You know what it’s like to be treated unjustly.
Injustice stabs like a dagger–especially when the victim is one’s self. In a very real sense, injustice is a form of rape: a violation of one’s dignity and an affront to one’s personal worth.
If you’re an American citizen such violations between individuals are not easily tolerated. The offense is identified immediately and if penitence is not expressed, retribution may be swift. American men and women lose their lives in this country over the slightest of offenses.
Even if the offense is perpetrated by a business, corporation (for profit and nonprofit) or government, there are lawyers and courts and judgments and punitive damages and media (both commercial and social) that can be engaged…all meant to balance the scales of justice between the many and the few–or the one.
Then again…if you’re a debtor or a slave (human trafficking–even in America–seems to be progressing forward with great success) or the member of a minority, you may find yourself unable to afford justice and be compelled to just stand your ground and take the injustice given you without any hope of vindication.
Having said all that, I can browse the panorama of human history with all of its injustice yet say to you, dear Reader, with absolute confidence and absolute certainty that NO ONE GETS AWAY WITH ANYTHING…
…not a single soul.
“And I saw a great white Throne, and Him that sat on It, from Whose Face the Earth and the Heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another Book was opened, which is The Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and Death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. “And Death and Hades were cast into The Lake of Fire (this is the Second Death). And whosoever was not found written in The Book of Life was cast into The Lake of Fire.” – The Apostle John, Revelation 20:11-15
It may comfort (or frighten) you to know that GOD IS PASSIONATE ABOUT JUSTICE. It may not seem like it because, in the minds of many, God has sat quietly while the human species has committed unspeakable atrocities against itself (and then blamed God for it…LOL!). I encourage you, however, not to be fooled by appearances and vile slander spat out by those who don’t even believe that God exists. God is emotionally passionate about justice, and this is shown in the Scriptures, which speak not only of God’s love of justice, but His passionate Vengeance:
“Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.” -- God, Deuteronomy 32:25 “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; He will come and save you.'” – Isaiah 35:4 “This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of His Might, when He comes on that Day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed!” – the Apostle Paul, 2nd Thessalonians 1:5-10
There’s a valuable article in Psychology Today about the difference between Vengeance and Justice; rather than waste time here exploring the human perspective on these two terms I refer you to that article. Sufficeth to say, with the Existence of an Omniscient God, vengeance (and justice, for that matter) is best placed in His Hands.
It is important, however, to distinguish between the human experience of vengeance and what God experiences.
Every sin is against God (Psalm 51:3, 4), therefore GOD TAKES EVERY SIN PERSONALLY AND EMOTIONALLY (Matthew 25:40). How many times in the history of humanity has God been cheated, lied to, stolen from, betrayed, tortured, murdered, raped, enslaved and oppressed?
Because every sin is against God, GOD HAS THE RIGHT TO FORGIVE EVERY SIN. But before God could forgive, He had to satisfy His Unrelenting Passion for Justice; this He accomplished on The Cross of Jesus Christ (1st John 2:1, 2). The Cross satisfied God’s Justice for every cheat, every lie, every theft, every betrayal, every torture, every murder, every rape, every enslavement and every oppression. The thing to remember is that if you by Faith receive the Forgiveness of God for yourself THEN YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE EVERYONE THAT HAS SINNED AGAINST YOU, just as God offers the world forgiveness for its sins against Himself (Matthew 6:11, 12).
God’s Wrath is powerful enough to destroy the entire Cosmos, therefore God has held His Righteous Anger in check to be revealed for ONE DAY (Joel 2:10, 11). None of us has truly experienced the Wrath of God, before which our own indignation pathetically pales in comparison (James 1:20).
God’s Wrath Itself hunts down and consumes wrath. If you live in a constant state of anger, bitterness, fault-finding, nit-picking and revenge, when God’s Wrath comes It will be looking for you and It will find you and consume you in the heat of a billion suns (Acts 8:23)! It is this human bitterness that fuels murder, terrorism and all kinds of evil. This is why Christ declared with Divine confidence that only the merciful will receive mercy and that it will be the meek who in the end will inherit the Earth (Matthew 5:5, 7).
As I wrote in Part 3 of my Perfection Howto, your commitment to let go of and forgive the pain injustice has dealt you is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to your survival in Eternity.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ONLY LOGICAL AND REASONABLE ANSWER to humanity’s need for Vengeance and Justice.
Amen.
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