1. The Use of the Law (Remastered)

The Use of the Law

R.J. Rushdoony

Our scripture is Leviticus 26:3-45, and our subject, ‘The Use of the Law.’

“If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate. And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 26:3-45.

Biblical Law has receded in relevance in the modern world. In the past two and a half years, we have been studying the Ten Commandments and all the subordinate laws which are related to the Ten Commandments. 

We finished last week our study of the tenth commandment. And we have seen how these laws have been neglected, how people no longer move in terms of the Law of God, how they no longer have respect unto the earth and her requirements of a Sabbath. No longer to they pay any attention to the laws of debt, nor the laws of the family, nor any of these things, but despise them. These things were, for a long time, kept as law by Christians. But the rise of [Pietism] has deeply infected both Protestants and Catholics and has led to a decline of, and virtual abandonment of, Biblical Law. Pietism stresses spiritual religion; the Law stresses a very material religion. The Law says that our life is related to the material facts of the world around us; how to use the earth, how to use money, how to use anything in this world, how to deal with our fellow men. Biblical Law, Biblical religion is very material, very relevant, it speaks of our everyday affairs. Unfortunately, it was the Reformation which brought to the forefront the doctrine of justification that lost the opportunity to set straight the doctrine of sanctification. Both doctrines had suffered at the latter of the Middle Ages because of the rise of pietism, the various cults, mystical movements of the day.

Luther brought to the forefront the true doctrine of justification. At the beginning he spoke very clearly on sanctification. If you examine his Small Catechism, he says that the rule of faith, that is, the way of sanctification, is the Law. The first person to break with that was one of his close associates, Agricola, who tried to push the matter of justification by faith to the point where he says that it made no difference what a man did, as long as he acknowledged justification by God he could be any kind of a sinner, and it didn’t matter. He virtually denied the doctrine of sanctification, any necessity of righteousness and holiness. Luther opposed him at some disputations they held. But, little by little, because it was a good club to use against the Roman Catholic emphasis on works in salvation, that is, in the doctrine of justification, Luther began to attack any kind of works, any kind of law keeping. 

As a result, in a famous sermon of 1525, Luther denounced the Law. The damage he did was tremendous. He did it partly because, having before that taught the law, many of the poor peasants began to appeal to the Law of God against the injustices they were suffering, and it finally led to the peasant’s rebellion. Luther denounced both the peasants and the Anabaptists, and in a sense they needed denouncing in part. But in doing so, he denounced also the Law of God to which they appealed. And he said that the law only had bound the Jews and the Ten Commandments had nothing to do with us.

“They are dead and gone…” ⁱ

“…where he gives commandment, we are not to follow him except so far as he agrees with the natural law.” ⁱⁱ

The ‘natural law,’ in other words, the law of the nations, insofar as the nations have any kind of law. Unfortunately, Calvin also made the same statement, while also, like Luther, affirming the Law as the rule of faith, the way of sanctification.  

Luther went so far as to declare:

“Sin cannot separate us from God, even if we commit murder and fornication a thousand times a day.” ⁱⁱⁱ

It is with extravagant statements like this that he made, that he has given Catholic theologians so ideal a tool to discredit the Reformation. 

Now, if a man wants a spiritual religion or a mystical religion, the Bible is his enemy because the Bible is law oriented. But if he wants a material, a relevant religion, one that tells him how to handle what he has; his life, his property, his money, his entire responsibilities, then Biblical Law is basic, it is inescapable. 

Our Scripture today is what is known as the ‘great exhortation.’ And the whole point of the great exhortation is that there can be no successful material life for man apart from the Law of God. There are three parts to this great exhortation. The first part is verse three to thirteen. In these verses, the material blessings of obedience to the Law of God is declared. The result of obedience to the law is good harvests, good rain, excellent yield of wine, peace and prosperity, no evil beasts, victory against our enemies, and God’s favor and presence. Indeed it is declared 

“And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.”

Leviticus 26:7,8.

Thus, very definitely, the great exhortation says that any kind of material prospering in life is irrevocably tied to obedience to the Law. 

On the other hand, in verses fourteen to thirty-three, the curses for disobedience to the law are spelled out. It is one of mounting judgment. The more the disobedience, the greater the judgment; disease, defeat, want, terror, draught, plagues, and conflicts. 

“…ye shall flee when none pursueth you.”

The judgments will culminate in conquest. Frightful things that they would never have dreamed of as occurring among them will occur, cannibalism is cited as a specific example. And a scattering, finally, among the nations. The earth will disappoint a people under judgment, as will the heavens. The heavens will be as iron, we are told, that is, no rain. And the earth as brass, unwatered, hard, sterile, giving no crops to the disobedient. 

Then the third section, verse thirty-four to forty-five, God declares as He judges the people He will give the land a rest. The land has been abused, the land must have its Sabbaths. So while the people are given over to terror and to slavery and captivity, the earth will have a rest. And if they repent, repentance will lead to restoration. 

This, in brief, is the content of the great exhortation; it is true for all time. Certainly we today are beginning to see the great exhortations warnings fulfilled in our midst. 

Moses here gives as an example of cannibalism, extreme want, famine, to the point where mothers killed their children to feed the rest of the family. In our own midst, judgment has progressed to the point where we too are witnessing cannibalism; without the excuse of want. God’s Law is true. 

Now, as we analyze this great exhortation, we must say that it is clearly addressed to Israel. This is the excuse used by most modern theologians to say it has no significance for us.  On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount is addressed just as clearly to the disciples. Does that mean the Sermon on the Mount has no meaning for us?  Well of course that’s what the dispensationalists say. And this is why the dispensationalists have virtually no part of the Bible that they adhere to. “That was said to the Jews,” and “that was said to the disciples,” and “that was said to the Corinthians,” and “that was said to the people in Rome,” and therefore there’s really nothing said to us except that there is a God. That’s the alternative. Either the Word of God is a unity, and its God’s Word to all men, or it is not. And to deny any part of Scripture is ultimately to deny all of it. 

Then we cannot believe that God has no judgment for men and nations in the Christian era, and this is what they also say. We’re specifically told over and over again in the New Testament that there is judgment. In fact, Hebrews 12:18-29 declares that the same judgment that prevailed in terms of the Law throughout the Old Testament is now going to prevail; that there was a great shaking from the beginning to His coming, and now there will be another great shaking. 

“...those things that are shaken… that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. ”

Hebrews 12:27.

Now here of course the argument is, “Well, this is all over with, it doesn’t apply to us.” Unfortunately, Calvin too, after giving one of the finest statements of the meaning of the Law, made a few unfortunate statements in which he, like Luther, appealed to natural law, rather than Biblical Law. We’ll come to natural law and what they had to say in a few weeks. But Calvin wrote:

“The earth does not now cleave asunder to swallow up the rebellious: God does not now thunder from heaven as against Sodom: He does not now send fire upon wicked cities as He did in the Israelitish camp: fiery serpents are not sent forth to inflict deadly bites: in a word, such manifest instances of punishment are not daily presented before our eyes to make God terrible to us; and for this reason, because the voice of the Gospel sounds much more clearly in our ears, like the sound of a trumpet, whereby we are summoned to the heavenly tribunal of Christ.^” iv

Now, for a very great man who was a tremendous logician, this is a rather silly statement for Calvin to make because he states that, “Well, there were daily miracles in the Old Testament,” and that’s nonsense. Go through the Old Testament and add up the miracles, and there are very few. In fact, there’re more in the New Testament in the gospel age than in the whole of the Old Testament. 

Moreover, all kinds of miraculous deliverances and judgments have existed in the Christian era. Remember when we went through the creeds and counsels, how I cited some, specifically the death of Arius on the way to the cathedral? There’ve been many, many miraculous judgments in the Christian era. The New Testament is full of them, as I said; the judgment of Judas, of Jerusalem, of Judea, of Ananias, of Sapphira, of Herod, the angelic deliverance of Peter, of Paul and Silas, the many miracles, the deliverance from shipwreck, and so on. So, we cannot say, “Well, the miraculous judgments and deliverance belong to the Old Testament era.” They’re in the new. And church history is full of the providential dealings of God. 

Moreover, Calvin confused the miraculous at this point with the Law. The blessings and judgments are as apparent in the New Testament era, to this day, as in the Old Testament era. By his statement, Calvin lapsed, for the moment, into dispensationalism. What the Law gives us is valid for all time. What the Law gives us is, as it were, a set of manufacturer’s instructions. When you buy something, you have either a little pamphlet or a sheet giving you the manufacturer’s instructions and telling you, this is the way to operate it. Now, God, as the manufacturer, the creator of all things, has given us, in the Bible, His manufacturer’s instructions as to how to run our lives. How do deal with the world around us, how to deal with the ground beneath our feet, and you disregard the manufacturer’s instructions at your peril. You may be smarter than the manufacturer in Detroit, but you’re not smarter than the maker of Heaven and earth. And you either govern your life by His Law-Word, or you pay the consequences. Because man’s life is a material life, he must be governed by a material law. It’s the only kind of law that can be relevant to his life. The materialism of the Law is basic and necessary and the great exhortation is as valid today as in Moses’ day. Those who seek to deliver man from the Biblical Law, violate a law which is stated in the Old and New Testaments. In Deuteronomy 25:4, 1 Corinthians 9:9, 1 Timothy 5:18 and elsewhere:

“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his hire.”

Now, what is the great exhortation telling us? It says that we, as the laborers of God, as God’s servants, as God’s people called to obey Him, have a system of rewards and punishments spelled out in the Law. If we work for the Lord faithfully, the rewards are spelled out. If we don’t, the penalties are spelled out. It’s that simple. In every age from the beginning of the world to the end of time, the great exhortation and the whole of the Law is valid. We have the manufacturer’s instructions, plus the penalties. So that, just as we are told when we get a TV set, there’s a plaque in the back and it tells you to disconnect it before you try to do this or that, and what not do, and if you don’t, you’re likely to get shocked. So God gives His manufacturer’s instructions and He says, “Here are the penalties if you disobey. And here are the happy results if you obey.” And God’s rewards and punishments are far to be preferred to the promises of men and nations, or any mythical ‘natural law.’ The Word of God is the only true word. The only word that stands.

Let us pray. 

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast spelled out thine instructions for us so plainly. Give us grace to obey them in all things, to deal with ourselves, with one another, with the earth, with our money, with all our possessions, according to thy Word. Thou hast promised, O Lord, that thou wilt bless and curse us in terms of our obedience and disobedience. And in this confidence, O Lord, we look unto thee for thy blessings as we obey thy law. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Doesn’t the book of James say:

“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

James 2:10.

What does that mean, Dr. Rushdoony? ^v

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. The point is, that the Law is the ground of our relationship to God. Now, as far as our justification is concerned, Christ is our relationship. We demonstrate our sanctification, our relationship in righteousness to God, and to Christ, by obeying what is their Law-Word. Now, if we break it at one point, we’re expressing our contempt of the whole of God’s Law. 

[Audience] Doesn’t that put all sins on the same level?  ^vi

[Dr. Rushdoony] No, no. It doesn’t say that the murderer is on the same level as the man who steals a dollar. But it means that you have broken the Law, the Law is a unity. 

Let’s put it this way. There’s a progression in disobedience. You can be going the wrong way and be a hundred miles off course, or you can be fifty feet the wrong way; it makes a lot of difference. In either case you’re headed the wrong way, but there’s a matter of distance. In either case you’ve broken the Law, as it were. But one person has stubbornly persisted in long way, and another has gone so far only. 

Yes.

[Audience] Is it true that we can’t fall away as believers? ^vii

[Dr. Rushdoony] …[I]f we are truly saved, we cannot fall away. That is, the man who is truly the elect, the saved of God, has an eternal security. How do we know we are truly the elect of God? We obey His laws. In other words, the proof of that election is our life. We obey His laws, and if we fall by the wayside, we quickly reestablish ourselves. 

In other words, the sin of David was far greater than the sin of Demus. Demus, who was a close associate of St. Paul, an outstanding missionary in the Early Church. He did nothing more than to, at a certain point, drop out of the company because he didn’t like the consequences and he decided that he didn’t want to risk his life any further. David committed adultery and murder. But of the two, David was the true believer, and Demus was not because David repented. And Demas just forsook the faith. He figured, he counted the cost as it were, and he decided, “This isn’t for me.”

The elect of God demonstrate their election by their works and by their repentance. 

Any other questions? Yes.

[Audience] Is there a difference between trials and testings and punishment? ^viii

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. There is a very real difference. Testing and trials are the routine and the normal problems of this world, which test our faith. which discipline us.

St. Paul says in Hebrews 12 that because we are the sons of God, we are subjected to trials and testings, to discipline because if we are not sons but bastards, he says, then there’s no need to discipline us, but God subjects His own to testings. Now, punishment is something different. Punishment is in relationship to law, the testing is in relationship to strengthening the character of the person. 

Just as, for example, if you build something, you want to put it to the test, you want to make sure it’s going to do what it’s supposed to accomplish. It’s a trial run as it were, in terms of making it more useful to you. So those whom God tests and puts to trials are people whom He loves, and very often people whom He is going use mightily. Therefore He puts them through the paces, so that they are better able to serve Him. But judgment is something else.

Now, let’s go to the life of David to illustrate this. David was put through all kinds of tests as a very young man. As a young boy, out tending his father’s sheep, remember, he had to face all kinds of tests from wild animals that came to seize the sheep, and he had to face these with nothing but a slingshot. He was being prepared to be a warrior, a great conqueror for God. Then he had to sit under [Saul], called there to be a musician, because he was so good vocally and with the harp for a king who was losing his mind steadily because he refused to bow down to God, and he couldn’t get his own way. And Saul made a couple of attempts on his life, hunted him like a wild animal in the wilderness. And David went through some fearful experiences, trials, testings, for what purpose? They were all from the hand of God, and it was to prepare him to be the great king that he became, a man who could unify the nation, defeat the enemies that were arrayed against them, extend the frontiers of Israel, and make a great power of the world of his day. So all these things were testings. On the other hand, when he sinned, then judgment came. Judgment first, the death of his son whom he loved dearly, judgment in the form of the rebellion of his son and of his people, judgment in the form of a plague hitting the land, so that he had to see the people suffer for his sins, and the nation set back, which was a tremendous grief and distress to him. Do you see the difference there between judgment and trials? They’re two distinct things.

Yes.

[Audience] Why did God discipline Job so harshly? ^ix

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Well, of course, first of all, God can do as He pleases. Second, what He did to Job was for your benefit and mine, as well as Job’s because the question that Job raised, Job accepted it, “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” but he didn’t understand it. And God said, “You don’t understand this world by making yourself the measure and saying, why me? Why me and why did this happen, because things don’t happen in terms of you but in terms of the sovereign purposes of God, and my sovereign purpose here was to show forth something, that man is not the measure, that my purposes are the measure,” you see. In other words, the key to understanding the world is not what we are and what happened to us, but what God is, and what God purposes to do. 

[Audience] What about the Devil’s role in harming Job, then? ^x

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. But even what the Devil purposed to do was a part of the predestined counsel of God, so the Devil himself served God there and was confounded.

Yes.

[Audience] Does everyone face testing, Dr. Rushdoony? ^xi

[Dr. Rushdoony] Many people do not face testing much of their life. I’ve seen a lot of Christians who’ve had an easy life, and in the past generation or so, most people have had easy lives and faced the testing at time of death, old age, and I’ve seen some come through and the death has been so beautiful. You want to go out singing and others fall apart because everything was easy. They never were tested, but everyone is tested; if by nothing else, by death. 

A few things I want to share with you in the remaining minutes. The new magazine, ‘Rap’ by Rampart College is out, and it is interesting that the issue contains quite a spirited defense of abortion, “The woman has a right to do with her body as she pleases,” this is the morality of anarchism. It’s not surprising that Mr. LeFevre is going to be the invited speaker at Midland College in Michigan, which many conservatives feel is a fine college. It is anarchistic to the core; that’s the nature of Midland. 

Then there is a very important book which is a bestseller, surprisingly, which I think you ought to read. It is very well written. There are only a few minor points where I would disagree. It’s by an investment counselor, Harry Brown, How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation, and it has a great deal of very specific information about what is happening, then, it is practical in that what it does is to take every kind of eventuality, runaway inflation, deflation, recession, depression; whatever they might do, and tell you, “Now, what should you do in this case? What is the best kind of investment? What is safe and what is dangerous?” Of course, there’s not much he can say is good, and he says a lot of money will be made, for example, in the stock market in the immediate future, but he said a lot will be lost because it’s going to be so dangerous. That commodities, a great deal may be made there, but he said it’s probably strictly for professionals, and so on. But he gives it very specifically in terms of the possibilities, so that he says, “If this happens and if this happens, this in terms of economic law is what you can expect.”

I’d like to read just a few paragraphs.

“Runaway inflation is undoubtedly the worst thing that can hit a highly industrialized nation. Once prices are changing daily, you know there's real trouble just ahead. Accounts of runaway inflation always dwell on the need to have a wheelbarrow full of paper money just to buy some groceries. But the most important consequence is the final destruction of the currency itself. Inevitably, the point is reached where the paper money is totally worthless. What happens then? There's no longer any possibility of exchanging with paper money.

The government can issue a new currency. But unless it has gold reserves for backing (highly unlikely at that point), the new currency will be worthless. It won't be accepted by individuals who just lost all they had because of the last currency.

Historically, there have been only two ways that an economy could begin rebuilding immediately after having lost its currency. One way requires that ‘hard money’ be available—gold or silver coins. If so, exchange can begin immediately.

But that usually isn't the case. Very rarely does runaway inflation take place in a nation where the citizens still have hard money. The private holdings of gold and silver provide a check on the government and prevent inflation from going too far.

Usually it's the second way that ends the standstill. That is for foreigners to come into the country, buy up property, and hire workers—using valuable foreign currency.

In the past century or so, the ‘foreigners’ have almost always been American traders who came in with ‘good old Yankee dollars.’ The world has depended upon American entrepreneurial skill to keep things turning (long before foreign aid).

But what happens if it's America that has lost its currency? Where will the help come from?

There's little precedent to look to. There have been a few violent inflations in this country, such as the greenback era after the Civil War. But only certain kinds of currency suffered, such as the U. S. Notes which Abraham Lincoln dumped on the nation during the war. They became virtually useless in exchange. But there were still valuable gold and silver certificates in circulation, not to mention gold and silver themselves.

But what would happen now if our dollars became totally worthless? It's doubtful that foreign currency would have much acceptance here; we're not used to it as people of other nations are.

Our only salvation would probably be the silver coins that are currently hoarded in bureau drawers and basements. Fortunately, the government didn't succeed in melting all of them. For they are the one tool that could pull us through the crisis.

Even with the coins available, there'd be a bad period before any order could be established. Once you begin to let your imagination run away with the possibilities inherent in hyper-inflation, the outlook can be pretty grim. Without a currency, the government can't operate its schools or police forces or pay tax collectors. Most likely, all governments in this country—federal, state and local would collapse.

Your faithful ‘cop on the corner’ wouldn't be there. He'd be scrounging around like everyone else, looking for food, since food supplies would no longer be coming into the cities.

Once all the grocery stores had been looted, the riots would become even more grotesque. The worst place in the world to be at a time like that would be in any metropolitan area. The old philosophy of home ownership that says ‘at least you'll always have a roof over your head’ won't be attractive if the roof is 100 miles from where you'd consider it safe to be.

If you live in a metropolitan area, you certainly need to be prepared to get out in a hurry—to some pre-arranged area of retreat, far from any city. You need a place to go where there's food, protection, and shelter.

You can then wait out the worst of the crisis. When some semblance of order has been reestablished, you can return to civilization. If you've prepared yourself properly, you'll have a large supply of silver or gold coins with which to acquire instruments of wealth.

If you live in a rural area now, be sure you're capable of being self-sufficient for a year or so. For if runaway inflation should hit the nation, you may not be able to count on the sources of supplies you're used to having.

It's becoming more possible all the time that we could see the day when a loaf of bread would cost a million dollars—followed by the death of the currency and a state of chaos.

So, as you can see, a runaway inflation finally culminates in a depression—but an even worse kind of depression.

This all sounds pretty distasteful, I know. But then, so does tuberculosis or war. And a look at the present economy indicates that the possibility of runaway inflation is far too great to be ignored.

In fact, when I first wrote this book in 1969, I considered the chances of a runaway inflation to be about one in three. Now, I'm afraid, it's more like 50-50 and increasing all the time. If even recessions don't interrupt the inflationary pattern, what hope is there that the cycle will be stopped before it's too late? There are a multitude of federal spending programs that are committed for years in advance; even a politician who wanted to stop it would have little power to do so.

But it only has to be grim if you are not prepared for it. If you are ready, you will not only be spared the worst; you will find an opportunity for new wealth.” ^xii

Then, another book that I’d like to report on to you. It’s a hardback published about a year ago, and now available in paperback. The Closed Corporation: American Universities in Crisis’, by James Ridgeway. Now, the book is written by a liberal. It’s written from his perspective.

This is an important book on college campuses, in the hardback edition as well as in this. It explains, in part, the reasons for much of the student rebellion. Now, of course to the students as to this man, is a kind of fascist. Although he doesn’t use that word, the students do, establishment that we have, the military industrial hookup with the universities as a part of it. What is the reality of the matter? 

Now, over ten years ago I made the statement in Northern California that Stanford University had more Federal funds in it than private funds, so it was a Federal university. And subsequent figures bore me out, and the figures he gives here certainly bear me out. What he says is this. The Federal government has made the universities its instrument; the various bureaus of the Federal government and the CIA, so that the university world is the world through which it accomplishes what it chooses to do today. For business to get ahead, big business today hires, not only ex-bureaucrats, but university professors to be on its boards because they have a link to the gravy train. and the gravy train is fed through the universities. 

Thus, it gives the example of the recently-retiring chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles, Franklin D. Murphy. Now Murphy was a good example of this link between the government, the university, and big business, whereby the three are controlled from Washington. Murphy was chancellor, but he was also on the board of Ford Motor Company, Hallmark Cards, McCall Corporation, and the L.A Times Mirror Company. And he went from the presidency or chancellorship of UCLA to be president of the Time Mirror Corporation. What the government does, in effect, is to say to the universities, “You are going to be our tool whereby we are going to accomplish what we want; to command business and the intellectual community.” And so it feeds money, untold millions, the amount is fantastic, the biggest on the gravy train are schools like Columbia and Stanford, Berkeley and UCLA, the University of Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, and so on; the big schools, they have untold funds coming. 

They channel all kinds of contracts to industry. And industry in return throw all kinds of tax breaks, pours money back into the universities, where it is controlled also by these federally-governed people. So that a kind of new tool is set up, a new bureaucracy, in which the university is the key figure. 

Now, the military is brought into this in that now the old conception of the military has been abolished. The Pentagon is the new State Department, and the military is used, no longer in terms of the old-fashioned concept of war, whereby you go in and you fight to win; you go in and you maneuver in order to set the stage for negotiations, to accomplish what you purposed in foreign policy. So the idea that the war in Vietnam or anywhere else is to be fought in terms of military strategy is ridiculous. It is to be fought in terms of maneuvering to accomplish certain ends, and it is naïve to assume that military purposes are of any value, it is the new means of foreign policy. And of course this is the thing that infuriates the students, in part. They’re just tools in this establishment, foreign policy program, whereby they are sent over there to die while they maneuver things to get the proper thing accomplished at the conference table. It’s a very important book in spite of the fact that its perspective is not our perspective. 

The campuses that are established all over the world as a part of this international program whereby the universities serve to effect foreign policy, you find campuses all over Europe and Latin America, even in an out-of-the-way places like Nepal, there is a campus of one of the universities in Nepal. I can check in a moment which school has a campus there. Yes. The University of California, Berkeley, has a campus in Nepal, which is heavily subsidized and has as its purpose to further some aspects of our foreign policy. 

Moreover, the universities are deeply involved in urban renewal and are a big instrument of it. And one of the reasons for the hatred by the Negroes of the liberals is precisely this aspect of it. The liberal hatred of the Negro is very real. Welfarism and all kinds of civil rights programs are the payoffs to have them shut up and stay in line while they reorganize the rest of us. And their ruthlessness in destroying an area that they want to take over, for example, the University of Chicago, in wiping out all the Negroes for a sizable area around the University of Chicago, to build a belt around itself, is described. I saw this when I was there a few years ago, at the University of Chicago. At Chicago they’re so bad that one of the Harvard officials says 

“‘Julian makes me cringe,’ said one of the Harvard officials. ‘You know, when he wants to empty a place he'll get an insurance company to cancel its policy, then he'll turn around and get the city to condemn the place because it doesn't have any insurance. We just couldn't get away with that here [that is, in Cambridge, although they get away with a lot, as he documents - RJR].’” ^xiii

Now, the only way you can pressure insurance companies to that is if you have the government behind you. So it’s a very revealing book on the real government of our day, and the total ruthlessness with which it operates. As he remarks, the last place for what we consider an education today is university world. It’s not interested in that; it’s a power tool in the power structure of our day. 

Well, our time is up. 

Let us bow our heads in prayer. 

* * *

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.

i. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 35 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 166.

ii. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 35 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 173.

iii. Luthers Briefwechsel, ‘An Melancthon’, 1 August 1521, ed. Enders, vol. III, p. 208. 

Cited in Friedrich Heer, The Intellectual History of Europe (Cleveland: World Publishing Company [1953], 1966), p. 221.

iv. John Calvin and Charles William Bingham, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 215–216.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii. Harry Browne. How You Can Profit From The Coming Devaluation. Revised and Updated. Avon, 1971, pp. 100-103.

xiii. James Ridgeway. The Closed Corporation: American Universities in Crisis. New York: Random House, 1968, p. 181.