Deuteronomy

Imagination and Memory

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 107-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 107

Dictation Name: RR187BF107

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Lord I have loved the habitation of Thy house and the place where Thy honor dwelleth. I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord, let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thy mercies are new every morning. Take our eyes oh Lord off our burdens and our problems and fix them on the things that are of Thee so that we may always know that there are things greater than ourselves in this world and in Thy kingdom. That we may always know that we are more than conquerors in Christ who loved us and redeemed us. Make us joyful in Thee, triumphant in Thy service, knowing that those who work iniquity shall pay to the last penny according to Thy word. Our God we praise Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 31:14-30. Deuteronomy 31:14-30 and our subject: Imagination and Memory.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation.

15 And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.

16 And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant.

21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.

22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

23 And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee.

24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,

26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lordyour God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.

27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?

28 Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.

30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.”

In this chapter the first thirteen verses of which we considered last week. There are four main facts, first Moses is told that the time of his death is come. Moses is aware that the great task ahead requires another leader. Then second Joshua is to take over leadership, this is not a new announcement, rather it is a confirmation of a known and established order of succession. Third what is equally and especially important perhaps is that Moses and Joshua were required to go to the sanctuary, as in verses fourteen following, for God to speak there to them. Then fourth, Moses is commanded, verses nineteen following to write a song for Israel to sing as a national anthem. The song will set forth God’s grace and Israel’s waywardness and apostasy to be a continuing reminder to them that it is not their merit that sustains them but God’s mercy. God tells Moses in verse sixteen that in due time the people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land. Now the expression to go a whoring after other gods plainly refers to apostasy, to involvement with false faiths. However, it also refers to a basic fact: the radical involvement of paganism with sexual rites and practices. Every kind of perverse sexual act has been a part of some religious group and activity as an affirmation of the natural we would say fallen as against the supernatural. If you deny the God of scripture you will say that the natural order as it is is normative. Therefore, logically, whether it was the Baal worshippers of old or Kinsey in our day, it follows that if the natural is good than chastity is bad but homosexuality, incest, sodomy, even with women, every kind of act including of course necrophilia is good.

Because nothing in nature can be bad. This is why no matter how high minded those who think naturalistically are at the beginning they ultimately follow this course. The declaration by God of Israel’s future apostasies is intended to be an encouragement to all who hear or read this prediction. God’s foreknowledge and ordination encompass all things so we must see man’s depravity as a step in God’s purpose to bring about His great kingdom. We can only have hope if we know that God is in absolute control of all things. Verses seventeen and eighteen make clear that no bland, neutral world exists for man to live in. It is either the realm of blessings or of curses. Man wants to believe in a vast neutral realm of operations wherein man is free to do as he pleases but there is not a single neutral fact in all of creation and truly godly living begins only when this is recognized. For in Him we live and move and have our being. There is therefore no escaping God. He is closer to us than we are to ourselves and He knows us better than we want to know ourselves. Because the relationship between God and Israel is covenantal God is the King and Sovereign and Israel and now Christian churches and nations are the vassals. For us the term vassal is an obsolete one but it is an important concept, it is biblical. It has been misused in some cultures but it is covenantal and biblical. A vassal is a man under the protection of a lord to whom he has sworn homage and fealty. He has a duty to his lord to serve him and to obey him, the law of his lord is the vassal’s protection. This chapter has a strong emphasis on the book of the law, Deuteronomy.

The book of the covenant, the book for vassals. This is simply one of numerous continuous stresses in the bible on the inscriptured word of God. We are not to rely on man’s changing word but on the eternal word of God. There is also the strong emphasis on the person of God. He is eternally present and determinative so that all of history is simply His determination and His purpose in progress. To live apart from God and His word is to live under the curse and for death, not life. God speaks plainly to Moses concerning his coming death and Moses just as plainly speaks of it to the people. Because it is in God’s providence, and after a life of faithful service it is not a tragedy but a triumph. In verses sixteen through twenty one God tells Moses of the coming apostasies of Israel. God does not keep Moses in the dark nor does He spare him. Moses must rely on the certainty of God’s purpose, not on Israel. God’s kingdom will triumph, His covenant will prevail and the world wide triumph will come. Psalm 90 is a psalm by Moses and sets forth his triumph. Verse twenty six is an important statement of one aspect of the law. Take this book of the law and put in the side of the arch of the covenant of the Lord your God that it may be therefore a witness against thee, the laws of blessing to the faithful and a witness and a curse to the lawless, a witness against them. The law is like a recorder to the lawless, keeping an account of their covenant breaking. The law was not placed in the arch but on its side where the other books of the law had already been placed. The Ten Commandments were in the arch. The law where was given to the priests and to the elders of the people to deposit in its proper place so that to use modern terminology, both church and state were to be governed by it according to verse thirteen. The song Moses is commanded to write as a national anthem has a purpose described in verse twenty one.

God declares and it shall come to pass when many evils and troubles are befallen them that this song shall testify against them as a witness for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed. For I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swear. Now since man is fallen his imagination is evil. Redeemed man is not perfectly sanctified in this world and his imagination is commonly his expression of supposed free space outside of God. We are told in Genesis 6:5 and 8:21 that with fallen man every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually or every day. In Psalm 103:4 we read:

“For he knoweth our brain, he remembereth that we are dust.”

Now the word frame in that verse is the same word in Hebrew as imagination. The frame of our life is our independent thinking, thinking independently of God. So that even the redeemed are not entirely free of this, they seek in imagination a supposedly neutral ground. We who are dust and will in time return to dust in our flesh will still in our imagination play God. The song of Moses has as its purpose to so imbed God’s word in our hearts and minds that it becomes a witness against our imagination. One of the many evils of modern education is its neglect of memorization, replacing it with imagination. The song of Moses has as its purpose to establish a perpetual standard of reference in the minds of men. Three songs of Moses are recorded in the bible, Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 90. This song of Moses was commanded by God when Moses and Joshua appeared at the sanctuary.

It is commonly stated that Joshua’s presence there was for his investure. But while this may be true nothing is said about it. Instead, in Joshua’s presence the writing of the song is ordered and its continual use. Joshua is ordered to the sanctuary by God that I may give him a charge. Part of that charge was that the song of Moses be made a part of the life of the people. There is also the promise I will be with thee in all the battles ahead so be strong and of a good courage because you shall triumph. There is a contrast in our text between imagination and memory. Men must not trust in their imagination because it reflects their fallen history. God’s appointed servants must discipline and teach so that man’s memory is mindful of God’s works, His covenant law, grace and mercy. The issue is between educational approaches stressing memory versus those stressing imagination. To stress imagination means to believe in the child’s or person’s creative powers whereas to emphasis memory is to maintain that the future must be built on the knowledge of the past under God. Knowledge is not manufactured anew with every generation, it is a growing structure based on biblical premises whereas modern education is deliberately rootless and barren. It is not an accident that as the new education came in progressive education, memorization was cut off. The teaching of history was progressively downgraded and even eliminated because not memory and memorization but imagination, creating the world anew with every generation is the goal. It’s a very obvious shift.

And we cannot understand the damage modern education works until we realize what its purpose is. This is why Moses was told to compose a song that was to be sung in every generation by the covenant people. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us to learn, to remember, to commit to memory the things that are of Thee. For only so can we be builders and only so can we grow. Lord God of Hosts bless us mightily in the things that are of Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now or comments about our lesson? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] That’s right. That reminds me [laughing] of how often teachers would sing aloud to a student and say stop your day dreaming, what was I talking about, that’s gone now because apparently day dreaming is more profitable in their eyes than anything else. But we have a totally different culture. You spoke to me of the fact that at one time contrary to the present men who were husbands were commonly referred to by their wives and women as good providers and Dorothy reminded me of that same fact as being common when she was younger. And yet an interesting thing that she called my attention at the same time was that a young boy was told by his coach that if you have any sense you won’t go after the good looking goals but those who have skills and can be good providers. That’s quite a revolution, is it not? You look for a wife who can be a good provider, yes?

[Question] Well if only…[becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] [laughs and general laughter] Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question] Well in the bible Isaiah 26:9 says that people will only learn righteousness when God’s judgments are on the earth.

[Another question, unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well we’ll be dealing with the song of Moses next week but the purpose of memory and memorization is to know the past so that we have the tools for building the future and therefore it’s not for being raptured or anything else, it’s so that we might be builders. A person without memory is like a zombie, they don’t know the past, they don’t know their name, they don’t know how to function. I knew a man once, a very brilliant man, in fact a descendant of one of the most important of the Founding Fathers of this country. He was a totally superior and intelligent man. When he talked to you he was highly interesting and intelligent, except in about three minutes he could say again what he had just said, having no recollection of the fact that he had said it. Nor where he had lived, very often, nor of his own name. Now, that man had a high order of intelligence but it was useless because he had no memory.

And God’s purpose in stressing memory and the reason why in Christendom, in Christian civilization, memory was so heavily stressed was precisely because this is the way you build, this is the way you grow. Now, let’s take a look backwards to the times when beginning at the very early year’s memory in education was strongly stressed. It was through the colonial period very highly stressed so that if you were a very intelligent boy you were taught Greek and Hebrew at five and six. And at fourteen and fifteen you went into Latin and other subjects, well, if you look at the great scholastics in the medieval era, men like Saint Thomas Aquinas, they were very young. The great figures in the learning of the middle ages were in their thirties. Calvin wrote his institutes in his twenties. Why that difference? Well, because it was a disciplined education which stressed memory, no daydreaming. And it produced a radically different civilization and men could begin early and go on for years and years giving the full benefit of their maturity. It is interesting by the way that in East Hungary I am told which is still Calvinistic the clergy are highly disciplined in their teaching and are taught Latin so that all their life they not only can read it but when they come together they converse in Latin. It’s so easy and natural for them. If they have a generation or two of freedom I think and maintain this same kind of discipline great things will come out of those people because of their disciplined education. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] And what impresses me about that is they were written to persuade the upstate farmers of New York to vote for the Constitution. They were published in a newspaper for those readers. These were overwhelmingly Dutch. They had very little formal education and yet they could read and understand the Federalist Papers which today graduate students complain about, too difficult. Yes?

[Question] Do you think there’ll be a Latin resurgence in America?

[Rushdoony] No I think it’ll be more likely Greek and Hebrew. I am surprised at the number of people who are now studying New Testament Greek and Hebrew who have no intention of being pastors but are interested in it because they want to know the bible. They want to know it in the clearest of detail. Well if there are no further questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that Thy word makes clear the direction in which we are to shape our times, our families and our culture. Make us bold and confident knowing that because Thou art our God we shall prevail. 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.