A Word in Season: Messages by R.J. Rushdoony on the Faith for All of Life

A once-successful man plunged into gambling, then into theft first from his company, then from his own wife in the vain hope that a “lucky break” would undo his mounting sins, proving again the folly Scripture condemns: “Let us do evil, that good may come.” His life illustrated the truth that a bad business cannot have a good ending, and yet such moral confusion is now praised as “realistic” even...

An old French proverb says, “The more things change, the more they are the same,” a truth many rediscover whenever election hopes collapse into the familiar reality of corruption, taxes, and disappointment. No matter the promises, yesterday’s rascals soon look little different from today’s reformers, because changing the names without changing the character of the men in office can never produce a...

People often boast, “I know people,” but such confidence usually appears just before they make a serious mistake about someone. The truth is, as Solomon said, no man fully understands even his own way, for people change some grow stronger under pressure, others falter; some old men mature, while some young men refuse to grow at all. Over time, many we trust will disappoint us, and others will surp...

A foreign visitor once marveled that Americans will sit at a red light at 2:00 a.m. with no car in sight an unconscious habit inherited from Puritan forebears who lived with the deep awareness that God’s eye is always upon us. Early Americans obeyed even in solitude because they knew there is no escaping God: He sees every sin, but also every need and every faithful act unnoticed by men. Though ma...

A foreign visitor once marveled that Americans will sit at a red light at 2:00 a.m. with no car in sight an unconscious habit inherited from Puritan forebears who lived with the deep awareness that God’s eye is always upon us. Early Americans obeyed even in solitude because they knew there is no escaping God: He sees every sin, but also every need and every faithful act unnoticed by men. Though ma...

A grieving friend recently told how she has faced her sorrows by trusting that whenever God closes a door, He also opens another an outlook rooted in the promise that all things work together for good to those who love Him. The real danger comes when people fixate on a closed door, living in the past, refusing God’s providence, and becoming blind to any future; one acquaintance, who spent fifteen...

Charles Spurgeon observed that when a man is down, he has his greatest opportunity to trust God, for a false faith survives only in calm waters, but true faith proves itself in storms. Many claim they cannot believe in a God who permits suffering, yet they raise their children with that same creed shielding them from every hardship and then wonder why those children grow into selfish, destructive...

A man recently sighed, “Problems, problems how I wish I could be rid of them,” and in truth we all share that longing at times. Yet problems never disappear; they simply change shape, following us through childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age, and appearing in our homes, work, churches, nation, and even our own hearts. They belong to life in a fallen world, but even before the Fall Adam faced t...

One of history’s recurring problems is the stubborn survival of false ideas, and among the most destructive is the Jeffersonian belief that evil is a product of the environment rather than of the human heart. As Daniel J. Boorstin notes, Jefferson treated moral corruption as no more blameworthy than catching yellow fever. Scripture, however, insists that man is morally responsible, and that evil f...

One of the great heresies of our age is the notion that “being spiritual” is the same as being Christian, when Scripture never calls us to pursue spirituality as such, but to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Greek philosophy prized spirituality over materiality and condemned Biblical faith as too earthly, but Scripture teaches that holiness not abstract spirituality is God’s command. Holiness means...

A great deal of nonsense is written about the supposed last days of California or the imminent end of the world, as though fear should drive us into the arms of whatever theory the writer is selling, despite our Lord’s plain declaration that no man knows the day or hour (Matt. 24:36). Scripture is not secretive about the true “last days”: the new creation began when Christ rose from the dead as th...

A young prince once demanded that economics be explained to him in ten words, until a courtier answered with nine: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” That principle lies behind many of our modern problems, because someone always pays through work, money, or taxes. The same truth applies to salvation: Scripture never teaches that it was “free” in the modern sense of “without cost,” but that...

When Jacob lay dying, he prophesied of the Messiah and called Him Shiloh “He whose right it is” the true King and Lawgiver to whom all authority and all nations belong (Gen. 49:10). Christ affirmed this office after His Resurrection when He declared, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” commanding His church to disciple the nations and teach them to obey all His commandments (Matt....

A printer told me that 98 percent of students entering his trade drop out because printing demands an exactness and conscientiousness few young men now possess; every mistake is visible to the world, and the work requires patient correction of even the smallest errors. Other skilled trades report the same decline, and many now depend on foreign labor because apprentices refuse painstaking work. Th...

A friend once read a woman a line from my book: “If we love that which is good, we will hate that which is evil.” The woman immediately rejected it, insisting, “I love everyone and hate nothing.” My friend quietly answered, “You don’t stand for anything, do you?” a perfect response. To hate nothing is to love nothing, because real love always hates whatever destroys the thing loved. I once dealt w...

Revelation 21:8 lists the reprobates, and strikingly, the first two are not murderers or the openly vile, but “the fearful and unbelieving” two qualities that Scripture treats as essentially the same. To be fearful is to distrust God’s promises and to treat the threats and promises of men as more real than the Word of the Lord. It is to live by the power of the world rather than the power of God....

Some church members tolerated a man whose conduct was repeatedly dishonest, disruptive, and morally offensive, excusing their inaction by saying, “Maybe he really is a Christian, so we must be patient with him.” But this attitude betrayed a false standard. Christ Himself said believers are known by their fruits, not their claims (Matt. 7:16–20); to assume a man is a Christian while his actions den...

Many churchgoers treat God the way they treat an insurance agent: they believe Him only on matters like Heaven, hell, and salvation, but refuse to believe in Him as Lord over justice, law, sovereignty, and predestination. They pick and choose what they want from Scripture, imagining God sells “policies” they can accept or decline, while rejecting the parts that offend modern sentiment such as capi...

Not long ago people commonly told pastors, “I’m not needed,” because the great fear was to be useless; today, the complaint has shifted to “I’m not happy,” while idleness itself has become a prized goal. Modern man seeks happiness while avoiding the very things that produce it work, responsibility, godliness, family, and obedience to God’s law so it is no wonder that unhappiness has multiplied. Sc...

A farmer complained that his prosperous neighbor “felt too good” for him, yet the real issue was not the neighbor’s pride but his own lack of humility. Though raised in a wealthy family, the farmer had wasted forty years repeating the same mistakes, refusing correction, and ending life with nothing, while the neighbor once poor had worked hard, sacrificed, built a thriving farm, educated his child...

Faithful pastors often spend less time on the great doctrines of the faith and more on untangling personal problems, because sinful man is always more interested in himself than in God. These problems usually spring from two forgotten truths: people are sinners, and we ourselves are sinners. Salvation does not remove all sin from our lives, and when we expect perfection from men rather than from G...

Olympia Fulvia Morata (1526–1555), the brilliant Italian scholar raised among nobility and intellectuals, lived a life far harsher than her privileged beginnings suggested. After a cultured youth, she and her husband, Andrew Grunthler, were trapped for nine horrific months in the siege of Schweinfurt, where plague killed half the population, Andrew nearly died, and the city was burned and plundere...

William Blake, the brilliant English poet and painter, squandered his greatness because he abandoned biblical faith for the radical dreams of the French Revolution exalting freedom, equality, and total self-expression while rejecting all discipline. True to his convictions, when he moved to the country he even refused to prune his grapevines, insisting that vines, like men, must grow without restr...

A traveler in Europe in 1959 discovered a farming valley dying not because the soil was poor or young men were unwilling, but because inherited customs had chopped property into absurd fragments, destroying ownership and driving families away. A woman slept in one house, had the right to meals in another, and could warm herself only in a third; some farmers legally owned one-eighth of their own la...

A very old and vital distinction going back at least to Solomon is the difference between learning and wisdom. Learning is the accumulation of facts, information, and schooling, and our age is overflowing with it; experts and specialists dominate society, expanding knowledge at a rapid rate. But learning alone is not enough, and without wisdom it simply produces learned fools more dangerous than i...