Such confused thinking prevails concerning the Sabbath, which is commonly identified with Saturday. The day of Israel's redemption from Egypt was the Passover, and all Sabbaths dated from that event. The seventh day of creation was the pattern, but the day of observance was in terms of God's summons through Moses to separate the people from Egypt unto the Lord by observances culminating in the Passover. The Old Testament Sabbath was on particular dates of the month, not on the seventh day of the week, even as one's birthday is always on the same date but on a different day from year to year. After the fall of Jerusalem, some generations later when a return to Jerusalem was unlikely, the Jewish Sabbath was made to be the seventh day of the Roman calendar. Because the old Jewish calendar is still used to mark the day of resurrection, the date of Resurrection Day, or Easter, is variable from year to year in terms of the Roman calendar.
Our central concern must be with the meaning thereof, the meaning of the Sabbath for Christians. Our day of salvation is not the death of the firstborn of Egypt and the exodus but Christ's resurrection, His atoning death and triumph over sin and death.
Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is the first fruits of the dead and the beginning of the resurrection and the new creation (1 Cor. 15:20,23). This means that the Christian Sabbath, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the first day of the week, is directed, not to a past event, but to a future one. It celebrates the deliverance of Christ's people from sin and death, and it looks ahead to the new creation. Older hymns celebrated the Sabbath as a type of Christ's victory over this world, His Kingdom triumphs here, and for eternity. The Sabbath is a rest from the war to "put all enemies under his feet," after which the last enemy, death, is destroyed (1 Cor. 15:24-26). This means that the Christian Sabbath is eschatological in its meaning, and that meaning is postmillennial.
To celebrate the Sabbath is thus to herald Christ's resurrection and our hope, His victory and ours.
In Exodus 20:8-11, the commandment concerning the Sabbath cites the pattern it follows, God's rest on the conclusion of the creation week. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the reason for Israel's Sabbbath observance is given, their mighty deliverance from Egypt. In the New Testament the day of resurrection, on the first day of the week, becomes the ground for the Christian Sabbath. This points ahead to the conquest of the world for Christ in terms of the Great Commission (Mt. 28:18-20). We observe the Sabbath best as we extend Christ's Kingdom and dominion. The future orientation of strong Christianity is faithfulness to the meaning of the Sabbath.
Deuteronomy 5:15 tells us that because God delivered Israel out of bondage to Egypt, "therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day." Gratitude is the mark of Sabbath observance. It is to be a day of holiness, a day of sanctification, meaning set apart for the Lord. This means essentially sanctifying ourselves so that every day we can serve Him with all our heart, mind, and being. Our deliverance requires our total dedication.
The test as to whether or not the Sabbath has been kept is not what goes on each Sunday as much as what happens during the week. If there is no holiness during the week, it means that there really was none on the Lord's Day. The true observance of the Christian Sabbath means that all of life is renewed and altered.
On a true Sabbath, there is a confrontation of the people by God's blessing, healing, strengthening, over-powering, and commanding word. The word of God gives us our marching orders. It is not a place where the drop-outs of life are comforted but where men gain strength for the wars of the Lord. The meaning of the Lord's Day is postmillennial in all its implications.
For a few years now, I've sought to clarify just how much Christian Reconstruction differs from the fully developed Religious Right. During this process, I read a great deal of the concerns by those outside of Conservative Christian circles regarding the apocalyptic drive of the "Left Behind" believers and their push for Armageddon. This group represents untold millions of simpletons that essentially worship the state of Israel and have marked muslims and non-Christians for tribulation and death. They have aligned themselves with Republican leaders like Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum, and their desire for war is the one of the greatest distortions of Christianity in the modern age.
This video by Max Blumenthal (NOT a Christian) of a recent CUI (Christians United for Israel) event is one of the most disturbing clips I've seen this year.
It is incumbent upon every believer in a truly Biblical eschatology to oppose such thinking wherever it pushes its unbiblical agenda. Just as questions regarding eschatology gave rise to the Liberal view of the Scriptures (e.g. Albert Schweitzer), so also a false eschatology ("Last Days Madness") is giving rise to a fascistic stream of "God's End-Time Army."
"The family cannot be limited to the modern atomistic family, those living under one roof as husband, wife, and children. The marriage unit of husband and wife is the nuclear family, but it is not the sum total of the family. To illustrate: on the one hand, a family with three children, nominally religious, is in no sense Christian nor an area of dominion. Each member goes his own way: there is no sense of any moral responsibility to God or to one another, nor to the grandparents. This is a marriage and a family, but in a biological sense and a legal sense, not in a Christian or moral sense, in that even adultery and fornication are tolerated within limits. In another case, the family has three children, two sons, and one daughter. A son and daughter have never married; all three children reside some distance from home. They are, however, a godly family. The parents are supported in retirement by the unmarried son and daughter, with help from the other son. The married son was helped through the university by his brother and sister. The family has helped other relatives, and some friends as well, and, while absent from their small town home, have been important in aiding some Christian causes therein. All three children are exercising dominion under God, and all three have a strong sense of family. The daughter, nearing retirement herself, has more of a family life in her effect on other families, and the love she has earned, than the lawless mother in the first family. In the first family, family life means little more than a legal sexual relationship and life under one roof, an essentially biological concept of family life. In the second family, family life is a form of social organization with theological premises, so that it exists and governs where no sexual relationship exists...
"The family in Biblical law controls three central areas of life, the control of which governs society. And institution or agency which controls children, property, and inheritance is the determining agency in any society. Not surprisingly, the modern state, in its totalitarian designs, has invaded all three areas in varying degrees, by means of property taxes, inheritance taxes, statist schools, and laws limiting the jurisdiction of the family. The state seeks to be the new family of man." ~ R. J. Rushdoony, "Marriage and the Family," from Salvation and Godly Rule.
"Newspeak" is the term used by George Orwell in his oft-referenced novel 1984, and it describes the systematic undermining of human thought by means of reducing and contracting words. By the elimination of words, the concepts behind the words cannot easily be entertained. It's one thing for the statists of Orwell to engage in such subterfuge, it's quite another thing when we do it to ourselves.
I spoke with a dear Reformed brother recently who did not desire to use such terms as "theonomy" or "reconstruction." He felt that he could convey the ideas in other ways. How exactly, he never explained.
If we eliminate words that carry such broad meaning, we make it difficult for people to conceive the ideas behind the terms. As the words go, so goes the meaning; as the meaning goes, so goes the ideas themselves. We are left with nothing resembling any orthodoxy of the original idea. How then can we expect Christians to sustain the praxis?
When everyone else is going the other direction, the best choice is to stay faithful. You cannot go wrong by taking your stand upon the law of God and it's application to every sphere.
"True police power is thus in the citizenry and not in the state; it is delegated, not surrendered. This is the identifying mark of a true police, and the source of its offense to a totalitarian order." ~ R.J. Rushdoony, The Nature of the American System, p.178
"An attack on the local police is an attack on the right of self-defense. When the local police are destroyed, the totalitarian state will have arrived in full force. That great civilian army of local police, and a citizenry with police powers and the right to bear arms, is thus a major target of subversive activity, assault, legislation, and propaganda." ~ Ibid., p.184
The old saying is that "a picture can speak a thousand words." Therefore, it's often necessary to "show" how much something has changed by demonstrating that transformation through images. I've taken the time to prepare a few images for your review.
May God have mercy on this nation. Pluralism has made its way to the root of the U.S. government. When Christ found moneychangers in the temple, it marked the end for Israel--she was cursed to the root. Listen to the few Christians in the background rebuking this idolater in our nation's capital.
"Piety is thus a very common substitute for true religion and an impediment to salvation. The piety of Peter, James, and John was designed to forestall Christ's death and resurrection and the subsequent responsibility of the apostles to confront a hostile world with the gospel. Thus piety was to replace conflict, but, in so doing, it would have denied salvation.
"This attitude has been all too common in the church. To forestall the conflicts over faith and doctrine which might tear the church apart and cleanse it, the pious ones plead for a pious withdrawal instead, as though salvation means withdrawal rather than victory. Such piety moreover makes a great show of spirituality and reverence, and it presents itself as superior to the 'trouble-makers' who want a godly confrontation.
"True piety or growth in sanctification is a work of God's grace, whereby those whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world, are, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, renewed in their whole man after the image of God, so that now, in obedience to the law-word of God, they put His word into force in every area of life, serving God in joy and in thanksgiving. It is the application of Christ's victory, of His saving power, to every area of life in terms of His word." ~ R.J. Rushdoony, Salvation and Godly Rule, p.13
"Unlimited submission and obedience is due to none but God alone. He has as absolute right to command; he alone has an uncontrollable sovereignty over us, because he alone is unchangeably good. He never will nor can require of us, consistent with his nature and attributes, anything which is not fit and reasonable. His commands are all just and good. And to suppose that he has given to any particular set of men a power to require obedience to that which is unreasonable, cruel, and unjust, is robbing the Deity of his justice and goodness." —Samuel West, A.M., of Dartmouth; Mass. Election Sermon, 1776.
"A state which should rely upon force alone would soon fall, for though men are naturally gullible they are also naturally obstinate, and power, like taxes, succeeds best when it is invisible and indirect. Hence the state, in order to maintain itself, used and forged many instruments of indoctrination--the family, the church, the school--to build in the soul of the citizen a habit of patriotic loyalty and pride. This saved a thousand policemen, and prepared the public mind for that docile coherence which is indispensable to war. Above all, the ruling minority sought more and more to TRANSFORM ITS FORCIBLE MASTERTY INTO A BODY OF LAW which, while consolidating that mastery, would afford a welcome security and order to the people, and would recognize the rights of the 'subject' sufficiently to win his acceptance of the law and his adherence to the state." ~ Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. I: Our Oriental Heritage, p.25
"The psalmist asks, 'Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship thee, WHICH FRAMETH MISCHIEF BY LAW?' (Ps. 94:20)...The humanistic state constantly expands its power, because its goal, and the goal of its citizenry is to be as God, determining their own laws, lives, and morality (Gen. 3:5). Because it is not God, the humanistic state has a problem, never having enough power to play god as it hopes to do. As a result, by an ever expanding body of law, the humanistic state strives for the total power that is its dream." ~ R.J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. III, p.49
"What is the relation of clergy and politics? Should men in the pulpit speak out on social and political questions, and, if so, under what circumstances? Answer: The clergy cannot faithfully expound the Word of God without dealing with virtually every social and political question. The Bible speaks not only about salvation but about God's law with respect to the state, money, land, natural resources, just weights and measures, criminal law, and a variety of other subjects. The clergy are not to intermeddle in politics, but they must proclaim the Word of God. There is a difference: political intermeddling is a concern over partisan issues: preaching should be concerned with Biblical doctrines irrespective of persons and parties." ~ R. J. Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction, p. 552.
"[P]olitics cannot produce character: Christianity must. The decline of faith is a decline of character and a decline of character is the forerunner of political decay and collapse. Christianity has an obligation to train a people in the fundamentals of God's grace and law, and to make them active and able champions of true political liberty and order." ~ Ibid.
Creation is not viewed from the perspective of man but from God's perspective. This requires us in every area of life and thought to see all things from a God-centered, not a man-centered, perspective. ~ R. J. Rushdoony, Genesis, 9.
It's easy for one familiar with both the Reformed faith and Christian Reconstruction to read over so simple a passage as that Rush provides here. His thinking is based upon what he references as the Biblical reason for God creating the heaven and the earth:
Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Rev. 4:11
If all things are created for His pleasure, then we must seek His vantage point in all things. This is what it means to be God-centered--it's the centering of all our thinking and actions towards God and His purpose. It's doing all things -- no matter how menial -- to the glory of God (c.f. 1 Cor. 10:31).
Contending with these commandments can often be difficult for a ministry such as ours. This may come as a surprise, but despite the God-centered nature of our mission, the temptation to cater to what produces market growth is always there. If a ministry's leaders are not watchful, they can soon be engaged in a marketing drive not unlike any for-profit business. Success becomes the goal, and the God-centered emphasis quickly depletes. You become like the Church at Ephesus: you're in desperate need of restoration:
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works... Rev. 2:5
Pietists tend to emphasize verse 4: "[Y]ou have left your first love." In my opinion, the first works are the first love. Love, like faith, is demonstrated in good works. In the case of modern ministries, we leave our good works in order to thrive on the spiritual Dow Jones.
This was never Rushdoony's way. To him the service of God was primary, and there would be no discussion concerning a compromise for the sake of growth. He never himself purchased a book because of its cover, so it took my predecessors years to get his permission to spend money on cover designs. He wasn't concerned with movements, organizations, or position. He concerned himself with the Kingdom of God and the Word of God. He spent his days investigating all God's Word had to say about all of life.
I remember speaking with a dear friend who served as both an associate pastor and youth pastor at a burgeoning mega-church. He is a godly man, but his work was endless. Day and night he labored to make the ministry successful. One evening, I mentioned to him my greatest concern. I said, "Brother, when exactly do you have time for contemplation? For reading? For application?" He said, "Not much time, if any."
In terms of its attendance, the church he was building is thriving today. In humanistic terms, this is how success is measured. But, in terms of the Kingdom, it's retarded. It's growth does not represent a mature application of God's Word. The Lordship of Christ is easily blasphemed because many of these churches resort to man-centered messages in order to fill the pews.
Chalcedon, and Christian Reconstruction, are blessed with many great men that have made God-centered doctrine the object of their pursuit. But after years of experiencing little growth, and little money, there is a potential danger that we all can cater to the demands for growth. Certainly, there are things we can and should do in order to reach those who've not yet heard from us. Yet, in all things we must continually guard our hearts. We must see all things from God's perspective. He created all things for His pleasure, and so all things must serve Him. And sometimes, being too successful gets in the way of our faithfulness to serve.
I don't envy the international ministries. I often pity them. The complications associated with such behemoths are more than any of us care to have. For the time being, I believe Chalcedon is quite safe from such burdens. We have a built-in defense mechanism: we're selling responsibility, and there's just not that many takers.
"The free man is thus a governing man. The slave, one who seeks security above freedom, cannot be an elder. The man who sought security at the price of freedom was to have his ear pierced, to indicate a subordinate and feminine status (Ex. 21:6; Deut. 15:17).... It must be said that modern men are largely slaves. They leave the government of their children to their wives, the schools, or the church. Not suprisingly, impotence is a problem to modern man." ~ R. J. Rushdoony
A dear friend notified me of a position currently open at a Tuscon, AZ Christian academy for Headmaster for grades K-6. If you, or someone you know, is interested in pursuing this position, you can find more information here.
AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the United States. The Zionist control of the American psyche is breathtaking. And regardless of whether you support Zionism, or not, we should never allow a foreign nation to hold that much sway over our money, our people, our media, our political leadership, or our military.
Since his great falling away from the heights of Charismania, Tulsa pastor, "Bishop" Carlton Pearson, has had his publicist working in high gear. Nearly every major news network has featured his story about his great awakening to the truth about Hell, i.e. that Hell doesn't exist.
Pearson claims that God revealed to him that the orthodox concept of Hell as a lake of fire of eternal punishment was a myth. He claims he could not reconcile that such a loving God would eternally torture unbelievers in unimaginable horror. And after watching a news program on Rwanda, God spoke to him and told him that Hell was "on earth--it was something man created for himself."
By embracing this concept of hell as a myth, i.e. not literal, Pearson saw the obvious implications. He had to embrace the homosexual. A loving God would not destroy fallible people, and therefore, sin was not what Pearson thought it was. God intended to embrace everyone, and sin is merely a mythological description of human fallibility. Pearson calls his message the "Gospel of Inclusion."
Here's a brief story by ABC on the Pearson phenomenom:
The analytical thinker should recognize some obvious holes in Pearson's logic. First, if Hell is here on earth, and it's not what ancient tradition claims it to be, then how can he say that everyone will go to heaven? If Hell is mythical, then Heaven is equally mythical. If Hell is what men make it to be on earth, then so is Heaven. It's the height of inconsistency to hold the Bible as reliable in it's propositions concerning Heaven, yet unreliable in it's assertions regarding Hell.
But why stop there? If the Bible is as deviously fallacious as he claims it to be, then why not dump the clerical collar--and earing, for that matter--and simply go Unitarian? If the Bible is unreliable about selective items of your choosing, then it's unreliable in those items NOT of your choosing.
At the end of this clip, the ABC newsperson says that Pearson's view of Hell potentially damages the traditional church because they can't charge people money for keeping them out of Hell. Somebody slap him, please. I can guarantee you that Bishop Pearson is STILL charging his congregants! He ain't got no day job.
Lastly, Pearson certainly hasn't discarded his "God complex." That's the one thing he obviously retained from his Charismatic days--if ain't broke, don't fix it! Just take a look at his web site, and tell me how "humble" his newfound revelation has made him. If that's humility, then I've never seen a man so proud of his own humility!
"In a democratic community individuals are very powerless; but the State which represents them all, and contains them all in its grasp, is very powerful. Nowhere do citizens appear so insignificant as in a democratic nation; nowhere does the nation itself appear greater, or does the mind more easily take in a wide general survey of it. In democratic communities the imagination is compressed when men consider themselves; it expands indefinitely when they think of the State. Hence it is that the same men who live on a small scale in narrow dwellings, frequently aspire to gigantic splendor in the erection of their public monuments." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville
"The democratic age is leading to centralization as the natural form of government. As long as the democratic spirit prevails there will be more and more concentration of power and more and isolation of the individual. The love of equality, thus, leads to the centralization of the state as the supreme power." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville
Some dreams never seem to die. This socialistic shift in power in the U.K. is the clearest indicator that globalism will be a keyword in the political vocabulary. It will be easy for American globalists to reposition neoconservative imperialism as a dangerous unilateralism that is destroying the world. Only the New World Order can save the day...
The New World Order is an old dream. Globalists have been pushing it for a long time. Here's Kissinger in 1975 showing his enthusiasm for a global society:
Here's Kissinger in the present stating how close we are to the emergence of a "New International Order":
And again... he just can't seem to get off the subject:
