Make your way to the book of Exodus as we continue our work in the law of God. This morning we're gonna be in the 23rd chapter of Exodus. In most churches today, when one is asked what the purpose of the law given in God's word is, the most likely response that they will receive is a statement along the lines of, so that we will know that we cannot keep the law and that we have a great need of a savior because we are guilty in our sin. And while this is an accurate statement, don't misunderstand me, this is a very true statement, a very real statement of part of the purpose of the law. This does not eliminate other reasons. In fact, if this was the entirety of the purpose of the law, if this was the whole reason that the law existed was simply so that we would understand our sin, then we can really get to a point where it's okay to make statements like we want to unhitch the Old Testament for the New Testament or that we could separate these two pieces because in our reality, once we understand that half, we don't need it anymore. And so all it becomes is about the right side of the book, about the New Testament. And so the understanding that we have is that we must recognize that this is not the only purpose. This is not the only reason that the law of God exists in the word of God. So not only does the law point to the fact that we truly cannot live a life that is wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y, pleasing to God and desperately in need of a savior, but it also sets in place for us biblical principles. teaching us the right way to live in light of becoming a new creation in Christ. And so recently, over the last few weeks, as we've worked through this civil law of God, remember we are in the section of the text that is the law, the covenantal law. So we have moved past the moral law given in the Ten Commandments, and now God is expanding his law in civil attributes to the people of Israel. And so we've worked through some biblical principles that are designed to protect people and property. that show us how our lives are truly transformed by the gospel and the power of the spirit working within us. And that as a result of this transformation, we will live holy lives in front of the holy God. And this morning, we are going to see that those lives are marked with justice, truth, and mercy. In Matthew 23, three, Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness, but these things you should have done without neglecting the others. Now in this entire section of the book of Matthew, Jesus is pronouncing woe after woe after woe against the scribes and Pharisees for the way in which they are living their life and the fact that they are diligent in obeying the law to the letter, but they fail to get the deeper truths of the law. In Micah, chapter six, verse eight, he says, he has told you, oh man, what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you but to do justice, to love loving kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? We're reminded that our life is a life that is called to be marked by justice. But before we can really talk about having a life that is marked by justice, We need to make sure that we understand what this word justice truly means. And so if we turn to the dictionary, right, our typical standard of defining a word, we go and find old Webster and we pull him off the shelf and we find a word or these days we just open the app on our phone, right? And we look up a word and so if we did that and we went to the word justice, we would find that it is the quality of being just, okay, the dictionary is really helpful when it defines words in that matter. But if you dig a little deeper, right, and you go and you just determine what the word just is, what you come up with ultimately is that justice is the quality of being in accordance with standards or requirements. or to be righteous, that is characterized by uprightness or to be morally right. However, we got a problem. As I mentioned a few moments ago, one of the purposes of the law is to show that we are incapable in and of ourselves of living this right and moral life. In most cases, If you're in a church, the next thing that comes out of the preacher's mouth or the teacher's mouth is, and that's okay, you're human, it's okay. You're expected to make mistakes. And don't misunderstand me, we are human, we will fall, we will do things that are not right and according to the word of God, even after we have been saved to the uttermost. But the actual expectation of God's word is that you do everything you can to live a moral life. And that is accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, in John 14, 15, Jesus specifically says to us, if you love me, you will keep my commands. And then a little later in verses 21 through 26, he says, he who has my commandments and keeps them is one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, then said to him, Lord, what then has happened that you are going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me. These things I have spoken while abiding with you. But then he goes on to say this, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. through the Holy Spirit, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we as believers are enabled to actually keep the commands of God. One of the things that we have taught people in churches for years that is we should just go out and beat ourselves up for, is that it's okay to continue in your sin. That's not what God's Word teaches. He teaches us the exact opposite. In fact, what He teaches us is that in the giving of the Spirit, He will enable you to obey the commands. Galatians 5.16, but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Your life is changed. And so one of the great themes that we see coming out of scripture from one end to the other is that of justice. God is declared and shown to be just in all his ways. Deuteronomy 32, four says, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he. His law provided standards of justice for the people of Israel and ultimately God will justly punish those who do not believe. John 3, 18, he who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Thankfully, since we have been called to God, by God, to be just and righteous, having been justified freely by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in obedience to the command of God, we can now turn our attention to the actual living out and living a life that is marked by justice and truth, which brings us to our text for the day. If you will stand as we read the complete authoritative word of the living God. In Exodus chapter 23, beginning in the first verse, the word of God says, you shall not bear a false report. Do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a case so as to turn aside after the masses in order to cause justice to be turned aside. nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his case. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, and you shall surely release it with him. You shall not cause the justice due to your needy brother to be turned aside in his case. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not justify the guilty. And you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of justice. and you shall not oppress the sojourner, since you yourselves know the soul of a sojourner, for you also were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Father, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. We thank you that it serves as a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path. Father, as we gather here around your word this morning, we pray that your spirit testifies with our spirit, commending your word to our hearts and lives in all that we say and do. We ask this in the blessed name of your holy son, Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated. In the book of Isaiah in the 59th chapter and the 14th verse, Isaiah is prophesying to the people of God regarding direct and intentional disobedience to God. And he describes righteousness, or excuse me, justice and truth with these words. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away. For truth that's stumbled in the street and righteousness cannot enter. These words that Isaiah speaks describes the condition of the people before God moves in the lives and hearts of men and they are transformed and regenerated. But as the spirit regenerates, as we are remade into the new creation, a new paradigm or a new thought process also is formed in the mind of a believer. and that is a desire to live in obedience to God's word. In verses one, two, and three, not one and three, one, two, and three here in Exodus 23, we see the concepts of justice and truth being inextricably linked. In other words, they have to fall together. For justice to occur, truth must exist. You cannot have justice apart from truth. And so if you'll notice, the first clause here in chapter 23, verse one, says, you shall not bear a false report. Now, hopefully, you're up on your Ten Commandments, you've studied them a little bit, you've got maybe a basic understanding of them, and you'll remember that one of them says something around the lines of, you shall not lie. Right? Well, this is a very similar statement. In fact, it is almost the exact statement, except for we carry with it, because of its context, it carries with it a little bit more of a deeper understanding of what exactly God is trying to get to, even in the ninth commandment as he gives us this idea of not bearing a false report. And so as we look at this passage, we can actually break down, into four commands in this first three verses, and then that show us what being just truly looks like. And so the first of those obvious is this understanding of truth. Now, when we look at the command, The instinct is to read it in such a way that it only deals with telling lies to others. In fact, typically it is translated simply in the ninth commandment as thou shalt not lie. And that's all we really see. But the Hebrew language, is more robust than our English language. And so carrying along with it underneath the surface are some additional understanding and things that we need to make sure. So as we bring this into the English language, as we look at what we see here, the idea, the word translated here as bear, in the original language, not only meant not to tell or share, but also to exalt, maintain, have a longing for, raise, or to take or bring away. So the idea was, and when it says not to bear, it's not just that you were to give it to other people, you're not to tell lies to other people, but it's also telling you, you're not to receive lies from other people. Specifically, if we wanna get really down to the nuts and bolts of this particular command, the command is not to bear false witness. Now false witness, is better translated as hearsay. In fact, futile hearsay is a great way to translate it. The reason that it's such a good way to translate it is because it begins to open our mind up about what this actually means. Because the word hearsay is one that, well, if you've watched many courtroom dramas, you've heard before. Guy says, objection, hearsay. Judge sustains it or does whatever the other thing is. I can't even remember. But the reality is the statement is something that you are a second party to. In other words, you have gotten the information second hand. In fact, we could even use a more simple term that we all know that, quite honestly, should be an ugly term in our mind, and that is the term gossip. This is the idea of you not just Not just you sharing gossip, but you longing for, wanting gossip, wanting to receive. That's what you hunger after, thirst after. It's telling you that in all things you do, you have to desire and seek and want truth. So it's not just us not telling lies, but not having any part in that process. even being party to someone else who was spreading and sharing these worthless, futile statements. The purpose, as I hope you can imagine behind this statement, is to do as much as possible to eliminate Corruption and concern from arising within the people of God. Now, probably everybody in here has been at some point in your life the subject of some amount of gossip. Somebody's talked about you. I know it's hard to believe, right? You're like, nah, that never happened to me. Right? Just think, you know, how much your ears would be burning if you really knew how much your name is in the mouth of others in ways that is not pleasing and honoring. And the impact that that has, especially within the body of Christ, is that it creates a cancer. A cancer that grows. Because what is the one thing people love to do with gossip? Share it. And here's the thing. You can be on the receiving end of gossip. You can be the one that somebody comes to you and says, hey, I got to tell you this, right? And they can tell you about it. And initially, you're like, well, I don't really want to hear it. I don't want to believe it. I'm not going to believe it because I wouldn't party to it. By the end of the conversation, you've fallen right in line. And so then your desire is to go share. I got bad news, I gotta share it, right? Good news we don't really wanna share, right? Why go tell people that Christ died for their sins? Let's go share some bad stuff. Let's go see how much we can break apart things. And so we end up with a cancer that grows and devours us from within. And so here's a quick test for you concerning information to determine whether or not you are guilty of disobedience to this command in your life. So if a piece of information would constitute gossip or false witness, then it would not be certainly true. So if you know something to be certainly true, in other words, you have firsthand irrefutable knowledge of the information. Not that you heard it from Sally's brother's cousin's uncle's sister on his mama's side who's half twice removed, right? You are a witness in some manner to this happening and you know that it did. That would not be considered gossip. or false information, but that's not enough. Just understanding that you have information that's not false doesn't mean that what you should do is go spread it. The next thing you need to ask yourself is, am I sharing this out of a love for other people? What's my motivation for sharing this information? Am I sharing it just because I tell you it's bad news, I want to tell somebody? Because guess what, you may have been a primary witness, but as soon as you tell somebody else, and they go tell somebody else, now they're guilty of hearsay, they're guilty of gossip, they're guilty of spreading lies, they're guilty of taking this information out when they don't have firsthand irrefutable knowledge. Not only that, I think everybody in here, with the exception maybe of some of the really younger people, have played the game telephone. I don't think we play it anymore because it doesn't have the same meaning to people as it used to, it should. But that's where we get in a line and on one end you tell somebody something and that person tells the next and the next and the next and all the way to the end and you find out what the message has changed into. Because the message that started is never the message that you end up with. And so if we're not careful when we're spreading words, even though they could be true, even though they could be irrefutable knowledge, if we're not sharing it out of love for others, if there's a motivation there that is different than showing love and demonstrating love, then it's wrong. And then lastly, and maybe even most importantly, even if you have true knowledge, even if you're gonna share the knowledge in love, does it edify the body of Christ? Is the knowledge meant for building up or tearing down? Will it advance the kingdom of God? Or does it simply draw attention to you because you've got the latest and greatest bit of news? The second clause, once we come to a true and right understanding of the command in the first clause. The second clause we find here, do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness, is a compounding of the first. The first is a general statement, the second is a specific statement, but it is made in a very pointed direction. It's still a lie. But in this case, it is done with a very intentional purpose, and that is to set someone free who is guilty. Literally, the text says that we are not to join our side with the side of a guilty person. It indicates a situation where the individual is not partially guilty, is not suspected to be guilty, but a situation where it is known that the individual is guilty. So the picture is, you know that the individual is guilty. You're being asked by the guilty individual to provide malicious witness, which would be a false testimony about that particular crime for the purpose of allowing them to escape. In our society today, we would call what you did perjuring yourself so that someone could be set free. The command of God in situations regarding someone being accused of a crime was that two people must have witnessed it. So in Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15, we find it saying, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of an iniquity or any sin which he has committed. At the mouth of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be established. So in that culture, in that day, it was necessary to have at least two witnesses in agreement before someone was found guilty or not guilty of a crime. And so if you understand that, if you understand that piece of the culture, it makes this understanding a lot more richer to this fact of you not sharing this information, you not coming along because ultimately a guilty person could be set free. The prohibition here implies and ensures that justice is served. The temptation could be that one could do so in order to curry a favor or even under threat against an individual. In Deuteronomy 19, 16 through 20, the passage immediately following, God deals with the same type of witness happening, but in a situation where an innocent person is brought before a court and their testimony actually convicts them and finds an innocent person guilty. Listen to what he says to that situation. If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before Yahweh, before the priest and the judges who will be in office in those days, and the judges shall inquire thoroughly. And behold, if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you and the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you. So in the case of this same false witness being brought but for the purpose of making an innocent person guilty, the wages were whatever you were trying to get for the guilty person, which if you really studied the law of the Old Testament, nine out of 10 times ended in death. And so your punishment would have been the same. The opposite being true of what we have here. The stark contrast is obviously the individuals. What teaches us, what this teaches us, what this shows us as believers, is that our lives have to be marked by truth. In a world that is filled with lies, believers, children of God, people of faith, should be easily identifiable. And we should know that these are the people who are going to stand on truth in all ways, in all situations, even when, as we'll get to in verse two, The whole world is going in the opposite direction. Now, as we get to verse two, verse two gives us two specific statements that give us direction and one that gives us purpose. So if you look, first of all, the two instructional statements, the two instructional pieces, the commands. One, you shall not follow the masses in doing evil. Two, you shall not testify in a case so as to turn aside after the masses. Now the idea here is following the crowd. Going along for the sake of getting along. Avoiding truth, avoiding reality, for the purpose of being popular, almost. Now, in our situation, we want to understand the purpose. So we know what the facts are, but why? And the why is very simple. The why is that we are to live a life marked by justice. The cause of justice is our purpose in these situations. The cause that causes us to stand against the tide is that of justice. Often, as we talk about the word justice, we kind of space out a little bit. And we space out because, to us, the idea of justice is an idea that should be relegated to a courtroom somewhere that involves legal proceedings or a good old-fashioned viewing of Judge Judy or something like that, right? That's justice. Justice doesn't have anything to do with my day-to-day life. But truly, justice is a way of living. When we are living in the eyes of God, it is necessary for us to live uprightly. Now, as parents, especially parents of older children, There comes a point when you have had to have a conversation about this thing called peer pressure. What I think is very interesting, though, about conversations around peer pressure is we think that they should be relegated only to teenagers. Or children, right, of a certain age, but we fail to recognize that adults are just as susceptible to peer pressure as anyone else. In fact, you every day, listen, as you live a life, you walk and you deal with desires and situations and our flesh, listen, our flesh wants to fit in. Your flesh desires to fit in worldly schemes. That human nature, right? We sit here, believers, redeemed, children of the living God, who are simultaneously justified, but yet we still sin and are still sinners. And so there's this war that is waged because our desires want to fit in. But the two commands we have give us specific direction that we are not to fit in. First, the text says, do not follow along with the multitudes in doing evil. In other words, don't let what the world is doing influence you to commit actions that you know to be wrong. That's pretty simple, isn't it? I mean, it's pretty easy to explain things when it explains itself so well. Do not let the world take you to a place where you are doing things that you know to be wrong. But there is more here. We have a general statement. Don't follow the world into sin and corruption. And then we have a specific statement and the specific statement is don't let the masses cause you to testify in a way that goes against justice. Now, obviously we are dealing specifically in Exodus with courtroom behavior. Now, This applies to us in courtroom behavior. Don't just go into a courtroom and because the media has found somebody guilty or because the person's past says that they're probably guilty, probably assume guilt. We don't do that, right? As believers, we are supposed to be after the truth and justice. We are supposed to follow Christ. Now, There's a broader understanding that we need to have here, this. Because here's the thing, if we relegate this just to a courtroom, we'll miss the big picture. The big picture is the world. The big picture is that we as believers are to follow Christ, not the world. 1 John 2, 15, John writes, do not love the world, nor the things in the world. He goes on to say that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Now, first of all, in the writings of John, you've got to understand that John uses the word world in multiple different ways. So it is necessary in our study to firstly understand exactly how the word world is being used here. By the way, I practice saying word world a lot because if you don't, right, you'll trip yourself up on those. But here's the reality. The responsibility of us is to know what he's talking about. And so in this particular passage, without getting into all of the ways that he uses the word world, you need to understand here that this one refers, as one commentator described it, the best description I've seen yet, the God-hating system of human society. That's what he's talking about when he says the word world here. He's talking about those things in society which directly contradict God in an evil and malicious way. Then secondly, we need to recognize the severity of this command. I cannot tell you the number of times and the number of conversations that I have had with individuals who profess to be believers, who profess to be followers of Christ, where I am given the accusation or accused of not loving and that we as Christians should all love all the time. But yet God's word very clearly, sustainedly, and specifically states here Do not love. Now it's qualified. And it's qualified by saying we are not to love this world-hating system that we have. But the command is the same. We are not to simply turn a blind eye to things that are in this world that are wrong. We are not to go along with the crowd just because the crowd says so. We cannot do this, we are separate. Listen, brothers and sisters, you are the ecclesia, the called out ones, those that have been separated from the world. And so as a result, we cannot love the worldly system. We can love the people, we can love creation, but we cannot love the enemy's work in this world. John 15, 18 through 19. Jesus said, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you. And yes, God chose you out of the world. It says so in the word of God. I know that's controversial. John 16, 33. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world. And then as Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane in John 17, verses 14 and 16, through 16, he says, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. The God-hating system of our society. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Listen, we cannot go along for the sake of getting along in this world. Secondly, the specific command here says that we do not go along with the world in such a way that justice is turned upside down. One of the greatest courts that we face today in a situation that has so drastically changed in the last 30 years is the court of public opinion. And the reason it's so drastically changed is because of the immediate availability of the information now. Everything is at your fingertips in a moment. If we step away from the courtroom drama for just a minute, in the high days of the Roman Empire, one of the most popular events happened in the arena. And in the arena, the slaves would be brought in to battle each other or animals or even chain down Christians just to slaughter them. But at the end of a battle, These gladiators have been brought in and they're forced to do battle until one is subdued. But the battle doesn't end until the final decision is made. And so what would happen is one continued as long as they could until, and when the point when the battle became clear that one was no longer able to go on, Caesar would stand and would hold up his thumb and listen to the cheers of the crowd. And then he would turn his thumb the other way and listen to the cheers of the crowd. And then ultimately, Caesar would make the decision, live or die. And as you can imagine, those people were a bloodthirsty lot. But how different, how different really is our society? Even if you take apart, take out social media, right? And I'll let you draw your own conclusions regarding thumbs up, thumbs down, and social media. The conversations that are happening at work and restaurants and lines at the coffee shop and everywhere else you go are a constant battering of your mind. So if we go back to the courtroom situation for just a minute, a person accused of a crime has committed crimes in the past and their history affects how we see them. The way in which we see them, the way in which the media portrays them affects how we see them. Even the nature of the crime itself can affect how we see a person towards finding them guilty. Now in verse three, conclusion of this one first little block here, we find another statement. It's a conclusion of the sentence that we began in verse two, and it reminds us here in verse three that we are not to show favoritism when it comes to seeking justice. Remember, this is to be done so that justice will not be turned aside. The sentence began in verse two, finished in chapter three. All centers around this understanding that justice is not to be turned aside. So justice has to prevail. And so in order for justice to prevail, we must, we must live a life, Mark, that implies that everything we do is done equally regardless of race, gender, nationality, or even socioeconomic status. Now, the other implication here is that we are careful not to have pity on the poor just because they're poor. Now, this is an interesting concept in our day and time. In fact, this is a battle line that has been drawn, and a war is waging right now. Typically, if you turn on the news or you watch or read very much, you will find this referred to as social justice. Now, I'm not going to go into a sermon on social justice. We ain't got time. But I do want to make a couple of statements. When we look at what's happening with social justice, this hot topic that has ignited for politicians, for media, for various groups fighting for various causes, this concept of the world, by the world, okay? Now there's a biblical concept, we'll get to that in just a minute, but the worldly concept of social justice even has sought to defend the ideas of Marxism, to elevate one group above another just so that they have a better standing. It literally distorts the way in which scripture denotes social justice. The scriptural principle If we look at first, let's look at the definition. Let's go to the dictionary. We want to go back to Webster, see what Webster has to say about social justice. And what we see is fair treatment. I want you to listen to this definition. Fair treatment of all people in a society, including respect for the rights of minorities and equitable distribution of resources among the members of society. Now, I don't know how many of you have ever read Marx or understood his his theories or concepts, but this is what we see happening today. This is what they're fighting for, which says that no matter who you are, you get an equitable distribution of everything. Especially if you are of a minority race or gender or some other creed, we should elevate you to a point where you get more now because you've had less in the past. This is not the biblical principle. The biblical principle to be honest and fair would be that we are simply to be free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice towards anyone. Regardless of where they come from, what they look like, what they sound like, true social justice is naturally produced by the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. Pastor Darrell B. Harrison puts it like this. In coming to know Him, we love Him. And in loving Him, we obey Him. And in obeying Him, we become more like Him. And in becoming more like Him, we more consistently reflect to a world thirsting for justice, the image of the one in whose image we were created. And that is what true justice looks like, that we portray to the world. the very creator of the concept of justice. And we live our life in the way that we should. So we're gonna skip down for just a few moments to verses six through nine, we'll come back up. And the reason we wanna skip, I wanna skip down to these is because God does something a little interesting here in this passage and I'll explain more about it when we get there. But what we have are four additional. points or four additional situations that define or emphasize the equality of justice. The only difference is in verses 1, 2, and 3, the message was directly to everyone. In verses 6, 7, 8, and 9, the message is more specifically at the judges. Now, here's what's imperative for you to recognize. Leviticus 19.15 tells the judges that they shall do no injustice in judgment, shall not be partial to the poor nor divert to the great, but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness. And these four situations here, once again, indicate that justice is to be distributed according to God's law in an impartial manner. Now, I'm just gonna tell you, This is a challenging section of text. Not challenging because of the words that it say, but it should be challenging to each of us in our walk and in our life as a believer. So the first of the commands is that we are to ensure that we find An innocent person, innocent. It seems innocent enough, right? But this is a challenging statement. This command means that regardless of the situation, regardless of the pressure, the views of anyone involved, it is the responsibility of the judge, it is their absolute duty to ensure that the person who is innocent or righteous is not falsely accused. Now I wanna make sure you heard me right. To make sure that they are not falsely accused. It doesn't say found guilty. Look at the text. You shall not cause the justice due to your needy brother to be turned aside in his case. Oh, that's actually verse seven. I skipped. It's okay. The reality is, verse seven says, keep far from a false charge and do not kill the innocent or the righteous for I will not justify the guilty. Now the guilty in this case is not the person who has been punished. The guilty in this case is not the person who has been killed. The guilty in this case would be the judge. And the expectation here in verse seven is that the judge ensures that righteousness is done, that this is obeyed in a situation and we do not even accuse a person who is not guilty. In fact, our justice system borrows this concept. We use the words proven innocent until proven guilty, right? How many of you have heard that in your life? Unfortunately, it seems most often that it's not really that situation. Our system allows for charges to be filed, but in God's law, the judge wasn't even to charge unless the charge was absolutely certain. Now let's back up to verse six since I skipped it. Verse six is very challenging. It's a very difficult verse. It says, you shall not cause the justice duty or need to be turned aside in his case. In other words, you are not to avoid hearing the trial or hearing the case of an individual based on their socioeconomic status. In other words, just because they don't look like they ought to be reporting a crime, they can still report. They can still have something that happens to them. That's the law to the Israelites. For us, Don't judge a book by its cover. I can think of times in the past where you see an individual and you think to yourself, there's no need to tell him about Jesus because they're not going to listen anyway. Now, we can be really self-righteous and all in here today because we are in church and we can all go, oh, I would never But the truth of the matter is, we do. We make judgments and assumptions about people just based off of who they are, what they look like. We cause injustice because of what people look like, because of who they are. We write them off. And then in the third statement, Verse eight, and you shall not take a bribe for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just. In this situation, bribes are money to turn a blind eye to justice. Again, clearly contained here is the truth that we don't accept bribes in order to subvert justice. Now, this is not specifically designated to a courtroom, but in the larger context of the chapter, we are dealing with legal proceedings. And so the idea here would be that a judge would not take a bribe to turn a blind eye and allow a guilty person to walk free or an innocent person to be found guilty. But listen, how many times in our life do we accept a bribe and turn a blind eye? Now we may not do it outright, but let's be honest. We've probably met people who have bought the silence of pastors and friends who have watched them live lives that are filled with sin, simply because, well, you know what? They pay most of the bills here at the church. They give a lot, so we can't really say anything to them. That's not what God calls for. We are still called to proclaim truth, to practice discipline, to practice justice. The fourth and final one of these four deals with impartiality again, and the remembrance is that the past condition that these judges have experienced what it is like to be a different person in a different place, a stranger in a strange land. And so the command is not to do that, not to hold that against them. So all of these call for judgments. They're all specifically written to the judges. It would be easy to look at these, and this is where it begins to get hard and go, well, these are for judges, I'm not a judge, so they don't really apply in my life. But the question we have to ask ourself is how do these things apply to the life of a believer? And it goes to the biblical principle that's underlying all four of these truths. And that is, when we judge, there is a specific standard by which that is accomplished. Now the world would love to tell us, and they do love to tell us, judge not. I think they know that Bible verse, at least the first part of it, backwards and forwards, right? Judge not, lest you be judged. They may not know any other Bible verse ever. They may not even know John 3, 16, but they know, judge not. The problem is, they don't know what they think they know. Because what the Word of God actually teaches us is that we are to judge in a sense, but we are to do so according to the standard of the Word of God. The problem comes in when we seek to judge in a way that is unfair or impartial or against In fact, in Matthew's Gospel 7, one through two, the continuation of that particular passage is, do not judge so that you will not be judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. What measure you measure, it will be measured to you. God's focus here is that justice, and justice means that we are in accordance with the standards and requirements of the word of the living God. And so let's back up for just a moment. As we established at the very beginning, truth and justice are linked. And that we are called to live our lives empowered by the Holy Spirit. and those lives will be marked with justice and truth. Now, the danger here is that we can live as individuals in a way that seems as if we are being obedient, that seems as if we are doing these things, that seems as if we are dealing with justice and truth, but in the midst of these nine verses, we get two verses that seem out of place, but are verses that serve as a indicator or a measure of just how just we are. They're an interesting set of verses. They're a set of verses that a lot of people would read over and go, okay, I don't have any oxes, I don't have any donkeys, it really doesn't apply to me. My neighbor doesn't have any oxes or donkeys. My cousin down the street doesn't have any oxes or donkeys. I really don't know what this is saying, so why bother? But in verses four and five, what we come to, what we see is that we are called to live in a specific way. Over and over in scripture, we are told and talked to and it is brought to our attention that there is this, these are believers that are people who appear to be believers, who appear to be living in accordance with God's word, who ultimately falter and fall away. Jesus teaches about these people in the parable of the sower. The writer of the book of Hebrews deals with them in 1 John 2, 19. John records, they went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us. Listen, people who are affected, truly affected by the effectual call of God on their lives are transformed. Not just at a surface level. It's not just this outward action, but it is a deep abiding transformation. And as we grow and as we live, the Spirit continues this transforming work from the moment of indwelling all the way to the moment of glorification. And we call it sanctification, right? And sanctification, quite honestly, can be very painful. And verses four and five are no different. But they are examples and indicators of just how deeply our lives are to be marred. So look for just a moment at verses four and five. In verse four it says, if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey and walk away, you shall surely return it to him. Well, the concept here is the ox or donkey has got out of the pen, they're wandering down the road, you come across it, you're supposed to take it back, even if the person is your enemy. Even if you detest the owner of the ox and the donkey, and you're like, well, I don't know anybody that owns oxes. I may know some people that have donkeys, but none of them are in a risk of getting out. Well, that's because it's not about the ox and the donkey. It's about how you treat your enemy. It's about doing and serving and living in a way that is right versus what typically we probably would do in our society when we encounter an enemy, which is to hope that they get their just desserts. Hope that they get a comeuppance, right? We don't want to necessarily be the instigator of that. We don't necessarily want to be the person who causes that, but when it happens, what do we do? How do we react when our enemy gets that comeuppance? We go, woohoo, yeah, I'm glad. Serves them right. This is the exact opposite of what we are commanded. The command here is actually to do the counterintuitive thing and help your enemy. The second of these verses, though, deals with the situation that's a little bit different, because this is a situation dealing with a person who has a very deep dislike for you. This has got nothing to do with your feelings. Look at the way the words are written in verse five. If you see the donkey of one who hates you. Now, we can go back to the Greek, or to the Hebrew, sorry. We can go back to the Hebrew. We can do an in-depth study of this word, hates. And guess what we're gonna find out? It means a strong dislike for you. The person who is in trouble here cannot stand you. They would just assume you fell off the face of the earth, never to be heard of again, that would be alright with them. That's the level of this person's negativity. Now here's the problem. You've come across this person and they need your help. Again, without getting into a long drawn description of donkeys, donkeys are massively strong. They can pull, they can load themselves down, they can carry weight, but what they cannot do, is if they fall with the weight strapped to their back, they cannot get up. They cannot just plant their feet and rise. They have to have help. Now the picture that's painted is this donkey that has fallen over and it's trapped under its load and the owner is unable to help this donkey by itself. And the person hates you. What's your first reaction when you encounter someone that you know has a strong dislike for you? Let's just put it in today's concept. You're walking in Walmart, right? You turn down the bread aisle. What you need is halfway down the aisle. And as soon as you turn, at the other end, you see that person. And you know that they can't stand you. Right? What do you do? Most people, some of us are just antagonistic by nature, we're just going to plow through anyway, but most people are going to turn around and come back because they want to avoid the confrontation. But even here, God steps up and says to us, listen, this is not for you to avoid. You're to go and help that person. You cannot leave them. Look at the language. You shall refrain from leaving it to him. In other words, you shall keep from letting him deal with it on his own. And then he goes a step further and says, not only should you do that, you shall surely release it with him. Now that word choice in the LSB is a little odd, release it, but basically it means to help restore, to put things back in right order. So the idea is that you go help unstrap the load, get the donkey up, pile the stuff back on, strap the donkey back down, and then set them on their way in the right way. Now that's a tough thing to do. But here is the reality. We can sum these up with three simple words. Love your enemy. So a life that is truly marked by justice will be one that is marked with the equitable treatment of all, regardless of race, gender, nationality, socioeconomic situation, or how they are in your eyes. You still seek justice. True justice is not always easy. It's certainly not always simple. But the demand, the command is still that we pursue that justice. Matthew's Gospel, Jesus teaches us that loving our enemy is an indicator of being truly set apart, an indicator as a true son of your father in heaven, for he causes his son to rise from the evil and the good and sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Now, typically we refer to that and we say, okay, well that means that both believers and unbelievers have what's called common grace. But it specifically is spoken by Christ immediately following his command to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you. And by doing so, you prove who you really are. To wrap it up, there is coming a day. A day that is described for us in Revelations chapter 19 beginning in verse 11. Where it says, then I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sits on it is called fateful and true. And in righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. Having a name written on him which no one knows except himself. And being clothed with a garment dipped in blood. His name is also called the word of God. And the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. And from his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron. He treads the winepress of the wrath and the rage of God in Revelations chapter 20. We get the full rest of the picture. And it says that I saw a great white throne and Him who sits upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no one was found for them. Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. On that day, true justice will be served. All who have not believed will face the second death in the lake of fire. While those who have received salvation by grace through faith will finally grasp the full magnitude of what was accomplished at Calvary. Until that day, we as believers are called to live lives empowered by the Holy Spirit, lives characterized by obedience, justice, and truth. And so the questions to you today is are you living that life? Have you truly placed your faith in Christ, repented of your sins, turned from your unrighteousness and injustice to follow him? Let's pray. Most gracious heavenly Father, we thank you We thank you for the opportunity to gather to worship. Lord, we thank you for the truth that we find in your word. Lord, we know that these can oftentimes be challenging truths. We know that to live in accordance with your word is to live against all that is normal for us in our way of viewing things and the way that our sinful nature sees things. But Father, we pray for your strength. We pray for the indwelling of your spirit to continue to empower and enable us to be obedient to your word that gives us great love and affection for your word that gives us a desire to understand how it is you would have us to live in light of what you have done for us. Father, to understand that the gospel is more, it's more than just going and telling someone Christ died for them, but giving them the whole truth of the word of God. Father, I pray that we are faithful in that command. Father, we love you. We thank you. We praise you. We give you the honor. We give you all of the glory. And Lord, we ask all of this in your most holy and heavenly name. Amen.