An Eye for an Eye

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If you would, open your Bibles and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5.
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We are continuing this morning in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, and as I was preparing this message, I started going page after page after page of information until I finally realized there's no way that I'm going to be able to preach this message all in one sitting.
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So I just gave up trying, and I just let it come out on the notes, and I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to preach it as it comes.
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When I feel like I'm ready to stop, we'll stop, we'll pray, and we'll pick it up next week.
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It's just, it's not something that I want to rush, because I really feel like this part of the Sermon on the Mount is really one of the most difficult parts of the entire sermon.
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The Sermon on the Mount is three chapters of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and we've already dealt with some pretty heavy things, but I would venture to say that the last portion of Matthew chapter 5 is some of the most difficult for the believer to submit to and to believe in all of Scripture in regards to the subject of Christian ethics.
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So as I said, I do not want to rush this.
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I want to spend the necessary time that we would understand it properly and be able to properly apply it to our lives.
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So I say that as a precursor to this week and next week and as many weeks as it takes for us to finish this chapter.
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Now, we will begin.
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As many of you know, I am very fond of the area of faith known as apologetics.
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Apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia.
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It means to give a defense for a position or an action.
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The English word apology comes from the word apologia.
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The problem is in our modern vernacular, most people think that the word apology means to say, I'm sorry to apologize, means to ask for forgiveness or to say that you're sorry.
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But the apology, the word apology, doesn't it doesn't really mean to say you're sorry.
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It means to say why you did what you did.
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It means to give a justification, to give a defense for why you believe or did what you did.
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I believe that my faith is worth defending.
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Likewise, I believe that all Christians should be able to defend what they believe.
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It's been one of the one of the sort of foundation stones in my teaching is that I believe that Christians should, one, know what we believe, and two, that we should be able to articulate it in such a way that we can defend what we believe.
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Know why you believe it and what you believe.
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Those things are important.
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And I mentioned the subject of apologetics going into today's message because I remember one of the first arguments that I ever heard against the tenacity of the Bible, against the reliability of the text of Scripture, the truthfulness of the Bible came from today's text.
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This morning, we're looking at the portion wherein Jesus discusses an eye for an eye and the responsibility to turn the other cheek.
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And I remember an unbeliever challenging me very early in my faith when I said that I believe that the Bible is inspired, inerrant and infallible, that it has no errors.
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It is incapable of failing.
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It is the truth of God.
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When I would say that, one of the first arguments I heard someone say, well, the Bible says an eye for an eye and it says turn the other cheek.
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Those two things are contradictory.
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So the Bible itself is inherently contradictory.
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And again, it does seem to the natural mind like an apparent contradiction.
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On one hand, we're told that if someone injures us, we're to return that injury in kind.
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If an eye is taken, an eye must be received.
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An eye for an eye, life for life, tooth for tooth, you know, hand for hand, foot for foot.
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You know, that seems like one thing.
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And then you have on the other hand, we are told that if someone injures us, if we're slapped on the cheek, that we are to turn our cheek rather than to respond in kind.
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And I like I said, I remember the conversation very much.
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The person challenging me and saying, well, here is an apparent contradiction in the Bible.
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What do you do with this? Well, beloved, I obviously believe that the Bible's message is consistent through and through.
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I believe that consistency is a hallmark of truth, that if something is inconsistent, then it's inherently untrue.
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That's how we sort of judge truth is it must be consistent with itself.
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Likewise, I believe that to see these two statements as contradictory is the result of nothing more than having a misunderstanding of the context of both passages.
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It's to misunderstand the purpose of both passages is why people believe there is a contradiction here.
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The contradiction then is in us, not in the text of the Bible.
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It's in our understanding, not in what the Bible is saying.
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So this morning, as we examine together, I pray that we will see the consistency between the two commands and how they complement each other within the word of God.
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They don't stand at odds with one another, but they actually stand in perfect position to do what both are intended to do.
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Both are intended to teach a principle of dealing with evil people.
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That being said, let us stand together and we will read the message or the words from Matthew 5, verse 38 through 42.
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Like I said, we won't get to all this this morning, but this is where we're headed.
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Verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.
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But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
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And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
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And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
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Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
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Our father and our God, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for the profundity of the truth that is here found in this passage.
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And I pray that you would, first and foremost, as I always pray, help me to be consistent with the truth and keep me from error.
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For, Lord God, your truth is the most precious thing in the world.
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And I would not want to see it sullied by my errors and my mistakes.
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So I pray that you would keep it.
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Keep me from error this morning.
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Keep your people's heart in tune to the truth.
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Help us all to be submissive to it, that you would be glorified.
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And what we do today.
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Is our prayer in Christ's name, Amen.
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Over the past few weeks.
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And studying the Sermon on the Mount, in particular, this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, we've been seeing how Jesus is demonstrating that the teaching of the Jewish leaders is wrong.
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Not that they have not used the law of God because they have quoted from it, but that they have misinterpreted it and they have twisted it to fit their own perverse realities, their own desires for how things ought to be.
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It's very common for people to twist the word of God to fit their own prejudices, their own ideas, their own ways of things ought to be.
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In fact, that was one of the concerns of Martin Luther during the Reformation.
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He said, he said that the fear of giving the word of God to everyone, the fear of having the word of God go out to everyone, because you remember, prior to the Reformation, the word of God was held in the church, sometimes even chained to the pulpit so that it could not be removed.
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It could not be stolen.
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It was it was the property of the church.
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It was the property of the priests and the magisterium.
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It was not the property of the individual.
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And one of the concerns of Luther in seeing the word of God go out, he translated the Bible into German so that all the Germans could read it.
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The German Lutherans still use his translation today.
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One of the concerns was that the Bible would become the language, he said, like a wax nose that could be shaped and fitted to any shape that anyone would want.
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It could be turned and misused in any way.
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And that was the big concern for Luther, he said.
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But the reality is, though, it's it hasn't kept by having it chained to the pulpit, it hasn't kept it from being corrupted.
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So it's still it must go forth.
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It must go out.
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The corruption, the possibilities of corruption are there.
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But we must have everyone an opportunity to read it.
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But with reading the word of God comes great responsibility.
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This is why when Jesus came into the world, he did not challenge the prostitutes for not understanding the word of God.
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He didn't challenge the beggars for not understanding the word of God.
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He challenged the Pharisees and the scribes, these men who were supposed to be experts in the word of God.
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He said, you are the ones who are whitewashed tombs.
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You are the ones who have misunderstood the word of God.
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You are the ones who have miscommunicated this truth.
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You who think you are learned are the most ignorant of all.
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And he used the formula.
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You have heard it said, but I say unto you, you have heard it said this, but I tell you this.
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And as I've said over the past few weeks, but I want to continue reiterating, Jesus is not saying the Old Testament law is wrong.
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He is saying that the interpretation and application of the Old Testament law by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the others is wrong.
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That's the problem.
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It's not that the law itself is erroneous.
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It's that their interpretation and application is where the fault is.
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In no way is Jesus abrogating or overriding the Old Testament.
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In fact, he said quite the opposite.
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He said, I did not come to destroy it.
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I came to fulfill the law.
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This is especially important in our text this morning, because this is one of those times where it would seem on the surface that Jesus is saying, you've heard this command about an eye for an eye, but that's totally wrong and you need to hear this.
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But the thing that we must understand, beloved, is that phrase an eye for an eye is in the law.
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It is in Scripture, and Jesus is not in the business of contradicting himself, because guess what? Who is the ultimate author of the law of God? It is God himself.
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And Jesus Christ is God the Son.
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He is God incarnate.
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He is the author of that law.
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So that puts him in a unique position, twofold position.
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One, he's uniquely qualified to interpret it because he inspired it and he's uniquely not going to say it's not right.
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Because that would be to say that he's wrong and he's not going to do that.
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So it's a twofold position for him.
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He has to he has to uphold the truthfulness of the law, but he also has to interpret it properly for his people.
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And that's what he's doing.
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He is not repudiating the Old Testament law.
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He's not even repudiating the idea of an eye for an eye, which we're going to see later.
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But what he is repudiating is false understanding.
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This is why maybe I can equate it to something today.
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I hear a lot of health and wealth preachers on TV.
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They'll quote from the Bible and they'll quote hard from the Bible.
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Well, the Bible says, if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart.
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And that means if you come to church and you pay your tithe and that Mercedes you've been yearning for is yours, you know, that's the that's the way that it's expressed.
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Beloved.
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Yes, the word of God does say if you delight yourself, Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart.
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But they have totally misinterpreted that whole passage.
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The whole idea is if you delight yourself in the Lord, the desire of your heart will be ding ding God, because that's what you delight in and he will make himself real to you.
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That's what that verse means.
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It's very simple.
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It's in the context of the passage.
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But yet it is misinterpreted by those who want to twist it and turn it into that wax nose that Luther talked about.
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Well, the same thing happened with the Pharisees.
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They had these laws and they had misinterpreted them.
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They had misapplied them and they had used them to satisfy their own lusts, desires, prejudices and hatreds.
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So what we must understand is that Christ is not refuting the law.
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He is simply interpreting it in a way that is appropriate in accord with God's will.
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So let us begin with the question.
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We're going to look at three questions over the next couple of weeks.
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If those of you taking notes, I know some of you like to write an outline down.
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We look at three questions.
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We're going to say, what is the Old Testament teaching on this subject? What does the Old Testament teach on the subject? We're going to ask the question, how have the Jewish leaders distorted that teaching? How have they misinterpreted it? And finally, what is Jesus's remedy? How does Jesus remedy the distortion? So what is the Old Testament teaching? How have the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders distorted it? And how does Jesus remedy that distortion? That's our threefold.
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Like I said, we're not going to get to everything today, but we're going to get to at least answer the first two questions and into the third.
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And then next week, we'll deal more with the third question.
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So let's go with the first question.
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What is the Old Testament teaching on this subject? Matthew 538, that we've already read.
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Jesus said, you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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Well, that comes from three Old Testament passages.
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If you want to write these down, it's Exodus 21, 22 through 24.
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Leviticus 24, 17 through 20.
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And Deuteronomy 19, 15 through 21.
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I want to read them to you because I want you to hear how the Old Testament uses the phrase eye for an eye, tooth for tooth.
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I want you to hear it in its context.
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It's so important.
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Exodus 21, 22 and 24.
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When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out and there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined as the woman's husband shall impose on him and he shall pay as the judges determine.
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But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, strike for strike.
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OK, this is actually very interesting.
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I've used this text whenever I talk about abortion because this is actually giving rights to the unborn.
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It says if a woman is pregnant and two men are scuffling or fighting and they run into that pregnant woman and it causes her to give birth prematurely.
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And nothing happens, the baby comes out and the baby is safe and there's no injury.
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There's still a fine because it was potential.
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It's just like attempted murder.
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You could have you could have hurt the baby.
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There's a fine imposed.
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However, if there is injury, if that baby does incur injury or death.
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Then you shall pay life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot, tooth for tooth.
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It's very specific.
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It's written into the law.
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There is a penalty for taking the life of that unborn child.
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There's a penalty for injuring that unborn child.
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There's even a penalty for potentially injuring that unborn child.
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And that's the first way we see it used in Scripture, it's used as a protection for unborn children, interestingly enough, it was written into the law.
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The next one we see is in Leviticus 24.
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Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
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The Bible makes no bones about the question of whether or not capital punishment is an appropriate thing.
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It says so, Old Testament, no problem.
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Even within the New Testament, it says Romans 13, the government does not bear the sword in vain.
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There's no problem with this.
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This is the purpose of law, that there be rules and judgments.
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And this is one of the judgments.
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And it goes on to say, verse 18, whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good life for life.
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That's important.
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Life of animals is important, valuable.
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And this is mentioned in Scripture.
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If anyone injures his neighbor as he has done, it shall it be done to him.
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Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.
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That's the law, that's the way the law was understood.
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Finally, we see Deuteronomy 19, this one expands the idea, but maintains the concept.
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Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with an offense, with any offense that he has committed.
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This is saying can't just have one witness.
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I remember I went to I went to jury duty one time.
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I got kicked off the jury because I answered the question.
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They said, would you would you convict somebody on one witness? I said, I can't.
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And they kicked me off the jury.
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But I mean, I just I said I said I can't.
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I can't.
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Well, you know, in my heart, I couldn't do it.
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But people may argue about that, but hey, I didn't get on the jury.
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So it all worked out.
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But but but they asked, they said, would you do if only one person saw him do it? I said, you know, that's that's difficult because biblically they knew I was a pastor.
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I think this was I might be why they asked me the question.
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I said, biblically, it's it's difficult because you don't know if the individual has a personal vendetta.
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There's a lot that comes up and there's only one witness.
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And of course, the scripture, you know, if a single witness will not suffice.
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Only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a charge be established.
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If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in offices in the office those days.
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The judge shall inquire diligently.
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And if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.
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That means if you accuse somebody of something and they didn't do it and you found out to be a liar, you get the punishment they were going to get.
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That's that's that'll keep you from lying and keep you on the straight and narrow right there.
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So you shall purge the evil from your midst and the rest shall hear and fear and shall never again commit any such evil among you.
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Your eye shall not pity.
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It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
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So there are three different passages, all three talk about the eye for an eye and the tooth for tooth that Jesus is referring to.
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It's obvious that this these passages are in view when Jesus mentions this.
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These verses make up something.
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This is a big Latin phrase, but it's an important one.
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They make up something called the lex talionis.
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The lex talionis is what is known as the law of retaliation.
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The law of, in fact, talionis is the root, the root word is talent like an animal's talent.
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That word is the root word of the word retaliation.
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And thus it's called the law of retaliation or the lex talionis.
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Unfortunately, our modern use of the word retaliation is much like our modern use of the word apology.
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It's been changed over the years where apology once meant to make a defense.
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Now it means to say I'm sorry.
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Well, retaliation sort of has that same thing.
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Retaliation.
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What's meant simply to give a just response to someone, it could be used in good or bad, but it was a just and proper response to an injury or to a blessing, whatever it was, it was to retaliate, to give back in equality to what was given.
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That was where the word retaliation came from.
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Nowadays, retaliation means what? Revenge, it means the vendetta, seek your own kind of thing.
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But that's not what the word meant originally.
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Originally, it was understood as being simply a equality in what is given is what is received.
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So the lex talionis, the law of retaliation was the idea that law and punishment should be just and proper, that law and punishment should be just and proper.
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If a person commits a crime, he is supposed to be punished for that crime.
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And the punishment should fit the crime.
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In that he is not to be overly punished, neither is he to be underly punished.
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His punishment is supposed to be equitable.
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It is supposed to be just.
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It is supposed to be righteous and equal.
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An eye for an eye is a demonstration of equity in judgment.
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It expands and limits punishment as far as the crime.
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If someone took my eye, I want to take their life.
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I'm not saying me personally, I'm saying this would be the natural man's response.
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If somebody came in and attacked me and I lost my eye as a result, I'd want to kill him.
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But the law limits the response, doesn't it? The law limits what the response can be.
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Now, more importantly than that, this law was not intended to be something that individuals carried out on their own.
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This was never intended to inspire individual retaliation.
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When it was written in Leviticus, when it was written in Numbers, when it was written in Deuteronomy, it was not intended to be a way that individuals solved problems.
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Well, if you take my eye, I'm taking yours.
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That wasn't the way it was intended to be.
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The lex talionis was a principle which was meant to be used within a system of law and justice.
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It was meant to be used within a system of law and justice.
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In fact, if you go back to Deuteronomy 19, the passage clearly says that this case has to be taken before the priests and the judges of Israel.
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It was to be taken before the law court and settled in the courts.
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They were charged with the investigation of witnesses.
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They were charged with determining guilt and they were charged with assigning penalties when the penalties were due.
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And these penalties were to be in accord with the lex talionis.
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They were to be proper and equitable.
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They were supposed to ensure that the punishment fit the crime.
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The principles in these passages are there to establish equity within law and order.
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In fact, they're there to ensure law and order among a people.
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Law and order does not exist without equality in the law, without equity in the law, without there being a balance in the law.
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What do we have as a symbol of the law in our land? A blind woman holding scales.
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I don't know if you've ever seen it, but this is a symbol of judgment and righteous judgment.
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She's not looking at what color you are.
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She's not looking at what gender you are.
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She's not looking at how old you are.
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She's not looking at you at all.
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She's blind to that.
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It is simple judgment.
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And that's the way judgment from the court's perspective is supposed to be maintained.
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And this is something that is established in Scripture, the lex talionis, that what you do must be punished righteously.
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And this is how you righteously punish.
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Beloved, mankind needs laws and we need a system to punish those who break the law.
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Do you agree? Amen.
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That's the truth because of total depravity, which is the one of the first tenets of reformed theology.
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We understand that mankind is sinful to the core and because he is sinful to the core, we must have law and order which is established.
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It must be.
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Beloved, this is why our founders in the United States created what we called the checks and balances of power, which have unfortunately been overrun in many areas.
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But the reality is there was the understanding that men are so sinful we can't centralize power in any group.
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These groups must have to be checked and balanced because that's because people are sinful.
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We can't have all the power in this group.
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We can't have all the power in this group.
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We can't have all the power.
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We got to at least have checks and balances here.
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Because we understood that men were sinful.
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The problem with modern day is we don't think we're sinful anymore.
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We think we're righteous and good and holy.
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And the result has become we have become a law unto ourselves.
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We've become we've become a masters of our own destiny kind of thing.
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And we've we've lost the understanding of how law and rules are supposed to function.
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If we did not have a system of law and order, which sadly, again, we're moving further and further away from.
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But if we didn't have some system of law and order, we would not survive as a society for too long.
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Think about what happened after Katrina.
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What happens after a big event like that when there are no ways to enforce laws? The sinful nature of man is is is is allowed to go free.
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And what happens? Complete and utter depravity.
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I mean, there were people being killed in the streets.
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I mean, it's just things you can't imagine.
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In fact, one of the saddest things that we are witnessing in our society.
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And it's one of the saddest things I hear about when I turn on the news as infrequently as I do, because I try not to.
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But when I do turn on the news and I hear.
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About a just punishment for a crime not being given.
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Someone has committed a heinous crime and justice is not done because what has happened, sadly, is is is is is, you know, we have the system has become in such a way that equity is not there anymore, unfortunately.
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And what happens is, you know, somebody might somebody might perform a small crime and get a big sentence because they didn't have the right lawyer or whatever.
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They didn't have the right opportunity.
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And then then you have somebody who commits a big crime, but they have the proper lawyer and they they get off.
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It's frustrating for those who try to enforce the law.
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It's frustrating for those of us who try to live under the law.
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It's frustrating across the board because we see corruption.
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We see a lack of justice.
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We see a lack of righteousness and the frustration becomes so hard to deal with because the scripture tells us there must be equity in judgment.
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There must be equity in law because it has to be there.
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And without it, a people, a society will crumble.
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Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is a Christian man.
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He is someone that I've spent some time learning from.
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And this is one thing that he said, which I thought was very profound.
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He said, quote, People can survive weeks without food and days without water, but people could not survive a day without justice.
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If only for one day, if people were allowed to commit crime without fear of punishment, it would create such a disaster that the pieces might not ever be able to be put back together.
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End quote.
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That's what the lex talionis is, and that's why Jesus is not repudiating it.
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It's the standard of law and justice among a people.
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It's the standard for it's the standard for righteousness among a people that we must know that if we go out and allow our sinful nature to go unchecked and we run out into the world and sin in the world, that there is punishment.
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That's that's what this is in the Old Testament.
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Jesus is not repudiating that.
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He's not repudiating the need for law and order.
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He's not repudiating the need for justice.
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He's not repudiating that at all.
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He is repudiating the false teaching of the Jews, the false teaching of the Pharisees, because they had distorted it.
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So the question becomes, how have they distorted the law? How have they distorted the lex talionis? Well, let's look.
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He goes on.
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He says, If you heard it say an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth, but I say to you, do not resist evil.
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And we're going to look at that a little deeper.
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But the first thing we have to understand is when he's talking about resisting the evil person.
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He's not talking about the fact that we should all just lay down our arms and let evil people take over.
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He's not saying that we should all just just give up and all the police officers go home, all of everybody just quit.
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That we should just give up.
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What he's talking about in this situation and is very important is that the Pharisees had taken that law of retribution, that law of retaliation, which was intended to be monitored and held within the system of law and order.
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And they had applied it to the individual people in their society in a way that it was never intended to be.
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The lex talionis was never intended to be a method for solving personal disputes.
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It was never to be Jack takes my eye.
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So I take Jack's eye.
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Jack takes my hand.
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I take Jack's hand.
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And we do this outside of any system of law and order.
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It was never intended to be that.
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Yet, that is what the rabbis had done.
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They had allowed the lex talionis to become the standard for resolving individual conflict.
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And this resulted in lawlessness, fear and unending familial conflict.
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You guys, what was that? The two families that fought forever, the Hatfields and the McCoys.
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What was the result? Death and death and more death.
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And you killed my uncle.
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I have to kill your sister or your aunt or your cousin.
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And we kill and we kill.
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And eventually, eventually, there's nobody left to kill.
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There's one guy left standing on a pile of people going, well, I guess I won.
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It also produced a type of racial discrimination.
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How did it produce racial discrimination? Well, let me tell you, the lex talionis demanded that law was equal for everyone.
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It demanded that the law was equal for the Jew and the sojourner, the one who was from outside.
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Anybody in Israel, it was demanded that everyone receive the equal rights under the law.
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Yet the Pharisees did not see those outside as being worthy of the same laws and justice as the Jewish people on the inside.
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So they did what they wanted to do with the rules.
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And thus, where premeditated murder of a Jew could get you the death penalty.
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But murder of someone outside was not worthy of the death penalty.
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For instance, in the book of Torts by Moses Mametis, it says this, and I quote, If an Israelite kills a resident alien, he does not suffer capital punishment at the hands of the court, because Scripture says, and if a man comes presumptuously upon his neighbor, Exodus 21, 12, needless to say, one is not put to death if he kills a heathen, end quote, because a heathen is not my neighbor.
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A heathen is not my neighbor, so I don't get the same punishment if I kill this person as if I kill this person.
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And it creates a discrimination within the law, something that was never intended within the Old Testament, but was allowed within this system which had been corrupted by the Pharisees.
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So not only had the Jews misapplied the Lex Talionis by allowing it as a proper way to solve individual conflicts, which was never intended to do, they also rejected the equity in it for a discriminatory version of it.
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God had given them the law to judge with equity, but it had been misapplied, it had been misinterpreted into something far removed from what God had originally intended, and they had distorted God's original command.
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So, how does Jesus deal with this? Jesus deals with this, he says, But I say unto you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek also.
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Now, we're going to deal more next week, because Jesus actually gives us four examples.
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The personal insult, which is the slap on the cheek.
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Being sued over what we might consider to be trivial items, the cloak and those things.
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The example of someone who is forcing us to do something we don't want to do, go the extra mile.
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And the person who is begging from us.
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He gives us four different examples, which we're going to dig deeper into next week.
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But basically what he's doing, is every one of those situations is an individual conflict.
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It's an individual problem, wherein Christ is commanding us to go above and beyond what our natural flesh would want to do.
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Because the natural response to an insult is what? Insult you back.
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By the way, the slap on the cheek, we're going to talk about this more next week, is not a physical pummeling.
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It's an insult.
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And I'll demonstrate that more next week, and how he expresses it and those things.
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But the point is, how do we normally respond to an insult? We insult back.
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How do we normally respond to someone who wants to take something that is ours, and we think they don't deserve it? We fight for it.
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We'll tear it in half if we have to.
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How do we normally respond to somebody who tries to make us do something we don't want to do? We stand firm.
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We don't give in.
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How do we normally respond to a person who comes to us begging for what we've worked hard for? We disdain.
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Disdain, right? We don't want to do it.
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All those things are the natural response.
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It's the same response that anybody in the flesh would give.
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Any natural person, when insulted, would insult back.
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Any natural person who has something that somebody is trying to take would fight to get it back.
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Any person who naturally is being forced to do something would stand up and say, I don't want to.
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Any person who is being begged from, and they say, I've worked hard for what I have, you don't deserve it.
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They have this natural response.
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And Jesus says, our response is supposed to be supernatural.
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It's supposed to be different than the world.
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It's hard, folks.
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It is hard to be a Christian in this way.
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Because this is telling us to go against that natural impulse that we all have.
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We have the impulse to fight.
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We have the impulse to show our teeth and our claws when someone gets in our space.
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I know some of you know I teach self-defense classes.
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I'm going to talk a little bit about that next week as well.
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I'm trying to wet your whistle.
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Hope everybody comes back.
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And you might say, well, how in the world can you teach self-defense? Because one of the things that must be understood, Jesus is dealing with the issue of personal retaliation.
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He's not dealing with the issue of personal preservation.
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And there is a difference.
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Preservation is different than retaliation.
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If somebody is trying to kill me or my family, it's my job to protect myself.
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It's my job to protect my children.
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I'm not going to allow someone to hurt my children.
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And Jesus doesn't command me to.
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In fact, the Bible says if we don't take care of our family, then we're not men.
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One of the calls of being a man is to stand firm and take care of our family.
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That's not what He's calling us to do.
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And again, I said next week I will flesh this out more and express how that is not what's being seen here.
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But one thing must be understood.
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He is calling on a supernatural willingness to receive injury without response.
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He is calling on a supernatural willingness to take insults.
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Some of us can't be insulted.
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Some of us can't take it.
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We can't ever.
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If somebody insults us, man, we're so mad.
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We stomp our feet.
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We pound our hands.
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We just can't take it.
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And Jesus said we're supposed to be like Him.
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The one whose beard was ripped from His face.
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The one whose clothes were ripped from His body.
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The one whose hands were nailed to the cross and stabbed in the side and yet never opened His mouth.
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That's hard.
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That's supernatural response.
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But that's what we're called to.
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It's a hard response.
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It truly is.
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That's why I knew I couldn't get to it all this week.
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I knew there's no way you can flesh out all that we're called to do.
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But the reality is so important.
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And this is what I want to finish with today.
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So valuable.
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Is that Jesus is not saying anything in this that is new.
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All He is saying is things that were already written into the Old Testament.
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Which is why I know that He's not denying the Lex Talionis.
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He's not denying the role of law and courts and equity and judgment.
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What He is denying is acts of personal retribution, personal retaliation, personal I've got to get mine mentality.
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And let me tell you, He's only reiterating what the Old Testament already says.
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Let me show you a few verses and we'll end on these.
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Proverbs 20 and 22.
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This is an Old Testament passage.
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It's in the book of Proverbs.
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What is Proverbs 20 and 22 say? Do not say I will repay evil.
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Wait for the Lord and He will deliver you.
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Don't say I'll repay the evil.
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That's Old Testament, y'all.
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But it's talking about the individual.
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It's talking about the individual.
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Proverbs 25 verse 21.
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If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat.
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Give him bread to eat.
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If he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
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For so doing you heap coals of fire on his head and the Lord will reward you.
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Paul quotes that in Romans 12 20.
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That's what we read for our opening text this morning.
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Paul quotes this passage from the Old Testament.
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People say the Old Testament God was mean and He was ornery and He was hard.
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And He was harsh with His judgments and harsh with His wrath.
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Such thing is blasphemous.
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The Old Testament God and the New Testament God are one and the same.
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And their commandments do not change from one to the next.
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The commandments are here in Scripture and they're equal with what's in the New Testament about our responsibility towards the person who harms us.
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What do we do? We don't return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.
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Proverbs 24 and 19.
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Do not say I will do to him as he has done to me.
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I will repay the man back for what he has done.
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Don't say that.
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Don't say I'm going to do to him what he's done to me.
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Now there are laws and there are courts and there are these things which are set up to establish these things.
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The lex talionis is a part of law and it must be to restrain evil.
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But my personal vendettas I must be able to release.
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My personal hatred must be able to be relinquished.
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Leviticus 19.18.
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This is the last one for today.
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You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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I am the Lord.
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Beloved, loving your neighbor as yourself is not something Jesus made up out of whole cloth.
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Loving your neighbor as yourself is not something Jesus established as a new principle for New Testament, New Covenant believers.
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Loving your neighbor as yourself was something which was established from the Old Covenant and Jesus simply reiterated it within the New Covenant when He was asked, What is the law? He said the law is all founded on two commandments.
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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
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That's the whole law boiled down to two very simple commandments.
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Beloved, as I said from the beginning, these passages are hard because I can see in your faces, I know in my own heart, there are people in my life that make living out these commandments difficult.
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There are people in my life that make living out these commandments very hard.
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But beloved, it doesn't mean I have any less of a responsibility to live them out.
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Keeping these commandments will not save me.
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Christ alone is sufficient.
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Christ alone will save me.
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But my call is to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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My call is to be conformed to the image of the one who took the lashes.
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The one who took the nails.
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The one who took the stripes.
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And by those stripes we are healed.
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That's the thing we need to remember.
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When we think that we can't stand what's going on to us, that we can't handle what's going on to us, that this thing is just too much and I've got to give back a little of what I got, we've got to step back and say, His stripes were worse than anything I've taken.
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And yet He opened not His mouth.
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Our present sufferings are not to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us, says the Apostle Paul.
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And it is that which stirs us to a higher level of righteousness when dealing with those who treat us unrighteously.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for this passage.
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Though it be difficult for us to deal with, we know, Lord, that it's the truth because it comes straight from Your precious and inerrant Word.
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I pray, Lord, that if we do have anger in our hearts, that if we do have struggle in our hearts against individuals, that we would be able to turn those things over to You and to have a heart that is forgiving towards others.
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Knowing that You have forgiven us for such great sins, how are we to hold back forgiveness from sins which are great towards us? Father, we are called to live supernatural lives.
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We're called to live different than the world.
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And that is hard to do.
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So we pray for Your power.
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We pray for Your grace.
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We pray for Your mercy.
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We pray for Your strength to do what You've called us to do.
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Thank You for Your Word.
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We thank You for this opportunity to hear it.
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I pray that it has gone out to Your people and done what it was called to do and what only it can do, and that is bring hearts to change.
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And Father, if there are those who do not know You, I pray that today they have heard the Gospel, that we are all sinners, that we are great sinners, and that we need a Savior, and Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.
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Let's stand together and sing.