Elijah and Elisha for Today

The Charge of Impotence

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 13 of 16

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[Rushdoony] Our scripture this evening is from II Kings, the second chapter verses 19-25. II Kings 2:19-25.

“19 And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.

20 And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.

21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.

22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

25 And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.”

Miracles are not too common in Biblical history. Centuries pass without a miracle. By and large we find the miracles of scripture clustered around three great eras. The first is the time of the Exodus, the second the time of Elijah and Elisha, and the third the time of our Lord and his apostles. These three eras also are times of judgment; the time of the exodus, a judgment upon Egypt and also upon Israel in the wilderness, at the time of Elijah and Elisha upon Ahab in Israel and also to a degree on Judah, in our Lord’s time there is judgment not only upon Judea, but upon the sin of man. But all three of these eras are also times of salvation. In the Exodus salvation from slavery, in Elijah and Elisha’s day a remnant is called out and prepared. In our Lord’s day the salvation of his people is set forth.

There is a striking difference between the time of Elisha and Elijah. Elijah spoke to the king and to the nation to recall them from apostasy, the events of his life are easily datable. Elisha has fewer contacts with those in power, most of his work is in preparing the remnant at the three schools of the prophets, the three seminaries at Bethel, at Jericho, and at Gilgal. Later on the seminary at Gilgal because of drought was transferred to the Jordan valley. As we read through Kings and Chronicles we find that some of these students were married, others single, the meals apparently were eaten in common, all were dedicated to fighting Baalism, the truly faithful in Israel went to these schools on the Sabbath and the faithful brought their tithes to these schools so that we see in the midst of a faithless nation God creating new schools for his servants and bypassing the traditional church as it were and creating a new Levitical and priestly order as it were.

Again, this reminds us of our time as increasingly we find that churches depart from the way of righteousness and truth and the faithful are more and more lonely therein. And as new seminaries are started attempting to salvage the situation and to create a remnant. We saw last night that the sin of Israel was syncretism that from beginning to end men claimed to believe in the Lord. But other things had priorities in their lives. As these young prophets went out they all faced a people seeking power and wealth, not righteousness nor holiness, but what God requires of men is righteousness and holiness which is the only true way to power with God. Now as Elisha goes to Jericho where one seminary was, he is called upon there to remedy a matter, their water supplies a tainted one. The waters have a very difficult and bad taste, a not uncommon fact in many areas that have a rugged and mountainous terrain.

Years ago I ministered in a sheep camp, a small community, and the waters there had such a sulfuric odor that it was difficult to drink them and everyone had yellowish teeth. The wealthier would go some distance to bring in bottled water for drinking. Here Elisha performs a miracle, the healing of the waters of Jericho. But our concern is with the next step, he goes to the second school at Bethel and as he was going up by the way there came forth the little children out of the city and mocked him. Scholars of the Hebrew tell us that the term “little children” could cover anyone between the ages of six and twenty. A man was not regarded as being mature until he was forty. You recall attention was called on one occasion by the Pharisee’s to our Lord’s usefulness and his temerity at daring to instruct them when he was not yet forty.

Now their charges, their mockery of Elisha, constitute a very interesting commentary on the faith of the people there. “Go up, go up” they shouted. This was an obvious reference to Elijah’s ascension. Now as far as most people were concerned whatever happened to Elijah it was not a miracle. Some whirlwind, some kind of natural phenomenon, had obviously occurred. Elijah had been sucked up, no miracle was involved, and as far as they were concerned it was “good riddance” and so to Elisha they said “go up, go up” good riddance of bad rubbish, one prophet is gone and we can dispense with another, and so they expressed their contempt of Elijah and Elisha and the God of Elijah and of Elisha. And then “thou bald head” now what’s the significance of that statement? It’s hardly likely that Elijah was too bald if at all bald, he was still a rather young man. But the term “bald head” in that part of the world had then and to a degree still does, and interesting connotation. In fact a connotation that was common to the world of antiquity. We are all familiar with the pictures of monks and of priests in the middle ages with a shaved pate. This is a practice that has been traced all the way back into Tibet and adjacent areas, and was originally the practice of Buddhist monks. What was its meaning? It was believed that a shaved pate, or a bald head, was a mark of impotence, and therefore when Buddhist monks shaved their pate they thereby indicated that they were surrendering all hope of any normal life, that they were abandoning the whole area of marital relations, sexual relations, a posterity, and so on. In fact in some pagan cults common to antiquity, common to Greece, common to north Egypt, common also for a while in Rome, there was on the part of the priests of various pagan cults, a ritual, self-castration. Now all of this was associated with baldness.

Now for these children who were Israelites, among whom all such practices were strictly forbidden, to tell a prophet of God that he was a bald pate was to say he was impotent. They were expressing an opinion concerning his faith, they were saying in effect “go up, go up, you’re useless, your religion is an impotent faith.” It was an indictment not only of Elisha but of the God whom he represented. They were saying and echoing thereby their adults, “we want no part of a religion of impotence.” And is this not the charge that is often raised against Christianity today? That it is a faith of impotence? And is not this the charge that is often raised within the church today by churchmen, who say in effect “why are we impotent?” But the fact is that not only is the world wrong, but every Christian that echoes that blasphemy of the world. There is no such thing as an impotent Christian, there can be and are far too many impotent church men in the pulpit and in the pew, but faith is not impotent. To talk about and impotent Christian is like talking about an atheistic Christian, it involves a contradiction in terms from one end to the other scripture speaks about the power of our God and the power of faith. This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith, and our Lord says “this is my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The gates of hell cannot hold out against my true church.”

The world seeks to make us believe that we are impotent, but it is the enemy which is impotent, which daily declines in its power, which becomes daily more and more the terror it is.

I recall not too long ago when the public schools, to mention the enemy, [laughter in audience] were an asset to a piece of real estate. If you could advertise that a home was close to a school it helped sell the house, it does not now. It’s a handicap to be across the street or just down the block from the school. Why? Because they had degenerated so that to live next to a crowd of hoodlums is no longer a privilege, it’s a really liability.

And why is the IRS moving against the Christian schools? By their own statement heard by an associate of mine, “because the only way we can save the public schools from destruction is to wipe out their opposition.” Who’s impotent? Why the public schools. Today we see increasingly the impotence of unbelief, of humanism, of the godless family which is rent apart with inner rot and disintegration. How dare we talk about Christians being impotent and helpless? The wages of sin, the scripture tells us, are always death. And what we see taking place all around is the decay and the coming death of a godless, of a humanistic culture and society. We dare not think of ourselves as impotent without joining hands with those children of Bethel upon whom the judgment of God fell because it was God the Lord whom they indicted, it was of God the Lord whom they said “he is impotent, and his religion is useless in this world.”

At Bethel God set forth not the impotence of Elisha but of Israel; as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 1:25 “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” For God has so created all things that when men depart from His word they pay a price, if they depart an iota there is a penalty and the further they depart from his price the greater the penalty, and that penalty overwhelms them. Read Deuteronomy 28 as it describes the irresistible curses that overwhelm those that depart from the word of God. Or remember what Amos says in 5:19 as he describes the life of the man who has departed from God and is flagrantly against Him, nothing works for him, all things then work together for evil for such a man. And Amso says “it’s as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house, that is to escape and slammed the door, and leaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him, now that’s how God portrays His judgment.” Are we impotent? No. It’s the enemy who will be pursued by the lion, the bear, and in the safety in his house when he pauses to rest he is struck down by a serpent, he cannot escape.

Today therefore we need to see the picture realistically and clearly. It is not we who are the impotent, though the world try to make us believe that and shout it, God will judge them. But what are we seeing? The decay and the collapse of the world all around us, the humanistic world. Decay eating out the heart of the Soviet Union, degeneration to the point that one Soviet writer wrote a few years ago “Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984?” Decay eating out the heart of the west so that every day we see the deterioration, the disintegration, and the coming collapse not only of the dollar but of the governments, of the people. We are in the last days in the modern age and of the growing collapse and withering away of Humanism, of a godless culture and a godless society, and we have never had a greater opportunity. Oh true, they’re giving us trouble, they’re trying to destroy us as I did go into last night, but it’s the hatred of the dying for the living. As they decay they are determined that we go under with them.

And so as we face the powers of darkness all around us let us remember this story, some find it embarrassing “why what a horrible thing for God to do” put it’s part of the word of God and God does not take kindly ever from one end of scripture to the other to any blasphemy. And we are told that moved of the Spirit Elijah turned and cursed them in the name of the Lord. “In the name”, what does that mean? Name stands for in the power and person. Halt, in the name of the law, in the power and authority of the law, in the name of the Lord Elisha declared that all who declare that God and the people of God are impotent, all are accursed. And we too must say to all, whether it be someone near and dear to us if they talk about the impotence of our faith in the world, they must repent or they are under the judgment of God for daring to pass such a judgment upon God the omnipotent. Elisha passed on but two she bears came out of the woods and tear forty and two of these children, of these young people. God spoke, and in our time God is speaking.

We draw closer everyday to judgment, we are in judgment times. Everywhere I travel I find this sort of thing, public school teachers saying “it’s no fun to teach anymore”, men in business saying “it’s no fun doing our job anymore”, men in the oil corporation saying “our work is no longer fun”. For everyone its drudgery, it’s waiting for the end to come, all with a sense of doom, all seeing no future, overcome with a sense of hopelessness. But in all of this we must stand as the people of God knowing that greater is He that is in us and with us then He that is in the world. Knowing that while these are troubled we have a peace that passeth understanding from Him who says to us “my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. It is the world around us which is impotent, and though it rails against us it but confesses its fear when it does so. For a mighty fortress is our God, and He is a bulwark and a stronghold and a fortress never failing

And so it is that the power of God goes forth in this day too in judgment upon those who are His enemies and with the healing of the waters in the most difficult of places for those who stand in terms of His word. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father who of Thy grace and mercy has made us a people unto Thee. We thank Thee that Thou hast created us a people of power against whom the very gates of hell cannot hold out. Teach us to move therefore as a mighty army in Thee and unto Thee that we might go forth in the confidence that we are servants of the King of kings. We thank Thee our Father for one another, we thank Thee that Thou hast made us for Thy purpose and brought us together from the ends of the earth and united our hearts in Thee. Give us zeal in Thy service, a holy boldness in battle, and confidence unto victory through Jesus Christ our Lord, in His name we pray, amen.

[Audience member] Do you have anything to say about the Jim Jones dude?

[Rushdoony] The Jim Jones case and the Peoples Church is an amazing thing because reading the newspaper accounts is really startling. The truth is that Jones was a Marxist, he was very close to every left-wing leader in Northern California in San Francisco and up until about a year ago all of these prominent liberals and leftists in the United States enjoyed being on a platform together with him, whether it was men such as Mondale and Humphrey and Mayor Moscone and Rosalynn Carter and many others. What he was doing was to try to revolutionize the blacks of Northern California, taking them into communes, having them sign over their properties and their incomes to him and he established of course, a training in Guyana, which is a socialist area and had all kinds of special privileges in Guyana which the socialists there would not normally grant to anyone, least of all a Christian or a conservative.

However about a year ago, perhaps slightly longer ago than that, one magazine New West exposed the practices of Jones, the shake downs, the robberies, the beating of peoples, terrorizing them if they would not consent to sign everything to him. And the New West article was so devastating that every liberal politician who had been very close with Jones previously ran for cover, didn’t want to be associated with him overnight and it was necessary for Jones then to flee, as he did, to Guyana where he continued in favor. Congressmen Ryan got on this bandwagon after the article and decided to go there and make an investigation and got shot by one of the members.

Now to me it’s very peculiar that at the same time we heard about the shooting on the news the reports came that they feared mass suicide at the colony. How did they know? What in the world gave them any idea there would be mass suicides? Well lo and behold there were, or so we are told. I’m inclined to be suspicious, I don’t say I know anything about it because I don’t, but the news stories are so suspicious in that they almost infer his connections were KKK rather than Marxists, I’m predisposed to doubt the entirety of the story as to what has happened.

[Moderator] There must be at least twenty questions among you tonight. {?}

[Audience member] {?} Would you mind {?} that we are in the world but not of the world?

[Rushdoony] Yes, would I {?} the statement that we are in the world and not of the world. I think it’s related to the statement of our Lord when He said at the trial “my kingdom is not of this world.” Many have used that to deny that the Christian has any obligation to the world or that the Christian has any obligation to exercise authority or to seek to rule, or to exercise dominion. What our Lord said there was “my kingdom is not derived from this world, it is not of it or out of it, but it is over the world.”

Now we as Christians are in the world, if we are located here we live here, but we are not of the world. Our birth is from above. We have been born again from above so that we are no longer a part of the old humanity and our origins are not from the first Adam, they are from the Lord. So that we have a position, as it were, as an aristocracy of grace. Therefore our orders come from above, our motivation comes from above, we move therefore in terms of purposes which come from the Lord, not from this world. Does that help?

[Same audience member] You hear it so often that we’re not supposed to be really active in…[Rushdoony cuts in]

[Rushdoony]… Yes, the thing you must be wary of is more or less semi-medieval or neo-platonic interpretation which says that the Christian is in the world but not of the world because he must withdraw from things, as it were, into a convent or monastery and not get involved in any of the practicalities of this world. We see that very often in the hostility of many churchmen to politics, as though it’s polluting, it’s too much of this world, but that’s not its meaning at all, it’s not to be read in a monastic sense but in a supernatural sense and it calls us to have dominion in the world because we come with marching orders from the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

Yes?

[Audience Member] So many churches right now are so involved with being, first being born again, and being baptized and then being baptized in the Holy Spirit and they are so wrapped up in the gifts of God and of the Holy Spirit, is this so necessary for Christians?

[Rushdoony] The question is the absorption in the ostensible growth of the Christian from being born again into the gifts of the spirit.

Well the gifts of the Spirit are not to be construed in terms of Pentecostal gifts, those were extraordinary things which took place at the time between our Lord’s ascension and the fall of Jerusalem. There is no historical record of them occurring after the fall of Jerusalem, but it was a witness to Israel that the Christ whom they crucified was alive and was coming in judgment upon them. Now practically what the quest for all these special gifts results in is a self-absorption, an endless preoccupation with cultivating some supposed gifts or seeking them, rather than in doing the will of God, and it leads very commonly to a spiritual pride in some who feel that they have gone further in the attainment of these gifts.

Now what we are called to do is to believe in God and to serve Him, to obey Him, and that means practically doing what His word requires of us. Now this means first of all that we become Godly families because the family is the first and most basic institution of scripture. The only institution God created in paradise. It means then in terms of our calling we seek to magnify Him and serve Him there, in terms of every area of our life we obey His word and seek to apply the whole word of God to the totality of life in every direction.

Now what has happened in the modern age is that as Christians have ceased to see that they have a responsibility for the home, the church, the school, the state, and the vocations, and they’ve pulled in to the supposed development of this purely internal Christian experience, they have surrendered the world to the devil and they’ve turned their own soul, as it were, into a separate monastic cell where they are going to seek experiences in isolation from reality and in isolation from problems.

I’ve forgotten in which one of my books it is but I quote this highly spiritual woman who rejoiced when her children and her husband now because now she could seek spirituality with fewer hindrances and my feeling was if I had been a DA then I would of certainly investigated the death of her husband and children. But you see there was no feeling of any real loss, she was delighted, they were out of the way and now she could cultivate spirituality. Well this is the kind of false spirituality many of the so called “spiritual” people of our day are cultivating. It’s an abstraction from the world of God, from the world He made, for He requires to exercise dominion to serve and to obey Him.

[Audience Member] I’ve been to places where people have spoken in tongue and it’s very difficult to accept this, is this really a gift from God or is it something that’s….I don’t know, I don’t know how to take it so I thought I’d ask.

[Rushdoony] Well with regard to these tongues manifestations quite a few thousand hours of tongues at various charismatic meetings have been taped, they have been analyzed by linguistic scholars, not a single case has ever yet been turned up that they are an actual language. They are usually a meaningless babble of two or three syllables repeated over and over again.

Now the fact that this has been done is known even by the top scholar in this field at Oral Roberts University and he has a difficult time getting around that fact.

[Audience Member] ‘Cause like, I thought that it was speaking in tongues as in Pentecost so that they could preach to people that spoke a different language and now they’re trying to say it’s a personal, the Holy Spirit can cleanse you by speaking in tongues and it’s just between the Lord and the Holy Spirit and you.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The temporary justification is an admission that it is radically different from the New Testament experience.

[Audience Member] There’s an old saying that the sects, s-e-c-t-s, are built from a neglected truth. The Christian churches have neglected some truth and somebody comes along and picks up one of those neglected truths and builds a sect around it and history shows us it does happen. You know the history of the Pentecostal movement, it started with a, on the university campus, what was it a hundred years ago?

[Rushdoony] Something like that.

[Audience Member] Yeah, and you know it’s part of a heightened emotional…Well let me put it this way. You sit down, I’m a Grandpa, you sit down and try to describe to a ten year old child and they say “yeah I saw that on T.V.” I mean {?} before it’s noticed you know? And this is part of it. But I remember when one of my classmates who happens to be a history professor in our church said “Well I may have all of the Holy Spirit but He may not have all of me.” We haven’t {?} surrendered ourselves to Him and I’m telling pastor Rushdoony today the story about the guy {?} who used to {?} while the preacher was preaching he’d shout “fill me Lord, fill me.” Meaning with the Spirit, and a couple years of that the pastor grew tired of it so one day he stopped preaching and he said “yeah Lord, fill Him, the rascal leaks.” [Lots of laughter]

The Holy Spirit is very real, He’s constant, He’s {?}, He’s always around, wherever the word of Christ is preached He’s there and you don’t need a two twenty-volt jolt. I had a little old granny in a congregation in Minnesota who couldn’t get to church and felt poorly and {?} and I’d called on her and she told me how much she got out of listening to Brother Roberts, and when he’d pray she’d put her hands on the radio and she would feel so good, well I checked her, {?}she had a metal cabinet, she was getting a little 120 voltage leaks [laughter] {?}

Anymore questions?

[Rushdoony] Let me add this, when you go through the Old Testament passages and then the New, on the Holy Spirit, the first reference you find that speaks of the Holy Spirit is when men are called out who have ability artistically and are filled with the Spirit to build the tabernacle furnishings, so it’s associated with abilities, aptitudes, and then men who are of a sound understanding, also spoken as men of the Spirit so that the gift of the Spirit is not associated with the ecstatic but rather with abilities and with sound judgment so we have a completely idea of the Holy Spirit in these groups today, and it doesn’t jive with what we get in the scriptures about the Holy Spirit. Yes?

[Audience Member] There’s an earlier one then the one you mentioned, the one the Jehovah witnesses have tampered with in their New World translation. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, in Genesis 1, creation, building.

I want to tell you an experience down in {?}, you’re familiar pastor Rushdoony with the {?} institutes? We were given a tuition to that so my wife and I went down to it and during a coffee break, little tables out in the hall where the only place to sit was occupied on the other side by two ladies so, you know I didn’t want to stand so I sat. And these two gals were cowgirls from Arizona, they were dressed in blue jean Western outfits, this was no J.C. Penney, these were tailor made {?} western, they were obviously pretty well to do people. And they said “are you minister? What church? Do they Lutherans believe in the Holy Spirit?” [laughter] I wanted to tell them {?} [laughter]

They were Pentecostal holiness and they got, you know {?} something bothers me, you’re in real danger I see, who died to paid for your sins? “Well, Jesus.” Who rose again to overcome death? “Jesus” Well with all the emphasis you have on the Holy Spirit I don’t hear a {?} about the Savior. Well she had the funniest look on her face and she said “Yeah, that would be a danger, wouldn’t it?”

Karen?

[Karen] {?} I will agree with that but I do have a question, and I hope it won’t be a problem that I asked question but I haven’t {?} The gift of tongues is a special gift right up to the destruction of Jerusalem, right? What I don’t understand is why did Paul write the letters to the people at Corinth? {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, they existed up until that time and they were a witness and most of the members whether they were in Judea or in Corinth or elsewhere were still the bulk of them taken out of synagogues or else they were proselytes from among the gentiles. By the year 100, forty years after the fall of Jerusalem, or thirty years rather, there were approximately half a million Christians throughout the empire. The bulk of them were made up of either Jews or Proselytes into Judaism and it was minority of those who were out and out pagans before. Now Corinth did have some of these, but this is why there were particular problem in Corinth and Paul had to deal with them. They were problems with regard to the Spirit and problems with regards to morality.

In Corinth you had the Greek background which said that sins were of the Spirit, this was a Hellenistic type heresy, and not of the flesh. So that as long as your heart was pure you could be involved in fornication or homosexuality or anything like that, and it was alright. Classic example of that of course is Socrates. Socrates could talk about virtue while he was involved in homosexuality, as you find when you read the dialogues of Plato, because virtue was a thing of the spirit, but what one did with one’s body was nothing because the body was nothing. Well similarly they had views that were closely involved with ecstatic experiences and utterances. There were many, many such things in Greek religion. Now the kind of thing that Pentecostalism represents is not new. This kind of so-called talking in tongues, which is just a meaningless babble is common to ancient paganism. It was very commonplace in Asia Minor, in Greece, in Africa, and elsewhere. It was very prevalent in Greece.

So you had a confusion there. First you had this immorality coming in with nobody thinking it was immorality, because after all they were good people spiritually. And you had these ecstatic utterances coming in and calling themselves speaking in tongues, so there was a very real confusion, and it’s significant it happened in Corinth. Corinth, by the way, was a manufacturing town. It was a town that liked sensationalism, it like experientialism. We know that about the time of Paul, and Paul says he went there with fear and trembling, the chamber of commerce maintained two thousand prostitutes free for the use of the salesmen who came there to buy Corinthian goods, and it was a city that played up to experience and to sensationalism. So it was a difficult place to work because you had a particularly difficult type of person; people who were far gone into a very sordid kind of experientialism. Does that help?

[Audience member] {?} John 3:3 says “truly, truly I say unto you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” could you?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Some discussion between two members of audience, microphone does not pick up]

[Audience member] You cannot see the kingdom of God unless you are born again.

[Moderator] Unless {?} what does it say? Born in the Spirit?

[Audience member] Truly, truly I say unto you unless one is born {?} and spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

But I {?} you have to be born again you know after you clean your heart and be born again.

[Rushdoony] Yes well of course she probably feels that there must be a particular type of experience. Our Lord is right that one must be born again, but that does not mean it was to be the revival type of experience, there’s a difference. God doesn’t give us the right to prescribe the form that the rebirth takes place, He simply says that it must take place and it’s not of our doing, it’s of the Lord’s that when we are the Lord’s he works in our heart, he conforms our heart to Him so that we love Him and we love that which is of Him, we love His word, we love His house, we then indeed come forward to receive the baptism of the water because we have it of the Spirit. This can be a dramatic experience as some revival people have experienced, but it can also be something that is gradual, but it is nonetheless real.

Now, here I’m going to repeat something that some of you have heard me say but I hope this illustration will clarify the matter. What we have done in recent years, and we have undone the reformation thereby, is to put all the emphasis on conversion. But the reformation was born by the emphasis on justification. Now what’s the difference? In justification we have a legal act of God through Jesus Christ who makes satisfaction or restitution for our sins so that we are legally now guiltless in the presence of God. At the same time he also regenerates us, this is a legal act accompanied by a vital act, regeneration.

Now, if somebody, this is my illustration, were to go and deposit, as I’ve said before, a hundred thousand to my account, I would not know about it immediately but my experience when I heard it would be a very happy one, that would be my conversion experience you see. God has done something, versing priorities we have placed all the emphasis on the conversion which is simply the manifestation of what God has done. So what we need to stress again is justification by faith, the reformation was born with that, the reformation will be brought back to life with that emphasis.

So ask your daughter then about justification, does she know what that means? And it’s not her doing, it’s what God has done for her in Jesus Christ. Now if she knows what that is then she is converted, but if she doesn’t then she has an experience, that’s all, not salvation. You see the key is justification, does that help?

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} About conversion being an ongoing process.

[Rushdoony] Well conversion is followed by sanctification, or our justification is, and in sanctification which is an ongoing process we conform ourselves progressively to the image of God in Christ, and we are continually renewed by the Spirit in terms of Him. So that there is a growth, there is God’s act and then there is our growth.

Yes?

[Audience member] I had a couple questions in regards to your comments on the gifts. You’re saying part of the movement, like in the last 15 years, called the charismatic movement, and I think almost all denominations no, but a large percentage of them, have accepted that movement within their body, for example the Catholic Church. And I think there’s about 5 million Catholics who embrace the {?} movement which include speaking in tongues and your arguments against that were not out of the Bible, they were external to the Bible, and if you read the Bible there are words in the Bible that support those, I mean there’s nowhere in the Bible that says that they stopped at the destruction of the temple, 70 A.D. that’s not in the Bible, that’s interpretation.

So my first question is, isn’t it true that your argument against that are external to what’s written in the Bible?

And the second question is, can we personally ever stop those experiences?

[Rushdoony] First of all the scripture says “whether there be tongues, they shall pass away” that’s very clear, so it speaks of it as ending.

[Same Audience Member] {?}

[Rushdoony] But the context of those words is not the end of the world, but there are certain things that are temporary and other things enduring in the Christian experience. So I do believe the scripture speaks clearly that there is a time limit on those Pentecostal experiences.

Now, true I cited arguments that are not scriptural, but I think the fact that thousands of hours and never once a real language has appeared is certainly an argument that a Christian must pay attention to because we are given minds by the Lord to use them. Second, I have not sought the experience because I do not seek experience as such, I seek simply to follow and obey the word and nowhere in the scriptures does it tell me to seek after those experiences. So I’m not concerned.

[Audience member] Well I feel, to categorically pass judgment on 5 million Catholics and everybody else that has entered into the charismatic movement is, uh, I think they had a right,

that obviously enough people believe in that, that is enough support.

[Rushdoony] Well of course, granted, that there are five million Catholics and many million others who believe in it. There are millions also who believe in reincarnation, I don’t think numbers mean anything. I do believe that there are many people in the charismatic movement who are there simply because they’ve found a lot of the preaching they’re getting to be dead and are in search of the truth and I think such people will move on. Others are there because they are experience hungry people and they’re the tragic ones.

Yes?

[Audience member] Mr. Rushdoony why {?} did he say that?

[Rushdoony] He did say it to people at that time but he did not tell us that this was an important, he makes clear very definitely that it is also something that is not even to take place in the church unless there can be a purpose for it and that it contribute to the edification of those who area present, to their instructions, to their minds, because that’s the meaning of the term there.

[Audience member] Well I know you said that {?}{

[Rushdoony] Well I suggest you talk to the Reverend David Chilton afterwards because he’s had an extensive experience within the movement before leaving it and can tell you of some of the very grievous problems therein, he’s right here in the third row.

[Same audience member] Oh, okay. {?} I just wanted to ask you why {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] Slight change of subject a bit but...

[Rushdoony] Good. [Audience laugher]

[Audience member] Didn’t I state last night that there was a case by the state to impose the unemployment compensation on church for workers, and I heard that this was on, quote “non-called employees” of the school, and if that be so, and I don’t know if you’ve heard that or not, then does the state recognize the calling? Have you heard that at all?

[Rushdoony] Does the state recognize what?

[Audience member] A calling.

[Rushdoony] No, the point as far as the state, or its laws are concerned, and the federal laws, is that it’s in all businesses for profit. This has to be paid, but Christian ministries are not a prophet making business so the definition is not in terms of a calling but in terms of prophet and non-profit and of course they’re clearly violating their own rules and regulations in going after missionary agencies, catholic orders, can you imagine unemployed monks? And they have gone after them here in California, the state has. And Christian schools. So obviously they’re not paying much attention to their own rules and regulations.

[Audience member] Do you anticipate a larger investigation into the churches and schools, etcetera, as a result of this Jones affair or would that be strictly a larger investigation into cults by the federal government?

[Rushdoony] I really don’t know but the kind of propaganda we’re getting about the Jones case is ominous because it is presented as though it were an actual church and completely false pictures being given. I’m very much disturbed about this Universal Life Church in Medesto. The courts refuse to overturn its tax exemption and yet it will give you a mail order Doctor of Divinity, make you an archbishop, or a bishop, or whatever you want to be, and the man who’s running it is becoming very rich doing it.

Now why is the IRS giving such a bad time to churches that are legitimate Christian churches, and yet we’re not seeing the universal life church given more than a kind of token opposition? And yet you see they come at the churches and if you site the universal life church they say “oh, but you see this is why we’re cracking down on everybody because we want to eliminate these kind of violations” why do they go to, say a Baptist church that’s been there eighteen years with a membership of a thousand or so? And everybody knows it’s a church, it’s been there all that time. So I’m afraid any excuse that comes along will be used to feed and fan the flames of persecution.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Would you repeat that?

[Audience member] From your position in the church what degree of support, church support, do you see being given to Dr. Scott and the Faith Center in the {?} fights against the {?}

[Rushdoony] Faith Center, which is?

[Audience member] {?} They have a radio program it’s kinda of semi-charismatic.

[Rushdoony] I don’t know, I’m not home often enough to know what’s happening on television or radio and…

[Audience member] Apparently {?} ruled on it though {?}

[Rushdoony] What was the nature of the decision?

[Audience member] The decision dealt with the fact that all the assets held by the church, the court held to be, held in public trust and as such were open to the inquiry about the attorney general to the {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, well that’s the type of case I mentioned as occurring all over the country. Any and every church is held by various state and federal agencies to be a public trust, therefore the federal and the state governments have the right of oversight over their finances, their organizational structure, and everything.

Now I…

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s one of many cases of this sort all over the United States. I hope they will appeal it because this is the type of argument we do not want to see established. The one tactic being used by these various governmental agencies is to go after a group that will somehow be on the border as far as many of the churches are concerned, so they’re not too likely to rally to its support, and they figure thereby to establish a legal precedent on what might be an easy case. As you described it, apparently semi-charismatic and so on, it won’t get the support of many church groups, but they’re all involved in that you see, so they should be all supporting that Faith Center because their future depends upon its winning in this battle. Now we may not agree with what they teach, but if it’s a Christian’s Church or center it does have the legal immunities and should be defended.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} ‘cause there are so many people within the federal and state of California government that have been involved in, at one point or another, a investigation {?} as far as the church school is concerned, {?} Which are putting them into a business venture, as a result they’re directly in competition with private enterprise {?} that if they can establish precedent with the smaller groups as a broader category they’ve got children, they’ve got the Roman Catholic church, they’ve got everybody {?}

[Rushdoony] Actually this channeling of money into activities that compete with private enterprise is a myth, it isn’t possible. For example, if you have a publishing venture – which I can speak with a little knowledge, if you show any signs of making a profit they’ll move in immediately, you can’t do it. And this is true of any kind of venture that any religious group goes into. It has to be governed by purely missionary and benevolent purposes.

At the present time there’s one publishing venture that is being faced with extinction, not because it made a profit but because over a good many years, and they’ve been in existence about forty years, they accumulated a little funding on the side so that they could at one point or another have their own separate building. Now this was because it was so expensive to lease properties, so they finally accumulate enough after about 40 years to have a small building as a warehouse and an office, and IRS immediately said “you are out of business because this constitutes a profit to have a building.” And yet it’s cheaper for them then to have to continue to lease. The rules are so strict I don’t see how anyone can. There were so many rules and regulations on this that I was ready to throw in the sponge before we started because I didn’t see how it would be possible to weed one’s way through all those rules and regulations about conducting any kind of activity such as publishing some things on a missionary basis.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} but you have to have more in regards to financial holding then any church {?} And yet they do get away with it.

[Rushdoony] I don’t know the details there. I do know this; it’s easy enough to point to some religious activities that are not honest. I can think of one in southern California which is highly suspect, but the price you pay if you say the state should do something about that is that you put every religious activity under the state, and I don’t know any area where there’s more crookedness today than in the state. So what gives the state the moral grounds to supervise the churches, which by comparison are lily white at their worst? You see. Meanwhile you’ve compromised a tremendous principle, the freedom of the faith, and you’ve made Caesar Lord over Christ.