Deuteronomy

Kingdom Support

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 57-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 057

Dictation Name: RR187AE57

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Seek ye the Lord where He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return onto the Lord and H will have mercy upon Him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy mercies. For Thy providential care and for Thy judgments. We thank Thee that with Thy judgments Thou dost cleans the world, Thou dost prepare the way for Thy people to prevail and to be more than conquerors. Give us grace therefore to receive all things as from Thy hand. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is Deuteronomy 18:1-8 and our subject: Kingdom Support. Deuteronomy 18:1-8.

“The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance.

2 Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them.

3 And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.

4 The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him.

5 For the Lord thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of theLord, him and his sons for ever.

6 And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the Lord shall choose;

7 Then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, which stand there before the Lord.

8 They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony.”

This text deals with the support of God’s priests and the Levites his clerisy. In my student days I was told that the primitive conditions of Hebrew tribal life meant that salaries were paid in kinds, in grain, meat and drink and hence the reason for such payments for the priests and Levites. But this is an absurd statement. Why then was the civil tax paid with half a shekel? A weight of precious metal. Why was civil rule provided for thus and religious worship and instructions provided for differently. These were the kinds of questions we need to ask. But before doing so we need to understand that in Israel the priests and Levites had a key position in the covenant nation. First God’s representatives in the worship and instruction which were basic to covenant life had the most important part in national life. They were the life support system of the covenant people. Apart from the covenant Israel was like all other nations, under judgment and sentenced to death. The life of the covenant people required the support of the covenant and its human spokesman. In this respect the priests and Levites were types of Christs. Second, they were therefore entitled to physical support, they were to be given meat, grain, oil, wine and wool since the priests and the Levites provided the religious necessities, they were to be given life’s necessities. Their income was not limited to such things but these were basic. Worship and instruction were thus seen as necessities. Third in verses six through eight we are told that all Levites however isolated and rural their locations had the same privileges as all others serving at the central sanctuary. Well our question now is answered. God’s priests and clerisy, His scholars were provided in kind, they could insist on it. They could be paid in other ways but they could insist on payment in kind. Now what does this mean? Well the state could idolatrate [sp?] weights and measures, it would pay a price then, it would be destructive of it.

Monetary weight or unit was idolatrated by the state, God insisted that His clergy and clerisy be provided for in kind in the face of all these things. Their services were essential to life, according to God and in a special way. Proverbs 29:18 tells us ‘where there is no vision the people perish but he that keepeth the law happy is he’. Very literally this verse tells us ‘where there is no teaching of God’s revelation, that’s what vision means. The people run naked. The reference in verse one to no inheritance for the priests and Levites meant that in the division of the land the tribe of Levi could receive no portion of Canaan as a tribal domain. They could however own property in the various tribes but their income was to come from serving the Lord. Their essential inheritance was not territorial but religious, the duty of serving God. Their pay, their revenue is primarily food because their calling is to provide the religious and intellectual life in its truest sense possible. Now since they were provided with things in kind they could also sell these things. So that they were able to convert it readily into whatever they chose. In verses six through eight it is clearly stated that there must be a common support, an equal support for those in the country as in the city. The covenant faith has an equal necessity in every area. Verse eight reads and this is a very important verse which has been totally neglected in our time: “They shall have like portions to eat besides that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony.” The reference to patrimony means an inheritance from one’s family.

In a variety of ways it was possible for a priest or Levite to accumulate assets. No such assets could be used to diminish his income. So that if a man was a priest or a Levitical scholar and he had an income from his families inheritance that was equal to or far greater than his due salary his pay could not be diminished. It had to be the same no matter what his family inheritance. Now this is important because it is in direct contradiction of the modern practice of overtaxing the successful and the rich. Every man has to receive his due salary no matter how independently wealthy he might be. To dishonor God’s faithful clergy and clerisy is to dishonor God because they are his representatives and servants. The support of the clergy and clerisy depended on the faith of the people. A people lax in their faith would neglect to support the clergy and clerisy and a religious decline would follow. According to Numbers 25:7 the Levites instead of an area of Canaan received forty eight cities and their suburbs. This certainly meant an important possession but it was not worth much if the covenant people failed to support them. The support of God’s clergy and clerisy is the duty of God’s covenant people. In times of faith when the people tithed faithfully both worship and instruction would be very well provided for and God’s servants would be well off. In times of apostasy they would be in need. This fact should be an encouragement to sound preaching and teaching so that God’s will might be done. The mission of the clergy and clerisy is to the world. It is therefore a serious offense for a church to see its ministry in local terms only. This text is echoed in our Lord’s charge to the disciples when he sent them out to preach to Judea in Matthew 10:1-42. In particular in verses 9 and 10 he said ‘provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purposes nor script for your journey neither two cloaks, neither shoes nor yet staves for the work man is worthy of his meat’. The support was to come from those served, our Lord is clearly citing our text.

It is moreover to be the first fruits when they give. For God requires to give priority to His work above our own. It is accordingly a law that the true tithe is paid before anything else because God has priority over us. Well as we have seen in a time of faithfulness God’s clergy and clerisy can prosper greatly. The work they do as well as they personally can be generously funded whereas in times of unbelief or laxity they would be poor. There should be no envy for their prosperity nor disdain for their poverty. Calvin in his sermon on this text said that all should apply to themselves the fact that God is our true and best inheritance. Christ has advanced us to the dignities of sons and daughters of God by the adoption of grace. He said for we be linked to our Lord Jesus Christ that He might dedicate us to God our Father. Ours is thus a duty to serve and praise God. This text was given to us, Calvin said, in the time of figures or types. Its meaning in addition to the obvious obligation to support God’s servants is to see the necessity of serving the Lord also with all our heart, mind and being. It is God’s kingdom we are to support and it is therefore ours also. This text therefore is a rich one. It is a warrant for condemning our modern tax structure. For condemning the envy that governs our age because no man’s patrimony can be held against him, it cannot be considered in any plan by church or state. Let us pray.

Our Father we thank Thee for this Thy word. Thy word is truth and Thy word speaks to our every condition. We pray our Father that by Thy grace we may see Thy church turn again to Thy word and by Thy word and spirit become more than conquerors in the face of the tyrannies of our time. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] Actually, to tax the rich is a very good case illustration of envy because they want to limit the road to success because of their mad dash for power.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, there is an aspect of God’s law very strongly stated again and again about which I plan to write, which is very much disregarded in our time. One man has spoken about it and he’s probably going to lose his position at the law school where he touches. It is the simple statement over and over again in the law that the sins of the fathers cannot be placed upon the children. Well, this is basic to our time. And what this man did was to point out that the current attitude towards civil rights meant that because of what happened a hundred and two hundred years ago the white population must pay a .price. They didn’t do it and neither were the blacks of our day the ones who suffered. And as he has pointed out, this kind of thinking has been applied in one sphere after another to create entitlements that are totally immoral and as a result we have an evil situation in our society. I think of course this man who is a Reconstructionist and on our mailing list and has been here to visit us is paying a price for his application of a basic biblical premise to our time. Because we are charging the people of our time with the sins of the past and of course those sins are wildly exaggerated so this is a good text to throw at these peoples, the sins of the fathers cannot be imputed to their children nor their children’s childrens or the generations to come. Yes?

[Question] Within the past year someone I know has been charged of a crime unfairly and he may very well go to jail for something he didn’t do. The interesting thing about this person is that he hates God’s law, he’s taken a position that God’s law doesn’t apply to the Christians and you know, even though I hate to see this thing happen to him in all respects he doesn’t want God’s law and now he’s getting a taste of humanistic law and their fairness…[becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] One of things that’s being done today is that the supposed sometimes real and very often fictitious environmental crimes of the past are being charged to present day corporations, especially in the lumber industry. And yet no one is ready to say what the truth of the matter is, the sad fact is there was just a convention of all these environmental groups with a hundred and fifty big corporation foundations who were there to fund them as though they had sinned. All they had done was to help advance this country and now they’re acting as though as sinners they’ve got to pay off these peoples.

[Question] On the environmental score nuclear is the only non-polluting energy source and by opposing nuclear the enviromentalists are forcing us to use polluting energy sources.

[Rushdoony] Peter Beckman wrote a book The Health Hazard of Not Going Nuclear which was an excellent statement. Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us close with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee for Thy word and we pray that Thou wouldst recall Thy church throughout the world to Thy word so that Thy people may be again able to contend with the powers of darkness. That they may become more than conquerors through Christ. Oh Lord our God grant that Thy word in all its power and purity resound from the pulpits of this country and the nations. 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.