Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Highly blessed of the Lord. The sermon scripture today is found in Exodus chapter 22. We’ll read verses 7-15. We’ll focus on verses 7-13. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Exodus 22:7-15 forming a unit. If a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep and it’s stolen out of the man’s house. If the thief is found, he shall pay double. If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods.

For any kind of trespass, whether it concern an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or clothing, or for any kind of lost thing which another claims to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges, and whomever the judges condemn shall pay double to his neighbor. If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep, and it dies, is hurt, or driven away, no one seeing it, then an oath of the Lord shall be between them both, that he has not put his hand into his neighbor’s goods, and the owner of it shall accept that, and he shall not make it good.

But if, in fact it is stolen from him, he shall make restitution to the owner of it. If it is torn to pieces by a beast, then he shall bring it as evidence, and he shall not make good what was torn. And if a man borrows anything from his neighbor and it becomes injured or dies, the owner of it not being with it, he shall surely make it good. If the owner was with it, he shall not make it good. If it was hired, it came for his hire.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that these are words of life to us. We pray that you would write these words upon our heart. We thank you for calling us together Lord God to minister to us, to put deep into our being the character of the Lord Jesus Christ who reflects the character of the Father. We thank you Lord God for this time we have studying your word now and worshiping you because of it, and we pray that you would minister it to us, that you’d cause at the depths of our being to be transformed by the wondrous power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Our topic today based on this portion of God’s law is the blessings and difficulties of community. Somebody left a prop up here for me. It’s interesting because my first introductory statement regards the Westminster Confession of Faith and what it says about the law of God, the standard of God’s word.

We read in the Westminster Confession of Faith that to them also, that being Israel as a nation in the Old Testament, to them also as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further from the general equity thereof may require. Rather somewhat dry and technical statement, but a statement that is important for us.

I believe this statement of truth. The judicial laws that we are now considering, given to Israel as a nation, expired with the culmination of that nation, its end being culminated in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ ultimately. However, the Westminster Confession also says that while those things have expired, there is a general equity of them and that equity is still required in some way for us today.

And of course the truth, the principles, the underlying concepts of God’s law given to Israel are what we search out as we look through these case laws, laws of particular cases, to see for ourselves what equity of them there is that we may apply in the context of our particular situation today, this side of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have said that for the most part, these laws are fairly easily transferable from the context of the nation of Israel to our particular nation and state and communities and municipalities.

You know, that’s a good thing to keep in mind as we look at the laws of God—what we’re trying to do is discern these truths for our particular situation. But a little more spirit-enabled way of expressing this is the song we just sang as we opened our worship service. We prayed that God would arise and shine in all of his saving light, prosper each design to spread thy glorious light, and then to bring distant nations near to sing thy glorious name.

Let every people hear and learn thy holy ways. And in the context of this, we sang about God’s laws in the context of this shining forth of God’s truth to the Gentiles that they may see and hear and fear. Let healing streams of mercy flow that all the earth might know. All the earth thy truth may know. And so the end result of what we seek for as we set forth the causes of God—we sang in this song—that he might govern by his righteous laws.

The end result of this is that the healing streams of God’s mercy might flow into our lives and into the lives of the cultures in which God has placed us. There’s no distinction in our song between the righteous ruling of the Lord Jesus Christ by his righteous laws and the shining forth of mercy and grace to his people. That’s what today is about.

We surely, if we just look at these laws as a way to instruct us on how to build civil laws, we should look behind them at this great truth that God takes his word, every bit of it, and comes on the Lord’s day and ministers to us in the power of the Spirit to transform our lives, and his streams of healing mercy flow into our lives and the lives of those that we come in contact with as we go into the week, as the fiery stream of God emanating forth from his throne room.

Now, one way that I have at the beginning of your outline in the introductory part to remember what these laws are about—you know, we read these three chapters, the law of the covenant, and it gets a little confusing. But a very simple statement that you already know is a good way to remember what these first couple of chapters, chapters 21 and 22 leading into 23, are all about.

We read in our Declaration of Independence that all men have certain unalienable and inalienable rights. And among these rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are Jefferson’s words. But the original concept came really from Locke, who, while a lapsed Calvinist of sorts, came from a Calvinistic background. And while he was a generation removed from trying to approach an understanding of civil government from a distinctively biblical perspective, nonetheless built much of what he did on his background and instruction.

The Calvinistic faith—Locke spoke of the right of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property, as opposed to the pursuit of happiness. So Jefferson had read this, and when it came around to writing the Declaration of Independence, he wanted to expand this right of property a little bit by incorporating into that third right the idea of civic duty, the idea of neighborliness—our happiness is wrapped up, he thought, in the concept of doing civic duties and responsibilities in the context of the republic that was forming.

So he expanded the property into happiness. Well, so far that’s what the laws we’ve looked at are all about, aren’t they? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. And today we’re kind of going to move toward happiness.

Remember chapter 21—we actually started with liberty. And then there was a series of laws protecting life. And in the context of those is always this movement to liberty. So the case law, the law of the Covenant, is about man’s—we will use the word responsibilities as opposed to rights—man’s responsibilities in terms of liberty, in terms of life, the commandments that protect life, and in terms of the pursuit of property, as Locke would say.

We’ve moved from the laws governing murder, damage to people back and forth, damage to animals, to a consideration now in chapter 22 that it’s all wrapped up in these first 15 verses with property, with stuff, with articles of, you know, clothing or money or sheep or cattle—property. So we have responsibilities relative to property.

So the way to remember what we’ve taught so far is to remember that we have responsibilities relative to life, liberty, and property. And we would want to say, and this sermon I think will show this, that property that we have is used in the context of a neighborly community. And that community is essentially what Jefferson had in mind when he talked about pursuit of happiness, civic duty in the context of the proper use of our life, liberty, and property.

Okay, so real simple: life, liberty, property, and we add on this fourth thing—happiness. Actually, all four of these are addressed, for instance, in other documents of our country. Oklahoma has a constitution, and in Oklahoma’s constitution, section two, it lists the inherent rights. It says all persons have the inherent right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry—property, in other words. So understand that this pursuit of happiness in its original formulation was linked—it was code language really for property—but for the right use of property in the context of civic duty.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about property. This section of verses, from verse 7 through verse 15, is separated from the verses before it because now it’s talking about property in the context of community.

You know, verses 1-6 had to do with theft, and if you stole somebody else’s property or if your property encroached on somebody else’s property. So it addressed property in isolation from each other. And now it’s going to talk about property in the context of community. You’re a group of people together. God says that’s what I want for you to be. And because you’re going to be together, you’re going to help each other out. You’re going to do things in a neighborly sort of way, like bringing water when a fella is dry or by taking care of the goods of your neighbor when he’s got to be away for a while.

Okay? You know, in the providence of God, there are two families from this congregation who are gone for several weeks, right? The Foresters have left for a while and the Patricks have left for a while. And the Foresters have used the Paces to be safekeepers of their property while they’re gone, so their animals keep alive and things don’t get stolen. And the Patricks have used a neighbor of theirs, right?

You know, right in their neighborhood there, to watch over their property while they’re gone. And that’s what these laws are about. These laws address what happens when you can’t always be with your property in the context of community, and it relates to what happens if one of John’s animals die while Roger is there taking care of the farm? What if a thief breaks in and steals something from the farm while Roger is there? Or what if somebody breaks into John Patrick’s house while his neighbor is there?

These laws address that. You see, the laws assume community and they assume the obligations of community in terms of our responsibilities to each other, and then it governs those obligations to help to make sure that we don’t get all jammed up as we seek to help each other out.

Now, in the providence of God, I think we could draw wider application to this. Coming this week’s Presbyterian meeting of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals—most of the officers of the church except for Elder W. will be going to this week—and what they’re trying to do in terms of the neighborliness of churches and building together structures of institutional catholicity between churches. Some of these same concepts apply to that.

And I think we could also, and maybe will try to just briefly at the end of this sermon, talk a little bit about our church building situation and why we’re praying that God would give us a church structure, and particularly the one in Oregon City at this point in time. Okay. So kind of a broad-ranging set of truths here, and that’s what we’ve noticed from these case laws so far—they tend to give us very detailed examples but examples then that give us principles and truths that we can apply in a wide variety of ways.

Okay. So now let’s look at the text itself and try to understand this. Now, it can be a little bit difficult. I’ve given you the overall view and that’s really the most what you need to know, but there are specific things in here that are somewhat a little bit obscure. So let’s go through them a little bit and just talk about how these cases relate.

Okay, first there are safekept inanimate objects described in verses 7 and 8 of the text. So turn to or look at verses 7 and 8, and you’ll notice that these things that are being safekept by somebody as a steward—they’re not alive. They’re objects. If a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it’s stolen out of the man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double.

So the situation is, you know, John’s given Roger safekeeping over his stuff. Now in this case, Roger’s actually at John’s house. But let’s say that somebody had given you—they’re going to be gone from town. Their most valuable possessions they’re going to give you, and you’re going to take care of them for you. Well, a thief breaks in and steals. And the first case law here says that when the thief is caught, he must pay double restitution.

And we’ve talked about that. We understand that’s to restore the person who was stolen from. It’s also to punish the thief so that crime doesn’t pay. We’ve talked all about that. So that’s the first case. But what if the thief isn’t found? Well, verse 8 tells us about that.

If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges. This means the master of the house where the things are being kept. I think the same truth would apply to Roger’s situation. He’s the master of the house where the goods of John are being kept. It’s his house, but he’s still steward over them.

The master of the house shall be brought to the judges to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods. So, you know, John comes home and says, “Well, gee, where’s the piano? It was stolen. Has the thief been found?” No. Well, then in that case, the possibility exists that the man taking care of your stuff has stolen it for himself.

And so what’s supposed to happen in this case is the man then who was taking care of the goods comes to the judges—civil magistrate—to see whether or not he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods.

Now couple of things here in terms of the text. The word judges is Elohim—same word for God. It’s a plural word. Usually when it’s referring to God, it is used with a verb that is singular. Well, here it says the judges are going to see whether or not he put his hand to his neighbor’s goods, and what this means is that the judge is now connected to a plural verb to see whether he’s put his hand to his neighbor’s goods. So this means that this is not God—now it’s the judges of the land. The scriptures use these terms interchangeably somewhat. We’ll talk about that as we get to the application of the text.

Now it’s also important here in terms of the Hebrew. It says to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods. The word “whether” actually—it’s “whether or not he has put his hand to his neighbor’s goods”—those two Hebrew words are repeatedly used in other portions of scripture as an oath formula. Okay, an oath formula.

So what it indicates here is that if you understand the Hebrew behind this, what happens is the guy comes before the judges and he then makes an oath that he has not put his hand to his neighbor’s goods. I didn’t take it. There really was a thief, and that settles the matter. As a result of that, then the man is relieved from having to pay. So in that case, the man who is the steward is not going to have to pay restitution. He’s cleared on the basis of his statement or his oath before the judges.

Okay, so that’s the first couple of cases. The next case deals with any kind of dispute of possession of animate or inanimate objects. This is verse 9.

Here it’s not just things; it’s also cattle or livestock. Verse 9: For any kind of trespass or sin that concerns, whether it concerns an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or clothing, or any kind of lost thing which another claims to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges, and whomever the judges condemn—that condemn is a plural verb, the judges, the civil magistrate—again, whoever the judges condemn shall pay double to his neighbor.

Okay? So what’s going on here? What’s going on here is this relates to any kind of general dispute in the context of community. You’ve lost an article—you’ve lost maybe a knife, a real nice knife you’ve got. And then you go to your buddy’s house and lo and behold, there you see this knife, and you think he stole my knife. At least he might have. And so what do you do at that point? Well, the scriptures say time to go see the judge. This isn’t a bad thing. The judge is there to help you sort it out. And the judge is going to bring you guys together, and you’re going to again, you know, make some statements under oath, and that’s going to clear up the matter.

If the judges condemn a party, they pay double restitution. Who would he condemn? The judges may condemn the person you’re accusing. He may have actually stolen your knife. And if you have evidence to that, and the judge decides in his wisdom that you’re right—the guy stole your knife, and that’s your knife—he makes him pay twofold restitution. Again, of course, but there’s another occasion in which he can make you pay twofold.

Deuteronomy 19:19 says that if you falsely accuse somebody else—you’re trying to get twofold from him. You’re trying to make him pay twofold. And as a result, you know he hasn’t taken your article, but you’re going to take him before the court anyway with some good proof because you want to make this guy pay for something. I don’t know what. And you want him to pay you double money. Well, in that case, if you’ve made a false accusation deliberately, then Deuteronomy 19:19 says that whatever you tried to get that guy to do—whatever way you tried to harm him—you’re going to be harmed.

And so in the case of a theft of an object here, which we’re talking about, you’d have to pay double restitution to that man. Okay? As a way to really punish you for bringing false accusations. Now, it’s more serious than a murder trial. If you falsely accuse somebody of murder, knowingly falsely accuse them, and the court finds out that you did that, then the court is supposed to sentence you to death.

To death. So the judge may condemn the accusing party. Or the judge may not condemn anybody. He may say, “Well, you know, it might have been a mistaken accusation. You come and say, ‘Well, I don’t know if he stole my thing or not, but boy, it sure looks like my thing. Could you guys look into it?’” Okay, judges look into it. No, it’s not his thing. Guys, both go your own way. Okay, so this case involves cases of disputed possession one way or the other.

The next case involves cases of safekept animals, now or beasts or creatures of some type. And this is verses 10 through 13, and it has several different things that could be going on.

Verses 10 through 13: If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep—not talking about clothing or money, now animals—and it dies or is hurt or driven away, no one seeing it. Don’t know what happened. Then an oath of the Lord shall be between them both. An oath of the Lord. Very strong terminology. Oath language is brought into court cases explicitly in this particular text.

And as I said earlier, the oath formula that was used earlier, it seems like the oath goes through all of these cases that come before judges. Men take oaths to what they’re going to say. And an oath is saying before God: If I am lying, curse me. And if I’m telling the truth, bless me. It invokes God’s judgment upon you when you raise your hand, put your hand on the Bible, and say, God, I swear to tell the truth according to God—an oath of the Lord is what’s being talked about here.

Okay? So they take an oath of the Lord between them both, and then the guy says he has not put his hand into his neighbor’s goods, and the owner of it shall accept it, and he shall not make it good. The oath in and of itself, if that’s all you’ve got, is enough to clear the covenant man from the accusation that he might have actually killed or stolen that sheep that he was taking care of for you.

His oath alone clears him in that case. Okay.

So, first of all, you’ve got this situation again where you have a damaged or lost animal, but it isn’t stolen. No restitution is required from the steward. He clears his name by a simple affirmation—but an oath affirmation—taking God’s name, not emptily but in truth, declaring the truth of what he had done, that he didn’t do it. He shall not make it good.

But if, in fact, it’s stolen from him, he shall make restitution to the owner of it. This is a verse that good commentators disagree about. I’m going to tell you what I think, but I’m not saying thus sayeth the Lord on this because I’m not sure. Some people think that what this means is that you’re taking care of somebody’s animal. The animal’s stolen. You can’t find the thief, but you still have to make restitution to the owner because you should have kept it from being stolen.

I don’t agree with that interpretation, but that is one interpretation that’s out there. I think that what’s going on here is that, and I’m keying off the phrase—at least in the New King James Version—”if in fact it’s stolen.” And that word “in fact” means there’s no doubt that it’s stolen. It is stolen. And the demonstration of it being stolen is so clear that this other situation is going to happen.

And I think what it implies is that the steward of the property caught the thief in the act. It’s the only way to know for sure it was stolen. You’ve got an animal that could have wandered off. Other beasts could have driven it away. I mean, animals, you know, lift latches. Horses can do that kind of stuff. Certain cattle can do it. They lift latches and fences. You don’t know what the animal can do. So I think that what it means is: if the owner—or the steward rather, the safekeeper—catches the thief in the act, then he gets a portion of the restitution.

Okay? It says that if in fact it was stolen from him, he shall make restitution to the owner of it. The steward, the safekeeper, pays the owner the animal back. So he makes restitution to the owner. But the thief’s double restitution—which is due, that second part of the restitution—goes to the safekeeper, the steward of the thing, which gives him an incentive to catch thieves. If you don’t have this built in, you have less of an incentive as you’re being a caretaker of somebody else’s goods to track down thieves.

But here, if you find the thief with demonstrable proof that he stole the good, you get to keep the value of the animal yourself while making the owner whole.

Now, even if even those commentators who think that what this means is that the steward is somebody who should have taken better care of the animal and thus has to make restitution—he still has an incentive to go catch the thief. If you think about this: you’ve got an ox that I’ve loaned you. I’ve given you my dog. Let’s do that. We don’t have an ox. I’ve given you my dog while I’m gone. I’m going to go to family camp for a week. You’re not. You’re going to take care of my dog. A thief breaks in and steals my dog. Let’s say the dog is worth 300 bucks. Okay.

Now, if this law says you should have been a better caretaker of the animal, you’ve got to pay me back my 300 bucks. You’re going to go search down that thief because now the animal is yours. You’ve made full restitution for it already—the simple restitution the verse requires. And now if you catch the thief, you’re going to get that 300 bucks back that you paid me for the dog, but you’re going to get another 300 bucks because it’s double restitution if a man steals something.

So I don’t care which way the verse is interpreted. The verse in any event is an incentive to stewards to both be careful about their possessions, of course, but more than that, to actively seek out and discover the thief of an animal before the neighbors return. Either way, no matter how you read the verse, if the steward does his job well and catches the thief, he ends up enriched as a result of the thievery.

Okay, so that’s this other case. Case number two: then it’s stolen, the thief is caught in the act, the owner makes simple restitution. He gets onefold restitution for his beast, and the steward gets the other part of the twofold restitution.

And then the final item is in verse 13, a final case. If it’s torn to pieces by a beast, then he shall bring it as evidence, and he shall not make good what was torn.

Okay, so now I’ve given you my dog, and what you bring back to me is Kesha’s ear. Kesha is the name of our dog. Big bulldog. Some kind of beast came in, just, you know, ripped Kesha apart. But here’s its ear. It’s proof that what you’re telling me is right. The dog was torn to pieces. And in this case, the scriptures say then you don’t have to make restitution for me. It’s not your fault. The wild beast isn’t under your dominion or control.

And so in those cases, the evidence is brought forth. Now see, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Because we just said that the oath clears the person who’s being accused of theft. But here, your word to me that the animal was torn is backed up by evidence. Note that as we go along here, and I’ll make mention of that in the application.

Okay. Now, finally, there’s a couple of cases about borrowing and hiring, which we won’t deal with today. I have them on your outline, but we’ll deal with those in a couple of weeks. Next week, Elder W. will be preaching. And then the week after that, we’ll return to this passage and I’ll deal with these last two cases of verses 14 and 15—borrowed things and hired things.

Okay, so that’s an explanation of the text. I know it’s a lot of details, but in general, the idea is the text encourages safekeeping. It governs how things are kept safe one to the other and what happens when jams happen in the context of a community.

Let me read George Rollinson’s summarization of this law. It’s just a paragraph—one paragraph quote. He reads: “Properly, a property deposited into the hands of another for safekeeping might be so easily embezzled by the trustee or lost through his negligence that some special laws were needed for its protection. Conversely, the trustee required to be safeguarded against incurring loss if the property entrusted to his care suffered damage or disappeared without fault of his.”

Okay? So it’s protecting the goods and services of the original owner, and it’s protecting also—it’s safekeeping, as it were—the safekeeper in case things happen that were outside of his control. The Mosaic legislation provided for both cases. On the one hand, it required the trustee to exercise proper care, made him answerable for the loss of a thing entrusted to him. If a thing entrusted to him was stolen and the thief not found, he’s got to go out of his way to go and clear his name before the judges if the thief isn’t found. So you see, it puts some obligations upon the caretaker.

Embezzlement is punished. Embezzlement is punished by requiring the trustee guilty of it to pay double. On the other hand, in doubtful cases, it allowed the trustee to clear himself by an oath, and in clear cases to give proof that the loss had happened through unavoidable accidents—verse 12, the thing was torn.

Okay. So we’ve got these laws governing property. Now, not in isolation from you or your neighbor’s property as the first few verses in this chapter were, but now in the context of your property—it’s kind of intermingled, as it were, through safekeeping or through caretaking for each other. And let’s look at some of the implications from the text.

What are some of the important truths or themes that at least I think are important for us to consider as we take out of this text?

And the first thing I think it’s important to see in this—we’re on Roman numeral II now—the presumption of safekeeping and a civil society.

A civil society is what these laws seek to create and keep in place. A godly society, civil in the sense of a godly society. And what these laws say is that in the context of a godly society, there’ll be a presumption that people will on a somewhat regular basis be safekeeping each other’s goods and services. Okay.

A biblical culture has the kind of neighborliness or community aspect to it that when John goes away for three weeks, he can turn to somebody like Roger and say, “Can you watch my stuff?” And a biblical community is such that John Patrick can turn to one of his neighbors, presumably a Christian, and say, “While I’m gone, can you watch my stuff?” We have to be gone. We can’t always be at our house. So safekeeping, whether it’s in very little areas or whether it’s for long periods of time, is an important aspect of biblical culture.

So in the context of that, that’s the first truth you want to say: it was such an important entity that God saw fit to draw up special regulations about it to protect it. The safekeeper has certain—the guy who keeps property for somebody else has certain protections for him as well as certain obligations placed upon him. And so when we want to apply this, we want to avoid the kind of adages that some of our country’s origins had.

What do I mean? Ben Franklin said—I think it was Ben Franklin who wrote in Poor Richard—”Never a borrower or a lender be.” See, we think of that verse and we think well, that’s good. You don’t want to have to borrow money, and we don’t want to have to lend money. But these verses, as we’ll look at in a couple weeks, actually regulate borrowing. It’s not a bad thing to borrow something from somebody else. You see, the adage “never a borrower or lender be” kind of talks about our country’s feelings, our country’s mood and its origins—that we were very independent from each other.

The history of America for the last 200 years, although in many ways a blessed history, has also had a strain of kind of a radical independence in it that always wants the man to want to be totally self-sufficient. So the libertarian party, for instance, that posits a totally self-sufficient man, has roots in this country, and it has roots in some of these adages from men like Franklin, who was essentially, you know, kind of an isolated guy. I mean, he did go to church, but wasn’t really part of a Christian community. And that independence, I think, is countered by these biblical truths of safekeeping.

Okay. Secondly, the thief pays double, not the steward. It’s important to recognize. It seems obvious, but the scriptures want to protect the steward. And if a thief breaks into his house and takes something that’s yours that he’s safekeeping for you, he doesn’t have to pay. It’s the guy who does the damage that has to pay.

Matthew Henry comments on this, saying that there’s no reason why a man should suffer for that which he could not help. Couldn’t keep the thief from breaking in. And then Henry makes this application: Masters should consider this in dealing with their servants and not rebuke that as a fault which was a mischance which they themselves had—they been in their servants’ places—could not have prevented. There’s a grace to the steward not being blamed by the guy who owns the property, and instead the thief being blamed, that we can carry over—Matthew Henry said—into the small details of our lives.

It affects how we raise our children. Accidents happen. Circumstances happen out of our control. And you know, ultimately we don’t want to make innocent parties, so to speak, pay for those things. There’s a limited risk to the man who keeps something safe for another. It’s limited by God’s word to encourage safekeeping, I believe.

Okay. See, the gift of judges to resolve disputes.

You know, we hate to go to judges. We hate to go to people outside of the particular conflict we’re involved with. And if we think of judges as being guys that essentially are there to condemn us, and if we think of other people as people who are going to come down and bring a rod upon our back, then we wouldn’t want to make use of what these verses say. But these verses correct our understanding of what judges are to be.

And I would say by way of application—both in the church and in the civil magistrate as well—the judges here are divinely-appointed institutions to create and actually not to create but to keep this Christian community, this godly community that takes care of each other’s property when necessary and has a sense of civic duty in the use of our property one to the other. God gives us civil magistrates and church magistrates to protect that very institution of community and to develop it.

Matthew Henry says that the magistrate is an ordinance of God designed among other intentions to assist men both in discovering rights disputed and recovering rights denied. And great respect ought to be paid to the determination of the judges. Exodus 22:28 says, “You shall not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of the people.”

Gods. What’s it talking about? Well, it’s talking about rulers. And that’s what I said earlier. This text, when it talks about the judges, uses the same term Elohim that other texts clearly and most often refer to God himself. This same thing is talked about in Psalm 82.

Look at Psalm 82 if you would. First couple of verses of Psalm 82. Turn there.

God stands in the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the gods. How long will you judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. Defend the poor and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and needy.

You see the picture here is that God is the great civil magistrate. He’s the great judge. But in his providence, he has given us gifts. And one of those gifts he’s given to us are godly men filled with the Spirit who are judges who are also called gods in this text. God, the ultimate God, governs in the context of the gods who he loans his name—Elohim—to, to reflect his authority, but his ministry to the people in which they work. And as a result, he then goes on specifically to talk to those gods or judges:

How long will you judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked? Defend the poor and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and needy.

John Calvin commenting on this text from Exodus where the judges determine these things in civil disputes says that the term Elohim, or judges, or gods rather, is transferred to judges—loaned to judges—for the purpose of dignifying their office because in it they represent the person of God in whose hand alone is all dominion and power. Therefore, Christ says they were called gods because to them the word of God came. John 10:34. In other words, that they should preside in his name and be set over others, on which subject we treated under the fifth commandment.

So God gives his name to the judges in the church and the state. And God says that they are there. You should understand have dignity and respect for them. But also, and this is my biggest point here—see them as a gift by God to you to help you work through the disputes that are inevitable in the context of trying to live a life in Christian community with your neighbors.

You see, we know about that, don’t we? Particularly those of us with families. We know that community is filled with difficulties, you know, but we know as well that we’ve got to resolve those things—that it’s a blessing but it’s filled with difficulties. And God says in the context of those difficulties: Don’t fail to make use of one of the great gifts I’ve given to you. Wise, spirit-filled men who are going to assist you by working out these disputes between you and your neighbor.

Isn’t that great that God does that? Don’t get it wrong here. He gives us these cases, but ultimately he didn’t give us a great big huge statute book so that every time something happens, we can plug it into the computer and figure out what we do. That’s not God’s way. God’s way is to give us these guiding principles, these guiding truths, and to give them to spirit-filled men who will then minister them in the context of Christians living in community together.

You know, we’ve got some ballot measures, and I’ll talk about this more in a couple of weeks. I’m going to do an election day sermon again this year. But you know, in our country, we’re so tired of these liberal judges. We want to write all these laws to take care of the problem. I had a conversation with Charles Starr, Oregon senator from out in the Hillsboro area who’s now running for the United States House of Representatives. Great godly Christian man. Many of you know him or know of him.

And we were talking about this on the phone a week or two ago as I was preparing the voters’ guide. And you know, he had these get tough on crime laws passed and mandatory sentencing. He knew of a 16-year-old Christian kid and another mother and child came to live with him, I think, for a while or something, and there was a 13-year-old daughter. And because of the close proximity and because sin happens, these two ended up sleeping together.

And that young man is now serving seven years in prison in Oregon because of the mandatory sentencing guidelines. A judge, a wise, spirit-filled man, would discern the Christian character of this youth. Would discern: Yeah, this is a bad sin. What does God’s word say about how we should correct it? Wouldn’t lessen the impact of the sin, but wouldn’t turn that kid over to a criminal justice system that more often than not creates criminals, creates hardened criminals instead of curing anybody.

See, that’s what happens when we move away from the God-given gifts of judges and try to establish a system of laws that are comprehensive enough that we don’t need man. Man is God’s image bearer, and God wants us to come before men and seek help, seek guidance, seek resolution to the problems that inevitably, you know, come up as we try to live in Christian communities together.

Exodus—I’ve given you some scriptures there you can look up later. They talk about the qualifications for officers. Just say this: judges are to be spirit-filled men just like elders in the church are to be. It’s the ministry of God’s spirit to you.

Deuteronomy 25:1 says, “If there be a controversy between men, they come into judgment that the judges may judge them. Then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.”

See, that’s what’s going on. God gives us this gift to prosper the righteous man and to help him to live in the context of Christian community in a good way. Don’t run away from the mediation of human authorities that God has placed in their particular place.

That’s one of the truths of this text. Now, another thing we should recognize here is that God says he’s going to work through those judges. Doesn’t say they’re always going to rule what’s right. But when a man came to a decision, he goes before the judges. The judges say, “Well, you stole this thing. You may know you didn’t steal the thing.” The judges can err and make mistakes.

But God still wants us submitting to those authorities because he says that he is the last judge. He is the final court of appeal, and if you’re righteous, your appeal will be heard by him and you will be justified if only at the last judgment. So God says that these rulers are there. They will make mistakes, but it’s his method of resolving disputes.

Fourth thing I want to say is the importance of oaths. Point D on your outlines under II: verses 8 and 11.

Both of these, as I said, involve an oath formula. They come before God and they give an oath. An oath is a very important thing. Hebrews 6:16 says that “an oath, for by an oath of confirmation, is an end of strife.” And that’s probably what it’s talking about in these particular case laws. When men give an oath before God of what the real thing is—what happened—then it ends the strife, or it should, in the context of Christian community.

Why would that be? Well, it’s because even though you might steal something or appropriate something of your neighbors, you may be tempted to do that. You may fall into that sin. When you come before someone that you know is a representative of God, you come before Elohim, the judges, and you have to take an oath by God’s name to the truth of the matter. It is only a hardened and calloused sinner who will lie at that point.

That sounds odd to us that the oath is of any value because it doesn’t seem like it to us. Listen to what John Calvin says about this. He says:

“The expression ‘an oath of the Lord shall be between them both’ is a remarkable expression whereby the obligation and sanctity of an oath are enforced whilst Moses reminds us that God is the author of this sacred mode of attestation and provides over it as its judge and avenger.”

Hebrews 6 goes on to say that God swore by himself, and as a result of his oath-taking, he sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for your sins in conformity to his oath to bring you to salvation. God is the author of it.

Matthew Henry says, “The religion of an oath is very ancient and a plain indication of the universal belief of a God and a providence and a judgment to come.”

Creator God, providence God running all things, a judgment to come. Universal belief—not quite so universal today. We have a president who has been found guilty by a judge of lying under oath, of taking the oath in a vain way. Now, it’s interesting because up until recent times, all presidents of the United States were sworn into office by taking an oath—which our president still did—to fulfill his duties as president.

But it used to be that instead of a closed Bible, the Bible would be opened. In the country’s in most of the country’s history and specifically it’d be open to Deuteronomy 28. So the man would put his hand on an open Bible on Deuteronomy 28 and swear—God being his witness—to fulfill his oath of office, or swear as he goes into a courtroom to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Why Deuteronomy 28? Because Deuteronomy 28 lists the blessings and curses to oath-keepers who are either faithful or unfaithful. Oaths are a covenant affirmation to tell the truth as defined by God’s word and commanded by it. And to affirm covenant by taking an oath invokes upon the one who takes the oath blessings and curses.

Now in our country today, the Bible’s a closed book, and the president doesn’t care. He does not believe in the blessings and curses of God. But you know, a little boy can go into a room with bad things happening and close his eyes and pretend he’s not there. We’ve seen this with our kids, right? They say, “I’m not here anymore.” But you know, it’s not real. He’s still there.

And the president or anyone who falsely swears or violates his oath can close their eyes and pretend that God isn’t there. But he is there. And he is promised that he is a God who is active in the prosecution of people who break oaths before him. It’s listed in the very Ten Commandments. God himself punishes all false oath-takers. “Will not hold them guiltless. He says in the Ten Commandments that takes his name in vain. To enter into an oath is to take God’s name and to take it in an empty fashion and to not tell the truth. God says he will punish people that are oath-breakers.