God's Justice and Judge Kavanaugh
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Christians must use God's standards regarding accusations and charges. This applies to the court of law, but also to pastors and SCOTUS confirmations.
- 00:07
- Well, I wanted to just make a few comments just sort of about today's big big event
- 00:12
- I guess and I'll start off this whole thing by saying I'm not a Republican I don't think that the judge
- 00:22
- Judge Kavanaugh would would do much of anything for abortion. I don't think that he's cut from that kind of a cloth he strikes me more as a sort of Kind of squishy on that topic.
- 00:33
- Let's just say so I don't think that this would be sort of a big win for For criminalizing abortion or anything like that.
- 00:40
- It certainly would be better than a crazy raging liberal but you know, it's these are this is not like To me.
- 00:48
- This is not really An issue of Wow, if we just get him in there we can do something about abortion I don't think that's the case at all
- 00:55
- So as far as whether he gets confirmed or not, I mean, I I guess I kind of hope he does but you know
- 01:01
- I don't really care either way the point though is this whole Shenanigans about these accusations and you know, what
- 01:07
- I wanted to talk about was, you know, what would we do in the church? like what what is our marching orders in the church if An accusation is made against an elder.
- 01:17
- We all kind of I think most of us have this verse memorized You know what? I mean? What do you do if somebody makes an accusation against an elder in the church?
- 01:25
- So this is not someone in the civil government. This is actually someone in the church government
- 01:30
- I guess you could say these are two different realms. The church is a is is an ambassador of mercy
- 01:37
- They they provide the means of grace. They preach the word things like that. And then the civil government is the avenger of God It's for justice think things like that.
- 01:46
- So two different realms, but both under God. In fact, if you look at the Qualifications that we have here
- 01:53
- This is this is Jethro's advice to Moses when he says to Moses to set up judges essentially rulers
- 01:59
- Within Israel the advice he gives him is interesting He gives him a couple of he gives him like three things that we should look for in a good judge or a good
- 02:07
- You know leader or government official. He says this he says they must
- 02:13
- These must be people men who fear God number one. So that's the first qualification you fear
- 02:19
- God This doesn't mean you have to be perfectly understanding the law perfectly applying the law, but it just means you have to fear
- 02:25
- God have the standard of God's Word as the law He says so fear
- 02:31
- God trustworthy Okay, that makes a lot of sense You should want you should want to have a trustworthy judge and then also men who hate a bribe
- 02:39
- So they won't be you can't buy them And I think that's a protection for the poor as well because poor can't bribe a judge but rich potentially could so here we go
- 02:49
- Three qualifications you fear God you're trustworthy and you hate a bribe The reality is for for church elders, you know, we have more qualifications need to be it's more specific
- 03:01
- But along the same I mean the elders have to fear God to elders Can't you should not be able to be bribed and they must be trustworthy.
- 03:08
- These are things that are Common between the two now the standard for an elder is much higher but The standard for a civil governing leader is also quite high according to the scripture
- 03:20
- But in any case, um, if you if you were in a church and somebody made an accusation against an elder and they said
- 03:26
- You know what this elder did something to me 30 years ago, and I want everyone to know it right now
- 03:33
- What are you supposed to do with that? Well number one, you're supposed to listen and hear that person out take them seriously
- 03:38
- You don't just say well, whatever, you know, that's that's that's the pastor. He wouldn't do that. No, you don't do that you hear the person out and What you're what you're supposed to do at that point it's very specific in the
- 03:50
- Bible, here's what it says This is this is an application of the law of God says this Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses
- 04:02
- This is an obvious application of the law of God Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses
- 04:09
- Now I've heard some people say some Christians. I'm gonna call them Confessing Christians because I don't really know where they stand because they're just completely
- 04:19
- Overtaken by partisan politics in this way that they would say look, this is not an issue of life and death
- 04:24
- We're not talking about executing Judge Kavanaugh. This is just the job We're saying he should not be qualified for a job if there's a if there's a credible accusation against him
- 04:33
- Well, the scripture defines what a credible accusation is not Randos on the internet, right and what the scripture is saying here is that you can't you can't accept
- 04:44
- It's not a credible witness. If just one person is saying something against somebody.
- 04:49
- It's not a credible witness necessarily There needs to be multiple streams of evidence. Now. Let's just say this
- 04:55
- Let's just say it was one person making an accusation, but they had a videotape of it Well, that would be credible because it's it's two streams of evidence
- 05:04
- It's the person who's saying it plus also the evidence of the videotape or an audiotape or something like that That would be different but in the time of Paul, of course here they didn't have that kind of stuff
- 05:15
- So it's primarily talking about people two or three witnesses. That is how it works
- 05:20
- That's that's what a credible witness is someone who can demonstrate that something happened someone who can prove that something happened
- 05:27
- That's what a credible witness is according to the scripture in the context of the church Now we can easily say that this also applies to the context of the civil realm because this is where Paul got this this
- 05:39
- Was talking about civil Matters and Paul's applying it to the church So the reality is that you know, whatever however much you might believe the person who's making these accusations against your elder
- 05:50
- The Bible says that it's not a credible accusation unless there's two or three witnesses. In other words unless they prove it
- 05:58
- What's interesting about this is this actually doesn't even say don't do anything about it It says don't even admit the charge
- 06:04
- So it's not even like it's it shouldn't even be on this person's record in other words So you hear them you hear the accuser out you find out what evidence they have and if it's only one witness
- 06:13
- You don't even admit the charge You see what I'm saying? There's no court. You don't even hear it out You don't even take it seriously.
- 06:19
- And when I say take it seriously, I don't mean you don't take them seriously I mean, you don't take any further steps for discipline if they can't prove it
- 06:26
- Do you see what I'm saying? And so Yeah, I know it's not a matter of life and death with Kavanaugh. Yeah, if he doesn't get confirmed, he's not on the
- 06:33
- Supreme Court Okay. Well, that's not that the worst thing in the world Of course it isn't but the
- 06:38
- Bible says that these things shouldn't even they shouldn't affect this person If it was an elder if it's not on the evidence of one or two or three witnesses
- 06:47
- You see what I'm saying? And by the way, I've seen some people say this too that the fact that there's three accusers or however many accusers
- 06:53
- That's two or three witnesses. No, that's not how it is Each person each person's accusation is a separate accusation.
- 06:59
- And so each of them needs to be proven. You see what I'm saying? Here's this is what's interesting about this passage as well
- 07:05
- Verse 21 says in the presence of God and Christ Jesus and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels
- 07:11
- I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging doing nothing from partiality
- 07:16
- This is the key here because this is a protection for both sides Just because it's your pastor doesn't mean he didn't do it you see what
- 07:24
- I'm saying just because it's a Republican nominee for for the judge for the Supreme Court doesn't mean he didn't do it and likewise just because it's a
- 07:34
- Republican Nominee for the Supreme Court doesn't mean he did do it either You shouldn't prejudge and I think that we are seeing a lot of people being open about their prejudging
- 07:42
- In fact, there was a senator from Hawaii and the congressman from Hawaii She said the reason she doesn't believe him is because of his politics
- 07:51
- And that's that's an example of partiality as an example of prejudging So the reality is that Christians who are saying look these these witnesses are credible
- 08:00
- They're not defining credible according to how God defines credible if God says an elder in the church
- 08:06
- We shouldn't admit a charge unless it's proven unless there's two or three witnesses How much
- 08:12
- I mean if it applies in the church, then it clearly applies to the civil realm as well
- 08:17
- Especially when we understand that Paul's getting this from the civil realm. And so the reality is this
- 08:23
- Did do I care if judge Kavanaugh gets confirmed or not? I only care in as much as I don't want this whole strategy of to be successful if it's not true
- 08:33
- You know what? I mean? So in that way, I do want him to be confirmed because you know
- 08:39
- Look if they can prove that that he did these things then confirm him and then impeach him get him out of there
- 08:44
- You know, I mean put him in jail Actually, I believe rapists deserve to be executed according to the law of God, whatever it is but the reality is that This is very transparently a politically motivated thing.
- 08:57
- There's no question about that. Do I think that these women are credible? I Don't know.
- 09:03
- I don't know and that's the point of God's law here because it's not up to my opinion Whether or not the woman is credible.
- 09:10
- It's whether or not they can prove it because some people think she's credible Some people think she isn't but God defines what's a credible accusation
- 09:17
- Doesn't matter what I think about these women. It doesn't matter what you think about these women It really it doesn't even matter what
- 09:23
- John Favreau thinks about these women imagine that what matters is what they can prove and that's
- 09:28
- God's standard and it's an important standard because You know in the
- 09:33
- Christian worldview You we can't just we can't just let this kind of chaos reign
- 09:39
- I mean, that's what God said. He said look if you don't have the evidence you can't convict That doesn't mean he's innocent that doesn't mean he does he gets away with it because God will judge judge
- 09:48
- Kavanaugh if He did these things and he's lying about them. God will judge him and it will be an eternal judgment
- 09:56
- There's just no question about that. But here on earth. We have a standard we can make mistakes
- 10:02
- And so we don't and and there are there is such a thing as a malicious witness I mean if the
- 10:07
- Bible tells us anything we see this constantly there are malicious Witnesses the Bible talks about them and it also talks about what to do in those cases
- 10:15
- So for us to pretend like well, you know, these women wouldn't put their lives on the line. Yes, they would
- 10:21
- Why wouldn't they I mean these women are completely depraved as well This is a thing we have stories of this where people put their lives on the line for a false witness
- 10:30
- This is just the reality of what people are they're evil on the inside And so we have to take into account that judge
- 10:37
- Kavanaugh is could be a depraved sinner But also these women could be depraved sinners
- 10:42
- And so we need to take both of those into account and God's law does take both of those into account
- 10:48
- It's not just victims are always right We see many examples in the scripture where victims are not correct or the supposed victims are not correct
- 10:55
- God's law takes that into account. That's why we can't judge whether someone's credible for ourselves
- 11:00
- We have to use God's standard. That's why God has a standard Anyway, I hope this was helpful.