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Eden Valley SDA Church

Frank Fournier

Biased Judge

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 12.

You've noticed probably if you've read the bulletin that the title is Biased Judge.

Now how does that idea of a biased judge resonate with you?

We live in a country, we live in a world where it's hard to find justice on a fair level, where there's a lot of people find themselves incarcerated or worse, who have never been guilty of anything.

We live in a world where prosecuting attorneys, in order to make a name for themselves, have to prosecute whether they're guilty or not and work towards, how should I say, sentencing, getting a guilty verdict, whether the people are guilty or not.

If you ever find yourself in a position where you've got to go against the law, and the law doesn't care, what's it going to be like?

What would it be like if we had a biased judge?

A judge, according to our sense of justice and according to our sense of fairness, a judge according to American law should be perfectly neutral.

Should have a desire simply to arrive at the truth, to be fair in all that he deals out to the people.

And we would like to find judges like that.

Now I went to the internet yesterday and I looked up the legal dictionary.

I looked up a whole pile of stuff, but In the legal dictionary, I found this.

Justice requires that the judge should have no bias for or against any individual and that his mind should be perfectly free to act as the law requires.

But the reason it makes sense to you is that you're a red-blooded American.

And this is how red-blooded Americans think.

But do you know that that isn't how God thinks?

If we were to go to the Hebrew legal code, if we went to the Old Testament law, it demanded in the Hebrew legal code that the judges be biased, biased in favor of the accused.

Chandler is, but he wrote a book called The Trial of Jesus, and in that book, Volume 1, page 153 and forward, it says, the Hebrew legal code required judges to lean always in favor of the defendant.

Now we know that Taylor Bunch was a Seventh-day Adventist and he wrote a book called Behold the Man, page 64 and 65.

He wrote, Witnesses of the crime pressed charges while the judge promoted the case of the defendant, biased in favor of acquittal.

Actually, in our system, we have a plaintiff, and so we have a defendant.

No, no, the plaintiff has a prosecuting attorney, and the defendant, of course, has a defense attorney, and there's a judge who hears both sides and the judge somehow is supposed to have enough wisdom to decide who it is that's telling the truth according to the evidence that's presented and sometimes I suppose some things are clear cut Like the trial that we were listening to this week of the guy, the shooter there out of Texas, Fort Hood, I think it was, who shot 30-some people, killed 12, whatever it was.

He even admitted himself that he had done it and he had no real defense.

And of course he was convicted on every count.

No, sometimes you have a prosecuting attorney, if he's really, really smart, he can outwit the defense attorney and all that you've got there is a really smart prosecuting attorney.

You still don't know what exactly is the truth.

I mean, I suppose, and I don't know, but the trial of Zimmerman that we just listened to some time ago.

If I'd have to be the judge, I'd have a hard, hard time to decide exactly where it's at.

I don't know that it was so clear cut in this case, in any case.

But when you go to the Hebrew legal code, it's amazing.

There is a prosecuting attorney, and there is a judge, and the judge is the defense attorney.

Now there's room for corruption there too, don't you think?

If the judge is corrupt and he's the defense attorney and he's building for himself a reputation, how in the end is he going to judge?

Except if he doesn't judge in his own favor all the time.

But if the judge is really not corrupt, he's really a spiritual individual, and God is able to use him, well, it's a good thing that he's the defense attorney.

As a matter of fact, he is forcing the burden of proof on the plaintiff.

So, who do you think invented that kind of system?

Apparently, justice is better served that way.

Ah, listen, friends, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Well, I hope you wouldn't want it any other way.

Do you know that we're all facing judgment?

As a result of sin, a weapon of mass destruction, by the way, the world is in absolute chaos.

Millions, even billions, will perish, have perished, because of sin, a weapon of mass destruction.

And we are the suspects with a huge, huge problem.

Acquittal under the American system, acquittal under any other system would be impossible because it's obvious and everyone knows it and the judge knows it and the prosecuting attorney has all the evidence He needs to get a verdict and to get a sentence of guilty.

It has very little...this verse, in any case, has very little to do with the legal system or any legal language at all.

But we get a picture of the true judge, that is, the judge of the universe.

Verse 32, Fear not, Jesus says, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Because no 1 is allowed into the kingdom who will bring defilement to the kingdom.

Isn't that what Revelation 21, verse 27 says?

There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles." Every single human being is defiled.

Well at very least, anyhow, to our favor, the judge of the universe is biased our way.

He is looking at least for a reason to give us the kingdom.

Now someone might say, but we're dead in the water.

Do you know that the lady that was caught in adultery in John chapter 8 was guilty?

The Pharisees dragged this woman over to Jesus and they said, we caught this woman in the act of adultery.

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Biased Judge

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