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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:16-17
Well, this morning we continue on here in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, and as we make our way closer to the end of the chapter, we're beginning sort of a short series, if I could put it that way. You'll notice the title here says Part 1.
That's simply because I think we sometimes look at the turn of a chapter as if we've left behind the previous passage, and especially in this kind of prose in a book like Ecclesiastes or generally speaking in many parts of Scripture, we shouldn't view chapter divisions as if we're entering new territory or a new room, and we'll see that I think over the next two weeks that really what we're looking at even this morning in verses 16 and 17 is going to carry into the beginning of chapter 4, and so I'm trying just to hold that together by saying Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, but also there's some ways in which these verses will carry through the rest of Ecclesiastes as well in chapter 5 and in chapters 8 and 9 and 12, and so as we've seen all along, there's subtle themes and threads that carry on the course.
We'll see even next week in the midst of this larger perplexion about the fate of man being like a beast that there's also a carpe diem or occupied diem statement again, and so we keep marching forward, a lot of familiar territory even as we're breaking new ground, and this morning we break new ground as we encounter for the first time this theme of injustice.
So we're looking at verses 16 and 17, we're looking at a theme that is going to unfold more fully in the next two weeks, and of course as we come to a close of chapter 3, we want to remember what we've considered even at the beginning of chapter 3.
We began with this great poem on time, and that turned over in the King of Jerusalem's mind to consider the work that God does, the task that he pursues, the things that he gives, and so all of the focus in high contrast to chapters 1 and 2 has gone from what the king was doing, what the king was seeking, to what God is doing and what God is seeking, and that continues now as the king, in light of this great revelation, turns to consider what God does at the end of time.
So looking at Ecclesiastes chapter 3, beginning in verse 16. Moreover, I saw under the sun, in the place of judgment, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every purpose and for every work.
So looking at these two verses, notice the parallelism just in verse 16. Translators, just to sort of break up redundancy, translate with different English synonyms, but these are essentially the same terms in Hebrew.
In the place of judgment, evil or wickedness is there. In the place of righteousness, evil, wickedness, iniquity is there. So we have a parallel between judgment, justice, just sentence and righteousness, as well as a parallel between wickedness and iniquity.
And of course, much like the great reversal that the Apostle Paul describes at the beginning of Romans, good is celebrated as evil and evil is celebrated as good. In the very place that justice should happen, evil occurs.
In the very place that you'd expect to find evil, in the place of righteousness, iniquity is there. In the place of judgment, wickedness is there. And so this is the great dilemma. Notice that, again, this is all framed under the sun.
I saw under the sun. So we're breaking into slightly new territory, and the conclusion that he's come to in light of the beginning of chapter 3 arrives in verse 17. He sees what's taking place under the sun, and then he says in his heart, God will judge.
So again, it's not what he has to secure, it's not what he has to obtain, because he's come to the revelation of the work that God does, the end that has its purpose hidden to us in our little moment under the sun.
Who can understand the beginning or end of God's work? But there's this sure confidence. God is working, and God will bring all things to account. There is a reckoning at the end of it all. And so though he sees the great grievance of injustice, though he sees in a place where there ought to be righteousness, instead there's evil, he confesses, this is what God is pursuing.
This is what will come to pass. God will judge the righteous and the wicked. And then he brings us full circle to the very beginning of chapter 3 in saying, there is a time for every purpose and for every work.
That was what he said at the very beginning of this chapter. There's a purpose for every season, every time under the sun. So we see, as Derek Kidner says, the trouble for us is not that life refuses to keep still, but that we can only see a fraction of its movement.
The problem for us is not that we go through seasons and life changes. The problem is we're just this little vapor. We just linger for a moment, so we can't actually see where all these changes are going.
We can't actually make sense of the full pattern of God's work. It remains veiled to us in our lives. Our experience often is a lot of twisting paths, a lot of dead ends, a lot of curveballs, shifting winds we can't make sense of.
But God is unfolding a purpose and a pattern, a rhythm that accords with the work that only he can do. And so of course the point made from the very beginning of the chapter is what God can do that man cannot do.
What God controls that man could never control. God controls our time. He gives us a spin. He gives us a purpose. We cannot control that. We cannot control the events of our lives. We cannot control the relationships of our lives.
The remainder of Ecclesiastes 3 makes clear, as we see even in these verses, we cannot control the outcome of things that happen in our life. And that really is why we're bridging into this territory at the end of this chapter.
He doesn't break an entirely new section in chapter 4 to begin this theme of injustice. He recognizes this is part and parcel of recognizing God's control. Because we don't know the beginning or the end, because only God is in control, he allows for a purpose that's veiled to us, evil to occur in the place where there ought to be righteousness.
In the place of judgment, wickedness prospers. Evil emerges. In the place where there ought to be righteousness, where God created things to be pure, instead iniquity is festering. And again, this is in the king's mind, all because we cannot find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
We can understand there's a purpose, and though we can't understand that purpose always in real time, we know there will be a reckoning. That's what he's saying to his heart. God will judge the righteous and the wicked.
As David Gibson puts it so well, we are bit players on the sprawling epic of world history stumbling over our own lines, never mind understanding how this scene here on a Tuesday morning coheres with this chapter three years ago, or that episode that's going to take place 12 years from now.
The absence of the big picture, particularly when there's injustice or wickedness to be endured or suffering to be received in the meantime, is one of the most bewildering features of walking with the Lord.
That as we change through the seasons of God's appointment, we find often in the place where we desire for there to be justice, there's in fact injustice. In the place we long for righteousness, there's iniquity.
And the king, recognizing the thing that he needed to see in the first two chapters that now he's come to see, confesses rightly in his heart, but God will judge the righteous and the wicked. God has a purpose and God is doing a work.
And so again, as this chapter began, this larger reflection, everything has a season. There's a time for every purpose under heaven, even the purpose of injustice or iniquity or wickedness. God allots a time and he has a purpose for that, though we cannot always understand why and in what way.
It's really important that we understand here that the king is not domesticating the outrage of injustice. In fact, this theme of injustice is going to snowball as we progress through this book. You'll see even at the beginning of chapter four, he seems to be a little more disheveled about injustice, a little more outraged about it.
And as that carries on in chapter five and chapter eight, he'll be more detailed, more aghast at the evil that occurs under the sun. So in no way is he minimizing injustice in the way that we might want to throw our hands up and say, well, God has a purpose.
We might as well say, c 'est la vie, God's in control. The king is responding to injustice. He's grieved by it. We could almost say there is dustcloth and ashes because of the evil that occurs under the sun.
So his confession is not this sort of abstract theology of glory, that somehow it'll all work out. Somehow karma always finds its equilibrium. That's not the king's perspective. This is evil. Where there ought to be righteousness, there's wickedness.
That's grievous. That's the thing I lose sleep over. That's what makes me not want to eat. That's the things that have caused so much trouble and disturbance in my life that press my faith to the breaking point.
But he confesses rightly. There is justice. There is resolution. There is a reckoning to come. So the king is not minimizing injustice, but rather in his own way he's giving voice for the cry of injustice.
And this just accords with wisdom literature and so much else in scripture of this larger theme of the outcry for God to judge the world, to put things to right. Now, from the very beginning of the fall, we find quite literally a scream for justice.
When Cain slaughters the righteous brother Abel and his blood begins to cry out from the soil, crying out for God to see and take vengeance. That's what the Lord says when he comes upon that grisly scene, the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me.
From the beginning, we see that there's this outrage, this shock of evil that's done under the sun. We carry that through into Exodus. In chapter 2, the children of Israel are groaning under the bondage of the Egyptians.
And what are they doing? They're crying out. And that cry we read comes up to God. God hears that groaning. Or in the prophets, so often this takes so many different layers where God is showing himself to be the defender of the widow, the defender of those in poverty, the one who will avenge the bloodshed of those who are innocent and not hold them guiltless who even profane his name.
And we see even there this longing for justice, for righteousness to be established in the earth. We see it all through the minor prophets, even through the major ones. Isaiah 5 is one of hundreds of examples.
God looks for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry for help. Wherever there's injustice, it's saying something, it's crying for something, it's longing for something. We find in Genesis that the sins of Sodom, even if there was no audible cry, as far as our experience, our ears could turn, there is a cry that goes up before the Lord.
The iniquity of the Amorites filling up, demanding, crying out for God's judgment to fall. So the wonder is not when judgment in history does occur. That's not the wonder. We're often surprised by that.
The wonder is that it's not happening all around us all the time. That's the wonder. Because the cry of injustice is constantly before the throne of God. His ear is ever open to the cry of injustice, and the king is recognizing that.
Everywhere there ought to be righteousness, there's corruption and evil. In the very place you would most want to see justice and equity, you find anything but. He recognizes, as we must recognize, if the Lord should mark iniquity, who could stand before him?
If the Lord should actually bring that reckoning into the present, who could stand, who could face the justice of God? We think of our own days, of the horrific deeds that are celebrated, the perversion that is taken for granted in our sort of death cult here in the West.
And sometimes we despair and we feel as if our lamentations have no recourse, that we pray and we sigh and we groan within us like a righteous lot walking through the gates of Sodom, afflicting himself because of the evil that surrounded him, as the writer of Hebrews says.
And we lament and we sigh and we grieve and we wonder, is there any answer? Is there any resolution to this? God hears. And as the king says here in verse 17, God will judge. God will judge the righteous and the wicked.
Because he has a time for every purpose, a time for every work. There's a purpose to it all. He's not aloof. He doesn't lack control. There's a purpose for every injustice, every sorrow, every slight, every sigh.
Everything will be answered and resolved according to the perfections of God's justice. That's an amazing thought. Nothing is lost. Nothing is miscounted. Nothing is a micron off in terms of measure. The slightest fraction of an ounce in terms of weight.
Perfect justice. Perfection in judgment. It's something that we cannot experience under the sun. You and I today, of course, we're so accustomed to the reality of corruption and the lack of justice that we're not even insulated in our society in ways that we used to be.
Maybe that's partly because we're far more exposed to things that are happening now in the days of global media and news media, instant headlines. And so now, unlike so many of us grew up, we don't leave the windows open.
We don't leave the doors unlocked. When I was growing up, even in a very dense suburb in Levinster, houses every 20 feet, nobody locked their doors. Everything was always wide open. I wonder how many of you, even when you have 20 acres around you, still lock the windows and the doors.
Or if you don't, you at least have a 12 gauge somewhere within reach. It shows how far we've become accustomed to injustice. The expectation that things are going to go wrong, that people will not have the most basic forms of morality.
We can't assume that or take that for granted. This is probably not good and probably reflects as poor parenting on my part, but I mean, when I was growing up, my parents didn't know where we were for about seven hours of every day.
It's like, I hope he made it back from school and I hope he comes for dinner. Who knows what pond he went to fish in or what bike tour he took with his friends. I'll see you when I see you. I won't let Elsie out of my sight in a Walmart aisle.
Where'd she go? Where'd she go? What does that say about our expectation of injustice, of the evil that surrounds us? Remember we went on this family trip and went down to Fort Bragg and I got a dog tag with my name and address and phone number.
When I got my first car, I still had that and I thought, this is so great. I put it on my key chain with my keys and I was sitting at the kitchen table and I said very proudly to my mom, this is great.
If I ever lose my keys, they'll be able to get it right back to me. My mom said, yeah, they'll know exactly where to steal the car. That's like, oh, you're right. I just wasn't street smart. I wasn't thinking in that way.
The world carries on as if there'll never be a reckoning. Sometimes Christians get lulled into that worldly way of thinking. There's no account. God does not see. He is aloof. It really is a dog eat dog world and you just got to make it and do what you have to do to make it.
There's no reckoning in the end. What has all your long suffering and obedience wrought for you in life? You're just behind. You're just missing out. You're just losing. Do you want to get ahead? We get lulled into that way of thinking more subtly and more consistently than we care to admit.
I really am missing out. I really am losing out. This really isn't prosperous to me. There really is no fruit to be had. There's nothing to be gained in this direction. What good has this pursuit been?
What good has a life of faith or obedience been? The king is on the other side of that and he recognizes the sobering, impactful effect of knowing that God shall judge. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.
There's an outcry. God is attentive to that outcry. God has a purpose to bring about justice at the end. Part of that purpose accords with him allowing injustice in the present. It's the warp in the left of the way that he brings about his redemptive purpose.
He allows evil to be in the place of righteousness. He allows injustice and grievous evil to take place in the very place we want to have peace and wholeness. And throughout scripture we see this God who is long suffering in his patience and forbearance toward fallen man, but at times is then bent toward fury as he avenges his own holiness, as he begins to visit in judgment the corruption of a fallen world.
And we hold that together. This is not God being schizophrenic. These are the perfections of the character of God. As C .S. Lewis so wisely said, a God who is all mercy and no justice is like a judge who is all mercy and eventually all mercy becomes a form of cruelty or injustice.
We see in scripture a gentle shepherd gathering his people, carrying them in his bosom, playful almost, in intimacy, teasing Sarah about her laugh, having these little personal moments and encounters with his people to show them his forbearance and his kindness and his graciousness, his long-suffering character.
We find him upholding a stubborn and a sinful people, stiff-necked, as he holds all day his hands out to a wearisome and troublesome people. He bears them up in unfailing love and a mercy that renews every single morning, but if that lulls us into thinking he's not an infinitely holy and infinitely just God, we don't know God.
If God's not just, he's not God. It's the infinite justice of his perfection, in whom there is no shadow of darkness. When he sweeps away the wicked in judgment, there are none to answer. The clay never gets to say to the potter, why are you doing this?
Why have you made me like this? Why has this unfolded in my life? And perhaps you find it very hard to square God's judgment with God's mercy or his goodness or his love, and if you don't find that hard to square, you probably don't even know the issues that are involved.
But of course, the most important part of the answer is the reality of sin and our numbed conscience to the reality of sin. We don't see sin as God sees sin. We don't hear the outcry of injustice the way that God hears that outcry.
We've tuned it out. We've become accustomed to it. We're hard of hearing. And so we don't long like the prophets longed. We don't grieve and fast and pray like they grieved and fasted and prayed. In other words, we're not trying to cope with the reality of a holy judgment that must come.
God shall judge because we don't see the depth of sin around us unveiled, untainted, unbiased. If we could see the depth of sin unveiled, untainted, unbiased, we would not only become acclimated to that longing for justice, we would begin to cry out like the persecuted church all around us or the early church, how long, oh Lord.
You begin to long and to wait and to fix your eyes on the day that comes. The cry is how long, avenge your people, avenge your holiness, avenge your holy name. When this is occurring in the life of a Christian, you are reflecting the justice of God.
So the king here, he's grieving and wrestling with the ongoing experience of injustice under the sun. Now what is justice? How should we define justice? In very basic terms, justice is simply a proportionate equity.
It's giving someone their due, for good or for ill. It's what someone deserves. It's their due. That's justice. Not more, not less, just what is due. That's justice. There was this video clip, it was a body cam of some county sheriff in Nevada and he pulled over this pickup truck that blew through a red light and as he came up and he comes sort of on the passenger side and there's this guy sitting in the driver's seat and he's like, what's going on?
The officer says, well, it looks like you missed that red light back there and he goes, come on man, I'm Joe Lombardo, which is the governor of Nevada. And the officer said, I'm aware, sir. Have a great day.
Walked back to his truck and of course, you can imagine the comments under this. The outcry for justice. All he had to do was waive his status, remind him who's actually signing the paychecks and that was enough for that blown red light to be taken under discretion and of course, investigations concluded as we would expect, but neither the officer nor the governor had any fault and there was no reckoning to be had.
But there's an outcry for that kind of partiality or preferential treatment. What does justice mean? Giving each his due. Here's the problem. The problem is that we do not see or hold ourselves in the same light that we see and hold others around us.
In other words, the problem is we all want to be Joe Lombardo. The problem is not Joe Lombardo. The problem is the Joe Lombardo that lives in my heart. I'm always able to escape what I am owed, what I am due.
Judgment doesn't have to fall the same on me as it must fall on everyone else around me. In other words, how I regard injustice toward me reveals a lot about my thoughts about God, his justice, his work, his purpose.
For every person that's outcrying in the spiel of comments under that video, they all would be blissfully joyful if they got a pass having blown through a red light. That's what everyone wants. G .K. Chesterton, saying this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, put it quite well when he said, children are innocent in this way.
They love justice while most of us who are grown are wicked and we naturally prefer mercy. A very wise insight. There's something about the moral simplicity of a child's mind that they just want justice.
They want it in an almost comical way. As I was reminded and I said, I heard some clumping and banging upstairs and I don't know who it was and I said to one of the kids, can you go upstairs and just tell them to quiet down a little bit?
And we hear them go upstairs and go, if you don't stop right now, you're going to be in a world of trouble. It's like, hey, wait a minute, that's not what I said. Kids are very simple in this way. Demand justice, equity, righteousness in the living room.
But as Chesterton says, we're wicked, we actually prefer mercy. That's saying we want the Joe Lombardo treatment. We want to hold everyone else to the letter of the law, but we are somehow above it all.
We can transcend. We're going to get that preference again. How we regard injustice toward us reveals a lot about our thought about God, His justice, His work, and His purpose. This is what the king is beginning to recognize.
My focus for this whole chapter has been on God's control of time, what God gives, what God builds, what God works, what God seeks, and I know that whatever injustice I can't control or prevent, God will judge it, God will resolve it with perfect justice.
The king's heart and mind is where it ought to be. It's focused on God. It has that Romans 12, 19 logic. I don't have to seek, I don't have to control the outcome of injustice because I know that God will act.
Romans 12, 19 does not say, it's not for you to take vengeance, Christian, because God just loves mercy and can't you just kind of let him off the... The whole logic of Romans 12, 19 is you don't have to act because God will act.
That's the logic. God will judge the righteous and the wicked. So it liberates the Christian. I don't have to defend myself. I don't have to seize or seek or control. I couldn't control the rogue waves of injustice and I don't have to.
I only have one that I must answer to, one who has his eyesight on my behavior, my attitude, my reaction, my thought life, my heart, and that too will be weighed in the balance with it all. And so long as I'm thinking of that reckoning, of that judgment, I have to hide myself in the mercy of God.
Others may treat me unjustly, as 1 Peter says, but the confession of a believer who's come to the conclusion of Ecclesiastes 3 is this. Others may treat me unjustly, but God will never treat me unjustly.
Do you believe that? First, can I just say for our white behind the ear rubes, if you haven't been treated unjustly, you got a little growing to do in the Christian life. That will come. Woe to you when all men speak well of you.
And if you read the Psalms, which is a book for Christian life, how many of those Psalms deal with injustice, with treachery, with betrayal, with heartache, with longing and sorrow and frustration and vexation over being hunted and persecuted and maligned.
And that's just part and parcel of slogging along in the trail of righteousness. But here's the confession. Others may, others will treat me unjustly, but my God never deals with me unjustly. Even if I can't see his purpose in this time, in this event, in these circumstances, I confess he will judge the righteous and the wicked.
He will never be unjust. If he is to be unjust, he is not God. He's not aloof. He doesn't blink and miss something. That is so liberating. That is so freeing to our interaction with those around us, both in the body as we seek to show charity and walk in mercy with one another and without the body, as we deal with people that do hate us and were called in this radical way by Christ to love even our enemies and bless those who persecute us.
It's Paul's logic when in the church at Corinth, they begin to break out in infighting and they have to go to the secular pagan courts to get some sense of resolution. And Paul is aghast by that. You who are going to judge angels, you who should be fixated on the judgment to come and the perfection of God's justice, you would go to pagan courts to find settlement?
And in that own way, he says, if you were actually keeping your eyes and heart fixed on the right thing, you would be so free, so liberated, you would rather be wronged. That's just an amazing conclusion.
Why not rather be wronged than to drag Christ's holy name through the mud of your squabble? That cannot happen unless you understand what the king is understanding here in Ecclesiastes 3. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.
There is a time for every purpose, for every season. When I have my eyes, my heart, my mind fixated on that higher purpose and on the fact that God will judge, God will vindicate in his time, I can, as Peter says, entrust myself to him who judges justly.
Key word, justly. He judges justly. Do you thank God that he is perfectly just? Again, as Chesterton so wryly remarks, it's in our wickedness that we actually prefer mercy. If we could think aright, as those who have received mercy, we would begin to praise God that he is just.
Indeed, in light of the gospel, that because of the finished work of Christ, because of his shed blood on the cross, God is now both just and the justifier of all those who have faith in Jesus. Why is it a mercy?
Why is it a glory that God is just? Spurgeon captured it so well. A God who could pardon without justice might as well one of these days condemn without reason. If his mercy is arbitrary, then his justice could be arbitrary too.
If he could just forgive without any reckoning or any need to be perfectly just, then he could also condemn with that same lack of need for justice. And you see, this is why it is a glory that God is perfectly just.
It is our glory as believers that he took our sins, the penalty due us, and put it on the body of the Savior on the tree so that he is both just and justifier of those who believe. Again, justice is defined as giving everyone what is their due.
That's justice. What's the due? Justice means we get exactly what we deserve. Of course, under the sun as the king looks around and laments, there is no justice. In the place I want justice most, I don't see it.
There's always a fly in the ointment. It's always crooked. And who can straighten out what is crooked? There's always this tension. It's going to sort of track him through as he laments this cursed life under the sun.
But he recognizes at the end, justice will prevail. It always prevails because God's work will be accomplished. And so we recognize, holding this all together, that there is no injustice in God. And we can't think of mercy as somehow a lack of justice.
That's entirely wrong. Mercy is God's prerogative to have non-justice, as it were, but it's not injustice. It's not a miscarry of justice. Mercy in the place of justice does not make God unjust. He is a just God, perfectly just.
It's not unjust in any way. So mercy is not the equivalent of injustice. Mercy is rather the act of non-justice on the one party by justly pouring out the sentence on another. God's justice is perfect.
Stephen Charnock captured that in this way. As a merciful God, he pitied us. As a holy God, he hates our transgression with a perfect hatred. As a God of truth, he could not but fulfill his own threatening.
As a God of justice, he must avenge himself for the offense of sin against him. And so he gave Christ as a God of mercy and required the satisfaction of the cross as a God of justice. That's exactly right.
Now, if that's true, if that's the gospel that we hold, that we confess, that we seek to walk by, again, how we regard the injustice toward us, the injustice that we experience will reveal much about our thought of God, the perfections of his justice, his work, his purpose.
A .W. Pink says, as one sees the apparent defeat of what is right and the triumphing of what is wrong, and it seems as though Satan were getting the better of the conflict, one need but look above instead of looking around and see very plainly to the eye of faith that there is a throne.
And there at that throne is our confidence. God is on the throne. You live long enough and you see how grievous and desperate the injustice under the sun becomes. You don't just see it around you, you see it toward you, at you, in you.
But God is on the throne. God's purpose will prevail. It's this radical call to recognize the control over time that God really does have, the work that you can't figure out from beginning to end. That's why this is included within this flow, within this passage.
This has everything to do with God's work, everything to do with God's control, everything to do with recognizing who is enthroned in the heavens. So when we cannot understand the hidden purpose of God, in those times when he allows his servants to experience suffering, not just simply from the wicked but along with the wicked, at that very place a Christian looks to the cross of Christ and recognizes that's how the Christian life goes.
The work that could not be understood leading up to the cross can only be seen in light of what follows the cross, the vindication, the resurrection, the fulfillment of the purpose of God. That's something we're going to see next week, especially when we consider this dust of death in part two.
Justice, in that sense, is a vindication. Judgment shows that what God sought to do has been accomplished, what he promised to undertake has been realized. That is the judgment of God. And of course, he's not just the judge of the Christian.
As verse 17 says, he's the judge of the righteous and the wicked. In short, he's the judge of all the earth. What does Abraham confess in Genesis 18? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? That's the confession.
He always judges righteously. He cannot but judge righteously. I don't have to control the event or the outcome. I just have to know that my heart, my response is being weighed by the judge who judges righteously, the judge who's fixed a day to judge both the righteous and the wicked, who knows the very thoughts and intentions of my heart.
So that means that Joe Lombardo's got to go. I can't have that preferential view. This is a God in whom there is no partiality and everything will be laid bare before him. That's going to radically alter the way I look at everything else around me in my life.
You think of, again, the story of Joseph as such a classic observation of this point. It's not just the providence of God that we ought to look at, but Joseph's faith in the justice of God. God gave me a promise.
God gave me a vision. I can't control the pathways that have carried me on toward that vision. In fact, when it seems like I'm going in the very opposite way, I have to have a faith that God sits on the throne.
It's the great confession, he says in chapter 50, when his brothers are finally there and there's that great revelation and they're afraid that he's going to act against them and finally take that revenge that's been waiting in the wings in their mind all this time.
And what he says to them is, don't be afraid. Just pause there. Isn't that incredible? You have every right to be afraid, but don't be afraid. As he said in chapter 45, it's not you who brought me here, but God brought me here.
So he's recognizing the control of God and he says this, do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? Doesn't that tell you everything about Joseph's faith? Am I in the place of God? How different our lives would be, brothers and sisters, if we would have that rhetorical question in our minds whenever we encountered difficulty, whenever we experienced injustice, whenever we were called through a trial to be long-suffering, impatient, and things just got harder and worse.
To have that question of Joseph burning in our faith, am I in the place of God? It's liberating. Again, liberating. I'll just look at Romans 12 since I mentioned it. This is what that liberation does.
You see it in Joseph's life. Because Joseph knows he's not in the place of God. He doesn't control the chapters, whether he's second under Pharaoh or in the pit of the dungeon. God is God. God is the one enthroned.
It's not up for him to secure or manufacture God's promise. It's up for him to respond to everything that God brings by faith and to fear the judgment that must come. I have to give an account to God.
It may be that only the eyes of Potiphar's wife see me, but I don't have to give an account to Potiphar whether I'm caught or not. I have to give an account to God. That's where Joseph's faith is. And look what it frees him to do.
He's able to bless his brothers rather than retaliate. He's able to save the world from famine. And this is what Paul explains in Romans 12. Bless those who persecute you. Bless, do not curse. How in the world are you going to do that?
You're being persecuted. You're being cursed. How are you going to bless? He tells us in verse 19, beloved, do not offend yourselves, but give place to wrath. In other words, don't try to bring it about yourself.
Don't try to put yourself in the place of judge. Are you God? Are you the just judge of all the earth? No, give place to justice. Give place to judgment. Give place to wrath. Let God be God. It's written, vengeance is mine.
I will repay. And what does that free you to do? Verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. In my study Bible that I got when I graduated high school, the heading above that section beginning in verse 9 is behave like a Christian.
That's exactly right. Act like a Christian. For Paul, the prospect of judgment liberates the Christian. He doesn't have to secure or obtain. He can actually allow there to be a place for wrath that God will occupy.
His whole desire is just to be consumed with service to God. What is it to me? It's someone who knows by faith all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the secret thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Everyone wants to be Joe Lombardo, whether they confess it or not. But God weighs the heart. God weighs the motives. I must be fine. My walk must be good. All my ways are clean in God's sight. I'm not like others.
I actually see through all things. And if anything I see stands out to me as wrong, I know I wouldn't do that either. I'm so much better. I've got this big chip on my shoulder, and the Lord is weighing those thoughts and those motives.
He's watching the corruption and the decay that flows from that kind of sentiment. This is why Paul is constantly reminding believers in the churches of the appending judgment of God. He says the day is coming when God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ.
That day is coming. When he writes to the Corinthians, he says, don't pass judgment before the time, but wait on the Lord, who, when he comes, will bring to light the things that are hidden in the dark and disclose the motives of men's hearts.
And then everyone will have their praise from God. It's just another variation. It's not for you. You're not in the place of God. And one other point, as we sort of come toward a close, verse 16 again in verse 17,.
Moreover, I saw under the sun in the place of judgment, wickedness was there and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. Right. He's reacting to the grievous evil that he sees, and he's longing for a world of righteousness and equity and justice, even as king, even with his own sight and desire.
He could not establish it for thinking of Solomon as a figure. What does Solomon wisely do when there's the liar and the evil one who comes and because she's lost her own child, desiring to lie and steal the child of another.
And this king and all of his spirit wrought wisdom says, take the child and divide it equally between the two. And then there's wisdom, knowing that the mother would so desire the life of her real child that she would rather see it raised by another woman than killed the other woman, the liar.
It's like, well, yeah, equity. Isn't this great? I lost mine and now you use yours. It's envy, jealousy. And this wise king in that act brought about justice in that situation. And with the wisdom that God had given him, we can imagine perhaps hundreds more scenarios like that, where in his role as king, with the wisdom that God gave him, he was establishing justice, dealing righteousness on behalf of his people.
But he sees the corruption in his own heart. He sees the flesh rise up in warfare against that spirit. He watches the corruption and decay and subterfuge of men. He sees all that cancer in his kingdom and he recognizes there is no justice under the sun.
Who attempted it more than I? Who was in a better place to bring it about than me? And I couldn't do it. He's resigned himself. Where I wanted justice, now it's just wickedness. Where I wanted righteousness, now it's just iniquity.
And so all he has left to do after looking around and survey at this at this tragic scene is to look upward and say to his heart, God will judge. There's a king greater than I, whose wisdom is inscrutable, whose work can't be discovered, whose justice is sure.
He looks up, I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked. There's a time, there's a purpose for every work of God. I just want you to focus on that phrase, I said in my heart. What else have we seen in chapter three is in the heart that he's now speaking to?
Eternity forever is in the heart. He's saying to his heart, God will judge. And the reason he's saying that to his heart is because there's eternity longing for justice in his heart. Doesn't that again speak to the fabric of creation and God's purpose of redemption, restoring us to the way that he intended us to be?
Why do we long for justice? Why does the simple moral compass of a child thirst for equity? Why do we feel so grieved and personally affected, if not uproarious, when a judge passes some lenient sentence or lets a murderer or rapist go free?
And we long to actually see days when justice is upheld because the land is suffering as a result of that affliction. But what is that but eternity beating through our heart, longing for there to be the world that God intended?
We want justice for a reason. This is not the red and tooth and claw law of the animal kingdom. There's no sense of injustice when that hyena devours the lion or the warthog gets chased down and gobbled up.
This is just, this is what happens. There's no tribunal of warthogs to alleviate, there's just, this is just what animal, we'll be talking a lot about animals next week. What is it about man that makes us long and thirst and cry for justice?
It's eternity in our hearts. It's the way that God made us to be, image bearers reflecting His perfections. He is a just God. We desire and long to be just like Him. We desire and long to see justice throughout the land.
It's inescapable. It's creational. Psalm 96 puts it this way, let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be glad. Let the sea roar in all of its fullness. Let the field be joyful in everything that's in it.
And then all of the trees of the woods will rejoice because the Lord is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and all of the peoples with truth. You see what the psalmist is confessing?
The bark on the trees of the forest, the grains on the seashore, the kelp in the seagulls, the ferns and the moss long for a world that doesn't have blood crying out from the soil, that doesn't have evil spread like a cancer throughout the land.
Creation is longing for justice. This groaning world is waiting for righteousness. Don't you feel that deep within your hearts? Don't you long for that deep within your soul? Where does that come from?
Judgment is a divine promise. We weren't made as image bearers to run and hide from judgment. We were made as image bearers to reflect the perfections of God's justice. Grace redeems us in such a way that we long, we beg, we pray for God to come in his justice.
It's our own sin, our own flesh, our own failure that makes us want to run and hide and make a ghillie suit out of leaves so that the judgment somehow will pass over us or numb our conscience and harden our hearts so that we think we really are Joe Lombardo compared to everyone else.
What does this say, brothers and sisters, about our thoughts of God, about his control of time, the things that happen to us? Do we have the mind of the Savior who knew in every season how to entrust himself to him who judges justly, who was able to bear affliction, bear sorrow, stare down betrayal?
Do we have the mind of the Savior who loved with perfect mercy and perfect justice, who longed for the Father to put the world to right, even as he cried in an interceding way that the Father would show mercy to those who were guilty of even his own crucifixion and torment?
Judgment is a divine promise. Judgment, the prospect of God's judgment is something that the forests and the seas rejoice at. Do we rejoice at it? When's the last time you've prayed for God to come in judgment, to come in justice?
Doesn't that tell you a lot about your life, your walk, your thoughts of God, your hope in the gospel, your confidence in the sacrifice of Christ and his finished work? It's the prospect of judgment that clarifies almost everything about the Christian life for us.
My thoughts of that day must affect everything that happens in my life, and that day will reveal what I did with the time and seasons that God ordained in my life because of the eternity that's beating in my heart.
Every sorrow, every injustice, every unanswered grievance will have its day in court, as will every selfish act, every careless word, every muttering word of contempt or envy. All of that will be laid bare before him who is pure and holy and infinitely just.
And can't I see behind that all, that this longing for justice that ought to be there in the Christian life, this desire for wickedness to finally find resolution, to be meted out in a perfect judgment, doesn't that show me that I'm actually being equipped to enter into an eternal life with God?
If I don't want justice, if I don't want judgment, how could I think that I'm being equipped and prepared to commune with God in immortal glory? And this means that I, like the ocean and the forest and the fields, need to begin to anticipate the justice of God, and with joyful confession, when I look in despair at the injustice under the sun, say, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.
He has a time and a purpose for it all. He will come and put the world to right and begin to long to that day when He shows that work and reveals that purpose in all of its fullness. What do you do with the injustice you see?
Where do you go with the injustice you face? What are your thoughts about God and His justice and His purpose? What are your prayers and your praises like? Are you being outworshipped by cedar trees and sandy seashores?
Far be it from us. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. There is a time for every purpose and for every work. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. Lord, we thank You that You are a just God.
Lord, it's Your perfection that reveals all that is crooked within us, Lord, and even that makes us long for the day when You come and seeing You, we become like You in the perfection of Your attributes, Lord, and those that are communicated to us to be as our Savior is, to be as the last Adam, the first fruits of what our great hope is.
I pray, Lord, You'd help us, Lord. We often react wrongly to injustice. We react out of the flesh and we do it without any thought or glance towards You. Lord, help us to lift our hearts and eyes towards You, to entrust ourselves wholly to You, the one who judges justly, and help us as a people to long and thirst for justice, to pray and praise Your justice.
Lord, to fear You and have a reverence for the times that You bring about Your judgments in the earth and realize these are just a small portent of that greater judgment yet to come, and yet see that eternity within our hearts longing for perfect equity, for perfect righteousness in this world, and so groan like the groaning earth and long for the day of Your visitation.
Lord, may that eternity in our hearts surge us upward. May we have our minds seated in the heavenly places where Christ is. We pray, Lord, You'd grant us that perfect peace that passes understanding when we face affliction or injustice personally, and that would be of encouragement, of help and comfort, Lord, when those in our midst face the same.
Lord, that in this way we would know how to be unified as a body and rejoice with those who are rejoicing and grieve with those who are grieving. And Lord, in days where hostility and persecution may wax or wane, that we would not react in the flesh, but as Paul says, give place to wrath and trust that the day is coming when You indeed shall judge the righteous and the wicked.
And Lord, that that would lead not to a chip on our shoulder or a pride that festers, but a humility before You, for we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to answer for deeds done in the body, whether for good or for ill.
Lord, sober us even now as we prepare, Lord, to partake of these emblems of Your life and Your death, Your perfect sacrifice, Lord. May You show us all these places that justice required Your blood shed on the cross, that mercy might meet and perfect us forever.
And Lord, from that very place, in humility, as we live by repentance and faith, that we would celebrate and long for Your justice and pray with the saints of old and even in basements and hidden quarters around the world today.
How long, O Lord, until You come to judge the righteous and the wicked and reveal Your work and purpose? Help us, Lord, in these ways. And if there's a sinner here, Lord, one who has not rightly understood the gospel of grace and the mercy that You offer to sinners, might they have a fear of this judgment that they must account for, this reckoning that is sure to come on their life at an hour they know not when.
And Lord, by Your own mercy, draw them, show them that Your kindness to them has been designed to bring them to repentance, that You might be just in the punishment due for their sin on Christ and the justifier of the faith they would put in You.
We ask it in Your Son's name. Amen.