WEBVTT 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.440 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:40.400 I am Cory J. 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:43.200 Mahler. And I'm Wo. 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:46.400 Blessed are those who are perfect in the way, who walk in 00:00:46.400 --> 00:00:47.680 the law of the Lord. 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:51.040 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:51.840 whole heart. 00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:55.920 Yea they do no unrighteousness, they walk in his ways. 00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:00.560 You have commanded your precepts, that we should observe them diligently. 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:04.800 O that my ways were established, to observe your statutes. 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:07.680 Then shall I not be put to shame when I look to 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:09.200 all your commandments. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:12.320 I will give thanks to you with uprightness of heart, when I 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:17.280 learn your righteous judgments, I will observe your statutes, do not forsake 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:18.800 me utterly. 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:21.760 How shall a young man cleanse his way? 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.680 By taking heed according to your word, with my whole heart have 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:26.960 I sought you. 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:29.440 Let me not wander from your commandments. 00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:32.480 Your word have I laid up in my heart, that I might 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:34.080 not sin against you. 00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:37.840 Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.000 With my lips have I declared all the ordinances of your mouth, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.840 I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:47.120 in all riches. 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:51.120 I will meditate on your precepts and look to your ways, I 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:57.760 will delight myself in your statutes, I will not forget your word. 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:01.440 Those were the first two sections of Psalm one hundred and nineteen, 00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:03.760 which is the longest psalm in the Bible. 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:07.440 There's some beautiful structure to it, and it's a it's really a 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:09.840 almost a book unto itself. 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:13.280 The reason that we opened with that is that those first two 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.360 sections in particular are a testimony to the fact that the Christian 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:21.040 life is one of following the precepts of God, which is something 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:26.080 that is alien to the way a lot of Christians talk today. 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:30.080 Last week we spoke at length about the fact that all sins 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:33.840 are not equal, because that is one of the first arguments that 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:37.440 is used against the notion of saying that something is a sin 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:40.160 or that we should stop sinning. 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:44.400 Uh fundamentally what we're talking about last week and this week is 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:49.200 about the different ways that Satan tries to track Christians into ceasing 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:53.680 to speak as Christians, which in turn is ceasing to be Christian. 00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:57.600 So today our discussion has moved on from all sins not being 00:02:57.600 --> 00:02:59.840 equal to a couple different things. 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:04.560 One is the follow-on doctrine that comes out of that, which is 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:05.840 judge not. 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:11.040 Now the way it's used in the world today is fundamentally satanic, 00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:13.760 but we have to make the case for that because judge Not 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:15.680 is literally a quote from Jesus. 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:18.960 So one of the tricks that gets played by Satan himself in 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:22.480 Scripture when he quotes Scripture is that he will say things that 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:25.760 are true and yet twist them in ways that are false. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:29.680 And so as Christians, we know that in Matthew seven, Jesus said, 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:34.960 judge not, and the world is redefining, is exegeting that for us 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:37.440 in a way that's completely contrary to Scripture. 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:40.320 So today we're going to be talking about what it means for 00:03:40.320 --> 00:03:43.760 Christians to judge or to refrain from judging. 00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:45.920 And then the second part of this episode we're going to be 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:49.600 talking about what Lutherans call the third use of the law and 00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:52.080 the manner in which all of these come all these things come 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:56.720 into play where Christians say, Well, yeah, there's that law stuff, but 00:03:56.720 --> 00:03:58.240 I live in the gospel now. 00:03:58.240 --> 00:03:59.520 I'm free. 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:03.120 And so I guess what the Bible says doesn't matter. 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:05.120 And that's kind of where some people end up. 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:09.600 And they don't necessarily phrase it that way, but fundamentally that's where 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:12.400 their version of Christianity takes them. 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.200 And so when comes along, so when a person comes along and 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:19.280 says, Hey, scripture said we should do X, Y, and Z. 00:04:19.280 --> 00:04:20.480 They fire right back. 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:22.800 What do you are you saying your sins are better than mine? 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:24.000 That I'm a worse sinner? 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:25.360 Are you judging me? 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:29.760 And so we have to deal with these piecemeals so that we 00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:30.480 can show the whole picture 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:37.200 in which Satan tricks Christians into saying things that sound Christian in 00:04:37.200 --> 00:04:40.400 a way that fundamentally destroys Christianity. 00:04:40.400 --> 00:04:43.440 And I think that's I think that's one of the chief things 00:04:43.440 --> 00:04:46.160 that's the hardest for us to deal with is 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.880 the idea that's in all of our heads that I'm a Christian, 00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:54.400 so what I think must be Christian because I have a clean 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:57.920 conscience. I read the Bible sometimes, I go to church most of 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:00.560 the time, I pay attention, I believe it. 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.320 So whatever I think about whatever we're talking about, I must be 00:05:04.320 --> 00:05:05.840 right 'cause I'm a Christian. 00:05:05.840 --> 00:05:09.680 And that's that's an incredibly dangerous place to be because it's entirely 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:13.520 possible to be a Christian and to have a malformed conscience. 00:05:13.520 --> 00:05:16.480 It's one of the things that scripture talks about, to dwell on 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:20.720 God's teachings and his precepts so that we understand the ways of 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.920 God. Because when he says my ways are not your ways and 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:26.800 my thoughts are not your thoughts, that's part of it. 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:30.000 These things that God tells us to do, they're not instinct for 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.360 a f for a human. 00:05:31.760 --> 00:05:34.000 we're fallen sinful men. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:36.720 We naturally rebel against God. 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:40.800 And even in our sanctified nature where we're given faith, there's still 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:43.120 part of us that's constantly fighting it. 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:47.760 And so Satan pits the part of the Christian soul that wants 00:05:47.760 --> 00:05:51.680 to fight God against the part that wants to follow God. 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:54.000 And we have to listen to scripture. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.520 We have to listen to be the thing that's outside of us 00:05:57.520 --> 00:06:00.880 to determine which part of us we should follow. 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:02.240 Even with our conscience. 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:05.280 You know You know, s we we would never advocate that you 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:10.000 disobey your conscience if you disagree with something that we say, but 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.760 at the same time, if we make an argument for your conscience 00:06:13.760 --> 00:06:17.520 being malformed, I would hope that people would take that seriously wherever 00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:21.200 it comes from if it's if it's a credible source, because the 00:06:21.200 --> 00:06:26.000 Christian conscience is a powerful thing in the Christian's mind and his 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:27.360 in his heart. 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:31.680 If your conscience says this is sin, for you to do it 00:06:31.840 --> 00:06:33.040 is sin. 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:36.800 And James I think James four seventeen, I believe, is where that's 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:40.960 found. That's true, but it's also the case that your s your 00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:46.080 conscience can be malformed by false teachings, by the world. 00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:49.280 And so what you believe to be sin, which would be sinful 00:06:49.280 --> 00:06:51.120 for you if you did it because you would think you were 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:53.200 sinning, is in fact not sin. 00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:54.560 That happens sometimes. 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:57.600 And more and more we're seeing in the world things like racism 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:01.600 and sexism and some of the other topics we've addressed recently, those 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:05.280 are worldly sins that are imported into Christian consciences. 00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:09.200 And so when when the Christian says, I can't do that because 00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:14.320 that would be sin, there's an immediate concern to figure out, well, 00:07:14.320 --> 00:07:15.520 is that actually true? 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:17.360 Which is why we did those episodes. 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:20.240 As but as we talk about whether or not we can judge, 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:22.960 as we talk about whether or not certain sins are worse than 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:27.200 others, as we talk about whether God's instruction has any meaning for 00:07:27.200 --> 00:07:32.720 the Christian in the Christian life, it's fundamentally about informing our consciences 00:07:32.960 --> 00:07:38.320 according to God's will, not according to a podcaster or necessarily even 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:42.000 a sermon, but according to what is coming from God's word. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:47.600 And whatever you hear, if it's informative, if if it's Christian Teaching, 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:49.680 it should be coming from God's Word. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:52.480 But it's God's word that must be paramount. 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:56.000 That is what has the sole authority to inform your conscience. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.200 Your television doesn't have the authority to form your conscience. 00:07:59.200 --> 00:08:03.280 Your nagging spouse doesn't have the authority to inform inform your conscience. 00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:07.040 They will, and they do, because that's how human beings work. 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:11.440 But a malformed conscience is one of the worst nightmares for a 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:15.760 Christian because you think you're acting in good faith and in good 00:08:15.760 --> 00:08:18.320 conscience when in fact you're acting sinfully. 00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:20.720 And I think the first example of that that we're going to 00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:24.720 discuss is from Matthew seven, is part of Jesus' Sermon on the 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:30.240 Mount. When he says, judge not, the discussion there goes directly to 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.480 the heart of what the world tells us about this. 00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:34.880 So I'll just read that briefly and then we'll get into talking 00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:35.840 about it. 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:39.680 Judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment you 00:08:39.680 --> 00:08:42.960 pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.320 will be measured to you. 00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:46.880 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, 00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:49.280 but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:52.000 Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.240 speck out of your eye when there is a log in your 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:54.880 own eye? 00:08:54.880 --> 00:08:58.320 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:00.640 then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your 00:09:00.640 --> 00:09:01.680 brother's eye. 00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:04.000 Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:08.720 pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:12.880 you. Bleason the reason I included that last verse is because I 00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:16.320 think the superficial reading of judge not they were handed by the 00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:20.800 world, and increasingly by some of our own pastors, is defied by 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:23.280 what I think is verse six, do not give the dogs what 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:26.480 is holy, and do not cast your pearls before swine. 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:30.080 If you take the world it's exegesis of this passage at face 00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:35.520 value that judgment means you can't you can't judge anyone or anything. 00:09:35.520 --> 00:09:38.480 How can you then follow the next passage that says do not 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.160 give dogs what is holy? 00:09:40.160 --> 00:09:43.680 The only way a Christian can know that someone is a dog 00:09:43.680 --> 00:09:46.960 or someone is a swine or that they're going to trample underfoot 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:50.240 while you speak to them and turn and attack you is to 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:51.520 judge them. 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:55.280 So regardless of what the that second passage means, we're not going 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:56.720 to talk about the meaning of that. 00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:00.640 Simply the fact that it's present and immediately follows the passage about 00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:06.160 judge not demonstrates clearly that the idea that you cannot judge means 00:10:06.160 --> 00:10:09.920 you cannot discern one thing from another or you cannot say that 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:13.040 one thing is evil and another thing is not is false on 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:13.840 its face. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:18.560 Jesus could not have said this in in this context by that 00:10:18.560 --> 00:10:20.320 reading unless he was an idiot. 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:22.960 He would have he would have been telling the people who were 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:26.320 listening and to us, do not give dogs what is holy, but 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:27.760 don't judge who's a dog. 00:10:27.760 --> 00:10:29.440 You can't do that, that would be sin. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:31.600 And then don't do this other thing, no. 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:35.280 So just right out of the gate, the very context of this 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:38.720 passage makes clear that everything you've been told that says judge not 00:10:38.800 --> 00:10:40.480 means, hey man, just back off. 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:43.440 you can't you can't believe this too strongly. 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:45.680 You can't condemn someone's sins. 00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:50.560 The very passage itself completely eliminates that sort of exegesis from any 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:51.600 possible reading. 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:58.960 There's a sort of inversion actually of this that happens in politics, 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:04.640 particularly on the right wing and particularly amongst Christians, we make hypocrisy 00:11:04.640 --> 00:11:06.400 out to be everything. 00:11:06.400 --> 00:11:10.160 We always try to play a gotcha game with a politician or 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:15.360 a public figure being a hypocrite about something and then we turn 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:19.760 around and ignore it in scripture in Matthew seven. 00:11:19.760 --> 00:11:24.240 Now in politics, someone being a hypocrite is not a very effective 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:25.520 charge for a number of reasons. 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:29.920 reasons at the discussion for another time, but here the central issue 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:35.520 is that hypocrisy, And that should be obvious by the last sentence 00:11:35.520 --> 00:11:38.640 of Christ's words in the first part of this little section of 00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:42.960 Matthew. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:48.160 etc. The issue is that hypocrisy, if you are judging others, if 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:54.000 you are condemning others for a sin, acting holier than thou, while 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.760 you yourself are committing the same type of sin, you are being 00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:00.160 a rank hypocrite. 00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:02.720 And that's the issue here. 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:07.280 So if you're engaged in an adulterous relationship and you spend all 00:12:07.280 --> 00:12:11.840 your time teaching against sexual immorality? 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.320 This section is for you. 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:18.640 So Christians do have to judge, of course we have to judge. 00:12:18.640 --> 00:12:21.600 God's law wouldn't be worth anything to us, and we'll of course 00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:24.400 get into the law more in the next part of this episode, 00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:27.840 but God's law wouldn't be worth anything to us if we couldn't 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.080 judge at all. 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:34.160 Well What would you do with the law if you couldn't judge 00:12:34.160 --> 00:12:38.400 if something is or is not adultery, if it's not sexual immorality, 00:12:38.400 --> 00:12:40.960 or if it is sexual immorality? 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:43.520 The sixth commandment wouldn't be any good to you. 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:47.840 How can you judge whether or not something is slander, whether it 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.000 runs afoul of the eighth commandment? 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.760 If you can't judge whether or not someone is being slanderous, being 00:12:53.760 --> 00:12:55.440 a defamer. 00:12:55.760 --> 00:12:59.520 Christians have to judge, and there are other verses in scripture that 00:12:59.520 --> 00:13:00.640 instruct us to judge. 00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:02.960 We'll get into those in a little bit. 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:08.080 But the issue here, for judge not that you be not judged, 00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:09.680 is clearly given in the second verse 00:13:10.640 --> 00:13:14.400 the judgment you pronounce, if you are being a hypocrite, if you 00:13:14.400 --> 00:13:18.160 are committing the very sin you are condemning, you are going to 00:13:18.160 --> 00:13:22.400 be condemned with your own words because you are a hypocrite. 00:13:22.400 --> 00:13:26.240 And so Christians do have to judge, but the issue is not 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:30.880 being a hypocritical judge, not being a faithless judge, not being an 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:32.480 unjust judge. 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:33.040 And 00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:36.160 the question of hypocrisy is also one of degrees of sin. 00:13:36.160 --> 00:13:40.800 Hypocrisy doesn't necessarily just mean I'm committing sexual sin and I accuse 00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:43.360 you of sexual sin, and so that's hypocrisy. 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:46.800 Maybe I'm a murderer and you're an adulterer. 00:13:46.800 --> 00:13:48.800 Murder is worse than adultery. 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:52.000 If you know like that's a preposterous example, but like as sins 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.400 are ranked and as sins are known in a community, the hypocrisy 00:13:56.400 --> 00:13:58.080 itself becomes corrosive. 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:00.720 Cause if someone comes along and says, Hey, you need to stop 00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:04.880 what you're doing, it's and I know that you're doing something similar, 00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:08.480 you're doing something maybe worse, I'm not going to be able to 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:12.160 receive that Christian admonition because of the hypocrisy. 00:14:12.160 --> 00:14:15.360 So the sin itself that you are committing by being a hypocrite 00:14:15.520 --> 00:14:20.640 is corrosive to my sanctification because if I am sinning and I'm 00:14:20.640 --> 00:14:23.760 sinning in a way that needs to be rebuked, I am less 00:14:23.760 --> 00:14:26.960 likely to receive the rebuke in a Christian fashion because of the 00:14:27.280 --> 00:14:32.480 hypocrisy. And so it's fundamentally destructive to the use of the law 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:36.560 in the Christian life for someone to judge hypocritically. 00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:39.280 it it separates the two people. 00:14:39.280 --> 00:14:42.480 They're no longer being Christian brothers, but one is being an accuser 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:43.120 of the other. 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:47.120 And that's a demolition of what should be the natural order inside 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:48.720 the Christian congregation. 00:14:49.040 --> 00:14:49.200 And 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:52.000 that actually ties right into one of the verses that tells us 00:14:52.400 --> 00:14:56.560 that we do in fact have to judge from Corinthians five, for 00:14:56.560 --> 00:14:59.120 what have I to do with judging outsiders? 00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:03.040 Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:06.560 God judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you. 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:10.880 And so here we are commanded as Christians to judge, specifically to 00:15:10.880 --> 00:15:13.200 judge fellow Christians. 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:15.680 Part of this, of course, is going to be so that we 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:19.360 can rebuke them from the law with they transgress when they are 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:22.400 living in sin, because if we do not do that, we are 00:15:22.400 --> 00:15:24.880 not behaving properly as brothers. 00:15:24.880 --> 00:15:27.920 Brothers are to look out for and to care for each other. 00:15:27.920 --> 00:15:30.640 The answer to the cry of Cain, Am I my brother's keeper 00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:31.280 is yes. 00:15:31.280 --> 00:15:31.840 Yes, you are. 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:34.880 You are your brother's keeper. 00:15:34.880 --> 00:15:39.600 And so if you cannot judge, if the world's supposed interpretation of 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:44.160 Matthew seven is that Christians are never allowed to judge, how can 00:15:44.160 --> 00:15:48.400 you possibly rebuke a brother, according to scripture, which instructs you to 00:15:48.400 --> 00:15:50.720 rebuke a brother who is in sin? 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:52.720 How can you do that? 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.840 If you cannot judge what he is doing, and further if you 00:15:55.840 --> 00:15:58.240 cannot discern what the law actually means, what the law 00:15:59.280 --> 00:16:02.240 instructs him to do in that scenario, what it instructs you to 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:05.920 do in that scenario, you must as a Christian be able to 00:16:05.920 --> 00:16:09.200 judge in order to do the things that scripture instructs you to 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:15.040 do. And so the world's eisegesis of Matthew seven is indeed very 00:16:15.040 --> 00:16:18.080 clearly eisegesis, not exegesis. 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:23.520 It is a deliberate misinterpretation, it is a malicious interpretation of Jesus' 00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:27.680 words in order to get you not to act as a Christian, 00:16:27.680 --> 00:16:30.720 in order to get you not to rebuke your brother when he 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:33.360 is in sin, in order to get you not to care for 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:35.920 your brother by putting him back on the straight and narrow, in 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:39.840 order to get you not to rebuke the world, which is living 00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:44.720 in heinous sin, growing worse by the day, because if you cannot 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:48.800 judge, then you cannot actually apply the law. 00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:52.400 You cannot use God's law to rebuke sin, which is one of 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:55.520 the things that Christians must do in this life. 00:16:55.520 --> 00:16:55.680 And 00:16:55.680 --> 00:16:59.840 that includes our own sin, which is fundamentally what's upstream from all 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:00.640 of this. 00:17:00.640 --> 00:17:04.960 See if all sins are equal, and if you can't judge anyone, 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:09.520 eventually if you adopt those beliefs as your core beliefs as a 00:17:09.520 --> 00:17:13.920 so-called Christian, Satan's gonna pay you into a corner where you're gonna 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:17.200 be at the point where you aren't you're going to convince yourself 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:19.680 that you can't actually tell if you're sinning. 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:21.440 See, never mind what the other guy's doing. 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:22.560 I'm not going to be a hypocrite. 00:17:22.560 --> 00:17:24.320 I'm never going to confront anyone else. 00:17:24.320 --> 00:17:26.800 But I'm not even sure if I'm sinning anymore. 00:17:26.800 --> 00:17:30.320 Sure, I'm doing something that, you know, used to be said was 00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:33.600 terrible, but I I can't judge and no one can judge me, 00:17:33.600 --> 00:17:35.680 no one can be a judge over me. 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:41.120 So if I'm not even sure if I'm sinning anymore, Satan's got 00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:45.520 you. That is the death of the Holy Spirit in your soul. 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:48.960 That is you driving out the Holy Spirit by these little things, 00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:53.680 by these things that are seemingly small errors, where you know some 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:57.040 people think that maybe you're quibbling if you say all sins are 00:17:57.040 --> 00:17:57.600 not equal. 00:17:57.600 --> 00:17:59.040 That's actually a big deal. 00:17:59.040 --> 00:17:59.840 Judge not. 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:00.800 What are we doing? 00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:02.480 Saying actually you should judge. 00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:04.240 What like you're a hypocrite. 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:05.440 You're a sinner, right? 00:18:05.600 --> 00:18:07.120 Corey and I are sinners, right? 00:18:07.120 --> 00:18:10.640 So how can we tell someone to judge or not to judge? 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:13.760 As soon as you go down the path of saying, Well, it's 00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:18.560 it's you versus me and there's finger pointing, what has gone away? 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:19.840 Scripture has gone away. 00:18:19.840 --> 00:18:23.280 What God has commanded us to do has gone away. 00:18:23.280 --> 00:18:26.240 And that's what how all of this plays out in our lives. 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:28.400 Because if you circle the wagons and you say, I'm not going 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:30.480 to go after anybody else because that would be a bridge too 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.080 far. I don't want to judge. 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:34.880 Eventually you're going to stop judging your own sins. 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:37.360 And that's that's the Christian conscience. 00:18:37.360 --> 00:18:41.600 Your conscience is for the Christian, the Holy Spirit, speaking inside you 00:18:41.760 --> 00:18:44.960 and saying, What I am doing is sinful. 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:46.240 Turn away from this. 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:50.720 Go pray, leave the room, leave the state, whatever I have to 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:54.080 do. I need to separate from this evil and flee from it. 00:18:54.080 --> 00:18:56.800 Flee from temptation and flee from evil. 00:18:56.800 --> 00:18:59.680 Well, if I can't even tell what sin is anymore, how am 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:00.720 I gonna know to run? 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:03.040 And besides, I'm still a Christian, so I'll be all right. 00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:06.720 I'm I'm living in in Christian freedom, so what could possibly go 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.000 wrong? I'm baptized, Jesus died for me. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.160 The further you go down that path, the easier it is 00:19:13.040 --> 00:19:16.720 to just gobble up all the evil in the world and and 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.200 to say, yeah, this is mine, and eventually you're just gonna forget 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:19.840 about God. 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:23.840 It won't be an act of repudiation like some Reddit atheist. 00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:26.320 You're just gonna think that you belong to Jesus and you're a 00:19:26.320 --> 00:19:30.080 Christian, and you'll quit caring about what any of those words actually 00:19:30.080 --> 00:19:34.880 mean. In first Corinthians six, Paul again amplifies that. 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:37.680 When one of you has a grievance another against another, does he 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:39.040 dare go to the law book? 00:19:39.040 --> 00:19:41.520 Before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:44.320 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? 00:19:44.320 --> 00:19:46.880 And if the world is to be judged by you, are you 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.680 incompetent to try trivial cases? 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:52.000 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:55.040 How much more than matters pertaining to this life? 00:19:55.040 --> 00:19:57.760 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before 00:19:57.760 --> 00:20:00.720 those who have no standing in the church? 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:04.560 So this on its face completely elaborates 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:08.560 the question of whether or not Christians are to judge. 00:20:08.560 --> 00:20:10.480 We are absolutely to judge. 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:11.840 We are commanded to. 00:20:11.840 --> 00:20:13.520 We have no choice. 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:15.840 And the second thing I want to highlight in here, which goes 00:20:15.840 --> 00:20:19.840 to something Corey was saying, is that this in particular is also 00:20:19.840 --> 00:20:22.320 talking about church discipline. 00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:27.840 it's not talking about an individual having a grievance and going and 00:20:28.320 --> 00:20:30.080 accusing someone directly. 00:20:30.080 --> 00:20:32.560 Now Matthew eighteen says if you have if you have a problem 00:20:32.560 --> 00:20:34.320 with someone, you go to them first. 00:20:34.320 --> 00:20:37.520 This is talking about the next step of Matthew eighteen. 00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:40.640 First Corinthians six is talking about if you have a problem with 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:43.520 someone, you've gone to them privately, you take it to the church. 00:20:43.520 --> 00:20:45.360 You don't try to judge it yourself. 00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:48.400 You say, look, as a Christian body, we need to deal with 00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:51.520 this together because it's what Christ commands. 00:20:51.520 --> 00:20:55.120 So this is important because again, it goes to the question of 00:20:55.280 --> 00:20:58.320 how are you to judge whether or not the church is to 00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:02.320 judge? Even if you say that the church collectively has the right 00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:05.920 to judge these matters, which is true, the only way something can 00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:09.600 be brought before the church righteously is if you individually have judged 00:21:09.600 --> 00:21:13.360 it privately to be a matter to be brought before the church. 00:21:13.360 --> 00:21:16.240 Do you see what happens if you say you can't judge? 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:19.760 If you can't know of something's sin, how can you even obey 00:21:19.760 --> 00:21:22.640 the Bible and bring it to the church, to the elders or 00:21:22.800 --> 00:21:27.200 to whomever, to address a sin between you and another believer. 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:31.840 It's only possible if you're capable of actually discerning God's law, obeying 00:21:31.840 --> 00:21:35.280 God's commands, and confronting evil where it's found, even when it's found 00:21:35.280 --> 00:21:36.160 within the church. 00:21:36.560 --> 00:21:41.840 To give one more verse that relates to the very clear requirement, 00:21:41.840 --> 00:21:45.280 the duty of Christians to judge other Christians and to rebuke them 00:21:45.280 --> 00:21:51.200 when they sin, Luke seventeen three Pay attention to yourselves, if your 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:56.720 brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:02.640 Again, if the world's supposed interpretation of Judge Naught is accurate there's 00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:06.160 no way to know if your brother sins. 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:10.320 Because if you determine that he has sinned, you are judging what 00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:12.960 he did to have been a sin. 00:22:13.520 --> 00:22:17.040 And if you cannot judge that he has sinned, then you cannot 00:22:17.040 --> 00:22:18.400 rebuke him. 00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:23.040 So very clearly, what the world says about judge not cannot be 00:22:23.040 --> 00:22:26.400 true, because scripture does not conflict with scripture. 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:29.840 Scripture is not going to tell you to do two things that 00:22:29.840 --> 00:22:32.320 cannot be done simultaneously. 00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:35.280 Scripture is going to tell you to do things that you cannot 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:39.040 do, because in your fallen state you cannot uphold the law. 00:22:39.040 --> 00:22:42.080 But Scripture is not going to tell you to do A and 00:22:42.080 --> 00:22:44.560 not A at the same time. 00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:47.440 And so Scripture is not going to tell you you cannot ever 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:50.960 judge, you can never judge anyone, you can never judge anything, you 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:53.440 have to stay in your own lane, you have to ignore these 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:57.520 other sins, it's not your place to judge, and then turn around 00:22:57.520 --> 00:23:01.760 and tell you here in Luke and elsewhere, Rebuke your brother when 00:23:01.760 --> 00:23:02.640 he sins. 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:04.640 That's telling you to judge. 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:08.240 So you must be able to judge what is sin. 00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.560 You must be able to judge the actions of fellow Christians in 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:16.160 order to rebuke them, and then, if they repent, forgive them. 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:19.760 Part of the reason why it's so important to get this right 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:20.640 is that 00:23:21.760 --> 00:23:25.760 going to a brother in Christ privately and saying you are sinning, 00:23:25.760 --> 00:23:29.520 whether you've sinned against me or you're sinning in some other context 00:23:29.600 --> 00:23:33.520 that I become aware of When someone comes to you privately, or 00:23:33.520 --> 00:23:36.560 perhaps it's gone beyond that, and it's a matter of some church 00:23:36.560 --> 00:23:40.160 discipline where the church elders or whomever else are coming to you 00:23:40.320 --> 00:23:43.600 as a group and saying, 'What you are doing is sinful, you 00:23:43.600 --> 00:23:47.360 need to repent,' the reason it's so important to get everything up 00:23:47.360 --> 00:23:51.600 front right is that our natural inclination is to shout hypocrite. 00:23:51.600 --> 00:23:53.120 It's to say judge not. 00:23:53.120 --> 00:23:55.680 As soon as as soon as the light is shown on your 00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:56.400 sins, 00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:58.560 that's exactly where your heart's gonna go. 00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:00.640 It's gonna say, How dare you judge me? 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:02.480 Aren't you a sinner too? 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.840 And Jesus is teaching us these things so that when we are 00:24:05.840 --> 00:24:10.800 confronted with our own sins, our first response is not additional sin. 00:24:10.800 --> 00:24:14.880 Whenever anyone comes to you, whether they're right or wrong, and we're 00:24:14.800 --> 00:24:17.520 going to talk about that in a second, but the simply the 00:24:17.520 --> 00:24:21.920 fact that someone would come to you privately or in you know 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:27.920 in accord with Matthew 18 to admonish you of your sin sin. 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:30.880 Per se that is a Christian act. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:34.080 Now what's going on behind the scenes may not be. 00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:36.960 And so there are things that you may know that may change 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:38.400 the context of it. 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:42.160 But by itself, by default, the simple fact that a Christian would 00:24:42.160 --> 00:24:45.520 approach you privately and say, Hey man, I'm concerned for your soul, 00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:47.200 I'm concerned about what you're doing. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:49.600 Can we talk about what I think is a sin in your 00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:54.400 life? Your first response must necessarily be humility. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:58.320 It must be to listen and to receive that humbly. 00:24:58.320 --> 00:25:01.440 Even if they're wrong, your first response can be to get your 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:04.080 hackles up and to say, let's fight. 00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:09.600 Because if you're if you're wrong and you are sinning and they're 00:25:09.600 --> 00:25:13.840 admonishing you appropriately, you're going to resist their admonition. 00:25:13.840 --> 00:25:18.320 If you're right and they were falsely accusing you of sin, you 00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:22.160 still set the wrong tone by eliminating the possibility that sin could 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:23.280 be confronted. 00:25:23.280 --> 00:25:26.960 Because what will happen in some cases, someone will come to you 00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.720 and accuse you of racism or sexism, one of these other made 00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:34.080 up modern sins that is not a sin against God. 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:37.840 Whatever it is, whatever has occurred, if someone comes to you and 00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:41.440 says, I'm concerned about you, which is Christian, it is Christian to 00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:43.280 be concerned about the souls of our brothers. 00:25:43.280 --> 00:25:44.880 We should all have that concern. 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:47.200 That is the Christian part of that. 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:53.360 If their conscience is malformed, if they are adopting false worldly beliefs 00:25:53.360 --> 00:25:57.680 into their own version of Christianity and then holding you to a 00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:01.360 moral standard that scripture does not hold. 00:26:01.360 --> 00:26:04.400 You have to be patient and you have to understand that they're 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:06.480 coming to you in Christian concern. 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:09.680 In some cases, there may be unbelievers who will do the same 00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:12.320 things, and that's another matter for discernment. 00:26:12.320 --> 00:26:15.600 You may have someone who's an absolute liar who's using these things 00:26:15.600 --> 00:26:18.560 as a weapon to destroy you and to drive you from the 00:26:18.560 --> 00:26:21.440 church because they are evil and they do not want you to 00:26:21.360 --> 00:26:23.840 be where God wants you. 00:26:23.840 --> 00:26:28.240 So all of these things may happen, but the first default response 00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:33.840 of anyone in the situation of being confronted cannot be resistance and 00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:36.560 rebuke and refutation. 00:26:36.560 --> 00:26:41.040 However, in the cases where there's error by the accuser, then you 00:26:41.040 --> 00:26:44.320 are now in the position that they are in. 00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:46.720 They have come to you accusing you of a sin that if 00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:51.600 it's a false sin, you must now gently rebuke but firmly rebuke 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:55.200 their sin against you, because they are bringing to you a false 00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:56.800 confession that's in their heart. 00:26:56.800 --> 00:27:00.400 They're accusing you of a sin that's not really a sin, which 00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:04.640 means they're trying to get you to confess a false sin to 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:05.680 a false God. 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:09.520 They're trying to get you to apostatize in that moment, even by 00:27:09.520 --> 00:27:13.920 degrees. And so you as a Christian brother to them must be 00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:15.360 concerned for their soul. 00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:18.400 Because the fact that they came to you first as an accuser 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:21.440 doesn't maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:22.480 And that's the first question. 00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:23.760 Are they right or are they wrong? 00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:25.200 If they're right, repent. 00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:27.280 Let that be the end of it so that you can be 00:27:27.280 --> 00:27:28.720 reunited with your brother. 00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:31.760 If they're wrong, there's still a problem there. 00:27:31.760 --> 00:27:35.520 And you as a Christian, don't solve that problem by just shouting 00:27:35.520 --> 00:27:38.560 at them or by haranguing them saying you're a hypocrite. 00:27:38.560 --> 00:27:41.440 You have to clearly show them their sin just as they were 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:42.720 trying to do to you. 00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:46.000 Because when they come to you with Christian concern, if they're in 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:49.200 error, you then must have Christian concern for them. 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:51.520 You see there's an obligation in both directions. 00:27:52.080 --> 00:27:55.120 When we are part of the body of Christ, when we're brothers 00:27:55.120 --> 00:27:58.240 in Christ, we are our brother's keeper. 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:02.320 And if he's erring by coming to you with false accusations, that's 00:28:02.320 --> 00:28:03.360 now your problem. 00:28:03.360 --> 00:28:06.640 His soul is now something that you have to be concerned about 00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:07.600 for his sake. 00:28:07.600 --> 00:28:10.240 And that gets incredibly tricky because 00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.160 he must listen to those administs as well. 00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:17.040 And that's something that's going to be missing in most cases because 00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:21.040 while he may have a Christian heart when it comes to confronting 00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:26.640 your sin, if you say actually you're sinning, it's very easy for 00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:29.440 someone to see that as someone getting their getting their head their 00:28:29.600 --> 00:28:34.640 knackles up, of stiffening their back, of being hard hearted and unrepentant. 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:36.800 Because if they accuse you of sin and you say, I don't 00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:40.000 repent of that, that's no sin at all their first instinct is 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:41.520 gonna be, Well, that's unrepentant. 00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:42.160 You're a sinner. 00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:43.840 You're even worse than I thought. 00:28:43.840 --> 00:28:47.360 Well, if it were a real sin, yes, it was a false 00:28:47.360 --> 00:28:49.440 sin, then the tables have turned. 00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:52.720 The Christian duty is still there, but the direction has reversed. 00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:56.320 And so understanding all this up front is the only way to 00:28:56.320 --> 00:29:02.400 navigate these incredibly tricky situations that are ultimately, if they're d dealt 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:06.720 with in a Christian fashion, it's for the benefit of the church. 00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:10.640 It's for the benefit of your soul and the other man's soul. 00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:14.800 Because everyone should walk away from those interactions back on the same 00:29:14.800 --> 00:29:16.000 page as God. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:20.000 But everyone in those interactions, everyone who's not a hypocrite, must listen 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:21.520 to the voice of God. 00:29:21.520 --> 00:29:24.640 And the fact that someone else was the first mover, if they're 00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.920 saying something that's false, you still have to deal with that. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:30.240 You have to deal with it gently, but it must be rebuked 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:33.600 as the same sort of unrepentant sin that has brought them to 00:29:33.600 --> 00:29:37.280 you. And that's where the hypocrisy comes into play because they can't 00:29:37.280 --> 00:29:39.040 say, well you can't accuse me. 00:29:39.280 --> 00:29:40.880 They're there accusing you. 00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:44.240 And it's not bad per se to accuse someone of sin. 00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:45.840 It is a hard thing to do. 00:29:45.840 --> 00:29:49.120 It's incredibly hard to do it faithfully to go to a brother 00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:53.040 and say, I'm concerned about you, what you're doing is bad. 00:29:53.040 --> 00:29:54.640 Let's talk about this. 00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:57.280 I want to make sure that you are still in the faith 00:29:57.360 --> 00:29:59.920 and you're not making things worse for yourself. 00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:02.320 That's a hard thing to do, and you have to do it 00:30:02.320 --> 00:30:06.480 for them even when they are in error in accusing you. 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:11.040 Because the alternative is to multiply one sin into many sins. 00:30:11.040 --> 00:30:14.160 And that's why Jesus warned about the hypocrisy. 00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:17.360 It just makes things worse, and it can very easily blow up 00:30:17.360 --> 00:30:19.920 an entire Christian congregation. 00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:24.000 And this tends to become a particular challenge when 00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:29.280 that initial party, the first man who comes to you to tell 00:30:29.280 --> 00:30:34.480 you that he believes you are sinning, either has or believes that 00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:40.640 he has a particular office that gives him that authority to rebuke 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:46.240 sin. Now of course all Christians are told to rebuke sin. 00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:47.360 Scripture is very clear. 00:30:47.360 --> 00:30:50.080 We went over the ver some of the verses that mention that 00:30:50.160 --> 00:30:51.680 it's all throughout Scripture. 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:54.400 But it is very clear that all Christians are to rebuke sin, 00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:57.280 but for instance, pastors and teachers. 00:30:57.280 --> 00:31:02.720 Part of what they do in their office, part of their task, 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:06.880 is to rebuke sin, because part of their task is to teach 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:10.000 rightly, and if you teach rightly, if you are using the word, 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:13.040 you are going to convict others of sin. 00:31:13.040 --> 00:31:16.000 In the case of a pastor, if you know that there is 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:17.040 a particular sin 00:31:18.560 --> 00:31:22.880 in which some members of your flock are engaging, then you have 00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:25.760 a duty to go to them and to rebuke them for that 00:31:25.760 --> 00:31:29.520 sin, to teach them what Scripture says about that sin, to help 00:31:29.520 --> 00:31:32.480 lead them out of that sin. 00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:35.760 But if your pastor, if you're on the other side now, if 00:31:35.760 --> 00:31:39.120 your pastor is confused about what scripture means, if he has a 00:31:39.120 --> 00:31:43.280 false belief, if he has something he's imported from the world, which 00:31:43.280 --> 00:31:48.240 is very much the case today with many pastors, that is going 00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:52.880 to put you in a particularly difficult situation because now you are 00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:56.560 having to tell a man whose duty it is, whose special duty 00:31:56.560 --> 00:32:00.560 it is, to rebuke sin, to know the word correctly, to speak 00:32:00.560 --> 00:32:04.240 to these issues, you are having to tell him no actually you 00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:06.000 are in error. 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:10.160 I can show you from scripture why you are wrong, where God 00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:12.880 says you are wrong. 00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:17.600 And now instead of just having the issue of that immediate reaction 00:32:17.600 --> 00:32:23.760 when someone is perceived to be doubling down instead of repenting, there's 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:25.920 that in initial reaction. 00:32:25.920 --> 00:32:30.400 That's exacerbated by the fact that not only are you saying, No, 00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:33.440 I'm not sinning, you are in fact sinning, but you are saying 00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:36.880 it to someone who is in a position of some authority, who 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:39.360 is in a position where it is his duty to rebuke these 00:32:39.360 --> 00:32:44.400 things, and at least theoretically, and in reality in terms of the 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:49.760 duty, he should know these things better than you that makes for 00:32:49.760 --> 00:32:54.800 a very difficult situation, but many, and particularly those listening to this 00:32:54.800 --> 00:32:59.120 podcast, perhaps, are going to find themselves in such a w situation 00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:01.920 in the not too distant future. 00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:05.760 And so it is incumbent on you to understand these things from 00:33:05.760 --> 00:33:11.520 scripture. And if you get into one of these situations with a 00:33:11.520 --> 00:33:15.440 pastor, a teacher, anyone like that, don't go looking for them. 00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:16.160 Don't do that. 00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:19.040 That's just going to cause you undue trouble. 00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:22.720 But if you wind up in one of those situations, stick to 00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:24.640 the plain words of scripture. 00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:31.520 Don't get involved in complicated theological doctrinal discussions, don't follow the rabbit 00:33:31.520 --> 00:33:34.240 trails, insist on the words of scripture. 00:33:34.240 --> 00:33:38.160 If someone tells you judge not, point out that scripture very clearly 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:40.720 tells you no, I have to rebuke brothers, and so it is 00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:43.760 necessary for me to be able to judge them. 00:33:43.760 --> 00:33:47.280 If I don't judge them, I cannot rebuke them, I cannot obey 00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:50.400 what God tells me to do. 00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:54.320 Your best bet is always to rely on the clear words of 00:33:54.320 --> 00:33:58.880 scripture, particularly in matters like this where scripture is incredibly clear. 00:33:59.280 --> 00:34:01.920 this is not a complicated matter. 00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:06.720 The only reason that it gets supposedly complicated is that so many 00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:10.560 for so long have bought into what the world says about judge 00:34:10.720 --> 00:34:14.240 not? The world doesn't want you to judge because the world wants 00:34:14.240 --> 00:34:17.600 to be able to go on and keep sinning and committing worse 00:34:17.600 --> 00:34:22.160 sins and merrily waltzing down the road straight into hell. 00:34:22.160 --> 00:34:23.280 That's what the world wants. 00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:24.160 That's what Satan wants. 00:34:24.160 --> 00:34:27.360 It's what the sinful fallen flesh wants. 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:31.040 But scripture is clear. 00:34:31.040 --> 00:34:34.800 As a Christian, you must judge and rebuke sin. 00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:37.760 That is part of your duty. 00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:40.800 And I would like to read a little bit here from the 00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:41.920 large catechism. 00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:47.120 Martin Luther does a great job dealing with this issue of rebuking 00:34:47.120 --> 00:34:50.960 sin. This is from the, like I said, the large catechism, part 00:34:51.120 --> 00:34:54.720 one on the Ten Commandments, dealing with the eighth commandment. 00:34:54.720 --> 00:34:57.200 The true way in this matter would be to keep the order 00:34:57.200 --> 00:34:58.320 in the gospel In the gospel. 00:34:58.320 --> 00:35:03.040 In Matthew eighteen, Christ says, If your brother sins against you, go 00:35:03.040 --> 00:35:06.640 and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. 00:35:06.640 --> 00:35:10.240 Here you have a precious and excellent teaching for governing well the 00:35:10.240 --> 00:35:14.560 tongue, which is to be carefully kept against this detestable misuse. 00:35:14.560 --> 00:35:18.080 Let this, then, be your rule, that you do not too quickly 00:35:18.080 --> 00:35:21.520 spread evil about your neighbour and slander him to others. 00:35:21.520 --> 00:35:25.680 Instead admonish him privately, that he may amend his life. 00:35:25.680 --> 00:35:29.920 Likewise, if someone reports to you what this or that person has 00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:34.000 done, teach him too to go and admonish that person personally, if 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.680 he has seen the deed himself. 00:35:35.680 --> 00:35:38.240 But if But if he has not seen it, then let him 00:35:38.240 --> 00:35:40.000 hold his tongue. 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:42.880 You can learn the same thing also from the daily government of 00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:43.680 the household. 00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:46.480 When the master of the house sees that the servant does not 00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:49.760 do what he ought, he admonishes him personally. 00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:52.560 But if he were so foolish as to let the servant sit 00:35:52.560 --> 00:35:55.360 at home, and went on the streets to complain about him to 00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:59.200 his neighbors, he would no doubt be told You fool, how does 00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:00.320 that concern us? 00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:02.240 Why don't you tell it to the servant? 00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:06.240 Look, that would be acting quite brotherly, so that the evil would 00:36:06.240 --> 00:36:09.360 be stopped, and your neighbour would retain his honor. 00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:12.960 As Christ also says in the same place, if he listens to 00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:14.880 you, you have gained a brother. 00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:18.560 Then you have done a great and excellent work, for do you 00:36:18.560 --> 00:36:20.960 think it is a small matter to gain a brother? 00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.560 Let all monks and holy orders step forth, with all their works 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:28.160 melted together into one mass, and see if they can boast that 00:36:28.160 --> 00:36:30.000 they have gained a brother. 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.080 Further, Christ teaches, but if he does not listen, take one or 00:36:34.080 --> 00:36:37.360 two others along with you, that every charge may be established by 00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:39.600 the evidence of two or three witnesses. 00:36:39.600 --> 00:36:43.120 So the person concerned in this matter must always be dealt with 00:36:43.120 --> 00:36:46.560 personally, and must not be spoken of without his knowledge. 00:36:46.560 --> 00:36:49.840 But if that does not work, then bring it publicly before the 00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:53.680 community, whether before the civil or the church court, for then you 00:36:53.680 --> 00:36:57.600 do not stand alone, but you have those witnesses with you by 00:36:57.600 --> 00:36:59.920 whom you can convict the guilty one. 00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:03.840 Relying on their testimony the judge can pronounce sentence and punish. 00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:07.040 This is the right and regular course for checking and reforming a 00:37:07.040 --> 00:37:07.840 wicked person. 00:37:08.080 --> 00:37:11.520 But if we gossip about another in all corners, and stir the 00:37:11.520 --> 00:37:14.000 filth, no one will be reformed. 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:17.280 Later, when we are to stand up and bear witness, we deny 00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:18.640 having said so. 00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:21.760 Therefore it would serve such tongues right if their itch for slander 00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:25.200 were severely punished, as a warning to others. 00:37:25.200 --> 00:37:28.480 If you were acting for your neighbour's reformation, or from love of 00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:32.320 the truth, you would not sneak about secretly, nor shun the day 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:34.880 and the light. 00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:38.640 And this is another problem that we have today running rampant in 00:37:38.640 --> 00:37:40.080 the church. 00:37:40.080 --> 00:37:44.800 Instead of going to our brothers when they sin and rebuking them 00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:49.280 privately, we have We have all sorts of little networks of gossip. 00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.240 We spread rumors, slander, lies. 00:37:52.240 --> 00:37:55.360 We see that happening in all quarters. 00:37:55.360 --> 00:37:57.840 That is not what Scripture tells us to do. 00:37:57.840 --> 00:37:59.520 We are to judge. 00:37:59.520 --> 00:38:02.000 But there is a way to do it properly. 00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.920 Yes, when it comes to public sins it is a different matter, 00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:09.200 but right now we are dealing with sins that are not public, 00:38:09.200 --> 00:38:11.440 private sins, secret sins. 00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:15.520 In that case, you are to go to your brother personally. 00:38:15.520 --> 00:38:19.440 If, indeed, he will not reform himself, if he will not repent, 00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:21.840 then you take others with you, and eventually you take it to 00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:25.280 the church, and eventually, if he all along the way refuses to 00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:29.680 repent, you must treat him as an unbeliever. 00:38:29.680 --> 00:38:32.400 But that first step is not happening. 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:35.840 We do not have men who are going to other men when 00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:39.440 those other men are sinning and telling them privately, you need to 00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:43.680 amend your ways, you are sinning against God, you are not obeying 00:38:43.680 --> 00:38:47.280 this or that commandment, you are not obeying this or that section 00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:51.360 of scripture, you are doing these things that are incompatible with the 00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:52.720 Christian life. 00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:54.880 We don't have that happening. 00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:58.960 We have plenty of slander, plenty of rumor, plenty of those things 00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:03.280 happening that are specifically what is not supposed to happen, specifically what 00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:10.240 Christians are not supposed to do violations of the eighth commandment. 00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:13.840 And so if your brother sins against you, yes you have to 00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:17.680 judge him, but you need to go to him personally to rebuke 00:39:17.680 --> 00:39:19.440 him for that sin. 00:39:19.440 --> 00:39:23.040 It may escalate from there, but you have to take that first 00:39:23.040 --> 00:39:27.280 step. And to take that first step, you have to know scripture, 00:39:27.280 --> 00:39:30.400 you have to know yes I need to judge him, yes, I 00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:33.840 need to rebuke him, but you have to know according to what 00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:37.440 standard. And so spend time in your scripture. 00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.280 Spend time in your Bible. 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:40.960 Listen to the Word of God. 00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:44.400 You have to hear God's voice, know what He says about these 00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:48.000 things if you are then in turn to speak them to your 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:48.400 brother. 00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:53.360 As we've mentioned in the past, one of the tricky things about 00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:57.280 the word judge in English is that we know that it has 00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:01.040 two different connotations, but we only really focus on one of them 00:40:01.040 --> 00:40:03.600 when we're reading these passages. 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:07.360 We all know that in a courtroom, I've I've used this example 00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:10.400 before, the jury is judging facts. 00:40:10.400 --> 00:40:12.400 They're the triers of fact. 00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:16.160 And the judge determines the sentence. 00:40:16.160 --> 00:40:20.720 In some cases the jury also passes the guilty or innocent verdict, 00:40:20.720 --> 00:40:23.600 and then the judge passes a sentence on that. 00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:26.880 What the juror is doing in the case of a courtroom is 00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:29.120 what Christians are called to do. 00:40:29.120 --> 00:40:34.160 We are not called to pass the final judgment on the person 00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:35.600 who is accused. 00:40:35.600 --> 00:40:39.840 What we are to to do is to weigh the law, God's 00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:44.320 law, against the actions of a person, whether it's another person or 00:40:44.320 --> 00:40:45.280 it's ourselves. 00:40:45.520 --> 00:40:48.400 you are to do this to yourself too, to be a juror 00:40:48.880 --> 00:40:53.440 of your own actions, to weigh what God says in his law, 00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:57.520 in the his eternal will, versus what you have done. 00:40:57.520 --> 00:41:01.360 And where you find there's a mismatch, you find yourself guilty. 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:04.560 That's the sort of judgment that is permissible. 00:41:04.560 --> 00:41:08.960 The sort of judgment that is not permissible is the ultimate judgment 00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:10.480 on judgment day. 00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:14.240 We don't know the disposition of most men's souls. 00:41:14.240 --> 00:41:18.800 In some cases, you It's reasonable to infer based on their confession 00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:19.840 and their lives. 00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:21.920 In other cases we don't know. 00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:24.800 You can say that a man who never heard the gospel who 00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:28.640 lived three thousand years ago in North America cannot be in heaven 00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:31.200 because he never heard the word of God. 00:41:31.200 --> 00:41:35.040 And although that seems unfair to us, we cannot say that there's 00:41:35.040 --> 00:41:37.600 any reason to believe that he would be saved. 00:41:37.600 --> 00:41:41.200 Nevertheless, we would not pronounce judgment on him. 00:41:41.200 --> 00:41:44.880 We would say based on what is given, this is the reasonable 00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:46.560 Christian conclusion. 00:41:46.560 --> 00:41:49.600 I think a prime example of this is one I mentioned before 00:41:49.600 --> 00:41:51.120 in Jude. 00:41:51.120 --> 00:41:55.200 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about 00:41:55.200 --> 00:41:59.120 the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous 00:41:59.120 --> 00:42:02.000 judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. 00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:06.080 Now what's fascinating about this is one, it's the Archangel Michael who 00:42:06.080 --> 00:42:09.280 has you know he stood in the presence of God Almighty. 00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:11.520 He is a perfect being, he's without sin. 00:42:11.520 --> 00:42:17.520 The Archangel Michael is morally on a different plane than us. 00:42:17.520 --> 00:42:18.720 He's fighting the devil. 00:42:18.720 --> 00:42:22.640 He's fighting Satan himself for Moses body. 00:42:22.640 --> 00:42:27.360 Even in that circumstance, the blasphemous judgment that he would not pronounce 00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:28.080 is this one. 00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:30.960 Michael would not say to Satan, damn you. 00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:34.800 He wouldn't say go to hell, even though both of those are 00:42:34.800 --> 00:42:36.400 foregone conclusions. 00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:37.520 And everyone knows it. 00:42:37.520 --> 00:42:40.320 Like there's no doubt Satan is damned. 00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:44.640 Nevertheless, Michael would not pronounce a blasphemous judgment, not because it was 00:42:44.640 --> 00:42:47.600 not true, but because it was not his place. 00:42:47.600 --> 00:42:50.720 He was not to pronounce the final judgment on Satan. 00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:53.520 And so that's hard for me personally. 00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:56.560 I d I d I like saying damn you. 00:42:56.560 --> 00:42:57.680 I don't do it often. 00:42:57.760 --> 00:42:59.440 I don't I don't want to. 00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:04.080 But at the same time confronted with evil, that is my natural 00:43:04.080 --> 00:43:05.840 inclination. It's an evil one. 00:43:05.840 --> 00:43:08.960 This verse in the other passages tell me it's evil, but that 00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:11.040 is an outflowing of part of my nature. 00:43:11.040 --> 00:43:12.560 It's part of my sinful nature. 00:43:12.560 --> 00:43:14.480 God says no, don't do that. 00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:18.080 But there's the other side of judgment, the juror's side of judgment, 00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:23.360 that I am absolutely not only empowered to undertake, but commanded to 00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:25.120 and forbidden not to. 00:43:25.120 --> 00:43:27.520 And so that's what we're talking about. 00:43:27.520 --> 00:43:31.600 On the subject of slander, there's James four, where he writes, Do 00:43:31.600 --> 00:43:34.240 not speak evil against one another brothers. 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:37.920 The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks 00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:40.160 evil against the law and judges the law. 00:43:40.160 --> 00:43:42.400 But if you judge the law you are not a doer of 00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:43.680 the law, but a judge. 00:43:43.680 --> 00:43:46.880 There is only one law giver and judge, he who is able 00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:48.320 to save and to destroy. 00:43:48.320 --> 00:43:50.960 But you are you to judge your neighbor. 00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:53.680 Now, I looked up in the on Bible Hub to look at 00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:56.080 what the Greek word was for do not speak evil. 00:43:56.080 --> 00:43:58.560 I guess I guess that it was about blaspheming. 00:43:58.560 --> 00:43:59.280 I was wrong. 00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:04.800 Uh it's a Greek word katala, which basically means to slander, to 00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:06.400 rail at, um 00:44:07.680 --> 00:44:11.200 means to speak down in a hostile or deriding manner, to mock 00:44:11.200 --> 00:44:16.400 or revile, to defame, to slander or backbite, which as Corey was 00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:20.480 r referring to, that's something that's rampant in our churches. 00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:24.960 I've seen it for the first time on a shockingly widespread scale 00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:30.000 within the Missouri Synod, where dozens of pastors whom I could name, 00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:33.440 and surely hundreds whom whose names are not familiar to me, some 00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:37.920 of whom I considered friends, have participated in slander in this case 00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:40.960 against both Cory and me and some of our friends. 00:44:41.120 --> 00:44:45.440 What's interesting about this Greek word is that there's another word that's 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:50.320 related to it not by etymology, but by act. 00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:52.720 And this is a word that's going to be more familiar to 00:44:52.720 --> 00:44:54.560 you. Diabolos. 00:44:54.560 --> 00:45:00.640 Devil, Diablo, slandering, accusing falsely, it's the adjective form of devil. 00:45:00.640 --> 00:45:03.840 So devilry is slander. 00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:07.600 And I think it's really important when we when we look at 00:45:07.600 --> 00:45:13.440 the places in scripture where murder appears, slander usually appears in the 00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:14.480 same breath. 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:18.720 Murder and slander almost always go together. 00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:21.600 And as I was thinking about this while we were preparing for 00:45:21.600 --> 00:45:27.760 this episode, murder is worse in that it it comes first in 00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:32.720 the in the ten commandments and it destroys the body. 00:45:32.720 --> 00:45:37.840 However, the damage done by slander I think is far greater. 00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.400 And I think it's the reason why God ties these two together 00:45:42.480 --> 00:45:46.080 and why the devil is called a murderer and a slander, again 00:45:46.160 --> 00:45:47.280 in the same breath. 00:45:47.520 --> 00:45:49.200 Think about this. 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:53.040 if I were to kill you, if I were to commit the 00:45:53.040 --> 00:45:55.520 sin of murder against you personally, 00:45:57.440 --> 00:46:01.360 there's been one sin, there's been my sin, a horrible sin. 00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:04.160 And then there's the outcome in your life. 00:46:04.160 --> 00:46:08.800 You're dead, you've been murdered unjustly, your family is injured, your friends 00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:14.480 are grieved, your community, your neighborhood is shocked that something terrible could 00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.560 happen like this in their community. 00:46:16.560 --> 00:46:18.800 That's always unsettling whenever it happens. 00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:22.800 But the only sin would be mine acting as a murderer. 00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:26.960 If on the other hand, I commit the less serious sin of 00:46:26.960 --> 00:46:31.840 slander, if instead of going to your neighborhood and taking your life, 00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:35.520 I go to your neighborhood and I take your reputation, I slander 00:46:35.520 --> 00:46:38.560 you, I go to your friends and your family, I go to 00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:42.240 your neighbors, I go to your workplace, I go to your community, 00:46:42.240 --> 00:46:45.600 and I spread all manner of filthy lies about you. 00:46:45.600 --> 00:46:48.560 I say that you're a racist, you're a sexist, you're all of 00:46:48.560 --> 00:46:51.120 the worst things in the world, all the things that the world 00:46:51.120 --> 00:46:55.760 hates. You're not dead, you're still walking around, but what are you 00:46:55.760 --> 00:47:00.320 functionally? You're basically a dead man walking, because many of your friends 00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:03.280 and family are going to believe the slander, they're going to turn 00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:06.800 against you, and many cases, without ev ever even talking to you, 00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:08.640 they'll just never talk to you again. 00:47:08.640 --> 00:47:13.200 If some stranger comes to them with accusations, they will cut you 00:47:13.200 --> 00:47:16.160 off, they will treat you as though you are dead. 00:47:16.160 --> 00:47:19.600 So while I haven't taken your life like a murderer, by taking 00:47:19.600 --> 00:47:24.240 your reputation under the eighth commandment, I have effectively rendered you dead. 00:47:24.240 --> 00:47:28.080 Now what makes it, I think, in some ways a worse sin, 00:47:28.080 --> 00:47:31.680 and the reason that it's one that Satan often prefers, and that 00:47:31.680 --> 00:47:34.640 the reason that one of his name is the is the devil, 00:47:34.640 --> 00:47:37.200 is that how many sins are there then? 00:47:37.200 --> 00:47:39.440 If I murder you, there's one sin. 00:47:39.440 --> 00:47:40.160 There's my sin. 00:47:40.160 --> 00:47:43.360 I've I've committed murder, you're dead, everyone's hurt. 00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:48.640 If I slander you, everyone who entertained my slander is also a 00:47:48.640 --> 00:47:53.520 slanderer. They have received the lies that I spread to them, they 00:47:53.680 --> 00:47:55.360 believed them against you. 00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.240 They have robbed you of your reputation in their hearts. 00:47:58.240 --> 00:48:01.200 They have murdered you in their hearts with their hatred and anger 00:48:01.200 --> 00:48:02.640 against you. 00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:07.440 I have effectively incorporated my sin into the entire community. 00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:12.160 I've turned your entire network of friends and family in your community 00:48:12.240 --> 00:48:14.480 into a circular firing squad. 00:48:14.480 --> 00:48:19.200 Not only is your reputation murdered, not only are you socially isolated, 00:48:19.200 --> 00:48:22.400 but everyone involved is guilty of sin too. 00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:24.720 And it's a sin that many will not repent of. 00:48:24.720 --> 00:48:28.720 They're gonna think that they did justice by destroying your reputation and 00:48:28.720 --> 00:48:32.720 cutting you out, by treating you as a leper, by treating you 00:48:32.720 --> 00:48:36.080 in the worst possible way because someone came to them and told 00:48:36.080 --> 00:48:37.840 them lies about you. 00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:42.880 So slander when the devil uses it in our lives is 00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:46.240 it's a way, it's a contagious sin. 00:48:46.240 --> 00:48:49.840 It's a It's a sin that does damage unlike a murder or 00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:51.120 a violent crime. 00:48:51.120 --> 00:48:54.960 A murder or uh other violent crime doesn't scale. 00:48:55.280 --> 00:48:57.920 if I were to kill people, it would be one at a 00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:01.360 time. it's it's a one sinner and then a victim. 00:49:01.520 --> 00:49:04.240 If I slander, I'm lighting a fire. 00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:09.040 I'm lighting a fire encircling my target and everyone who participates, they 00:49:09.040 --> 00:49:11.760 catch on fire too, and they become a slander. 00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:14.000 They become a center just like just like me. 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:16.960 Now the devil does this because it's a way to corrupt entire 00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:21.360 communities. Rather than just destroying you individually by robbing you of your 00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:26.160 reputation, it's involved everyone you know in a sin that destroyed your 00:49:26.160 --> 00:49:31.040 community, destroys your family, it destroys your life in such a way 00:49:31.040 --> 00:49:34.240 that there's there's no way to repair that damage. 00:49:34.560 --> 00:49:38.240 in many senses, that's worse than if you'd just been killed. 00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:41.360 If you were alive one moment and dead the next, you never 00:49:41.360 --> 00:49:43.280 know. You're Christian, you go to heaven. 00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:46.080 If I come along and I slander you and I destroy your 00:49:46.080 --> 00:49:48.320 name, you'll never get it back. 00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:51.920 And that's why God spends so much time preaching against it. 00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:55.280 It's but why this devil spends so much time using it as 00:49:55.280 --> 00:49:59.920 one of his favorite attacks because it indicts everyone and it's a 00:49:59.920 --> 00:50:02.720 sin that people love to commit and they won't stop and they 00:50:02.720 --> 00:50:03.520 won't repent. 00:50:03.520 --> 00:50:06.800 And in the end, it will destroy communities in a way that 00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:09.760 if I had big, for example, committed a murder, might have unified 00:50:09.760 --> 00:50:12.640 the community in a loving Christian way. 00:50:12.640 --> 00:50:16.000 If I slander you instead, I can burn your whole community down 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:16.960 with one lie. 00:50:16.960 --> 00:50:19.600 And we see that in our churches today, and we see it 00:50:19.600 --> 00:50:21.760 everywhere. Satan knows what he's doing. 00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:23.840 He doesn't just want to destroy the body. 00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:25.840 He wants to destroy the soul forever. 00:50:25.840 --> 00:50:29.440 And slander is one of the chief ways that he accomplishes that. 00:50:29.440 --> 00:50:33.840 I'll resist the temptation to read the entirety of Luther's comments and 00:50:33.840 --> 00:50:37.840 the large catechism on the eighth commandment into this episode, but I 00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:40.080 will link it in the show notes and I do recommend going 00:50:40.080 --> 00:50:43.360 through and reading the entirety of it. 00:50:43.360 --> 00:50:47.040 But just one additional paragraph here. 00:50:47.040 --> 00:50:51.200 Actually I'll I'll start with the one before it so there's context. 00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:55.120 God therefore would have such behavior banned, that anyone should speak evil 00:50:55.120 --> 00:50:57.600 of another person even though that person is guilty, and the latter 00:50:57.600 --> 00:51:01.360 knows it well, much less if anyone does not know it, and 00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:03.840 has the story only from hearsay. 00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:07.360 And the second part of this gives the context here, so bear 00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:10.640 in mind this context when interpreting what I just read. 00:51:10.640 --> 00:51:13.920 But you say, shall I not say something, if it is the 00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:18.960 truth? Answer Why do you not make your accusation to regular judges? 00:51:18.960 --> 00:51:21.920 Ah, but I cannot prove it publicly, and so I might be 00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:24.320 silenced and turned away in a harsh manner. 00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:26.400 Ah, indeed, do you smell the roast? 00:51:27.440 --> 00:51:29.840 Now that do you smell the roast, I don't know why the 00:51:29.840 --> 00:51:34.240 translators made the decision not to translate German idioms into English, but 00:51:34.240 --> 00:51:38.480 the closest English idiom is do you smell a rat? 00:51:38.480 --> 00:51:40.160 And so the issue here 00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:46.080 is that if you bring something that is rumor and slander 00:51:47.040 --> 00:51:50.960 to whatever person, you tell it to your neighbor, you're gossiping, whatever 00:51:51.040 --> 00:51:53.760 have you, if you are doing this, but this is not something 00:51:53.760 --> 00:51:57.360 that you could prove to a proper authority, this is not something 00:51:57.360 --> 00:51:59.040 you should be spreading. 00:51:59.040 --> 00:52:01.520 You are violating the eighth commandment. 00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:08.720 You do not always have to spin something to the best construction 00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:11.280 in the wrong sense of that. 00:52:11.280 --> 00:52:15.840 We've gone over this before, but best construction properly applied is if 00:52:15.840 --> 00:52:20.400 is if I lend my lawnmower, weed whacker, chainsaw, whatever it happens 00:52:20.400 --> 00:52:23.920 to be to my neighbor, and he hasn't brought it back in 00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:28.960 two months, I put the best construction on that that he forgot, 00:52:28.960 --> 00:52:30.240 not that he's trying to steal it. 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:32.000 That's best construction. 00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:35.360 Best construction is not when a politician stands up and starts lying 00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:37.920 and you say, well, he must be he must think he's telling 00:52:37.920 --> 00:52:38.480 the truth. 00:52:38.480 --> 00:52:40.960 That's not best construction, that's stupidity. 00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:43.440 And there's a difference. 00:52:43.440 --> 00:52:48.800 So So you're not supposed to spread these rumors about your neighbor, 00:52:48.800 --> 00:52:53.520 your fellow Christians, members of the congregation, these people whom God has 00:52:53.520 --> 00:52:57.200 put into your life for you to deal with them according to 00:52:57.600 --> 00:52:59.760 what scripture says. 00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:03.440 There is a difference when you are speaking about someone who is 00:53:03.600 --> 00:53:08.720 a public individual, so the politician really is the best example because 00:53:08.720 --> 00:53:11.680 we don't have kings and nobility and such, you should speak well 00:53:11.680 --> 00:53:16.000 of them as well, but as a different standard. 00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:19.680 Because that is a public forum. 00:53:19.680 --> 00:53:23.840 But privately, dealing with your neighbor, dealing with your brother in Christ, 00:53:23.840 --> 00:53:26.480 do not spread these rumors. 00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:30.480 If it is something that is a very real problem, and you 00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:35.120 can very well prove it, go to him first and speak to 00:53:35.120 --> 00:53:40.880 him, and if necessary eventually bring it to the church. 00:53:40.880 --> 00:53:46.160 But do not again at risk of repeating myself too much, do 00:53:46.160 --> 00:53:48.800 not spread rumors. 00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:53.920 Spreading rumors, gossiping, these are violations of the eighth commandment. 00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:56.960 You are slandering your neighbor. 00:53:56.960 --> 00:53:59.840 If it were something that you could prove, and it were something 00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:03.600 that should be proven, you would not be telling it to your 00:54:03.600 --> 00:54:08.640 neighbour. You are telling it to your neighbor, your brother, your sister, 00:54:08.640 --> 00:54:13.840 your parents, whatever person, to whomever you are speaking this, you're telling 00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:16.960 that person because you cannot properly prove it, or it is something 00:54:16.960 --> 00:54:19.440 not worth properly proving. 00:54:19.440 --> 00:54:20.720 Hold your tongue. 00:54:20.720 --> 00:54:24.000 The Christian response is to hold your tongue when you cannot do 00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:26.240 things in the right way. 00:54:26.240 --> 00:54:26.400 And 00:54:26.400 --> 00:54:29.280 if someone comes you with slander, the only Christian thing is to 00:54:29.360 --> 00:54:33.120 tell 'em to shut up if they if they start spreading lies 00:54:33.120 --> 00:54:36.640 about someone, or even something that might be true, but as Corey 00:54:36.640 --> 00:54:41.280 said, if if it can't be demonstrated and it's not appropriate for 00:54:41.280 --> 00:54:43.440 you to deal with it, tell them to be quiet. 00:54:43.440 --> 00:54:44.480 So I don't want to hear it. 00:54:44.480 --> 00:54:46.640 If you have a problem with that person, go to them. 00:54:46.640 --> 00:54:50.960 You should not entertain slander against others. 00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:55.040 And an example of not saying that which cannot be proven is 00:54:55.040 --> 00:54:58.080 something that Corey and I talked about a few weeks ago in 00:54:58.080 --> 00:55:00.880 the episode against the Antichrist. 00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:04.480 We talked about the fact that Corey and I knew that Matt 00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:07.920 Harrison, the president of the Missouri Senate, was a false prophet in 00:55:07.920 --> 00:55:09.040 two thousand. 00:55:09.040 --> 00:55:11.040 It was clear as day to us. 00:55:11.040 --> 00:55:14.160 We did not say it publicly because it would have violated the 00:55:14.160 --> 00:55:16.400 eighth commandment, even though it was true. 00:55:16.400 --> 00:55:17.360 And it wasn't until after 00:55:18.240 --> 00:55:24.960 Harrison published his apostate screed against us in February that he proved 00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:28.080 it to the world, that he proved it from scripture that he 00:55:28.080 --> 00:55:29.280 rejects God. 00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:32.160 So at that point it was permissible and we will say from 00:55:32.160 --> 00:55:35.760 now on, Matt Harrison is a false prophet. 00:55:35.760 --> 00:55:39.200 Despite the fact that we knew this terrible thing was going on 00:55:39.200 --> 00:55:42.880 in our church, because we could not demonstrate it clearly, we kept 00:55:42.880 --> 00:55:43.600 our mouth shut. 00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:48.000 And that's unpleasant because he's been doing damage for years. 00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:50.800 And by the grace of God, the damage that he did in 00:55:50.800 --> 00:55:54.480 the large cataclysm and the pedochism has now made all of this 00:55:54.480 --> 00:55:56.240 visible to the world. 00:55:56.240 --> 00:55:59.520 And because this is public sin, we don't have to go to 00:55:59.520 --> 00:56:00.480 him privately. 00:56:00.480 --> 00:56:01.840 We have in the past. 00:56:01.840 --> 00:56:04.000 There's no longer any need to do so. 00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:09.200 He has made his willful apostasy, his false prophecy clear to the 00:56:09.200 --> 00:56:10.240 world. So 00:56:11.120 --> 00:56:13.920 there's a time and a place for dealing with things. 00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:17.040 It's sometimes impermissible to deal with things privately. 00:56:17.040 --> 00:56:19.920 It's sometimes mandatory to deal with things publicly. 00:56:19.920 --> 00:56:24.720 There's no one set rule that applies universally to all situations. 00:56:24.720 --> 00:56:27.360 That's why God spends so much time talking about this. 00:56:27.360 --> 00:56:31.520 That's why there's so many different passages dealing with different aspects of 00:56:31.520 --> 00:56:32.720 these questions. 00:56:33.040 --> 00:56:33.280 I'm 00:56:33.280 --> 00:56:36.160 actually going to read one more paragraph from the large catechism because 00:56:36.160 --> 00:56:40.480 it deals exactly with the issue you touched on earlier about damaged 00:56:40.480 --> 00:56:43.760 reputation and emphasizes what you just said. 00:56:43.760 --> 00:56:48.320 It's just slightly on from what I read before, therefore if you 00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:53.120 meet an idle tongue that betrays and slanders someone, contradict such a 00:56:53.120 --> 00:56:56.400 person promptly to his face so that he may blush. 00:56:56.400 --> 00:56:59.040 Then many a person will hold his tongue who otherwise would be 00:56:59.360 --> 00:57:02.480 Would bring some poor man into bad repute, from which he would 00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:04.400 not easily free himself. 00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:08.000 For honor and a good name are easily taken away, but not 00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:10.480 easily restored. 00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:12.960 And that is just a simple truth. 00:57:12.960 --> 00:57:17.360 Many philosophers, statesmen, other thinkers have commented on this. 00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:20.720 We all know it to some degree. 00:57:20.720 --> 00:57:27.280 Your reputation is very easily taken away, is very easily destroyed. 00:57:27.280 --> 00:57:31.680 But it is a very difficult thing to restore a reputation after 00:57:31.680 --> 00:57:34.000 it has been destroyed. 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:37.200 And this is one of the reasons that we have some of 00:57:37.200 --> 00:57:41.200 the protections we have in our legal system, particularly on the criminal 00:57:41.200 --> 00:57:46.320 side. Unfortunately, the the media and certain politicians and others have turned 00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:49.920 it into a bit of a circus these days, but theoretically it 00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:51.280 is supposed to work where 00:57:52.720 --> 00:57:58.400 much of this is conducted publicly and privately simultaneously, because you have 00:57:58.400 --> 00:58:02.080 to have public exposure to make sure that things are being done 00:58:02.080 --> 00:58:08.480 properly, but privately to protect privacy, reputation, various other things. 00:58:08.480 --> 00:58:13.360 But that is why you are innocent until proven guilty. 00:58:13.360 --> 00:58:16.240 And we used to understand what that meant. 00:58:16.240 --> 00:58:19.680 Today many, of course, will assume that someone who is charged is 00:58:20.160 --> 00:58:24.880 guilty, which is a violation, of course, of the eighth commandment. 00:58:24.880 --> 00:58:28.240 If you do not have evidence clearly demonstrating the guilt of the 00:58:28.240 --> 00:58:30.800 person and you simply assume that he is guilty because he has 00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:34.320 been charged, that is slander. 00:58:34.320 --> 00:58:38.560 You are believing evil about this man without adequate warrant. 00:58:38.560 --> 00:58:42.720 But it's supposed to be that you are innocent until proven guilty, 00:58:42.720 --> 00:58:46.960 and that the mere fact that you have been indicted, that you 00:58:46.960 --> 00:58:50.400 have been charged, that you have been brought before a tribunal does 00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:55.360 not imply in any way, shape, or form that you are guilty. 00:58:55.360 --> 00:58:59.120 Law enforcement officers make mistakes. 00:58:59.120 --> 00:59:04.000 DAs will charge and they can make mistakes. 00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:07.120 There is a reason we have the systems in place that we 00:59:07.120 --> 00:59:10.880 have, and as Christians, we don't have to trust thing these things 00:59:10.880 --> 00:59:12.160 perfectly. I won't say that. 00:59:12.160 --> 00:59:14.960 They are deeply compromised these days. 00:59:14.960 --> 00:59:15.760 There is corruption. 00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:17.920 There are many problems. 00:59:17.920 --> 00:59:21.840 But we should at least have that foundational assumption that a man 00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:25.760 simply because he has been brought before a court, that does not 00:59:25.760 --> 00:59:27.520 mean that he is guilty. 00:59:27.520 --> 00:59:32.000 He is still innocent until he is proven guilty, and we comport 00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:35.600 our behavior in the kingdom of the left hand of Christ with 00:59:35.600 --> 00:59:39.280 the commandments, the same as we comport our behavior in the kingdom 00:59:39.280 --> 00:59:42.080 of the right hand of Christ with the commandments. 00:59:42.080 --> 00:59:45.840 God's law is his eternal will, and we'll of course get into 00:59:45.840 --> 00:59:49.920 this more momentarily with anything antinomianism. 00:59:49.920 --> 00:59:54.800 Perhaps not momentarily it won't be quite that brief, but God's law 00:59:54.800 --> 00:59:59.600 is his unchanging, unchangeable, eternal will. 00:59:59.600 --> 01:00:01.440 These are not things that pass away. 01:00:01.440 --> 01:00:05.120 These are things to which Christians are beholden because these flow from 01:00:05.120 --> 01:00:06.080 God's nature. 01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:08.080 This is the structure of reality. 01:00:08.080 --> 01:00:13.360 As a Christian, you must comport your behavior with these commandments, with 01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:17.040 these strictures, with the way that God has set things up. 01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:22.560 Incidentally, this specific sin is precisely the moment that Corey and I 01:00:22.560 --> 01:00:27.360 knew that Matt Harrison was a false prophet in two thousand twenty 01:00:27.600 --> 01:00:33.680 twenty twenty, when George Floyd committed suicide with a fentanyl overdose. 01:00:33.680 --> 01:00:37.040 Within a few weeks, Matt Harrison put out a press release in 01:00:37.040 --> 01:00:41.600 the name of the entire Missouri Synod where he expressly condemned the 01:00:41.600 --> 01:00:45.360 police officers of unjustly taking that man's life. 01:00:45.360 --> 01:00:46.640 He committed libel. 01:00:46.640 --> 01:00:50.320 He committed an eighth commandment violation unrepentantly. 01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:53.120 It was an absolutely wicked, godless thing to do. 01:00:53.120 --> 01:00:55.600 And so we knew at that moment that we're dealing with a 01:00:55.600 --> 01:00:57.760 godless man with a false prophet. 01:00:57.760 --> 01:01:02.080 Nevertheless, most people because of the political fire bound up in that 01:01:02.080 --> 01:01:06.000 situation, which they oh that's overblown, we know based on all the 01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:09.040 things that we've just said, based on our knowledge and belief in 01:01:09.040 --> 01:01:13.360 scripture of the things, you know, the explanations from Martin Luther and 01:01:13.360 --> 01:01:15.040 the large catechism. 01:01:15.040 --> 01:01:16.960 Christians don't do this. 01:01:16.960 --> 01:01:22.080 Christians don't judge a police officer to be guilty of killing when 01:01:22.080 --> 01:01:24.240 the courts haven't done it yet. 01:01:24.240 --> 01:01:26.960 That is not how any Christian conducts himself. 01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:30.560 Even if you believe it in private, which you shouldn't do, for 01:01:30.560 --> 01:01:33.040 you to say it in public, for you to say it in 01:01:33.040 --> 01:01:35.840 print, for you to say it as the president of a synod 01:01:36.160 --> 01:01:39.200 is a unspeakably evil sin. 01:01:39.200 --> 01:01:43.440 I was honestly praying that Chauvin would be exonerated, specifically so that 01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:45.840 he could sue the Missouri Synod for libel. 01:01:45.840 --> 01:01:47.760 That was such a wicked act. 01:01:47.760 --> 01:01:50.720 And you know, of course the court did an evil thing because 01:01:50.720 --> 01:01:52.880 the the jury did an evil thing. 01:01:52.880 --> 01:01:55.200 That's the state of the world today. 01:01:55.200 --> 01:01:58.560 And to move on to the next part of this, the reason 01:01:58.560 --> 01:02:02.480 that we're talking about all the ways that God lays these things 01:02:02.480 --> 01:02:05.200 out, you know, in the case of slander, in the case of 01:02:05.200 --> 01:02:09.360 whether one sin is worse than another, God has written all this 01:02:09.360 --> 01:02:10.240 down for us. 01:02:10.240 --> 01:02:13.200 I'm just going to read briefly the the introduction to the sixth 01:02:13.200 --> 01:02:16.960 part of the Solid Declaration from the Book of Concord. 01:02:16.960 --> 01:02:20.000 The law of God is useful, not only to the end that 01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.000 external discipline and decency are maintained by it against all wild it 01:02:24.080 --> 01:02:27.920 disobedient men, likewise that through it men are brought to a knowledge 01:02:27.920 --> 01:02:31.280 of their sins, but also that, when they have been born anew 01:02:31.280 --> 01:02:34.080 by the Spirit of God, converted to the Lord, and thus the 01:02:34.080 --> 01:02:37.120 veil of Moses has been lifted from them, they live and walk 01:02:37.120 --> 01:02:38.720 in the law. 01:02:38.720 --> 01:02:42.640 Now, as Lutherans, we call these the three uses of the law. 01:02:42.640 --> 01:02:47.280 The first use, the wild and disobedient man is curbed against his 01:02:47.280 --> 01:02:52.160 sin. If someone doesn't have God and doesn't even listen to his 01:02:52.160 --> 01:02:56.800 own conscience if he goes and commits horrible crimes, the law, the 01:02:56.800 --> 01:03:02.080 laws that's enforced by the just magistrate will act as a curb. 01:03:02.080 --> 01:03:04.880 He'll be put to death if he goes far enough. 01:03:04.880 --> 01:03:06.560 The second case is the mirror. 01:03:06.560 --> 01:03:09.680 The second use of the law is when it's shown to someone 01:03:09.920 --> 01:03:11.680 knowledge of their own sins. 01:03:11.680 --> 01:03:15.120 When you read scripture and you say, Wow, this is me. 01:03:15.440 --> 01:03:18.240 As I do every time I open the Bible. 01:03:18.240 --> 01:03:19.760 That's the second use of law. 01:03:19.760 --> 01:03:23.680 That's the law of God, God's eternal will, acting as a mirror 01:03:23.680 --> 01:03:24.880 on our own hearts. 01:03:24.880 --> 01:03:28.160 Now that can apply to both believers and unbelievers. 01:03:28.160 --> 01:03:29.840 Only a believer is going to understand 01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:34.160 the full implications, but even an unbeliever, if he reads the Ten 01:03:34.240 --> 01:03:37.600 Commandments, can say, Yeah, I I've broken a few of these. 01:03:37.600 --> 01:03:41.440 And then once he reads what Jesus says about them, he understands 01:03:41.440 --> 01:03:43.040 he's broken all of them. 01:03:43.280 --> 01:03:45.760 And then the third use, which is principally what we're going to 01:03:45.760 --> 01:03:49.360 talk about today, is when someone is born anew by the Spirit 01:03:49.360 --> 01:03:52.960 of God, they're able to live and walk in the law. 01:03:52.960 --> 01:03:56.320 Now this is something that Protestants are really allergic to these days 01:03:56.800 --> 01:03:59.440 because isn't that works righteousness? 01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:03.840 Well no, because they're born anew in the Spirit of God. 01:04:03.840 --> 01:04:08.960 That is that is a rebirth through baptism, that is faith, that 01:04:08.960 --> 01:04:10.560 is having saving faith. 01:04:10.560 --> 01:04:12.160 You're already a Christian. 01:04:12.160 --> 01:04:15.600 And then you live and walk in the law. 01:04:15.600 --> 01:04:21.840 Now, Christian freedom is a term that's completely twisted, warped, and misused. 01:04:21.840 --> 01:04:25.760 It is Christian freedom to live and walk in the law, because 01:04:25.760 --> 01:04:29.200 the law no longer only condemns our lives. 01:04:29.200 --> 01:04:32.720 Before, when all we had was our wild, untamed witness 01:04:34.000 --> 01:04:36.960 And then we were confronted with the mirror of the law and 01:04:37.120 --> 01:04:39.200 like I'm guilty of all this. 01:04:39.200 --> 01:04:43.440 If you are blessed to receive faith from God, you then are 01:04:43.440 --> 01:04:48.560 freed from the consequences of the eternal consequences of your sin. 01:04:48.560 --> 01:04:51.520 There are still temporal consequences for all the evil that we do, 01:04:51.520 --> 01:04:54.800 not all of it, but it is frequently the case that you 01:04:54.800 --> 01:04:59.360 will find you receive some punishment in some fashion for your sin, 01:04:59.360 --> 01:05:03.360 even as a Christian, because the temporal consequences are baked into the 01:05:03.360 --> 01:05:04.720 sins themselves. 01:05:04.720 --> 01:05:08.480 The eternal price, however, was paid for by Christ on the cross 01:05:08.720 --> 01:05:12.400 when we are covered in Christ's blood and our robes are washed 01:05:12.400 --> 01:05:17.840 white in that blood, we appear before God as sinless for the 01:05:17.840 --> 01:05:20.080 sake of Christ's sacrifice. 01:05:20.080 --> 01:05:24.800 Having put on those robes, being renewed in the Spirit of God, 01:05:24.800 --> 01:05:27.440 we then can walk and live in the law. 01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:29.760 And the law is simply God's eternal will. 01:05:29.760 --> 01:05:31.520 It's all the stuff we're talking about. 01:05:31.520 --> 01:05:34.640 It's God says do this, God says don't do this. 01:05:34.640 --> 01:05:38.000 Not once in any episode, in any tweet, in any breath from 01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:40.880 either Cory or I will you ever hear us say do this 01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:42.160 and you can save yourself? 01:05:42.160 --> 01:05:43.520 That's not Christian. 01:05:43.520 --> 01:05:47.440 That is not what we believe, it's not what any Christian believes. 01:05:47.440 --> 01:05:50.320 We're talking about the and then of the Christian life. 01:05:50.320 --> 01:05:53.600 And the reason that all sins are equal and judge not are 01:05:53.600 --> 01:05:57.680 so important is that they separate men from being able to look 01:05:57.680 --> 01:06:01.680 to scripture as a source of wisdom. 01:06:01.680 --> 01:06:05.440 The Psalms themselves begin in Psalm one, Blessed is the man who 01:06:05.440 --> 01:06:08.400 walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the 01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:12.080 ways of sinners, nor sits in the seats of scoffers, but his 01:06:12.080 --> 01:06:14.960 delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law 01:06:14.960 --> 01:06:16.320 he meditates day and night. 01:06:16.640 --> 01:06:18.800 Now the Psalms are the longest book in the Bible. 01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:20.640 It's an incredibly beautiful book. 01:06:20.640 --> 01:06:23.680 It begins right off the bat with delight in the law of 01:06:23.680 --> 01:06:26.320 the Lord and meditate on it day and night. 01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:28.400 This is the Christian life. 01:06:28.400 --> 01:06:30.720 Now we're not talking about the law that says you're guilty and 01:06:30.720 --> 01:06:32.080 you're going to hell. 01:06:32.080 --> 01:06:34.560 We're talking about the law that says this is how God wants 01:06:34.560 --> 01:06:38.080 you to live a godly Christian life. 01:06:38.080 --> 01:06:42.160 It's the same law, and the difference is Christ's blood. 01:06:42.160 --> 01:06:44.960 Before, all we had was condemnation. 01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:49.040 The law only accused us because without Christ's blood, we're guilty of 01:06:49.040 --> 01:06:49.920 all of it. 01:06:49.920 --> 01:06:54.160 It is only after we have received faith and salvation through Christ 01:06:54.480 --> 01:06:58.560 that meditating day and night on God's law does not bring condemnation, 01:06:58.560 --> 01:06:59.840 but brings wisdom. 01:06:59.840 --> 01:07:04.160 Wisdom for a godly life that will enrich us in obedience to 01:07:04.160 --> 01:07:06.800 God has blessings attached to it. 01:07:06.800 --> 01:07:09.920 And we as Christians must return to being able to speak about 01:07:10.160 --> 01:07:15.120 things in these ways because that's where temporal peace and happiness it's 01:07:15.040 --> 01:07:16.720 the only place you're gonna find it. 01:07:16.720 --> 01:07:18.640 You need this is not prosperity gospel. 01:07:18.640 --> 01:07:21.120 We're not saying you're gonna have a million dollars in a boat 01:07:21.200 --> 01:07:23.120 and whatever crap you want. 01:07:23.120 --> 01:07:26.160 We're saying that when you obey God, God will bless you in 01:07:26.160 --> 01:07:27.600 great ways and small ways. 01:07:27.600 --> 01:07:30.400 Maybe the blessing is simply the knowledge that you're doing what he 01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:32.880 wants, and everything else is miserable. 01:07:32.880 --> 01:07:35.120 For some people, that's their lot in life. 01:07:35.120 --> 01:07:38.400 And God comforts them in scripture by saying, Your reward will be 01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:39.360 great in heaven. 01:07:39.360 --> 01:07:41.120 Don't worry about this stuff. 01:07:41.120 --> 01:07:44.960 Obey me, trust in God, trust in me, you will have your 01:07:44.960 --> 01:07:46.880 recompense in eternity. 01:07:46.880 --> 01:07:50.800 And for those who receive nothing more, that is sufficient. 01:07:50.800 --> 01:07:53.760 So when we talk about the third use of the law, it 01:07:53.760 --> 01:07:57.520 is explicitly and only for Christians, but it's still the law. 01:07:57.520 --> 01:08:01.360 It's still God's eternal will for how we conduct our lives day 01:08:01.360 --> 01:08:01.920 to day. 01:08:02.560 --> 01:08:05.840 And so to keep with one of the themes of this episode, 01:08:05.840 --> 01:08:06.960 I guess, of 01:08:07.920 --> 01:08:14.000 frequently and pervasively misinterpreted sections of scripture, let's look at Galatians 01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:15.680 three 01:08:16.880 --> 01:08:19.760 starting with verse ten for all who rely on works of the 01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:23.120 law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone 01:08:23.120 --> 01:08:25.440 who does not abide by all things written in the book of 01:08:25.440 --> 01:08:26.960 the law, and do them. 01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:30.240 For Now it is evident that no one is justified before God 01:08:30.240 --> 01:08:34.000 by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith, but the 01:08:34.000 --> 01:08:37.680 law is not of faith, rather, the one who does them shall 01:08:37.680 --> 01:08:38.960 live by them. 01:08:38.960 --> 01:08:42.480 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a 01:08:42.480 --> 01:08:45.920 curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one who 01:08:45.920 --> 01:08:49.280 is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing 01:08:49.280 --> 01:08:52.320 of Abraham might come to the nations, so that we might receive 01:08:52.320 --> 01:08:55.360 the promised spirit through faith. 01:08:55.360 --> 01:08:56.320 And in the 01:08:57.440 --> 01:09:02.320 both the epitome and the solid declaration, just like the catechisms, there's 01:09:02.240 --> 01:09:05.440 a small catechism and a large catechism, in the book of Concord 01:09:05.680 --> 01:09:08.960 for the formula of Concord, there is a shorter version and a 01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:12.160 longer version there called the Epitome in the Solid Declaration. 01:09:12.160 --> 01:09:16.720 In the Epitome, there are six points related to this third use 01:09:16.720 --> 01:09:19.120 of the law that's in Article six, and the first is that 01:09:19.120 --> 01:09:24.960 as Christians, we are freed from the curse of the law. 01:09:24.960 --> 01:09:29.040 We are not under the law insofar as under the law means 01:09:29.280 --> 01:09:31.680 under the curse of the law. 01:09:31.680 --> 01:09:35.200 We are under the law, in so far as being under the 01:09:35.200 --> 01:09:39.200 law means being subject to God's eternal will. 01:09:39.200 --> 01:09:43.520 Which that's actually the sixth point, that the law is God's eternal 01:09:43.520 --> 01:09:46.960 will, which is sort of the overarching point of this. 01:09:46.960 --> 01:09:51.120 The law is unchangeable, the law is unchanging, because it is God's 01:09:51.120 --> 01:09:54.880 eternal will for everything, for creation for mankind. 01:09:54.880 --> 01:10:00.880 We are to comport ourselves with the law as unregenerate or as 01:10:00.880 --> 01:10:05.760 regenerate, because it is God's will for all. 01:10:05.760 --> 01:10:11.680 Now, we cannot perfectly fulfill the law, of course, as fallen human 01:10:11.680 --> 01:10:14.400 beings, we will fall short. 01:10:14.400 --> 01:10:18.800 Unregenerate persons cannot fulfill the law at all. 01:10:18.800 --> 01:10:23.360 Now, they can do the various outward acts, they can restrain their 01:10:23.360 --> 01:10:25.760 hands from actually murdering someone. 01:10:25.760 --> 01:10:30.640 They can restrain their hands from actually committing adultery, etc., stealing, bearing 01:10:30.640 --> 01:10:33.440 false witness, what have you. 01:10:33.440 --> 01:10:37.840 But they cannot actually perfectly fulfill the law because of course they 01:10:37.840 --> 01:10:42.320 will commit these sins in their hearts, they will hold hatred in 01:10:42.320 --> 01:10:45.840 their hearts such that it rises to the level of murderous, violating 01:10:45.840 --> 01:10:49.280 the fifth commandment, they will desire a woman who is not theirs, 01:10:49.280 --> 01:10:52.320 violating the sixth commandment, they will desire things that are not theirs 01:10:52.480 --> 01:10:56.000 violating the seventh commandment and also the ninth and the tenth against 01:10:56.000 --> 01:11:01.120 coveting. But the overarching issue is not that they cannot fulfill the 01:11:01.120 --> 01:11:04.720 law perfectly because of course Christians cannot do that either. 01:11:04.720 --> 01:11:09.920 The overarching issue is that the unregenerate cannot do any good works, 01:11:09.920 --> 01:11:13.200 as we have mentioned previously in other episodes, they cannot do any 01:11:13.200 --> 01:11:16.960 good works because they are not in Christ And therefore as sinners, 01:11:16.960 --> 01:11:18.800 everything they do is sin. 01:11:18.800 --> 01:11:23.120 As Christians, we still cannot fulfill the law perfectly. 01:11:23.120 --> 01:11:28.160 However, our failures are not counted against us because we are in 01:11:28.160 --> 01:11:32.320 Christ. In so far as we comport our behavior with is so 01:11:32.480 --> 01:11:36.400 far as we uphold the law, we are given credit for that 01:11:36.400 --> 01:11:40.240 as good works, because again we are in Christ, for the sake 01:11:40.240 --> 01:11:45.040 of Christ, those good works are counted to us they are credited 01:11:45.040 --> 01:11:45.760 to us. 01:11:45.760 --> 01:11:50.080 We get credit because Christ has made it possible. 01:11:50.080 --> 01:11:55.120 And so that is the the point here that third use Christians 01:11:55.120 --> 01:11:59.760 are to organize their lives according to the law. 01:11:59.760 --> 01:12:02.640 The law remains, even for Christians. 01:12:02.640 --> 01:12:04.640 It is no longer a curse. 01:12:04.880 --> 01:12:10.720 And so the law is not this thing looming over you, damning 01:12:10.960 --> 01:12:16.480 you to hell, because you cannot uphold the standard, you cannot perfectly 01:12:16.480 --> 01:12:18.880 fulfill the requirements of the law. 01:12:18.880 --> 01:12:22.000 That is the case for those who are not in Christ, because 01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:26.320 no matter what they do, none of it will ever be good. 01:12:26.320 --> 01:12:31.120 For Christians, the law is a way that God speaks to us 01:12:31.280 --> 01:12:36.720 so that we can order our lives according to what He wants. 01:12:36.720 --> 01:12:40.880 And again we get credit for our good works as we order 01:12:40.880 --> 01:12:45.760 our lives according to God's eternal will, according to the law. 01:12:45.760 --> 01:12:50.000 We will fall short, we will not succeed, we will continue to 01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:56.800 sin, because the old Adam is not fully removed in this life. 01:12:56.800 --> 01:13:02.800 That's actually the third point under the six points is that regeneration 01:13:02.800 --> 01:13:05.040 in this life is incomplete. 01:13:05.040 --> 01:13:07.200 The old Adam remains. 01:13:07.200 --> 01:13:10.800 We are still living in the sinful fallen flesh. 01:13:10.800 --> 01:13:15.520 We We will be fully regenerated at the resurrection, but we still 01:13:15.520 --> 01:13:19.840 get credit for our good works in this life because we are 01:13:19.840 --> 01:13:20.560 in Christ. 01:13:21.040 --> 01:13:24.640 And much of what you just said is straight from Romans 8, 01:13:24.640 --> 01:13:28.880 where Paul Where Paul writes, There is therefore now no condemnation for 01:13:28.880 --> 01:13:31.840 those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit 01:13:31.840 --> 01:13:34.480 of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law 01:13:34.480 --> 01:13:37.920 of sin and death, for God has done what the law, weakened 01:13:37.920 --> 01:13:39.440 by the flesh, could not do. 01:13:39.280 --> 01:13:42.640 by setting his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and 01:13:42.640 --> 01:13:46.320 for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh, in order that the 01:13:46.320 --> 01:13:49.840 righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk 01:13:50.240 --> 01:13:53.200 not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. 01:13:53.200 --> 01:13:56.000 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on 01:13:56.000 --> 01:13:58.960 the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the 01:13:58.960 --> 01:14:02.400 spirit set their mind on the things of the spirit. 01:14:02.400 --> 01:14:06.240 So again, that's that's basically straight from Psalm one, delighting in the 01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:09.040 law of the Lord and meditating on his law day and night. 01:14:09.040 --> 01:14:12.480 This the law of God, God's eternal will, the scripture, all the 01:14:12.480 --> 01:14:16.560 things that God says to do, they're still binding on us, not 01:14:16.560 --> 01:14:20.080 binding for our salvation, but binding in the sense that this is 01:14:20.080 --> 01:14:22.400 the path that God has laid out for us. 01:14:22.400 --> 01:14:26.720 And whereas before it was condemnation when we did not have Christ, 01:14:26.720 --> 01:14:28.080 now it is a joy. 01:14:28.080 --> 01:14:31.040 Because forget for a moment what the law does 01:14:32.080 --> 01:14:36.000 in your own personal life as it illuminates your sins. 01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:40.800 If we loved our neighbors as ourselves and if everyone else followed 01:14:40.800 --> 01:14:43.680 the law of God, what would your life be like? 01:14:44.080 --> 01:14:46.000 You would be in no danger ever. 01:14:46.000 --> 01:14:47.440 No one would ever steal from you. 01:14:47.440 --> 01:14:48.960 No one ever lie to you. 01:14:48.960 --> 01:14:52.640 They wouldn't take anything, you know, your wife, any of your property, 01:14:52.640 --> 01:14:55.120 they wouldn't slander you. 01:14:55.120 --> 01:14:59.040 All the things that we have insurance for and that we worry 01:14:59.040 --> 01:15:02.080 about and that we lock our doors for, all the things that, 01:15:02.080 --> 01:15:05.680 you know, our our burdens and things that have to be dealt 01:15:05.680 --> 01:15:10.480 with in this life would vanish if everyone obeyed God. 01:15:10.480 --> 01:15:12.240 That's what the blessing is. 01:15:12.240 --> 01:15:15.280 So when we say the law is a blessing, that's what we 01:15:15.280 --> 01:15:17.120 mean. it's heaven. 01:15:17.120 --> 01:15:18.960 That's what the new earth will look like. 01:15:18.960 --> 01:15:22.800 The law will be perfectly upheld by everyone in the new earth 01:15:22.960 --> 01:15:27.760 Those who are believers will receive their bodies fully intact and restored, 01:15:27.760 --> 01:15:30.240 will be raised from the dead in the flesh that God has 01:15:30.240 --> 01:15:31.680 given us in this life. 01:15:31.680 --> 01:15:35.200 We will be perfected, we will have no more sinful nature, we 01:15:35.200 --> 01:15:38.240 will continue to obey God. 01:15:38.240 --> 01:15:39.920 We're gonna keep obeying God. 01:15:39.920 --> 01:15:43.200 I think that's the problem that is that the antinomians bring up, 01:15:43.200 --> 01:15:46.960 those who hate the law and think, Oh, well freedom in Christ 01:15:46.960 --> 01:15:49.520 means f just freedom, means libertine. 01:15:49.520 --> 01:15:51.440 It means the freedom of the enlightenment. 01:15:51.440 --> 01:15:56.240 No. We are still slaves to Christ because we belong to God. 01:15:56.240 --> 01:15:57.840 That is not a burden. 01:15:57.840 --> 01:16:03.440 Our slavery to Christ and our being bound to obey God is 01:16:03.440 --> 01:16:04.480 a gift. 01:16:04.480 --> 01:16:05.600 It is not a burden. 01:16:05.600 --> 01:16:08.160 It is not something it is not a standard by which we 01:16:08.160 --> 01:16:10.400 are held or we are damned. 01:16:10.400 --> 01:16:12.080 God took care of that. 01:16:12.080 --> 01:16:16.320 It is the standard by which all good things are measured. 01:16:16.320 --> 01:16:20.960 When you interpret the law as it's found in Scripture, as God's 01:16:20.960 --> 01:16:23.760 eternal will, all the stuff makes a lot more sense. 01:16:23.760 --> 01:16:24.640 And that's what it is. 01:16:24.640 --> 01:16:26.960 The law is what God wants. 01:16:26.960 --> 01:16:30.640 And because God doesn't change, what God wants doesn't change. 01:16:30.640 --> 01:16:34.240 So the mouthful of the laws, God's eternal will, is a way 01:16:34.240 --> 01:16:38.560 of emphasizing that we're not talking about salvation, works, righteousness. 01:16:38.880 --> 01:16:44.240 We're not talking about justification before God or believing that we're superior 01:16:44.240 --> 01:16:45.360 to another man. 01:16:45.360 --> 01:16:49.680 We're talking about being and living in accord with what God wants. 01:16:49.680 --> 01:16:51.120 Don't use contraception. 01:16:51.120 --> 01:16:53.120 You'll have more kids. 01:16:53.120 --> 01:16:55.920 Don't cheat, you won't get in trouble. 01:16:55.920 --> 01:16:59.040 Like all the superficial stuff that like on its face is like 01:16:59.200 --> 01:17:00.960 duh, it's so obvious. 01:17:00.960 --> 01:17:04.880 That is God's temporal rewards for obeying him, which even which even 01:17:04.880 --> 01:17:06.560 unbelievers receive. 01:17:06.560 --> 01:17:10.320 The unbeliever who lives a godly life will by and large be 01:17:10.320 --> 01:17:11.440 blessed in this life. 01:17:11.440 --> 01:17:13.840 It's not going to do him any good and good in eternity, 01:17:13.840 --> 01:17:16.160 I feel, for those people, because they thought they had it all 01:17:16.160 --> 01:17:19.840 figured out, and in some ways it's harder for them because if 01:17:19.840 --> 01:17:23.280 everything is good, they'll think I why would I need God? 01:17:23.280 --> 01:17:24.880 Everything's hunky dory. 01:17:24.880 --> 01:17:25.920 I'm living a good life. 01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:26.800 I'm doing what I should. 01:17:26.800 --> 01:17:28.320 I don't steal from my neighbors. 01:17:28.320 --> 01:17:30.320 Why would I need this God stuff at all? 01:17:30.320 --> 01:17:34.240 It's almost a harder sell to that person to than to a 01:17:34.240 --> 01:17:38.000 career criminal who's a rock bottom who's in prison maybe for the 01:17:38.000 --> 01:17:39.120 rest of his life. 01:17:39.120 --> 01:17:40.880 He knows he need he needs Jesus. 01:17:40.880 --> 01:17:44.080 He may might not know him by name, but he knows that 01:17:44.080 --> 01:17:48.080 he has failed where the man who is superficially righteous in this 01:17:48.080 --> 01:17:49.600 life doesn't know. 01:17:49.600 --> 01:17:52.640 We're not talking about super superficial righteousness. 01:17:52.640 --> 01:17:57.280 We're talking about the Christian life being in accord with what God 01:17:57.280 --> 01:18:01.680 says, meditating day and night on God's law is a blessing. 01:18:01.680 --> 01:18:04.400 And if we did a little more of that and a little 01:18:04.400 --> 01:18:09.520 less of just ingesting nonstop worldly culture in a way that deforms 01:18:09.520 --> 01:18:13.200 our consciences, we wouldn't have as many problems in the church and 01:18:13.200 --> 01:18:14.240 in the world. 01:18:14.240 --> 01:18:20.640 You know, Christendom five hundred years ago was shaped very largely by 01:18:20.640 --> 01:18:23.040 the Word of God because it was the norm 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:27.680 in daily life, people didn't stray as far from it. 01:18:27.680 --> 01:18:31.120 Even if they weren't Christian, there probably weren't many who weren't Christian. 01:18:31.120 --> 01:18:32.720 There were terrible Christians. 01:18:32.720 --> 01:18:33.760 Like we don't know. 01:18:33.760 --> 01:18:36.240 We know that they were baptized and that they confessed. 01:18:36.400 --> 01:18:39.040 We open pray the most of the are in heaven. 01:18:39.040 --> 01:18:44.160 However, in Christendom, because the law of God was also the law 01:18:44.160 --> 01:18:47.920 of the land, it kept much of the evil at bay in 01:18:47.920 --> 01:18:52.160 ways that we have since sacrificed by adopting the false God of 01:18:52.160 --> 01:18:56.240 democracy, this God that has clearly failed us, and yet it's still 01:18:56.240 --> 01:18:59.120 upheld in some of our own churches as sacrosanct. 01:18:59.120 --> 01:19:03.040 Uh Cory and I have been accused of false doctrine for disliking 01:19:03.040 --> 01:19:07.360 democracy. Like I I that's just un it's a never mind the 01:19:07.360 --> 01:19:09.760 evil. It's just purely insane. 01:19:09.760 --> 01:19:12.640 And yet that is where the church is in many places today 01:19:12.720 --> 01:19:17.520 where people can't understand the difference between God's eternal will and this 01:19:17.520 --> 01:19:20.560 garbage that we got in our social studies book in fifth and 01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:21.840 sixth grade. 01:19:21.840 --> 01:19:22.640 You know what? 01:19:22.640 --> 01:19:25.680 The guy who wrote the social studies book didn't have the same 01:19:25.680 --> 01:19:27.840 agenda as the guy who wrote the Bible. 01:19:27.840 --> 01:19:31.680 Maybe pay more attention to your Lord and Savior. 01:19:32.240 --> 01:19:34.640 maybe pay more attention to your creator. 01:19:34.640 --> 01:19:37.760 Because when this stuff is laid out for us, it's not just 01:19:37.760 --> 01:19:38.800 a good idea. 01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:40.320 And it's not judgy. 01:19:40.320 --> 01:19:42.320 It's not saying do this or you get in trouble. 01:19:42.320 --> 01:19:46.000 It's saying this is what I God want for you in your 01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:50.080 lives. Fear me, love me, obey me, and all of my blessings 01:19:50.080 --> 01:19:52.080 will be yours. 01:19:52.080 --> 01:19:54.880 That should be the easiest sell in the world to anyone, especially 01:19:54.880 --> 01:19:56.240 to Christians. 01:19:56.240 --> 01:20:00.640 And yet today, so many Christians are so far removed from actual 01:20:00.640 --> 01:20:04.480 Christianity that they get their hackles up at that. 01:20:04.480 --> 01:20:06.880 They get angry at hearing those words. 01:20:06.880 --> 01:20:10.080 That is a profoundly scary thing for us in the church because 01:20:10.320 --> 01:20:14.320 suddenly you realize that someone who seemed like they were Christian, when 01:20:14.640 --> 01:20:20.000 matters of conscience arise, you find that well your your conscience hopefully 01:20:20.160 --> 01:20:23.120 is is informed by by scripture. 01:20:23.120 --> 01:20:27.680 Their consciences in many cases are barely informed by scripture at all. 01:20:27.680 --> 01:20:30.080 They're informed by CNN. 01:20:30.080 --> 01:20:31.760 They're informed by movies. 01:20:31.760 --> 01:20:35.120 They're informed by all of these worldly things that are coming from 01:20:35.120 --> 01:20:38.720 Satan. To be explicit, all these other things that are not from 01:20:38.720 --> 01:20:41.840 scripture, it's virtually all satanic today. 01:20:41.840 --> 01:20:44.960 That wasn't the case five hundred years ago because we had Christendom. 01:20:45.280 --> 01:20:50.160 We had a world in Europe that was oriented around the Christian 01:20:50.160 --> 01:20:54.320 faith. There was no room for pornography and for filth and for 01:20:54.320 --> 01:20:56.800 all these things that are corrosive to the soul. 01:20:56.800 --> 01:20:59.200 Today, that's almost all you can find. 01:20:59.440 --> 01:21:04.000 Even the so-called wholesome stuff usually has some amount of degeneracy because 01:21:04.080 --> 01:21:04.800 hey, why not? 01:21:04.800 --> 01:21:07.440 We need we don't want people to feel like we're judging them. 01:21:07.440 --> 01:21:09.600 We got to include a little bit of that, and then we 01:21:09.600 --> 01:21:13.200 baptize it and sanctify it by incorporating it into something that we're 01:21:13.200 --> 01:21:14.640 saying as Christian. 01:21:14.640 --> 01:21:16.480 We can't do that. 01:21:16.480 --> 01:21:21.040 And so the things that God tells us to do should be 01:21:21.040 --> 01:21:23.280 obvious and they should be easy for us. 01:21:23.280 --> 01:21:25.520 It's not how you save yourself. 01:21:25.520 --> 01:21:28.720 It's how God is saving you from misery in this life. 01:21:28.720 --> 01:21:29.760 You'll still suffer. 01:21:29.760 --> 01:21:31.600 You'll still have bad things happen. 01:21:31.600 --> 01:21:34.000 Your family members, your pets are gonna die. 01:21:34.000 --> 01:21:37.520 That's part of the suffering in life that is the result of 01:21:37.520 --> 01:21:40.320 original sin that never goes away. 01:21:40.320 --> 01:21:43.920 But all the problems that we cause for ourselves by disobeying God 01:21:43.920 --> 01:21:47.520 are caused by not meditating day and night on his law. 01:21:47.520 --> 01:21:50.720 And then when somebody brings it up, rather than saying, hey, that 01:21:50.720 --> 01:21:51.680 sounds like a good idea. 01:21:51.680 --> 01:21:55.040 I'd like to learn more from scripture about what God says. 01:21:55.040 --> 01:21:57.680 The instinct now is is to kill the messenger. 01:21:58.080 --> 01:21:58.240 A lot 01:21:58.320 --> 01:22:02.480 of what you just said goes to the second point out of 01:22:02.480 --> 01:22:07.280 the six points in Article Six, and that is that the preaching 01:22:07.280 --> 01:22:12.240 of the law must be encouraged and must always have a place 01:22:12.480 --> 01:22:14.000 in the church. 01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:19.760 And this is something that a number of denominations have abandoned in 01:22:19.760 --> 01:22:22.080 the modern church. 01:22:22.080 --> 01:22:25.920 And this is one of the the true strains of antinomianism where 01:22:25.920 --> 01:22:31.120 they just preach the gospel and At least insofar as they perceive 01:22:31.120 --> 01:22:34.000 it, and they do not preach the law. 01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:36.560 And here I have to give the reformed some credit, because the 01:22:36.560 --> 01:22:42.720 reformed, at least the confessional version of the reformed, the the staunch 01:22:43.120 --> 01:22:46.080 ones have avoided this problem to some degree. 01:22:46.080 --> 01:22:51.120 Yes, there are some issues with perhaps not preaching the gospel enough 01:22:51.120 --> 01:22:54.960 in some cases, but and don't think that I'm just saying that 01:22:55.040 --> 01:22:58.800 oh well Lutheran law gospel, that's not it. 01:22:58.800 --> 01:23:06.000 I am willing to commend those who preach and teach extensively, exegetically, 01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:08.560 properly, on the law, that's good. 01:23:08.240 --> 01:23:11.600 but you do have to have the gospel in there as well. 01:23:11.600 --> 01:23:15.040 Because part of the task of the law is to kill the 01:23:15.040 --> 01:23:17.680 sinner, is to kill the old Adam, but you have to have 01:23:17.680 --> 01:23:22.080 the gospel to revive the Christian, to bring forth the new man, 01:23:22.080 --> 01:23:24.480 so both are necessary. 01:23:24.480 --> 01:23:27.840 You can fall off either side of the horse. 01:23:27.840 --> 01:23:30.480 You can fall off the left side of the horse by preaching 01:23:30.480 --> 01:23:33.680 just the law, just fire and brimstone one hundred percent of the 01:23:33.680 --> 01:23:35.360 time, and nothing of Jesus. 01:23:35.760 --> 01:23:38.640 You fall off the left side of the horse into the ditch. 01:23:38.640 --> 01:23:40.800 But you can also fall off the right side of the horse 01:23:40.800 --> 01:23:46.880 into the ditch, by Just Jesus loves you You're forgiven, Jesus loves 01:23:46.880 --> 01:23:49.360 you. Go home. 01:23:49.360 --> 01:23:52.800 No, you need the law as well, because even as Christians, you 01:23:52.800 --> 01:23:55.440 have to be told this is God's eternal will. 01:23:55.440 --> 01:23:58.160 You are to do this, you are not to do that. 01:23:58.160 --> 01:24:02.480 And the new man, the renewed part of you, the regenerated part 01:24:02.480 --> 01:24:05.840 of you, loves the law of God, and so you want to 01:24:05.840 --> 01:24:09.680 hear the law of God if you are a truly regenerate Christian. 01:24:09.680 --> 01:24:14.080 If you hear the law and you immediately hate it, you should 01:24:14.080 --> 01:24:16.000 be deeply worried. 01:24:16.000 --> 01:24:18.800 Because that is not the reaction of a Christian to the law. 01:24:18.800 --> 01:24:20.960 As a Christian, you will be convicted by the law. 01:24:20.960 --> 01:24:23.120 You will recognize the sin in your heart. 01:24:23.120 --> 01:24:25.200 You will recognize that you have not upheld it. 01:24:25.200 --> 01:24:29.600 You will Perceive of it in that second sense as well, as 01:24:29.600 --> 01:24:32.800 a mirror, because it is held up to you, and you see 01:24:32.800 --> 01:24:34.960 your sins in it. 01:24:34.960 --> 01:24:38.640 But there is also that third use, and Christians will recognize that 01:24:38.640 --> 01:24:39.520 third use. 01:24:39.520 --> 01:24:42.720 This is how I can organize my life, this is how I 01:24:42.720 --> 01:24:46.160 can order my life according to what God wants. 01:24:46.160 --> 01:24:49.840 This is how I can behave as a Christian, not how I 01:24:49.840 --> 01:24:51.440 can save myself. 01:24:51.440 --> 01:24:52.720 That work is done. 01:24:52.720 --> 01:24:54.720 Christ did that, I'm saved. 01:24:54.720 --> 01:24:55.840 That's justification. 01:24:55.840 --> 01:24:58.320 That's once for all done. 01:25:00.160 --> 01:25:04.880 But what do I do after I am justified? 01:25:04.880 --> 01:25:09.360 Now that I am a Christian, now that I have faith, now 01:25:09.360 --> 01:25:13.440 that I have been given new life by the Spirit, it's the 01:25:13.440 --> 01:25:14.720 and then. 01:25:14.720 --> 01:25:16.320 What do I do as a Christian? 01:25:16.320 --> 01:25:17.520 How do I conduct myself? 01:25:17.920 --> 01:25:20.480 How do I comport my life? 01:25:20.480 --> 01:25:24.800 And that is the law, and so Christians need both. 01:25:24.800 --> 01:25:27.120 Yes, the unregenerate also need both. 01:25:27.120 --> 01:25:30.960 The unregenerate need the law in full force until they repent, that's 01:25:30.960 --> 01:25:34.640 why the gospel, but Christians also need the law in full force, 01:25:34.640 --> 01:25:37.360 and then the gospel. 01:25:37.360 --> 01:25:41.280 That is one of the duties, that is the core duty, of 01:25:41.280 --> 01:25:44.880 pastors and teachers, and many are falling short of that in one 01:25:44.880 --> 01:25:46.400 way or the other. 01:25:46.400 --> 01:25:50.240 There are very few to day who preach the law in its 01:25:50.240 --> 01:25:54.400 full severity, and then the gospel in its full sweetness, who do 01:25:54.400 --> 01:25:59.600 that rightly, who rightly divide law and gospel, without mingling them, without 01:25:59.600 --> 01:26:01.680 neglecting one or the other. 01:26:01.680 --> 01:26:03.680 And that is, as I said, the second point. 01:26:03.680 --> 01:26:07.360 This is a vitally important thing for the church. 01:26:07.360 --> 01:26:11.280 It is a live issue, it is a significant problem we face 01:26:11.280 --> 01:26:16.000 today. Because we have, again, on the one side, those who are 01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:21.360 just preaching the law, largely ignoring the gospel, fewer of those, granted, 01:26:21.360 --> 01:26:25.040 and on the other side, we have many of these who are 01:26:25.040 --> 01:26:28.160 just preaching the gospel and ignoring the law. 01:26:28.160 --> 01:26:32.080 And as we keep saying, you cannot do that point six, the 01:26:32.080 --> 01:26:35.200 law is God's eternal will. 01:26:35.200 --> 01:26:36.320 You cannot ignore it. 01:26:37.040 --> 01:26:40.400 As a Christian, you should love the law of God. 01:26:40.400 --> 01:26:45.200 Read the Psalms, it's all throughout them, particularly Psalm one and Psalm 01:26:45.200 --> 01:26:48.480 one nineteen. 01:26:48.480 --> 01:26:51.760 And then points four and five are the only ones we really 01:26:51.760 --> 01:26:52.880 haven't touched on yet. 01:26:52.880 --> 01:26:57.760 And that is just the distinguishing between the works of the law 01:26:57.760 --> 01:26:59.040 and the fruits of the spirit. 01:26:59.040 --> 01:27:02.080 I actually went over this as well in the in the previous 01:27:02.080 --> 01:27:07.360 episode, but the works of the law in this specific technical sense. 01:27:07.360 --> 01:27:11.040 The works of the law are those works that are done out 01:27:11.040 --> 01:27:17.120 of fear fear of punishment, fear of the wrath of God. 01:27:17.120 --> 01:27:19.200 You do not get commended for these. 01:27:19.200 --> 01:27:21.600 Yes, it is better to do the works of the law than 01:27:21.600 --> 01:27:25.040 not. Your eternity in hell will not be as bad, if you 01:27:25.040 --> 01:27:26.400 do the works of the law. 01:27:26.400 --> 01:27:28.400 In this limited sense. 01:27:28.400 --> 01:27:32.080 Again, bear in mind, this is a technical sense of that term. 01:27:32.080 --> 01:27:36.800 The fruits of the Spirit are those works, those good works that 01:27:36.800 --> 01:27:42.560 flow from the regenerate, because they are regenerate, because they are in 01:27:42.560 --> 01:27:48.880 Christ. Now, in a looser, less technical sense, yes you can call 01:27:48.880 --> 01:27:52.000 those things that are done under the law according to the law, 01:27:52.000 --> 01:27:55.280 even by the regenerate, works of the law, because they are works 01:27:55.280 --> 01:27:57.680 done according to the law. 01:27:57.680 --> 01:28:01.520 But ultimately what they actually are is fruits of the Spirit. 01:28:01.520 --> 01:28:05.120 They agree with the law, because again the law is God's eternal 01:28:05.120 --> 01:28:09.520 will. And so good works are those things done according to the 01:28:09.520 --> 01:28:14.880 law. Because a work is good in so far as it comports 01:28:14.880 --> 01:28:18.560 with God's eternal will, which is again just another way of saying 01:28:18.720 --> 01:28:21.280 in so far as it comports with the law. 01:28:21.280 --> 01:28:25.600 And that is what the Spirit is doing, that is sanctification. 01:28:25.600 --> 01:28:27.680 Justification is immediate. 01:28:27.680 --> 01:28:30.640 You're justified, it's done, the work is done. 01:28:30.960 --> 01:28:35.440 It's not progressive, you aren't more justified tomorrow than you are today. 01:28:35.440 --> 01:28:38.320 You weren't less justified yesterday. 01:28:38.320 --> 01:28:43.920 Christ's work was complete when he said it is finished. 01:28:43.920 --> 01:28:48.160 However However, sanctification is progressive. 01:28:48.160 --> 01:28:51.600 As you maintain your faith in this life, as you spend time 01:28:51.600 --> 01:28:55.920 in God's Word, as the Spirit works in you, all these things, 01:28:55.920 --> 01:29:01.120 you will get progressively better as a Christian. 01:29:01.120 --> 01:29:04.080 Some of those sins that cling to you will fall away, some 01:29:04.080 --> 01:29:07.040 of the temptations will taper over time. 01:29:07.040 --> 01:29:10.560 Yes, new things will spring up, yes you will recognize new sins. 01:29:10.800 --> 01:29:16.080 Anyone who has dedicated significant time and effort to the Christian life 01:29:16.080 --> 01:29:21.120 will tell you immediately one of the things that will happen in 01:29:21.120 --> 01:29:26.640 the process all along the way, is that you'll find a sin, 01:29:26.640 --> 01:29:29.680 because the Spirit will highlight it, God's Word will show it to 01:29:29.680 --> 01:29:32.480 you. You'll get that sin under control. 01:29:32.480 --> 01:29:34.480 It may take a lot of time, it may take a little 01:29:34.480 --> 01:29:38.960 time. It depends on the kind of sin, and many other factors. 01:29:38.960 --> 01:29:40.880 But you'll get that under control. 01:29:40.880 --> 01:29:44.320 You eventually will, with the help of the Spirit, with God's word, 01:29:44.320 --> 01:29:49.200 time, patience, prayer, effort, you will get that under control. 01:29:50.160 --> 01:29:54.240 But then you'll read God's Word, then the Spirit will convict you 01:29:54.560 --> 01:29:58.480 of another sin, because there is always another sin. 01:29:58.480 --> 01:30:02.480 Because in this life you will never be perfect, the regeneration is 01:30:02.480 --> 01:30:03.680 not complete. 01:30:03.680 --> 01:30:06.480 That happens in the resurrection. 01:30:06.480 --> 01:30:11.200 And so you will continue to recognize these things in your life. 01:30:11.200 --> 01:30:15.360 Now it may be as you go along, they are smaller sins. 01:30:15.360 --> 01:30:17.600 They are less heinous sins. 01:30:17.600 --> 01:30:21.200 They're still sin, and all sin is sin, but as we have 01:30:21.200 --> 01:30:24.720 pointed out, as is the purpose in large part of these two 01:30:24.720 --> 01:30:27.840 episodes, not all sins are equal, and so it may be when 01:30:27.840 --> 01:30:31.680 you started out, there were particularly heinous sins in which you were 01:30:31.680 --> 01:30:37.600 engaged. It may be fornication is going to be a common sin 01:30:37.600 --> 01:30:38.800 these days. 01:30:38.800 --> 01:30:41.280 It may be something like that, and you get that one under 01:30:41.360 --> 01:30:47.680 control. And then it'll be rage, it'll be all these other various 01:30:47.680 --> 01:30:50.080 things as you go along. 01:30:50.080 --> 01:30:53.440 And the Spirit will continue to point these out as you spend 01:30:53.440 --> 01:30:54.720 time in God's word. 01:30:54.720 --> 01:30:58.480 You will continue to be convicted of these things, but that is 01:30:58.480 --> 01:31:03.680 the discipline that God gives to sons, because God is your father, 01:31:03.680 --> 01:31:07.280 and fathers who love their sons discipline their sons. 01:31:07.280 --> 01:31:11.120 And so part of that discipline is going to be pointing out 01:31:11.120 --> 01:31:15.600 these sins and continuing to work through them for the entirety of 01:31:15.600 --> 01:31:16.080 your life. 01:31:16.080 --> 01:31:19.120 You are not going to reach a state of perfection in this 01:31:19.120 --> 01:31:22.720 life. Anyone who says that is a liar and a false prophet 01:31:22.800 --> 01:31:25.440 and you should burn his books. 01:31:25.440 --> 01:31:30.240 You will not reach some level of perfection whereby you no longer 01:31:30.240 --> 01:31:33.680 sin. No, you will continue to sin, and you will continue to 01:31:33.680 --> 01:31:35.520 find these sins as you go. 01:31:35.520 --> 01:31:38.240 You may even find things that you didn't really think were that 01:31:38.240 --> 01:31:40.880 bad, and then as you continue to grow in your faith and 01:31:40.880 --> 01:31:44.080 your walk with God, you realize no that's a sin that's been 01:31:44.080 --> 01:31:47.600 holding me back, that's been separating me from God, and I should 01:31:47.600 --> 01:31:51.200 have taken that seriously long ago. 01:31:51.200 --> 01:31:55.360 But that is the Christian life, that is sanctification. 01:31:55.360 --> 01:31:59.120 As long as you are making that progress, and yes, you will 01:31:59.120 --> 01:32:03.440 backslide from time to time, and you should not despair because of 01:32:03.440 --> 01:32:07.440 that. But you will overall make progress 01:32:08.320 --> 01:32:10.400 in your Christian life. 01:32:10.400 --> 01:32:14.560 If you do the things that God tells you to do, if 01:32:14.560 --> 01:32:19.120 you read His Word, if you attend the divine service, if you 01:32:19.120 --> 01:32:25.200 make use of the sacrament, these are things that God instituted, that 01:32:25.120 --> 01:32:29.600 God created for your good, make use of them, and you will 01:32:29.600 --> 01:32:34.640 grow in your Christian life, and the Spirit will continue that sanctification 01:32:34.640 --> 01:32:38.000 process in you. 01:32:38.000 --> 01:32:41.280 And so we've we've mentioned the Psalms a number of times in 01:32:41.280 --> 01:32:45.520 this episode, and you should be reading through the Psalter. 01:32:45.520 --> 01:32:47.280 I'm not going to tell you that you have to do it 01:32:47.280 --> 01:32:48.560 every week. 01:32:48.640 --> 01:32:51.840 It's not that long, but it's long enough, and most people these 01:32:52.240 --> 01:32:56.160 days do not sit down to concentrate and read for very long. 01:32:56.160 --> 01:32:59.680 But add two or three psalms to your your day. 01:32:59.680 --> 01:33:02.000 Read one in the morning, read one in the evening, whatever it 01:33:02.000 --> 01:33:04.480 takes, spend some time in the Psalter. 01:33:04.480 --> 01:33:09.120 The Psalter is Is the original hymnal, as it were, of the 01:33:09.120 --> 01:33:13.680 church. You should be spending time with the Psalms. 01:33:13.680 --> 01:33:16.480 And so after this, I recommend you go at least read Psalm 01:33:16.640 --> 01:33:23.200 119 and Psalm 1 because they deal specifically with the goodness of 01:33:23.200 --> 01:33:24.880 God's law. 01:33:24.880 --> 01:33:28.320 But we're going to end by reading Psalm 1. 01:33:28.320 --> 01:33:31.440 And we already went over Psalm 1 in the ESV. 01:33:31.520 --> 01:33:33.760 That was what Wo read earlier. 01:33:34.080 --> 01:33:39.120 I'm going to read it in a slightly older translation this one 01:33:39.200 --> 01:33:41.280 the sixteen fifty Psalter 01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:48.560 That Man hath perfect blessedness, who walketh not astray, in counsel of 01:33:48.560 --> 01:33:53.520 ungodly men, nor stands in sinners way, nor sitteth in the scorner's 01:33:53.520 --> 01:33:57.920 chair, but placeth his delight, upon God's law and meditates, on his 01:33:57.920 --> 01:34:01.920 law day and night He shall be like a tree that grows, 01:34:01.920 --> 01:34:05.920 near planted by a river, which in his season yields his fruit, 01:34:05.920 --> 01:34:10.400 and his leaf fadeth never, and all he doth shall prosper well, 01:34:10.400 --> 01:34:14.240 the wicked are not so, but like they are unto the chaff, 01:34:14.240 --> 01:34:16.800 which wind drives to and fro. 01:34:16.800 --> 01:34:21.360 In judgment therefore shall not stand, such as ungodly are, nor in 01:34:21.360 --> 01:34:25.840 the assembly of the just shall wicked men appear, for why the 01:34:25.840 --> 01:34:30.000 way of godly men unto the Lord is known, Whereas the way 01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:34.160 of wicked men shall quite be overthrown. 01:34:34.160 --> 01:34:34.800 Amen