Dennis Tuuri

# CLEANED TRANSCRIPT

Context. Today, the Lord God brings us to the portion of Moses’ sermon in Deuteronomy. Sermon, sermons plural, whichever it is, where he moves on from the fourth word to the fifth word. And so, we’ll turn to Deuteronomy 16 beginning at verse 18. And today we’ll deal with 16:18-17:13. There are more verses in this sermon dealing with the fifth word, but we’ll deal with these particular ones first.

And there’s fire in these verses. It’s not translated that way, unfortunately, but it is there. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Deuteronomy 16:18-17:13. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

You shall follow what is altogether just that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not plant for yourselves any tree as a wooden image near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. You shall not set up a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates. You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

If there is found among you within any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it is told you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently.

And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones. Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses. He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death and afterward the hands of all the people.

So you shall put away the evil from among you. If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates. Then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them.

They shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you, according to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you.

Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously.

Let’s pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this wonderful book of Deuteronomy, this sermon applying your ten words in the particular context and history in which they found themselves. Help us, Father, to receive this good gift from you, this law that we said as we recited Psalm 119 is to be our love and our guidance, our wisdom and our maturity. Bless us, Father, with an understanding of this law that we can apply it as redeemed people to the situation in which we find ourselves. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

The case laws are dangerous because I’m thinking of danger a lot these days, but this is dangerous stuff. We’re going to head into now more as we move into Moses’ sermon on the balance of the ten words or ten commandments. They’re dangerous for a couple of reasons. Well, they’re both really the same reason. That’s historical context. I believe that early on in the reconstruction movement some of the case laws were sort of seen and ultimatized in their particular setting. That setting was one of decentralized government as they went into the land.

What we have here is a new application of the fifth word. There was an application in the wilderness when they were one big large conglomerate and now we have a decentralized judicial system being established and that’s because times have changed. They’re now in a decentralized pattern and this will change again. The king will come and we’ll read about the king in future sermons but the king is provided for in this text of scripture that goes on in this part of the sermon and centralization will occur.

So we’re reading laws of particular cases of particular application in a particular social setting and we can’t just cut and paste those into our setting today. Centralization, some degree of centralization is not a bad thing. It was what God developed in the Old Testament. So we have to be careful with these commandments that we don’t ultimatize their particular historical application in that setting in which they’re given to us. Capiche? We have to understand how they apply. That takes wisdom. It takes understanding of historical development. It’s also a very difficult thing to work with the case laws because the other assumption is not just a decentralized tribal government that’s being established, but the other thing that’s being established is that’s their land now. They’re going to run everything.

It’s analogous to when Christians settled America and they had to turn to passages like this and they did with wisdom in terms of how to set up a civil structure in America and which they did. We don’t live in that context anymore. You know, we are from one perspective in exile. We’re now in a situation where the ruling authorities are pluralistic at best and antagonistic to Christian at worst in many cases. And so we see these verses and we think, well, that sounds really great. If we can go move to an island someplace and start our own establishing of government, this might be great. But what does it have to do with us?

Well, you know what this has to do with us is it sort of shows us what we’re supposed to try to develop and plan for and pray for and what we’re to do. I mentioned before, and I have not done a good job of showing you the connections, but Daniel, I think, has primarily laid out the book of Daniel in these ten words. And there’s stuff that goes on in that book that show and Daniel particularly wrote the historical narrative so that the ten words would be re-emphasized in exile.

So even if we were in total exile and that’s our analogous situation, these words are important to us. We don’t just toss them away until things change. They’re part of what we pray for. We pray for the peace of the city. We pray for the establishment of God’s law in the context of our setting. So this is what we’re going to do now as we embark in the last six commandments of Moses’ sermon.

Now I’ve got a kind of a long extended outline. We’re going to move through it very quickly. However, don’t get thinking it’s going to be real long.

First, there’s structural emphasis in Moses’ sermon. You know, you really cannot understand the word of God, I don’t think, very well just reading, you know, verses and sort of linearly going through it like it’s a sequence of ideas, abstract ideas. There is a structure to what God writes. It is a beautiful structure and to appreciate that beauty is a good thing. And to understand what’s going on in a text, we have to sort of understand the structure of it.

If we just read these verses haphazardly, we would not make the connections which are obviously to be made between this section and the fifth word. That’s very significant because this section doesn’t say a thing about parents. Moses has a sermon to talk about honoring your father and mother and immediately launches into a discussion of fathers and mothers, judges and officers in the state and also Levites and prophets, priests and prophets in the church.

So he makes immediate application not to families but to the commonwealth and church and state. Now we wouldn’t be thinking about that stuff if we didn’t understand the structure of the book. So you know we have a long slow pull, a multigenerational task in this church to help raise up children, raise up generations who understand the way the Bible is written and as a result of those understanding some of those structures we’ll understand better what’s being communicated.

There are some structures here as I mentioned before. We have this centrality of the fourth and fifth words beginning of Leviticus 19, the summary of 70 commandments that kind of relate the ten commandments to that situation. Well it starts with Sabbath and parents. That’s what it’s all about. There’s a centrality, there’s a connection.

Here’s kind of a ditch. I put it here between Deuteronomy 16 and 17 and 18. So the verses just before this. What is God telling us just before this? Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses. At the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and at the feast of tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God, which he has given you.

Now, that’s the end of the last section. And the beginning of the next section is you shall appoint judges and officers.

R.J. Rushdoony in commenting on this says you know basically what this shows us. We now have this transition from relationship to God primarily to now relationship in our social settings with commandments 5 through 10. And what it shows us in this stitching together of these two sections, the way it’s done, Rushdoony says there’s really only two things necessary to build a godly culture and that is that men worship and tithe and give offerings that they finance the acts of reconstruction, he would say, and we would say you know centrally that involves worship. The whole emphasis of the text is primarily upon the fact that on the Lord’s day we fulfill all these feasts so it’s worship and in the context of that worship is financing of reconstruction.

And then secondly, Rushdoony said, the other thing that’s needed is a dispersal of judgment throughout the land. So, we can get so hung up on what’s going on in worship that we just think what’ll happen out there just happens, but it doesn’t. Or we could get so hung up in doing political action and working our jobs and all that stuff in our community building that worship becomes, you know, secondary or unimportant. That would be the other ditch.

And what the scriptures, what Moses does here, God through Moses does is he shows us that the middle of, really and from some commentators perspective, this is really the center of the book, the section on the fifth word. And what it shows us is at the center of Moses’ exposition of God’s law, his ten words as they’re about to move into a land, that the center of that are these two obligations of worship and seeking justice throughout the lands in which we’re going to live. So these things are combined together.

So how we worship and how we live is really what’s going on here in the context of this movement now as we move into Moses’ sermon on the fifth word. And as I said, this really is from, and I won’t belabor the point, but there are various commentaries that look at the overall structure of Deuteronomy and inform us that probably the very heart of the central section of Deuteronomy is this fifth word. It’s significant.

It’s going to set up all kinds of other things we just read in terms of the application of the fifth word in courts of justice that you’re to purge the evil. Well, and what is evil? Well, evil is going to be defined by commandments 6 through 10. And so, to honor your parents and to honor God’s authorities means to punish evildoers who break the rest of God’s law. And so, it’s this gateway section, the fifth word is to a transition to the next three words.

I’ve got on your outlines, I’ve got Deuteronomy 21:1-9, 22 and 24:7. Now, those are the next three sections that’ll come up. And each one of those is identified by a phrase at the beginning. If there is found, if there is found in your gates a murderer, if there is found adultery, if there is found theft, and specifically kidnapping, that’s what the next verses are is the three occurrences of if there is found that follow this fifth word section. And you see what it’s doing is it’s showing us by way of structure, by looking at well, how God speaks, the words that he repeats and the emphasis he draws, it shows us that the fifth commandment sets up then these next commandments that are laid out for us.

And this is what we’re supposed to be doing in our courts of justice is to deal correctly with murder, adultery, and theft. And so this is a central commandment, this fifth word that moves us into the rest of the decalogue or at least Moses’ sermon on the decalogue.

All right. Now, overview of the fifth word section. So, this section itself has a particular structure to it. It deals, as we said before, with superiors and inferiors. Well, maybe this isn’t a good phrase. I’ve tried to resurrect it. I suppose people get upset. And maybe I put on your outline today the words ontological and economic. These are kind of theological terms. The ontological trinity is the essence of who the trinity, the three members of the trinity are. Who they are in their essence. There’s ontological equality. They’re equal in essence. The economic trinity doesn’t mean spending money but it sort of, it does. It means the function of the trinity. And economically the Son is subordinate, inferior to the Father. He comes to do the Father’s will. He’s no less equal in essence. Ontology is equal. Economically there’s a differentiation.

And so maybe a simpler way to put it is two one-syllable words. What the trinity is and what the trinity does. And what functional mothers and fathers are. They’re equal. What they do is different. There is a structure and a hierarchy that’s given to us in the scriptures and it’s important to recognize that. And it’s important to recognize that by mother and father, you know, clearly Moses as I said, doesn’t talk about the family, but he talks about mothers and fathers. We could say, judges and officers in the civil realm.

And then later in this section, he’ll deal with the ecclesiastical realm. And so Moses is immediately applying fifth word language to what they are and what they do. Yeah, the judges and the officers are equal, but there’s a difference of function.

Okay. Now, when we read the text, it said God says, “Well, do this. Set up these judges and do really good justice. Only justice. Justice, only justice is what it actually literally says. It’s got the word justice twice and multiply because and if you do this, you’ll live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving to you. Does that sound familiar? Well, yeah. That’s the promise attached to the fifth commandment. And it’s the same promise that we find in the opening verses of this section by Moses on the fifth word.

So clearly, this is a fifth word sermon. And it prepares us. It shows us the emphasis of this in terms of civil rulers.

In Isaiah 49:23, we read, “The kings shall be thy nursing fathers.” An unusual expression, nursing fathers, mothers and fathers, we can say. And so, the scriptures explicitly give us texts that refer to civil rulers as parents. Again, in 1 Peter 2:17, we’re told to honor the king. Well, we’re to honor our mother and father. And 1 Peter says to honor the king. The implication is that he’s a father. He’s a father of the nation in the context of that. And so the scriptures tell us about these functional rulers in church and state. And even in culture, Job 29, Job says, “I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out.” He was a father to the poor. Job was.

Now, Job may have been a king. So maybe we’re talking again about the king as the father, but specifically he says to the poor. And there’s a sense in which we should see ourselves in that way even in business and economy. 1 Thessalonians 2:7 says, Paul says this, “We were gentle among you just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.” So I could go on, but there are plenty of scripture texts that show us that mothers and fathers are there in the state, in the commonwealth, in business, and also in the church. So the fifth commandment has these applications to church and state and even I think properly to economies.

Well, the development in Deuteronomy 16:18-18:22. So what do we have here? Well, we’ve got four sections that are articulated on your outlines. The first section is the one we’ll be talking about today that deals specifically with judges. Right? So judges, this is what we’re going to be talking about in a couple of minutes and that section has its own particular structure. After this in 17:14, we’ll talk about kings, the Levites in chapter 18 and prophets in the last half of 18.

So there’s four specific sets of parents we can say that the fifth commandment sermon by Moses addresses and we’re going to begin with justices. And so here I’ve given you a little development of the text as it lays itself out on your outlines. And there’s sort of a movement in the text from local to national judges, right? So, you establish judges and officers in your local towns and then he moves to the sort of justices that we would call the Supreme Court.

It’s not really a court of appeals, however, it’s a court of referral, right? He doesn’t say if somebody wants to appeal what you told them, bring it to the next higher level. There was no automatic right of appeal. But what he’s saying is there’s a case that’s too difficult for you, bring it to the national judge, is what he says. So, there’s this movement. There’s justice in the local towns and there’s justices in the central place in Jerusalem, in the place where the temple will be established where God chooses to put his name.

We have two kinds of courts and this movement of this text is that movement. It’s a movement from local to national jurisdictions. The judges are local judges and specifically it’s interesting that on your outline I do B and B prime here. The first thing that the judges are supposed to enforce is religious matters which is interesting. We could talk a lot about that but the point is there’s no some neutral civil statutes. They’re all rooted in a particular religious system.

Pluralism is a movement from one orthodoxy to the other. And when you find yourself in a pluralistic culture, the only question is where are we headed? Because we won’t stay here. Well, so here, this is this goes on and this two specific things that are talked about is no Asherah or pillars by the altar. You can’t put up these things by the altar of God.

We don’t have time to get into the instructions about that, but it’s interesting. And then no serving other gods. Verses 2 to 7 of chapter 17. So idolatry is prohibited both in terms of worship structures right next to the altar of God and then in terms of people worshiping other gods, sun, moon or stars, whatever. And at the middle of the section then is this commandment that there given that people should not bring defective animal offerings to the central sanctuary.

Well, that’s interesting. That’s interesting. We have civil justice, but the beating heart of it is a picture, of course, the portrayal of the coming Lord Jesus Christ will be the sacrifice that enables all of this stuff to be put into effect. Remember that the law is not given to bring people into salvation. The law is given to a saved people, to a redeemed people. And the commemoration of that redemption by bringing animals without defect, remembering that God will provide a Savior. He’ll come and die for us as the perfect offering, so to speak, this is at the heart of establishing civil justice in the context of a land.

So no serving other gods. And the serving other gods section is also broken up on your outlines with a little structure of its own. And at the heart of the first structure is this idea that you have to execute on the basis of two or more witnesses. And there’s very careful language listed there. You can’t do it on a single witness. You got to carefully determine, carefully search out matters. It is a good thing that our country wants to carefully search out death penalty cases.

Now, that’s probably gone overboard the other direction, but the instinct is a godly one. It comes from these laws to make careful determinations of death penalty cases. And then it concludes this part of local judges in verses 8 to 13 with a call for I’m sorry in verse 7b to purge the evil.

Now here’s the fire word. The word purge, to put out, to cast out the evil person from among you. The word is actually fire. So it has the idea of the presence of God burning away contamination in the context of the community. So it deals with the presence of God in a judging fashion just like we sang about in Psalm 83 today. And then the next section is the national referral judge. You’re on your outlines.

It’s 17:8 through 13. There’s a central tribunal. The central tribunal is a judge, but it involves priests and judges as well. You’re required to obey them, of course. And execute the disobedient. And again, it ends with purging the evil. So there’s two sections in the judicial section, local and national. And both of them conclude with a statement that you’re to put away this kind of evil, the kind of obstinate rebellion against authorities in the case of the national judge or overt idolatry in the case of the local judge.

Both those kind of people are to be put off from your community. This is tremendous implications for church discipline which will develop in future sermons. But that’s kind of the structure of how the text is laid out. And then as I said, it gets into kings, Levites, and prophets as well.

Now, there are some narratives. There’s some stories in the Bible that this stuff is related to. Okay? So, one of the stories that it’s related to is the golden calf incident in Deuteronomy 4 and Exodus 32. Deuteronomy 4 is a recounting of the golden calf incident and it brings up the same phrase that was in our text today of worshiping sun, moon, and stars. So Moses comes down from the mountain with the ten commandments. The people are acting idolatrously, openly idolatrously. they’re worshiping a golden calf, etc. They’re doing perverse things. And so what does Moses do? He has the Levites execute brother and the word specifically is used of your brothers, put them to death as they’re remaining rebellious to God.

So the golden calf story helps form the understanding of this judicial laws in Deuteronomy 16. Idolatry is punished by God directly by his voice instructing this to happen at the golden calf incident by death. And so repentance is capable. Of course, Aaron wasn’t executed. But the people that were impenitent are executed and 3,000 die. And so this narrative really undergirds. When you read these case laws, there should come to mind stories of how God works in the context of the history of his people.

And one of the stories that we can kind of hear resonances of here is the story of the golden calf incident. And we see what a horrific nature these kind of sins are. If we meditate upon that incident.

Jethro and Moses is another story. So the story is that Moses is going to judge the people. He’s got way too many cases. His Midianite father-in-law Jethro comes out to him and Jethro says, “Well, here’s what you ought to do. You ought to set up heads of tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands, have them judge people and bring the hard cases to you.”

Now, that was the advice of Jethro. It was the word of God is what the text indicates. And Moses saw it at least as the word of God and Moses did what Jethro said and established a godly judicial system. Now, what’s happening in today’s text then is that incident, that story of Jethro helping Moses judge the people becomes now the basis for what they’re going to do once they go into a tribal situation in the land.

They’re not all together now. So, you don’t have tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands in terms of a huge monolithic structure of people. You have decentralized cities or gates. And in the context of that, you’re supposed to set up judges to hear those cases and when a case is too difficult for them again you refer them up to the place where God is where you know we might say Moses’ successor is Supreme Court justice will sit and he will hear those cases.

So the Jethro text is another narrative, it’s a story that’s being sort of now codified in the context of law. This is the way God does it in the Bible. If you look at much of the laws and go back if you have a good understanding of the stories of Genesis or the stories of Exodus, you’ll see where the laws really are codifying the way God has always acted. It’s a reflection of his character. It’s not something new. The newness, if there is something new, is the application to the particular situation. The character of God is reflected in the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands in a big centralized mass. Now, it’s reflected in decentralized judges and officers in cities. And then a referral judge at the top for cases that are too hard.

People have to understand their limitations and that has always been the case. They represent God in that. And so these narratives help us to understand what’s going on with these case laws and really kind of vice versa. The case laws help us to see the principles of justice that are actually in these narratives or stories that we know so well.

A third narrative is Deuteronomy 1:9-18. And this builds on the Jethro text on your outline. What I’ve that is Deuteronomy 1:9-18 equals Exodus 18:8-26 and Numbers 11:16 and following.

And what do I mean? Well, this term judges and officers that we find in Deuteronomy 16 is first spoken of in Deuteronomy 1. And Moses is recounting narratives. He’s talking about two different stories in Deuteronomy 1. And he doesn’t, you know, sketch out the whole stories, but he gives us enough information we know what the stories are. And one of the stories is He’s saying, “I took men and I made them judges over you, and you’re supposed to have these judges in your gates.” This is what he says in Deuteronomy 1.

The significance of the fifth word is reminded to us right at the beginning of Deuteronomy as they’re preparing to enter into the land. This idea of justice in your gates and in the place where you dwell is absolutely vital. And so Moses is reminding them of their history. And he said, “You know that when there were so many of us and God was blessing us with numbers and everything, I couldn’t take it all and so I had to set up you know a series of justices and that’s what’s going to happen now as we go into the land. That’s the story that undergirds the establishment of judges in local places and the national referral judge.

But the other story that’s frequently missed is the officer part. Doesn’t say just judges in your local towns neither here nor in Deuteronomy 1. What it says is judges and officers and he also in Deuteronomy 1 recites the story by way of speaking and by mentioning particular words a story that happened in the wilderness. And the story was that God’s people were complaining. God was going to give them a tremendous amount of food but Moses needed help not in judging the people but he needed help in administering the people and specifically in relationship to complaints about food. And then God will provide quail till it’s coming out their noses.

But how is that administration to be carried out? This happens. This is the narrative. This is the Bible story from Numbers 11. And it’s a good one to tell your children to read your story children these Bible stories. These Bible stories really undergird as I said and help us to understand what’s going on in this vital application of the fifth word in Deuteronomy 16. The story is that there were these judges that were needed. And the other story is that Moses brings into Deuteronomy 1 is there were administrators that were needed. Judges, officers, judicial matters, administrative matters.

The account in Numbers 11 of the spirit empowered 70 men to form administrative bureaucracy gives us great hope for bureaucrats. It’s an evidence of a bureaucratic Pentecost where the administrators of God’s people, not their judges now, but they’re going to administrate the food distribution, hear complaints, etc. But it’s not judicial, it’s administrative. And these administrators are God-empowered, spirit-filled men that God has established and Moses put into that office.

And so Moses says, “I gave you these officers as your administrators.” And those are the two stories, narratives by which we have to understand why it doesn’t just say judges in Deuteronomy 16:18. It says judges and officers. And this is why the sermon today has this title fathers and mothers. Or if we were going to use Leviticus 19, mothers and fathers in church and state.

Then it seems to me that these two stories give us sort of an application of honoring your mother and your father. Your father and your mother in the home. You have a judge and you have an administrator. And in the towns, there’s a civil judge and there’s a civil administrator. And the administrator administrates and the judge rules, makes decisions in terms of hard cases and stuff. And it seems to me this is a reflection of fathers and mothers. So when Moses wants to pick up the fifth commandment and begin to preach on it, he gives us the words, if you do this stuff, you’ll live long in the land, he immediately ties it back. And instead of just giving us one civil officer, he gives us two, father and mother, judge and administrator.

And I think that’s significant. And I think it’s significant for when we get down to an understanding of church office. What do we have in the New Testament? We have elders and deacons. Now, I know there’s lots of discussion and lots of controversy and the church has never really fixed on this, but I believe that one way to understand that is on the basis of the continuity. There’s a there’s a story back there. God worked particular ways that was codified in case law for that particular time and that helps us to understand what’s happening now.

If the elders in the gate are like those judges in the gate in Deuteronomy 16, then couldn’t we be able to make some kind of connection between those deacons and those officers, administrative officials? I think we can. I think we’re supposed to. I think in a way it’s rather obvious. Now, what’s going to happen is the administrator will become a king in due time and we’ll talk about that in the future.

It’s interesting though that God gives us a judicial branch and he gives us an administrative branch in Deuteronomy 16:18, right? Now, what’s the third branch of government? Those of you that know anything, no, I shouldn’t say that. The third branch of government is the legislative branch, isn’t it? There’s lawgivers, there’s administrators of a culture, kings, we might say, are administrators. And then there are judges who judge matters. And this is our three branches of government here. We have the president, the administrative branch, we have the legislative branch, and we have the judicial branch. The scriptures in Isaiah, God says that, you know, he is our judge, he is our lawgiver, he is our king, he will save us. And it’s the same thing. It’s the three branches of government.

But here there’s only two branches of government. The legislative branch is missing. Why? Well, that had already been filled by God quite nicely. Thank you very much. He had given them their laws. That’s what this sermon is. It’s giving them the laws in their particular situation. So the emphasis in civil government in church government is not new laws. The emphasis in God’s perpetuating government administrative and judicial is to empower people in the context of the community to apply God’s single law that exists for all time, the ten words in their particular context.

We don’t need lawgivers. Now, originally, this was what it was in America. The legislative assemblies were primarily put together at first to curb administrative excesses. They didn’t meet to make more administrative excess, which is what they do now, to give us 2,400 pages of healthcare legislation and administration, or to give us 1,500 pages of a financial set of administration and new rules and laws, or to give us some huge honking bill on cap and trade.

All kinds of administrative excesses going on. No, it was just the opposite. The legislature would come together and people would say, well, you know, the administrative branch here is really overdoing its power and authority. And they would enact laws to restrict the administrative branch. So, it’s very instructive for us here. God is the lawgiver here in this scenario. There is a three-fold office being held, but God is the lawgiver.

He doesn’t want us from the get-go to think in terms of what we’re trying to do in this country, what we want to see happen, what we’re working and praying toward, of passing a whole bunch of moral laws, but rather applying the law of God, which of course involves passing legislation for a city or a state. But the emphasis is that, you know, what’s really needed are judges who will judge according to the law of God and administrators who will carry out that same law. And that’s what we’re given here. And that’s what we’re given in judges and officers, mothers and fathers in the state.

The case when we get to the church is that the same thing happens in the Old Testament. And I believe that’s how we can properly understand the two New Testament officers of the church, elders and deacons. It really is a continuing strand. And if we understand our stories, if we teach our children Bible stories, then they’ll get it, it’ll be quite easy when they start talking about the laws.

If they understand the golden calf incident, and if they’ve grown up hearing about the seventy and the administration of food. Then probably when they get to the story of the New Testament church and we’ve got a mixed multitude like we had coming out of Egypt, right? There were Israelites, then there were converts, a mixed multitude. And if they see in Acts 6 that this mixed multitude starts grumbling about food, and if they remember, if they’ve known that story of the establishment of officers, administrative, Holy Spirit empowered administrators, they won’t be so denigrating toward administrators, by the way.

They’ll pray for God’s spirit to be upon our bureaucracy. And they’ll understand that, oh, we’ve got another growth. We got a lot of people. We got the blessings of God in Acts 6. We got a food controversy. We got elders who need to focus on their eldering by studying the word of God and praying so they can make good judicial decisions. And what we’re going to need are officers. We’re going to need someone to administrate the decisions that are made in accordance with God’s law. So Bible stories, you know, Bible stories are so important.

These laws are not abstractions. They pick up the themes of the Bible stories.

Now, another good Bible story to show the significance of what we’re reading about today is Jezebel and Naboth. This requirement of two or three witnesses that we rest read about in Deuteronomy 16, that became so powerfully entrenched that many years later when wicked King Ahab is doing his thing and he marries this horrible idolater Jezebel, she or he and she want Naboth’s vineyard, but they can’t just take it.

The word of God establishing judicial systems has tremendous power and authority for generations, for centuries, actually for millennia to come. It’s powerful. It’s not like man’s words. When we multiply laws, injustice multiplies. When we speak a bunch of words, they become powerless words. God’s word is powerful. And Jezebel requires—she had to find two witnesses to say Naboth had sinned. And so she pays two scurrilous men to be false witnesses. An external show, of course, hypocritical of course, but it shows us the importance of this section that we just read, the requirement of two witnesses in a particular matter. And even greater Naboth, right, I spelled it wrong in your outline. Please forgive me. But in Matthew 26 rather, what happens with Jesus? Well, they want to put him to death. They want to take his garden, right? Ahab and Jezebel wanted Naboth’s garden.

The Pharisees, the apostate, the rebellious Jews wanted Jesus’s garden. They wanted to kill the owner of the garden who had come to claim it. Similar situation. What are they required to do? They need to find several witnesses. They need to find a couple of witnesses. Again, hypocritical, but again showing us the significance, the importance of the two witness rule. And so that story, that Bible story is a reinforcement of Deuteronomy 16:18 and following as is the woman taken in adultery in John 8.

Now, the woman taken in adultery story ends about verse 11 or 12, but the next few verses down to 18 is talking about witnesses. You probably don’t put these things together, but again, there’s structure. These aren’t just isolated, you know, stories, but they’re woven. The scriptures are a beautiful document. And we move from the woman taken in adultery to then a discussion of Jesus and whether he can bear witness to himself or does he need a second witness?

That’s what happens as that passage continues. And Jesus says, “Well, my witness is fine just as it is. He’s God.” But he says, “The Father also bears witness of me.” So Jesus even—He creates the law, brings that law and actually shows he’s not bound by it, but he properly reflects the importance of it by saying the Father is the second witness. So even Jesus talks about this need for two witnesses and accommodates us in that.

And then there’s the woman taken in adultery, a story that we could talk a lot about, but we can’t today. But it’s an important narrative to understand what Deuteronomy 16 is saying because that’s the basis for what happens in this case. They want Jesus. Well, they don’t really want him to put her to death. They couldn’t. The Romans had stopped it. It’s a trick. It’s a, you know, it’s a feint. It’s one of those deals. But that’s sort of what’s presented to us is here’s a woman who should be put to death. And it’s true that the death penalty for adultery is part of the scriptural law.

But the other part of the scriptural law is what we just read. You need two witnesses or three. Two or three. That’s interesting. I don’t know why that is, but it’s over and over again in the scriptures. Maybe it’s a trinitarian thing, but in any event, you need at least a couple of witnesses.

Now, these men that brought the adulterous woman to Jesus had no witnesses. And in fact, he said, “Well, if you guys are going to be the witnesses, then you can’t be guilty of the same crime, right? A witness has to be somebody that didn’t do what they’re witnessing about the other person having done.” So, whoever’s without sin, let him cast in this matter. Now, he wasn’t asking for perfection. This is not some kind of strange story that says that we should never execute people or we should never judge.

No, no, no, no, no. He’s saying if you’re without sin in this matter, cast the first stone. But you know, in other words, what he’s saying is if you’re the witness, well, what’s the implication of that? You’re not capable of casting the first stone. And of course, the other thing we could talk about in this story is where is the man? They say here’s a woman that’s been taken in the very act. The very act requires two people, a man and a woman. And this is an important narrative for us because it does tell us throughout the history of men, this has been true. Men generally in this case at least are abusive. Sinful men are certainly abusive of women and they want to absolve themselves of responsibility.

They don’t bring the man before Jesus, just the woman. Now Jesus is not a friend to the woman. I mean, you know, we hear this story, Jesus is the friend of this woman. Well, I don’t see any evidence of friendship in this story. Depending on how he define friendship. What Jesus says is anybody he says without sin cast the first stone. Where are the witnesses? Where’s the biblical requirement? Where’s Deuteronomy 16:18 and following at play in this thing? And they walk away because he beat them at the game. He beat them with the scriptures themselves.

And so then he says, “Well, I don’t condemn you either. I’m not a witness to this thing. Go and don’t sin anymore.” Is what he tells her. He’s a friend by applying biblical law to her case. Right? That’s what a true friend is. But that’s not how it’s talked about usually. The woman taken in adultery. Somehow it’s okay with Jesus if people are doing this that or the other thing. He hangs with, you know, prostitutes as some emerging people like to talk about. No, no, he doesn’t.

He certainly had relationship. He had interaction with people. He was missional by going to these situations and talking to people, but he didn’t hang with ongoing prostitutes. He called them to repentance, which is what he does in this text. So the text is important not to get us off into an antinomian trail, but Jesus is actually affirming the very case laws that are described for us in Deuteronomy 16.

And so often this narrative, this story, that part is left out. But you know, if you read the account of the woman taken in adultery in relationship to the background of Deuteronomy 16, then you’ll understand the narrative. And then finally, gentile benefactors. Now, this is a little different. This isn’t the witness thing, but it’s the style in which this authority is exercised. And what Jesus says is, you know, the Gentiles lorded over people and they are called benefactors.

And one way a commentator put that is gentile rule wants to make their power known. They want to make their power known. They want to make people call them benefactors. They want to make their power known. And Jesus says the way to properly administrate justice in whatever calling you’re doing it is to be as a servant. And so he calls another. There’s another story that reminds us of the proper way to engage in the application of these laws narratives.

Important few brief comments now to close this off.

First, the transmission belt of godly rulers or leaders, judicial and administrative fathers and mothers, being right and doing right. Now if we look at Deuteronomy 21 or in other places where these judges are further described, their character qualifications are alluded to. Wise, understanding, filled with the spirit. Same in Acts 6. The character of the man is directly related to his qualifications. What he is will be reflected in what he does. Or another way to say it is what he does will be a reflection of who he is in his character.

And so as we look at the importance, this is the beginning of the building of a godly culture as they’re going to move into the land. Worship finances worship and reconstruction finances the church but then also extends justice into your community. So we look at the importance of that godly men of character, men and women of character, men and women of ability both judicial and administrative. These are the transmission belt of the first four words as we build a culture in which God is honored and worshiped, being right and doing right. And I list the references for you there in terms of the requirements of character that’s given to us.

We also see here the consent of the governed. We have a primary election. We’re going to vote on particular people, ballot measures, etc. And when we do it, we should know the character of the people we’re involved we’re involved in voting for. You know, character does matter according to the scriptures. Doing and being are related. So, you know, whatever the mechanism was for selecting these judges and we don’t really know but representation, the consent of the governed is clearly implied.

Secondly, the primacy of God’s law as the source of justice. To whom shall we go? How do we know it’s justice? Well the word of God defines that justice for us and he says in this word, “Justice, only justice shalt thou do.” Very high emphasis that as we build a godly culture we look for justice. That justice has to be defined not in terms of what we think is right, but rather in terms of that eternal law of God that we recited in its importance in Psalm 119.

There’s only one system of justice that really is just. As man’s laws proliferate, injustice proliferates as well. And every historical analysis shows this over and over again. So, we have the primacy of God’s law in determining what justice is. And Moses gives us that here. Notice, by the way, that when Moses tells you to go to the national judge, what he actually tells them here is according to the message of the Torah that they teach you and according to the ruling that they tell you. That’s one way to translate the verses I read earlier, the national judge.

In other words, it’s not just a command. It’s a command that is in that has to be linked to the teaching of God’s law. So at the highest level, this great referral judge at the top, he’s got Levites and priests around him to inform him about the word of God. And even his decision is put in the plural because it’s so informed by the word of God and by God’s officials who understood the word that it is the word of God really that’s the basis for what he tells people to do.

So it’s not the sheer exertion of power, but rather the text tells us explicitly do what they do. Do it according to how they teach you. And the idea is that if the person doesn’t teach you and simply tries to command you, that is not what’s going on in the national referral justice. And that’s not what is being told people have to submit to. They have to submit to the rulings of officials whose officials are tying their rulings to instruction in God’s word.

So the importance of God’s law.

Third, the significance of the gate. Some of your translations say, well, you know, just as judges and officers in your towns. Well, that’s a good translation maybe, but the word is literally gates. And the gates meant a public place. It was where business was transacted. It’s where official stuff happened. That picture on the front of your order of worship, the gates, you know, the rulers in the gate involving the story of Ruth, the gates were there were established places like buildings there at the gate of the city.

Commercial transactions would be going on. It was a public place. In other words, it was the place of the strength of the city and there it’s the establishment of the peace of the city. It is the city for all intents and purposes. And there’s no true city, there’s no gates without justice being established in the context of those very gates.

And then finally, the importance, the need for purging, the necessity of purging. And yes, that’s kind of a powerful note. Well, no. I skipped one point, the death penalty and non-capital crimes. And we’ll talk about this in future weeks, but you know, you were to put to death anybody that disobeyed the Supreme Court justice, no matter what the case was. It could have been a civil lawsuit. And if they’re contumacious against the authorities that God has established, who are ruling in relationship to the Torah, to the law of God, execution is the proper penalty.

Now, again, all kinds of safeguards in place, yes, but the importance of authority in the context of the land in an authority that’s linked to the word of God as the basis for justice. And then finally, the need to purge. Whether you like it or not. Churches, communities of believers as they went into establish the land, we need to take people who are obstinately rebellious against God’s established authority and his justice or who are absolutely committed to serving other gods. We must deal with them in terms of discipline.

This is the very opening. This is how you build a biblical culture. This is the fifth word that opens up everything else. And at the concluding sections of both the establishment of the local justices and the national justices is the phrase, you shall purge, you shall burn out, you shall put away the evil from the land. The presence of God and his justice is blessing to the righteous. It’s water. But the presence of God is fire to his enemies. And when people are dedicated enemies of God through gross idolatry or through gross insubordination, the presence of God, if the God is present in your gates, you will drive out those kind of people.

Tremendous implications for church discipline. And of course, that’s the last place that I haven’t mentioned is Matthew 18, the requirement of two or three witnesses, which we’ll talk about in future sermons.

Let’s pray.