Law and Life

The Future of America II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 33 of 39

Track: 135

Year: 1985

Dictation Name: RR157A2

[Rushdoony] Listening to Becky Morecraft sing is always a privilege and it makes me realize how privileged Joseph Morecraft is to be married to a woman who both sings beautifully and is beautiful. I’m reminded of a Presbyterian minister I knew about 40 years ago whose situation was not quite the same. One evening at a church dinner he told a story that created problems for him. His wife was supposed to sing but at the moment she was busy in the kitchen and one of the women called out “She’ll be out in about 2-3 minutes.” So he proceeded to tell a story, he said he was reminded of a man who was a great lover of music and a lover of beauty, and he was courting two different girls, one was a sensational beauty, the other was very, very plain, but she sang like an angel and one evening he would be with the beautiful girl and feast his eyes on her and say to himself “this is the one.” The next night he would be with the other and would listen to her sing and would say “this is the one, she sings like an angel.” Finally his love of music won out, and he married the beautiful singer; the morning after as he awakened on the first night after his honeymoon he looked over at his wife and sudden doubts began to seize him. [laughter] So he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her and said “honey, honey, wake up and sing for me” [laughter] at that unfortunate point the ministers wife came through the kitchen door and the place broke up. [peals of laughter] When I saw him on the street the next day he was very, very unhappy and he grumbled “women have no sense of humor, [laughter] I had to sleep in the living room.” Joe has no such problem.

Well to get back to the future of America. The good news is that God is at work in our time. Moreover God is not working through the established channels, through the churches that feel they are His appointed sphere, how very odd of God. [Laughter] In March of this year I went to Bowling Green Ohio, to a university town to help in the dedication of a church which was started by a very dear young friend and Chalcedon associate, Joseph McCullen . Fifteen years ago Joseph was converted when he was a young hippie and revolutionary, and he began to convert some of his fellow students. About Thanksgiving of 1983 they decided that the time had come for them to build a church in a Christian school. There were about 150 of them at that time, including their children. The old man of the congregation was the pastor who just recently turned 35. They decided a number of things, first they were going to build debt-free. Second, in order to accomplish their purpose every family would forgo all birthday presents, all Christmas presents, anniversary presents, any other kind of present, until they completed the building. Third, they decided and this was after a prayer meeting, that every family would fast one day weekly and donate that food money to the building fund. Then fourth the women decided they would all take part-time work, one or more small jobs, and give that money to the building fund. The women who was my hostess when I was there, Valerie, told me that among her jobs was babysitting and having a morning newspaper route, carrying a stack of papers and her two children, 3 and 5, around in the wagon. She gave 10,000 to the building fund.

The men decided that the building fund should be an opportunity for dominion and that they needed to establish businesses of their own, so they sat down as a group and decided “what is there that I would like to do in the way of a new business?” And they set up 28 new businesses, one of them in a very short time was very, very successful financially, 26 are doing well, one was as of last year rather weak, but it is not picking up, and these 28 businesses contributed very, very substantially to the building fund. As a result they were able in March of this year to dedicate a 600,000 dollar debt free, and at the same time had enough to buy the lot next door so that the newly established sanctuary could become a part of their Christian school within a few years with due growth, and they could build a new sanctuary. Unusual? To a degree, but more and more commonplace as people are taking seriously the word of God and the priorities of the kingdom to themselves.

Later this year in September I shall again be in the Midwest for a meeting which a business man is putting on at his own expense, he expects to have at least 300 pastors there. His purpose is very simply state, he wants them to learn Christian reconstruction and to carry the message back to their churches, and he wants me to start the thing by speaking on Deuteronomy 15 verses 4 &5 which he says we had better take literally. Those verses read “ Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it: 5 Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.” Something is happening, Christians are saying “it is our duty to work for the abolition of poverty and we can only do it in terms of the word of God. And here is a layman who is saying “I’m going to take the leadership and seeing that the pastors of this area get the message.” Unusual? To a degree, but this kind of thing is happening, not only across this land but abroad.

Almost, but not quite three years ago I went to a church to speak to young men whom I think very highly of, and I asked my wife Dorothy to accompany me because I said “you’re going to find this very, very interesting.” She felt a little uneasy as we went into a slum area to a building that was very, very much slum building, which was where this church met and held its Christian school; a Christian school, by the way, with a large number of children from that area. The church was pastured by two young blacks, recent converts, and the congregation was about evenly divided between blacks, Hispanics, and whites, all of them the poorest of the poor. They began with a praise service and I looked down from the platform and I could see that Dorothy was crying as she saw one person after another stand up and thank God for all the riches He had poured out upon them, and they made the poor look rich. And then to hear that these people were collecting food from warehouses, broken and damaged packages, to have a weekly food distribution to the poor. It was a day of celebration, why? The city fathers had been trying to shut down this church, everything was substandard about it, the only reason it had not been shut-down was because the two pastors were black and no white liberal wants to push a black around, it makes them feel bad [laughter] and these pastors knew it [even more laughter, applause]. They had collected some money to bring the building up to code, but then an opportunity faced them. An old long abandoned hotel in the center of the down-town area was up for sale, and they took the money and made a down payment on it in order to feed and house the street people who were sleeping in doorways and alley ways, and the city fathers went up in smoke. [laughter] Now this was a congregation of a 100 people, the poorest of the poor, if they can do it, why don’t we?

What leads people to do these things if not the Holy Spirit at work? But such activities were common to the early church. In fact we read in the 300 Saint Basil of Caesarea saying this, objecting to the Roman persecution, and I quote “whom have we injured in any way by building these places of refuge to shelter strangers who come to this country? Or those who need some special treatment because of their health? It is for them that we have arranged in our house the means to provide them with the necessary aide, with nurses, doctors, porters, guides. It has been indispensable to add to it the industries for life, and the art designed to adorn it. For this reason it has been necessary to construct buildings where these various kinds of work could be carried out.”

John Wycliffe spoke of the necessities for Christians to be engaged in both spiritual and bodily works of mercy. He said there were seven spiritual works of mercy, teaching, counseling, reproving, comforting, forgiving, suffering, and praying. He said there were seven bodily works of mercy; feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, showing hospitality to the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. Everything now that the welfare state has taken over the church once felt was Christian responsibility. Calvin was very insistent that the deacons were to see to the arrangements for the poor and the sick of the community, and this was true also in Scotland.

IN the last century when Thomas Chalmers went to a slum area as pastor he made the church responsible for health, education, and welfare in that area and did a dramatically effective piece of work, such as no-one had done before, and which the state since has not been able to equal. What these men did was to view the church as basic to all such activity because they saw the church as a ministering community. In I Corinthians 11:21 Paul, in writing about the communion service, says it is a denial of the Lord’s table to have an exclusive spirit, to keep the food we take to ourselves, and to refuse to share with those who have less. This he said is eating and drinking unworthily and inviting the Lord’s judgment. Is that any less true today?

Today we see on all sides proliferating ministries to human needs in the name of Christ. We see the church taking back the total ministry in one area after another. In Los Angeles in Watts we have for example the work of doctor E.V. Hill. E.V. Hill in Los Angeles is doing some remarkable things, and not only there but he has made it his purpose to reach every inner city by the end of this decade, and he has since begun work in other major cities in the west. What is he doing? First there is the basic task of evangelism and church extension. Second, all the adults who are converted are trained so they know the faith and they know how to reach their neighbors, and they’re told ‘we’re asking you to reach everyone on your block for Jesus Christ.” E.V. Hill tells the story of one blind woman who was converted and was told “Auntie, you can still walk up and down the street with your cane, find who the other Christian woman are, hold prayer meetings with them, and work on everyone in your block.” She did, and they did. In time of hundred and sixty-two persons on that short block a hundred and sixty-one were converted. The last one decided he couldn’t take all these Jesus people and he was going to move out. [laughter] They offered to help him load the truck [more laughter.] He refused, he didn’t want them touching anything of his. They found out from the truck driver where he was moving and they called up their block person on that block [laughter and applause] and they told him “when the truck arrives, help him unload but don’t tell him ‘till you’re all through that you’re doing it in the Lord’s name” [laughter].

E.V. Hill is also starting Christian schools for the children, he is also teaching the converts, the men, how to work. A number of very wealthy Americans have stepped in to help him and now they have a loan fund to help these men start businesses and to teach them how. E.V. Hill as a former radical and modernist says he knows that every kind of radical group is trying to turn the inner city into an area of revolution, and he’s going to turn it into an area of dominion for Christ. [applause]. This again is one program among many. Effective? Yes. So much is happening that we don’t know about or appreciate the effectiveness. Do you know that the Salvation Army in New York City ministers to more people effectively then the Federal Government? And for a fraction of a fraction of the cost. This should not surprise us, only the work done in Christ can endure.

We saw this morning the significance of Colossians 1:17, “By Him all things consist.” Until we do it in Christ nothing shall stand, and all things done on any other foundation then the rock of ages shall crumble, whether in economics, politics, the family, education, or anywhere else. No other foundation can endure. We need to take seriously our Lord’s words in the sermon on the mount when He says “Therefore whosoever heareth these saying of mine and doeth them I will liken Him unto a wiseman which built his house upon a rock” or literally it means “the rock” meaning Himself. “And the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon the rock, and everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Our Lord applies these words to everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, but Paul makes an even broader statement. “for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ.” Any other foundation in any field is death and judgment, the American scene today is cluttered with false foundations. In the church and outside of the church, and this is why we face disaster, and why we must make sure that all things stand upon God, the Lord, and upon His word. Why Christian reconstruction in terms of the priority of God and His word, the Sovereignty of Jesus Christ in every sphere is basic, the battle cry of the puritans in the 17th century needs to be ours, the crown rights of Christ as king.

Isaiah’s word is very clear to the law and to the testimony. “If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” We have a great responsibility. Across the face of the earth the church is in retreat to a degree that in this country we cannot appreciate. At our Seattle conference a week ago there were people present from Australia and Canada and England, in England today between 1 and 2 % attend any church on any given Sunday. In Canada it is between 3 and 4%, most of the people in both places are totally oblivious to the claims of Christ. In the United States on any given Sunday 40% are in church and an increasingly larger portion of that 40% is made up of Bible believers, a people who are beginning to awaken to the crown rights of Christ our King. More and more in the midst of these people the Lord is rising up a generation of faithful servants who are ministering in the Lord’s name in a hundred and one ways. I constantly hear of ministries to the drug culture youth, to ex-convicts, to the inner city, to the elderly, to a hundred and one areas all in the name of Christ.

One man in politics about four or five years ago when he was asking me a number of questions as to the church and state scene and the persecution, and a number of other things, this was at a time when Evert Sylavin {?} was in jail. After I had spoken and answered his questions he said “the humanists are making a bad mistake, they started ten years too late, the battle is going to get grimmer he said, but it’s out of their control now because the Christians who are dedicated are increasing, so he said it’s going to be a rear-guard battle for the opposition, but this may make it grimmer before it is over.” I’m inclined to agree, the good news is that the Lord is at work, that things are happening with such a rapidity, and so many people are involving themselves in a hundred and one activities that they are amazed, they cannot figure out how to cope with it.

Earlier this year when I was in Washington D.C. I listened to 2 attorneys discuss the homeschool movement, something nobody concerned themselves about a few years ago. I know that in our own state when the new superintendent of public instruction took office, supposedly Honig was a good conservative, he decided immediately to move against the homeschooled. He backtracked within a matter of weeks when he found out how many there were [laughter] because he heard from over 100,000 homeschools [applause] he thought they were a handful. Well over a 100,000 that were heard from means a couple of hundred thousands parents who are voters, and that scares politicians [laughter.] And these two attorneys in Washington D.C. as they were discussing the homeschool movement were trying to guess how many homeschoolers there were out there because suddenly they were all over the landscape holding conventions, being brazen about their convictions [laughter]. There guesses were between three and ten million, they don’t know, but they’re worried, and with good reason. When that many parents take their obligation to Jesus Christ, and their obligation to rear their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, then you know that God is at work, they’re not waiting for their pastors, they’re not waiting for the church to do something, they’re doing it themselves.

Last night at the churches potluck I spoke about the meaning of Psalm 127 and I called attention to that Psalm and its subject, National Defense, in that Psalm God tells us that it is the Lord that keeps a city, that there is no other sure defense. And then He tells us that our children are as arrows in our hands, they are the essential weapons of war, and the wars of the Lord, so that the first and foremost purpose of children is to rear them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord to be His army, to go forth and conquer in His name, not to please us, but to please the Lord; and when you have millions of parents doing that something is happening in the United States. Are you a part of that something? Are you a part of the new America that is emerging out of all of this, and the outlines of which are discernible in these few illustrations that I have given you. The key is this, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. We have been called to victory, we are either a part of that victory, or we are under God’s judgment. Thank you. [Applause]