We're about two-thirds of the way through the book of Deuteronomy in our study of the book. And we saw in the opening chapters the historical prologue. where we were given the history of God's dealings with his people whom he had redeemed out of Egyptian bondage, the history of his dealings with them from Mount Sinai, where he established his covenant with them, all the way up to the point when Deuteronomy is written, when Israel is on the east bank of the Jordan River, ready to cross over the Jordan River into the land of Canaan to take possession of the land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob. And in that historical prologue, we saw that God has a claim on the obedience and faithfulness of his people. They were his redeemed ones, and he had come to them in grace. and he had provided for them in the wilderness. And he had given them victory over enemies that came against them on the east side of the Jordan. And so God was calling forth faithfulness, love, obedience from his people. So that was foundational to the book. Then in the next main section, we saw that the general requirements that God had for his covenantal people. which boiled down to, in the sixth chapter, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then that you shall teach these things to your children, that they also would love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and so forth. God has given his grace to his people. Grace is a theme, an important theme in Deuteronomy. God gave grace to his people. And his grace calls forth a response of love. Now what does love towards our Redeemer look like? What does love towards our God, how does it manifest itself? Well, that's what the next section of the book is about that we're in the middle of. These, having seen God's general requirements for His people, we're now looking at God's specific requirements for His redeemed people. what it was to look like for Israel to love the Lord their God and to be faithful to Him. And this is not just for Israel as we've been seeking every single time to relate what we see in the Old Testament to the New Testament. And we see that there is application to be made from every passage that we look at in Deuteronomy to our lives as Christians in the New Covenant. So we've been learning a lot and we trust the Lord will continue to use the book of Deuteronomy in our lives as Christians to grow us in our knowledge of God to grow us in our love for Him, our faith in Him, our obedience and faithfulness to Him, that He would be glorified. So this morning we come to the 19th chapter. We've seen in the recent chapters instructions that God gave for the different officers. of the different leaders of the nation, for priests and Levites, for kings, for prophets, and so forth. And now we come to more of the civil law that God had for his people, and we will see how it is pertinent to us this morning. So please stand in honor of the word of God for the reading of the 19th chapter. When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. You shall measure the distances and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them. This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in the past, as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the ax to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, he may flee to one of these cities and live. lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. Therefore, I command you, you shall set apart three cities. And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers, provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his ways, then you shall add three other cities to these three. Last, innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. And so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you. But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and hand him over to the avenger of blood so that he may die. Your eyes shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel so that it may be well with you. You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God has given you to possess. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 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 office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. 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. 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. Your eye shall not pity, it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. This is God's holy word, please be seated. This is civil law that God gave to the nation of Israel. Civil law that teaches us, who read it today, about the nature of God. It teaches us about the unchanging character of God. And it also reflects the God-given responsibilities of civil government. As we look at this passage, it divides into three main sections. First of all, we will see refuge for the innocent. Second, justice for the guilty. And third, protection for the falsely accused. First, refuge for the innocent. Back in chapter four, verses 41 through 43, after Israel conquered King Sihon and King Og, Moses recorded how he set apart three cities east of the Jordan River as cities of refuge. And now that Israel is preparing to cross the Jordan and take possession of the land west of the Jordan, the Lord gives instructions through Moses for doing the same west of the Jordan. Look closely at verses one through three. When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, you should set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. You shall measure the distances and divide into three parts the area of the land the Lord your God gives you as a possession so that any manslayer can flee to them." The point in these three verses is that these three cities of refuge were to be strategically located so that at least one of the cities was accessible to you no matter where you were living in the land. Let's continue in verse four. This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past, as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the ax to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, he may flee to one of these cities and live. "'lest the avenger of blood and hot anger "'pursue the manslayer and overtake him "'because the way is long and strike him fatally, "'though the man did not deserve to die "'since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. "'Therefore I command you, "'you shall set apart three cities.'" Before this time, the place of refuge was the altar in the tabernacle. We read of that back in Exodus chapter 21, verses 12 through 14. But the tabernacle would not be a sufficient place of refuge when Israel was spread throughout the Promised Land. The Promised Land, just a section west of the Jordan, is about the size of New Jersey. Add on that to the portion east of the Jordan, you have a sizable area. The tabernacle was to be centrally located, but if you were living on some of the furthest extent of the land of Israel, it could take you a while. If you had killed someone unintentionally, it could take you a while to get to the altar at the tabernacle for And so six cities were to be designated, three on the east side, three on the west side as these cities of refuge. What was the purpose of a city of refuge? The law provided the cities of refuge for the person who committed what we today call involuntary manslaughter. The way verse 4b puts it is, if anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in the past. And we're given an example in our text of this very thing. An example is given in verse five of going into the forest with your neighbor to cut wood. You swing an ax to cut down a tree, and the ax head slips off and strikes your neighbor, and he dies. It was not your intention to kill your neighbor. The world would call this an accident. As believers, we know Everything occurs under God's providence. So we kind of avoid using that word accident. But it was unintentional, unintended. It was a mishap, so to speak. A tragic mishap. But underneath the providence of God. Now the law of God anticipates, we see here, that there will be times when you and I will injure a person unintentionally. No matter how careful we may be, we will unintentionally hurt other people. And no matter how careful others may be, you will be unintentionally hurt by others. It's part of living in a fallen world. It's part of the fact that we are finite. We are not infinite like God is. These things happen in a fallen world. So the law of God anticipates that such things will happen. And the law of God also anticipates that we will sometimes sinfully respond with vengeance when a loved one is harmed unintentionally. So cities of refuge were to be established and accessible lest, according to verse six, the avenger of blood in hot anger pursues the manslayer and overtake him because the way is long and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. Verse six mentions the avenger of blood. Or more literally, in the Hebrew, It means the redeemer of blood. Now this term redeemer was a legal term. Most Israelites had a redeemer. Now just keep in mind, as I use this term redeemer, I'm referring to the term that's translated avenger in our text. In most other passages in the Old Testament, this Hebrew word is not translated avenger. In most other passages, it's translated with the word redeem or redeemer. I'm going to speak of this person as the redeemer. Most Israelites had a redeemer. He was a man who was a near relative and was responsible for you in certain ways. The most well-known Redeemer in the Old Testament is Boaz, who we see in some translations is referred to as Naomi and Ruth's kinsmen Redeemer. If you became so poor that you were forced to sell your land, your Redeemer was responsible to buy it back for your family. Or if you were forced by poverty to sell yourself as a slave, what we would call an indentured servant, then your Redeemer was responsible to buy you back and free you from slavery. And there were other responsibilities as well for the Redeemer, the kinsman Redeemer. One of the Redeemer's other responsibilities was to see that justice was carried out if one of his relatives was killed. And that's what we see referred to here in our text. The term in our text, the avenger of blood, refers to this responsibility of seeing that justice is carried out after one of your relatives has been killed. In the case of murder, the avenger of blood was to see to it that the murderer was tried in court and was executed if found guilty. Yet the law anticipates that some redeemers would abuse their responsibility. and would try to kill a person who unintentionally killed the Redeemer's relative. And so the Lord instituted cities of refuge. We see in other passages of Scripture that the cities of refuge were Levitical cities, cities that were given to the Levites. And so in these cities, you would have Levitical judges to hear the cases that arose. You had these cities of refuge that were responsible to protect people who had killed another person until that person received a fair trial. There's more detail in Numbers 35. Moses assumes that Israel's familiar with the detail in Numbers 35, so he doesn't go over all that detail. But if you want to understand more about this, you can later on read Numbers 35. According to that chapter, if the manslayer was found innocent of murder, when he was put on trial, then he would live, but he was required to stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. So what happened in the forest with the head flying off the ax and killing your friend, that was unintentional. You're not going to be put to death for his death. It was not murder, but there's still consequences. You have to live in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. The protection provided by the cities of refuge was so important that if Israel were to fail to provide adequate cities of refuge, Israel would share in the guilt when a redeemer would kill an innocent manslayer. Look at this in verses eight through 10. And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that He promised to give to your fathers, provided you are careful to keep all this commandment which I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his ways, then you shall add three other cities to these three. So now he's saying there are to be nine cities in the future if your borders expand. Verse 10, last innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you. So notice the reason why Israel is to add on three more cities of refuge if the Lord expands their borders further. It's lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance and so the guilt of blood should be upon you. lest there not be a city of refuge that is accessible when something like this happens and someone is unintentionally killed, lest there not be a city of refuge nearby to protect the person, there must be cities of refuge put out. If the cities of refuge are not put there and are not accessible, then innocent blood that is shed will be on the heads of all Israel for their failure to set aside cities of refuge and to protect such people. Notice in verse 10 the word innocent. It talks about innocent blood. That is the blood of the person who has unintentionally killed another person, but he is killed by the avenger of blood before he gets to a city of refuge. The word innocent speaks of the manslaughter being innocent of murder. The main idea in this first section is the Lord's provision of refuge for the innocent. In the law, we see he provided refuge for the innocent, for those who were innocent of murder. He gave instructions here for the protection of the innocent. And this teaches us something about the character of God. God is just. which does not only mean that he punishes evildoers, that God is just also means that he recognizes and protects and defends the innocent. In verse 6, it said the manslayer did not deserve to die since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. In verse 10, we saw the Lord worn against innocent blood being shed God's heart is grieved when people are executed for something not worthy of death. God's heart is grieved when people receive a punishment that exceeds the wrong that they have done. God's heart is grieved when people are punished for something that they did not do. And God acts to defend the innocent. Turn with me to Psalm 37, which speaks of God acting to defend the innocent. Psalm 37. Let's start at verse five. Verse five. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. There's a contrast in this psalm between the righteous and the wicked. Verse 6, the Lord will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Go down to verse 27. 27, turn away from evil and do good, so shall you dwell forever. For the Lord loves justice. He will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever. But the children of the wicked shall be cut off. Go down to verse 32. 32, the wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power. or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial. So it says that the Lord will not abandon the righteous to the power of the wicked. The Lord will not let the righteous be condemned when he is brought to trial. And then go down to verse 39. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. God acts to defend the righteous. He acts to defend the innocent. And because God is like this, loving him makes you into a person who delights in the innocent being protected and defended. Loving the Lord was mentioned in verse nine of our text, and it is a theme of the book of Deuteronomy. Love for God is demonstrated by, amongst other things, a deep concern that the innocent be treated justly. Let's get really practical. Let me ask you, if you see a person being treated unjustly, do you do all you can to defend them? This is why Christians go to abortion clinics, to defend the unborn, who are made in the image of God, from unjustly being put to death. If you see a person being treated unjustly, do you do all you can to defend them? If you are parenting children or teens and your children come to you with a dispute, are you concerned about finding out if one of them is innocent and defending their innocence? Or are you more concerned about yourself getting your children and their dispute out of your hair. I personally was convicted by this as I was studying this, looking back at times where wrongly, when two of my children would come to me with a dispute, one claims the other wronged them and they say, no, the other wronged them. There've been times where wrongly I did not put in the proper effort. to try to discern and learn if one of them was innocent and was being treated unjustly by the other. There have been times where instead of seeking to learn that, I just wanted to get them out of my hair. I just wanted to be able to continue with what I'm doing. I didn't show the proper care and concern for what is just in the eyes of God. As fathers, we represent God to our children. And Deuteronomy 32 verse four says, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. As parents, especially as fathers, as heads of our homes, we are called upon by the Lord to reflect his justice. in how we father the children and teens in our homes. And part of that is seeking to protect and defend the innocent. All of us need to understand that God gives all civil government the responsibility to recognize, protect, and defend the innocent. It's not just the government of Israel. that was given this responsibility. But as we will see in the New Testament later on, all civil government is given by God this responsibility to defend and protect the innocent. So we need to pray for this. We're called in scripture to pray for our governing leaders. In the New Testament, Christians are called upon to regularly pray for our governing leaders. How are we to pray for them? One of the things we are to pray for is that they would defend and protect the innocents. And we are to call for this in our government. We see in the New Testament when we're called to pray for our governing leaders, it's pray that they would govern in such a way that we would be able to live peaceful and quiet lives. When the government fulfills their responsibility, of being an instrument of God's justice and the different aspects of it, the result is that the people in that land can live in relative peace and quiet. So refuge for the innocent is important, but it's just one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is seen in the second section of our text, where we see justice for the guilty. Justice for the guilty. Look with me back at Deuteronomy 19, starting at verse 11. But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and hand him over to the avenger of blood so that he may die. So the city of refugees to protect anyone until there is a fair trial, and after a trial, if the person is innocent of murder, then they are to be protected for the rest of their life, as long as they live in that city of refuge. But in this case, we have something different. In this case, we have premeditated murder. We have what we would call first degree murderer, murder. We see here that the murderer could flee into the city of refuge, but after he would be convicted in a court of law, the city of refuge was to hand him over to the elders of his city and the avenger of blood, that redeemer that we talked about. The avenger of blood is then to take the lead in executing the murderer. Now Moses anticipates when he writes this, that some people would be prone to recoil at the thought of putting the murderer to death. And they would be inclined to lessen the sentence. Maybe there's gonna be financial penalty. A ransom needs to be paid. Moses anticipates that the people will be prone to recoil at the thought of putting the murderer to death. Imagine if you were that kinsman redeemer, and it was your responsibility to cast the first stone. If you've not been trained for war, if you've not been trained to kill in just situations, it can be very hard to cast that first stone. Moses anticipates people will recoil at the thought of this. So look at what he says in verse 13. Your eye shall not pity him. That is, your eye shall not pity the person convicted of murder, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel so that it may be well with you. He says, your eye shall not pity him. No one is to allow the feelings of compassion to keep them from carrying out the death penalty. Because the death penalty we see here in verse 13 was needed for removing the guilt of innocent blood from Israel. Did you notice in verse 13 that the people of Israel shared in the guilt of the murder? It says, your eyes shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel. All of Israel is defiled. The community is defiled by the murder that was committed by one of the citizens of the nation. "'but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel "'so that it may be well with you.'" To understand this concept better, we need to look back to Numbers chapter 35. So turn back a book, the book of Numbers, and look at Numbers chapter 35 about how murder defiled the land, defiled the community. Numbers 35, starting at verse 31. In verse 31, Moses said, moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. Go down to verse 33. You shall not pollute the land in which you live. for blood pollutes the land and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it except by the blood of the one who shed it. So when murder is committed, that murder defiles the land, it pollutes the land. And there's no atonement for the land except the shedding of the blood of the murderer. shedding the blood of the guilty. It says, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Verse 34, you shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell. For I, the Lord, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. Murder is so grievous that it defiles the whole community. And the only thing that can purge that defilement is the satisfaction of divine justice by the execution of the murderer. This goes all the way back to Genesis chapter nine, after the worldwide flood, when God, after God brought Abraham, I'm sorry, Noah and his family safely through. What did God say to all of mankind after they exited the ark? Genesis nine, verse five. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it, and from man. From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. Human life is sacred because it is made in the image of God. And because human life is so sacred, what God requires after someone unlawfully takes human life. What God requires is the lifeblood of the murderer. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. This right here is the institution of human government. This is where God created human government, mandated human government. Now, what we've seen in Numbers and what I just quoted to you from Genesis will help us understand our text. You can turn back to Deuteronomy 19, verse 13. In our text, we have read in verse 13, your eyes shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so it shall be well with you. We see here it is detrimental and shameful for a society to fail to execute murderers. And how much more detrimental and shameful it is to let murderers go free. It makes that society guilty before God. Well, just as we did in the last section, we learn also in this middle section of our text, something of the nature of God. As a just God, he sees and punishes the guilty. It grieves him when evildoers are acquitted rather than condemned. Isaiah chapter five verse 20 pronounces woe on those who call evil good and good evil. And three verses later, pronounces woe on those who quote, acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of his rights. Woe is pronounced upon the one. Judgment is pronounced upon the one who would acquit the guilty. The Old Testament is clear that God does not acquit the wicked, but rather he punishes the wicked. The Lord said in Exodus chapter 23, verse seven, I will not acquit the wicked. And in Exodus chapter 34, verses six through seven, in that wonderful revelation that God gives of himself after Moses has asked the Lord to show him his glory, and the Lord passes before Moses, and Moses can't look at the face of God, but the Lord pronounces his nature, his character to Moses as a revelation of himself, a revelation of his glory. Listen to what this says about God visiting iniquity on the guilty. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. What is God proclaiming? He's proclaiming his glory, he's proclaiming his perfections, the heart of his nature. We understand he is merciful, he's gracious, he's slow to anger, he's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He keeps steadfast love and so forth. And also, at the heart of God's nature, one of his perfections is that he will by no means clear the guilty, that he visits iniquity. We read the same thing in Psalm 34 verse 16, in other words, it says, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. Now some people claim that God only punishes sinners to reform them or to deter others from sin, but this is not the case. It is true that God punishes his children to correct their behavior. It is true that God sometimes punishes one person in order to deter others from committing wickedness. However, the Bible is clear that God's punishments of the wicked are retributive, that they are punitive, that God punishes wickedness because wickedness deserves punishment. Now, our world does not like to hear that. that wickedness, that evil, that law-breaking deserves punishment. But God's nature as holy, righteous, and just makes this so. His nature makes it that wickedness deserves punishment. Listen to Romans 1.32. It says, though they knew God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval of those who practice them. As Paul in Romans chapter one is condemning the world as being under sin and in need of salvation. He says there that God has made it known in general revelation to all men, women, boys, and girls, that those who practice ungodliness deserve to die. Because God is like this. Loving him makes you into a person who recognizes the necessity that evil doing be punished. Loving God makes you into a person who recognizes the necessity that law breaking be You cannot love God as you ought to love God and not recognize the necessity that evil doing be punished. It is connected with his very nature, his very character. We will see later in the New Testament that God gives all civil government the responsibility to punish evil. So just as we need to pray for and call for our government to protect the innocent, so we must also pray for and call for our government to punish the guilty. the two sides of the coin of justice, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. Both are important. Well, having given instruction in our text for putting murderers to death, Moses gives a brief prohibition in verse 14 against stealing land by moving your neighbor's boundary markers. And in the last section of our text, he returns to the idea of protecting the innocent. But this time, concentrating on protection for the falsely accused. Protection for the falsely accused. Come back to our text, Deuteronomy 19, and look at verse 15. Verse 15. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a charge be established. These verses broaden out a requirement that we saw back in chapter 17, verse six. Chapter 17, verse six talked about the penalty for worshiping other gods being death. And that a person was not to be put to death for worshiping other gods on the evidence of only one witness. But there had to be two or three witnesses for that person to be put to death, to be executed. Now in our text, we see that this requirement of two or three witnesses was a requirement in all criminal cases. And when we studied chapter 17, I spoke of how the requirement of having at least two witnesses was meant to protect the innocent against false accusation. The law of God anticipates that false accusation will be brought against people. And so there was protection in the law against being falsely accused, which included the requirement to have two or three witnesses to establish a matter. What I did not realize at that time, when we looked at chapter 17, is that there was a provision in the law of God for prosecuting a criminal when there was only one witness. And that's what comes next in these verses. Look at verse 16. 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 office in those days. the judges shall inquire diligently. Verse 16 says, if a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, who knows that this is a malicious witness, that this is a false witness? Well, the person who's being accused falsely knows the witness is a false witness, but the court does not yet know that this is a false witness. All the court knows is that only one person claims you committed such and such a crime. and that you deny committing the crime. What is the court to do? There's only one witness. What is the court to do? Well, verse 17 says, when there's only one witness, both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office. Notice that it brings together the ideas of appearing before the Lord and appearing before the priests and the judges. who are in office. Because the priests and the judges were the Lord's representatives, to appear before them was to appear before the Lord. The Lord was with the priests and judges to guide them and to enforce justice. So it was a very solemn thing to appear before priests and judges in a court case. The thought that you were appearing before the Lord Almighty should have been a deterrent against giving false testimony. We learned back in verses eight and nine of chapter 17, that if any case was too difficult for the local judges, the case was to be brought before the priests and the chief justice at the central sanctuary where God manifested his glory. Certainly this could be done. You have only one witness. How is the local priest and judge to determine if this one witness is telling the truth, if this crime was truly committed or not. If their inquiry could not find the truth of the matter, then they had this available to them, they could take the case up to the highest level. They could take, according to chapter 17, the case to the tabernacle, to the central sanctuary, before the high priest, the chief justice. And the high priest had the Urim and the Thummim, Why did the Lord give the high priest the Urim and the Thummim? For several reasons. One was in cases like this, where it's a very difficult case, and you don't know what the truth of the matter is. The high priest could use the Urim and the Thummim to seek from God, God's revelation of who was the guilty party, what the truth of the matter was. Now in our text, verse 18 says, the judges shall inquire diligently. They were to investigate the case thoroughly, looking for objective evidence. They could not condemn a person merely on the evidence of one witness. There had to be other evidence, other objective evidence. And so they were to inquire diligently, to investigate the case thoroughly, looking for objective evidence. What was to be done if this diligent inquiry showed that the witness was a false witness? that he was bringing false charges against someone who was innocent. Well, look at verse 18. The judge shall inquire diligently, 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. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. In other words, if you falsely accused your neighbor of stealing, then you were to pay the penalty for stealing. But if you falsely accused your brother of something more grievous, more serious, say you falsely accused your brother of murder, then you were to suffer the penalty of murder. It did not make a difference whether your false testimony sprang from a desire to harm the other individual or your false testimony sprang from an incorrect perception. In either case, if it was found to be false witness, you were to be punished in the way that the person you made the charges against would have been punished if they were guilty. You see here that we are responsible for the testimony that we give about another person. We can't just have a hunch and make then a false accusation. We are responsible before God for the testimony we give about another person. We see the importance of this in the fact that the ninth commandment is you shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor. It is a very evil thing to falsely accuse another person of committing a crime. The false accuser is to be punished in order to, according to verse 19, purge the evil of false testimony from your midst. It is to be punished because it is evil. And also for another purpose, look at verse 20. And the rest shall hear and fear. This is if the false accuser is punished duly for their false accusation. And the rest, then the rest will hear, shall hear and fear and shall never again commit any such evil among you. So first of all, false accusation is to be punished because it is evil. Second of all, is to be punished in order to protect others. to be a deterrent so that others will not give false accusations about people committing crimes. We go on in verse 21. Your eye shall not pity. So this is in punishing the person who has made the false accusation. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. We see the same sort of terminology in other places in the Mosaic law. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. We find in Exodus chapter 21, verses 23 to 25, in the context of a pregnant woman being assaulted and the baby being injured or killed. We see it also in Leviticus 24, verses 17 through 21, in a very general way, speaking about murder and speaking about people injuring others in other ways. What does this mean here? It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. It means the punishment must be proportional to the crime committed. The punishment must not be overly severe. and it must not be less severe than the crime committed. It must be in proportion to the severity of the crime. In this context, it means a false charge of theft is to receive the just penalty, and a false charge of murder is to receive the just penalty, et cetera. Now this statement here and elsewhere in the Mosaic Law, life for life, eye for eye, and so forth, was applied in a fleshly way, not out of spiritual way, a fleshly way by the Jews of Jesus' day as a license for personal vengeance. Turn with me to Matthew chapter five, which quotes these passages from the Law of Moses. Matthew chapter five, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus makes numerous quotations of the Old Testament law and then speaks about what God requires, what true righteousness is. He was speaking to a people who had misused the law of God, had ignored the implications of the law. Matthew chapter five, starting at verse 38. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He's already said several times, you have heard that it was said. He brings up another subject from the law. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Now, the Sermon on the Mount is so often incorrectly interpreted and applied. You always have to interpret statements in the Sermon on the Mount in context, in the immediate context and the wider context. Jesus' words here, after he quotes, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, He is not nullifying what our text in Deuteronomy says. Jesus here is speaking against applying this part of the law to personal vengeance. He's speaking against applying what the Old Testament law said to the idea of getting even. That's what the flesh leads us to do. When we are wronged or a loved one is wronged, the flesh leads us to seek vengeance, to seek to get even. And then what happens in the world? It just goes back and forth, and it escalates, each person trying to get back and get even with the other. What Jesus is teaching is that when it comes to being insulted, persecuted, or mistreated in a non-criminal way by unbelievers, we are, as Christians, to be forgiving. As followers of Christ, we are to return evil with good. But Jesus is not speaking here about our response to criminal actions. Our text is concerned with criminal actions. Jesus' words have to do with personal insults, persecution, being mistreated in a non-criminal way. How are we to respond to that? The difference between interpersonal conflict and criminal actions is brought out by the Apostle Paul. I want you to turn to Romans chapters 12 and 13. Romans chapter 12. Chapters 12 and 13 address both interpersonal conflict and criminal actions. Side by side. First of all, interpersonal conflict is addressed here in the 12th chapter, beginning at verse 14. And he's gonna quote from the book of Deuteronomy. Look at verse 14. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. The last part there is quoted from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 35. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So Paul, the apostle, says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is instruction to the Christian. Instruction to do good to those who do evil to you, and to leave vengeance in God's hands. The flesh would lead you to seek vengeance, but the Christian is to leave vengeance leave wrath in God's hands. We're told God will repay the wicked. Now, one of the ways that God repays the wicked is laid out in the following verses. Look at the next verse. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Note those words, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. That connects us back to chapter 12, verse 19, where it said, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. We're not to take vengeance into our own hands, we're to leave it in God's hands. How does God execute vengeance? Some vengeance will come in eternity, but there is a temporal vengeance of God that comes, and oftentimes it comes through what he calls his servants, the governing officials. We see here in Romans 13, one through four, that God has instituted civil government. The purpose of government is laid out in verses three and four. Verse four says civil government is God's servant for your good. Verse four says that the purpose of government includes carrying out God's wrath on wrongdoers. And verse three says part of the purpose of government is approving of those who do what is good. So civil government we see is an instrument of God's temporal justice. This implies that government is responsible to protect the innocent, to defend the innocent, as we saw in the first part of our text. This implies that government is responsible to protect the falsely accused, as we saw in part three of our text. And this explicitly teaches that government is responsible to do what we saw in the second part of our text, to punish the guilty. The Sermon on the Mount does not mean Christians should not press charges against criminals. These verses here in chapter 13 make clear God's given government to us for our good. If a crime is committed against you, we are to take it to the authorities, that God's vengeance would be poured out, that the wrongdoer would be punished by God's instrument. So we have to bring all of this together. Well, this morning, how are we to apply what we saw in Deuteronomy 19? There are a variety of applications. I've already brought up the application to parenting children. Be mindful, fathers, be mindful, mothers, that you are a servant of God in the life of your children. You are a servant of God to discipline them when they do what is wrong and to reward them when they do what is right, to defend them when they are innocent and to punish them when they are guilty. You are God's instrument in their life for their good in this way. And so we are not to approach this in a haphazard manner as parents, but we're to do so in prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit. We're to tremble at the thought that we are God's representative in the life of our children. Who are we? With all of our imperfections and all of our sins, who are we to be God's representative? He's called us to be his representative. And we as a parent must parent justly. We must parent justly in order to point our children to the nature and the character of our God. Another application must be made to the church. In the church, we are given the responsibility of disciplining certain instances of sin. Public sin committed by members of the church is to be disciplined. If one member sins against another, clearly, and there is no repentance, then the scriptures teach us about the steps that we're going to go through in church discipline. When we do church discipline, we must be careful that we exercise church discipline in a way that is just. God is just. And we need to apply to our church discipline the principles that we've seen of justice in our text. Seeking to defend the innocent and to discipline the guilty. Now, we were talking before about how God's justice includes retributive justice, punitive justice. That is not the court of justice that's involved in church discipline. Church discipline is corrective justice, seeking to bring about restoration, seeking about to bring repentance, restoration. But the principles of justice apply. And as I've talked about, it's important to understand how Our civil government has been given these responsibilities by God to be an instrument of His justice in our society. And so we're to be mindful of this when we pray for our governing leaders, we're to be mindful of this when we vote, when we speak up in society, we're to be mindful of what purpose God has given government. Government's on the news all the time. We're always talking about government, thinking about government. We need to look at our government through the lens of God's word and pray for it appropriately. Now it's also important that we relate our text to Jesus Christ. Whatever text in scripture we study, we need to relate that text of scripture to Christ. It's important to understand that Christ does not do away with justice. Love does not do away with justice. Grace does not do away with justice. The gospel of Christ does not do away with justice. When we live in a world that thinks that love is just affirming people the way they are, accepting people as they are, and that is so far from the biblical gospel and the biblical teaching on the nature of God. Love does not do away with justice. Grace does not do away with justice. The gospel of Christ does not do away with justice. Rather, the gospel of Christ upholds justice. Our text spoke of people who were innocent of certain crimes. The person who has killed a person unintentionally is innocent of premeditated murder. The person who is falsely accused is innocent of the charges. But when it comes to the matter of our standing before Almighty God, the Bible teaches that outside of Christ, none of us are innocent, that all of us are guilty before Him. Read Romans 1, 2, and 3. This rebuke, this accusation of all men, women, boys, and girls of being under sin, of being guilty before a holy God. And Paul talks there about how the law is meant to show us our sin and our guilt and our need for the Savior. So God's word exposes all of us as guilty before a holy God. But in God's amazing grace, he has provided a place of refuge for the guilty. The cities of refuge in our text, they provided refuge for the innocent. Refuge for the person who was innocent of murder. How can God, who is holy and just and righteous, how can he provide guilty sinners like us a place of refuge? Turn with me to our last text, I believe, Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, where we see how the gospel upholds justice. Romans chapter three, beginning of verse 19. 19 and 20 are the conclusion to Paul's accusations against all men, women, boys, and girls of being under sin. Verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now. The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God is just. He cannot deny His justice. He cannot act in a way that would be contrary to His justice. He is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. When he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus, he takes someone who is a sinner and he declares them righteous. He gives them a gift by grace of a right standing with God. He justifies the ungodly. How can God, who we read in the Old Testament, does not acquit the guilty? How can God be just and at the same time justify? Give this gift to the guilty of a right standing with God. When you are justified, God changes your legal status from being guilty before him to being right before him, righteous before him. How can God do that? We see here that the gospel is about God being both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. is what, in verse 24, are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And then he talks about the redemption further in the next verse, speaking of it as propitiation. We're justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now in our study of Deuteronomy 19 today, we talked of how the avenger of blood was a redeemer. He was the Redeemer of blood. Deuteronomy 19 verses 12 through 13 spoke of how the Redeemer of blood purged the guilt of innocent blood from Israel. He purged it by putting the murderer to death. Now Christ, He's the ultimate redeemer who purges guilt. But he doesn't purge guilt by killing the guilty one. He purged our guilt by offering himself in death for us. Christ purged our guilt by offering himself as our substitute. This is the doctrine of penal substitution. Penal meaning penalty. The penal system, the legal system. All right, Christ, he offered himself as the sacrifice that fully paid the penalty that the law requires, that we pay for our sin. He suffered that penalty, he paid the penalty. He offered himself in death as our substitute. This is the only way that God can be just and at the same time justify the one who has faith in Him. because God provided a substitute to satisfy the demands of justice. Justice was satisfied. And that's emphasized in the word propitiation that comes in the next verse, that Christ's redemption was also a propitiation, a sacrifice that satisfied justice, satisfied the wrath of God. And this is the whole basis of our justification. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you've been given a right standing with God because your substitute, your Lord Jesus Christ, he gave himself up in death for you. He became a curse on the tree for us in our place. Our legal status before God as believers has changed. God has changed our legal status from guilty to righteous. when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, we find refuge from the eternal wrath of God. In Christ. We who deserve to die. Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. In Christ, we, the guilty, find justification. In Christ, we find pardon, forgiveness, and eternal life. We live because Christ died and rose for us. Oh, what a wonderful gospel God has given to us. Let us never lose sight of the fact that the God that created us, the God who sustains us, the God for whom we exist, the God who has sent his son for us, he is a just God. That is one of his perfections. And in our response to God's grace towards us, in our response towards Christ's sacrifice for us, in our response to God's gift of eternal life, in our response to God's gift of a right standing with him, We are to love God. How do we love God? We love God by getting to know God. We love God by reflecting God. And we are to reflect all of God's communicable attributes, including his justice. May the Spirit enable us to do so unto the glory of God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are just. and the justifier of the one whose faith is in Jesus. Oh Lord, teach us to seek what is just, to be people of justice, Lord, as well as people of your other attributes, people of mercy, people of love, people of grace. But Lord, may we not seeing Your justice trumped by your other attributes, but may we see your justice as an essential attribute of your character, part of the essence of who you are, part of your glory. Teach us to deal justly with others. For your glory, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.