Clough Proverbs Lesson 81

DI #4: The Judicial Function; Bribery

We have a great accumulation of white cards that I’ve forgotten for the last 3 or 4 Sundays to answer so I’m going to answer these before we go on in the teaching of the Proverbs series. One question is who is Melchizedek in the Bible? My answer is: come Wednesday night and you’ll find out. It’s a big long story, that’s why I can’t get into it.

If your best woman dies, is marriage again justified? Yes, I thought we made that clear when we went over the doctrine of the best man and the best woman.

What did you mean by respect government? You said respect it and then you seem to condemn it. The respect that is given government in Scripture is the respect authorized in Romans 13 to the institution; respecting government does not mean the Christian does not criticize it. If you don’t believe that read the Old Testament and you will find every prophet who taught the Word of God insisted that the government and institutions of government adhere to the Word and was not at all reticent to criticize it when it did not. In fact, this is what the prophets are best known for. So there’s a difference between respecting the institution and okaying everything that a particular administration does.

You spoke of the Mormon religion; will those who follow that religion ultimately be saved with Christ’s Second Coming? Well, with the Mormon religion as with any other heresy against orthodoxy Christian and Mormonism is a heresy because it denies the deity of Christ, as with any heretical religion you have to distinguish between the people and the system. The system itself is totally without truth but people in it may be born again. You’ll find believers in any and every group and it’s in there because of grace. So I can’t say when I meet a person, but we can judge the system; as a system it’s totally anti Scriptural.

Did Adam not recognize key mental attitude sins when teaching him, or is it all that easily recognized until the latter years? I would say that Adam had to learn. Remember, when you talk about Adam you’re not talking about an omniscient man. Before the fall Adam still was required to learn, therefore, the learning process was something that he may have had to learn with his own son, Cain. He may have mistakes, many mistakes, obviously after the fall he was wide open to making all sorts of mistakes.

In Proverbs 22:10, putting out the scoffer, how does that concept of punishing a scoffer, but it doesn’t do any good, as an example to a younger peti? Which was a point that you had made earlier and the answer is that Proverbs 22:10 gives you the last step that may be taken by a parent in dealing with a scoffer, that is just get him out of the place.

How is it determined… these last two questions have to do with the second divine institution and we’ll answer them together: How is it determined which Old Testament teachings are applicable in our time; for example, are a man and wife bound to the verses in Leviticus 15:16-28; I realize these verses illustrate the moral effects by the fall but do these rules of cleanliness and defilement still apply today? The answer is that we are not under the Old Testament law, we only use the law for wisdom and principles and insights. And you have to analyze each part of the law in itself. Many parts of the law, such as the dietary portions were given to illustrate by way of typology; the rules of cleanliness were used to illustrate by typology. And in that particular instance, that particular passage that appears to be only what is taught there is the typology of cleanliness, not an actual physical thing. But each part of the law has to be treated unto itself; you are not bound by the law. But if you’re going to operate in this world wisely there are principles in the law that can be applied today.

If conception is the result of the sovereignty of God does this presupposition collide with Christians using methods of birth control? What is the balance of doing and resting part of faith here? Is birth control purely a matter of conscience? Another question on the same thing: If conception is a gift of God and it is determined by His sovereignty is there any necessity for birth control for the biblical Christian today? God’s Word provides adequate base for birth control. In fact, several birth control methods are illustrated in Scripture. One birth control method is withdrawal or coitus interruptus, in Leviticus 15:16-18; in that passage in Leviticus 15. Sterilization is also mentioned in Matthew 19:12. So there are methods authorized in Scripture for birth control. The only prohibition against methods of birth control in Scripture are infanticide.

There are ultimately four methods used in the ancient world that we know of that have to do with birth control. One is infanticide; in other words, just let the baby die after it’s born. That is murder and that’s prohibited in the law of Israel. A second method was withdrawal and that was authorized under the Mosaic Law and is specifically mentioned. A third method was sterilization, that was not really well liked in Israel by Deuteronomy 23:1 but was tolerated under the principle of Matthew 19:12. And finally, the principle of abortion; abortion was not considered murder in the Old Testament, it was considered the interruption of the most precious thing underneath nephesh, and therefore was done when the life of the mother was involved and so on. Abortion would be done and used in a certain situation. Abortion was utterly condemned in most ancient law codes except the Bible. The Mosaic Law Code which was normally stricter than the other ancient laws is remarkable in the sense that it permits abortion under certain situations whereas the other ancient laws did not. So those are the four methods and (?) we see enough concrete evidence there to support the fact that the Bible-believing Christian can use birth control methods; the difference is that he uses them simply not of his own selfish pleasure but in terms of what God’s will is for that family unit.

Now we come to the fourth divine institution once again, and we are face to face with a new area. We have studied so far part of that divine institution, we have studied the fact that it consists of legislative functions and executive functions. Under the executive function last time we covered four points: that the executives, under the fourth divine institution is the law enforcer, and the executive department is under law. That classic passage was used down through history, it was used in Great Britain during the times of the Puritans to establish certain points in common law and it was given in the principle of Deuteronomy 17. Two, the executive office is doing what God does; that is, it is a divine function. The executive department is partly a divine function, it is a religious office. The third point we covered was that subjects must therefore respect the executive function of government. Fourth, the person in the particular office must be free to follow God’s Word. This latter point on the executive is very important for a Christian running for public office. The question you must answer to yourself, before God, before you run for a public office is: are you or are you not going to be free to follow the dictates of the Word of God. Or, in the process of getting elected to the office have you already compromised yourself so that later on, when you are in the office, then you find yourself cut off.

There’s one further point under the doctrine of the executive office that we did not cover last time and it’s a very important one. Turn to Deuteronomy 13 to see this principle. The principle is that every citizen is an executive. We rely upon the police and we have a problem. We rely and call the police because a crime has been committed or something and you call the police; that’s fine, the police are skilled and they certainly want you to call them. [Can’t understand words] getting hurt is to gum around with some sort of a criminal type situation and then you’re going to be in trouble.

In Deuteronomy 13:6 you have the principle that operates. You can at least initiate action to enforce the law. You, as an individual citizen and I as an individual citizen, we have responsibilities before God, whether the police are there or not. This should answer your question, are you or are you not responsible to get involved if you see a crime being committed. Answer: yes you are because how many times in history have we had police departments… now you take police as just an ordinary function of life. Look, there weren’t any police any police 200 years ago; who enforced the law then? The citizens did, and so therefore the citizens of a national entity are responsible to enforce law.

Deuteronomy 13:6 is an illustration where the citizen of the nation Israel was responsible to handle this problem. “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or they son, or thy daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or you friend who is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known, you, or your fathers….” verse 8, “You will not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him…” but verse 9, “But thou shall surely kill him,” now that doesn’t mean that you take the action without court approval, but the point is that you undertake the reporting to Caesar. So Deuteronomy 13 teaches that it was every citizen’s responsibility to report crime. Now if we had that functioning today we’d have a lot less crime. The city of Lubbock has seen more burglaries, armed burglaries since I’ve been here, it’s ridiculous what’s going on, you can’t even walk out in the street, go down to the 7-11 to buy something without being stuck up. And either what’s going to happen eventually is either the police are going to enforce the law with a more violent and consistent way or we’re going to have vigilante committees and the citizens are going to take the law into their own hands. That’s always the case. And either the court and the acclaimed channels and agencies deal with the problem or citizens have to deal with the problem. That’s always been the choice of history, and still will be.

So in Deuteronomy 13 you have the biblical principle that the citizen is ultimately responsible. You don’t just say well, I’ll just kind of sit around and let the police do it. It’s not your prerogative to sit around and let the police do it; you do it. If you see a crime, report it. And if you suspect there’s drugs around, report it. We have many parents in this city, unfortunately who think on anti-biblical terms. They know their child is in the drug thing, they know certain other kids in the drug thing but they don’t report that to the police department because they’re afraid their names might get in the newspaper. Now look, you can use the same argument here. Look at verse 6, can you think of some Jewish family say well now, our son is going off into idolatry and I’m not going to report it because I’m afraid my name might get on the gossip grapevine in Jerusalem. Do you see anything in verse 6, 7 and 8 that argues that you shouldn’t report it because you’re afraid your name might get in the gossip grapevine? No, you don’t see anything like that. And obviously that is an illegitimate excuse. Citizens who think way are irresponsible citizens.

In Deuteronomy 22:1-4 we have another illustration of the principle that every citizen is an executive and here the citizen’s responsibility is not just directed toward crime, it is directed toward simple common sense things. Are you’re your brother’s keeper? Answer, yes you are, Deuteronomy 22:1-4. Now look at the responsibilities that every citizen in the nation Israel was required to adhere to. Notice verse 1, “You will not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide yourself from them;” what’s that, I’m not going to get involved, that’s hiding yourself from them. That verse specifically condemns “I’m not going to get involved” type attitude, “I’m afraid my name might in the newspapers,” too bad. It’d be a great testimony if it did. “You will not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall in any case bring them again unto thy brother.” And it’s an emphatic form of the verb, in the Hebrew when you have an absolute infinitive preceding the main verb it intensifies the mood of that verb. The mood of this verb is indicative; you will certainly do this, therefore amplified by the infinitive absolute before it intensifies the mood, you will certainly dogmatically and emphatically “bring them again unto your brother.

Verse 2, “And if your brother be not near unto thee, or if you know him not,” you don’t know the owner of the goods, “then you shall bring it unto your own house, and it shall be with you until your brother seek after it; and you shall restore it to him again. [3] In like manner shall you do with his ass; and so shall you do with his raiment; and with every lost thing of thy brothers, which he has lost and you have found, shall you do likewise; [you may not withhold thy help.]” It’s not finders-keepers, in other words in Scripture. So that principle should make it very, very clear that every citizen was responsible to function and it was the concern of his neighbor that he was to function also.

That concludes the executive department. Now we move to the judicial and in the judicial area we have many verses and we have a very startling doctrine and this doctrine we’re learning today, if nothing else has offended you this one will. The judicial function of government; the first point under the judicial function. Now in the Bible, here’s the problem, in the Bible the executive and the judicial were combined; there was no legislature in Israel, God was the legislature. Mount Sinai had one congressman, God. And God made the law. So no legislature, just executive and judicial. Now what about the judicial. A lot of these things we’re going to teach you can see overlap but that’s the best I can do.

The first point and the primary point of the judicial function is found in Deuteronomy 21:1, the famous passage, we’ve been to it several times but this is one of the key passages for citizen responsibility in the functioning of justice. Deuteronomy 21:1-9; this is a concept that has prevailed in some societies. I’m not that much up on law so I don’t know whether there is an analogy in American law or not but in certain European countries this principle still applies. The principle is that either justice is done in an individual crime situation or the community must make atonement, so that if you have a crime committed inside the confines of some community and that crime is never solved, God holds the entire community guilty. In other words, either justice is done and if it isn’t the community itself is held corporately responsible. It’s very, very serious because under this concept in Israel if you had a town and you had crime go on in that town and the citizens never solved the crime and the crime kept on going, sound familiar, and the crimes kept on occurring without solution and without prosecution, then God would judge the entire town for allowing this kind of thing to happen.

Now why? Why is God so hardnosed about judging a community this way? Because under the fourth divine institution God said you will judge, I deed that responsibility to you. Now God wasn’t saying please do your job. God says do it! It was a command, not an invitation, and since it was a command and not an invitation, thence this procedure, which we’ll go through now in verses 1-9.

Verse 1, “If one be found slain in the land which the LORD thy God gives thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him,” so they’ve made an investigation, they can’t find who’s the murderer, but they found somebody that’s murdered. [2] Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain,” notice who comes forth, the elders and the judges. The elders and the judges represent both the executive and the judicial functions of government. So the executive areas of these councils… take an imaginary scene of the crime here, and we’ll have these towns round about. And since this crime was committed in the towns A, B, C, D, they didn’t have county boundaries in Israel so the way they resolved the question was the town council had to come out, the representatives of the council, had to come out and they would have to measure the distance from the site of the crime to the city, and the city nearest to whom the crime was was then going to be held responsible by God.

Verse 3, “And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer, which hath not been wrought with, and which hath not drawn in the yoke; [4] And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley,” actually a wadi, “which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley.” Now the interesting thing is that this is not necessarily an official sacrifice that’s being made in verse 4. The sacrifice, if you could term it that, is actually a substitution of capital punishment. In other words, the proper person has not been executed for his crime of murder and the fourth divine institution is pro capital punishment. People who are against capital punishment are against the Word of God.

So since the murderer had to be capitally punished and since he couldn’t be found, the sentence of judgment had to be executed or the city council would have been held guilty. So the heifer was then used as a substitute criminal. They struck off the neck and left it in this wadi. The reason why they put it in the wadi is because when it rained the blood would drain off the land and it would be a picture, they’d have to leave it there and let it until it rained again the blood would wash off the land and it was a picture of God cleansing the land of shed blood. That’s why it was particularly done at the wadi, so the people would have a graphic illustration that the land of a city, the land of a town, is considered to be defiled by murder. That is a sound biblical concept, that the land itself gets polluted. You talk about pollution, the pollution from blood from shed lives is considered by the Bible to be a defilement which God alone can cleanse but He won’t cleanse it unless the sentence of judgment is executed. So the sentence of judgment had to be executed on this heifer. And only then would that city be held innocent. If this procedure had not been done, unsolved crime would be considered sin.

Now what does that teach you, then, about the judicial function of government? Doesn’t it teach you that the judicial function of government has to function or God becomes angry? Miscarriages of justice are an affront to God’s holiness; justice must occur. We are dealing in the area of the judicial with a holy and sacred function before God. Now what is a modern version of Deuteronomy 21:1-4? As I say I’m not a law expert and so I don’t know about American law but I do know from biblical commentaries that in other countries of the world at various times they have had what we would call corporate restitution laws, which meant that if you, say were in the city of Lubbock and you had a loved one murdered inside the city limits, the city of Lubbock would have to grant you certain restitution; it would have to be in a material way and this has been done in certain European countries, where that would be an expression, if the murderer were not found that the city itself was guilty for allowing this kind of thing to happen to your loved one. Of, if someone stole something from you and the police couldn’t find who it was that stole the goods, the city itself would have to make restitution to you. This has recently been urged because the argument goes if you were to apply this biblical principle today, then it would force the court system to become more efficient because if you took it out of the court budget every time an unsolved crime occurred, obviously, and you began to cut salaries because you were paying all the money to the people who were the victims of unsolved crimes, don’t you suppose it might have an effect, that we might solve more crimes. So it would be a self-correcting and very wise kind of legislation to have. That would be a contemporary application of a biblical principle for citizen action.

So that’s the first thing about the doctrine of the judicial arm of government given in Scripture, that either justice is done or the community itself is guilty. Justice must be done or the community itself is guilty. Two, also found in Deuteronomy 21:1-9 and this is an astounding one and this is why Dr. Schaeffer in his writings refers often, when he discusses the problem of law to a painting by Paul Robert in Switzerland which pictures justice, with a sword pointing down to a book and on the book in the painting it says “The Law of God,” and the second principle, then, means the court represents neither state nor individuals; the court, according to the Bible represents God. The court has a sacred function and the court really, biblically, is not representing even the state. The court if it functions properly is representing God Himself. In Deuteronomy 21, let’s look where God is represented in the process.

Verse 5, while this interrogation is going on, “And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy” that means lawsuit, it’s a Hebrew word rib, “every lawsuit,” that would be equivalent to a civil suit today, “and every stroke” that would be equivalent to a criminal suit, “be tried.” Now what does that mean? Does it mean the priests were the judges? No. The word is “by their word” these shall be tried. In other words, by the standard of God’s Word crime would be devaluated. So the principle is that in the court the presence of the law of God could be felt. In the ideal court the law of God is being exercised. Approximately, sometimes with mistakes, but at least an attempt is being made to exercise by force the law of God. It is not community vengeance, these are not sociological norms derived from a population sample of what certain people believe. That’s not the case, though we’re headed in that direction, if 51% of the people think murder is wrong, then it’s wrong; if 49% of the people think murder is not wrong then it’s not wrong, but sociological law is not biblical law. In biblical law it’s what Gods says, not what 51% of the citizens say.

So the second principle of the judicial arm of government is that the judicial arm must function within the framework of the Word of God. Now we come to a third principle covering the judicial function of government. Now again, let me pause in the process of these principles to point out something to you. We fundamentalists err in many, many areas, but one of the most glaring mistakes we make, over and over and over and over again is that when we know the Word of God we don’t apply it and force its application in the community around us. You can cite case after case where we say oh, we preach (quote) “the simple gospel,” and we believe that if you just stick to the gospel issues, that’s correct at the point of evangelism, but after we are Christians we are to carry the Word of God out into the surrounding communities. That is what the Bible means when it says you, all of you who are believers this morning, you’re called the salt of the earth. Now what does salt do?

How do Christians preserve society? Just by their pious devotional life? No, Christians have in the past preserved society by influencing the form of government, the wisdom of government. The problem ultimately isn’t people, it’s their sin, but one of the points of correction that a Christian citizen can be very useful is to suggest wisdom. Everyone is talking about what mistakes we are making but now as you go through these passages of Scripture pay careful attention because it may dawn on you that here we’ve got answers. Here we’ve got the wisdom that the legislative arm needs. Here’s where the executive people need wisdom. How do we cope with the problems we’ve got? God’s Word, let’s go back and study how Israel coped with the problem. They had one of the finest judicial systems the history of man has ever seen. In fact, most law that is truly just does not come from Rome; it comes out of God’s Word via the Christian influence in Europe, particularly Great Britain and common law. So actually our legal heritage goes back to the Bible. Now if that is the foundation of our legal heritage doesn’t it suggest that if we go back to the foundation again we might find insights that we need so desperately to design measures today. So you pay attention as we go through this and ideas may come to your mind as to how to apply these things.

So we come to the third principle, and the third principle is courtroom procedures. The courtroom, and how the actual judicial process functions in Israel. Now again, application; how many people have gotten a notice to serve on jury and they say well I’m not going to do that, I’m going to get off. Now if you’ve had that attitude it’s been an unbiblical attitude because in God’s Word every person in Israel was responsible to serve on juries. And so Christians who say they believe the Word of God and forsake jury duty are disobedient to the principles of God’s Word. Now as we go through this third principle and as you study these Scriptures, here are some things you can apply some day to jurists. So pay attention to some of them. The first one, we’ll consider this all courtroom procedure and under it there will be a number of sub principles.

The first one, Deuteronomy 19:1, the first rule of the courtroom procedures that God had established, and we are dividing this by way of principle, is control of the emotions. When you are in a courtroom you are going to be pressured to react emotionally to what is presented; that’s part of the game. But if you are a sound Christian juror you’re going to respond by you conscience, not by your emotions. There are two ways your emotions can respond and this passage is going to teach how Israel undertook procedures to cut off an emotional response in this direction and cut off an emotional response in this direction. The two ways you can emote in a courtroom, the first way by vengeance. And there were safeguards; we’ll show you one here, where that was cut off. So that shows and reveals to us God doesn’t want the emotion of revenge to enter into the discussion. On the other hand there is an equal and disastrous emotion that comes and we’ll see this, if you’ve ever been on a jury you see this, usually women, and it is the emotion of sentimentalism. Oh, I feel so sorry for so and so. It’s not the question whether you feel sorry for so and so; the question is whether it is right or whether it is wrong; that’s the question; not whether you feel sorry for so and so. So watch it, the revenge or sentimentalism, both are condemned.

Now watch this chapter. Deuteronomy 19:1-10 speak of the procedures that God had to cut off the emotion of vengeance in the courtroom. Verse 1, “When the LORD thy God hath cut off the nations, whose land the LORD thy God gives thee, and thou succeed them, and dwell in their cities, and in their houses; [2] You shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land, [which the LORD thy God gives thee to possess it]. [3] You shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts” it says coasts but it means “the borders of thy land, which the LORD thy God gives thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither.” Now the slayer is not a murderer, this is a case of manslaughter, accidental killing. This is not a case of murder so watch it.

The case is this; you have accidentally killed somebody but the problem is that the family of the person you killed is out to get your. In other words, you’re dealing with vengeance, so to prevent the exercise of vengeance God had what He called the cities of refuge. These were cities that were off limits to all but those who were fleeing this kind of vengeance. Verse 4, “And this is the case of the slayer, which shall flee thither, that he may live,” in other words, he’s going to be stoned for vengeance. “Whoso kills his neighbor ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past;” so there you’ve got the case is accidental.

Verse 5, “As when a man goes into the wood with his neighbor to hew wood,” and this is an illustration of it, he’s chopping the wood and the head of the ax comes off and the neighbor gets hit in the head and he dies, [and his hand fetches a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the helve, and lights upon his neighbor, that he die]” then “he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live.” Verse 6, “Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot,” there’s the emotion, “and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him; [whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past.] Verse 7, “Wherefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt separate three cities for thee.” And so the principle was that people were protected from the emotions of vengeance. This is why sometimes trials are held in different cities. The same principle is operating here, to prevent this problem of vengeance. That’s one emotion. The other emotion is given in verses 11-13, same chapter.

Deuteronomy 19:11, “But if any man hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die, and flees into one of these cities,” in other words, here is murder, this is not manslaughter, this is not accident, [12] “Then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.” Verse 13, “Your eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.” Now verse 13 is the classic statement against sentimentalism in a courtroom. Verse 13 is saying that if you pity somebody, you pity the victim, not the criminal.

So both vengeance and sentimentalism were removed under this system of law. Reason: You cannot decide judicial issues with these kinds of emotions running high. Another point, verse 14, legal records and legal evidences were safeguarded and used in trial. “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark,” why is that important? Because that’s the record of where the property is, and they had more lawsuits over land boundaries than any other kind in ancient Israel at this time in history. So this was an important legal record. So a second point is, we’ll just generalize into a principle, is that there must be valid legal evidence. The decision is not made on emotion; it’s made on the basis of evidence.

Deuteronomy 19:15-21, another principle of courtroom procedure, control of witnesses. They had some very interesting ways of insuring that witnesses to crime were reporting something valid. Verse 15, “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” There are obviously problems with application of that in detail, but the idea is that you had to have a multiplicity of rationally consistent evidence, that witnesses had to be consistent in their stories. That’s why Jesus Christ’s trial was one of the greatest judicial farces of history because they couldn’t get two witnesses to say the same thing.

Then they had another little point that must have made things very, very sobering for a witness, verse 16, “If a malicious [false] witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; [17] Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; [18]And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; [19] Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.” So if a person wanted to tamper with the courtroom they would be charged with the crime that they were saying happened. So there were controls of witness.

There are other controls in the Bible, for example a witness to murder would be a person who actually had to perform part of the execution. How’d you like that one? And the execution was nice and gory, it was throwing rocks, splat. So if you saw a crime of murder and your testimony was called upon in court you had to get out there and throw the first rock. Why do you suppose they had that? Because that way the seriousness and the gravity of the whole procedure because you were personally involved in the carrying out of the law.

Deuteronomy 21:19, another principle of the courtroom procedure. It’s very obvious today but the trial was to be public. The trial was to be public. Incidentally, we don’t have time to go through all the details but I can tell you this, the execution of the sentence was to be public. In other words when a criminal was executed it wasn’t in the basement of a prison in New Jersey some place, it wasn’t in some dark building some where, it was out on the town square. You say gee, that’s gory, that’s primitive. I’m not so sure; a public execution does not mean ha-ha you got it; that’s not why the Bible has executions public, so everybody gets around and claps about it. It was a sobering concrete demonstration of God’s law. A public execution was to enforce God-consciousness into the souls of the people who witnessed it; a horrible thing to witness, but the process of having to stand there and watch another person killed by order of law would force God-consciousness into the human soul. You see, the law was not (?), it’s not community vengeance, it is God’s law and God insists that we respect His law and that was one of the means.

Incidentally, they had no jails in the nation Israel under their concept of punishment. You say we’ve improved our judicial system because we put criminals away. Do you know the way they handled it? They had three ways of handling criminals in the Bible. The first way was fining them, that was restitution concept. The second way they had was corporal punishment, whipping. And the third way was capital punishment, but never did you jail a man like an animal; that would be considered cruel by the Old Testament standard. Now you can debate that and say well I think a sentence, putting a person away behind bars is more humane because we can work with them and help them and rehabilitate them. Yeah, you know how many are being rehabilitated; we’ve got a real good record don’t we. We just put a young kid in there with a bunch of crooks and hardened people and he gets hardened; that’s a real improvement. So under the Israelite… now that’s interesting because you know, they had jails in the other countries. Under Assyria people were put away, but isn’t it interesting, in Israel they weren’t. Now why do you suppose that? Because God designed the law and He didn’t intend man to be jailed. He intended man to be punished but not jailed; a very interesting point about Old Testament law.

All right, we’re on this problem of everything must be public; the trial must be public as well as the execution. In Proverbs 21:19, this is a case of the juvenile delinquent in the home, smart guys, try to push his parents around, hasn’t learned the concept of authority under the third divine institution. So they had their own way of dealing with juvenile delinquency. 18, “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother,” then verse 19, “Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him,” notice that, grab him, “and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; [20] And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.” Do you know what they were saying our son “is a glutton and a drunkard?” This is an idiom and what it means is he’s not producing. See, he’s like a lot of drunkards, they’re not producing, they’re not doing anything worthwhile, they’re just living off their parents, at home, boozing it up. Whose money is paying for the booze? Parents. Whose money is paying for the drugs? Parents. And the idiot parents that let this kind of thing go on. See, this is the way to handle it. Verse 21, they brought the people to the thing and our point here is not to go into juvenile delinquency but simply to point to how this ploy was tried. He was tried in the gate of the city. Now what’s the gate of the city? Where the elders met together. [21] “And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones,” that’s after the trial, that presupposes he was found guilty, but the point here is they brought him to the gate of the city were the trial was public.

This isn’t the only incidence of this, turn to Proverbs 22:15, this is when a girl has been married, her mother and father says whew, now she is finally married, gotten rid of her. It always seem to me like parents always want to get rid of girls, I get more letters from parents that are worried about the girls at LBC don’t have a good social life, we’re turning them into religious fanatics, they’ve got to meet more boys. Well what’s the hurry? Anyway, these parents have sighed the sigh of relief that their daughters finally married, whew! But then the guy that married her says she’s defective, and so he brings the product back. And so a trial is needed. So [16] “The damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and hated her,” and so on. Verse 15, “Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, shall take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity,” this was on the wedding night, they had to keep the sheets, “unto the elders of the city in the gate.”

Notice where the trial takes place. If you were to do this today, think of the embarrassment. Now everybody in the city is going to know what’s going on because they would bring the sheets and the blood and everything else and here’s our evidence and there she is and there he is and everybody’s sitting around. The thing that strikes me about this whole operation is this. These people had a fantastic sense of justice without all this yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, kind of stuff going on. They could look at this kind of thing and be objective. These people had doctrine, Bible doctrine, they didn’t have emotions, they had doctrine and they could handle this kind of thing and they could relax about it and not go off… it was a great advantage to having a telephone, but the gossip was kept down and the people could relax and talk about these kind of things and come to a biblical solution.

Proverbs 25:7, another thing where it was done in public. This is really a good one. “If a man like not to take his brother’s wife,” this is levirate marriage, a woman’s husband has died, she has to raise up a seed to her former husband’s name; how can she get pregnant legally and carry a son and keep the name; she has to marry the brother of her husband. “…then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuses to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.” So where is this going on? Right in the public square. Everybody’s there and the elders are there. [8] “Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him; and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her,” then this always amuses me, verse 9, “Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders,” right in front of all the men of the town, “loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face,” see, women had rights then and she was protected, and that was one, she’d spit in his face in front of everybody in the town government.

Now I think historically this is why that you will tend to find, if you know Jewish people closely, part of (?) where they differ from a lot of people are there (?) hang-ups in fundamentalist circles is that you talk to Jewish people and they can relax about sin, they don’t have all this legalism that goes on in fundamentalist circles and you can imagine how they got rid of the legalism. If anybody’s crime was a matter of public discussion in a public place do you think there would be any room for self-righteousness? The Jew would be relaxed about it, okay, we’ve got another one, all right, let’s go, spit. This kind of thing would go on and people would see crime and it would become part of their way of life; they wouldn’t be hardened to it but they’d be relaxed because they know the standards and they know everybody in the town has their problems and they’d know what the problems are and where they differed from the Bible and Bible standards.

And the next principle on the courtroom procedure is implied in all of these things, the trial was very speedy. Do you notice how quickly the access was granted? If you want a biblical reference to a speedy trial, the book of Ruth. When Ruth and Boaz had a problem they could walk right down the same day and have the problem. So we spend money on civic centers and don’t have enough on our courts. Their first priority was the court system and adequate staff. In the district attorney’s office an adequate staff of lawyers, and adequate court facilities, these things should be handled and handled quickly instead of big case loads for 2 or 3 years back; none of that stuff going on here.

Now, another point, we’re finished with the courtroom procedures, we’ve dealt with three points so far, the justice is done or the community is guilty, the court represents God, and courtroom procedure. Now the fourth one is very obvious but this is the one where the book of Proverbs enters and here’s where we come across a doctrine that is designed to blow your mind.

First let’s state the point: the judgment of the court was to be just. Turn to Proverbs 17:15. And in this book at this point we have the classic statement, very simple, common sense, just look at it a minute, nothing new, in 17:15 there is a beautifully balanced statement about what God says about the area of the judicial and please notice the statement is balanced. It isn’t half a statement, it’s a whole statement. Look at the first part, “He that justifies the wicked, and condemns the just, [even they both] are an abomination to the LORD.” That is talking about the decision itself. The word “justify” is like the word “justify” when we say we’re justified in Christ, when God the Father justifies us it’s just like a courtroom procedure, we’re guilty before God, we come into the courtroom guilty, God pronounces that we are innocent. How does God say that we are innocent? Because Christ’s righteousness is credited to our account, God formally recognize it by His decree and we say we are justified. All of that New Testament truth came out of Old Testament concrete everyday court activity. The doctrine of justification in Christian is ultimately a legal picture of salvation, that’s all it is, it’s that simple. Now here you have the vocabulary, the word “justify” means the judge saying that the wicked one did obey the law, he is innocent, and that “he that condemns the just, both are an abomination,” this is talking about miscarriages of justice.

There are other passages in Proverbs. Turn to Proverbs 17:26, “To punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity,” it’s a specific application to a general principle. Proverbs 18:5, “It is not good to accept the person of the wicked, to overthrow the righteous in judgment.” Now verse 5 is very interesting in a day of lenient justice. “It is not good to accept the person of the wicked,” do you know why? Do you see the reason? It’s appended right on the end of that verse. Every time you let a wicked person go, somebody that’s guilty of a crime, you may feel sorry for them and so on, but the point is, if you’re a juror you’re functioning in the court, you’re being asked by God to carry out His law. So therefore whether you feel pity, guilt, sentimentalism or anything else isn’t the issue, the issue is what does God’s law say, what has the person done. It’s that simple. And if you tend to sentimentalism, oh, I feel so sorry for this person, here’s the vicious thing you’re doing, and the end of verse 5, you are “overthrowing the righteous in judgment.” If in your sentimentalism you say it’s all right for that persons to break the law, what do you do about the thousands and thousands and thousands of other people who have gone out of their way to obey the law? Who, when the going got rough said I’m not going to yield to the temptation to violate the law, I’m going to stick with it. What do you do for their motivation if you let these people go?

Proverbs 19:19, this is the ultimate proverb on dealing with people who are multiple offenders. “A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment; for if you deliver him, then you must do it again.” See what that’s talking about, “a man of great wrath” is a hardened criminal and “if you deliver him,” that means you let him off, you’re going to wind up back doing the same thing later. He’s going to bump somebody else off and then we’re going to be back having another trial. Now that is obviously empirically verified in our own experience today.

Now we’re going to conclude with a surprise: God’s special provision for handling the judicial arm of government when it doesn’t first. Turn first to Proverbs 17:23; the Bible is written into a fallen world, not a perfect world. In 17:23 we have the perennial problem that comes in, every city, every county, every state, every government has the same old problem, the problem of bribes. “A wicked man takes a gift [bribe] out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.” That means the judge is being bought off; that’s bribery.

Now we are going to show you a series of verses in the book of Proverbs where bribery is authorized. Now you say what… I thought I’d get your attention. There are times and places when the believer in God’s Word is given the prerogative to go ahead and buy them off. These times and these places are when the fourth divine institution is no longer operating according to God’s standards. When that institution has collapsed and you don’t have the judges functioning the way they should. Now these periods are rare but the Bible has provision for it. And in certain passages, which I’m going to now show you, believers are authorized to buy them off for the believer’s protection. I’ll give you some present day illustrations, that will fix it in your mind, then we’ll see the principle.

Suppose you are a member of the Christian underground church behind the iron curtain tonight. And say tonight the secret police come and they want to find out the activities of your group. If you could buy off some of the secret police, according to Scripture, go ahead, buy them off, for the peace of the church. In fact, Christians are doing that behind the iron curtain. The largest smuggling operation in history is now going on across Eastern Europe, smuggling thousands and thousands of bibles into Eastern Europe and the whole operation is found under this principle. Communist guards are being bought off today by Christians. They’ve been bought off for decades. They’ve been bought to look the other way while the Christians run bibles into Eastern Europe. In certain places that we do not have adequate information because this whole missionary operation is secret, certain judges in Russian courts are being bought off to look the other way and to look the other way when Christians come to trial. The money for these bribes are being financed by American Christians, some of whom I know. So vast amounts of money are now being exercised to buy off judges who are attacking Christians behind the iron curtain.

And the biblical justification for this, turn to Proverbs 17:8. The doctrine of bribery; receiving a bribe is a sin, giving a bribe is not necessarily one. That’s the difference. Accepting a bribe is a sin by Proverbs 17:23, any person who accepts a bribe has sinned against God because he has accepted a bribe to pervert justice. But giving a bribe is not always a sin and here in Proverbs 17:8, “A gift [bribe] is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that has it; and whithersoever it turns, it prospers.” In other words, we would translate this as “grease somebody’s palm.” In Proverbs 21:14 is another reference to authorized bribery. When Satan attacks the church, then buy him off.

Proverbs 21:14, “A gift in secret pacifies anger; and a reward in the bosom, strong wrath.” Now please notice, the purpose of these bribes, so you don’t twist what is said here, notice the purpose of these bribes is not to buy off injustice; this is not the case of trying to get out from under a sentence, so don’t go down here and try to buy off the judge and say Charlie Clough preached it on Sunday at LBC. I get in enough trouble around here without that. What we are saying is that at various times in history, when the fourth divine institution is controlled by no law, it’s anger and strong wrath in verse 14, you don’t see law there in verse 14, that’s vengeance; that is when Satan has gained the holds of government and is now using government to persecute the church. When you see this kind of thing happening, then buy them off. That’s what Proverbs is saying.

You say that’s the Old Testament; oh no, it’s in the New Testament also. Turn to the Sermon on the Mount of all places, Matthew 5. Everybody follows the Sermon on the Mount [can’t understand phrase]. The context of this, Jesus was giving principles to live before the millennial kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount does not refer to kingdom law. The Sermon on the Mount refers to principles the disciples were to live under before the millennium was a possibility. So they dealt with a government that was hostile to their faith. In that situation Jesus gives them certain teachings, which clash with Old Testament law if you don’t understand them properly.

Now in Matthew 5:25 at this verse we’re often talking about the principle of reconciliation (?), I’m not talking about that principle; I’m talking about another principle in the same passage. Jesus said “Agree with your adversaries quickly,” the word “adversary” means your person in court, “while you are in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and you be cast into prison.” Now who is the person being cast into prison? The person being cast into prison is the believer. And why is he being cast into prison? Because of persecution. And so he says if you can agree and settle out of court, do it. If you have to agree to a lesser crime which you haven’t committed, go ahead and agree to it, but don’t get into the courtroom.

These are emergency procedures when the fourth divine institution breaks down. Proverbs 5:40, the same concept, “If a man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have thy cloak also. [41] And whosoever shall compel you to go with thee a mile, go with him two.” In that concept, that was a Roman law we now know from history, where the Romans would force certain things upon the citizens. In that kind of a situation the Roman soldiers would require these people to do certain things. And he said go ahead and do it above their standards if that’ll keep peace; peace almost at any price is being taught here, not quite, but almost. Why? Emergency procedures.

The clearest illustration in Christ’s teachings is in Luke 18:2, the parable of the woman who didn’t use money to bribe a judge, but she used force to bribe a judge, as only a woman can do. And she is commended for it. “There was in a city,” Jesus says, in Luke 18:2, “There was in a city a judge who feared not God, neither regarded man. That’s the context, please notice, the bribes being taught here are not bribes to pervert justice, they’re bribes to get justice. In other words, here’s a judge that has no concept of law so something has to be done. [3] “And there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. [4] And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard men, [5] Yet because this woman troubles me, I will avenge her,” in other words, she used harassment upon the judicial system until she got her way. She used pressure. That’s analogous to bribery; bribery is just money pressure, she used another kind of pressure. So in a way this woman was using a form of bribery.

You say well, wait a minute, doesn’t this teach that the end justifies the means? Only if you’re a legalist. To defend against this teaching what you have to say is that there is such a thing as a neutral legal principle that applies both to God and Satan. And there isn’t any. And that’s the problem. The reason this strikes most of us as kind of off base is because we’re used to thinking in terms of a legalistic principle that binds God Himself. God is bound by His righteous character, not by external legal principles to Himself. And legalism always rises up in wrath against such a concept as this. The concept, if we had time, we could go through the book of Judges and I could show you where Ehud, one of the great judges of Israel, lied his way into the presence of the king of Moab and said I have a present for you, and when the king of Moab turned away his guards to enjoy the present he got a knife in the gut; that was the present. And Ehud is commended by the Spirit of God for delivering Israel by lying and by assassination.

Now how could this kind of thing be? It is because we live in a fallen world, when Satan takes over these divine institutions then we have to respond in certain ways. Satan’s partisans will always shout “not fair, not fair,” to which we can only reply, God is God. Peter, when faced with Roman law said it’s either Roman law or God; I choose God. We break the law oftentimes in these crucial areas of history for God’s sake, and he commends believers to do this. These are very limited areas, very hostile areas of great controversy but I want to show you this [can’t understand phrase] we conclude with the judicial arm of government there is biblical provision, at times, for Christians, as they are now doing behind the iron curtain, to buy off corruption. If people are going to be corrupt, then buy them off. But you don’t buy off to avoid justice; you buy off only to preserve yourself when justice is not available.