TZEDEK Who God was Before He was Agape? Part 2

Two weeks ago, we began following the evolutionary trail of the word agape in a sermon from literal invisibility in classical Greek to a word which described God himself in 1 John 4-8 when John wrote, quote, God is agape, God is love. But who was God before then was the question that we posed and said that we would answer in this sermon. How did the patriarchs see God? Patriarchs who spoke Hebrew. How did God describe himself to them in their language? Let's explore. And keep in mind as we're exploring the question of who was God to them, that running as a theme through all of that is the fact that you and I have as our goal, our ambition, our desire, and our destination to become like God. And so all through our converted lives, the real question is, how do I imitate God? How do I imitate Christ? How do I imitate, you know, Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Christ, for all intents and purposes, though he didn't put it in the same words, had exactly the same message. When he said to one of his disciples, show us the Father, he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I act like, I think like, I am like my Father. And so, though the question is, who was God before Agape? All through that question is the thread of what does it tell us about how to live? What does it tell us about our walk? What does it tell us about those things that are important to us? I'd like to begin, and of course we ended the sermon by saying to the Hebrew speakers of the Old Testament, over a period of almost a couple of millennia, God was Sadech. He was Yahweh, but in terms of his character, his quality, his essence, what was he like? The word Sadech described God. Before we launch and do a deep dive into that, there's an overarching principle that will guide us in our understanding of the term. Years ago, and I ran across a letter this last week that I had forgotten the circumstances, but it was a letter that Mr. Armstrong had written to someone, and in it he described how he came to that place that I think many of us know very well, where he summarized all of life as a choice between the way of give and the way of get. And in the letter that he was writing to someone, he said, as he began to visit world leaders, seeing a need to simplify the message of God to a carnal world and to carnally-minded men, the essence came down to life is all about one of two things. It's either we are getters or we are givers. It is a way of life that is centered around getting and acquiring, or it's centered around giving and sharing. It was as simple as that. This was his message to prime ministers, to world leaders, to kings, from China and their leaders to Europe and their leaders.

Simple message of the choices between that of a way of give, a way of get. You know, God sees life choices in the same fashion. God says literally, people, it isn't that complicated. Back in Deuteronomy 4, and we're going to look at the beginning and the end of Deuteronomy, as Deuteronomy begins, the children of the children of Israel preparing to go into the Promised Land are given a refresher course on what their parents went through. They're reminded of the covenant. They are given the Ten Commandments again. They walk through all the things that their parents walked through, but they did it 40 years later. And there are portions that are so well known that I don't even need to read them. Deuteronomy chapter 4, for instance, starts with a statement, I'm giving you my covenant. I'm giving you my laws. Don't add anything or take anything from them. I'm giving you a package. Take the package. Don't do deletes. Don't do additions. And he said, I've taught you all of these things because they will give you a lifestyle that is unique in the world. And so he said, beginning in verse 8, therefore be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the peoples who will hear of all these statutes and say, surely this is a great nation. It's a great, wise, understanding people. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon him, and what great nation is there that has such statutes and SEDEC judgments as are in this law which I set before you this day? The word righteous is SEDEC.

He said, that quality, that quality will set my law apart from all the standards of law and practices of all the nations around you in such a fashion that they will look at you and say, wow, I've never seen a people like this. And they recognize it's not the people. Never seen a people like this who have a God that has given them a way that has produced a way of life that is so desirable that I want to come and learn it. That's what God was telling them. So he said, all of my commandments, all of my statutes, they are SEDEC. Now let's go to the end of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 30.

Deuteronomy 30 is a fascinating book. No, Deuteronomy 30 is a fascinating chapter because the part that we're going to read is bookended between law and law. Literal end-time prophecy, the first nine verses of Deuteronomy 30, and then instruction for the people who were standing there that day being instructed as flesh and blood, breathing children of Israel, and sandwiched between the two, between nine verses of end-time prophecy that basically says, in so many words, I know you're not going to do this, and you're going to pay all the consequences, and later on I'm going to have to give your progeny a new heart and a new mind so that they can do these things. And then he gives them something, and then he goes on to instruct those who are actually standing there. But this is what he said about all of the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments that he had given them in the book of Deuteronomy.

Verse 11, For this commandment which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It's not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it. But the word is very near you, in your mouth, in your heart, that you may do it.

This is how God summed up all of his commandments and laws.

Today what we would say in our vernacular is Israel. It isn't rocket science.

The treasury of scriptural knowledge takes this particular section and puts it very beautifully as it describes this phrase, it is not hidden. And it describes the Hebrew word that is translated, it is not hidden. It said that word implies it is not too mind-boggling, too awesome, to be comprehended or performed, but easily to be acquainted with and understood. It isn't far off. It was proclaimed in your ears from Mount Sinai. It's not in heaven, for it has been already revealed. Neither is it beyond the sea that you need to travel for instruction. I can't help but interrupt right now, reflecting back on my young adulthood, when it seemed the Beatles and all of the other psychedelic crew of that time had to go to India and find a guru sitting up on top of some mountain to babble to them and say, oh, I have found wisdom. And God said nonsense. The wisdom is sitting right in your lap. It's clear, it's plain, it's obvious, it's the end of your nose. You can understand every bit of it.

So as the treasury was saying, neither is it beyond the sea that you need to travel for instruction, as the ancient philosophers did, or seek instruction from men at immense labor and expense. But the word is very near you, brought to your very door in your mouth and in your heart, made so familiar and plain.

The beauty of Sadech is that it is so plain and so obvious, it's virtually painful. So what does it mean?

I need to, I need to right up front say to you that unfortunately, English translations and the New King James as the main culprit have muddied the waters royally. The Old King James was a far better translation in terms of coming to understand what Sadech is. The New King James is unfortunately miserable in some places. So I may be using the Hebrew word rather than the English word quite frequently, simply because the New King James in critical places creates mass confusion. Sadech is primarily translated, and I'm referring now to the Old King James, as the word righteous, righteousness, just, and justice. Those four terms are the terms in our Old King James Bible that are translated from the word Sadech. I can tell you if you want to do a deep dive study of this particular subject, the only way really to do it correctly is to use the Strong's numbers. And if you have a tool like e-sword, or if you have a Strong's concordance, it is a phenomenal help in being able to cut through the haze and get down to the core. As we're building a platform, let me simply say that Sadech is like a gape in that it has multiple forms. A gape is a gape, a gapapan, and then there's an adjective form, which I have forgotten. Sadech is the same. Sadech, and I will go through all the technical stuff right now so we get it out of the way and we can sail after we go through this. Sadech, if you're looking at up in Strong's, is number 6-6-6-4. And Sadech describes the thing. Now what are we talking about? Well, the thing that we're talking about is Sadech.

It has two more forms. Sadaqa, which is spelled T-Z-E-D-A-K-A-H.

And that's number 6-6-6-6. And Sadaqa is the doing. As I said to you last sermon, Hebrew is a language of action. Greek is a language, as Paul said, the Greeks look after wisdom. They want to philosophize. They want to sit and ponder and think, the Jews want to see evidence. They look for a sign, something they can grab a hold of. Sadaqa is the doing. This is the action. And the third word is Sadech, T-Z-A-D-E-E-K. And that's number 6-6-6-2. And that's the person. And so if you're talking about somebody who is righteous, someone who is just, you say he is Sadech.

And it's either a noun or an adjective. Now, as we go through it, I'm not going to mutt it any further than just simply using the word Sadech, even though in a deeper study you may see that in that verse it's talking Sadaqa or Sadech. But as I said, we don't need to make it any more complicated than it already is.

I've said before in messages that righteous and righteousness are fluffy religious words that I think in many people's minds just click the brain off. They're big, lofty-sounding spiritual terms that nobody uses but the Bible or preachers. And so to make them practical, because they are very practical, all righteousness and righteousness means is being right. Take all the us's and the us's-ness's off the end of it and just bring it down to what it is. It means right. You're either right or you're wrong. It's just like Mr. Armstrong's simple formula. You're either a giver or a getter.

In life, you're either right or wrong. And those people who are right are righteous. And those who say, I want to live the way God says is right are practicing righteousness. That's all it really is. And so we're not going to put all the us's and so on unless I'm reading to you. But God is simply saying, I want you to live right. I said righteous and righteousness, just and justice are the four predominant terms that you'll see in your Bible that if you went beneath the surface into Hebrew, what you would see is tzedek.

Right and righteousness is how you look at life and how you conduct yourself. When you look at God saying, this is how I want you to walk, and you say, okay, Father, that's how I want to walk. We're in the world of right. When we move to the words just and justice, these deal with being right in your actions toward other people. You know, you can be right and be Robinson Caruso on an island. But just and justice require you to be interacting with someone else and making a decision about how you act and how you deal with and how you treat that other person, the person, their property, their feelings, their possessions.

So they're all speaking of the same thing with a slight nuance. You can be a hermit and be dealing with right. But in a world where you are with other people, when it comes to how you act toward them, then the words just and justice come into play. You know, the simplicity is so obvious in the Ten Commandments, it is painful. These terms, these terms fundamentally deal in a day in and day out basis with our interactions with other human beings.

The Ten Commandments, the second half, simply tell us, don't lie, don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery, and don't sit around agitating about having what somebody else has. Is there anything difficult to understand with those who are in the same place? Is there anything difficult to understand? About having what somebody else has. Is there anything difficult to understand with those commandments? A second grader, a third grader, a fourth grader can understand most of what is being said in the Ten Commandments.

Don't lie. First graders know what that means. Don't steal. They know what that means. Don't murder. They know what that means. Adultery and covetous may be a little above their pay grade, but nonetheless, these are not difficult things. They're not complex. These are God's definition of right. You know what's complex? It's wrestling with inside here when you want to go contrary.

Though what we should do is as plain and simple and straightforward as the nose on the end of your face. The problem with thou shalt not lie is if I answer that person truthfully, I may embarrass myself, and I don't want to embarrass myself. If I answer that person honestly, it may cost me something. The complexity with thou shalt not is when we begin to reason when we're faced with doing what is right at what we don't want to pay as consequence or give up, and that's where the complexity comes in. There's nothing complex about the commandments. The complexity is the human nature that says, I want to go. I feel I need to go. I'm afraid I better go some other way. And so you can see in Deuteronomy 30 why God said what he did about the things that he gave him in Deuteronomy 4. Where do you spend your time in conversation? How much of your conversation revolves around assessing what somebody is doing right or wrong?

If your conversations are in the world of politics, that's all it's about. Just stop and think about it. If your conversation is in the world of politics, that really is all it's about. Who's doing something right and who's doing something wrong? Who's doing something wrong that upsets you because you think they should be doing something right?

In casual conversation among yourselves, not that much so. But in any conversation that gets outside of how's the weather and how's your health and how are things are going on, it doesn't take long. And so God said it's in your mouth. It's running through your mind. It's there all the time. In that context, God says, I'm like my commandments. I am right.

Ever stop to consider that God literally defines right. He says, I cannot sin. If you can't sin, then you define right. You don't have to sort through and say, well, this pile about God, this is right, and this pile about God, that's wrong. God says, look, I don't lie. I don't sin. I don't lie. And then he tells mankind, because I am right, because I do not do wrong, be like me, act like me, learn to think like me. And the closer we get to that, the closer we are to Sadeq, to right, to just.

Now, I need to clear up one additional item. All of this is laying foundation. This is a survey sermon. When we get to Sadeq in the Bible, fasten your seat belts because we're going to sail. It's a huge subject. This is simply a survey to give you the top layer that you can turn around, take your biblical shovel, so to speak, at home, pull out a e-sword or a strong, and you can dig and dig and dig for weeks, and you'll probably still not get to the bottom of the treasure trove. Sadeq is an Old Testament term that deals with individuals. And so when we deal with Sadeq, we deal with the individual. There are two terms that deal with right, powerful terms, and between the two of them, there are in the neighborhood of a thousand occurrences between the two roots. One of them is Sadeq that deals with the individual, and the other is Mishpat. Mishpat is a term that we will see quite often as we go through what we're dealing with. And God says, I'm both of these. I'm both Sadeq and I'm Mishpat. I'm both. You need to understand that Mishpat deals with institutional righteousness. It deals with the body. It deals with the corporate. It deals with those things that have to do with a nation or a body that has laws that should be right laws, that should be rightly written, rightly administered, and rightly adjudicated. That is the world of Mishpat.

Out of the 400 and sometimes that Mishpat has translated in the old King James, there's only one time out of that that it ever moves over into the world of just, or justify, or justice.

All the rest in the old King James, which frankly is far, far more accurate, the word is always judgment. It deals with case law, the creation of those laws that deal with person to person, and the proper handling of that, and the wise and honorable handling of that. That is the world of Mishpat. Unfortunately, our problem, and as I said, we in our own minds, in our society, in our English translations, all serve to add a little mud to the water as we stir. Our problem is when we today talk about justice, and that's a term that's on our lips, and we're talking about justice, we're talking about the government.

And God isn't.

God doesn't look at justice. His word is judgment, as we see it in our Bible. He thinks of our individual conduct. And so whenever you see the word justice, it has to do with me. It has to do with you. It has to do with the individual. Not the body, not the county, not the state, not Washington, not the British Parliament, not the Soviet Politburo. Justice and just are the domain of the individual. I'll give you one illustration. Those of you that have heard Bible studies from a while back, where I went through the Great Commandment of the Law, I gave this same example, but it's a tremendous example that shows you the differentiation. Deuteronomy 24. This is a nice, good, solid place to wrap your mind around the fact that Mishpat has to do with civil law, civil government, and civil justice. And Sadech has to do with how you act as a person. Deuteronomy 24, an Old Testament law about borrowing and lending. Verse 10, When you lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you. And if the man is poor, you shall not keep the pledge overnight. Now, this is civil law. This is repeated multiple times within Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. So this is the law of lending. It's very simple. It's a law that's been in existence probably throughout all of human history. If you want me to loan you something, give me collateral. Okay? I'll give you money. You give me collateral, something to secure your loan. And God said, this is the way the system works. You want to borrow something from me? Give me collateral. And that day and time, your outer coat was one of the most valuable pieces of collateral you personally owned. And so it was simply a matter of, I need money right now. Here's my outer garment. But people in that day and time slept in that outer garment. That was their cover. They didn't have their blankets like you and I do. He said in verse 12, And if the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight. You shall in any case return the pledge to him again, when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his own garment and bless you, and it shall be tzedek to you before the Lord your God.

The law, the mishpat, was here is the mishpat on loans. You want to borrow from me? Give me collateral. God says that's fair. That's right. And it is right. But he said, when that's done, now it gives you an opportunity to be fair-minded. And the beauty of just and justice as God taught it to the individual is the same song you see in the New Testament when you see Christ teaching, Love your neighbor as yourself.

Anybody here like to sleep at night without a blanket? It's got to be a whole lot hotter-blooded than most of us.

Most of us, if you took away our blanket at night, there'd be no sleep in the night. There'd be a lot of tossing and turning, but there wouldn't be a lot of sleep.

And if somebody came and said, here, I've got a nice big down comforter, put this over you, you melt into the bed, and there's nothing but gratitude as you disappear into deep sleep.

God is simply teaching here in the difference between Mishpat and Tzedek, the difference between here. Here is fair in a corporate governmental sense. Here is just and justice as an individual.

That he owes you something, but you owe him mercy and you owe him compassion. The echo of Christ's statements to the Pharisees when he said, regarding tithing, you should have done these things and not omitted the weightier things of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They cover the entirety of the Old Testament. It isn't a New Testament invention. It is a part of who God is, who he has always been, and who he will always be. Now that we have that in place, as I said, now we're going to do a survey. And by survey, I simply mean we're going to go across the top, and by necessity, we'll have to go there fairly quickly. First of all, God is Tzedek. Turn with me to Psalm 89.14.

The 89th Psalm. David says in the 89th Psalm in verse 14, righteousness and justice, here we have Bishpat and Tzedek together, are the foundation of your throne. Nothing in the universe is more stable than its own foundation. And David said, the foundation of your throne, what your throne rests on. If you pick up the throne and look underneath it, what it rests on are the principle of whole bodies of people, nations, living right, and as individuals, individually apart from the nation, individually living right. He said, this teaching is the foundation of your entire throne.

Psalm 97 verse 2 says exactly the same thing. Only eight chapters apart, David again extols God and uses exactly the same term. These things, these two components, are the foundation of your throne. Turn to the 45th psalm.

So we see David recognizing that the throne of God is established upon the foundation stones of right community living and right individual living.

The 45th psalm says in verse 6 and 7, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever a scepter of tzedek, is the scepter of your kingdom.

The scepter is the symbol of rulership, of authority. Here is the symbol that I rule. It is the symbol of how I rule. It is the symbol of how I will rule over the kingdom that is mine. And David says, your scepter that identifies how you rule and what your rules are, your scepter is scepter.

Deuteronomy 32.

As you're turning back to Deuteronomy 32, I'll flash back to last sermon and the literal nature of Hebrew thinking.

When biblical Hebrew says, what is your name?

It's not asking what is your name.

It's asking you to identify your character. It's asking you to identify something about who you are or what you do.

How many people do you interact with in life? And there are in our congregations people that are in this category, whose surname goes back far enough that it identifies the trade from which their ancestor sprang. I see the Frank Smiths.

Blacksmiths. You see people whose last name is Weaver. You understand where they are from. You go on down the line and you look at the number of names. English names that identify a trade that somewhere back in time the family was connected with.

My mother's maternal name is Porter.

Porter, if you go back far enough, is a French term that deals with the person who tended and oversaw the drawbridge and the gate at a castle to determine who came in and who went out. With God, if you ask God what his name is, he can give you a title, and that satisfies an English thinking mind. But it isn't the way he thinks.

Deuteronomy 32, verse 3, "...for I will proclaim the name of the Lord." Then he repeats that again, but with slight variation. I will, that's understood, ascribe greatness to our God. So what is his name? Well, the name is what his character is, what his actions are. He is the rock. His work is perfect. All his ways are tzedek. A God of truth and without injustice, tzedek and upright is he.

Actually, in all those tzedeks, there was a mishpat in there. So, as I said, it's very confusing. But he says this is who God is. God is, first of all, a rock. God is also institutionally right, and he is individually right. There's nothing wrong, injustice, in who he is or what his character is. That's his name. So, yes, we can deal with the name in the sense that we do. YH, VH, YW. Anyway, Yahweh. So you can deal with the name as you see it in Hebrew, the Four Consonants, or you can deal with it from the standpoint of a Hebrew thinker, and that is, tell me what you do, and then I'll know who you are. And that's exactly what Moses is doing here when he says, let me tell you the name of my God.

Jeremiah chapter 9.

Jeremiah chapter 9.

Verse 23.

Thus says the Lord, 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, Mishpat and Tzedek in the earth, for in these I delight. So he says, if you're smart, strong, or rich, just take a deep breath and pull your chest back in, because those don't make you important. What makes you important is whether you understand me.

And here's who I am.

In these one, two, three, four, five verses, Tzedek is central to who God is. He said, first of all, it's the foundation of his throne. Secondly, it's how he governs. Thirdly, Moses said it's part of his name. It is what he loves.

We're all very familiar with 119th Psalm 172nd verse, where it says, all thy commandments are Tzedek. It describes all my laws also.

So, as God said earlier in Deuteronomy, what I want is simple. It's self-evident. It isn't hard to grasp. He said, whether you stop to think about it, you talk about it multiple times during the day, and it runs through your mind multiple times the day. That's what he said back in Deuteronomy, didn't he? Turn to Isaiah 45.

Isaiah 45, verse 18. For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, that means he didn't create it a waste, who formed it to be inhabited, I am the Lord, and there is no other. I've not spoken in secret, in a dark place on the earth. I didn't say to the seed of Jacob, seek me in a waste place. I, the Lord, speak Tzedek. I declare things that are right. So he said through Isaiah the same thing that was said in Deuteronomy.

I don't speak in secret. I'm not out somewhere in the desert that you have to find me in the middle of the Sahara, hopefully. I'm here, I'm plain, I'm obvious, and I declare to you what is right, because I am right. I am Tzedek.

Tzedek defined the great men of the Old Testament who were pivotal characters, who lived in make-or-break situations. All of us are aware, based upon the story in Genesis 6, that our existence depended upon one man by the name of Noah.

And if it weren't for Noah, we wouldn't be here. I have no idea what God's alternative would have been, but you and I wouldn't have been here, because we are all genetically children of Noah. So God may have had an alternative plan. There may have been other people sitting in a place like this, this far, you know, many centuries after Noah. Who knows? But it wouldn't be you and me.

We're here because of one thing, Genesis 6, verse 8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was tzedek, perfect in his generations. He walked with God.

It says the same thing in Genesis 7, verse 1. Twice Noah is described.

That quality, brethren, is responsible for you and me being physically alive today.

Now, once you get past the fact that we're breathing compliments of Noah being tzedek, you and I would probably not be sitting here celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, were it not for the next incident, Genesis 18.

You and I are here in this land with its abundance, compliments of Abraham. And had it not been for Abraham, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. I don't know where I would be. I don't know what continent of the world I would be on. I don't know what level of poverty I would be living in, since there are very few parts of the world that live as well as do the children of Abraham.

But in that famous event where the God of the Old Testament and two accompanying angels went to Abraham's tent on their way to Sodom, after they had spent time with Abraham, they had said their goodbyes, they departed and headed toward Sodom.

Verse 17 says, and the Lord said, as he's walking away toward Sodom, Abraham in the back and Sarah waving goodbye, he says, should I hide from Abraham why I'm here? Where I'm going? What I'm doing? Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I've known him in order that he may command his children in his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord to do tzedek and mishpat.

He said, I know him. I know not only how he will live and how he will teach his children to live, I know how he will teach his children to administer when they become leaders.

And so, as you and I are here on a Thanksgiving weekend, we are celebrating the abundance and the blessings that we have, complements of this man. And like Noah, he is described as tzedek.

2 Samuel chapter 8 sums up the life of a third giant.

1 who will reign as a king or a prince, since he is described as both, in the millennium. All 12 of the apostles will be subordinate to him as he is subordinate to Christ. And while he was on this earth as a human being, the following is said about him.

2 Samuel chapter 8, a summarization of how David ruled.

Verse 15, so David reigned over all Israel, and David administered Mishpat and tzedek to all his people. 3 Samuel chapter 8, he was a good governmental leader.

He was a good individual leader. When you go back and recall how he dealt with the rebellion of Absalon in the mercy, when you look at that classic case of one of Saul's descendants standing and cursing him and throwing rocks at him, and all he needed to do was tell one of his lieutenants to go up there and take his head off. And he said, maybe I deserved it and kept on walking as the man was cursing him and throwing stuff at him. David was a phenomenal example of both forms of right.

I've reflected many times upon the surveys that have come into the Council of Elders, and not just the younger generation, but the younger generation predominating in their desire to have something they can grab ahold of. Don't just tell me about things. Tell me what to do. Tell me how I should do. Tell me what ought to be done. The old prescription versus description. I've given you a lot of description. Let's dive headlong into prescription. Now, you're going to have to go home and fill out the prescription, but I can give you the place where you go to fill it out. The term tzedek is hiding in plain sight throughout a whole slew of familiar scriptures that we use over and over and over again. But as I said earlier, to really find where they're hidden, you need some way to identify whether that Hebrew, whether that English word in your new or old King James is one of those forms of tzedek. And as you read across it, and it says righteous or just or justice or judgment, you know you're in the ballpark, but you won't know precisely where you are. So let's do two things. We'll show where some of the tzedek scriptures are hiding, but they're hiding right in the middle of a pile of prescription. So let's dig out a few of those.

Psalm 15. Psalm 15, the entire chapter is prescription.

We sing the hymn, Who shall dwell on thy holy hill? Lord, who may abide, Psalm 15, in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy here, holy hill? He who walks uprightly and works tzedek and speaks the truth in his heart and does not backbite. And we go down the line looking at verse after verse in this short five verse long, all prescription psalm. If you want to know what tzedek is, read the psalm. Everything in the psalm is describing it, hiding in plain sight. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 2. The proverb of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. Tzedek, Mishpat.

The whole book is to do. The entire book of Proverbs is a to-do book.

One of the great chapters of Ezekiel is the chapter where God said, no longer will you be able to say, the parents have eaten sour grapes and their children's teeth have been set on edge.

Walk through Ezekiel 18. The entire chapter is about tzedek and its opposite. And all of the reasons why are all related.

Last Sabbath, Mr. Sexton walked through Ezekiel 33 and the watchman. Eight times in seven verses, the pivotal element was tzedek.

Read Isaiah 59. It talks about justice has fallen in the street. I looked around and I couldn't find justice anywhere. Isn't talking about government. It's talking about individuals. The famous case of what should I come before the Lord. A thousand offering, a thousand rams, ten thousand rivers of oil. You know what one of the three things was? Tzedek.

Tzedek is hiding in plain sight all throughout some of the most popular, well-known verses in the Old Testament. As I said to you in passing last week, somewhere in the neighborhood of 42 of our hymns, if you took the lyrics which are taken from the Psalms in the Old Testament and you looked up those lyrics in a strong contain tzedek.

What's the end of the story? The end of the story, and I can see that I need to race. The end of the story is profound.

Scripture we see every year at the Feast of Tabernacles, Isaiah 9 verse 7, when Christ sets up His government. The only place where government is mentioned. And it says of His particular government that it will reign forever, and the basis of life in that government is tzedek. He says, I will establish it, I will build it, and I will confirm it.

Turn with me to Isaiah 62.

Isaiah 62.

We covered this last week also. Verses 1 and 2, For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her tzedek goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns. God says, I'm not going to rest until those who return from captivity become the literal city on the hill, until their light shines so brightly that all the nations will then begin to come to my city, just as I wanted them to back in Deuteronomy chapter 4. Jeremiah 31.

We have three more scriptures to wrap it up.

Jeremiah chapter 31.

We saw there in Isaiah that God said, I'm not going to be happy. I'm going to come, and I'm going to establish a government that will rule forever, and it will expand forever, and one of its key elements will be tzedek. And when I come back to this earth and I bring the captives back, I'm not going to be happy until their tzedek shines to the place where the Gentiles will see it and start flooding toward it. Jeremiah 31 and verse 23 says, verse 23, He says, I'm not going to be happy until it's there. This scripture says, there will come that time where people will look at Jerusalem and say, blessed are you the dwelling place of tzedek.

Two chapters later in Jeremiah 33.

Jeremiah 33 and verse 14, He shall execute Mishpat and Tzedek in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely, and this is the name by which she shall be called. And forget what you're seeing in English, because in Hebrew the name will be Yahweh tzedek. It doesn't have the articles and the pronouns. In Hebrew it's simply the city will be named Yahweh tzedek, righteous God. And the last scripture of brethren is Jeremiah 23.

Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse 5, will be called.

So as we come back to the question, who was God before He was a Gopi? He was, He is, and He will be forever tzedek.