Trusting God's Judgment
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Introduction:
Don’t you love it when I bad guy gets what is coming to him. Whether it is in television or real life, we want to see the bad guys get put away and the trampled man rise up. We love to pull for the underdogs and we love to have a happy ending.
Imagine a movie or show where the bad guy came out on top and the good guy lost. The movie just ends with failure. We have been programmed to expect different. If the hero of the story gets beat, he must be planning to make a comeback. He won’t stay down for long!
But imagine if he never got up. Imagine if the bad guys just kept on being bad and nobody could stop them. Most of us would not like that story.
In life sometimes it seems that the second ending is what happens more often than the first. We long for justice and it seems far away. We struggle with the problem of evil and want some answers.
Tonight, we are going to look at Solomon’s struggle with the same thing and see what advice he would give us to deal with our struggles with injustice. How can we learn to trust in God’s justice? That is our topic tonight.
Read text. Pray.
1. Praise for the Wicked (v.10)
1. Praise for the Wicked (v.10)
A. Some People Attribute Godliness or Sainthood to the Wicked
B. Illustration: Tombs of the Wicked
2. The Delay of Justice (v.11)
2. The Delay of Justice (v.11)
Delayed Punishment leads to Increased Wickedness
Illustration: When mom’s away, the children will play.
God has established Government to Enact Justice on earth
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval,
for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.
Romans 13:1-4
The Bible has a lot to say about God’s condemnation for miscarrying justice
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.
3. The Conclusion:
3. The Conclusion:
As Solomon seems disillusioned by the paradox of the unrighteous and the righteous and what seems to be a failure of justice, he simply calls the reader to trust God’s justice.
We, as human beings, cannot see all that God sees. We do not have the capacity to enact the justice that God can bring. Remember that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (). If you or I were to try to judge the wicked, even in obvious cases of wickedness, we would not be able to fairly give out justice.
We can rest assured of two things.
A. God will Bless the Righteous (v.12)
A. God will Bless the Righteous (v.12)
B. Trust God’s Judgment (v.12-13)
B. Trust God’s Judgment (v.12-13)
Conclusion:
What Solomon is battling is known as the problem of evil. We mentioned it this morning. The Book of Job addresses it. Many godly people have struggled with it. The Psalmist, Asaph, wrote:
Psalm 73:1-
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
He was desperate to make sense of it all. Many of you tonight may find yourself in the same predicament. You want to know why the wicked seem to get away scot free. You don’t understand God’s system of justice. The solution is to draw near to God and focus more on Him than the problems we face in this world.
The Psalmist continues:
Psalm 73:16-17
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
Psalm 73:24-
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
God will ultimately judge the wicked and reward the righteous. However, we must remember that no man can be righteous a part from the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His heart. We must trust Christ to save us from our sins and deliver us from our own unrighteous deeds, as well as the unrighteousness of other people.