Elijah and Elisha for Today

Why People Perish

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 12 of 16

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[Rushdoony] Hear now the word of God as it is given to us in II Kings the second chapter verses one through eighteen. II Kings 2:1-18. “And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

2 And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel.

3 And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.

4 And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho.

5 And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.

6 And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.

7 And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan.

8 And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.

9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

10 And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.

11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

12 And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

13 He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan;

14 And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.

15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

16 And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send.

17 And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not.

18 And when they came again to him, (for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not?”

We have here the last day of Elijah’s life. Elijah was the great prophet against Baalism and we cannot understand the significance of Elijah for us unless we understand the meaning of Baalism. One of the sad facts about scripture is that people will take and give some kind of primitive meaning to things in the Bible so that it is easy to look back and say “they were very blind and stupid in those days and they bowed down to graven images and we are too wise and advanced to do that sort of thing.” But Baalism is very much with us. What was Baalism? First of all it was a syncretistic religion. Syncretism, S-Y-N-C-R-E-T-I-S-M, means to brings two different thigns together and hold them together without any rhyme nor reason, simply because you want it so. To illustrate; one prominent American women who belongs to an ultra feministic denomination claims to believe the Bible from cover to cover but she believes also in reincarnation and in witches. Now she is guilty of syncretism, she is bringing things that are opposite the one to the other and uniting them in a false union.

Syncretism is smorgasbord religion. Syncretists say “I like this and that and that” from all these different religions, it puts them together and adds up to nothing. Baalism was Syncretistic, Israel was Syncretistic. Israel professed to believe in the Lord, the covenant God. Throughout the entire history of Israel from Jeroboam the first to Jeroboam the second and the handful of sorry kings who succeeded him until captivity came. Israel professed to be a covenant nation, a covenant people worshipping the God of Israel. But they were syncretistic to the core. Every religious cult that came around, everything that was politically practical to adopt, they adopted and incorporated. Beginning with Jeroboam the first they took the calf cult because of political reasons, and called it a part of Jehovah worship. Under Ahab they took other forms of Baalism and they united it with Jehovah worship.

But now it’s important for us to look at the word Baal. Baal, the plural Baalim, is a general term which covered a variety of religious faiths and a variety of gods. The word Baal simply means Lord or Sovereign, Master. One of the most popular of Baal’s, one condemned as strongly as anything is ever condemned in the Bible is Molech worship. Molech worship we also find called Moloch worship or referred to as Melech, and Milcom, and we have it in the modern English name Malcom. In every form it means one thing, king, king. Moloch worship was the worship of the king and of the state, the state was sovereign.

Now what do we have today? Just two weeks ago I was in Ohio testifying at the trial of James Olan {?} who was on trial because he placed his child in an Amish Christian school. He was charged with contributing to the delinquency of his daughter. The state is seeking to protect its schools. In about two weeks, or less because it will be fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh of December, I shall be in Washington D.C. to testify at the IRS hearings. Hearings concerning a proposed IRS regulation which will make the IRS the super board over every Christian school in the United States to Control them as Lord.

Now what are we seeing? Moloch worship, something God calls an abomination, the state saying “we are the Lord.” In Georgia last week I dealt with a group of pastors facing a common problem, a problem that is familiar in Los Angeles county and throughout every state in the union; Federal and state agencies coming and demanding of the pastor and the church treasurer the church records, financial and otherwise, as Lord over the church, and declaring that the church is a public trust rather than a God-given institution. What is this? It is Moloch worship.

You see, Ahab prayed to Jehovah, we are told he did, all the kings of Israel prayed to the same God that we pray to in scripture, but their prayers were an abomination because other lords had dominion over them, this is Baal worship. It’s a question you see of priorities, what commands us? What commands you? That is your God, your Baal, your Lord. Now one of the meanings of Baal is also “husband.” Scripture commands wives to obey their husbands in the Lord, not otherwise. We are commanded to obey civil magistrates and to pray for them, for conscious sake, in obedience to God rather than to man in terms of the word of God rather than the word of man. Scripture declares “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me” Baal worship is having a Lord other than God; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the God of scripture.

The life of Elijah had been spent in battling against this kind of compromise, against a nation that claimed to believe in the God of Israel, the covenant God, but which killed or slighted or neglected his true servants. Remember in that battle where Ahab lost his life he had the false prophets of the Lord lined up by the hundreds to prophesy victory. The land was full of them, they all claimed to believe in the covenant God. In fact they were so bold that one of them struck Micaiah, supposedly in the name of the Lord, rebuking him. We do not lack the churches today that condemn every pastor who preaches the word of God faithfully as though somehow he were preaching faithlessly to God. They speak so because they are Baal worshipers, they have another Lord.

And now we come to the end of Elijah’s life, the lonely prophet who through the years had worked and stood alone and cried out to God “it is enough oh Lord, take away my life for I am not better than my fathers”; and in his last days been given a servant son, Elisha, who came from a wealthy family, and made himself as a servant and a son to the old prophet. In his last years three seminaries or schools of the prophet sprang up, and so Elijah left behind him a group of men ready to proclaim the word. And now the Lord has told him “it is time Elijah, time.” And He prescribed a strange journey, a symbolic journey, a prophetic journey, for Elijah. Elijah had been the prophet of Judgment, now at the very end by the route he takes he sets forth the fact of judgment. First he went to Bethel to bid farewell to one group of his students. Bethel was originally Luz, the place of Jacob’s ladder; with Jeroboam the first it became a place of syncretism. Then second Elijah went to Jericho, the point of entry to the Promised Land. You see what he was doing? God had ordered him to reverse the journey of exodus from the wilderness to Jericho to Bethel the first place of the sanctuary, and now from Bethel to Jericho to the wilderness. A prophet of God was indicating captivity, captivity. And God had led them there and they had turned that land into a place of abomination, and therefore God through his prophet was taking them out symbolically, to indicate the end.

Elijah had been a lonely man most of his life. Solitariness was deep in his bones, and now in the company of Elisha he bids him farewell twice, to be alone at the end. But Elisha the servant-son who loved the old man deeply refused to go. “As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee.” He makes his last request of his spiritual father. “I pray thee, give me, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” What does this refer too? To the laws of inheritance, according to the laws of inheritance in scripture the oldest Godly son received a double portion. If there were three sons the estate was divided four ways, and half went to the eldest Godly son. Any ungodly child received nothing. He then had the responsibility for the care of his parents and exercise leadership in the family. And Elijah now asks for a double portion of thy spirit, to be the heir of Elijah, as indeed he did become.

Then as Elisha so Elijah taken up he cried “My father, my father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” The meaning of the cry is simply this, the defense of Israel, its chariots, its horsemen, its military strength is not in its armies but in the word of God, the prophet of God, in the servant of God. So that a greater defense then all that Ahab or his sons commanded was in the person of Elijah, and the true power of any country today is not in its armies but in its people who are men of the word upon whom a double portion of the spirit has fallen. As sure as I stand here I will tell you that it is not the atomic weapons that will preserve this country, the word of God declares that when men are not in harmony with God a falling leaf shall put an army to flight. Men stand in terms of God and His word and human weapons have their place, but apart from the blessing of God no man and no nation stands.

During the 1930’s when the future of Europe was being discussed and someone mentioned to Stalin the resistance to his plans that would come from the Catholics in a particular country he had in mind, he smiled cynically and said “And how many legions has the pope?” But today one of the greatest persecutions in the world is being launched in the Soviet Union against Christians, why? Because they are frightened of the legions of the Lord, because they are seeing as never before the resurgence of Christian faith, because whereas earlier the Christians who were brought forward were meek and submissive and easily led away, now they stand up to their accusers and to their judges and witness to them, and proclaim the judgment of God upon them, and they are afraid of them even though the power of the sword is in their hands. The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof, where do we see our power?

The mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha and Elijah was taken up into heaven by a mighty whirlwind. The storm wind we find repeatedly in scripture always associated with a coming and with a presence of the Lord. We meet with it in such passages as Isaiah 29 verse 6, 40 verse 24, Ezekiel 12:11, Zachariah 9:14, and so on. There is an ironic factor in Elijah’s last moments, the chariot of fire, the horses of fire. Ahab had died in a chariot so that in the last moment the two great adversaries, Ahab and Elijah, saw a chariot as they left the earth, one to reprobation and one to be ascended up into heaven bodily. Ahab died in a chariot and the dogs licked up his blood and the chariot was washed in a pool used by prostitutes for bathing. The death of Ahab was the ultimate indegredation [sic]. But Elijah was escorted into heaven by chariots of fire and horses of fire.

The ironic about Elijah again is that here is the one prophet who asked to die, so very, very discouraged that he prayed actually “it is enough oh Lord, take away my life” feeling himself to be a failure, discouraged and disheartened by the continuing and deepening apostasy of the nation, and he is the prophet who never dies, who is taken up physically into heaven. We meet with Elijah once more after his ascension on the mount of transfiguration prior to our Lord’s exodus at Jerusalem. Even as Elijah left the promise land and went out into the wilderness the word that is translated in Luke’s gospel as His decease at Jerusalem is literally His exodus, His exodus from the promise land because it was now given over to judgment, and not one stone, he declared, would be left standing upon another because they had rejected Him. Men and nations stand in Ahab’s day and our Lord’s Day and in our day in terms of God and His word. Thou shalt have no other God’s before me.” Will our country be like Ahab? And will it like Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin and Pilot wash its hands of Jesus Christ and go down to destruction? Or will it turn and believe in Him?

In Proverbs 29 verse 18 we read “where there is no vision the people perish” but it can also be rendered “where there is no vision the people cast off restraint, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Shall we perish for lack of hearing ears? Men today have what Paul called in writing to Timothy, itching ears. They are sons of the devil by faith, children of the father of lies, and they believe in the theology of the lie, that every man can be his own god determining for himself what constitutes good and evil. That “hold a good thought” thinking makes it so; “have faith in faith” in other words, believe in man, the power of positive thinking, rather than the Lord God of hosts.

Baal worship is very much with us and all too many men today believe that they are Christians. They profess to have faith but their faith is not in the God of scripture. What does it mean to have faith? Our Lord teaches in a parable concerning faith what it means. A widow, scriptures repeated image of utter helplessness, goes to an unjust judge, a crooked judge, with a case; and the judge couldn’t be less interested. But she cries out day and night and finally the judge says “though I fear not God, nor man, lest this women wear me out with her continual pleading and create a scandal or a problem, I will give her what she wants.” And our Lords says “hear what the unjust judge sayeth, and shall not God avenge His own elect who cry out unto Him day and night? I tell you He will avenge them speedily.” What does it mean to have faith? It means that our priorities are from God, that what we are concerned about, what we pray about, what we think about is of the Lord. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Men today lack that kind of faith; other Lords have dominion over them, other Baals. And they go along easily day by day thinking and planning purely in terms of their self-interest and if once in a while they are aware that the nation is drifting into destruction it troubles them briefly and they put it out of their mind, it doesn’t occur to them to pray nor to serve God more faithfully because other Lords have dominion over them, their priorities are not in the word of God, and that is Baal worship; so that the paganism of our time is not merely out there in the world, but it is deeply rooted in the heart of the church, in our hearts, in our indifference concerning the matters of the Lord.

In every one of the 50 states today selected churches are finding federal and state officials coming, demanding overcite of their books, taking the Christian schools to court, arresting pastors to establish legal precedence in order to subjugate all churches and Christian schools. Why? Because they believe in Lordship, the Lordship of Moloch, of the state, and they are zealous in their faith. Shall we be zealous in ours? Shall we stand in these days and say to these men “here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”? The time of testing daily comes closer, there is not a week passes but I have a call from Washington telling me of the developments and of the plans and of the agencies that are moving against the Christian faith, moving to obliterate it, moving to control all Christian institutions, and we had better make up our minds soon, who is our Lord and whom we will serve, and in terms of whom we shall stand, because every man will make a decision whether he is on the receiving end of the knock on the door, or not, and the Lord will know his decisions. Where do you stand? Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art the Lord, we thank Thee that all other gods are but vanity and in Thine own good time Thou shalt destroy them and their worshipers. Oh Lord our God recall us to Thy word, make us zealous therein, instant in prayer, that we may become faithful soldiers of our Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks unto Thee oh Lord for these Thy people, the sheep of Thy pasture, for their of Thy word and of Thy house, and we pray that Thou would strengthen their hearts and make them ever mindful 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, that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. We thank Thee our Father that Thou hast called us to victory in Jesus Christ, make us faithful soldiers in Thy service, in Jesus name, amen.

[Audience member] {?} [Something about faith without works is dead, satellites covering the United States and Russia, hippies, disorganized churches, and people not having a strong foundation]

[Rushdoony] Yes, the question is “What are we doing about it? What is being done about it?” Well, first of all a great deal is being done about it and this is one reason why the persecution is breaking out. The Christian school movement since 1950 has grown dramatically. No-one knows today for sure how many are in the Christian schools of this country but the number is considerable. For example within the past week from one smaller city in Indiana I learned that at one school alone they lost five hundred pupils, this was a great school grades 1-6, they lost them to Christian schools. And this is the kind of story I get across country, the loss is phenomenal, there’s no statistics giving that information because there is no collecting agency. However I think the estimate of the number who are now out of the public schools and into Christian schools is perhaps as high as one out of three and the percentage is growing continually because two or three new Christian schools are being established daily. This is why they are trying to kill the movement.

Now I said I would be in Washington for the IRS hearings. We know that some of the IRS officials have stated to some officials in Washington who have inquired, congressmen and the like, that their reason for doing it is to save the Public Schools, if they don’t bring the Christian schools under control the public schools will perish. So they see it as a life and death matter, these are humanists. They feel if the Christian schools continue to grow at the present rate by the end of this century they will have lost this country, it will be a Christian country. Now this should tell all of us something as to where the real action is, it’s not in the political area and I’m not saying we should slight it, I believe we should do more there, but I’m saying we’ve got to recognize we have the tool right now that is frightening the opposition, let’s strengthen it and develop it. You want to take over this country? Help build up the Christian schools, that’s what the enemy feels is going to take this country over and they want to destroy it.

Now second, what is being done in another area? What is needed of course is to redevelop Biblical thinking in every area of life and thought. Now we started some years ago a foundation, Chalcedon, to do precisely that, to find men a we had the funds to re-think philosophy, economics, mathematics, every area of life and thought in terms of the word of God so that men could go out and rethink their disciplines in terms of Christian thinking. Well since we started it a number of other groups have gotten the same idea which is very good, I still think we’re out in front but [laughter from audience] the point is people are seeing the responsibility.

Now, I want to say something further. One reason why we’ve gone under the past 50 years, and I’ve seen it since I was a boy, is that too many Christians and conservatives have done nothing but to document what the opposition is doing. Ever since I was a boy there are all kinds of men and groups who were always ready to peddle information about “you see how they’re taking over this church? And they’re taking over this? The social gospel is making progress here, and the modernist are making progress here? And the Fabian socialist’s and the communists are taking over this and they’re setting up this group and that group, and now we have the trilateral commission and we have the council on foreign relations” and so on. What are they doing? Why millions have been spent since I was a boy, and that’s putting it mildly, documenting our own funeral [laughter].

All that money that had been spent from the time I was a boy to the present in building Christian schools would have resulted today in a country that would have been God-fearing. What we need is positive action, and that’s what we’re finally beginning to get. This is positive action, the school is positive action, that’s what we need to build up. It’s only such things that can turn this country around and are doing it. All this time they haven’t been the least bit worried about anything anyone’s been doing until now, and they’re frightened, they are literally frightened. They are going to try and destroy everything by having literally thousands of trials of Christians, for one thing or another all over the country, to try and bleed us to death and discourage us.

Well this IRS regulation is a diabolical thing but I think it was of the providence of God. IRS got flooded with more letters than ever before in its history, never had such a thing happen to them before, it shook them up badly so they’re having to hold a hearing. On top of that we got through the foundation of law and society in Washington, six schools together to act as plaintiffs to sue IRS for breaking its own laws. And that’s beautiful, every time I think about that [much laughter in audience] that delights me. IRS has taken so many people to court and now they’re really shaking because somebody has taken them to court and makes them look bad, they’re very upset, they’re going around offices we hear, fluttering and very upset and “why has this happened to us, we’re such nice people you know?” So we have to take the initiative, we have to be aggressive, and that’s what’s beginning to happen and I’m very happy about it.

Any other questions?

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience Member] By what means are exactly are they planning on taking over the schools or controlling them?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The IRS regulation, there are a number of ways, the IRS regulation which was entered into the federal register in August and would of become a law on the 23rd of October if we had not forced them to hold a hearing, would of required all Chrisitan schools to integrate their student body and faculty to a ratio determined by IRS and to grant scholarships to students to bring it up to the ration they set.

Now of course this can destroy a lot, most Christian schools, they are barely making ends meet and if they have to grant so many scholarships to minority group students that will destroy them and as Senator Helms has said if this type of thing prevails the next thing they can say I that homosexuals must be included in the faculty as a minority group, and that there must be abortion and birth control counseling for Junior and Senior high students. In other words, with this regulation the IRS would be the board, then, and those of you who are familiar with this sort of thing will bear with me, there are attempts to demand unemployment compensation of all Christian school teachers. Now that type of thing can be demanded of employees and any profit making organization. The Christian schools are not in the category of a business, so the demand is lawless, but it comes through every state from Ray Marshall of the Labor Department.

Then another type of regulation is of nurseries. For example in a number of states where women meet, say on a Tuesday morning for the women’s guild meeting, one of the mother’s will take turns taking care of the small children in the church nursery, that constitutes they’re told “a daycare facility and must be licensed by the state” Now, I just cited three methods; I mentioned earlier the matter of going to churches and demanding oversight of their books. These are a few of a multitude of strategies and attacks that are being used, and it costs a great deal to fight every one of them. By the time you get to the Supreme court it takes half a million dollars.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Could you speak up a bit?

[Audience member] I feel very incensed about this matter. The fact we have a {?} nation is no longer a God fearing nation we know that, when only 30% of the population actually attends church, let alone believes in the fundamental tenets of the Bible, and we know that daughters have superseceeded Godliness throughout the homes throughout every aspect of American life and they find that big power {?} various nationals and various isms, if you know what I mean, from one end to the other running wild in the subject of psychology trying to infiltrate people’s mind are running so ridiculously out of hand and we have court system {?}. And going through the soft touch process back in Washington D.C. I can see no reason at all why God fearing people that have a strong sense of godliness can’t get together in unity status and {?} instead of taking the soft-touch tact. That’s what I see wrong about the people that are very well meaning and are worthy people of being {?} it’s a bad subject to bring up I suppose but it’s still a point and a half about the culture {?} the distinction between freedom and license and somebody ought to define it. So I’m just wondering if you get that {?} [Laughter]

[Rushdoony] Well of course in this IRS protest the Christians did respond beautifully. The mail went in like a flood and I hope it’s the beginning of many such protests.

Are there any other questions?

Yes?

[Audience member] Can you tell us a little about the Christian school problems in Ohio?

[Rushdoony] Yes, in Ohio it’s been a long standing problem. In Ohio the state-issued guidelines for all schools, public and private, requiring them to teach Humanism. This was finally defeated in two cases which took about four years through the appellate courts to the Ohio state supreme court. The Levi-Wisner case and the Kanell {?} – Winchester case and they did win. But the matter is not over as in this James-Olan case.

Now in the 20th of this month there will be another case, this is a better type of case, the reverent Joe Louis, a good fighting name, is going to court against the state of Ohio suing them for violating the first amendment by having an establishment of religion, namely the public schools which he says are humanistic schools are teaching religion and therefore are not entitled to public funds. [laughter] Now naturally this has the state very, very much upset. That’s a case to be in prayer about. The state has been stalling about three years on that case and it’s finally coming to a preliminary hearing on the 20th of December. The reverent Joe Louis incidentally has independent means, although he has a fair sized congregation, so he’s in a somewhat better position to carry on this fight.

[Moderator] Any more questions?

[Audience member] It seems to me that there is a great deal of separation within the Christian churches in the sense of denominations and I was wondering if you see, first in the broader scope, where the government is coming against the Christian churches in general, not just in the school issue but other issues, do you see any means or movements where there can be cooperation with the Christians that are real believers so that they’re approaching these problems on a unified basis rather than being divided and conquered.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well first of all in these Christian school cases they are coming together, the various church groups, they’re coming together not in any legal or inter-denominational sense but they’re coming together simply to work together. This is the best way. The courts would prefer to see all the churches in some kind of union because they are easier to control. If they are independent it means thousands of independent groups everywhere, difficult to control. Thus they demand of churches trying to find out “what association do you belong to?” and of course they’re going after those that are not organized, hoping to establish a legal precedent which they then can apply to all catholic, Lutheran, Christian Reformed, Episcopal, and other schools you see. At present they don’t want to disturb, by and large, a denomination. You get to many people angry at you at one and the same time so unity in the sense of organizational unity is dangerous, it plays into their hands because once they get control of all organizations it’s easier to keep tabs on them all. Even when there are state-Christian school associations of independent schools we find that they try to infiltrate the meetings and get a copy of all the schools that are attending the meeting or are in it, and this is a regular problem.

I was last month in Alabama for the Alabama state Christian school association meeting and they had to require at all the meetings that you had a delegates badge because state officials were trying to get in and find out the names of all the schools or to take the role call just so they could know where all these schools are. You see in most states there is no necessity of filing with the state department or any state agencies, you have a Christian school. The state doesn’t know where to go to persecute these schools in many cases unless the school, locally, tells them, a public school, “there’s a school down the street and we’ve lost a hundred students to it.” So there is a working unity but an organizational unity is the wrong thing to have.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} California you are required to register as a private Christian schools, the city of California you have the registry of private Christian schools, is that not right?

[Rushdoony] No. The state would like you to believe that you must register, but if you start a Christian school here in California you do not have to have any dealings with the state or the local board of education. You are technically required to submit attendance reports but there is no law punishing you if you don’t. Many never turn them in. So that all you need is a business license and zoning permit which is entirely in a different office of the city or county government. There is no connection with the state department of education, although the state department wants you to believe that there is.

[Audience member] We started our school here and the biggest opposition we had was from other school people. {?} getting our permit, and you remember that {?} down at city hall? I couldn’t believe it. People were concerned about the piddling little traffic we have here and not a word was said about the 600 student school across the street, not a word was said about that. We were going create a {?}for our little school. Frankly our school here we on the promise that if the government really wants the information it will send you the same form 20 times after you neglected to fill out the first 19 [chuckles] and you know, fat dumb and happy. Those of you who are like myself believe it’s nobody’s business that we have firearms, for instance, that’s basically the only thing that keeps some people from doing things is they don’t know who’s got firearms and who hasn’t, and that’s what Pastor Rushdoony is saying, they don’t know whose got schools and who doesn’t, let’s leave it that way, really.

Our little school here we could get some free milk from Sacramento, we aren’t anti-cow, we don’t want anything free from the government. The minute you take one nikel of government aide, I know I worked for Uncle Sam for a long time in the military, the minute you take nickel of his money he wants 95 cents of the say of what goes on. He did it in the public schools. When Federal aid in education went the local school boards only have 10% of the final say on their local schools, used to have 90%, now they have 10, and the federal aide doesn’t pay quite half of the cost. You know you just have to be on the alert. I think we kind of operate on the premise that some of the people that are beauracrats, they want to be fair, they want to be decent, taking quotas, and they have to come around and put on pressure and this will make you think I’m a real heel I know, but I’ll give you an example of how an IRS man came to our church office one time and wanted to know if so-and-so was a member here, “yes”, “did they contribute so much money last year?” I said “I don’t know, I’ll take a look and see, checking on their tax that they reported?” “Yeah” “Here’s the record, in fact they gave more than they claimed” He said “I’ll take that” I said “no you won’t take that, that’ our record.” He said “I’ve got to have that” I said “you will not take that without a court order” “well could I have a copy?” I said “Sure we’ll go down to {?} Segway and there’s a Xerox down there.” Okay we went down and put the thing on the Xerox machine, I said to him “you’ve got a dime?” [Laughter] He got a copy, but he didn’t get the original record, no way. So, you know, we have to be on the alert. It’s nice to be nice people, and we should be nice people, but Christians have to be on the alert and I appreciate so much we’re getting this information from pastor Rushdoony, he’ll give us more the next few nights.

You know if we’re just aware of what’s going on we can sure do a lot, but we have to be aware. I {?} tomorrow night the question and answer session isn’t going to be this short, it’s going to be much, much longer. How many of you think you’ll be able to be back tomorrow night?

[Rushdoony]