What Do We Do In America Now? w/Mark Rushdoony

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Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it

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Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

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Delusional's okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

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So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. It's hung up on me!

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YES! What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

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Right. Don't go into the world and make homies. Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

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That's a joke, pasta. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

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And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio.

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This is Apologia Radio, the gospel heard around the world. You guys can get more at ApologiaStudios .com.

01:47

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So sign up for All Access. You're going to get Bonson U. It is advanced theological training, seminary -level education.

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Very excited about that. It is underway, so be in prayer about that. So we have a very special guest in our studio today and a very special show.

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But before we get to introduction to that, I want to make sure you guys are all ready for this and prepared for this. This is probably the most important thing that I have to say to you over the next couple of months or next month, actually, and that is we have an important event happening here in Phoenix, Arizona, January 22nd, and I want to encourage you to come out and hang out with us.

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Come stand with us. Come and be with us as we preach the gospel in the midst of the abortion holocaust in our state specifically, and, of course, that's nationally.

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But we have a representative, Walt Blackman. We have guys working on our roof right now. It sounds like someone just fell dead.

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We have representative Walt Blackman in Arizona who is putting in a bill to criminalize, to abolish, to end abortion in the state of Arizona, and that press conference for that bill is

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January 22nd at 10 a .m. at the state capitol. At 11 a .m., End Abortion Now is going to be holding a rally, focused on the gospel,

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God's word, justice, and the criminalization of abortion in the state of Arizona. I want to encourage you guys to think about this.

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These are not conversations that we were having 10 years ago. You have to understand how unique this is.

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God has been doing powerful things around the world, but specifically across the United States of America. We have right now that we know of 10 states at least who are working on legislation to criminalize, to abolish abortion.

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We were not having that conversation. That's why I was afraid to say that. We weren't having this conversation 10 years ago.

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We just were not. As soon as you let the saints in to this conversation, that's what takes place. So we've had

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Christians now proclaiming the gospel in the midst of this, going to their city councils, their legislators. They're going to where they're killing children and saving lives there on a daily basis right now through EndAbortionNow .com.

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Hundreds of churches have been trained. They're saving babies today. Right now, today, babies are being saved because of you guys, of course, partnering with us, making

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End Abortion Now possible, but saving lives at the abortion mill, saving lives potentially by going to the legislature in their state.

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And so now we're talking about this on a national level like it should be. We're calling it murder.

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We're talking about this as equal protection. We're talking about justice for the preborn, not regulation, but actual justice now.

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And so in Arizona, we're having an event. I want you to come and join us in.

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If you're in Arizona, make time. Take the day off. Do what you can. Come join us. I'd love to shake your hand.

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I'd love to meet with you and stand with you. We are going to be preaching the gospel from that stage.

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We're going to be talking about God's law. We're going to be talking about equal justice, protection, and we're going to be talking about the demand for immediate justice.

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That's what's happening in Arizona. January 22nd, Arizona State Capitol, around the

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Rose Garden. I pray to God that we don't fit. I'm hoping to have 10 ,000 people show up.

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That's what I want. So bring yourself, your wife, your kids, bring your friends, bring your church. Get a bus and come to Arizona.

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If you're in Arizona, come and stand with us. If you're outside of Arizona, please come and stand with us.

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Please come and be with us. I don't care if you're from New York or Maine. Make sure you come and join us. Please come stand with Pastor Luke and myself and, of course, the rest of the team at Apologia as we do this.

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January 22nd, I can't tell you what it would mean to me and to us if you came and stood with us on that day. 11 a .m.

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is the rally official. Am I missing anything? No, go to rallyforlifeaz .com

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for information on that. And you can actually sign the online petition for that bill from that site.

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Rallyforlifeaz .com And if you're coming from California, we do shake hands. Yes, we do. And we won't even have masks on.

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It would be great. We had a guy visit this last Sunday from San Fran that I met with. And he was like, man,

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I got someone shook my hand four times today. It's been so long since I shook someone's hand. Yeah, we do encourage you to wash your hands after you shake hands.

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But you will get shook. So that's what's up, guys.

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Most important thing on my mind right now, what I'll be focusing on over the next month, what we'll be focusing on over the next month, is that rally and the introduction of that bill.

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So please be in prayer for us. You can, of course, go and you can give right now to the work of endabortionnow .com

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at redeem2020 .com. Redeem2020 .com is where you can give. We have a $500 ,000 donation that the donor wants matched.

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And that's a huge gift from God. We're so grateful for it and humbled by it. But help us to get there, redeem2020 .com.

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But come and join us. Come stand with us. I know we've got lots of friends that live in L .A. and Southern California.

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And, you know, it's like a five, six -hour drive for some of you guys. Come, just spend the day with us. Stand outside with us.

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We need to make sure that our legislature here in Arizona sees that Christians are behind this, that we will support them.

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We will treat them like the heroes that they are if they establish justice for the pre -born, which gets us to actually today's discussion with a very special guest, a man

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I love very, very much. The question of justice, the question of God's law. I love that people are having this conversation now because this has pushed many

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Christians to consistency. Many, many Christians are having to think now consistently on this issue because we're finding ourselves with a culture that is so collapsed, so seeped in unrighteousness and injustice that now many

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Christians are going, hey, wait a second, something is not right about this. We're supposed to be the ones that are winning the nation to Christ, teaching them to obey.

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So what's happened with our influence? How do we resist humanism, secularism, communism?

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How do we do that, and what kind of consistent answer do we have? One of the interesting things I like to point out about this conversation is just this point.

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Many people today who profess faith in Christ are falling into the social justice and woke movement because you have people in the social justice and woke movement decrying injustice, and I want to say that makes sense to me because everybody who's made in the image of the

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God whose throne is established on justice will have that sense from God, because we're made in His image, that there must be justice.

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But what's interesting is because of bad eschatologies, bad perspectives on the law of God held by Christians in the modern era and in the

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West, many times these Christians are going into the social justice and woke movement because of these calls of justice.

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The problem is they don't have an actual answer. They don't have a coherent answer. So when they say yes to justice,

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God's concern with justice, they're right, but the answer that they come to and the conclusions they come to as they examine the problem of injustice, whatever category it's in, is they end up saying things that are utterly foolish, unbiblical, and pagan, idolatrous.

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So they fall into the social justice movement, they go along with BLM, the Marxist BLM, and they say, yeah, you're right, black lives do matter because I'm a

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Christian and I have a worldview that makes sense of that. And they say, so justice, justice, and then the black lives matter folks are going, right, so Marxism, follow us.

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And so we have many people that are falling prey to this nonsense and many professing Christians are falling into this, and they're coming back with answers that are not rooted in Scripture, they're not from biblical principles and the law of God, they're from Marx, they're from Engels.

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The answers are not from Scripture, which gets us to our very special guest.

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He's been on with us before, and we have actually a number of things we've done with Mark. Mark is with Chalcedon, and Mark Rushduni is the son of a giant of the faith,

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R .J. Rushduni. If you don't know about R .J. Rushduni, if you're new to Apologia, get to know

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R .J. Rushduni. He has been a great and tremendous benefit to the Church. The resources, the deposit and treasury we have from R .J.

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Rushduni is a gift from God. And many of you homeschooling moms and dads may not realize that you're only doing what you're doing now because of the work of R .J.

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Rushduni. Many don't even realize the work of the giants before us. So, Mark Rushduni, welcome to Apologia Radio.

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Thank you, Jeff, it's good to be here. Absolutely, so real fast, make sure everyone knows where to go. Where can people go to get the resources?

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Our website is chalcedon .edu. Chalcedon is C -H -A -L -C -E -D -O -N.

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Chalcedon .edu. Okay, and just to make this easy for everybody who's new and say, okay,

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I'm going to go buy a book, tell me what I need to get. What's a good introductory book that sort of makes sense with what we're facing right now that would sort of get people along the path of answering some of these important questions?

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What's maybe a book or two they should start with from your dad? Well, I often recommend Law and Liberty.

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Law and Liberty was originally produced as a radio series in Southern California.

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And particularly the first half of the book reads like a succession of thesis statements that he's developed elsewhere in his writings.

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So it's a very powerful and very compact way of getting a lot of my dad's ideas.

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Yes. And then too, if you want to understand a little bit about his position on theonomy and what he means by it and what he doesn't mean by it, we published the introduction to his book in a little booklet called

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Faith and Obedience. Okay, Faith and Obedience. So what's interesting here is talking about Faith and Obedience is the conversation taking place now that I'm very, very hopeful in and for, and that's many

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Christians actually saying, no, we're supposed to be winning the nations. We're supposed to be teaching them to obey

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Jesus. We're supposed to have a standard we can point to that actually is the reference point.

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Jesus says in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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I'd like to point out that that's all authority there and here, not just there in the spiritual realm, but here.

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I'd like to point out that Jesus says that it has been, past tense, given to him. And then he says to go disciple the nations, baptize them, and he says teach them to obey.

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Now that was in line with the expectation of Messiah from the Old Testament revelation of God.

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And I read at the beginning of the show today Genesis 49 .10 on purpose. There's so many places we can go, but Genesis 49 .10,

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that prophecy about the one who's coming, who's going to have the obedience of the nations. My question, and I think the question we'd all need to be asking, especially in light of where the

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West has gone with so much Christian foundation and influence behind us, is what exactly are we to teach them to obey?

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Where's that standard? What is exactly that standard? You know, a lot of people have an odd look on their face when

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I tell them that the most common theme of Jesus in all his discourses in the Gospels is the kingdom of God.

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It wasn't salvation. The modern church has made salvation and the purpose of God an entirely personal thing for them.

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That is involved. But ultimately, as a Westminster confession, a shorter catechism says, you know, what is the chief end of man?

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Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. The purposes of the Christian faith is bigger than our individual salvation from the punishment of hell.

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It has a greater purpose, and that is the kingdom of God. Our salvation is part of that.

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That is our entry into the kingdom of God and serving our Lord and Savior and his kingdom.

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And so that's why one of my father's most frequent references was against statism and against humanism, because man tries to build his own kingdom and his own authority outside that kingdom of God.

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And so we have to look at things in terms of what is advancing the kingdom of God. Isaiah said of the increase of his government, there would be no end.

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And we are seeing this. And so I think it's sometimes puzzling to me why people can be very discouraged about the state of Christianity.

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There's a lot not to like about the current state of the faith, but there's a lot to be encouraged by as well.

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I mean, look at what the apostles had in the first century. They had a small, very small following.

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Their leader was gone, and now they had to go to the

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Gentiles when the Jews had rejected the man they now have to preach. The logical reaction of the

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Gentiles was, if the Jews didn't want Jesus, why would we? And if he's dead, he's a failure.

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So what does this even have to do with us? So much of what the Christian message was did not make sense to the first century, but it was the power of the

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Holy Spirit that advanced the gospel, and it wasn't the work of men. So we serve

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God by advancing his kingdom, and the only way we can advance his kingdom is to submit to him as Lord.

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That means we obey him. And so you can't fight humanism. You can't fight statism.

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You can't fight any kind of evil with nothing. You have to self -consciously know why you're doing what you're doing, and obeying

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God is how we do it. And we don't bring in the kingdom. We don't really even advance the kingdom, but we can be part of it by our faithfulness to it.

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I've sometimes used the analogy, particularly when I was teaching schools, of a medieval conflict for a throne in Europe.

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The king has gone off to fight the Crusades. He comes back, and there's a usurper on the throne, and there's a battle for who's the rightful king.

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Well, the Bible tells us who the rightful king is, and he also tells us that his victory is certain. Therefore, the only question is not who's going to win, but whether we're going to fight for the right side, or if we're going to take a very temporary advantage and work for the wrong side.

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So the Bible gives us this picture of history. We call it worldview, but it gives us a glimpse into the future and the victory of Christ and the end of revelation and his victory on the throne.

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And so I think what we are faced with is asking ourselves, am I going to serve

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Jesus as Lord, or do I have another primary loyalty?

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So the kingdom is an essential part of what we're about. Yes, and to many in the modern evangelical church, the perspective of the kingdom is that Jesus tried to bring it, failed to bring it, and maybe someday it's going to come in the future.

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Forgive me, not maybe, but it's going to come someday in the future. But I love how you articulated that, that it's a truncated view of the work of Christ to just twiddle it down to my own personal romance with Jesus, my own personal intimate relationship with Jesus.

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Yes, I am individually, personally, loved by God and saved by Jesus. The gospel is about justification through faith in Christ.

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That's how God declares me righteous, through the work of Jesus, his perfect life and atonement, his death, his resurrection.

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All of that is absolutely true, but it's a truncated version of the good news of the kingdom to say that that's it.

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The idea is escape from the earth, leave your humanity behind, and go spend time with Jesus in the spiritual realm, which is oftentimes what many people think today is that the ultimate goal is going, quote, to heaven one day, whereas the thing that you see at the beginning of, say, even the opening of the

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New Testament, the way that we have it ordered today, of course, but the gospel according to Matthew, the first four chapters, there's clearly an awareness in Matthew's understanding of the deeply

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Jewish nature of this story, of the deeply messianic and kingdom nature of this story, because the first four chapters identifies

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Jesus as having the royal right to the throne through his genealogy, all the talk about David and Abraham, and then, of course, immediately we're thrust into this understanding of who

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Jesus truly is. He's the true and perfect Israel. He goes into the wilderness, of course, and defeats Satan, where, of course,

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Israel failed. And he's offered all the kingdoms of the world by Satan, because that's what he came for, because he came for the world.

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And, of course, Jesus says, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. But here's what's interesting. John the

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Baptist is introduced there in Matthew 3, right before the temptation, the trial of Jesus, and the first words out of John the

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Baptist's mouth are repent for the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the rule of God is at hand. When Jesus departs from the wilderness, the first words out of his mouth are repent for the rule of God is at hand, which is, when we say kingdom of God, that's what we're talking about, the rule of God.

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People get thrown off today in the West by language like kingdom of heaven. We think of this spiritual out -there place.

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But their expectation was that this messianic king was coming to bring the nations to God to save and to bring justice.

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And so the quotation in Matthew 4 is from Isaiah 9. You already quoted from Isaiah 9 a moment ago.

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The increase of his government and of peace, there'll be no end. Well, Matthew is aware of that passage, and he quotes it when

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Jesus departs the wilderness. And he says that's fulfilling now in Jesus. And then

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Jesus, it says, is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. And what

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I like to challenge my Christian brothers and sisters with, very much in line with what you said, today is just on this point.

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Can you articulate what is good news about the kingdom, the rule of the

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Messiah in the world? Because it was a very comprehensive picture that we get from the

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Old Testament in terms of the nations streaming up to God's mountain, the Torah going forth from God's people, the nations waiting for his law, or the coastlands waiting for his law.

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God in Ezekiel 36 enables people now in this new covenant to observe his statutes.

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And so there's this beautiful story that God had given to his people about what would take place with Messiah ruling on the throne, which 1

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Corinthians 15, Paul says is a current reality. He is reigning now on the Davidic throne, on the

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Messianic throne, putting his enemies under his feet. Which brings me, Mark, and I'll let you jump in here,

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Luke, as well, which brings me to our current circumstances. That's what I was going to ask.

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Your dad is a hero of the faith, is a giant of the faith. Look, and this is what

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I think everybody should see and testify to. This is brilliant and beautiful and lovely, and praise God.

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We're Reformed Baptists, you're Presbyterian, your dad was Presbyterian. There is this very core essential unity between us, even with peripheral differences, right?

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But in this conversation, your father, even with any differences we might have amongst ourselves as Christians, had his eye on and an awareness of the foundational problem.

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Like, this is it. And he spent his life addressing that and unpacking that issue and blessing the church for such a time as this.

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You know what I mean? It's interesting, Mark. Oh, man, this is deeply personal, but I've known about your father for a long time.

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Like, I've known about the circle and learned from them, Bonson and Rush Dooney and all those guys, and I was benefiting from their work a long, long time ago.

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And a very small circle of guys around me even knew who I was even talking about. And even up to when we started

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Apologia Radio about a decade ago, there still wasn't this awareness of, hey, we're supposed to have an answer for this.

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Like, we were promoting it and saying, hey, you need to read Rush Dooney, read Bonson, like, look at their stuff, like, this is important,

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Christians are supposed to have an answer in this area. Your dad had already gave us a treasure of this stuff, and the amazing thing is, is right now with so much collapse,

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I mean, just face plants all over the place, now Christians are going, oh boy, we're supposed to have an answer.

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This doesn't feel right not to have an answer. Where do we go? And my answer is, oh,

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I've got good news. Because there's a lot from your dad on this specific subject of, how shall we live?

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What are God's standards? What's wrong in culture and society? Where's the break? Your dad had addressed that a long time ago.

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Why? Like, what got your dad into that? He had the big picture in mind.

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He had the metanarrative, whatever you want to call it. But he had this big picture in mind.

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He came from an Armenian background, and he saw that Armenia had hundreds of years of Christian tradition behind it, but he also saw that that was easily destroyed, and it was destroyed, and he said, what held

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Armenians together in the face of Islam for hundreds of years was they retained their faith, and they kept their faith, and they kept that as a distinctive.

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And he saw the Armenian communities in this country as their families were losing the

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Christian faith and the emphasis on the Christian faith. He said they were losing what really had kept

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Armenians together for a long time. I mean, you can enjoy Armenian food. You can be proud that you're an

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Armenian, but if you don't have that faith that held them together as a people and a distinct people for a long time, because they had the

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Bible in their vernacular since the 5th century, and it really shaped them as a people, and it made them very distinct.

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They refused to intermarry with Muslims. Many attempts were made, even before Islam.

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The Persians tried to convert them to their religion, and they wouldn't have it.

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And so there was a distinction there. My mother once made the comment about my father because he knew that what had made

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America great was its Christian faith and that as it lost its Christian faith, it was in decline.

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It was losing its distinctiveness, and he saw that too in Armenian history.

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And so my mother made the comment, you're more American than most Americans and more

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Armenian than most Armenians because he saw what was really important in their culture.

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And so he spoke to what he thought was essential for this country and really the

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West. And so very little of what he wrote is dated because of that.

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When he first started writing in the late 50s about education, his greatest hostility was in the church.

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A lot of churchmen did not want him talking about public education or criticizing it in any way because it was an

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American institution and it was a distraction for the church. We just didn't need to get into that at all. And yet now a lot of people, even not in the

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Christian community, recognize the problems in the public school system and that it is a real problem.

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And so there are a lot of people who are looking outside the public school system. People don't venerate the public school system like they did back in the 50s and 60s.

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And in one area after another, they're seeing the wisdom of where he saw things were headed.

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And he said we're at the end of the age of humanism, that the

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Enlightenment and the ideas of the Enlightenment were really running the course and we were increasingly going to be running into one dead end after another.

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And this was going to be an ugly time in history because of the failures of these institutions.

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But there was hope because they weren't going to last forever. They couldn't go on indefinitely under the current circumstances and as they are now.

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And therefore he said there's hope. He didn't know how it was going to happen, but he kept calling

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Christians to the fact that we have to have a resurgence of Christian faith, a resurgence of Christian action.

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And he saw bright things ahead. He was very optimistic, not in the short term, but in the long term.

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He was very optimistic about the events of the kingdom. I mean, even just in our own wisdom, we can look and see how quickly things can change.

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When I was growing up, the great threat to the world was world communism, the

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Soviet Union. And that was going to be what determined the future. And it collapsed.

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Well, no sooner had it collapsed than other problems replaced it. But that's the kind of thing is we have trouble seeing the real problems, the real issue.

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And my father was advised early on, he said, there's no money in a Christian worldview organization.

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He says that the money is in being anti -communist. And a lot of those anti -communist organizations in the 50s, 60s, and 70s were very well endowed.

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But that was a movement against something. He wanted to be for something. And what he was for was teaching

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Christians how to obey God, teaching Christians how to take a stand in terms of their loyalty to the kingdom of God.

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So he had a different big picture than most people. And he wasn't too big on politics because he said politics are a way of compelling people to comply with it, with this or that.

30:40

And he said it's a very short term kind of influence and it can be easily overturned.

30:47

So his basic emphasis, and I often describe

30:54

Christian reconstruction, whether you like that term or not, I tell people what he really meant by was, what is the responsibility of the

31:02

Christian in a time when Christianity seems to be struggling and in decline? It's to rebuild the foundations and to poise yourself for the work of the

31:11

Holy Spirit. Because if you poise yourself by faithfulness, by obedience, then the Holy Spirit can work through that.

31:18

It's not our efforts that build the kingdom, but we can be faithful to it and therefore be of service to the work of the

31:24

Lord. So I like to make sure that we understand foundations and I think foundationally one of the emphases of your dad was the

31:37

Great Commission, the authority of Christ the King over all things, his kingdom ruling over all, the fact that the goal was to ultimately win the world and to teach them obedience to Jesus, as simple as the

31:50

Great Commission. But your dad helped to answer a lot of questions in terms of obey what, right?

31:58

And by what standard, of course, is the big question. How do we know what is just, what is right?

32:05

How do we know what's pleasing to God? Has God spoken on the issues of taxation, personal property, crime and punishment, those sorts of things?

32:15

And are those things... Is God still concerned with those things now? A lot of times Christians today in the modern era think that God, you know, he's concerned with justice before, but not so much anymore.

32:25

This is just a kingdom of grace and God's not concerned with justice any longer. Very distorted perspective of God and his character, and of course notwithstanding the fact that Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 -19, that he didn't come to destroy the law or the prophets.

32:40

He came to fulfill and we need to teach people to do these things.

32:46

So I want to point people to this video. It's actually really interesting. This was an interview your dad did.

32:51

How do I say his name? Moyers? Moyers. Moyers, yes. Your dad did in 1988 with Moyers. People were aware and articles had been written about the movement even then.

33:05

And it was a very different time then. I mean, homosexuality was still illegal in most states in the 1980s.

33:12

And although that was changing slowly, trickling out, you also had, just in thinking culturally speaking,

33:20

I grew up during the 80s, and I can tell you right now, the things that are being talked about today, done today, whether it has to do with transgenderism, gender issues, gay marriage, homosexuality, or communism.

33:34

Good grief. I mean, if you came out publicly and were just bragging about the fact in national media that you were a communist or you were sympathetic to Marx in the 80s even, you would not have gotten a great following at that time.

33:49

So much has changed very, very quickly. But people were aware then. They were aware then of what your father was saying and how much maybe that was a danger to their system and just how distinct it was in terms of a

34:04

Christian position. So here's an example, everybody. This is that interview with R .J. Rushduni with Moyers.

34:11

In his epic, The Institutes of Biblical Law, Rushduni set forth the basic doctrines of Christian reconstruction.

34:18

Every word of the Bible is literally true. The Bible contains God's law for all people for all times, for individuals as well as government.

34:29

And American society is in decay, he writes. It is the task of Christians to reconstruct this country using the

34:36

Bible as their blueprint. Why the Bible? Why does it become the basis for this new society?

34:44

Because the Bible is God's word. Because the Bible is God's declaration of the way of life.

34:51

That here is justice. But the laws in the Old Testament were written for a primitive people living in a nomadic agricultural society.

35:04

And here we are living in a modern technological industrial society joined by economic forces that are beyond nations and beyond governments.

35:15

How can the laws that were considered a covenant between a small group of people on a tiny sliver of geography two, three, four thousand years ago apply to the world you and I live in?

35:27

Because they're God's truth. If the Bible is the basis for law, why not just simply substitute it for the

35:36

Constitution? The Constitution gives us procedural law, not a substantive morality.

35:45

So anyone can use the Constitution for good or ill. But it has to be the people as they change and govern themselves.

35:55

The Constitution cannot save this country. So there's more to that, maybe we'll get to it here.

36:03

Your dad, 1988, and of course long before that, was pointing people to, this is God's truth.

36:09

A lot of people, Mark, don't like that answer today. Christians don't want to go on record and simply say, well, because God says.

36:17

That's his revelation. That's because it's what God says. Where it seems that we've been conditioned to be fearful of that particular proclamation, well, because God says.

36:29

How come these are standards that apply throughout all time? Well, because they come from God himself.

36:34

This is the revelation of God. That's why it's true. Because it comes from the one who is the embodiment of truth.

36:40

But your dad was talking then about God's standards of justice. Now let's just help our listeners and our viewers right now,

36:46

Mark, if we could for a moment here. When we talk about God's law as the standard, we want to point to that.

36:54

We're not saying that the law of God ever could justify anybody, or that it justifies anybody today.

36:59

Law cannot save anybody. We can only receive forgiveness and salvation through faith in Christ and what he's accomplished on our behalf.

37:10

However, do we now, Mark, do we say, well, those things don't apply anymore? We don't look to God's standards of justice.

37:17

These are things that are irrelevant to us in the New Covenant and as Christians in the West today. Respond to that, because I know people will be asking that question as we get a little deeper here.

37:26

I thought the law was, you know, it's over. That was a harsh thing in the past, and it's just a big mean system, and God was just really filled with wrath back then, but we just have the loving

37:38

Jesus now. Well, there has been a trend in Western theology that sees a dichotomy between law and grace.

37:52

My father didn't think that there was a conflict between law and grace. In fact, he considered the law of God as itself a form of grace.

38:03

We're familiar with the expression in relationships, whether it's a marriage or an employee -employer relationship, when someone says,

38:13

I don't know what you expect of me, and it's not fair to make demands on someone if you really haven't laid out what do you expect in that relationship.

38:25

God was gracious in saying, this is what I expect from you. This is how you obey me, and this is what obedience looks like, whether you understand it or not.

38:38

And my father felt that most of what we consider these minor laws of the

38:46

Old Testament were actually case laws. They were specific examples of how the Ten Commandments were to be applied.

38:52

So he categorized all the laws under the Ten Commandments. And so that's where he was coming from, that these are

39:04

God's word, this is how you obey him, and here are examples. Some of the case laws of Scripture do seem to us rather petty, and some of them were not clear exactly what was being referred to.

39:20

In some cases we are, for instance, the command not to take a mother bird to eat along with the eggs.

39:32

And elsewhere we're told that if you obey that, that that involves the same reward as honoring your father and your mother a long life in the land.

39:45

So that obviously had to do with honoring parents. If you could so much as not kill a mother bird along with her young because you were hungry, then you would remember,

39:58

I need to regard my parents. You see? And it's the same thing with, similarly, don't see the kid in its mother's milk.

40:12

Now, does that even sound like a tasty recipe? Did anyone ever cook goat in milk?

40:18

It doesn't even sound particularly good. Apparently so, right? Well, or it was just an example of the young respect the generations.

40:30

And if you can respect that just in your diet, and remember that you don't do that when you're cooking, then again, you respect your parents.

40:40

So respect for parents was really the point of that law. It was case examples of the principle drawn out in your daily living.

40:50

And it was really to point people to the principle, honor thy father and thy mother. Yes, there's the foundation.

40:55

And it's easy to look at some of these laws that we don't understand and say that's just irrelevant.

41:00

They can't be important because they seem so petty. But they were pointing to a larger principle.

41:07

Right. And one of the things your dad was very helpful to me on was just how he would explicate the understanding of the law of God in terms of if you embrace as a

41:20

Christian today that the greatest commandment is to love God and the other one is like it, love your neighbor as you love yourself, if you can embrace those two and say those are currently valid,

41:31

Jesus wants me to do that, then you've given the entirety of the law.

41:37

Because one of the things we learn is that love for God is the basis of that first table of the

41:43

Ten Commandments. And then you have love for neighbor explains. Like if you love your neighbor, what will it look like?

41:49

Well, you won't steal from them. You won't lie to them. You won't murder them. You won't covet their stuff.

41:56

There's explanations of what does it mean to love God and love neighbor. So I love when people tell us that today.

42:02

They say, hey, the marching orders for Christians today is just love God, love neighbor. I'm like, thanks, you just gave me the entire Torah. Appreciate that.

42:09

Because Ten Commandments are based upon what? Love God, love neighbor. Here's what it looks like.

42:15

And then the rest, one of the things that's explained is a great example of, okay,

42:20

God says what is just, not unjust. What is just if somebody violates loving neighbor by stealing from them?

42:32

Because, look, we have to answer this today. We're living in a new covenant, yes. But all over the world today, even here where we live and sit, there are people today who are stealing.

42:42

That hasn't ended because Jesus came and lived and died and rose again. People are still stealing today. Is God concerned with loving neighbors and justice?

42:49

Is He concerned with victims under the new covenant? I believe that He is. And so the question should be asked because people have to deal with it today.

42:56

Do we love our neighbors in terms of establishing justice when they're stolen from by cutting the arm off the thief or the hand off the thief?

43:07

Is that a just penalty? You know, the guy stole something, so I cut his hand off? Because they do that in some countries, you know.

43:12

They do that. You know, you steal something, well, you lose your hand. Do I maim this man for life so he can't provide for himself or support himself or his family any longer because he stole something?

43:22

Is that a just response? Or how about you stole something, and so we're going to put you in jail for 365 days.

43:32

You're going to serve time in a cage for 365 days. Well, there's consequences to that, too. Like, for example, to the community around the thief.

43:41

Now the community around the thief who took no part in the crime has to, through unjust taxation, pay for the crime of the thief.

43:50

Now all of us are paying for his crimes. So God's law provides those examples of, okay, if somebody does not love their neighbor and they steal, what is a just response?

44:01

And God even gives specific examples even in terms of a basic theft versus, like, a theft that affects somebody's business and production, those sorts of things.

44:10

And so I find it most important, because you mentioned something,

44:15

Mark, that is actually really powerful, and Luke, I do want to say something here, but I think it's really important to get this out. You mentioned that your dad would stress that there's not a conflict between law and grace in terms of, like, they're not pitted against one another as though law was this awful, terrible thing and it's just a curse, but that it also is a blessing, too.

44:39

We don't mean in terms of justification. The law shows me my sin, and it shows that I am under a curse unless Jesus took that curse and became a curse for me.

44:46

But in terms of the law, I think you're right when you point to the fact that your dad says, not pitted against each other, it actually is a blessing, it's grace, because we tend to only think about the law of God today as evangelicals, as that was that harsh system that only is a curse, whereas the law, well, let me just say this, two things.

45:06

One, read Psalm 119 and come away with that, that it's just a curse. You can't.

45:12

You just can't. You can't read Psalm 119 and think of the law as something that's just bad and a curse and awful.

45:19

I dare you to try. But Deuteronomy 4, the second thing, is God actually says to his people when he gives them the law, he says that this law was to be their wisdom in the sight of the people, and he says that the nations are supposed to look into the people of God in Israel at the time and see these just statutes, and they were supposed to be amazed by it, because they also had stuff in their system of government and their world where they were living under oppression, they had no liberty, and there were pretty harsh penalties, you know, cut your lips off.

45:51

I mean, there were old laws that literally would cut your lips off. Horrible things. And the people around Israel were supposed to say, what,

45:59

God's so near to this people like this, and rules and statutes so righteous as this law?

46:05

The law was supposed to be a gift in terms of its response to loving neighbor and to standards of justice.

46:14

So I think that's one of the important things that we can learn from, not just Scripture and the

46:19

Puritans and how they viewed law and how they set up their communities, but from your dad specifically, is he really unpacks some of these difficult -to -understand passages at times in such a way that it's mind -bending just to go, wow, that is deep, and it's truly, truly deep.

46:36

But I think it shows the great benefit of these principles that God teaches us in his law, principles that do operate today and would bless the world today.

46:49

I mentioned we published the introduction to his Institutes of Biblical Law in a little booklet called

46:55

Faith and Obedience, and one of the reasons was he makes very clear in there that justification is by God's grace, and it's received by faith alone.

47:04

And he said the Reformation came down in agreement on that, but what the

47:10

Reformation never came to a consensus on was sanctification. How do we grow in grace?

47:16

How do we serve God? And the church has gone in different directions since then.

47:21

He thought the next Reformation in the church really needs to be understanding how do we serve

47:28

God? What does the mature Christian look like?

47:33

And he said it's a self -conscious obedience to God. You mentioned social justice.

47:40

One of the problems with emphasizing justice alone is that our conception of justice tends to be a legislative, political thing, that it's in the secular realm.

47:50

We talk about justice systems, our court system being a justice system, and we don't think of it in terms of the moral.

47:57

But if you look in a concordance that lists all the uses of the English words in the Bible, and if you look up the word justice in the

48:06

Hebrew, it's the same word used as righteousness. Sometimes it's translated justice, and sometimes our

48:12

English Bibles give it as righteousness, but it's the same word. There's no difference between justice and righteousness in the word of God.

48:19

It's the same thing in the New Testament. And so we have to have this idea that our desire for justice is not primarily a political one that's involved, but it's not just what we oppose or what we condemn or try to legislate, but it's also trying to create the sense of this is what

48:42

God expects of us. And ultimately, things aren't going to improve dramatically until people change.

48:50

So ultimately, our hope is regeneration by the Holy Spirit, revival. Preaching the gospel.

48:56

Yeah, it's not something we can institute with a political program. We can say this is what a Christian order looks like.

49:02

This is what's wrong with what we have now. We can say it's not going to get better the route you're going, but we can't institute a political system that's going to really improve the world.

49:12

Yeah, because you can't drop the law of God on society, on a bunch of people who are in the flesh and natural rebels to God.

49:20

It doesn't work that way. People have to love God and his standards, and that's a great point, Mark, just in terms of the word for justice and righteousness.

49:28

When you study Greek, you're going to see that, especially if you read the first couple of chapters of Romans. You're going to see the righteousness of God, and you're going to see in other places justice.

49:39

You're like, oh, okay, that's interesting. But the issue is righteousness, and I love how you put that, because when we talk about, say, today in terms of Christians, take the issue that was at the forefront of our show today, the issue of abortion.

49:57

The issue of abortion and the equal protection that's human life, protect human life, and there should be protection around that by the civil magistrate, and that we actually treat these human beings as though they're valuable, they have dignity, and we preserve human life, and that you're not allowed to kill another human being in an unjustified manner.

50:16

What's really behind that is the biblical, cultural, heart perspective of the preservation of human life.

50:26

What are we saying when we're saying you have to criminalize the murder of the unborn? We have to have a righteous perspective about human life, right?

50:36

We want to have the Christian view of human life, that this is image -bearer of God, it's valuable, it's worthy of protection, and so a righteous perspective is the preservation of human life, which so much of the law of God is concerned with just that point.

50:51

Preservation of human life. Preservation of personal property. Those standards, you're right, it's not just a negative,

50:59

I'll punish you if, it's also the positive, human life is valuable. This is the image of God.

51:06

We're to love our neighbor, and so much is concerned with just creating that culture of life, preservation of life, respect for property, respect for our elders and our parents, showing concern for the orphan and the widow, those sorts of things.

51:28

So I was just saying, there's a conference, by the way, this weekend on post -millennialism,

51:33

I'll try to share the link on my Facebook page, I did a video for it, one of the things that I said near the end of that was, our story is better.

51:42

And I think that's one of the things I got a lot from your dad, was the biblical worldview he presents, and the perspective he gives of justice, and preservation of life, or whatever the case may be, that story is so much better.

51:57

And I mentioned this last week, and then I'm going to kick this over to you, Luke. People today, Mark, are arguing, I'm sure you may have seen this, people are arguing today so strongly and vociferously for communism, and it's shocking to me to see communists out in the open, just like, you know, communism,

52:14

I'm a hero, I'm like, you realize what kind of devil you would have been seen as, you know, just 20 years ago, 30 years ago, especially 50 years ago, my goodness.

52:23

But one of the things that's shocking to me, is these people now are making these, you know, really great videos from their communist heroes, saying things like, you know, wouldn't it be great to live in a society where nobody owns anything, where there is no personal property, and those sorts of things.

52:39

And I'm like, that sounds terrible. That sounds horrible. And it's a fundamental denial of what

52:45

God says in His law, you shall not steal, you shall not steal, has the assumption, the presupposition within it, that something is not yours, that it belongs to somebody else.

52:57

So God is giving in His law, the standard of you shall not steal, that's

53:02

God's law, based upon His own character, but within that is the idea of that belongs to them, that's theirs.

53:11

And so our story is just so much better, it is so much better, and you're right,

53:16

Mark, their worldview will not work. And that's encouraging in terms of long -term perspective.

53:23

We may be living in a moment that is rough, and it might get really ugly really fast, but the truth is, their worldview doesn't work.

53:32

Men with men don't produce offspring. Women with women don't produce offspring. When you try to destroy human lives by taking away their property, you remove motivation for building things, creating things.

53:49

You don't create the atmosphere that we've had, because of the Christian worldview, where people are building and creating and developing and growing.

53:58

You don't actually create wealth in a society when you destroy personal property. You actually rob society of wealth and building more wealth, because you're destroying businesses.

54:08

This has trickle effect all the way down, and it brings us to the bread lines and to all the rest. So I just want to say that again, our story is better.

54:16

Our worldview is better. Their worldview is awful. So I'm going to change topics here a little bit.

54:23

One, I was sitting here, we were watching the video of your dad, and I was like, man, you look so much like your dad. It hit me twice today when you were talking,

54:30

Mark. I'm telling you, I saw just your dad's face. Just smaller glasses and maybe a smaller beard or something. But how cool is it, we've got

54:37

Mark here, and we've gotten to know David Bonson pretty well. If you close your eyes, they sound exactly the same.

54:42

It's so cool. But we were talking before the show, you've been working on the biography for your dad, so I want you to talk about that.

54:50

But the question I have that will kind of lead into that is I think a lot of times we hear critics of Theonomy say, well,

54:59

R .J. Rush Jr., it came from him. That's where Theonomy started. It wasn't before him. Obviously, a lot of people point to your dad's works as kind of like the standard of that position.

55:09

But obviously, your dad was influenced from someone else. So I would love to hear, because I don't know the answer to this,

55:16

I would love to hear who influenced your dad in that perspective and where did he pull from just to come up with the

55:25

Theonomic works that he did. Well, when it comes to influences on my father for Theonomy, that's one of the more difficult questions to answer because my father would answer it by saying, it never occurred to me to doubt the applicability of God's word.

55:49

He read the Bible multiple times. He was a minister's son. And he grew up in a fairly small community.

55:58

His father pastored five different churches. Actually, they were all Armenian -speaking churches.

56:05

So he was, amongst Armenians, immersed in Armenian subculture in the

56:11

United States from the time he was young. And he read the Bible. He read vociferously,

56:17

I mean, and he read the Bible multiple times when he was young. He said, it never really occurred to me to doubt it.

56:23

He said, once when he was young, a congregational minister was visiting the house and his father mentioned that my dad had read all of the

56:34

Bible. And the congregational minister asked him, have you really read all of it?

56:45

As though maybe there are things in it. And the minister actually said, perhaps there are some things that are not fit for a young boy to be reading in the

56:56

Bible. And my father just thought that was very odd. Years later when he was at seminary, and he intentionally went to a liberal seminary because the

57:05

Presbyterian denominational seminary was liberal, but it wouldn't admit that it was liberal.

57:12

So he said he went to a liberal seminary that was at least honestly liberal.

57:19

And in a discussion once, he once suggested something to the effect that the word of God applies to all of life.

57:29

And he described the reaction as that he got hammered for it.

57:35

So he decided that he would, before he spoke too much on that, he needed to study that in real depth and be prepared to speak.

57:47

And that didn't happen until after Chalcedon started some years later. In 1965, he was in his 50s.

57:55

And then he began a series of lectures on the biblical law that became the

58:00

Institutes of Biblical Law I. He had talked about theonomy and God's law before that. You can see it in some of his sermons and some references.

58:08

But then he decided to develop it systematically. But where that came from, he never really specifically referred to theologians or individuals as he did some of his other ideas.

58:23

Yeah. My assumption would be, and I don't have the proper answer to this,

58:29

I think, but in terms of exactly what your dad had been reading, but his deep commitment to study.

58:37

Your dad read a book a day. That was his sort of standard. Most days he did, yes.

58:46

He maybe didn't average a book a day, and he would read multiple books at one time.

58:51

So some days he would finish five or six books. But yes, he read quite a bit.

58:57

So he was very well -read and studied, and he was so dedicated to understanding all the issues, which was very helpful.

59:04

We talked earlier in the Texas court case where your dad scored such a magnificent win. You guys got to read that cross -examination.

59:12

But the name of the Texas court case we talked about earlier was... Lieber v. Arlington, I believe.

59:17

Look that up, and look at how the attorneys really struggled with Dr. Rastuni. They couldn't pin him down, and he was correcting them at times.

59:28

But your dad's understanding of Christian history and just the depth of his study, you would see that really throughout history, the

59:37

Christian church, as it has gone and had gospel victories over communities and areas and nations, it was just sort of the standard response of believers.

59:47

If we're asking the question of what should we do here, it wasn't uncommon for everyone to say, well, what does that book say?

59:54

It was just sort of standard. You look at the Puritans and the era of the Puritans, the

01:00:00

Huguenots, the Covenanters, whatever you're looking at, even in that historical tradition, it wasn't a question.

01:00:07

What's the answer here? Well, what does God say? That was, of course, the standard, especially for the reformers, particularly the

01:00:13

Covenanters and Huguenots and the Puritans. What they heralded was Sola Scriptura.

01:00:19

On the basis of that principle, we say, well, what does Scripture say? What does God teach about this?

01:00:24

Luke, you were asking about the biography. Oh, yes.

01:00:32

Yes, so tell us about the biography you've been working on. I'm excited for that. That's awesome. Well, in 1916, when

01:00:41

Chalcedon had a magazine, I published a series of seven articles on my father for the centennial of his birth.

01:00:50

People have asked us to publish them in book form. So I decided to do that, and I've been expanding them using a lot of his letters and journal entries.

01:01:00

He kept a journal for over 50 years of his daily activities and the books he had read.

01:01:05

That's amazing. And people he had talked to and such. And apparently he did it with an inkwell from that video.

01:01:12

Yeah, he's using the inkwell. Yes, he used to dip a pen. He finally went over to ballpoint pens eventually.

01:01:22

That's so cool. All right, everybody, we're so glad you joined us today for Apology Radio. Go to chalcedon .edu.

01:01:29

C -H -A -L -C -E -D -O -N dot E -D -U.

01:01:34

No, why am I saying E -D -U? Chalcedon dot E -D -U. I have memorized it.

01:01:39

It's in there. It's in the memory bank. Chalcedon dot E -D -U to go get more resources. Just go.

01:01:45

There's so much there. The recommendations today, Law and Liberty and Faith and Obedience.

01:01:51

Law and Liberty, Faith and Obedience, good starter books. And of course you can get the extensive works and unpack some of the questions regarding God's law,

01:02:00

Institutes of Biblical Law, very, very good, very, very important and helpful. But go check out everything

01:02:05

Mark has going on and everything at Chalcedon. Am I missing anything today we need to announce? I think we announced everything.

01:02:11

This is our last show of the year. Yeah, I was going to say, you forgot the Christmas music again, but this will be the last show of 2020.

01:02:18

So Lord willing, we will be able to have more shows in 21. Yes. Things are going, you never know.

01:02:25

Yes, that's right. Yes. We are truly grateful for everybody, for all that you guys do to encourage us, to bless us, to give, to partner with us through All Access.

01:02:37

I was just having this conversation. I want you guys to hear me on this. I was just having this conversation yesterday with somebody. God has blessed us as a ministry from the very beginning through such meager circumstances and an upbringing, in many ways as a ministry, coming from where we came from at a hospital, literally planting a church at a hospital, family building, and just a bunch of people that have come to Christ, drug addicts, went from there to Redemption Radio, to Apologia Radio, to this studio, to all that God's done globally.

01:03:13

I was just in Salt Lake a week and a half ago. I was on the street filming in front of a temple, getting set up, and this random car drives by, and the guy shouts out,

01:03:21

Durban! And I didn't know if that was a good Durban or a bad one. I'm in Salt Lake or south of Salt Lake.

01:03:27

He jumps out. You were in Provo, weren't you? I was in Provo, actually, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And the guy jumps out with his friend and said that they both were from families that were generational

01:03:37

Mormons and stake president fathers, all that stuff, bishop stuff. And they had come to Christ.

01:03:43

This guy specifically had come to Christ through watching Apologia Studios content, Us on the Street evangelism with Mormons.

01:03:50

And so that story is just being multiplied all over the world daily, whether it's people coming out of the cults or atheism, people saving lives at abortion mills.

01:04:00

And the truth is God's always done that for us when we had very little to operate with.

01:04:05

I mean, literally, the first video that we have up is a video where I went and bought a $25 voice recorder from Radio Shack.

01:04:14

And Luke and I went out and sat at a table in a park. You can hear the airplanes flying over with some

01:04:20

Jehovah's Witnesses. That's how this started. I mean, it was literally like upload the audio file and put it on YouTube.

01:04:26

There's no video to it, even. It's just the audio in a park. Terrible graphics. Yeah, exactly.

01:04:32

And now we're at a place, 2021, everybody, where not only do we have the best team around us, and I mean that in every way imaginable, but we have the ability now to have an impact that we have always dreamt of.

01:04:48

And 2021, we have everything in place to do it. So whether it's Apologia Studios, Ministry Proper, in terms of all the content coming out, or End Abortion Now, let me just say

01:04:58

I'm grateful to God, I know Luke is, that we have right now the ability to do all that we wanted to do. And so thank you.

01:05:04

Thank you, everybody, for all your prayers for us, everything you've ever given, all of you standing with us through All Access.

01:05:10

Some of you guys have been with us for five years with All Access, and I just want you to know, $9 .95 may not seem like a lot to some people.

01:05:17

Like, you know, what's the big deal? It means the world to us, and it's made everything that we're doing possible.

01:05:23

So thank you. I want to encourage you, if you haven't done so yet, go to Redeem2020 .com to help us to get to our $500 ,000 match for EAN.

01:05:32

13 states, 2021, bills to criminalize. That's a big deal. Justice for the pre -born.

01:05:39

Babies being saved literally daily through the thousands of, sorry, hundreds of churches that we have through End Abortion Now.

01:05:45

So I'm grateful to God, and we're humbled by it all, and it only happens because of all of you doing this with us.

01:05:51

So thank you. Merry Christmas, everybody. Mark, thank you. Thank you. That's the bear. Merry Christmas. I'm the ninja.

01:05:57

And Happy New Year to you in jail. All right, guys. Go on home. They're waiting for you. Catch you next week, guys. Thank you for joining us.