Lux Lucet

The Israelite army defeats the armies of Sihon and Og.

And the children of Israel said to him, “We will go by the Highway, and if I or my livestock drink any of your water, then I will pay for it; let me only pass through on foot, nothing more” (Numbers 21:19).

“The émigré Holy Family of Nazareth, fleeing into Egypt, is the archetype of every refugee family. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relatives, his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil.”

Thus began Pope Pius XII in his 1952 Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana (hereafter EFN), the most important statement to date by the Roman Catholic Church-State on the subjects of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement.

Having gone over EFN is some detail in earlier posts in this series, I shall not repeat myself here. But I wanted to mention EFN in connection with this week’s post, because my topic today ties back to the prior discussion on EFN.

In this respect, the words of John Robbins on philosophic systems is worth calling to mind. I don’t have the reference immediately handy, but I do recall hearing or reading Robbins state that when philosophic systems go wrong, they tend to go wrong right from the beginning. That is to say, you don’t have to plow through a thousand tedious pages of argumentation before you realize someone’s talking nonsense. If you know what to look for, you can spot the foolishness quickly.

Such is the case with EFN. Infallible Pope Pius XII drops the ball right away when he makes the rather shocking blunder of saying that the Biblical account of Joseph’s taking Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape Herod, “is the archetype of every refugee family.” Now an archetype is defined by Merriam Webster as, “the original pattern of model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies.” But it seems to this author that the Pope is manifestly wrong in his assertion.

In the first place, the scale doesn’t quite fit the sort of mass migration that was occurring at the time Pope Pius XII wrote his Apostolic Constitution, or, for that matter, the sort of mass migration the current occupant of the office of Antichrist is encouraging. One family versus millions is not really a great comparison.

Second, the Bible is silent about how the Joseph and his family were supported. While Rome boldly asserts that the governments of receiving nations have an obligation to take property from citizens (i.e. Rome claims governments must steal from their own people) and transfer it to migrants, immigrants and refugees, the account of Joseph and his family in Egypt supports no such theft.

Third, unlike many of today’s migrants, Joseph took his family and returned home once the danger was past. But unlike Joseph, the representatives of the Babylonian Harlot fight tooth and nail to make sure all migrants remain in the receiving countries, even when they entered the receiving country on explicitly temporary terms. For example, in January 2018 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a press release lamenting how disappointed they were to hear that the Trump administration had cancelled the Temporary protected Status (TPS) of Salvadorans who had been allowed to stay in the US as a result of the devastation wrought on El Salvador by Hurricane Mitch. What the bishops failed to mention in their release is that Hurricane Mitch had hit El Salvador in, wait for it, 1999. In other words, the Salvadorans “temporary” status in the US was in its nineteenth year. Still, nearly nineteen years of American generosity wasn’t enough to satisfy the moral conscience of USCCB as they proceeded to lecture Americans on their need to “love the resident alien” as if they hadn’t already gone far any above any reasonable efforts. What part of “temporary” do the bishops not understand?

Clearly, even a brief consideration of the flight to Egypt reveals that it does not support the case for unlimited, taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration and refugee resettlement that Antichrist and his representatives in the USCCB want you to think it does. This, however, does not mean the Bible is silent on these topics. Actually, it has quite a lot to say about migration, but you have to look in the right place. And where would that be? Is there an example of a mass exodus to be found anywhere in Scripture? Why yes, there most certainly is. And the account of that mass exodus is found, oddly enough, in the Book of Exodus and the following books of Moses.

Kadesh at Wadi Musa.  From here, Moses sent messengers to speak to the king of Edom.

Moses and Israel on the Border of Edom

In Numbers chapter 20, we find the following account of Moses and Israel on the border of Edom,

Now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom. “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardship that has befallen us, how our father went down to Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers. When we cried out to the LORD, He heard our voice and sent the Angel and brought us up out of Egypt; now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border. Please let us pass through your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King’s Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.’ ”

Then Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through my land, lest I come out against you with the sword.”

So the children of Israel said to him, “We will go by the Highway, and if I or my livestock drink any of your water, then I will pay for it; let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.”

Then he said, “You shall not pass through.” So Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory; so Israel turned away from him (Numbers 20:14-21).

This is one of the clearest passages in Scripture concerning migration and God’s view of private property. And it is a passage, in this author’s view, that not only is directly applicable to the migrant situation facing the United States, Europe and other industrialized areas of the world.

First, note Moses’ attitude toward Edom. Note especially what Moses does not, do: make demands. Scripture calls Moses the meekest man of all, and here we see his servant’s heart in the way he approaches Edom. He doesn’t show up with a lot of attitude, but rather appeals to the Edomites on the basis of their close blood relationship with Israel, “Thus says your brother Israel.”

In sharp contrast to Rome’s migrants whom Antichrist encourages to barge into countries that are not their own in violation of the receiving nations’ immigration laws, Moses shows great respect for the territory of the Edomites.

Second. Moses respects the property rights of Edom. Not only does Moses not appeal to the universal destination of goods – the universal destination of goods, you may recall, is the fallacious Roman Catholic doctrine of original communism that says that need is the only moral title to property – but he actually goes out of his way to show respect for the property of the Edomites. After humbly asking permission to enter Edom’s territory, Moses continues, “We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King’s Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.”

If the universal destination of goods were, in fact, a biblical doctrine, here is a perfect time for Moses to appeal to it. After all, Moses and the Israelites had been in the wilderness nearly forty years at this point and had suffered many hardships. And all this while on a mission God had explicitly called them to. Yet Moses never so much as hints that the Edomites are obligated to give Israel anything. Not passage through their territory. Not food. Not water. Quite the opposite, Moses goes to great pains to emphasize his respect for the property of the Edomites.

Third, when Edom denies the Israelites passage through their territory, Moses doesn’t call down fire from the heavens to consume them. He doesn’t threaten them with the plagues of Egypt. He doesn’t curse or lecture them. Rather, as Numbers tells us, “so Israel turned away from him [Edom].” Now one could made the argument that Edom should have heeded Moses’ voice and allowed Israel to pass through. Moses terms were entirely reasonable. And had Edom agreed to them, perhaps God would have rewarded them in some way. Certainly, an act of kindness by Edom would have helped heal the division that had existed between the two nations for, at that point, some four hundred years. Perhaps it would have laid the groundwork for better relations between the two nations in the years ahead.

But part of owing property means being able to use it as one sees fit. In the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, the owner of the vineyard defends himself against the claims of the works by asking rhetorically, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” The obvious answer to which is, yes it is. Such was the case with the Edomites. If ownership is to retain its meaning, it must include the right to use one’s things as one sees fit. We could wish that Edom had acted more graciously, but he chose not to. And Moses respected that decision.

Welcoming the Stranger

Popes, bishops and their fellow travelers among Evangelical Social Justice Warriors love to lecture Christians, and Americans in general, on their duty to “love the stranger among you.” While God does indeed command Christians to be charitable, I submit that the incident between Israel and Edom gives us a clue as to what this command actually means in practice.

One thing it does not mean is that migrants, immigrations and refugees have a claim on the property of a nation’s citizens. Welcoming the stranger in the context of the Old Testament means that the Israelites were not to persecute someone because he’s a foreigner. It does not mean that the foreigners among them had a right to the property of the Israelites.

This, of course, does not mean that an Israelite could not show charity to a foreigner. Boaz, for example, showed great kindness toward Ruth, a foreigner from Moab. But there was no Israelite Internal Revenue Service in charge of forcibly taking money from Israelites, in order to redistribute it to the strangers in the land.

Boaz’ act of charity was his own private choice, which is the pattern of all legitimate Christian charity. If some American wants to show charity to a foreigner in need, very well. That’s his business. But let him give of his own time and his own money. No one has a right to give away his neighbor’s goods, neither does he have the right to petition the government to take his neighbor’s property to give to foreigners.

And yet this is the very thing – demanding the government take money from citizens and give it to refugees, migrants and immigrants – that is the hallmark of Antichrist’s migrant policy. They constantly lecture industrialized nations about their supposed obligation to the poor of migrants, while rarely admitting that what they’re calling for is international socialism

Moses on Israel on the Border of the Amorites

Almost as if to drive the Bible’s teaching on migrants home, there is a second account of Moses and Israel on the border of another foreign nation, this time that of the Amorites. The account in Numbers is as follows,

Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into fields or vineyards; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.” But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all this people together and went out against Israel in the wilderness, and he came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. Then Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok… (Numbers 21:21-24).

This second account of Israel requesting to pass through the territory of another nation is, in many ways, similar to the account above when they were on the border of Edom. Once again, Moses asks, he does not demand, passage through the territory of a foreign nation. Once again, Moses promises to respect the property of the people of the foreign nation, stating that Israel will stay on the King’s Highway only and will not steal Amorite’s property.

The obvious difference is in the reaction of the Amorites. Not satisfied with defending their property, Sihon and his people proceed to attack Israel, though Israel had done nothing to provoke them, and were defeated. It’s important to understand that the defeat of the Amorites was not the result of their refusal to allow Israel to pass through. It was the result of their unprovoked attack on God’s people. For this reason they were destroyed and not for their refusal “to welcome the stranger.” If failure to welcome the stranger were cause for God to bring about the destruction of a nation, then we would expect that Edom likewise would have been destroyed.

Closing Thoughts

The Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth. This means that when seeking answers to questions about migration, immigration, and refugee resettlement, we must turn to the pages of God’s Word to find the truth.

But merely quoting the Bible to support one’s position does not, in fact, mean that one’s stance is the correct one. The devil can, and has, quoted the Word of God to defend his evil schemes. One thinks of the temptation in the garden of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness as examples of this. But Satan’s use of Scripture always will come with flaws. In the case of the garden, he cleverly misquoted God, making God’s restriction seem more onerous than what it was. Further, he used the quote to impugn God’s motives. In the case of Christ, he misapplied the Word of God to make it seem as if it commanded actions that it did not.

The Roman Church-State is Satan’s masterpiece. And just as their father, the prelates of Rome are not above misquoting and misapplying the Word of God to serve their evil ends. In this case, the popes and bishops of Rome seek to use mass, taxpayers subsidized immigration, migration and refugee resettlement as a means of Romanizing Protestant nations, making other nations ungovernable, and folding them all into their planned world superstate.

It’s worth asking, if Rome cared so much about the citizens of the Central American nations it tirelessly works to import into the United States, why does it not try to help them where they live. After all, the Roman Church-State is the dominate institution in these nations and has been for hundreds of years. If Rome cares so much about the people of Honduras, Guatamala and Mexico, why does it not do more to improve conditions in those countries instead of encouraging people not only to undertake a physically dangerous and long journey, but also to violate the immigration laws of the United States? Could it be that Rome is simply using these unfortunate individuals to further her own cynical interests?

In the opinion of this author, Rome’s assertion that the flight of Joseph and his family is the “archetype of every refugee family” is simply another example of Rome attempting to read into the Scriptures a doctrine foreign to them. EFN is a failure, because it is an attempt to make the Scriptures say something they don’t say.

Far from supporting mass, taxpayer funded immigration schemes – schemes which Rome in its more honest moments admits will cost taxpayers a fortune as their governments, at the behest of Rome, implement a strategy of stealing from them to benefit migrants – the Bible everywhere defends the rights of nations to protect themselves against foreign threats and nowhere requires citizens to bear the costs of the strangers among them.

It is the duty of every American Christian to insist that their government respect their property rights and the property rights of their fellow citizens from the rapacious predations of the Roman Church-State and the migrants attempting to flood across our Southern border, to a large degree at the urging of the Pope and those who follow him and his incompetent and evil brand of economics and politics.

(To be continued…)