Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 19 The justice of God.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Deuteronomy 19 and with Israel in the desert on the verge of entering the promised land and God giving them this reminder of the things that He's commanded so they remember. One of the things to keep in mind is this throng of people that came out of Egypt that's now up in the desert for 40 years. The first five books of the Bible are almost like not only their biblical mandate, not only the words of God, not only the things that God wanted them to obey, but it's also almost like their constitution and their bill of rights so to speak and their document to give them how God wanted them to administer justice and punishment and fairness, because they were developing a new country and God was developing a new country. And what we're going to see in Deuteronomy chapter 19 is that God cared cared very much about right justice, not falsely accusing anyone of anything. But he also, you know, it was life or life it, the justice was very significant. He did not believe in light justice once you found out, you know, who did what and what was done wrong. And it says in this passage that the purpose of it in fact, let me read to you the end and then we'll get started from the beginning but then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Once you shall purge the evil from among you, the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you, thus you will not show pity, life or life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Can you imagine being in a society where, you know, if you murder someone, you're going to be killed, you know, or if you do something significantly unjust, you're going to, you're going to experience do punishment. And, you know, there's a lot of talk today about justice and maybe if we're too, too light with our justice and I guess compared to God's word, I would say that's true. All right, verse one, "When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses, you shall set aside three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the Lord your God gives you to possess. You shall prepare the roads for yourself and divide into three parts the territory of your land, the Lord your God will give you as a possession so that any man's slayer may flee there. Now this is the case of the man's slayer who may flee there and live when he kills his friend, very importantly, unintentionally, not hating him previously. I'm talking about accidental death here. You'll see that in a moment. As when a man goes into the forest with his friends to cut wood, in his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle and strikes his friends so that he dies. He may flee to one of these cities and live, otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the man's slayer in the heat of his anger and overtake him because the way is long and take his life, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously. Therefore I command you saying you shall set aside three cities for yourself. So it was as though these places to go, if there was some kind of accidental death, or even I guess if there was a murder, someone would go, they could go to be safe until there was justice. Because if someone did murder someone else, someone had the right to take their life, the person's life from the family of the one whom they murdered. It was life for life so, but he didn't want that done, God didn't, unless it was just. So there was a place to go to find out if it was just first. Now let's, or an accident. Verse eight, if the Lord your God enlarges your territory just as he has sworn to your fathers and he gives you all the land which he had promised to give your fathers. If you carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today to love the Lord your God and walk in his ways, then you shall add three more cities for yourself beside these three. So innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land, most of the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance and blood guiltiness beyond you. This is interesting so what he's saying there is, you know, you would be guilty if you falsely accused or if someone is innocent and you guys punish him unduly, God's not pleased with that and you would, you would actually, you know, be, don't be be innocent of that kind of a crime, meaning falsely accusing of someone. He cares very deeply about that someone not being falsely accused. Verse 11, but if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies and he flees to one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood that he may die. You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel that it may go well with you. So here, even though God was also serious about injustice or being falsely accused, he was also very serious about justice that if someone did murder someone else, that's an evil and you need to purge that from your community. But it was life or life if they if they killed someone they were to be killed. You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the ancestors have set in your inheritance, which you inherit in the land that the Lord gives you to possess. You know, and we have those today and if you've ever seen a survey corner marker for like a section section marker, and those are important for surveyors to be able to, you know, work off those known set points in order to survey land. And it's not good and right, you know, to move any of those important boundary markers. It's interesting regarding justice, let's keep going, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on an account of any inequity or any sin which is committed on the evidence on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed. If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him from wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. So look at that God is really setting up a means to try a case and to make sure that people get just, you know, just that their innocence is innocence is held up justly or they're wrongdoing is found to be just. He shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness, and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. The evil here and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you, thus you shall not show pity life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Justice, you know, I've been told we were actually as a church family, many of us were going to Israel. And interestingly enough, we are scheduled to go to Israel on October. And on October 8, some people in our party were leaving on October 7, and on October 6 is when that Hamas strike Israel with that big attack killing will over a thousand people. And I found out very early in the morning, actually I was doing one of the podcasts, and people were, my son was contacting me because he was going on that trip, which I wish he would have been able to go, or we would have been able to go, but, you know, God protected us and, you know, we didn't have to get stuck in Israel because of that war. But I ended up calling some friends who were leaving from Chicago that morning that they hadn't even known yet, so I had to kind of almost like wake them out of bed and let them know not to get on the plane. But anyways, I digress that I've been told that Israel is one of the safest places, like not when there's war, but if there's not war going on that you can even walk through like poor areas of Israel, and it's extremely safe. Like, there's not people in Israel, don't like do wrong against each other. Unless it's one of these things with, you know, Hamas, and the Palestinians, but like the general Israeli people don't don't do injustice to one another very often like you would find in a, in an American inner city. And maybe it's, you know, this is their, their foundation, their Old Testament and maybe this kind of, you know, this kind of instruction from God built into their heritage has prevented them from doing evil to one another. So, I don't know, it's just something that came to me here and, you know, I think God knows what he's doing. God is wise, and we may look at this as significant or harsh penalty for doing wrong, but maybe what God knows is that by having it that way, much less wrong is done and you actually have a community that operates in a holier way. So I would suggest we trust him on anything that we don't understand. I appreciate also how God cares about those being falsely accused that's been brought up multiple times and he's very concerned about making sure that people are not falsely accused. And with that, let's thank the Lord for his the goodness of his word. God bless you all.