“Get Off The Sinking Ship” by Chuck Baldwin, December 5, 2013
“Get Off The Sinking Ship”
By Chuck Baldwin
December 5, 2013
This column is archived
here.
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/1105/Get-Off-The-Sinking-Ship.aspx
This column dated November 21, 2013, created a firestorm of outrage and venom
from hundreds of pastors and Christians. It was a rude awakening for me, for
sure. I have long maintained that the vast majority of today’s pastors and
church members are smugly content in abject apathy and indifference. However,
after the vehement reaction to the above-mentioned column, I can now state
dogmatically that the problem is actually much, much worse than I realized.
Today’s churchmen are not merely content to not being involved; they are
absolutely committed to not being involved. It goes much deeper than apathy; it
is apostasy.
See my November 21 column here:
This
Pastor Proves My Point
My email inbox and mailbox filled with vitriolic rebukes from pastors and
Christians. I was called just about every dirty name in the book and relegated
to the depths of the damned--and those were the mild ones. At the heart of these
feelings of contempt is the rejection of Natural Law. It’s not only that today’s
pastors and Christians have not been taught the Biblical principles of Natural
Law and, therefore, don’t understand it; today’s churchmen have developed a
willful and stubborn conviction against Natural Law.
I will even go so far as
to say that the majority of our pastors and church leaders today are monarchists
at heart. The lack of instruction and understanding of the Biblical principles
of Natural Law have created a generation of churchmen who are more than willing
to submit to the unnatural laws of tyranny and oppression. Until two weeks ago,
I didn’t truly comprehend the depth of this volitional slavery.
The statements being made by today’s pastors and Christians are so
nonsensical and asinine that it is extremely difficult to believe that any
person, much less pastors and Christians, could even utter them. Here are just a
few examples of what pastors have said:
“
If federal agents or troops came to
my house and put my wife on the kitchen table and raped her, Romans 13 tells me
I could not interfere.”
“If government forces came to my home intent on harming my wife and children,
I would not resist; I would simply tell my family to run.”
“America’s
Founding Fathers were rebels against God. They had no right to fight a war for
independence. Subjection to a king, even a tyrannical one, is God’s Will.”
“Anyone who resists civil government is going to hell.”
“There is no such
thing as natural law, and anyone who promotes it is of the devil.”
Dear reader, trust me: the comments above are reflective of the majority of
pastors and Christians I have heard from over the past couple of weeks. Truly
did Jesus say, “Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the
ditch?” (Luke 6:39 KJV) That is exactly what is happening in America today: the
blind are leading the blind into the ditch of tyranny and oppression.
Last
Sunday, I delivered a message entitled, “Biblical Evidence For Natural Law.” I
invite readers to watch the archived video of that message here:
Biblical
Evidence For Natural Law
Listen to the Scripture: “For when the Gentiles,
which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these,
having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their
thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” (Romans 2:14, 15
KJV)
The great theologians and Bible scholars of yesteryear all understood the
Biblical teaching of Natural Law. Here are a few samples of some of church
history’s greatest Bible commentators on this passage in Romans 2.
Albert
Barnes: “The expression means clearly by the light of conscience and reason, and
whatever other helps they may have without revelation. It denotes simply, in
that state which is without the revealed will of God. In that condition they had
many helps of tradition, conscience, reason, and the observation of the dealings
of divine Providence, so that to a considerable extent they knew what was right
and what was wrong.”
John Wesley: “The Ten Commandments being only the substance of the law of
nature.”
Adam Clarke: “Do, without this Divine revelation, through that light
which God imparts to every man, the things contained in the law--act according
to justice, mercy, temperance and truth, the practice of which the revealed law
so powerfully enjoins; these are a law unto themselves.”
John Gill: “The matter and substance of the moral law of Moses agrees with
the law and light of nature…which they have by nature and use, and which natural
reason dictates to them.”
Matthew Henry: “They had that which directed them
what to do by the light of nature: by the force and tendency of their natural
notions and dictates they apprehended a clear and vast difference between good
and evil. They did by nature the things contained in the law. They had a sense
of justice and equity, honour and purity, love and charity; the light of nature
taught obedience to parents, pity to the miserable, conservation of public peace
and order, forbade murder, stealing, lying, perjury, etc. Thus they were a law
unto themselves.”
Think about it: man did not have the written, revealed laws of God for some
2,500 years of recorded history. Yet, they did have the Law of God “written in
their hearts,” or Natural Law.
Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the
Laws of England were, without a doubt, among the most influential writings upon
America’s founders. In his commentaries (second section), Blackstone said, “Man,
considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his
creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any
other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state
of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on
whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but
in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle therefore
has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one
and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And
consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is
necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will.
“This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he
created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain
rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and
endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down
certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree
regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover
the purport of those laws.”
In that same second section of his commentaries,
Blackstone further said, “This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and
dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other--It is
binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are
of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all
their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this
original.”
Amen!
Before Biblical Law said, “Thou shalt not kill,” Natural Law said,
“Thou shalt not kill.” Before Biblical Law said, “Thou shalt not commit
adultery,” Natural Law said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Before Biblical
Law said, “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” Natural Law said, “Thou shalt not
bear false witness.” Before Biblical Law said, “Thou shalt not steal,” Natural
Law said, “Thou shalt not steal.” How is it, and since when is it, that pastors
and Christians do not understand this?
Natural Law, by its very definition, demands procreation, protection,
provision, and prohibition. From the very act of Creation, Adam and Eve were
given in their hearts (by God) the desire to procreate. Does anyone deny that
those who produce children have a right and duty to protect and provide for
their children? Does not all of nature have an innate desire to produce young
then protect and provide for the young that they produced? The bird and the
beast build a nest or den for its young; it catches or hunts food for its young;
and it uses every means in its power to drive away predators from its
young.
How, in the name of God, can today’s pastors and church leaders say
they would not protect their own families from harm? How can they treat so
flippantly the duty and responsibility to provide safety and security for home
and community?
Does a badge give a person the right to act like a predator? You
mean to tell me that God would have us bring our children up in the “fear and
admonition of the Lord” only then to sit back and do nothing while human beasts
with badges devour and enslave them? What nonsense! What rubbish!
Beyond that, prohibition is as intrinsic to Natural Law as is procreation,
protection, and provision. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were given great
authority over the entire natural kingdom--yet, they were also given
jurisdictional prohibition: they were not allowed to eat of the Tree of The
Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even in that state of perfect innocence, when Adam
was the absolute master of all that God had created on earth, he had limited
jurisdiction. And when Adam violated that jurisdictional prohibition, there were
consequences that had to be paid. And that was the pattern for all human
authority.
There is only one Sovereign: the Creator-God. All human authority,
be it vocational, familial, ecclesiastical, or political, is limited and
jurisdictional.
Anytime human authority oversteps its jurisdictional borders,
Natural Law (God’s Law “written in our hearts”) demands resistance. And the
amount and type of resistance is commensurate to the amount and type of
usurpation.
When the “kings of the nations” seized property not belonging to them and
kidnapped some of Abram’s family, he did not quote Romans 13 and sit complacent.
He gathered his armed servants (who were already trained in the art of war) and
pursued the oppressors. He put together a military strategy and attacked the
predators and destroyed them. Not only that, when he returned, he was blessed by
Melchizedek, who was “the priest of the most high God.” (Genesis 14)
Hebrews
7 says Melchizedek was a type of Jesus Christ. Many Bible scholars believe that
Melchizedek was actually a Christophany, meaning a pre-Bethlehem appearance of
Christ. Think of it: Christ Himself (or a priest who is clearly a type of
Christ) blessed Abram after he attacked and destroyed the usurpers who had
transgressed their jurisdictional authority. And exactly where was it written
that Abram should do this thing? It was written in his heart. Again, the
resistance was commensurate to the transgression.
And those who say that violent resistance to tyrannical government is
unbiblical and sinful should tear the entire Book of Judges out of their Bibles.
Where in the Mosaic Law were the laws of insurrection recorded? They weren’t.
Yet, for a period of over 300 years, champion after champion felt the call of
God in his heart to resist with violence the tyrants who were subjugating his
country. Furthermore, Hebrews 11 places men such as Gideon, Barak, Samson, and
Jephthah in the great “Hall of Faith.” And, remember, Romans 15:4 says that the
Old Testament was written “for our learning.”
Western Civilization is rooted
in Natural Law. Scholars in and out of the Church have historically accepted the
Natural Law principles of the rights and duties of procreation, protection,
provision, and prohibition as being “self-evident.” In his book, “Political
Obligations,” University of Virginia political science professor George Klosko
wrote, “[I]t is generally held that obedience to government is not
unconditional. Though we have significant moral requirements to obey, these can
be overridden by countervailing factors. For instance, a government that becomes
tyrannical can lose its right to be obeyed, while obligations to obey specific
laws that are unjust can also be not binding.” (George Klosko, Political
Obligations, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 2005, 11)
Klosko’s philosophy matches the philosophy of the vast majority of Christian
and non-Christian scholars including Sir Edward Coke, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von
Pufendorf, Emerich de Vattel, Samuel Rutherford, John Locke, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and Thomas Aquinas (to name a few).
Compare the
Natural Law teaching of history’s great scholars (many, if not most, of whom
were Christians) to the teaching of so many of today’s pastors and church
leaders. The differences are stark. The great preachers, theologians, and
scholars of history produced a thirst for both God and freedom and gave birth to
the greatest free land the world has ever known. And what are today’s pacifist
preachers producing? An apathy and indifference that has brought our country to
the brink of a modern-day Dark Ages. Everything that America’s colonial pastors
such as John Leland, John Witherspoon, John Peter Muhlenberg, James Caldwell,
and Jonas Clark fought so bravely to bequeath to us is being surrendered by the
cowardice and apostasy of the modern pulpit.
As I said, after reading the voluminous pieces of correspondence touting
absolute submission to the state, I am convinced that a majority of pastors and
church leaders today are monarchists at heart. Accordingly, so many of America’s
pastors today are not shepherds; they are slaves. They have repudiated the faith
of our fathers; they have repudiated the inspiration and sacrifice of thousands
of years of history; they have repudiated sound scholarship and reason; they
have repudiated the values and virtues that protect everything that is sacred;
and they have repudiated the Biblical Natural Law principles of liberty and
justice.
Ichabod is written over the establishment church.
I am further convinced that the only way liberty and justice can be restored
to America is for Christians to get out of these idolatrous government churches
and form tens of thousands of independent, non-affiliated, non-establishment
churches and home-churches. It must happen; it’s going to happen!
I pray that
God will use whatever time I have left on this earth to be part of the prophecy
that famed Bible teacher A. W. Tozer uttered before his death in 1963. Tozer
said:
“I hear Jesus saying…Matthew 23:37, 38, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one
killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her, how often would I
have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her
wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.’
“As
the Church now stands, the man who sees this condition of worldly evangelicalism
is written off as somewhat fanatical. But the day is coming when the house will
be left desolate and there will not be a man of God among them. I would like to
live long enough to watch this develop and see how things turn out. I would like
to live to see the time when the man and women of God--holy, separated and
spiritually enlightened--walk out of the evangelical church and form a group of
their own; when they get off the sinking ship and let her go down in the
brackish and worldliness and form a new ark to ride out the storm.”
I agree with Tozer. Get off the sinking ship, folks. Form a new ark to ride
out the storm. Pastors and churches that have repudiated Biblical Natural Law
principles--including the duty of self-defense--should themselves be
repudiated.
P.S. For the month of December, we are offering both “Romans 13:
The True Meaning of Submission,” and “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians
Should Not Give Up Their Guns” at a significant discount. These books, written
by my constitutional attorney son and me, normally sell for $14.95 each. But to
help folks purchase these books as Christmas gifts, the cost is only $17.95
(plus shipping and handling) for BOTH BOOKS. These two books cut to the heart of
much of what I’m talking about in this column. To be assured you receive them
before Christmas, order now!
To order “Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission,” go here:
Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission
To order “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their
Guns,” go here:
Keep Your Arms
(c) Chuck Baldwin
