingdom manifested in our midst. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Without God’s law word, in other words, he may be a very benevolent and popular ruler, but if he is ruling without God’s law word, ultimately all things happen by God’s permission, but not according to God’s law word. That’s the key. In other words, the standard is not man, does he please men? Or displease them, which is the modern definition of tyranny, but, does he conform to the Word of God, or does he not? This does not necessarily mean belief. Thus, if we had a judge who strictly upheld God’s law word, he would not be a tyrant, if, in his practice, he respected the ten commandments. Tyranny has reference to a rule without the law of God.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] They are tyrants.

[Audience]..{?}..

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. They are tyrants. Similarly, a person who opposes abortion, as some I know do, on purely humanistic grounds, they’re tyrants also, you see. Even if you do make a stand of the right thing without proper authority, and you say, life is sacred, rather than God, you are then guilty of considerable violation of God’s law. Course this was the evil in Albert {?} who was so greatly idolized a few years ago. With him, life was sacred and therefore reverence for life was the essence of his religion. Which meant therefore, he had to be a vegetarian, which meant also that he couldn’t step on an insect or a worm, because he was killing life. And therefore he was perpetually guilty, because think of all the bacteria he was continually destroying as a doctor. That was life. He said so. He said he was perpetually guilty. And now that’s not only godless, it’s psychopathic in my eyes.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. We have believers or professing believers who are tyrants, we have a certain Senator who claims to be an Evangelical Christian, not from this state but a state not to far north of us, who talks at Christian businessmen’s breakfasts and is always witnessing for Christ, and both as governor and senator he has never once shown any respect for anything that the law of God teaches. He’s a tyrant. He may be a very kindly tyrant, and I know a minister who said he’s a most wonderful man, but he’s still a tyrant.

If I command my wife without the authority of God’s word, or, even though she may like what I’ve commanded, I’m a tyrant, you see.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Tyranny, in other words, at that time was much more extensive in its scope, precisely because there was a greater unity. I think I mentioned, in fact I know I did, some months ago the work by an associate of Einstein, ‘Maps of the Ancient Sea King (seeking?)‘, in which he brings forward evidence to indicate that this was true at one time, there was one common language in all the earth.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] In connection with the world before the Flood, when Genesis 6:4 tells us there were tyrants upon the earth, there is more than a little evidence that a very high state of civilization was reached at that time. And I, as I pointed out to you with respect to the excavations in Crete, both at {?} and Indian and the Minoan culture in Crete, immediately after the date of the Flood, you find civilization at a higher point than it was a few centuries later. You find at Crete, for example, perhaps the earliest known culture, the early Minoan, the palace there, three stories, beautiful palace, with hot and cold running water, flush toilets, everything. Which later disappeared.

Now. There was an article recently, this has appeared in several papers, by Allen Spragget{?}. And I think it’s worth reading in its entirety at this point. This appeared in the Phoenix Arizona Republic for Sunday June 20th, 1971. “Did ancient man know about, and use electricity?

The question sounds crazy, but the idea is being taken seriously by a group of reputable scientists. Bennet goes on to say the question of whether there ancient electricians is raised the society in connection with a curious wall painting in a temple at Dendera Egypt. This puzzling and provocative picture, says the society’s journal, suggests a possible residue of a higher technology which subsequent civilizations lost. The picture depicts what presumable is a religious ritual, since it’s in a temple. Two huge priest like figures are carrying a pair of objects which look astonishingly like enormous light bulbs, containing heavy filaments. The objects are resting on pedestals which closely resemble modern installation fixtures for very high tension power lines. And an electrical engineer who studied the pictures said that slight variations between the two fixtures to which the light bulbs are attached suggest that they could be positive and negative electrical terminals. Parallels to this picture has turned up in paintings found on ceramics in South America. These paintings appear on detailed analysis by competent experts to be formalized layouts for electronics circuitry{?}. Actually, as long as thirty years ago, discoveries were made which also pointed a knowledge of electricity by some cultures of antiquity. In 1936 Dr. William Kanick{?} of the {?} Museum found an ancient battery among relics of the Parthian kingdom, which existed from 250 B.C. to 224 A.D. The object was a clay vase, containing a cylinder made of sheet copper. The inner surface of which was covered with a thin layer of asphalt. A thick plug of asphalt was forced into the upper end of the cylinder. In the center of the plug was a solid piece of iron. Such a device was demonstrably capable of generating an electric current, and this appears to have been its only conceivable purpose. But to what use was it put? Well, when the {?} made more than three decades ago, silversmiths in Iraq and other middle east countries were using a crude ancient method of electro gilding their wares, that is, gold plating them.

Since a galvanic battery of the type found would produce a strong enough current to electro guild small articles, it’s plausible that this was one use for it. There may have been others as well. Since ancient batteries have been, similar ancient batteries have been found by other archeologists. Professor Eric Cunnell{?} of Berlin, dug up several, dating from the dynasty of Assechanees{?}, which ruled Persia from 224 A.D. to 651 A.D. there is evidence of something that looks like electro plating of metals among the Egyptians of 2000 B.C. Copper and bronze vessels and other art objects taken from Egyptians tombs have been found to be plated with antimony, a silver like metal. The exact method of metal plating used probably was the trade secret of the Egyptian priests, who were in many ways the great grandfathers of today’s scientists. Did the priests four thousand years ago plate art objects with antimony by using an electric current or by some other process? Furthermore, if they did use electricity, does the knowledge represents a glimmerings of an embryo science or the residue of a higher technology from the still more distant past? Could a civilization existed in the very remote past which reached heights of technology, at least equal to our own? The discoveries we’ve looked at raise the possibility that mankind has traveled this route before. That an ancient, highly advanced civilization or a series or them, that have been annihilated by an enormous cataclysm, virtually without a trace, is not impossible. Imagine some future archeologist pondering with astonishment the flashlight battery from our era, and the long extinct civilization that produced it.” Unquote. Well of course they have found other things such as coins deep down in the earth, which in terms of evolutionary thinking would put it back hundreds of millions of years before man. But in terms of the biblical statement of the Flood, make it all very comprehensible. Plus the fact that there was a high development of civilization in the world before the Flood.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Is that for Friday night? Go ahead and make it.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] In case you didn’t hear all that, the prayer meetings, the Chalcedon prayer meeting, will be this Friday at eight o’clock at the home of the Thurstons. {?} Thurston is right here, if you want any details as how to get there, just ask him.

We have time for possible one or two more questions. Any further questions? Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] A very good question. What is the relationship between the Masonic degrees and the Tower of Babel. Well, some of the old Masonic doctrines claim that actually they are the heirs of the builders of the Tower of Babel. And in a series of reprints of ancient Masonic doctrines, which I believe the university of Manchester put out, this is categorically stated at one point. Now it is interesting that there are Masonic evidences and Tower Babel like ideas almost everywhere in the world. And they were prevalent among the American Indians, the lodges of the American Indians, were secret brotherhoods of men, and more than a few Masons were saved by flashing their distress signal to the Indians, and visa versa. This is a matter of record. So the American Indians had similar concepts very definitely. That no one knows where they derived them from. But it is definitely claimed by Masonry that they are heirs of the builders of the Tower of Babel. And they do advocate similar ideas. The classic statement of that is Pike’s morals and dogma. Which calls for a one world order of a radically humanistic character.

Yes.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. The question is, what was Calvin’s eschatological view, his view of end times. Now at the time of the Reformation, they were so concerned with some of the basic doctrines, justification and so on, that other doctrines were bypassed. And Calvin never did get around to a commentary of the book of Revelation. So we don’t know what his views were there. But his commentary on Isaiah and on Daniel, very clearly indicates a post-millennium perspective. That is, he believed very definitely that it was the duty of Christians to establish a godly order throughout the face of the earth. To establish a Christian order. Godly reconstruction. So in this respect he was definitely not of the millenarian persuasion that was true of the Anabaptists of the day.

Well our time is now up, lets’…yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Oh yes. One more announcement. On August 9 and 10, the Chalcedon school seminar with the Reverend Robert L. Thoburne and Mrs. Thoburne and myself, to a minor degree, as seminar leaders, will be held at Nottberry{?} farm in the town hall meeting room. Those of you who are interested in attending, or know anyone who would be, please let us know. We do want to get a good turnout for this, the influence of our last seminar on a number of schools has been very, very wonderful.

Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.