Against the Tide

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:03

Please turn to Exodus 23, Exodus 23. Lord willing, we'll return to Isaiah in a couple of weeks.

00:20

There's some particular study I'd like to do first before preaching the next passage in Isaiah.

00:28

But I have wanted to cover a couple of verses here in Exodus for some time now. So Exodus 23, please stand when you have that for the reading of God's word.

00:47

I'll read verses one through three. You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

00:55

You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit siding with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

01:06

Amen. May we be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would open our eyes to this truth, that you would help us not to fall in with the many to do evil, that you would help us to side with justice and not pervert it.

01:19

In Jesus' name, amen. Perhaps you need no convincing that the law of good is,

01:26

God is a good thing. But in Deuteronomy 4, we have this striking passage.

01:36

Moses instructs the people to keep the law of God in order that in the sight of the peoples, who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

01:48

For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him?

01:55

And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

02:03

God's law is particularly righteous, it is particularly good. That includes even this law given particularly to his people

02:13

Israel. While much of it is ceremonial and not necessarily for us to follow in every last detail, much of it is civil and the particular penalties are not penalties that our society must enforce in every detail.

02:29

Yet, yet it is a law that is good, it is a law that indicates to us what true justice ought to look like.

02:39

And this is a passage that is particularly concerned with justice. Concerned with justice as it would be perverted by those who would side with the majority.

02:48

It's a very tempting thing often to side with the majority. There's a lot of comfort in siding with the majority, but we ought to always side with true justice, not just with the majority position.

03:01

Why is it that people so frequently side with the majority? Well, naturally, because they are a majority.

03:09

That is the side that already has a lot of people, so many people. But why is it that there's a temptation to side with those in the majority if that is not, if that would not be your inclination otherwise?

03:25

Well, for one, there's a fear, the reaction that you might get if you reject it. Two, there's a desire for approval.

03:34

So on those two ends of the spectrum, either a fear of the reaction that the crowd might give, or in addition to that, the desire to be accepted by the crowd.

03:47

Someone will pursue not what is necessarily just, but with what the majority thinks.

03:53

There is a desire also to have comfort in decisions.

03:59

A lot of people care more about confidence than they do about truth itself.

04:06

They wanna be sure of something more than they want that something to be true. And a lot of times that means going with what other people have said, because if you can borrow assurance, if you can borrow confidence from other people, that gives you a level of comfort.

04:24

The mob mentality that operates when the majority has decided something contrary to justice, it's one that operates in part because there is a diffused responsibility.

04:36

That instead of having to take responsibility for your own actions and your own decisions, everybody else has done this.

04:43

And so you do not have to worry about the matter falling into your own hand and you having acted independently such that you would have to bear the weight of choosing something different.

04:55

When you are going along with everyone else, there's a diffused responsibility. There's not so much of a burden that you feel upon yourself.

05:03

Now, of course, that diffused responsibility is not so much reality as it is imagined, but it is very real thing in terms of what people are thinking, how people are acting when they choose to go with the majority rather than justice.

05:20

Now, in addition to all this, there are also modern philosophies that would lead us to think that siding with the majority is somehow in itself a noble thing.

05:31

Not only is there increasing over the past few hundred years increasing notion that democracy itself is inherently good and by democracy,

05:43

I don't necessarily mean our particular form of government or anything like that, but just that doing what the will of the people is is somehow inherently good.

05:55

Do you have modern notions of leadership that think that the primary thing a leader should be doing is figuring out what the people under him want and then doing that thing?

06:05

This has reversed roles in marriages and in all kinds of relationships. The right role of a president is to do whatever the people say.

06:13

The right role of a prime minister is to do whatever the people say. The right role of a husband is to do what his wife wants.

06:20

If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Just gotta do what those under your leadership want.

06:26

That is what real leadership is. That's the real heart of a sacrificial leader is to do what the people want.

06:36

So in addition to the natural temptations, you also have these modern philosophies that work in that direction.

06:42

These modern egalitarian philosophies, egalitarianism in the church ends up often referring to men and women, but it can refer to any kind of relationship.

06:55

Okay, so if you are treating the rich the same as the poor, that's egalitarian, for example.

07:02

But if we apply it in this broad sense, that's removal of all kinds of authority so that leadership has nothing to do with particular capacities to lead and make decisions.

07:14

It rather has the ability to, it rather has to do with the responsibility and ability to do what those under you who essentially act as your equals in this worldview want you to do.

07:31

Now, where does this take place? Where does this going along with the mob, going along with the many to do evil happen?

07:41

Well, it might happen directly in the situation described here, bearing witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many so as to pervert justice.

07:51

Going along with the many just because they are many. This is something that frequently happens.

07:58

There's all kinds of pre -trial publicity that typically happens in any kind of meaningful case that is attempting to bias the public opinion, or even if they're not attempting to, often are biasing the public opinion.

08:13

Now, this public opinion can be a very important thing for those who are on the jury, especially if anyone knows that they're on the jury.

08:21

If someone knows that they're on the jury, then depending on how the jury decides, they may very well be in for trouble.

08:31

Remember some years ago, the Derek Chauvin case, that Derek Chauvin and the other officers were asking for cameras to be present in the courtroom because they so knew that they didn't just need to convince the jury, they didn't just need to convince the judge, they needed to convince the public too because the public's opinion mattered that much as to whether or not they would receive the right sentence.

09:01

There was a concern that even if everything would be shown one way, it was so important to get the public on their side because if the public was not on their side, then there would be too much pressure on the judge and jury.

09:18

Now, I don't wanna dogmatically speak to that case in particular, but perhaps you remember some of the details of that and how much pressure there was.

09:27

The jury and judge needed to decide a certain way or else cities would burn. That is literally what was going on.

09:35

If they did not decide the way that the public wanted, there would be such an outcry, such destruction that it almost seemed like there needed to be a decision made just to satisfy the public, just to satisfy the outcry.

09:52

And think about how quickly people turned on Jesus. The masses who are leading him, or excuse me, who are following him, declaring

10:04

Hosannas in the passage we were looking at this morning, so quickly turned on him once there was a mass that said that he ought to be crucified.

10:14

Suddenly you have the masses declaring that he should be crucified. There's a mob mentality that develops and Pilate there went along with the public, just doing what they wanted.

10:26

Rather than upholding justice, he perverted justice because it was more important to him to keep the

10:33

Jewish people happy than it was to uphold justice. So this can happen in courts.

10:38

This can happen in other areas of government as well, not just in the particularly judicial aspects of government.

10:47

We live in a representative democracy, so a democratic republic, so there's representatives that are chosen democratically.

10:57

Now, on one hand, this is of really no important substance when it comes to someone who would just represent you.

11:09

Now, if it's this person who's a better speaker than that person, sure, it doesn't really matter.

11:16

However, in as much as politicians represent positions and policies, matters of actual justice, whether or not rights be upheld, then the idea that the will of the people is the most important thing is foolishness.

11:37

Now, perhaps that is a reasonable way of deciding who to choose, but understand that it is not the majority itself that makes it good.

11:47

It is not the majority itself that makes it right. In fact, majority is often quite wrong. And consider how often justice is perverted for the sake of the majority.

11:58

Politicians often pander choosing their positions that they would state publicly or even choosing their positions arbitrarily on very significant matters just to get more approval in order that they can get into office.

12:11

And they even see this as noble, as something that they should do. How many politicians have you heard say something along the lines of, well,

12:18

I'm personally pro -life, but my constituents are very pro -choice, and so I'm going to do what my constituents want because I'm such a noble person who cares about my constituents.

12:32

This is going along with the majority in order to pervert justice. And people have done that time after time.

12:39

And the modern mindset around democracy itself being the good thing rather than a means to choose a good thing enables that.

12:51

Now, that's democratic representation, but there's also democratic legislation, right?

12:57

In our own state in California, we have the opportunity to actually enact laws as citizens.

13:05

This is not something that you see in a lot of different states, but in our state, we have propositions that are given to us every time we go to vote, and we get to decide as citizens whether or not things should be laws.

13:20

Now, it's possible as a majority body to go ahead and choose what is right, yet are most people even thinking about the matters in terms like justice, in terms like rights?

13:34

I don't think people have even begun, most people even begin to think about what they are doing when they are choosing something.

13:42

Are they not most frequently deciding would I like this more or would I like this? Would I like boat owners to be taxed or would

13:51

I like parks, right? Okay, well, I don't mind boat owners being taxed and I do like parks, so therefore, boat owners should be taxed so that I can have parks, right?

14:00

There's not the consideration of whether or not something is just most often with people, right?

14:06

There is just the consideration of what do I want? What is my preference? So frequently, this is the way that people go about it.

14:17

Plato famously said, tyranny naturally arises out of democracy. Once again,

14:23

I'm not trying to castigate democratic decision -making in itself, but in as much people see their role not to uphold justice, but in as much as they see it to assert their own will and get their own way, it is the thing that will be the most naturally tyrannical.

14:42

Which would you rather have, one tyrant or many? Frequently, what we have in many of the decisions that are made in the

14:49

California propositions are tyranny of the majority. There's a saying that often gets thrown around a

15:00

Latin phrase. I don't know how to pronounce Latin very well, but I think it's vox populi, vox dei.

15:06

If you ever heard this, vox populi, vox dei. I have wanted to preach on this passage for some time, but what has really made me want to more in recent months is frequently in the disputes between Elon Musk and President Trump, Elon Musk has frequently said that, vox populi, vox dei.

15:26

The voice of the people is the voice of God. The voice of the people is the voice of God. It's this idea that if the majority wants it, then that is what makes it right.

15:37

And this is the idea that many people have that somehow the majority is by nature, by definition, right.

15:46

Yet this passage tells us the opposite, that the majority may frequently want to do evil.

15:53

And we should stand against the majority whenever it wants to do evil. This is also, of course, the case, not just in civil courts, civil politics, but the case in church courts, ecclesiastical politics.

16:09

I see this all the time. I get the privilege of standing up here and leading these church meetings on easy things.

16:15

Hands go up real fast, right? Everybody want this meeting to be adjourned? Yes, yes,

16:20

I do. I want this meeting over, right? And the hands go up fast. More contentious issues, everyone looks around.

16:26

No one wants to stand against the majority if the majority doesn't want it. And they slowly put their hands up when they see that other people are willing to put their hands up, right?

16:35

You see that kind of thing? This is the mindset that we must work against.

16:41

We must be willing to stand for justice, stand for what is right, regardless of what other people think.

16:47

We must be willing to find out what is right, to know God's word, regardless of whether or not that places us against others.

16:57

And then naturally, this goes beyond just courts. This goes into our own actions in doing what is right or wrong.

17:04

Rather than succumbing to peer pressure to do evil, you should resist doing what is right.

17:12

Rather than engaging in ethical relativism that would say, what does the majority think is right?

17:19

Let us go by those standards to stand for what the Bible says is right. If you judge yourself by others, are you judging yourself by the right standard?

17:30

You are not. You must judge yourself rather by the word of God. Not just saying, well, the world does not take family worship that seriously.

17:39

Most of the church does not take family worship that seriously. I'm not gonna take family worship that seriously. Spending time with the

17:45

Lord is not that serious to most people. It's not even serious to most people who call themselves Christian. Therefore, I'm not going to hold myself to a very high standard in this way.

17:55

I'm not going to hold myself to a high standard around the way I speak, around the way I act, around the way

18:00

I dress, et cetera, because the world doesn't, or the majority of those in churches don't, et cetera.

18:09

Do not have that mindset. Rather, stand for justice.

18:15

Do not go along with the will of the majority when the will of the majority is wrong. This is precisely the means by which

18:25

Christ Himself was crucified. Now, one of the beautiful things about that is that means that where we have erred in this, this is one of the sins that Christ was dying for.

18:39

When He died at the hands of those who were acting out of mob mentality, the hands of Pilate, who is going along with the will of the majority, rather than standing for the truth that he knows, for the justice that he knows, what is happening there is

18:59

God signifying to us, this is one of the sins that Christ is dying for.

19:06

What is owed to someone who testifies in a trial wrongly?

19:13

That very same punishment that they would have put against them, put against that other person.

19:20

Right, if you testify wrongly against someone, if you bear false witness, what is owed to you is exactly what you have tried, the punishment that you have tried to place on that other person.

19:35

And so, what is owed to us, who as Bible speaking of apostates crucifying

19:42

Jesus Christ, implying that we have crucified Him once, what is owed to us who are guilty in this way of engaging in mob mentality, of siding with the many so as to pervert justice?

19:54

That same thing that was placed on the one to whom that false witness was made, it is the punishment that Jesus Himself bore.

20:06

That is what is due to those who sided against Him. That is what is due to us who are guilty of having crucified

20:14

Him the first time. We have a sacrifice, it pays for this.

20:20

It does not just forgive us of this sin of siding with the majority, but Christ has also given us

20:25

His spirit in order that we might have courage to side against the majority as necessary.

20:31

He has given us His spirit so that we may be courageous, standing alone as He has stood alone.

20:39

The good news is not just forgiveness of sins. The good news is divine empowerment in order to stand alone.

20:50

You must know the truth. You must go to the Bible, study what it says, and actually know the truth in order that you can stand for justice.

20:59

When it comes to civil matters, you must know what justice is. The Bible speaks plenty of justice. Most people are just going by some utilitarian ideas about what is going to be best for some notion of best.

21:10

Learn what is just. You must cultivate a fear of the Lord. If you do not have a fear of the

21:18

Lord, you will have a fear of man. There's no way around it. You must fear one or the other. So cultivate a fear of the

21:23

Lord. And then, in addition to that, you can cultivate a good set of peers.

21:32

Bible says bad company corrupts good morals. It is true. Bad company does corrupt good morals. If you surround yourself even with a few good friends who are willing to stand by you for what is true, for what is just, that can make all the difference in the world.

21:48

God has, thankfully, and His kindness to us, not called us to stand perfectly alone in most situations.

21:55

In most situations, He has not called us to exactly the same kind of suffering that Jesus did, where He had to call out, my

22:05

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Him being entirely alone. Now, while we are called to suffer as Christ has suffered and to carry our cross and follow

22:16

Him, He has not called us to that same level of suffering. And He has given us a family by which we can have some measure of comfort in a reassurance with one another.

22:32

You ought to develop peers that would uphold you.

22:39

This is important in church life as well. Now, I always have somewhat of an allergic reaction when

22:48

I hear people give the recommendation to just leave your church.

22:54

They hear of one small thing wrong with the church and they say, leave your church, find a better church. Maybe it's even a serious wrong thing, but I think there's a lot of things that you ought to consider before leaving a church.

23:05

But many people, many people ought to leave their church if they do not have the means necessary in order to reinforce them.

23:15

If God has given us a family to encourage us to be able to stand in a minority and you have no minority and God has not gifted you with the boldness necessary to be able to stand without the help of a church body, what are you doing in that place where no one would stand with you for the things that you need to stand for?

23:35

Something to consider if you're encouraging any of your friends who are at churches that have more error mixed in them than others, that they ought to be somewhere where they can be encouraged to stand for the truth.

23:48

A lot of people think that that's what they are doing, that, well, my church has some really serious errors, it's really capitulated on a few issues that the world has capitulated on, but I'm there as a good influence.

24:01

That may be true, but it also may be that they are being influenced to be more and more eager to compromise on the very same issues.

24:14

You should also anticipate and practice standing alone. The way is narrow, the way is very narrow.

24:20

A lot of times people will see the minority of those who are standing for what is just, standing for what is true, and they will ask, why is it like this?

24:29

Am I wrong if this many people think otherwise? And that's argumentum ad populum, right?

24:36

The idea that if the many want it, it must be true. Know that Christ has said that the way is narrow.

24:43

If the way is narrow, that means very few people will believe the truth. So get ready for that and anticipate that not, do not, depending on the arena that we're talking about here, frequently you should see the minority opinion as being a sign of truth rather than a sign of falsehood.

25:02

Most people see that and they think, oh, that's a sign that this might be wrong. A lot of times minority opinion is the sign that is true given what

25:09

Christ has told us. The way is narrow. Then others might be surprised, not just because the world is, not because the world has a minority that would agree with some truth, but because even within the church at large, you would see that there's some, only some minority that believe this truth.

25:30

Well, if even among Christians, very few people believe this, very few people act this way, very few people uphold this justice, this truth, then could

25:41

I be wrong? Know that once again, the way is narrow. Just because many people have identified as Christians does not mean that they are.

25:50

Very few of those who claim the name of Christ truly are of Christ. But then you may look at those who truly are of Christ and ask yourself the same question.

26:00

Now, this issue, this issue that I'm considering here, it seems that even among true

26:05

Christians, even among those who really have been born again, it seems that there are so few that believe this, so few that uphold this truth in the

26:13

Bible. Now, these are those who are a part of the narrow way.

26:20

How does this then apply to them? Even still, God may call you to stand relatively alone.

26:29

Consider Elijah asking God, God saying that there are many prophets that have not bowed the knee to Baal.

26:40

You may stand alone in your particular region, even if you are not alone in the universal church.

26:48

Prepare to stand alone. Do not develop the mindset that that should be a rare occurrence. Expect it as a frequent occurrence if you are truly serving the

26:57

Lord. And then practice doing it. When you have the opportunity to stand for truth that others are not standing for, go ahead, vocalize it, say it.

27:07

Praise the Lord the way that you ought. Go ahead and insert that truth because every time you have the opportunity to practice standing against a small crowd, you are exercising that muscle of boldness to stand against a large crowd on those occasions.

27:23

Stand for the truth. Truth must be stood for. Now, obviously, you ought not to engage in joining with the majority to pressure others to engage in the mob mentality.

27:38

There are some very simple ways that people do this that they ought not to. When there is some kind of outrage about any particular thing, you can think of the things that have happened over the past several years where there have been very significant events, things related to COVID, things related to the riots, et cetera, where people develop opinions instantly and start sharing those with others dogmatically.

28:03

I know a number of people who shared, who chose a side, who chose the side of the majority, shared those things dogmatically.

28:13

And I imagine now knowing these people that they very much regret that, they realize how foolish that was.

28:19

But not only are they guilty of some kind of shame of having picked the wrong side, it is through them that others were swayed to join with the majority too, siding with whatever evil they sided with.

28:37

Do not encourage others by joining with the majority to do evil.

28:45

But then on top of that, it is important to stand for the truth by being vocal.

28:51

You know, sometimes the majority is not even necessarily an actual majority of numbers.

28:56

Sometimes it is just a vocal majority. And all that is needed is for a few people to stop being so silent in order for there to be some change in the atmosphere.

29:09

I mean, once again, I don't wanna, there are just so many, you know, current event examples that could be pointed to and I don't necessarily want to speak to any of them dogmatically or yeah, to ruin the message by getting into specifics that way.

29:29

But if you can think for yourself of some examples of how it seemed like everybody thought one thing and then a few people speak up and then suddenly people are acting differently, right?

29:42

For example, you know, John MacArthur starts meeting together with his church, you know, a few months into COVID and suddenly this is a lot more normal than it was just a week before, right?

29:52

That kind of thing. So many, so many examples of this is just being that one voice that changes the perception of what the majority even is.

30:04

And naturally you should resist. You should resist the majority when it wants to do evil.

30:11

Sometimes you will have to stand alone but God will bless it as it is needed.

30:18

God will bless it. He blessed it particularly with Jesus Christ, blessed it particularly in the

30:24

Reformation when it was Luther contra mundum, you know, Luther against the world. God may choose you at some point to stand in a very small minority where you are the only one.

30:37

Be prepared for that. You'll be walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who stood all alone, all his friends having abandoned him.

30:48

He is the one who died for your sin, having stood with the majority to do evil and pervert justice.

30:55

But he is also the one who has given you his spirit so that like him, you can stand against evil for justice.

31:04

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ.

31:11

He's paid the penalty for our sin and he has also given us his spirit in order that we might be more like him.

31:17

We pray that you would further conform us into his image, that by your spirit you would transform us and mold us to be those who are wise, who know the truth and are bold about it.