Speaker 1: Life Audio The Bible Study Podcast, Episode nine and eighty two. Today,
Speaker 1: The Bible Study Podcast continues the study of the Book
Speaker 1: of Exodus with chapter twenty three. Welcome to the Bible
Speaker 1: Study Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Kristensen. We're going to
Speaker 1: get to the fourth of the four sections of the
Speaker 1: law here in the middle of Exodus, not counting the
Speaker 1: ten Commandments, so maybe it's the fifth. But first a
Speaker 1: word from this sponsor. Today, we have laws of justice
Speaker 1: and mercy to start with. Do not spread false reports.
Speaker 1: Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.
Speaker 1: Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong when you
Speaker 1: give testimony in a lawsuit. Do not pervert justice by
Speaker 1: siding with the crowd. And do not show favoritism to
Speaker 1: a poor person in a lawsuit. If you come across
Speaker 1: your enemy's aca or donkey wandering off, be sure to
Speaker 1: return it. If you see the donkey of someone else
Speaker 1: who hates you fall down under its load, do not
Speaker 1: leave it there. Be sure you help them with it.
Speaker 1: Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
Speaker 1: Have nothing to do with a false charge. And do
Speaker 1: not put an innocent or honest person to death. For
Speaker 1: I will not acquit the guilty. Do not accept a bribe,
Speaker 1: for bribe binds those who see and twist the words
Speaker 1: of the innocent. Do not oppress a foreigner. You yourself
Speaker 1: know how it feels to be foreigners, because you are
Speaker 1: foreigners in Egypt. Again, this is a section of the
Speaker 1: law that's almost a little preview here of Leviticus, here
Speaker 1: in the midst of Exodus. I'm not sure why just
Speaker 1: these show up in Exodus and the rest of them
Speaker 1: show up in the book of Leviticus, but these are
Speaker 1: laws that were important to God for the people of Israel.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this here is just let your
Speaker 1: justice be just right. Though the measure of justice is
Speaker 1: is something the law. Then it's the law for the
Speaker 1: people I hate as well as the people I love.
Speaker 1: It's the law for people who hate me as well
Speaker 1: as the people who love me. I'm not taking bribes
Speaker 1: if I'm the judge, or if I'm a witness, or
Speaker 1: if I'm doing anything regarding this case. The truth is
Speaker 1: the truth, because God does care about truth. It starts here.
Speaker 1: Do not spread false reports. And that's not just in court,
Speaker 1: but that can be online as well. And again it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to even know it's false. If
Speaker 1: you're being so lazy as not to look up to
Speaker 1: see if it's false before you spread it, you're spreading
Speaker 1: false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being
Speaker 1: a malicious witness. Don't lie about what you see. Malicious
Speaker 1: means your intent is not good. Don't follow the crowd
Speaker 1: and doing wrong again. Let your justice be justice. Do
Speaker 1: not give testimony a lawsuit. Do not pervert your justice
Speaker 1: by siding with the crowd. So don't go along with
Speaker 1: the crowd when you know the crowd is wrong. And
Speaker 1: that's why I thought was interesting. Don't show favoritism to
Speaker 1: a poor person in a lawsuit. Now, there are other
Speaker 1: places that don't show favoritism to a rich person, especially
Speaker 1: don't take a bribe. But you might be tempted just
Speaker 1: a side with a person who doesn't have the money
Speaker 1: against the rich corporations these days, or against the rich
Speaker 1: person in those days, and says no, the truth is
Speaker 1: the truth, the justice is justice. You can't show favoritism.
Speaker 1: And then I thought it was interesting. If you come
Speaker 1: across somebody's ox wandering off, you be sure to return it.
Speaker 1: That's just nice. It's a good neighbor, even if it's
Speaker 1: someone who hates you and you see it falling down,
Speaker 1: do not leave it there. So this is a beginning
Speaker 1: of those verses that get so uncomfortable in the New Testament,
Speaker 1: with love your neighbor, love those who hate you sort
Speaker 1: of things. It's treat those who hate you well also,
Speaker 1: and don't you and I justice to poor people in
Speaker 1: their lawsuits, so that's the opposite of what we saw before.
Speaker 1: Have nothing to do with a false charge, and really
Speaker 1: really don't put an innocent person to death, for I
Speaker 1: will not acquit the guilty, because you will be found guilty, basically,
Speaker 1: and do not accept a bribe, and so many times
Speaker 1: in the scripture it talks about bribes. Corruption is a
Speaker 1: perversion of justice. Corruption is a perversion of justice. Bribery
Speaker 1: or taking money or siding with people because they're your
Speaker 1: friends is a perversion of justice, and God hates it.
Speaker 1: And then that last verse that is somewhat problematic for
Speaker 1: some of us. Do not oppress a foreigner, for you yourself
Speaker 1: to know how it feels to be foreigners, because you
Speaker 1: were foreigners in Egypt. They were told not to treat
Speaker 1: foreigners differently. God cared for the foreigner, the powerless, the widow,
Speaker 1: the orphan, And you should toobath laws. For six years
Speaker 1: you were to sow your fields and harvest the crops.
Speaker 1: But during the seventh year, let the land lie unplowed
Speaker 1: and unused. Then the poor among your people may get
Speaker 1: food from it, and the wild animals may eat what
Speaker 1: is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your
Speaker 1: olive growth. Six days do your work, but on the
Speaker 1: seventh do no work, so that your ox and your
Speaker 1: donkey mare rest, and so that the slave born in
Speaker 1: your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
Speaker 1: Be careful to do everything that I have said to you.
Speaker 1: Do not invoke the names of other gods. Do not
Speaker 1: let them be heard on your lips. It's interesting that
Speaker 1: that verse gets lumped into the Sabbath laws, but of
Speaker 1: course the Sabbath law is relating to our relationship with God,
Speaker 1: and it's talking here not just about resting on the
Speaker 1: seventh day, but letting your fields rest also, which is
Speaker 1: good agricultural practice. Basically, let your fields be fallows so
Speaker 1: that they will be refreshed. It doesn't talk about crop rotation,
Speaker 1: but that's another way to let your fields be replenished
Speaker 1: the three annual festivals. Three times a year, you were
Speaker 1: to celebrate a festival to me. Celebrate the feast of
Speaker 1: unloven bread. For seven days, eat bread made without yeast,
Speaker 1: as I commanded you do this at the appointed time
Speaker 1: in the moon of Aviv, for that is the month
Speaker 1: you came out of Egypt. No one is to peer
Speaker 1: before me empty handed. Celebrate the feast of harvest with
Speaker 1: the first fruits of the crops you sew in your field.
Speaker 1: Celebrate the festival of in gathering at the end of
Speaker 1: the year. When you gather in your crops from the field.
Speaker 1: Three times a year, all men are to appear before
Speaker 1: the Sovereign Lord. Do not offer the blood of a
Speaker 1: sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat
Speaker 1: of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning.
Speaker 1: Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil
Speaker 1: to the house of the Lord your God. Do not
Speaker 1: cook a young goat in its mother's milk. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why the young goat one happens there, but it's
Speaker 1: one of those that is the reason that do not
Speaker 1: cook a calf at its mother's milk. Which is a
Speaker 1: different version of this as the reason why if you're
Speaker 1: Kosher Jewish you can't have a cheeseburger to this day,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to mix milk products and beef, milk
Speaker 1: products and meat. And it comes back to this verset
Speaker 1: and other ones like it again, that is, if you're
Speaker 1: Kosher and Jewish. And remember at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: section we talked about how do these laws to apply
Speaker 1: to us as Christians? And that's a little more complicated.
Speaker 1: Go back four episodes if you didn't listen to that one,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk about that, and we'll talk about it
Speaker 1: more as we get into Leviticus. But basically three big festivals,
Speaker 1: the unloven bread, which is remembering coming out of Egypt,
Speaker 1: and then the beginning of the harvest and the end
Speaker 1: of the harvest. And these are because God saved you
Speaker 1: out of Egypt. He gave you this land, and the
Speaker 1: land bears fruit. God's angel to prepare the way. See,
Speaker 1: I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard
Speaker 1: you along the way and to bring you to the
Speaker 1: place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen
Speaker 1: to what he says. Do not rebel against him. He
Speaker 1: will not forgive your rebellion, since MY name is in him.
Speaker 1: If you listen carefully to what he says and do
Speaker 1: all that I say, I will be an enemy to
Speaker 1: your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My
Speaker 1: angel will go ahead of you and bring you into
Speaker 1: the land the Amorites, Hittides, Peserites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebisites,
Speaker 1: and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down
Speaker 1: before their gods, or worship them, or follow their practices.
Speaker 1: You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.
Speaker 1: Worship the Lord, your God, and his blessings will be
Speaker 1: on your food and water. I will take away sickness
Speaker 1: from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren
Speaker 1: in your land. I will give you a full lifespan.
Speaker 1: I will send my terror ahead of you and throw
Speaker 1: into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all
Speaker 1: your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send
Speaker 1: the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites,
Speaker 1: and Hittites out of your way. But I will not
Speaker 1: drive them out in a single year, because the land
Speaker 1: would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.
Speaker 1: Little by little, I will drive them out before you,
Speaker 1: until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
Speaker 1: I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River.
Speaker 1: I will give into your hands the people who live
Speaker 1: in the land, and you will drive them out before you.
Speaker 1: Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.
Speaker 1: Do not let them live in your land, or they
Speaker 1: will cause you to sin against me, because the worship
Speaker 1: of their gods will certainly be a snare to you. Now,
Speaker 1: these are all interesting things, and keep these in mind
Speaker 1: as we go forward in this book, because we're just
Speaker 1: here with God. We're just getting the covenants. We just
Speaker 1: got the Ten Commandments, some other commandments, and the real
Speaker 1: big one here now is basically no other gods, and
Speaker 1: don't get hooked into the gods of your neighbors, right,
Speaker 1: that is really a number one, and that God is
Speaker 1: going to do all these great things for you if
Speaker 1: you will keep this 's really this one rule above
Speaker 1: all others, which is no foreign gods. Now, we're not
Speaker 1: very many chapters away from where that gets screwed up,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned. And with that, we're going to end
Speaker 1: this episode of the Bible Study Podcast. If you have
Speaker 1: any questions, send an email to Chris two xat gmail
Speaker 1: dot com, or, better yet, leave a comment on this
Speaker 1: episode at the Bible Study podcast dot com. And as always,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. I want to take just
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