Well, Christians can disagree on a lot of things, and we do. But there are some things we agree on, right? What are some things we as Christians agree on? Can't lose your salvation? What? Jesus is the Son of God. God is good. God is awesome. All the time. God created the universe. We believe in creation. Anybody else throw some stuff out. I believe in the Trinity, even though the word Trinity is not in the Bible. The teaching is there. Ah, he'll never leave us nor forsake us. That's a great thing to remember and to trust in the belief that there are many things that we could list as things that we would say are essential for Christians ought to believe. But we also know that there are some who kind of on the fringes, or what we call fringes, may not agree with us when we say that God created the world in six days. There are some that are confused, I would call them. There are others who may have some difficulty with the idea that once we're saved, we're always saved, because they're still not sure that someone can't cast off salvation, even though scripture says that we're kept by the very power of God, which means we're pretty safe, because God's pretty powerful. When we get to today's topic, or today's passage that talks about this one topic, I think it's one that all believers ought to embrace and say, yes, Christians ought to believe this. And that is the idea, as I titled the message today, is truth, justice, and the American, no, the Christian way. Because America was founded on Christian principles, that's why it's the American way is to believe in integrity. Christians ought to say yes I believe in integrity yeah thank you appreciate that Chris so as we look at our message today it is God is speaking to his people saying to them I want you to be clear and I want you to be different than the world And we've seen that already in several different ways the way we treat animals and treat human beings and other things and the preciousness of human life. But now we're going to look at the reality that we as believers ought to hold that truth is precious. That there is such thing as truth and that you can't have your own truth and I can have my own truth. There is one truth. And that truth is what best reflects reality. And the truth is found in God's word. All of God's word is true. And it is truth that we can build our lives upon. But justice as well, saying that we want to we want things done correctly, we want done right. We want people treated all under the same law, the same rules. So we believe in truth and justice. And I think together, those bring together the idea of integrity. What is integrity? And we'll we'll be thinking more about that a little later. But would you look with me in the text for today? We're in Exodus chapter 23. And again, this text is part of God speaking to his people, Israel, and saying, I want you to be different. I want you to be peculiar, strange. according to the world, because the world does not really live up to these high ideals. And one of them is integrity. Verse one starts off, says, Thou shalt not raise a false report. I find it flabbergasting when I read something like this. It's like like we would give a false report. Yes. The only reason God ever commands something in Scripture is because we have the tendency to do the opposite. Otherwise, he wouldn't have to command it. He'd just cheer us on. But we're rascals, and he knows that. He knows as fallen human beings, we tend not to be truthful. We deceive. We lie. And when it comes down to it, sometimes we lie in such a way that it hurts others. especially what we call a false report. And we remember the Ten Commandments, right? One, you don't bear false witness against your neighbor. The Ninth Commandment. We find it in Exodus 20, 16. If you want to refer back to that, I'm not really sure that was one of the ten. Yes, it's one of the ten. So now he's taking this ninth commandment and he's going to expand on it a little bit and help us understand. How does that work? What does that mean exactly? In case you're befoggled by the Ten Commandments and not sure because they're so clear what they mean. Thou shalt not raise a false report. And the idea is a false testimony. The idea there is kind of a legal term that you're not going to Commit perjury, you could even say. You're not going to say something that is false under oath. Doesn't say all that, but it could be inferred. Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Put not your hand as King James for don't join hands with. Don't be in partnership with people who don't have integrity. don't have this connection. It's similar to what Corinthians says is don't be unequally yoked. Yes, many times we think of that as marriage and it is an unequally yoking, but sometimes even it means when we're partnering with someone legally. So be careful when you choose your partners in business as well. Because if they lack this honesty, you don't want to put in your hand with them. And it says here that you do not have put your hand in with the wicked and the wicked just simply means the ungodly. It would be the unsaved. It would be those who live in such a way that it's not in line with these things that we're going to look at today as we look at the Ten Commandments. And now he's expanding on the Ninth Commandment. He says there are some people who don't follow this as their values. And if so, then they are considered the wicked or the ungodly. What do you do when you put your hand in or you partner with those who are wicked? It says here you can give a false report, but also it says you can be an unrighteous witness, it says in the King James. I know other versions have other ones there, but the idea of an unrighteous witness is very strong wording and it has to do with malice it has to do with cruelty and even violence so it's the idea of the old mob I don't know if you ever watch old westerns and things and when they think they've gotten somebody who is guilty they all run up the street and go to the sheriff's office and go you know let's hang him And hopefully if the good sheriff there would say, you know, nope, you're not going to get to him. I'm standing in the door. And they're like, we're going to take you out, too, because he's guilty. Everyone knows it. Oh, we got to wait for the judge. You remember those Westerns, right? And it's going to be weeks before he gets here. And it's the idea that struggle right there is he's saying to us, let's not be part of the mob. Let's not always ready to string somebody up without first hearing them out. And you're innocent until proven guilty. And that's kind of where we get our American values from is straight out of the word here. We'll see a lot of it in this text today, is the way that America's justice system is supposed to work is exactly how God set it up for Israel. Because we figured, hey, if it's good enough for Israel, it might be good enough for us. And it's served us well for all these hundred years. Do not put your hand in with the wicked to be an unrighteous or violent or cruel or malicious witness looking to have someone punished because somebody needs to pay. Moves on, it goes in verse 2, thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Again, this idea of evil or wrong behavior. We don't want them to do harm hurt this word evil means to to give pain to so you should not follow a multitude to give pain again the multitude there could easily be would use the word mob or another one another shade of it is the idea of majority sometimes a majority rule mmm doesn't work out too good does it because it's the if you go to a prison somewhere and you take a vote you probably don't want the majority rule, right? That would be a bad group to go with the majority. It depends all on the people that you're polling, right? The majority. In our country, it seems like if they're from New York or from California, you don't want to poll them either. Sorry, I get too political here. Yeah, man. So that's kind of what he's saying here. Don't follow a multitude or a mob or a majority because it could lead to evil or harm. Neither shall you speak in a cause to decline after many to rest judgment. Now, that's a really gobbledygook. It is a lot more better, clearer translations than that. And the idea here is just simply this is don't give your testimony in a way that will be the deciding factor for someone without being very careful. Look what it says here, that you don't want to rest judgment, it says in the King James. In the New American Standard, it says to perverse, to pervert justice. You don't want somehow your testimony to not bring justice or to pervert it in some way. And he uses the same kind of terminology a couple different times, probably three different times in our text today. The idea of somehow twisting things a little bit to where true justice or the truth and justice is not served well. Don't pervert justice. Don't get in there and do something that makes the scales uneven. Don't put your thumb on the scale. It would be a very practical judgment. In those days when they would weigh out any kind of thing that you would want to purchase, they would have weights on one end and they would have whatever you're purchasing on the other. And there were a certain group of merchants who were not very ethical, didn't have integrity. And so what they would do is they would take the weight and make sure it's light. and put it on this side. Well see I have one whatever on this side and this you get one's worth. Well if it's three quarters and he's saying it's one then it's going to come out where you're going to get less product. And this is what he's saying. Don't pervert it. Do not get to where justice is cheapened here. It says here, don't speak in a cause to decline after many. Again, paying attention to the majority or masses. Do not say, well, this is what everyone thinks, so that's good enough. No, let's find out the truth, let's see what it really says. Verse 3, neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. Again, the language there is difficult to follow in the King James, but it helps us to understand what he's saying is, don't be partial. Partiality has no place. And that's why we have on our justice system stuff, you have the lady holding the scale and what's on her face? She's got a blindfold. Why? Because she doesn't know whether you're rich or poor. Everyone gets the same treatment, whether you're rich or poor. And in this case, actually, it appears that that you might favor the poor. It says don't favor the poor just because they're poor. Being poor does not make you the right person or the wrong person. And that's what we'll see in the text. It starts off by saying, don't take up the cause of the poor just because they're poor. We still need to find the truth. But later on, he says also, don't don't go against the poor just because they're poor. You still need to find the truth. So either way. Neither shout out countenance, a poor man in his cause, you won't take his side just because he's the little guy, he's David against Goliath. In your mind, so every time then David is the right one, Goliath is the wrong one because he's bigger. And unfortunately, too many times, you know, in politics, it's been used the word big this and big that, because when you say big, it means bad. And it's not necessarily true. We got to find out what the truth is, and we still go back to that. And then verse four moves on. And it starts talking about something that's impossible without really God's help. Right? Verse 4, "...if you meet your enemies, ox or ass, going astray, wandering, you shall surely bring it back to him again." Now this talks about our personal enemies, personal opponents, personal people who irritate us, that we don't like, that perhaps even we've gone legally to court against. This is our one antagonist of our life, perhaps, and they're our neighbor. And our neighbor's livestock somehow comes over to our yard and gets there. And when we see it, our first thought is, we're having barbecue tonight. But then you realize, hey, wait a minute, that's my neighbor's. And it says here, if it comes onto your property, you don't immediately think barbecue. You immediately bring it back. You bring it back. Because it doesn't belong to you. Right. It would be like the old west where they branded all the cattle. And when that night you're feeding your cattle, you notice there's several different marks out there and it's not yours. And you go, oh, but that's that one guy and I can't stand him. I'm going to let him furnish dinner. No. God says, no, it's not the way you do it. Christians are different than the world. we believe and doing the right thing even when we could probably get away with the wrong thing and even if we could justify it by saying that's a jerk face over there and that jerk face deserves me to eat their food God says even your enemies he tells us to love our enemies he tells us that we do good to those who despitefully use us there's several verses that I've included those and you can look them up later Matthew 544 Romans 12, 17 through 21 and 1 Peter 3, 9 that instruct us about how we overcome evil with good, not give evil for evil. We don't pay back this rascally neighbor by being rascally ourself. Even though we want to. There's no doubt in the flesh, our flesh tells us one thing when God's Spirit's trying to tell us something else. Because we would like to get a little payback. Because they probably owe it to us anyway for all the trouble they've given us. It's called pain and suffering. We're getting settlement for pain and suffering. Which is their cattle. If your enemy's animals go astray, and the idea of astray there just simply means they wander over. What do you do? You bring them back. And then he ups the ante just a little bit more because that's that makes sense and it's reasonable and maybe you could get caught if you tried to butcher it. But look at verse 5. If you see his animal lying under his burden. Now you see his animal hurting. OK. The animal that belongs to this neighbor who you would consider your enemy, now it's ratcheted up one more and it says, the one that what? This guy is a person who hates you. That's a lot stronger than just your enemy. That's just a lot stronger than just saying the neighbor who's a nuisance. This is a neighbor that may actually wish that you would die. They hate you. And you see their animal buckling under a load. Hurt. In need of help. And you go, won't be long now. Oh, that'll be good. I hope that animal dies. That'll teach them. God says, that's not my people. My people aren't going to be that way. They're not going to wish bad things on anybody. they're gonna want to help look what it says if you see it of him that hates you lying under his burden and you would walk away and not help him you better help him you see the language there is like your first tendency is to walk away don't walk away you go and the word there to help is the idea to release or to set them free Reminds me really kind of a couple times with once with my daughter. We were driving in Kansas City Two million people and bunch of busy, and there's a squirrel in the middle of road It's been nipped by a car, but it's still good. You know it's still alive Looks like it's got a leg or something. That's hurt. Maybe and my daughter screams. Oh help it dad. I'm like ah I don't want to help that thing. I'm getting a wreck I Besides, it's just a squirrel, I shoot those all the time. She screams louder, we pull over, I dodge cars, I scoop up an injured squirrel, bring it to the side, and have to set it gingerly at the base of a tree. We have a prayer session and then we leave. Sometimes kids teach us a lot. Because this is what the Lord's saying. Have mercy on that animal. Why? Because God said so. Because it's the right thing to do. Because in that situation, it would have been a lot easier. And I was thinking, just a few more blocks, she'll forget about that squirrel. she didn't and here the instruction is you shall surely help with them you shall release them you shall relieve them of this burden verse 6 now shall not rest the judgment of thy poor in his cause now here perverting again talking about perverting justice and this case is on the negative end you don't take his side just because he's poor but you also don't oppose him just because he's poor It's so easy for us to delineate people poor, rich, smart, dumb, good looking, ugly. We get all those things. But God says everyone's the same. When you're going to have the integrity God wants you to have, you treat everyone exactly the same. Can't help it, every time now I try to study any, I always think of Jack and what he might say about the passage. But one of the amazing things about Jack Brinchley was he treated everybody the same. Same, it didn't matter how much money you had or you didn't have, how smart you were or how smart you weren't. Whether you're a Cajun or you're not, He treated you with dignity. And this is exactly what this passage is saying. Treat everybody the same. Don't don't think that some deserve justice while others do not. We all are to hand out justice to evenly, even handedly, and we hope our justice system would do that as well. Look what it says here in verse 7. Keep thee far from a false matter. That's God's way of saying don't even get close. Don't even hedge a little bit. And the innocent and the righteous slay thou not. Think about it. The innocent and the righteous. This world is cruel to the innocent, isn't it? I mean, abortion is just one way we can see how our country has lost its conscience toward the innocent. When someone is innocent, we should do all we can to protect them. When someone is righteous, we ought to stand up for them. I know you heard me say it before also about Jack and the fact of the matter is I'm still in ministry today because of Jack Brinchley. Because when some would come against me, Jack had no qualms to stand up, put his arm around me and say, I love this man, you better leave him alone. Wow. In all my days of ministry, I've never had anyone stand up for me like that. And so I step back and I look at this text and I go, that's what it's talking about. Not only do you not attack the innocent and the righteous, but you stand up for them and you say, hey, that's not true. What you're saying is just not true. You back them down. We all know that that saying right about the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And so we ought to take this to heart in verse 7. That we're not only not going to slay the righteous and the innocent. But we're going to stand up for them. I'm going to ensure that they have. The proper treatment that they should have. And then he says, for I will not justify the wicked. I will not justify the wicked. Some people think God will justify the wicked. Some people think that some way they'll get into heaven because when they get before God, that God's going to wink at them. That they'll have a side deal. That somehow God might put His finger on the scale a little bit and weigh it just, you were just a little short and then now God's going to put you over the top. That's bad theology. And it's totally wrong. And it's a lie of the devil because the devil wants you to believe that somehow God will justify you without righteousness. God only justifies the righteous. And we only can be righteous if we're in Jesus Christ. Only because of what Jesus has done for us, providing his own precious blood for our sin, He gives us that ability to have our justification, or for God to deem us righteous, to justify us. If you're counting on your own behavior to somehow justify you, let me encourage you, this verse is saying to you today, you are wicked without God. ungodly, wicked, same term. It means without God. Do you have God today in your life? Have you received Jesus Christ as your savior? If so, then you have the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, God will justify you. He will declare you righteous, not because of your own deeds, but because of Christ deeds. Paying for your sin. Do not be misled to believing that somehow you can fudge the scales of heaven and get over the top and get there by your good works. Only by Jesus' good can we get to heaven. We move on, verse 8. And thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blinds the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. This gift is like a bribe. And we know about bribes, right? We've heard about bribes. My first time really seeing it in action, I was teaching at a Christian school. That's a good place for a bribe, right? And one of the buildings had burnt to the ground because someone didn't turn off the baptistry heater. They did drain the water and it caught fire and burnt the building. Well, we needed to build it back as quickly as we could, and we needed an electrical panel, and it was going to be like one of those big, big ones. And I forget how many thousands of dollars it was going to cost. But this one company that we could get it from kept putting us off, putting us off, and we just couldn't get the building finished until we got this panel. So finally, After, I don't know, I think they called him like 10 times trying to get this panel to come in. And the guy said, well, for a few more bucks, I could put you up to the front of the line. And I was like, whoa, that happens. And it was like, oh my goodness. And I thought, I guess bribes are still in fashion. I think some people still go with that. I thought it was only down in Mexico. We experienced it there on a mission trip. If you have some money, then you can go. If not, we're gonna inspect your whole van a couple times over. The bribe, it says. It does a couple things. Look what it says it does. Don't take a bribe because it blinds the wise. You start doing foolish things. You don't see things as they ought to be. You turn a blind eye on things that ought to be dealt with. But here's some money. You don't see anything, do you? Reminds me of, what's his name, on Hogan's Heroes. I see nothing, nothing. Schultz, that's him. He could be made to see nothing. And it's the same way with the bribe. Sometimes people turn a blind eye to wrongdoing because they're getting money and money is more important to them than their integrity. It blinds the wise and it perverts the words of the righteous. perversive words there means that they can't really come out and say what they ought to say. Because somehow, someone they're indebted to, and if they say the truth, it's going to incriminate the person who gave them the bribe. what a sad thing that is when you find someone faced with the truth and you say well this right here in this case normally would be wrong but in this case well I'm not going to call it wrong wait a minute it's either wrong or it's not and a bribe makes people make the wrong call about right and wrong they began to want to plead the fifth because perhaps if they say the other way it will be convicting to more than themselves and then it goes on to say verse 9 last verse also thou shalt not oppress a stranger for you know the heart of a stranger because you are in Egypt oppress don't oppress a stranger Well, strangers are people who aren't native to that land, whoever it might be. Don't oppress them. It's the word to squeeze or to crush. Don't squeeze. Don't make them feel like they're going to die from all the pressure that you're putting on them. Don't oppress them is a good word in the King James. And he says, you guys, of all people, the Jews ought to understand how a stranger feels. Because they've had to be a stranger for so long in Egypt. And even after that. this heart of a stranger. What is the heart of a stranger? As you think about it, how do you feel when you go into a crowd that you don't know anybody? Well, some of us, we'd about die because we have social anxiety, right? Others, you know, might do a little dance. But I think he talks more here, a heart of a stranger, more of the social anxiety crowd. More are those who feel as though they are disconnected from the group. It'd be similar to people who visit in a church. We visited a church when we took the weekend off last weekend. We took a visit to church around Castle Rock. And I think I was the only man with long pants on. Everyone else had shorts. So immediately I started feeling pretty conscious, self-conscious. And later on it got a little wild and willy in there. So we really felt strange throughout the whole thing. It's a feeling of disconnection, a lack of belonging. And there's also in the heart of a stranger this thing of fear. A fear of harm or perhaps abuse or being embarrassed. The heart of a stranger has a lack of trust and wants to trust, but is scared to trust anybody because you know that this person may not have integrity. How difficult is it to find someone that you can trust in so many different of life situations? And so we go with that word of mouth. And that's why that's the best advertisement because you ask, hey, can I trust this person? Oh yeah, you can trust that person. Ask for Joe or Bill or whatever. And then you go that person because sometimes Yelp is not that dependable, right? Sometimes those reviews online are a little bit skewed. Used to be the Better Business Bureau was where people went. And if the BBB said they were a good company, you could trust them. Unfortunately, it's not like that anymore. Because if they just pay their dues and they don't have anybody necessarily sue them, then they can have lots of negative replies. The heart of a stranger is someone who needs someone to reach out to them. And that's why we hopefully as a church have making our practice that when someone visits our church, we make every effort to let them know, hey, you can trust us. We're here. We want to get to know you. Please come back. You're welcome here. So let's talk about integrity a little bit. Integrity. Our integrity is always under assault. We are always in this world being challenged not to have integrity. Because everybody else does it. You should do it too. No. God has called us to be different. Our integrity is challenged by at least three things. Evil. out and out evil, enemies that we might have who want to bring us down, and enticements, probably plural enticements. How about evil? Well, we have to resist some things that are evil before God. And one is perjury. Perjury. Giving false testimony. Secondly, we resist popularity. Boy, sometimes we just want to be popular, so we jump in with the crowd. And thirdly, we resist partiality, choosing one person over another based on simply how much money they have, or how they look, or if they're popular. Our integrity is not only challenged by evil, but also by enemies. By enemies. And when he says to love our enemies, It means we do good for them. It's not just I love you, therefore I don't hate you. It's love you. I love you and therefore I will do good for you. I will bless you and I will pray for you. And what else would I do? I will be resigned to return. Return what is yours to you. I will bring it back to you. I am resigned also to repay. I will repay what? good for your evil. That's the hard part, right? To repay good when they do nothing but evil to you. But God says that's what I want you to do to be different. That'll shake them up and it will. Thirdly, you resign to rescue them to rescue to be there, be a good neighbor and neighbors for many, many years were known to just simply be there when you're raising a barn or whatever you're, you know, Brandon cattle are taken in the crops. that you need an extra hand, your neighbor was there for you. And even if they're not there for you, you ought to be there for them if you're a Christian, if you were a Jew. And then thirdly, our integrity is challenged by enticements. The enticement is for us to take a bribe and disrespect the truth and others. Respecting the indigent simply means the poor, the needy. Respecting the innocent. And then here's one I had to stretch a little. And respect the incomer. It's actually a word. It just simply means someone who's new to us. Strangers. Strangers. How about you? Can you see that integrity is part of the Christian peculiarity? Integrity, I like, is a definition I found. I just want to give you that as we close. Integrity is choosing courage over comfort. Choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. Choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them. Again, integrity is choosing courage over comfort. What is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. Choosing to practice our values rather than just profess them. That's integrity. What we do, what we say, we believe.