Key Verse:
Exodus 23:2-3 NKJV
2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. 3 You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.
God wields the sword of Justice with an even hand. He is not swayed by popular opinion, nor is He a respecter of persons. We should follow His lead.
What you need to know
Exodus 7:1-2 NKJV
1 So the Lord said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land.
Beloved, God has called us to speak truth to power. When God delivered His people from a powerful, but corrupt Egypt, He did so by the power of His spoken word. After He delivered His people, He gave them that same powerful Word to live by. To live justly and to speak on behalf of Justice is the responsibility of the believer.
Amos 5:15 NKJV
15 Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Prelude
Exodus 19:3-6 NKJV
3 And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I [a]bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
And so, after delivering His people from the grip of Pharoah, God drew them unto Himself in order to make them a people unto Himself. A people who would be an eternal witness to the power of His great love toward all of mankind. He drew them to Mount Sinai to educate them on worship and…civility. The civility portion will be the focus of this week’s lesson. Let us begin.
The Lesson
Exodus 23:1 NKJV
1 “You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
A Christian, nor anyone else should ever make a false report. To agree with the wicked is to agree with the Accuser of the brethren, Satan. Should any of us ever be shown to have agreed with the sons of Belial and call ourselves the children of God? Heaven forbid.
Exodus 23:2 NKJV
2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.
Nor should you allow the crowd to cloud your judgment. Mob justice is never ‘justice’. The mob only serves the passions inflamed by the multitude of voices lifted in rage against those who are, typically, unable to defend themselves against … the mob. The lynch mobs of yesteryear in this country, the United States of America offer a painful witness to the horrible injustice visited upon the least among us by mob violence. Mob violence directed against the weak is a shame of the highest degree and can never be condoned. In Germany, the shame of the Holocaust has been memorialized in such a way that the citizens of that country are forever reminded that they must never permit such atrocity again. To this day, the United States struggles to reach the same level of humility and humanity in regards to her original sin: slavery. May God have mercy on us.
Exodus 23:3 NKJV
3 You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.
I’m a contrarian at heart. I pull for the underdog in almost every situation. I was watching a recent cinematic rendition of a children’s fable, Robin Hood this past weekend. That whole; “take from the rich and give to the poor” sentiment is truly engaging, but it is not God’s way. God will stand for the poor, but not in an unjust way. We must not show undue favor to the poor in rendering judgment, for that too, is a perversion of Justice.
Exodus 23:4-5 NKJV
4 “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.
God now entreats us to lay aside our animosity toward one who has wronged you if you see that they need… a hand. A helping hand extended to one with whom we contend may help both of us to escape a ditch. When Jesus entreated us to love our enemies, it was that we might reap the benefit of forgiveness. Unforgiveness is too great a burden to bear.
Exodus 23:6-7 NKJV
6 “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. 7 Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.
You must not take sides against the poor. The implication here is that the poor, the powerless are victimized by a system maintained by the powerful to benefit the powerful. Whether that system is energized by greed or race or caste, God’s people must discern the inequity and take care not to align themselves with it. Unfairness on any level is un-Godly. God will not allow it to remain, forever unpunished.
Exodus 23:8 NKJV
8 And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.
Bribes come in many forms. The promise of steady employment will cause one to turn a blind eye to injustice within their own workplace. A bribe always carries the threat of repercussions if the person being bribed is unwilling to ‘accept’ the bribe. In John 9:23, the parents of the blind man that Jesus healed at the Pool of Siloam offered no opinion on their son’s regaining of his sight for fear of losing their place in the synagogue. Who among us fears losing our place in our congregation, our place of employment, or our community for standing up for what is right. Whether we are bribed to keep silent or intimidated into silence, our silence has been purchased by the forces of evil for the purposes of evil. This must not be so amongst the people of God.
Exodus 23:9 NKJV
9 “Also you shall not oppress a [a]stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Thus we are never to become agents of injustice. Never. God lends the example of the ‘stranger’ or immigrants that dwell among us. In essence, God commands us to love and to be fair to people who don’t look or speak like us. Unconditionally. This ‘command’ is imperative. God wants all of us to understand that no matter our race, creed, or color we are not to oppress others. No matter that their cultural differences offend our cultural biases, we must stand for justice on their behalf. In reminding His people of their oppression in Egypt, He was warning them not to fall into the snares of racism or classism when God elevated them to a Holy and Righteous nation. By that same token, God exhorts believers to avoid the same snares of racism or classism now that we have been translated into the Kingdom of His marvelous Son, Christ Jesus. This does not call for an elimination of ‘race’, as many ‘Christian’ leaders suggest, but rather a real confrontation of racism and classism and the elimination of both amongst His people. The distinction is quite stark and requires real work on the part of all believers toward the purpose of Justice… for all.
Exodus 23:10-12 NKJV
The Law of Sabbaths
10 “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner, you shall do with your vineyard and your [b]olive grove. 12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day, you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.
In these verses, God establishes the rules surrounding the principle of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is to offer ‘Rest’. It establishes that after a certain period of work that His people should observe a period of rest. Thus, the land, the animals, the slaves, the immigrants, the poor would all have a time, ordained by God, for surcease of their burdens. God would expand these laws of the Sabbath into a lengthy, elaborate observation of Sabbaths that would culminate in what would normally be a once-in-a-lifetime event called Jubilee, a super Sabbath, if you will that took years in planning and preparation. What was God’s end goal? To create a people unto Himself who would live a life toward the goal of the Sabbath on purpose. Read that again slowly. God’s purpose for putting forward this system of ‘Sabbath’ was to create a people unto Himself who would live a life toward the goal of the Sabbath: Rest, on purpose. Does this mean that our life’s work is toward ease and relaxation? Hardly. That would lead to the very injustice that God so abhors. Beloved, God intends that we commit our lives and our resources to the benefit of others toward the purpose of ‘Rest’, or Sabbath for all. Thus, justice and fairness can be had by all. And that Beloved, is worship.
Selah
wb
Mark 2:27-28 NKJV
27 And He (Jesus)said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
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Yesterday, in defense of voting rights and ultimately democracy, President Biden quoted from the previously quoted passage in Amos in exhorting his audience that all Americans must stand for justice against the forces who currently oppose democracy in this country. Good on him. If his words spur us, his hearers toward the cause of social, economic, or even environmental justice, I applaud him.
Amos 5:15 NKJV
15 Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
My dad used to tell me, “Son, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” I’m happy to stand in God’s shadow on behalf of justice.
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