Genesis 34 Sin with a High Hand

All right. Pastor Tim, would you open us in a word of prayer? Sure. Father God, thank you so much that we can come here midweek and learn from your word.

I pray that you would empower Pastor Jeff with the Holy Spirit, that he would be able to teach us your word and that you administer to all of us and be able to teach us what we need to know and that we would be able to apply what we learn to our life and that we would give you the glory and the honor.

I pray that we wouldn't be people who sin high handedly, but that we would be looking to love you and love others.

So we thank you for this time and we ask that you would bless it in Jesus name, amen. Amen. How many of you have heard the expression, a sin is a sin is a sin?

A sin is a sin. Where is that found in the Bible? It's not. It's in second opinions, chapter four, verse three.

It is, that is not a biblical statement, although a lot of people take it as gospel truth. A sin is a sin is a sin.

And the sentiment there comes from the idea that even the smallest sin that we commit is enough to send us to hell, right?

If we even have a bad attitude of heart, but we never murder anybody, we just have hatred in our heart, we are deserving of the fires of hell.

Is that true? Absolutely, it's true. Now that deals with the severity of sin in terms of the eternal consequence that we deserve.

But does that mean that a sin is a sin is a sin? Well, when Jesus was talking about various cities, he says, woe to you,

Chorazin, if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sinai, they would have repented long ago.

Therefore, your punishment will be worse on the day of judgment. So there's a distinction that Jesus has in his mind based on the flagrant unbelief that the miracles that Jesus did were rejected.

And so by rejecting so much light, a stronger consequence would come to them, even then of Sodom and Gomorrah, he mentions.

So that was a very serious sin. I would call it a sin with the high hand. When the religious leaders attributed the works of God, miracles to Satan, this was a form of blaspheming the

Holy Spirit that would not even be forgiven. There was no forgiveness. The unforgivable sin had to do with that.

It was a sin with a high hand. Similarly, in Hebrews chapter 10, it says, how much more severe do you think one deserves who has trampled underfoot the

Son of God and regarded as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant? In that case, people were apostatizing from a faith they once claimed.

And that trampling underfoot of the Son of God and of his blood, treating it as a common thing, this is a very severe sin.

It is worse in such a way because it is a sin with a high hand.

How many of you heard that expression, a sin with a high hand? It's in the book of Numbers. We'll get to it a bit later, but let's begin in the book of Genesis.

And we are going to see, first of all, unregenerate sin, which is sinful people doing extremely sinful things.

But then we are going to see a sin with a high hand, a sin with a high hand, okay?

That expression means really to raise your fist at God, to have a high hand, to be insolent and proud, and to do something that's so egregious that it brings great penalty, earthly consequence in this world.

Simeon and Levi will be guilty of it, and therefore they will be disregarded in the blessing of Genesis 50, but we'll see what is so egregious about it when we get there.

So let's read. Tim, would you read for us Genesis 34, one to four? Sure. Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land.

And when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her.

And his soul was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.

So Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, get me this girl for my wife.

This is the sin of rape. This is an egregious sin, the likes of which few things compare.

One would be murder. If somebody murders, they've taken the life of another. Their life is forfeit, according to Genesis nine, the death penalty.

Rape in the same way is a sin so egregious it's punishable by the death penalty in Israel.

Recently, there was a news story where two gay men had adopted boys.

And it turns out that they were pimping out these young boys to other gay men and themselves practicing this horrible abomination against the boys.

Their penalty was life in prison. I would say that their penalty was too light.

Biblically, according to biblical jurisprudence, that kind of egregious behavior, and especially towards children, what

Jesus says of children, it's better if a millstone were tied around your neck and you'd be thrown in the sea, then you would abuse these four and six year old boys.

The penalty should have been death, death. That's biblical. That's Genesis chapter nine.

Here, what this man does to Dinah is punishable by death, but his unregenerate mind doesn't even see how egregious his sin is.

Look what he says. His soul now is drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. This is verse three.

He loved the young woman. What does the Bible mean there by love? Probably lust.

Lust, felt strong attraction, desire for her, wanted her, but it's not agape.

It's far from biblical love. It's that he wanted her for a wife. He wanted to be with her. And he spoke tenderly to her.

So Shechem spoke to his father saying, get me this girl for my wife. Is he at all repented for his sin?

In fact, he's demanding that his father go get, so clearly this is a boy who's now grown up and he's completely out of control, wicked to the core, no repentant heart.

He's committed an abomination against a precious daughter of God. This is unregenerate thinking.

The unregenerate mind, it is absolutely perverse and deluded, self -justifying.

The thing about the mind outside of Christ is that it always justifies itself. It always finds a reason to justify its own actions.

But we church are not like that. We are told in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16, but we have the mind of Christ.

And with the mind of Christ, we can tell right from wrong, up from down. In Isaiah 8, it talks about there's coming a time when people will call good evil and evil good, sweet bitter and bittersweet, up, down, darkness, light, everything is upside down.

This is the upside down thinking of an unregenerate person. In the fall of man, the noetic effect of sin, the effect on the mind of the knowing is that the whole mind is turned upside down, self -justifying, pleased with itself and always blaming others for what happens, right?

The unregenerate mind is perverse and deluded, but we have the mind of Christ.

Next, verses five to seven. If you would, Scott. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter

Dinah, but his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came.

And Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him. The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they had heard, because he had,

I'm sorry, they had heard of it and the men were indignant and very angry because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done.

Okay. Is there a such thing as righteous anger? We're told here that the sons were indignant and angry.

Should they have been angry or were they sinning in their hearts? I kind of feel like they have a right to be angry. Right. When Jesus made a whip because they had turned his father's house into a den of thieves, extorting money from the people of Israel.

And he drove them out. He was whipping. I don't know if he actually made contact or he just snapped the whip.

But in any case, he was turning over tables. He was throwing things around and letting the birds fly out and driving the cattle out.

That was a righteous anger. There is a such thing as righteous indignation.

In fact, we're told in Ephesians 4 .26, be angry and do not sin.

So we're actually, they're commanded that you can be angry. Okay. A justified kind of anger against sin.

Sin should make us angry. When we hear stories of men raping boys, we should be indignant and angry and we should do everything we can to defend the innocent.

These brothers were righteous in their anger. There's no sin here. That's how they should have been.

When they heard that their sister was raped, they should be seeking the death penalty on the individual who did that.

Right? That's a righteous anger. Now we're gonna see what they actually end up doing, but this is righteous indignation.

Now, if you would, Kyle, verses eight to 12. But Hamor spoke with them saying, the soul of my son

Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us.

Give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you.

Dwell and trade in it and get property in it. Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, let me find favor in your eyes and whatever you say to me,

I will give. Ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will and I will give whatever you say to me.

Only give me the young woman to be my wife. All right. There are things that money cannot buy.

In the perverted, deluded thinking of this rapist, how does he think he's gonna make it better?

Marry her, but why would the brothers be okay with this solution? You just raped our sister. Why is it okay?

The bridal price. He says, look, I'm the wealthiest guy you've ever known. I am the firstborn of Shechem.

I am, well, he is Shechem, right? The firstborn and when

Shechem, the son of Hamor. So he is Shechem, the one to inherit all of this and himself very wealthy.

I'm sure he's really smelling himself, really thinking he's something. And he's saying to them, listen, ask any bridal price you want.

Just give me the girl and we're good. And he's thinking they can be bought. Oh yeah, okay.

Well, maybe if I had 500 cattle for each of the brothers, whatever the price is, he's thinking there and he says, whatever price you get, he doesn't understand in his unregenerate, perverse, deluded mind that you're not gonna just buy us off after raping our sister.

These men are indignant. They're filled with a righteous wrath, but they don't think biblically.

Let's read forward now to the sin with a high hand. What we've seen so far, these are two parts in Genesis 34.

The first part is the ridiculous wickedness of Shechem.

He himself is completely perverse and deluded and he deserves to die, right?

That's how he'll be because he's an unsaved wicked heathen. That's just who he is.

Not much to see here. Kind of par for the course in a sense. Although even common grace restrains this from happening all the time, it's still part of what happens in a fallen world.

But now we're going to see something quite different. Here you have regenerate people, people who are the children of God, whether each one is born again at this point, that's the

Babel, probably not. But they're covenant people. They're in the covenant and they have a covenant sign.

What's a covenant sign? Our covenant sign is baptism. When you got baptized in the ocean, that's a sign of the covenant, the new covenant under which we are.

Their covenant was circumcision. It's a sign of God's regarding them as the children of God by covenant, by promise and a unilateral, unconditional covenant that God made with their father

Abraham. In Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 18, reiterated Genesis 22, four times stated, this is the covenant people of God, circumcision was given as that sign.

And here's why I call it a sin with a high hand. They're going to use the very covenant sign to deceive and to murder many people who deserve to die.

What individual? Shechem. Shechem. They are going to destroy every one besides the young women and children.

All of these men, they're going to, they're going to, let's read about it. This is a sin with a high hand because it's against the very covenant sign in their response.

Genesis 34, 18 to 24. Wait, have we done 13?

Is that right? 13. Okay, yeah, we didn't get that yet. Okay, that's, sorry, my bad. 13 to 17.

Rick. Yeah. The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully because he had defiled their sister

Dinah. They said to them, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised for that would be a disgrace to us.

Only on this condition will we agree with you that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised.

Then we will give our daughters to you and we will take your daughters to ourselves and we will dwell with you and become one people.

But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised then we will take our daughter and we will be gone.

There are two signs in the new covenant. One is baptism, what's the other one? One is done when you're first brought in as a believer and you're baptized, 1

Corinthians 12, 13 to be shown as a member of the body of Christ. But what's the ongoing sign that you're in that fellowship?

Communion. Did you know that when some people sinned against communion meaning they took it flippantly, some were getting drunk on communion wine, others were gorging themselves with the meal while the poor and less fortunate didn't even get to eat that God actually killed some of them.

Many of them became sick and some even died. Why? Because they were sinning with the high hand.

That covenant sign, taking communion to the Lord's table was to be regarded as holy. And there is a high hand to so devalue to that you're getting drunk on communion wine, you die.

Kenneth Copeland recently, not recently, a couple of years ago, cut his own hand with a knife and emptied some of his own blood into the communion cup.

That sin is high handed. That is a high handed sin.

That's like literal high handed. It is. It is such a disregard of the holiness of the blood represented in that cup.

Why did he do that? He was demonstrating that we're all part of the same blood and it's some stupid analogy.

You know how like wild preachers just do props. And other people actually drink it. I don't think they actually drank it.

Okay, well that's good. Yeah, it was disgusting and it's insane.

But it's high handed sin. So now let's see that sin with the high hand so that you don't think

I just made up that term. Numbers 1530, turn back there or over there real quick.

So the contrast here is between unintentional and flagrant or just willfully defiant sin where you're basically just shaking your fist at God.

It says here in Numbers 15 verse 30, but the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is a native or a sojourner reviles the

Lord and that person shall be cut off from among the people. It's a sin with a high hand.

You see it in the book of Numbers again and again where people rebel against God's chosen leader, which was

Moses. And as a result, they offer strange fire. And then they are judged by God or the rebellion of Dathan of Irem and the earth actually opens up and swallows them whole.

Sometimes God deals not a sin is a sin is a sin, but certain things are flagrantly intentional, defiant, shaking your fist at God.

Okay, so this is the idea. Now going back to Genesis 34, lying is never okay.

Never okay. Church hear this because there's a popular teaching made famous by certain prominent leaders,

John Stott and others, that there are occasions for lying. And usually the example is the

Nazi knocking on your door. Are you harboring Jews? Well, you should lie to spare the life of another.

Wayne Grudem has a whole chapter on this and he's right that it is never okay to lie. You may have to refuse to speak.

You may have to begin to preach the gospel to that person, call them to repentance, ask them why they're seeking the lives.

You can turn the tables, you can fall silent. You can physically fight someone who's trying to kill a Jew, right?

But you cannot lie, right? You can defend the innocent, but lying is always wrong. Notice the clue here in verse, because many people interpret 34 wrong.

That, oh yeah, they're just, they're getting justice. No, this is not justice, this is deceit. We're told so by the text.

Verse 13, the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamer, how?

Deceitfully, that comes from a deceitful heart. And it's not without reference to Jacob, the heel grabber, the deceiver, right?

Their sons are like him. They've learned to be like him, always deceiving. That's what you saw back with Laban, deceiving one another with the cattle and the spotted versus the striped.

It's just been this pattern in his life. Now his sons have become like him. They think deceptively rather than justly.

They should be thinking in terms of biblical justice. Instead, they devise a wicked plot and it turns out to be a sin with a high hand.

Here's what they propose. They say, on this condition, verse 15, we will agree with you.

Now this is not them trying to bring them into covenant with God. This is trying to kill them and to ripen them up for that, to make them prone that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised.

They remember how painful that was. Or if as babies,

I guess as eight day old, they wouldn't remember it. But there have been others brought into the covenant family that would testify that this is painful and incapacitating, okay?

So they think about this, wait a minute. If they get circumcised, they're not gonna be able to move very well.

They're going to be in pain and unready. They'll be laying around in their houses, not out in the fields with their axes and their rakes and their plows, hearing what's going on.

They devise a way to get everybody separated from each other in their homes so that they can sneak in to each house, greet them happily and slit their throats before anybody knows what's going on.

And these two plan to go house by house and kill every household.

Isn't that wicked? That's a sin with the high hand because they're using the covenant, the covenant sign that God has given to deceitfully make a people vulnerable to being slaughtered.

Absolute wickedness. So Lynn, if you would, verses 18 to 24. Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son

Shechem. The young man, who was the most honored of all his father's household, lost no time in doing what they said because he was delighted with Jacob's daughter.

So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to their fellow townsmen. These men are friendly toward us.

They said, let them live in our land and trade in it. The land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours, but the men will consent to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised as they themselves are.

Won't their livestock, their property, and all their other animals become ours? So let us give our consent to them and they will settle among us.

All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem and every male in the city was circumcised.

Okay, so Shechem, is he convinced that he's gotten away with it or does he think he's gonna have to die for his crime?

He thinks he got away with it. And there is often a time of a false sense of security for the wicked.

The unregenerate, whose minds are depraved, justifying themselves, think that they're gonna be fine on the day of judgment.

Did you know that almost everybody in this country, it's 90 something percent, believe in heaven and hell?

Not in heaven and hell, in heaven. They believe in heaven. It's still a Judeo -Christian kind of situation in this country.

There's a heaven. They think there's a God, but did you know that more than 90 % as well believe they're going to heaven?

They may not believe the Bible. They may not believe in Jesus's resurrection. They believe they're going to heaven based on their own works.

There's a false sense of security amongst the people of the world. Now, they don't know that this judgment is coming.

Shechem doesn't know that this judgment is coming. Here's another wrinkle to it though.

The ones who did nothing wrong, sure they're sinners, but in the world they should not be slaughtered by fellow man.

Genesis 9 would dictate that. They don't know what's coming. Because of the sin of one of them, they now all are vulnerable.

So they are going to be victims of the sword. They don't see any of this coming.

They agree to a deal. It's a false sense of security. So in the case of Shechem, the deceit was wrong, but he did deserve to die.

Just not like this. In the case of the others, they really did not sin.

They're part of a wicked people group. Maybe they encouraged it, but they are just kind of going along with the plot, not knowing what's coming against them.

So verses 25 to 29, sins with a high hand make a mockery of the holiest things of God.

Peg, would you read that for us? Sure. Three days later, excuse me.

While all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male.

They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took

Dinah from Shechem's house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled.

They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields.

They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.

Wow. They were offered a payoff and they said, no, no.

But in their hearts, they were saying, we're gonna take it all. We're gonna kill you all.

We're gonna take it all. They're wicked hearts. Now we know that this is wickedness because Jacob, when blessing the 12 sons in Genesis 50, these are the second and third.

Reuben is the oldest, then Simeon, then Levi. Simeon and Levi are condemned in that time.

God chastises them for this very action. This is wickedness.

I don't see how people miss that. This was a wickedness on their part. It's not justice. It's a sin with a high hand.

They've used the covenant symbol in order to produce an opportunity to slaughter.

This is making a mockery of the holiest things of God. Verse 28, they took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field, all their wealth, all their little ones and their wives.

Picture this little six -year -old boy. One day he's playing in his yard.

The next day he's being taken captive by a band of Israelites that he never knew.

That's terrifying. His dad is dead. Maybe they've taken the mom or maybe not.

Maybe she's died as well. Everything, yeah, and it says, and their wives. So the little ones, the wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered.

This is the children of God. This is the chosen people. Isn't it remarkable that God still accomplishes

His covenant purposes through fallen people? It's remarkable because this is utter depravity.

And I think it could be argued it's just as wicked as what Shechem did. Is there really a difference between these sons and Shechem?

Here, they're probably still unregenerate. And in fact, I think we know that because what you see in the story with Joseph is the wickedness of the brothers.

And it's not till later in the book of Genesis that it seems their hearts are changed, especially

Judah. You follow the story of Judah, one of the brothers, it seems like he goes from being willing to throw away his brother to being willing to sacrifice himself for Benjamin, like this exchange.

So you see Judah maturing and probably he got saved at some point. These are unregenerate people, but they're in the covenant of God as children of Jacob.

Outwardly, do you think that there are people in churches who are outwardly identified with the people of God?

Meaning they're here, they take communion, but they're actually sinning with a high hand when they take it.

Is that not something we need to be warned of? It does. There are people who come to church that are unregenerate.

So communion is not something to be taken lightly. Baptism is not to be taken lightly.

Over the course of the last eight years that I've been the pastor here, there have been a few occasions of 50 to 100, probably 100 people that have been baptized.

There's been a few that we baptize false converts. By their profession, they were saying all the right things.

And then after baptism, at some point something happened and they actually leave.

They leave not only us, but sometimes leaving the faith. Maybe you as a minister have some people that you guys have baptized in ministry.

I saw this especially in Kensington that we baptized hundreds over those years. Inner city ministry, the fields are very ripe, but things turn at some point in their lives.

And somebody that you thought 10 years ago was a genuine convert proves not to be. Here you have outward covenant children.

They're in the covenant under the sign, but they're abusive of it. They don't really know the

God of the covenant and they're actually abusing the covenant itself. So here's how it applies to us.

When you take communion once a month, or if you're in a church that it's more than once a month, examine your own heart.

I love Tim's three looks. You look back at the cross and think about Jesus bleeding and dying for us.

And then you look inward at yourself and you examine your heart and your motives and you confess sin to God.

And that's what makes you worthy. Not that you are worthy, but the worthiness of Christ, that humble attitude before him, that's the worthy way to take communion.

And then you look forward to the coming of Christ. The third look is forward. That's how we should regard the holy things of God.

Here they're just utterly disrespecting the sign of the covenant and they use it in order to deceive and slaughter a people.

Okay, lastly, we have verses 30 and 31. And that's you,

Keith. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the

Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few and they gather themselves against me and attack me.

And if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both

I and my household. But they said, should he treat our sister like a prostitute? Okay, this is one of the most important principles that I teach.

And it really came to me in 2020. Actually, it was before that. It was in a series

I did called Sweet Social Justice when I was realizing the error of the social justice movement.

And the principle as I framed it then was truth before justice, truth before justice.

And I say here in your notes, truth wars are to be fought before justice wars.

How many of you growing up played a game called Cops and Robbers? You guys play Cops and Robbers?

In Cops and Robbers, you are willingly choosing to be the good guy or the bad guy, right?

I'll be the bad guy, it's just a game. But you know who's the good guy and the bad guy. The cops, good guy, robbers, bad guy.

In life, it is not like Cops and Robbers. Listen, in every conflict, both sides, especially in churches, believe they are on the side of justice.

So a social justice warrior sees George Floyd pinned to the concrete, right, for nine minutes.

And they become a justice warrior. They are enraged by this, and they begin to join

Black Lives Matter, and they fight against the injustice that is the police system. They have not fought the truth war before they became a social justice warrior.

They have not examined the evidence of George Floyd and the levels of fentanyl in his body.

The coroner's report about what actually killed George Floyd, the mechanisms that these cops are trained to use when someone is fighting in that way.

Not to say that that cop was justified or not, but to say that those truth questions have to be answered before you become a justice warrior.

Michael Brown, hands up, don't shoot. That actually turned out to be a lie. Michael Brown had his hands in the cop car wrestling for the cop's gun, moved away, and charged the cop when he got shot.

That's what the witnesses said in sworn testimony. There was one guy who said, hands up, don't shoot, and he was completely discredited.

All of that is what's called due process. Justice, due process, right, okay.

So look at the thinking of the brothers in verse 31. Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?

Righteous anger against an injustice, right? But they never fought a truth war before they fought their justice war.

They needed to do biblical jurisprudence, due process. Shechem, guilty.

The evidence is all there. The raped sister, there's no doubt that he raped her.

But that little boy living six miles away on the outskirts of town, whose father was working the field, who gets slaughtered, did not deserve to have his father killed.

He doesn't deserve to be taken away captive by the Israelites. So here's the issue.

They had this justice mindset. Look at this. This is crazy to me. They actually believe they did right.

It's not cops and robbers. They don't think they're the robbers. They think they're on the side of justice and their father's being soft.

Should we let our sister get raped, be treated like a prostitute? And in their righteous indignation, now they've become unrighteous and unjust, and they have become the sinner.

In conflicts, whether it's in churches or in your family, very often the conflict is happening between two people that think they are on the side of justice.

This happens so often. And this is why we need biblical categories of justice.

Biblical. Some call it theonomy. Have you heard the term theonomy? Do you know that term?

Theos is God. Gnome means law, which is God's law. Theonomists will say that you need to go back to God's law as the moral standard of what we ought to do in society.

And they're right. Although we need to be careful to say the general equity, as the

Westminster Confession says, of what's written in the law. This is our guide for life, the law of God.

We rightly use the law of God as a mirror to show us our own sin. The book of Romans talks about that.

That's one use of the law. The law also restrains wickedness in the world.

It's the law that teaches us that this kind of thing can't happen. Rapists need to be punished, that kind of thing.

But it's also a guide for the Christian life. So what's happened in our culture, in evangelicalism, is a divestment from the word of God, from the law of God.

People no longer think in terms of what does the Bible say about questions that come up in, let's say, the

Me Too movement. Believe women. Is believe women biblical? No, the

Me Too movement is not biblical. There is a particular way of judging cases, right?

Case law in the Old Testament. Our Western tradition of law actually derives from the law of God.

And certain interpreters who apply that, Blackstone in the forming of this country, and other leaders, use biblical concepts to form our law.

Okay, here's what I'm saying. When you feel offended, when something bad has happened, you cannot begin to crusade in a justice war until questions of truth have been answered.

And most people will hear a case presented, and it seems right, Proverbs 18, 17.

The first to present his case seems right until another comes to examine him.

A truth war is biblical jurisprudence, meaning it is to listen to a case presented to you, but also hear the counter arguments, to hear all sides, to carefully weigh what happened, what is to be done, and then to consult the word of God for what's the appropriate penalty or consequence.

In the case of rape, yeah, it should have been capital punishment. They're right about that. Shechem should have died, but it should have been done through the court system as crude as it was at that time.

The society coming together, you can bring the people of Shechem, all of that tribe and the

Israelites together and say, listen, he raped her. This, according to the law, is a capital offense, and we're seeking that.

And if at that point they tried to fight back, yeah, you could go to war. There's a such thing as holy war. That's fine.

But what these people did was not holy war. It was not a righteous justice crusade.

It was, in fact, a sin with a high hand. So this is where conflict comes from. Truth before justice.

We can't be so quick to join a justice crusade before questions of truth have been answered.

Proverbs 18, 17. This is what they failed to do. So some sin is so egregious that it warrants death, but conflict is not always like that with kids playing cops and robbers.

Good guys and bad guys are chosen to be such. Conflict is often caused by failure to pursue the truth before becoming a justice warrior.

Does that make sense? Remember that principle, truth before justice. If you try to just pursue justice before dealing in the arena of truth, your emotions carry you and you yourself become the sinner.

That's what's so ironic about this story. Shechem is the rapist that deserves to die, but their response to that brings them into the category of being the wicked ones.

And they're the unjust ones. And this is how conflicts perpetuate. People trying to do what's right and defend the truth, ultimately not thinking well, not thinking biblically, they themselves become the aggressor, the offender.

Happens all the time. So we have to guard against that and love the word of God. This, by the way, how many of you are gonna read the

Bible through this year? I do it? Yeah, this year,

I think I'm at Genesis 33 so far. So I'm on pace in my private reading. But if you're reading the

Bible every day, you're learning biblical, you begin to think biblically. So important to do that, so that when things like this happen, you think in biblical terms, not emotional terms.

Amen? And now you're on Genesis 35, because you just did 34. Yeah, I just did it for preparing for this, so that counts.

I usually separate my private reading time separate from the prep, but yeah, you know, I'm gonna count that. I'm just gonna go right on to 35.

Why do I have to do it again? We just now did it. Tim, would you close us in a word of prayer? Father God, thank you for this teaching.

Thank you for your word. Thank you that we can go to your word and sort things out. Thank you that it trains and corrects our wrong thinking.

Thank you that it's a guide for us. Thank you that we can't always see the clear picture, but your word helps us do that.

Thank you that we could come and study together and learn not to commit high handed sins and not to defend justice more than we defend truth or before we defend truth.

So thank you for truth. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sin. Thank you for everything in Jesus name, amen.