His Justice Cannot Sleep Forever

The latest Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare so enraged many a person because justice was not served. Now you will hear many a pundit lavishing praise on Chief Justice John Roberts’ brilliance in his majority opinion for its political wisdom, but that’s politics, not justice. I will be writing on this ruling in this week’s The Truth Newsletter, but I want to explore Biblical justice.

How should we as Christians approach justice? Of course we must look at God’s view of it. We desire justice, somewhat foolishly I might add, because we only desire justice in others’ lives. But how does God view justice?

    “For the Lord loves justice, and does not forsake His saints; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off.” (Psalm 37:28)

God loves justice and does not leave us dangling in the wind nor is He malicious towards us. His love for us is why He sent His Son to bear our punishment. God did not leave us to our own devices:

    “The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.” (Psalm 37:33)

It is important for us to remember that when wickedness prevails, and even affects us, God is not some disinterested watchmaker observing His creation from afar and aloof. David had experienced many a great injustices and was surrounded by wickedness and through it all he stayed faithful and fruitful in the midst of persecution:

    “I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great assembly; indeed, I do not restrain my lips, O Lord, You Yourself know. I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly. Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore my heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me!” (Psalm 40:9-13)

That passage should be an encouragement to us to stay the course and not “grow weary in doing good” because we are responsible to get the gospel out to a lost world. God is responsible for the outcomes; He will deal with those who reject Him. I’ve learned (and am still learning) the hard lesson that I cannot talk anyone into my position. As Dr. Adrian Rogers once said, “I’m not trying to talk anyone into anything because someone can come up behind me and talk them out of it.”

What reaction should I have when I dwell on God’s justice? Does it even factor into my daily decisions, big or small, or do I use only my faculties to choose my courses of action? The liberals favorite deistic Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said this about God’s justice, so profound a statement it is inscribed on his memorial in Washington D.C.

    “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Jefferson was commenting in a letter to George Washington on the despotic institution of slavery because he knew that “God who gave us life gave us liberty.” Both men were slave owners and both men struggled over this vile imprisonment of human beings, and yet their livelihood depended upon their slaves. They deemed their prosperity and survival more important than God’s justice.

No doubt Jefferson trembled at the thought of God’s justice.

We do well to examine our own lives and see if we are counting on our works rather than our righteousness to please a just and Holy God.

More on that tomorrow…

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2012 David Jeffers

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