Systematic Theology – Work

Work and Just Measures

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 10 of 19

Track: #10

Year:

Dictation Name: 10 Work and Just Measures.

[Rushdoony] Let us begin now with prayer

Glory be to Thee oh God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; Who in Thy majesty has created all things and has ordained them for Thy glory, who hast made us for Thy purpose, and given us so great an inheritance in Jesus Christ. Make us strong and effectual in Thee, that in all things we might be more than conquerors, that we might in the power of Thy Spirit go forth to conquer, and to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ our King. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Leviticus 19 verses 35 – 37 and our subject “Work and Just measures.” We have been dealing with a theology of work, we have seen that according to Saint Paul the opposite of work is theft, and that theft in the Bible, as Paul uses it, has reference to receiving funds from the state. Now, we’re going to deal with the real meaning of just measures. Leviticus 19:35-37.

“35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.

36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.

37 Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.”

There are several texts in which this command is repeated, another is Deuteronomy 25:13-16 which I shall also read.

“13 Thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great and a small.

14 Thou shalt not have in thine house diverse measures, a great and a small.

15 But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

16 For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.”

Now there’s several verse and Proverbs that also deal with this. Proverbs 11:1 “A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.” Again Proverbs 16:11 “A just weight and balance are the Lord’s, all the weights of the bag are his work.” Again in Proverbs 20 verses 10 & 23 “Diverse weights and diverse measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord. Diverse weights are an abomination unto the lord, and a false balance is not good.” Again in Ezekiel 45:10 “Ye shall have just balances and a just ephah and a just bath.” And finally Micah 6:10 “Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?”

Now these are the major references in the Old Testament to just weights and measures. False weights means false weights in the area of measurement, in the area of money, in the area of commerce, in every aspect of life. Again and again we encounter this. Isaiah refers to the false monetary measures in the first chapter of His book as he indicts Israel because their silver has become dross; their silver coinage has been changed to slugs such as we now have. These things are called, first of all, an injustice, and abomination to God. [5:19

Then second we are told that a nation with just measures in every area of life and thought has the promise of a long life, whereas those with false measurements gain judgment. Then third we are told that God calls a just weight His delight. Injustice in a society where false measures exist, are repulsive to God, but a true standard is His delight. Of course fiat money is emphatically covered by that statement because it is from the perspective of scripture planned injustice. Then fourth, false measures of any kind in any field are called the treasures of wickedness, they are the essential means of falsifying the life of a society, so that when a society has false measurements, such as the kind of money we have now, it is a means of injustice; it falsifies, it perverts, the life of the entire society.

Thus scripture is very emphatic about what this means, it applies it rigorously. I indicated that Isaiah speaks of it as constituting an abomination to God for fiat money to exist. We have seen that Paul calls theft the opposite of work; whatever involves taking a subsidy, a hand out, of getting un-earned money. Now, to give you an idea of how the Rabbi’s in ancient times, in pre-Christian times, read these verses. Listen to the teaching of the sages in Torah Schohonim {?} to Leviticus 19:35, they held, and I quote: “For he who measures for the purpose of a sale is like a judge, and if he is deceitful he causes five things. He defiles the land, desecrates God’s name, causes the Shekinah (that is the glory of God) to depart from the land, causes Israel to fall by the sword, and causes them to be exiled from their land. Foremost in Ezekiel’s mind is the need to safeguard the community from such abuses which bring these five results in their wake.”

Very significant. Consider those five consequences of false measurements; defiling the land, desecrating God’s name, causing the glory of God to leave the land, causing the people to fall by the sword, and if they persist, causing them to be exiled from the land. And today the whole world is moving in terms of false measurements; false measurements in the area of money, fiat money; false measurements in the area of law and politics- instead of God’s law, man’s fiat word; false measurements in the area of education, false measurements in the area of the family. In every area of life humanistic standards, anti-Christian standards, have taken over and they defile the land.

But there’s another fact here, did you catch that statement by the ancient Rabbi’s? That every man is a judge whenever he does any measuring? Any transaction that involves measurement, a man is a judge. He either meets out justice or injustice, and that’s exactly what scripture is saying. False weights, false measures, false money means dishonest judgment, injustice in the land.

Thus injustice in this matter means the abandonment by God to judgment. Thus the requirements of just weights and measures is the requirement of justice. Work is required by scripture as the basic source of wealth. Falsity here makes injustice and theft basic to a society, it produces a parasitic economy, and the results of a parasitic economy are ultimately death for a society. Work must be behind economic activity in order to have true productivity in any society. And work must be behind money in order to have a just economic and social order.

Now one of those verse which I read, Proverbs 16:11 “a just weight and balance are the Lord’s, all the weights of the bag are His work.” This is a very important verse. We are told that there is a fundamental God given order in the universe; material things are measurable not because they are merely material but because they have an essential character and order in them which is God created and God ordained. Therefore, there is an order which must be respected. It is that God given order which makes science possible, and which makes measurement possible. There is a constancy to things; whatever our system of weights we are measuring a stable and constant realm, and when we use stable and constant measurements we give stability, we give justice to a society.

Now when the Bible speaks about the shekel, the shekel was a weight of gold and a weight of silver, it did not vary. When our coinage was first produced it was in terms of weight; what we now call a twenty dollar gold piece was one ounce of gold, 90% fine, and all the subsequent coinage, the ten, the five, and the two and a half, and the one, were fractions of an ounce, measurable fractions. In fact, some of our early coinage did not give a name because it went by weight. In fact our trade dollar actually gave instead the weight in grains of silver, that is what scripture is talking about, just weights, “just measures shall ye have.”

It is this dependency on the objective weight of things that Proverbs 16:11 means in declaring “the weights of the bag are God’s work” the bag that carried the different weights for measuring things. Fiat money means a constantly changing standard of measurement; it means falsified measurement, injustice. The same is true of fiat laws whether in church, in state, in school, or any place else. Every kind of false measurement enacts and codifies injustice. Manmade laws are false measurements; such laws make a society move from justice to injustice. Abortion and homosexuality are examples of false measurements applied to society, a false standard being imposed upon the social order. Every attempt to pass, or every passing of fiat laws, of false measurements, in any area of life or thought, is an attempt to play God, it is an attempt to bypass work as the means of productivity and its eventual result is slavery and disaster.

We must remember that consequence, a return to slavery. The more a country adopts false measurements, the more it becomes a Humanistic state or a socialistic state, the more it is dedicated to man-made measures and the more marked its return to slavery. Slavery violates a fundamental premise of dominion work, mainly responsibility. Personal motivation and purpose is replaced by the planning of another individual and compulsory participation in their plan, or compulsory planning by the bureaucracy and our compulsory participation therein. We dealt last time, and we shall return to it again, in the difference between a hierarchy and an elite. A hierarchy represents God-given standards of rule. It means literally “Sacred rule, scared authority.” It is associated with work; it is something that develops naturally because it represents a God-given order. But an elite seeks to work others and to be free from work, to exercise power and to control. Now an Elite assumes more and more responsibility and freedom from control while placing all others under the slavery of regulations and controls. The responsibility an elite seeks is not responsibility for its own lives, for its own moral conduct, but a god-like responsibility for other people as though they are incompetence.

Work and the tithe are the marks of a responsible man and of responsible societies; whereas the income tax is the product of, and the stimulus to, irresponsibility. Remember that the law of just weights and measures makes every man a judge; every man by the standards he uses is daily a judge, and he creates either injustice or justice. We have a great many conservatives who rail against the income tax laws although they never face the real fact; they assume it was simply a conspiracy against the American people. But the passage of the 16th amendment was preceded by a decline in integrity and responsibility on the part of people. They had abdicated as judges, they were creating a society of fiat men, men who lived in terms of their own word; not God’s word, of fiat’s laws and weights and measures. Let us remember this, before the federal reserve system was created we had a generation that rallied around the idea that humanity was being crucified on a cross of gold; that to have an objective standard in the area of money was destructive, they didn’t know what injustice and destruction was; they helped create it.

Antinomianism in the church is another example of false weights and false measures. Instead of ruling their lives and their churches and their societies in terms of God’s law, in terms of the every word of God, they began to rule in terms of their own word, and to supplant God’s law with emotions and pious feelings and pious gush. In every sphere we have seen false measures; in politics, economics, education, religion, everything; and Humanism with its will to do good is seen as the new salvation for us; and of course it should not surprise us that at the time that we moved so obviously in the area of economics, from an honest measurement, gold, to the federal reserve, we also got Woodrow Wilson. A man who saw himself as a Messiah and this is why one of the projects underway in Chalcedon, Otto Scott’s study of Woodrow Wilson, is so important. Because here we had a coming into focus of a development that began before 1860, to create false measures in a society; and it culminated in a man who saw himself as a Messiah, who is going to save the world, and who created an open area of abandonment of God’s standards. A fiat law is a fiat living. He did make the world safe for democracy, but not for men. He made it safe for people’s regimes, which are all over the world now, evil governments in the name of the people tyrannizing over them but representing their own abandonment of God.

Work has been replaced by the politics of the will of the people in some form or another: Marxism, Fabian Socialism, Fascism, welfare democracies, dictatorships, they’re all variations on a common theme. Work has been replaced by such politics, and productivity is in decline.

Basic to all injustice thus is a humanistic measurement for morality, for money, for education, politics, everything. These are what Micah called, in the verse I read from the prophet Micah, “The treasures of wickedness” every capital in the world today, virtually, prizes the treasures of wickedness, false standards whereby they create in justice and tell us that it is justice. We must have a restoration to God’s standards, and the starting point as Paul said was, and always is, faith, honest work, dominion work, tithing, giving to the needy, Christian reconstruction.

Now you may recall that in several of these verses God calls false weights and measures of any kind, an abomination. This is a Hebrew word which means loathsome, disgusting, repulsive, offensive, this is how God characterizes it, this is how any people who are dedicated to justice will see false measurements in any sphere as something loathsome, repulsive, dirty, offensive. And God says any social order built upon false weights and measurements is repulsive to Him. The failure of men to see how repulsive their false measurements are is due to the fact that they themselves have become loathsome in God’s sight; and if a man stinks he isn’t going to smell something bad around him, the consequence of being in such a state is judgment. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God Thou hast given us just weights and measures in Thy word, Thou hast given us the way of justice. Use us oh Lord to recall men and nations, the way of righteousness and justice, of truth, of obedience unto Thee. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us to Thy service, that Thou hast given us so great a work to do. Make us mindful oh Lord as we face the powers of darkness in all their array that if God be for us, who can be against us? That in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, even Jesus Christ our Lord, in His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience member] As I understand it the justice of the weight would have to be guaranteed by the state. But when the United States had {?} metallic standard, either gold or silver was usually undervalued in which case as I understand it, one could be hoarded, and the other saved, and they couldn’t get the precise ratio between the two. Would the bimetallic standard unsafe?

[Rushdoony] Well, what we have there, that’s a good question, is one stage in a long process of decline. Originally we had no legal tender standard before the constitution. We had a free market in money. We also had no requirement of coinage, or bimetallism, or anything, it was a free market. If you could pass paper on anybody it was their privilege to take it. It didn’t go very far. But if you wanted to coin money you could, all that congress required was that it meet a just standard of weight, it’d be a honest weight, and that prevailed, that freedom to coin, for some time longer than some other aspects did because in California there was a considerable coinage of private minting of gold coins. Some of these were simply bars with the weight and the denomination simply stamped on them, others were actual coins.

And the interesting thing is that for a long time here in California no-one would take paper. If someone came from the East with a paper bill, he bought things once in a store and they refused him anything after that unless he could produce gold or silver. And I can remember still before World War II when a lot of the farmers here and ranchers in Nevada, would not take paper money, simply refused to. That was very commonplace and it still survived into World War II, after that we had a very different climate

[Audience member] So the purity and perhaps the weight of gold that is circulated might be controlled by the government, or established by the government or not at all?

[Rushdoony] Yes, then it constitutes fraud, robbery, so you deal with it as you deal with any thief. If a man passes a coin, a false weight, he is a thief, we have laws against stealing; and that’s the way it was treated.

Yes John?

[John] Entitlement programs then are, they’re kinda roughly parallel to what happened in Rome in the first century, just because a man was a Roman citizen he was entitled to circuses and bread and things of that nature. But it seems like in order to propagate those kinds of things, which the whole entitlement program is really an act of theft because it’s not a work, a man receiving something without working for it, and then the individual who receives the check in the mail is really an accessory after the fact to federal theft.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and of course you finally run out of things to promise people. It’s like Aurelian, {?} he pushed it to its extreme, they already had cradle to grave welfare, and he promised that none of the children of welfare recipients would have to go through the trauma of applying and so the right to welfare was made hereditary and everybody loved him, then they killed him. Because what else can you give after you’ve given that?

So we’re getting to the end of our ability to promise and deliver.

Any other questions or comments?

[Audience member] How could it be possible for a very poor people, perhaps the third world nation, that saw the value of the gold standard, but didn’t really have the precious metals reserve in the population to switch to it?

[Rushdoony] Very good. Alright, in the early years of this country for a generation we had gold coinage, but most people never saw gold. Why? Because since you had a thoroughly hard money standard most of the business day by day was transacted in half pennies, pennies, I think there was a three cent piece, yes a five cent piece which was called a half-dime and was silver, the dime, and the twenty cent piece. Quarter was big money. So you could go to the store with one of those small coins and come away with the food you needed.

In other words when you have a hard money standard that is clear cut and unequivocal you don’t have to have a large amount of money, everything has a reality to it. And as a result in a third world country it wouldn’t have to be a situation where everybody had gold. But if they accumulated enough of these half-pennies, or whatever they called them, they could get a gold coin.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes Otto?

[Otto] Has any civilization pulled out of this?

[Rushdoony] Has any civilization what?

[Otto] Ever pulled out of this kind of a slide.

[Rushdoony] Yes, England and France both went into the crisis at the same time because of various monetary practices, and after the Napoleonic wars England did pull itself out of it, or starting before. Then they went into the dole and almost destroyed themselves, and by midcentury they abandoned that. Then with an assist from Dickens’s novels they went right back to it.

The oldest culture in all of history of course was Byzantium, because it had the stablest currency of all for a thousand years. Once they abandoned it, I believe after the battle of Manzikert, they went into a decline from which they never recovered. But prior to that the Byzantine coins were used throughout Europe and into the far East as the best standard of conducting business. So there have been recoveries, but usually the reason why there is not a recovery is because there’s a lack of the faith that must undergird the change.

When people embark on a standard of false measures, whether in the area of morality or money, they’re suicidal, and so they destroy themselves in virtually every case.

Yes?

[Audience member] I wonder if you could enumerate briefly the course you see that we must take in order to turn the tide…

[Rushdoony]… the course we must take to turn the tide. Well, you cannot have a honest standard in the area of economics if you don’t have it in the area of everyday living. When men begin to go back to God’s law, when they show that in their life and in their personal standards, in their families, in everything they do, you’ll begin to see a change.

I believe we’re seeing signs of a change now, I believe the Christian school movement, which means that parents are working at being parents, and are taking over the responsibilities for the education of their children, is a very significant fact. The fact that there are a hundred thousand home schools, and a few million across the country, indicates these people are ready to work at a a Godly standard in their homes. And I believe in a number of ways we are seeing a return to a different standard and this is what’s going to turn the country around. It’s going to begin with the individual, affect his family, his community, his church, his country. It’s an uphill work but we’re fighting and we’re in the courts very often on it and there’s no sign of the growing minority that is making a stand, backing off.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes?

[Audience member] I’m wondering since the other side is suicidal is that going to work for our benefit more than we anticipate?

[Rushdoony] Yes. They are suicidal, they are going to self-destruct. The only question is will we simply go along with them? We have to many foolish Christians and foolish conservatives who feel that the essence of their duty is to say “look how terrible they are” and document what’s happening, which is another way of documenting your own funeral. And it’s a cheap solution. I’ve often used this illustration and I’ll use it again. The appeal of a certain type of picture is that it enables you to identify with somebody and say “I’m one of the good guys, they’re the bad guys” and you get a cheap emotional kick because you’re one of the good guys, and you can point to them as the bad guys.

And that’s what too many people are doing, they’re saying “aha! Those socialists, those humanists, they’re the bad guys.” Of course they are, but we’re the bad guys too if we are not doing something constructive. So we have to begin rebuilding where we are, and I think this is taking place now.

I do believe we are in a very exciting time when the issues are coming to focus. I was telling someone just a day or two ago about a book, and with this our time is running out, the sociologist Carle C. Zimmerman of Harvard and Dr. Cervantes {?} a Jesuit priest, together produced a book entitled The Family, this was in the late fifties, marvelous work. At that point they predicted that while there was going to be a great deal of social disintegration in the immediate future, that we were in the beginnings of the most spectacular revival of family life, and the family was going to demonstrate a strength that had never before been seen in history.

I do believe they were right. I do believe events are beginning to produce concrete and vivid evidence that they were right in the Christian school movement which I cited as one aspect of it. The fact that families are helping one another and taking a responsibility for supplying needs, instead of Medicare in many instances, and a growing number of families taking care of their elderly people as a matter of principal, that’s a phenomenal fact. It indicates a vitality there and a Christian revival of tremendous scope. Now that’s what constitutes positive action.

Well, let’s bow our heads now in prayer.

All glory be to Thee oh God our Father who has called us to so great a work through Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior. Make us ever joyful that we have been called to victory, that we are the people of life and not of death, that in Thee we have been called to be more than conquerors. Bless us oh Lord this day and always in Thy service, and make us joyful, hopeful, and victorious therein. In Jesus name, amen.