106. Systematic Theology – The Land

Freedom And The Land

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 14-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 14 of 19

Dictation Name: 14 Freedom And The Land

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us begin with prayer. Almighty God our Heavenly Father, we come to Thee mindful of the storm of evil the world over. Mindful indeed how small and weak our efforts against the enormity of the enemy and the opposition. We come casting our every care upon Thee knowing oh Lord that Thou who carest for us are able to do all things, that all things are in Thy hands and shall accomplish Thy sovereign purpose. Oh Lord our God deliver us from the forces of humanism within and without this country. Make us a godly people, be with Thy suffering saints behind the Iron Curtain and grant oh Lord strength to those who do battle for Thy kingdom that they may be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is in Deuteronomy 15:1-6. Deuteronomy 15:1-6 and our subject: Freedom And The Land. Freedom And The Land.

“At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

2 And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release.

3 Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;

4 Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it:

5 Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.

6 For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.”

The context of this particular passage is the prohibition of long term debt which is forbidden to believers, debt is to be limited to six years. Unbelievers being slaves within are logically slaves without and therefore long term debt is not forbidden to them. What Moses here says is that if you obey these the laws of God your obedience has this goal: that there shall be no poor among you. Poverty will be abolished by faithfulness to the law of God. Now let’s back up and see what all is in mind here as this statement is made. The basic theological fact in scripture concerning he land is that there is no land tax. No property tax of any kind. The earth is the Lords, the bible tells us, hence only God can tax the land. The state is allowed a very limited head tax or poll tax for the covering or protection of men and it has to be the same amount for every male and it cannot vary. God’s tax or tithe is on the increase. Now the implications of this simple fact are far reaching. Civil taxes today in virtually every country in the world, especially in the western world, are on the land. They are on personal property, on income, on inheritance, on sales and much, much more. Now the nature of humanistic taxes is simply this: they are confiscatory. In some countries of course they are openly such, we have seen since World War II some countries raise the annual income tax rate for a few years to as high as a hundred and twenty percent.

The purpose has been to liquidate all wealthy estates and it has accomplished exactly that. But at the same time we have to say without a hundred and twenty percent tax taxes in the United States are confiscatory. The taxes continue despite drought, storms, floods, disasters and the like. Land and property taxes are never based on production or increase but are rather a tax on capital as virtually every tax by humanistic state is. As a result, the taxes of the humanistic state are very destructive of families and of economics, of economies generally. A land tax is destructive of family continuity and business, ranches and farms. A few years ago I was very interested to learn of someone in the foothills north of here on land that was only good for cattle growing who had a few thousand acres which he bought when he was young for less than a dollar an acre. Now the property is worth millions and he doesn’t see any way that his children can inherit it. The same is true of businesses, of farms, of every kind of activity. Modern taxation is destructive of family continuity. It insures only the growth of totalitarianism. Civil taxes as we see them in the world today are parasitic and destructive. Basic to social power in any society is freedom and continuity and God’s tax insures this. There is a great vision of peace given to us in the bible as the consequence of obeying God’s law and we are told in Micah 4:3-4:

“And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.”

This freedom means, Micah says, that the quality of life is made rich and happy when men are ruled by God. Fear is replaced by the blessings of God’s rule, moreover there is continuity. The promise of posterity, of a continuity of possessions and security therein and with these things peace and prosperity. This is a consequence of freedom under God. But the modern tax structure is designed to insure freedom and continuity to the state, not the people. Under the modern tax structure as states are wiped out the state itself is given security. The people are sacrificed to the modern state, the modern Baal or Maloch. In the bible the land, food, minerals, wood, timber and more are not subject to taxation. This means that the sources of wealth are not taxed in the bible. God’s law prohibits taxation on the sources of wealth. A tax on the sources of wealth is an anti-wealth tax, a pro-poverty tax. The modern welfare state claims to be concerned about the poor but it favors itself and then the rich because power always allies itself with power and ultimately it sacrifices the rich as well. This is an old story, it has happened again and again in history. By means of taxation Rome destroyed the poor farmers, once the backbone of the Roman republic. Then it destroyed the middle class farmers, then finally all of Italy was in the hands of a handful of men and they were destroyed and only Rome survived briefly to collapse. The modern state is no different. Even as Rome converted most of its people into welfare recipients, so too the modern state is converting more and more of its people each year into welfare recipients or people living off the state one way or another.

Rome the capitol became so full of welfare recipients that the emperors for a long time before Rome fell would not live in Rome. We find apart from the president and the well-guarded White House more and more members of Congress, more and more of the bureaucracy live outside of Washington for their own security and with good reason. But with God’s tax, the tithe, is only on the increase. If there is no increase due to disaster then there is no tithe. God as the supreme owner of the land works to further the productivity of His people. IF they are faithful to His law the land gives, we are told, a rich increase. If they are faithless, they are cursed and the land is cursed for their sake. The law of the Lord thus enables us to increase productivity and wealth by our faithfulness to God and then to further God’s government by our tithe on the increase. As the tithe is used to reconstruct society, to establish Godly education, welfare, health facilities and more, God’s government replaces statism. The freedom and continuity which God’s order provides work to abolish poverty, to insure power and victory for people. Debt and taxes work to strangle an economy and the people in it. As a result the economy of the world is being strangled today. In a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal [unknown] wrote on the decline of world trade due to the global debt crisis. It was a very interesting article.

It said the situation was only going to worsen, not to improve. At the same time [unknown] said and I quote:

“The way out isn’t clear.” Unquote.

[Laughter]

Well of course it isn’t on humanistic premises. For the state to tax God’s earth is to play God. It claims indeed sovereignty and lordship but both church and state are required in scripture to render the tribute of faithfulness to the Lord. The church as the ministry of grace and the state as the ministry of justice. In Psalm 116:12-14 we read:

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?

13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.

14 I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.”

This psalm was probably written for the king. The psalmist recognizes that God requires a return, the return of service and so the duty of church and state is to render unto God the service which is His due. To take the cup of salvations as it is literally in the plural means I will accept the portion God allots me. This means to pay my vows, to do the work God has called me to and to do it as my thanksgiving. Tithing is by persons, services are both personal and institutional and the service is required emphatically of both church and state, service to God. It is their tribute, their tax which must be paid. When the state replaces God it taxes the land, it taxes as a result freedom and economic growth, so that the idea that a change of administration is going to produce a more prosperous situation is absurd.

As long as the same taxes on wealth and the sources of production of wealth continue no administration can change the situation. Indeed we have seen for a generation now one administration after another come in on a pledge to improve our situation as far as productivity and prosperity are concerned and only worsen it because by playing God, by usurping jurisdiction over the land and the sources of wealth as though they had created it, they tax them and thereby limit freedom and economic growth. They create taxes which are taxes on capital, on land, on production. As a result, the taxation of the state today leads to slavery, it does not free men. God’s tax protects the family, it protects the earth, it creates social stability, it decentralizes government and divides it between the state which has the duty of the ministry of justice and a variety of persons and institutions. Capital accumulation is possible in terms of God’s law. It is possible for everyone including the poor and the families of limited means. This kind of order is possible, it once existed in this country. There is no reason why it cannot exist again. As we have departed from that order we have progressively destroyed that which made us a great people. The shorter catechism begins by asking what is man’s chief end and answers ‘man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever’. For man to accomplish that means to cease from playing God, to leave the sovereignty of all things into God’s hands, to recognize that the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, not the states and we who have limited title to the land or to anything from it are stewards under God with a duty to use all things to His purpose and for His glory.

Only so can we have again a free land. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God Thou hast shown us the way, give us grace to walk in it. Turn the hearts of men in high places and low that they may believe and obey, that they might know oh Lord that Thy word is truth and apart from Thee and Thy word there is no hope for man. We thank Thee oh Lord that we have a king, Jesus Christ. Give us grace to obey Him that we might again be a free people in all things. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson, yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, first of all God says if you obey me you will abolish poverty. But He also makes it clear that Israel is not going to obey and He predicts later on what they are going to do so He says the poor are not going to cease out of the land and our Lord made it clear too in the last days of Judea that they were always going to have the poor with them, they were a disobedient people, but God says obey me and this is what will happen.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes except that if all peoples obey the Lord they will deal with the situation and in due time Micah says this will happen. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The question is ‘won’t there always be evil men and won’t we always have poor as a result’.

To a degree that might be true but if we establish a godly order in this country and all over the world and if we take care of the needs of people through God’s appointed means, we will abolish most poverty, yes. And if the evil are not subsidized and if we follow the premise ‘he that will not work let him not eat’ I think they will be. They have before when they’ve been up against it, they’ve worked. In fact the great material prosperity of Britain in the last century came about when they were at their wit’s ends, the society was decaying and they abolished the [unknown]. They immediately created a tremendous prosperity and today it’s profitable if you’re on the lower economic level to stay on welfare rather than to work. Why bother? As a result we have very serious problems today with the poor, we’ve created poverty, we’ve manufactured it. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well we’ve had it on the shelf for a long time… [laughs]. Yes, Otto?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes I agree emphatically. From the commonwealth period what happened was that very different now, it’s just a change of humanistic administrations and they couldn’t forget faster what they promised before the election the day after election, no matter who’s elected, there they were giving an alternative between royalist law which was contemptuous of God and the puritan perspective to reorder all things in terms of the faith and they failed only when the puritan leadership became too neo-platonic, too spiritual to be concerned with material things and the Cambridge Platonists has a major responsibility there in corrupting the movement. I do believe that we are going to see something happen, as you know working on the book of Wilsons, since the election of Wilson the percentage of voter’s voting has dropped steadily in the United States so that there are more and more people who feel it’s useless voting because its Tweedledum and Tweedledee that we get. Now when those people wake up to what they can do as Christians and how they’ve got to change the very nature of their view of the state and to apply God’s law to it and I think then things will begin to happen. Any other questions or comments, yes, Bob?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. The majority of born again Christians to use the phrase that was used in a report on the subject which I believe Moral Majority was responsible for, four years ago were not even registered to vote. That situation is now beginning to change so there is hope in that respect especially if they become informed voters.

Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thy word gives us Thy plan to deal with all problems, to abolish poverty, to bring about peace and prosperity. We pray our Father that we may be effectual in applying Thy purpose to men and nations, that we might bring men and women and children to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and to an obedience to Thy word. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.