From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. Thank you for joining us today. Once again, this is Alan Kearns with you to bid you welcome to Let the Bible Speak. Our daily devotional today is taken from Numbers 32 verse 23, one of the most famous and perhaps misunderstood texts in the Bible. We're going to talk about the sin of doing nothing. Be sure your sin will find you out. The sin that Moses warns against in these words is the sin of doing nothing. Reuben and Gad wished to remain on the east of Jordan while their brethren went to war on the other side. There are many Reubenites and Gadites still with us, people who have no heart for the battle against the Lord's enemies, though they're quite happy to enjoy the benefits that others fight hard to win. The land that these two tribes desired was territory which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel. Now these men wished to take possession of it, but they didn't want to fight themselves. What base ingratitude such a spirit displays! Our gospel liberties can be traced back through a history of imprisonment, torture, exile, loneliness, martyrdom, and much more. Such was the lot of those who suffered that we might have the faith that we enjoy today. How ungrateful we are to them if we don't now contend for that faith. Furthermore, this sin is a discouragement to those who are currently engaged in the conflict. In not putting our neck to the work, we're committing the sin of discouraging others who are endeavoring to serve the Lord. Then again, it's a sin that divides the Lord's army. Many of the rifts in congregations stem from the behavior of people who are mere idlers, in Paul's words, working, not at all, busybodies. This sin will find you out. It will come home to you if you fail to lend all your strength to the work of God. Regret, a troubled conscience, shame before the Lord. These are just a few of the ways in which this sin finds men out. May God stir our hearts and help us to flee from the sin of doing nothing. Our thought for the day from Thomas Brooks, another great Puritan, an idle life and a holy heart, is a contradiction. Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cross, or blush to speak His name? Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not shed the blood? Is this the world a friend to praise? To help me unto God? It's good to have you with us today and I hope that you've been enjoying the program. I hope also that you'll take advantage of the various resources that we try to make available to you here in Let the Bible Speak. They are yours free of charge if you simply let us know that you'd like to have them. Let me highlight four of them. First, for all who need help regarding the way of salvation and the first steps of the Christian life, we have my booklet, A New Beginning. Second, for those who wish to know more about the beliefs and stand of the Free Presbyterian Church, We have the booklet separated onto the Gospel. Then we have our Let the Bible Speak quarterly magazine, and finally our monthly Let the Bible Speak tape or CD, a sort of a devotional and instructional magazine on tape or compact disc. Now here's something special. For some time we have been studying the law and the Ten Commandments here on Let the Bible Speak, and we're approaching the end of that series. As we do so, we're offering the book that I wrote as a result of the original messages. It's titled Chariots of God, and it's a 300-page in-depth study of the subject. If you've enjoyed the radio messages, then I'm sure you'll enjoy the book as well. While our stocks last, we're offering this book, Chariots of God, A Study of the Law of God, a book that retails for $15, we're offering it free of charge to those of you who request it. Now, if you'd like to receive any or all of these resources, you should write to us or call. Our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak, 1207, Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615 Our email address is ltbs at freeprez that is f-r-e-e-p-r-e-s ltbs at freeprez dot org and our toll-free telephone number for those who wish to call us is 866-877-LTBS We look forward to hearing from you. His blood will flow He is risen from the dead and is born. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is born. you. Up from the doom He came with grace and gladness, He is alive, He is alive. God loves us all, He gives His hand, His feet, His hand. Yes, we know He is alive! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! And crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him. Round him with many crowns, a lamb upon his throne, Come, thou beautiful hilltop, Awake my soul and speak Of him who dies for thee, And may his hand by matchless feet Through all eternity lead. Now lift the Lord on high, Whose triumph o'er the grave, Who rose victorious to the sky, For those He came to save. His glory now we sing, Who died and rose on high, to guide me through the life to bring at least at deathday light. His eyes, His voice, He is risen from the dead I'm Yesterday, in our opening study of the Ninth Commandment, we got as far as starting to look at the place of witnesses in the Old Testament legal system and the obligation of complete truthfulness that the Lord lays on them. And that's where we'll take up today's study. In the Old Testament's legal framework, witnesses had a very vital role It lay with witnesses to establish guilt or innocence. And literally, the power of life and death was in the hands of witnesses. The Scriptures are very clear in this, in Deuteronomy 17 and 6. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death. But at the mouth of one witness, he shall not be put to death. Again in chapter 19 and verse 15 of Deuteronomy, one witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. So it's very clear that the work of the witness was of very grave importance to the system that God set up in Israel. However, looking at this humanly, you can immediately see that the potential for abuse of a witness system was very great. And so therefore, the Lord, right from the beginning, acknowledged the devastating effects of false or lying witnesses. You remember that in the book of Proverbs 25 and 18, we are told that a man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul. It's an old-fashioned word that means a war club. He's a war club, and a sword, and a sharp arrow. Those are all weapons of war. And the Lord says that the false witness, using his wicked words, is actually employing these vicious weapons of war for the destruction of an innocent person. You may remember that Jezebel employed them against Naboth when, in Ahab's name, she sent to the elders and the judges of Naboth's hometown. You'll read of it in 1 Kings 21, verses 8 through 12. And she had them suborn some witnesses to gather some liars who stood up and before the assembled court, They said of Naboth, you blaspheme God and the king. They put him to death just so that Jezebel and her husband could steal his property. You remember that the priests of Israel used these weapons against the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 26, 59 and 60 tells us how they sought for false witnesses. We read the same thing concerning Stephen in Acts chapter 6, that the priests sought for false witnesses who came and said that Stephen had spoken blasphemous words against the holy place of God's house. So, false witness was a very, very grave danger. And that's why under the law, God made Israel do everything possible to ensure the integrity and the honesty of witnesses. For example, witnesses in a capital case have to be the first in executing the judgment that their witness called for. Deuteronomy 17, verse 7, the hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death. And afterward the hands of all the people, so shalt thou put away evil from among you. " Now, there are many people who could lie without much conscience, but it's a different thing. When to prove the honesty of your accusation, you've got to go out before God and men, and you take the instrument of death in your own hand. It is not an anonymous executioner that puts this man to death. It is your hand that's first upon him. That was one safeguard God built into the system. Then there was another, a very powerful one. You read of it in Deuteronomy 19, verses 16 to 19, that false witnesses were exposed to the very punishment that they sought to bring on an innocent party by their lying witness. This is what the Lord says in verse 18 and 19, If the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother, then shall ye do unto him as he had thought to have done to his brother, so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. So the witnesses were to be honest. The Lord warned the judges to judge righteously. In the words of Jehoshaphat to his judges, take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment. Moses told them in Deuteronomy 16 and 19, thou shalt not rest judgment, thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift or a bribe, for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous. Now this is the basic meaning of the Ninth Commandment. It's a divine directive to a nation to establish a pure and a just judicial system that will be equally accessible to all its subjects. Now when that fails, a nation becomes a very easy prey to tyranny and indeed to anarchy. That places a great burden on the legal profession. I know that lawyers are people we love to hate, and lawyers' jokes are always doing the rounds. I pity our brother Tim Farr here, because everybody who hears a lawyer's joke runs straight to Tim to tell him the latest thing about lawyers. But remember, it was God who established lawyers in Israel. And He gave them, and still gives to them, a very noble task. Tragically, the position of the lawyer has all too often been prostituted for financial gain or for political office. The prosecutor or the prosecution witness who presents only those aspects of his case, only those aspects of the truth that he deems will suit his cause, And his cause is a conviction rather than the truth. That prosecutor is a liar according to the ninth commandment. Similarly, the counsel who says his only concern is to get his client off, no matter what the cost in the malignant slurs that he hurls at honest witnesses. or no matter how he plays fast and loose with the truth to let a criminal loose on an unsuspecting society, that counsel will find that at the judgment bar of God there is no place for his specious arguments. And he will be damned as a liar, because all liars have their part in the lake that burns with fire. I saw a lawyer in operation in a report not too long ago. Some of you may have seen him too. One of the most disgusting perversions of the legal profession that's possible to see. We're under the pretext that everybody must have a defense. Admission of guilt. would have been the best defense. A man who had wiped out a family by drunken driving, with a history of some 15 years of drunken driving and scoffing at every law of the land, and ignoring anything that any court or any judge could do to him. The lawyer said, my only aim is to get him off. And he could lie and twist and pervert. The tragedy is, though he failed in that case, in the vast majority of his cases he succeeds. And unless he repents when he stands before God, he'll be damned. Not as a great man of law, not as a successful advocate, but as a liar condemned of God. Now, if this is applicable in the state, it's much more applicable in the church. And here in the church of Christ, the standard of judgment must be truth. Even when the state sets up a different standard, the church must not accept it. For example, if you were with us when we were studying the seventh commandment, you'll know that the law of God sets its own standards for morality. Now, the state sets different standards. The law of God sets its standard for divorce. The state sets different standards. In some cases, those who adopt the state standards stand condemned as adulterers by the standard of the Word of God. The church must minister to adulterers and every other kind of sinner. God save us from getting to the place where we sit back in our little holy box and we say, there's the big bad world out there and we can't ever have anything to do with it or anything to say to it. The church must minister to adulterers and every other kind of sinner. But it must not enshrine adultery as an acceptable standard of judgment or behavior in the house of God. Now this then is the thrust of the ninth commandment. It condemns corrupt judicial proceedings, truth, not opinion, not vengeance, not envy, or any other motive. Truth must be the basis of judgment. Mercy may operate, but it can only operate on the basis of truth. That's a point I would love to have time to develop. But I want you to understand that mercy can only operate on the basis of accepted truth. Where truth is denied, it is not mercy that triumphs, it is total injustice. And once truth is clear, then no man's position, no man's money, no man's influence, no man's friends, should be able to protect him from its just and biblical sentence. So this ninth commandment, then, seems to protect the judicial system of a nation. And here in America, this is something you can think of. You would be amazed at just how much of the safeguard we enjoy is derived from those built into the Word of God. We have much for which to be grateful there. You have been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freeprez.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at Let The Bible Speak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina, 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, we'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us, or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, but you can find it all on our website letthebiblespeakradio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com This is Allan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we Let the Bible Speak.