Today we'll conclude Chapter 22 and move on into Chapter 23 which is titled in my NIV Bible as "Laws Of Justice And Mercy". First we'll finish the last two and a half verses of Chapter 22.
"You must give Me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to Me on the eighth day." (Exodus 22:29b-30) The Lord originally gave the order in Exodus 13 regarding the consecration of every firstborn son. Our modern Christian congregations have ceremonies in which the parents consecrate children to the Lord, such as in a dedication ceremony or at a christening when the parents solemnly vow to bring the child up in the faith. These ceremonies acknowledge that the child belongs to the Lord, not to the parents, and that the parents are the guardians and caretakers and teachers of the children. When a Jewish man's firstborn son is born he must redeem him by giving five shekels of silver to the Lord in the child's place. The son, of course, is not sacrificed to the Lord. The father takes the son back home and raises him. The silver is paid in the child's place and the son goes home where he is brought up in the fear of the Lord, is taught the Lord's precepts, is shown how to pray to the Lord and develop a relationship with the Lord, and is instructed in family leadership. Typically the firstborn son would take over the family leadership when his father dies, or sooner if his father becomes too infirm in his old age to continue fulfilling this role. The leader of the family would intercede on behalf of his family with the Lord, would make sacrifices on behalf of the family to the Lord, and would be responsible for judging disputes between family members and for giving wise advice to family members. This firstborn son is expected to set a godly example for his family to follow.
Now we move on to a verse that required me doing some background research. "You are to be My holy people. Do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs." (Exodus 22:31) If a man goes out to his chicken coop or livestock pen in the morning and finds one of his animals has been killed by a wolf in the night, he might be tempted to salvage whatever meat he can from the dead animal so it won't be a total loss. But the Lord says to cast the meat to the dogs instead. I consulted a number of commentaries about this and most of them seemed to disagree with each other about why the Lord prohibits eating this meat. Some commentaries skipped over this verse entirely. The only two theories I found which made clear sense were these: meat torn by a wild animal is considered unclean (unsanitary) and may be dangerous for consumption; and, this meat has not been properly drained of blood and the Lord forbids the eating of blood. There are about one hundred Bible verses regarding the prohibition against eating blood or eating anything torn by animals so I won't attempt to list all these verses here. But it's clear from the Scriptures that as much blood as possible is to be drained from a slaughtered animal before consuming it and it's clear that the Lord does not approve of eating an animal that was slaughtered by another animal.
We begin Chapter 23 with this verse, "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness." (Exodus 23:1) This verse further expounds on the ninth commandment which says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Bearing false witness includes spreading gossip and rumors, making up lies about someone either verbally or in print, and giving false testimony in court.
"Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong." (Exodus 23:2a) King Solomon gave this same advice to his own son, saying, "My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them." (Proverbs 1:10) We are not to have the attitude of, "Everybody else is doing it!" Remember when we said such things as children only to have one of our parents reply, "Well, if everybody was jumping off a cliff, would you jump off too?" Just because a majority is doing something doesn't make it right. There are all sorts of reasons why a person might join in with something wrong even though he knows it's wrong, such as not being strong enough to stand up to peer pressure, or wanting to fit in and be accepted, or having a desire in their heart to do this wrong thing because they have an excuse to do it now since "everyone is doing it".
"When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit." (Exodus 23:2b-3) It's possible to get caught up in the moment and make a poor decision. There are a lot of people in this world who will happily jump on any bandwagon they can without necessarily having any strong feelings for whatever cause is being supported or without particularly having any strong feelings against whatever is being protested. For a Biblical example of this we can take a look at the riot that occurred in Ephesus. The whole city fell into an uproar and rushed into the theater where an enormous crowd gathered with everyone shouting all at once. The Bible says, "The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there." (Acts 19:32) This bears repeating: most of the people did not even know why they were there, yet they assembled and rioted anyway! They joined in with the crowd. They had no idea what was going on; they only knew they wanted to be a part of it. Something big was happening and they wanted to be in the middle of it, no matter what it was.
I fear some of the people in our country right now have joined the Black Lives Matter movement not because they truly care about equality or about police brutality but because something enormous and newsworthy is going on and they want to be smack dab in the middle of it. Don't get me wrong: I believe Black Lives Matter. I believe changes desperately need to take place. The good Lord created every person equal. Every human soul is just as important as any other in His eyes and we are sinning when we don't grant every human being the same respect and the same rights. I have nothing whatsoever against peaceful demonstrations and marches and rallies and I am not saying there's anything wrong with a person attending them. Our constitution grants us the right to assemble peacefully and make our voices heard. The Holy Bible specifically states that we are all the same in the eyes of God and that we are all deserving of the same respect and rights. (See Galatians 3:28.) But what I'm saying is there's no doubt in my mind that some people have joined the BLM movement to fulfill a need to belong to something, to feel accepted, or to say they took part in a major nationwide movement. Do they care whether or not black people are being treated equally? Many of them do and I think most of them do, but not every person who has shown up to demonstrate has shown up for the right reasons. We could say the same thing for any major assembly like this; there will always be some people in the crowd who are there just to be part of the crowd. I know people who have gone to other types of marches and rallies (such as the women's marches a few years ago) simply because some of their friends and co-workers went. They told me they went not because they felt women's rights were in danger but because they feared their friends or co-workers would think badly of them if they didn't accompany them to the march. If we believe in a march and want to go to a march, then we should go. But if we don't believe in or care about the march then we need to stop and think about why we want to go, for a person who will join in with a good cause just to feel a sense of belonging is the type of person who is in danger of following along with bad ideas or following their friends into sinful situations.
Whatever we do in this life must be done deliberately and thoughtfully. We must first ask ourselves whether what we're doing is a sin. If we determine the thing is not a sin, we then must ask ourselves whether what we're doing is good for us or whether we're just joining in with the crowd. If we just want to join the crowd, we need to stop and ask ourselves why we have so much insecurity about who we are. Christ died for us and our identity is to be found in Him, not in whoever we hang out with or in whoever thinks we're "cool". We must ask ourselves whether what we're doing is going to help us reach the godly goals we've set for our lives or whether it's going to set us on a bad path. If we want to assemble peacefully in support of a cause we believe in, then we have the right to do that, but we shouldn't go along just to gain a sense of acceptance. The reason for that is because a person who will join a good cause to gain acceptance will just as easily join a bad cause to gain acceptance. We also mustn't do things just because "everyone else is doing it". Some of our co-workers may be in the habit of taking supplies from work but that doesn't mean we have to steal. Most people these days may be having sex before marriage, or cheating on their marriage partners, or viewing pornography, but that doesn't mean we have to do those things. Some of our acquaintances may be in the habit of getting drunk or smoking marijuana every weekend; we don't have to get drunk or high just because they do. You see where I'm going with this. We are to consult God's laws and God's standards when making choices for our lives, not make decisions based on what the crowd is doing. Any time we are faced with a choice, our first thought should be, "What would the Lord have me do?" If we are right with God, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. God is a rewarder of those who do right. God's approval means far more than the temporary approval of a human being who might be our best friend today but who might find fault with us tomorrow. Or, as the Bible so beautifully puts it, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)
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