Exodus 23:2

Thou shalt not fellow a multitude to do evil.

Following the multitude prohibited

I. Explain the nature of this precept.

1. It is here assumed that the multitude do evil. This may be inferred--

(1) From the review of past ages.

(2) From the cruel persecutions which have been raised against the righteous in various ages of the world.

(3) From the common conduct of mankind. Is not vice more general than virtue?

2. Secondly, the precept in the text supposes that we are in danger of copying the example of the multitude. We may infer this--

(1) From the innate tendencies we have to evil.

(2) From the prevalence of bad example.

3. From a variety of melancholy facts. The multitude who now do evil were not always such adepts in depravity; when they first entered into the broad way their feet were not swift to do evil; they proceeded with hesitating steps, but by practice became hardened in crime.

II. Urge reasons to induce us to observe it. The multitude doing evil should not be imitated, because they are--

1. Unlawful and unconstituted guides.

2. Bad guides.

3. Dishonourable guides.

4. Unprofitable guides.

5. Dangerous guides.

III. Impart advice for the direction of those who wish to escape the ensnaring wiles of the multitude.

1. Get your minds deeply and thoroughly impressed with the awfulness of your situation. Dangers unseen will be unavoided.

2. Seek the regenerating grace of God.

3. Be on your guard against the seductive wiles and insinuating influence of the multitude. Sinners will entice you; but come out from among them; have no communion with the unfruitful works of darkness (Psalms 1:1).

4. Follow the happy few who strive to do good. Show that you are with Christ by being with His people. Oh, say, “This people shall be my people, and their God my God.” Inferences--

(1) That the measures of right and wrong are not to be determined by the majority. Good and evil are fixed immutable principles; and their natures are unchangeable, whether many or few follow them.

(2) What gratitude is due to God for the revelation of His will, which marks the boundaries of right and wrong; and for the gift of His Son to redeem us from this present evil world: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Sketches of Sermons.)

Individual responsibility

There is, I suppose, no doctrine more clearly set forth in Scripture than the doctrine of personal responsibility. There is no doctrine more readily owned, no doctrine more insisted upon by men. Yet I think I can show you that, in its application to a great number of particular cases, you would not only act as though you disbelieved it, but you would unconsciously maintain in words doctrines directly opposed to it. The words which I have just read to you suggest one of the most universally employed modes of denying this universally received doctrine of individual responsibility. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” was said long ago by the Jewish law. I think you will find that the present condition of things, in whatever place or class we are thinking of, grew up from something very small, and that by degrees the sin acquired strength from the power and position, and then from the mere number of its perpetrators, until in time it acquired positive dignity and became correct, or according to the absurd modern phraseology, became “good form,” from the multitude of transgressors. I will begin with the sex which since the creation of the world has almost uniformly carried its point against the opposite sex, and which, nevertheless, is still facetiously called the weaker. They will, I believe, if you ask them, readily own themselves responsible for their use of time and of money. Well, they certainly spend an excessive amount of the latter, money, as I daresay their husbands know, in purchasing; and of the former, time, as everybody knows, in adjusting those ever-changing and most cumbrous absurdities which they pile upon themselves, and with which they surround themselves to the general inconvenience of everybody and everywhere. They do this until I should think they must feel uncomfortable, and I know that they look deformed. Why do they do it? Ask any one, and you will hear it all condemned at once, solemnly, perhaps piously condemned at once, the responsibility being shifted immediately from the individual to fashion, and that is to everybody. What does all that mean? Their conscience is relieved by the multitude whom they follow. Let us go a little further and take another view of the matter. Public bodies, I believe, parliaments, ministries, corporations, town commissioners, Poor Law guardians, boards of all kinds, and committees of all kinds, are known--every one of you knows it as well as I do--to be guilty of neglect of duties and violations of honour of which none of their members singly, in private transactions, would for one moment be capable. Take another set of instances. Look at the recognized dishonesties of different trades and businesses. The man who keeps light weights for selling, and heavy weights for buying, as I once knew a most “pious” man do; the man who adulterates food; the man who puts bad work or bad material where it is not to be detected; the servant who robs his master “in the usual way”; “the workman who to no greater extent than others of his craft plunders his employer”; none of these desire by any means, I fancy, to have their children taught at school that the Eighth Commandment has no meaning. They like to hear it every Sunday. Why? Because they have an unwritten tradition in the craft or trade, by which it is dispensed with. But I am going into more dangerous ground now. In the present day, the multitude has come to be considered something more than an excuser of deviations from strict principles in the ordinary affairs of life. It is beginning to assume the functions of the highest authority on religious matters. To call in question its decision, or refuse submission to its commands, no matter how uninstructed it may be, is coming to be viewed in the light of standing up against an inspired prophet. It does not occur to the thoughtless throng, who will rush anywhere to hear anybody, or to see anything, that when the multitude appears to have taken a “pious” turn it can be wrong to follow it whithersoever it leads. It does not seem to occur to them that when the multitude is longing to take Jesus by force and make Him a king, it may have just as little perception of His mission as when it clamorously demands His crucifixion. No, they are afraid to gainsay what the multitude asserts; they are afraid to do anything but echo its assertions, and thus each one among a multitude perpetuates the delusion of the others as to his real opinion, by being afraid to say it out, and act in conformity with it. This is the very spirit by which multitudes are created, by which they are enabled to assume formidable proportions, to become powerful for evil. The silence of cowardice is regarded as satisfactory consent, and everybody’s echo of what everybody else says is vaunted as the concurrence of numerous independent testimonies. Persons of this kind are the genuine followers of the multitude who are condemned in the text. (J. C. Coghlan, D. D.)

The sin of following the multitude to do evil

I. It implies that the majority or great mass of mankind are uniformly and constantly engaged in doing evil.

II. The prohibition which we are considering implies that every person is naturally disposed to follow a multitude to do evil.

III. The prohibition in the text implies that those are altogether criminal who, follow the evil examples of evil-doers, though they are the great majority of mankind. For--

1. They are free and voluntary in following the examples of those who do evil.

2. Every person acts contrary to his reason and conscience in following a multitude to do evil, which renders him altogether criminal and inexcusable.

Conclusion:

1. If men are apt to follow bad examples, as has been said, then there is reason to think that bad examples are the great source of moral corruption in every part of the world.

2. If men are naturally disposed to follow the multitude to do evil, then the truly godly have much more concern in spreading moral corruption, and obstructing the cause of religion than they are apt to imagine.

3. Since men are naturally disposed to follow the bad examples of the multitude, it is easy to see why a people, declining in religion, are so apt to be insensible of their religious declensions. The minority are blended with the majority, and they are all imperceptibly declining together.

4. If all men are naturally disposed to follow the multitude to do evil, then the rising generation are always in a peculiarly dangerous situation.

5. If it be criminal to follow bad examples, it must be far more criminal to set bad examples.

6. If men are naturally disposed to follow the multitude to do evil, then every one in a state of nature has a great reason to fear that he shall live and die in his present unsanctified and impenitent state. Your belonging to the majority will not help you to turn about, but powerfully tend to hinder you. What will you say when He punishes you? (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Multirude no prevailing argument

The Lord that made us knoweth our mould and how easily we are persuaded to taste of the forbidden fruit, and how prone to be carried headlong to error, and therefore gives us a caveat, and sets a bar and stop in our way, that we run not to evil because we see others run or lead the way before us. And we shall do well by the way to take notice of our own corruption, as the Lord doth, that in the same we may see the necessity of this precept; for first, nature corrupt is as attractive of evil as the adamant naturally draws iron; just as a spark to tinder or gunpowder. Secondly, evil is diffusive of itself, and such an acquaintance there is between it and us, as the plague cannot so easily infect our bodies as sin doth poison and suddenly infect our souls. Thirdly, our nature is social, and not as the brutes; we readily thrust into company, and therefore being naturally enemies to solitariness, we are ready to follow if any one lead us the way; but if many or a multitude (as here) then we run, and for haste never stay to reason the case, neither in what way nor upon what errand. And, therefore, the Lord would have His people to fence themselves with a rule of prudence, that they be not misled by the crooked steps of others and their own perverse inclinations.

1. One reason is in the text: because a multitude may err and run to evil, and may decline to overthrow truth.

2. Multitudes cannot make that to be good which is evil in itself, neither in doctrine nor manners; well they may make an evil worse, but none better.

3. Multitudes cannot keep off the revenge of evil; one evil mate may help his fellow into sin, but cannot help him out of punishment,

4. Multitudes and most men are commonly the worst. The way to hell is broad and the gate wide that leads to destruction, and many go in thereat (Matthew 7:13). “Hell enlargeth itself (Isaiah 5:14).” Tophet is large and wide (Exodus 30:33). And therefore it cannot be the safest way which the most walk in. Contrarily, the fewest are commonly the best; pearls are rare; many hundred false prophets to one poor Micaiah; God’s part in the world was ever but a gleaning and a small remnant; and the apostle (1 John 5:19) pronounceth in the name of believers, “We know we are of God, and the whole world lieth in unrighteousness.”

5. It is better to walk the right way alone than to wander out of the way with company; better go to heaven alone, or with a few, than with multitudes to hell.

Come we now to application of this point.

1. If it be so dangerous to follow a multitude to evil, what a fearful thing it is to lead a multitude to evil! as the magistrate that enacts and commands evil; like Jeroboam that made all Israel to sin. Or the minister that shall be weak as another man by whose example many are corrupted, through loose speeches, unseemly behaviours, libertine courses, fellowship with the abject, opposing the persons and strict courses of such as fear God.

2. See how desperately many men frame their courses while they live as if to do as the most do, were a good and warrantable plea. Because the most are irreligious, without the fear of God, and without conscience: so are they. The most scorn to attend God’s ordinance: so do they. Commit a felony, riot, robbery, or rebellion with a multitude, and try if in thy trial before the judge it will be a good plea to say, “I was led, and followed the multitude.” What then would you have us to do? In matters of faith build upon a surer foundation than upon numbers and multitudes, whom it was never safe to follow; nor was it ever a good argument either of the truth or true Church. In Christ’s time the multitude followed the Scribes and Pharisees, but not Christ nor His apostles; and all the multitude cried, “Crucify Him.” And how uncertain a rule this is the father tells us who observed, that in synods and councils the greater side doth oftentimes overcome the better; and another who saith, that in all Divine cases we must not number voices, but weigh them. What sure ground can be expected from the rude multitude, than which nothing is more fickle and uncertain? But we have a surer word, “Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone” (Ephesians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 3:11). And we say as Hushai to Absolom (2 Samuel 16:18) “Nay, but whom the Lord and this people, and all the men of Israel chose, his will I be, and with him will I abide.” (T. Taylor, D. D.)

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil

I. Imitation is one of the great characteristics of the human species. The same passion that impels us to society, impels us to take part with our companions in their interests and inclinations. Insensibly and without thought we fall into their customs and their manners; we adopt their sentiments, their passions, and even their foibles, and follow the same course as if we were actuated by the same spirit.

II. By what means we are to keep ourselves from following a multitude to do evil.

1. Let us be early and firmly established in the principles of an holy faith. It is education chiefly that forms the human character; and it is a virtuous and religious education that forms the character.

2. Let us beware with what company we associate.

3. Let us acquire firmness and fortitude of mind. (James Logan.)

The multitude an unsafe guide

It is said of the roes and hinds that they are most tender and fearful of all beasts, affrighted with any noise, checked with the least foil, turned out of course with the snapping of a stick, presently make head another way, and when they are once out of their wonted walk they run they know not whither, even to their own death. Such is the natural disposition of the multitude or common people, soon stirred up, quickly awry, sometimes running full head one way, on a sudden turned as much another, easily set agog, delighted with novelties. (J. Spencer.)

The multitude not to be followed

Said Horace Bushnell to his younger brother, who had been to a cheap show and came home crestfallen, “The next time that you see the whole world doing something, be sure not to go with them unless you have some better reason.” That was the germ of manly independence out of which the sturdy manhood of that remarkable thinker grew. The sooner a young man learns that there are in this world more silly people than wise, more weak than strong, the better his chances of being a man.

Custom not the standard of right

“Know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for Himself.” Therefore it is no excuse for him to say, “I do but as others do.” He is to reckon his hours by the sun, not the town clock; to take God’s direction, not the vice of the multitudes, as one of their stamp and at liberty to comply with their fashions. (T. Mantan, D. D.)