Systematic Theology – The Land

The Land Defiled

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 17-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 17 of 19

Dictation Name: 17 The Land Defiled

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us begin with prayer. Glory be to thee oh God for Thy sure mercies, for the majesty of Thy creation, salvation and Thy providential care. We give thanks unto Thee for the blessings of the week past and for Thy sure mercies and blessings which will surround us day by day. Give us grace now to commit ourselves unto Thee, to rejoice in Thy word and to go forth as more than conquerors in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is from the sixteenth chapter of Jeremiah, the sixteenth chapter, verses sixteen through twenty one and our subject is: The Land Defiled. We have been studying the theology of the land. We have dealt with the holiness of the land and now we come to the defilement of the land. The land defiled. Jeremiah 16:16-21.

“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

18 And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.

19 O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

20 Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?

21 Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The Lord.”

Baal worship was spoken as the great evil of the Old Testament era. The word Baal is itself a harmless word, a good word. It means, and it is very common in sematic languages, master, possessor, lord, or husband. Baal worship was the worship of things in this earth, either rulers, king as in Moloch worship or the forces of nature. It was a way of declaring that things of this world were ultimate and sovereign, man and his society, nature and the forces of nature. It denied that there was any world or any reality beyond this present order. It was a form of naturalism. Fertility cults were a common form of Baal worship but the word Baal itself was an innocent word. It could be applied to the God of scripture but it was almost exclusively used of false gods. Because Baalism placed divinity, godhood, in the natural order it placed deity within the control of man. After all, man does have the ability to control the world of nature. We can control the forces of winds and waters, we can control to a degree the forces within ourselves, so if we place deity within nature we are saying that here is a power we are going to control. We are capable of controlling it and we shall. Now this is the reason for the popularity of naturalism or Baalism or whatever other similar faith one can name. They are all forms of Baal worship. Man wants a god he can put in his pocket, a god he can control and as a result the great appeal of Baalism in every age has been precisely this fact: the fact that God is within the reach, within the power of man, if not within the actual being of man. Such a god is very popular.

After all, if you can put God in your pocket so to speak a god like that is going to be highly popular. Thus Baal worship is more than ancient history. In principle, Baal worship is still with us in newer forms. Many of our current environmental and ecological concerns are forms of Baal worship. It is magnifying and making ultimate things within the natural world rather than God himself, the creature. For example on the front page of Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, October the fifth, 1983 there was a very interesting and long article, it was about a new and endangered animal, an insect. The pigmy hog sucking louse. [Laughter] now as far as lice are concerned I am willing to see them endangered but the international union for the conservation of nature and natural resources lists two hundred and forty seven species of insects and other spineless creatures as endangered. These include ants, mayflies, bees, crabs, worms, beetles, shellfish, corral, spiders, and other insects. As a matter of fact the article said giving the justification for putting the pygmy hog sucking louse on the endangered list and moving to protect it and I quote:

“Even the pygmy hog sucking louse is potentially valuable says the IUCM. Its bacteria produces B vitamins that some scientists might be useful in genetic engineering. To save the pygmy hog sucking louse however scientists must save the pygmy hog. It too is on the list of species in danger of extinction, threatened by the destruction of its habit, a thatch scrub savanna and if there were not irony enough the pygmy hog is threatened by infections transmitted by one of its parasites: the pygmy hog sucking louse.”

By the way speaking of endangered species you know, do you not, that the California rattlesnake is protected now and it’s illegal to kill it unless of course it is threatening your life and has backed you up into a corner. In the Tahoe area at a public campground someone was arrested for killing a rattler outside of his trailer. So much for endangered species, I don’t find the rattlesnakes by the way particularly endangered around here but as long as they are on my property I will determine their lifespan [laughter].Now note in this quotation I just read the value of this pygmy hog sucking louse, its only potential, it depends on several ifs and its value is only in terms of its possibilities for genetic engineering. Well if you do not believe in the kind of genetic engineering they have in mind you certainly are not going to be favorable to the life of the pygmy hog sucking louse, a protected insect. Well, these same people do not seem to be concerned about the one million, two hundred thousand babies who are aborted every year. This is Baal worship. It places the ultimacy in the natural order and in the men who control it. It is also a very destructive faith. The man who more than any other in this century epitomizes this kind of faith and can be called the grandfather of it was Albert Schweitzer. Now, Albert Schweitzer developed a philosophy of reverence for life. His morality meant that we were to protect all forms of life without exception. He was not a Christian of course, he was a pantheist. Now such a philosophy or religion of reverence for all life equally leads to a great deal of hypocrisy.

Schweitzer prophesied a concern and wrote about it for earthworms that would be found on the walks after a rainstorm and he would make a show of picking them up and carrying them over to the ground after the rainstorm. When people visited him in the hospital in Africa at Lamborine he professed a great concern for the ants and he would call attention very often to one that might be walking on his sleeve or his coat and say don’t brush him off you might hurt him, he’s my pet ant, and all the sweet liberal pilgrims would ooh and ahh over the amazing spiritual sensitivity of this great soul. He also would call attention to the hinged doorways and the screen which he would open to release any butterfly or mosquito that might be caught inside the house. He expressed the same concern for flies that were in the house. As a matter of fact when they discovered a drug that would kill the [unknown] of sleeping sickness Schweitzer professed pity for these poor [unknown]. However what the public did not see was that when there were too many kittens born to the cats that patrolled the hospital there in the jungle to take care of the rats and the mice or too many puppies were born when no one was around Schweitzer would take them by the river edge and brain them and throw them in the water. At the same time this great soul would remind that his associates, other doctors, who did not share his perspective that the life of a cockroach or an ant was as precious as their own lives. Now I wouldn’t trust myself around a man who felt my life was worth no more than cockroaches. What such a man is saying is that we are not worth anything and of course as this kind of philosophy has prevailed we have seen more and more concern for protecting the guilty and killing the innocent.

For the criminal rather than the victim because life is to be reverenced, when you put all life on an equality you give a license to kill to those who are evil because you have protected their life. This is Baal worship. Man is devalued and it leads to monstrous evils. Then of course today we have in the form of abortion an example of this. Because the abortionists speak greatly about being against capital punishment but they are for abortion. Why? They are trying and here’s a key phrase ‘to maintain the quality of life’. Look at the language of all these peoples, these modern Baal worshipers and that’s a term you encounter over and over again, the quality of life. Well that’s quite a term, it has an interesting history in this century. Hitler felt that the quality of life in Germany would be better without Jews and without Christians. Stalin felt that the quality of life in the Soviet Union would be improved without capitalists, without Christians and without Jews. And what will our humanists here say? They’ve already said the quality of public life is going to be improved if they can eliminate Christian schools. And what’s the next step after that? After all if man can define what constitutes the quality of life, a definition which will vary from person to person, then we are in trouble. What Baalism does is to destroy the transcendental frame of reference. That is, God above and beyond the world establishing the standard, the law, whereby all things are governed. Then man cannot say here is the standard, here is my concept of the quality of life, you don’t meet it, off with your head.

When God in His word which is above and over man speaks and He says this is the way, walk ye in it, He determines the quality of life, He tells us who has forfeited his right to life and we cannot move one step beyond His law. Then you have a true reference for life. Then you have a regard for the quality of life. Good and evil are then categories beyond human definition, but when man makes it his business to define what is good and evil and what constitutes the quality of life and when man says I will make law, then you have the defilement of the land that Jeremiah speaks about and judgment becomes the portion of all such. And so God says behold I will send many fishers and they fetch fish for them, all those who transgress, those who are under the judgment of God and I will send for many hunters and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks, why? Because God says mine eyes are upon all their ways and they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. And then we have a remarkable statement: and first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double. Remember, God speaks about restitution and when a man has committed a crime restitution begins at double restitution, it can go up to four fold and five-fold, so if you steal a hundred dollars you must make restitution for two hundred. So if we abort babies and if we sin and defile the land in a hundred and one ways God says I will exact a double portion at the very least for what you have done.

Because they have defiled my land they have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things. What’s He talking about there? God is there referring to idols. False gods, Baals. These environmental concerns which place the environmental above man, these people who in the name of the quality of life are ready to abort babies and to let criminals live, their faith, God compares to dead stinking carcasses, abominable things, detestable things He says, which defile the land, defile the household, are corrupt. What do you do if you have a stinking carcass on your front lawn, you get rid of it! Do you tolerate a stinking carcass of a dead dog in your house? You get rid of it! And God says this is what I will do to every form of paganism, to everything and every person who defiles the earth. Oh Lord my strength and my fortress and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth and shall say surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity and things wherein there is no profit. Now we need to remember that when scripture talks about God’s judgment it always talks about God’s salvation, the two are linked. When God judged the world before the flood He also delivered Noah and His family and He pointed the way of blessing. When God delivered His children from Egypt He judged Egypt also and when God judged every one of us with the death penalty on the cross in the person of Christ He also at the same time delivered us. And so at the very point here where God through Jeremiah tells us there will be judgment upon all who defile God’s earth, He says the Gentiles, the people from outside, from all over will be brought in.

And the people who will be confessing that our fathers have inherited lies and vanity and things wherein there is no profit will now be confessing God, confessing the Lord. We live in a time of judgment, we live in a day when we shall see the double portion coming upon people, at the very least. But we are also living in a time of great and marvelous things that are beginning to take place, when you go to a city, you see only the skyscrapers, the tall buildings which represent the past. You don’t see the excavations where the new and greater buildings shall be. Thus the future is there and it is being developed, it is being built by God and some of us saw clear signs of that last two days in Sacramento at our conference were people came from several continents from central Africa to northern Europe and elsewhere. People who are determined to change things. Things are happening; those of you who were there, grace at our banquet was said by Pastor Aaron [unknown] who in his broadcast in French is reaching more than tens of thousands for Christ every year. With his work he is creating now a stronger reformed community then we have in the United States right now. Africa is on fire with what he is doing. He’s translating some of our things by the way into French for these Africans who are ready to read and study. Things are happening and these people say, Jeremiah says: “Shall a man make gods for himself?”

Such gods are not gods and the gods of our day are as the title of a book by someone on our mailing list, [unknown] ‘Idols for Destruction’. They are idols for destruction and the title comes from scripture. All the false faiths of the people are idols, God says, for destruction. We live in a day of false gods. The earth is defiled by their corruption. If we do not cleanse the land of this defilement God’s judgment will do so and so we have a tax of cleansing, of rebuilding under God. There is judgment and there is redemption and we cannot be on the sidelines, we either a part of the judgment or of the redemption. The people of Christ or the people of Baal. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word, for Thy judgment and for Thy deliverance. Make us effectual oh Lord in Thy service, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Bless who all who were at the conference the past two days that they might go forth to exercise dominion wherever they are. Bless us always in faithfulness to Thee, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with regard to our lesson? Yes, John?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well there are those who are working to get the full court to agree to the right of a tree to sue a man and of course it means another man is suing in the name of the tree and for the right of animals to do so.

And there is a growing and a very powerfully funded movement for animal rights, to prevent them being slaughtered for food.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, and they intend to unless we prevent it, oh yes. Any other questions or comments? Yes? Go right ahead.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes, very good. Any other comments or questions? Well if not let us bow our heads in prayer as we conclude.

Lord our God we thank Thee that we are a part of Thine all conquering and victorious army. That greater is he that is with us and in us than He that is in the world. Fill us with Thy Spirit, the Spirit of power, wisdom, understanding and grace that we may go forth to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ our King. In His name we pray, Amen.