Law and Life

Sacrilege and the Church

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 7 of 39

Track: 118

Dictation Name: RR156D7

Date: 1960s-1970s

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion, and unto Thee shall the vow be performed. O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His Name. Make known His deeds among the people. Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him, talk ye of all His wondrous works, glory ye in His holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, our hearts rejoice when we come into Thy presence, knowing the greatness of Thy grace, the majesty of Thy presence, and the omnipotence of Thy power. We thank Thee, our God, that Thou art our sufficiency, that there is nothing too great nor too small for Thee. And so, our God, according to Thy Word we come to cast our every care upon Thee, knowing Thou carest for us. Bless and prosper us in Thy service, strengthen us that we may in all things rejoice and be victorious in Jesus Christ, in His name we pray, Amen.

Our Scripture is from various verses, beginning in I Samuel 2, verses 12 through 17, and our subject, sacrilege and the church. Sacrilege and the church, I Samuel 2, verses 12 through 17. “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord. And the priests' custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.”

Then verses 22 through 26, [Mistake: he meant 22 through 36] “Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And he said unto them, ‘Why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD'S people to transgress. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him?’ Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them. And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the LORD, and also with men. And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people? Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house. And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an old man in thine house for ever. And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart: and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age. And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed forever. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in thine house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a piece of bread.’”

The third chapter, also, deals with the same matter of sacrilege. And then in the fourth chapter we have the judgment in that when Eli, the high priest, who was also the civil head of the nation, had his sons lead the people in war against the Philistines, they were totally defeated; both his sons. Verse 11. “And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, ‘What meaneth the noise of this tumult?’ And the man came in hastily, and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, ‘I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army.’ And he said, ‘What is there done, my son?’ And the messenger answered and said, ‘Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.’ And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he Eli fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.”

Last week as we continued our studies in the Biblical doctrine of sacrilege, we saw that sacrilege of property has fearful consequences, and when in England, under Henry the Eighth, sacrilege was committed, and by his successors, and church lands stolen, robbed, misappropriated, expropriated, God immediately judged those who took those lands. Previously, there had been a judgment upon medieval Europe for its misuse, its theft of that which belonged to God. Now, in the Reformation Era, as monarchs both Catholic and Protestant, used the time of upheaval to seize church lands and church properties, there was a like judgement. We saw, for example, that in England, of the six hundred and thirty or forty families, who by a century later had held possession of those lands, all but 14 died without a male heir who could inherit those impropriated lands. At the time of Henry the Eighth, those lands were given originally to 120 men, of these only 20 had a male heir and then quickly died out. At the same time the Duke of Norfolk gave some of his private lands to 20 gentlemen, all of them had male heirs, that is heirs that could legitimately inherit the land. We saw that a study made in 1843 brought a similar conclusion, namely that these church lands that had been impropriated definitely had evidences of a continuing curse on them and were regarded by people as unlucky lands because so much misfortune had come to everyone who had taken possession of them.

We shall, on subsequent occasions, analyze other forms of sacrilege, today our subject is sacrilege and the church. The Bible gives us a very dramatic example of this, among other examples; the case of Eli and his sons. God acts on the principle of restitution and restoration. Where men rob God of their first fruits, their tithes and offerings, God robs them. He requires restitution. To rob God is to invoke His judgment.

Now sacrilege, where the church is concerned, by the clergy, is a particularly grievous offense. The greater the responsibility given to a man, the greater his offense if he goes astray. Eli was a true believer, his faith sometimes surprises us. Certainly he was a good teacher to Samuel. But as God rightly said, he honored his sons more than he honored God. And although he knew his sons were derelicts, they were ungodly, unbelieving, he rebuked them, but he did not boot them out of the priesthood, and this he had the power to do as the high priest.

What his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were doing was first of all to practice extortion. The offerings, the sacrifices that were brought to the temple, they would seize. Moreover, they apparently had a good racket on the side going selling meat, because they were insisting the meat be turned over to them uncooked, raw, before it was offered on the altar. So that as raw meat it could be readily sold on the side.

Then second they were guilty of adultery, practicing adultery in the very sanctuary itself. The women who are here described are described by a technical term that we encounter also in Exodus 38, verse 8. They were women who were engaged in the service of the temple or tabernacle and it isn’t altogether certain what their function was, there is some evidence from various verses of Scripture that they may have been a choir, also that they may have had some other duties as well within the sanctuary. In other words, these men, priests, had thoroughly corrupted worship. They had made the sanctuary a place of adultery, of the most flagrant sort, and also of extortion and theft.

Now the reaction of the people was as so often is the case; to walk by sight. Eli said to his sons, ye make the Lord’s people to transgress. Why? So many people do not believe but will observe the forms of belief as long as the forms of belief are powerful and are enforced. But here was open extortion and adultery, known to all the nation, and God apparently was doing nothing about it. Therefore the people concluded, well there is no God, if there were a God would He tolerate this? And so they themselves began like transgressions, each in his own way. God often delays in His judgment, to allow that which is in the heart of people to come out, and then judges them. Moreover, Eli was aware of the fact that the sins of his sons were unforgiveable, the doctrine of the unforgiveable sin was not a new one to the New Testament. He said if one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him, but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? When your offense is directly against God, who is there to appeal to for help, for mercy? It’s the direct and total wrath of God that you face. So Eli very clearly recognized how far reaching the sins of his sons were, but he did nothing to remove them. As God rightly declared, “thou honorest thy sons above me.”

This era, the consequences of what happened as a result of these men, these false priests, is described for us very clearly in Psalm 78, verses 56 through 64, which read, “Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: but turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hand. He gave his people over also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance. The fire consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage. Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamentation.”

Unbelief had been followed by idolatry, by will worship. Man’s way had been enthroned above God’s law in the nation at large. But God, in speaking to Eli, through an unnamed prophet, sets forth His principle of judgment. They that honor me, I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. We know the consequences. Eli’s sons died in battle, and the line of Eli was set aside and no longer permitted to occupy the priesthood.

There’s a very interesting aftermath to this story. Centuries later, there were accounts of an incident in the Babylonian Talmud, of a family in Jerusalem after the exile had ended, where all the males died at the age of eighteen, they had barely married and sired a child or two, because they were marrying very early in those days, and they died. And so the family went to the rabbis to ask what the problem was. And one rabbi, after considerable thought and prayer, said do you know your ancestry? They didn’t. And they said almost certainly you must be of the line of Eli, because there is obviously a curse from God upon you. And so he counseled them to study the law and to obey it, and immediately the curse disappeared. And so thereafter, instead of calling themselves by the name they then bore, they called themselves after Rabbi Johanan, who had given them this counsel. And it is interesting, two of these men became teachers or rabbis, and self-consciously tried to apply that which they had learned. And one of them, this is a matter of record, said if we study and know the law of God, we can remove the curse of Eli. He lived to be forty years. The other said we must not only study and believe, but we must also actively obey, he lived much longer. As a result, this created quite an impression, and more than usual space is given to this in the Talmud, as quite a dramatic episode in the history of the returning exiles.

Now as we look at the world today, we must say that certainly sacrilege is rampant in the church. As a matter of fact, it has become more commonplace in the church than almost anywhere else, and sacrilege is the forgotten sin of our time. It is sacrilege when the church does not teach the Word of God faithfully. It is sacrilege when the church identifies itself too closely with Christ and with the Kingdom and fails to see that Christ is more than the church itself. Let us examine the three common names of the church that we find in Scripture. The church is called the body of Christ, for example, in Ephesians 1:23, Colossians 1:18, and elsewhere. Now indeed, the church is the body of Christ, but we cannot go to a particular church and say this is the body of Christ. We cannot look at the Episcopal or the Presbyterian or the Baptist or the Catholic church, and this has been done by all of them, and say here is the body of Christ. Because the body of Christ is greater than any local church or any group of churches. It is the entire church visible and invisible, the church on earth and the church on heaven. And yet when the church arrogates to itself the names of Scripture properly applied to the Church, and limits their application to itself, as though we have defined the church hereby, it is guilty of sacrilege. It claims too much. We can never deny that the church is the body of Christ, but we can never also deny that the church as we encounter it in this world is also a very human institution. That it is made up of men who are not perfectly sanctified. That it does not have a capacity to be inerrant or infallible. That the true church, which is Jesus Christ, is indeed infallible and inerrant, but we can never say it of it ourselves, of our organization, and it becomes sacrilege when the church sees itself only in terms of that which it is in Christ.

Again, the church is called the Jerusalem which is above, or the new Jerusalem, or the heavenly Jerusalem, all these titles are used, for example in Galatians 4:26, in Hebrews 12:22, in Revelation 21:2, and elsewhere. Indeed the church is the Jerusalem which is above and we are spoken of as ambassadors of Christ. We represent a foreign power to the world; we represent God’s kingdom on earth as individuals, as churches, as Christian schools, as Christian family. We are an alien group in this world and yet we are heirs of this world, so there is that double sense in which we have a relationship to the world, as the true heirs, the true owners thereof, and yet as an extraterritorial {?}. And yet the church can never be summed up just as the heavenly Jerusalem. Again, not being perfectly sanctified, we can never sum up what the church is in Christ and say this is the church around the corner.

Then third, the church is described as the pillar and ground of truth, in I Timothy 3, verse 15, the pillar and ground of truth. This is a verse much cited in the church and it is used to cover a multitude of sins. Now we can never separate the church from this description, but neither can we identify it totally with this, because it is the true church in Christ that is pillar and ground of truth, not the truth. And at our best when we are most faithful to the Lord and we are most clearly pronouncing the truth of God, we can never claim to be the infallible and the whole truth. So while church is the pillar and ground of truth, it can never be summed up so that we can say the local church or denomination or group of churches, this is the pillar and ground of truth. In other words, there is a transcendental frame of reference for all the names of the church. They indeed describe the church here, but they describe, above all else, the church that is above. And the church here can be described in those terms only insofar as it is faithful to Christ and the Church triumphant. And if the sad fact is that the more the church strays from Christ, the more it arrogates to itself all the honor and glory that belong to the true Church and to Jesus Christ. They that honor Me, I will honor. God is honored by faith and obedience. But, they that despise Me, I will esteem lightly. Psalm 73, verse 20 says “As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image.”

History indeed is an area of judgment, a very real judgment, inescapable judgment, and as men with their unbelief turn away from Scripture and they deny the existence of such a doctrine as sacrilege, now forgotten for a century or more, it does not eliminate the fact that God reigns, and the fact that I do not see does not eliminate the world. If I shut my eyes to the world, it disappears only for me, not in reality. It is still there. And as men have shut their eyes to the Word of God and to the fact of sacrilege, it has not disappeared, it is there. And the church today that is so guilty of sacrilege shall be judged. God delays as He did in the days of Eli, so that which is in the hearts of men may manifest itself, and that God’s judgment when it descends upon them, may be recognized even by them as deserved. And so we should rejoice when we see the world in its sin, the church apostate, we are never to believe that they shall triumph. The psalmist says that when he, looking at the world around him, thought bitterly the wicked flourish and we are in trouble and things go badly for us, he said sorrowfully by way of conclusion, I was a fool when I spake so, and like a brute, ignorant, I did not see their end, I did not understand it. The Word of God assures us of the certainty of God’s victory, of the certainty of His judgment, of the certainty that God does not deal lightly with sacrilege. And so we should take heart, we should believe and obey, knowing that God, who is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, has declared emphatically, them that honor Me, I will honor. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy Word and the certainty of Thy judgment. We wait on Thee, O Lord. We thank thee that Thou will judge those who have polluted Thy church, dishonored Thy Word, and disobeyed Thy law. We thank Thee, our Father, that Thou art a rewarder of them that diligently seek Thee. Give us grace therefore, Father, day by day to obey Thee, to trust in Thee, to put our whole confidence in Thee and Thy Word, that we may be more than conquerors through Him that loved us, even Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Before we have our questions, there is a very beautiful little poem by George Herbert, a 17th century poet and clergyman, that was used in the ordination of one of our group, Roger Wagner, as pastor of the Senora church. This is a very lovely poem in that his point is that we are to be like stained glass in a church, the light of God’s Word is to pass through us, but its glory to be a part of our lives so that we are not word only, speech which is like the sunlight without the color, but doctrine and light, color and light brought together to give the full glory and beauty of God’s Word.

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?

He is a brittle crazie glasse:

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy Preachers ; then the light and glorie

More rev'rend grows, & more doth win:

Which else shows watrish, bleak, & thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring

A strong regard and aw : but speech alone

Doth vanish like a flaring thing,

And in the eare, not conscience ring.

Are there any questions now about our lesson this morning? Yes?

[Audience member] People who do not go to church and do not make any potential {?} Christian or believers, will they also face judgment, sacrilege, denying God and His tithe?

[Rushdoony] Yes. God expects His tithes of all His people, His offerings, all his creatures, His offerings from His people, tithes and offerings, because we have a double cause. The tithe is the tax, the offerings are gratitude. Any other questions?

I’d like to read something to you in a book just off the press, SGF Brandon, an English scholar, a study of Religion in Ancient History: Studies in Ideas, Men, and Events. And towards the end of his book, in fact at the very end, he has this interesting comment on our time.

“Except for the conflict in Victorian England between divines and scientists over evolution, and the fundamentalist controversy in America (and by fundamentalist he includes anyone who believes the Bible) the abandonment of the Christian philosophy of history has been a gradual and almost imperceptible process. The change of outlook was undoubtedly eased by a kind of secularist version of the Christian view that there is purpose in history. The belief in progress that characterized the 19th century, inspiring an optimistic attitude toward the future, was fundamentally teleological. History was interpreted as the progress of mankind from the ignorance of barbarism to a rational ordering of life. Improvement of the material conditions of life through scientific and knowledge would go together, it was believed, with improvement of social conduct. Mankind was seen as moving toward a golden age. The experience of two world wars had shattered such a belief. We have grown afraid of the products of our science and of our ability to use them well. Moreover, the outlook sanctioned by our scientific knowledge is that of a universe in which mighty impersonal forces operate in ways beyond our comprehension. Similarly, our immensely increased knowledge of the past of the human race allows us to perceive that no purpose other than the biological, that our species has been wonderfully successful in the struggle for existence. In the rise and fall of peoples and their civilizations, however, no law or pattern can be demonstrated, despite the efforts of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. The malaise that seems to afflict Western culture today may reasonably be traced to an awareness that we can find no inspiring purpose in history. Yet our thought and outlook remain instinctively teleological (that is, seeking a purpose). For they stem ultimately from centuries of Christian tradition and a deep grounding in the doctrine of providence. And so it would seem that despite all disappointment, the question will continue to be asked: What does the history of mankind mean?”

Now of course, his whole point is it means nothing. And yet he has to say, and he sees it as a hangover of Christianity, that we’re going to go on asking what does it mean? We’re going to be upset because it has no meaning. Now this is a sad predicament that the ungodly have worked themselves into. They want meaning, but they have to insist, it cannot by definition exist, because there is no God. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience member] Um, what if the explanation for {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s a question that theologians have debated about for centuries. They haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer, and you’re not going to get one this morning. Now, the essence of their problem is to try to explain how it is that somehow, there has been a transmission of sin and guilt. Well, when we don’t know the answer to the common cold, we’re not likely to come up with the answer to something that profound. The fact, we do know, namely that mankind is in some sense, one, so that that which was done by Adam and Eve has been transmitted to all mankind. And men everywhere, by their nature, tend to sin. They are sin by nature and they have a sense of guilt. So, the fact we know, the chemistry, so to speak, of that fact, no one has come up with a satisfactory answer for it. But there is no place in the world that you don’t find the fact of sin and guilt being present in the minds of men. The liberals tried something unheard of in history in the last century, to deny that man had a sense of sin and to ascribe it openly to environment, something for which there was a tendency from the beginning, it was a part of the sin, but the only consequence of such thinking was total disaster. Now I know that’s an unsatisfactory answer, but when we get to heaven we can ask experts about it. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience member] Do you know of any work being done in the field of medicine to {?} It seems to me that their whole approach is that man is a product of the environment and whatever diseases are there, they’re going to get {?}

[Rushdoony] There are some studies being made now which point to a different type of medicine, and yet medical researchers are just a little afraid to deal with it. The idea of the body as a purely material, mechanistic thing is getting some body blows from research as late, which seems to indicate there are totally non-material capacities in the body. Now, one reason, and I can understand it, that they have been fighting shy of some of the conclusions here is that they are afraid that the occultists are going to take the ball and run away with it, which in some cases they have done, very definitely. But definitely, our doctrine of the body, that we have come to believe, is so totally material, is faltering. Now I don’t know what the direction will be in the next generation or so, but there are very definite researches being carried on that are startling. Yes? Gary, you were going to make a comment?

[Audience member] Well {?} there’s a timing device in terms of aging. And as I mentioned earlier in one of my talks, there are records of children who died of old age at nine or ten. {?} That the body is like a {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience member] Have you heard of a book called {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. There are some good things in that book, none of these diseases, it’s a very small step in the right direction, very, very small. But there are some very interesting items in it. Well if there are no further questions, let us bow our heads 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.

[End of tape]