Transcript: Episode 0091

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Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast.

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I am Corey J.

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Mahler.

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And I'm still, whoa.

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On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing justice and retribution.

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A little bit of housekeeping before we begin.

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This will be the last episode of the current year.

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We're going to take three weeks off for the rest of December as we're recording this, so we should be back at the beginning of January.

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That's the plan right now.

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If you're a new listener, welcome.

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We've seen from the traffic that we've doubled our active audience size just as people are checking us out.

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A lot of you heard people saying nasty, mean things about us and you came to see how terrible we are.

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And it turns out we're not really all that terrible, except for maybe a few things that you probably strongly disagree with.

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And we make the case for those and that's fine.

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But we're not the monsters and the maniacs that people say.

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We don't do react episodes.

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One of the reasons that people do actually go back and listen to all of our episodes is that they don't get stale.

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We try very hard to make sure that you can pick up pretty much any episode at any time, and it's not going to be irrelevant.

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So we're not going to say anything about the recent drama because, frankly for us, that stuff's been going on for years.

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Just new sets of people find out about it.

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So we're glad you discovered us.

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If you do enjoy the show, please leave a five-star review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you listen.

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We're always getting brigaded by people who want us not to be discovered.

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Because again, when people listen, I guess it's pretty good.

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Some people really like it.

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And if you are a new listener and you pick up a couple of episodes and think, that's cool.

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I've said many times, you've probably heard this many times, you're a regular listener.

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We highly recommend you go back to the beginning and just listen to all of them.

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Not because we think that it's worth hanging on every word, but because that's what most people do and they really like it.

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Like it's the reason that our bandwidth has skyrocketed.

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That's a good thing.

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It's not costing us money.

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It's just we're happy to see that people like, oh yeah, this is worth listening to.

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Our job, our goal, is to make content that people want to hear out and learn something from.

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On the subject of money, we very rarely talk about it, but we do accept donations and frankly, at least for my purposes, it really is the reason that I'm still able to do this.

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Enough people have donated over the last couple of years to make it possible for us to spend the time, not only on the show, but on talking to people online.

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And so I really appreciate everyone who has donated anything, everyone who donates regularly, everyone who doesn't donate anything, and just listens and tells friends, there's no such thing as a free loader here.

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This is a podcast, it's free.

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But we occasionally want to acknowledge that people have given us generously, some small, some great, any gift to a stranger is generosity.

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So thank you very much.

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It means a great deal.

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I'd say with all sincerity that we would not be able to do what we're doing if it were not for the folks who are giving to us.

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So it means a lot.

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And if you don't feel like giving anything, that's fine too.

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It's a podcast.

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We've said that from the beginning.

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We are completely unmonetizable.

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No one could ever possibly sponsor us because people are always saying mean crap and people will be hurt.

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There are companies I would like to endorse, but I won't because it would hurt them.

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So maybe take that as a threat.

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Tell us that you don't want us to endorse or we will.

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I'm joking, of course, but that's the level of slander that goes on in what should be a Christian space.

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You know, on social media, a lot of Christians talking to each other about things, and for some reason, it's just okay to treat certain people in a way that's really, if you just objectively look at it, it's insane and shocking.

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But we're not going anywhere.

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I'm glad you found us for new.

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We're glad you're hanging around if you're old.

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And the reason that we're doing justice and retribution today is that this is a fundamentally political episode.

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We'll be making the case today that worldly justice is exclusively in the left-hand kingdom.

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It has nothing to do with God's righteousness in spiritual terms.

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It has to do with God's righteousness in terms of what is right and wrong and what the state enforces.

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But what it doesn't have anything to do with is the church.

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And one of the reasons that Stone Choir has been such a profound challenge to these establishment players is that we're not pastors and we don't pretend to be.

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These are not sermons.

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When we're talking about these subjects, we're just speaking as Christian men talking about whatever we think is relevant.

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And that permits us to have a purview that's far greater than a pastor.

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There's a lot of stuff that we talk about the pastors can't, not only because they're incompetent, but they're not suited to it.

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It's not their role to speak about certain things.

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That's fine.

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That's how things work.

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There are lots of things that I wouldn't talk about because even if I find it interesting, it's not my place to talk about it.

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But the things, the subjects that we discuss often cross what we consider to be boundaries.

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And one of the purposes of us doing the subjects that we tackle is that a lot of those boundaries are synthetic, and they were erected for specific purposes to actually harm Christendom, to harm our communities and our churches and everything.

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So when we specifically target stuff that causes problem, creates a crisis, we're talking a little about the etymology of crisis.

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The reason that it stirs up so much dissension and upset is that we're identifying places where there's not necessarily a clear delineation between, well, this is political stuff, and this is church stuff.

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And one of the most wicked things that's happened in Western society, something else I just discovered recently, Western civilization was invented in like the 1850s.

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If you look at the graph of Christendom and the graph of Western civilization, they're basically an X.

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Christendom petered out, and Western civilization appeared out of nowhere in like the 1820s or so.

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And it just took a big jump in the 1850s.

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Why would that be?

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Because they stopped being Christian.

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Even though we still think of the olden times of the 1800s as being a Christian era, and kind of was, but it was fundamentally the de-Christianization of America.

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That was when that began.

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The problems that we have now were mostly born in that world in the 1800s.

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So a lot of times, we'll tackle subjects that just leap right over these boundaries, because when you look at the distinction between Western civilization and Christendom, which we consider to be the same thing, and I've certainly used them interchangeably.

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I'm going to try to stop now, even though at the beginning of this paragraph thought, I said Western Civ, like, it's not a thing.

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It's Christendom.

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And when Christ goes away from the domain of politics, everything falls apart.

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You can't have the West without Christianity, and you also can't have the West without white people.

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We're Europeans.

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Most people listening are.

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If you're not, welcome.

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As we've said in, like, the race episodes and other, we don't hate people because of how God made you.

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We have a lot of people who are mixed race who listen.

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I've talked to half a dozen guys who are mixed race in the last week alone, either thanking us for the things we talk about or asking specific questions, not as, like, setups or to see if we were mean, but because they knew we're the guys who will actually tell them the truth.

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Because there are some people who are put in situations where they have a hard time.

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And when everyone is telling you one thing that's contrary to your lived experience, something I laughed about before because it's a leftist trope, but it's also true.

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I don't know what it's like to be, you know, half European and half African.

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I know what it's like to be half Yankee and half Confederate, half Tarheel.

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But it's not really the same thing because you can't tell by looking at me.

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But at least we will speak honestly about those subjects.

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And we speak honestly in a way that is in opposition to what everyone in the world is saying in this century.

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So I'm going to run through a few previous episodes that if you're new to the podcast and you go back and listen through in order, you'll get to these.

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If it's old hat, I want to refresh your memory because as we're talking about justice and retribution as a political subject, it's specifically not in view of overlap with some of these other things.

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So I'll explain as I go through these.

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The first highly relevant episode for today that we'll refer to a few times is Perfect Hatred.

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In the Perfect Hatred episode, we discussed the fact that for one, that's a term in scripture.

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Do I not hate them with perfect hatred is a pure Christian confession about evil men.

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And we discussed for an hour and a half or so in that episode what it means to have hatred of evil men.

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What does any of that mean?

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The gist of it is that we are called as Christians to hate anything that is contrary to God's will, because God hates anything that's contrary to his will.

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And so that delineation of good and evil, what does good actually mean?

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That which isn't in accord with God's will.

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What is evil?

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That which is opposed to God's will.

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That's it.

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That's good and evil.

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If you do something that's opposed to God's will, you are evil.

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Your action is evil.

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Whatever's going on is evil.

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That's the definition.

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We call that morality, but it's fundamentally about God's will.

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So in the Perfect Hatred episode, we established the fact that when you look at all of these moral questions in those terms, it changes the equation, because it's a lot simpler in some cases.

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We're like, oh, it's so ambiguous.

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No one could possibly know what God wants.

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Well, sometimes that's a case, but in a lot of cases, he makes it very clear, either by how he created things or what he specifically said.

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In an episode we did on all sins are not equal, we dealt with the fact that there's some things that are actually worse than others.

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There's some sins that are more evil than other sins, even though all sins are evil, as I just said.

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But some are still worse.

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And that's an actual thing that has actual consequences, both temporally and eternally.

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And today's episode about justice is entirely about temporal consequences.

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It has nothing to do with the eternal.

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We're going to talk a bit about how they are related, but when we talk about earthly justice, it has nothing to do with the church.

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In the episode we called Judge Not, we specifically dealt with the claim that, well, Christians can't ever judge anything.

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Like, well, you're a sinner too.

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So you can't possibly know if anyone's right or wrong about anything.

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Okay, Satan, next.

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Like, that's just nonsense.

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And yet it's something that's very common for Christians to say today.

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So again, as I go through this list of episodes, when we're talking about justice, we're setting the rest of those things aside in those episodes.

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Those are complete treatments.

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We're not going to touch them today.

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The Left Hand of Christ episode was specifically about the fact that the state does not bear the sword for nothing, whether it's a godly prince or it's the miserable democratic morass that we're stuck with today.

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It's still the government that God permits to be over us.

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It has duties and it has obligations that have nothing to do with what the church says or does.

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Doesn't mean that they can't act in anti-Christian ways, but it means that when we look at what is Christian for a nation to do, in some cases, it's very different than what is Christian for an individual to do.

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And we're going to be talking about that explicitly today.

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The episode on You Are Forgiven is important because forgiveness is the essence of the Christian faith.

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It's the one thing that guarantees to separate every Christian from everyone else, is our sins are forgiven and we receive that forgiveness.

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And we are to extend God's forgiveness to everyone else.

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When we talk about justice today, it has nothing to do with that.

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Why?

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Because forgiveness is entirely a right-hand question, and it's entirely an interpersonal question.

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When we talk about justice in this world, forgiveness is not in the equation.

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So we're going to make that case.

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On the episode on repentance, we talked about, well, someone's sorry, someone actually repents of their evil.

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They were doing bad things and they stopped.

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They genuinely had a Christian turn of repentance.

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They're living a better life now.

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Does that mean they're exempt from justice?

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Absolutely not.

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That's what we're doing today.

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It has nothing to do with whether or not someone's repentant, because the repentance is both interpersonal.

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You know, if I sin against you and then I repent, I ask you for forgiveness.

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You are obligated by God to forgive me, and that's not self-serving.

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Frankly, that's serving yourself.

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Consult the Lord's prayer for details.

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If you refuse to forgive someone for one thing that he's done to you, when every sin you've ever committed has been against God, God promises that he will remember that.

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And the opposite is true.

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If you forgive the small things, God will forgive the great things.

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In fact, he already has on the cross.

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All you have to do is not reject it by refusing to forgive someone when he asks.

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But the fact that someone is repented does not mean that they're free from earthly justice.

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It means they're free from eternal justice.

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Two different things.

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So again, today's episode is about temporal, strictly temporal matters.

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And the last two were on violence and making peace, where we specifically talked about the role of political violence and the role of choosing to make peace in this life.

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And sometimes peace is made through cooperation and through discussion.

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And sometimes peace is made through eliminating the enemy.

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And while we dealt specifically with some of those mechanisms, we didn't discuss it in terms of justice.

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And so today's we discussed justice and retribution, it's again, it's entirely a political question.

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Historically, there have been four ways that justice was dispensed.

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The first and the least significant was fines.

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If you do something wrong, you pay a fine, and the matter is considered to be settled, again, in the left-hand kingdom.

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We're not going to be talking about what you owe to God or anything.

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We're specifically talking about how our men reconcile to each other politically.

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You do a crime, you pay a fine, and it's over.

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The next level up, going back thousands of years, is corporal punishment, you know, beatings, canings, maybe amputations, something that God himself commanded in Leviticus 20.

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You can read through that for a list of things that are potentially on the table.

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It doesn't mean that that's the list of things that we have to implement as laws, but one of the things that we say on Stone Choir all the time, and it's vital to understand, is that while we will point back to elements of the Old Testament where God was dealing directly with Israel politically, we're not saying we have to implement exactly these laws.

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What we are always saying is that God did not sin when he said this is a just punishment for this type of crime.

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So when God says that someone's hand should be amputated for committing theft, that's just.

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And if you say today, that is injustice, that is evil, what you're doing is calling God evil.

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And there are a lot of people in the church who call God evil.

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And that is why we're here, because that's not Christianity.

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You cannot call your creator evil and be a Christian.

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It means you're a Satan worshipper.

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Whatever you call yourself.

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And the church is frankly full of those people.

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So tackling justice is about tackling that.

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We have men creeping in who will say, well, you can't do that.

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That would be unjust to do physical harm to someone.

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Well, God commanded physical harm to Israel in that time for certain crimes.

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Doesn't mean that we have to re-implement those laws.

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That's not remotely what we're saying.

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The narrow case to be made is you cannot call that evil, and many do.

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So we have fines.

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We have corporal punishment, which continued up until recently, and some countries continues to this day.

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We now consider that to be barbaric.

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It's how civilization has been preserved for thousands of years.

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I think that there's a case that could be made.

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We're not really going to make it today, but I think if you look at the fall off on punishments that are considered to be barbaric today, what we actually see is a rise on barbarism in civilization, the death of civilization.

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When there's a way of instituting justice that's thrown out, all the wisdom and all the commands of God going back thousands of years, like we're not going to do that anymore.

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We have evolved, we are more civilized than that now.

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The net result is that we have a less civilized world.

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We have more evil than ever.

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That's not a coincidence.

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The next punishment, the list of four punishments that are historical for almost all civilizations is exile.

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It's short of taking someone's life, but you're saying you can't live here anymore.

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And this applies to citizens.

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This is something that was happening up through the 19th century at least.

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People were politically exiled.

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They're sent away from their homeland.

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And things got complicated when basically you have the advent of the UN and the advent of passports and global tracking of identity.

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It used to be that if you wore out your welcome in one place, you could just leave, and you could show up somewhere else and be whoever you wanted to be.

00:17:06.892 --> 00:17:12.232
Honesty, dishonesty aside, you can go to some other land and just start fresh.

00:17:12.232 --> 00:17:16.072
You're starting from zero, besides whatever you bring along.

00:17:16.072 --> 00:17:18.392
But you've lost your homeland, but you didn't lose your life.

00:17:18.972 --> 00:17:22.252
And so, exile has basically gone away as a punishment today.

00:17:22.252 --> 00:17:31.912
And I think that's a disaster, because the last step on the continuum of punishments is death, to take someone's life justly for crimes that they've committed.

00:17:31.912 --> 00:17:39.352
Again, you can look through Leviticus 20 and elsewhere to find a long list of crimes that God says, this is worthy of death.

00:17:39.352 --> 00:17:43.692
Again, things of today, Christians, so-called, run around and say, oh, that's barbaric.

00:17:43.692 --> 00:17:45.252
That's evil to take someone's life.

00:17:45.832 --> 00:17:52.292
Well, you know what doesn't exist in Scripture and didn't exist until the last two centuries?

00:17:52.292 --> 00:17:53.772
Prisons.

00:17:53.772 --> 00:17:57.032
I know people think, oh, well, Paul was put in prison.

00:17:57.032 --> 00:18:01.032
Prison was fundamentally different until relatively recently.

00:18:01.032 --> 00:18:12.572
These punishments that I've just described, fines, corporal punishment, exile, and death, were the only four ways that people in most Western civilizations, most Western societies, were punished for crimes.

00:18:13.532 --> 00:18:19.232
Prisons existed, but almost without exception, they were for pretrial confinement.

00:18:19.232 --> 00:18:21.532
It was very rare, it was exceptional.

00:18:21.532 --> 00:18:25.732
The cases are notable when someone's locked in the Tower of London.

00:18:25.732 --> 00:18:31.812
To be put in a prison was something that was not a normal part of punishment ever.

00:18:31.812 --> 00:18:39.652
It was a particularly cruel and unusual punishment in some ways for someone to be sentenced to that, and that was a relatively late thing.

00:18:40.372 --> 00:18:47.332
The prisons that you see in Scripture and that you see until, again, like the 18th, 19th century, really the 19th century.

00:18:47.332 --> 00:18:53.772
Before that, when there was a prison, prisoners were being held for pretrial confinement until they had been found guilty.

00:18:53.772 --> 00:18:56.432
After they're found guilty, they don't go back to prison.

00:18:56.432 --> 00:19:00.192
They are fined, they're beaten, they're exiled or they're killed.

00:19:00.192 --> 00:19:04.412
The punishment after adjudication was not, you go back to prison.

00:19:04.412 --> 00:19:06.892
The prison was there to make sure that someone couldn't flee.

00:19:06.892 --> 00:19:11.492
Because again, before passports and all this stuff, it was pretty easy to get on a boat and just vanish.

00:19:11.492 --> 00:19:19.232
If it was important enough to punish someone for a crime, then they were kept, in some cases, in prison until the judge could see them.

00:19:19.232 --> 00:19:21.752
In other cases, there were things like debtors' prisons.

00:19:21.752 --> 00:19:28.792
You know, again, that's a separate subject of should debt exist at all to such a degree that someone would be put in prison for it.

00:19:28.792 --> 00:19:34.872
But prison was not punishment after having been judged guilty of a crime.

00:19:34.872 --> 00:19:41.292
What we do today where we lock men in cages, in some cases, for the rest of their life, is completely barbaric.

00:19:41.292 --> 00:19:43.532
It is utterly evil and inhumane.

00:19:43.532 --> 00:19:45.452
I find it despicable.

00:19:45.452 --> 00:19:50.952
I think there are probably some men who are listening who have spent time in jail or maybe even prison.

00:19:50.952 --> 00:20:01.092
I haven't talked to them, but I would imagine that most of them would probably have preferred taking a beating in public and then going home where there's humiliation and there's some pain for a while.

00:20:01.092 --> 00:20:05.432
But you don't spend years locked in a box in completely inhuman conditions.

00:20:06.272 --> 00:20:17.132
So, when we're talking about justice today, we're explicitly talking about the political, and we're setting aside the modern so-called justice system, because it's anything but.

00:20:17.132 --> 00:20:23.952
There's so little actual justice in what is done today, that it's despicable that that name is even used.

00:20:23.952 --> 00:20:26.492
We're talking about actual godly justice.

00:20:26.492 --> 00:20:36.572
And so, as we go throughout this today, just keep in mind, not talking about forgiveness has nothing to do with this, because it's one thing for you to forgive whoever has committed a crime against you.

00:20:36.572 --> 00:20:38.772
As a Christian, you're obligated to do that.

00:20:38.772 --> 00:20:41.912
That does not mean that they're free from justice in this life.

00:20:41.912 --> 00:20:57.752
And the case we're going to make in today's episode is when someone inside a church, someone who is a pastor comes to you and says, no, that person sinned, they committed a crime, but you have to forgive them, we have to make this go away quietly.

00:20:57.752 --> 00:20:59.272
We don't embarrass anybody.

00:20:59.272 --> 00:21:00.652
That's profoundly wicked.

00:21:00.652 --> 00:21:02.332
That is a miscarriage of justice.

00:21:02.672 --> 00:21:04.592
That is contrary to God's will.

00:21:04.592 --> 00:21:23.672
And the reason for ending this year's episode, this year's series of Stone Choir on this subject is that the chief battle in 2025, as we're ending December 2024 here, the chief battle of next year is going to be this type of question.

00:21:23.672 --> 00:21:34.212
Because if Trump delivers on any of his promises about physically removing aliens in this country, you're going to see churches and pastors screaming their heads off saying that's unjust.

00:21:34.212 --> 00:21:35.152
You cannot do that.

00:21:35.152 --> 00:21:39.852
You can't remove people, family separation, and whatever excuse they want to make.

00:21:39.852 --> 00:21:43.612
It's going to be saying you're not allowed to enforce the law.

00:21:43.612 --> 00:21:46.032
You can't do that because Jesus.

00:21:46.032 --> 00:21:56.652
So we'll talk about that more at the end, but just keep in mind that this is a live issue because this will be one of the very most divisive things that occurs inside the church in the coming year.

00:22:02.777 --> 00:22:22.597
Before I get into some of the philosophy with regard to the subject matter of this episode, which you all inevitably knew that philosophy would be part of this particular episode, particularly if you've been listening for a long time, I want to expand on a few of the things that Wo mentioned in his opening there.

00:22:22.617 --> 00:22:41.717
One that may have come to mind for some of you is that there is a very clear connection here between the rise or the resurgence, we should really call it, of Gnosticism in the modern world, in the modern era, and the decline of the use of physical punishment.

00:22:41.717 --> 00:23:17.717
It should be fairly obvious what the connection is there, because of course, if you believe in Gnosticism, whether it is consciously or subconsciously, because you may have simply absorbed some of those beliefs from the surrounding culture, the outcome of holding those beliefs, of holding on to those priors examined or unexamined, is that you will believe there is something other than the physical body that needs to be addressed when it comes to matters of so-called, in this case, justice.

00:23:19.177 --> 00:23:39.417
That's part of what feeds into so many of the modern misconceptions of justice as restorative or whatever other thing it happens to be other than retributive, which we will be making that case in this episode, that the only thing that is justice is retribution.

00:23:39.417 --> 00:23:42.637
Those two terms are essentially interchangeable.

00:23:42.637 --> 00:23:50.077
There's some nuance there, but they are basically the same thing, just looking at it in a different light or from a different angle.

00:23:51.877 --> 00:24:04.837
But if you deny the reality of the physical, then you're going to be very easily convinced of an argument that punishments should not be physical, because what does it matter what happens to the physical body?

00:24:04.837 --> 00:24:07.237
That's not the real you.

00:24:07.237 --> 00:24:12.937
Historically, we recognize that Gnosticism is, of course, a heinous heresy.

00:24:12.937 --> 00:24:18.537
You are your body, and so the punishment of the body is a punishment of the person.

00:24:19.537 --> 00:24:22.037
There's a reason we used to use physical punishment.

00:24:22.037 --> 00:24:27.597
It's not just, of course, this philosophical argument that I'm making here, theological argument.

00:24:27.597 --> 00:24:29.337
It's also that it's effective.

00:24:29.337 --> 00:24:31.077
It does work.

00:24:31.077 --> 00:24:35.777
We see that even today in societies that still use physical punishment.

00:24:35.777 --> 00:24:37.857
It works.

00:24:37.857 --> 00:25:00.897
But in addition to that, and very much related to it, you will not be surprised to hear that the rise of the use of prisons and the underlying philosophy and the various arguments, political or otherwise, used to justify the use of prisons instead of physical punishment, or sometimes public shaming was also used.

00:25:00.897 --> 00:25:07.277
Instead of those, we see the rise of prisons at the same time as the Enlightenment is taking place.

00:25:07.277 --> 00:25:11.757
And in fact, they are really one and the same.

00:25:11.757 --> 00:25:19.057
Because the Enlightenment is making these various arguments about what man actually is or what man should be and how society should treat men.

00:25:19.057 --> 00:25:24.717
And we will eventually get to an episode or perhaps a series of episodes on the Enlightenment.

00:25:24.717 --> 00:25:26.877
But this is happening at the same time.

00:25:26.877 --> 00:25:30.937
Prisons are a product of the Enlightenment.

00:25:30.937 --> 00:25:37.197
Perhaps add that in to the scales when you assess whether the Enlightenment was a positive or not.

00:25:37.197 --> 00:25:43.857
We didn't use prisons before the Enlightenment brought forth its arguments that made them inevitable.

00:25:44.937 --> 00:26:00.197
So one of the fruits of the poisonous tree that is the Enlightenment is the modern penal system, is incarcerating men for rather long periods of time, which is quite frankly inhumane treatment.

00:26:00.197 --> 00:26:04.617
Neither one of us would ever advocate for the use of prisons.

00:26:04.617 --> 00:26:11.857
That's not to say that you can't confine someone, because you can certainly sentence someone to hard labor and you have to confine him.

00:26:12.557 --> 00:26:20.177
But locking someone in a concrete box for years on end or decades is inhuman.

00:26:20.177 --> 00:26:29.657
It's a sort of torture that would have been unthinkable to most in the modern world, even in societies that actually practiced real torture.

00:26:29.657 --> 00:26:35.117
Because the psychological torture of prisons is on a different level.

00:26:35.117 --> 00:26:37.337
It is a true wickedness.

00:26:37.337 --> 00:26:44.217
It is something that is, of course, again, a product of the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment was an undertaking of Lucifer himself.

00:26:45.837 --> 00:26:59.057
But to move on from that and to go into the philosophy, as I said I would, in this episode, as already mentioned, we are speaking of retribution.

00:26:59.057 --> 00:27:02.377
We are speaking of retributive justice.

00:27:02.377 --> 00:27:13.677
And the reason that we're speaking of retributive justice is that, again, it is the only justice, because justice demands retribution.

00:27:13.677 --> 00:27:16.157
This is not something that is optional.

00:27:16.157 --> 00:27:21.437
You don't get to say, well, we're going to show mercy instead of punishing the crime.

00:27:21.437 --> 00:27:23.237
That's not how this works.

00:27:23.237 --> 00:27:26.717
You can have justice or you can have mercy.

00:27:26.717 --> 00:27:39.337
And for those who are Christian, which again is going to be most of our audience, you may be thinking, how does that square with the central beliefs, the central tenets of our religion?

00:27:39.357 --> 00:27:42.277
How is that consonant with Christianity?

00:27:42.277 --> 00:27:47.797
And the answer to that is that it's exactly the core of our faith.

00:27:49.237 --> 00:27:56.537
For eternity, you will receive mercy in paradise or justice in hell.

00:27:58.057 --> 00:28:00.937
Mercy and justice are incompatible.

00:28:02.157 --> 00:28:07.577
They are two things that cannot exist simultaneously, at least in the same case.

00:28:07.577 --> 00:28:14.897
Obviously, hell and paradise exist at the same time, temporally, as it were, insofar as that makes sense in eternity.

00:28:16.097 --> 00:28:26.057
If you are a Christian, you do not receive justice from God, because justice from God would be hell.

00:28:27.497 --> 00:28:41.377
You deserve eternal punishment in hell for your sins, however many or even however few, because any one sin is an infinite transgression against an infinitely holy God.

00:28:41.377 --> 00:28:44.637
And so the punishment for that necessarily is infinite.

00:28:44.637 --> 00:28:46.957
We've gone into this before in other episodes.

00:28:46.957 --> 00:28:49.037
And so hell is eternal.

00:28:49.037 --> 00:28:50.057
That's justice.

00:28:50.057 --> 00:28:51.577
That's what you deserve.

00:28:52.677 --> 00:29:00.577
What you receive is mercy, and the reason you receive mercy is that Christ received justice on your behalf.

00:29:02.137 --> 00:29:13.917
When it comes to the affairs of men, here and now, in this world, in the left-hand kingdom, we cannot deal in mercy.

00:29:13.917 --> 00:29:16.177
We have to deal in justice.

00:29:16.177 --> 00:29:20.537
And the reason we have to deal in justice is that we are not the infinite God.

00:29:20.817 --> 00:29:32.257
We don't have the option of Christ on the cross standing in the place of the person in the docket, of the person who is guilty of whatever crime.

00:29:33.677 --> 00:29:35.777
And the king isn't God.

00:29:35.777 --> 00:29:42.077
The king, to some degree and in some ways, stands in the place of God, but he does so to bear the sword.

00:29:42.077 --> 00:29:44.177
Scripture is very clear on this point.

00:29:44.177 --> 00:29:46.417
He does so to punish the wicked.

00:29:47.377 --> 00:29:50.497
That is what it means to be a just king.

00:29:50.497 --> 00:29:53.957
That is what it means to be a righteous king or a godly king.

00:29:53.957 --> 00:29:59.837
And so with regard to the left hand kingdom, it is a matter of the sword.

00:29:59.837 --> 00:30:03.277
That is what God has given to the prince, to the godly prince.

00:30:03.277 --> 00:30:05.577
We can use king or prince interchangeably here.

00:30:05.577 --> 00:30:08.417
It's not a rank, as it were.

00:30:08.417 --> 00:30:11.897
It's just a stand in for the sovereign.

00:30:11.897 --> 00:30:14.597
The godly prince wields the sword.

00:30:15.577 --> 00:30:24.317
That is how he deals with things in his realm, in the domain assigned to him by God, and for which he is responsible to God.

00:30:24.317 --> 00:30:31.657
He will one day have to answer for what he did or did not do with regard to what he was given by God.

00:30:31.657 --> 00:30:46.117
He does not have the option of mercy with regard to justice, because if you show mercy to the criminal, what you are actually doing is transgressing justice.

00:30:46.117 --> 00:30:53.317
Yes, you are also doing a sort of harm to the victim or victims, but that actually is not the paramount concern.

00:30:53.317 --> 00:30:57.017
This is another point that is often missed in these discussions.

00:30:58.177 --> 00:31:06.937
When a murderer receives mercy, so called, instead of justice, and of course justice is Genesis 9, 6.

00:31:06.937 --> 00:31:08.897
He must be put to death.

00:31:08.897 --> 00:31:09.917
He must be executed.

00:31:10.017 --> 00:31:14.137
Capital punishment is justice for the murderer.

00:31:14.137 --> 00:31:20.117
But if he receives mercy, what you've actually done is transgressed.

00:31:20.117 --> 00:31:23.737
You violated, you've perverted justice.

00:31:23.737 --> 00:31:32.077
Yes, you have not done what is due to the victim and to the victim's family, to all those who have been harmed by this murder.

00:31:32.077 --> 00:31:37.537
But the actual immediate and ultimate debt is owed to justice itself.

00:31:38.277 --> 00:31:41.237
It is not owed to the victim.

00:31:41.237 --> 00:31:44.657
We recognize this in our justice system.

00:31:44.657 --> 00:31:48.217
This is one of the things we actually get right in our system.

00:31:49.297 --> 00:31:58.737
You don't need, in this case, obviously, the victim cannot bring charges, but you don't need someone to bring charges on behalf of the victim.

00:31:58.737 --> 00:32:09.017
The state has an interest in executing justice against the criminal regardless of what the affected parties want.

00:32:09.017 --> 00:32:18.497
If you are the spouse of a murder victim, and you go to the prosecutor, you go to the state and say, I do not want this prosecuted.

00:32:18.497 --> 00:32:19.237
I forgive him.

00:32:19.237 --> 00:32:20.577
I want mercy.

00:32:20.577 --> 00:32:24.797
The state can tell you, that's great, we're still charging him.

00:32:24.797 --> 00:32:26.317
We're still convicting him.

00:32:26.317 --> 00:32:28.177
We're still executing him.

00:32:28.177 --> 00:32:30.577
Because the state has a different interest.

00:32:31.497 --> 00:32:34.277
That interest is again on behalf of justice.

00:32:34.277 --> 00:32:39.337
There is a debt that is owed, which is a fundamental point here.

00:32:39.337 --> 00:32:44.857
When we speak of sin as a debt, we all recognize what that means.

00:32:44.857 --> 00:32:47.657
Crime is also a debt.

00:32:47.657 --> 00:32:55.757
When a criminal commits a criminal act, and that's what makes him a criminal, that incurs a debt to justice.

00:32:55.757 --> 00:32:57.837
That debt must be paid.

00:32:57.837 --> 00:33:04.317
The only way in which that debt can be paid is punishment of the criminal.

00:33:04.317 --> 00:33:10.457
God requires that of the godly prince, of the sovereign.

00:33:10.457 --> 00:33:18.117
And so there is a duty with regard to the authorities in the left-hand kingdom to see that justice is done.

00:33:18.117 --> 00:33:22.117
And that is done by inflicting punishment.

00:33:22.117 --> 00:33:38.937
And so these other conceptions of, well, so-called conceptions of justice, which I'll run through some of them quickly so that you have them in mind, for those who have heard of these before or are familiar with the topic, they are not justice.

00:33:38.937 --> 00:33:40.777
That is not what we're talking about here.

00:33:40.777 --> 00:33:43.437
It's not what scripture means by justice.

00:33:44.597 --> 00:33:49.357
You can have mercy with regard to certain things.

00:33:49.357 --> 00:34:03.877
So, for instance, if you have a contract with someone and he owes you a great sum of money, but you know that he can't pay you because he's suffered some misfortune, you can show mercy and forgive some or all of that.

00:34:03.877 --> 00:34:06.097
That is something you can do.

00:34:06.097 --> 00:34:10.717
The state cannot do that with regard to matters of justice.

00:34:10.717 --> 00:34:12.717
These are separate things.

00:34:12.717 --> 00:34:25.097
To some degree, it's the division historically that you would have in English speaking countries, particularly those whose systems have derived from the old English system, the distinction between courts of law and courts of equity.

00:34:25.617 --> 00:34:27.017
There's a little bit of that.

00:34:27.017 --> 00:34:28.617
There's some nuance there.

00:34:28.617 --> 00:34:29.617
Not the point of the episode.

00:34:29.617 --> 00:34:31.717
We're not going to go into that in any depth.

00:34:32.797 --> 00:34:40.217
But to return to the so-called types of justice, you have, just to give some examples of them, these are the main ones.

00:34:40.217 --> 00:34:45.617
Retributive, distributive, procedural, restorative, commutative, and social.

00:34:45.617 --> 00:34:47.057
Only one of those is justice.

00:34:47.057 --> 00:34:48.357
That's that first one.

00:34:48.357 --> 00:34:48.977
Retributive.

00:34:48.977 --> 00:34:50.697
Retribution is justice.

00:34:51.737 --> 00:34:54.057
But you may be familiar with some of the philosophy here.

00:34:54.217 --> 00:35:05.917
And for those who are familiar with that, we're essentially agreeing with, but not absolutely, of course, Cicero, Augustine, and Kant on this.

00:35:05.917 --> 00:35:13.777
A little bit of Aristotle, but obviously not perfect agreement since he talks about distributive justice, and we would not call that justice.

00:35:15.077 --> 00:35:24.977
But some will conceive of justice as being a matter of distribution, of resource allocation, so fairness and equity, things like that.

00:35:24.977 --> 00:35:25.997
That's not justice.

00:35:25.997 --> 00:35:27.477
It's not what we're talking about here.

00:35:27.477 --> 00:35:43.997
These are important concerns for the godly prince, because fairness matters, equity matters, not in the Marxist sense, but in the proper sense of the term, as it would have been used historically, say, in our courts of equity.

00:35:45.717 --> 00:35:48.397
But these are not matters of justice.

00:35:48.397 --> 00:35:59.237
Just because it is something about which the godly prince should be concerned, even if it is something that could come before the courts of law, because of course today our courts are unified.

00:35:59.237 --> 00:36:01.897
We don't have separate courts for these things typically.

00:36:03.137 --> 00:36:07.697
Even if that is the case, it does not mean that it is a matter of justice.

00:36:09.137 --> 00:36:17.617
Because when we are speaking of justice, again, we are speaking of something that has incurred a debt to justice.

00:36:17.617 --> 00:36:21.037
It is a transgression that must be repaid.

00:36:21.717 --> 00:36:24.457
And of course, it can be repaid only with punishment.

00:36:26.057 --> 00:36:30.917
When someone speaks of procedural justice, we are not denigrating that.

00:36:30.917 --> 00:36:31.857
We are not saying it is wrong.

00:36:31.857 --> 00:36:35.997
We are saying it is not justice in the sense we are using it.

00:36:35.997 --> 00:36:41.677
Because procedural justice, so called, is really procedural fairness.

00:36:41.677 --> 00:36:47.017
That is transparency in how these matters are conducted, which is a good thing.

00:36:47.017 --> 00:36:51.377
Consistency in how the rules are applied, which is something that should be done.

00:36:51.377 --> 00:36:53.377
That is a goal.

00:36:53.377 --> 00:36:58.897
All of these things are valid concerns, but they are not justice.

00:37:00.497 --> 00:37:13.157
Another one that we see very commonly today, and this is one that you will see anytime you go on social media, anytime you turn on the news, you will see it a lot in the coming years.

00:37:13.217 --> 00:37:17.557
Restorative justice, or rehabilitative.

00:37:17.557 --> 00:37:22.657
Really, you have a little bit of both of those here, kind of under an umbrella.

00:37:22.657 --> 00:37:26.697
The focus of this is healing, is what they'll often say.

00:37:26.697 --> 00:37:36.457
Repair of relationships, or a restoration of either the injured party to the previous state, insofar as that is possible.

00:37:36.537 --> 00:37:45.037
Obviously, does not work with murder, or the restoration of the criminal to being part of society.

00:37:45.037 --> 00:37:48.957
His rehabilitation, and then reintroduction to society.

00:37:48.957 --> 00:37:50.817
That is not justice.

00:37:50.817 --> 00:37:59.597
In fact, this one, more so than the others, is almost always a perversion or a subversion of justice.

00:37:59.597 --> 00:38:00.757
It is a transgression.

00:38:00.757 --> 00:38:14.997
In fact, it is a new crime to grant mercy where mercy is not due, and where granting mercy would be a transgression of justice, is itself a crime.

00:38:14.997 --> 00:38:19.917
And so this happens all the time in our current system.

00:38:19.917 --> 00:38:39.077
Every time a murderer is sentenced to anything other than execution, unless it's a suspended sentence for some reason, so I would not say that it is necessarily morally wrongful to sentence him to some sort of hard labor for a period of time.

00:38:39.077 --> 00:38:44.697
Not that he gets released at the end, but that you are having him pay back something to society.

00:38:44.697 --> 00:38:50.377
It is still ultimately a sentence of death, just in a different form.

00:38:50.377 --> 00:38:53.137
A discussion perhaps in detail for another time.

00:38:53.137 --> 00:39:03.497
But any time a murderer is not sentenced to something that is tantamount to death or literally execution, that is a perversion of justice.

00:39:03.497 --> 00:39:10.857
That is itself an additional crime by the system that is tasked with executing justice.

00:39:10.857 --> 00:39:18.617
So in fact, it is a particularly egregious crime, but this happens all the time in our current system, and it happens all over the world.

00:39:18.617 --> 00:39:26.277
This is something that is very widespread, because obviously there is an animating intelligence behind it.

00:39:26.277 --> 00:39:37.877
Commutative justice is not really a particularly interesting subject for this topic and for most of you listening, but this is dealing with sort of fair exchange, equivalence, honest dealing.

00:39:37.877 --> 00:39:40.137
It's kind of a contract law matter.

00:39:40.137 --> 00:39:46.017
So it's a tangential matter, but you'll see it come up sometimes in discussions of so-called justice.

00:39:46.577 --> 00:39:51.757
And then, of course, the final one for this short list is social justice.

00:39:53.637 --> 00:40:14.617
This is one that bears not necessarily a slightly longer commentary, but a recognition of the fact that in some ways, the left gets this one more right than the right, or perhaps more correct than the right, not to use the same term twice.

00:40:16.177 --> 00:40:25.977
This is not to say that the critiques that come from the left, which are usually Marxist in nature, are correct or accurate, because they're not.

00:40:25.977 --> 00:40:30.097
They're wrong and they're wicked, and they seek evil ends.

00:40:31.277 --> 00:40:38.697
But it is to say that the concerns themselves are morally appropriate.

00:40:40.777 --> 00:40:54.597
The concern with regard to so-called social justice is that you don't have wrongful inequality or wrongful inequity in society.

00:40:54.597 --> 00:41:01.957
Insofar as that is a moral assessment with regard to wrongful, that is an appropriate concern for Christians.

00:41:02.017 --> 00:41:06.017
It's not only appropriate, it's commanded by God.

00:41:06.017 --> 00:41:16.517
Because every time you see God say that he is concerned for the sojourner and the widow and the fatherless and the poor, that's social justice.

00:41:17.837 --> 00:41:34.197
Using the term justice in a separate sense, where we're employing it in this episode, of course, that's more of the sense of righteousness, comporting yourself correctly with regard to the moral law, with regard to morality and ethics.

00:41:35.277 --> 00:41:39.177
But those concerns are concerns that are throughout scripture.

00:41:39.177 --> 00:41:41.997
They are concerns that God has for his people.

00:41:41.997 --> 00:41:44.877
They are things that he commands Christians to do.

00:41:44.877 --> 00:41:58.357
And that's one of the reasons that Marxism and other things like it are so dangerous, because they say things at the start that sound completely Christian in some ways, and in fact, sometimes are Christian.

00:41:59.417 --> 00:42:01.737
But they use them to subvert.

00:42:01.737 --> 00:42:08.577
They use them to build up a wicked and an evil argument, and attempt to get you to do evil.

00:42:08.577 --> 00:42:18.977
That is when Satan is at his most dangerous, when he presents you with something that sounds Christian, or very well may be Christian, because of course Satan quotes scripture.

00:42:18.977 --> 00:42:22.197
He just perverts it when he interprets it.

00:42:22.197 --> 00:42:26.537
But he'll start off, or his minions will start off, using scripture.

00:42:27.217 --> 00:42:34.257
They'll say, well, look, God has concern for the fatherless and the widow and the sojourner and the poor.

00:42:34.257 --> 00:42:36.937
And so you should do X, Y, and Z.

00:42:36.937 --> 00:42:38.917
The beginning of that is correct.

00:42:38.917 --> 00:42:41.477
It is their conclusions that are wicked.

00:42:41.477 --> 00:42:44.637
But Christians cannot abandon this space.

00:42:44.637 --> 00:42:53.797
We can't say, well, social justice is a major concern of the left, and so obviously we have to oppose social justice.

00:42:53.797 --> 00:43:02.097
No, we have to oppose the wicked things they want to do, in the name of this fairness in society in a certain sense.

00:43:02.097 --> 00:43:06.457
Because of course, fairness is something that exists and doesn't exist and should and shouldn't.

00:43:06.457 --> 00:43:07.597
It's a complicated matter.

00:43:07.597 --> 00:43:10.437
It's not a simple yes or no.

00:43:10.437 --> 00:43:14.357
But this is something with which Christians should concern themselves.

00:43:14.357 --> 00:43:17.717
Again, we can't abandon the field in this place.

00:43:17.717 --> 00:43:23.937
It's not a matter of justice in the sense we're employing it today, of legal justice.

00:43:24.797 --> 00:43:27.577
But it is a Christian concern.

00:43:27.577 --> 00:43:32.497
And so when someone brings it up, you can't just say, Oh, I oppose that entirely.

00:43:32.497 --> 00:43:38.097
No, you have to look at what is being advocated in the name of this thing.

00:43:38.097 --> 00:43:41.757
Because if it's Christian, you have to support it as a Christian.

00:43:41.757 --> 00:43:44.817
We should attempt to alleviate the suffering of the poor.

00:43:44.817 --> 00:43:52.417
We should attempt to help those who have suffered some mishap or some loss, widows and the fatherless.

00:43:53.317 --> 00:43:58.217
God has concern for these people, and so should we as God's people.

00:43:58.217 --> 00:44:08.517
But we should not permit Marxists and other evil men to occupy this field and say, this is how you do this thing that God commands.

00:44:08.517 --> 00:44:12.797
That is ceding territory to Satan, and we are never permitted to do that.

00:44:14.837 --> 00:44:21.737
So that essentially gives you an overview of the so-called kinds of justice that you will hear discussed typically.

00:44:21.797 --> 00:44:31.337
And again, those are retributive, distributive, procedural, restorative, or rehabilitative, commutative, and social.

00:44:31.337 --> 00:44:44.397
We are speaking of retributive justice, because when we speak of justice in the sense we are employing it in this episode, the only thing that is justice is retribution.

00:44:44.397 --> 00:44:46.217
It is punishment for wrongdoing.

00:44:46.217 --> 00:44:48.917
It is punishment for transgression of the moral law.

00:44:50.237 --> 00:44:56.557
That's sort of a short definition of justice, as we are using it in this episode.

00:44:56.557 --> 00:45:07.857
And so if anyone ever uses the term justice, and then makes some argument that's completely unrelated to punishment, you need to be very careful.

00:45:07.857 --> 00:45:09.777
That person may be trying to mislead you.

00:45:09.777 --> 00:45:16.517
There's a very good chance in modern discourse, the person may just not know how to use the term.

00:45:17.817 --> 00:45:22.717
Don't immediately assume the person has nefarious intent, but be on guard.

00:45:22.717 --> 00:45:24.297
Listen carefully.

00:45:24.297 --> 00:45:31.997
Figure out what is being said, and what they are trying to get you to believe and do as a result of what is being said.

00:45:31.997 --> 00:45:43.217
Because if you are speaking about justice in its core and most appropriate sense, it means the punishment of criminals, the punishment of wrongdoing, and nothing else.

00:45:45.897 --> 00:45:52.157
And what we are saying here about retribution is not remotely controversial in history.

00:45:52.157 --> 00:46:01.017
In fact, one of the most noted legal scholars that you have all heard of, the thief on the cross, perfectly well understood the exact thing that we are saying here.

00:46:01.017 --> 00:46:07.317
From Luke 23, one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, Are you not the Christ?

00:46:07.317 --> 00:46:09.157
Save yourself and us.

00:46:09.157 --> 00:46:12.037
But the other rebuked him saying, Do you not fear God?

00:46:12.457 --> 00:46:15.637
Since you are under the same sense of condemnation.

00:46:15.637 --> 00:46:20.257
And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds.

00:46:20.257 --> 00:46:22.737
But this man has done nothing wrong.

00:46:22.737 --> 00:46:26.197
And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

00:46:26.197 --> 00:46:30.737
And he said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in paradise.

00:46:30.737 --> 00:46:33.737
So the thief on the cross understood exactly what we are saying.

00:46:33.737 --> 00:46:36.077
This is not some fancy legal theory.

00:46:36.077 --> 00:46:38.537
This is not out of left field.

00:46:38.537 --> 00:46:40.117
And it's not remotely immoral.

00:46:40.517 --> 00:46:52.417
Even someone who all he probably knew of Jesus was that it was clear that he was the son of God and based on the things that had happened, he understood enough to say, Lord, remember me when you come into our kingdom.

00:46:52.417 --> 00:46:54.117
And what did Jesus say?

00:46:54.117 --> 00:46:56.637
He said, you'll be with me today in paradise.

00:46:56.637 --> 00:46:59.637
He effectively said, your sins are forgiven.

00:46:59.637 --> 00:47:01.497
But what didn't he say?

00:47:01.497 --> 00:47:03.077
He didn't say, well, this is injustice.

00:47:03.077 --> 00:47:04.837
You should come down from the cross.

00:47:04.837 --> 00:47:05.577
We should get out of here.

00:47:05.577 --> 00:47:06.577
This is not fair.

00:47:06.577 --> 00:47:08.317
Like you just said, I didn't do anything wrong.

00:47:08.717 --> 00:47:11.317
You did something wrong, but I forgave your sins.

00:47:11.317 --> 00:47:12.237
So let's beat it.

00:47:12.237 --> 00:47:12.937
Let's get out of here.

00:47:12.937 --> 00:47:14.497
Let's come down off these crosses.

00:47:14.497 --> 00:47:18.097
No, the thief on the cross was exactly right.

00:47:18.097 --> 00:47:21.937
We are receiving the due reward for our deeds.

00:47:21.937 --> 00:47:22.897
That's justice.

00:47:22.897 --> 00:47:23.757
That's retribution.

00:47:23.757 --> 00:47:25.197
That's it.

00:47:25.197 --> 00:47:33.797
The etymological definition of retribution goes back through old French until you get directly Latin, unsurprisingly.

00:47:33.797 --> 00:47:39.977
And the original term meant recompense or payment to hand back or to repay.

00:47:39.977 --> 00:47:43.717
So retribution literally means just repayment.

00:47:43.717 --> 00:47:49.837
And as Corey said, and as scripture makes clear, what is being paid is the debt.

00:47:49.837 --> 00:47:59.077
And this is where the divergence from the left-hand kingdom of the political and the right-hand kingdom of justification before God are separated.

00:47:59.077 --> 00:48:01.777
You all know what Paul wrote in Colossians 2.

00:48:03.057 --> 00:48:17.317
In you who are dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

00:48:17.317 --> 00:48:20.617
This he set aside, nailing to the cross.

00:48:20.617 --> 00:48:29.857
What God makes very clear in Colossians 2 is that the debt that that thief owed to God was nailed to the next cross over.

00:48:30.537 --> 00:48:38.817
The thief was paying the temporal price for his crimes, and Jesus was paying the eternal price at the same time.

00:48:38.817 --> 00:48:44.617
This is a crucial part of understanding justice as it occurs temporally and eternally.

00:48:44.617 --> 00:48:54.957
Any attack on temporal justice, any attack that says it's unfair to punish the wicked, is fundamentally and invariably an attack on God himself.

00:48:54.957 --> 00:48:59.417
It is to say it is injustice for someone to be punished for their wickedness.

00:49:00.297 --> 00:49:03.017
That is despising the cross itself.

00:49:03.017 --> 00:49:14.557
Because as God makes clear, the punishment that every single one of us owes to God, you know, we talk about salvation, when we talk about being saved, we leave off what we're being saved from.

00:49:14.557 --> 00:49:16.257
We're being saved from God.

00:49:16.257 --> 00:49:18.217
God is saving us from God.

00:49:18.217 --> 00:49:20.597
And where that occurred was on the cross.

00:49:20.597 --> 00:49:31.477
In this moment, where for three hours, Jesus suffered and died, he paid the eternal price for your sins and my sins and the sins of every man who's ever lived.

00:49:31.477 --> 00:49:33.157
Saved and unsaved alike.

00:49:33.157 --> 00:49:36.137
This is one of the most dire Calvinist errors.

00:49:36.137 --> 00:49:42.197
The concept of limited atonement, that Jesus didn't pay for everyone's sins, kills the gospel.

00:49:42.197 --> 00:49:45.237
Because it means I can't go up to anyone and say, Jesus died for you.

00:49:45.237 --> 00:49:46.857
I can say, well, I hope he did.

00:49:46.857 --> 00:49:49.057
I know he died for me because I'm a LAC, but you, I don't know.

00:49:49.057 --> 00:49:50.217
Yeah, well, we'll see.

00:49:50.217 --> 00:49:52.377
Let's check your fruits and see if you're Christian or not.

00:49:52.377 --> 00:49:53.537
Nonsense.

00:49:53.537 --> 00:49:57.157
Every man, the most wicked man you can imagine, Jesus died for his sins.

00:49:57.837 --> 00:50:02.577
Jesus died for the sins of the men on both crosses on either side of him.

00:50:02.577 --> 00:50:11.137
The one who reviled him and died and went immediately to hell, and the one who confessed him as his Lord and joined him that day in paradise.

00:50:11.137 --> 00:50:14.417
Jesus paid the eternal price for both of those men.

00:50:14.417 --> 00:50:16.977
The difference between them was repentance.

00:50:16.977 --> 00:50:21.857
The one who confessed him as Lord said, Lord, remember me in your kingdom?

00:50:21.857 --> 00:50:27.137
The payment that Jesus delivered on the cross was charged to that man's account.

00:50:27.837 --> 00:50:36.257
That man was declared free of sin for everything that he did, for what put him on the cross and all the other things that he didn't get punished for in this life.

00:50:36.257 --> 00:50:37.977
It was all nailed to the cross.

00:50:37.977 --> 00:50:39.137
That is justice.

00:50:39.137 --> 00:50:40.877
That is eternal justice.

00:50:40.877 --> 00:50:47.597
And as Corey said, eternal justice is also hell for everyone who rejects what Christ did on the cross.

00:50:47.597 --> 00:50:51.637
So the concept of justice occurs in both kingdoms.

00:50:51.637 --> 00:50:53.217
It is both temporal and eternal.

00:50:53.217 --> 00:50:55.297
It is both political and religious.

00:50:56.177 --> 00:51:01.897
The difference is that one has nothing to do with the treatment of the other.

00:51:01.897 --> 00:51:11.917
The fact that Jesus died for every man, the fact that everyone's sins are forgiven if they ask God for them to be forgiven has nothing to do with temporal consequences.

00:51:11.917 --> 00:51:20.617
As Corey laid out the case, it is in fact injustice and wickedness not to punish sins temporally.

00:51:20.637 --> 00:51:26.137
One of the hard parts about this discussion is that, one, we don't have a remotely godly government.

00:51:26.137 --> 00:51:32.557
Like, we have so many problems to solve that it almost seems like these conversations are hypothetical, but they can't be.

00:51:32.557 --> 00:51:39.397
If we don't know what godly governance looks like, how can we ever possibly hope to even grovel towards achieving it?

00:51:39.397 --> 00:51:47.637
There's no hope of achieving something remotely godly in this life in the political sphere if we just reject out of hand what God says about it.

00:51:47.637 --> 00:51:50.437
So what we're talking about is what godly justice looks like.

00:51:51.657 --> 00:51:54.597
And that involves actual punishment for sin.

00:51:54.597 --> 00:51:59.737
It involves the state not just forgiving people, because that's not the state's job.

00:51:59.737 --> 00:52:01.737
What does Paul say in Romans?

00:52:01.737 --> 00:52:03.777
He makes very clear.

00:52:03.777 --> 00:52:08.957
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God.

00:52:08.957 --> 00:52:12.697
And those that exist have been instituted by God.

00:52:12.697 --> 00:52:16.377
Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed.

00:52:16.377 --> 00:52:18.197
And those who resist will incur judgment.

00:52:18.877 --> 00:52:22.257
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

00:52:22.257 --> 00:52:25.197
Would you have no fear of the one who is an authority?

00:52:25.197 --> 00:52:27.717
Then do it as good, and you will receive his approval.

00:52:27.717 --> 00:52:29.937
For he is God's servant for your good.

00:52:29.937 --> 00:52:31.977
But if you do wrong, be afraid.

00:52:31.977 --> 00:52:34.597
For he does not bear the sword in vain.

00:52:34.597 --> 00:52:40.117
For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

00:52:40.117 --> 00:52:46.377
Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.

00:52:47.917 --> 00:53:05.217
Now, if you go back and listen to the Left Hand Kingdom episode, we link three podcasts from Godesteen that deal very directly with Romans 13 and what it means, particularly in American context, where we have A, democracy, and B, wicked rulers, which incidentally go hand in hand.

00:53:05.217 --> 00:53:06.677
When is it rebellion?

00:53:06.677 --> 00:53:07.897
When is it just?

00:53:07.897 --> 00:53:09.077
We're not going to get into that today.

00:53:09.077 --> 00:53:11.837
We'll probably get into that in a future episode.

00:53:11.837 --> 00:53:21.857
The vital part of this, the foundational philosophical part of this, the Christian part of this, is that the state is an avenger of evil.

00:53:21.857 --> 00:53:30.657
The prince, the democratically elected leader, they have the job to God to avenge wrongdoing.

00:53:30.657 --> 00:53:33.217
They don't have the job to forgive sins.

00:53:33.217 --> 00:53:35.157
They do not have that job.

00:53:35.157 --> 00:53:38.357
That is a separate job that is in the right hand kingdom.

00:53:39.217 --> 00:53:47.577
The man who confesses his sins to his priest or his pastor for the things he's going to be executed for, his pastor must announce God's forgiveness.

00:53:47.577 --> 00:53:50.077
And then the state must execute him the next day.

00:53:50.077 --> 00:53:56.197
That is proper, that is just, and has been the norm for all of Christian history until recently.

00:53:56.197 --> 00:53:59.217
And now it's so controversial when we put people to death.

00:53:59.217 --> 00:54:00.337
Why today?

00:54:00.337 --> 00:54:02.037
Because they're mostly black.

00:54:02.037 --> 00:54:05.737
Well, racial crime statistics, we did a whole episode about that.

00:54:05.737 --> 00:54:07.097
We don't need to dig back into that.

00:54:07.877 --> 00:54:13.517
The fact that people say, well, because of their race, they can't be held account is despicable.

00:54:13.517 --> 00:54:14.697
That's absolutely wicked.

00:54:14.697 --> 00:54:16.237
It is injustice.

00:54:16.237 --> 00:54:18.617
And yet, as Corey said, they're doing it in the name of justice.

00:54:18.617 --> 00:54:22.957
It's like, oh, you can't hold this man to a just standard because he's African.

00:54:22.957 --> 00:54:24.577
Excuse me?

00:54:24.597 --> 00:54:27.057
As Corey said, that's not doing them any favors.

00:54:27.057 --> 00:54:34.277
To not hold a man accountable temporally for his sins just makes hell worse, makes hell worse for him.

00:54:34.277 --> 00:54:39.677
And if he does repent, he still has to live with the guilt of not having been punished.

00:54:39.677 --> 00:54:49.137
It's very common for someone who has committed a crime and still has an intact conscience, for it to weigh on them for their entire life, to continuously eat away.

00:54:49.137 --> 00:54:56.217
It's often the case where someone's been on the run for decades, and they finally get caught, they express a sense of relief.

00:54:56.217 --> 00:55:05.057
A criminal who was getting away with their heinous crimes, who, you know, there's no statute limitations or whatever they did, they were fleeing, they were living under another name somewhere else.

00:55:05.057 --> 00:55:07.957
When they get caught, they're relieved.

00:55:07.957 --> 00:55:09.757
They're not terrorized by being caught.

00:55:09.757 --> 00:55:11.797
They're relieved that it finally happened.

00:55:11.797 --> 00:55:16.577
To face justice is actually a relief for the criminal.

00:55:16.937 --> 00:55:19.697
It seems backwards, but it's true.

00:55:19.697 --> 00:55:21.357
And they will say it themselves.

00:55:21.357 --> 00:55:25.737
Now, you don't want to face consequences because you want to get off scot-free.

00:55:25.737 --> 00:55:33.297
But knowing that the retribution is there hanging over you, it is far better for it to be delivered than to evade it.

00:55:33.577 --> 00:55:40.837
Unless a man has a seared conscience, unless he's just really ceased to be human altogether, he's going to feel that.

00:55:40.837 --> 00:55:44.637
Even if he's not Christian, even if he's still a wicked man.

00:55:44.637 --> 00:55:48.237
These guys are generally wicked people when they're on the run for decades.

00:55:48.237 --> 00:55:53.697
Sometimes, they keep their noses clean for the most part, but they didn't get right with God.

00:55:53.697 --> 00:55:56.297
They didn't come to face consequences for their sins.

00:55:57.577 --> 00:56:03.177
The left-hand kingdom of Christ involves punishing sins in this life.

00:56:03.177 --> 00:56:07.217
The right-hand kingdom is announcing God's forgiveness in eternity.

00:56:07.217 --> 00:56:13.297
It's two separate jobs, two separate realms, and for our purposes, it's two separate conversations.

00:56:14.477 --> 00:56:33.957
Again, as I said at the beginning, the reason that it's so crucial for us as we're going into the coming year, as Christians to understand the fact that someone can be forgiven, or that Jesus died for them, or even in fact that they have been forgiven, is totally irrelevant to whether or not justice is delivered to that man.

00:56:33.957 --> 00:56:37.697
Justice has nothing to do with God's forgiveness.

00:56:37.697 --> 00:56:42.117
That's a hard thing for Christians to hear, because all we ever talk about is God's forgiveness.

00:56:42.117 --> 00:56:46.657
It's the reason that I began with that litany of episodes, including the one about forgiveness.

00:56:46.657 --> 00:56:51.217
We are not in any way denigrating or belittling how crucial that is.

00:56:51.217 --> 00:56:53.197
That's the most important thing, because that's eternity.

00:56:53.757 --> 00:56:58.337
That's the rest of forever for all of us, for good or ill.

00:56:58.337 --> 00:57:06.337
When we don't accept the fact that this life actually matters, we're talking about delving into Gnosticism.

00:57:06.337 --> 00:57:09.677
Well, the first episodes we did this year was about the Gnostic heresy.

00:57:09.677 --> 00:57:13.937
As Corey said, it's come roaring back in this subject.

00:57:13.937 --> 00:57:18.337
To say that a man, no, you can't do anything to his body, God forgave him, so he's off the hook.

00:57:19.317 --> 00:57:23.177
There's a strong vein of Gnosticism underlying that.

00:57:23.177 --> 00:57:27.417
To say, well, you know, just the spirit is fine, so we don't deal with the rest.

00:57:27.417 --> 00:57:29.897
That doesn't actually do anyone any favors.

00:57:29.897 --> 00:57:31.617
As Corey said, that's actually evil.

00:57:31.617 --> 00:57:36.317
It is evil not to visit justice on a man who deserves it.

00:57:36.317 --> 00:57:57.637
The difficult part for us to understand in a democratic society, God help us, is that in the case where you have a godly prince, even the case where you just have a president, a president, a governor, has the authority to commute a sentence or to pardon a man, to say that crime is wiped away, it is as though it didn't happen.

00:57:57.637 --> 00:58:01.357
The reason that the executive is given that authority is godly.

00:58:01.357 --> 00:58:26.617
And it's not that it is necessarily injustice for that to happen, is that a ruler, a governor, a king, a president, someone who in effect doesn't have anyone over him to whom he answers for his judgment, is called upon in his role in that very narrow role at the very top, at the pinnacle of these decision-making processes to exemplify wisdom.

00:58:26.617 --> 00:58:35.937
And there are times when it is wise for a man in particular circumstances to extend mercy to someone who's guilty of a crime.

00:58:35.937 --> 00:58:38.937
That is not anti-Christian.

00:58:38.937 --> 00:58:42.177
So the premise of a pardon is entirely reasonable.

00:58:42.637 --> 00:58:47.757
And yet, the reason that we put it in the hands of the executive is it's not subject to review.

00:58:47.757 --> 00:58:50.357
He answers to God for what he does.

00:58:50.357 --> 00:58:51.937
You see what's going on here?

00:58:51.937 --> 00:58:54.097
You don't put this stuff up for a vote.

00:58:54.097 --> 00:58:57.697
You don't let a jury decide way later.

00:58:57.697 --> 00:59:08.717
It comes down to the fact is in this particular set of circumstances, one case, one defendant, one man who's been found guilty by the system of justice.

00:59:08.717 --> 00:59:14.497
If the executive says, I pardon this crime, I'm wiping it away, that's the end of it.

00:59:14.497 --> 00:59:20.017
It cannot be undone in our system because that is godly, and it's not up for us to argue with it.

00:59:20.017 --> 00:59:23.637
Even if you look at an example, say, well, that was clearly a miscarriage of justice.

00:59:23.637 --> 00:59:27.757
The reason that that authority is unilateral is at the premise.

00:59:27.757 --> 00:59:31.057
The underlying premise of what is going on there is good.

00:59:31.057 --> 00:59:36.317
So when we talk about justice needing to be enforced, it is not that mercy is never in the picture.

00:59:36.997 --> 00:59:40.157
It is that mercy is a matter of wisdom.

00:59:40.157 --> 00:59:42.297
In politics, mercy is a tactic.

00:59:42.297 --> 00:59:44.037
It is not a rule.

00:59:44.037 --> 00:59:51.297
Something I tweeted a while ago, and I said yesterday, I said today, as we're recording this, that's one of the summaries of this episode.

00:59:51.297 --> 00:59:53.817
In politics, mercy is a tactic.

00:59:53.817 --> 00:59:55.817
It is not a rule.

00:59:55.817 --> 01:00:00.677
There is no obligation for any governor, president, or king to pardon anyone for any crime.

01:00:00.677 --> 01:00:03.157
Perhaps in his wisdom, he chooses to do so.

01:00:03.157 --> 01:00:04.997
For good reasons, for bad reasons, it doesn't matter.

01:00:05.157 --> 01:00:07.237
It's not subject to review.

01:00:07.237 --> 01:00:09.577
But it is permissible for that to happen.

01:00:09.577 --> 01:00:15.217
And all we can do is say that God's justice is going to be served in eternity.

01:00:15.217 --> 01:00:19.657
And what happens in this life, in these matters, at some point, it's over our pay grade.

01:00:19.657 --> 01:00:23.037
That's why the democratic aspect of this is such a disaster.

01:00:23.037 --> 01:00:29.917
Because we have this notion that everything has to be continuously subject to review and to approval by the masses.

01:00:29.917 --> 01:00:42.497
The man who's actually going to answer to God in terms of dispensing wisdom and justice is given the absolute authority to pardon, to extend mercy, but he is not obligated to do so.

01:00:42.497 --> 01:00:47.997
And incidentally, this is one of the reasons why girls are utterly unfit to be participants in politics.

01:00:47.997 --> 01:00:54.257
Because the girl's natural inclination to be merciful, as she would as a mother.

01:00:54.257 --> 01:01:04.037
You know, every woman on a jury, every woman who's a judge or a medical examiner, when they see a criminal, they see someone's son.

01:01:04.037 --> 01:01:07.017
Because you know, most violent crimes at least are committed by men.

01:01:07.017 --> 01:01:09.757
That's a function of testosterone largely.

01:01:09.757 --> 01:01:11.017
But it's usually a man.

01:01:11.017 --> 01:01:15.497
So usually a woman is going to see some little boy that some mother loved.

01:01:15.497 --> 01:01:21.237
So before Jeffrey Dahmer had a mother, I don't know his back, so I would assume that he was loved as a child at some point.

01:01:21.237 --> 01:01:25.337
Whatever went wrong with him, somebody loved him as a child.

01:01:25.337 --> 01:01:27.297
Doesn't make him not guilty.

01:01:27.817 --> 01:01:31.777
Doesn't mean that he doesn't get held to justice.

01:01:31.777 --> 01:01:38.277
Men can extend this principle and see past the fact that, oh, there's someone who's going to be sad.

01:01:38.277 --> 01:01:42.737
Women almost invariably can't, and frankly, it's terrible when they can.

01:01:42.737 --> 01:01:49.697
When a woman becomes hardened to the point that she will be bloodthirsty, as a man in some cases must be.

01:01:49.697 --> 01:01:52.777
Not that you want to be bloodthirsty, but you can't be bloodless.

01:01:52.777 --> 01:02:00.537
You have to look at a situation and say, this calls for violence, this calls for death, dispassionately.

01:02:00.537 --> 01:02:02.357
You know, that's not a matter of hatred.

01:02:02.357 --> 01:02:04.257
It's not a matter for individuals.

01:02:04.257 --> 01:02:07.937
This is a matter of judgment in the realm of the government.

01:02:07.937 --> 01:02:12.737
To look dispassionately at a situation and say, justice demands that this man die.

01:02:12.737 --> 01:02:15.037
Justice demands that this man be beaten.

01:02:15.037 --> 01:02:17.657
Maybe his hand be amputated as a thief.

01:02:17.657 --> 01:02:19.497
If that were the law, that would be just.

01:02:19.497 --> 01:02:21.057
If it's not the law, that's also just.

01:02:21.057 --> 01:02:22.957
Like, I don't care how that's implemented.

01:02:23.817 --> 01:02:29.877
But men have to say, yeah, this guy is going to get punished for what he did, and mercy is not a factor.

01:02:29.877 --> 01:02:34.477
The reason we're talking about it as a Christian podcast is that it doesn't sound Christian.

01:02:34.477 --> 01:02:35.877
And the point is that it is.

01:02:35.877 --> 01:02:43.337
It is universally Christian, and it is, in fact, a denial of God's mercy to try to take things off the table.

01:02:43.337 --> 01:02:50.777
If you say that justice cannot be enforced and you can only have so-called mercy in this life, all you're doing is making hell worse for these people.

01:02:51.217 --> 01:02:54.897
And, incidentally, you're also making civilization worse.

01:02:54.897 --> 01:03:13.577
The more liberal we have become in terms of just letting this stuff slide, not punishing actual wickedness and punishing things that aren't wicked at all, when good Samaritans are on trial for their life for protecting people, and wicked men go free, it's the pinnacle of injustice.

01:03:13.577 --> 01:03:15.357
And mostly that's what we see in the news.

01:03:16.557 --> 01:03:20.717
That is the tail end of us getting all these things wrong.

01:03:20.717 --> 01:03:25.997
It's the tail end of Christians not being a participant in these conversations and saying, you know what?

01:03:25.997 --> 01:03:28.617
Shut up about forgiveness and mercy here.

01:03:28.617 --> 01:03:31.417
These people are wicked and they need to be punished.

01:03:31.417 --> 01:03:39.457
And once they're sentenced justly for their temporal punishment, we need to make sure that they get right with God if they want to hear it.

01:03:39.457 --> 01:03:43.677
You take every opportunity to extend God's mercy to them in the eternal.

01:03:44.417 --> 01:03:50.477
But just as the thief on the cross, the punishment and the forgiveness is either temporal or eternal.

01:03:50.477 --> 01:03:55.437
And when you confuse the two, you can only produce wickedness in this life.

01:03:56.617 --> 01:04:01.557
I recently posted that the king is above the laws.

01:04:01.557 --> 01:04:11.437
This is something that I've said a number of times and admittedly, deliberately, to get people to actually think about what the statement means, what it says.

01:04:13.577 --> 01:04:20.337
Incidentally, in the Lutheran case, this is actually something by which we are bound because it is in our confession.

01:04:20.337 --> 01:04:23.737
It is in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.

01:04:23.737 --> 01:04:31.557
It is said seemingly in passing, but it is stated in a way that it is assumed to be categorically true.

01:04:32.857 --> 01:04:40.037
I want to expand on that because it's relevant here, and there's a related matter that is worth reiterating.

01:04:40.037 --> 01:04:42.437
We've said it before, but I'll say it again.

01:04:44.037 --> 01:04:55.717
When I say the king is above the laws, and note the plural and the lowercase l, that means that the king stands above the positive law.

01:04:55.717 --> 01:05:03.677
The positive law is simply the term we use for the enacted laws of a given country, of a political entity.

01:05:05.437 --> 01:05:12.377
The king is not above the law, uppercase l, in that case meaning the moral law.

01:05:12.377 --> 01:05:21.057
And so the king is tasked primarily, first and foremost, with upholding the moral law.

01:05:21.057 --> 01:05:39.317
That's one of the things that is central to this subject, because justice, to define it briefly, is to punish appropriately, which is to say fully, any behavior that transgresses the moral law.

01:05:39.317 --> 01:05:50.457
That is one of the core, if not the highest duties of the king, because of course a competing duty for highest duty would be seeing that the Christian faith is taught rightly in his lands.

01:05:50.457 --> 01:05:56.337
The king does also have that duty, a topic for another time.

01:05:56.337 --> 01:06:12.077
But when it comes to the moral law, how things are typically supposed to be done is the moral law is transposed into the positive law, which is to say that we look at the moral law, which says, thou shalt not murder.

01:06:12.077 --> 01:06:15.977
The man who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.

01:06:15.977 --> 01:06:16.897
Those are moral law.

01:06:16.957 --> 01:06:35.857
You look at those and you transpose them into the positive law, and you end up with our laws against murder, our laws that punish various kinds of homicide, and it's perfectly reasonable to recognize there are different kinds of certain crimes, particularly homicide.

01:06:35.857 --> 01:06:39.777
Even scripture has different treatment for different homicides.

01:06:39.777 --> 01:06:44.857
There's really a distinction between two kinds in scripture, whereas we have more than two.

01:06:45.857 --> 01:06:48.797
Perfectly fine to do that.

01:06:48.797 --> 01:07:06.117
The king is above the positive law, because the way that this actually works, morally speaking, ontologically speaking, is that the king is the one who grants the authority to the positive law.

01:07:06.117 --> 01:07:12.917
Because the king is the one who has the duty from God to see that the moral law is transposed into the positive law.

01:07:13.497 --> 01:07:18.757
And so he is the one who is supposed to enact and uphold those laws.

01:07:18.757 --> 01:07:25.937
He is not beholden to the positive law in the way that all of his citizens and subjects are.

01:07:25.937 --> 01:07:29.177
That is what it means for the king to be above the laws.

01:07:29.177 --> 01:07:35.697
I know some will object to the formulation, but this is simply how these things work.

01:07:35.697 --> 01:07:40.257
The king is not above the moral law, because the moral law flows from God's nature.

01:07:40.757 --> 01:07:44.477
It is why the king has certain duties.

01:07:44.477 --> 01:07:56.377
It is why certain things are a matter of justice, and so the king cannot grant mercy for certain things, because they are part of the moral law.

01:07:56.377 --> 01:08:00.417
And so the king cannot say, I'm not going to punish this murderer.

01:08:01.557 --> 01:08:16.477
The king can look at the case and look at the man and decide how he is going to punish the murderer, but it must be tantamount to the death penalty, because that is what is required by God under the moral law.

01:08:16.477 --> 01:08:19.737
Could he send him on a suicide mission if the country happens to be at war?

01:08:19.737 --> 01:08:22.317
Sure, the king has that discretion.

01:08:22.317 --> 01:08:24.517
That's still a death sentence.

01:08:24.517 --> 01:08:29.557
But he cannot grant mercy that violates the moral law.

01:08:29.557 --> 01:08:34.937
But he can pardon with regard to the positive law, because he is above the positive law.

01:08:34.937 --> 01:08:37.057
He answers to God alone.

01:08:38.217 --> 01:08:42.037
Now, some will look at that or hear that language and think that's completely ridiculous.

01:08:42.037 --> 01:08:46.497
It's setting the king up is basically a god.

01:08:46.497 --> 01:08:49.757
Think about what that language actually means.

01:08:49.757 --> 01:09:03.677
Anyone in that position, whether he is the highest in this pyramid or he is somewhere down the ranks, should be absolutely terrified that he answers to God alone.

01:09:03.677 --> 01:09:05.277
So in the case of the king, it's God alone.

01:09:05.317 --> 01:09:08.437
In the case of a lesser magistrate, it's the king and then God.

01:09:08.437 --> 01:09:12.057
That is a terrifying position in which to find yourself.

01:09:12.057 --> 01:09:19.217
Much better to answer to men in this life than to answer only to God in eternity.

01:09:21.257 --> 01:09:35.917
To be the king grants certain privileges, but it comes with far more duties and far more dangers, because the king is going to answer to God for everything he does or fails to do.

01:09:35.917 --> 01:09:40.617
And in many cases, he is going to answer only to God.

01:09:40.617 --> 01:09:52.237
Those of us who aren't at the top of the hierarchy have others above us, or at least have peers to whom we have to answer, who can call us to account.

01:09:52.237 --> 01:09:54.017
That is a blessing from God.

01:09:54.017 --> 01:09:55.537
The king does not have that.

01:09:55.537 --> 01:09:59.237
He may have advisors, but they are not his equals.

01:09:59.237 --> 01:10:03.797
Again, that is a terrifying position in which to find oneself.

01:10:03.797 --> 01:10:08.497
That should not necessarily be something to which any man aspires.

01:10:08.497 --> 01:10:16.237
That is something for which God prepares you and to which God calls you, which is another fundamental problem with democracy.

01:10:17.537 --> 01:10:20.537
But that was the second point that I want to make.

01:10:21.557 --> 01:10:25.057
A president is a king.

01:10:25.057 --> 01:10:31.137
It doesn't matter what title you give the man who sits atop the hierarchy.

01:10:31.137 --> 01:10:33.977
If he is the sovereign, he is the king.

01:10:33.977 --> 01:10:38.537
Call him the prince, the king, the president, the prime minister, chancellor.

01:10:38.537 --> 01:10:43.737
It does not matter, because the title is not the point the office is.

01:10:43.737 --> 01:10:49.737
He is going to receive a king's judgment because he held a king's office.

01:10:49.737 --> 01:10:59.417
The same thing is true of the men who exercise ecclesiastical authority and ecclesiastical power in any of the modern churches.

01:10:59.417 --> 01:11:02.197
Seldom do they call themselves bishops these days.

01:11:02.197 --> 01:11:06.837
Perhaps, ironically, the ones who do are the ones who are the most apostate in many cases.

01:11:07.937 --> 01:11:23.277
But whether you call yourself a bishop or a district president or whatever else it happens to be, you are a bishop by virtue of your office, and you will receive a bishop's judgment and a bishop's reward or punishment.

01:11:23.277 --> 01:11:28.697
It doesn't matter what title you have, it matters what office you hold.

01:11:28.697 --> 01:11:33.097
Again, this is one of the reasons that democracy is so perverse.

01:11:33.097 --> 01:11:37.417
It calls men to the office who are unsuited to it.

01:11:37.417 --> 01:11:41.977
That is a terrible thing both for the nation and for the man.

01:11:41.977 --> 01:11:50.457
Because if you stick someone in an office who is unsuited to that office, he is still going to be judged according to where he sat.

01:11:51.957 --> 01:12:00.117
But you stuck someone there who did not have the abilities, who did not have the attributes, who had no right to sit in that chair.

01:12:00.117 --> 01:12:02.817
That is a horrible position in which to find oneself.

01:12:02.817 --> 01:12:06.617
And of course, the same thing is true all over our society.

01:12:07.977 --> 01:12:19.897
When you are given authority, when you hold authority, when you have a certain place in the hierarchy, you are expected to, and you will be judged according to whether or not you behaved in a certain way.

01:12:23.757 --> 01:12:30.677
That should give every man pause with regard to what he has been given in life or what he seeks in life.

01:12:30.677 --> 01:12:33.877
Because again, it doesn't matter what title you have.

01:12:33.877 --> 01:12:36.957
It matters the office you hold.

01:12:36.957 --> 01:12:59.237
The king's duty, whether he is a king, or a president, or a prince, or a prime minister, or a chancellor, or a con, whatever he calls himself, his duty is to uphold truth with regard to right teaching of the faith in his lands, that is the Christian religion, according to scripture.

01:12:59.237 --> 01:13:05.337
How God set it down what God says we must believe and what we must not believe.

01:13:05.337 --> 01:13:14.157
And with regard to the courts, with regard to his civil society, that is a matter of upholding justice.

01:13:14.897 --> 01:13:27.197
And again, upholding justice is seeing that retribution is done, seeing the wicked are punished, seeing that criminals are made to repay the debt they have incurred by their behavior.

01:13:27.197 --> 01:13:31.977
And the way that debt is repaid is with punishment.

01:13:33.037 --> 01:13:39.317
Sometimes it is a fine, but sometimes a fine is not enough.

01:13:39.317 --> 01:13:40.537
We all know this with murder.

01:13:41.777 --> 01:13:46.217
If a man commits murder, we don't tell him he owes five million dollars.

01:13:46.217 --> 01:13:47.837
At least we should not do that.

01:13:47.837 --> 01:13:50.197
There have been times where that has been done.

01:13:51.577 --> 01:13:57.057
We see that in some historical systems, where you could simply pay a fine for having killed someone.

01:13:57.057 --> 01:13:59.237
There were various historical considerations.

01:13:59.237 --> 01:14:08.477
Sometimes it was because you couldn't tell if the death was accidental or intentional, but sometimes it was simply because that was how they handled matters.

01:14:08.517 --> 01:14:19.417
You see this in the Wehrgeld system, in some of the continental parts of Europe, historically before essentially Roman law was adapted to those areas during Christianization.

01:14:20.777 --> 01:14:35.777
That system was certainly better than some of the things that came before it, and certainly better than not having any system of punishment, but it does not rise to the level of doing justice, because intentional homicide requires the death penalty.

01:14:36.677 --> 01:14:38.317
That is what God requires.

01:14:38.317 --> 01:14:40.017
That is what justice demands.

01:14:40.017 --> 01:14:43.177
There is no alternative there.

01:14:43.177 --> 01:14:58.637
And so when you see the Christianization of Europe or anywhere else, you see the establishment of the death penalty, because the death penalty is required by God, and so Christians will always maintain it.

01:14:58.637 --> 01:15:12.037
This is worth repeating a number of times, because we see so many Christians, supposed Christians, in quote marks this time, so many of them arguing that the death penalty is morally wrongful.

01:15:13.377 --> 01:15:23.217
And you know that person's apostate as soon as he says that, because he is directly contradicting what God says explicitly in his word.

01:15:23.217 --> 01:15:39.077
There are some things in Scripture where perhaps you can debate, perhaps you can speak of nuance or interpretation, exegesis, although often it veers into eisegesis, but there are places where that's possible, and there are places where it is not.

01:15:39.077 --> 01:15:45.237
When it comes to the punishment for certain crimes, there is no gray.

01:15:45.237 --> 01:15:49.317
It is black and white, it is abundantly clear.

01:15:49.317 --> 01:15:57.037
And God doesn't just say that the punishment for intentional homicide is the death penalty in one place.

01:15:57.037 --> 01:15:59.837
It's not just Genesis 9, 6, it's all throughout Scripture.

01:15:59.837 --> 01:16:01.257
It is said in many places.

01:16:01.317 --> 01:16:02.857
It is said repeatedly.

01:16:02.857 --> 01:16:05.837
Rules are laid out for how these things are conducted.

01:16:07.677 --> 01:16:20.957
To give the comparison there, because I spoke about Wergeld in the European context, the equivalent of that in the Old Testament essentially was the system of the Avenger of Blood.

01:16:20.957 --> 01:16:28.877
This is something that may have come to mind for some of you when we're speaking about justice and capital punishment and how these things are to be conducted and mercy and all of those matters.

01:16:29.717 --> 01:16:45.237
The Avenger of Blood was a duty that fell to the closest or the next of kin, the male next of kin, because that's what is meant in legal context virtually always, when a man was killed.

01:16:45.237 --> 01:16:56.217
So for instance, if your brother is killed, and you are in the Old Testament Israel context, you have a duty to avenge his blood.

01:16:57.497 --> 01:17:12.697
This is a duty that God affirms, because God actually states unequivocally, the avenger of blood will not be guilty of blood, if he kills the man who killed his kin, who killed his brother, his father, whomever it happens to be.

01:17:12.697 --> 01:17:15.237
This is not something that is condemned by God.

01:17:15.237 --> 01:17:21.897
And so for instance, this tells us, we cannot always condemn what we call today vigilante justice.

01:17:21.897 --> 01:17:23.057
It is not always wrongful.

01:17:23.057 --> 01:17:24.857
It is not per se wrongful.

01:17:24.937 --> 01:17:28.797
A Christian cannot say that it is, because God permits it.

01:17:28.797 --> 01:17:29.997
That's what this is.

01:17:29.997 --> 01:17:33.737
The avenger of blood is vigilante justice.

01:17:33.737 --> 01:17:38.357
Now God sets up a system here of refuge.

01:17:38.357 --> 01:17:50.797
He does not set it up so that you can avoid punishment if you are guilty, because how the system worked was that if you killed someone, at this point, it doesn't matter if it's intentional or unintentional.

01:17:50.797 --> 01:17:51.757
That comes into play later.

01:17:51.757 --> 01:18:01.277
But if you kill someone, you can flee to one of these cities of refuge, and then the avenger of blood is not permitted to pursue you into the city.

01:18:01.277 --> 01:18:06.477
If you leave the city, he can kill you, and he's not guilty of blood.

01:18:06.477 --> 01:18:10.397
But as long as you're in the city, you're safe.

01:18:10.397 --> 01:18:14.817
However, you are to be brought before the community and judged.

01:18:14.817 --> 01:18:21.717
If it is ascertained that you are guilty of intentional homicide, then you are to be executed.

01:18:22.797 --> 01:18:33.197
If it is ascertained that you are guilty only of unintentional homicide, then you remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest, and you are free to return home.

01:18:33.197 --> 01:18:39.257
And the avenger of blood may not kill you, because then if he does it, he's guilty of murder.

01:18:40.277 --> 01:18:44.837
It's worth noting here sort of is a tangent, but an interesting one.

01:18:44.837 --> 01:18:47.957
Here we have some symbolism.

01:18:47.957 --> 01:18:49.017
We have typology here.

01:18:50.117 --> 01:18:55.397
The high priest is a type of Christ, because what is the death of the high priest here?

01:18:55.397 --> 01:18:59.117
Effectively, the death of the high priest acts as a sort of atonement.

01:18:59.117 --> 01:19:03.577
I'm of course not saying that he actually atones, because there's one atonement.

01:19:03.577 --> 01:19:10.057
But the death of the high priest typologically is the atonement for the sin of homicide.

01:19:10.057 --> 01:19:14.217
Of course, this is the unintentional homicide.

01:19:14.217 --> 01:19:25.657
But when he dies, the man who would be subject to being killed by the Avenger of Blood is free to go, because you have this typological atonement for that sin.

01:19:25.657 --> 01:19:30.397
But that's sort of the comparison between those two systems, the Avenger of Blood and the Wehrgeld system.

01:19:30.397 --> 01:19:36.717
This occurs in many cultures, because the underlying concept there is a blood feud.

01:19:36.717 --> 01:19:42.637
When one party kills another, it creates a blood feud between those clans.

01:19:43.557 --> 01:19:45.677
And, incidentally, this is something we used to recognize.

01:19:45.677 --> 01:19:50.417
There is such a thing as honor for a clan or a tribe.

01:19:50.417 --> 01:19:51.557
There is family honor.

01:19:51.557 --> 01:19:54.457
It's not just something that is individual.

01:19:54.457 --> 01:19:57.557
And that is why you wind up with these blood feuds.

01:19:57.557 --> 01:20:04.137
In the Old Testament Israel context, God addressed this by setting up this system of cities of refuge.

01:20:04.137 --> 01:20:13.797
In the European context, typically, you had to have the local magistrate, sovereign, intervene, and broker peace between the warring parties.

01:20:15.337 --> 01:20:26.497
But ultimately speaking, again, the punishment for the crime falls to the godly prince, because he is the one to whom God has entrusted the sword.

01:20:26.497 --> 01:20:30.797
And so he has a duty to see that justice is done.

01:20:30.797 --> 01:20:38.897
And again, at risk of repeating it ad nauseam, the only justice is retributive justice.

01:20:39.777 --> 01:20:45.137
Everything else is a perversion or a denial of justice.

01:20:45.137 --> 01:20:50.877
We are not permitted by God to set up our own moral law.

01:20:50.877 --> 01:20:58.997
We must transpose his moral law into our civil law, into our positive law.

01:20:58.997 --> 01:21:10.677
And so, no, as a society, we do not get to decide we are going to punish murderers with ten years in prison and a fine, or hit you with a stick, whatever it happens to be.

01:21:10.677 --> 01:21:12.177
We are not permitted to do that.

01:21:12.177 --> 01:21:16.977
The godly prince may not do that, and he will answer to God if he does.

01:21:16.977 --> 01:21:27.657
And so every nation that has abolished the death penalty will answer to God for having done that, because that is a transgression of the moral law.

01:21:27.657 --> 01:21:32.137
In fact, it is worse than that, because it is effectively blasphemy.

01:21:32.137 --> 01:21:33.677
It is lying about God.

01:21:34.437 --> 01:21:50.137
When you say that it is immoral to execute someone, when you say that it is immoral to enact any penalty that is in scripture for a crime, what you are actually saying is that God is wrong.

01:21:50.137 --> 01:21:52.037
God lied.

01:21:52.037 --> 01:21:53.957
God did something sinful.

01:21:53.957 --> 01:21:55.897
That's blasphemy.

01:21:55.897 --> 01:22:01.977
And individuals and nations and kings all will answer to God on the day of judgment for doing that.

01:22:03.537 --> 01:22:09.497
As Christians, we should want our laws to be consonant with God's laws.

01:22:09.497 --> 01:22:19.217
It does not mean, and we have never said, that you have to take Old Testament Israel's civil law and simply drop it into your codes.

01:22:19.217 --> 01:22:21.457
There are different kinds of law.

01:22:21.457 --> 01:22:23.357
Some of them are binding on Christians.

01:22:23.357 --> 01:22:24.397
Some of them are not.

01:22:24.397 --> 01:22:26.317
Scripture is abundantly clear on this point.

01:22:26.317 --> 01:22:30.497
So for instance, the ceremonial law is not binding on Christians.

01:22:31.817 --> 01:22:33.377
We don't have to sacrifice goats.

01:22:33.377 --> 01:22:35.877
In fact, it would be sinful to do that.

01:22:35.877 --> 01:22:38.297
We don't have to burn incense.

01:22:38.297 --> 01:22:42.337
It's not sinful to do that notably, but we don't have to do that.

01:22:42.337 --> 01:22:47.677
These things that were part of the ceremonial law for Old Testament Israel are not binding on us.

01:22:47.677 --> 01:22:53.457
The civil law is not binding on us, even if it is persuasive.

01:22:53.457 --> 01:23:00.777
We can look at what God set down and take it as persuasive, because if He said it, we should certainly consider it.

01:23:00.777 --> 01:23:05.137
But He handed it down to Old Testament Israel as a nation.

01:23:05.137 --> 01:23:09.397
It is not something that we have to follow word for word.

01:23:09.397 --> 01:23:14.757
However, this is with the caveat that we cannot call any part of it morally wrongful.

01:23:14.757 --> 01:23:22.097
This is the same sort of reason that we can't say that slavery is per se sinful, because God permits it, God even commands it.

01:23:22.097 --> 01:23:23.577
And so we cannot say it is sin.

01:23:24.457 --> 01:23:31.417
Similarly, we cannot say any provision of the Old Testament civil law for Old Testament Israel is sinful.

01:23:31.417 --> 01:23:34.937
But we are not bound to follow it to the letter.

01:23:34.937 --> 01:23:42.477
The moral law, we are bound to follow absolutely, because again, the moral law flows from the nature of God.

01:23:42.477 --> 01:23:43.937
It is unchanging.

01:23:43.937 --> 01:23:46.937
It is his eternal unchanging will.

01:23:46.937 --> 01:23:52.697
We are not entitled, whether we are a commoner or a king, to change anything in the moral law.

01:23:54.257 --> 01:23:58.997
Justice demands that we follow the moral law to the letter.

01:24:01.137 --> 01:24:08.257
The ultimate penalty under the moral law is not actually the death penalty.

01:24:08.257 --> 01:24:10.457
That's the ultimate penalty in this life.

01:24:10.457 --> 01:24:14.197
The ultimate penalty under the moral law is hell.

01:24:15.357 --> 01:24:21.857
God is able to grant us mercy, because Christ suffered the ultimate penalty for us.

01:24:22.857 --> 01:24:25.617
He fulfilled the demands of justice.

01:24:25.617 --> 01:24:31.137
Here in time, and with regard to earthly kings, that is not available.

01:24:31.137 --> 01:24:41.877
For earthly kings, crime, which is to say transgressions of the moral law, must be punished according to the moral law.

01:24:41.877 --> 01:24:44.337
The king must wield the sword.

01:24:44.337 --> 01:24:47.857
It's not just that the king does wield the sword.

01:24:47.857 --> 01:24:51.017
It's not just that the king was entrusted with the sword by God.

01:24:51.717 --> 01:24:56.597
It is that part of being a king is wielding the sword.

01:24:57.737 --> 01:25:03.057
Just as if in a marriage, you do not do certain things, you are not actually married.

01:25:03.057 --> 01:25:07.937
So a king who does not actually use the sword is no king.

01:25:07.937 --> 01:25:15.697
The bad news for him is that he will still receive a king's judgment because he holds the office.

01:25:15.697 --> 01:25:24.297
The worst thing, at least one of the worst things that you can do is hold the office but not execute the duties of it.

01:25:24.297 --> 01:25:29.497
That is what we see running rampant in our societies across the world today.

01:25:29.497 --> 01:25:39.017
We see men who have the office, who have the power, who have the authority, and are not fulfilling their duties.

01:25:39.017 --> 01:25:41.957
Rest assured they will be judged.

01:25:41.957 --> 01:25:49.237
But in the meantime, it creates chaos in our societies and allows wickedness not only to fester but to increase.

01:25:50.337 --> 01:26:07.577
The king who does not do his duty, the king who does not fulfill the demands of justice, destroys his nation because he permits wickedness to run rampant, and he permits wickedness to seed more wickedness, because that is always what happens when it is not punished.

01:26:07.577 --> 01:26:14.617
When one wicked man sees another wicked man get away with his wickedness, he is inclined to do more wickedness himself.

01:26:15.677 --> 01:26:30.317
That is one of the reasons it is so important for the godly king, for the Christian prince, to enact justice swiftly, consistently, and to the letter with regard to the moral law.

01:26:30.317 --> 01:26:32.537
It is one of the uses of the law.

01:26:32.537 --> 01:26:34.217
It is the curb.

01:26:34.217 --> 01:26:38.897
The curb with regard to the law is that it tamps down on wickedness.

01:26:40.317 --> 01:26:43.297
This is one of the places where we would certainly agree with Augustine.

01:26:44.597 --> 01:26:53.257
You are never going to have a perfect system with regard to the law in this life, because we are fallen human beings.

01:26:53.257 --> 01:26:55.177
We live in a fallen world.

01:26:55.177 --> 01:27:04.057
But one of the uses of the law is to curb that wickedness, is to tamp down on it as much as possible.

01:27:04.057 --> 01:27:09.497
And so we can aspire to perfect compliance, even if we cannot reach it.

01:27:09.497 --> 01:27:14.157
It is the same thing that we do in our own lives with regard to the law.

01:27:14.157 --> 01:27:16.437
We aspire to be sinless.

01:27:16.437 --> 01:27:23.857
We will never reach that state in this life, regardless of what certain supposed theologians have said.

01:27:25.017 --> 01:27:27.877
You cannot become perfect in this life.

01:27:29.037 --> 01:27:34.657
Over time, through the process of sanctification, you become better.

01:27:34.657 --> 01:27:36.537
The same thing can be true of a country.

01:27:37.057 --> 01:27:40.217
The same thing can be true of a nation.

01:27:40.217 --> 01:27:53.017
Generations of effort toward behaving in compliance with the moral law, and kings bringing up their sons as new godly rulers to replace them when they retire.

01:27:53.017 --> 01:28:02.237
Through that process, you can have an upward progress with regard to the morality of a people, with regard to the justice of a society.

01:28:02.237 --> 01:28:05.997
And that is a good thing, and it is something to which Christians should absolutely aspire.

01:28:07.457 --> 01:28:31.117
And so, when you see in the coming year and in the coming years, supposed Christians, particularly clerics, screeching about this miscarriage of justice, with regard to a sovereign actually enacting what is required under the law, recognize that what you are seeing is them declaring their apostasy.

01:28:31.117 --> 01:28:45.037
You are not seeing an argument for Christianity, because Christianity requires that justice be done, not that mercy be granted with regard to transgressions of the moral law.

01:28:45.037 --> 01:28:47.037
Because that is the division here.

01:28:47.037 --> 01:28:51.177
With regard to the left-hand kingdom, it is a matter of justice.

01:28:51.177 --> 01:28:55.397
With regard to the right-hand kingdom, it is a matter of mercy.

01:28:55.397 --> 01:28:58.797
And so, we forgive those who have transgressed.

01:28:58.797 --> 01:29:01.117
We forgive those who have sinned against us.

01:29:03.017 --> 01:29:05.617
But the prince must still wield the sword.

01:29:05.617 --> 01:29:08.017
He must still punish the wrongdoer.

01:29:08.017 --> 01:29:10.457
He must be a terror to the wicked.

01:29:10.457 --> 01:29:17.297
He does not get to neglect that duty, because with regard to the right-hand kingdom, he too must forgive.

01:29:17.297 --> 01:29:21.757
But he has a different office, and it has different requirements.

01:29:21.757 --> 01:29:24.117
And that requirement is justice.

01:29:24.117 --> 01:29:25.977
It is to punish the wicked.

01:29:28.337 --> 01:29:36.737
And although we often refer to princes and kings and things that are basically hypothetical to us, none of this discussion is hypothetical.

01:29:36.737 --> 01:29:38.417
We have a government today.

01:29:38.417 --> 01:29:40.637
We have criminals in our midst today.

01:29:40.637 --> 01:29:43.177
We have victims of those crimes today.

01:29:43.177 --> 01:29:50.857
We don't have to wait to get everything sorted out politically, the way God would desire it, to fix these problems.

01:29:50.857 --> 01:29:56.477
As Corey said, and as I said at the beginning, that's the reason we're doing this episode at the end of the year.

01:29:56.517 --> 01:30:06.937
You're going to see a flurry of clerics and entire denominations and church bodies screaming at the top of their lungs, no, no, we have to have mercy.

01:30:06.937 --> 01:30:08.157
We can't do this.

01:30:08.157 --> 01:30:09.737
It's gonna be a two-step.

01:30:09.737 --> 01:30:12.057
First, they're gonna say, no, you don't have the authority.

01:30:12.057 --> 01:30:22.517
You can't separate families by sending some aliens home and not others, to which the nominee for DHS said, sure, we're gonna send them all home together.

01:30:22.517 --> 01:30:23.657
We're not gonna separate families.

01:30:23.877 --> 01:30:25.577
We're deporting everyone.

01:30:25.577 --> 01:30:27.157
That's entirely just.

01:30:27.157 --> 01:30:28.777
That is not a moral.

01:30:28.777 --> 01:30:31.197
That has nothing to do with sojourners.

01:30:31.197 --> 01:30:36.497
What you're gonna find is people in the church lie about these situations.

01:30:36.497 --> 01:30:43.377
They just throw as much Jesus dust as they can on that situation till you can't even see the alien underneath it.

01:30:43.377 --> 01:30:46.097
And they try to say, no, you can't get rid of those people.

01:30:46.097 --> 01:30:48.157
You don't have the authority.

01:30:48.157 --> 01:30:53.037
And then when they lose that argument, and as they're already losing, they're going to cry mercy.

01:30:53.037 --> 01:30:55.797
They're gonna cry clemency, say it's not...

01:30:55.797 --> 01:30:58.817
Forget justice, forget not having the authority.

01:30:58.817 --> 01:31:01.277
Jesus says that we should be merciful.

01:31:01.277 --> 01:31:05.157
So I'm gonna address that head on here at the end of what I have to say.

01:31:05.157 --> 01:31:11.817
In the Beatitudes, Jesus expressly says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

01:31:11.817 --> 01:31:13.177
So case closed, right?

01:31:13.177 --> 01:31:14.837
Everything we just said is a lie.

01:31:14.837 --> 01:31:17.257
Jesus said, you won't be blessed if you don't show mercy.

01:31:18.517 --> 01:31:20.837
To whom was he speaking?

01:31:20.837 --> 01:31:23.937
What was the purpose of that sermon?

01:31:23.937 --> 01:31:29.817
When Jesus delivered the Beatitudes, when he delivered the sermon on the Mount, what was going on?

01:31:29.817 --> 01:31:34.217
Was he talking to a conclave of men who were forming a new government?

01:31:34.217 --> 01:31:37.517
No, there are people from all around who had heard about the miracles.

01:31:37.517 --> 01:31:40.077
They were coming to see this teacher.

01:31:40.077 --> 01:31:49.317
And what they heard was a man speaking wisdom, God speaking wisdom, not trying to pigeonhole him as some wise man, but they didn't know.

01:31:49.317 --> 01:31:52.137
It was basically the new hot podcast, and they heard stories about it.

01:31:52.137 --> 01:31:54.277
They came to see for themselves.

01:31:54.277 --> 01:32:01.537
When they showed up and Jesus told them, bless her to the merciful, for they shall receive mercy, he was not speaking to them in a political context.

01:32:01.537 --> 01:32:04.297
What problem was he not trying to solve?

01:32:04.297 --> 01:32:10.577
Jesus was not solving the problem in the crowd that they didn't have enough punishment for crime.

01:32:10.577 --> 01:32:15.697
First century Judea, they had crime pretty well nipped in the butt.

01:32:15.697 --> 01:32:19.057
Criminals were killed left and right for all sorts of things.

01:32:19.057 --> 01:32:23.017
Smaller crimes than we would remotely consider that penalty today.

01:32:23.017 --> 01:32:24.997
That was well in hand.

01:32:24.997 --> 01:32:31.557
What they didn't have was the proper teaching of the law that had been with them for thousands of years.

01:32:31.557 --> 01:32:38.717
And so when Jesus was explaining things like, you have heard us said, don't commit adultery, I say don't lust.

01:32:38.717 --> 01:32:46.357
You've heard us said, don't commit murder, I say unto you, don't commit hatred, because all sin begins in the heart.

01:32:46.357 --> 01:32:52.737
Jesus and his teaching to these individuals was talking to them personally about interpersonal relationships.

01:32:52.737 --> 01:32:54.437
And every word of that is true.

01:32:54.437 --> 01:32:59.597
And nothing that we've said here has anything to do with interpersonal relationships.

01:32:59.597 --> 01:33:03.697
The example of the Avenger of Blood, that was a system that was in place.

01:33:03.697 --> 01:33:12.157
And in fact, it was a system that to some degree was preserved in Western civilizations and varying embodiments until the last century or so.

01:33:12.157 --> 01:33:14.937
There were duels, and they were recognized as legal.

01:33:14.937 --> 01:33:19.877
It was legal to duel someone to the death for slights.

01:33:20.457 --> 01:33:22.417
It was legal to do that.

01:33:22.417 --> 01:33:23.477
We're not advocating for that.

01:33:23.477 --> 01:33:28.237
We're simply saying that that is something that is not beyond the law.

01:33:28.237 --> 01:33:35.457
If a society wants to behave that way, their upsides, their downsides, their upsides and downsides to every approach.

01:33:36.397 --> 01:33:42.637
Everything that we do in this life in terms of political justice is going to be imperfect.

01:33:42.637 --> 01:33:43.657
Doesn't matter.

01:33:43.657 --> 01:33:48.997
You still have to do the best you can, which is why it doesn't matter that we don't have a godly prince or king or any of that crap.

01:33:48.997 --> 01:33:58.417
You don't need to be a monarchist or sympathetic to think that we need to have men in office doing the right things today, enforcing the law today.

01:33:58.417 --> 01:34:09.997
And what we cannot permit is for clerics in these so-called church denominations coming along and screaming about Jesus when justice has nothing to do with that.

01:34:09.997 --> 01:34:15.177
What they're doing is they're destroying Christianity and they're destroying civilization at the same time.

01:34:15.177 --> 01:34:17.377
We as Christians cannot participate in that.

01:34:17.377 --> 01:34:18.837
We cannot permit it.

01:34:18.837 --> 01:34:20.717
We cannot permit it in God's name.

01:34:20.717 --> 01:34:22.677
We cannot permit it in our name.

01:34:22.677 --> 01:34:24.017
It is wicked.

01:34:24.017 --> 01:34:30.657
And we are responsible for the teachings of the men in our pulpits and our denominations that go around doing this stuff.

01:34:31.557 --> 01:34:39.337
When there is on-going abuse in a congregation that's covered up by the pastors and elders, because they don't want the bad press.

01:34:39.337 --> 01:34:45.577
And so men who are committing heinous crimes have those crimes covered up for the sake of reputation.

01:34:45.577 --> 01:34:48.917
That is profound wickedness and injustice.

01:34:48.917 --> 01:34:51.077
That sort of behavior is rampant.

01:34:51.077 --> 01:34:54.537
A number of people can probably guess an example I have in mind.

01:34:54.537 --> 01:34:56.597
I have half a dozen examples in mind.

01:34:56.597 --> 01:34:58.257
This stuff happens all the time.

01:34:59.317 --> 01:35:11.057
In the church, men who call themselves Christians conceal and cover up wicked heinous crimes, subverting justice for the sake of people not looking bad in the church.

01:35:11.057 --> 01:35:12.777
They don't want to get a bad reputation.

01:35:12.777 --> 01:35:13.837
They don't care about the victims.

01:35:13.837 --> 01:35:15.557
They don't care about justice.

01:35:15.557 --> 01:35:19.497
The one thing that they care about is not looking bad.

01:35:19.497 --> 01:35:27.877
These are the men who are acting in ways politically today that are interfering with the sovereign right of the government to execute justice.

01:35:28.517 --> 01:35:31.037
And so, that's my immediate concern here.

01:35:31.037 --> 01:35:36.617
It's not that people aren't being merciful enough in their personal lives, although there should always be more of that.

01:35:36.617 --> 01:35:50.617
You know, whenever someone personally apologizes to me for anything, I want to say I panic, but like the most important thing for me, as soon as I learn that, I'm talking seconds, not hours or days.

01:35:50.617 --> 01:35:55.317
The very next thing that needs to come out of my mouth and my heart is I forgive you.

01:35:55.317 --> 01:36:00.557
And whatever else is going on until the moment that someone says, I apologize, forgive me.

01:36:00.557 --> 01:36:05.757
Whatever I was doing before, I drop it all and I address that situation, I forgive them.

01:36:05.757 --> 01:36:07.097
Why?

01:36:07.097 --> 01:36:18.837
Because I take the parable seriously about the wicked servant who was greedy and selfish when he had a small debt owed to him, and he disregarded the massive debt that was forgiven to him by his master.

01:36:18.837 --> 01:36:21.657
That's talking about us, talking about our sins.

01:36:21.657 --> 01:36:24.897
We owe an infinite debt to God for all the crap that we do in our lives.

01:36:26.177 --> 01:36:31.177
The people who slide us, who sin against us, have very small debts by comparison.

01:36:31.177 --> 01:36:38.697
Even these heinous crimes that we've been talking about are small debts compared to an accumulated lifetime of wickedness.

01:36:38.697 --> 01:36:42.317
The reason that hell is eternal is that is how big the penalty is.

01:36:42.477 --> 01:36:45.057
It is a real penalty.

01:36:45.057 --> 01:36:54.337
The forgiveness that was delivered to every man on the cross, that was paid for every man on the cross, it's only delivered through justification and receiving it.

01:36:54.957 --> 01:37:00.737
But the act of those sins being paid for was paid by Jesus.

01:37:00.737 --> 01:37:04.917
His death and his suffering on the cross paid for all of it.

01:37:04.917 --> 01:37:09.857
What stupid or more malevolent thing could we possibly do than despise that?

01:37:09.857 --> 01:37:11.797
Not take that seriously.

01:37:11.797 --> 01:37:16.657
And that's why it's so important for us to forgive each other when we sin against each other and ask forgiveness.

01:37:16.657 --> 01:37:20.837
And that's why it's so dire when we sin against each other and we don't ask forgiveness.

01:37:20.837 --> 01:37:22.157
We don't even think we did anything wrong.

01:37:22.577 --> 01:37:23.617
And that guy had it coming.

01:37:23.617 --> 01:37:24.657
He deserved that.

01:37:24.657 --> 01:37:26.077
I'm not going to ask for forgiveness.

01:37:26.077 --> 01:37:27.617
He got half of what he deserved.

01:37:27.617 --> 01:37:29.257
I'd do more if I could.

01:37:29.257 --> 01:37:31.517
That's a typical attitude that people have.

01:37:31.517 --> 01:37:33.517
It's wicked.

01:37:33.517 --> 01:37:36.837
When Jesus talks about extending nurses, he's talking about that.

01:37:36.837 --> 01:37:39.557
He's not talking about the political.

01:37:39.557 --> 01:37:50.977
One of the problems that we've also had, and we're going to continue to have, especially like as we're recording this right now, we're a month or two before Trump's nominees for his cabinet are going to be up for a lot of public debate.

01:37:51.437 --> 01:37:52.817
The men aren't perfect.

01:37:52.817 --> 01:37:53.937
Some of them are adulterers.

01:37:53.937 --> 01:37:55.677
Some of them are Zionists.

01:37:55.677 --> 01:37:58.557
Thousand things you could say are wrong about those men.

01:37:58.557 --> 01:38:02.757
The one question that matters for guys like Robert F.

01:38:02.757 --> 01:38:08.317
Kennedy in the role that he's going to have in HHS, is he going to do the best possible job?

01:38:08.317 --> 01:38:12.237
And I think, given all the possibilities, the answer is probably yes.

01:38:12.237 --> 01:38:14.417
Would I commend the guy for a thousand other things?

01:38:14.417 --> 01:38:15.457
No.

01:38:15.457 --> 01:38:18.257
That one thing, I think he can do pretty well.

01:38:18.257 --> 01:38:19.797
Same is true of the Secretary of Defense.

01:38:20.537 --> 01:38:29.817
The guy has a reputation, I don't know if it's true or not, but people say that there are things about him that are morally undesirable, publicly so.

01:38:29.817 --> 01:38:41.757
The question is, will the Secretary of Defense, which until incidentally 1947 was a Secretary of War, that's what it was from the beginning of this nation, the Secretary of War is a cabinet position.

01:38:41.757 --> 01:38:42.757
Why?

01:38:42.757 --> 01:38:46.537
Because it's important to have men who have mastered the art of violence.

01:38:46.537 --> 01:38:58.517
And whatever else that man is, because I truly believe that he is a man who has mastered the art of violence, and therefore in the political realm, to me it does not matter if he is the most morally upright man in the world.

01:38:58.517 --> 01:39:08.077
What matters to me is as the Secretary of War, is he going to be equipped to reorient our military so that it can fight a war against China?

01:39:08.077 --> 01:39:11.577
Because in the next eight years, that is what we're looking at.

01:39:11.577 --> 01:39:14.437
I think in the next four years, that's what we're looking at.

01:39:14.437 --> 01:39:18.477
That is what the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of War has to do.

01:39:18.477 --> 01:39:20.837
You don't want the nicest guy in the world.

01:39:20.837 --> 01:39:24.317
You want a man who will do violent things to bad people.

01:39:24.317 --> 01:39:26.917
That's the man who needs to be in that position.

01:39:26.917 --> 01:39:29.357
Those men aren't always going to have clean hands.

01:39:29.357 --> 01:39:43.637
And as much as I long for a world and a country, a nation, where we have such a preponderance of good morally upright men, who have also mastered the art of violence, which in the past was the case, as like Stonewall Jackson, Robert E.

01:39:43.637 --> 01:39:52.557
Lee, there were good men who were valiant warriors, who were violent men when they needed to be, and were also morally upright.

01:39:52.557 --> 01:39:58.137
The fact that we have a dearth of men who are morally upright doesn't mean we have a dearth of men who are good at violence.

01:39:58.137 --> 01:39:59.337
That's what we need.

01:39:59.337 --> 01:40:00.917
That's what we need in the position.

01:40:00.917 --> 01:40:04.097
And this is something that Christians are so bad at.

01:40:04.097 --> 01:40:12.137
We're not looking at church positions where you have to have the perfect man who has a complete squeaky clean record or he's disqualified.

01:40:12.857 --> 01:40:19.617
I would love it if we had a thousand men as competent as the current guy for secretary of war who didn't have the moral problems.

01:40:19.617 --> 01:40:25.017
But if he's the best guy for getting this particular job done, all the pastors need to shut up.

01:40:25.017 --> 01:40:27.177
They have no business talking about that.

01:40:27.177 --> 01:40:28.337
Because you know what?

01:40:28.337 --> 01:40:34.797
Eternal repentance and forgiveness has nothing to do with prosecuting the political question.

01:40:34.797 --> 01:40:39.117
We're looking at political questions that are matters of survival for our very nation.

01:40:39.917 --> 01:40:42.577
Their decisions are going to be made in the next couple of years.

01:40:42.577 --> 01:40:47.257
They will decide whether or not America sees its 275th anniversary.

01:40:47.257 --> 01:40:53.357
I don't think it's going to make it that long, but the only way it possibly can is for the right men to be in those positions.

01:40:53.357 --> 01:40:58.317
And those are probably not going to be men that I'd be happy about in every other possible scenario.

01:40:58.317 --> 01:40:59.417
Doesn't matter.

01:40:59.417 --> 01:41:02.577
Are they right for this particular job?

01:41:02.577 --> 01:41:10.657
Someday, if and when we win, we will have cleaned house to the point that we will have a thousand guys to choose from, and you don't have to compromise.

01:41:10.657 --> 01:41:20.077
You don't have to make political compromises where a guy who has some dirt, but he's good at the one thing you need done, you can pick from someone who is good at the thing and he doesn't have dirt.

01:41:20.077 --> 01:41:21.977
We don't have those options today.

01:41:21.977 --> 01:41:25.737
All we have are dirty men who are competent at the thing that's in front of them.

01:41:25.737 --> 01:41:28.797
If that's the best we can do, then that's what we have to do.

01:41:28.797 --> 01:41:31.657
Politics is about expediency.

01:41:31.657 --> 01:41:35.457
It's not always about the absolute perfect moral choice.

01:41:35.457 --> 01:41:39.817
It's about doing the thing that is going to provide the optimal political outcome.

01:41:39.817 --> 01:41:44.517
And this is why, to some extent, it is important for politics and religion to be divided.

01:41:44.517 --> 01:41:56.517
Because the very rules that have to be enforced in the church, which incidentally are not, but they must be enforced for Christians, to apply them in the political context is suicidal as a nation.

01:41:56.517 --> 01:41:59.037
It's national suicide.

01:41:59.037 --> 01:42:06.617
We don't have the men to choose from, or we can get like, Trump's not the best candidate for president if you talk about morally upright and all these other things.

01:42:07.237 --> 01:42:09.377
But he's the best we got.

01:42:09.377 --> 01:42:16.317
On one hand, Christians want to say, oh, well, you know, we're all guilty of sin, so I can't judge anybody.

01:42:16.317 --> 01:42:27.077
On the other hand, as soon as someone in the political realm has some actual problem that we want to clutch our pearls at, like, oh, no, I don't care what he's good for, he did this one thing.

01:42:27.297 --> 01:42:29.617
That's really bad morally.

01:42:29.617 --> 01:42:33.037
I'm not poo-pooing the idea that we have to have high standards for these men.

01:42:33.577 --> 01:42:37.617
We should be able to have a man that's completely trustworthy in everything.

01:42:37.617 --> 01:42:45.537
But at the end of the day, the most important thing politically is can I trust that this guy will get the job done?

01:42:45.537 --> 01:42:53.817
And when we look at these situations, we as men who are involved in the political process have to make wise choices.

01:42:53.817 --> 01:42:59.997
And the wise choice is sometimes not the one that seems like it's the most morally upright.

01:42:59.997 --> 01:43:03.717
There will be guys like RFK who have no problem with abortion.

01:43:03.717 --> 01:43:08.857
Trump doesn't have nearly as much of a problem with infanticide as he should.

01:43:08.857 --> 01:43:16.157
But the bottom line is that the alternative is so much worse that politically, that's all we have to choose from.

01:43:16.157 --> 01:43:23.637
So the purpose of doing an episode on justice, we talked a lot about executions for murders.

01:43:24.037 --> 01:43:27.437
You go down to the least significant thing, to shoplifting.

01:43:27.437 --> 01:43:35.297
Look what happened in California when they said, you know what, if they shopless something below $950, we're not even going to do anything.

01:43:35.297 --> 01:43:37.537
You saw mass chaos.

01:43:37.537 --> 01:43:41.177
You saw stores being cleaned out continuously in San Francisco.

01:43:41.177 --> 01:43:42.077
Because like, you know what?

01:43:42.077 --> 01:43:44.317
If it's under $950, we don't care.

01:43:44.317 --> 01:43:48.537
That caused horrors for the smallest crime.

01:43:48.537 --> 01:43:51.797
Shoplifting is not a big deal compared to murder.

01:43:51.797 --> 01:43:53.717
It is a less serious sin.

01:43:53.717 --> 01:43:56.237
Nevertheless, that's destroying someone's livelihood.

01:43:56.237 --> 01:43:58.057
That's driving prices up for everyone.

01:43:58.357 --> 01:43:59.077
That's a disaster.

01:43:59.077 --> 01:44:05.217
It's a civilizational disaster to be unjust by not enforcing the law.

01:44:05.217 --> 01:44:11.917
What we're faced with right now in both kingdoms, in the left and the right, is men who are effectively crying, Barabbas, Barabbas.

01:44:11.917 --> 01:44:18.097
They want to free the man who's a murderer, and they want to condemn those who are not guilty of anything.

01:44:18.097 --> 01:44:20.697
We must enforce the laws justly.

01:44:20.697 --> 01:44:23.537
We must have men who will enforce the laws justly.

01:44:23.537 --> 01:44:26.397
And that is going to mean that people are punished for their crimes.

01:44:26.877 --> 01:44:29.357
There's actually going to be consequences again.

01:44:29.357 --> 01:44:34.837
That's the only way to clean house, is for there to be real material consequences.

01:44:34.837 --> 01:44:42.437
And it's up to the president and the Congress and the court system to sort out what those penalties are, and they're going to make a mess of it.

01:44:42.437 --> 01:44:48.017
They're not going to do nearly as good a job as they should, but it's their job to try to get those things right.

01:44:48.017 --> 01:44:50.017
And God will hold them to account.

01:44:50.017 --> 01:44:54.597
We cannot get in their way as Christians by saying, no, no, you have to have mercy.

01:44:54.597 --> 01:44:55.997
No, absolutely not.

01:44:56.897 --> 01:45:09.117
The mercy that is necessary is baked into the system to make sure that the just are found innocent, found not guilty, and the unjust are found guilty.

01:45:09.117 --> 01:45:13.677
That's the extent of the mercy in the justice system when it's functioning properly.

01:45:15.577 --> 01:45:26.517
As Christians in the coming year and in the coming decade, we're going to have to understand that the beatitudes are interpersonal and they're about our relationship with God.

01:45:26.517 --> 01:45:28.457
They're not about how you run a country.

01:45:28.457 --> 01:45:29.497
They're just not.

01:45:29.497 --> 01:45:31.317
There's wisdom there that applies.

01:45:31.317 --> 01:45:37.377
But to proof text and say, blessed are the merciful, therefore you have to show mercy to everyone who commits a crime.

01:45:37.377 --> 01:45:38.917
Satan is talking that way.

01:45:38.917 --> 01:45:40.057
That's what Satan wants.

01:45:40.057 --> 01:45:44.357
That is Satan quoting scripture to burn down civilization.

01:45:44.357 --> 01:45:46.897
We're not going to make it if we act like that.

01:45:46.897 --> 01:45:53.577
In the point of this episode, the point of creating this sort of crisis, I mentioned at the beginning that I noticed the etymology of crisis.

01:45:54.097 --> 01:45:55.617
It has to do with judgment.

01:45:55.617 --> 01:45:59.277
Going back far enough, it's related to judgment, result of trial.

01:45:59.277 --> 01:46:02.557
It basically has to do with, it was a medical context.

01:46:02.557 --> 01:46:08.577
The moment of crisis where a fever is about to break, where someone is so sick, they're basically a rock bottom.

01:46:08.577 --> 01:46:16.157
And they've reached the point medically, where in the medical crisis, where either they're going to die or they're going to recover.

01:46:16.157 --> 01:46:18.477
That is related to judgment.

01:46:18.477 --> 01:46:21.697
That's what we have with these situations that have to be judged.

01:46:22.137 --> 01:46:23.997
It's the moment of truth, basically.

01:46:23.997 --> 01:46:26.057
A crisis is a moment of truth.

01:46:26.057 --> 01:46:31.477
These questions that are arising, in some cases, as Stone Choir is forcing, are moments of truth.

01:46:31.477 --> 01:46:33.097
Which direction are we going to go?

01:46:33.097 --> 01:46:39.877
Are we going to say that God was sinning and we've evolved to some new species that has transcended the moral law?

01:46:39.877 --> 01:46:41.477
That's what the pastors are saying.

01:46:41.477 --> 01:46:44.177
That's what the churches are saying overwhelmingly.

01:46:44.177 --> 01:46:45.797
We are not wicked like the Bible.

01:46:45.797 --> 01:46:47.977
We are new and more moral.

01:46:47.977 --> 01:46:50.777
It sounds silly when I say it that way, when Corey says it that way.

01:46:51.097 --> 01:46:53.957
But when you look at their actual pronouncements, that's how it works.

01:46:53.957 --> 01:47:00.637
When you write down what's in the Bible and you write down the things that they're condemning, one of them is wrong.

01:47:00.637 --> 01:47:01.517
That's a crisis.

01:47:01.517 --> 01:47:05.217
That's a moment of judgment for us as Christians, for us as a church.

01:47:05.217 --> 01:47:07.397
Are we going to make it or not?

01:47:07.397 --> 01:47:15.817
And there's no promise to any individual or to any individual congregation or to any denomination that God will preserve us through our apostasy.

01:47:15.817 --> 01:47:22.877
The only way that we as Christians make it through this, as Christians in the faith, is to stick to what God says.

01:47:22.877 --> 01:47:35.457
And the only way that our nation makes it through this crisis is if we make sure that the churches and the clerics do not interfere with the political process when they are implementing justice.

01:47:35.457 --> 01:47:42.537
We have had years and decades, and in some cases centuries now, of injustice in the political realm.

01:47:42.537 --> 01:47:51.377
If we're going to survive as a polity, those things are going to have to change, and it's going to make some people sad, and some people are going to get hurt.

01:47:51.377 --> 01:47:55.097
When there's retribution, that means that someone gets hurt.

01:47:55.097 --> 01:48:03.177
And the hard part about understanding justice is that it is a case where two wrongs are actually making a right.

01:48:03.177 --> 01:48:07.317
That's what that passage in Colossians is about in Colossians 2.

01:48:07.317 --> 01:48:12.997
All of our sins were nailed to the cross on Jesus, on his body and his flesh.

01:48:12.997 --> 01:48:13.977
He suffered bodily.

01:48:14.517 --> 01:48:20.057
That was our wrongs, and the injustice that was done to him balanced each other out.

01:48:20.057 --> 01:48:21.437
It's neutralized.

01:48:21.437 --> 01:48:25.057
Two wrongs in this case are actually making a right.

01:48:25.057 --> 01:48:31.077
Justice is about saying, you did something evil, evil is going to be visited upon you.

01:48:31.077 --> 01:48:33.817
That's why it's crucial that this isn't an individual matter.

01:48:33.817 --> 01:48:35.917
This is strictly a political matter.

01:48:35.917 --> 01:48:38.737
That's why the interference of clerics is so dire.

01:48:38.737 --> 01:48:42.157
They're used to dealing with individual men and individual sins.

01:48:42.157 --> 01:48:46.397
When we're dealing with the political, it's a completely different matter.

01:48:46.397 --> 01:48:56.977
Not that wisdom is out the window, not that God's law is out the window, it's that when you actually look at God's requirements, we're not going nearly far enough.

01:48:56.977 --> 01:48:59.397
We're going to have to get back there if we're going to make it.

01:48:59.397 --> 01:49:05.497
Christians, if we're going to be participants in the political realm, are going to have to say what God says.

01:49:05.497 --> 01:49:09.117
That's going to mean getting harder about this stuff than we have in the past.

01:49:09.117 --> 01:49:13.097
It's going to be about making political compromises that we find distasteful.

01:49:13.697 --> 01:49:16.697
And that our goal should be 10 years, 20 years down the road.

01:49:16.697 --> 01:49:19.997
We can do a whole lot better than we are right now.

01:49:19.997 --> 01:49:22.897
But until we get there, we still have to do something.

01:49:22.897 --> 01:49:24.957
We can't just throw up our hands and say, well, this is all disgusting.

01:49:25.077 --> 01:49:26.317
I'm above all this.

01:49:26.317 --> 01:49:29.357
No, our country is being burned down by wicked men.

01:49:29.357 --> 01:49:31.517
They want us as Christians to check out.

01:49:31.517 --> 01:49:35.417
They want us to hold our noses and just walk away in disgust.

01:49:35.417 --> 01:49:45.397
We have to show up because of the moral voices who actually care about God, either snipe from the sidelines or say what Satan says about just, no, show mercy.

01:49:45.397 --> 01:49:46.737
Don't, no one's guilty.

01:49:46.917 --> 01:49:48.017
Don't punish any sins.

01:49:48.017 --> 01:49:50.417
Don't punish any crimes.

01:49:50.417 --> 01:49:52.477
If we do that, we will lose everything.

01:49:52.477 --> 01:49:53.917
We will lose our nation.

01:49:53.917 --> 01:49:55.157
We will lose Christianity.

01:49:55.157 --> 01:49:58.277
We will lose our lives and we will lose our souls.

01:49:58.277 --> 01:50:03.477
Stone Choir is here is the small part that we can play in making sure that doesn't happen.

01:50:03.477 --> 01:50:07.017
So thank you for listening to us because this is hard stuff to hear.

01:50:07.017 --> 01:50:08.697
It's a heavy episode to end the year on.

01:50:09.417 --> 01:50:19.837
But if these things are not kept in mind as these discussions unfold, everyone's going to be tricked because everyone's going to be shouting about Jesus and what Jesus wants.

01:50:19.837 --> 01:50:22.217
And as Christians, that should be the most important thing to us.

01:50:22.217 --> 01:50:26.057
And in fact, this episode is about what Jesus wants.

01:50:26.057 --> 01:50:30.757
Jesus, who caused the flood and killed everyone but eight people.

01:50:30.757 --> 01:50:36.797
Jesus, who's returning on the last day to kill everyone who's not the elect, to wipe away everything in fire.

01:50:37.537 --> 01:50:43.557
That's God, that's justice, that's God's justice, that's not sin.

01:50:43.557 --> 01:50:48.097
If we can't look at that and praise God, we have spiritual problems.

01:50:48.097 --> 01:50:55.197
And if we can't understand this in the political context, we're going to have lives that are bad until they end.

01:50:55.197 --> 01:51:00.877
So please keep these things in mind as you or other people talking about completely different things.

01:51:00.877 --> 01:51:05.537
They're going to go in a whole other direction, but they're always going to cry, cry, Barabbas, Barabbas.

01:51:05.537 --> 01:51:07.577
At the end of the day, that's what it's going to be.

01:51:07.577 --> 01:51:13.877
Don't hold the guilty to account and punish people who haven't actually done anything wrong at all.

01:51:13.877 --> 01:51:15.637
That's where we are spiritually.

01:51:15.637 --> 01:51:18.357
That's Satan versus God in a nutshell.

01:51:18.357 --> 01:51:20.217
It's been that way since the Garden.

01:51:20.217 --> 01:51:26.277
It was that way in the courtyard when the praying crowd called for Christ's blood and when he was crucified.

01:51:26.277 --> 01:51:30.397
And it's that way today in our courts and on TV and everywhere we look.

01:51:30.397 --> 01:51:31.817
And as Christians, we should know better.

01:51:32.177 --> 01:51:38.217
We should recognize all of this and have a voice that speaks and says, this is what God wants from us.

01:51:38.217 --> 01:51:43.197
If our churches, if our pastors fail, Christian men still have a duty to obey God.

01:51:43.197 --> 01:51:46.297
And the consequences are up to God.

01:51:46.297 --> 01:51:47.597
We belong to him.

01:51:47.597 --> 01:51:52.857
Good or ill, we have to do what is right, and God will take care of the rest.

01:51:54.837 --> 01:52:00.597
And so here at the end of the year, I want to leave you with four short readings from Scripture.

01:52:00.937 --> 01:52:05.157
And one thing to think about as you're reading Scripture.

01:52:05.157 --> 01:52:15.557
And I do recommend that you go and look up these sections of Scripture and read the context, read the entire chapter, read the entire book, if you happen to have the time.

01:52:15.557 --> 01:52:18.457
Some of them are not very long.

01:52:18.457 --> 01:52:22.317
I'm going to read from Zechariah, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Micah.

01:52:22.317 --> 01:52:25.097
You can go and find the sections for yourself.

01:52:25.097 --> 01:52:28.397
It will be a good exercise in reading through Scripture.

01:52:28.397 --> 01:52:43.677
But what I want you to think about when you listen to what I am about to read, and when you read Scripture on your own, is that righteousness and justice are two closely related concepts, but they are also distinct.

01:52:43.677 --> 01:52:45.937
We cannot conflate them.

01:52:45.937 --> 01:52:56.717
When we conflate them, we wind up with the same sort of problems that we see when justice and mercy are conflated, or used inappropriately where they should not be used.

01:52:59.597 --> 01:53:05.077
Incidentally, in the Greek, these are very closely related terms, which you can certainly look up if you are so inclined.

01:53:06.777 --> 01:53:22.997
But the first two readings, and I will actually be reading the third reading in two different versions, because I want you to note something about the language that is used in, I will be reading from the ESV for the first, and then a more literal translation of the Septuagint for the second.

01:53:22.997 --> 01:53:43.457
But the first reading, And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, Show kindness and mercy to one another, Do not oppress the widow, The fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, And let none of you devise evil Against another in your heart.

01:53:43.457 --> 01:53:58.457
The second reading, You shall not pervert justice, You shall not show partiality, And you shall not accept a bribe, For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, And subverts the cause of the righteous.

01:53:58.457 --> 01:54:07.657
Justice and only justice you shall follow, That you may live and inherit the land, That the Lord your God is giving you.

01:54:07.657 --> 01:54:18.037
The third reading, Learn to do good, Seek justice, correct oppression, Bring justice to the fatherless, Plead the widow's cause.

01:54:18.997 --> 01:54:23.557
The same reading in a more literal translation of the Septuagint.

01:54:23.557 --> 01:54:33.837
Learn to do good, seek out fair judgment, Rescue one who has been wronged, Give a fair judgment to the orphan, And vindicate the widow.

01:54:35.497 --> 01:54:44.337
And the fourth and final reading, and this is one that I actually recommend, go read the entire book and memorize at least this specific portion.

01:54:45.657 --> 01:54:47.637
He has told you, O man, what is good.

01:54:48.477 --> 01:54:57.857
And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

01:54:57.857 --> 01:54:58.257
Amen.