Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Profane Knowledge and Power

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 46

Track: 46

Dictation Name: RR172Y46

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth unto all generations.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we come into Thy presence again, rejoicing in Thy mercies, confident in Thy mercy and grace, knowing our Father that all things are in Thy hands who doest all things well. Make us bold and confident as we face an evil world, an evil generation, knowing oh Lord that Thy judgment shall cleanse the earth, that Thy grace shall make men whole, and that Thy peace which passeth all understanding shall prevail, and Thou shall reign from pole to pole. Give us grace to walk in terms of Thy Word and Thy spirit, to seek Thee daily and to be made whole by Thee, that we may face all the vicissitudes of life in the confidence that we are more than conquerors in Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 20:6. Leviticus 20:6, and our subject, “Profane Knowledge and Power.” Leviticus 20:6, “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

We have here a condemnation of spiritualism and of mediums and all attempts to ascertain knowledge of the future outside of God. It is not an accident that this verse follows after the first five verses of this chapter which deal with Molech worship. Molech worship was State worship—the State made as god, the State saying that one’s child had to be given to the State, and the ritual of dedication whereby every child was declared to be the property of the State is condemned. Now, we are told that to seek knowledge apart from God is in every age evil. And this is what the modern state, as the ancient state seeks to do.

The whole goal of state planning and control is predestination without God; predestination by man. When we examine the history of thought, we see that as men rejected the predestination of all things by God, they went to the predestination of all things by nature. Then, with Darwinism, nature was shown to be as nothing but chance. Therefore they went to predestination by the State. It is not an accident that men like John Stewart Mills, who was a Libertarian earlier, with Darwinism, became a Socialist. Because the concept of nature that he felt provided for a plan in the world was not gone, and that plan—that control—had to be supplied by the State.

Marxism, of course, is much more logical than any other political philosophy, because given a disbelief in God; you have to say that State control is the only alternative. And this is why those who seek a Conservatism without Christianity are doomed! Theirs is an impotent, rootless philosophy.

The alternative to predestination is Chance. And a cosmos of total chance is an impossibility, it is contradicted by the obvious order of Creation. But men prefer to say there is chance because then every man can be his own god, and his own source of law and controls. For fallen man, there must be a new government, one which is on man’s shoulders, not Christ’s, and there must be man-made laws and a new non-Christian goal to history and a new man-made creation.

This is why, as one or two medical experts have pointed out with consternation, all the direction of research today is fallacious. There are very simple ways of dealing with problems of the heart rather than heart transplants. Heart transplants go against the immunity system of the body. In one area after another, artificial means are sought in order for man to recreate man. The purpose is to play god. This is the great temptation: to seek to be as God. To seek knowledge of the future apart from God which is a denial of God’s Law, which says man will create the future himself with his own plan, with his own anti-God Law.

We are given a way of knowing the future in the Word of God. In Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and many other passages we are told what happens if we do certain things. Curses and blessings, life and death; the wages of sin, says Paul, are death. That gives us knowledge concerning the future. It tells us that our culture must die. And it tells us that if there is to be any life in the future, we as Christians have to provide it, have to build for it. But men keep holding to a false philosophy and keep believing that somehow the wages of sin will prove to be life. And as a result, there’s a constant recourse to Humanistic forms of determination and knowledge.

Molech worship, as I said earlier, and necromancy are very closely linked and the Bible says so. In Deuteronomy 18:9-14, the two are very inseparable in God’s estimation. And we are told that God judged the Canaanite nations because they sought knowledge and determination apart from God. That’s the whole point of Deuteronomy 18:9-14. “14For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.” Their whole point to the Canaanite nations was to create another way of life. As Camus said in his key book, The Rebel, because God sets forth what is good, we must of necessity choose evil if we are going to be free. God judged the Canaanite nations. And the modern states which seek the same things shall also be judged. The law here thus condemns any and every form of attempt by men and nations to seek knowledge and determination apart from God—in contempt of God and His Law.

In the passage in Deuteronomy, God says He will raise up His Messiah, the Great Prophet, and all false prophets shall be condemned, because what they offer is a way of death, a way of life that leads ostensibly to paradise on Earth, but in reality, death. Now, the punishment of those who resort to such things is left to God. But those who are the pioneers, the innovators, the leaders in this kind of illicit knowledge, are we are told in verse 27, to be executed. Now this curdles most people, being Humanists, the horror of God having a death penalty for violation of His Law.

And of course, if you believe this sort of thing, if you believe certain offenses against God do deserve the death penalty, you are a monster. But of course, we’re not told about the monsters who daily are murdering Christians. The editor of the World Christian’s Encyclopedia, who collects the statistics on what’s happening to the Church the world over, Dr. David Barrett (I believe he is an Englishman, but I am not certain), has come up with figures of what is happening and has been happening in recent years. The confirmed deaths by murder, systematic murder, of Christians is an average of 330,000 a year; 330,000 a year! Now add that up since World War II and you see how many millions have died. And the press does not report them. Moreover, Dr. David Barrett’s figures are low, because he depends on what mission boards and Christian leaders can document. But what has happened behind the Iron Curtain, who knows? OR who was there in the Sudan when 100,000 or more Christians were killed? No one knows how many, so they by, playing safe, say 10-, 20-, 30,000. So they won’t’ be accused of exaggeration. But who accuses them, because no one will report even the minimal numbers! All over Africa the wholesale massacre of Christians, and all over the World. No—where God exacts a death penalty, it is a proof that our God is a monster. But where men do it, it is not even noteworthy. It is merely a policy of state, cleaning up on the environment, apparently.

Thus, we are in a day when we do face monstrous evil. And that evil indicts the Word of God and God and us, as though we were the evil. And that evil is determined that it will create the future, that it will give us the only true knowledge of the future. And that anyone who denies the validity of their premises is evil.

As one Orthodox Jewish commentator, Herman Cohen has said on this verse, “not to realize the vital necessity of these laws concerning witchcraft,” (and he’s wrong there, because these do not deal with witchcraft, and what the Bible means by witchcraft is “poisoner.”) “And the vital duty of its extirpation is to fall a victim to the superstition that witchcraft is merely harmless make-believe that did not call for any drastic punishment. At the bottom of this skeptical attitude toward the Law is indifference toward the unique value of monotheism. In a conflict of this nature, witchcraft versus monotheism, there can be no hesitancy or mutual tolerance of opposite points of view. It is a question of ‘To be or not to be’ for the ethical life.” As I indicated, Cohen’s use of the word witchcraft is wrong. Apart from that, his point is correct, that dabbling with the occult, trying to seek knowledge apart from God is dangerous to persons and to society. It also declares that God is a liar, that His Word is not the determining word.

The unpopularity of God’s Law and His Word is that it does not eliminate moral decisions and the necessity for work. But man’s word about determining the future, man’s fiat word is a substitute for morality and for work. Supposedly, through politics, through control, from Moscow or Washington, we are going to create the New World Order without the necessity for morality, and without the necessity for productive work, simply by management. Now that’s occultism. That is necromancy. It is that which is condemned, and it is precisely that evil which is condemning the world today to death. The Word of God requires remaking our lives, our thoughts, and our actions and this remaking is slow. It is painful, because it goes against the grain of our being, against our sin. And hence, it is not popular. How much simpler to do it by legislation, by changing the environment, and then supposedly men and the world will be good.

Isaiah dealt with this kind of thing in his own day, when men turned from God to seek other forms of knowledge and when men turned to the State to seek salvation. And he declared in Isaiah 28:13-16 that “13 But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. 14 Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. 15 Because ye have said, we have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: 16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” What Isaiah says is this: that the teaching that he gives, the Word of God is like vain babbling, or like childish memorization exercises; line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, and is despised because they are above that kind of superficial knowledge such as God provided. They have a higher wisdom. But they’re going to go and fall backward and be broken and be snared and taken, because they have made a covenant with death. And they are in agreement not with God but with Hell. So when the scourge passes through instead of being delivered, because they have made lies their refuge, and falsehood their covering, they shall be destroyed.

But, he says, he that believeth has a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation and the New Testament tells us this refers to Jesus Christ. And then, the great conclusion of Isaiah’s passage—“…he that believeth shall not make haste.” “He that believeth shall not make haste.” Man’s attempt to bypass morality and work in creating a humanistic paradise represents haste, the attempt apart from God to recapture Eden. The believer shall not make haste. Although God created the Heaven and the Earth in the space of six days, man cannot do so. Only by the slow, patient obedience of faith can man reestablish God’s reign.

Now, to pursue knowledge and power outside of God is described in scripture as to go a whoring, or to prostitute oneself. “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

A recent full-length study by Dr. Warmbrand documents at great length the association of marks and angles with occultism. And what he demonstrates clearly from their own words is not that they did not believe in God, but that they refused to follow Him and chose Satan as their angel of light. And apparently, Marx wrote a great deal on the subject of occultism which is not published. And on inquiry, Moscow has indicated they have no desire to publish those works. And yet, the early leaders of Marxism, such as Lenin and others were after Marx in the same kind of thing and he documents that. Those who seek knowledge and determination apart from God, and apart from His Law, the Law compares to male and female prostitutes. In the realm of the mind, it is comparable to prostitution in the realm of the body.

Now, it is an interesting fact that the judgment on such persons and nations was seen by the ancient rabbis centuries and centuries ago and is written in the Targum of Jonathan as destruction by pestilence and plague. That when an {?} goes after knowledge and determination apart from God, that culture goes down with pestilence or plague. The knowledge and power sought outside of God is profane. For modern man the only valid knowledge and power is profane of necessity, because its essential character for him must be its imagined independence from God. But to declare our independence from God, however we disguise it is a form of total warfare against God. And all such efforts are futile and suicidal. Men cannot wage a successful war against God. They are suicidal when they attempt it. As our God declares in His word, “All they that hate me love death.”

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that in these troubled times, we have the assurance that Thou who art on the throne of all creation art mindful of us, will accomplish Thy purpose in and through these workers of iniquity, that even the wrath of the ungodly shall praise Thee and work for Thy glory, and that all things work together for good, for them who are the called—the called according to Thy purpose. Make us strong, therefor in hope and confident that in the Day of Judgment we may stand as the people of the future, and as the conquerors in Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes

[Audience] I have two comments. One is that twenty years ago, most large corporations had planning departments. They cut them back drastically because the plans didn’t work out. And now they call it planning and acquisitions because acquisitions are the number one {?}

The second thought is that it seems to me the modern wizards—people think of wizards as somebody with pointed caps and stars on their capes and all that—the modern wizard is the specialist: the social scientist the physical scientist, the economist, experts of various sort whose expertise is totally divorced from morality, and who pretend to be able to solve all problems. Ann Landers, no matter who writes in, has got only one answer: go to the therapist.

[Rushdoony] [chuckles] Yes. That’s very, very true. An excellent point. The specialist is the new wizards. You ought to write on that some time because that’s exactly what they are, and with the high percentage of fraud in all their research, it’s appalling that people keep going back to them.

Recently it was shown that (and was in the papers this past week) that in one area medication has been provided for several years on the basis of a fraudulent experiment by a man who made himself famous overnight with his fraudulent research. Now although it has been shown that a very high percentage of scientific research is fraudulent, and in one science digest study of a few years ago, the, it, the percentage was over 50% of experiments investigated were proven to be fallacious. And with the others, they didn’t get any data provided them to say whether or not they were fraudulent. With all of that, people keep looking to science, to the modern wizards as though they had some kind of truth and salvation to offer us.

Any other comments or questions?

Yes.

[Audience] As a young person contemplating a college education, based on what you said, there’s no really redeeming factor in that, unless perhaps there could be a sorting out of what’s offered on the college campus—what is a cult from what is neutral, and what they mean {?} ultimately beneficial. How are young persons to approach the whole question of college do you feel?

[Rushdoony] That’s a very difficult question to answer. What are we going to do about college education? We’ve provided an answer since World War II and Christian Grade and High Schools. Now we have to move into the college field. We have a great many church-related colleges which are not Christian. The overwhelming majority are really anti-Christian. Very often if there is no Christian school close by or one that can, that is affordable, the best thing that can be done is to send them to a school close at hand so that the young person can stay at home and be under the home influence that much longer; especially the first two years of college. In a, ah, all your major schools, the teaching you get is worthless. Let us say at a major university the lower division courses will be given very often to teaching assistants and instructors who have very little interest in it and a bored by it and the classes will be as many as 1,000 to a course. And the learning is very poor. There’s no point in paying for that sort of thing if you can get it closer at home or more cheaply. Then, if you give the child a good grounding in their youth they can grow in terms of it as they face these challenges. It’s not an easy thing going through a modern university today, but for professional reasons, it’s often necessary.

[Audience] I {?} believe if you were to assemble a college curriculum, Dr. Rushdoony, what would you put in it? You yourself were to put one together, where would you start?

[Rushdoony] That’s a question that would take a week to answer! But…

[Audience] Which one of your writings would you include in it?

[Rushdoony] [chuckles] I would say that in the building of a Christian College curriculum, the important thing to stress in an orientation course which would be, let us say, comparable to, and include what is usually taught in the basic course of Western Civilization which is most commonly required, is that Christian contribution to civilization and the Christian sense of vocation that has made that civilization, so that the student can see himself in terms of a calling, a vocation—so that it’s not simply ‘where can I make money?’ but ‘where do I have a calling under God? Where can I serve Him best with my aptitudes?’ Because, it’s a… pointless to throw a lot of knowledge at the student without giving him a focus. And that focus has to be the kingdom of God and his place in that kingdom, his calling in terms of it. That has to be basic.

Now, if you’ll give me a few million, we’ll start on that job!

Yes.

[Audience] Um, [clears throat] I appreciate what you had to say this morning about Molech worship and the moral sins, and it’s beginning to answer a question that I was formulating, is, why is so often in scripture is idolatry and fornication and adultery linked together in the same verse such as in Acts 15:20 where it says, “…abstain from things contaminated by idols, and from fornication…”

[Rushdoony] Yes…

[Audience] …and I Corinthians 6:9 when it says, “… be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers…” and the idolatry seems to be, be put in between…

[Rushdoony] …yes

[Audience] …in amongst the, the immoral sins

[Rushdoony] …and by the prophets! Yes, by the prophets as well.

First of all, the idolatry they were familiar with was Baal worship. Baal means ‘lord’. Molech worship, king worship was a form of Baal worship. So it was often a combination of nature worship and state worship, or sometimes basically nature worship, but more commonly it was the state. The Baal was a lord. In fact the word ‘Baal’ could also be used at times for a husband, because he was the lord of the household. That’s the meaning of ‘Baal.’

Now, I indicated early that Camus had said that since God set forth what was evil, to be independent of God, to be free, one had to choose what God called good, not that but the reverse, just the opposite of God. Well, Romans 1 tells us that the things visible and invisible of God’s creation, and of God, are known to all men, but they hold these truths in righteousness; or they “hold back,” literally, in the Greek. They suppress them. They don’t want to admit what they know. So if they reject God and they suppress that knowledge, they go to the other extreme. That’s why, in Baal worship, in all its various forms, all kinds of things prevailed. You went to the temple, and you might be in a temple where ritual prostitution was practiced, male and female, and to worship you participated. Or bestiality was required—any number of practices.

Well, this means very clearly that when you reject God you choose a different morality, an anti-God morality. And this is consistently done. The sexual revolution is an evidence of that. It was Humanism, it was an anti-God faith saying we’re going to despise and reject this bourgeois morality of the Christians. So whenever there is a rejection of God, there is another morality. So idolatry and all these sexual offenses go together. And they go together in a fanatic kind of way.

A while back, I read in a magazine, a statement by someone who had briefly participated in a satanic cult and he left it, not because he’d turned moral, but because he said he was fed up with so much compulsive fornication. It just wore him out! He didn’t like it! And that’s basic to it. They were doing it because they had to show their hatred of God.

Well, our time is just about up. Let us conclude now with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, it has been good for us to be here. Thy Word is truth and Thy Word alone gives light unto our way. We thank Thee that by Thy Spirit we have been made Thy people, that through the atonement of Christ, we are a new creation. Give us grace to walk in that newness of life and to bring all things into captivity to Christ, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. 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.