Lesson 12
The Doctrine of Abdication
Girls, we live in a society which has been strongly influenced by the teaching of Jesus who lived two thousand years ago. Half the people in America attend church on a regular basis. Even most of those who are not comfortable in churches still believe to one degree or another in the God of the Bible. Sooner or later some one will invite you to join their church. If you decide to join you'll be expected to accept the church's official doctrine. Nearly every church today teaches what can be called the doctrine of abdication. This means that Jesus is believed to have announced his Kingdom, been anointed Messiah, given all power in heaven and on earth, and then to have abdicated his throne so that men can continue to rule and though nothing had changed. A variation of this, is the belief that the devil, not Yahweh, is the god of this world. We will examine this doctrine to see if it is true. As always you are free to make up your own mind. At least you'll have another point of view to help you.
Today Christians restrict God's rule to just the spiritual realm of their lives. It has not always been so. Even a hundred years ago it was commonly believed that God's rule encompassed everything, spiritual and temporal. Terrible and bloody conflicts like World War I, 1914-1918, caused people to question this belief in God's rule on earth. To explain such evil the doctrine of abdication was contrived. One thing this doctrine does is void the Gospel. Instead of proclaiming the Kingdom of God, turning the world upside down, and overthrowing the existing order, Christians now proclaim the kingdom of Satan, or the kingdom of man, which leaves the world unchanged and supports the existing order.
How can World War I and other occasions of slaughter and destruction be explained if God rules the world? The answer lies not in God's rule, but in man's rebellion to that rule. One day the people of earth will be ruled with a rod of iron. (Rev 2:27) Until then, men are free to choose by whom they will be ruled.
God's Kingdom is established in the hearts and minds of men when His law is written there. Men enter the New Covenant by free and willing agreement. Many feel called to make this agreement, but at the same time do not want to be restricted by God's laws. To make it appear they have entered the New Covenant, men place their private lives under the rule of God and their public lives under rule of the state. As private persons they obey, for example God's command not to murder. As public persons they obey the state's command to murder or to aid the collective national effort to murder.
Both the state and God are invisible, immortal, sovereign beings. If men would stop believing in the state and place both their private and public lives under the rule of God, wars would end. World War I, like all wars, was a struggle between nation-states in the fantasy world created by the imagination of men. In that fantasy, the world is in a state of anarchy because the nation-states are bound by no law, including the law of God. Men who feel powerless in themselves to violate the will of their Creator, find the courage to flout His laws by projecting themselves whole-heartedly into the corporate body of the lawless nation-state. Then, theft, murder and all manner of wickedness and evil is done under the delusion that no one is individually responsible.
In past fantasy worlds, the Roman Emperor was believed to rule on earth. When the Empire fell apart the Pope was believed to rule. After the Reformation people stopped believing that the Pope was God's vice-regent and began to believe that each king ruled by divine right. After the American Revolution people stopped believing in the divine right of kings and began to believe they were ruled by the majority and the invisible, immortal state. Each time the current belief in man's rule on earth wore thin, another arose to take its place. Men seem ready to believe the most outrageous stories to avoid being ruled by God.
The doctrine of abdication is founded upon certain mis-interpretations of passages in the New Testament, most notably Romans 13: Everyone must submit to the supreme authorities, NEB; 1 Peter 2: Submit yourselves to every human institution.... and Matthew 22:21: Render unto Caesar... When modern Christians quote these verses, they mean to say that if we are obedient to God, we must be obedient to the state, except when the state's law directly contradicts God's law. This is exactly what I was taught as a child in Sunday School. For many years I believed this interpretation. But now I see that this interpretation can't possibly be true! It is full of contradictions. If runs counter to the main thrust of the Bible and leads to a violation of the first and second of the Ten Commandments.
Let's review the major events of history from the Biblical perspective. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Then He created everything else, including men. Abraham left the city of Ur near the Persian Gulf bound for Canaan on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Abraham believed in one God who is the actual and lawful Lord of all heaven and earth. (Gen 24:3). Abraham entered a covenant, or agreement, with the Lord for himself and all his descendants. Yahweh is God's name.
Abraham was the father of Isaac and all the Hebrews. He taught them to believe in God and to enter His covenant. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to Israel (God Rules). Israel moved with all his family to Egypt during a famine. The descendants of Israel became slaves in Egypt. Moses lead them to freedom back to the land of Canaan. There the Israelites lived for about three hundred years with no other King but the Lord of Abraham. At one point they wanted Gideon to found a hereditary monarchy like all the surrounding countries, but he refused the crown because, he said, Yahweh was their King. (Judges 8:22-23).
The elders of Israel came to the prophet Samuel and demanded that the form of government be changed and that a visible king be set over them. Then, as now, without an abiding faith, the rule of Yahweh was impossible. They turned from a faith in the invisible God to put confidence in a visible king. In order to establish a monarchy the Israelites rejected God. Saul was chosen by lot and became king. The Israelites had a long series of kings, divided into a northern and southern kingdom, went into captivity in Assyria and Babylonia, respectively, and finally were dispersed to all parts of the known world. They are called the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in Canaan which was then called Palestine.
Jesus proclaimed the same God Abraham believed in, the actual and lawful Lord of all heaven and earth. He offered a new covenant to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He summed up his message to fellow Israelites with the words; The time has come; the Kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel. (Mark 1:14). Gospel means good news. Repent is the old English word used to translate the Greek word, metanoeo, which actually means to change one's mind. Only in one place is the idea of feeling regret conveyed. That was when Judas was seized with remorse for turning Jesus over to the chief priests. (Matt 27:3 NEB). As used in the Gospel it always means to change your mind, not to feel an emotion. Actually, Samuel prefigured the Gospel to the House of Israel when he advised the Israelites to change their minds about a human king and remain in the Kingdom of God (I Sam. 8:11-18). Jesus' message to the House of Israel was a command, while Samuel's, one thousand years before, was a request or good advice.
The Israelites of Jesus' day didn't want God for their King any more that the Isra elites of Samuel's day or of our day. So the Gospel was extended to men of all races. Those who actually changed their minds about the lawful form of government on earth became true Israelites by naturalization, see Lesson 10) as much, or more, than natural born Israelites (Rom 9:6-8). Christians can just as correctly be called Israelites. In fact, consistent with the Gospel of God's state of being a King, the word Israel means let God rule or God rules Salvation lies in the Kingdom through accepting God's Messiah as King to the exclusion of other forms of government (Luke 19:27). In Samuel's day the Israelites said no to God's rule and demanded a monarchy. Today Americans still say no to God's rule, but have changed the demand to a democracy.
There is what the New Testament, or New Covenant, is all about. There were many old covenants between God and the Israelites. Most of them had to do with men agreeing to be governed by God, either directly, or, at times when God was rejected as king, through a human king. Here are the covenants:
1. Covenant with Adam. A promise of continued life and favor to man on condition of obedience, coupled with a penalty for disobedience. (Gen 2:16-17).
2. Covenant with Noah. A promise to Noah and his posterity which includes all humanity since the human race had a new beginning after the flood. God promised there would be no other great deluge. The rainbow is the token of this covenant (Gen 6:18; 9:12, 15-16).
3. Covenant with Abraham. God promised to be the God of Abraham and his posterity and to give them the land of Canaan. Circumcision was the sign of this covenant (Gen 13:17; 15:18; 17:2, 4, 7, 11, 13-14, 19).
4. Covenant with the Israelites. God promised to continue to be their God-King if they would keep the Ten Commandments. The sign of this covenant was the Sabbath (Ex. 31:16). It was agreed to at Horeb or Sinai and renewed on the plains of Moab with the next generation. (Deut 5:2; 29:1).
5.Covenant with the Levites. God bestowed prosperity and life in return for the duty of reverence.(Mal 2:4,8).
6.Covenant with Phinehas. God gave Phinehas and his descendants an everlasting priesthood (Num 25:12,13).
Covenant with David. David's posterity should forever occupy his throne, but with punishment for failure to follow God's laws, statutes and judgements (Ps 89:20-37).
8.The New Covenant. God promised to govern the House of Israel by writing His law on their hearts and minds. It is administered by the Spirit (II Cor 3:6-9); based on faith, just like the covenant with Abraham (Gal 4:21-31); and intended for all people willing to change their minds and be ruled by God (become Israelites)(Matt 28:19-20; Acts 10:44-47).
The covenant at Sinai as referred to as the Old Covenant. Jesus announced the beginning of the New Covenant. Both were an agreement between God and Israel that they should be governed by Him-under the Ten Commandments written on stone in the old; under the law written on hearts and minds in the new. All the promises to Israelites are contained, or fulfilled, in the New Covenant. Israelites did not abide in the terms of the Old Covenant, so God has made a New Covenant with the House of Israel (Heb 8:7-13). Jesus has been chosen to be Israel's King and High Priest (Heb 8:1).
There in a nutshell is what the Bible is all about. It simply is not true that God wants us to be ruled by men. The purpose of the Old and the New Covenant was to institute God's rule, or Kingdom, on earth. The New Covenant is a revolutionary change in the usual relationship between men. Usually rulers lord it over their subjects and make them feel the weight of authority, but not so for those who enter the New Covenant. Among Israelites whoever wants to be first must be the willing servant of all (Matt 20: 25-28). This is what prompted the Colonists to call officials of the new government public servants. The Pilgrims, the Puritans and most of the early Americans saw themselves as God's New Israel. Not so today; now every official is a master, not a servant.
Because of the sad state the world is in, most ministers and missionaries have stopped proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus. Instead of proclaiming with joy, the Kingdom of God, they proclaim the kingdom of Satan with sorrow. Because of wide-spread evil they teach their converts that Satan is the god of the world. This is utterly contrary to the Bible (Is 45:5-), even though Satan may be the father of a great many men.
Now let's take a look at those verses that supposedly teach the doctrine of the Messiah's abdication. In the New English Bible, Matthew 22:15-22:
Then the Pharisees went away and agreed on a plan to trap him in his own words. Some of their followers were sent to him in a company with men of Herod's party. They said, 'Master, you are an honest man, we know; you teach in all honesty the way of life that God requires, truckling to no man, whoever he may be...
A couple of points. This is to be a trap. They expected Jesus' honest answer to allow official action to be taken against him for sedition. Truckling means to submit tamely. Jesus knew the truth that Caesar we created no more than equal to other men. What way of life did Jesus teach? The New Covenant way with God's law, not man's, in our hearts and minds. He taught God's rule, not man's, just like Samuel a thousand years before.
...Give us your ruling on this: are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?" Jesus was aware of their malicious intention and said to them, 'You hypocrites! Why are you trying to catch me out?...
Permitted by what? By the law of God. The King James version brings this out more clearly. There is no provision in that law for giving tribute to a god-king like Caesar. In fact, whenever the Israelites did give tribute to other god-kings, such as Baal, they were punished for disobedience to the First and Second Commandments. The answer to this question can only have been no. If the answer was yes, then the trap makes no sense. Jesus knew they were trying to trap him in His own words. And the Pharisees, being experts in the Law themselves, knew exactly what those words must be.
...Show me the money in which the tax is paid.' They handed him a silver piece, Jesus asked . 'Whose inscription?''Caesar's,' they replied. He said to them, 'Then pay Caesar what is due Caesar, and pay God what is due God.' This answer took them by surprise, and they went away and left him alone.
The had expected him to say no, but instead he set a trap for them that is still trapping people today! His answer was another way of proclaiming the Gospel. The meaning of this answer and of the Gospel depends upon one's faith in God. If you believe that God rules the earth and owns everything including that coin and Caesar, if you believe the First Commandment requires us to rend all that we are and all that we have to God, then there is nothing left to pay Caesar. Human rulers have no place in the new world order established by the New Covenant. The inscription on that coin refers to Caesar as divine. The Roman cult of emperor worship was only the latest form of Baalism just as statism is today. Taxation and legislation are prerogatives of sovereignty. Both God and human rulers claim to be sovereign, then and today. No one can serve two masters. Sovereigns insist that everything be rendered, including their subjects' very lives. Each of us chooses a sovereign and renders his all-some to God, some to man. Many have been trapped by Jesus when they publicly confess that they render unto Caesar. This embarrassing fact will no doubt be raised by the Accuser at the Last Judgement.
Contrary to their words, those who insist that Christians must render coins unto Caesar make a weekly practice of rendering these same coins unto God as they drop them into the collection plat e on Sunday morning. Then ministers and missionaries use those coins to do God's work. Or do they? There are two possibilities. Either these men say one thing, but really believe and do another; or those coins dropped into the collection plate are, as they so strongly insist, actually being rendered unto Caesar and used not for God, but for Caesar. Since church leaders require their converts to recognize the various states as their lawful rulers of the world and since they no longer proclaim the Kingdom of God, the latter appears to be true.
In the two thousand years since the time of Jesus the general level of enlightenment has gradually increased. Today, the truth that all men are created equal is well known, at least in America. The Declaration, which is the lawful foundation of the United States, is centered around this truth. But in the Roman Empire it was largely unknown. Today, we know that God did not create some men to rule and some to submit. All men are equal when living under God's laws. Does that mean that God does not institute human rulers? No. He does, but only when men have rejected Him as their King (I Sam 10:18,19). But, there are also governments made by man's will and not God's,; and officers set up without God's knowledge. (Hosea 8:4) These are the governments which reject God's law system, for example, China, Russia and the United States. They have no claim to obedience.
Returning to God's law under human government would be far better, but still only a half measure. We are commanded to turn completely from darkness to light. If we change our minds about the form of government we want, turning back to God as King, then Godly human rulers are removed from authority. God is able to rule directly through our hearts and minds if we allow it. It is a personal decision, not a community decision. A community does not have a heart and mind upon which God's law can be written.
Roman 13 is referring to the government God institutes for men who reject Him as King. Paul was writing to people who were called by God (Rom 1:7), not to those who had been chosen for entry into the Kingdom at that time as true Israelites (Matt 20:16; 22:14). After first hearing the Gospel it takes quite some time for that tiny seed to grow to maturity. In many cases it never does (Mark 4:3-20). In these Romans the seed was planted, but still struggling to grow. Until maturity they had no where to turn and no choice but to submit to the established authorities. Paul was quite correct in telling them to do so. It is no different today. Many are called, but few are chosen. True Israelites are God's chosen people, not all natural descendants of Israel, but those born through God's promises. For them, just as for the ancient Israelites, no one but God rules.
Peter's first letter is directed to people similar to the Romans is that they are new-born infants so far as the Kingdom is concerned (I Peter 2:2). When, and if, they grew up they had God, not man, for their King. It takes years for one's world view to become completely re-ordered. We must forget everything and start over from the beginning, just like a child. For Paul that process look about three years as he lived Damascus meditating upon the great change that had come over his life and the truth as it had been revealed to him (Gal 1:18). Taking that final step to becoming a true Israelite by claiming the promises and recognizing God's Messiah as ruler on Earth is no easier today than when becoming an Israelite required circumcision as well as baptism.
The modern resurgence of the abdication doctrine is a major step backwards. Two hundred years ago men stood in the pulpit reviling the Colonists whose eyes had been opened to the truth that all men are created equal, including George III! Among the people of that day it was common to say, No bishop, No king! And they sang a rousing revolutionary song titled The World Turned Up-side Down, taken from Acts 17:6 in the King James version. It was George Washington who said, We have no king but God, which is true only of Israelites under the New Covenant. The Declaration, in the judgment of Samuel Adams, was a restoration of God to His throne as sovereign and a means to facilitate the coming of the Kingdom to all men. James Madison thought that all men should give their allegiance to the Sovereign of the Universe. He'd be surprised to see his posterity giving allegiance to the state today.
The Colonists' rejection of the abdication doctrine routinely appeared in their official documents. Nearly every ratification of the federal Constitution contained this thought:
...the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
There was no doubt in their minds that the Bible does not teach submission to men created no more than equal to them. For them the Bible clearly taught submission to God and His Messiah. But Tory ministers, that is, ministers of the Anglican Church, the official church of England, denounced the revolutionary theories of Jefferson and Madison. In support of the existing order, Jonathan Boucher, an Anglican, preached that:
Obedience to government is every man's duty, because it is every man's interest; but it is particularly incumbent of Christians, because it is enjoined by the positive commands of God.
In Boucher the seed of the Kingdom had not matured. He was unaware that the New Covenant Gospel turns everything up-side down. The first becomes last. King George was like a mountain that had been leveled, making way for the coming of the Lord (Luke 3:4-6). Boucher's congregation ran him out of town. This little known history can be found in William O. Douglas', An Almanac of Liberty.
In his recent book, Pastor Everett Sileven(Ramsey) says:
"Neither Romans 13, I Peter 2, nor Render unto Caesar can be used correctly or effectively against a well informed Christian to persuade him to disobey his God and obey ungodly, tyrannical government.
Another reason that the comment Render unto Caesar used by many pastors and Christians to beat other people over the head, to make them bow to the wishes of bureaucrats and ungodly law is not acceptable from the point of view that they are trying to imply that Caesar has certain jurisdiction, and God has certain jurisdiction.
This is a typical humanistic dichotomy response. God is sovereign over all, including Caesar. Therefore, to say that Caesar has a certain realm of obedience and God has another realm of obedience, is totally false.
Caesar must come in line with God."
Everett Sileven(Ramsey) sees the Kingdom very well:
"But if you mean we must obey the law of men, then I whole-heartedly disagree. We can only live with the legislative acts of men when they agree with the Laws of God....Only God can create Law."
An excellent refutation of the doctrine of abdication can be found in Tolstoy on Civil Disobedience and Non-violence, Signet, 1967, page 266-280. We'll have much to learn from Tolstoy in the next lesson.
It is men who have an interest in maintaining the present world order who embrace the doctrine of abdication. Men like Boucher who was a member of the established church of England. And men like Antonin Scalia, the newest appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a recent address to fellow Catholics he said in effect that believing God's law is higher than man's ignores the Biblical message found in Paul's letter to the Romans that government has aa moral claim- that is, a divinely proscribed claim - to our obedience.
We might wonder how Antonin can feel comfortable being so high up in a government that exists only because the absurd, slavish idea was firmly rejected.
Today ministers all over the world rush about making converts to Christianity without insuring that other religions have been set aside. Nearly all modern Christians are practicing members of the world-wide civil religion called Statism.The god of Statism is the invisible, immortal, sovereign State. Statism is a sin in that it violates the First and Second Commandments (Ex 20:3-5). The State is placed before God at least in the public area of life; and men serve the State as patriots and statesmen with their whole being even to the point of sacrificing their lives.
Can Moslems convert to Christianity while retaining their Moslem beliefs? No, they are not compatible systems. Can statists convert to Christianity while retaining statists beliefs? No, the two are diametrically opposed. Samuel did not tell the Israelites they could have a human King and God as ruler at the same time. They had to choose one and reject the other. Jesus commanded the House of Israel to change their minds, to repent of their sinful demand for a human king at the time of Samuel, and to return to God's rule, or Kingdom. The message for us living today is no different.
In Thayer's Greek Lexicon the Gospel is defined (#2097): The glad tidings of the coming Kingdom of God, and of salvation to be obtained in it through Christ. Ministers don't know what to do with the Kingdom part of this message, so they leave it out. They lead people to a false salvation which leaves them squarely in man's kingdoms and under Satan's power, not in the Kingdom of God and the power of His Messiah. These ministers make no distinction between salvation and the forgiveness of sins.
Many minister and missionaries teach that the Kingdom is within and that salvation does not mean rescue from human governments. By teaching that salvation and forgiveness are personal and private they entirely miss the point of the Gospel. From the beginning of this lesson keep in mind that Good News that Jesus Himself proclaimed. Let's see if Paul didn't proclaim the same message. From Acts 26:18 we learn that Jesus spoke to Paul:
...turn them from darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God, so that, by trust in me, they may obtain forgiveness of sins...
And from Colossians 1:13 Paul tells us:
He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us away into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom our release is secured and our sins forgiven.
Salvation is being rescued from the dominion of Satan and brought into the Kingdom of God. The release secured is release from the domain of darkness. Foremost among the sins forgiven is violation of the First Commandment-Israel's rejection of God as King. By being grafted onto the true vine, others become true Israelites and obtain forgiveness. This is the rescue mission Paul was given. The reason he was supposed to make this rescue was so that through belief in the Messiah, the anointed King, forgiveness of sins might be obtained. But forgiveness is not identical with salvation. First comes salvation, then forgiveness.
What exactly is this dominion of Satan? Thayer's Greek Lexicon, entry 1849, under #4, tells us dominion in this context means power of rule or government. To find out more about Satan's dominion, let's turn to Luke 4:5-7, NEB:
Next the devil led him up and showed him in a flash all the kingdoms of the world. 'All this dominion will I give to you, 'he said, ' and the glory that goes with it; for it has been put in my hands and I can give it to anyone I choose. You have only to do homage to me and it shall be yours.'
Satan's dominion includes all the kingdoms of the world. Salvation is rescuing someone from the governments of the world and bringing them into the Kingdom of God. For Paul that meant rescuing men and women from the Roman Empire. Today it means rescuing them from the nation-state world system: The United States, Canada, England, Russia, and so on. This suggests an objective test to determine true salvation. Do the kingdoms of the world still seem to have power and does Satan still seem to have dominion? This is a reliable test because for those who have not seen the Kingdom or believed on the Messiah, Satan appears as the god of this world, but for believers Yahweh is the God of this world. It is the rescue and transfer to the Kingdom of God (new birth) made possible by an abiding faith in God that results in a completely new way of seeing the world. Nothing else can be called salvation.
So girls, this lesson can be summed up in just a few words: Seek the Kingdom first (Matt 6:33), and you will find it. When you find it you will have found mankind's greatest happiness, the government offered by God to all men. At the same time you will have found that salvation which many try in vain to find while still within the dominion of Satan. I must warn you and it won't be easy because most people can't see the Kingdom and the will try to prevent you from going in. Church people will use words to stop you. State officers will use terrorism. They are unable to see any alternative to man's kingdoms and Satan's dominion. It's all a matter of faith. We are winning; victory is the Lords! May God's Kingdom come to you!
Lesson 13
Tolstoy and the Dukhabors
In Part One, I promised to tell you the story of a group of Russian Christians called Dukhobors. The name Dukhobor is a Russian word meaning Spirit wrestler. Their story is important because they are one of the few groups in all history to understand the awesome implications of Christianity. These implications are not taught, and maybe not even suspected, by many who call Christ their Lord today. A very famous Russian writer helped the Dukhobors escape persecution. His name was Count Leo Tolstoy, or as many people call him, simply Tolstoy. I think you'll find this little known story very interesting.
Although they weren't call Dukhobors until the late 18th century, their commitment to the Lordship of Jesus first began in the late 17th century. It was people who rejected the earth-shaking truth found in the Bible that first called them Spirit Wrestlers. The intention was to poke fun at them in a mean way, just as it was when followers of Christ were first called Christians.
Dukhobors, just like the American Colonists, believed in the equality of all men before God. That means no man rightly rules another including the czar, the king, the pope, the priest, the president or any other wizard. Both the Dukhobors and the Colonists rejected all pretended authority, especially human governments. They recognized God alone as ruler on earth just as in the rest of the universe at all times and places.
Dukhobors were simple men and women from the peasant class. They were ignored at first, but then they began to live together in groups sharing everything in common. This was both in recognition of the reality that God owns everything and men own nothing, and in obedience to the Gospel which commands people to turn from the domain of darkness. Their firm but peaceful resistance to the violent men who made up the Russian state and the men who made up the Russian Orthodox Church brought persecution upon them under Catherine II. She was empress of Russian from 1762 to 1796. Alexander I was emperor from 1801 to 1825. He allowed these Christians to settle near the Sea of Azov just to the north of the Black Sea where they worked the land and made flourishing farms.
Dukhobors would not allow themselves to be drafted into the army because they regarded any kind of killing or training to kill as a violation of God's law. That made the Emperor very angry. As with most wizards his power and wealth depended upon the ability to murder large numbers of people as efficiently as possible. As an example to others the Dukhobors were forcibly ejected from the lands they had labored so hard and long to make productive. They were moved to a barren area east of the Black Sea in what is now called the Georgian SSR. This was their punishement for giving their allegiance to God alone. But instead of starving to death they built new and thriving communities.
In 1887 the military draft was again imposed upon the young men of the Dukhobor community. In the 1890's they put into practice their principle of passive resistance to evil. Again they were forcibly moved from their beautiful farms and homes to an area where the land was very poor indeed. To be sure they would not thrive once more they were allowed no land to farm. Of the four thousand men, women and children, one thousand died of starvation and other hardships. During this time there were many incidents of Dukhobors standing firmly for God's government.
One incident, news of which traveled the rounds of the villages had to do with Grandpa Chernenkov of the Kars area settlement. He was neither a reservist nor in any way affiliated with the military establishment. Nonetheless, he felt so deeply moved by the young trainee's stand, that he too desired to make his position clear to the authorities. He therefore presented himself to the Alexandropol Military Administration Center and informed the officer in charge that he, Syoma Chernenkov, did not recognize the Emperor of Russia as supreme authority, and that from now on he was going to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, serving only Him. The officer, who was a kindly elderly man by the name of Bairakov, told him the administration would take his confession into cognizance, but in the meantime he was to go home and rest at peace in his Christian beliefs. Grandpa Chernenkov went home gravely disappointed. He waited for some reaction and when nothing occurred after a week, he was back at the administration center, insisting that he was of the same opinion as the young Doukhobors who were refusing to serve in the army, and that he wanted to share their fate. The officer tried to convince him to go home, explaining that his case would be considered later. But Grandpa Chernenkov insisted that he didn't recognize the emperor because he was an antichrist, and exploiter who was keeping the people in backwardness. He kept this up until the officer was compelled to lock him up, for if he didn't, his own clerks could very well report to his superiors that Bairakov was displaying sympathy towards the Doukhobors who were already being classified as insurgents. {1}
People who did not recognize the Emperor made the Russians very angry. They would shout at the Dukhobors You are flouting authority! You are creating an insurrection! But it was the Russians who were flouting authority, God's authority. It was the Russians who rose up against God's government and laws and dreamed up their own.
Tostoy was a member of Russian aristocracy, the hereditary ruling class of Russia. His religions beliefs were very similar to those of the Dukhobors. Tolstoy befriended the Dukhobors and was among those who helped make it possible for the Dukhobors to emigrate to Canada. Most of them moved to what is now Saskatchewan in 1898-99. Being very good farmers the Dukhobors brought hundreds of thousands of acres into production within about ten years.
The reason they chose to relocate to Canada was because the Canadians agreed to leave them free to practice their religion. Dukhobors would not be required to give an oath of allegiance to the government or serve in the military as they had been in Russia. But the Canadians soon showed themselves to be the same as the Russians. The Dukhobors were informed that they would be required to sign papers for each farm rather than holding them communally according to the origianl understanding.
When they were further informed that, when signing for each far, the head of every family would also be compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the British king, the people began scheduling meetings with increased frequency and urgency. These meetings ultimately resulted in a firm, unequivocal decision being made by the Doukhobors, stating that they could never, under any circumstances, agree to take the oath of allegiance to any earthly king. {2}Of course, people who give allegiance to God alone cannot give allegiance to governments men have conjured up. So, the Canadians took the beautiful farms, orchards and houses from the Dukhobors and gave them to others who would swear allegiance, over two hundred and fifty thousand acres in all.
Many of the Dukhobors moved to British Columbia and bought land to farm with the money they had saved. No oath of allegiance was required this way. Again they prospered. They dug irrigation ditches, built roads and planted new orchards and farms. But the Canadians would not leave them alone. The Canadians were true believers in statism and they wanted the Dukhobor children to be indoctrinated into their secular belief system in the public schools. Canadians also wanted the Dukhobors to support statist activities financially with the money owned by God and entrusted to their stewardship. Whether in Russia or Canada, statism is the very opposite of Christianity. Statism is part of the domain of darkness. Christians are commanded to turn from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of God, something the Dukhobors understood very well, They continued to resist and were involved in more and m ore struggles with the Canadian statist.
The leader of the Dukhobors was a man named Peter Veregin. In 1924 he was killed by a time bomb. In 1927 the younger Peter Veregin was brought from Russia to be their leader. He died in 1939 leaving a final message in which he recommended that the Dukhobors abandon communal life and accept the laws of the country while retaining their religions doctrines. We can easily understand why Veregin made this recommendation. No one likes to live an insecure life, never knowing when they will be forced off their land, imprisoned, tortured and killed because of their religion. Veregin thought it would be better to submit to the domain of darkness than to struggle any longer. The same choice faces every Christian no matter what time or place.
The persecution of Russian Christians did not end when the Dukhobors left. We have an eyewitness descrip[tion of a session of the Ryazan Revtribunal in 1919 as they heard the case of a man identified as I.Ye---v. he was not a deserter at all but a man who simply and openly refused to enter military service because of his religions convictions. He was conscripted by main force, but in the barracks he refused to take up arms and undergo training. The enraged Political Commissar of the unit turned him over to the Cheka, saying: 'He does not recognize the Soviet government.' There was an interrogation. Three Chekists sat behind the desk, each with a Naguan revolver in front of him. "We have seen heroes like you before. You'll be on your knees to us in a minute!" But Y---v was firm. He couldn't fight. He was a believer in free Christianity. And his case was sent to the Revtribunal...One of the members of the Revtribunal-a juror-tried to elicit the views of the accused. (How can you, a representative of the working people, share the opinions of the aristocrat, Count Tolstoi?)...The court exits in order to confer. The sounds of a noisy argument come from the conference room. They return with the sentence: to be shot...The convoy came and led Ye---v to jail, saying to him: 'If everyone was like you, brother, how good it would be! There would be no war, and no Whites and Reds!'...They commuted his sentence to fifteen years of strict detention. {3}
True Christians have been under constant attack in Russia. In the twenties, a large group of Tolstoyans was exiled to the foothills of the Altai and there they established communal settlements jointly with the Baptists...Then arrests began-first the teachers (they were not teaching in accordance with the government programs), and the children ran after the cars, shouting. And after that the commune leaders were taken. {4} All priests were insects-and monks and nuns even more so. And all those Tolstoyans who, when they undertook to serve the Soviet government on, for example, the railroads, refused to sign the required oath to defend the Soviet government with a gun in hand thereby showed themselves to be insects too. {5} Today most of the Dukhobors in Canada have stopped resisting openly. But, the light of understanding they once had did not go out. It is still found in Russia. Russian Orthodox priest, Vladimir Shibaeff, 40, who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1988, told a Washington, D.C. gathering that the Soviet Union still 'practices anti-religions persecution and enforces punitive actions against those who do not submit to the godless state. {6}The godless Communist state has had a difficulty in suppressing true Christianity. Until just recently the godles Democratic state in this country has been far more successful. Only a handful of years have passed since Americans of this generation first recognized the God-King who demands that believers turn from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of His Son.
When Russian statist persecute Christians for not submitting to the godless state, American statists call it a violation of human rights. When American statist do the same thing, they call it law enforcement. This is a textbook example of departmentalized thinking, or doublethink, as George Orwell called it.
Many Christians living in America have given their allegiance to God alone. They have renounced their U.S. citizenship and taken up citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. Don't confuse this with the Israeli state; the state of Israel is part of the domain of darkness while the commonwealth of Israel is the same as the Kingdom of God. They decline to support the domain of darkness morally, militarily or financially. Those who resist strongly enough are forcibly removed from their homes and farms. They are prohibited from driving cars and trucks on the roads. They are prohibited from earning a livelihood in many cases. Their children are taken from them and indoctrinated in statism and other mysteries of the domain of darkness. They are put in jail. These are the same things done to Christians living in Russia.
Tolstoy is classed among the greatest writers who ever lived. He was the author of War and Peace. He was a Russian count by birth, but he often wore peasant clothing and spent time with peasants in their homes discussing religion. Tolstoy died in 1910 at the age of 72. If we open our minds we can learn much from his ideas. In the remainder of this lesson you will find a series of quotations taken from Tolstoy's writings. Please study them carefully.
Tolstoy approved of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention held in Boston, September 18,19 and 20, 1838. Many Quakers signed that document. Quakers later helped the Dukhobors to leave Russia at the end of the century. Tolstoy quoted that Declaration in his paper titled The Kingdom of God is Without You." The dogma, that all governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and equality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies; therefore, they cannot be agreeable to the will of God; and therefore their overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable. {7}
Tolstoy understood that when Christians pray Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven they are asking for human governments and human will to be done away with. Tolstoy knew that real Christianity is subversive of every government and that men have established a Christianity which serves to prop the government rather than destroy it. {8} Both then and now pseudo-Christians are alarmed that Tolstoy could believe such revolutionary ideas. They point to Romans 13 and other Biblical passages to prove that God wants us to submit to any group of men who claim to be a government.
A moments reflection shows that this could not possibly be right. God's will is to be King of the Israel people just as He was for the ancient Israelites. That's what the First and Second Commandments are about. When men reject Him as God-King and set up human kings and rulers who govern contrary to the law of God we mustn't kid ourselves. Such groups are not ordained by God as governments and they are not recognized by Him. Even kings set up by the Israelites after their rejection of Yahweh the God-King were not recognized. We read about it in Hosea 8:4 - They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but without my knowledge.
So, how can we tell a government authorized by God from one that isn't? We must be able to discern good and evil. Those which punish evil and reward good are ordained by God, just like it teaches in Romans 13. And what conduct is evil? Read the ninth verse of Romans 13. It is the violation of the Ten Commandments that is evil, not what some men may decide is evil in their legislatures and courts, which are themselves part of the do main of darkness.
Tolstoy was aware that statism and Christianity are diametrically opposed with no possibility of neutrality or accommodation on either side. Tolstoy observed that the Church-fraud continues till now. The fraud consists in this: that the conversion of the powers-that-be to Christianity is necessary for those that understand the letter, but not the spirit of Christianity; but the acceptance of Christianity without the abandonment of power is a satire on, and a perversion of, Christianity.
The sanctification of political power by Christianity is blasphemy; it is the negation of Christianity.
After fifteen hundred years of this blasphemous alliance of pseudo-Christianity with the State, it needs a strong effort to free oneself from all the complex sophistries by which, always and everwhere (to please the authorities), the sanctity and righteousness of State-power, and the possibility of its being Christian, has been pleaded. {9} Tolstoy counts fifteen hundred years since the Church joined forces with the Roman Empire. That alliance has lasted until the present day. The result was that the Church became the pseudo-Church, the religious arm of the state.
In truth, the words a 'Christian State' resemble the words 'hot ice.' The thing is either not a State using violence, or it is not Christian. {9}
Tolstoy said that attempts such as that of the Dukhobors, who called themselves Christians of the Universal Brotherhood, to realize the Christian life were like the warm rains and the sun-rays which have not as yet brought spring... For, if the Kingdom of God, i.e., the kingdom on earth of truth and good, is to be realized, it can be realized only by such attempts as were made by the first disciples of Christ, afterwards by the Paulicians, Albigenses, Quakers, Moravians Brethren, Mennonites, all the true Christians of the world, and now by the Christians of the Universal Brotherhood. {10}
Tolstoy's main objection to the state was its bloody wars. To him the time to resist the state was when Christians were ordered to take up arms and kill or learn to kill. Thanks to the firm stand taken by many Christians all over the world, statists now permit a conscientious objector to decline armed service in most countries. Today, the battle line is drawn in a new place. No longer are just the draft laws resisted, the very theoretical foundations of statism are now under attack by Christian warriors.
All laws created under the theories of statism are an affront to our Lord. The very concept of state laws directly denies the sovereignty of God and asserts the sovereignty of the state. As a result we see Christians today attempting to close abortion clinics; we see parents rejecting the marriage license and birth certificate and educating their children at home; we see people refusing to pay taxes; we see doctors and barbers and drivers refusing to be licensed; and we see court orders ignored, all to flout man-made laws. None of this is done willfully. Rather it is done in obedience to the Greatest Commandment which requires us to love God with our entire being. Not the tiny, weak god worshipped by pseudo-Christians who is only king of one's heart, but the Mighty God who is King of the commonwealth of Israel, King of Kings, and Sovereign and Legislator of the Universe. How can we claim to love Him if we recognize state sovereignty?
The modern nation-states are not established through God or with His knowledge. Anyone who supports such imaginary entities does so contrary to God's will. They are part of the domain of darknes from which Christians are commanded to turn.
Well, there you have the story of the Dukhobors and Tolstoy. Knowing about them and what was done to them because of their beliefs is important. It helps us recognize what is being done to Christians who today, in all countries, stand firmly upon the teachings of our Messiah. American statists are determined to crush true Christianity out of existence. That means criminalizing true Christians and barricading the gates of the Kingdom forever. They much prefer to eliminate Christianity through thought control. If the alternative to statism is unknown, then people are much more likely to submit quielty, because ignorance makes resistance seem hopeless.
For seventy or eighty years the American Church-State cabal pretty well succeeded in its efforts. The Statists had a clear field. Their very significant advances on every front make it increasingly difficult for Christians to pretend that God has ordained the gross violation of His own laws. Paradoxically, the success of statism will be its undoing. Every unjust act of the godless police state serves to open the eyes of a few more. Many of these turn to the King of the Israelites seeking citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. They find their strength in the Lord and put on all the armour which God provides. Ephesians 6:10-17. Against such an army statists have no chance.
Well friends, I hope you have enjoyed and learned a lot from "Letters to Jessica"! I will soon be posting the book "The Law" by Frederick Bastiat written in 1850. Since the "Letters" we have seen two horrible acts committed by the government go unpunished...one being the murder of a woman in Ruby Ridge Idaho while holding her baby in her arms and the murder of a 14 year old boy, her son, getting shot in the back...To this day under mans law...justice has not been served. Also, in April 1993 a Church with un-orthodox beliefs was demonized, and then while the nation watched was burned to the ground, maybe intentionally, maybe not, and over 89 people perished. Among those were 17 little children under the age of 8 years old...They died a fiery death at the hands of the United States govenment over a supposed 'law' violation that to this day has not been proved. They were guilty until proven innocent...And everyday thousands of unborn children are aborted with the sanction of the godless govenment in power...I can't say much more, either your conscience is seared or you are torn inside between the kingdom of man and the KINGDOM OF GOD...