What Happens When We Ignore God’s Law?

In the March 2026 issue of the Calcedan publication Rise and Build, Calcedan's vice president

authored an article entitled The Work of Our Hands.

In it, he points out that there are truly only two alternatives when it comes to control

the world.

Christian Reconstruction or Socialism in some form or another, and individuals and families

must undertake this task through the work of their hands, hands laboring in faithfulness,

diligence, care, while modeling Christian excellence.

That's Christian Reconstruction.

But in the essay, there is an underlying theme that will be the subject of our discussion

today.

Thank you, Martin Cellbreddy, for taking the time to join out of the question podcast.

My pleasure.

Glad to be here.

So I'm going to read a quote from the essay attributed to Dr. Rush Duney, or at least

a paraphrase of something he wrote.

Rush Duney pointed out that while Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man, the

law of God is the mediator between man and man, and between man and creation.

God's law determines the boundaries of these relationships because he created the beings

and objects in question, people and things, and sets the bounds of their habitation and

for man duties and obligations and restrictions.

But man the rebel seeks a direct relationship with all things, even though a direct relationship

is a prerogative of God alone.

An unmediated direct relationship is an aspect of man's seeking to supplant God to be his

own God.

An unmediated direct relationship is the mark of Genesis 3.5 in relational action.

So Martin, why is this such a crucial point to understand?

Because the bridge between men and those between us and one another is the law of God.

And when that has been removed, shunted aside, then we're on our own.

We then have a different set of marching orders, if you will, with respect to each other.

We simply interact directly as if God didn't even exist, as if he had nothing to say about

the matter of how we talk, how we act, how we think, how we behave, what we do, what

we don't do.

So at that point, our lives are in our hands entirely, and we get no guidance and need

no direction, and we try to establish our own kingdom as a result.

Because when you are operating under that situation, you become king, captain of your own

soul, as it were, as one of the poems put it so terribly, I think.

Rememberably, I'm the captain of my soul, right?

And Invictus is the name of the poem.

And so that attitude is one where we don't deal with God's law.

We are emancipated from God's order, and we deal with anything we want on our terms,

as if everything belonged to us, and it was at our disposal to do with, as we see fit.

This evening includes our spouses in this equation.

Every relationship then becomes a relationship where I function as the God of that relationship.

I am not submitted to the God.

I become the God of the relationship, and I therefore deal directly with that thing, because

the God deals directly with everything, because he doesn't need any middleman, he doesn't

need any instruction, he doesn't need any guidance, he doesn't need a moral order to submit

to.

He makes his own moral order with every step he takes.

And so when man becomes God in this situation, he throws out everything that God's law has

to say.

And therefore, everything he does is now unmediated.

There is no third party involved, there is no collaboration with God, there is no being

part of God's order, it's rather man's order that is attempting to be established on

its own principles.

Bootstrap reasoning we call that.

And this is what the error is, and this is what happened in the Garden of Eden.

Instead of having the understanding of that tree of knowledge, it couldn't evil, meditated

by God's instructions, that was tossed aside, and now it's going to be determined with

a direct acquisition of knowledge.

Set God out, put God out, he's not important, what he said can be set aside, and now we're

going to, without that mediation of God's instruction, God's law, God's commandment,

we move forward on our own, without that thing hanging over our head.

We don't care about that, God said, we are now our own authors of our own destiny, our

own knowledge, et cetera, et cetera.

And so this is rebellion writ large, whenever we have a direct relationship with something,

we are throwing out God's operating instructions in the manual of the universe, as we say, it

did come with a manual, and we then decided to do things on our own, without astable

to anybody.

And so because if you direct, there is no reason to be answering to anyone except

yourself, and that is the appeal, this is what humanism puts forward, man is the measure

of all things, that for man should enter into direct relationships, he should be emancipated

from any order that God tries to establish, any relationship that God tries to mediate

through his law, which he gave us to guide us in terms of everything that we need to do.

Okay, so let me ask you this question, some people would say, okay, I get that, but that

only applies to Christians, right, because you have to believe this, and you have to know

this to be true, can't direct relationships work outside of the people of faith?

It's pretty much in spite of the presence of a direct relationship.

This is handled by Paul in Romans, when he said, the Gentiles, when they do what God's law

requires, which means the act as if there was a medit relationship, therefore established

and are a law unto themselves, but this is an accident of their conduct matching what

God's law requires, because it matches what God's law requires, therefore, or if you

will, accidental agreement with what God's law has to say.

This body arises because the work of the law is written on their heart, and therefore

is an echo of the mediated relationship that is still present, but it is not conscientiously

pursued in terms of the mediator, a capital mediator, it's pursued as perhaps they just

have a good idea, or a general idea of the golden rule, or other such things.

So yes, they might do what God's law says, but it's an accident of their conduct, and

it can accuse or excuse them, as Paul says.

But the fact that this can happen, it happens.

It's already acknowledged, like I said in Romans 2, and we should not draw the conclusion

that, therefore, direct relationships that aren't mediated are safe because sometimes

they work out great.

This is in spite of them being unmediated.

It's simply because they happen to align with God's law, and therefore, at that point,

they would receive even the blessings of God's law to an extent, because God is, unlike

us, not a covenant breaker.

So when he says, this is the path to blessings, when you walk in it, then good things can

happen to you even if you are unregenerate.

See, that's the whole area of common grace that's been discussed by theologians from

time immemorial, trying to make sense of it, why is it that some people, unregenerate

people seem to do well, or even follow God's law in some respects, in other things respects

not, because when push comes to shove an unregenerate person, it doesn't go Christ, and

cannot bow the knee to the throne of grace, and therefore, it really is on his own.

But by sheer accident of his conduct, he happens to fall in line with God's law, and then

can enjoy the benefits.

As it extent that he doesn't, you'll find out that the way the transgressors is hard,

because when relationships are direct and unmediated, there are consequences to that

effect, just like they're good consequences for pursuing a mediated relationship.

But we can simply point to this artifact that Romans 2 has already talked about and say,

well, this certainly justifies direct relationships, and it means it's not so important that they

be mediated from it, because those works are not going to have the standard test of time.

They're not really built on the rock, they're built on shifting sand.

The point of all unregenerate men is that their lives are built on shifting sand, sometimes

it hits the spot that they are rock, that they can build on successfully for a while,

but that only lasts so long, that autopilot only gets you so far.

Yes.

So let's talk about some specifics, because the church by and large is antinomian, and

by that I mean, not only do they not often follow God's law, most people don't even know

that they're laws pertaining to agriculture, laws pertaining to marriage, laws pertaining

to a work environment.

And so many employers today seek to have a direct relationship with their employees, do

what I say, or else, 24-7, or else, given example of how God's law mediates the relationship

between employer and employee.

When I'm fond of talking about my lecture on this in Pennsylvania at the conference,

but on the future of Christendom folks, good people there, I had to deal with the question

of how long do you need to wait to be paid by your employer?

The unit of work in Scripture is the day.

One day passes, you're supposed to be paid for that unit of work, that's the unit of work

and unit of labor.

So you're supposed to pay that person, and going to Leviticus, if you fail to pay the

same day, you are defrauding the person.

So on immediate relationship with an employer to an employee, he pays them for the day that

they worked, and he pays them the next day.

Nowadays this is not tough to do, it wasn't tough to do an agrarian society, and today

with computing the way it is, it is very easy to have a daily paycheck.

But the Bible says if you don't, if you're actually being paid weekly or every other week

or once a month, this constitutes fraud, it's defrauding of the employee.

So in a direct relationship, the employer says, I'm the king, you're the vassal, you need

to do what I say on my terms, and you'll be paid on my terms.

This is a direct, unmediated relationship because God's law is dispensed with, is set

aside as nonsense, because everyone knows you need to be paid as a weekly paycheck.

And since when you get everybody used to a direct, unmediated and defrauding situation,

people treat that as the norm.

Now it is a statistical norm, but it is not an ethical norm, it is an evil act, and

you need to correct it.

And a godly man who is running a business will say, I need to revise and make a, have a

immediate relationship with my employees, I need to move toward daily paycheck, for example.

And because that sounds so strange to our ears, we're so used to being defrauded, and

in fact, we, one of the effects of this is, who does the money belong to?

According to the Bible, the money at the end of the day that you worked belongs to you.

It's your money, you already paid for it.

And when you're not provided it, that means the fellow who doesn't belong to, he's got

it in his bank account, collecting interest on it, that you by right should be collecting.

So we've actually moved over some of the power of that cash that you earn, and it should

be your account, into his account.

You see this transfer of wealth that happens when you violate God's law, you pursue a direct

relationship with your employee, it also harms you.

That's one thing that most people miss.

Unmediated direct relationships usually are harmful in one or more dimension.

Sometimes it's both sides that are hurt in the process.

And in this case, it is both sides that are hurt.

How does the employer hurt?

Because he's breaking God's law and their consequences for it.

There's consequences baked into the universe of economics that will harm you, be harming

your employees, you then harming yourself, because they are not being blessed with work

for their hands, which is due to them, labor is worthy of their eye.

Daily higher, hands give us our daily bread, all this is a daily function.

And you in return are going to be under some level of judgment.

For all of the things you might be doing right, it doesn't matter.

You are under judgment because you're defrauding somebody and that needs to be taken seriously.

Most people would say, well, that's impractical, because the employer has to have people

work for him who are going to take out taxes, take out all this other thing.

But that's another violation where the state decides it's going to have a direct relationship

with every employer or every person who does business.

And so the state itself is in violation of the mediated relationship.

That's also true.

They cannot penalize someone for paying daily.

There were several folks at that conference who said, I'm going to change my policy.

I'm going to provide it.

Nothing else script to my employees that they can use at the company store.

And such until such time as I can go ahead and set up a daily pay system.

So there were years willing to hear the message of God's law.

There are people who are willing to say, let me move from an unmeated to an mediated relationship

with my employees on this matter.

So I'm not defrauding them.

And the big excuse often is, like you said, practicality, it's impractical to do what's

right.

Well, this explains to me why everything is sliding to hell as quickly as it is, because

that argument never carries weight with God.

The restaurant he talks a lot about, how practical it was to have sacrifices going on

in Israel, except that was a source of blessing that without which all there's since would

not have had any atonement whatsoever, I mean, they would have to suffer the consequences

of it.

Right.

So it's a mistake to use the practicality argument because you can justify almost everything,

including murdering infants in the womb with the practicality argument.

It is an evil argument.

And again, when you raise practicality, you are talking unmediated, you're not using

God's law, you're using your own wisdom and judgment to make the practicality judgment.

And so we're already we're half, half a foot in the direct camp, the unmediated camp,

the ungoverned by God's law camp.

And imagine that this is going to be blessings over there is to imagine a dangerous, evil delusion

as Dr. Rischtooni says.

Yes.

So here's another case where you can give some insight how God's law mediates between

a man who is a borrower and the man who he borrows from.

How is that relationship mediated by God's law?

Well, for openers, it is mediated in terms of the length of time that a debt can occur.

Another area that is concerning here is when the state is debouching the currency, the

relationship no longer is mediated by God's law because the money is sinking in value

is devaluing over time.

So the amount that you borrowed is not the amount that you're being that you're returning,

actually.

It's less than that because the money has lost value.

The state has helped to transfer and defraud the lender.

And therefore what happens, interest rates rise in order to compensate for these things.

And so there's a distortion of all economic calculation when unmediated direct relationships

arise.

We'll say other advantages.

It's quick and sturdy.

We don't have to worry about what God's law has to say.

We just do it.

And this just do it notion is those people just harm people.

That's why you should translate that.

Just do it equals just harm people.

And so the other problem is that there are individuals, the borrower who says, you know

something, I like the idea of paying back in cheaper dollars.

What Dr. Rush Duney calls larceny in the heart.

A wonderful book in our Cal Susan store and buy him on the topic of inflation showing

that in illustrating that people like to pay back debt in cheaper dollars because they're

what by they win and the lender loses.

And they are okay with this transfer of wealth from the lender to them because they benefit

from it.

And this entails the idea of theft in your own heart, which again is unmediated.

It's a direct relationship.

It's not governed by God's law, which is still not from one another.

And so when the state facilitates that theft by debatching and including the money supply,

there's one side who's going to applaud it because they benefit from the unmediated direct

relationship that the state has enabled.

The state in doing this, of course, has become a thief themselves.

So now we have a whole bunch of people interested in theft.

And theft becomes a mark of a culture like that and envied soon follows.

But then we have rottenness in the bones and the whole society class because it's based

on envy and debt and financing things with money that doesn't even exist.

In fact, the worst word for abomination in scripture is used of all suites, diverse

suites and measures.

A cat's is the word and is the worst abomination and you're not even allowed to have them in

your pocket.

And yet we deal with them.

We don't take steps to be on the right side of that.

We don't start to move into a mediated relationship economically.

We still stay direct because of the advantages that we perceive.

Again, I say, it's a practical argument, why would I want to pay my debt back in more

expensive dollars because under a biblical economy, the money is slowly improving and increasing

in value.

You have a mild deflation.

And that means you're paying back the guy you borrowed $100 from.

You might be paying him back $102 by the time it's done.

God forbid that should happen.

And I'm okay with paying him back $90.

I'd rather I don't mind stiffing him, but I don't want to pay him more.

And the government by making the money biblical and mediated is therefore helping the lender.

So because we are envious, we say, no, no, no, we want to be the one who benefits.

That means we want the money to worsen in value, decrease in value.

And we want inflation to destroy the currency because I am on top of that king, I'm the king

of that hill.

And as a consequence, all these little kings are going to be on hills at all collapse and

fall apart.

Right.

So another aspect, I think this is important because this is a good way to view, why do we

have problems?

Let's identify the root of a problem.

And ultimately, we would say it's because God's law isn't being followed, but there

are some people who would say, well, the New Testament doesn't talk about this at all.

So obviously, in some people's minds, Calvary and the resurrection and the ascension nullified

all these laws that Jesus came to atone for for their violation.

How does this resonate with people who claim that they believe the Bible from cover to cover?

But two thirds of the Bible, they don't bother to consider it still operative.

I can't fathom that.

I mean, Paul says in Romans 331, do we make void the law of God through faith?

May.

May God have got for a bit, if you will.

Rather, we establish a law.

If anything, Christians are the law keepers because the law is good, the law is holy,

the law is just, and that's the way that we interact with each other.

But in the New Testament, we see some fascinating aspects of the law extending it well beyond

the Ten Commandments.

I think I mentioned a lot the passage in Mark 10 about the rich young ruler that confronts

Jesus and says, what must I do to have internal life?

It sounds like a pretty straightforward question when Jesus walks him through.

It would appear to be the Ten Commandments, but they're not, because one of the commandments

that Jesus lists is thou shalt not defraud, and that Greek word, apostor Jesus, is used

for defrauding the poor, not paying the poor tithin effect with holding from the poor.

The man says, I've done all these things since I was young, and Jesus says, no, one of

them, you lack.

That's the correct reading.

Not just one thing other than what I said, but no, one of the ones I just mentioned,

you lack.

Therefore, you have to go, so all that you have, and give it back to the poor.

You have to remember in Scripture for that kind of defrauding there was a forefold penalty

for failing to pay it.

And for this young man to pay back all that he defrauded in the poor tithin at a forefold

level, and he had to have, at least, hadn't had, he had to sell it, and give it to the

poor.

He told me, and you have treasure in heaven.

He refused to do that.

It's a chaos.

The other task collector we talked about in Scripture that was repentant.

He says, whatever I've defrauded, interesting similar choice of word, I'll restore forefold.

And Jesus says to this house, salvation has come.

But to the rich young ruler who stole from the poor, salvation did not come to his house.

He went away sad, because he had great positions.

He was unwilling to do the right thing, it was impractical for him.

So to hell with him, literally, because that was his choice.

He said, he had Jesus laid out the choice.

You can obey God's law.

You can restore a mediated relationship with the poor.

He refused that.

And then just a few verses later, we see the widow throwing two mites into the temple

treasury, which was all that she had.

And Jesus said, see everyone else giving, well, she gave more than all of them combined.

She goes down as someone who mattered, even though it was a small amount, but it was the

tie that was due to God.

But she shouldn't have been poor in the first place.

Because Israel had conquered Poverty back in the Meccopean era by following God's

poor tie in 2014.

That allowed us to have that beautiful period in time, by a century or more, where there

were no poor in Israel, according to the promise of dermy 154.

But Israel fell back on its old ways, went back to defrauding the poor, what Isaiah 315 calls

up, writing the faces of the poor, which is an unmediated direct relationship I should

point out, because you're refusing to pay the poor tie, which is very small, 3.3% of

your increase, annualized.

And you can read a Poverty instead, they refused this man walked away, upset that he had

to give up and repent, didn't want to repent, because repentance meant something that he

was unwilling to pay.

And consequently, the suffering of the woman who threw in the two mites persisted, because

he pursued direct relationship with everything, including his own wealth over which he believed

he was the king, and he wasn't really God's wealth, that he was just doing over.

So it seems to me that in every sphere, whether it's family life, whether it's business

life, whether it's church life, or a civil government, you can identify every issue with

a violation of God's law.

So for example, the earth land should not be taxed according to Scripture, because it

belongs to God, yet public schools are paid for by property taxes.

And because people don't know that we're operating as a society contrary to God's law,

trying to have a direct relationship with how we solve problems as opposed to God's mediated

relationship, there are people who think that all that needs to happen is state schools

need to be reformed, but if the premise on which they're even financed goes against

God's law, how can or why should anybody expect God's blessing?

We read in the Gospel of Matthew that whatsoever thing the Lord hath not planted shall be

uprooted, and he does not plant sinful institutions.

He expects us to plant godly ones that are mediated that propagate the kingdom of God in our

generation that set forth God's standards and operate according to them.

Because when we fail to do that, we're in a different boat, we're actually pulling

against God, we're kicking against the goats, if you will, that's an unmediated relationship.

And so the property tax issue is huge, because you're this the Lord's and the fullness

throughout, so you're taxing God in effect when you're taxing property.

Also you're harming the families because the family is based on the premise of having

its own land, which then is bestowed to the next generation.

When the state comes in and says, well, we're taxing it, it makes deeply claims that it's

the first heir to receive anything, including the land, because it says by taking the land

and taxing it, it's claiming it really owns all of it.

Because this is the premise of any tax, God doesn't take all 100%, he takes 10%, which

represents the whole thing.

So when the state does the same thing, it takes part of your tax, it's saying we do have

a claim to all of it, which means that the in principle the state believes in eminent

domain to the maximum level, that all belongs to the state, all part of the state, nothing

to the individual, and we become those vassals, because the state is operating not in terms

of God's law, but in terms of its own will to persist and live, because to the state the

most important thing is sub preservation, which means that its continual 24-7 enemy is

its own people.

They might have an external war once in a while as Ristuny said, but the internal populace

is a 24-7 threat to the state.

So it has to control communication, it must control discourse, it must control who can

say something negative about a vaccine, it has to control how many people can see what

a portion of the Epstein files.

You name it, there's some restriction at the state believes it has a an abiding state

interest.

Now that whole concept is very interesting, because to God everything is naked in front

of him, there's nothing that's hidden from his view.

And of course, our job as Christians is to operate in terms of God's law, because on

the principle that he knows everything, and therefore his counsel will stand.

There's nothing that will surprise him, and so when he says, these are the results of

being diligent in your labor, as usual bear rule, we should proceed with it.

When the state sees these concepts from Scripture, they said, no, no, no, we have power in authority,

and we are going to exert it in a harmful way.

We're going to then declare it to be good for everybody, because there's nothing that

bad that is taking to that account rationalize in some species way that is a benefit to the

people that it's governing, and that benefit is a false benefit.

If anything, if there were a benefit, it would be short lived, because God is going to blow

on it, blow on your purse, open a hole in the purse, and boom, all that benefit disappears.

Because it was based on violating God's law, it was based on a direct, unmuted relationship

with man, or things, and consequently God then enters the picture as the judge, and

locked in for King, and he acts accordingly, and so we have no hope when we build on the

sand like this, and the state continues to persist in doing this, and as to its own harm,

the best citizens of the Roman Empire were the Christians, they pursued immediate relationship

with everything, but they were also the best citizens of Rome, and still they were

persecuted, why?

Because they had a different concept of who was the true King, they had a true concept

of the King's ship of Christ, and therefore they were willing to follow the Caesars to

a certain point better than most citizens, and people don't realize that the Christians

are not out here to tear everything to pieces, rather we were here to rebuild it properly,

so everything will stand a test of time where they'll just be blown away by the next crisis

around the corner, and the only way things abide is if they are dealt with in a mediated

way, which is with God's law governing all the steps, all the pieces, all the relationships,

all the interconnections are governed by God's law, we look at the God's law and say,

what does it require here?

What does he require of us in this area, and we pursue that?

And therefore God essentially is shaping things through our hands as we are faithful to

his calling and to his law, and therefore the law goes forth from Jerusalem and transforms

the world, that's the beauty of it, as they are in Isaiah 2, and that transformation happens

because the law is effectual, it does all sorts of amazing things are going to Psalm 19,

and like I mentioned it removed poverty from Israel, they're the only nation in the world

that ever got rid of poverty completely, it lasted only for 120 years maybe, but they

did it, and it's never been recorded since, and it was done only by doing it God's way.

When you have a war on poverty, like Lyndon B. Johnson launched, that is not a mediated

relationship.

It's still direct, he's trying to get this solution without reference to God, and whenever

you think without reference to God, there's a term for that, you are creating a paranoia

situation and effect because you've ruled out the correct solution from the get-go, you

planting everyone's trust in man, and you know what Scripture says about trusting man.

First is the man, who trusts in man, who makes flesh his arm, that makes human power,

the authority behind everything.

When you go down that path, a curse follows it, and as a curse follows everything that

is unmediated and direct, that immediately followed in Genesis 3 and 5, the curse was

right there on their heels, and then they were fearful about it, they realized very shortly

that's why they fled and hid from God in the garden.

They had brought it upon themselves by setting aside the mediated relationship and substituting

a direct relationship and acting like they were God when they were simply creatures.

Yes, so I've noticed that much preaching today, centers around, let's just deal with your

personal sins.

There doesn't seem to be a recognition that national sins also bring God's judgment.

And so there are many people who profess faith, but say, I don't do these bad things, I'm

not a drunk, I don't cheat on my wife, but they don't look at the fact that God has given

his people marching orders.

And if we disregard those, aren't we trying to have a direct relationship with our own

lives rather than mediated through God's law?

That is true.

We have to understand that one reason that pulpits want to deal with the personal dimension

is that they're fearful of actually speaking strongly about, say, the national situation

or the state or the city situation, very few are the pastors that have the moral backbone

to actually confront someone on the level of John the Baptist going after Herod Antipas.

That takes some spine, and we have a lot of spineless pastors, they might say, if I'm critical

of some of the unmediated things that the current administration is doing, my congregation

is going to be very upset with me.

Or in some congregations as if I'm not attacking Trump, they're going to be very upset with

me, because whatever the direction it is, partisanship sometimes controls things.

And you say, you know something, I am not going to get into that area because it's

divisive.

Well, that may be so, but that's an excuse because we need to put the light of God's word

into every dark corner.

All evil works of any kind need to be approved, and the light of God's word needs to be

shed upon them.

And one of the things that made Nathan something of a good man was he was willing to go straight

to the king and tell him the story, the parable of the you, right?

And confront him finally to say, thou art the man.

So confronting a civil ruler is an important aspect of what a pastor should do.

And he should have his flock behind him, but be as fearful as he's going to alienate

the flock by doing the wrong thing, but he's in the wrong business.

I'm reminded I think it was Jonathan Edwards who was preaching initially to hear messages

that his flock wanted to hear, and he knew it, he was good at it.

But then he realized I need to preach the whole council of God and not just what they want

to hear, not ear candy, sermons, but rather something that actually puts down boots on

the ground in the kingdom of spiritual realms that they will actually function as Christians.

And what happened, of course, is he lost a lot of his church the first month or so.

So it was almost like what, 20% of the size, he lost 80% and some large number.

But it slowly built back to a kernel of individuals that were hard core Christians that were

factual, that were not compromised and were not willing to bend to make people happy.

Men pleasers, as Paul calls them, men pleasers, we don't have plenty of them already.

We don't need more.

Anything which we need to transform them into God pleasers instead.

And so friendship with the world is enmity with God.

We have to understand that's why it needs backbone and moral courage to pursue the mediated

direct relationship.

Because a lot of people say, well, you're crunching on and stepping all over my freedom

and liberty to do what I want to do.

You may actually have that liberty you imagine.

It might be that you call liberty the Bible says is license and sin.

And the other side of that equation, Andrea, is there are people who want to say what

you're doing is a sin.

When, in fact, the person actually has liberty and I probably ought to be doing what they're

doing.

Yeah, we recall the example of you and I, that Dr. Restonnier narrated film strips that

criticized the Federal Reserve as a vehicle of theft.

And the OPC church started to move toward defrocking him to penalize him saying you called

the state a thief.

You kind of do that.

You had no authority to do that.

Of course, he had a authority to do it.

He had a biblical warrant for it.

But still, they're going to penalize him and punish him and take him out of the pulpit.

He saved them the trouble by saying saianara.

If you're going to crunch down on God's word and muzzle it, that's not going to fly.

With someone who says, I am constrained, a war to me.

If I don't preach the gospel to anything, that was rush.

That was rush from start to finish.

So, yeah, we have to recognize that our friends may not be the ones up in the pulpit sometimes.

We have to recognize that the pulpit needs to be Christ's friends.

And one way to do that is to say, if I love me, keep my commandments, but for not even

keeping us commandments, the claim that we're loving in church, love Christ, love our

people.

It starts to fall in death fears because that now becomes more direct, unbearing relationships

with God and with man, because we're starting to speak for God and it's detached from

the scriptures.

And once you do that, well, we have that problem that Isaiah 20 tells us, if they do not

speak a court thing to the law and to the testimony, it's because there's no light in them.

It's a consul of darkness.

So we must continually speak the law and the testimony, the prophets, prophets to long

prophets together.

That brings light in.

But if we refuse to speak according to that or contradict the law and the testimony,

we are spreading darkness.

And if that's coming from our pulpit, we have to change out what's going on in the pulpit.

So we have to understand they're being filled from seminaries that are compromised, etc.,

etc.

You can trace it back as far as you want.

But in all these cases, what do we have?

We have direct, unmediated relationships where God's law has been put aside and men's

will therefore takes precedence and that becomes will worship as we all will know.

So it's catastrophic.

The effects are catastrophic.

All right.

Well, let's bring it closer to home here because I find it remarkable that a society that

increasingly has people living with each other rather than committing to covenant marriage

that you have rampant divorce for, I don't like him anymore, I don't like her anymore.

And they're all shocked with what goes on in the Epstein files or what has been thus

far disclosed.

Well, you could also take a look at pagan antiquity and say, that's what was there before Christianity

basically invaded the world.

But even in a husband, wife, relationship, parent, child relationship, those are not direct

relationships.

So the father owning the family, what I say goes no matter what is not a biblical framework

is it?

No, that has to be completely proscribed by God's law.

Whatever God says goes because the children are the heritage of the Lord, they're not your

heritage.

They're his heritage.

And therefore, they're given to us for a purpose to raise them in the nurture and admonition

not of ourselves or our own will worship but of the Lord.

And so if the Lord is not central in all of this and his law is not governing it, then

we are pursuing a direct relationship with these things and this is harms us and also

harms the kingdom of God and it harms the children too because they learned to propagate

that to the next generation too.

We'll simply repeat this mistake as opposed to repenting from it and seeing the evil

of it and seeing the harm that is going to do.

The more we look at the situation, the more we can see the harm of direct relationships.

People do this all the time.

They think that they will set a standard for say a human relationship, say it's a romantic

relationship and it is untethered to scripture.

It's a direct relationship and they will elevate a romantic love or their notion of it

to be the governing principle.

At that point of course, that actually trumps God in their view and so what happens is

that again we have this constant darkness and then we have all the harms that flow from

violating God's law.

The idea that good things come from breaking God's law, that was Satan's story in Genesis

3.

You know, become that God is knowing good and evil but the very one he didn't make good

on that promise that flopped horribly and to this day is still being offered to us

as a wonderful goal simply by dismantling God's law and setting it aside as something ancient

and old that we don't need anymore.

However, it is, neither of those things, it's living and active, dividing a center of spirit

and soul and bone and marrow and we need to consider that the impact of the word of God

is what's important.

So when we look at the familial relationships, they must be covered by the law of God specifically

because we're supposed to even train our children in the law of God, there's to understand

all the commandments and the precepts, the testimonies and statutes and counsels and judgments

of the Lord.

So if we have an obligation to teach them, we also have an obligation to keep them.

Blessed we be hypocritical, love must be without hypocrisy and so familial love must not

have this component of, don't do what I do, just do what I tell you to do.

Hypocrisy is going to be modeled by your children pretty quick in short order.

They're not stupid, the children, they can catch on the fact that you don't actually

believe God's law because you're setting it aside when it's convenient for you.

You pursue immediate direct relationships, this even goes to other dimensions like punishment

to discipline.

All these things should be covered again by God's law and not by the will of the Father.

You mentioned the idea that preps under say Roman law, the children were the property

of the Father and He could see, do essentially abortion when you're eight years old or you

take you out whenever he wants, because the concept of the society was a direct one.

It had nothing to do with God's law, which would have forbidden such a thing to be considered.

But they went on their own path and therefore all these evils were incumbent upon Roman society

at the time, which Christianity alone had the power to overcome.

And that was because the church's teaching capacity was shedding light into the darkness

of Roman culture and transforming it thereby.

Right.

And if you don't do that, then of course those familial relationships deteriorate.

And like you say, the basis for a divorce is no longer one that's governed by a biblical

law, but rather man's will at that point again, direct relationship because when it's your

will, that means you're the God of the cause situation and you're going to simply act as

if you're a God or a God-ling.

Whichever the case may be, it is arbitrary power wielded by us simply because we want to

do it.

And that's not a good enough reason in God's book.

And this is exactly where we're told it won't follow a multitude to do evil.

If everyone is doing a direct relationship, should you?

No, because we're supposed to do the right thing regardless of what's going on around

us.

So we can't argue from the society at large and all its moral failings and corruption

that this therefore normalizes it and we can do it too.

In fact, we're supposed to be the light and the darkness, we're supposed to be the

salt of the earth and we don't want to end up being tossed out and trodden underfoot

of men for being ineffectual.

So I've observed that people like direct relationships when they perceive they're in control

of the relationship.

So for example, if Christian man, I've seen this in Christian circles, I'm sure you

have as well, disagrees with his wife.

She's supposed to do what he says no matter what.

And if she brings up an aspect of scripture, she's being insubordinate.

So he calls her a feminist.

Okay, that handles it.

You're just a disobedient person.

On the other hand, when a woman wants a direct relationship and doesn't want it mediated

through God's law, she could accuse him of being a misogynist.

Ultimate bad guy in the patriarchy.

But all of this posits a conflict of interest as opposed to God's law, which fosters a harmony

of interest.

So the law of God is not burdensome.

It actually is what makes a marriage work.

It's actually what makes a family work.

But we're so used to things not working that we've decided that well, we've got to come

up with our own remedies.

And that's how we're going to quote unquote, get what we want.

When you use labels like Eurofeminist or Euromisogynist, we are now reducing the other party

to a metaphysical level.

They are part of a group that is worthy of our hatred and our contempt.

And that course does in fact create the friction of conflict.

But something else it does, it depersonalizes.

You see the second that you pursue a direct relationship, an unmuted relationship, you

don't treat each other person as a person.

You treat them as part of a metaphysical group, as you pigeonhole them, and then you attack

the group that they're in as beneath contempt, like I said, or someone to be fought tooth

and nail.

And certainly not someone to listen to because you're a feminist or you're a misogynist,

you're a patriarchalist, et cetera, whatever the label is, the label is there for a reason.

It's the short circuit reasoning and to prevent immediate relationship from taking root

and governing.

Because when God's law calls us to have immediate relationship, it forces us to treat one

and other as persons.

And this is a huge deal.

You and I are both aware of the tape series of sermons by Dr. Restorany called The Doctrine

of the Family.

We've been discussing at Caledon internally.

How is it that this section got missed when the system of theology was published?

It should have been in there with everything else.

It's very important.

But you'll notice the name of the 10th chapter of that section.

It's Abraham and Sarah, a normative marriage.

And I think Russia's brilliant in bringing this to the fore because of the interaction

of these two, which is well known.

It's both well known in Genesis, but it's also talked about in Peter and elsewhere.

The relationship between the two when they had differences of opinion and who, what ruled?

In each case, it wasn't that Abraham rule, the situation, or that Sarah rule, but that

God ruled through one or the other of them to set the course, whatever that might be.

And so I think that's a fascinating point.

So if you want to know what a marriage should look like, Russia points out all the pluses

of immediate relationship between these people, Abraham and Sarah.

You can say similar things about Job's marriage, even though his wife gave him bad advice.

He was very cautious and dealing with her graciously in spite of the fact that he's a

cursed God and die.

Well, that's terrible advice.

It's already in a direct, unmediated device.

He didn't take it, but he did warn her about the consequences of a direct relationship.

You're cursing God.

That means that you're assuming that you're over a God and you have the power to curse God.

It's a direct relationship with whoever there was one.

I was thinking of Abigail and her husband.

That was obviously not a happy marriage.

She couldn't have possibly had a happy marriage with a man who was a fool.

However, she respected his authority, didn't go kill him and decide you're too much of

a fool.

We're all going to die.

But God blesses her for her initiative.

And she's understanding the relationship of the king to her.

So she bows to David.

But she also reminds David that he does not have a direct relationship with creation.

That God will not be pleased if he annihilates everybody just because he's angry.

So I think that's a great example of somebody bringing that to bear.

And even the bad rap Rebecca gets that she was a deceitful wife and she shoves Jacob

in there instead of Esau.

This is a woman who heard from God.

I can't imagine that her husband didn't hear what she heard.

And so she saw her husband about to disregard God.

And so she was working through the mediated relationship with God.

And I think that gets missed because we like to pigeonhole people into classifications.

She was a disobedient woman.

Yeah.

And that's a shorthand for saying, I'm going to deal with them on a level of metaphysical

categories and not moral categories.

I mean, you start talking about the personal level that's different.

By the way, on the topic of badmouthing somebody, as you know, I wrote an article, Revilters

or Reconstructionist, I think it was last year, one of the points I make is out of the

book of Jude, the Ninth verse, with a very short one chapter book.

It's an epistle that exhorts.

And he makes the comment that Michael, the art angel, when disputing about the body of

Moses did not dare pronounce a realing accusation against the devil, but said rather the Lord

Rebuke thee.

So it's an amazing thing that he could have said, I am going to go ahead and rebuke you

directly on my authority, I rebuke you, but no, he says the Lord rebuke thee.

By doing this, even the Rebuke of Satan is a mediated one, not a direct one by Michael.

Whatever, whatever interpret that passage, one thing is for certain, that he said he

didn't dare do so on a direct level, if you will.

He did not autocratically decide, I'm going to let loose with some attire rate against

Jude devil, because this is Moses' body and we're having dispute over it.

Even then, we're love dispute.

He did not pronounce a realing accusation on his own authority, but introduced the immediate

relationship of the man that he served, or the God that he served, Yahweh, Jehovah, saying

the Lord rebuke thee.

And so I think this is key, even Michael the archangel, the chief of all angels, is unwilling

to do what we would normally do.

It means that we should think twice, too.

This is an example.

All these things are examples for us, whether in the Older New Testament, and they set forth

what happens when you have a direct relationship.

We had the fellow right in the Lambich I think it was, he said, someone hurts me, I will

feel them sevenfold or whatever it is.

That is a very direct, very unmediated, very no reference to God's law, no reference

to I, or an I, or anything on this order, it's simply, I'm a big wig and I can use force

against everybody and people will fear me.

So he's interested in being feared as a loose cannon of sorts.

And these kind of things that God finds laughable, we might fear it.

But the point is that he's on very shaky ground with his claims, and he sets forth an example

for all time or what not to do.

So if we're going to start doing that, and we do this in national policy lately, with

the kind of the war that's been initiated now, we're not going to get anywhere.

International relations and international relationships are determined by God's law.

And oftentimes we try to act like the God of the system.

We talk about a unipolar world where the United States has hegemony over everybody else.

It's not likely to last because God, of course, tears down everything that exhausts itself

against him.

And we've by the God's laws on war, and we've already done it at this point in time, with

the kind of weapons that destroy fruit trees, which is forbidden in scripture, and invasions

of the nations, which I like now to have the mechanism for an invasion, then God's laws

are set aside, and that war is a direct, unmediated, ungodly war as a consequence, and ungodly

wars.

Well, not ultimately reach their goals.

You might get so far and say, how we achieved it, and then later on, everything explodes.

World War I was the war to end all wars.

What happened?

Well, because it was, again, unmediated in a direct course of action, and so we're going

to set an emotion in all sorts of unmediated things after the war, which set the stage for

Hitler to come on scene into hero Hito, and it was a Lenny.

It's not forget a Roosevelt and a Stalin and a Churchill that basically decided they were

going to have direct relations with the rest of the world and not consult God on how you

make peace.

Right.

Peace was constructed for the benefit of the victors and to the harm of everybody else.

And even here we had the victors at MIT with one another.

I'm not going to go through a big listing, because I'm sure we have all sorts of folks

who can give us a great history of our involvement in World War II, but one thing for sure, you're

going to be hard pressed to find any of that involvement, actually involving God's law

at any level.

It's pretty much a setting aside of God's law and men doing their own will and doing

their own actions.

And consequently, the fruit of war, the source of it is exactly what Scripture lays out.

It starts in the heart of man and proceeds outward from there and gets worse at every level

up it goes.

Yes.

So I've heard it said that the cross, which was a Roman invention on how to kill people

brutally, has a vertical and a horizontal beam.

And that Jesus Christ, we could look as the vertical mediator between God and man.

And then the law of God, as you pointed out in your essay, is the mediator between man

and man.

And yet, Jesus Christ is at the center of it, because he is the word made flesh.

And so yes, we would say God's word is not the exact same thing as the second person

of the Trinity, but you've pointed out in many cases that God says that his law is above

his name.

Yes, it's in, I think it's someone 38, different mistaken.

I've magnified my word above my name.

By word, of course, it's a law word of God that's pointed out there.

And it's just saying a lot because nothing is more important than God's name, but here

he magnifies this word above his name.

That is indicative that when we discount the word of God, we are really insulting him.

I mean, that is, for some of that, God exhausts above himself and above his own name for

us to then tear it down and say, we are the smart guys who know better than God's law.

We can do things without reference to God's law better.

This direct approach to reality is, of course, the tempter's program.

Do everything direct.

You don't need God for it.

You're your own gods.

You can determine what's good and bad, what's right and wrong for your society.

You can self-determine.

God shouldn't determine it.

Well, who was he?

You know, you were a puppet master?

No.

So, consequently, we then seek to control our fellow men because to create that perfect society

entails control and usually entails a tyrannical control.

And we don't really get anywhere in terms of the kingdom of God when we do that, rather

we have a worsening situation, a worsening hell on earth, which is what socialism will

ultimately bring.

The only alternative is the kingdom of God, which has arrived at through the work of

our hands.

As Dr. Rushman says, work has an eschatological component.

In other words, it is advancing God's kingdom.

So this is why we read in scripture that you see the man who is diligent as labor, he

will stand before kings.

And at the diligent shall bear rule, authority comes from the labor and service, not from raw

claims to power and beating people up and ignoring God's law, but rather by implementing

God's law and making it part and parcel of our souls and how we reach out to people.

The bridge of God's law exists between you and me.

And as a result, we have what Proverbs 14 and I get to vote some space to this passage

says that the bond between the fools is sin, but the bond between the upright is good

will.

So between us, the regenerate, the upright, we have a bond, an intermediator, an interpreter,

these are all different concepts of the term, and it's between us.

It's that mediation, if you will.

And it's good will between us.

And therefore it compounds the work that we do and it adds some blessing to the process

of building God's kingdom here and now, even though we might see the results of it and

we might be laying foundation stones and not the capstone, still the value is there.

But the bond or the interpreter, the intermediary between evil men, between the fools is guilt.

That's the bond that drives them as the bond that drove Adam to hide from God.

This is what drives the Tower of Babel is that they want to protect themselves and take

a measure.

As Rushnery says it to prevent of measures against God's judgment and to unify everybody

around this really pointless work because the Tower of Babel achieved no good for man except

to set it, make a name for themselves.

That was it.

And that name was to be what?

Asham is the word is and that was to be, we don't need God, we can build our own and

we can unite on our own principles and our own terms.

But as Dr. Rushnery says, this rivets man in slavery to man.

It's a ticket to slavery as all socialism is because now borrowers serve into the lender

and the state in order to create utopia, as to create dystopia because you have to control

all aspects of your life in order to guarantee that nobody deviates.

And this is why we have all these science fiction films about the future.

Being a time when everyone is going to be mind controlled and this and that and the other

and it's going to be brutally awful.

It's what Orwell said, boots stamping on a human face forever.

That's what socialism will bring.

And it's necessary because no other way can you control all the aspects when you're pursuing

direct relationships.

Why?

Because everybody wants to have a direct relationship.

So now it's a free for all and it's therefore a battle of survival, the fittest and the

meanest, most vicious tyrants rise to the top and smash everybody underneath.

And God simply will not tolerate this.

He did it.

He only tolerated so far before the time of Noah and the flood and so he set in motion

the Holy Spirit to transform the world, but we're to be part of the faithful who pursue

immediate relationships and establish those.

As I say in the article, when your relationships are mediated by God, what happens are governed

by him.

The therefore God will establish the work of your hands.

He will direct the work of your hands and they will therefore stand the test of time.

And as Rostrini pointed out so pointedly, he says, the work that you do will not be in

vain and you may not see the effects of it in your lifetime.

But there are going to be there in the future is your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

And that is the work that is done, mediated work, it is work that is done under orders

and under the government of God, governed by him, governed through his law, because that's

the mechanism by which God governs us through the Holy Spirit, directing us to quicken the

law to our hearts.

And therefore that way it obtains spontaneous obedience.

That's why the new covenant includes the clause and I will write my law on the hearts

and on the mind's will I write it and it should be my people, I should be their God.

And so that is what creates a governed, mediated relationship.

The law of God in our hearts because our heart come all the treasures of life.

And so therefore everything when the law is here, written here, then we act according

to it and therefore all our actions become governed by the law that precedes out of

the heart into the world.

I think we'd all do well to pause and actually reflect on Psalm 127 that unless the Lord

builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.

I suppose we could recast that as unless you live and work and do your business according

to God's law, what you're doing will result in vanity.

It will be in vain.

I actually quote from Liste Allen's commentary and there's one statement of his that he

makes kind of in passing, but I think it's worth emphasizing this because it's missed

very quickly in this long seven page article of mine and a rise in build and it's this.

God's order has been established over human life and determines success or failure.

That's the point of Psalm 127 as he sees it.

That's huge.

We've seen God's order has been established so either going to conform to it in a walk

according to it, which is the mediated indirect relationship governed by God or you pursue

your own path.

And of course at that point is failure and not success will be your portion.

And as he points to the next labor is to be a matter of collaboration.

And the other thing I think is important that I bring out was Ross's commentary.

He says God doesn't build the house, those who build it labor in vain.

He said that word vanity, vain also has the connotation falsehood.

In other words, those who labor are pursuing a falsehood because they're trying to do it

without God.

They're trying to do it direct, unmediated and this creates a falsehood.

So all their work is premised on promoting a falsehood in the world that you can be successful

without God.

Ultimately, you cannot because all works are going to be destroyed that are not for the

kingdom of God.

God's going to blow it all in all.

It's impossible.

And as one of the writers said, man and God together create history, but God only establishes

the silver good and he removes the draws.

And so that's important to perceive that God establishes what is good, but destroys

and removes the draws.

All unmediated direct relationships are part of the draws that will be driven out of

the world so that only silver will be remaining.

That's why the Messiah is called a refiner, right?

He sits in refines in Malachi three and fours, a beautiful set of images of what his work

is to refine the world and to encourage out all the draws, all that pollutes it.

And one thing that pollutes it, of course, is all attempts to do things without God.

Where this thinking without God, which leads to despair about knowledge even being possible,

which is what most philosophers end up.

It's why Camus and Sartre and others commit suicide.

They give you realize without God nonsense, meaninglessness.

So meaning comes from pursuing the world, mediated relationships, meaninglessness is

what happens when you throw God out, then you also throw meaning out at the same time.

Men do not hold up well without meaning, and rather their whole world collapses and fragments

on them.

This is a lot to unpack and I'm glad we did, and Martin, thank you for sharing your insights

with us.

I always appreciate your time.

I appreciate the invitation.

I'm always pleased people to discuss it.

Out of the question podcast at gmail.com is how you reach us, and we look forward to

talking with you next time.

Thanks for listening to Out of the Question.

For more information on this and other topics, please visit calceden.edu.