Numbers: Faith, Law, and History
The Star Out of Jacob, Part 2
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Pentateuch
Lesson: The Star Out of Jacob, Part 2
Genre:
Track: 46
Dictation Name: RR181Y46
Location/Venue:
Year:
Let us worship God. Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass which the Lord hath made known unto us. For unto us a child is born and unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. Let us pray.
All glory be to thee, God the Father Almighty, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, who has called us to become the children of the most high. Members of thy kingdom, instruments in thy holy purpose. Give us grace therefore, Father, to rejoice in thee and in thy calling, and the certainty of our victory and our hope in Christ, and the blessed assurance that thou art every with us, that thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say “The Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” Great and marvelous are thy ways, O Lord, and we thank thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.
Our scripture is from Numbers 24:15-19. The subject: The Star Out of Jacob. This is a text we dealt with in part earlier in the month, and we are returning to it now because of its relevance as a prophesy of the birth and the coming of our Lord. Numbers 24:15-19. “And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: he hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.”
These verses are important as a prophesy of the coming of Christ the king. They are very closely related to Genesis 3:15 where the evil one is told, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.” These words tell us first, that the woman’s seed shall, in due time, come; the great deliverer, Jesus Christ. He shall bruise, or better, crush, the enemy’s head, and all that the enemy can do is to crush his heel. Christ’s crucifixion was this bruising, but His atoning death, His resurrection, His triumph through His kingdom and people, and His triumphal judgment at the end of history shall crush Satan’s power forever.
Second, we are told that there is enmity between God and His enemies, and between us and the enemies of Christ. People resent any reference to such an enmity. They insist on equating good religion with living at peace with all kinds of men and evils. Yesterday, Ron and Leisha Meyers who were here, told us that the graffiti in Concord, California after the recent defeat again of the homosexuals is “Kill Christians,” and we’re supposed to love such people? Enemies of God and man? Enemies of life? For me, one of the most disgusting events of 1991 has been the many protests received by people on our mailing list and by people not on our mailing list, over John Lofton’s article, in which, in witnessing to an unbelieving waitress, he made her cry. This made him a monster to many, because he made her cry. Now how can you confront people with their sins and the sin of unbelief without arousing anger, tear, resentment, or repentance? Now one such letter came from a minister, and I really ticked him off and cut him off the mailing list. How can he be a minister dealing with people who are in sin without confronting them with the fact of what they’re doing, and sometimes they cry in self-pity, or in repentance. I have made some people cry for their own good, and deeply angered others, by telling them they are sinners, enemies of God, whatever else they may think. This can lead to conversion, or to resentment and self-pity. Too many people equate religion, good religion, with being nice to everybody. This is evil. If we want peace with all men, we cannot have peace with God, and what Balaam prophesies is enmity. What God prophesies in Genesis 3:15 prophesies is enmity.
At the time of this prophesy, Edom or Seir and Moab stood out as enemies of God, and God’s purposes. Their future, verses 17-19, is to be crushed by God’s Messiah, the Star or King, carrying this scepter of world dominion. We are told, “He shall destroy Him that remaineth of the city.” That’s hard for us to understand. For us, the city has become a center of crime and corruption, and the enemies of the city are those within its boundaries. At one time, with walled cities, every city was regarded as a place of safety and refuge. To be in a city was to be in peace. This statement tells us that there is no hiding place from God the Son, not in the safest city. No man can escape from the triune God, and David’s words in Psalm 139:7-12, “Wither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.” There are no safe places from God. No hiding place in all the world, or in our own minds and hearts, from Him.
This prophesy of Christ’s coming calls sharp attention to both the fact of enmity, but also Christ’s assured victory. He shall destroy all the children, or sons of Sheth, that is, the sons of Tumult.
Then third, there is also this fact, all necessary, because He is the great king, the king of righteousness or justice. He holds the scepter of world dominion. We are told in Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion also from sea to shining sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” St. Paul speaks of Christ as the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in 1 Timothy 6:15. The word “only” in Paul’s statement is a translation of the Greek “monos,” an adjective often used to describe God. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:24-27, that before Christ’s return at the end of history, He through His people shall put down all rule and authority outside of him, “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” Then, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” We are told in Proverbs 8:36, that “All they that hate love, love death.” It is ironic that Sigmund Freud held that the will to death is far stronger than the will to life. He was accurately describing fallen men.
Now, this is closely related to our Lord’s birth. According to Matthew 2:1-3, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” Well, we should expect a seasoned reprobate like Herod to be troubled, but not a city of priests and a vast multitude of Jews who prided themselves on being God’s chosen people, and looking for the coming of the messiah. The word translated as “troubled” can also be rendered as “agitated or alarmed.” It’s a strong word. It was one thing to worship a god they saw as a far-off god, a far-off messiah, another to have him entering into one’s territory. They all wanted Him dead. Herod’s subsequent slaughter of all the children in Bethlehem and that area, two years old and under, aroused no protest from the leaders of the people. They all knew, from Herod on down, that the messiah would be a great king, the holder of all dominion and this they all found intolerable. He would be moving in on their territory.
Their attitude, as our Lord describes it in a parable, was simply this: “We will not have this man to reign over us.” This too is the attitude of many churchmen. But they could not stop His coming nor His kingdom. Century after century, the ungodly have raged against Christ and His people, but His kingdom goes marching on, and His enemies perish.
Meanwhile, Paul reminds us in Romans 16:20 or the promise in Genesis 3:15, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” Christ is come. Therefore, Paul assures us, certain things follow. First, Paul describes God as the God of peace. In Genesis 3:15, an irreconcilable enmity and a conflict are described between the two humanities, the two camps, Christ and the fallen man. Peace is not to come through surrender but through Christ’s victory. Now, a lot has been made of the Hebrew word “peace” in recent years, and it’s been bandied about even by unbelievers; hippies and the like. Shalom. It does mean peace, but the implication of the word is never mentioned. Peace how? Through restitution. That’s what it means. So when Christ declared himself to be the Prince of Peace it was because He makes restitution for us with the Almighty. That’s the meaning of peace. The God of peace shall bruise, crush Satan under your feet. You see? In our terms, you’ve got to have peace between everybody, and between God and Satan really. In fact, one theologian in this generation has gone so far as to say, “The final salvation will be of Satan.” Now, that’s like Buddhism, where the goddess of peace is standing at the door to heaven, and will not go in until every last soul is saved. But no, the God of peace, of restitution, shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
Second, we’ve mentioned God as the God of peace. Our God will crush or destroy Satan under our feet, as against Rome and all the powers of Paul’s day and ours, Christ shall triumph in and through us. We’ve been called to victory.
The word “shortly” then third, is in the Greek, a word which means “quickly,” and this has puzzled many. They can only see a long, continuous battle. Goday’s commentary, which analyzes as length the Greek word, “swiftly, but not soon,” says, “Paul means, therefore, not that the victory will be near, but that it will be speedily gained, once the conflict is begun. When the believer fights with the armor of God, the conflict is never long. Victory will result from two factors: the one divine, God shall bruise, the other human, under your feet. God communicates strength, but it passes through the man who accepts and uses it.” That’s how victory will come; swiftly. Wherever and whenever we apply it, and I think that’s why, I’ll mention again, I’m so totally delighted with the book we’ve just put out, The Great Christian Revolution, because that tells us how victory can come swiftly, and why we must continue to work to allow that victory, the power of God, to pass through us, and gain that victory until the total victory is accomplished. In other words, to gain this victory, we must wage the war. Too many want victory without war, as though eloquence, patriotic or religion gush ever overcame an enemy.
The fourth, we have Paul’s benediction, after having spoken of the God of Peace bruising Satan, under our feet. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” With the addition of the word “all,” this benediction is repeated a few sentences later in Romans 16:24. Now Paul is usually cryptic and never wordy, so this repetition is surprising, but the implication is clear. To crush Satan under our feet, to destroy the power of Christ’s enemies in every age, we need a total reliance on the grace of our Lord. Hence, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” After all, we are not the king, the Star of Jacob, nor do we hold the scepter of world dominion. We cannot fight alone. The birth of our Lord is our assurance that we are not alone. He is Emmanuel, God with Us, and in his grace in faithfulness to His commandments, we are strong. Then alone, we shall do valiantly and crush the power of God’s enemies. Let us pray.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, how great and marvelous are thy promises to us. We thank thee that we are thine instruments in this great victory, and that thou hast called us to be a party to the great restitution of all things in thy peace. Make us joyful, therefore, in this blessed season and always, knowing that, in Christ Jesus, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. In His name we pray. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?
[Audience] Most of those who use the word “peace” really mean surrender.
[Rushdoony] Yes. Very good point. Yes, they mean surrender, and what God means by it is restitution, the restitution of all things, a new order. Our meaning perverts it, and one of the worst things of our time has been the hippy use of the word shalom. It has been cheapened by them and made into something irrelevant. Any other questions or comments? Yes?
[Audience] Could you speak more of this book, The Great Christian Revolution?
[Rushdoony] The Great Christian Revolution was written by Otto Scott, Mark, myself, John Lofton, and Martin Selbrede, and what it deals with is the tremendous revolution that Calvinism brought, and how a surrender of that faith, the biblical faith, has led to defeat, and how that faith alone can bring victory. The people who’ve already read it, because it’s just been announced as published for two or three weeks, are calling long distance to express their excitement with the book. Any other questions or comments?
One of the things that I recall vividly, this happened almost fifty years ago, at a church near Columbia University, a pastor who was an older man and whose thinking was solidly reformed, preached a Christmas sermon in which he spoke of Christ’s victory, I don’t recall the text he used, but it was one of the prophetic texts about His coming, and that it would mean judgment, and that it would mean judgment upon the ungodly and that we would face either the devastation and the horrors of the ungodly in the days ahead, or we would work for the victory and the judgment of Christ, and apparently a lot of students and professors attended this service because there was quite a musical concert that accompanied it. It was, as I recall, Christmas Eve or Christmas Sunday, I’m fuzzy now on that, and there was a great hew and cry of outrage because he spoke of judgment, and his retirement was apparently speeded by that incident. People were shaking with rage, I was told, as they confronted him after the service. Now when that happened World War 2 had already begun, and they could not face up to the fact that God could be involved in judgment. It’s no wonder we’ve had problems since then. yes?
[Audience] in Exodus 28 . . .
[Rushdoony] Could you speak up?
[Audience] Oh, I’m sorry, in Exodus 28 . . .
[Rushdoony] Exodus 28?
[Audience] Yes. Verse 29, excuse me, verse 30, what is an Urim and Thummim? I looked it up in the biblical dictionary and it said that the two words were a mystery. That no one knows.
[Rushdoony] That’s right. The Urim and Thummim disappeared before the coming of our Lord, during the captivity apparently. But at any rate, whatever they represented, we don’t know, but when Aaron went before the Lord, it says, “He shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually.” In other words, whenever he went into the holy place in the Holy of Holies, this symbolized that he was there not only to make peace with God for those who sought atonement, but also the judgment would go out from the Lord to an ungodly people. So, it’s related to what we’ve been talking about. So, the idea that our Lord and God mean only peace, is nonsense. When the angels sang, “Peace on earth,” they were saying “peace” in the sense of restitution, restoration. Then there will be goodwill among men. Yes?
[Audience] You mentioned something about the homosexual graffiti, and I was thinking about this homosexual problem, and a question that I’ve had for awhile is, I realize it’s necessary to pass laws against these people, but laws in and of themselves is not going to totally solve the problem. What are the steps that Christians must take to get down to the very root of this and totally abolish it?
[Rushdoony] Well, first of all, we have to restore the biblical family, the Christian school, the home school, and create a culture that is productive of godliness, and what Paul tells us in Romans 1 where it speaks of them burning, one after another, in lust, the homosexual, the word is “burning out,” literally, in the Greek. So what homosexuality represents is the burning out of people and of a culture. It becomes prevalent because a culture is dying, and the culture of humanism is dying. We are in its last days.
Our next Journal will deal with the decline of the West and the return of Christendom, and it will begin with an article by Otto Scott on how the West, which is a de-Christianized, humanistic culture, is collapsing all around us. We can speak of it in its death throes. It has been a culture that has bypassed Christianity in adoration of the culture of Antiquity, Greece and Rome in particular, a paganism, and it has reproduced all the evils thereof. So, we have to revive Christianity, and then we will see a change. Ideas have consequences, and because we have incarnated the ideas of pagan Antiquity in our schools, from the earliest grades on up, we’re getting the same fruits as pagan Antiquity. Well, if there are no further questions or comments, let us conclude with prayer.
Our God and our Father, we rejoice in thy government. We thank thee that thou art mindful of us, that we are never alone, that thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, and so in this joyful season, we give thanks unto thee for the assurance of thy grace, thy peace, thy mercy unto us, and of our victory in and through 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.
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