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Let's just pray together. Dear
Heavenly Father, thank You, Lord, for the ways that we have already
been encouraged and built up and edified, strengthened as
Christians, as followers of the Lord and our King and Master,
Jesus Christ. And now we just pray that You
would teach us wisdom. Lord, help us to be reminded
that our life is not about proof texts that tell us what to do
in every given situation. It's about learning wisdom. About so studying and pondering
your ways that we learn what is right in every situation. We don't need to go to someone
always to tell us, what do I do here? What do I do there? but
by your Spirit within teaching us the fear of the Lord, we know
what is right, and we do it in joy. So I pray that this morning
as a result of this time, we would learn, we would grow, we
would together as a body be built up and firmly established until
we reach that measure, that stature of the full-grown man. We ask
it in Jesus' name, Amen. So over the last couple of months,
we've been working our way through the Book of the Covenant in Exodus. And the Book of the Covenant
is made up of two parts, just a little tiny review. The words
and the rules. The words and the rules. The
words are what we call the Ten Commandments. And the rules are
what we could better maybe call the Righteous Judgments. And
so in these two parts of the Book of the Covenant, You have
the righteous judgments taking the Ten Commandments and showing
how they work themselves out in real life. And what, especially,
what true justice and righteousness looks like when the commandments
are broken. What then? Because we're all sinners and
we break the commandments. Well, on that day especially,
because the covenant community wasn't all regenerate and born
again, like we are here. What a wonderful thought that
is, that we're a born again community. So we've just finished a whole
collection of laws or case studies. Remember, I don't have time to
review last week, but it's so important, so important. We finished
a whole bunch of case studies relating to the treatment of
human life. Now we come to a new collection
of case studies, and these are relating not to the treatment
of human life, but to the treatment of our neighbor's property, our
neighbor's property. This distinction is really important.
Because on the one hand, it helps us see that human life is not
what? Property. I mean, we already
finished with human life, okay? Now we're talking about property.
So when we were talking about slaves, that never had anything
to do with property. Even when the master had the
right to discipline his slave with a rod, that right did not
come from the fact that the slave was his property, any more than
it comes from the idea that my children are my property. So, we've finished with human
life. Now we're in property. And again, I'll review Exodus
21, 16 says, whoever steals a man and sells him. When you steal
a man and then sell the person you stole, you're treating him
as what? Property. And you know what happens
to whoever does that? They're killed. So, clearly,
God wasn't talking about property. If there's a distinction between
the laws about human life that we just talked about, now it's
property. You know it comes after property
laws. We're going to end up with social justice. And I know that's
a word that's got a lot of baggage, but I couldn't think of a better
one. And there is a biblical social justice. So, this is important,
too, because here's a law that follow right after the property
laws. Okay, listen to this, or if your Bibles are open, you
can read it in verses 16 to 17 of Exodus 22. If a man seduces
a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give
the bride price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly
refuses to give her to him, he shall still pay money equal to
the bride price for virgins. Now we're going to talk about
that obviously more when we get to it, but a lot of people think
that God is like making some concession to the idea that a
woman is property, which is just utterly ludicrous. They're
not reading the text. We don't understand the text,
if that's what we think, and some commentators do. We're going
to see that's not the case when we come to the verses, but I
point out just today that the fact is that the property law
has already stopped. When we get to the bride price,
it's not property anymore. We've already finished the property
collection. How do we know that, though,
you might say to me? How do you know when we've finished the
property collection? There's no inspired headings
in the text that God said, okay, now we're finished with property,
now we're moving on to social justice. Is there anything in the text
itself, besides the subject matter, which would be sufficient, that
tells us where the section on property begins and where it
ends? Well, if any of you are interested in the little riddles
I sent out yesterday, This is where we learn the importance
of this word. The verses we're looking at today divide naturally
into 11 parts. In every single one of these
11 sections, you have a Hebrew word. And it's the Hebrew word,
Shalem. Not Shalom, Shalem. And you can
just spell it like this for right now, S-H-A-L-L-E-M. That'll be a very familiar word
by the time we're finished this morning. In fact, that word Shalem
appears 17 times exclusively only in these 19 verses and never
anywhere else before or after in the entire book of Exodus. So how do I know where the property
laws begin and end? Where the word Shalem begins
and ends. That's how I know the bride price
isn't about property. That's one of the reasons. As
we're going to see, this is a really, really important point. Shalem. So, off we go. Verses 33 to 34. When a man opens
a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it up, and
an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall
make ESV says restoration, we can say make restitution, shalem. He shall give money to its owner
and the dead beast shall be his. Now, we don't typically go around
digging pits today, but in those days, pits served a whole lot
of purposes, as I have discovered through study. You realize I
study all week, right? So, he says, they are known to
have been used as receptacles for grain storage, as cisterns,
as latrines, as refuse dumps, and rubber pits. So it's pretty
easy to imagine what happens. Someone digs a new pit or they
open up an existing pit and then for whatever reason they fail
to cover it up when they're finished. Maybe they forget, maybe they're
just like, I don't need to cover it up. Along comes your neighbor's
ox or donkey wandering along the path and he falls into the
pit and dies. When that happens, the owner
of the pit is required to make restitution. Shalem. Now, let's be clear. The owner
of the pit did not wish any harm to his neighbor's animal. He
didn't like leave it uncovered thinking, I hope his animal, I'm pretty
sure this is his path, and I hope he falls in. That's not what
he was doing. The problem is, he didn't wish
any harm. If he'd have known that was going
to happen, he would have covered it up. So I mean, the reality
is he did not show that he cared sufficiently. In your handout,
he did not show that he cared enough sufficiently for his neighbor's
rights and his neighbor's well-being. We're gonna talk about this at
the end, but how many times do we say, well, I didn't mean that
or I didn't intend that? Well, that's not always the problem.
It's the fact that you didn't love enough. It's that we weren't
caring enough. And so because of his negligence,
his neighbor has now suffered a significant loss. Now the basic
meaning of that word for restitution, shalem, it means this, to, and
this is really important. I want us to get a picture for
this. It means to complete something. It means like something's incomplete.
It means to bring it to completion. In your handout, to make something
whole, to make something entire, Again. So the point of making
restitution in your handout is to fully even everything out
again. Even. So that there is fairness,
equity, justice, and righteousness. That's important. The point of
restitution is to fully and completely right the wrong. Now that's why if you killed
someone, you can't make restitution for that, because you can't get
their life back. So there was no restitution called
for. I mean, yeah, you died, life for life, but here we have
property. And so there's a wrong been done,
it has to be righted. Now because this was a case of
negligence, There was no willful, I want to hurt my neighbor's
donkey or ox. The amount of restitution that's required to make everything
even and complete is what? I mean, to make everything even,
it's 100%. Ox for ox. So the owner of the pit buys
the dead ox from its owner for the price he would have paid
if it was still alive and healthy. The dead ox is now his to do
with as he wants, and the former owner can go buy another one.
Okay, verse 35. Now, we want to put this whole piece, we want
to learn wisdom. We also want to bring this together
to its conclusion. When one man's ox butts another's
so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its
price, and the dead beast also they shall share. Now, there's
actually a lot you can think about in that verse. You could
spend a lot of time just thinking about trying to learn wisdom.
First of all, this time no one was negligent. There was no negligence. No one could foresee this happening.
It couldn't have been reasonably avoided. So in order for everything
to be even, what do you do now? The key is even. Well, the loss
has to be shared equally between the owner of the live ox and
the owner of the dead ox. So, there's no one negligent and
no one responsible, so no Shalem. The only time no Shalem, the
only time no restitution is when no negligence, no responsibility,
no wrong, nothing's been done wrong but something still happened.
No restitution. I want to just remind us, you
know, when we're the ones who suffered a loss, we always want
someone to be at fault, right? We always want to find someone
to blame, but the point here is that as a people, we need
to realize that God has all things under his sovereign control,
and sometimes things happen that are just because God himself
has actively permitted it, actively permitted it to happen. In fact,
indeed he's ordained it. So we have to be careful that
we surrender to that reality and then in the end come to trust
God for the things that happen. that are beyond anyone's control.
Verse 36, or if it is known that the ox has been accustomed to
gore in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall
repay. That's the same word shalem,
okay? They translate this word shalem
in a bunch of different ways, but it's an identical word. He
shall make restitution. Ox for ox, and the dead beast
shall be his. Okay, here's another case of
negligence. I mean, I knew my ox has been
goring people. He hasn't killed any animal yet,
but he's gored animals. And I didn't keep it in, and
now he's killed your animal. I did not wish for your animal
to be harmed. And you know, if it's my ox that just did that,
I'm going to be like, oh, but I didn't mean that. Oh, I'm so
sorry, but I didn't mean that. But what's the problem? I didn't
care for you sufficiently. God isn't just about what I didn't
mean. God is about us actively loving one another and looking
out for each other diligently. Nevertheless, okay, because it
was only a case of negligence, what's the rate of restitution? 100%. Now we move on from negligence
to purposeful intent. Verse one of chapter 22, if a
man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, He shall
repay, shalem, five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. What? That's a lot. When a person purposefully steals,
and this was helpful for me to see. If I go and steal, and I'm
not gonna bother trying to make it your cars or your tractors
or your iPhones or whatever else. I'm just gonna say, I went and
stole your ox. If I went and stole your ox,
I show that I was very willing to profit myself at your expense. So in order for everything to
be even, what has to happen? You have to actually profit at my expense. See, that's restitution. That's how things are made even. I want us to see, and we're gonna
see in a minute, in God's world, he takes justice in God's world,
right? That is the world. He takes justice
seriously. So it's not just about I have
to repay you. I have to now be deprived and
you benefit at my expense. That's evenness because that's
what I was willing to do. That was my goal in stealing. Furthermore, since the man has
already killed, and there's more on, once we get these notes up,
once I get these notes to where they can be put on the website,
there's more stuff. If you want to take it further,
I always leave stuff out and hope it'll be there on the website.
But since this man has already killed or sold the animal that
he stole, okay, he stole the animal and then he killed it
and ate it. Or he stole it and then he sold it for money. He's
gone past the point of no return this guy has, clearly. And so
in order to fully and completely right the wrong that he's done
to his neighbor, he has to make restitution shalem in the amount
of 500% for a stolen ox and 400% for a stolen sheep. Look how
the tables are turned. Look who's been robbed now. Now the extra amount for the
ox, why 500% for an ox? Well, because when your ox was
stolen, Now that the ox is gone, you can't be plowing your fields,
working your fields, right? You can't be doing work and labor.
You're losing time and labor. If your sheep is stolen, well,
you just want to get it back. Right, because eventually you
kill it, or eventually you shear it, or whatever you do, but you're
not hooking your sheep up to your plow. So there was an additional
amount of restitution for the ox. See, the wisdom, the wisdom
of the Lord, the Lord wants us to be thinking in terms of what
is justice, what is fair, what is even. Again, we're not talking
about economic things here. We're talking about property
and stealing. Are we learning in your handout?
Are we learning what? Wisdom. Wisdom. Okay, being in the midst
of a sandwich here, which I didn't bother to really focus on, but
we are in the middle of a sandwich, we're going to skip ahead to
the top slice. Okay, verse 4. If the stolen beast is found
alive in his possession, whether it is an ox or a donkey or a
sheep, he shall pay double. Now notice, if they find the
stolen beast alive in his possession, there's a good chance it just
happened, or pretty recently. So the guy hasn't lost too much
labor and time from his ox being gone. That's why it's the same
price now. Nevertheless, okay, so everything's
the same as before. It's still in possession of the
thief since the thief has not gone past the point of no return
Since the time is relatively short the amount of restitution
is 200% Two animals to replace the one he stole and again Can
you see in your handout this makes everything and I'm there's
I want to drill this into our heads We have to get this in
order to appreciate where we're going Everything is perfectly
even. Complete and whole again. That is what must happen. So,
I was willing to benefit myself at my neighbor's expense. One
sheep gained for me, one sheep lost for him. Now, my neighbor
not only has to give me my sheep back, but one sheep lost for
him, one sheep gained for me. That's justice. Once again, we
see the point of this restitution, and in many ways, this system
would work a lot better than, of course, our confinement system. I know that some people need
to get off the streets, but I think there was wisdom
in the system of restitution, Shalem. The point is to fully and completely
right the wrong that's been done to your neighbor. So now let's
go back to the filling in our sandwich, verses two to three.
If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies,
there shall be no blood guilt for him. But if the sun has risen
on him, there shall be blood guilt for him. There's a lot
we could say there and I said a little and it'll be on the
website and I was gonna say it now, but I'm gonna skip it, okay,
because I think it's pretty straightforward. There are some points that should
be made, but let's move on. It says, he shall surely pay. Now, for those who looked at
my email and thought about it, this is the Shalem Shalem. This
is the... Two in a row, he shall surely
pay. In the Hebrew that's shalem,
shalem. If he has nothing, he should
be sold for his theft. So, why so emphatic? Why he shall
surely pay? In other words, you shall not
let him off the hook. Well, maybe some people would
want to be lenient to the thief. After all, maybe, why did he
steal? Maybe he was poor. Maybe there was poverty. And
so he's stealing from his neighbor only because he's poor. Well,
what's assumed here is that the poor man in Israel had other
options besides stealing and it wasn't the welfare system. One of his main options was selling
himself into the service of another man's household until all his
debts were paid. Okay, so if I'm poor and I've
got debts and I don't know what to do and I can't get food, I
sell myself. until my debts are paid. In light
of these things, then, God is clear. Poverty must never be
any excuse for stealing. No, we don't necessarily live
in that culture. If you have a system where the
rich are hoarding everything and not giving anything ever
to the poor, we won't get into the ethics of everything now.
I just want to point out that this is a different culture and
you could sell yourself into slavery and pay off your debts
and put food on your table and have shelter, a roof over your
head. Therefore, in order to make everything even and complete
and whole again, To right the wrong that you've done to your
neighbor, there's only one option. Only one option, no matter how
poor you are. You shall surely make restitution. See, God cares about it. You
see, this is telling us something about God. Shalem, shalem. Indeed, if he has nothing, if
he is so poor that he cannot pay you back for what he stole,
He shall be sold for his theft, which is what he should have
done in the first place. Sold himself so he could pay his debts.
Now the amount of restitution is not spelled out here. So the
judges are to exercise wisdom. Wisdom. We know it's at least
100%. But I'm wondering if the exact amount of how much this
thief has to pay back, 100%, 200%, 400%, 500%, I wonder if
it depends on the financial condition of the thief. So if I'm like
a rich guy and I'm just going to steal for the fun of it because
I don't want to use my sheep, maybe it's 500%. If I'm poor
and I went to steal because I just didn't really feel like selling
myself into slavery, maybe it's 100%, maybe it's 200%. I would guess more like 200%
for exercising wisdom. Again, in your handout, wisdom. I initially had this as another
concluding point at the end of the sermon. I don't anymore,
so I'm just going to put it here. Again, brothers and sisters,
wisdom. We are called to study God's
ways, to ponder them, not so that we have a verse to flip
to for every single thing, but so that we have learned what
His thoughts are, what His ways are, and we're able then to live
them out in the love of Him and the love of our neighbor. Verses five to six, if a man
causes a field, or vineyard to be grazed over or lets his beast
loose and it feeds in another man's field, he shall make restitution,
shalem, from the best in his own field and in his own vineyard.
If fire breaks out and catches in thorns so that the stacked
grain or the standing grain of the field is consumed, he who
started the fire shall make full restitution, shalem, shalem. Now, since these are, once again,
cases of negligence, we move from negligence to purposeful
to negligence again, the amount of restitution is how much? 100%. But, now remember, the
guy didn't wish any harm to his neighbors. Now, don't you kick
yourself after that? You're like, ah, man, I shouldn't
have let my ox out. Or, oh, I should have covered
up that pit. You're so mad at yourself and
you're like, it's just such an accident. The point I think that
God is making is it's not quite an accident. Negligence is not
completely accidental in God's book because negligence betrays
a sufficient care for our neighbor, a sufficient concern for his
well-being. Now there's a catch here. since
the field or the vineyard that's grazed by someone else's animal,
it hadn't yet been harvested. So how do you know how much was
lost? It was just potential loss. The solution to the problem,
and look how seriously God takes restitution, 100% restitution,
is that whichever of, okay, I'm the one who let my ox graze your
field, whichever one of my fields or my vineyards has the highest
yield this year, that will determine the 100%
restitution to you. Oh, can't we just like do an
average? Are we learning wisdom? In the case of a fire that's
not kept contained, and it breaks out and burns up my neighbor's
field, I'm required to make full restitution. This is our second
example of Shalem, Shalem. And I think, why Shalem, Shalem?
I mean, I get the point, right? And God says, well, I don't know
that you do. The point is this, it's never just 100%. I'm like,
yeah, 100%, but we've got ways of making 100% a little smaller
or a little bigger, don't we? We have ways of doing that. And
God's point is that, no, whatever your 100% in my book is a full
and complete 100%. Whatever that looks like, depending
on the circumstances. So Shalem Shalem emphasizes the
absolute necessity of restoring everything in full. The wrong
done to one's neighbor must be righted in full. All right, after negligence,
we go back to purpose, purposeful. Verses seven to eight. If a man
gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep safe, and it is
stolen from the man's house, then if the thief is found, he
shall pay, shalem. Again, it's a very unique word.
I just wanna emphasize that. It doesn't just mean pay. I wish
they wouldn't have translated it that way, because shalem means
make whole. And in this case, that means
pay. But that's not, that's a special
word. If the thief is not found, the owner of the house shall
come near to God to show whether or not he has put his hand to
his neighbor's property. All right, once again, because
the thief was trying to profit off another man's loss, how do
you make things even? The other man has to profit off
his loss. That's why it's pay double 200%. Now, if you can't
find the thief, then you wonder, well, I gave my goods to Mark
Davison to keep him safe and he says that they were stolen,
but we can't find the thief. Maybe Mark took them, right?
So now, Mark has to... Go before the Lord to verify
whether, and we don't know what that looked like. There's different
suggestions. But the main thing I think to
know is that restitution must always be made. Full justice
has to be done. So that's the point. We gotta find this out.
Verse nine, we can go on to verse nine. For every breach of trust,
whether it is for an ox, for a donkey, for a sheep, for a
cloak. We might be thinking at this point, I think I get the
point. I think I've already learned wisdom. Well, that's good if we're getting
to that point. Is it drilling into our head? This is serious. This is important to God. Because he's made it important.
Because he says it is. For every breach of trust, whether
it's for an ox, for a donkey, for a sheep, for a cloak, or
for any kind of lost thing of which one says, this is it. The case of both parties shall
come before God. The one whom God condemns shall
pay Shalem." Really make restitution double to his neighbor. All right,
so the unique thing about these verses is, you know, find someone
else just to make it easier. So Tom, you know, I say, Tom's
got, you know, a Bible over there. And I say, that's my Bible. Now
maybe he stole it and maybe he didn't. Maybe he stole it, or
maybe that's my way of stealing it from him, by saying, he stole
my Bible. And then I get his Bible, and
now it's mine, because he restored it to me, but it wasn't mine.
You get the point. So once again, we don't know
for sure what it looked like, because now you guys got to decide
which one of us is telling the truth. We don't know what it
looked like to bring the case to God, but the main point is
that full restitution has to be made. And here's the new thing
in this. Let's say I said, Tom stole my
Bible and you all figured out that no, he didn't steal my Bible,
that's his. Well, you know what I have to
do now? I have to go out and buy him a Bible and give it to
him because my plan was to benefit off of his loss. Since that was
my plan, now I am to lose and he has to benefit off my loss.
It even goes to the plans and intentions of my heart. I was still required to make
restitution in the amount of actually double, double. So I
have to be like, I have to buy him two Bibles. What you had
been hoping to gain at your neighbor's expense. See how, look at God,
look at his wisdom, look at how God is thinking, if I can use
a human phrase for this. Even the unsuccessful attempt
to steal can only truly be righted by
200% shall them. Verses 10 to 11, if a man gives
to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to
keep safe and it dies or is injured or is driven away without anyone
seeing it, an oath by the Lord shall be between them both to
see whether or not he has put his hand to his neighbor's property.
The owner shall accept the oath and he shall not make restitution. Alright, so I'm not going to
say a lot about that there. This is another example where
there was no one at fault. The only time there's no Shalem
made is if no one's at fault. No negligence, no responsibility,
no purposeful intent. Verse 12, But if it is stolen
from him, he shall make restitution Shalem to its owner. Now there's stuff here that I
don't understand. Apparently this assumes that if it was stolen,
there was negligence. And so once again, I didn't mean
to, I didn't want it, but neither did I care enough for my neighbor. Do you get how radical that is? God is saying to us, when we
say, I didn't mean to, God says, well, but if you were loving
your neighbor like God commanded you to love him, there wouldn't
have even been that negligence. And that even sometimes includes
forgetting. Why do we forget? Because we're not actively enough
loving. I see that for myself. If I was actively loving and
diligently loving, I might be less forgetful in some areas. So therefore, even though the
property was stolen by someone else, that makes it even worse. I mean, someone else stole it.
Because it was my negligence that allowed that to happen,
I'm responsible, assuming the thief is not found, at least.
to make restitution. Shalom. The wrong must be fully
righted. That's the rule. That's justice.
That's what God requires. However, verse 13, if the animal
is torn by beasts, let him bring it as evidence. He shall not
make restitution for what has been torn. Again, just to picture
it, if you give me your animal to watch out for, and I didn't
borrow it from you, you ask me to keep it safe. That's the difference.
So you ask me to keep your animal safe, and I'm out there in the
fields, and there it is, and I'm watching it. I don't have
any control over whether the wolf jumps out and tries to make
a meal of your animal. I don't have any control of that
at all. What I do have a responsibility to do is go drive that animal
away as quickly as I can. Now, I may not be successful
in doing that before your animal is killed. But I can prove I
tried, and you know how I can prove I tried, is by bringing
the evidence of your animal's dead body. Because your animal's
dead body wouldn't still be there if I hadn't tried to intervene,
right? The wild animal drags it away
and consumes it. But the fact that it still remains
shows that I did what I could to keep it safe. Once again,
no intent, no negligence, no responsibility, no shalem. Verse
14, if a man borrows anything of his neighbor and it is injured
or dies, the owner not being with it he shall make full restitution. Shalem, shalem. Third time, for he shall surely
make restitution. Now why does he say shalem, shalem
here? What's the big deal here? And
I think the point is that, did you notice there wasn't any negligence
here? There's no negligence. But there's still responsibility.
You know why there's responsibility? Because I borrowed your ox. I borrowed it. I did not hire
it. You did not entrust it to me
for safekeeping. I borrowed it. I did not give
you money for the use of your ox. And so now, if something
happens to it while it's in my possession, even if I was not
being negligent, Full restitution must be made. That's justice. In other words, and I have it
in your handout, I think, the borrower takes a greater accountability
than the one who has been given his neighbor's animal for safekeeping. So, no negligence, but borrowed. Shalem, shalem. In order to make
things even, even. Wisdom, justice, even full restitution
must be made. Verse 15, if the owner was with
it, he shall not make restitution. So it's still a borrower, but
in this case, the owner of what I borrowed was actually there,
present, with, and involved. And that was when his animal
was injured or killed. Therefore, not only was there
no purposeful intent, not only was there no negligence, there
was also no greater level of accountability because the owner
from whom I borrowed it was with me here at the time it happened.
So, there's no imbalance. See, things get out of balance
and what does God say? You've got to get it in balance.
Things are out of balance, you must get it in balance, even. There's no need for that here
because there was nothing out of balance, no shalem. Finally, verse 15b, if it was
hired, it came for its hiring fee. So there's three ways that I
could end up in possession of your property, three legitimate
ways. The one illegitimate way is to steal it. But there's three
other ways. The one is that you entrusted
it to me to keep safe. The second way is I borrowed
it from you to use. The third way is I hired it.
I rented it from you. The renter is less accountable
than the borrower. Because what we have now is essentially
a business transaction. Therefore, assuming that there's
no negligence, if something happens to your property when I have
it and I rented it from you, there's no restitution required.
No imbalance to be made even, no wrong to be righted, means
simply no shalem. All right. First of all, three things for
us to think about. And maybe you've already been
thinking about it as we go through this. Can you see how these sample
case laws are modeling the perfect righteousness and justice of
all God's judgments? As I've been reflecting on these
verses, I've come to have an appreciation for verses that
I, like probably many of you, have in the past just kind of
read and not fully appreciated. I've been reading these verses
and seeing who God is. This God that is God of the universe
is a just and righteous and holy God and He does all things right. And so there's an encouragement
to that, because on the one hand, we could be reading these and
be like, oh boy, I'm not borrowing anything from anyone anymore.
Well, I might lend it to them as long as they know full restitution,
right? Or I just want to retreat and I'm afraid of something happening.
That's not what this is about, first of all. But second of all,
let's take encouragement from the kind of God we serve. As I was studying and reflecting
this past week and looking at God's demand for evenness, I was reminded of passages like
these. Psalm chapter 9, verses 7 to 8 says, The Lord sits enthroned
forever. He has established His throne
for justice. And He judges the world with
righteousness. He judges the peoples with uprightness. And we know that's going to happen
in full when the Judge comes, returns. Well, we'll see that
in a minute. Psalm 97, the Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. But the many coastlands be glad,
clouds and thick darkness are all around him. Righteousness
and justice are the foundation of his throne. And that's what
we're seeing worked out in these verses that we're reading. Perfect
righteousness and justice, wisdom. Job 37, the Almighty, He is great
in power, justice, and abundant righteousness. That's a beautiful
way to put it. What we've been just reading
about here in Exodus 21-22 is not just righteousness, it is
abundant righteousness. He will not violate. The Apostle
Paul says in Acts 17 that God has fixed a day on which He will
judge the world. in righteousness. By a man whom
he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all
by raising him from the dead. You know, when I read in Acts
21 and Acts 22, and I know that these righteous judgments were
given to teach human judges wisdom, as they're sitting in the courtroom. But I know that these human judges
have sinfulness, and you know that perfect justice is only
rarely ever fully, truly done in this world. But as we see
it pictured here, we know that one day, God brings it in full. One day, all that's been wrong
will be righted. Now, I don't have a clue how
that happens, do you? Can you possibly imagine, in
light of all the injustices, in light of all the atrocities,
in light of all the horrific things that have happened in
this world, not only by the rich and the powerful, but by the
poor and the weak. Things happen in this world,
but we know that somehow, someday, someway, God will bring justice
to this world. Exodus 21, 22 has convinced me
of that, if I wasn't already. James 5, 7 and 8, then this is
the exhortation to us, knowing this, when you read the papers
and you watch the news and you hear of the corruption and the
scandals and the oppression and the lies and the deceits, be
patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth
being patient about it until it receives the early and the
late rains. You also be patient. He says be patient therefore
because of the oppression of the rich and the powerful and
they were stealing the wages of the poor. That's why he says
be patient, you also. Establish your hearts for the
coming of the Lord is at hand. It's the next scheduled event. Romans chapter 12, and repay
no one evil for evil. This is personal ethics. God
is concerned with justice, clearly, life for life. But when it comes
to us, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the
wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will, what?
Repay. And that's quoting Deuteronomy,
where the Hebrew word is shalem. Vengeance is mine, I will repay. We know how God, what he says
about it, Exodus 21 and 22. To the contrary, if your enemy
is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something
to drink. I think of the example, of course,
of Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsy, and how they had enemies
who were cruel, wicked, and they treated them with love. They
didn't take the vengeance, but I know one thing, if those guards
and those soldiers did not repent before they died, they will receive
full restitution. God repays. and he brings justice
to a world where there is no justice. As I studied then and reflected
on these models of God's perfect righteousness and justice, the
second thing I'm reminded of is how deeply concerned we are
to be to protect and to safeguard the
rights and the property of everyone around us. This is convicting. I mean, if
you just take a little time to think about this, it's been convicting
to me. See, all these verses that we
just read in Exodus, they're all just the outworking of a
single verse. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. See, when you're loving your
neighbor as yourself, negligence doesn't happen nearly as much. What makes our innocent negligence
so inexcusable is that it really just reveals our failure to be
actively, diligently loving our neighbor. And as I said earlier,
so often we hear it said, by children, by adults, by everyone,
I didn't mean to. Or that wasn't my intention. But how often is the thing we
didn't mean? How often is the thing I didn't
intend still the sign of a deeper failure to be actively loving
my neighbor as myself? And so what does my negligence
reveal about my heart? What does what I didn't mean
reveal about my heart? What do the things that we never
meant reveal about a failure to love.
Brothers and sisters, let us not be negligent in loving
one another. Love one another, Paul says in
Romans chapter 12, verse 10. Love one another with brotherly
affection. Outdo one another in showing
honor. In 1 Thessalonians 3, may the
Lord make us increase and abound in love for one another. Finally, let's just soak in here,
okay? Because this is where I wanted
to get. The only time Shalem has ever used, well, I'll skip
that. That can be on the website. Let's just say this on your handout.
One of the ways the New Testament describes our sin And the Bible
describes our sin in different ways. Trespass, transgression,
debt is another way. Debts requiring, what do debts
require? Repayment. Repayment to God. Now we've already seen that there's
no exceptions here. Shalem, shalem. Over and over,
shalem, shalem, shalem, shalem, shalem. The property of God, what is
God's property? Well, the whole world is His
property, but I just want to say this, the property of God
is His name, His holiness, His glory. And so all of our sin, of whatever
kind it may be, every kind, no matter what, all of my sin Even
if it's just negligent sin, doesn't even have to be willful sin,
just negligent sin, which is a failure to actively love God
as I'm called to, is a kind of stealing of God's property. At the very least, it's a failure
to love and safeguard with all my heart that which is God's. How many of us are thieves? in
this way. How many of us have stolen and
taken willfully and purposefully and also negligently and carelessly? How many debts have we racked
up? How much do we owe? So in order to make everything
even again, because it's about even, right? In order to make
everything complete and whole again, which is now our responsibility. It's ours. In order to be fully
and completely right the wrong we've done, there's only one
option. We must, what's the word there? Surely. We must surely make restitution.
Shalem, shalem. Only we can't. What a hopeless
feeling that is. I mean, even if we just take
it to the way, way, way down to the feeling of being so in
debt that you know there's no hope of ever paying it off. This
is infinitely higher. Our debts are insurmountable.
We cannot pay them back. In your handout, we can never
even begin to make restitution. And yet restitution must be made. It must. And so we're pointed again to
Jesus Christ, who has provided... I can't believe I'm saying this.
I can't believe I get to say this. We get to hear this. Jesus has provided for the free,
full, complete forgiveness of all our debts. Everyone. Everyone. You know, Jesus said to the woman
who was wetting his feet with her tears, drying them with her
hair, She's been forgiven much. She loves much. The Pharisee,
on the other hand, didn't know the magnitude of his debts, so
he couldn't love. Do we realize the magnitude of
the debts that we owe? So we read in Colossians chapter
2, And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, God made a life together with Him, with Jesus.
Having forgiven us all our trespasses, that's one way of describing
sin. And here's another way, by canceling the record of debt. Praise Him. That stood against us with its
legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it
to the cross. No longer any record of debt.
No longer anything left for me to repay, because Jesus paid
it all. No longer any demand for restitution,
because Jesus fulfilled that requirement of the law. Shalem,
shalem. He did it for us. and in our place. Dear Heavenly Father, make us
love the Gospel. May we not be as that dead Pharisee. May we not sit and hear about
debts being forgiven, about debts being forgiven because they've
been paid by another in full. Full restitution made. Shalem,
shalem. Oh, may we not hear this and sit unfazed. Should there be anyone here whose
debts are still that heavy burden, still would it mean for them
to pay because they have not received in faith the free gift
through Jesus Christ? I pray, Lord, that you would
open their eyes today by your grace that they would look to
Christ alone and be saved. and have their debts forgiven. And Lord, we pray that knowing
this, we would be free to truly, actively, and diligently care
for one another, safeguarding always their property as if it
was our own, less and less being characterized
by negligence, and more and more by an act of loving as we love
ourselves. And finally, Lord, we thank you.
We thank you that you have fixed a day on which you will judge
this world in righteousness. We don't know how, but one day you'll set everything
to rights. You're a great God. We worship
you now. And please, please hear our prayers. We continue really
in prayers. We sing, sing this song in Jesus
name. Amen.
Exodus 21:33-22:15
Series Exodus
| Sermon ID | 112018211616301 |
| Duration | 56:07 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Exodus 21:16; Exodus 21:22-33 |
| Language | English |
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