Sermonette: Judging

#088s
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 07-Aug-93; 21 minutes

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You know, God has really promised us more than we could ever have imagined. In a sense, it is really mind-expanding to think that we will someday be sons of God. But what will we be doing in the millennia, in the eternity that stretches out before us? Just what will we spend our time doing? Maybe for the purposes of this sermonette, eternity is a little large, but at least for the Millennium, what will we be doing? Are we prepared for it, whatever this thing is that we will be doing? If Christ would return tomorrow, would you be of any use to Him in what we have to do?

Now, we have heard time and time again, Revelation 5:10, "And have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth." We have always been taught, and taught correctly, that kings are civil leaders and priests are religious leaders and we will be both, with both civil and religious authority over one city, over five cities, over ten cities, whatever our reward happens to be. But what does being a king and a priest entail? What kind of qualifications do we have to be a priest? What are some of our responsibilities for being a king or a priest today?

I would just like to take a look at what may be a major responsibility of both kings and priests. And we are going to look at at one specific responsibility that both of them share in doing their jobs and we will be doing in the Kingdom.

Let us first look at a king. Let us go to I Kings chapter 3. We are going to read quite a few verses, about ten verses here, verses 5 through 14. This is about Solomon and what Solomon responded to God when God asked him what he wanted.

I Kings 3:5-14 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask! What shall I give you?" And Solomon said, "You have shown great mercy to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness, and an uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and you have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours?"

[verse 10, a key part of this] The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. Then God said to him, "Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. [And here is another key] So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statues and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days."

Solomon asked for an understanding heart to judge, and just as a little aside here, that word understanding, if you have the New King James and you look in the margin, it means "a listening heart to judge," which has a lot to do with how we judge. How well we listen will often determine what a judgment may be, because we will be able to hear things in there that might escape other people. But that is just an aside.

But his request for an understanding heart to judge pleased God because it is a quality of paramount importance to a king. It was a really a wise choice, and to me, it seems like he already had much of it, the wisdom that he was renowned for, by making this choice. A lesser person would have asked for these other things that God said that they would have asked for, like long life or his enemies or riches or whatever. But he asked for something that can bring those other things.

But we see here in verse 14 that the ability to discern justice is tied to keeping God's ways and His commandments. That if you do not have a solid foundation in the law of God, the ways of God, His statutes and commandments, then you cannot really be a good judge. In Deuteronomy 17, verses 18 and 19, God commands that kings do this.

Deuteronomy 17:18-19 [he is to] write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statues.

So a major part of the king's responsibilities to the people and to God involves judging.

Now let us look at the duties of a priest and we are going to look at a millennial scripture having to do with the priests duties during the Millennium. Ezekiel 44, and we are just going to read two verses. This is a vision, a prophecy that was given to Ezekiel about the millennial temple and the things that would happen within it and the people who would be running it. After God has gone through the things that the priests had failed to do the first time, He says,

Ezekiel 44:15-16 But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat of the blood," says the Lord God.

He reiterates here in verse 15 and on down that they are to do the same things that they were supposed to have done during the Old Covenant, same sort of thing.

Ezekiel 44:24 "In controversy they shall stand as judges, and judge it according to My judgments. They shall keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed meetings, and they shall hallow My Sabbaths."

The priests have the same duties as a king; that they are to be judges. Maybe not in the same matters, but they are supposed to be using the laws, God's judgments, God's statutes, God's commandments in being able to do their job of judging. And obviously, just like any example of Solomon, they must be following those things.

Maybe this is how Paul reached the conclusion that he did in I Corinthians 6, if you would return there, and we are going to read the first five verses.

I Corinthians 6:1-5 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who shall be able to judge between his brethren?

So we see here that the saints have been given a great responsibility to judge the world in the Millennium when they were finally changed. We shall judge angels! Who knows how far into the future that will be? But that is just a very bald-faced statement right there in the Bible that we are to judge the world in helping Christ in that responsibility; and we will be judging angels.

But Paul really jumps on the Corinthians. He says, and this is a paraphrase, "If you can't even judge the small matters that come across in your own lives right now, how are you ever going to be able to judge these great matters that are going to be brought before you when you become the sons of God, full sons of God in the Kingdom?" He was saying, you people have not even grown a bit. You are not even able to judge these small matters within your own congregation.

He told them in the third chapter that they were still carnal, and probably a major reason why they were is that they were not studying and applying the law in God's way in their everyday lives. They were not preparing, they were not in training for the day when they would become judges. And that is my title of this sermonette. We are in training to be judges.

So a question or two: how well do you know the law? How well do you know the statutes and the judgments that God has put here in His Word? You know, Christ said we are to live by every word of God and those are a part of it. Can you use the principles found within God's Word to solve some of the sticky messes that come up from time to time?

What about the world's problems? Have you ever tried to judge some of the more controversial cases with only the Bible as your guide, using the principles, using specific verses to justify your decision? It is a good exercise in training to be judges because maybe some of these cases will be brought before us and we will, like Solomon, have to make a good judgment as he did in the case when the two women brought the one baby and he discerned a correct judgment and made a very wise decision.

For instance, how about the recent Baby Jessica case in Iowa and Michigan? We all have opinions about how the court should have decided and most of them are probably based upon an emotional rather than rational judgment. But how would a righteous judge have decided in a case like this?

If you do not know about anything about the case, I will give you a few facts to consider.

A single mother decides to give up custody of her baby to a Michigan couple and does so two days after Jessica's birth. She was born on February 8th, 1991 and she was given up on my birthday, February 10th, 1991.

The mother, the natural mother, names the wrong man as the father on the original contract. And on February 27th, 1991 she informs the real father of her decision. In March, remember this is already getting towards two months after she gave the baby up, the natural mother and natural father began trying to get Jessica back. This man and this woman finally marry in April of 1992. And they have another daughter in June of 1992, two months after they were married. Courts in both Iowa and Michigan award Jessica back to her natural parents in July of 1993 (this is something we should consider), after two and a half years of living with her adoptive parents.

Also, there is another thing we have to consider. The natural father had sired at least two other children by other women and abandoned them throughout the years previous. Now, it is a shame that the courts did not really take Jessica's natural parents' character into consideration. She had one child out of wedlock and I guess you could say the other child was pretty much out of wedlock too. He had 3-4 children out of wedlock and had abandoned two of those children.

It also took him a little bit over a month to finally decide that they were going to try to get Jessica back. And that is just important, because in South Carolina, I do not know if you are aware of this, but when a baby is put up for adoption, the natural parents have only that day to renege on their decision. But in North Carolina they have a whole month. But really that does not come into play here, but just something to think about if it had.

But she had in the child's best interests since she had already spent two and a half happy and prosperous years with her adoptive parents and she considered them to be her parents. Jessica should have stayed with the Michigan couple.

But you know what? That is a subjective judgment that is not based on law. Is there a legal and binding judgment that we could pull out of the Bible that would equal this decision? I think one section of scripture will do it, Numbers 30:1-9. Actually, the whole chapter is good in this regard. But I had to think like a lawyer on this because there was not anything in the Bible about giving your child up for adoption. There is really no legal stipulations in there about it. There are examples of people being adopted, but not in a case where the natural parents are still alive.

Numbers 30:1-9 Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, "This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Or if a woman vows a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth, and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand.

But if her father overrules her on that day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will release her, because her father overruled her. If indeed, she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on that day that he hears it, then her vows shall stand and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered by with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lord will forgive her. [verse 9, I think, which bears most closely on this by analogy] Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself shall stand against her."

The reason why I thought that verse 9 has the most bearing on this is because she was a grown woman. She had already left her father's house and so by analogy, she was like a widow or a divorced woman who was living on her own. She was not living in her father's house and she was not a youth. So she was bound by her vow, or as it says, by some agreement in verse 2. And also in verse 3, if a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement.

That is what she did. This lady made a contract, a written contract, with these people who took Jessica. Since she was no longer in her father's house, nor was she married yet, she was still a year and a half away from being married. She was not under a man's authority. She would be considered competent to make her own decisions and she would therefore legally have to stand by them. So the contract she signed with the Michigan couple would be legally and eternally binding, and the unmarried father would have no legal recourse in the matter. He is just totally outside the whole case.

Let us see how important God thinks the keeping of covenants and contract is. Let us go quickly to I Samuel 21 and we will just read one verse.

II Samuel 21:1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, "It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites."

Now all the people who had originally made this covenant with the Gibeonites (it was a covenant that was made between the people of Gibeon and the children of Israel just after they came into the land), were long dead. This covenant was made right around 400 BC and David lived around 1000 to 950 BC. So this was 400 years or more since this covenant had been made between these two peoples. But God considered this covenant to be still effective and He allowed a drought of three years to afflict the land because Israel broke the covenant.

The covenant stated that they will be slaves to you, the people of Gibeon gave themselves up as an entire city, an entire people as slaves to the Israelites, to be woodcutters and water haulers and whatever it happened to be, just so that Israel would not destroy them. And so they had remained for these 450 years or so as slaves of Israel and had dwelled in the land in peace. But Saul, it says, in his zeal (verse 2), went and killed a great many of them. And God, in anger, allowed a famine to come upon the whole land, all the people of Israel, because He considered this to be a legally binding covenant forever.

What is ironic here, in that God would consider this a legal and binding contract, is that the Gibeonites deceived in Israel into making this covenant by appearing like they had come from a long distance. And thinking that Israel made this covenant with them because they were so far away, there would be no need to worry about it in the future, but it actually was that they were just from right down the road. But God still bound this deceptive, what we might consider an illegal covenant, 400 years after it had been ratified.

So I think with these two scriptures we can see that this lady up in Iowa was bound by her contract no matter what under God's law.

I hope this short study has piqued your interest a little in learning more about the law and the judgments and the statutes and how to apply them. Our decisions right now may mean nothing. As a matter of fact, there is nothing we can do about this case. It has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court and they have turned it down. But in the near future, our decisions will be law for many people who will live under our rulership. So we had better learn now, so we can apply these laws in righteousness in God's Kingdom.

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