MAKING WRONGS RIGHT (Exodus 34, 18, 32)

A good and compassionate nation will always embrace true justice as well as forgiveness in making wrongs right. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty? Exodus thirty-four, verses six and seven. The question might become how do we hold those two things together? What two things? The idea of God being merciful and forgiving, and yet at the same time not clearing the guilty. Let me begin with a story. Nazi concentration camp prisoners were driven into a town to do manual labor. And there one of the prisoners, Simon Weisenthal, was singled out by the officers and escorted away from the group to a bed of a dying SS officer named Carl. Carl was on death's threshold. He was hideously wounded. And yet what tortured him more than his wounds was his conscience over what he had done to the Jews. And without confessing to at least one Jew and receiving forgiveness, he felt as though he could not die in peace. And Karl had brought Wisenthal to his bed to ask him, Would you be that one Jew? Weisenthal stood by Karl's bed in total silence. Seconds nervously ticked by as he considered the question. Both feel helpless. One needs what he does not have, and the other is to give what he doesn't feel. And finally, without a word, Weisenthal turned away and walked out. Years later, in one of his books, Weisenthal asked his readers, Was my silence that the dying Nazi's bedside right or wrong? And most of the Jews responding to the question said that Weisenthal was right not to forgive because he was really not Carl's direct victim, and only the victim could forgive. And yet most Christians answering the question said Weisenthal was in fact wrong. It raises the question what does a free society do in the face of wrongs, wrongs of any kind, but especially extreme evils like abuse or slavery, murder, rape, racism. It seems that Exodus is a God-driven revolution. And I'm talking about the book of Exodus in your Bible. It is the blueprint for national freedom. And in the book of Exodus, God frees Israel from 400 years of slavery to the Egyptians that they themselves could not extricate from. He frees them not to do anything they choose to do, but to be his people, and to be a compassionate and just society. And so in this message, I want to talk a little bit about the seventh principle in this recipe for freedom that we have been discussing the last few weeks. And this is the principle that's stated in the book of Exodus, and that is freedom must make wrongs right. Freedom must make wrongs right. Now this means two things. The first of which making wrongs right requires is that of justice. Justice. In a free world, there will always be wrongs, simply because someone has the freedom to do what is not right. And we all at times do what is not right. But then this raises the question, does forgiveness then in such a case ignore justice? Or the question on the opposite end is, does justice mean getting a pound of flesh? What I want you to see today is that God's way of dealing with wrongs requires forgiveness, but it does not ignore justice. And nor does it get stuck in justice. And to establish that point, I want to go to Exodus chapter 18. The backstory in Exodus 18 is that Israel has come through the Red Sea, but they're not yet at the Mount of Sinai. They have not yet received the law of God. And in this moment, Moses' father-in-law, a man by the name of Jethro, visits him. Jethro brings to Moses his wife and his two sons, who have been staying with Jethro. Now Jethro is a Midianite who knows nothing of Yahweh, but when he gets to where Moses is, he's literally blown away by watching what Moses is doing. Here's Moses leading millions of people, not just a small crowd, millions of people through a burning desert. And Jethro instantly believes in Yahweh, even sacrifices to him. All of this is stated in Exodus 18, the first twelve verses. But in Exodus 18, 13, it says, The next day Moses sat to judge the people. And the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. Now, Jethro, he is a little curious about this. He first of all wants to know what Moses is doing, and secondly, why is he doing it all alone? And Moses says to him, Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me, and I decide between one person and another, and I will make them know the statutes of God and his laws. Verses 15 and 16. Now Moses is obviously Israel's foremost prophet, but he's also their judge. To judge means that Moses has got to decide between parties as to right and wrong, to determine guilt and innocence, to assess penalties to the guilty and calculate reparations to the victim. All of that is involved in justice because justice balances equity and repentance, mercy, forgiveness, restitution, restoration, reconciliation, all of that is involved in justice. And obviously, Moses has not yet received the Ten Commandments, so you wonder sometimes what's the groundwork that he arrives at justice from. And no doubt the Ten Commandments are still the moral framework for his understanding of right and wrong. And that God somehow lets Moses know these things as justice, the basis for justice. But all of this shows that God sees the value of dealing with wrongs and establishing justice very, very early in his relationship with Israel. You know, I have to admit here, as we just pause, our land no longer seems to feel that way. Dealing with wrongs is no longer really all that necessary, all that important. Our land no longer deals with injustices. Have you noticed? Laws seem to mean nothing anymore. The hands of our police seem to be tied. When you watch crime shows on television, you see police officers and authorities armed with sort of pea shooter-like weapons while criminals have automatic rifles. I just noticed this. And our courts do not know true right from wrong. You ask any police officer today, and they will tell you that it's frustrating to them to arrest criminals because they just go through a revolving door. The standards of conviction in our courts are too high. The legal process is too slow. There seems to be too many loopholes. Criminals never seem to have to face justice. And it's deplorable. It really is. But God's way of dealing with wrongs differs from man's ways. And maybe we just need to revisit what God's sense of justice is. And let me share with you two or three things about how God's way of dealing with wrongs differs from man's way. First of all, God's way insists that all of us are sinful and accountable to Him. Some of us think that only those who hurt us are sinful and we fail to see our own sins. Some of us sin against other people as if we will never give an answer to God, but we will. We're all answerable to God. And that should suggest something about how I deal with wrongdoers and yet not diminish wrongdoing. Romans 2 2 says, We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. God's judgment is coming. Practicing such things brings this. You say, What things does he mean? Go back to Romans chapter 1, and you'll find that out. Second, God's way of dealing with wrongs is by his standard of justice, not ours. Justice is centered in God himself. Justice means, for example, that we are only responsible for our own sins and not our father's. The popular notion today that today's generation is responsible for the errors and the mistreatments of the past is completely wrongheaded. The Bible says this quite clearly in Ezekiel chapter 18. The soul that sins, it will die. The Son will not bear the iniquity of the Father, nor will the Father bear the iniquity of the Son. Justice in the Bible is sort of double barreled. It involves things like integrity, what the Jews called Zadaka, as well as fairness, or what they called Mishpat. Justice involves my own internal integrity as well as fairness in how I treat people. Justice involves what a person deserves or is due, whether rights or responsibilities, and it is for everyone without partiality. This is biblical justice. This is God's sense of justice. Isaiah 118 says that out of compassion, it is justice that advocates for those who have no voice or no power. Amos 5 says, hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gates. But what justice? It's God's justice. Third, God's writing of wrongs includes something called repentance. You don't hear much about this today either. In other words, those who do wrong must take responsibility for what they do and not pass the buck. God does not sweep sin under the rug. Repentance confesses what's done. Repentance is remorseful about what has been done, and it is a commitment not to repeat the wrong. Repentance often in the scriptures includes restitution. Read about this in Matthew chapter 3 and in Luke chapter 3. John the Baptist says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He also says, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And then fourth, God's way of righting wrongs includes restoration. I'll get into this in a moment, but simply to establish, at least for now, restoration involves forgiveness, and this is messy. Forgiveness, by definition, is simply to give before for forgiveness. In what sense? Well, to cancel all the claims of the past on the future before a wrongdoer even admits wrong or apologizes. Forgiveness is what leads to reconciliation. It is not reconciliation. Forgiveness begins the process, though. It begins with letting go of our right to revenge. And then forgiveness extends grace to the wrongdoer, even though it is not earned or merited. And if in the face of that grace extended to them, that wrongdoer repents, it then allows for the rebuilding of trust that's needed to eventually restore the relationship, which is the definition of reconciliation. To restore means to return something to its original condition or to give back something that was lost. God says of Israel in Amos chapter 9, I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. God restores, and so should we. So justice then deals with the severity of the wrongdoing, but without holding a grudge. It doesn't stay stuck there. It moves on to include forgiveness. And of course, I've set up the second thing I want to say about making wrongs right, and that is it requires not only justice, but also forgiveness. Now these two things are not either or. This is a both and. This is both heads and tails of the wrong of the same coin. Let me illustrate by going to Exodus chapter 32. So if you open your Bibles there, I want you to notice a couple of things. Now this is right after Israel is liberated from Egyptian bondage. They have come through the Red Sea. And this is after, by the way, they have been standing at the foot of Mount Sinai's terrors, you know, as they're standing at the base of the mountain. The mountain is quaking. There's fire and lightning and thunder and uh this loud trumpet blast. I kind of picture the people standing there, quaking in their shoes, with their hands covering their ears as all of this noise is taking place. And it is at this particular point that Moses, in their mind, comes up missing for too long. And so what they do is they commit this heinous wrong. They make a golden calf, get drunk, dance naked, have an orgy, and worship the idol. All of this is stated in Exodus 32, verses 1 through 6. And then God tells Moses as he's coming down the mountain that he's going to wipe them out and he's going to begin all over through Moses. And God has every right to do this because they have violated the very core of God's covenant with them. Now, Moses does not say to God, Well, I really don't care what you do. He doesn't say, Well, go for it. Okay, if you want to make me great, that's wonderful. No, what Moses does is he steps in to intercede on behalf of the people. And what he says in Exodus 32, in essence, is, what are the Egyptians going to think? If you wipe out your people, they're going to doubt God, your forgiveness and your power. And Moses then brazenly turns toward God and he says, Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Wow. What boldness. Now, it's easy to misunderstand what's going on here. God does not somehow need Moses to talk him down. That's not what this is about at all. This is a purposefully calculated episode in Moses' life that is designed by God as a test for Moses. Because if Moses is going to lead God's people, he has to care like God cares. And Moses comes through in flying colors. He demonstrates that he cares because he intercedes. He cares about God. He cares about God's law. He cares about the people. He cares about their future. He cares enough to step in between God and them. And what's fascinating is verse 14 goes on to say, and the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. In other words, God backs off. And I'm thinking, what? I mean, yes. And this could have been, this could have been the end. Moses staves off disaster. But I want you to see the messiness of this. I want you to see how how complex this is. Because it's not just sweeping it under the rug. Moses, as he's coming down the mountain, he still breaks the tablets of stone. He burns the calf with fire, grinds it to powder, scatters it in the water, makes the people drink it. All of this is stated in Exodus 32, verses 19 and 20. And then he asks verse 26, Who's on the Lord's side? Come to me. And guess what? Those who are on the Lord's side come to Moses, and he in turn orders them to turn back into the camp and kill any family or friend who's not on the Lord's side. And three thousand people die that day, according to verses twenty-seven through twenty-nine. And then Moses says to Israel, verse 30, You have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord, and perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. I want you to notice what has to happen for life to go on. What has to happen for God to forgive, because forgiveness is needed, but you need to know that forgiveness costs. Moses has to go before God. Atonement has to be made. And atonement, by the way, is simply covering. Atonement often comes in the Old Testament by an animal's blood. An animal is slain on behalf of the sinner, even though the animal is innocent. It's killed. But this time the atonement comes in the form of a plague. And beyond the 3,000 people who've already died, more will die. Sin is serious. Sin must be exposed. Judgment must rear its head. Repentance must occur. Intercession must be made. And then and only then does God back off. What is it that gets God to back off? It's the same thing that we have heard before in 2 Chronicles 7 and verse 14, where God clearly told Solomon at that time, if my people who were called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. My friend, listen to me. Life cannot go well for you or for me individually or for all of us collectively as a nation when sin has cut us off from God and from each other. But when we humble ourselves and seek God, and I'm not talking about any God, the Bible's talking about the God of the Bible, the one true God. When we seek Him, we turn from our sin and we pray, God forgives and God heals. And you know what that means? God will straighten everything out. I want you to understand how many things have to fit together for you and I to enjoy the life that we do on a daily basis. God is the one who holds all of that together. And when God says I will heal their land, God is saying I will make everything work out so that life can go well. I want you to notice something in Exodus 32. In writing the wrongs, God avoids two extremes. One, quick forgiveness, and two, excessive judgment. These two things are characteristic of us. Some people are quick forgivers. They're sudden forgivers. These are the people who think, well, love never means or means never rather to have have to say you're sorry, and and they they just sort of are soft on wrong or sin. And to them to say something is wrong is to judge. And judging is worse than any evil done. And so they trivialize guilt and responsibility and confession, restoration, and and sentiment literally wallpaper. Papers over wrongs, they just sweep it under the carpet, they just roll over, and guess what? They're indifferent to it. They turn a blind eye to it. They shrug their shoulders, they become tolerant accomplices towards evil, never rising up to oppose it, and evil becomes the norm. Sin for these people is never really dealt with. Even though there is an anger seething inside. Quick forgivers. God avoids this. But then there's excessive judgment. Excessive judgment is characteristic of what I would call rigid unforgivers. Rigid unforgivers, just the opposite of quick forgivers. They fight. They fight wrong. Their anger is always there. They fight injustice but with their own brand of injustice. They're quick to confess the sins of others, but never their own. They're quick to spotlight sins of the past, but not the present. And these sins that they spotlight may be real and serious, but to right those things, they will commit blatant wrongs. They're not out for reconciliation. They're out for blood. Outrage becomes resentment. Hate is all they can think about. They shake their fists, form mobs, burn buildings, break windows, topple statues, intrude on worship services, kill and rape, and then they call this justice. Deplorable. Such people want to replace existing powers with their own, a power where they right wrongs with more wrongs. They blame. And all the blame does is take the focus off their own responsibility, and under the guise of grievance, rigid unforgivers react to only the sins that they think are serious. No apologies will ever be accepted by the wrongdoers. No forgiveness is given. No appeasement will satisfy. You can do nothing to make things right. As Sigmund Freud once said, one must forgive one's enemies, but not before they've been hanged. That's the spirit of the rigid unforgiver. And God avoids that extreme in dealing with wrongs. My friends, it is impossible to hate and be free. To be free, you've got to let go of hate. Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can. Hate multiplies hate. Violence increases violence. Freedom must include forgiveness. It must. Jesus is very clear. He says, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses, Matthew 6.15. Let me put all of this together for just a moment. As we've been thinking the last few lessons on the whole idea of the recipe of freedom. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address called for what he referred to as a new birth of freedom. Those are his words. And again, in his words, America had been conceived in liberty. But through the ruinous evil of slavery, we lost our way. America betrayed its ideals and needed a fresh start. It was time for a reset. And of course, back in the mid to late 1800s, that meant war. I'm hoping that whatever reset America needs today will not require war. I'm hoping that we will understand that the noblest roots of America's foundational principles are derived from the Bible. That all the answers to America's ills are in the Exodus Revolution. That Exodus, the book of Exodus, the plan that God unfolds in this wonderful Bible book, champions and protects ordered freedom, true freedom, where there's peace and stability in a society. Freedom can be reborn if we return to its fundamental ingredients. And to summarize those seven ingredients again from the book of Exodus, here they are. Freedom number one comes from God alone. Number two, it's based on God's rules. Number three, freedom admits the reality of individual sin and the need for responsibility. Number four, freedom must be won. It is never given. Number five, it must be ordered. It is not absolute. Number six, it must be passed down. And number seven, freedom must make wrongs right, as we've been saying today. Let me contrast for just a moment Exodus versus Egypt. Exodus stands for right. Egypt stands for might. Exodus stands for good. Egypt for evil. Exodus stresses the dignity of all. Egypt arouses and emphasizes differences. Exodus offers healing. Egypt inflicts pain. Exodus desires reconciliation. Egypt demands retaliation. We have to ask ourselves the question: do we want Egypt's passing glory? Or do we want Israel's enduring blessing? I love this country. And I make no apologies for saying that. I was born in the middle mid-50s, smack dab in the middle of this country, in the state of Iowa. And I experienced, for the most part, what I think is probably the golden age of everything that we have seen thus far. I make no apologies for the fact that I love this country and I pray for this country. It is my home. I have never seen a country yet that I would prefer to live in. That does not mean that we are perfect. And I am not going to whitewash our sins as a country in patriotism. Some of you misunderstand what I have been saying these last few installments. I am a Christian first and then an American. And God's judgment is already falling on America, and one day we will fall. There is no freedom in flying the colors of the red, white, and blue. There is no freedom even in our Constitution. The only freedom is in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, who said in John 8.36, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. We are not free because of our country. We are not free because of our flag. We are not free because of our politics. We're not free because of the political party we embrace. We are not free because of our wealth. We are only free when we beat our breast and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. When we trust in Jesus Christ, leave our sin, confess our faith, and are plunged into the blood of Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And only then God will cut your cords, open your prison, and break your chains. The message of the gospel is leave your sin. Walk out on Pharaoh. Leave Egypt. And I want to suggest to you, my friends, America is not the promised land. The fact of the matter is that America may be none other than another Goshen that will eventually turn into another Egypt. Leave even this country. It is no longer your home. It is no longer your primary loyalty. No, leave it. Leave it for a better one. Leave it for the kingdom of God. Leave it for the new Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth. Leave it. It is like anything. If you leave it and you let it go, God may just see that you get it back.