Cultural Hot Potatoes

Okay, grab a Bible, something to write with if you want to open up to Exodus chapter 21. That's where we'll be focusing our study today. Let's pray and we will get started. Lord God, help us to grow in the knowledge of Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to remain firm in the confession of His blessed Word.

Give us the love to be of one mind, to serve one another in Christ. Then we will not be afraid of that which is disagreeable, nor the rage of the arsonist Satan, whose torch is almost extinguished. Dear Father, guard us so that His craftiness may not take the place of our pure faith.

Grant that our cross and sufferings may lead to a blessed and sure hope of the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, for whom we wait daily. Amen. So we wrapped up our look at the 10 Commandments and that was all part of, this is the last months, many, many, many months have been really digging in deep into the 10 Commandments as we've been working our way through the book of Exodus.

We're now going to, kind of like the Red River is now kind of swollen and ready to move upstream, we're ready to head at the same way and begin to actually work through the rest of Exodus. A little bit of a note here is in the chapters that immediately follow Exodus chapter 20, where we received the 10 Commandments, in the chapters that follow, the immediate ones, we're going to get a lot of law and we're going to note, we're going to start to see then, not just moral law, but we're also going to begin to see civil law.

And I know on its face, this sounds about as fun as studying the United States legal code. And if you ever are suffering from insomnia, pulling out something like that on the internet and just starting reading legalese will put you right to sleep, I promise.

So.

I was at a Gideon meeting this morning.

Yeah, yeah. Throw the book away. I, yeah, I know the feeling. So here's what we will always try to keep in mind is that when we look at God's law, I think it's important for us to understand that many, much of this reflects his character and none of these laws would be necessary if it were not for our sin.

When Jesus was tested by a lawyer in Matthew 22, and you know it's always a good story when there's an attorney involved, right? When he was tested by an attorney as to what is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus' answer was that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your heart, soul, and mind.

And the second, he said, is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. And then he said, on these two, all of the law hangs. So the idea then is that as we look through these law passages, it'll be fascinating to see God's justice in play.

You're gonna note that God oftentimes will take the side of those whom we, in our sin, who would exploit. And that tells us something of his great character. But it's also important for us to recognize that in one way or another, these laws reflect the different ways in which we fail to love God and love neighbor.

And so as Christians, we recognize that God's law condemns us, and it always does, but this is not the only thing that it does. It also informs us then as to what a good work is. And it's oh so fascinating when you really consider the magnitude of what's going on here, and also having to wrestle with the fact that some of the things that we're going to be covering in the book of Exodus are going to be dealing with issues that are still cultural hot potatoes today.

And I'll explain that, especially the issue of slavery. So we'll take a look at that. So with that, let's dive into Exodus chapter 21. And remember, when the 10 commandments were given, the people stood far off, and they were totally afraid by God because that's what God's law does to us.

Chapter 21, verse one. Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. And this is gonna be civil law. So these are gonna be the civil laws of the ancient theocracy of Israel. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh, he shall go free for nothing.

Isn't that interesting?

Huh.

Slavery, Debt, and the Limits of Civil Law

And now we have the thorny question. We as Christians, what are we to make of this? Have any of you ever heard a liberal theologian or somebody who's come under the sway of a liberal theologian say, you Christians, you think you have it right.

You think you know everything. You think that Jesus rose bodily from the grave, and that homosexuality is a sin, and you're just holier than thou, and all this kind of stuff. Don't you recognize that's just arrogance because there were people who were true believers in Jesus Christ, at least they claim to be, and they fought for the side of the Confederate States of America in order to preserve that evil institution of slavery, and who's defending slavery today, huh?

So all those Christians were wrong. So how do you know you're not wrong about your belief that Jesus bled and died for your sins, and that he rose from the grave, huh? Ever heard this argument? This is a popular one, and it's a toxic one.

And what it requires us to do is to first of all, recognize that yeah, there are people who are believers who have believed and defended some pretty terrible things, just straight up awful. You look at the history of the Crusades, there's some guilt there on the part of people who profess Christ.

This is just most certainly true. And I have no problem saying that there were people who were in church every Sunday in southern states during the Civil War praying for the defeat of the Union Army and for the preservation of slavery.

This is no doubt true. So what do we do with a text like this where it says when you buy a Hebrew slave, is God condoning slavery? Not exactly. Let me put it this way. When somebody is financially destitute in our nation today, let's say a fellow has made some really bad business decisions, his business has gone bust and he cannot put food on the table for his wife and his children.

Who generally helps that fellow? The government, the government does. We have welfare, there was no welfare in the ancient world. So what happens when a person makes some bad business decisions, stretches himself out financially, and the whole thing goes up in smoke?

What do you do in a situation like that? What could be done? Answer, in the ancient world, slavery was a way for people to continue to meet their physical needs but in order to do so, they put themselves into slavery to pay off debts or things like this.

They had, you know, and so this was, it was actually part of the safety net, if you would, of the ancient world. Now it's important to note this, as we read through this passage, we're gonna see that a particular kind of slavery is absolutely condemned in the strongest words by God.

This is the kind that US had. This is the kind the US had. And let's talk about the slavery that the US had. There were tribes in Africa who were fighting with each other. And there were people from one tribe who were taking hostage people of other tribes, capturing them, shackling them, throwing them onto slave ships, and then if they survived the passage to anywhere in the United States or parts of the British Commonwealth, they were sold on the slave block as slaves.

That is not the slavery that we're talking about here. That slavery is explicitly condemned by scripture. In fact, this very chapter not only condemns it, you'll see in just a few minutes that that kind of slavery is threatened with cap, those who participate in it on all levels are threatened with capital punishment by God.

This is why scripture forbids enslavers. But if you have a person who they're down and out and the only asset they have is their own body, they have the right in the ancient world to sell themselves into slavery.

And if you are an Israelite and he is a fellow Israelite, that slavery does not continue to the end of his life without his input. And if he puts himself into slavery and you purchase him, you have six years and after six years, he's a free man for nothing, zero dollars.

Important to note. So keep that in mind. So, and listen to this. If he comes in single, he shall go out single. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out alone.

But if the slave plainly says, notice who's in the driver's seat, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him to God and he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost, talking about the tabernacle.

And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, pierce his ear and he shall be his slave forever. Who's making the decision? The slave is. So have you guys ever met men who have pierced ears? Just ask them, who are you, who's your master?

That's what that means, right? So you'll note then who's in charge. And notice that God puts very specific limits on it. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.

If she does not please her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. So in this particular case, it's a slightly different set of rules for females than males and in a male-driven patriarchal society where women cannot own property, then the idea then being is that a girl sold into slavery, it's a good living.

And if she is not treated well by her master, she's allowed to go free, period. So no abuse of slaves is permitted, period. And in this particular case, the idea here is that if she's not pleasing to the one who purchased her, then he has to let her go.

And he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has broken faith with her. Now, if he designates her for his son, so a fellow purchases a girl as a slave, she's doing the housework and doing the other things that slaves do, and he says, you know what?

She would really make a good mate for my son. And so the idea then is that he arranges then for his son to marry the slave girl. What do you do in a situation like that? Because one has standing and the other doesn't.

Answer, God is going to require that that slave be treated with all of the privileges of somebody who is no longer a slave. That marriage is a way of freeing her, for real. So in that situation, if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter.

If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing without payment for money.

So notice how God is trying to quickly set things up in such a way that there are boundaries, there are limits. And if there are abuses in that relationship, especially abuses on the part of the master, then the slave is out.

No questions, they're out. They do not get to be abused, mistreated, treated in an inhumane way. And if they are, they're free. That's pretty cool. You think about all the stories that we heard of what happened in the South.

Slaves were mistreated terribly if they were really following biblical commands. Any slave master who abused his slave should have had his slaves stripped from him and then set free. That's not what happened.

So historically, do we really know that the Jewish people lived by these rules?

I don't, I can't, offhand, I can't think of an example in the Bible that gives, where it shows this.

Because human nature is going to lead them to do the wrong thing, Dan.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Human nature, because it's all about idolatry. And yet the commands are so clear. They are explicit. And this is what is expected.

Well, and the other people around the masters, though, would be watching each other. So because this is civil law, right? So the government there, it's not like it's just up to the master, you know, hey, make sure you don't abuse your slaves.

But everybody else is watching too, including the government.

Now, in this particular case, in the theocracy of ancient Israel, before there was a king, it was up to the fathers of each of the communities to make sure that these were followed. It was up to the fathers, the heads of the household, to make sure that this was happening.

So if their neighbor was abusing their slaves, it was absolutely the responsibility of the fathers of that community to say to the fellow who's abusing his slaves, your slaves get to go free, you're breaking God's law.

Straight up.

In a perfect world.

Yeah, in a perfect world. Well, a perfect world wouldn't have this, but, you know, in a broken world, this is the best that we could hope. Now, whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death, that's murder.

But if he did not lie in wait for him, and you gotta note that scripture makes a distinction between premeditated murder as opposed to involuntary manslaughter. There's a big difference. And that's an important distinction because not all killing is murder.

Now, when somebody is killed accidentally or intentionally, let's just say the family of the person who died oftentimes has very strong emotional reactions and may, in their anger and mourning, blame somebody falsely.

God recognizes this case. So if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, I will appoint for you a place for which he may flee. This is a sanctuary city, not like the sanctuary cities in California.

I just wanna make that clear. This is about somebody who had not intended to kill somebody, but they could flee there so that justice could not be exacted on them without due recourse and without the proper procedure.

If a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar that he may die. So premeditated murder, that's capital crime. Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Children who are abusive to their parents physically, death penalty. Whoever steals a man, and here's the text I was referring to just a few minutes ago. Listen to this. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

Consider the implications. This indicts everybody in the slave trade from the supplier to the buyer. So there's a trade set up, they are kidnapping people and they are stealing them and putting them into slavery.

The enslaver, death penalty. The person who purchased the slave, death penalty. The whole industry is indicted. And I would have you consider this, that in our day slavery still exists. And I hate to say it, it still exists in our country.

It just has taken on a different form and it's pervasive throughout the world. When we talk about human trafficking, that is what we're talking about. This is a form of slavery. They are stealing women, putting them in bondage, literally forcing them to be raped day after day after day.

And if this were enforced properly, all the way along the line, the people who would be indicted are the enslavers, the pimps I guess is what they call them, to the people who are the Johns, all the people purchasing.

Everybody involved in that whole slave trade would be put to death according to this. The only people who would not be put to death are those who were enslaved. So this still exists to our day. And it's important for us to recognize the severity with which God looks at this sin.

This is a capital crime. This isn't 15 years in prison with possibility of parole after two. This is, you stand before Jesus, your ultimate judge, and he's gonna condemn you to hell. That's how big this is.

So our legal system with Judeo-Christian principles has failed us because these guys should be put to death.

Yeah.

Pretty harsh.

Yeah.

And I want you to consider part of the issue that we're, one of the reasons I think we're suffering the way we are with some weird things and manifestations in our own society is I think the government has lost its way in the sense that it is tasked by God with punishing evil.

And people who commit heinous crimes, even if they're given the death penalty, they have a better chance of dying in prison than actually facing an execution. And I wanna be careful how I say this, but it makes me wonder if we shouldn't be having a debate along these lines for particular crimes, terrorism, mass shootings, and I would even throw into it human trafficking, that we create an express lane.

Because when you go to the grocery store, if you have a lot of groceries, you go in one place. If you only have a few, you get to go into the faster line. Certain crimes I think we need to expedite. And there needs to be a proper due process and expedite it.

And at the end of it, if it's truly a capital crime, I think we might wanna consider televising the execution. I know that sounds grim. I know that sounds grim, but I'm gonna tell you part of the problem that people are talking about is that there actually seems to be a psychological motivation for some of the crimes that are taking place.

These people are actually in some way thinking that they're attaining immortality or that they will have their 15 minutes of fame and they're getting their jollies off by committing the crimes that they're committing.

But the one thing I know about criminals like that, ultimately every single one of them, they are cowards. And the only person they really care about is themselves. So let's disincentivize it. So not only will you not get fame, you'll get infamy.

And you're going to be executed without being able to tell anybody any words publicly so that we can all see it. As grim and terrible and like medieval as that sounds, historically that's actually been quite useful in deterring crime.

Well, and historically, you know, many innocent people have been executed as well.

Yeah, this is true.

I wanna say that the Innocent Project is somewhere over 3 ,500 or so people they have been able to set free.

Yeah, I understand that. Which, you know, I'm not saying the system is perfect, but the current system is failing as a deterrent. It's truly failing as a deterrent. And I didn't say for all capital crimes.

I'm just saying for a select particular type.

Yeah, sometimes.

How will we?

Well, that's the thing is our legal system recognizes that. If somebody who truly has a mental illness commits a crime, that's part of their defense. And we do not execute people who have a mental illness.

That's always been the case.

Yeah.

Well, the deterioration of the family. My mother told me one thing one time. She says, the people, our opponents will win this battle without firing a shot. And she was talking about the liberal, socialistic, communistic people.

And they are winning this war.

Yeah, at the moment.

They are, and they've gotten into our school systems. And they have been indoctrinating our kids in the public school systems. And, you know, it's hard to beat on this because we as Christians, a lot of times we're humble.

We won't speak up against some stuff because we sometimes respect the people that can have their word. You know, oh, well then they shunk you down and you get tired of it and you go home and you bury your head in the sand.

So with, you know, we can start at the judicial system or should we start at home in the family?

You have to always start at home at the family and church. Okay, now I want you to fill in the blank for the sentence. You actually know what the blank is. The blank is mightier than the sword, the pen.

So here's the thing, is that we recognize that words have power. And all that is necessary for evil to thrive are for those who know what good is to remain silent. We, whether we want to recognize it or not, have always been at war with the forces of darkness.

You understand what you call a soldier who refuses to fire his weapon in a battle. You know what you call that fellow? A coward or a corpse, or both. So here's the idea, is that because human beings, and we know this because scripture says it so clearly in Romans two, we actually have the law of God written on our hearts.

We do.

We know good and evil. People describe it, who are unbelievers, they talk about their conscience getting the best of them. And where does that conscience come from? That's something put into them by God.

Now here's the fun part, we actually are in the right. Those people are saying twisted words to end up, rather than punishing evildoers, they protect those who break the law. I'm sorry, but when you boil it all down, let's talk about sanctuary cities for a second, or sanctuary counties.

What is that? We have voted as a community that when somebody is in our country illegally, they have jumped the fence rather than gone the proper way to come into our country in order to work. That in our county, they will be protected and they will not be arrested.

Really? What is that? That's not the punishing of evil, that's the punishing of good. That is the protecting of evil. And you can sit there and say, they just are trying to supply food for their family and things like this.

Everybody should supply food for their family and work and do these things. But there's a right way and a wrong way to enter our nation and there are laws in place for reasons. And so rather than enforce the law, people are breaking it and the people who are breaking it are in the government.

Something's really off. And as crazy as it sounds, just reminding the government and saying, I am a citizen here and you, government of the United States or government of California or government of North Dakota, are tasked with the job by God of punishing evildoers, not punishing those who are doing well.

So the same government who is protecting illegal aliens is punishing Christians for refusing to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Everything's upside down, backwards and inside out. And if you speak out, you know what's going to happen?

People are gonna unfriend you on Facebook. They're going to come onto your Facebook wall and accuse you of being a closed-minded, bigoted, racist, hater, homophobe, name all the litany of the stuff.

Guilty as charged.

Right.

So the fundamental...

Uh-huh.

So it's...

Right.

Society hasn't heard of that because the church hasn't been...

Yes.

We're gonna take this path.

Yeah.

But if somebody came to you and said, look, the Bible endorses slavery, you can say, ah, let's talk about that. Does it really? It doesn't, because we just read a passage that enforced, that says anybody found guilty of stealing a human being or purchasing a human being has been stolen.

That's the whole industry itself. That's a capital crime. In fact, all of the slavery of the South, according to God's law, was a capital crime. Is it any wonder they lost the war? God was judging them.

To twist the truth and not take it as...

Now, I'm gonna point something out. We're only just, we're only tip, breaking the surface of this chapter. Has what God's Word said and revealed actually added some clarity to your mind about things and how the world and our government should operate?

Yeah.

And so, Don actually made a point, and that is that many churches are no longer teaching God's Word with this type of depth. And because of that, there are whole generations of Christians who are ignorant of these things.

And now that you know what God reveals here, would this make a difference then in the conversations that you have with others? Yeah, hopefully it would.

But the pastors and the people getting pumped out of these seminaries now have all got liberal arts degrees that are getting pumped out of the seminary, and their minds are all being made up that they're not gonna rock the boat.

Yeah.

And I'll be blunt. Part of our problem is that there's a whole group of people who have fallen under the sway of this bigger, broader, just for lack of a better term, we'll call it social justice. The problem with social justice is ultimately it's not anchored in God's justice.

It's anchored in a form of justice that reasons according to the current way in which human beings think.

For me.

For me, right.

For me.

And so, you're gonna note, in God's justice, everybody has rights. And I need to say this regarding racism. The last time I checked, there's only one race, the human race, period. So if we're gonna talk about other races, we better be talking about aliens, like space people, okay?

Because that would be a different race. But when we're talking about human beings, the amount of melatonin you have on your skin doesn't make you a different race. Therefore, God has called us to love everybody, each other.

In Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female. We're all, we all have equal standing with God. But at the moment, who's setting the agenda? People who are not grounded in real justice and an understanding of God's law in its true sense.

And their ideology, which is not, it was just based on human philosophy, has taken over and ruled the day.

Specifically social Marxism.

Right.

And where's the church in the midst of all of this? The church is entertaining itself to death right now. I would say we don't have time for entertainment. We don't gather for me to do a 15-minute stand-up comedy routine and make you guys feel good about yourselves.

That's not what we gather to do. We gather as Christ's sheep to feast on his word, to feast on his body and blood, to hear the forgiveness of sins and dig in to the word of God. I've got a, there's like 66 books in this thing.

And we're on to book what?

Right?

But it's really fascinating. So many people, and I'll come back to your initial point, that the guy wanted to throw the book against the wall, the Bible against the wall, he didn't get into Leviticus and all this kind of stuff.

But it's that very part that we think is the least important that is probably the most important at this time. God's law is glorious, and it reveals so much of his nature, and it shows us what God would expect of a government.

You want to talk about real justice? Don't give me your theories, your ideas, and your ideologies. Let's come back to this book and really get an idea of what kind of justice God would expect from us, from our government, who is tasked with the job of punishing evildoers.

That's their job. So whoever steals a man and sells him, anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. Capital crime. Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. Interesting.

When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and the man does not die but takes to his bed. This is the days before hospitals. So who were the nurses in the ancient world?

Wives and daughters and mothers. So he's taken to his bed, he's injured. So then if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, I know about that, they're called canes. He who struck him shall be clear.

Only he shall pay for the loss of his time. So two guys get into a scuffle. Guys get into scuffles. This is because there's testosterone. They get into scuffles. You said this about me? No, I didn't say that about you.

How dare you say that about me?

Ah!

And they get into a fight. And the women are saying, stop it, use your brains, please. Use your brains, knock this off. No, they're not gonna use their brains so they're gonna come to fisticuffs. And one guy knocks the other guy down and he goes out like a light.

And it turns out his injuries were pretty severe. He has a concussion and he's out of work for six weeks.

Legitimately.

Six weeks out of work. All right, fine. God says, okay. So you who hit him, you have to pay his salary for six weeks. Not unemployment insurance, not the state of North Dakota, not the federal government, the fellow who knocked him out of the work.

He has to pay for it.

But when you think about it, it allows rich men to go beat up poor men all they want. It's not gonna hurt them financially to pay up poor men's wages.

Now I'll be blunt, okay. Now I understand how you're thinking here, but let me help you. Rich men, do they work hard with their hands? Do they have muscles?

No.

Rich men are scrawny and puny and they are the ones calling the shots. And if they were to get into fights with the guys who are working out in the field, that wouldn't go well for them.

I can add six points to that.

I can add six points to that.

Yeah.

You can't take off on his side though. You got two guys that get in a fight. One guy just bled a salt.

Yes.

Yeah, the winner will be charged with assault. That's a different story altogether. In this particular case, you notice the police haven't been called and it's just a matter of what's the aftermath. You were knocked out of work for six weeks.

You knocked him down. You pay for that.

I'm just curious, you know, these are the words of God, correct? But this wouldn't be necessarily what Jesus would be preaching as far as, I mean, there's no repentance for any of these. Like, well, I'm sorry I put this guy into slavery.

I was wrong. I repent. He can go free. Here, it's just like, you're dead.

There is no, so explain why. Okay, great question. Why is there this distinction? Answer, because now we're into civil law. Civil law is not about what you believe. It's about what you do. Okay, when it comes to the church, it's about what you believe that can be forgiven.

The government is not tasked with the job of forgiving you. The government's tasked with the job of punishing you. So you can be sorry and God can forgive you, but the government's still going to exact from you a punishment for the bad behavior, for the crime that you've committed.

Notice. I said crime, not sin. So right now, in this case, we're dealing with crimes, and the crimes are, you can see the hook back.

Into the moral law.

If you're keeping the moral law, you're not going to commit these crimes. But now, because of a failure to love your neighbor, you've committed a crime against that person. Now civil law, it's got to weigh these things out regardless of belief in God.

And so when we talk about how God has ordered society, we look at the two institutions. The church tasked with the job of making disciples, baptizing, teaching, forgiving sins, and the government tasked with the job of punishing crimes.

Two different things all together, this is civil law. So this is establishing the rules for society, civil law-wise, when the children of Israel.

Come into the land.

So regardless of their belief, that doesn't matter. You can be forgiven by God,.

But in the eyes of the government,.

In the eyes of the fathers, this is how this is going to go. Does that help?

Yeah. Okay.

Life for Life: Pregnancy, Injury, and the Sanctity of Human Life

When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod, and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. If the slave survives a day or two, he's not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

When men strive together, this is a fascinating text. I want you to consider the implications here. Over again, people who are pro-abortion, do they believe that a fetus is a human being?

No.

Based on what I have, no idea. How a fetus magically becomes a human being by traveling six inches, doesn't make any sense to me. But such is their ideology. Consider this next commandment in light of the abortion issue, and we're gonna see that God clearly and unambiguously has made it clear that unborn human beings are human beings.

This law would make no sense otherwise. So when men strive together, which is what men do when they have testosterone running in their brain, and they hit a pregnant woman in the process, you can kind of see the picture.