Sermon: God's Stare Decisis

#1632
Mark Schindler
Given 01-Jan-22; 62 minutes

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On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Sanford vs. Dred Scott and the decision only intensified the division in the United States over the issue of slavery.

The following I gleaned from the History Channel online:

In 1834, Dred Scott, a slave, had been taken to Illinois, a free state, and then to Wisconsin Territory where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Scott lived in Wisconsin with his master, Doctor John Emerson, for several years before returning to Missouri, a slave state.

In 1846, after Emerson died, Scott sued his master's widow for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived as a resident of a free state and territory. He won his suit in the lower court, but the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the decision.

Scott appealed the decision, and as his new master, J. F. A. Sanford, was a resident of New York, a federal court decided to hear the case on the basis of the diversity of state citizenship represented. After a federal district court decided against Scott, the case came on appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court, which was divided along slavery and anti-slavery lines, although the southern justices had the majority.

During the trial the anti-slavery justices used the case to defend the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, which had been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The southern majority responded by ruling on March 6, 1857 that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. Three of the southern justices also held that the African-Americans who were enslaved or whose ancestors were enslaved were not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing in the court.

These rulings all confirmed that in the view of the nation's highest court, under no condition did Dred Scott have the legal right to request his freedom. The Supreme Court verdict further inflamed irrepressible differences in America over the issue of slavery, which in 1861 erupted with the outbreak of the American Civil War.

I am using this very prejudicial, biased ruling merely to lay a part of the foundation for this sermon. At the time this decision was made, a southern aristocrat by the name of Roger Taney was the fifth Chief Justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court, and had been appointed in 1836 by then President Andrew Jackson. Chief Justice Taney wrote the majority opinion that stated, “Slaves did not have rights of federal citizens,” relegating slaves to nothing more than private property.

In following this line of judicial reasoning, Taney claimed that the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution protected slave owners rights. The 5th is the amendment that more famously protects a person from double jeopardy regarding prosecutorial judgment for the same crime, as well as the right not to be compelled to testify against oneself. However, the last line of the Fifth Amendment states, “. . . nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

This decision of the majority led by Taney is considered to this day one of the worst and most consequential rulings of the Supreme Court. As an interesting bit of irony, this decision actually gave impetus to the anti-slavery Republican Party's victory in the next presidential election. And Chief Justice Roger Taney became the man who issued the oath of office to the 16th president of the United States, the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln.

I would like us to fast forward now to the nation's current Supreme Court in a section of the oral arguments that took place one month ago today on December 1, 2021, in another case that is at the heart of one of the most divisive issues here and around the world.

This is a short section cited from the oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson's Women Health. In his opening argument, Scott C. Stewart, the solicitor general for the state of Mississippi said,

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court, Roe v Wade, as well as Planned Parenthood v Casey haunt our country. They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. They've damaged the democratic process. They've poisoned the law. They've choked off compromise.

For 50 years they've kept this court at the center of the political battle that it can never resolve. And 50 years on, they stand alone. Nowhere else does this court recognize a right to end a human life.

Consider this case: The Mississippi law here prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. The law includes robust exceptions for a woman's life and health. It leaves months to obtain an abortion. Yet the courts below struck the law down. It did not matter that the law applies when an unborn child is undeniably human, when risks to women's surge, and when the common abortion procedure is brutal.

The lower courts held that because the law prohibits abortions before viability, it is unconstitutional no matter what.

Roe and Casey's core holding, according to those courts, is that the people—the people!—can protest an unborn girl's life when she can just barely survive outside the womb, but not any earlier when she needs a little more help. That is the world under Roe and Casey. That is not the world the Constitution promises. The Constitution places its trust in the people.

On hard issue after hard issue,” he continues, “the people make this country work. Abortion is a hard issue. It demands the best from all of us, not a judgment by just a few of us. When an issue affects everyone and when the constitution does not take sides, it belongs to the people.

Roe and Casey have failed. But the people, if given the chance, will succeed. This court should overrule Roe and Casey and uphold the state's law.

At this point, beginning with Justice Clarence Thomas, they started their Q and A session with Solicitor General Stewart. But I would rather like to skip ahead to Justice Stephen Breyer, and then to Justice Maria Sotomayor in their comments regarding two things that we are going to hear quite a bit more over the next months and years ahead, as those who support abortion will fight to continue abortions as granted with a ruling just as poorly determined as the Dred Scott decision, with consequences much more severe.

An estimated 620,000 men died in The Civil War, not to mention the tens of thousands of human beings who remained under the yoke of slavery with less than human status as property. However, over 60 million human lives in the United States alone have been destroyed in the name of someone else's rights by the very poorly crafted Roe v Wade decision.

First is part of Justice Breyer’s exchange with Solicitor General Stewart regarding Roe and the subsequent 1992 Supreme Court ruling on planned Parenthood v Casey, the Casey decision upheld the 1973 ruling, and moved it farther down the road.

In his questioning of Solicitor General Scott, Justice Breyer said the following:

I'd like to go to a different topic altogether, back to Casey. There are two parts in the 1992 decision. One is they reaffirm Roe. Put that to the side.

Breyer continues, “The second is an opinion for the court, not for three people, but for the court, and that second part is about what stare decisis—principles—should be used and overrule the case like Roe. And they say Roe is special. What's special about it? They say Roe is rare. They call it a watershed. Why? Because the country is divided, because feelings run high, and yet the country, for better or worse, decided to resolve their differences by this court laying down a constitutional principle—in this case, women's choice. All right, that's what makes it rare.

That's not what I'm asking about. I want your reaction to what they said follows from that. What the court said follows from that is that it should be more unwilling to overrule a prior case. Far more unwilling we should be whether that case is right or wrong in the ordinary case. And why? Well, they have a lot of words there, but I'll give you about 10 or 20.

There will be inevitable efforts to overturn it. Of course there will. Feelings run high, and it is particularly important to show what we could do in overturning a case that is grounded in principle, not social pressure, not political pressure.

Only the most convincing justification can show that the latter decision’s overruling, if that's what we do, was anything but a surrender to political pressure or new members, and that is an unjustified repudiation of principles on which the court states its authority.

And then there are two sentences I'd like to read [this is still Justice Breyer] because they say they really mean this: The court, not just three, to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the court's legitimacy beyond any serious question.

In the last sentence in the crazy decision, after they quote Potter Stewart on the same point, they say, “Overruling unnecessarily and under pressure would lead to condemnation; the court’s loss of confidence in the judiciary; the ability of the court to exercise the judicial power; and to function as a Supreme Court of a nation dedicated to the rule of law.

Now, that's the opinion of the court, all right. And it is about stare decisis and how to approach it. I hope everyone reads this,” Justice Breyer said and finished with, “All right, what do you say to that?”

You know, it is quite ironic that Justice Breyer is so intense on keeping the key politics and emotion out of this case, and carefully upholding stare decisis—the precedent built on a past ruling—that was driven by politics in the first place. And Solicitor General Scott is just as adamant to turn the question back to what he considers the higher authority—the people.

Then this came from Justice Sotomayor:

What hasn't been an issue in the last 30 years is the line that Casey drew of viability. There has been some difference of opinion with respect to undue burden, but the right of a woman to choose, the right to control her own body, has been clearly set since Casey, and never challenged.

You want us to reject the line of viability and adopt something different? Fifteen justices over 30 years since Casey have reaffirmed the basic viability line, or have said no, two of them members of this court, but 15 Justices said yes of varying political backgrounds.

Now the sponsors of this bill [the house bill in Mississippi] said we are doing it because we have new justices. The newest ban that Mississippi has put in place—the six-week ban—the senate’s sponsor said we are doing it because we have new justices on the Supreme Court.

Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

Throughout the remainder of the transcript of 100 plus pages of oral arguments that I skimmed through, the main points were viability of the fetus, a woman's right to end the life of a child developing in her womb, and the intractable position of the Supreme Court regarding stare decisis when it suits their purpose, as it does for so many that are on the side of abortion rights.

You are probably going to be hearing this term “stare decisis” as well as “individual rights” quite a bit in the days ahead as abortionists try to stand on these issues to uphold Roe v Wade.

According to Justice Sotomayor's words in the transcript, Casey clearly set the standard 30 years ago that it was a woman's right to choose what she did with her own body under the Constitution, because the Supreme Court said so, and therefore stare decisis must prevail if the court is to maintain its credibility.

Stare decisis a legal principle by which judges are obligated to respect the precedent established by prior decisions. The words originate from the phrasing of the principal in the Latin maxim. In Latin it is, “Stare decisis et non quieta movere,” or, “To stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed.” In the legal context this means that the court should abide by precedent and not disturb settled matters. In applying stare decisis to the Dred Scott and the Roe decisions, we see a couple of very political decisions that are not to be disturbed by future rulings even if they were clearly wrong according to the court.

But I would like us to consider this: Is stare decisis an ungodly principle of judgment? What we are going to find is that stare decisis is a critical part of our preparations for places within the Family of God. I hope in this sermon you are going to see that this principle of judgment must be constantly on our minds in learning to stand on the undisturbed truth of God's Word.

A little later in this sermon, we will see what God expects us to be doing right now to build and reinforce our ability to make judgments built on the precedent of the word of truth as a privileged responsibility, not a right.

We are going to make judgments now and throughout eternity that must stand on past decisions. However, the one vital proviso is that these past decisions were made in line with the truth of God's Word.

Please turn with me to Genesis where we are going to take the first look at stare decisis within God's Word.

Genesis 1:26-31 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "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."

And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 2:7-9 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:15-25 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.

But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

And Adam said: " This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

We are starting with a basic premise here in Genesis 1:26-31. God made a specific purpose statement followed by several responsibilities, not rights, for man who was created in His own image and likeness. Again, in Genesis 2:7-25 God gives us a more detailed look at what occurred in those few verses in chapter 1. Although it not only gives more detail, it gives us a bit more insight into the process God gave man to identify kind after kind that was in line with truth. That was the first record of man's judgment according to stare decisis.

Consider the training that God must have been giving Adam from the beginning. You may find this comment on verse 19 from the Keil-Delitzsch Commentary helpful in seeing Adam making a proper judgment based on an already ‘not to be disturbed’ matter.

Keil-Delitzsch wrote:

The allusion is not to the creation of all the beasts, but simply to that of the beasts living in the field (game and tame cattle), and of the fowls of the air—to beasts, therefore, which had been formed like man from the earth, and thus stood in a closer relation to him than water animals or reptiles. For God brought the animals to Adam, to show him the creatures which were formed to serve him, that He might see what he would call them. Calling or naming presupposes acquaintance. Adam is to become acquainted with the creatures, to learn their relation to him, and by giving them names to prove himself their lord. God does not order him to name them; but by bringing the beasts He gives him an opportunity of developing that intellectual capacity which constitutes his superiority to the animal world.

The man sees the animals, and thinks of what they are and how they look; and these thoughts are cast into articulate sounds or words.

The thoughts of Adam with regard to the animals, to which he gave expression in the names that he gave them, we are not to regard as the mere results of reflection, or of abstraction from merely outward peculiarities which affected the senses; but as a deep and direct mental insight into the nature of the animals, which penetrated far deeper than such knowledge as is the simple result of reflecting and abstracting thought. The naming of the animals, therefore, led to this result, that there was not found a help meet for man.

Brethren, the point I want us to get from this is that Adam, in direct contact with the Creator and the truth, made judgments based on the truth that God apparently accepted. In accord with God's purpose, Adam was making decisions in line with the truth of God, that God was creating man in His own image and likeness. This truth was clearly settled in Adam's mind as he judged properly that none of these animals met that standard. Therefore, it became just as obvious to him after God created a woman that she was just like him, and therefore created to share the same relationship with him of growing more fully in the image and likeness of the great God.

So based on truth, there were correct judgments being made that were apparently sound and right in the line with God's declared purpose. But here comes the train wreck that derailed the process of making sound judgments built on God-given precedence.

We all know what came next. But as we look at Genesis 3, please keep stare decisis in mind as a short-hand or “to stand by decisions” and not disturbed the undisturbed.

Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.” Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

That is pretty much telling her, “It is your right!”

Genesis 3:6-13 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?" Then the man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." And the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

There are two things that happened here that changed our relationship with God and each other. They go hand-in-hand with what has been the point so far in this sermon, because they are both, perhaps, the most significant part of the problems we face today. There is failure to stand by the decisions “not to be disturbed” in the truth of God's Word. And there is a drive away from God by Satan’s own self-deception of, “This is your right!”

Brethren, we live in such divisive times that are only getting worse as rights are being demanded, and the making of decisions that are not built on truth, but on “what is best for our side and convincing others that it is to ensure our rights!” Do we really think that we can make proper decisions based on the truth of God's Word as long as we hold on to the “this is my right,” attitude that is trumpeted all around us throughout this world from all sides?

Please turn to Isaiah 66:

Isaiah 66:1-2 Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," says the LORD. But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.

Learning and living God's Word in a way that pleases God is only possible with a humble heart. But we are living in a world that is only driven by demanding rights rather than living His Word in fear with humility.

Turn to Psalm 34.

Psalm 34:8-15 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.

Psalm 34:18 The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

We began this sermon with the examples of the corrupt judgments of men that became the foundation for later judgments using the principle of stare decisis. We also considered as we saw in Genesis 3, that the major contributing factor to this is Satan’s own perverted thinking on individual rights that diminish God's Word.

What we see here, in this small sampling of these verses we just read, that those who are seeking life and true righteousness are those who come before God not demanding rights, but with an attitude of absolute humility that makes its way into every aspect of their lives. They are ready to listen with abiding respect for God and trembling at His every word. We positively must come to understand that while the world is screaming from every direction, “It’s my right,” our only God-given right is the privilege to submit to every word of God and the precedent of truth as God gives us the privilege to see it.

Brethren, nothing has changed in Satan's MO from the beginning. He still is pushing his agenda of rights versus the privileged opportunity that God has given to us to live and learn His way of peace and trembling at His every word. That means we need to be making the hard choices to steer clear of the bombastic rhetoric and contentions of this world while learning how to live godly lives within it.

Please consider this definition of rights as defined in Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary and let us think about it in terms of the reality of our citizenship being already in the Kingdom of God.

Right: conformity with rules that ought to regulate human action, in accordance with duty, truth, justice or the will of God; privilege belongs to one as a member of a state, society, or community.

Brethren, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, it is our privilege to live in this world while making proper judgments in humble submission to the truth of God's Word as He gives us the ability and opportunity to do so. Consider this in terms of what God has already blessed us with; what is ahead of us:

Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

There is a double-edged sword here. On the one hand, God tells us there are things that we just do not understand which certainly leaves an opening for Satan to stir the pot, just like he did with Adam and Eve. They did not know why they would die except that God said it would happen if they did not do what He told them. On the other hand, this verse is the absolute promise that He will give us exactly what we need to make our way through this life and do all the words of the law. Law is His instruction—His teaching.

Here is how Deuteronomy 29:29 is translated in the New Living Translation:

Deuteronomy 29:29 (NLT) The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we are and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.

This then brings us to a seemingly sharp turn in the sermon. However, I hope you are going to see that it is the bottom-line point of this sermon regarding learning to come before God in humility; learning to do what is pleasing to Him as we tremble at His every word. These words are life and they set the precedence for us make to make clear and right judgments in line with truth while learning to live God's way of life in a world that is driven Satan's way of, “It's my right.”

Just to reinforce where we are at and what we are supposed to be doing, turn to Romans 12.

Romans 12:1-16 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.

Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 13:1-4 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

Brethren, how seriously do we take this privileged duty to live humbly under those in authority over us as unto God? Or is Satan's lie, “It's my right,” still causing our thinking to be conformed to the image of this world?

It is at this point I want to borrow a page from my friend Joe Baity's playbook. Today is January 1st. And, according to the calendar of this world (which tries to do everything apart from God) today is the New Year. But in just 92 days is the first day of Abib, which is the beginning of God's sacred year. In 269 days will be Tishri 1, and the Feast of Trumpets, which marks the beginning of God's civil year. And then in 283 days we will be observing the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles.

(Just as an aside, after I have said all this, I would suggest that if for any of you that did not see yesterday's featured CGG Weekly, go back and read Richard's 2016 essay on "The Biblical New Year." It will fill in the details that we do not have time to go through regarding what God's word has to say about His holy days and how they relate to the times and the seasons of the year.)

Now with this in mind, it brings us to the main point of this sermon today: Twenty-seven years ago, John Ritenbaugh determined that it was his duty and responsibility to begin teaching every 7th year something that God clearly commands within His Word in Deuteronomy 31.

Deuteronomy 31:9-13 So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying: "At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess."

I want you to keep God's promises in mind regarding looking favorably on those who come before Him an abject humility and tremble at His Word. Also, understand that our great God who inhabits eternity and declares the end from the beginning does everything perfectly in order, according to the particular timing that only He has determined. He has determined what will happen, and He is the one who puts things together down to the very second.

So now I am going to read to you at length part of John Ritenbaugh's sermon that he gave during the Feast of Tabernacles at the end of the last seven-year cycle. We really need to be impressed by this, that God put this together for us and it therefore demands our undivided attention and preparations. In his 2015 sermon in part of his comments on the first five books, John said of Deuteronomy:

It does not say anywhere near the opening why Deuteronomy is given. That takes a lot more thought. It does not because that subject is too grand; it is too multifaceted, too profound; especially when one understands that what He gave is intended for all of God's people for the entire expanse of time from now on until God's purpose for mankind is completed.

I made my first effort speaking on Deuteronomy at a Feast of Tabernacles in 1994, when we held the feast in Kansas City, Missouri. I was somewhat familiar with the instruction to do so in Deuteronomy 31.

Deuteronomy’s overall intention is specifically broad. That 1994 attempt resulted in two sermons from Deuteronomy, seven years later in 2001, I gave four sermons from it. In 2008, I gave four more, and here we are again seven years later, 2015, and I plan to speak three times on it this year.

An interesting peculiarity that you may not be aware of is that the reason I spoke on it in 1994 is out of curiosity. Before the 1994 Feast Evelyn and I became curious about a cycle—if any existed of each of our years in the church sincebaptism. We made a chart featuring seven years, and we had each of our third tithe years very clearly marked. We arranged the entire chart into groups of seven years, beginning with our baptism in September of 1959. The arrangement revealed a number of items interesting to us. It turned out that when I began speaking on Deuteronomy that Feast of 1994, it was immediately following a multiple of a seventh year.

It was year 35 since our baptism. Seven times five when I began to learn specifically about the Shemita year. That is the year of release. From the Messianic Jewish Rabbi Johnathan Cohn, we discover that Evelyn and my seventh year was also in perfect alignment with the Shemita year as he calculated it.

Brethren, I need to interject at this point that Jonathan Cahn’s Shemitah year, or 7 year cycle, did not even confirm what God inspired John to do in 1994 until Cahn’s book The Harbinger came out following 9/11 during the 2001 cycle.

Continuing now with John’s comments from 2015:

This led to further intriguing discoveries, including that we first heard the World Tomorrow broadcast, and thus Herbert Armstrong, had our first contact with theWorldwide Church of Godminister, attended our firstSabbathservice, and were baptized all in one Shemita year—1959.

Out of curiosity we looked a little bit further. In Herbert Armstrong's autobiography we discovered that he was ordained as an elder near Pentecost in 1931, and that too was a Shemitah year, as was the year 1966, when Richard, our only son, was born, and I was ordained an elder in Pittsburgh in a Shemita year.

This most recent year of release (2015) ended at sunset September 13, on the Roman calendar at the same time that Elul 29, the last day of the Hebrew calendar ended. Thus Elul 29 is the Hebrew calendar equivalent of New Year’s Eve.

Leviticus 23:33-35 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel saying; “The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do not customary work on it.”

What I want to pick up again: sunset on Elul 29, which is Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets), began and so did a new Hebrew civil calendar year. So the first month of the civil year on the Hebrew civil calendar is Tishri. That is the month we are now in; in fact we are on day fifteen of Tishri in the new year.

Deuteronomy 31:10 (I want you all to notice,) “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles.

This is the clearest defining term in regard to when this responsibility is to be carried out—at the Feast of Tabernacles. At this very moment, as best we know, this command has once again begun being fulfilled in your ears.

By way of contrast, Moses wrote and spoke Deuteronomy on the last month of his life, which was also the last month of Israel's forty-year journey through the wilderness. The actual day, according toDeuteronomy 1:3, he began delivering Deuteronomy to the Israelites on Adar 1. I am giving you a lot of days and months. I do not want you to get confused as to what we are observing here, but I do want to put things in line so that you recognize that we are following exactly what the scripture says.

Israel left Egypt the day afterPassoverin the spring of the year. We are now in the fall of the year and we are observing this at the end of a Shemitah year in the Feast of Tabernacles. Tabernacles is a fall festival and thus Moses literally wrote and spoke Deuteronomy as winter was ending and spring was just about to begin.

Thus the dating of the beginning of the writing and the speaking of Deuteronomy was five weeks shy of exactly forty years after the first and only Passover Israel ever kept in captivity in Egypt.

John finished this section with this paragraph:

I am going through this because I want you to see how precisely God is giving these directions so you understand we are not just tossing things out at you. They are in the Book, and God recorded them for some reason, for our guidance.

Brethren, I read this to you because I wanted us to see on this 283^rd day before we begin to fulfill our responsibility to God to humbly strive to do what is pleasing to Him; that this is part of God’s carefully determined plan down to the second! God is giving us the opportunity to identify all of the stare decisis judgments He has laid before us to guide us in living the truth of His Word during what may be one of the most crisis filled years we have known.

John also said this in another sermon on Deuteronomy in 2015:

It is a very clear foundational statement of our responsibilities to God and to each other in a relationship with God. The major difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is the better promises in the new.

Deuteronomy's major use for us is as a compass, it is a tool to keep us on track both doctrinally in regard to the processes of salvation, and it also reminds us of a major part of the history of our heritage as the Israel of God. Much of the sermon I gave had to with our heritage and I am going to continue some of this.

As we continue to go through 2022, and more importantly, God’s year of release—apparently right on His schedule, and as we do the preliminary work to prepare our minds for what God wants us to learn this year from His Word.

I want to read a section to you from Jonathan Cahn’s book, The Harbinger, and what he saw as some prophecies being fulfilled in the 9/11 attacks.

The following is a conversation that takes place in the book:

But if the Shemitah Year was meant to be a blessing, what does it have to do with judgment, or Isaiah 9:10, or America?”

The Shemitah would have been a blessing had Israel observed it and not rebelled against God. But Israel did rebel and didn’t keep the Sabbath Year. And the breaking of the Sabbath Year became the sign of a nation that had ruled God out of its life. The nation had no more time for Him. The people were now serving idols. Their Sabbath Years would be filled, not with peace, but with the restless pursuit of increase and gain. The breaking of the Shemitah was the sign that the nation had driven God out of its fields, out of its labors, its government, its culture, its homes, and its life. The Shemita was meant to be a blessing, but in its breaking, its blessing turns into a curse.”

And what does that mean?” I asked.

The Shemitah would still come,” said the prophet, “but not by choice—but by judgment. Foreign armies would overrun the land, destroy the cities, ravage the fields, and take the people captive into exile. And the land would rest. The fields would become fallow. The buying and selling of its produce and the flow of commerce would come to a standstill. Private ownership would become virtually meaningless. And every debt, credit, and loan would, in an instant, be wiped away. One way or another, the Shemitah would come.”

We are in a Shemitah year and this country most certainly is under a curse, which is obvious to anyone who has eyes to see. But what are we to do about it?

Well, we have the keys to life and peace. We can follow God’s judgments that provide true stare decisis and be prepared; not only for what lies ahead through this turbulent year but for true unity with Jesus Christ and each other!

We can begin preparing by examining God’s compass to keep us on track and then pray that follow that compass in humility.

There are 283 days until the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, about 40 weeks. There are 34 chapters that contain 968 verses in the book of Deuteronomy. We have that time to begin examining those verses; to be prepared not only to be ready to listen attentively to what will be taught, but to prepare now to use the precedents of God’s Word to make right judgments throughout the difficult days ahead.

One final thought as we head toward the end of this sermon. The middle chapter of the book is chapter 17 and the very middle verse of the book is verse 8, which has to do with making hard judgments, and seeking God’s direction in the place He is, and with the help of the ministry. But it is the last section of the chapter we will consider today as we close, we read in Deuteronomy,

Deuteronomy 17:14-20 When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,' you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.

And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

Brethren, our citizenship is now in the Kingdom of Heaven so with God’s Holy Spirit we can prepare to reign with Jesus Christ even in these days of trouble. God has given us the compass to keep us on track, so let us begin to prepare for what God has in store for us this year in 283 days, by writing out the Book of the Law again so we may learn the fear of the Lord and understand more fully how to follow the true precedents He has set before us, so we can make righteous judgments ourselves.

Writing out this book may seem to be a daunting task. But if you start today you only need to write down and meditate on 4 verses a day to be ready to take in what God has prepared for us this year, so that we may faithfully obey all the terms of this instruction.

While you are writing out and meditating on this book of instruction, you may want to consider this question: Why would God want this read at the end of every seven-year cycle in the Feast, which is actually outside of the previous cycle? Could it be because, just like the book itself does, we are to reflect on what we had been through over those last seven years, where we are now? And where we need to be over the next seven years? Especially considering how close we apparently are to the time of Jacob’s trouble and the return of Jesus Christ?

Is it not, as John said, “Our compass to keep us headed in the right direction,” to better learn to live the letter and the spirit of God’s law of peace and unity according to His will within a world that is enmity against Him, so that we, his elect, may do and teach all His words of instruction, “not disturbing what must not be disturbed”?

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