In the Beginning, Work.

The Scriptures begin with God working, creating, forming, organizing, delegating tasks – and his created image bearer being given the blessing and responsibility of reflecting those actions in a creaturely manner. Man was created to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, exercise dominion over the creatures, and do so in accordance with the Law of God written on his heart, as well as in accordance with the Law of God given to him in the garden of Eden (cf. Gen 2:15-17). Man was created, in other words, to work. This means that any prohibition against working that is not coming from God is evil. You do not merely have the freedom to work, you are required to do so under divine Law.

So why have so many today forgotten this? Facing the tyrannical mandates of many local governing authorities and the White House’s current Resident, many have chosen to simply cave in to the pressure and cease from working when they are told to, or only continue working once they have met the terms and conditions the powers that be are arbitrarily and wickedly setting up. Why?

In my opinion, it is partly because men are tired – tired of learning, tired of dealing with the shame of having been conned by authorities they once trusted, tired of having to think through novel obstacles to them simply being alive and providing for their families, tired of having to think up novel approaches to get things done in spite of the useless and wicked mandates of tyrannical magistrates. Tired.

I think it is also simply easier to abdicate our responsibility to think individually, and to collate and evaluate and weigh our options as local bodies of responsible and critically thinking individuals. Thinking is difficult. Rather than use technology to assist us in our research as we think for ourselves, we have been conditioned to let Google search results do our thinking for us. Sadly, the internet has become an infallible Magic 8-Ball for many of us, rather than a tool to augment our finite research abilities. And so, many of us just rely on whatever information we receive from the mainstream media online, in print, on the radio, or on television.

The Broader Cultural Problem

However, there is a broader reason for this, I think. It seems to me that in the mid to late 1800s, the academic distinction between the sciences and the liberal arts became more pronounced than it had previously been. With the promotion of Darwinism and the advent of the industrial revolution, practical developments in the hard sciences were desired and viewed as real, i.e. tangible, developments in man’s intellectual, social, and, consequently, material evolution. The liberal arts were viewed as academic disciplines that were not capable of obtaining objective knowledge, but were mere repositories of subjective notions.

Studying philosophy or literature or the arts in general was akin to studying the history of what other people in those fields thought and practiced before they understood that the hard sciences alone were capable of giving us objective truth. This is not to say that there weren’t developments in philosophy and literature, but that they were, and still are, viewed as mere theories whose value primarily consists in raising questions for science to either dissolve (i.e. identify as meaningless and, thereby, disregard) or resolve by means of empirical exploration and experimentation.

With this, it seems, came the general movement toward hyper specialization, a phenomenon further resulting in what one philosopher has called “the tyranny of the experts.”1 Individuals have been encouraged not to gain a broad education enabling them to take in and analyze/critique data gathered, arguments formulated, and conclusions drawn by a wide variety of academic disciplines and social bodies, but to stay in their place. Despite the fact that discovery in any field can come from any human being who just so happens to pose the right questions or answers, men have been discouraged from thinking that they could learn enough to make them competent judges of, at the very least, the arguments being formulated by the so-called “experts.”2

So rather than viewing the question of governmentally mandated prohibitions on working as one which any man with a grasp of the law of non-contradiction and the basic theology of the Bible can meditate on and thoughtfully and, perhaps, correctly answer by making an appeal to logic and the Scriptures, we have seen many men abdicate their responsibility to think about this matter. Men have sought the easier route of giving other men free rein over their own deliberations. And after all, why not? Your position in life, in academia, in the great intellectual chain of being, as it were, is completely distinct from the position of a Fauci or a Gates. On this view, you not only are not on the same level as these men, you are essentially a foreigner who must be led around by the hand through their pretentious academic constructions, and accept their self-disclosure as infallible, inerrant, and the basis for the formation of whatever thoughts in those disciplines you may have.

Back to Work

But this is clearly not the case, given that the Lord God has given us a very simple break down of how things in his creation are to work. In particular, the book of Genesis tells us very early on that work is activity that is required by the Lord. God did not suggest that Adam and Eve ought to work six days and rest on the seventh. He did not insinuate that it might be good for them to follow that pattern. He declared that this was the very purpose of man –

• Be fruitful

• Multiply

• Take dominion over the earth

• Subdue the earth

Man is, in other words, morally obligated to work six days a week. This is divine law, not the fanciful decree of some petty tyrant. Those who make your employment dependent on your submission to their arbitrary commands, mandates, edicts, etc are in flagrant violation of the law of God. To whom then do you submit? Are you arguing that it is in your interest to simply comply in order to not “stir the pot”? Then you are not reading the Scriptures closely enough.

Back to Genesis & the Fall

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He made man in his image – as a rational, volitional, and moral personal being. Being made in God’s image not only means that man is a rational, volitional, and moral personal being, but that he is such in a way that distinctly mirrors God. Man occupies the highest seat of authority over all of the vegetal and animal creatures in the universe (under God, of course) and, thereby, is capable of, and culpable for, exercising dominion over them. Working, in other words, is an inseparable consequence of man being the image of God. If man is not working, then he is not acting in accordance with his created nature which is the imago dei. Man, by his created nature as well as by divine decree, is obligated, and blessed with the opportunities and responsibility, to work.

If our understanding of the world is to be in accordance with the Scriptures, therefore, we must view man not merely as one who may work and thereby physically and externally reflect God’s image, but one whose being must do so. Not only this, but we must also view any prohibition on man’s ability and responsibility to work, if not explicitly or implicitly revealed by God, to be illegitimate, an illegal order that we ought not obey, lest we find ourselves placing the orders of wicked magistrates and rulers above and against the orders of the King of kings.

Please note that I am not here talking about those who are ill, disabled, etc who cannot work, as such conditions are, I believe, legitimately excusable grounds for one not working, as well as for not requiring another to work. Rather, I am talking about those who are forbidding others to work because they have not met some governmentally decreed arbitrary set of terms and conditions, as well as those who are fully capable of working and yet refuse to work because they have not met those arbitrary terms and conditions set up by the government. These individuals are forbidding what God commands (viz., work), and commanding what God forbids (viz., idleness).

While we exist outside of the Paradise Adam and Eve occupied, our occupation has not changed. Adam was placed in the garden to till and keep it, according to Gen 2:15. And once he had sinned, the Holy Spirit tells us the following –

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”

[…]

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.3

Prior to the Fall, man’s job was to till and keep the earth. After the Fall, man’s job was the same. And this implies that it is likewise our job to this day. Note the words used by the Lord in the passage above –

“…all the days of your life…”
“…till you return to the ground…”

How long is man to work? As long as he arbitrarily determines? Or all the days of his life? Till he gets bored or is too afraid to work? Or until he returns to the ground? The text is clear about this – man is to work, in one way or another, as long as he can, until he returns to the dust from which the Lord created him.

While we await the Lord’s return for his church, we are to work. If we are capable of working, we must. If the governing authorities attempt to tell us we cannot work unless we meet their terms and conditions, we must decide who it is we are going to obey – the Lord of the universe whose jurisdiction is over all of creation? Or those who are acting outside of their jurisdictional boundaries – namely those of rewarding good and punishing evil (as per Rom 13:1-7) – and placing themselves as authorities over and above and against the Creator himself?

1 See my article “The Tyranny of Bureaucracy vs. The Sovereignty of God,” Invospec, Oct 29, 2020, https://www.invospec.org/2020/10/the-tyranny-of-bureaucracy-vs.html.

2 See my article “Debunking the ‘Expertise Rule,’” ThornCrown Ministries, July 10, 2020, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/2020/7/10/debunking-the-expertise-rule.

3 Gen 3:17-23. (emphasis added)

“We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.  We are loyal to our flag.”

-          Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, Presbyterian Minister and Union Civil War Veteran

“Our patience is wearing thin.” Thus did the imposter-in-chief and son of Antichrist Joe Biden bellow from the lectern on Thursday. 

More fully, his comments were:

My message to unvaccinated Americas is this: what more is there to wait for, what more do you need to see?  We’ve made vaccinations free, safe, and convenient.  The Vaccine is FDA approved [it isn’t, but that’s another matter]. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot.  We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.  And your refusal has cost all of us.  So please, do the right thing.  But don’t just take it from me.  Listen to the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds taking their final breath saying, “if only I’d gotten vaccinated! If only!” It’s a tragedy.  Please don’t let it become yours.

With his words, this treasonous liar managed, in very short order, to declare war, not just on unvaccinated Americans, but on all the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of all Americans.

Quite apart from the fact that the Covid vaccines are unsafe and ineffective, Biden’s arrogant and threatening words are among the most disturbing, unconstitutional, and unchristian utterances made by any American politician ever.  It’s that serious. 

There is no provision in our Constitution that allows a president to dictate what medical treatments a person must have.  There is no support for such a thing in Scripture. 

Far from it. 

In 1988, Joe Biden’s bid for the White House was short circuited when it turned out he had, “lifted portions of a speech by United Kingdom Labour MP and Margaret Thatcher challenger Neil Kinnock.”   

It only he had stuck with plagiarizing Neil Kinnock.

Now, when speaking as President in 2021, it seems that Biden has raised his game, lifting his ideas from a higher source.  In this case, Revelation 13 seems to be where Biden is stealing his ideas these days.  There we read, “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

It is not my point here to argue that the Covid vaccine answers to the prophecy in John’s Revelation. With that said, Biden’s threat to the unvaccinated is certainly of that same spirit we find in Revelation.  “Do what I tell you, or else!” 

It’s also of the same spirit one finds in the Roman Catholic Church, the Great Babylonian Harlot of Revelation.  In the middle ages, Rome was all about “do what we say, or else!”  If you didn’t believe that Christ really, truly was present in the sacrifice of the mass, well, you were in a whole lot of trouble and would likely find yourself on the receiving end of some nasty business.  This is what dogma is.  “Believe, or else!”  No matter how stupid, absurd, and unbiblical Rome’s pronouncements were. You had to accept what the pope and his henchmen said or suffer the consequences.

Back in 2006 in his essay “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century,”  John Robbins wrote, “The Protestant Reformation is indeed over; the respite of peace, freedom, and prosperity it afforded the West from the long history of human brutality is drawing to a close; and the world is about to enter a new Dark Age of slavery, brutality, and war.  Only the second coming of Christ or an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit can prevent religious totalitarians from imposing their will on billions of people.”

Some may have thought Robbins a pessimist when he wrote that.  But fifteen years later, his words seem downright prescient.

America is suffering under the government of its second Roman Catholic president.  And unlike the first one, John F. Kennedy, Biden not only sees no need to hide his political and economic Romanism, but actually goes out of his way to embrace them.    

By political and economic Romanism, I mean the application of the Roman Catholic Church-State’s (RCCS) theology and philosophy to those two disciplines.

Joe Biden’s Political and Economic Romanism

We’ve already seen one example of Joe Biden’s political Romanism in his arrogant announcement of vaccine mandates.  But one can find many other examples of Biden openly embracing the economics and politics of the Woman Who Rides the Beast. 

On his 2020 campaign website, we read:

In his encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis directed the global community to raise awareness about the growing climate change crisis. Climate change threatens communities across the country, from beachfront coastal towns to rural farms in the heartland. Joe’s plan will tackle climate change and pollution to protect our communities.

By favorably citing Jesuit Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, Biden is advancing not only Rome’s environmentalist agenda but the ultimate aim of that agenda: global government.   In Laudato Si, Pope Francis, the current occupant of the office of Antichrist, approvingly quoted his immediate predecessor Antichrist, writing:

Given this situation, it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago”(emphasis mine).

With the above in mind, is it any surprise that one of Biden’s first acts in office was to put America back into the treasonous Paris Climate Accord?  By doing this, Biden promoted the climate change of globalist lies of the RCCS.

Biden’s praising of Pope Francis’ socialist economics predates the 2020 presidential campaign.  In 2014, when many liberty minded Roman Catholics were aghast of Pope Francis’s open attack on capitalism in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Joe Biden said of one of the Pope’s critics, “As a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned.”

We have already seen Biden’s thuggish attitude to those who disagree with the Covid vaccine campaign.  But Biden is not the first Covid authoritarian.  And while Pope Francis is certainly not the only Covid authoritarian, he is certainly one of the most prominent. 

Back in February of this year, there was this headline in the Huffington Post, “Vatican Threatens To Fire Employees Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccine.” Antichrist loves the vax so much that, aping him, his Mini Me in the White House wants to bring the same blessing to Americans coast to coast.  Except, of course, to members of Congress and their staff.  They’re exempted. Rules are for little people!  Shades of the middle ages indeed, where there was one law for the nobility, and another for everyone else. 

Critical Race Theory is another point of agreement between the Biden regime and Antichrist.  They both think it’s wonderful.  In an article titled “Critical race theory and Catholicism go hand in hand,” Jesuit Patrick Saint-Jean wrote that, “CRT [Critical Race Theory] intersects easily with Catholic social teaching.”  Doubtless, it does. But then, that’s a condemnation of Rome’s evil and ungodly Social Teaching, not a confirmation of its righteousness as the Jesuit author of the article thinks.

Unsurprisingly, Joe Biden – it’s worth mentioning here that Biden attends a Jesuit-run parish in Washington D.C. – also thinks CRT is just awesome and something we Americans all need more of. 

How about immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement?  Once again, there is no distinction at all between the policies of the Biden regime and pronouncements of the Antichrists current and past on this topic.  In short, both the Pope and Joe Biden think it’s a great idea to flood the nation with immigrants, migrants, and refugees and stick the American people with the bill, all the while denouncing them as a bunch of depolorables for even so much as questioning whether these policies are good for the American people or make any economic sense.  In his blasting critique of Strangers No Longer, Pastor Ralph Ovadal called this “romanizing America through illegal immigration.” 

But it’s not just illegal immigration that the Popes of Rome, including the current Pope, use to destroy nations. It’s also welfare refugee resettlement.  Both Pope Francis and Joe Biden want to flood America with Afghan refugees.  Antichrist Pope Francis even prayed, “that displaced persons inside Afghanistan receive assistance and protection.”  That is to say, Francis wants them on the public dole.  This is one of Rome’s most flagrant refugee scams, conflating Christian charity, which is always the voluntary giving of one’s own things, with state-run welfare, which is theft. 

Naturally, the Biden regime thinks the same thing.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Biden Administration Seeks New Law to East Afghan Refugees’ Path to Green Cards.”  So we can import literally plan loads of people, many of whom the State Department has no idea who they are and of whom, “only a small share of those entering the U.S. qualified through the Special Immigrant Visa program intended for Afghan interpreters, drivers, embassy workers and other who directly worked for the American military and U.S. contractors.”  Let the refugee handouts begin! 

I could go on, but the reader by now should be able to see that political and economic Romanism is, far from being accidental, is the very warp and wood of the Biden regime. 

If Americans are to have any chance of retaining any of their remaining liberties, it is imperative for Christians to denounce and refute the political and economic Romanism of the Biden regime.  

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ “

-          Luke 22:25

In the event you have a life to live and don’t have hours of free time every day to monitor the latest big plans the master-of-the-universe-types have for the rest of us serfs, peasants, and minions, you may be surprised to hear that the great high holy week of globalism has arrived.  It’s Davos time!

What’s that you say?  You’ve never heard of Davos? Well, you just don’t know what you’re missing.  Davos is a town in Switzerland that once a year plays host to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the exclusive annual January gathering of the world’s great and good where they discuss weighty and important topics that you and I can’t understand and make big plans for how to impose their vision of the future on us. 

The Corporate Line

I admit, I haven’t paid much attention to the run up to this year’s gathering.  What tipped me off this time around, though, was all the climate change hype that kept showing up on CNBC, a financial channel I follow regularly.

For example, one recent headline on CNBC read “Capitalism ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy’ if business does not act on climate change, Mircosoft CEO Satya Nadella says.”      

This is a new take on climate change.  Generally, what you hear from the mainstream media (MSM) is that it’s capitalism itself that is causing climate change and that it needs to be ended in favor of the sort of Green New Deal Marxist claptrap one hears from the likes various American politicians whose names I won’t mention in this space. 

But here’s a businessman - the CEO of Microsoft no less! – announcing to the world that climate change is an existential threat to capitalism.  Adapt or die, seems to be is message.

The article begins by announcing, “The science is clear that environmental sustainability must factor in a corporation’s growth plans, or the capitalist and economic system the U.S. enjoys ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy.’ “  Now the piece doesn’t say exactly what “science” is “clear” to the point that it requires the radical re-evaluation of the purpose of a corporation as is proposed in this article, but one supposes Nadella is referring to the report put out by the WEF just in time for the group’s 2020 meeting this week in Davos.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but about halfway into the article one comes across the obligatory “Orange Man Bad” reference.  You see, unlike righteous CEO’s such as Nadella who care about the environment, Orange Man, “has tapped the brakes on a number of the country’s climate initiatives, such as pulling the U.S. out of the multilateral 2017 Paris Agreement.”

After plowing through a lot of corporate-speak virtue signaling, about “sustainability” and Microsoft’s new “Climate Innovation Fund” we read,   

Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood, appearing alongside Nadella later in the interview, said the eco-friendly program along with the company’s $750 million commitment to affordable housing in Seattle, Washington “are good returns on investments.”

Reflecting on this statement, author Tyler Clifford notes, “She stopped short of projecting what the return on investment in these initiatives would be, but explained that it will be measured and the company will hold itself accountable.” 

So the Microsoft CFO won’t offer a projection of the return on investment of these “eco-friendly” programs?  Remarkable.  Her silence on this subject should be a big clue.  Not only will the “eco-friendly” initiatives not be profitable, they almost certainly will destroy shareholder value. 

Now one can feel a certain amount of sympathy for Nadella.  He’s the high-profile CEO of a hugely successful company.  As such, he’s expected to talk the talk and walk the walk of the master of the universe types whose good graces he must court.  My guess, he probably doesn’t believe all the sustainability nonsense he talks about.  It’s just the cost of doing business.

The Davos Globalist Line and Antichrist

While Nadella’s comments aren’t openly globalist, another article on CNBC let the globalism behind the WEF report out of the bag.   

WEF has said it aims to assist governments and international institutions in tracking progress toward the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Paris Agreement was the destructive treaty, from which President Trump wisely pulled the US.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, known more formally as The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is a formula for international socialism and world government, which unsurprisingly has been openly praised by globalist Pope Francis.

Writing in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home, the current occupant of the Office of Antichrist, Pope Francis, openly called for world government as the cure for the so-called environmental crisis.  Worth noting Pope Francis did so by quoting his predecessor Benedict XVI, who himself referenced his predecessor Pope John XXIII (the Vatican II pope).  Wrote Francis,

Given this situation, it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago”.

So Popes Benedict and Francis agree, there is a need, in fact an urgent need, for “a true world political authority.” Even the secular globalists at Davos aren’t quite that open about their plans to rule the world.  But the Antichrist popes of Rome not only say it, but they nearly shout it from the rooftops.  As Jesus said of the Pharisees, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

It’s doubtful that the masters-of-the-universe at Davos or the UN or in the Vatican really believe the stated goals of the Paris Agreement, the UN’s Sustainable Development goals or the flowery nonsense about “our Sister, Mother Earth” found in Laudato Si.  More likely, they do believe in the unstated goals of these programs:  unlimited power over humanity.

John Robbins on the Ecologers   

As far back as 1972, John Robbins clearly identified the power lust that lurked behind the environmentalists’ mask.  “The ecologers,” he wrote, “do not wish to have dominion over the Earth and subdue it:  They wish to have dominion over men and subdue them” (“Ecology:  The Abolition of Man,” in Freedom and Capitalism, page 561). 

Closing Thoughts

In Genesis 1, God commanded man to, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Some theologians call this gift of dominion the cultural mandate. 

Because of the commandment, Christianity has a radically different view of man’s relationship to the Earth than medieval mystic religions such as Roman Catholicism or modern secular movements such as environmentalism.  Christians hold that the Earth is not divine, it is God’s creation, made by him but separate from him.  Man is not part of nature, but rather has dominion over it.  Further, not only is it not wrong for man to increase in number and to exercise dominion over the Earth, but it is positively sinful form him not to do so.  For to refuse to multiply and to exercise dominion is to go against the express command of God himself, which is the very definition of sin.

The globalists and environmentalists of the 21st century – be they secularists like the Davos crowd, or religious like the Pope – stand all this on its head.  Man no longer has dominion over the Earth.  In their scheme of things, it is the Earth that has dominion over man.  Man must serve the goddess Mother Earth and they, her priests, will prescribe the appropriate sacrifices for us.

As did the rulers of the Gentiles in Jesus day, our globalist taskmasters aim to “exercise lordship” over us, all the while positing themselves as our “benefactors,” who are saving us from the ravages of the climate crisis.

But their program is not about benefiting mankind.  It's a subtle attack on freedom, capitalism and Christianity. 

Let the Lord's people hear his Word, let them stand upon it, and let them reject the globalist's wicked counsel.