Equal Justice

Please turn your Bible to Exodus chapter 23, Exodus chapter 23, I'll be looking at verse 3 today, continuing with what we had looked at last week, the previous half of the sentence. Please stand when you have that one.

We will read verses 1 through 3. You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the man. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 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. Amen. May we be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for your clear statements about justice, matters which are even written in our hearts as.

As.

Written on our conscience, your moral law. But we thank you that you have stated these things even more clearly in your Word that we might follow them and know them more clearly, our own sinful hearts being frequently tempted to suppress these truths.

In Jesus' name. Amen. So last week we looked at this previous passage. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil. Now we look at nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. We will soon return to Isaiah and continuing through Isaiah, but I did want to take a brief couple of weeks to go through these two verses in Exodus.

I think it's important to understand these things. Most of Scripture that talks about the temptation to partiality tends to talk about partiality toward the rich. That is the more frequent temptation.

One would be tempted to be partial to a rich man because they can receive many benefits from a rich man. If you're partial towards a poor man, there's very little that he can do for you. If you're partial to a rich person, there's a lot that he may be able to do for you or give you or bribe you with.

Not so with the poor. Yet justice works in both those directions. We should not be partial to the rich and we should not be partial to the poor. And I believe that in our own generation, the increasing temptation, if not greater temptation, is to be partial not to the rich, but rather to be partial to the poor.

Now this is not true in every single case. There are still cases where people are more frequently tempted to be partial toward the rich or partial towards those who are powerful and able to give benefit.

One good example of this would be in the case of abortion. The common temptation is to be partial towards those who have more power to those who have more voice. It is not the poor and powerless that are in the womb, but rather to mothers and fathers who would want to kill their own children.

This would be an example of being partial toward the rich over the poor. Between those two, between the parents and the unborn child, who would be the rich and who would be the poor? Well, you can get more benefit from the parents than you can from the unborn child.

So that would be one case where it is still the case in our generation that we are more tempted or that at least society at large is more tempted to be partial to the rich than to the poor. However, in an increasing number of cases, there is a great temptation to be partial towards the poor rather than toward the rich.

I believe this is so for a number of reasons. One is the increase of critical theory. If you don't know what critical theory is, it's the breaking down of everything into the oppressor and the oppressed.

So if you see everything as oppressor and oppressed, you will identify the rich as the oppressor and the poor as the oppressed. Naturally, you would want to favor the oppressed. Who needs justice? Who needs mercy?

It is definitely the oppressed. And if the poor are always oppressed, if they are never in the wrong, then you would want to favor the poor. Now, it was also the case because of increasing egalitarianism in good ways and bad ways.

Think of this however you'd like. It's not just it's not just in bad ways that there's an increasing egalitarianism, meaning an equaling of men. There are some good ways that that happens. There are some bad ways that that happens.

But it is the case that there is an increasing democratization of power and of speech. Now, this is simply the case with voting, right? It's the case that everybody's vote counts equally as much. And so in a very real way, every single person has, on that very important front, an equal power, provided that they are an adult who is a citizen of the country, you know, have an equal political power.

Yet, speech has also been democratized. Even a very poor man can gain a very large voice, even anonymously, on social media, right? And so there is a democratization of voice so that richness, having a lot of wealth, does not necessarily correlate with getting a lot of benefit.

In fact, you can get a lot of benefit from the poor. Those who are relatively poor in our era, relative to other eras, are actually quite rich and powerful. And so because there has been increasing democratization, increasing egalitarianism, an increasing, even prosperity of the poor, there is an increasing temptation to be partial, not just toward the rich, but to the poor.

So we live in an era that's fairly unique in this way. Like I said, some of these factors are good, some of these factors are bad, some of these factors are neutral. But each one of these things that I'm pointing out tend toward an increase in the temptation that we would face in our era toward the minority concern in Scripture, which is partiality toward the poor.

It frequently addressing partiality toward the rich, here, to the poor. Nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. Now, what are different ways that this can exist, that you can find this out, that you can see examples where people would be partial to the poor?

Well, one would be in the very simple case of lawsuits. Simply, in the case of a lawsuit, if you're on a jury, you may be tempted to side in favor of the poor. Frequently, you will see in the media the way that court cases are presented.

If there is a more powerful entity, if there is a corporation, for example, versus people, it will be framed in such a way that more likely than not, regardless of the matter at hand, that there is an oppressor versus oppressed situation going on with the more powerful almost certainly being the bad guy.

There are a number of TV shows that are court case TV shows that are designed to, and you know the way that this works is basically you agree to settle outside of court and then they kind of do this fake court for the sake of recording.

I know that there are several of these where the design of them to be entertaining for you and to get you to watch it again and again is that the nature of these cases are they've got these people who just can't catch a break and this judge will give them a break.

You know, and this is the appeal that, oh yeah, this judge is just really nice to the poor man. He's going to cut him a break. And so this is supposed to excite you and appeal to this sense that, yes, you want the poor to succeed in whatever lawsuit that they face, even if they've done wrong, you want a lot of mercy to be extended to them in court.

Now, it's also the case with insanity pleas. What's going on with an insanity plea? It's essentially, not necessarily that this person is poor in terms of wealth, but they are poor in terms of mental health.

And so you should be especially kind to them because they can't be held completely accountable for their actions. Doesn't matter if they've murdered someone, they would be treated differently than someone who had all their mental faculties in play.

Consider bankruptcy. How does bankruptcy work? Essentially, you have someone who's not able to pay their debts and so they no longer have to pay their debts. They're the ones who have done wrong, and yet there may be a ruling that says that they no longer are obligated to comply in any way with their debt.

Now, keep in mind, there were essentially a sort of bankruptcy law in Israel around the year of Jubilee. But this was something specifically authorized by God for the purpose in His special nation of illustrating salvation.

This is not something that, not all of the civil laws that God instituted in Israel are things that nations have a blank check to institute themselves. Something like that was of special illustration by the Lord.

Occasionally in Israel, there would be forced charity. Do not glean the edges of your field, for example, so that others would be able to receive, to be able to glean the field and receive some of the grain from your field.

Now, that is the field of an individual, and so it is charitable for them to do that, but is mandated by this law in Israel, particularly to illustrate the love among the brothers in Israel. Not necessarily something that all nations everywhere have been authorized for.

And so you see, as people, as nations have laws that would enforce a kind of charity, essentially what that does is violate justice apart from some special provision, some special command by God that would authorize these things.

What is justice? Justice is an upholding of rights. Someone has a right, that is something that is not necessarily owed to them to be given, but it is something that no one can take away from them. If you have a right to your life, that doesn't mean that someone has to give you life, but it does mean that no one could take it away.

If you have a right to your property, it doesn't mean that someone has to give you property, but it means that no one can take it away from you. So if you are to come up with other rights, things that you are owed that have to be given to you, what happens is that justice is violated, because if someone else has to give them to you, then their right to that thing is therefore undermined.

If you propose a different kind of justice, like for example, social justice, where there are new rights given, they necessarily end up, apart from God's special provision, undermining other rights. And this can be the case outside of lawsuits as well as inside of lawsuits.

Just consider all the different social programs that exist that are designed to enforce a kind of social justice. The determination is, even without a court, that it is not right for the wealthy to have their possessions and rather the poor should have them.

So there's welfare, food stamps, etc. You know, I saw recently there was some kind of scandal. I don't know if the scandal is the right word. There's a controversy around whether or not candy should be considered something that you could buy with food stamps.

Recently there was a law change or at least a law proposed that candy would no longer be included in that. And I saw some conservatives celebrating that candy would no longer be included as part of food stamps.

And here I am thinking, well, if the money is still being given to them and they use it on something else, has really anything been changed? If they're able to use it on candy or not, is it not still the case that wealth has been redistributed in a way that is not authorized by God, that's contrary to justice?

That's violating rights, that is partial toward the poor against the rights of the rich? None of these things have been authorized by God. Now, this is not to say that taxes are wrong, right? Romans 13 talks about the tax, talks about, oh no man, anything, it talks about paying your taxes.

But the purpose of those taxes are to enforce justice. He is the one who, the civil magistrate is the one who wields the sword as a minister of God enforcing vengeance. That is true justice, retributive justice, not social justice that proposes new rights and ends up undermining true rights.

You hear language around these things, around social justice issues that suggests that the rich are bad guys always. That encourages a partiality toward the poor and against the rich. Here people talk on the news about millionaires and billionaires with a scowl.

As though this is, so they're necessarily, have necessarily gotten their wealth by oppression. You know, I've been watching some of Ro Khanna, he is our, he's our congressman. I've been watching some of his town halls lately, which are entitled Benefits Over Billionaires, where he just, he points out repeatedly that rich people are given tax breaks and this ends up taking away funds that would otherwise be redistributed to the poor.

So what he's suggesting there, without actually going through any of the numbers about how much the rich are taxed or anything like that, it could be 99 of their wealth taxed, but as long as they're still a billionaire, as long as they're still a millionaire or a billionaire, well then certainly they should have less of their money so that others can have benefits.

This is partiality toward the poor against the rich. And if you're in a position where the, every single man has an equal vote and you are appealing to the masses by saying that you are going to take money away from the minority, give it to the majority, what is that?

That is essentially bribery, is it not? That's what's going on in many of these cases. But this is, this is prevalent, the temptation to be partial toward the poor or to those who are in lesser statuses is prevalent in all kinds of cases.

It doesn't have to be in political cases, it doesn't have to be in lawsuits. You will frequently be asked to judge matters, to judge in conflicts between people and you will frequently be tempted to be partial on the basis of something other than the actual matter at hand and frequently that basis will be on pity toward one side or the other.

You must resist that temptation. Just to give you one illustration of where that comes into play, consider how the counsel that men and women receive in their marriages often differs. Men are often, regardless of the issue at hand, men are frequently identified as the bad guy in any kind of relationship conflict and women, less so.

Now this isn't 100 the case, but it's frequently the case, and I've noticed this in counseling, this is the case in divorce situations, that women are frequently encouraged, your husband is the bad guy, you should divorce.

Women initiate over 70 of divorces. This is frequently the case that women see themselves as being wronged in situations and others see women as being particularly wronged. I looked up some statistics on this about divorce court cases.

Now I'm pointing out court cases to illustrate how you might be tempted to side with one party versus another. I'm not really trying to, I'm trying to explain how this applies in cases outside of lawsuits, but I'm going to use lawsuits as an illustration here.

Now you could ask, who do the courts favor, men or women? And it's kind of hard to tell, you could look at custody numbers and that would tell you that women are favored, but I don't want to rely on that because maybe it is the case that women are more frequently in the right, okay?

So just consider public perception of partiality of the court. 57 of men in general say that courts favor women. About 35 of women say that. Now you might say, okay, well more men say that this is the case than women, so that doesn't really show anything.

However, less than 5 of either male or female think that the court favors men. Okay, so almost no one, very few people think that the court favors men. And many people think that the court favors women.

Now this number jumps significantly for men who have been divorced. For men who have been divorced, 74 would say that the court favors women over men. And so if you have this situation where public perception at least is that even across the sexes, very few would say that the court favors men.

And very many from both sexes, even if not a majority of women, but very many would say that the court favors women. Is it not the case that this seems suspiciously obvious that the court is favoring women?

There is a temptation to favor the side that is in less authority, the side that is poor, the side that is more pitiable. There will always be this temptation. And so the Lord addresses it with this command.

Now why is this important? Say first of all, it's important because it undermines true charity. When charity is forced, when we are compelled to decide with the poor, decide with those who are in particularly pitiable conditions, regardless of the matter in play, and say that they deserve this thing regardless of whether or not it is their right in a greater sense in front of the Lord.

What's happening is that those who would give them this special mercy or give them this special benefit are doing so out of a duty rather than out of a true charity. And so it becomes a virtuous charity so that charity itself is undermined.

God is a God who is both generous and He is just. He is both merciful and He is just. Consider His nature. He by no means clears the guilty. This is what Scripture says of Him. He by no means clears the guilty.

And yet He is merciful toward the guilty. How can this be the case? How can He be both merciful to the guilty and never clear the guilty? He has not overlooked people's sin but rather provided a payment for their sin.

He has not been merciful to them by just overlooking any of the crimes that have committed but by giving His own Son, Jesus, not out of this being owed in any sense of justice but rather it being given generously in a sense of mercy.

Psalm 85 10 says, Righteousness and peace met together. This is speaking of God's goodness. Righteousness and peace met together. Another way of saying that would be justice and mercy have met together.

God is both merciful and He is just. Romans 3 26 calls Him both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. The just, He is the one who enforces His laws. He does not overlook sin.

He does not clear the guilty. And yet He is the justifier. He is the one who makes righteous those who have faith in Jesus Christ. So He is upholding both. Now when you collapse these two and you say that they are both one and mercy is owed and the poor must be pitied in such a way that they must be favored, you are collapsing the two so that the goodness of these truths is lost.

No longer is God merciful out of a generosity of His heart, but He is merciful out of a sense of duty. This is what the mind would tend to imagine when you undermine the nature of justice. And is it not the case in our era that people have more complaints than they ever have had about God not being sufficiently merciful when they encounter the God of the Bible?

Why is that? It's because their mind has been so warped by the world that has an increasing temptation to pity the poor, has an increasing temptation to pity the poor in matters of justice. And so the gospel itself is undermined.

One thing you may notice in Scripture is how frequently God is merciful particularly to the poor, but not at the expense of justice. 1 Corinthians 126,. For consider your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

What is He saying?

Most of you were poor. James 2, 5, Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him?

Now, if you continue reading about how the rich oppress God's people, He's not just saying God has chosen some of the poor or that some of God's people are poor. He's saying in a large part, those who find the faith are the poor of this world.

Even as Jesus says, and I know He's saying poor in spirit, but blessed are the poor. God has been especially merciful to the poor in the world. Now, if you identify that as God being partial in a sense of justice toward the poor, if you see this special generosity He has had toward the poor of this world, and you see that as a matter of justice, you undermine the true generosity that He has given in Him offering His own Son.

Because you imagine that this is something that is at least in some measure, even if it's just a chance or it's a greater likelihood or something like that, that it is owed by Him to others. And so as you uphold true justice, as you, in matters of justice, in matters of conflict, as you are encountering situations yourself where there are conflicts, there is one side that is more pitiable due to their circumstances, are tempted to be partial to them, but rather you uphold justice, you are upholding in some measure the gospel itself.

And this is true in other matters as well. Consider that the Bible tells us as we uphold true marriage, we are upholding the gospel. As the husband reflects Christ and the wife reflects the church, we are upholding the relationship between Christ and the church.

This is a matter that's frequently taught to us, that as we honor God in our marriages, we are honoring the gospel. Maybe to a less extent, but it should be obvious that as fathers are good fathers, they point to the goodness of God as a father in order that the kindness of God may be shown.

And it's evident to some that this generation that is so plagued by fatherlessness has a difficulty understanding God as father because of that. In fact, there are heretical books that have been written trying to accommodate that, like the shack, right, that picture God as this benevolent mother because people can't handle him as a father.

And so in upholding fatherless, you understand that you're upholding the gospel. In upholding marriage, you understand that you're upholding the gospel. It is also the case in upholding justice, not being partial to the poor, you are upholding the gospel.

And so any kind of conflict that you encounter, do not be partial, but rather uphold true justice, true rights, knowing that when you do so, you are pointing to the goodness of God Himself who has sent Jesus Christ that He might be both the just and the justifier.

Justice and mercy having kissed. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for the gospel of Jesus Christ that He, though not being partial to the poor, has been especially merciful and generous to the poor.

We pray that You would help us in our decision-making, whether it be in civil matters, in church matters, in personal, family matters, to uphold justice and not to be partial over circumstances. In Jesus' name, amen.