Highlight: Bad Law Enforcement Practices

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you know, it's a fallen world, so we have to also address, you know, the other instance. Contrast. The contrast is where you have police officers, law enforcement, the judicial system, federal agencies that will disregard

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God's transcendent law and His standards for bringing accusations, those sorts of things.

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So just a couple things. I already read to you the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is against warrantless searches and seizures.

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What's that mean? Well, God's law required of you to have two to three independent lines of witness and testimony to bring charges against somebody.

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So you're going to have proof of a person's guilt before you begin bringing those accusations and, you know, doing this whole due process thing.

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The Fifth Amendment, within the Fifth Amendment, is, of course, against double jeopardy, not facing the same thing twice, but also the issue of not being required to testify against yourself.

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And so the point is, is God's law gives you this. Are you ready? You know it. Everyone can finish this.

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If you're an American citizen, if you've come into covenant with this nation, you know the laws of this nation. You know this. And that is that we are innocent until what?

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Proven guilty. Proven guilty. See, and you guys are all in the audience right now finishing the sentence. Innocent until proven guilty.

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Now, if you like that, innocent until proven guilty, then you'll really like the law of God because that's where it comes from.

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Like pagan cultures and societies don't give you that. Atheism doesn't give you that. It is the

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Christian worldview that gives you innocent until proven guilty. So that tradition of innocent until proven guilty and how that works out in due process and our system of law comes to us from Moses.

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So thank you, Moses. Again, contra Marx. But we should address the issue of like when you have, say, law enforcement or any federal agency coming and roughing you up and searching your things and looking for evidence of guilt.

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What are they doing? Like, OK, if you have a police officer that, say, comes up to your car now, they'll tell you you're not guilty of any crime right now.

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I don't have any evidence that you've committed a crime, but I want you to identify yourself and I want to search your vehicle.

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What are they saying when they're saying that? I believe that you are probably guilty and I want to look for evidence of the guilt or to see that you are innocent.

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So it's guilty until proven innocent in a case like that, which violates

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God's law. It violates the stipulated law of this nation that says you need to have a warrant.

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Now, here's the thing. Watch when you say when the founder said you have to have a warrant to search anybody's stuff.

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What's the assumption there? This is a person that could be innocent. And so the warrant means you need to have evidence a priori ahead of time, evidence ahead of time that demonstrates that there's probable guilt here.

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So where's that got to go? It's got to go to a judge where a judge is basically supposed to look at the evidence and go, eh, that's not really evidence of guilt, guys.

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Those are not independent lines of testimony and evidence and witness, so I'm not giving you a warrant.

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The judge will look at the potential witness and he could say, yay or nay, right?

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Because the person still has to have the assumption of innocence. So that's where that comes from, two to three independent lines of witness and testimony,

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Deuteronomy, throughout Jesus' teaching, throughout the New Testament, that's assumed, right? That comes to us into the historic tradition that we find ourselves in today.

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Innocent until proven guilty, all of that. So when you have a situation today where police officers, many times seem like they don't even know the constitution, the amendments we have, the law itself, where they'll come up to a person and they'll start looking for evidence of guilt on the spot, or they're trying to see if I can find proof that you're innocent.

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Let me see that you're not really guilty. I suspect that you're really guilty. I don't have any proof.

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So you've got to prove to me that you're innocent. Brothers and sisters, that's not righteous. It's not just lawlessness, and that is lawless.

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That is completely lawless. And there are too many Christians behind us that fought really hard battles to make sure that that wouldn't be the case.

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Police officers, praise God for guys like that, but police officers do not have any right to walk up to anybody and assume their guilt without any evidence and say, well, you got to prove your innocence to me.

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Anytime you're in a situation with law enforcement, you should be, of course, respectful and gracious and all of that, of course, be kind, but you should never tolerate injustice where somebody's going to treat you as guilty and they're going to see if they can prove your innocence.

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So like when a cop comes to your door, always be respectful, always be loving, don't be a jerk.

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And they say, hi, do you know how fast you were going? Don't answer that question. Don't answer that question because the cop is not your friend at that point.

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They're already pulling you over and they're bringing some sort of charge against you. And so I don't need to testify against myself.

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Actually, if the police officer pulls me over for, say, speeding, doesn't he know how fast

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I was going? So why are you asking me? Right? Like you're the one who's bringing the charge right now that I was speeding.

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So why are you asking me how fast I was going? I had this happen to me. You would like me to submit my confession now.

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You want me to confess? You want me to testify against myself right now? So it was interesting, like a while back, we were coming back from something we did mission in California.

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We're coming back. I was coming through Yuma. It was a leadership retreat. That's right. Yeah. And I was coming through Yuma back to Arizona and this is a known thing now.

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Be very cautious. If you're coming to Arizona from California through Yuma, just know that is a hot spot for what

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I would call road piracy. And that is where the police officers in California, they know that the border for Arizona is right there in Yuma, right by Yuma.

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And so what they is they hang out there and try to give away as many California tickets as possible to Arizona residents.

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And here's why, because the chances of you coming and driving all the way back to California to argue that in courts are very low.

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It's just, it's a cash cow. And so it was interesting because I'm just driving with traffic.

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I'm just driving with the traffic. I'm with all the traffic. I am not going faster than anybody.

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I'm driving. And all of a sudden, my wife, my kids in the car, all of a sudden on the freeway, that's going westbound, there's a police cruiser driving.

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Now I'm, mind you, I'm surrounded by vehicles. There's cars in front of me, cars in the side of me, cars behind me.

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I'm driving with the traffic and I see this police cruiser on the other thing, just literally just pull and just drive through the dirt in the middle.

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And I'm thinking there's some emergency like up ahead of me or something like that. So I'm aware that he's doing it. So I pass by him and all of a sudden he's driving back on our freeway.

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Now his lights come on and everyone starts to pull over to let him buy. Cause it must be some emergency. Like he's, he's just driving through the dirt and there's dust clouds everywhere.

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And then he gets behind me and pulls me over. And as soon as he comes up to the car, he's like, how are you doing, sir?

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Do you know how fast you were going? I said, well, I assumed you do.

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And he was like, well, do you know how fast? I said, the speed limit I was driving with all the traffic. I know I was driving the speed limit and he goes, no, you were driving a 85.

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And I said, no, sir. And he was like, all right, how fast were you going? And I was like, well, don't, you know, don't you have,

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I saw, so you were driving on a freeway, the other direction where I'm surrounded by cars. This is, don't you know how, don't you know how fast

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I was going? And so as we started to talk some more, he's wanting to get out of me how fast I was going.

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And I was like the speed limit with all the other traffic. I don't know why you came and picked me. And he was like a 85.

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And so when he comes back, he comes back with a ticket for a 75. And I said, sir,

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I thought you said I was going 85. And he was like, well, you know, I put 75.

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And I said, I said, sir, do you have, do you have proof in your vehicle of how fast I was going? And he said,

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I'm not going to answer that question. And then, and then, so he gives me the ticket and I was like, this is crazy.

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I said, I absolutely am going to fight this because I was not. And I know he doesn't have proof that I was, but when

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I got, when I got the ticket, it said I had to appear in court in California and it was far into California.

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And so I was like, I'm not driving back and spending all the money in gas and the full day to go fight this ticket.

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It was just an instance where he didn't really have any proof, but I was just stuck. And, and I think there are so many good law enforcement officers that respect the constitution, want to respect people's rights.

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And you can see all kinds of other videos that are just fantastic, where like someone will call and complain about somebody doing like a first amendment audit or something like that.

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The police show up and they go, yeah, he's within his rights. It's a public property. He's doing what's lawful. And that'll really tick off the people who like want him gone.

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They're like, yeah, but you know, like the cops are like, no, he's within his rights. He can do as he pleases here. There's good, there's good, and there's bad.

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And if we're going to examine this from a Christian worldview, we'd say, respect the law of God, respect the transcendent law of God.

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And in a situation like this, don't allow yourself to yield to the sinful desires of your heart to be a tyrant, right?

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To just maintain control. Well, you meant, you said it, the issue is authority and where anybody becomes a tyrant in any jurisdiction, whether it's the home or the church or the state is by forgetting that their authority is not self -generated, but derivative from a higher authority.

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Very good. When you forget that, that is when you begin to play lowercase g -o -d.

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Well, that's the key issue, derivative authority. So whether it's in the home, whether it's in the church, or whether it's in the state, if you don't recognize just what you said, that your authority is derivative, it's from somewhere else, then you'll become a tyrant, and that's clearly what's taking place.

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That's what's taking place. So you could point to abuse in the church, where if you have some guy that's like, he's the head honcho, and he's like, you do as he says, you follow him, he's abusing his authority.

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Why? Because he's not recognizing that his authority is derivative. This is the law of God, this is the standard, and then so you don't have to listen to anything

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I say that isn't consistent with this. That's the right kind of authority that a pastor yields.

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He's like, whatever I say that is consistent with this authority, that you have to yield to, but if I say something that's not consistent with this, you don't have to listen to anything

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I say in that regard. And when it comes to what we have in government today, with the regime that's in place today, they don't recognize that their authority is derivative, that it comes from God, that they're supposed to be the servant of God, and so they think they can do whatever they please, and they become tyrants.

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Stalin, do you think he recognized the derivative authority? No, he was the authority. Paul Pott, Mao, you think they recognized that their authority was derivative?

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No, their authority was themselves, it was, there was their own they were yielding, and that's why so many people died.