Don't Talk To The Police

The Biblical Basis for the Right to Remain Silent

I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea.

I would say what's the problem with stardust. Bumping into stardust?

In the cosmic picture, none. There's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter.

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year. I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

He is a powerful savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion. It is a command.

Ramallah, don't you sympathize with that?

I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

Amazing inventor, Joel Abyss. You have not experienced this before.

What's up guys? Welcome to the Gospel Heard around the world. I am Jeff Durbin. They call me the Ninja. This is Apologia Radio.

That's Luke the Bear over there.

What up? That is Joy the Girl. You can also catch her on Sheologians. Go to Sheologians .com or ApologiaStudios .com. Check out Sheologians, her and Summer Yeager do Sheologians. You don't want to miss it, guys, so make sure you guys check out those episodes.

All right. Hey, so let's say first of all, welcome everybody to Apologia Radio. And as you can all see from the title that we've placed up there, don't talk to the police. A few people are already making comments.

You really created a fire.

Everyone, we want you just to give the benefit of the doubt and understand that there is, of course, nuance to this.

Well, the title, just like of anything, like a book, when you read the title of a book, you don't just go, oh, I read that. I read that book. No, you read the title of it.

Right.

This is the meat of what's happening.

Welcome to the meat.

Welcome to the show, everybody.

There's more to be said, of course. But yes, but I want to say that I stand behind the title in terms of its fundamental premise and substance. There is don't talk to the police. And I want to say to everybody out there who's like, so you're saying that you hate the police?

You're saying that you're an anarchist? The answer is no. We believe that all of civil government ordained by God, that you have people that are meant to wield the sword and not wield it in vain. Of course, we want to have people who are involved in law enforcement.

We want a criminal justice system. Of course, of course, of course. But we believe that you shouldn't talk to the police because of Scripture. Now, if that's whetting your appetite and piquing your curiosity, welcome to Apology Radio.

We're going to get into the text of the word of God today. We're actually going to get even into the constitutional amendments. We're going to talk about the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and how it was the biblical worldview that gave the world that incredible blessing of the Fourth and the Fifth Amendment.

You've heard about things like the right to remain silent. Well, isn't it a lovely and amazing thing that it wasn't secularism, humanism, atheism, agnosticism that gave the world those amazing benefits?

It was Jesus. It was the lawmaker, the lawgiver. It is the God of the Bible that gave us that wonderful, lovely thing that says you have the right to remain silent. It wasn't secularism that gave us that.

It was actually biblical principles, biblical law that says you have the right to remain silent.

And that would be included in the Great Commission, would it not?

It absolutely would. Teach people to do what? Obey. Obey who? Obey the God of the Bible.

All.

All, exactly, exactly. Everything. So we want to get back to a rigorous biblical worldview, world and life view, the kind of world and life view that infects every area of the world with blessing and goodness and justice and peace and all those things.

And believe it or not, an abandonment of biblical law is what gets us into the place today where you have people like what happened yesterday at the Phoenix City Council Chambers. People were going bananas, bananas.

Because of unjust police officers.

Now, we want to just say any police officer that pulls a gun on somebody for a child, for stealing a doll or anything like that at all, when you have circumstances that do not require you pulling a weapon, that's a real problem and you should lose your job.

You should not be a cop. But it really starts beneath that. So we can talk about what happened in Phoenix recently, the injustice. We can talk about pulling a gun on a mother with a baby and children in the car over the issue of theft.

But really, in order to solve the problem, you've got to go beneath it. You've got to get to the foundational principles that really are codified, thankfully, in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and really get it carried out into issues where we start talking about the right to remain silent.

But what gives you the basis for those standards of justice? And I want to say, believe it or not, it's biblical law. It was the two to three independent witnesses. A couple of things. I'll just throw this out and I guess let's just start, right?

So a couple of verses here. You're probably all familiar with these. It runs from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So I want to just say this for those of you guys that want to say we need to unhitch from the Old Testament and Old Covenant law.

This is something that's repeated post-cross, post-resurrection, post-ascension of Jesus. So this is repeated after Christ is ascended and seated on his throne, New Covenant in effect, all that stuff.

So a couple of things. So you're all familiar with this one, Matthew 18. There's the Lord Jesus, verse 16. Jesus, when he talks about church discipline, he says, do what? You go to him privately first.

But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that, and here's Jesus quoting the law of God. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. Now what's that coming from?

That's coming from the judicial law. This is a law for judges and the judicial system. Now this is so critical. Man, does this ever need to be said? Man, this gets missed a lot. Because people oftentimes say, okay, two or three witnesses, that means that if two or three people say something, that means it's true.

No, no, no, no. The judicial standard is that you cannot receive an accusation against a person, period. It's not even allowed to be admitted unless it's two to three independent witnesses. That's two to three independent lines of evidence, witness, or testimony.

Now does it mean that every time you have two or three people saying something, it means it's true? And there are actually, there are even pastors that are ignorant of that. They assume that because two or three people say something, that means it's true.

No, it has to be two to three independent witnesses. You could have one person influencing two or three other people, and they're just buying that person's story and regurgitating it. God's standard is two to three independent lines of witness.

So, you can't, you don't want the collaboration going on, right? Those sorts of things. So that was from Jesus, Matthew 18. But that's, of course, coming from Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 15. And here's what it is.

It says, It means you need to have those two to three independent lines of witness to actually bring charges against somebody. It's actually repeated again in 2 Corinthians 13, 1. This is the Apostle Paul.

He says, This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. And then, of course, in 1 Timothy 5, 19, the Apostle Paul says, Do not receive an accusation against an elder, except on the basis of two or three witnesses.

It's repeated again in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 28. So here's the point. It runs through and through Scripture. This is what God wants us to hold on to. Now, what you see in Scripture, and I'll shut up here.

You guys feel free to jump in. What you see in Scripture is that that standard runs into interpersonal relationships, and it runs into the judicial realm. And so this is just a biblical principle and standard that God expects us to apply really universally.

And what is glorious is that when you have the Christian church really thriving and growing in and around the time of the Reformation, you also had some pretty brutal moments of government oppression.

And you had Christians, and we can't do a whole thing today in today's show about this. I think we've done a show about this sometime in the past. Maybe I'll try to put a link to it somewhere in here.

Just give the history of this. So just a quick rundown. You had an instance where even in the English government, you had people being brought up on charges, police forces going out into the streets, and literally just going and ransacking people's homes, searching and seizing property, looking for evidence for crimes.

You had people being brought up even in the West. In the Western tradition, there was a moment where people were even being brought up on charges, and they didn't even know what they were being charged with because what was being read to them in court was in a different language, like in Latin.

And so they don't even know what's being said, and they're being asked to swear on the basis of charges. They don't even know what's being said to them. And so you had Christians who had experienced a really dramatic form of government oppression and injustice, and Christians learned from that, went back to the Word of God, the law of God, and they started saying things like, wait a second, God's judicial law here, the general equity of this law, says you've got to have two to three independent witnesses, which means this, that no one's even supposed to receive an accusation unless it's on the basis of these two or three witnesses, which means this, I, as a person who's being accused, I don't have to offer any help.

I have the right, biblical law gives me the right before God against self-incrimination. Here's the point. In God's law, if somebody's guilty, then the court doesn't need this person's help to get to show it, because you have witnesses and evidences and testimony that demonstrate their guilt, right?

Without question, because you have these independent witnesses. So in biblical law, there is no requirement on the part of the accused to help the accuser. And if you want to say, hmm, where would I see that happening?

I would say, how about the trial of Jesus? The trial of Jesus, you have witnesses being brought forth against Jesus, but what's wrong? Here's all these witnesses, and their testimonies are not matching up, so they're not ultimately counting as legitimate witnesses, but they're firing off.

But people are accusing Jesus during his trials, and here's the lawgiver himself, Jesus. Here's God in the flesh at this horrible mockery of a trial and justice, and you have people who are lying in court about Jesus, and what is the accused doing as the lawgiver?

What's he doing? Saying nothing, right? He's not helping them. He's not giving them any assistance.

Why?

Because he has the right, according to God, against self-incrimination, and if these people are going to lie about him, feel free to lie. I'm not helping you. I'm not giving you any assistance. You're a liar.

God knows the truth. I know the truth. I don't have to give you any assistance. And so there's an example of Jesus even in this mockery of a court trial, and he's not offering any assistance there, and there's a good example, no self-incrimination.

So here's how that moves into where we're at today. When you have our amendments, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and you get into issues like the right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent, that comes from biblical law.

Why?

Because the principle is you need your witnesses, two to three independent lines of witness and testimony, and no one's supposed to even receive the accusation unless it's on the basis of those evidences and witnesses, which means that I have the right against self-incrimination.

If you think you have evidence against me, that's your job to produce it. That's what everyone has a right to. So that leads us into issues like we have today, which we're going to talk a lot about today.

You've got police walking up to people randomly on the street and saying things like, give me your ID.

Right?

And you almost look arrogant today when you say to a police officer who says to you, hey, how you doing, let me see your ID, when you say, no.

Well, you become one of those people that just doesn't want to...

Right. Cooperate.

Cooperate. So then you look like you're not cooperating, but the point is you wouldn't be not cooperating if they weren't illegally asking you for your ID.

Right.

They're not allowed to instigate a situation to make it as though you're not cooperating. Like that's not legal and that's not how it works. And unfortunately, in a way, there's sort of a sub-law, like a social law that says that is how it works.

If you go in to be interrogated or interviewed by the police, you don't need a lawyer. You just need to clear it up. And if you're innocent, then you're innocent. And it'll be found out. But I think at this point, we're all a little bit tired of hearing that because there's been so many people that have been obviously wrongly accused.

And then, of course, you see situations. It always stinks when it happens, like in your own city. But obviously, that Phoenix PD officer pulling a gun on a family. We're pre-evidence and independent testimony.

We're pre-everything at that point. At that point, you are a law unto yourself where you decide who gets to have a gun pulled on them and who doesn't earn that. I don't know.

Can I just say one thing real fast? Somebody watching right now live said, I'm sure Jesus would just say comply. Really? Is that what you would tell the apostles when they were told, strictly told, do not preach in his name anymore?

They were given a legal command. Stop preaching in Jesus' name. This is early on in the book of Acts. Peter, John, they're told, stop preaching in Jesus' name. And they go out, and they continue to preach.

They're brought back again, and they say, didn't we tell you to stop preaching in his name and bring his blood upon us? And what's Peter say? He says, we must obey God rather than men. And they take a beating for Jesus, and they go away from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

And what they do? They disobeyed the civil magistrates. They disobeyed what was commanded of them, and they continue to preach Christ. And so, no, that's not true. Jesus wouldn't say just submit. Not if it's contradicting God's law.

Not if it's contradicting biblical standards of justice and righteousness. Wrong. Now, if you're talking about silly things like carry my baggage, like the Roman law of the day, like, you know, you got to carry my bags, like, you know, a mile.

And Jesus said, just go with them two miles. Like, stupid little laws like that. You know, Jesus, like, you know, carry the Roman soldier's bags. If he commandeers you to carry his stuff, what's the big deal about carrying a Roman soldier's bags for him?

Go the second mile. That kind of stuff, sure, submit to that kind of, you know, silly stuff. It's not a matter of injustice. But when you're talking about God's law being violated, human beings, image bearers of God being violated, their rights being violated, then you must obey God rather than men.

And this does impact us. It does actually affect us in dramatic ways. Give me an example. Go ahead and play this now, guys. You guys feel free to jump in, stop me whenever you want. Here's a good example of this actually impacting us.

This is us. You can find this video. It's under abusive cop, pastor shuts down officer. It's on Apologia Studios channel. And it's us outside of the abortion mill. In Tempe. Now, you need to know that the Tempe police and some attorneys in Tempe have actually coordinated and tried to work together to shut down our ministry outside of the abortion mill.

You need to know this, that we have government employees, agencies working together to try to shut down the work of Apologia Church in saving the lives of these children and preaching the gospel outside the abortion mill.

We have one Christian brother who had his property stolen by the government, stolen by the government, and he was ultimately charged with a crime. What was the crime? It's that he used amplification. He used amplification outside of a Planned Parenthood to get his voice over to them.

He used it in a public area. He used it the way he was supposed to use it. It has already been agreed upon by the Supreme Court and by a federal court of appeals that we are allowed to use amplification as part of our free speech rights.

We're on a public sidewalk. We're using it exactly the way we're supposed to. But the local government actually violated his rights, stole his property, and charged him with a crime for doing what? Amplifying his voice so the women could hear it far away.

Which they didn't have like a testing device.

No, they didn't. They were supposed to.

You could say, well, disturbing the peace is a law, but you have to test. You have to be able to test and show that someone is going over a certain decibel level for them to be breaking a law that includes loudness.

And he wasn't saying mean and hateful things. He wasn't trying to incite a riot. He was simply trying to save the lives of our pre-born neighbors.

That's right. By the way, we saved a child this morning at Acacia Women's Center. So we did save a child this morning. So that work is very, very vital, very necessary. And I wanted to say that we knew this was going to happen.

We knew Tempe PD was working against us and is working against us to this day.

They are.

Thankfully, by God's grace, we have inside information. People who are on the inside of Tempe that tell us everything that goes on in there. And we know about private meetings that have been had. We know about conversations that have taken place to try to get me arrested.

We've had conversations happening about coming to my house to pick me up, all those different things. And they couldn't do it because we're the ones that are within the bounds of the law. But we knew that they were going to come and try to arrest us or cause problems for us.

So we went prepared. We went with the law. We went with the Supreme Court ruling, Federal Court of Appeals ruling. This is just ironclad. It's just no way around it.

So you had to protect yourself from the person whose job it is to uphold the law and protect the citizens.

Right, exactly. So they're supposed to uphold these rights that we have. And we knew they were coming to violate them. So we were prepared this day. We were live streaming when this happened. And we had all the stuff in our hands.

We had the city rules in terms of noise ordinances. We had the Federal Court of Appeals, Supreme Court, all that stuff. We had it all in our hands. Police showed up. I'm going to go ahead and play it for you guys so you guys can hear some of the conversation and why it is important to know the law, God's law, how that affects today's law that's still hanging by a thread, and how I think we can respond to it.

So he walks up to me. I don't know him. He doesn't know me. He walks up and says, Can I talk to you for a moment? Sure. And he says, Can I have your ID? Now, question, why do you need somebody's ID that you've just met?

Would it be weird for me to walk up to a stranger on the street and say, Excuse me, may I have your ID, please? Like, what right do I have to ask for someone's ID? And then someone says, Oh, no, no, this is a police officer.

Okay, fantastic. So it's a person that's supposed to enforce what? The law. Which means that a police officer should know better than anybody else that there are laws against unlawful search and seizure.

In order for you to get information from me, to get things from me, you have to have suspicion of a crime that I have committed, am in the process of committing, or am about to commit. So police officers really don't have any place asking somebody for their identification, unless of course there is a crime that they suspect they have articulable suspicion of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed.

So when he walks up and he says, ID please, the question is, what law have I broken?

It's a fair question. Because what happens is you give your ID, they don't charge you with anything, but they do write your name down. And so, if it happens five more times, then all of a sudden we have a troublemaker on our hands.

I'm so glad you said that. The best part of this conversation right now, is when people say just give him the ID.

They're not just looking at your name and then being like, forget about that.

You know what happened in court with Stephen? We were in court with Stephen, and you know what they did? What the attorney pulled, because she wanted the worst punishment for Stephen, she wanted him to be punished to be made an example of.

What she pulled in her closing statement, in terms of your honor, you need to punish him harshly, she pulled this out. She said, we have a record of all these street checks, where we got Stephen's ID, and it was.

We gave him a warning to.

Stop not breaking the law. That's right, exactly.

But they don't have to put that in there.

It was a long history, and she brought up every date and every example of where Stephen, because he's just such a sweet man, he just gave over his ID. Now, I know that when they come with these street checks, they're not just going, just checking your name, they're making a police record.

And when he's asking for my identification, he's going to make a police record. Jeff Durbin is going down there as he was talked to, and we gave him a warning, and then the next time they come back, they go, oh look, lo and behold.

You've had warnings before. We've already warned you.

A bunch of times about this, so let's go ahead and throw some cuffs on him, and let's arrest him. What's the complaint about?

The complaint was about sound amplification.

That's illegal activity.

Sound amplification is illegal?

Yeah, I can show you.

No, I understand it's illegally amplified.

Yeah.

You're talking about disturbing somebody's peace.

Yeah, that's been ruled on. Yeah, that's been ruled on.

No, don't give me the law. Just if I could get your name would be great.

Is that just not so just rich? Don't give me the law. Just give me your name.

This is.

Why this matters. When we say don't talk to the police, because we need to uphold standards of justice that go beyond this momentary conflict on the streets. There's something that has to rule over this police officer and myself.

There's something that we both have to be standing on that is ultimately above us both as a standard, because in these momentary conflicts, whether it's a situation where a cop is pulling a gun on somebody.

Because.

They think they stole something from a store, whatever the case may be, we need justice, law, that is above us, that protects us. And in a case like this, you have this police officer outside of the abortion mill who is actually abusing his authority and his position.

Because I had not committed a crime. We were not committing a crime. But somebody from the neighborhood says we don't like what we're hearing. But what's been ruled on already by the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals is that you cannot shut down free speech because A.

You can hear it. Or B. You don't like the message. So there's no use of having free speech if people are going to be able to say you're disrupting my peace because I don't want to hear it or I don't like your message.

So the Supreme Court, Federal Court of Appeals has already said in terms of justice, free speech means.

Free speech.

If you're in public like this and you're utilizing your free speech, then you're fine. Now of course it's different. I can't walk into somebody's front yard in their private neighborhood, stand on their property and start screaming into their window and say free speech.

There's a context to that. You're in somebody's neighborhood on their property. Big difference. But if you're in public in the public square, free speech. And so this police officer says just give me your ID.

So some people have seen this video and they're saying Jeff, why don't you just give me your ID? And the answer I think we've already answered is because I didn't violate the law. He's abusing his authority and his power and it's an issue of justice.

It's an issue of justice.

I want to know why and this is where we kind of need to reinvestigate our thinking on this. And I get that there are people who are anti-cop that are instantly disrespectful to police officers that are just instantly jump down the throat.

You know what I mean? I'm not advocating for that. But we do need to rethink the idea that you're the troublemaker in this situation. Because you actually didn't break any laws. It would be one thing even if they had brought a decibel reader out there and said hey you're this and this over the whatever.

If they had brought you any indication that you had done something wrong. But I think the problem is that because he's a police officer because he's in a position of authority that deserves a level of respect and he has a difficult job, a difficult dangerous job that you're automatically the troublemaker in the situation.

But that's actually not his job is not to comparatively compare to himself point out who all the troublemakers are in the world. And it's certainly not well as long as if you're not a cop then you're at fault.

But I.

Think that we it's unfortunate we see a video like this and we instantly think like well why is Jeff causing problems? But our point is you weren't causing any problems. You weren't violating the law.

You weren't being rude to him by not giving him your ID because it's not polite to give someone your ID. That's not a nicety that we observe in our culture.

I'm not just handing it over to people.

So there's like we need to rethink like I'm not saying you need to be anti-cop. This is not about cop versus Jeff Durbin. Like you just you really need to be able to look at this situation and say is Jeff really doing anything wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong. So what is this interaction accomplishing?

I was just gonna say there was already a situation too with the Tempe Police Department. Remember where the same thing happened. They asked for your ID. You said no because you hadn't committed a crime.

You were there for that. They lied to you and said you've been accused of a crime so you gave them your ID. But they lied. They didn't have anything. So that's behind all this. You already have an incident where they've given you a warning illegally where they lied to you.

So this would just be like you said another example. Right.

Pastor Luke was there for that. We were outside of the Tempe Planned Parenthood when I was further up north and there was an abusive police officer who was there. He had been there a number of times trying to abuse members of Apologia Church and that is just a fact.

He was abusive. He came on this one morning, this one lovely morning where there weren't anybody there. There were no witnesses there except for Pastor Luke and myself and they asked for my ID and I said well have I committed a crime?

They said no. I said so if I'm not being accused of a crime I don't really want to make a record and so I don't want to give you my ID. No thank you though. I appreciate what you guys do. And what happened after that is this cop got in my face and basically threatened me and said if you don't give up your ID what did he say?

He said he was going to hurt me? It was something physical. I don't remember.

He definitely made some sort of threat to you.

He made a threat to me and then he was saying he was going to take me to jail and so I said okay so you are accusing me of a crime. He said yes I am accusing you of a crime. I said okay based upon that I'll give you my ID because you are accusing me of a crime.

So I give him my ID. They make a street record and then I was like okay so what crime am I being accused of? And he was like nothing. And then handed him my ID so they just wanted to make the record. And so we've had this experience before where police officers are abusing their authority.

This man was actually quite pleasant and he was a good man. But I'll go ahead.

And play. I'll say I actually felt bad for him. So did I. Because it was clear and you can see later it was clear that he was doing what his superior was forcing him to do. Because you could tell he was like I think he may have even said I don't really want to do this.

I'm sorry type of thing. He had to do it.

Well yeah when I said I don't have to give you my ID he said I can ask you but you don't have to give it to me. So he even knew the law. He can ask for it all he wants but I don't have to give it to him.

So here we go. Okay I'm just asking why you need my name.

I told you why.

Are you.

Arresting me or charging me with a crime?

Not at this point.

So then the state law of Arizona says that you can't ask for my ID unless I'm being charged with a crime.

I am in the process of investigating.

A crime.

So there you go right there. In terms of biblical law I'm in the process of investigating the crime so he takes me as the supposedly guilty party and he says I'm in the process of investigating a crime so I need you to help me investigate.

Biblical law says what? No. No. Because if I'm truly guilty you don't need my assistance. Right? Like if I've committed a crime there's evidence, there's eyewitnesses, there's DNA, there's video camera footage, whatever the case may be you don't need my assistance.

If I'm the guilty party then I don't have to self incriminate because you already have the evidence and witness. So that's when he says, that's what's so peculiar about what he says is law enforcement where he says I'm in the process of investigating a crime but I'm supposedly the guilty party.

So I'm supposed to self incriminate and you might want to say okay so biblical law I can see would be opposed to that sort of interaction but how about our current law? Are we protected in that way? Well, Fourth Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons houses papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated shall not be violated and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

What's the point there? You've got to have a warrant. How do you get a warrant? You have a judge who receives evidence, witness, and testimony and based upon proof the judge says because of this proof I think the person could be guilty so I'm going to issue a warrant from the bench that you now have permission to take from that person their houses, papers, effects, search all that stuff.

But what's the process there? There's a judicial process that protects justice, preserves justice. Where somebody makes an accusation law enforcement goes I think that Joy's guilty. I think that she did something.

I think I have proof. So the law enforcement has to go to a judge and the judge has to go is this cop being vindictive? Is this a setup? I mean is this really just? So the judge says go ahead and give me the evidence.

Where's the witness? Where's the evidence? Okay. You know based upon all of that evidence and that witness I think maybe Joy you know we should bring her in for this. Good. Okay so here's the warrant issued.