FBC Morning Light – May 31, 2022

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. I hope you had a good holiday yesterday, spent some time reflecting on our nation's history, its wars, its warriors, and those who sacrificed everything for our freedom.

I also hope you were able to have some time for rest and refreshment and, you know, maybe a cookout or whatever you did.

I just hope you had a good holiday yesterday. Today I want to share a couple of thoughts from Psalm 58.

The way David opens up this psalm, we can relate to in our day and age, can't we?

Listen to what he says. He asks these questions. He says, Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?

Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men? I want you to think about some of the crime that's been going on in our nation in the last couple of years, especially the last couple of years.

We had all those riots and all of that mayhem and people in riotous behavior, tearing down statutes, creating all kinds of violent behavior, and so, so many just simply got away with it.

Nothing happened to them. Nothing at all. In contrast to that, you had this behavior on January 6th that has been greatly exaggerated as an insurrection and a riot and violent and all of that kind of thing.

If you look at it all objectively, you realize that, and you hold that, the images of what happened on January 6th, wrong as it was, but you hold that up next to some of these other images of torched federal buildings, courthouses, torched police cars, rocks thrown, widespread looting, violent damage to property, the murder of police officers, and all the rest.

You put those two things side by side, and you see on the one side where all of the horrible violence and so forth and the riots was met with just almost nothing.

Very, very little, if any, prosecution. You contrast that with the way those who were arrested in this

January 6th stuff have been treated. Some of those people are still in prison from January 6th, and they haven't even had a trial yet.

You see the injustice there, and then you come to a verse like this. This is just two polar opposite examples of things, and we could cite many, many more things today.

Then you come to a verse like this that asks the question, do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?

Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men? Is there really much righteousness and justice to be had?

We're seeing our whole justice system becoming undermined, don't we?

Criminals, people who behave in criminal activity, slapped on the wrist and sent back out to engage in it all over again.

Where is the justice in this kind of thing? When are those who are committing such heinous and evil behavior really going to be held strictly accountable?

The next verse goes on to answer that question. Peter, I'm sorry, David writes, he says, no, in heart you work wickedness.

You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth. Look at the consequences of your unjust decisions and the wickedness that you work in your heart.

It ends up promoting and encouraging violence in the earth. The righteous look at this and we grieve, we wring our hands a little bit, and we say, where is the justice?

We want to see righteous judges. We want to see justice take place here, and it's very, very aggravating.

The psalm ends on a positive note for the righteous, that is, because he says this at the conclusion of the last two verses.

Well, let's take the last three verses. Verse 9, he says, before your pots can feel the burning thorns, he,

God, the righteous judge, he shall take them away, the wicked who seem to be getting away with so much, and the wicked judges and justices that aren't giving out righteous justice.

He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, as in his living and burning wrath. And the righteous will see this, verse 10, and shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.

He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. I would say that's a metaphor, that's a figurative expression about just basically taking delight in seeing justice finally meted out.

And then it ends with this, so that men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous, surely he is

God who judges the earth. That is what we look forward to, and that is what will yet come.

And while on the one hand we would be wrong to be gleefully delighting in anybody's harm or physical danger, what we can rejoice in, what we can delight in, is righteousness, righteousness and justice.

And we should, when justice is meted out, we should rejoice in it. When you see righteous judgments executed, we should rejoice in it, that righteousness is being upheld.

And ultimately, so shall it be. The judge of all the earth shall do right.

So let's take encouragement in that. When we look around, we read our newspapers, we watch the news, we see all kinds of violent, wretched stuff that just seems to get a slide, it won't forever.

It won't forever. Our Father and our God, we are grateful today that you are the judge of all the earth, and you do right.

And we look forward to the day when we can look upon what's going on in our world, and we can see the righteous rule of our

God, meting out justice, meting out vengeance, as it is rightly due.

So we thank you for that hope and that confidence that we have yet to come. Now bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I hope your week's getting off to a good start.