Resolving Conflicts

An expository sermon from Deuteronomy 17:8-13 on Moses' protocol for resolving conflicts among the people of God.

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17 is where we find ourselves again tonight. Last week we began this chapter looking at verses 1 through 7. And there's three distinct portions in this chapter addressing three different subjects. Verses 1 through 7 had to do with unacceptable worship. Verses 8 through 13 have to do with resolving conflict. And then verses 14 through 20 have to do with the rules for a future king. And so we will be back in Deuteronomy 17 the next time we get together. Next Sunday night, Alan Mahan will be preaching, and so looking forward to that. And I schedule those things in advance. And you know God has a way of working those out. I'm going to have a busy week this week with funerals. And it's a blessing that Alan's already scheduled and committed to preach, and so that helps lighten my load there. But I'm excited to get into God's Word with you tonight, Deuteronomy chapter 17. Let's pick up in verse number eight. We'll read through verse 13. It says, If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates. Then shalt thou arise, get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God should choose. And thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment, and thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place, which the Lord shall choose, shall show thee. And thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee, according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt thou shalt do. Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee to the right hand or to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that stands to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die. And thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously. Let's pray. Dear Lord, once again we just want to take the time to come to your throne before we approach your word and to ask you, Lord, to open our hearts, our minds, our ears, our eyes. Help us, Lord, to be attentive to your word this evening. And may we not just be hearers of your word, but may your word assimilate into our hearts and minds so that we are doers of your word and we live it out. Father, I do pray and ask that you would help me to be faithful in my exposition of your word, rightly dividing the truth. And Father, may we make a right application this evening in our New Testament dispensation. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. In this portion of the chapter, Moses is equipping the saints for their future in the promised land, right? Everything that's happening here in Deuteronomy is future-focused. And so Moses is trying to equip them for life in the Promised Land, for a successful life in the Promised Land. And so in these verses, he gives them a protocol for resolving conflicts. I don't know if you've picked up on this or not, but anytime you get more than one person together, you have the potential for conflict, right? And uh and the greater the number of people, the greater the likelihood of conflicts. And so if you're trying to do something in a group, in a community, in an organization, and you get people together, there's potential for conflict. The more people you have, the more potential you have for conflict. And uh Moses, by the way, has already seen his fair share of conflict with these people, has he not? And uh you look back, read back over the history, and he has seen conflict, not just among themselves, but with him. And uh he knows that it's not going to magically stop when they enter into the promised land. He he's not, he's a realist, he's not an idealist in this sense. He doesn't imagine, oh, when the scenario is right and we're in the promised land, and we're not camping out in tents anymore, and we're not having to go out and gather the manna, but we can harvest our fruit. All the conflicts will cease. No, he knows their human nature, he knows their sin nature, and he knows that it's going to continue. If anything, there's going to be an increase because now you're going to have uh property ownership issues, right? Well, you let your ox graze on my field, or you built your fence on my side of the line, then you're going to have also the more increase in trading goods and services. So once you're in that land and you're building and owning houses and you're growing crops, well, you're going to have the marketplace, you're going to have tradesmen, you're going to have that. Again, it increases your possibility for conflicts. In addition to that, the people are going to multiply. I mean, they're going to be in a space where they can have borders, where they can put down roots, where they can sustain their families, and so they are going to multiply, and so more people, more issues, more potential for conflict. And Moses knows what all good leaders know, and that is that not all threats come from without. But there are also some threats that come from within. And this issue of conflict is one of those internal threats, but it is just as much an existential crisis or has the potential for that, to exterminate them, if you will, as much as any outside enemy. Those internal threats are just as serious to a nation or to a group as an enemy is. Could you reduce those taxes that your father put on us? And if you remember, Rehboam went to the old counselors, and the old counselors said, Listen, if you'll do that thing, they'll love you, and you'll have the people's hearts. And then he brought in some young counselors, and they said, Ah, it's they're challenging your authority. And if you show any weakness in this matter, man, you'll you'll lose your power and influence. And so Rehoboam comes back and he says, Listen, I'm not going to lighten the taxes one bit. As a matter of fact, I might raise them again on you. And in that moment, in 1 Kings chapter 12, the nation of Israel splits. And it tells us that those northern tribes succeeded and became their own nation, and that just the tribe of Judah and Benjamin were left in the south. And that, in many ways, was the rift, the fracture, that is the beginning of the end for Israel. So I would say to you, yes, conflict, internal conflict, is a serious threat to the nation of Israel. And wise old Moses knew that conflicts were inevitable. And he knew that they were inevitable due to the sin nature of the people. And therefore, he issues this protocol for resolving conflicts in order to preserve the unity among God's people. You know, as I was thinking about that, it reminded me of the inventors of the combustion engine. I'm kind of a gearhead. I like working on cars and I like how things work. And if you know anything about a combustion engine, there's moving parts and metal on metal creates friction. Friction creates heat, and then that heat will cause those parts to break down. And so the inventors of the combustion engine figured that out. And their solution was to create an oiling system, to have a reservoir of oil, an oil pump that would pump that oil up through channels in the engines that would get oil to all those moving parts to keep the friction down, to keep the engine from blowing itself up. And here in verses 8 through 13, Moses gives a process for resolving conflict, knowing that there's going to be friction. That's just how the engine works. That's just how life works. That's just how a nation is going to work. There is going to be friction, but there has to be a process that resolves the conflicts before they blow it up. And so, just looking at those verses, we first find there is this one-on-one aspect of resolving conflict. Verse number eight says, if there's a matter that arises, it's too hard for you. And then it says this, blood against blood. And so it's saying, hey, family member against family member, plea against plea, right? One person has a complaint, the other one has a complaint. Stroke against stroke. Oh, it came to blows, right? And they were throwing punches. And everything about that phraseology tells us this is one-on-one. This is one person to another person who has a conflict. And the implication is that the conflict has arisen between two people, but those two people were not able to work it out among themselves. And so it comes to a judge. And so that first level in conflict resolution is always to get those two parties together and see if they can work it out. But if it doesn't get resolved at that level, next there is third party involvement. In verse number nine, it tells us that they are to come before the priests and before the judges. And in this scenario that's given by Moses, when two people cannot resolve the conflict, they bring it to an unbiased or a designated judge. A third party that they bring it to who's not leaning toward one side or the other, that they can present their case to. It is the idea that they listen to both sides, both pleas, both uh arguments. They do make a judgment or a sentence, but it is based on the law of God that applies to that situation. The judge is not a busybody. The judge is not simply going around and inserting himself into other people's matters. That's not what's going on here. But he is recognized by both parties as being unbiased, and so they come to him. He is the one who is going to be the third party. What we know about these judges is that they were men who had the same spirit as Moses. Do you remember when Moses was overwhelmed with leadership and God told him, Look you out, get you 70 men and appoint them as judges, and I will put the same spirit that I've put on you, I will put on them. And so these judges here, we know, would have been men who had the same Spirit of God as Moses. Not only did they have the same Spirit of God, but they would have been well versed in the law. That was a requirement of that. They had to know the law, they had to be familiar with the law, they had to be intimate with the law so that they could judge according to the law, and that they could make those judgments in accordance with it. And so these judges aren't just any Joe off the street. They are respected, and they are ones who are serving that purpose under the authority of God. The next step in this process that's outlined in verses 10 and 11 is that they are to respect the resolution. What that judge says, that sentence that is given, it says, you're supposed to do it. You're supposed to observe it. You're not supposed to turn to the right hand or to the left hand. You are supposed to respect the resolution. That's another important part of this process that both parties, both parties were supposed to respect the ruling that was made by the judge. If they came to the judge and they knew the judge to be an unabiased man of God who does his due diligence to follow the word of God, then they should have respect for his judgment. That's the idea there. We know that you're a man of God, you've got the Spirit of God, you are judging from the law of God, and we come together with a conflict and you give us a resolution, we respect that resolution, we agree to that resolution so that we can resolve the conflict and move forward. And by the way, if they do, it is resolved. But if one of them does not, then there was a final step. And that final step is that they were to remove the unrepentant offender. Here's a conflict between two people. They weren't able to work it out. They go to the proper person through the proper channels, and he gives them the ruling, the resolution, the sentence. One of them doesn't like the way it came down. They refuse to resolve the conflict. They're going to keep it going. The final step is remove the unrepentant offender in verses 12 and 13. Now, in the Old Testament, in Israel, removing the unrepentant offender actually meant the death sentence. The death sentence. They were actually to be executed if they didn't respect and obey that ruling. The purpose, why is there such a harsh pur? I mean, why would God take it to that level that if they want to resolve the conflict, that the one who is unwilling, unbending to heed the counsel of the judge would actually be executed. Well, the purpose was to bring the conflict to an end one way or another. The conflict is so dangerous, that internal conflict is so deadly that it has to come to an end through one way or the other. Verse 12 describes it with these words, which I thought was interesting: putting away the evil from Israel. Putting away the evil from Israel. So the one who is unwilling to accept the word of God on this matter was a person that needed to be removed from the population to take the evil away from Israel, which reminds us of the threat level of an unresolved conflict among the people of God. You know, many people don't think that an unresolved conflict is that big of a deal. They live with grudges, they live with hard feelings, they uh live with that animus. But according to God's economy, it's a big deal to let a conflict go unresolved. It can have some devastating consequences. Well, that's the Old Testament ruling. I'm so thankful we're not under the Old Testament that uh, you know, you get two people in a bicker in a church and they won't resolve it. I'm so thankful that we don't have the burden to have to take them out and stone with them, aren't you? I mean, that that would be a very difficult responsibility. But that was part of the self-governance that God gave to Israel. They they had to enforce the policy. But interestingly, Jesus does give us a process for resolving conflict in the New Testament, which is very similar to the one here in Deuteronomy 17. You're probably familiar with it. It's in Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 17. I'll read it to you. It says, Moreover, if your brother shall trespass against you, offend you, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. There's the one on one. If he shall hear thee, you have gained your brother, but if he will not hear thee, then take with you one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. Final step, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. You notice those similarities with Deuteronomy 17, one-on-one, third party, respect the resolution, or remove the unrepentant offender from the people of God. I did find that it is noteworthy that immediately following these verses in Matthew 18, you have that situation where Peter comes to Jesus and says, How often, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven? To which Jesus says, No. Seventy times seven. And I find that interesting that that lesson on forgiveness follows hard on the heels of his protocol for conflict resolution, and it serves to remind us that part of true conflict resolution is forgiveness. That that is the goal. That's the goal. The goal was never to execute the offender, the goal was to reconcile the parties who had the conflict. And what we find is that forgiveness is necessary because unforgiveness is like an infection in a wound. It will not heal properly if that wound gets an infection. And not only will it not heal properly, but it can actually become threatening to the body if that infection becomes toxic and sepsis sets in. And I can't help but think about how conflict in unresolved can threaten the health of the body of Christ. All of the analogies that's used in the New Testament for what the church is, the most predominant one is that the church is the body of Christ, not a civic organization, not a synagogue, not a seminary, but the body of Christ. We're members one of another. And I think that there's a lesson in that because the body can become diseased, the body can become injured, the body can be handicapped. And unresolved conflict in the church can actually be like an infection in the body of Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote specifically about the dangers of unforgiveness to the Corinthian church. If you remember, the Corinthian church was quite a fractured church. They had really drawn their lines among the personalities of the leading teachers of that day. Remember, some said, well, we're of Paul. We follow Paul's teaching. And others said, well, we follow Peter's teaching. And some said, well, Apollos is our representative. And then the very pious ones said, Well, we don't follow anybody but Jesus. And at the heart of the matter was division in the church. And because of that, there was infighting going on in that church. And there had been conflict that had happened. And so Paul, when he writes to them, when he writes to them, he says, But if any have caused grief, he has not grieved me, but in part, that I might not overcharge you all. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment which was inflicted of many. So that contrary wise, Paul says, you ought to forgive him and comfort him. Why should we forgive him and comfort him, Paul? You don't know what he said about you, man. You don't know the trouble that he caused in our church. Why should we forgive him? And Paul says, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. There's a danger to the person who is not forgiven. If you have offended, if you've been in a conflict and you were the wrong party and you are not forgiven, that can lead to some serious depression. That's the idea here, that they're swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. They're overwhelmed. They can't take the fact that their friends, their fellow members in the body of Christ will not forgive them and bring reconciliation. But he goes on and he says, Paul continues to write, wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him. So forgive him, comfort him, confirm your love to him, to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also, for if I forgave anything to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ. Now listen, what he says is the other danger, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. So the other danger of unresolved conflict and unforgiveness in the body of Christ is that the person who refuses to forgive can fall prey to the manipulation of Satan. That Satan can have a heyday in their hardened heart and take advantage of them. You see, unresolved conflict and unforgiveness are just as dangerous to the church as it was to Israel. Sadly, I would imagine that most everybody in this room knows of some church that once was a healthy, happy, Jesus serving light in their community. And then they fractured. And usually, when you dig into it, they didn't divide over Calvinism and Armenianism, they didn't divide over doctrinal issues, they divided over some internal conflict. Some people got sideways with each other. There was a decision to be made by the church, and there were different people who had different opinions of what should be done, and it wasn't resolved, and the church lost its influence because it was fractured so badly. The reality is we'll not be able to avoid all conflicts with our brothers and sisters. Just like Moses knew. Hey, going in the promised land is not a utopia. It doesn't erase your sin nature. You're going to have conflicts. And getting saved, by the way, it doesn't mean that you're never going to have any conflicts with other saved people. If we try to do life together, there will be some conflicts. But we do have a way to resolve them. We have a process given to us by our Lord Himself that tells us that when we have a conflict, we can resolve that conflict so that Satan doesn't get advantage over us, so that we don't get swallowed up in overmuch sorrow. And we must use these tools when conflict arises in order to preserve the unity of the church. Paul wrote this to the Ephesian church in chapter 4. He said, endeavoring to keep the unity in the Spirit, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Endeavoring to keep the unity. He didn't just say, keep the unity as if it's an easy thing. We have to endeavor to do it. It is an endeavor to keep unity. It requires effort on our part. It requires that we give each other grace. It requires that we don't take offense at every little thing that somebody else does. It requires that we allow people to have different opinions about things in the decisions of the church without us blowing it up and turning it into some enormous issue. But make no mistake about it, it requires effort. We have to endeavor. And when there is a conflict, we also have to endeavor to resolve that conflict if we're going to preserve the unity of the church. If we're going to see the bigger picture and say, man, this is way bigger than what my opinions are. This is way bigger than what my feelings are. This is about the body of Christ. This is about the witness of the gospel in this place. I'm going to put the work in to try to keep the unity in the body of Christ. And when we do, when we make that effort, when we commit ourselves to live in harmony and unity together to resolve conflicts when they arise, then we will experience what the psalmist described in Psalm 133. I'm going to read the whole Psalm to you. You ready for this? Three verses. Psalm 133. It says, Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. What's it like? It's like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. What else is it like? Well, it's like the dew on Mount Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commandeth the blessing, even life forevermore. Let me explain these metaphors that the psalmist employed and will be done. First, the psalmist says that unity among the brethren is like the holy anointing oil on the people of God. You see, there were those who were anointed in the Old Testament. The priest was one of those offices that was anointed, the high priest. And the anointing oil was poured on the head so abundantly that it ran down. And it is a picture, if you will, of the power of God on that man. That is God's man for that office, the chief mediator in the Old Testament, the high priest, because he has been anointed by God. And when there's unity on a church, it's like an anointing from God. There is an indescribable, undefinable power that is on a church that is united. And you may not be able to put your finger on that, but I guarantee you you can put your finger on the church that's divided and the lack of power they have to bring people to Christ, to see people, get saved, and baptized and discipled and to follow Jesus. And so that first metaphor is that unity is like the holy anointing oil on the high priest. And then he said unity is like the dew on Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon, and any time, here's a Bible study tip for you. When the Bible mentions a geographical location, you ought to Google that and read about it. Because a lot of times there is something about the geographical location that really helps us understand why it is cited. So why would the psalmist say that it's like the dew on Mount Hermon? Well, Mount Hermon is the highest elevation in Israel. It stands at its summit at over 9,000 feet. The mountain forms one of the greatest geographic resources in the area. Because of its height, it captures a great deal of precipitation in a very dry area of the world. As a matter of fact, the springs and the creeks and the streams that flow off of Mount Hermon actually come together to make the headwaters of the Jordan River. And if you look at a map of Israel, you will discover that there is one main artery that runs all the way from the north to the south, and it is the Jordan River. That in a very arid and dry place, it is the main source of water being conduited down to the southern regions. And the psalmist says, that's what it's like when we have unity. That's what it's like when we have unity. It is refreshing. Isn't it refreshing? Any of y'all ever been in a church that went through conflict? Anybody? Like you can raise your hand, even if it was this church at some point. Not refreshing, is it? It's draining. What I found going to a church that was in conflict was like it was the most draining thing because that was supposed to be my source of life. That was supposed to be my sanctuary. That was supposed to be my solace. And instead of getting that, what I'm getting is this draining effect. I mean, there ain't no trouble like church trouble. But when a church has unity, it's refreshing. It's refreshing. You may not have the biggest crowds, you may not have the best of everything, you may not be seeing people saved every single week, but you walk in there and it is refreshing. Not only is it refreshing, but this unity is life-giving. There's no life in the desert without water. And the waters that came out of Mount Hermon gave life to the regions to the south of it. Unity, the psalmist is saying, among the people of God is life giving. It breathes life into us, it gives us vitality, but it also contributes to our spiritual fruit production. You see, in the low lands south of Mount Hermon is a historic area of orchards and vineyards. Because the water that came down was conducive to fruit production. Well, you can't read the New Testament without reading that you and I are supposed to produce fruit. We're supposed to produce fruit. We're fruit producers. That's what we're supposed to be. We're the branches. He is the vine. And we are supposed to produce fruit. And unity contributes to our spiritual fruit production. When we can dwell together in unity, when we can resolve those conflicts that arise, we're going to be more fruitful for the kingdom of God than if we didn't. And so I would just simply close tonight by saying we need to know how to resolve conflicts so we can preserve the unity of our church. We need to be committed to it. We need to be willing to take those steps. Somebody offends you, somebody says something to you that's offhanded. Don't go home and call somebody else and say, Would you believe what Alan said to me? Go call the person or meet them in person and say, hey, you said this and I took it this way or it made me feel this way, and resolve it there. And if you can't do it there, then call in somebody that you trust, that you believe is a man or a woman of God, has the Spirit of God in them, is a student of the Word of God who's not going to take a side, but is going to hear you and say, hey, here's what the Bible says. And if you can't get to it from there, we can convene a church council and we can impanel people to hear that dispute and say, I don't know if I want to go through all of that. Well, Jesus said that's what it's worth to resolve the conflict and to keep the unity. And I'll tell you, church, there is a final step that if people won't be resolved, there is a time when some people need to be asked to leave the church. And I know that is so antithetical to our church and growth mentality today. You can't ask anybody to leave a church. Let me tell you something. Sometimes you add a lot more by subtraction than you do by addition. We don't need everybody in this place. We need the people who are going to keep Jesus first and not bring all their drama up in here. And so as a church, we just need to say, hey, we respect God's word. We're going to follow God's Word. We're going to do our best to keep the unity because we want to be the brightest light that we can possibly be until Jesus comes back. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you.