Please turn with me in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 18. Proverbs chapter 18. I'm gonna read verse 17 and then we'll pray.
Presumption of Innocence
The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. Well, let us pray. Father, we thank you for the written word. We thank you for these principles given to us, for our personal or interpersonal conduct with one another, and as well for the courtroom.
We ask God that you'd help us to think your thoughts after you, help us to receive with thanksgiving the written word. And even now, may your Holy Spirit be at work in our minds and in our hearts. And we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Well, I want to draw out a few principles of due process. Due process is generally or generically defined as a course of formal proceedings, such as legal proceedings, carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules principles. I suggest that we see an abuse of this all the time. We see it in the media, we see this rush to judgment, we see persons hearing one side of a story and then condemning others without first having cross-examined them.
When we see that principle of cross-examination, it clearly outlined here for us by Solomon in verse 17. So I want to look at first this principle of cross-examination, and then secondly go back into Moses, specifically the book of Deuteronomy, and look at the laws concerning witnesses, and then as well the law governing corporal punishment. Now, we may not make it to the very end. If my voice does die, I'm sorry.
I'll do the best that I can. But I want to look first at this principle of cross-examination. But before we look specifically at verse 17, notice verse 13, which is somewhat similar. In verse 13, we read,
Scripture Reading
Before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him. Now, I suggest that we see these abuses in our world. We see these abuses out there. But I wonder if we see those abuses in here, in our own relationships with one another.
Are we the sort of fool that is described in verse 13 and the fool that's described in verse 17? Or are we committed to due process? Are we committed to actually investigating objectively the various things that affect us in this world? When we look at verse 13, we
The Principle of Cross-Examination
notice the situation. We see that he who answers a matter before he hears it, it's folly and shame to him. Now, if a judge did this, if a judge in a courtroom only heard one part and then he rendered a verdict, we would see the folly involved in that. And yet I suspect we don't see that folly when we engage in the very sort of thing.
The problem obviously in view is that the man answers before he knows the pertinent facts. We cannot answer a matter if we don't know the pertinent facts. We can't give a ruling, we can't give any sort of confirmation or affirmation to a situation until we are presented with the facts. Bruce Waltke comments on this fool in verse 13.
Its subject is implicitly the fool, who before the wise has finished speaking, boorishly interrupts him to spout his own opinion. His impertinent and imprudent interruption exposes his folly for all to see and brings him disgrace. This is not a righteous way to function. It's not godly to interrupt people.
It's not godly to cut people off just so you can force your opinion. That's the particular offense in the passage. Now, I would suggest, along with Charles Bridges, that this is prevalent. This happens a lot.
Again, not just out there, but it happens within the context of the church, it happens in our own relationships. Bridges says, too often this proverb is verified in common life. Men will scarcely hear out what is unacceptable to them. They will break in upon a speaker before they have fully heard him. and therefore answer a matter which they little weighed and but imperfectly understood.
The eager disputant prides himself on his acute judgment." It really is a rendering or rather a a comment concerning his pride. He answers a matter before he hears it, because in his pride and in his arrogance, he doesn't judge that he needs to take in that data. He's already got the prescription. He's already got it figured out.
He knows the best way to go forward. Well, that, according to Solomon, is folly. And while the proud man engages in this kind of thing and proudly wants to assert his prudence, his intelligence, his wisdom, his ability, what he's actually demonstrating is his folly and shame. And everyone around him sees it.
And yet, at times, he doesn't see it himself. Now, look over at verse 18. The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. Now, the language that is used here by Solomon could apply to a civil courtroom, but it could apply to those interpersonal relationships.
In fact, John Gill shows the comprehensiveness of it. He says, this often appears true in telling a tale, in private conversation, in lawsuits before a judge and a court of judicature, and in theological controversy. So Gill suggests this happens everywhere. The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him.
The emphasis is upon cross-examination. The emphasis is upon listening to both sides of the story. If you come to me and you tell me that your husband's the worst human being on the face of the earth, forgive me if I don't round up the villagers and get the pitchforks and the torches and go and prevail upon him. There's two sides to every story and that's what Solomon is reiterating.
We all know that, and we all expect people to treat us that way, but when it comes to others, we rush to judgment. We forget the rules of due process. We forget the principles outlined in scripture that is the bedrock of our Western civilization jurisprudence situation, and we just run willy-nilly into condemning people that are not worthy to be condemned because they haven't been heard. The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him.
Just think in the recent months, a bit of a clip of a video was enough to cause great hardship and agony to young kids that didn't do the very thing that they were castigated for. Again, we see it evidently there, but we don't always see it evidently within our own hearts and in our own practice. Cross-examination is a bedrock principle of all matters of justice. If we get rid of that, forget it.
We have degenerated to the level of animals. And as the people of God, we ought never to fear cross-examination. The truth never has anything to fear. It doesn't have to run and hide from any sort of examination, but rather is able to stand up to the task.
It is able to present itself well. Matthew Henry, with reference to this principle, says, we must therefore remember that we have two ears to hear both sides before we give judgment. Now obviously in verse 17, the first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. That cross-examination shows problems with the first disputant's story.
That cross-examination shows the holes in that person's story. Again, you've probably all had this happen. You've heard one person say such and such, and you say, wow, I can't believe that that person is such a terrible beast of a human being. And then you hear their side of it, and you say, oh, wow, I didn't know.
Again, brethren, we as the people of God need to be patient. We as the people of God need to guard against these rushes to judgment. We as the people of God need to insist upon cross-examination so that we don't engage in the sorts of things that we find condemned by Solomon in the pages of Proverbs. And then the failure to listen to both sides also compromises another fundamental principle, the presumption of innocence.
Again, that's something that we're losing. We're losing as a society. Anybody can say anything and take down another person because we're all quick to grab the pitchforks, to grab the torches, and to burn people down without ever listening to their side, without ever investigating the claim, without ever looking at the data or the evidence. God does not want his people to proceed in that manner.
God wants his people to be careful. God wants his people to be diligent, God wants his people to be humble, and God wants his people to be governed by facts, by evidence, by data, not by feeling, and not by emotion, and not what we want it to be the case of. We need to guard our hearts when it comes to this particular matter. We need to realize that the presumption of guilt works in a communistic society.
But with reference to free peoples, it's always a presumption of innocence. That is bedrock and foundational. Again, I suppose none of us give any thought to due process until we're on the wrong side of the law. Then we want everybody to treat us the way that God's Word says.
But we as the people of God need to have a proper framework to look at the society around us and as well to function with one another in the context of the local church. So that's one principle of jurisprudence or due process. It is the principle of cross-examination.
The Law of Witnesses
Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 19. Deuteronomy chapter 19 deals with the law of witnesses. Deuteronomy chapter 19, specifically verses 15 to 21. Now this isn't the only passage that speaks to the law concerning witnesses.
There are other passages vis-a-vis Deuteronomy 17, but specifically I want to look at this one. Now note, verse 15 establishes a rule. One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, the matter shall be established.
So there's a negative aspect. It cannot be the case that there's one witness. But positively, it must be that there are two or three witnesses. A principle, again, that wasn't invalidated by the collapse of the theocracy.
We see this principle embedded in judicial situations in the New Testament with reference to church discipline in Matthew chapter 18. If your brother sins against you, go to him. If he hears you, you've won your brother. If he doesn't, then take with you two or three witnesses.
If he doesn't hear them, then tell it to the church. 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul is very clear. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. So it wasn't located only in the theocratic situation that Israel found herself in, in Canaan, but rather it is something embedded in our creatureliness that we need to abide by. Now notice, well, just for one moment, look at the text again.
One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits. By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. Christopher Wright makes this observation. He says, the purpose of the plurality of witnesses is clearly the protection of the accused.
It's just incredible. And that's why we're going to look at the law governing corporal punishment. I know that's not a happy topic. Chapter 25 of Deuteronomy deals with the public flogging of a criminal offender.
I know that that just grates against us as, you know, Canadians in the 21st century. This just seems or feels or reeks of barbarism. and all sorts of things that are antiquated. But it's actually governed by law. It's actually regulated.
And I want you to see that and appreciate that. Whether you come down on the side that the government ought to be publicly flogging criminal offenders or not, you need to see that it's not a barbaric thing, it's not an antiquated thing, but it was regulated by the law of God for the benefit of society. But specifically here, Wright says, the purpose of the plurality of witnesses is clearly the protection of the accused. And in Deuteronomy 25, the regulation concerning public flogging was about preserving the humanity and dignity of the criminal offender himself.
I often think that the way that we treat criminals today dehumanizes them. It is barbarism. But the biblical pattern and the biblical norm secures the reality that they are image bearers even when they are guilty. Even when they are punished for criminal activity, their dignity is kept in place and their personhood as those bearing the image of God is respected.
So he says, it's clearly the protection of the accused, especially the protection of the weaker individual from the vindictiveness of a more powerful opponent. Obviously, this precaution could be flouted. as Naboth discovered in 1 Kings 21, but it provided at least some safeguard. This emphasis on two or three witnesses provides a safeguard so that persons cannot destroy other person's lives without any substance, without any basis in reality or fact. Now, note specifically in verses 16 to 20, there is a violation of the rule concerning the law of witnesses.
And this text speaks to the presence of a false witness. Remember, God takes perjury very seriously. It's enshrouded or a prohibition against it is enshrouded in the Decalogue. You shall not commit or you shall not bear false witness.
It's the ninth commandment. And we see so many laws, case law applications of that principle in the society of Israel to show us the seriousness with which God takes this matter. Because frivolous lawsuits destroy people's lives. Frivolous or groundless accusations destroy people's lives.
It ruins them. It ruins reputations. And while we may say, well, reputation isn't important, it's only how God sees us. God says that a good reputation is something to cleave on to.
It's not to be discarded, it's not to be discounted, and it's certainly not to be compromised by persons unwilling to do what God demands. You see, the Lord Most High is serious when it comes to matters of truth, when it comes to matters of witness. Now note the situation in verse 16.
The False Witness and Its Consequences
If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing. So this is the issue. Now remember, I want to just remind you, because there was no witness doesn't mean there was no crime. Just because there's no witness doesn't mean no crime happened.
But the Bible speaks to the situation in terms of the ability to prosecute offenders. You have to have witnesses to go forward. Again, Craigie, a commentator on the book of Deuteronomy, he says, So, all that to say, witnesses and testimony and all of that is absolutely crucial. But notice, this false witness rises up, there's a particular procedure that is given to deal with this.
Verse 17, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. What does that mean? It means there was a structure in Israel that had lower and higher courts. There was a structure in Israel that had lower and higher courts.
In fact, if you look at Deuteronomy chapter 17, we read of that higher court in verse 8. If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt, for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses. It's a central tribunal. It's a higher court.
And their specific task is to deal with the harder cases. Degrees of guilt for bloodshed. Is it first degree murder? Is it second degree?
Is it manslaughter? There has to be a structure in place to deal with these sorts of things in civil society. Again, this is not barbarism. This is not antiquated.
This is the foundation of our present system. Our present system owes its being to what we find in the book of Deuteronomy. Persons out there that hate the Bible, persons out there that hate the Old Testament, they certainly love due process when they are on the wrong side of the law. Everybody likes the presumption of innocence then.
Everybody likes the two or three witness mandate. Everybody likes the prohibition against false witness when they're on that side of it. And they owe that to the word of the living God. So this is a higher court designed to deal with the harder matters.
Notice verse 9, you shall come to the priest. the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them. They shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you, according to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment. which they tell you you shall do.
You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously. Now back to our passage, that's prescribed in verse 17.
If it is supposed, or if it is thought, or if it is suspected that this man is a false witness, vis-a-vis verse 16, then there is a structure in place to deal with that. And that's what God's Word highlights. Notice in verse 18, there's a determination. And notice how that determination comes about.
And the judges shall make careful inquiry. This ain't communism. This isn't off to the gulag with you. This isn't just cut them off.
No, there's careful inquiry. There's the rules of evidence. There's the witness testimony. There's the sifting through all of those things.
That's what they were prescribed with to deal with matters of jurisprudence in the theocracy. Again, our Western civilization is built on these principles and we ought to praise God for that. But that's what's in view. They give careful investigation or inquiry to this, and then notice, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother, so the determination has been made, he is in fact a false witness, now note the particular punishment involved for that false witness according to verse 19. then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother, so you shall put away the evil from among you." That's beautiful wisdom, isn't it?
It's absolutely masterful. If I allege that you are guilty of a particular crime, and it turns out that I am a false witness, whatever the punishment was associated with that particular crime will be turned against me, up to and including capital punishment. Now, I suggest that would empty our courts. I suggest that that would mitigate against frivolous lawsuits.
I suggest that that would discourage false witnesses. If they knew they were found out, it wouldn't only be they were guilty of perjury and were put on probation. But whatever it is they allege that that particular person did, whatever the punishment attached to that particular crime would now be poured out upon that false witness, it would certainly make people think twice. That's the emphasis in Israel.
Back to 17, verse 13. And all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously. Verse 20 in our passage. And those who remain shall hear and fear and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you.
We've lost that principle. No one's afraid to do anything wrong because nothing happens to them anymore. I am speaking broadly, generically there. Obviously, things do happen, but for the most part, We have created a criminal class that has no fear whatsoever of repercussion.
And that's because we do not take seriously these rules of due process. Now notice the result, as I said. And those who remain, verse 20, shall hear in fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. Christopher Wright comments.
This text has a simple but effective deterrent to perjury. Anyone proved to have lied in court is to suffer whatever penalty would have been inflicted on the accused if the false accusation had been successful. If the case is capital, then the risk to a malicious witness was very great indeed. You certainly wouldn't just run willy-nilly into the courtroom and say, that man's guilty of a capital offense if you couldn't furnish the evidence because you knew that you would be executed if you couldn't furnish the evidence.
Again, what would that do to our court system? I think it would be a release valve. I think it would be, you know, get rid of a bunch of stuff. The frivolity would be gone because persons would see that there's a seriousness to this and you don't allege that somebody committed a crime without giving due concern. to the results or to the consequences.
Of course, the governing principle is found there at the end of the passage. Verse 21, your eye shall not pity, life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. The lex talionis basically means the punishment must fit the crime. And the crime, with reference to the false witness, is that he is intending to destroy the life of another.
And if he is found to be destroying the life of another, then according to God, his life should be destroyed. That's consistent, that's biblical, that's justice.
Due Process in Corporal Punishment
Now finally, look over at Deuteronomy 25. Again, my point here is not that we march on Ottawa and demand public flogging for the criminal class. That's not my point. My point is to see that due process regulates even the punishment of criminal offenders.
That due process governs how we approach the issue of penology. And with reference to the types of punishment, I know we've rehearsed this in the past, restitution or compensation, if somebody stole, they'd pay it back. They didn't pay a fine to the state by serving in a prison, they paid the family back who they stole from. If they didn't have the money to pay the family back, they became that family's indentured slave.
They did work until the time that that particular problem was recompensed and that particular problem was solved. Again, restitution, compensation. It's gone. It's completely gone.
The thought of it. Anybody ever getting their stuff back? Nope. Forget it.
Even if we catch the guy, we're not going to insist that he pays you back. We're going to insist that he goes to prison and pay the state. Well, he didn't do a criminal activity against the state. He did a criminal activity against us.
Why aren't we getting paid back? See, the Bible is pro-victim, too. It's another thing we have forgotten. Pro-victim.
We actually care about and deal with people that have been offended by criminals. Capital punishment. That's another aspect. I know we've considered that recently.
We will not rehearse it here. There is one instance, one instance in the book of Deuteronomy of what's called punitive amputation. One instance of punitive amputation. That means where someone's hand is cut off for a particular offense.
Now, the Bible is unique concerning the ancient Near Eastern world, because in the ancient Near Eastern world, especially Assyria, there was all manner of physical violence inflicted upon criminal offenders. Cutting off appendages, cutting off this, cutting off that. But the one instance is found in Deuteronomy 25, 11, and 12. And the situation is, if two men are fighting, and one of the men's wives comes to try to rescue her husband, and she grabs the other man by the genitals, then she is to lose her hand.
Then we might look at that and say, wow, God really is concerned about modesty. God is concerned about modesty, but it's probably dealing with seed. It's probably dealing with progeny. It's probably dealing with the reality that this man will no longer be able to sire children.
And as a result of that, there is this punitive amputation designed to discourage her and anyone else from ever engaging in that activity. Now, most commentators, I think rightly so, say that was probably a rarity. That probably didn't happen a lot. There wasn't many instances where, you know, ladies were doing this to rescue their husbands while they were in fistfights with other men.
But I do think it's important that we mention there is an instance of punitive amputation. But then there is this instance of corporal punishment, and that's what's we see here in Deuteronomy 25. Now, again, I want us to see the process involved here.
The Necessity of a Trial
In the first place, there is the necessity of a trial. The necessity of a trial. We don't just beat people. We don't just find them in the act of something and beat them.
We go through the trial. We listen to the evidence, or we look at the evidence. We listen to witness testimony. We go through the process, and once the determination of guilt is made, then we punish.
That's the way you do it in the Western world. That's the way we do it based on the written word of God. Again, this isn't the gulag. This isn't, you know, Russia or the Soviet Union where you got shipped off to Siberia if you stopped clapping, you know, for the dictator before everyone else.
That's not the way we function. We're supposed to function in terms of punishing people after there's been a trial, and you see that. Chapter 25, verse 1, if there is a dispute between men And they come to court that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. So all the court process has been engaged in.
All of the rules of evidence have been engaged in. All of the testimony has been engaged in. And now the judge pronounces judgment. And the rest of the passage goes on the assumption that the man is found guilty.
And he is going to receive corporal punishment. He is going to be beaten for his offense. Now notice,
The Necessity of Supervision
with reference to the beating of the man for his offense, there is a necessity of supervision. A necessity of supervision. Look at the text in verse 2. in his presence. You don't take him out behind the back 40 and just, you know, have your way with him.
There are rules governing this sort of thing. There's a process involved. This isn't barbarism. This is law.
This is justice. This is the administration of justice, and it behooves us to take it seriously. God speaks to these issues, again, not only for the purging of evil from the civil society, but as well for the protection of even criminal offenders. He shouldn't be beaten within inches of his life if that's not what he deserves.
I know at a certain gut level, there's a certain level in all of us that, yeah, whatever it comes, whatever comes to him, he has coming to him. Well, praise God, God's not like that. Praise God that he doesn't operate on that gut level, that visceral response, but rather it's measured, it's calculated, it's regulated, it's ruled, it's governed, it's principled. That's the way we execute justice.
There must be supervision. Now, Craigie again says, if the judges declared that corporal punishment was in order, then the flogging was to be carried out in his presence. In this way, the judge was able to see that the sentence was properly executed and that the offender was not treated too leniently or too harshly by the officer of the law entrusted with the task. That's interesting.
We don't want to be too severe with the guy, but we don't want to be too lenient with the guy either. If he deserves this amount of corporal punishment, then he better get that amount of corporal punishment. Supervision is crucial.
The Necessity of Proportion
Notice in the next place the necessity of proportion. Proportion. Verse 2, it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence according to his guilt. You see that?
According to his guilt. He cannot exceed what is according to his guilt in terms of the meaning out of punishment. That's just, that's ungodly. It's unholy.
These are image-bearers, even though they're wayward, even though they're lost, even though they're criminal, they are nevertheless protected by God's law and by these principles embedded in Scripture. There must be proper proportion. You are not to exceed that. You're not to go beyond that.
You're not supposed to belittle or dehumanize him. You're not supposed to treat him as an animal. And then, well, worse than an animal. And then notice the necessity of limitation with reference to the beating.
Verse 3. Again, I see it now. Facebook tonight. Butler advocates beating criminals in Chilliwack.
That's not my point. It's not my point. Now, you can ask me privately what I think of this particular passage, and I'll be more than happy to tell you what I think of this particular passage. My point tonight is simply to highlight that even in the punishment of a criminal offender, it is governed by principle.
It is governed by law. It is governed by rule. It is governed not by emotion or feeling or sympathy or this or that. Don't you love that picture of Lady Justice with the blindfold on her face?
That's what we want. We don't want her to judge based on money. We don't want her to base whether we have a lot or we don't have any. The scripture prohibits giving leniency to a poor man.
That's an emotive response. Well, he's poor. Life is terrible. We understand it's tough for him.
So we're going to go ahead and turn the other way when he does his crime. No, you don't do that. Lady Justice is blind. Whatever the crime is, whatever the facts are, whatever the data suggests, that's where you go.
Now notice this particular instance of limitation. You know this from the New Testament, because you see this language used with the Apostle Paul. 40 blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these. Did Paul say he was beaten by the Jews with 39 lashes? Well, why?
Because they didn't want to exceed this Deuteronomic prohibition. So instead of even getting 40, they would give 39 so that they would be in the safe confines of not violating this law with reference to the limitation involved in punishing a criminal offender. You see, it's governed by rules. It's governed by procedure.
It's governed by principle. It's law that regulates even the punishment of criminal offenders. And then
The Necessity of Preserving Dignity
notice the necessity to preserve dignity. Now, let me just say this again. I know the guttural response. I know the visceral response.
I know the gut level response. He gets whatever it is he gets. He gets whatever it is he gets. Brethren, again, God doesn't function that way.
God doesn't respond that way. God says you do it this way. You do it in a measured, calculated, responsible, civil, humane way. Because even that criminal offender is an image bearer of the living and true God. in my mind, sending image-bearers of the living and true God into environments that are just full of bestial conduct by other persons on men.
That is to dehumanize people. I think that the way we do things is just terrible and unfortunate, but notice the text in terms of the necessity to preserve dignity. Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these. Now notice, and your brother be humiliated in your sight.
He's a criminal, but he's still part of the Commonwealth. He's a criminal, but he's still part of Israel. He's a criminal, but he's still your brother. And as your brother, as a recipient of at least the common grace of living in this covenant of nation, as a result of that, you preserve his dignity.
You don't dehumanize him. You don't belittle him. You don't treat him as less than an image-bearer. The criminal is still a brother, thus part of the covenant community.
He should be spared from a punishment that would be degrading and humiliating. Meredith Klein says the just punishment of the guilty was to be dispensed in such a way that his individual human dignity was honored. And then again with Wright. It is sad that in the popular perception, the Old Testament is so often vilified for the severity of its punishments, whereas this law, with its careful limitation and its explicit protection of the rights and dignity of criminals, is overlooked.
You get that, right? And it's unfortunate. It's not just humanists, it's Christians. People in the church that have a problem with the Old Testament.
They have problems with sermons like these. Oh no, don't preach on Deuteronomy 25. I mean, that was then, and this is now, and that's not for us. I mean, the thought of ever flogging a criminal in public and doing these sorts of things is just barbaric and we won't even entertain it.
Again, I'm not even picking on humanists here. That's our brothers and sisters in Christ that say such things. The Old Testament is vilified for what is looked at as being barbaric, or antiquated, or tribal, or clan-ish. But look at what's embedded in this text in terms of the punishment of a criminal offender.
Preserve his dignity. Don't exceed the punishment that is necessary. Don't engage in the sorts of things that happen in a gulag. Don't be commies.
Don't be those who engage in the stripping away of the dignity of human beings. So those are some principles. Certainly, there's a lot of other things, but this will hopefully wet our appetites to be alert to Scripture with reference to these sorts of things.
Why Fools Rush to Judgment
In terms of some concluding thoughts, if we ask the question back of Solomon in Proverbs 18, why do people do verse 13 and 17? Why would anybody ever answer a matter before it hears it? Why would we do that? Because I'm sure we have done that before.
Oh, no, not me, Pastor, brother. I just live my life regulated by Deuteronomy law. All right, just two or three witnesses, rules of evidence, no crossing. Okay, good.
Pray for your brethren that struggle in these things, because we hear something, we go nuts, and we think, oh, this person's got to be dealt with. Well, wait a minute, there's a bigger picture. There's mitigating circumstances. There's other issues.
That's the reality of the world in which we live. And God knows that, and God speaks to that, and God prescribes law in that context. But if we ask the question, why does a man answer a matter before he hears it? I don't think the text specifies why he does that, but I think the overarching structure of Scripture or the rest of Proverbs can help us to at least scratch the surface of such an issue.
In the first place, the fool is proud and wants to be right. The fool is proud and he wants to be right. He doesn't want to listen to anybody else because he knows everything. We're dealing with competing sovereigns.
We're dealing with little g-gods. We're dealing with persons who think that they have the capability to judge something with omniscient specificity. You don't. You need to hear the data.
You need to hear the facts. You might have heard the old radio program it was on in America. I don't know if it made it to Canada, but it was called Dragnet. And it was a police show.
It was radio, old-time radio. It was before my time. I'm not quite that old. But you'd sit by the radio, and you'd listen to Dragnet.
And it was about these two detectives, Joe Friday and then his partner. I can't remember his partner's name. But Joe Friday's tagline, what he said all the time was, just the facts. Just the facts.
Well, I'm sorry Joe Friday. You wouldn't recognize America today because that's not the way we operate. You would not have recognized Canada if you'd ever been here. That's not the way we operate.
It's visceral response. It's guttural reaction. It's I'm mad. It's emotion.
Just the facts. Just the facts. So the fool is proud and he wants to be right. Also the fool is proud and he wants to be first.
Right? Verse 13, he who answers a matter before he hears it. He has to be first out of the gate. He has to be the most, you know, the quickest to respond.
He has to be the guy that is not only right, but he's also first, because for some sick reason, he feeds on that. People go, oh wow, man, that guy's right, that guy's first, that guy's amazing. And that's what fuels this sort of, this desire for him. Turn back for just a moment to Proverbs 15 and verse 28.
Proverbs 15 and verse 28. The heart of the righteous does what? Blurts out the first thing that comes into their head. The heart of the righteous just vomits whatever it is they think they should say?
No. The heart of the righteous studies how to answer. Somebody asks you a question, you say, give me some time to think about that. That's good.
You want that. You want people just, you know, right out of the holster, you know, a ready fire aim. You want people to study how to answer. The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.
And so the fool is proud he wants to be right, the fool is proud that he wants to be first. I think Matthew Henry on this text is beautiful. He says, though a ready wit is an agreeable thing to play with, it is solid judgment and sound wisdom that do business. Oh, man, I wish every one of us got that.
Though a ready wit is an agreeable thing to play with, it is solid judgment and sound wisdom that do business. That's the way we ought to proceed. As well, the fool is lazy and doesn't want to put in the required effort. It'll take time to hear the data.
It'll take time to cross-examine. It'll take time to actually do what I'm supposed to do before I answer a matter. That's just laziness, and we should never accept that approach to life when it comes to such things. As well, the fool is selfish, and he's not concerned about others.
Doesn't care. It's all about him. I'm right. I'm first.
I'm lazy. I, I, I. That's why someone answers a matter before he hears it. As well, the fool is ignorant vis-a-vis verse 17 and rejects due process.
And the principles of due process held out by verse 17 is that presumption of innocence and additionally the necessity for cross-examination. See, that's perhaps the reason why We are warned in Proverbs 18, 13, and 17 to function in a way that is more consistent with God's revealed law. And then finally,
Christ and Due Process
with reference to civil justice or matters of justice or due process in the life and ministry of Jesus, did he operate this way? Absolutely, positively. John 7, 24, judge with what? Your heart.
Judge with what? Just what the naked eye can see. Judge with what? Your prejudice and your bigotry?
Judge with righteous judgment. Lo and behold, we get into John chapter 8, and the Pharisees and the religious leaders want to catch him. They want to trip him up. They want to show him as a fake and a fraud.
They want to expose that he has no regard for the law of Moses. And the first thing Jesus does is appeal to the law of Moses, and he asks for witnesses to throw the stones at this particular woman. That is the way that Christ operated with these principles. They were a part of who he is, not only as God, but as man.
And we see that carried throughout the New Testament itself. So brethren, I hope that these things, again, will whet our appetites to think about such things and not just to see the faults and the problems and the issues that are out there, which they are increasingly growing out there, but to see it in here. And most importantly, to see it in here. Am I the kind of person that answers a matter before I even have received the data?
Am I the kind of person that responds viscerally to one side of a story without listening to the other? If so, God, have mercy on me. God, humble me. God, show me that I'm not always right.
God, show me that I don't need to be first. God, show me that it's better and more consistent as the professing people of God to follow your law and to seek by grace to do the things that were read in Psalm 15. Praise God Almighty, that's a description of Jesus. It is not a description of us because we are hasty, because we do the various things that are condemned in that particular psalm, but it's Christ who ultimately can stand in the presence of Yahweh.
And by virtue of Christ's grace and His redemptive work on our behalf and the faith God gives us to unite us to Jesus, we shall stand in the presence of Yahweh based on His righteousness. Now, I don't say that so that we can go out and answer matters without hearing them. I don't say that so we can go out and neglect cross-examination or the principle of presumption of innocence, but I say that to encourage us. We're not going to heaven because we're great at matters of social or interpersonal relationship.
We're not going to heaven because we're great witnesses if called upon to testify in a courtroom. We're going to heaven because Jesus is everything Psalm 15 says He is. We're going to heaven because Jesus is the the one who merited the favor of God based on His law-keeping. And the way of relationship with Jesus is by grace through faith in Him.
Well, let us close in a word of prayer.
Closing Prayer
Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for its clarity on these matters. We thank you for its concern, even for the dignity of criminal offenders. God, I pray that we would operate according to principle, according to due process, according to these things written in the law of God, versus relying on our emotions or our feelings or the things that we see.
God, even the things that we see can be misinterpreted, and the things that we see can be misjudged. Help us to be faithful. Help us to be upright. Help us to be godly in a godless society.
And we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. We'll close with a brief time of meditation and then be dismissed.