Dennis Tuuri

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, oh Jacob. Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory?

The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

The occasion for the writing of Psalm 24 was apparently the return of the ark or the coming of the ark unto the newly captured Jebusite city known as Jerusalem upon Mount Zion, which we discussed, I believe, in Psalm 15, which is a very parallel psalm to this psalm before us. I’d like therefore, for the historical setting, to turn to 2 Samuel 6:1-23 and read thereof.

Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of Hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah. And Uzza and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drew the new cart.

And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God. And Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. And when they came to Nacon’s threshing floor, Uzza put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it.

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza. And God smote him there for his error. And there he died by the ark of God. And David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzza. And he called the name of the place Perez Uzza to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?” So David would not remove the ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David.

But David carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months. And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. And it was told King David, saying, “The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that pertaineth unto him because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the city of David with gladness.

And it was so that when they that bear the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.

And she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in his place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts. And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to everyone a cake of bread and a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine.

So all the people departed, everyone to his house. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself.” And David said unto Michal, “It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father and before all his house, to appoint me ruler of the people of the Lord over Israel.

Therefore will I play before the Lord, and I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be based in mine own sight, and of the handmaids which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor.” Therefore, Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death.

This portion of 2 Samuel describes the historical context which culminates in the return of the ark unto Jerusalem, the city of David.

Now we talked a lot about the city of David several months ago and we won’t go through all that now. We will refer briefly to some of those things as we go through this passage of scripture before us. It’s important to remember, by the way, in the context of all that, why the ark is where it was. The people of God had been sinful. The Philistines, you probably remember, had captured the ark and taken it back to their area.

And let me just step back a minute and say something else first, and then so I won’t have to say this more than once. A couple weeks ago, I went out to Javi and Diana’s house and Javi played a song for me and I liked it and he gave me a tape of a guy named Reverend Gary Davis. And on this tape was a song called “If I Had My Way.” It’s a song about Samson. Now, the style is such that a lot of people wouldn’t like that song. It’s kind of like old Negro blues sort of delivery, but it’s a great song. I really enjoyed listening to the song. It reminded me again of the song of Samson. And I went back to the scriptures and reread that portion of the scriptures. And then I also got out “God’s War Against Humanism,” written by Reverend James B. Jordan from Texas, and read some in there. And as a result of that I also reread certain portions of Judges.

I bring that up because several of the points that I’ll make today are probably a direct result of reading some portions of that book and also reading some portions of “Law and Society” by Reverend Rushdoony, and I don’t want to have to refer to those every time I do that, so long as you know that’s what happened. By the way, in terms of Samson, today’s message is particularly relevant also, I think, when we reflect upon what we’ve been saying the last couple of weeks about the work of Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah, and how God goes about establishing his kingdom. And it wasn’t by coming with a great army of men that the Pharisees looked for, for instance, to get rid of the Roman oppressors, who were after all God’s judgment against the Pharisees for their lack of faith. Rather, God sent that hidden arrow out of his shaft, so to speak. He sent Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And in the same way we can think about the story of Samson and his tremendous strength and his destruction of the Philistines in various ways and killing thousands of men at the jawbone of an ass.

And we could go on and on about those things, and those are good and proper. And in the story of Samson, we obviously see Christ typologically portrayed in Samson. The word Samson comes from the word for light. Samson is seen, for instance, in Psalm 19 where it talks about the bridegroom coming out. It describes the sun as the bridegroom coming out in strength. And certainly Samson was the strongest man that ever walked the earth short of Jesus Christ.

But that’s who he was typifying. What was Samson’s greatest area of victory over the Philistines? It wasn’t the jawbone of the ass or any of the other things he did. It was after he was taken into captivity, as it were. And by that you can see the correlation of the Messiah going into captivity, taking the sins of the people upon himself. Taken into captivity by the Philistines, sitting in the temple of Dagon, their prince, and then ripping down those pillars and dying as he brought upon the judgment of God against that pagan culture.

And Jordan points out that the Philistines were related to the Egyptians. And so there’s a correlary there to the deliverance of God’s people out of the land of Egypt. Well, anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that when I read that portion of scripture where Samson takes these pillars, he’s standing between them, his hair is returned, he’s become repentant before God for the sins of his old age. God has now blessed him in a sense.

He’s going to typify Christ here in his destruction of the pagan world, which Philistia was, the great empire at that time, the temple of Dagon. Destruction of that and bringing about his own death as well. So it was Jesus Christ came and certainly he did combat, as it were, with the forces of evil before his death. But it was in the death of Jesus Christ and taking upon himself the wrath due to us, making expiation (that word taking the wrath away for us) with God and reconciliation of us with God. That is where Jesus demonstrated his power once for all over sin and death and over the power of the devil and spiritual forces, similar to Samson.

Now I brought that up because I was beginning to talk about the ark, and one of the things that Reverend Jordan posits in the book “God’s War Against Humanism” and I think it’s worthy of at least some consideration, is that the ark went into captivity when the nation of Israel had really apostatized tremendously. And in a way, God himself went into captivity, substitutionarily (if there’s such a word), for the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel at that point in time was not taken into captivity earlier. They had been taken into captivity here. They stayed in their land.

But it was the ark itself that symbolized God’s presence with his people in his covenant, of course, because it contained the tablets of the covenant law, that went into captivity into Philistia. The same way that the people of God were in captivity in Egypt. And when the ark comes out of Philistia, it doesn’t stay long there, of course, because the ark manifests its power in Philistia. The same way that God manifested his power to the Egyptians in declaring that his people had to be released.

The Egyptians—there were various plagues that God would bring upon them. And the ark brought various plagues upon the Philistines and so led them to get rid of the ark and send it on back to Israel so it wouldn’t continue to bother them and manifest power over them. In the same way that the people of God came out from Egypt loaded with gifts, so the ark came out of the Philistine nation loaded with gold and models of several items that reflected the place of God upon the people, so it came out with gifts, as it were. And of course it’s not difficult to see that Jesus Christ typologically went into Egypt, as it were, taking our sin upon himself and came out victorious and ascended, bringing gifts, as it were, and men in his train.

So all these things relate together, and they should certainly reinforce in our minds this pattern that we’ve talked about for the last three or four weeks: deliverance, victory in battle that Jesus Christ affected on the cross, the resulting shepherding of God’s people, and then his enthronement, as it were. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

When the ark—well, first of all, when the people of God came out of Egypt, one of the first things God began to tell them about was his tabernacle among them, and he gave them laws regarding that. And when they finished the tabernacle in the wilderness, now we’re talking about God entered the tabernacle, entered that throne room, and his presence with them became complete. And that is an enthronement, as it were, of Jehovah God in the midst of his covenant people that he’s delivered and is now leading like a shepherd.

An enthronement. The same way the ark came out of Philistia, came out in terms of showing the deliverance of the people of God. It resided for a while, actually twenty years and some months, in a place where David now is going to bring it out of, because the people of God weren’t really ready yet and they mishandled it. Well, that’s another story. But twenty years and some months later, the ark is brought forth back into the captured city, Mount Zion, which is to typify the people of God. Remember we talked about that in Psalm 15. Zion typifies the people of God.

It symbolizes God’s presence with his people. And there are various things in today’s passage that shows also that it typifies God’s presence and kingship over the entire world. Zion is not just a model of the church. It’s not just a model of his covenant people. It’s a model of his kingdom. And his kingdom is now worldwide. So we see the enthronement of God with the entrance of the ark into Jerusalem, into those mighty gates that are lifted up.

The presence of the Lord, symbolized by the ark, comes into that city. And so we see the enthronement of God again among his people.

Now in Psalm 68, I will read verses 15-21. It would be good for you today to spend part of your Sabbath day reading all of Psalm 68. I highly recommend that to you. But in any event, verses 15-21:

The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan, a high hill as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye high hills? This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in. Yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. The Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place. As in Sinai, you get that reference there. Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity captive. Thou hast received gifts for men. Yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.

Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such one as goeth on still in his trespasses.

Psalm 68, most commentators agree, was specifically written for this trip of the ark, and one of those songs that David sang before the ark as it went into Jerusalem. And we see here references to exactly what we’ve talked about: the ascension on high, the enthronement of God among his people. Clearly the teaching of Psalm 68, and also of Psalm 24. And verse 18 specifically identifies what that was typologically representing: “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.”

We are obviously here talking about the enthronement of Jesus Christ, which is a direct result of his work on the cross, of his final victory over sin and death two thousand years ago. On the basis of that death, Jesus Christ now claims enthronement as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And of course, that’s exactly what the rest of scripture tells us. In Acts 2, looking back (instead of looking forward as we are in the Psalms), looking back at what Jesus Christ has accomplished. In Acts 2:29-36, we read the following:

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of the loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. Okay? He seeing this before, speak of the resurrection of Christ. Okay? David’s speaking of the resurrection of Christ. The two are linked. “His soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

“This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, that having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not descended into the heavens. But he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ.”

Looking back on Jesus Christ’s coming, this sermon tells us that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ. Now, Christ, we know (most people know) refers to him being the Messiah. The word Messiah has its roots, however, in the word meaning to be anointed. And so the Messiah was the anointed one. In what way? Jesus Christ was the anointed one in that he was anointed prophet, priest, and king. And we have talked, for instance, about the baptism of Christ and the relationship to this in sermons past.

The important thing to recognize here is that when this sermon asserts that Jesus Christ has become both Lord and Christ, he’s saying he’s Messiah. He’s anointed prophet, priest, and king. And he sits on the throne of David now. And the result of that is that he is now Lord.

Reverend Rushdoony has pointed out in several of his tapes that the most common, frequent occurrence of the word translated “God” in the Old Testament is the word meaning “Lord,” which is Adonai. That’s the primary name of God that’s used in the Old Testament. We’ve talked a lot about Jehovah and the covenant relationship God has with his people, but that’s not stressed as much in the Old Testament as is God’s lordship over his people. The same thing is true in the New Testament. The most common name for God in the New Testament is “Lord,” kyrios. It talks about him being the sovereign, the anointed one, the sovereign over his people, the ultimate ruler over all the earth, and specifically over his covenant people.

Of course, the fact of God’s ruling over his covenant people is subordinate to his being the sovereign of the entire earth. We’ve talked about it; you’ve certainly heard through many sermons, that the central statement of faith in the church is “Jesus is Lord.” That’s our credo, as it were. What does that mean? Well, in many churches where that’s spoken of, it means something far different than what it means in the scriptures.

Jesus is the Lord of part of our lives. But we see, particularly in this enthronement passage before us, that there is more than just—even I shouldn’t just say “just”—but there is more to God’s sovereignty over the entire earth than strictly the result of the Messiah’s work. Because Psalm 24 begins with the statement that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods.”

What’s being spoken of here is God being the creator of all things, number one, and more specifically, God being the creator of the land that’s inhabited. That’s the word that’s being used here. The land that is actually inhabited by people. It says he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. The earth is founded upon the seas. You remember creation: God brought forth the earth out of the seas to cover the entire earth, right? The sea is parted and then the land comes up. So he’s talking about our foundation, even as just people living on earth, not just as his covenant people, now being founded upon God himself and his sovereignty, in his lordship and his creation rights, as it were, over what he has brought to pass.

Our foundation, if you want to look at it naturally speaking, is seas—is water. Remember that when you go to the ocean next time. That’s what he’s brought us up out of. He’s given us this boat, as it were, which is the earth, and established it and given it to us. So he has rights over us. Of course, remember that also when we talk about the judgment of God upon the world, the time of Noah: the floods covered the earth, didn’t they? It’s not a hard thing to do. The amazing thing is God’s providence in keeping the seas back. Okay? Because the sea—the earth is founded upon the seas. It’s also interesting to think through, for the rest of your Sabbath day, about the implications of deliverance of God’s people out of Egypt and the Red Sea there, and the flood again covering up his enemies, the judgment of God’s seen in doing away with this foundation he’s provided to people. You reject the lordship of God and you reject the foundations of the earth itself.

You end up covered by the floods of judgment. That’s what happens, as it were, if you reject that.

This psalm ends with the same emphasis: “Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory.”

The word “hosts” there, Sabaoth. You hear it, for instance, in Martin Luther’s great Reformation song “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” There’s a verse there: “Lord Sabaoth His name.” Sabaoth is probably the better way to say it. And that’s specifically out of two passages in Romans and, I believe, also James, or First Peter. I’m not sure of the second reference, but in any event, Jesus Christ is defined as “Lord Sabaoth.” What does that mean?

Well, the word “hosts” here, apparently, if you look at the etymology of the word in the Old Testament, has a reference back to the heavenly hosts, the angelic beings, the spirit world. So what God is saying here is that “I am God. I’m to be enthroned, first of all, on the basis of my creation of the earth by bringing forth the dry land out of the sea. And also because I’m the Lord of Hosts. I’m the Lord who rules the stars, all the planets, all the galaxies—for whatever is up there, I rule over it. More than that, the spiritual forces that exist in the realms outside of the earth also, he is lord of.”

Jesus Christ’s lordship is based upon his lordship in terms of creation of all things earthly, heavenly, and also in the seas.

Now, not too many would disagree with us yet until we look at some of the implications of that, of course. Or some of the denials of that go on continually in our nation today. This same fact is seen, by the way, in the talk we’ve had about how God is seated between the cherubims. In this enthronement process, God ends up seated between the cherubims. That’s talking about the mercy seat, the ark. Okay. The ark of the covenant, which is in the holy of holies. That’s where God’s special presence was in those days, and typologically it tells us a lot about his kingship today. He was seated between the cherubims. Inside that ark, of course, as we mentioned, was the law of the covenant. That’s what the Ten Commandments were. That was the throne room of God, from which the preaching of God’s word is to go forth as water to cover the whole earth again. Okay. God’s word is to be preached from this throne room.

God’s presence as king—and a king has with it the inescapable notion that he has a law and that law is to be obeyed. If you understand him as king, you have to understand him in terms of obedience to his law.

However, there are also references in the scriptures to the fact that God is seen upon earth. Last week we read from Isaiah 40, and it says that God “sitteth upon the circle of the earth.” God’s enthronement as we said in the ark in Jerusalem (that we’re speaking of) his enthronement here is typologically true of the entire earth. And so we see references to God sitting upon the circle of the earth. His throne isn’t just limited down here to some localized city. That’s not the point. The point is his throne is over everything.

And that specifically, by the way, was one of the sins that the nation of Israel fell into. They thought that the presence of God was with them, and they were blessed because they were in its physical location. And right away in the enthronement of God amongst this physical city, which was a reality in the Old Testament, he warns them to say: “Don’t think from this that my throne is limited to the nation of Israel. Don’t think that. And that’s sin, and that’s wrong, and it’s denial of my sovereignty.”

He says, don’t think—we’ll talk more about verses 3, 4, and 5 of communion (or Psalm 24)—says, don’t think because you’re physically here in my land or on my hill that you’re in good standing here. You’ve got to stand there. You got to continue to stand in the presence of God. And God’s presence fills the entire earth, and he is casting out people from his presence daily by dispatching them to hell. The nation of Israel thought through their physical lineage, their physical presence with God, they had privilege.

And God says, “First of all, you got it wrong. It’s not a nationalized occurrence, a nationalized phenomenon. I’m king of the whole earth. And second of all, you don’t have privilege with me just because you’re in my holy hill. You’re going to be cast off from my holy hill unless you have clean hands, a pure heart, and the righteousness that I give you as a gift.”

Matthew 21:13: Jesus said that my house is to be a house of prayer. And we read that verse sometimes and we think, “Well, I guess we should pray more often.” But that’s really kind of missing the point. In Isaiah 57, it’s true, by the way, we should pray more often, and I’ll get to that in a few minutes. But in Isaiah 56:6-7 (thank you for checking that reference), we read what he was actually quoting from.

Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, taketh hold of my covenant. Even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar. For mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

There’s a missionary and messianic perspective that’s being taught here. The house of prayer is the house of prayer in that it symbolizes the whole world where the people are supposed to come into the converts. It’s a denial of physical lineage. It’s a denial of the idea that his physical presence is what’s going to bless them. Jesus said, “My house be called a house of prayer for all the nations”—is the implication of Isaiah 56.

They were supposed to take that throne room of Jerusalem that they had there with God in it and to go forth in missionary effort to convert people, to convert the heathen and the Gentile unto true worship and true covenant relationship with God. They denied that. They’d become ingrown. Not only that, but the people that did come, they ripped them off and they got there through their exchange rates. So not only were they not doing what they were supposed to, they were actually acting counter against the clear missionary intent that got it established through his throne room.

Isaiah 42:6 says that Jesus will be given as a covenant of the peoples, the Messiah to come. Again we have that missionary emphasis. So what we’re speaking about in terms of Psalm 24 is the enthronement of God, the enthronement of Jesus Christ, this side of his work on the cross, his expiation of God’s wrath and his atonement. That’s what Psalm 24 is all about. And it has practical implications in our land today.

First, first of all, this means that if God is the Lord of all things, the sovereign of all things, and there is no other, that he is to be Lord in our churches. I don’t know what’s going to happen to this church in the future. It’s not my concern really what God is going to do with us as a group. But I’ll tell you this much: that this church will continue to do, as long as we meet together and proclaim (in the terms of the old Presbyterians) the crown rights of King Jesus.

The church today in this land has grievously sinned and brought about the apostasy in this land through failing in their prophetic mission to proclaim forth what we’re talking about today: the enthronement of God among his people. This church has an obligation. If we have no other obligation, we have the obligation to speak of the lordship of Jesus Christ, the kingship (that’s what that word means), his sovereignty over every area of our lives. That’s the mission of the church. And the church has failed in its mission in this land.

We were talking with Dick Foley the other night about wills and inheritance and other topics came up, and it was a real good time—a very good man to get to know, and he’s very busy, but hopefully we’ll have more time to talk with him. But we were talking, and he was talking about the roots of Oregon, and I got into a discussion of the liberalizing influence in various churches and how they accomplished that. And you know what they do? They redefine terms. You won’t see anybody challenging the lordship of Jesus Christ today. So why am I so upset about the church’s lack of responsibility in the area?

Well, what they’ve done is they’ve redefined the term “the lordship of Jesus Christ.” They’ve said that the lordship of Jesus Christ refers to some spiritual plane. For instance, it has nothing to do with life here on planet earth. It has to do with our salvation—fire and death insurance. That’s not what the lordship of Jesus Christ is.

The state will say there is the lordship of Jesus Christ for what happens between your two ears. And the state learns that from the church, because continually in this country, pulpits preach forth a gospel of pious gush that has nothing to do with teaching you how to apply the word of God in your lives.

And hopefully what we’re going to try to do in this church is address specific issues through which the word of God should be manifest in our lives and we can demonstrate his kingship. The church has a prophetic ministry to families. This church has prophetic responsibility, as it were, to preach the word of God and its application to you as fathers and as mothers, as husbands and as children as well. This church has a prophetic ministry to the state, and it also has a prophetic ministry to work, to the workplace, for instance. These are all areas in which the word of God is not being preached in its entirety in these days in our country.

Why is what’s happening in this country happening? It’s because the church has failed to lift up Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the ultimate sovereign. It’s because they’ve refused to enthrone him in their churches.

Even look at the worship service itself. We have tried to—and I know what we do is a little bit different, and maybe it’s not right, but I’ll tell you what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to take marching orders from the king and from his book in terms of what we do here on Sunday morning. That’s the reason we structure what we structure and the way we do it. That’s why we have communion the way we do it. We’re trying to structure around the word of God. We’re not perfect. We won’t be perfect this side of glory. But that’s to be our intent.

All too many churches that we’ve come out of see Sunday as a day of entertainment. It is not that. Sunday is a day in which the saints are to be equipped for service, in which you’re supposed to be equipped to go into the world and to work through the enthronement of Jesus Christ in your lives.

I think we’re very close to what Jesus found in the nation of Israel when he was there. Jordan has talked about how, why did Jesus always talk to the Pharisees? Well, they were the only ones left who even said they believe this anymore. And that’s the way it is in our church today, too. The churches of God are who we have to address, because they’re the only ones left who even give lip service to this. But they’ve redefined it. The Pharisees redefined the law of God. They weren’t acting in obedience to his law anymore. They were adding things to it. They had their own law that they were following. They denied the missionary aspect that God had clearly given them in the verses we talked about, the house of prayer, for instance.

Same thing is true in the churches today. There’s a redefinition of the term “lordship.” There’s a book out by—oh, don’t tell me I didn’t bring it. Well, it’s a little booklet by Aaron Tenpass called “The Lordship of Christ,” and basically Tenpass’s book is written in refutation of some statements by Ryrie, who believes that salvation is possible if we believe in Jesus as Savior and not as Lord. That all you need is Jesus as Savior, not Jesus as Lord, in order to be saved. Well, that strikes me as ludicrous that a book such as Aaron Tenpass’s even needs to be written.

You look at what we’ve been reading here in terms of Psalm 22, Psalm 23, and Psalm 24. You look at the references, the clear references to Christ’s lordship in the New Testament that we just talked about—one of the first sermons of the church. And why do we even discuss whether or not a relationship to God is founded upon salvation as opposed to lordship? Well, the two are connected. They’re interconnected. They’re impossible to disconnect.

Somebody who wants salvation and doesn’t want to come into the lordship of the person who saves him—Reverend Rushdoony used a good term—said he’s a grave robber. Churches that espouse that sort of thing are grave robbers. They want what that dead person (that they think is dead) has without acknowledging his authority over them.

Well, the word of God clearly teaches that it is just ludicrous that we have to even discuss that today. The lordship of Jesus Christ is an accomplished fact, and salvation is seen as a result of the lordship of Christ. And when he—we get brought out of the kingdom of darkness, we get transferred into a kingdom of light with a king, with a lord. And if you don’t have a king and a lord named Jesus Christ, then you aren’t saved. You haven’t been transferred over yet.

Now, it’s easy for us to talk about the church that way to a certain extent. There’s another area that God is supposed to be enthroned in, and that’s the state. The term “Jesus is Lord” was the reason why the early church got in so much trouble with the Roman government, because Jesus was their king, not Caesar.

Psalm 2: “Why did the heathen rage? The people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed.” Well, what’s happening here is a reference to judgment. They will not have this man to rule over them. But the response is, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

Well, the kings of this earth are not willing to bow the knee to King Jesus, the king of kings. What’s going to happen? They’re going to be broken like a potter’s vessel. The implications of that are that there’s no covenantal relationship that a Christian can have with a humanistic state. There’s no way that we can give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s without understanding that all of those things ultimately belong to God. There’s no way. We can’t do that.

Now, how do we live as Christians in a pagan state? Well, we need to operate. We need to think clearly about that. But the first step is to understand that Jesus Christ is Lord of the state as well.

It says that the ownership of that land does not rest in personal, in private hands. The ownership of the land rests with God. The implications of that: remember we talk about it? If God, we’re talking about God as king, we got to talk about God as having a law. A king has laws that he rules by. And so if you’re going to acknowledge the kingship of God over the land, we’ve got a rule according to his rules. And what are some of those rules?

In 1 Samuel 8:14, there’s a wicked king described as taking over, taking your vineyards, taking the produce from your land, taxing you over 10%. That’s a wicked king in 1 Samuel 8:14. But you’ll notice that wicked king, by the way, to get back to the church, came as a result of the people rejecting the kingship of God.

When they came to Samuel and said, “We want a king to reign over us,” and remember we talked about how they had recently been exposed to the humanist kingship ideas of the Ammonites. And they said, “We like that sort of stuff. We like centralized government. That’s what we want.” And Samuel felt bad. And God said, “They didn’t reject you. They rejected me.” Okay? They had a king. They didn’t—it wasn’t that they were wrong in wanting a king. They were wrong in wanting a king other than God, and a king who would serve under God. They wanted a king like the other nations, who didn’t serve under God. So God gave them one. He said, “They rejected me. Tell them what’s going to happen to them. But then we’ll give them a king and we’ll let them see what happens.”

An evil king has spoken then as usurping property rights of the citizens. And certainly in this land we have that. There is no private ownership in the land of America today. There is property tax on every piece of land in the country. Basically, that property tax is a claim to ownership on the part of the civil government. The legal term is “eminent domain.” The state can take whatever piece of land they want and force you to sell it to them. Why? Because it’s their property. You have to pay a property tax. You’re basically renting that land from the king. Okay? Well, that’s in direct violation of the word of God.

1 Kings 21: Naboth had a vineyard and the king wanted it. Ahab wanted it. And Naboth wouldn’t give it to him. So Ahab found another way to do it. His wife Jezebel found a way to do it. She killed Naboth and then gave the vineyard to Ahab. That was the specific point at which the judgment of God came against Ahab in the form of Elijah, who came and taught him. God was going to judge him, that the dogs would lick up Jezebel’s blood, because the king decided to take a vineyard from a relatively unimportant man in the eyes of the state. And yet God’s judgment comes upon that king.

Ezekiel 46 is another prohibition against kings taking people’s land. Well, what we’re saying is that the king today, the civil government today, is acting in direct violation of the word of God. But why? How do they know that? Well, how they’re supposed to know that is—again—the church is supposed to have a prophetic ministry to the king, to proclaim forth the crown rights of Jesus Christ over the king as well.

The pulpit in this land: do they question the idea of property taxes? Usually no. They don’t question those things at all, because they’ve given up in their own minds the lordship of God over their material possessions. Now, they may still tithe, and they may not. If they do, frequently it becomes a vehicle whereby God is manipulated to their proper ends. They see, “Well, gosh, if we tithe, we’re going to get more money here.” And they’ll teach that as a principle: you know, that we should tithe so we can get more money. We don’t tithe so we can get more money. We tithe because God’s commanded us to do it. It’s his tax and a continual reminder on us that we’re his people.

The church has lost its sense of prophetic ministry because it has redefined the term of lordship. It’s redefined it so it doesn’t apply to things like the civil government and property and money and all these other things. All you’re supposed to do is think about God’s word a lot so you can kind of go to a higher plane and escape this reality down here, which is somehow bad and evil. Well, that is ludicrous in the light of Psalm 24, the enthronement of God.

Now, it’s easy to talk about the church that way, to a certain extent. There’s another area where God is supposed to be enthroned, and that’s the family. And maybe this is one area where we have the kingship of God displayed in our country. I don’t think so, though, because in our families as well, the only time that we hear sermons from the pulpit relating to the family primarily is about our prayer life, our devotional life, nothing else. The word of God says, however, that our families are to be run according to his law, according to his word.

Again, there’s a recent book by Mary Pride. And I’m not going to—well, I’ve talked to another person this week on the phone, another member of the reconstruction movement, and asked him about Dr. Kline and asked him about Mary Pride’s book, and we mentioned also that there’s a newsletter out by a prominent reconstructionist that takes Mary Pride to task.

Well, you know, it’s interesting to me, the response of people to all this stuff. Let me just tell you some of those responses. We can think through a few of them. The reasoning used, one reconstructionist says that she’s just goofy, you know, because there’s no church around today who believes that people should continue to have children and not use contraception.

Well, that’s ridiculous. Who would ever think such a thing as that? The Roman Catholics don’t even believe that anymore. Well, is that a good biblical argument from the King’s word? No. It’s looking around the nations around us and saying, “What do they do?” Well, they don’t do it. Well, we must be crazy to consider doing it. Really must be kind of nutty.

Mary Pride, in case you don’t know, believes that it is wrong to use contraceptive devices. She thinks that one of the two co-equal aspects of sexual intercourse is having children, and she thinks you should walk in obedience to that command of God. Now, I’m not saying that I agree with her necessarily. But I’m saying this: before we disagree with that principle, we better go back to the scriptures about what God’s law has to say about it.

Now, if that’s what’s being done on the part of the reconstructionists that I talk about, it is not. Sadly, I’m told by another reconstructionist in a telephone conversation this week, “Well, Mary Pride had kind of a crude way of addressing things in her book.”

Another reconstructionist (these are separate people I’m talking about now) said, “Well, she was awful mean-spirited in her book.” These are the same remarks that were talked about in terms of David Chilton’s attack on Ron Sider. The very same reasoning that was rejected as unbiblical then by these same people, and now they’re using the same rationale and the same terminology.

I was told by one of these reconstructionists, who has some rather novel ideas themselves, that “Well, Mary Pride should have studied church history more. You know, a church has never taken this position.” Well, number one, it depends on what you mean by “the church.” This particular reconstructionist attends church in Texas, and they have a lot of good things to say about the Roman Catholic Church up until its middle apostasy. I think there’s some proper reasons for that.

Well, the Roman Catholic Church has certainly taken a position against birth control, consistently, you know, from the time of Christ. Well, since the time of the Reformation, he said. Well, of course, we gotta realize that the pill wasn’t around during the time of the Reformation, right? How could they take a position on that? And you know, it’s really true that contraception has become an issue because of the technology we’ve developed now. Certainly, there were methods of contraception in the past, very crude methods, and I could find lots of early church writings against those particular methods of contraception.

But today, there are various new and interesting technologies to prevent conception. And again, I’m not saying that they’re necessarily wrong, but I’m saying this: that before we just out of hand dismiss Mary Pride’s book, we ought to recognize that basically what she says is true—that the church has taken its marching orders in terms of an understanding of childbearing and an understanding of women in the workforce from the world.

Now, the world might be right in those things. Maybe when we get through studying the scripture out and working the things out, we’ll find out the word of our king tells us the same thing as the world. Maybe yes, maybe no. But I’m not going to believe it—you know—at the beginning of the thing, of the presupposition, that the world is correct in that matter.

Mary Pride takes the position that women shouldn’t work outside the home normally. I don’t know exactly what she means by that. Well, one of the arguments by a prominent reconstructionist against that is: “Well, let’s see. This is one of the greatest things that happened in our country is that women are working outside of the home now. Well, we’ve got so much more prosperity because women are working outside of the home.”

Number one, I doubt seriously whether that is true. But concede that it is true, and that the advent of working women has made the country benefit in terms of the material prosperity we have around us. Is that an argument in its favor? Well, of course not. One of the things that’s driven the prosperity that we live in in this country is debt. We live in a debt economy. That debt economy has provided all kinds of technological advantages, has provided the ability for there to be more consumption. But what we’re not thinking about is the future consequences of that debt.