Several months ago, we presented a lecture entitled God’s Laws on Theft—Just Weights and Measures. A few days ago, in doing some evening reading and Bible study, I came across this article by J. E. Rittenburg which was published in the January 1940 issue of Dr. Howard Rand’s Destiny magazine.
(In my library we have nearly all of the several decades of annual bound volumes of this treasure trove of Bible study material. And long ago we obtained permission from our friends at Destiny Publishers to reproduce articles from them. Dr. Rand passed away at the age of 102 in 1991.) All emphases and comments within [brackets] are mine unless otherwise noted.
Rittenburg’s article caught my attention because it begins where I also began as we used God’s laws on weights and measures to commence our study of theft on the global scale via unjust money systems.
Author Rittenburg instead segues into a discussion of God’s law in general which is a fine essay and we thought it suitable for sharing with our readers. Here is J. E. Rittenburg’s essay. QUOTE:
God’s Standard of Righteousness
STANDARD: That which is established by authority as a fixed rule or measure!
Now how far would we get in buying and selling goods and products if everyone had his own pair of scales adjusted to suit himself or a yardstick of whatever length that suited him? Such an idea is of course ridiculous.
Everyone must check his process of weighing and measuring by the standard if he expects to engage in selling goods and products. If other standards were as firmly fixed in the minds of the people as that of weights and measures this world would be saved much trouble and suffering, but this is regrettably not the case.
The standard of life and morals is very slightly esteemed these days, in fact there seems to be no standard. [That is so much more true now some 85 years later!]
Some of the men and women of the stage [Broadway, Hollywood, etc.] have their code of living which is not the same by which other folk are supposed to live. Thieves have a code of honor among themselves. Others seem to figure out what they want to do and make it a part of their code.
There is no sin committed in which people do not find a reason for justification. Men with evil desires reason themselves into thinking that anything is right, but God has said the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. [Jeremiah 17:9]
To correct this condition there must be a recognition of the true standard as established by the authority of God in the Ten Commandments, the greatest moral code this world has ever seen.
There are of course those who will say they do not want to be bound by a lot of rules, but is it irksome that we must obey the law of gravitation? Is it an imposition upon our freedom that we cannot walk off the roof of the house without getting injured?
Is it slavery that we cannot take hold of a high voltage wire? Those are some of the physical laws of God, and we obey them. The moral laws of God are just as important and should be as readily obeyed.
People who would cast aside all restraints may fancy that they have done away with God’s law by disregarding it, but someday they will awaken to a realization that the measuring rod of the Lord Almighty still remains and that they are the ones who have fallen short.
On the other hand, there are those like the rich young ruler who said, “All these commands have I kept from my youth up, what lack I yet?” A great deal is involved in that question. Jesus replied to his question by calling for a demonstration of that which he lacked and he failed to meet the test.
The requirements go deeper today than merely the outward act of obedience. God said, concerning the new covenant, “I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.” That is not the physical heart but our moral nature, the seat of our desires and affections.
God would place the desire and love to do His Will in our hearts, not simply the desire to do His Will in our outward acts (people sometimes want to do that for the sake of decency), but the love of God’s Ways in the attitude of the inmost feelings of the heart.
But there is the desire to do evil that was born in us; that often makes a person want to do wrong. As Romans gives it, “The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not that I do” and then the cry, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” and the immediate answer, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
There is deliverance from this abnormal condition of the soul. God takes the evil out and puts His Spirit in. God says, “A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
“And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.” To obey the command “Thou shalt not kill” it is not enough to refrain from murder, for he that hateth his brother is a murderer in the sight of God. The same heart-attitude applies for all the commands. Love is the fulfilling of the law.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ “This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. On these two hang all the law and the prophets.”
This is the promise that God has given to match this command: “And the Lord thy God shall circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy) God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live.’ (Deut. 30:6).
The spirit of the law (involving a heart-felt love to God and one’s fellowmen) was more than the rich young ruler was willing to accept for it meant to him the parting of cherished possessions and he turned away.
But note that the turning away brought sorrow and not joy. It is always so when we fail to walk in the light that God sheds on our pathway “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
Does individual salvation if possessed by the majority insure nations’ righteousness? Many believe it will and are centering all their efforts upon winning individuals to the ways of God, believing that they are doing all that God requires of them.
This would seem to be reasonable were it not for the fact that God has just as definite requirements and conditions for the nation to follow as he has for the individual.
What does God require of the nation for their righteousness? “The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always… And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us.” (Deut. 6:24, 25).
Many seem to think that it is alright for God to rule individual lives—let everyone keep the ten commandments and the spirit of them too, but let God keep His hand off the nations. Man, so they think, is the only one wise enough to make laws for national guidance.
Let God give commandments to individuals, they say, but only [so that] Congress and Parliaments and other Legislative bodies can deal with the needs of the nation. They may not say this in so many words but it all amounts to this when we analyze their attitude toward Him and His laws.
Nevertheless God has made laws for the nation. Every day it is becoming more and more manifest to the world that man’s laws and governments, except wherein they harmonize with God’s laws, are bringing the nations to ruin.
And every day there are those who are beginning to realize that God has made laws for the nation as truly as he has made laws for the individual, and that the restoration and observance of these laws would solve the problems of the nation. Some are seeing it as through a glass darkly—but clearer and clearer the light is breaking.
Many have thought that because the laws of ordinances and sacrifices were fulfilled in Christ that this ended all the administrative law for the nation. Christ said, “I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfill. Verily I say unto you one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.”
God purposed to set up a model kingdom at Sinai which eventually was to include all the earth. The rebellion and stubbornness on the part of the nation in their refusal to follow His plans postponed the completion of the plan, but nevertheless the purposes of God shall come to pass.
God said to Israel, “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” Daniel speaking of the same kingdom says, “And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.” [I.e., the stone kingdom.]
God’s word has not failed and many are identifying the Israel nations in the world today by marks of prophecy upon them. Who are they? The outstanding ones are those designated by prophecy as a great people, a nation and a company of nations. Look over the world today for the nations answering to that description together with a hundred other marks of identification given by these same prophets.
You will find them as a people who have forgotten the commandments, statutes and judgments of the Lord when of old they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Because they have failed to keep this law it brought trouble to Israel then and it is doing so today.[Emphasis in the original.]
Do you think it was God’s will that Jesus had to say, “The poor ye have with you always?” Do you think it was God’s will that he had to say to Israel of old, “The poor shall never cease out of the land?”
We know it was not His will for in the very same chapter (Deut. 15) we find a national law given to the Israel people and the purpose of the law as given in the marginal reading, “To the end that there be no poor among you.”
The presence of the poor was an evidence of the failure on the part of some to observe this law. The law came so near to perfect functioning in Solomon’s reign that II Kings 4:25 tells us that every man dwelt safely under his vine and fig tree from Dan even “to Beersheba all the days of Solomon.”
David tells us in Psalms 9:18 that “The needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever.” Micah says of the time yet in the future, “That they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
The national laws written in the law books of our Bible are just as perfect for the well-being of the nation as the ten commandments are for the moral life of the individual.
Many seem not to know that God gave laws that would do away with poverty, laws pertaining to taxation, the holding of property, interest, naturalization of foreigners, laws for punishing, and for insuring the well-being of the people under the blessing and protection of God. “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). Israel comes short of measuring up to this standard.
Isaiah tells of the time when “judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter.”
But God says of such a time, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord.”
To turn from transgression is the only way out of our troubles. Transgression for the nation is, “Yea all Israel have transgressed thy Law, even turning aside that they should not obey thy voice, therefore hath the curse been poured out upon us.” (Daniel 9:11).
God said to Israel of old—while they were keeping some of the fasts and formalities of their religion — “Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that yet break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).
This is a call to a nation and followed by words like these, “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
“Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer, thou shall cry and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul—then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday.
“And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.
“And they that be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thus shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.” (Isaiah 58:8-14).
Remember these words were given by a prophet of the Lord and have prophetic meaning. The prophecies abound in words like these telling of a time when God shall be honored among His people in all the earth and the blessing of God shall rest upon them.
“At that day shall a man look to his maker and his eyes shall have respect to the holy one of Israel.” (Isaiah 17:7).
“For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel; and set them in their own land and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.” (Isaiah 14:1).
“And in mercy shall the throne be established and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and hasting righteousness.” (Isaiah 16:5).
“For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:32).
[NOTE: These three are the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government respectively. In a godly theocratic republic, our three separate branches must adhere to the laws, statutes, and judgments of the Supreme Ruler of all, the Lord (Yahweh)!
The functions of our judges, Congress, and President are to prayerfully study to understand God’s law and then how to apply it to modern conditions.]
“Then judgment [justice] shall dwell in the [once] wilderness [of North America] and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.” (Isaiah 32:16-18).
“In the last days it shall come to pass that many nations shall come and say, ‘Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’” (Micah 4:1).
“And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth even forever.” (Micah 4:7). “And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.” (Obadiah 21).
Here is our guarantee of fulfillment: “For I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done. Yea 1 have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11).
If we would but let God open our eyes we would behold wondrous things out of His law. When all nature, all nations and all men on the earth conform to His will it will be a glorious world.
Order and not chaos will then reign—Peace instead of war, Love instead of hate. Is the law of God a grievous thing—is it a shame that He has lifted up a standard? Ah! No, thank God that He has. Soon we shall realize the glory of it all when He shall take over His great power and reign. END QUOTE
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