In the sermon 'By What Standard,' Scott Brown addresses the concept of justice from a biblical perspective, contrasting it with the modern notion of social justice. He argues that social justice, as currently understood, is rooted in Marxist ideology and diverges significantly from biblical principles. Brown emphasizes that God is a God of justice, as reflected in numerous biblical passages, and that biblical justice prioritizes restitution, equal opportunity, and righteousness. He critiques the philosophical and political origins of social justice, noting its influence on societal structures and ethics. Brown asserts that the current social justice movement often demands equality of outcomes, which he believes contradicts the sovereignty and justice of God. He calls for a return to biblical principles as the ultimate standard for justice, as God's law provides a comprehensive framework for just living. Brown concludes that Christians should look to the Word of God, rather than secular philosophies, as the authority on justice.

When the technology wasn't working I was talking to some of the young ladies back here and I said, you know When the technology breaks down you either sing Amazing Grace or the doxology So Ash you did it, you know The spew was the Holy Spirit wasn't it? I'm sure it was Okay Our subject is social justice. By what standard do we judge justice? It's very important that we understand that God is concerned about justice. In contrast, the term social justice has come to represent something completely different.

It's a Marxist term. It's been hijacked. Justice is a biblical term. Social justice is loaded with all kinds of meaning that really isn't consistent with the Scriptures. Social justice is the new moral code.

It's a new religion. And your view of social justice as it's being proclaimed today has become the primary litmus test for inclusion or rejection in society. It really is a new DNA. It controls social structure, it determines morality, it structures business, it refashions ethics, it tells you what to think about the environment and medicine and just about everything else and it's really reshaping all of society. I've said this before, I believe this is the greatest social revolution America's ever seen, probably the greatest revolution since the French Revolution.

Who knows where it will all lead? But we need to understand, first of all, how important it is that we speak about justice. You have an outline in front of you. It was printed on the back of your sermon outline from before, but there are five points I'd like to try to cover in this session entitled by what standard. And the first thing that we need to recognize is that God is a God of justice.

This is why God says of Abraham that God called Abraham so that he would teach his children justice. It's why we read those famous words, what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Justice is very, very important. In Psalm 89 verse 14, we learn that righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. That's speaking of God.

God is a God of justice. In Deuteronomy 32, we learn God is the rock, His work is perfect, all His ways are justice, a God of truth, and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. And then Moses begins to explain what has happened in his day and it's happened in our day. He says they've corrupted themselves. They are not his children, a perverse and crooked generation, a foolish and unwise people, because they're not drawing on the wisdom of God.

Nehemiah contrasts God's justice with man's justice in Nehemiah 9.33. He says, however, you are just in all that has befallen us, for you have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly. All this to say God is a God of justice. Zephaniah tells us that God is perfectly just. Zephaniah 3.5, the Lord is righteous in her midst.

He will do no unrighteousness. He never fails, but the unjust shows no shame. Amos Communicates God's desire for all the nations and particularly for God's people in Amos 5 24. He's contrasting He's contrasting God's justice with the injustice of God's people who are singing songs and acting religious, but they don't really do justice. Amos says, let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

In Matthew 23 verse 23, Jesus said that justice was one of the weightier matters of the law. In Deuteronomy 27 19 God curses those who pervert justice. Cursed is the one who perverts the justice, do the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and all the people shall say amen in Second Timothy 4 6 through 8 Paul tells Timothy that the Lord is the only perfectly righteous judge He said he says which the He says finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day. In Proverbs 31, the woman seeks justice for the poor by taking personal action. In Micah 6, 8, we have those famous words, he has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you.

Solomon says that justice brings joy now injustice doesn't bring joy He said that in Proverbs 21 15 it is a joy For the just to do justice, but destruction will come to the workers of Iniquity in Leviticus 1915 God makes it clear that he hates injustice. He says, you shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go about as a tail bearer among your people nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor I am the Lord the whole chapter is about various matters of justice in Psalm 33 verse 5 David proclaims that God loves justice He said he loves righteousness and justice.

In Jeremiah, God promises security to those who do justly, who execute justice. In Jeremiah 9, 23 through 24, God tells us to glorify God in His justice. And he says this, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight." God is a God of justice. He's the only true source of justice.

He delights in justice and He tells us that we will be delighted when we do justice. So God is a God of justice. I think that's very, very clear. There's no other source of justice. I'd like to take a minute to talk about some of the social justice personalities and some of the buzzwords.

I'm going to go over this so fast it's, who knows if it's even unwise to do this. But I wanted us to at least hear some of the personalities and the nomenclature that is being used to promote injustice in the world that we live in. Our modern understandings of social justice sprang from personalities who had philosophical and political positions and they came from the souls of Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong and the People's Republic of China just celebrating the 70th year of the existence of that corrupt state the Frankfort's the Frankfurt School the cultural Marxists like Antonin Gramsci the feminists like Kimberly Crenshaw and all other first second and third-wave feminists the social gospel theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch and James Cohn. These are the personalities That have laid the groundwork for the modern social justice movement. They were they were unbelievers.

They were Most of them were atheists and now you have even churches embracing their propositions Some of the buzzwords of the social justice movement, you've heard some of them over the months in this study. Critical race theory, wokeness, queer theory, feminism, privilege, invisible knapsacks, cultural Marxism, identity politics, corrective injustice, marginalized groups, systemic white privilege, sexism, stereotyping, discrimination, patriarchy, intersectionality, gender pay gap, equality, exclusion, inclusive, homophobia, microaggression, oppression, shaming, stereotype, pride, misogyny, intersectionality, bigotry, gender identity, gender equality, ableism, dominant culture, domestic partner. This is why it's critical that we understand when we use the term social justice we ought to be using it as a negative term because of what the term actually means and it's a philosophy that's contrary to Christianity it's anti-justice it's anti-gospel and so these social justice movements arose out of these propositions. And it's easy to see it actually, you know, social justice as it's being proclaimed today demands equality of outcomes when in contrast to that, God in His sovereignty did not and never will deliver equal outcomes to people. He never has and he never will It argues against gender roles.

It blurs the lines of manhood and womanhood it defeats creation order gender categories and wipes out male and female It contradicts the sexual moral code of the Bible, and it normalizes what God calls abominations. It violates thou shalt not murder in the killing of the unborn. It violates, Thou shalt not steal and Thou shalt not covet by stealing wealth from one person and giving it to another. It just promotes almost every unbiblical ideology in terms of social structure. So these are some of the contrasts.

Now let's talk about some of the contrasts here of social justice. Biblical justice requires restitution, not reparations biblical justice requires equal opportunity not equal outcomes biblical justice calls for one people a diverse people united by creation not divided by what people call race. Biblical justice establishes gender roles, not gender blurring. Biblical justice calls for biblical sexuality, not perversion. Biblical justice calls for the right to life, not abortion.

Biblical justice calls for the protection of personhood, not euthanasia. Biblical justice calls for the general equity of the law, not the law of man. So when you think about this matter of social justice, you have to decide which moral code you'll use. Which law code will you use? Will you use the law code of Karl Marx and James Cohn and the feminists?

Is that the law code that you're going to draw from? But you have to establish a standard. And What is the standard of justice so that the scales actually deliver you justice? So I'll begin by reading a statement from the social justice statement that was written last year in the section God's law here's how the authors described it Here's how the authors described what standard of justice ought to be upheld we affirmed that God's law as summarized in the Ten Commandments more succinctly summarized in the two great commandments and manifested in Jesus Christ, is the only standard of unchanging righteousness. Violation of that law is what constitutes sin." And then the authors write the denial after the affirmation, We deny that any obligation that does not arise from God's commandments Can be legitimately imposed on Christians as a prescription for righteous living We further deny the legitimacy of any charge of sin or to call to repentance that does not arise from a violation of God's commandments.

And of course, there are several passages of Scripture. And what this statement makes clear is that the Word of God is the only standard. By what standard? And Christians embrace one single standard. In some ways, Christianity is very simple.

There is one Savior. He is Jesus Christ. And there's one authority, and that's the Word of God. So that's really the heart of it. Now I want to just give some illustrations and really spend most of the rest of the time working through some illustrations.

Yeah, many years ago I preached through the book of Deuteronomy, and it became very clear how many of the case laws in Deuteronomy were directly applied in U.S. Civil law. The reason is that the framers of our Constitution and those who have been involved in legal theory from the beginning, they drew from the Bible. And so you still find vestiges of biblical law, even in our current laws. And I'll just give you some examples.

The people that say we shouldn't use the law of God need to think a little clearer about it because most of our laws are based on it. For example, the Eighth Commandment, thou shalt not steal. You know, in America you get in big trouble if you steal. The Patent Office has established copyright laws. And there are, there is this category of stealing someone's identity or stealing someone's ideas or stealing someone's goods.

This comes from the Ten Commandments. Let's talk about treating of strangers and aliens and employees. You know, illegal immigrants are protected by virtually every law that protects the American worker. Deuteronomy 24-14, you shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. Even the choosing of the highest ranking officer in the land, the President of the United States, has its roots in biblical law.

In Deuteronomy 17, 15, we read this, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren. That's critical. One from among your brethren you shall set over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother." So according to the U.S. Constitution, no person except a natural born citizen, and I'm quoting from the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president.

We have that principle in our Constitution because the Bible stated it. There are what people call castle laws, breaking and entering, and you can see that the basis of the castle doctrine, which was a principle of English common law. Exodus 22 verses 2 and 3. You know, those of you who have firearms are very concerned about where and when you shoot somebody who's on your property or in your house. We'll read this.

Exodus 22, 2 and 3. If the thief is found breaking in and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. In other words, it matters whether the thief is breaking in or not. He has to break in, and we derive various principles of law from that.

Let's talk about cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment has a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, and it places a limit on the severity of various punishments. Deuteronomy 25.3, 40 blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows. Above these, your brother be humiliated in your sight." He's talking about someone who is receiving just punishment, and the one who's doing the punishing is out of control, And he beats him far beyond what he ought have done And so there's a limit to in order to limit passion If you're angry with someone you may go far beyond the limit a parent every parent knows this temptation. So You know, you might be recoil and saying well boy that sounds so unjust to give 40 blows.

That's so bad. Well, that's biblical law. You know, is U.S. Law better to lock up a man in a cage like an animal? Wouldn't it be better to just have him give restitution and take some punishment and go and get back and, you know, and be a real-life citizen?

No. We lock...we say it's justice to lock a man in a cage. We've departed from biblical law. I'm not here to argue against prisons. I'm just saying it's very different.

Biblical justice is different, and it's better. Let's talk about weights and measures. You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, and honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt." You know, you can go downtown Raleigh and you'll find the North Carolina weights and measures office and their seal is found on every gas pump and Their work is to ensure that when you pay for a gallon you get a gallon when you pay for a pound you get a pound and if they walk into your business and find out that your weights and measures are wrong then you're going to be busted but that comes from biblical law I just want to I just want to illustrate the fact that biblical law is good law.

It came from God. If we want to say, well, this law is not really just, we have to recognize God is the one who wrote this law, and is it for us to try to criticize that? I think the problem comes because we have, we've grown up in a world without justice, and so our consciences are tweaked, and we don't know justice when we see it. Let's talk about proportionality. There are various levels of proportional punishments in Leviticus 24 verses 17 through 21.

You have various, you have a man who is killed or an animal who is killed. If there is disfigurement to a neighbor, you know, what do you do? And he...Moses is establishing proportionality, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has caused disfigurement." He's talking about the punishment should fit the crime. That's the idea that he's saying. The idea isn't go gouge out an eye.

The idea is that the punishment must be consistent with the severity of the crime. All crimes are not of the same severity. That runs throughout biblical law. In Exodus 21, it's just full of cases that require legal action and various levels of restitution. You know, if you killed someone accidentally, there's a different punishment than if you lie, would lie and wait and had ought against your brother and you intentionally killed him.

There is this…there are various levels of punishment. You have the cities of refuge which were meant to protect people who unwittingly killed someone, either with an axe head or something that happened at work or something like that. Deuteronomy 19 is a remarkable case study. It deals with so many different issues in terms of establishing guilt. And There's the protection of the person for unintentional sins Because innocent blood was shed you have protection of property, You know preserving the ancient landmarks you have protection of your reputation through witnesses you have laws regarding murder and particularly intentional and unintentional death and You know these are these are real matters just recently a woman in America drove was driving home from work, pulled into her apartment complex, pulled into the wrong floor.

One floor looked like the other. Went in, her door was cracked open and it scared her. She was a police officer, a former police officer in Dallas. And she saw a figure coming toward her and she shot him. She was in the wrong apartment.

And she was just convicted of murder. Not manslaughter, even though it was unintentional. She didn't go in there to kill him. Was justice done? Well, I don't know that much about the case, but here's the deal.

God says there's a difference between intentionally killing someone and killing them on accident, so There are many in there many aspects of this. Let's talk about failures of justice that are explained in the Bible. Keeping a false balance, Proverbs 11.1. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord. Let's talk about partiality.

You shall not pervert justice. This is Deuteronomy 16 verse 19. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land." Another matter of injustice is following the multitude.

Exodus 23 says, do not follow the multitude in matters of justice. Jesus talked about prioritizing tradition over truth, setting aside the law of God for the sake of your tradition. These are all matters of the sufficiency of Scripture. Is Scripture sufficient? Is there a general equity of every law of God to teach us something about the character of God, the heart of God, and how we ought to think about various infractions and various punishments?

There's much that we can say about all these things, but the critical thing to say is that God has ordained a system of justice in the Word of God. And when we're trying to decide what to do about something, we ought to go to the Word of God. God is a God of truth and is without injustice. Righteous and upright is He. God's truth is the standard.

So, you know, we're answering the question by what standard, and the answer is that the Word of God is sufficient. Now, Christians should not look to conservatism, they shouldn't look to liberalism, they shouldn't look to the left, they shouldn't look to the right, They certainly shouldn't look to the Marxists and the feminists we look to God and his word and in in in many ways many ways the modern social justice movement is based on a completely different view of God. Our view of God is that He's sovereign and that He is good and that he's given us his word. The social justice philosophies of the world have a completely different source of authority. And our authority is the word of God alone.

And the truth is, when justice is delegated to the philosophers and the educators and the state, it really just becomes man's justice. The social justice movement is nothing more than autonomous man doing whatever he wants to do without the government of God. This is autonomy. And the philosophical heritage that really has governed the entire public school system and almost everything around us was founded on philosophers like Rousseau and their successors in politicians like Karl Marx and Mao Zedong and psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud and theologians like Rauschenbusch and James Cohn. And they really created a utopian dream that somehow man could create a utopia.

Man could create something absolutely better than God. And you know, the reason, you know, decades ago we heard John Lennon make up a song called Imagine. Imagine There's No God is because of these movements. He was a child of those movements, and those movements have really taken a grip on society as we know it today. But when you embrace the sovereignty of man, you embrace injustice.

Man-made utopias always lead to injustice. And this utopia of social justice has now been the reason we've murdered hundreds of millions of babies around the world. It's why we are killing old people, because they're just no good for society anymore. And we feel like it's just to inject chemicals, you know, into the old, or inject chemicals into the young to make them attempt a failed attempt to change their genders. This is the fruit of the social justice movement.

Every man does what's right in his own eyes. It's the book of judges all over again. It's the French Revolution all over again. It's the culture of autonomy. Very interesting.

You know, many today, many Christians today are pointing back to George Orwell's world of justice in his book, 1984. How many of you ever read that book, 1984? You know, it's a future controlled by the elites and the government's ministries of love and peace, ministry of plenty, ministry of truth. But in Orwell's picture, the ministry of peace is really the ministry of war, and the ministry of Truth is really the ministry of lies. The ministry of love is really torture and suffering.

And that's what the modern social justice movement has for us. And so it's for us to think like Christians, to think biblically about everything, and use the Word of God as our ultimate test. By what standard? The Word of God and the Word of God alone. So that's the way to justice.

Thank God we've been given a litmus test to test everything by. I'm so grateful for that. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you that you have been so kind to give us truth. We thank you for the spirit of truth.

We thank you that you are the way, the truth, and the life. We thank you that you, Father, are a God of truth and without injustice. Pray, Lord, that we would build communities of justice in our homes, that our children would grow up knowing what justice looks like, and we pray that you would also help us to grow a community in a local church, in this local church, where the only measure of justice is your holy word. Amen.