Nor Shall You Be Partial

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, we're going to get started. Let's pray and then we'll get into it. Heavenly Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, we come before You in humble awe.

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You are the one true God. There is none other like You. Come, we pray. Bless our hearts and our minds as we study

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Your Word. Send Your Holy Spirit into our hearts and our lives so that we may grow in love and grace and that we may go forth into all the world, proclaiming

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Your Gospel so that others may learn of Your saving grace through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. Amen. Before we get started in the lesson today, if you want to put your finger at Exodus 23, you can.

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Before we get started, were there any questions that kind of percolated up during the sermon? Mikey.

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Okay, so it's a comparison between two types of wounds.

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Is the best way to put it. So the crushing of the head is a mortal wound.

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The bruising of the heel is a non -mortal wound. So you kind of have to think in those terms.

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And the irony here is that Jesus, on all appearances, looked like He suffered a mortal wound because He died on the cross, and yet He rose victorious from the grave.

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So although it was the devil who struck Him, it turned out to not be a mortal wound.

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Therefore, what Jesus did on the cross turned out to be a mortal wound to the devil instead.

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So that's the way you kind of look at it. He will, you will crush His head, He will bruise your heel.

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It's just a comparative study of the two types of wounds. All right, any other questions?

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Seeing that there are none, let's take a look at Exodus 23 as we continue to take a look at God's fuller revelation of the law.

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And again, we need to remind you that this portion of Scripture is, this is a gospel wanting, because the purpose of the law,

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I remember the three uses of the law that Scripture really permits is, number one, the law is used to guide the government in the punishing of evil, and I wish the government would pay more attention to God's law in those things, because it seems to be that the governments are becoming quite intent on punishing good and in rewarding evil in our day.

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But the other is the second use of the law is to show and reveal our sin. And then the third use of the law, again, only applies to Christians.

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Third use of the law is that use that reveals to us what a good work is. And without that third use, showing us what a good work is, many people have ended up really damaging their faith or even shipwrecking it by inventing their own good works.

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It's kind of a thing. So I'll give you an example that seems kind of silly, but if I were to say that I think that a good work would be making myself a grilled cheese sandwich every day at one o 'clock, as wonderful as grilled cheese sandwiches are, and everyone would say amen to that, that doesn't make it a good work.

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What makes a good work a good work is that God says that it is. And so the law of God actually reveals to us what an evil work is, and by contrast, then what a good work is.

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So as we look at this, we'll kind of keep those categories in mind. Exodus 23, one, you shall not spread a false report.

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Say law, right? You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

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And boy, I hate to say this. I've seen these things play out in my lifetime. 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.

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And so you're gonna note here, scripture, eighth commandment, you will not bear false witness against your neighbor.

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This is a fuller commentary on that. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And if somebody is spreading a false report, you do not participate in it.

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And if somebody wants you to participate by being a malicious witness, even though everybody that you know has decided that they're gonna sign onto this endeavor, you are to say, yeah, no,

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I'm not gonna participate. And you're gonna note here then also to not be partial to the poor.

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Scripture flips this in several places where it talks about not siding with the rich because they're rich, but also scripture forbids you from siding with the poor just because they're poor.

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And so the idea then is this, is that in our day and age, we have to remember that thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor means that we don't get caught up in the gossip of the day.

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And there's a reason for this. God wants your neighbor's reputation to be protected. And there are proper means by which someone's reputation can be tarnished.

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And the court of public opinion is not one of them because you'll find that in the court of public opinion, just like every other court, there's two sides.

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There are two sides. And both sides need to be able to provide their evidence. And oftentimes you will find that when there is a court trial and both sides present their evidence, okay, let's say it's a criminal trial.

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Somebody has alleged to have committed a particular crime. Notice that in our government, you are innocent until proven guilty.

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In the court of public opinion, you are guilty and you can't prove your innocence. It's funny how that works.

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But in real courts, you're innocent until proven guilty. And that, let's say you committed the crime.

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Everybody has to assume that you're innocent until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're the one who did it.

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And so you can say, I'm innocent. I'm innocent. I have not done these things. And so that person is actually not telling the truth if they've committed the crime.

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But if they haven't committed the crime, they are telling the truth. And you'll note how many people emotionally get caught up in all of this.

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And we show partiality when we pick one side or another when we really don't know the facts of the case.

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Yeah. I remember commenting on that this morning, kind of in the, when you listen to the news today, especially the 24 hour talk channels, whether it's right or left, they spend so much time speculating on people's motives without having any basis for firsthand information.

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And so whether it's right or left doesn't make a difference. They got so much time to fill with speculation that it creates this aura of one perception or another when there's really no basis in fact for it until the news happens.

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And I'm gonna again, point this out for myself personally, I can't speak for others.

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I failed all of my ESP courses in college. So I couldn't begin to tell you what somebody is thinking or feeling or what their motive is for something.

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And oftentimes you'll find that when they begin to speculate on their motive, they're assuming the person did that thing.

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And oftentimes speculation is assuming something that that person didn't do. And if you could sit down with that person, you'd realize that's not the case.

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And I've seen this play out on social media. There's this weird phenomena that happens and people have actually linked it going all the way back to the

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Monica Lewinsky scandal. If you have an opportunity, I do not care for this woman's politics. However, her story is actually quite fascinating.

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Monica Lewinsky a few years back did a TED talk about the social media and internet crucifixion that she experienced and how surreal it was to have her whole life and other details about her life that weren't even true, just caught up in this frenzy of what happens.

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And here's the thing, there are people that this happens to, to this day. You know, we talk about the suicide crisis here in the

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United States. That seems to be all the talk this past week. Although I was overseas, you know, I still kept track of the newspapers.

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Everyone's talking about the suicide crisis here in the United States. When you look at teenage suicides, one of the mitigating circumstances behind that is the absolutely cruel gang, you know, ganging up on people in social media and the destroying of people's character using social media.

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Now the swarming that takes place, all right? This is what the social justice warriors do, engage in swarming.

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Yeah. But as it says there in this reading here, as far as, you know, people ganging up on others, this

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Me Too phenomenon that's going on. Okay, we've had one after another, and sometimes it's hard to believe that these people are actually guilty.

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However, the court of law, I do still believe in it and whatnot. But they're getting away with it.

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Me too, me too, me too. And it goes all the way back to the Monica Lewinsky and how many me too's came out of that too.

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And just not, that whole 23 one there, you know, you get the same people that will stick up for a poor person or somebody who can defend themselves, even if the poor person is actually guilty.

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And that social justice should not be. Yeah. Yeah, so social justice isn't justice.

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And that's the issue. And so talking about the Me Too movement, the

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Me Too movement is a reaction against a very real cultural phenomenon that we've seen in our lifetime.

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And that is that there is a phenomenon where very rich and powerful people are able to get away with the most egregious things, you know, sexual abuse of other human beings.

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And they get away with it because they are wealthy and powerful. This definitely does happen. And so it's happened since the fall of Adam and Eve.

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So this goes all the way back. That being the case, there is a fascinating thing that we have to come to grips with is that institutionally in the

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United States, it seems like there is a problem in that the institutions are literally protecting the guilty.

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And so the Me Too movement is a reaction against that. But here's the problem. Not everybody who says hashtag

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Me Too is telling the truth. Yeah. And so the thing we have to remember is that when it comes to Me Too, the proper place to address these issues, these are laws that are broken.

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I'm very happy to see that Harvey Weinstein has had charges brought against him. He's pled not guilty.

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He's gonna see his day in court. But you think about somebody like Bill Cosby. That was painful to watch.

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Very painful because Bill Cosby in the 80s and 90s was the epitome of family values,

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Mr. Clean, of what it looks like to be a successful, wealthy, affluent, and influential

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African American in the United States. And when these allegations came forward, not by one woman, but by many, we as a nation didn't wanna hear it.

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And these women had to scrape, scratch, and claw to have their day in court.

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And after they had their day in court, Bill Cosby was found guilty. And so there's a problem here, and that is that these women were voicing these allegations and nobody was listening.

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Okay, so here's the idea then. We must always remember that when there is an error, that the equal and opposite error is never the solution.

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You see? So on the one hand, where culturally there seems to be systemic institutional push to basically cover up and not give credence to women who are saying they are being sexually abused, you think of the

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Nassar incident in, you know, regarding the Olympic gymnasts. They're thinking there's over 1 ,000 victims of that pedophile, 1 ,000.

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And what it took in order for that man to be brought to justice is actually a big part of the story.

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But remember this, that the opposite error, deciding to basically just have these things tried in the court of public opinion, that's not the solution either.

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Yeah, and it's probably politically incorrect to say this, but you think about the outcry of someone who has been in a poor economic situation, and they go and steal, and then there's the side that says, but they were really struggling, and we shouldn't call them, because of their life, you know, the conditions that they were raised, that's an excuse.

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But it is no excuse for breaking the law. No, and this is where we have to, you have to take a look at the overall message just in these first few verses, is that justice has to be completely impartial.

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The question is not whether you are rich or poor, whether you are powerful, or you are at the bottom of the social totem pole.

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The question is, was there a crime committed? What's the evidence behind it?

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And this is why we always depict justice with a blindfold on, and the scales of justice in our hands, you know, weighing one side or the other.

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And it's funny, that idea of justice being blind and being impartial has its foundation in scripture, and that's what

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God would have us do. And recently, social justice warriors have actually stated that the idea of objective impartiality is actually a white supremacist ideology.

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Yeah, that's just slander, that's just stupid. But that's where the narrative is going.

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Yeah, so you're gonna note that there's a whole group of people, the social justice warriors, that are intentionally trying to destroy the institutions of the

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United States, especially our legal system. And this idea that somehow to say that people have to be judged impartially in court, that is a white supremacist thing.

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I don't seem to recall, you know, Martin Luther King, when he was alive, you know, somehow saying, we need to get rid of impartial justice.

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And I don't think he was a white supremacist at all. Yeah, but his beliefs now and everything had to do with global warming too.

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Right. They do. Because you're a white supremacist if you don't believe in global warming, got it.

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Okay, let's just be blunt, okay? When it comes to the logic of social justice, there isn't any, okay?

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Just call a spade a spade, and if you need to mock it, mock it, okay? You know, basically ask somebody, did your brain bake in the sun?

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Were you in the car too long? Are you dehydrated? You're not thinking rationally. You know, go with the Don Quixote approach.

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You know, maybe something's gone wrong here because somehow connecting white supremacy to global warming and, you know, and all this, it's nonsense, okay?

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It's absolute nonsense. So you have to see through that, best way

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I can put it. What I see is, in Exodus, that was written a long, long, long time ago.

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Yeah. It's a part of history that is the laws, okay? And how pertinent it is today, it is no more pertinent in my measly little 60 years here on Earth than now, it is more pertinent now than ever before in my lifetime.

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Let me ask you, was this book, were these laws revealed to a racial minority?

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No, they were not. Yes, they were. Well, actually, initially here, we're dealing with the Jewish people.

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They were a racial minority and they were oppressed and antisemitism is alive and well today.

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So I think that's a good argument against this idea. No, no, no. Impartiality was actually revealed to a racial minority who was enslaved and oppressed long before African -Americans were.

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Yeah, you got it, okay. Yeah, it's kind of strong, isn't it? Sometimes you have to serve the drink without ice in it.

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It's gotta be a stiff drink. So pardon the metaphor, but you get the idea. Yeah.

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It definitely wakes you up. Yep. I mean, it's like, it's here. Yep. Now let's take a look at an example of this not happening.

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And again, you're gonna note that I literally am always just in awe in a terrible way when we're dealing with people who are religious leaders who are intentionally doing evil.

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Going against this whole idea then in Matthew chapter 26, consider the trial of Jesus Christ.

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Matthew 26, 57. Those who had seized Jesus led them to Caiaphas, the high priest.

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I mean, we don't really have an equivalent for this in Lutheranism. Curtis Lyons is not exactly the high priest.

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And in the LCMS, you couldn't say that Matt Harrison is the equivalent of this. Maybe in Roman Catholicism, the equivalent you come up with, this would be like akin to the

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Pope. So the very head of a very large religious organization like that big.

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So Caiaphas, the high priest and the scribes and the elders had gathered. So I mean, who's who in church leadership is at the trial of Christ?

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Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest and going inside, he sat with the guards to see the end.

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By the way, think over the past decade or so, they have found this site. We know where Caiaphas lived.

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So we know where this took place. Now the chief priests and the whole council, they were seeking, look what they were seeking.

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False testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. How does one go about soliciting for this particular thing?

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It's one thing to go to the market and say, I'm looking for a really good sharp aged cheddar.

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Do you know where I can find one? It's a whole other thing to say, I'm looking for somebody willing to lie on the witness stand against Jesus so we can kill him.

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Anyone wanna do, anyone, any takers? The price is right, anybody will do anything.

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Yeah, I know, but notice who's running the show. Peter. The whole, well,

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Caiaphas and the greatest religious leaders of Jesus's time. They're the ones running the show.

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They weren't reading their scripture. Yeah, exactly. For all their expertise in the law of God, they seem to have overlooked

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Exodus 23, right? Well, if they'd have read their scripture, they'd have realized they didn't have the power that they thought they had.

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Uh -huh, exactly. So now the chief priests and the whole council, they were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none.

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Though many false witnesses came forward. By the way, if you're gonna lie, have you ever noticed this?

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That people who lie, they have to have ridiculously good memories. The person who lies because they tell a lie, now they gotta remember the details of the lie they told.

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And then when somebody else asks them about it, they might end up having to embellish on the lie that they told. And you usually can catch people in their words, right?

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But so liars don't tend to agree with each other. And so this was like a fruitless endeavor to begin with, but they're seeking false testimony against Jesus.

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So they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last, two came forward and said, this man said,

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I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Yes, Jesus did say that, kinda.

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Let's take a look at the referent on that. Gospel of John. Gospel of John, I believe chapter two.

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Yep, 219. Let me get there real quick. Duplicate tab. Love this text, by the way.

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John chapter two, gospel of John chapter two, specifically verse 19. And let's consider the context on this, and then we'll go back to the trial.

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The Passover of the Jews was at hand. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there.

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Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers, turned their tables, and he said to those who sold pigeons, take these things away.

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Do not make my father's house a house of trade. Now, immediately, the question is gonna come up, by what authority are you doing these things?

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I mean, could you imagine, like going to somebody's church and driving out the money changers? Can I have the baristas?

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Huh? I mean, can I have the baristas? Yeah, the coffee guys, right, driving them out. How dare you turn my father's house into a coffee shop and drive them out, right?

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Immediately, you know, there's a question of authority. So, his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will come to pass.

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So, the Jews, they said to Jesus, what sign do you show us for doing these things?

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Fascinating. Already, by this time, they're kind of getting the gist that something's different about Jesus, and so they want a sign.

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They want a sign. We want a miraculous sign. Now, where does this concept come from, by the way?

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We're getting farther and farther away from our Matthew text. Remember when Moses saw the burning bush?

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He went to Pharaoh, and God appeared to him in the burning bush and told him to go to Pharaoh and tell

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Pharaoh, let my people go, and Moses was not exactly keen on the whole assignment.

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And so, he says, you want me to go to the people of Israel? What if they don't believe me, that you sent me?

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And God gave Moses two signs. Signs, miraculous signs. The ability to turn water into blood, and the ability to turn his staff into a serpent, and then take it up, and it would become a staff again.

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He also had a leprous thing that he could do, and he had a third sign, three signs. So, the

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Jews are saying of Jesus, show us a sign. Show us that God sent you, because clearly, you think you're acting on behalf of God here.

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So, Jesus answered, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.

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Now, we have an issue of referent. Was Jesus saying, destroy this temple, and I'll raise it up again, or was he saying, destroy this temple, and I'll raise it up again?

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It's the second. Destroy this temple, talking about his body. And the Jews said, it's taken 46 years to build this temple, they missed it.

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And Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. Which, by the way, this is one of those texts that shows us that the temple in Jerusalem was a type and shadow of Jesus.

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Jesus is the real temple. And so, you can kind of rewrite the chapter heading to this, or at least the section.

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You can say, the temple drives out the money changers from the temple. That'd be a great way to describe it.

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The temple has showed up in the temple, right? That's a very provocative way of speaking, but that's literally what

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Jesus is talking about. So then, going back to our false witnesses then, Jesus' trial, two witnesses came forward, verse 60, and said, this man said,

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I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. This guy clearly didn't know what

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Jesus was talking about. But he was referring to an actual thing Jesus said.

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So the high priest finally thinks, oh, I have a way to kill Jesus. Whew, we got some blasphemy going on here.

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So, he said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?

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Well, if Jesus were, at the time, keen to defend himself, he might point out that they had misunderstood him.

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But Jesus didn't defend himself. So Jesus remained silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you,

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I command you, by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.

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Jesus said, well, you've said so. But I tell you, from now on, you will see the man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

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And then the high priest tore his robes, said he's uttered blasphemy. Did he? Nope. You see, that's the thing.

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When you do not have impartial justice, you go into court having predetermined the outcome.

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Caiaphas wasn't about to leave this court proceeding, which was taking place in the middle of the night, which is not when court proceedings are supposed to take place.

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What's that fellow in the UK who went to prison after a four -hour? Tommy Robinson, right?

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That was a kangaroo court. That was not justice. But when you're not interested in justice, you want liars, you want deceivers, and you want people who are gonna get in line with the group, and scripture specifically forbids that.

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We are to show impartiality in our justice. Now, I love these next verses.

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If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. Really? Can't this just say if the people

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I love, my family members, my closest friends and confidants? No, it's your enemy.

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So there you are, you're walking down the street, heading to town to get yourself some pita bread, some chicken, something like that, and there is your enemy's ox.

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Uh, no, I hate that guy, and he hates me.

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He can never say a kind word about me ever, but then again, I've never really said anything kind about him, but at least

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I've kept my mouth shut, you know? And there's his ox, just chewing, doing its ox things.

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God's law requires you to do good to your neighbor regardless of your relationship with him, whether it be good or bad.

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So you take blue, come on, blue, and you take it to your neighbor's house.

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Hey, neighbor, guess what I got here? She was wandering, she was down there, I just brought her back for you.

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Yep. Yeah, exactly. And what's funny about this,

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I seem to recall in one of Paul's epistles, is it 2nd

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Corinthians or 1st? Let me find the referent here. Coals and head.

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Hang on. See if I can find this. Let's see.

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Ah, it's Romans 12. Yeah, one of the least favorite passages of all of scripture,

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Romans 12. Specifically, we're near verse 20, but for the sake of context, check this out.

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Romans 12, 14. Bless those who persecute you.

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This is not a favorite passage, right? Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty. Associate with the lowly.

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Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil.

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But give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all, if possible.

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So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves.

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Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

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If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

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Do not be overcome by evil. Instead, overcome evil with good.

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I gotta rethink my whole life. All of it. So in other words, kill them with kindness?

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Yes, kill them with kindness. I'm going to murder you with kindness. Come here, give me a hug.

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Yeah, but it really does. Yeah, it does. It really, really does.

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And so you're gonna note here, what we just read in Exodus is absolutely consistent with what we read in the

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New Testament. You would think that Romans 12 that we just read was a kind of a

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New Testament thing in light of Jesus and all this. This was all part of Torah, which again shows this, that the law of God is predicated on love.

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That every single sin, every single infraction of God's law is to sin against love.

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It is a shortcoming of love. And you think, let me see if I can find this real quick.

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Give me a second, I'm going to open up my Kindle app. I wanna show you something here.

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If somebody were to come to me and say, pastor, I really, my conscience is killing me.

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My conscience is killing me. And I just feel like I can't possibly be a

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Christian. I need to talk to you about something. And so what I would recommend in the situation like that is that a person visit me for the purpose of what's called individual confession and absolution.

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And I want you to hear these words. In individual confession and absolution, people immediately think

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Roman Catholicism. The problem with Roman Catholicism is that you don't leave with an absolution. You leave with a list of things to do.

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That's the problem, right? The important thing in confessing your sins is that you hear that they are forgiven.

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But listen to this confession that is in the Lutheran service book for individual confession and absolution.

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The person says, I, a poor sinner, plead guilty before God of all sins.

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I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered the most. My Lord's name

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I have not honored, as I should. My worship and my prayers have faltered. And I love this sentence.

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I have not let his love have its way with me. Isn't that really what is driving our sin?

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So we haven't let the love of God have its way with us. And so because of this, my love for others has failed.

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And see, scripture so consistently teaches the love of God for us in Christ.

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We don't love because, we don't love him because we, you know, we love because he first loved us is what scripture says.

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It's not because of us, it's because of him. And so God demonstrates his love for us in the while we were yet sinners,

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Christ dies for our sins. We then being restored in our relationship with God being forgiven and pardoned, that love that God has shown to us cascades from us now to neighbor.

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And when it doesn't and we sin, it's a failure of love.

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It's God's great love has somehow gotten bottlenecked. It's gotten damned up.

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And as a result of it, our love for others fails. That's really the whole point.

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So there are those who I've hurt, those whom I failed to help, and my thoughts have been soiled with sin. This is exactly kind of how sin operates.

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So because we are forgiven then, we love our enemy. If his ox is wandering around, we bring it back.

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Even if that means we're gonna yell that by our neighbor. And that's the worst part. As far as I'm concerned, that really is the worst part.

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How's the saying go? No good deed goes unpunished, right? Yeah, so even when you do your good deeds in love, you might get abuse heaped upon you.

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And that doesn't keep us from doing them. We do it anyway. All right, so if you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it.

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You shall rescue it with him. I guess donkeys are stubborn animals, you know?

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So you load them up and the donkey says, I'm not going anywhere and decides to sit down.

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Seems like a logical thing to do if you're a donkey and you don't wanna carry something, right? So apparently getting a donkey back on its feet to do its burden duty is a two man operation or multiple man operation.

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If your neighbor's donkey has decided to lay down and he needs help, even if the guy hates your guts, wants you dead, slanders your name throughout all of Oslo, Minnesota, you help him.

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Why? Because you are loved. Because you are forgiven. You shall not pervert justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.

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Keep far from a false charge. Do not kill the innocent and righteous for I will not acquit the wicked.

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And you shall take no bribe for a bribe blinds the clear sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

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How many of you have traveled abroad in third world nations and have found that bribery is a good way to get what you want done when the government officials are becoming a roadblock?

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I've heard so many stories like that. Haven't myself experienced it. But isn't that how the government officials work in third world nations?

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The reason why they're giving you a hard time is because they want you to give them money to go away. You shall not oppress a sojourner.

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You know the heart of a sojourner for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Isn't that interesting?

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So note that God then points to their slavery to their oppression as people who are outside of their homeland, enslaved as sojourners against their will in Egypt.

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And that suffering then doesn't result in retaliation and the expectation that there will be reparations from Egypt.

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Instead, that experience then informs how they are to treat the sojourners among them.

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Isn't that interesting? Social justice today thinks the exact opposite. You shall not oppress a sojourner.

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Chapter verse 10, for six years you shall sow your land and gather its yield.

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On the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow that the poor of your people may eat and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat.

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You shall do likewise with your vineyard and with your olive orchard. This, by the way, is the basis of what today has been a perverted doctrine.

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But have you heard of the Shemitah? You haven't heard of the

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Shemitah? If you haven't heard of it, consider yourself blessed. If you have heard of it today, then you're familiar with a false doctrine.

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All right, there's a fellow who's very popular on TBN. His name is Rabbi Jonathan Kahn.

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I think his name should be spelled C -O -N, but then again, I'm not really good at spelling.

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And he has this doctrine that he claims that he's kind of discovered. It's the law of the

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Shemitah. And the way this works, apparently, is he claims that every seven years, according to the

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Mosaic law, the whole land is supposed to lie at rest. And because the

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United States hasn't been obeying God's Shemitahs, God has sent devouring, destructive, financial, cataclysmic events to happen in seven -year cycles.

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And he claims that the stock market crashes that we've seen in our lifetime have all taken place at the exact time of Elul 29, or somewhere in that vicinity, according to the

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Hebrew calendar. And so, this happened a few years ago. The Shemitah cycle supposedly happened, and the

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U .S. economy didn't collapse. It just didn't. So, yeah, but he claims that other countries experienced difficulties, so it just didn't hit the

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United States. And I should say, within the next couple of years, there'll be a Shemitah cycle again, and he's claiming that God's gonna wipe out the stock market and all this kind of stuff.

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That's not what the Shemitah's about. The Shemitah, which is kind of similar, a

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Hebrew concept of the Shabbat, it's a rest. There's a day of rest once a week,

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Saturday, and every seven years, there is, the land is supposed to rest and lie fallow.

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By the way, this is just good farming practice, by the way. Have you noticed that good farmers will rotate their fields?

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One year, this part of their field will lie fallow, and then they'll rotate it. It's common practice.

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Let the land breathe a little bit, recoup itself. And then, the specific reason here as to why this is to take place, the land is to lie rest one year in seven, for what purpose?

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I don't know, but my dad always said everything goes in seven -year cycles because of the creation of Earth.

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He said the weather, and he always rotated everything, and that's just, there's a seven -year rotation.

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There is something to that, there is something to that. But what's the specific reason why the land is supposed to rest?

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It's to feed the poor. So one year in seven is specifically, that is a year when the poorest of the poor will have access to your uncultivated field to eat whatever the land produces.

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It's not yours, it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to your neighbor. And when

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Israel, years, centuries later, were taken by God into captivity in Babylon, how many years were they there?

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70. Why 70? God specifically says that the reason why they spent 70 years there was for all the unkept

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Shemitah years. Israel didn't obey this, and so seven years would go by, and they didn't obey it.

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Another seven years would go by, and they didn't obey it. Another seven years went by, and they didn't obey it. Another seven years, and they didn't obey it, on and on and on until they racked up 70 unpaid rests.

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And so God put them in exile for 70 years and forced the land of Judah to rest for 70 years, one year for each of the years that they didn't observe the

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Shemitah. Uh -huh. Fascinating.

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Fascinating. Sticky. Go ahead. How do these Old Testament laws like this apply to us who are not farmers, or doesn't it apply?

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I mean, it's, I guess, a scratching question. Okay, so we are not under this particular

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Mosaic Covenant command. God's not gonna punish you because you didn't let your field, your vegetable garden life follow, right?

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So that's kinda not the intent here. If you wanna get at the intent of this particular law, again, this comes back to loving your neighbor.

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And so you keep this when you use your resources to help meet the need of your neighbor.

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That's really the intent of this law. Six days you shall do your work.

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On the seventh day, you shall rest. Woo -hoo, day off. That your ox and your donkey may have rest.

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And the son of your servant, woman, and the alien may be refreshed. So you're gonna note,

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I've made this point before, and I'll keep making it, the original intent of the Sabbath, day of rest.

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It was on that day of rest that logically it would make sense to go to the synagogue. But the whole point was take the day off.

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And if you remember last week's sermon, we pointed out that the Sabbath always points back to justification by grace through faith, not by works.

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So we enter into the Sabbath rest when we believe Christ and trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins.

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Pay attention to all that I have said to you and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

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And this is one that Israel did not keep. This comes back to the first commandment. You will have no other gods before me.

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And we find over and again in the history of Israel, no sooner do they get into the promised land, no sooner does

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God make good his promise, removes his tribes before them, they move into their inheritance.

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And it's like almost the next day, it seems like, although it's a little bit longer than that.

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The next generation, hey, have you heard of Baal? Have you heard of Molech?

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Let me tell you about Asherah. Man, I mean, it happens so quick, happens so quick.

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They worship these false gods and then God punishes them. God sends a judge, delivers them, and then the whole cycle starts over again.

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Three times in the year. Now this is an important one. Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

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You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time of the month of Abib.

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And in it, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty -handed. You shall keep the feast of the harvest of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field.

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You shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.

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Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the

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Lord your God. Now, when you read the cross references on this, that is very specific that the males of Israel under the

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Mosaic Covenant were required to muster and appear before God in the place that he chose three times a year.

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Passover, Pentecost, that's what the feast of the first fruits of the harvest is, and the feast of booths is the last one.

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Three times a year. So when we read in the New Testament, you'll note that Jesus regularly traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem at very regular intervals for these feasts.

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He was required to do so. The women were not required, but the men were. Now, there is a group in our time called the

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Hebrew Roots Movement. I don't know if you're familiar with these people, but they're today's modern day

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Judaizers. And they literally teach that Christians are required to keep these feasts.

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And again, when you look at the cross references, it's not merely that you're supposed to celebrate the

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Passover. The Passover is to be celebrated in a specific place. Is that Oslo, Minnesota?

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No, it's not even Grand Forks, as grand as it is. It's Jerusalem.

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The feast of the first fruits of the harvest, Pentecost, Jerusalem. Feast of booths, it ain't

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Tennessee, it's Jerusalem. Women aren't required to keep it, men are.

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You see what I'm saying here? So when Judaizers, modern day Judaizers, show up and say, you people of Kongsvinger, you and your pastor, you are evil, rascally

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Lutherans, and you hate the Jews, because Luther hated them too, and so you aren't doing your

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Jewish duty by going to, by celebrating the Passover, sit down and pull out the fine print, okay?

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Pull out the fine print. And you're gonna note this. The Passover requires a sacrifice. Yeah. Now you're getting, you know, that will create some awkward silence.

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It's like, first of all, men are required to keep it. You have to go to Jerusalem. Oh, and don't appear before the

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Lord empty -handed. You need to bring your sacrifice with you. How am I supposed to get me and a sheep over to Jerusalem?

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And where am I supposed to sacrifice it when I get there? Because I don't know if you've seen the Temple Mount, there's no temple on it.

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The rainbow ark of the covenant, the rainbow mercy. Because you might get stuck in Chicago. Yeah, that's right, and avoid

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Chicago, especially if you have farm animals with you. Don't try to stuff it in the overhead bin either.

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Yeah, no, no, that's bad. So you're gonna note that the scriptures make it very clear.

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These feasts are type and shadow. The Passover is a type and shadow pointing us to Christ's crucifixion.

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He's our Passover lamb. The feast of the first fruits of the harvest is type and shadow.

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It finds its fulfillment in the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. The last one, the feast of booths, has to do with the final harvest, and that type and shadow is awaiting its fulfillment on the day when

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Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. The final harvest. You're gonna know over and again

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Jesus when he refers to the day of judgment, refers to it over and over and over again so that you don't miss the point.

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The day of judgment is like a harvest. The angels go out and gather up everything, wheat, chaff, weeds, good stuff, and then there's a threshing floor where everything is separated.

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The chaff is burned up. The wheat is taken into the barn. The end.

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So this final one is really about the harvest day, type and shadow, fulfillment still coming.

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Pay attention to the signs you're supposed to look for. That's the idea. Okay? All right.

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We're going to end there today, and we will pick it up from this point next week.