Deuteronomy

History and Liturgy

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 96-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 96

Dictation Name: RR187AZ96

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto Thy name oh most High, to show forth Thy loving kindness in the morning and Thy faithfulness every night. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we come to Thee mindful of Thy providential care. Without Thee oh Lord we are nothing. We so readily like sheep go astray, but Thy grace has made us whole. Thy grace has redeemed us and given us a glorious future in Jesus Christ. We come therefore to cast our every care upon Thee knowing Thou carest for us. Oh Lord our Lord how great Thou art and we praise Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 26:1-11. Our subject is History and Liturgy. Deuteronomy 26:1-11.

“And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein;

2 That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there.

3 And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lords ware unto our fathers for to give us.

4 And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God.

5 And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:

6 And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage:

7 And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression:

8 And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders:

9 And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.

10 And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God:

11 And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you.”

We again have a text which stresses history and memory. In this case to prompt the covenant people to thanksgiving they are to remember with gifts of their first fruits God’s deliverance of them from Egypt. Pride however in their past was not encouraged. It is not their supposedly glorious past that they are to recall but God’s mercy and salvation. This is a very important point. If we were to write a history of the founding of this country from a Christian perspective we would recount long forgotten tales of miraculous deliverance. A French fleet that would have wiped out New England destroyed by an unexpected summer storm, many, many more such incidents. On bringing their first fruits a statement must be made not calling attention to any greatness in Israel but to their humble origin. They must say Assyrian or a wandering Aremian was my father, he went into Egypt, was enslaved there, and yet by God’s grace became a great people. The reference is to Jacob, renamed Israel by God. Israel means a prince with God. Jacob became a royal man in God’s kingdom by God’s grace. The contrast is an emphatic one, a wandering nomad becomes a prince and his family a nation. Jacob’s mother, Rebecca, was from Aram Naharaim. Jacob was a wandering Aramian therefore, ready to perish. The Hebrew word for perish is applied to animals straying or lost. Jacob was like a straying or lost man but God by His grace gave Jacob a future. The emphasis of this text is that thanksgiving when truly experienced is an expression of our realization that we are what God’s mercy makes of us. The clearest expression of this comes from Paul in First Corinthians 4:7:

“ For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it”

In other words what we are, what our aptitudes, abilities, appearances are, are not of our making. They are God’s gift to us. At the heart of the biblically mandated thanksgiving is this humility. David Pain’s comment on this is very good when he says the worshipper is summoned to be, and this is his phrase, intelligently grateful. He is to know the mercy and grace of God and to be grateful knowing what he has received. It is absurd to pass over this fact as is often done. The ritual requires understanding, it summons us to be intelligently grateful. Too many of us are ready to stop at being intelligent. This means an awareness of what we are and who God is. The worshipper must confess himself to be a straying or lost person apart from the Lord. Another important aspect of this designation, a wandering Armanian, it also meant someone who had lost his citizenship and had not acquired a new one. A wandering Aramanian was my father. He was no longer connected with the world that he grew up but he was no longer a part of a new creation, not yet. Now this confession is historical, not spiritual. It does not say ‘I thank Thee Lord for saving my soul’, there’s a place for that but not here. Its focus is on God’s covenant, the gift of the land and the necessity for a practical gratitude. Words of gratitude, of thanks, are required but they must also be accompanied by the first fruits, a sampling of the first fruits of the harvest. This signifies the priority of God’s claims to our work over our own claims.

This text describes a liturgy. The stress in this liturgy is ion gratitude but the liturgy also emphasizes that God’s gift of the land, Canaan, gives freedom. Freedom has two aspects. If the Son make us free we are free indeed but freedom is also land based and that’s why when God delivered his people from slavery He gave them land but He gave it to the next generation, the generation that was spiritually free. Freedom is land based but it is essentially covenantal and faith based, faith governed. Freedom requires a memory of God’s covenantal grace and His deliverance of His people, worship requires a sense of history. Antinomianism is also anti-historical. By denying God’s law denies the relevance of God’s grace to the historical process. Verse eleven commands rejoicing:

“And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you.”

Enjoy, this is the required response. God commands His people to enjoy the bounty of His promised land. Pleasure in things material which God has given us is a duty! Biblical faith is anti-aesthetic. If you enjoy the good things of life that God has given you you are doing your duty. Enjoy them in the Lord. This rejoicing is to include the Levite and the stranger that is among you. The first thanksgiving in America was marked by the inclusion of the Indians in terms of this law. They were the strangers. In First Corinthians 15:20 we are told:

“ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.”

The first fruits thus typify the harvest of the new creation which begins with Christ’s resurrection. We are all thus among the continuing first fruits of the kingdom of God. We are summoned to increase that great harvest by our service to the King.

Then too, the liturgy of thanksgiving is one in which the believers said that the gifts in his hand which he brought had been placed in his hand by the providence of God. At the same time we should recall our past with gratitude for His providence. Remembering all our yesterdays and God’s guidance, His prospering hand and how He makes all things, the very worst, work together for good for them that love Him, for the called according to His purpose. The first fruits were the proof that they were in possession of the land which God had promised and so this was a practical confession that they had been blessed by God. It is illegitimate to spiritualize this liturgy; we are not created as angels but as men, out of the earth. We eat, we sleep, we are creatures of the earth. Spiritualized religion is not biblical. We bring the first fruits, we recognize that we are of this earth, earthy, but by God’s grace we shall be of the new creation with the resurrection body, eternally. Moreover, spiritualized religion is not interested in history. Its focus is essentially personal. Most of paganism is concerned with what’s in it for me so that you become in one or another of these pagan religions a worshiper, although they don’t truly worship, they buy an insurance policy in effect when they go to the sanctuary, and all they think about is themselves. Biblical faith stresses the covenant people, the work of God, history and memory, whereas spiritual religion abandons these things and is only interested in itself.

The law of God stresses the importance of history as do the history books of the Bible, the prophets, the gospels, acts and the epistles and Revelation is a long declaration of history’s meaning. No religion except for those that are imitations of Christianity has ever concerned itself with history, not for a moment. Because they do not see the kingdom of God, they only see themselves. So pagan liturgies have routinely been non-historical whereas the brief portions of Hebrew liturgy in the Bible is inseparable from God’s work in history. History can never be governed by men who abandon it. Humanism today is nearing collapse because its sees the end of history, history giving way to the beehive and the anthill, it is losing control of its future and its history. Spiritual religionists have abandoned history and the world is now in the hands of mindless zombies. This is why we Christians have a great responsibility in Christ. To bring all things into captivity to Him, to remember the promise of the first commission given to Joshua, the Old Testament form of the name we have in the New Testament as Jesus. To move forward boldly and where so ever thy foot shall trod that land I will give thee. And go ye therefore unto all nations, discipling them, teaching them all things that I have commanded you. This is not an abandonment of history. Our bible is a program for the conquest of history through the power of Christ. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us to victory. Thou hast called us to the fullness of life in Thee. Thou hast taught us to rejoice in the good things we have and to give our lives and all that we have into Thy service to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Bless us oh Lord in Thy service and give us joy therein. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] In view of verse eleven in the ongoing controversy regarding so called illegal immigration what should our viewpoint be?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the statistics released just this past week and not publicized indicate that perhaps twenty eight percent of all men in federal prisons, and this doesn’t count all other kinds, are illegal aliens. These people are but a small part of a vast number of criminal peoples who are coming into this country. Now our immigration laws are fairly lax, they do make possible a great deal of immigration, especially from some of these places where most of these illegal aliens come from. But a high percentage of the illegal aliens know that they would not be eligible because of their criminal background. And we’ve only touched a small part of the illegal aliens who are in this country. Now, a great many people are trying to downplay this aspect but it is there, it’s very real. We have no figures as to the number of illegal aliens in state, county and city prisons. Every indication is that it is high. So, when we have immigration laws that are quite lax, which are ready to allow people of good character in this country, we have a right to say people who are lawless in their country have no place in our country.

Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question] As a matter of reality, technology is eliminating boundaries; it’s virtually eliminated county boundaries, state boundaries and national boundaries. We are inexorably moving into this boundary-less world and if we take this passage literally then anyone who comes here is a stranger. Now we can differentiate their motives, whether they came here, if they were criminals when they came here, but I don’t think that’s the case a hundred percent, I’m not advocating the elimination of restrictions but this year, the state of California is going to have twice as large a deficit somewhere around, they are admitting to twenty five billion and it could go as high as thirty billion which is double what it was last year. So it’s going back a pretty rapid rate, how do we view the legitimate stranger that comes into our midst in view of that, I mean, should we going into debt to accommodate the, even the legal alien that comes here and asks for government services.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s a very good question, the technological boundaries, you’re right, are disappearing. But the cultural boundaries are sharpening. The differences are becoming greater than ever before. Earlier in this century, the first half, you could say that the effective Christendom was worldwide. In other words, the moral standards that Catholic and Protestant countries required were more or less in force on every continent. That has broken up! So that there has been a sharpening of the cultural differences. This means that the clash of peoples has been greater in the second half of this century than ever before, for a long, long time. Because you have the open profession all over the world of very fearful ways of life.

Anti-Christian, thoroughly pagan, you have [unknown], but all the same very real as Gordon Thomas pointed out in Enslaved, a return to slavery, so that he feels that [unknown] we have the highest amount of slavery, the highest percentage in all of history. So the cultural lines are sharper than ever before. And there is a major conflict of cultures now. We have it in our country as paganism rises all around us, as there’s hostility to Christians in one field after another, I mentioned to some of you the sporting news that Mark passed on to me about ten days ago with two or three pages against Christians in baseball! Because they put their faith above baseball they are resented even though they are top players. Baseball should be their religion. So there’s conflict there. So the conflict is intensifying. We have a major task as Christians to bring those peoples, legal or illegal, because we as Christians can’t do anything about the laws or the enforcement of them into Christ’s kingdom. It used to be that Christian agencies met immigrants at the boat. They then provided help, education, welfare, housing, everything. Education was especially strongly stressed, this is why, for example, most of the Irish in this country are not Catholic but they are Presbyterian. They were met at the boats by Presbyterian agencies. Well, I’m glad to say that although it does not get much publicity there are a varieties of groups going back to that ancient calling of meeting the stranger here in this country wherever he is and seeking to bring him to Christ as well, as carrying of course, the gospel into other countries. This is what we have to do. I don’t think it’s too likely that in the near future we’re going to see a major turnaround in Washington but we can start turning things around from the bottom up. Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee that there is nothing too great nor too small for Thee. That we can come to Thee with our petitions, great and small, knowing Thou hearest, hear us oh Lord. Thou knowest the unspoken prayer of every heart here, hear their prayer. Speak to their heart and bless them and grant them Thy peace. And now the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost go forth in His blessing, seeking His peace and victory and knowing that He that is with us is greater than he that is in the world. In the name of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.