After the Sermon: Deuteronomy 19-20
5/4/26 | Will DuVal | DEUTERONOMY: Remembering God's Faithfulness; Responding in Obedience
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Welcome to the After the Sermon podcast, where Pastor Will answers your follow-up questions and we share your personal applications from the sermon for the benefit of the church. My name is Brian. I'm here with our lead pastor, Will.
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Hey, hey.
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We want to remind you with this podcast that sermons are not just a Sunday thing. So as we've done the last few weeks, do you maybe just start off with a brief recap of the sermon from yesterday?
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Yeah, I'm going to be real brief because we have nine questions that I'm super excited about. All of them, really good questions. I want to save most of our time for that. And we're going to try and keep this done in 45 minutes. So less than five minutes per question, which is going to be hard because they're great. So this recap will be real quick. We were in Deuteronomy chapters 19 and 20. I titled it the God of the Law Part two because back in chapter four where Moses starts the kind of middle big chunk section of Deuteronomy is where we had part one. And I introduced this idea of, hey, with the next however many 15 weeks of unpacking God's law, let's don't lose the forest for the trees here. What is God's law all about? As much as anything, we believe that God's law is about him.
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Him is about him. It's about him showing us his heart, his priorities, his values. And so what can we discern and make of God's character and his heart based on these specific laws and precepts? And so we just kind of continued in that endeavor. And I think we're going to have a part three, maybe even a part four of the God of the law and just continuing to add like clumping together these clusters of laws and saying, "Yeah, what is this? Oh, this teaches..." And a lot of it, again, will probably be repetitive. I mean, we'll probably come back to this idea of this shows us God loves justice. This shows us God values mercy. And so you're going to get some repetition based on the specific precepts that we get to in the future weeks as well. But yeah, that's where we were. And so our four kind of main points from yesterday were God desires, values justice, God values, desires faith.
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And we talked about justice for the innocent and justice for the guilty. God values faith. God values. I'll see if I can even remember them a day later. God values purity, holiness, and then God values mercy. And so we've seen so much of that, those points already, and we'll return to them again. But yeah, that was your gist.
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Thanks. First one's from Callie. She writes, "You mentioned assuming the best about people's intentions as part of practicing justice. Are there boundary lines to this, particularly when interacting with non-believers to keep us from falling into wrong belief that people are inherently good?"
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Such a great question. And I think, again, for the starting my clock here, I got my shot clock timer for ... Nope, not 50 minutes per question.That would be a problem. Yeah, five. I think the short answer to the question, Callie, is yes. There has to be boundary lines to the idea that we're called to assume the best about someone's intention. The context for that, by the way, was the first maybe 13 verses of Deuteronomy 19 where with the establishment of the cities of refuge and someone being able to, who's guilty of manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, accidentally killing someone, running to this city and not being rushed to judgment and attribute motive. "Hey, you meant to kill that person. This is premeditated murder. We're putting you to death capital punishment thing. "And so again, the principle I drew out of that was let's not rush to judgment.
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Let's maybe assume the best. Maybe this was an accident. As the example Moses gave in verse five, maybe the acts handle just slung off.
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The acts had slung off the handle and accidentally killed the person. But I do think, absolutely, and especially I think one of our later questions about this as well from Ayla, maybe I can lump it in and get an extra five minutes if I need, but maybe I won't. But Ayla asked a great question about, if I can just pull that up too and lump that in, in reference to this idea of ... No, it wasn't Ayla's. Nevermind. Hers is a different, great question. Well, let me just stick to Callie's. The benefit of the doubt, I think yes, only realistically extends so far. I mean, I think trust is ... Once trust is ... Certainly if someone is giving you a reason, either because in Callie's point, they're an unbeliever and we know we can't assume that people are inherently basically good, we're not, we're inherently sinful, but especially in a case like someone has wronged you in the past.
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That's whoever asked that question, where you've been wronged by this person in the past, and so why would I assume the best? I think that's where we have to have a wider conversation about forgiveness, reconciliation. Is there repentance there? Is there all those kinds of considerations? But suffice it to say, I do think it's relevant that God is giving these laws in the context of his covenant people. And Callie's pointing out for us, what about the situation where it's an unbeliever? I mean, would we, should we assume the best about their motives? And I mean, Hebrews says anything that doesn't proceed from faith is sin. And so if someone is not a person of faith, how can anything that's coming from them not be tainted with sin? I think you can make the case that absolutely it's going to at least be tainted with sin.
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But I don't think that ... I'm not saying that that necessarily means that just because someone's not a Christian means that their motives are always inherently just self-centered or something like that. Because I do think that common grace is powerful and that God gives the ability for unbelievers to actually love their children. It's not just Christians that have the capacity to love their spouse or their children, much less even love others, a friend, a stranger. I think that non-Christians can genuinely be positively predisposed toward and caring toward and selfless toward in their love and care and concern for even perfect strangers. And so that, if I can wrap it together, I think what I am saying, Callie, is that let's assume that that is true. Let's assume the best about that person's motives until proven otherwise. I don't think we're called to be people who have our heads stuck in the sand and pretend like reality isn't reality.
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I think that when someone shows their cards and shows, "Hey, actually I'm a selfish jerk and I'll throw you under the bus the first chance I get to promote myself instead," or whatever it might be, those selfish motives, I think then you have to ... We're not called to ... Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and it doesn't mean pretending like that isn't true and that that person is someone that they're not.
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But I think that, again, it goes back to innocent until proven guilty, right? I mean, that was part of the principle we talked about too, is innocent until proven guilty. And so I think that's the way we should approach our view of other people and their motives. I'm going to assume the best until proven otherwise. So hope that's helpful.
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Next one is from John who wrote in the sermon, you said something along the lines that things would be bad if there was no retributive justice for wrongdoing. That makes sense to me, but how do you make sense of Jesus' instruction on retaliation in Matthew 5:38-42?
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Yeah. Well, this was, or at least related to the specific question that I kind of fed the church and said, "Hey, somebody ought to be ... The bell should be going off for you. " As I'm saying this, Gandhi was wrong when he said, "An eye for an eye just leaves the whole world blind. And don't do that. Don't do the eye for an eye thing." And wasn't he just plagiarizing Jesus? So here's Jesus in Matthew 5:38 through 42. "You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth over 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, give him your cloak as well, and he goes on from there.
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But we'll leave it with that. Again, Jesus seemingly, again, for us biblical inerrantists who believe that scripture, all scripture is God breathed and contains no errors. And how do you put this and that together? Seems like Jesus is contradicting something God specifically said in the Old Testament. Here's what I would say. I would say ... I'm not going to go actually to that whole question of Jesus contradicting or not, but what I am going to say about when it comes to how do we apply this principle of retributive justice and making sense of what Jesus says, I think Jesus is talking to individual followers of his. He's talking to a crowd, but I mean, I think he's meant to be understood to be talking to individual people in that crowd and individual readers of his word now of the Sermon on the Mount and saying," Hey, this is the high, high calling that I call my followers to that is really above and beyond what certainly those of the world are called to, but I would say make the argument even above and beyond what God called his Old Testament, Old Covenant people to Israel.
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The eye for an eye is, that's old covenant law, right? I mean, it's Old Testament. And I think about redemptive history as developing in stages. And I think about God's old covenant people, Israel, being sort of God's children in their infancy, baby, toddler, adolescent phase, teenage phase, and now Jesus is calling us really to something radical and new and different. And so I would kind of make that point. The other point I'm going to make with it is, again, thinking about the context of the Lextalianas, Ivor and I tooth for tooth, God is laying out not just principles, but precepts, laws, for a theocratic society. I mean, Israel was their own people group and nation state and this law that he's giving them was to be the law of the land for governing a whole society, right? That's not what Jesus is doing in Matthew five with the sermon on the mill.
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I mean, Jesus, in a sense, he's giving a law that fleshing out the law of love that he came to ... He said a new command I bring you, love. And here's what it really means to love is to go even beyond that, to turn the other cheek. But I think what he's saying, his law is to be binding on the church. We are his society, his people, but it's different. We're not a geopolitical nation state. And so I think the law within the church, the way that if you want to think about in our church constitution at West Tills, and if we're going to have, "Hey, here's what you agree to if you're a member of this church and here's how we operate," then it's turn the other cheek because that's Jesus' law for his people and his family of God here, all of that.
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But that's very different than ... I'm not even going to get to the Christian nationalism thing and like the people that want the 10 commandments written in the courtrooms and everything else. But if America today were a theocracy and if Donald Trump was God's appointed king for his appointed chosen people, I mean, that's the way it used to function, doesn't anymore. I want to be clear. That's not how I or we as a church think about America certainly or even Israel today, Netanyahu, all of that, that's not the way it is. But if it were, then ... And even though it's not, here's what I'll say to wrap up, is like, I think Turn the Other Cheek is a great principle for the church and for individual believers, certainly. I think it's a horrible principle and I don't think Jesus ever intended it to be the law of the land for nation states, for America.
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I think it would be, frankly, I think it would be immoral, injust, unloving, horrible if to ask her, expect ... As much as it's powerful ... Here, let me take it to the courtroom and make it put the rubber on the road. As much as we see these viral videos of the girl who was raped and killed and her parents go to the guilty party's trial in the courtroom and they stand up in front of everybody weeping and say, "We forgive you, " that's turning the other cheek. That's a beautiful, wonderful thing that only Jesus has the power to empower that kind of radical forgiveness, right? I don't think it's at all appropriate. I think it's highly unjust and immoral if the judge in that courtroom stands up and says, "I forgive you. I acquit you. " No, that's not your role. Your role is I for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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Your role is justice. Your role is to enforce the law and that person goes to prison, gets the death penalty, whatever it might be. So holding those two things intention obviously can be difficult. Certainly if you're, I don't know, a Christian judge, I mean, on the personal level, yeah, I hold no animosity, whatever, but as put on my judge hat here, you're going to jail. So there's lots more that could be said and probably should be and unpacked there, but I'm going to leave it at that because I'm already past my five minutes. Great question, John. Thank you.
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This next one, this person chose not to include their name and it's on my to- do list to make it more clearly a way to submit anonymous questions. Cool. So be on the lookout for that listener, please. So this person submitted in reference to verse 15 in chapter 19, "One witness cannot establish any iniquity or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. What about victims of crimes such as rape who may be the only quote witness?" Are we to discredit the accounts of single witnesses in that scenario until there are more victims?
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That's a great question. So good. Thank you for asking it as all these. So here's something interesting that I learned even in preparing for the sermon and in Googling about, like I was doing ChatGPT and Google to say, give me, what's the legal terminology? I know there's a principle here that we now has been enshrined in our own constitution and law for all of these presumption of innocence or retributive justice or what was the one proportionate penalty, all the different kind of legalese terminology that I threw at you yesterday, this one, the two witness rule. It's the two witness rule. And it's interesting that even to go to Deuteronomy for a minute, it says, shall be established on the basis of two witnesses or of three witnesses. Well, you just said two, so why'd you say three? Well, because three is an even stronger case, right?
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I mean, if it's just these two people versus the one person, it's like, "Oh man, you'd really love to have more witnesses." But if it's three, it's like ... I think the reason it says two or three is to make it clear, the more witnesses, the better, like the stronger the case. Here's what I'll say about, because to this anonymous question is, what I learned is that actually this two witness rule that we have enshrined in law that is law keeps it from being just he said, she said, even in the case of something like rape, I mean, unfortunately, and there's so many, you can't even begin to count, I'm sure the number of times when it ... Yeah, it's impossible to prove, and I guess, and it's a hit and run accident or whatever it might be where it was just the two of us on the road that night and it's your word versus mine.
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"You turn into me. "No, your car turned into mine. It's like, who do we believe? And that's where in America, with the two witness rule, it's the one eyewitness testimony plus the evidence, the factual just evidence of the case. So certainly what you'd love to have sadly happen in the case of rape is you go to the hospital and you get a rape kit done, right? Or your car ran into mine. No, your car ran into mine. You have the insurance or the police come out and do the report. And in a lot of these cases, people have gotten really good at piecing together. No, actually we can tell based on where the car was hit. You were the one that turned into there, or you were at this stoplight and we can look at the camera, whatever it might be. So you're then relying on the quote unquote witness of a secondary party that is really just the objective evidence and case, facts of the case.
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Now again, that's going ... How many cases is that impossible for? Do we not have? And you really just have the he said, she said, because the person either didn't go to the doctor to get the test done or couldn't or whatever the case may be. I mean, there's just any number of hypothetical and not hypothetical scenarios where that's impossible and it's just a he said, she said. And that's where I think really, really sadly in a lot of those cases, if there's purely nothing to go on ... I mean, last night, my two boys is a stupid example, but my Bo broke the water gun for the second time, he put mud in a water gun, electric water gun or battery powered that sucks up the water. So then it sucks up the mud. It jams up the gun. Now the water gun doesn't work.
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He did it, went and got another water gun. He did it again. Can't even begin to tell you just the justice that's going on in my heart with that. But Elijah says," Hey, I saw him do this. "I said," Why is this water gun not working now? "Elijah said," I saw him do it. "Both said I didn't do it. It went back and forth. I was pretty sure the gun's not working. So that's the secondary thing there is like the gun's not working. So I've got my second witness already kind of, but it's like, then we go to motive, right? Did they hate each other in the past? Does Elijah have a reason to try and throw his brother on the bus? So anyway, what was the point I was making because I'm at the end of my five minutes. The point I'm making is there are just going to be cases where if the judge cannot definitively say," Yeah, there's too much evidence here to incriminate, there's two witnesses, three witnesses, and it's just a he said, she said, and innocent until proven guilty and we can't convict this rapist or whatever it is That's a really, really, really tragic situation that happens all the time in the fallen world that we live in.
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And it's terrible and that's where at the end of the day, I don't know how you can get through this sinful, broken world without resorting to and having the comfort of a God of justice who is going to right every wrong. And if you don't get justice this side of eternity, you better believe our God saw that rape. He saw that hit and run. He saw that water gun. He saw that whatever it is and he's going to get justice unless that justice was poured out on the cross of Christ on your behalf. So praise God for the gospel. All right, I'll stop there.
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Matt wrote in, "In light of Deuteronomy 20, what is the Christian response to war? Besides the just war theory, how should an individual Christian respond to a draft, especially if it's for a reason he doesn't support?" What if it's called by an administration he doesn't support? Can a Christian morally use the excuses given, e.g., I just got married to ignore the draft, even if it means he would willingly go to prison instead. Can a Christian support an anti-war movement?
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Wow. I mean, we could spend 50 minutes or more on this and maybe should. Maybe we should pull this aside and ask Matt if he listens to this, "Hey, would you like to hear more?" Turn it into an Ask the Pastors podcast episode and just do a deeper dive. I can't remember, Brian, if we did a just war. I think we did though. I feel like we did one on what is the just war theory and so maybe even sharing that with him, but let me see if I can challenge myself to do a one sentence reply to each of his five questions there and then we can go deeper later if he wants. What is the Christian response to war in a sentence? It's terrible, it's tragic, but it's sadly inevitable in the following world that we live in. Even Jesus said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Obviously I think he meant that spiritually, but I do think that Christians can, and frankly, in some cases should be in support of war.
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Okay. Second, besides the just war theory, how do we respond to a draft, especially for a reason you don't support? I think, like Luther said, it's not good or right or smart to break with your Christian conscience. I think if the country you're living in is going to war in an unlawful way and an unlawful war for bad reasons and only bad outcomes and whatever else, I think, yeah, it is frankly, your Christian duty that trumps your American or national duty to say, "No, I'm not going to go fight for that cause. And if that means you go to prison, then so be it. " What if it's called by an administration he doesn't support? I guess that's a secondary like ... I would say the administration shouldn't matter. I would say, again, what matters is the war and the cause and all of that.
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So can a Christian morally use the excuses given like, "I just got married to ignore a draft, even if it means he would willingly go to prison instead." I would say no. I would say again, these were precepts for a different time and period in people, Israel.
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We can debate whether or not that should be the law. That was the law of the land. God is establishing the law of the land for his people Israel 3,400 years ago, not for America today. So if that were the law of the land today, and there were exemption clauses for getting out of a draft, and there are, just not maybe that one, but then I would say absolutely. I mean, if that's the law of the land, then maybe unless your conscience binds you otherwise, that yeah, I don't have to go fight because here's my out that God has given me or that America has given me or whatever. But yeah, I don't think you can, like I said, draw that straight line between the Bible's exemptions and then today. And then lastly, can a Christian support an anti-war movement? Wow, that's a really good question.
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I mean, I guess on the one hand, you can say, of course, there have been many great, wonderful Bible believing, Jesus loving, total pacifist. I mean, that's the terminology, pacifism. Pacifist of the past and present, great dear brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I would disagree, I'd say again, a little bit of your head's in the sand.
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Look around like the fallen world we live in, like sometimes war is even biblically is called for, God calls for. And so, but yeah, I think Christians can, but should they, again, that's not my position. So thanks, Matt. Great questions.
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And we don't have one on war.
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We don't. Man, we need to. Okay.
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Not that I found.
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All right. Thanks, Matt. Well, hey, if somebody listening to this is like, "Yeah, you should do a 50 minute on just war theory and pacifism and whatever." I could have sworn we did one. All right. Well-
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If you find it, send them
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Out. Okay. Yeah. Send it to us.
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This one is from another anonymous congregant who wrote in, "I enjoyed learning about refuge cities this week. Thank you for that. How do we overcome faithlessness when our instincts are so much louder than the small whisper? And what do we do when we give into fear?"
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Wow. Well, got to start with prayer, right? Starts with prayer. God helped me to be filled with faith in you and not fear. Helped me to see a Elisha's servant that he prayed for that was so worried about the Syrian troops, the Syrian army, 100,000, whatever it was, troops lined up against him and Elisha prayed for him like, "Hey, God opened his eyes to see your troops, the heavenly armies that fight." Or you think of David and the trembling King Saul and all the other Israelite, all the 20 plus year old soldiers supposedly, and then you got this teenage shepherd boy that comes to the bat It'll feel just to bring him food to his brothers and see what's going on. And he's the one with the faith that sees things rightly that, yeah, the giant may be bigger, but may be big, but my God is bigger.
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So I think it starts with prayer. It's got to start with prayer. I think if I can keep with the spiritual disciplines, studying the word, internalizing God's word, because God's word is filled with these stories of God doing impossible things. And again, do I really believe it? Do I really believe that he's done it before? He can do it again? And kind of like the Shadrach Me Shaq and Abednego when Nebuchadnezzar's throwing him in the fire and they're like, "We believe that God can deliver us. We believe he will deliver us, but even if he doesn't, I'm not going to bow down to you. " I love that because it's easy to say, "Well, yeah, God can theoretically, I mean, he look at everything he did in the Bible." But to say, "No, no, no. I believe he will do it. I believe he will defeat heal me of this cancer or get me through this tragic death in the family or whatever the situation might be that you have all this fear and anxiety around that you want God's faith instead." I believe he will do this and I'm clinging to that hope and also if he doesn't.
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If he doesn't deliver me from the fiery furnace and I don't walk out of here alive and I burn up because guess what? There's a lot of those in the Bible too. There's a lot of martyrs and there's a lot of people that for every one person that Jesus healed in his earthly ministry, he walked by others that didn't get the same healing. And so God has his own ways and he may not decide to beat cancer for me in the way that I am hoping and trusting and praying that he will. And yet even then, I'm not going to bow and worship you like Shadrach, Mishak and Abednego said, if that's not his will for me. So I think, yeah, prayer, filling your mind and heart with God's word.
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And what do we do when we give into fear and we fall short and we find ourselves faltering, our faith faltering. Anyway, I think you repent, you repent, you acknowledge it and you say, "God, there I go again." Just like the Israelites, like best of intentions, of course we're going to trust you. Of course we're going to obey you. Of course, we're going to live in faith and not in fear. And then first sign of trouble. And I shirk away again and I take matters into my own hands. I forget to trust you. God, I'm sorry. I want this to be different. Next time this happens, I don't want to do it the same way. And you repent and you pray for the strength and the growth and the Holy Spirit to move and continue that work of sanctification to get progressively a little more like Christ today.
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I haven't arrived. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to win every faith, fear, battle, but by God's grace and with his help and his spirit, I can win more battles than I lose increasingly. My faith next year will be stronger than it was this year. So yeah, great questions. Thank you.
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I wrote in two of them. My first one, how do I make sense of our need to trust in God's justice while still pursuing justice here through courts or et cetera?
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I think I touched on it already, but just to maybe recapitulate a little bit and fully flesh out the thought just a little bit more would say, I think we are called to, I think it's clear in God's word and tried to say this yesterday, that we're called to pursue justice. In most cases, again, there is room for mercy, absolutely. There is room for grace. There is a call for forgiveness and all of that. I think the thrust of God's word is we're not meant to certainly be punitive or vengeful or arbitrarily try and make people really feel the weight or heap on before we grant that forgiveness, that mercy, that grace. I think, yes, the mercy, the grace, all that in forgiveness, it comes, but not at the expense of, again, the justice. And so I think if you see a crime committed, it is not, again, appropriate or called for to just say ... Let's make it practical.
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I mean, because this has been in the church world, especially of late, all the stuff with SBC and sexual abuse and other kinds of stuff, like any kind of thinking or theology or reasoning that would lead you to say, "Well, he's a pastor, he's an elder, or he's a Christian. I don't know, he's a pretty good guy or whatever." And it would lead you to excuse certainly criminal behavior. I mean, that's a very low bar to me, but even anything less than that, inappropriate behavior or whatever. I think we are called not to be the send police and looking for every possible, because Jesus said, "Worry about the log in your own eye, not the spec in other people's, so it's not that. " But yeah, I mean, we're called to be a voice for the voiceless, to stand up for the needy, the victims, the abused, et cetera, et cetera.
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And so absolutely, to finish my thought, any kind of thinking or theology that would lead you to say, "Well, oh grace, forgiveness for this person who did this immoral in just certainly criminal activity, that is not biblical, that is not of God, that is not the way of Christ." So I think that has to be said. So yeah, if you're drunk driving and you bump into me, and even if it's just a fender bender or whatever, what am I going to do as a Christian? I'm going to let the cops know. I'm not going to, "Well, he's probably a good guy and hey, let's give a free pass this time or Christian love, forgiveness, whatever." It's like, no, that's a really serious thing. And how do I know you're not doing that every Friday night and next time somebody's going to get really hurt. And so you need to get help.
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And this is part of the reason we have the rules we have and the system we have to get you that help and whatever. You need a wake up call. So justice, it's never at the expense of justice.
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And I think part of, to round it out, makes sense of our need to trust in God's justice is like I said on the earlier question is like just knowing that as much as we pursue justice, even if everybody was a Christian and pursuing justice as much as we can, still just because of the sin that lives in Christian's hearts until we're on the other side of glory, there would still be injustice in this world and there would still be injustice that all of our pursuit of justice wouldn't take care of and that we would have to leave to God's justice and we would have to be able to, at the end of the day, the only way you're going to be able to sleep at night is to say, "God, I feel like I didn't get justice or we didn't or that part didn't get justice in this scenario and I'm trusting it to you.
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I'm trusting your eschatological justice on this one." Does that make sense?
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Yeah, it does. Thanks. And second one, if we don't have faith like 300 Gideonites, are we to be sent back and I'll quote Walk of Shame, how would you encourage those whose faith is weak?
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I think I ... Great question and I think I hopefully spoke to it already with Victoria's. So yeah, I don't know how much else I have to add to that other than ... I do think that ... Here's what I'll say about the 300 of Israel and Gideon. I think there is a little bit of the ... I want to just say one quick thing. I think there's an appropriateness to saying, "Hey, look at have faith. You want to be one of the 300, right? You don't want to be the 31,000, let me do the math, 700 that took that walk of shame and some of them it was a weird, do they lap the water like dogs that got sent back? Anyway, we'll preach on it one day and why that? " So maybe they didn't have the walk of shame for them, but there's something to be said for, yeah, don't you want to be the person of faith?
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I also want to say with the David and Goliath thing, I have Matt Chandler's words ringing in my ear of his famous you're not David sermon, which I think is just so beautiful. The truth of the gospel is like, David and Goliath is not just a story about how like, "Hey, you need to have more faith and then you can slave these giants." You're not David. The point is you have a better David. Jesus had the faith that you don't. And what's more important and definitive for us as believers is not that you're a David or you're a Gideon or you're an Abraham or you're a Moses or you're a whatever, you're a Jesus. It's that Jesus is Jesus and you're not. And when your faith falters, praise God like Second Timothy too says that even when we are faithless, he is faithful, that even when our faith falters, his faithfulness toward us does not.
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So I would add that too.
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Thanks. Alec wrote in, "At what point do I instill justice against myself or someone innocent who has been wronged? Are there times that I can have vengeance and not leave it to God? When is it biblically appropriate as a collective society to fight for justice like revolutionary war?"
(41:51):
That's good. I'm not even going to touch on the revolutionary war one because I have a fringe minority opinion on that that would probably get me in trouble. I think I've said it in podcasts in the past though, that if our forefathers were really obeying the Lord, I'm not sure America would be a sovereign nation today. But anyway, so yeah, at what point in still justice ... I said it already with your first question now, Brian, and some of the others as well. I don't think we're ever supposed to just, "I'm going to put justice aside because God will get it one day." No, to the extent that we can, and I think there's something ... I'll say one more thing about it though, nuance is like within your role and your capacity, right? I'm not a police officer. I shouldn't pretend to be. I'm not a lawyer.
(42:46):
I'm not a judge. I'm not a congressman. I'm not the president. I'm not ... Fill in the blank, I don't wear any of those other hats when it comes to the justice system in our country. So I think that's where ... I mean, we'd be having a whole nother podcast and conversation if we were doing this and doing church in a country where you really couldn't. And I know we complain about ... And it's broken in some ways, like the American justice system is not perfect by any means, but look, it's the best we got and it's pretty darn good. I mean, compared to other human civilizations and governments over throughout history and whatever else, I think that's where ... Part of what we're called to as citizens is to trust the system and to trust ... Even knowing that it's broken, even knowing that, hey, I could stand witness in this case, I could bring this case, I could testify, I could pursue this justice, and it still might not pan out.
(43:56):
And that happens again every day, all the time, and that's really heartbreaking. And so I think our calling is within our role to do what we can to work justice. And then like I said, understanding that it's a broken system and it's not always going to pan out. And that's where, at the end of the day, don't get the verdict I want, whatever. Do I trust God that this is not the final word? Are there times that I can have justice and not vengeance and not leave it to God? I'd say no. I mean, that's a clear Romans 12, vengeance as mine says the Lord, do not avenge yourself. And we'd have to maybe talk about the specific definition though of vengeance. So I don't want to necessarily get off on that, but again, that could be a whole nother spinoff if we need to.
(44:47):
I would say vengeance is different than justice. So I think, yeah, we're called not to pursue vengeance, but yes, to pursue justice. Lastly, when is it biblically appropriate as a collective society to fight for justice? I would say always. And whether or not, again, revolutionary war is truly justice or versus submit to the Romans 13, submit to the authorities above you. So yeah, but as a collective society, absolutely. We need to pursue justice in the most just and upright society we can. So yeah, hope that is a start of end. And if there's more spinoff there, we can do that. But thanks, Alec.
(45:34):
Our next one's from an anonymous congregant who wrote in, "What are practical ways to not presume someone intended murder to sin against you versus unintentionally doing something quote manslaughter, especially when significant past relationship, someone was doing harm intentionally." Assuming unintentional actions are intentional is something I need to work on.
(45:56):
Okay. Yeah. This is the one that I was thinking of earlier where I said, there was another question somewhere in here about assuming the intentions and murder versus manslaughter. And especially like they said, once significant past relationships, someone was doing harm intentionally. And I think we just need to name that as well, by the way, that even because maybe it wasn't that specific person who wronged you in the past intentionally. I mean, if you are someone who has been intentionally wronged in the past by anyone, especially by someone who's real influential in your life and important, all that, significant trust broken, that's going to impact you. I mean, that's going to impact you. And so I think we have to factor that in as well. Now, that said, I think that just means that God has given you even more room for growth in that personal growth in that area of sanctification and in, again, trying to restore and rebuild trust in humanity in the general sense, but at least in the ability in your interpersonal relationships to, again, assume the best about someone in their motives until proven otherwise.
(47:26):
And so anyway, I love that this person, anonymous question asker is ending by saying, assuming unintentional actions are intentional is something I need to work on. In other words, like, yeah, I'll be honest, because of maybe past relationships, I've been burned in the past, and so now I do always kind of suspect ill intent in someone's motive. And frankly, yeah, I assume murder and not manslaughter. And my heart goes out to you. I guess that's the best I can say as a pastor is like, I feel you. As someone who again felt abandoned by the person who's more than anybody else entrusted to care for you and be your father and be there for you, I can relate to trust issues interpersonally and being suspicious of people. I mean, I took a vow on myself when I was 11 years old. I will never trust another human being again, that whatever rules, laws, I've learned, lessons I've learned in my 11 years of living, this is the number one most important that will be the defining, governing thing for all of my behavior for the rest of my life.
(48:51):
And it was for, I don't know, the next 15 years or so.
(48:58):
So that's hard, I feel you, is what I'm saying, but I'd like to think that I'm also evidence that God can change your heart on that, that God can soften our hearts and can redeem and can work healing and restore faith in, again, in humanity. Not that people are inherently good, because we don't believe that, but that people are redeemable, that people can be trustworthy because there is a real God who is at work in people's lives and even unbeliever's lives, to bring it full circle to Callie's question. And that because of that, he's at work and he's able to make people worth trusting because he hasn't just left us. I mean, if God just turned us over to our own sinful, selfish desires and wills, then yeah, absolutely. No trust in anyone, but God has not done that and praise God for that. Was that our last question?
(50:23):
One more.
(50:24):
One more. We're anonymous Carrigan, probably a child.
(50:28):
Child.
(50:28):
Thanks for submitting it.
(50:29):
Love
(50:29):
It. We think it says, what does purity mean?
(50:35):
Purity means in the context of yesterday's sermon and the bullet point, God desires purity. Frankly, just in a word, sinlessness, God desires sinlessness for his people. And that's what he said in the context of the middle of chapter 20, offer terms of peace to a city if you go to besiege it. If they won't accept it, then you kill them and make sure you get rid of their idols and stuff. Canaanites, Amorites, Parasites, all them, you got to kill all of them though, because they had been handed over. They are just 100% thoroughly wicked. It's Genesis six, pre-flood. God saw that every intention of man's heart was only evil all the time. It's like just a hundred percent wickedness. This was what I just said about God is at work, common grace, all that. You can trust some people, but not if they're Amorites Canonites.
(51:34):
It's hard for us to imagine a society that evil wicked, but put them all to death. Why? Because they are so beyond the pale and morally impure and they are going to influence you, Israel, my people, to be like that, to pick up their practices, to worship their gods. And I won't stand for it for my people. I want so much better. I want purity. I want sinlessness. I want that kind of holiness and right relationship with me and walking in step with my will and my commands. So thanks for all the great questions. Hey, man, let's keep it going. This was like 10. Let's see if next week we can get 11. That's great. We got our bookmarks in. We'll be announcing that soon. Just a little teaser. So yeah.
(52:20):
Sweet. We hope that this has been edifying for you as you seek to be changed and to love God more as you apply God's word after the sermon. So go apply the sermon, continue to make disciples and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week.