Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2006 : October 8, 2006

Theme: Where's the Justice?

Church year occasion: Pentecost 18

Hello, my name is John, and I've been free of my addiction for about three months now. But I'm having some problems with my addiction in the last few weeks because I can sense that I'm falling back into it. I'm addicted to the TV show Lost, and now the new season has just begun. Some of you are addicted just as I am. For those of you who want to get addicted, it's about a group of people who are trying to survive a mysterious plane crash on an island in the middle of nowhere. But as they explore, they realize that they are not alone, and most of the people already on the island are not friendly. In one bizarre twist to the plot, they stumble upon a man whose sole purpose in life is to reset a clock every 128 minutes. He isn't sure why he's doing it, other than if he doesn't reset the clock, something very big and very bad will happen. He convinces some survivors of the plane crash to help him. But eventually some tire of it. They wonder if it's a big joke, just an experiment to see how long a human would do something just because they are told to do it. They haven't seen any consequences. They haven't seen any punishment. Eventually, some are convinced that they should stop pushing the button, so they let the timer expire. At first nothing happens. But then something does happen, and they realize that it wasn't just someone playing games or giving out idle threats.

We know that God never makes idle threats -- if people disobey him and reject his mercy, they will be punished. But sometimes those might seem to be idle threats, especially when in the space of only a few days there are three separate school shootings in our country, one right in Wisconsin. After we get over the initial shock of it, we are furious. We want to see those ungodly men who terrorized their innocent victims and then killed some of them in cold blood to be punished for their heinous crimes, but unfortunately two out of the three can't be punished on this earth because they took their own lives. Some of the victims were Christians. And even though that means that every one of those Christians is now in heaven, we still might be asking ourselves, when Christians and other innocent victims suffer at the hands of such horrible people, "Where's the consequence for such actions? Where's the justice?"

Just like the TV show Lost, God has told people on this earth to live in a certain way -- holy lives. There is a threat of punishment when they disobey. And it is no idle threat. This morning we'll look closely at a believer who suffered greatly in this world, and he was having some of the same thoughts about where justice is that we might have from time to time. So let's let God tell us about Jeremiah and where he found justice.

Jeremiah lived in the last years of the kingdom of Judah. God was almost at the end of his patience with his people because they had rejected him and followed other gods and had become just like any heathen nation in this world. But God sent them the prophet Jeremiah as their last chance to repent. For over 40 years Jeremiah was to go through the towns and cities of Judah and through the streets of the capital city of Jerusalem and proclaim that God's judgment was coming because they had rejected him as their God. As you can imagine, most of his preaching fell on deaf ears. And those that actually listened wanted nothing better than to get Jeremiah out of the way. They didn't want to hear that they were ungodly. They didn't want to hear about God's impending justice. Even the citizens of Jeremiah's home town of Anathoth were plotting to kill him. Jeremiah tells of the plot in verses 18-19. Look at it with me:

Because the LORD revealed their plot to me, I knew it, for at that time he showed me what they were doing. I had been like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize that they had plotted against me, saying,

'Let us destroy the tree and its fruit;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
that his name be remembered no more.'

Jeremiah was used to living a difficult life. He was a victim and the focus of people's anger for most of his life. Have we been victims? Some of us certainly have. You don't become magically immune to physical, sexual or emotional abuse when you become a Christian. Maybe we are the kind of kids who have to endure those kinds of abuse. Books getting knocked out of our hands in the hallway. Embarrassment in front of our friends and enemies alike. That led the student in western Wisconsin to take the life of his principal. Obviously, he didn't go to the right place for help -- to God. But some of our sufferings might come as a direct result of us standing up for God and his Word when others will not. Then we are an especially easy target. We stick out like a sore thumb if we tell kids at school who are up to no good that they are disobeying God. When we stand up for what's right at work, we will get the same reaction. Usually people will try to avoid us, or they will go out of their way to show that they don't appreciate what we said. As in Jeremiah's time, it is not easy being a follower of the true God and speaking his Word to ungodly people. We will suffer for it.

It might get so bad that we might get to the point where Jeremiah was in our text: "But, O LORD Almighty, you who judge righteously and test the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have committed my cause." Whatever your suffering might be, there can be times when we want God to bring down his swift justice upon the ungodly -- those who stand against us. And when we don't see that justice come down, we might wonder: "Where's the justice, Lord?"

God told Jeremiah -- and he tells you -- that he will enact judgment in his time. In Jeremiah's case, it was actually during Jeremiah's lifetime. The judgment would come in the form of an enemy nation, the Babylonians. They would sweep down on the nation of Judah and take many captive and put many others to death. So all of the people to whom Jeremiah spoke God's Word, but who turned a deaf ear to God's message and who treated God's messenger with contempt, they would receive punishment from the Lord. God's patience had run out for them. He would turn them over to their enemies because they had failed to turn in faith to him.

And that would especially be true of those who plotted to take Jeremiah's life because he kept preaching God's Word to them. They were men from Anathoth, Jeremiah's home town. Among them were even some of his own family members. Listen to how complete their destruction would be: "Therefore this is what the LORD says about the men of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, 'Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD or you will die by our hands' -- therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine. Not even a remnant will be left to them, because I will bring disaster on the men of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.' " (Jeremiah 11:21-23) So in Jeremiah's case the Lord's time for judgment was rather swift, so Jeremiah could witness it. Not one of his enemies survived God's judgment at the hands of the Babylonians. Jeremiah had prayed to God to let him actually see God's vengeance upon them because Jeremiah had spent his life committed to God's message. And God answered that prayer with allowing him to see that very thing.

What about us? Have you ever prayed such a prayer? Have you prayed for God to punish your enemies because you've been proclaiming God's Word to them and they have just ignored God's Word? Maybe you've prayed that God would punish others just because they're being mean. Unfortunately, the 15-year-old student in Wisconsin took vengeance into his own hands. I don't know if he's ever heard the passage from Psalm 5:4-6 that says,

"You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;
with you the wicked cannot dwell.
The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;
you hate all who do wrong.
You destroy those who tell lies;
bloodthirsty and deceitful men
the LORD abhors."

What did you think when you read those verses? "You take care of 'em, God! Destroy your enemies who despise you and your Word." There are times when I feel that way. But then when I take a good look at those verses, I don't feel so ready to dole out judgment and death. Look at them again. Wicked? Arrogant? Those who do wrong? Those who tell lies? Deceitful? It says God will destroy them. It says God abhors them. It says God can't dwell with them. But "them"...is us! We are guilty of many of the same sins as any of these murderers. Even though we haven't murdered anyone, we've hated them, and Jesus says that's the same thing in God's book.

What's my point in bringing this up? Yes, in God's eyes, a sin is a sin. There are no "big" sins and no "little" sins. All sins damn. Every sin damns. So we are just as bad as any Hitler or Dahmer; as evil as any person who walks into a school and tortures others and takes their lives. But my point in saying this isn't to say that these people who did these horrible things aren't evil. No, they are the epitome of evil. But my point is that, according to what God tells us in his Word, we are just as evil, just as devoid of any goodness in us, just as deserving of the flames of eternal damnation.

And that is why these words of the Psalmist, as he continues, are so very precious to us:

"But I, by your great mercy,
will come into your house;
in reverence will I bow down
toward your holy temple." (Psalm 5:7)

How is it that we are not destroyed along with other sinners? Simply by God's great mercy. Ephesians 2:4-9 says,

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.

God's vengeance against our sins has passed over us. It does not touch us, even though we deserve every bit of it. Instead, God's vengeance passed to his own Son. For God knew that our sins could only result in our damnation. But God doesn't want that for us. In fact, he doesn't want it for anyone. So he sent his most precious treasure, his own Son, to take on human flesh, to live in a humble way that many of us would consider unbearable, to endure hardship and pain and mocking, to endure flogging and rejection and cruelty the likes of which we can't even imagine. And then he gave up his life unto death, even death on a cross. The Righteous One died for the unrighteous, the enemies of God. But when God heard those words from Jesus lips, "It is finished!" as he died, he looked down and said that his vengeance against us had been paid. We say that the Lord will judge in his time and his way. And that's how he did it. He judged his own Son as the guilty sinner upon whom the sins of all mankind was laid. And that enables him to look on us no longer with anger and wrath, but with the eyes of a loving father who is happy to have his wayward children back home with him.

How can we keep from loving him in return? For such love showered on us, no sacrifice on our part is ever enough. Instead of looking to enact revenge on those who wrong us, that message of salvation in Christ Jesus gives us the power to turn to even our enemies in love. As Paul says,

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.' (Romans 12:17-20)

Even in the face of death, did Jeremiah change his message? No. God wanted him to go through the towns of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the judgment of God on those who didn't want to listen to God's Word. But for those who did listen, for those who turned to the Lord in repentance, he held out to them the only hope they had in avoiding judgment. He held out to them the coming Savior. We do the same. For those who continue to despise God and his Word, we can only tell them God will judge them in his own time and in his own way. At the very least, that means that at the end of their unrepentant life, they will suffer forever apart from the Lord's grace and presence. But for those who hear and turn to the Lord and trust in him alone for their forgiveness and salvation and show it by how they live, for those God will judge them in his own time and way also. But they will be judged innocent of all sin because Jesus suffered for their sins already and that forgiveness is theirs simply by believing. In fact, believers are judged innocent already. They have already crossed over from death to life.

When Christians live through horrible tragedy at the hands of sinners, we can cry out, "Where's the justice?" Thank God that when he judges us, he looks to his Son who has given us full and free forgiveness. Let us look to God's Son also. He gives us the wonderful justice of a loving God. Amen.