Hitch
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RJR
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Hitch
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“The great superstition of the modern age is a political superstition: it is the belief that more power in the hands of the state can lead to a better Plan and to man’s triumph under the Plan. In terms of this superstition, man will eliminate poverty, prejudice, war, and a host of other evils by means of the Plan. Hence, more power to the State!
“The Plan supplants law, God’s law. The Plan denies justice or righteousness. It recognizes only the supremacy of the power state and the philosopher-kings (or “scientific” planners) thereof. Because justice, God’s justice, stands always above and over man and man’s plan, the Plan works to exclude God’s law or justice, and it therefore wages war against Biblical faith. If there is no God, there is no law, only man’s Plan.
“The Plan, in fact, must work to disassociate itself from justice because it seeks to separate itself from God…
“The modern humanistic state has done exactly that. Its course is self-consciously
humanistic. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion and, in the process, avoided any consideration of a Biblical position. All kinds of premises were examined but not that of God’s law: no transcendent law order was given any attention. Law was replaced by the humanistic Plan.
“Elections, however important, cannot change the mind and heart of man. Law is in essence a religious question. When even churches are indifferent to God’s law, the state will be also. But to be indifferent to God’s law is to deny that God is God, and that His law-word alone is sovereign, like Himself. But, if there is no God, then there is no law, and no justice.”
R.J. Rushdoony, “No God, No Law,” Chalcedon Position Paper No. 44, November 1983.
“The Plan supplants law, God’s law. The Plan denies justice or righteousness. It recognizes only the supremacy of the power state and the philosopher-kings (or “scientific” planners) thereof. Because justice, God’s justice, stands always above and over man and man’s plan, the Plan works to exclude God’s law or justice, and it therefore wages war against Biblical faith. If there is no God, there is no law, only man’s Plan.
“The Plan, in fact, must work to disassociate itself from justice because it seeks to separate itself from God…
“The modern humanistic state has done exactly that. Its course is self-consciously
humanistic. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion and, in the process, avoided any consideration of a Biblical position. All kinds of premises were examined but not that of God’s law: no transcendent law order was given any attention. Law was replaced by the humanistic Plan.
“Elections, however important, cannot change the mind and heart of man. Law is in essence a religious question. When even churches are indifferent to God’s law, the state will be also. But to be indifferent to God’s law is to deny that God is God, and that His law-word alone is sovereign, like Himself. But, if there is no God, then there is no law, and no justice.”
R.J. Rushdoony, “No God, No Law,” Chalcedon Position Paper No. 44, November 1983.
Hitch
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Because the language of the Bible, as well as its imagery, is ancient and sometimes alien to us, we often miss the implications thereof. The builders of the Tower of Babel were honest about their purpose. First, they began the construction of a tower to be the governmental center of the world and a city round about it. Their goal was a united humanity, a one-world new order for all the ages. Second, the tower’s top was “to reach unto heaven,” i.e., to rival and supplant God’s government, law, and control. There was a resentment for the ways of God, and this new order was to signify man’s declaration of independence from God. Man’s own planning and control would provide a humanistic and statist form of predestination to replace God’s. Third, the tower was, we know from archeology, a stepped pyramid. Each successive floor of this world-center building was smaller than the preceding one, until the top story was a single, large room. Each floor represented a degree in the ascent to power in this world order. The Hebrew word used in Genesis 11:4 and translated as name is shem, meaning authority, power-center. In Genesis 9:26–27, Noah blesses Shem as the one through whom authority shall come; the descendants of Canaan will serve Shem, and those of Japheth will dwell in “the tents of Shem,” under his protection. This is one of the early predictions of the Messiah, the Shem or ultimate authority and power. The builders of Babel, by saying, “let us make a name” for ourselves, were saying, let us be our own authority and savior. We do not need God to provide us with His appointed one: we appoint ourselves.
Again and again, from antiquity until now, men have attempted to build their “new world order,” their new Babylons. Not believing in the triune God of Scripture, they believe in man and primarily in themselves. They hope and plan to build a “new world order” which will meet every human need by controlling every facet of life.
It is very important to recognize, whether we view a head of state or a minor bureaucrat, that these people believe that their plans are for mankind’s greatest benefits. It is they who can best provide for the general welfare; indeed, only they can.
As a result, while talking much of freedom, freedom is their enemy. If man is allowed freedom, he may well reject their enlightened rule and authority. Some feel that, for environmental “reason,” the automobile must be outlawed for the “common” man: it gives him too much freedom. George Orwell’s vision of 1984 is rapidly becoming a reality. The changes in the Soviet Union have not hindered the dream of “one-world order”; they may have furthered it by disarming the minds of countless peoples.
Man has two great enemies. First, because of his fallen estate, man the sinner works against himself. “But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). Men are usually their own worst enemies but refuse to acknowledge that fact. They are surprised to find that the wages of sin are always death (Rom. 6:23). They somehow expect God to see them as they see themselves!
The second great enemy of man is the modern humanistic state. Its faith is not in God nor God’s law, but in its own authority (shem) and law. But, because it is godless, the state is at enmity with God, and therefore with man. To play god, it must subdue men to itself, and this means waging war against man and man’s freedom. Humanistic taxation is the power to destroy, and it is so used.
St. Paul, in Romans 13:3, makes it clear that the purpose of the state under God is to be “a terror . . . to the evil,” but the “praise” of good men. The term “praise” here means, as John Murray pointed out in The Epistle to the Romans, “The praise could be expressed by saying that good behavior secures good standing in the state, a status to be cherished and cultivated” (vol. 2, p. 151).
This is hardly true today! The “rights” of criminals exceed those of victims. Prominent politicians and members of Congress usually retire with a very generous pension even after committing crimes, if they are at all forced to retire.
continued
Again and again, from antiquity until now, men have attempted to build their “new world order,” their new Babylons. Not believing in the triune God of Scripture, they believe in man and primarily in themselves. They hope and plan to build a “new world order” which will meet every human need by controlling every facet of life.
It is very important to recognize, whether we view a head of state or a minor bureaucrat, that these people believe that their plans are for mankind’s greatest benefits. It is they who can best provide for the general welfare; indeed, only they can.
As a result, while talking much of freedom, freedom is their enemy. If man is allowed freedom, he may well reject their enlightened rule and authority. Some feel that, for environmental “reason,” the automobile must be outlawed for the “common” man: it gives him too much freedom. George Orwell’s vision of 1984 is rapidly becoming a reality. The changes in the Soviet Union have not hindered the dream of “one-world order”; they may have furthered it by disarming the minds of countless peoples.
Man has two great enemies. First, because of his fallen estate, man the sinner works against himself. “But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). Men are usually their own worst enemies but refuse to acknowledge that fact. They are surprised to find that the wages of sin are always death (Rom. 6:23). They somehow expect God to see them as they see themselves!
The second great enemy of man is the modern humanistic state. Its faith is not in God nor God’s law, but in its own authority (shem) and law. But, because it is godless, the state is at enmity with God, and therefore with man. To play god, it must subdue men to itself, and this means waging war against man and man’s freedom. Humanistic taxation is the power to destroy, and it is so used.
St. Paul, in Romans 13:3, makes it clear that the purpose of the state under God is to be “a terror . . . to the evil,” but the “praise” of good men. The term “praise” here means, as John Murray pointed out in The Epistle to the Romans, “The praise could be expressed by saying that good behavior secures good standing in the state, a status to be cherished and cultivated” (vol. 2, p. 151).
This is hardly true today! The “rights” of criminals exceed those of victims. Prominent politicians and members of Congress usually retire with a very generous pension even after committing crimes, if they are at all forced to retire.
continued
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Hitch
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This is hardly true today! The “rights” of criminals exceed those of victims. Prominent politicians and members of Congress usually retire with a very generous pension even after committing crimes, if they are at all forced to retire.
Consider this, in New York City: some twenty armed men enter a Dan’s Supreme Supermarket on Hillsdale Avenue in Queens. They wear bullet-proof vests and are gun-carrying, radio-equipped members of the sheriff’s department. They enter the store and hold the manger hostage until $16,900 is paid in cash for a supposed littering violation. But how can a store control that paper discarded on the sidewalk by passersby? One man, who testified that these “sanitation agents” come to his neighborhood “at least four or five times a day,” testified that one such agent “followed a piece of paper from store to store and gave three stores tickets for the same piece of paper. It took him half an hour to wait for the piece of paper to move from store to store, but he waited.” Meanwhile, the city has cut back on street cleaning! This is all a part of Mayor Dinkin’s new policy. At the same time, the infrastructure of the city decays (Carolyn Lochhead, “Big Apple Takes Bite from Its Own Future,” Insight, September 16, 1991, pp. 26–29).
In varying ways, the same story can be told from coast to coast and around the world. Godly and productive people are the targets of repression, control, taxation, and evil measures, while criminals are less and less punished. The modern humanistic state is at war with its best citizens because they have money which can be taken from them, and because they represent the state’s enemy, the realm of godly freedom. Ungodly freedom, a license to kill by abortion, homosexuality, and now sometimes euthanasia, is treated with statist favor. The new world order is a war against God and against the freedom of godly and responsible citizens.
What will the church today do? Pronounce a blessing on the building of this new Tower of Babel? Keep silent and preach a “spiritual” gospel? Embark on church growth programs that do nothing but add self-satisfied people to the rolls? God’s wrath against every Babylon in history is written in all of Scripture.
The Word of God is clear: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). The fall of Babylon the Great in Revelation 18 is portrayed as beginning with a worldwide economic collapse (Rev. 18:11–21). The new Tower of Babel, the “new world order,” will meet the fate of its predecessors over the centuries. Earlier in this century, Hitler proclaimed his “new world order,” with environmental concerns, animal rights, tree rights, and more; and its end we know. The end of the new effort will be no better.
An old proverb says, “There are more dusty Bibles than dusty books of pornography,” or, we can add, than dusty television sets. Another proverb says, “The man who drowns, no longer has to learn to swim.” It may soon be too late to learn swimming.
Consider this, in New York City: some twenty armed men enter a Dan’s Supreme Supermarket on Hillsdale Avenue in Queens. They wear bullet-proof vests and are gun-carrying, radio-equipped members of the sheriff’s department. They enter the store and hold the manger hostage until $16,900 is paid in cash for a supposed littering violation. But how can a store control that paper discarded on the sidewalk by passersby? One man, who testified that these “sanitation agents” come to his neighborhood “at least four or five times a day,” testified that one such agent “followed a piece of paper from store to store and gave three stores tickets for the same piece of paper. It took him half an hour to wait for the piece of paper to move from store to store, but he waited.” Meanwhile, the city has cut back on street cleaning! This is all a part of Mayor Dinkin’s new policy. At the same time, the infrastructure of the city decays (Carolyn Lochhead, “Big Apple Takes Bite from Its Own Future,” Insight, September 16, 1991, pp. 26–29).
In varying ways, the same story can be told from coast to coast and around the world. Godly and productive people are the targets of repression, control, taxation, and evil measures, while criminals are less and less punished. The modern humanistic state is at war with its best citizens because they have money which can be taken from them, and because they represent the state’s enemy, the realm of godly freedom. Ungodly freedom, a license to kill by abortion, homosexuality, and now sometimes euthanasia, is treated with statist favor. The new world order is a war against God and against the freedom of godly and responsible citizens.
What will the church today do? Pronounce a blessing on the building of this new Tower of Babel? Keep silent and preach a “spiritual” gospel? Embark on church growth programs that do nothing but add self-satisfied people to the rolls? God’s wrath against every Babylon in history is written in all of Scripture.
The Word of God is clear: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). The fall of Babylon the Great in Revelation 18 is portrayed as beginning with a worldwide economic collapse (Rev. 18:11–21). The new Tower of Babel, the “new world order,” will meet the fate of its predecessors over the centuries. Earlier in this century, Hitler proclaimed his “new world order,” with environmental concerns, animal rights, tree rights, and more; and its end we know. The end of the new effort will be no better.
An old proverb says, “There are more dusty Bibles than dusty books of pornography,” or, we can add, than dusty television sets. Another proverb says, “The man who drowns, no longer has to learn to swim.” It may soon be too late to learn swimming.
Hitch
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According to Scripture, it was not man's flesh that fell into sin, but the whole man. The doctrine of total depravity means that the extent of the Fall is total, that every aspect of man's being is tainted by sin, and that the root of it is the 'heart' of man, in his mind, nature and being. To seek refuge in the spirit to escape from the flesh is to seek sanctity in the capitol of sin, for it was and is man's desire to be as God, to be his own god, determining good and evil for himself, which is the essence of original sin (Gen. 3:5). The ascetic quest thus took refuge in sin from sin! It flew from the suburbs of temptation into the central city of sin and was then bewildered to find the enemy there.”
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"The state has insisted upon identifying the state interest with public interest. This means that the state is equated with the people. Such an identification ensures totalitarianism, because the state then is the voice and even the incarnation of the people. To oppose the state means to oppose the people, and dissenters are classified as “enemies of the people.” No private concern nor any public concern can then exist. To oppose the state interest is to oppose the will of the people. Because the state interest is at the same time identified with justice and moral concern, a most arrogant Phariseeism ensues.
"This is presently the position of most bureaucracies the world over. It is certainly the stance in the United States of state and federal attorneys as they confront churches and their functions. It is they who speak as the voice of justice and morality, as the guardians of the “public interest.” All too often, as history makes clear, the state interest has been the enemy of the public interest.
"The statists see a compelling state interest in the control of the spheres of education, economics, religion, and more. Once having assumed the sovereignty or lordship of the state, there is then logically no limitation on either the jurisdiction or the power of the state. Sovereignty or lordship means total and ultimate authority. Those who acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ can then withhold no area of life and thought from His dominion. Given the sovereignty or lordship of the triune God, it follows of necessity that law must proceed from God, because lawmaking is an attribute of sovereignty. Antinomianism is a denial of God’s sovereignty and an implicit affirmation of the state’s lordship."
(From R.J. Rushdoony, “State Interest Versus Public Interest,” Position Paper #38, March 1983.)
"This is presently the position of most bureaucracies the world over. It is certainly the stance in the United States of state and federal attorneys as they confront churches and their functions. It is they who speak as the voice of justice and morality, as the guardians of the “public interest.” All too often, as history makes clear, the state interest has been the enemy of the public interest.
"The statists see a compelling state interest in the control of the spheres of education, economics, religion, and more. Once having assumed the sovereignty or lordship of the state, there is then logically no limitation on either the jurisdiction or the power of the state. Sovereignty or lordship means total and ultimate authority. Those who acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ can then withhold no area of life and thought from His dominion. Given the sovereignty or lordship of the triune God, it follows of necessity that law must proceed from God, because lawmaking is an attribute of sovereignty. Antinomianism is a denial of God’s sovereignty and an implicit affirmation of the state’s lordship."
(From R.J. Rushdoony, “State Interest Versus Public Interest,” Position Paper #38, March 1983.)
Hitch
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: "In brief, every law-order is a state of war against the enemies of that order, and all law is a form of warfare. Every law declares that certain offenders are enemies of the law-order and must be arrested. For limited offenses, there are limited penalties; for capital offenses, capital punishment. Law is a state of war; it is the organization of the powers of civil government to bring the enemies of the law-order to justice. The officers of the law are properly armed; in a godly state, they should be armed by the justice of the law as well as weapons of warfare, in order to defend society against its enemies. Friends of the law will therefore seek at all times to improve, strengthen, and confirm a godly law order. Enemies of the law will accordingly be in continuing warfare against the law.... Men cannot seek co-existence with evil without thereby declaring war against God."20 Christ's peace treaty involves surrender to Him, but the promise of victory, in this world, as well as in eternity. His law will triumph, for His kingdom has been established on the battlefield at Calvary.'
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"Biblical law permits voluntary slavery because it recognizes that some people are not able to maintain a position of independence . . . The law is humane and also unsentimental. It recognizes that some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.
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funny enough the Lord and I were talking about just this topic. He of course has a solution, which I wont detail here, but it will be remarkable. The tide will turn to the truth.
