From Romans chapter 12, and then from Psalm 94, we hear the word read, we give our attention as an act of worship, let's stand together. Romans chapter 12, beginning at verse 17. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink, for in so doing, you will heap coals of fire upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And now to the Old Testament reading, which will also be the text for the preaching of the word this evening, Psalm 94. O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs, O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth. Rise up, O judge of the earth, render punishment to the proud. Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph? They utter speech and speak insolent things. All the workers of iniquity boast in themselves. They break in pieces your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, the Lord does not see. The God of Jacob does not understand. Understand, you senseless among the people. And you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see? He who instructs the nations, shall he not correct? He who teaches man knowledge, The Lord knows the thoughts of man that they are futile. Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law, that you may give him rest from the days of adversity until the pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off his people, nor will he forsake his inheritance. But judgment will return to righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul would soon have settled in silence. If I say my foot slips, your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up. The multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul. Shall the throne of iniquity, which devises evil by law, have fellowship with you? They gather together against the life of the righteous and condemn innocent blood. But the Lord has been my defense and my God, the rock of my refuge. He has brought on them their own iniquity and shall cut them off in their own wickedness. The Lord our God shall cut them off." And again, this is the word of the living God. We turn to the word of God for the word preached this evening to Psalm 94. Psalm 94. Psalm 94 is a cry for justice in a fallen world. It's a very urgent and powerful cry for justice that God would hear, remember, have mercy, and rescue. And there are a lot of reasons for Christians to cry out to God for mercy in a fallen world. We live in a world of profound and increasing wrongdoing. Unspeakable abuse of children, beginning with abortion, children in the womb. We have an increasing epidemic of the exploitation of children in unspeakably evil ways in our culture and society as immorality and ungodliness rise. There's nothing new under the sun. Evil and powerful evil has always sought to attack the helpless, the weak. This is not only with children. It can be in relationships. It can be in the world. It can be in the war between nations. When a powerful nation attacks and subjugates another nation and brings kinds of suffering, it would make us wonder and question where the Lord is in our life, whether or not He hears and answers prayer, or what possibly His purposes could be if my tears and pain run so deep. And a deeper question is, What is this? The deeper questions that come to the soul is those wrestlings with the purposes of God and even the character of God. In our age, the cry for justice rises up very often. The cry for God to make things right. It's not a wrong cry. We'll see it in the psalm here. But it often is a cry that God does not answer right away. And sometimes never in this life. Because that is true, there's no reason for Christians not to be sensitive, careful, and be interested in true justice. There's also a movement in our world that is looking for utopia in a fallen world. A sort of perfection. that will not come until Christ comes again. And it is perhaps between those two places, the desire to see true wrongs righted, which is a biblical desire, and the frustration that they are not righted yet in this world and the need to wait, where we often find ourselves wrestling deeply with the ways of God. Psalm 94 is a psalm about that wrestling. It's an urgent appeal to God for justice. And we're going to look at that appeal if some of you are trying to follow along. There's an appeal to God, an urgent appeal. Then there is the answer of God. The urgent appeal we could say is in verses 1 through 7. The answer of God in verses 8 through 11. And then when we take the appeal and the answer together, then there is finally the way of the righteous. How do I live? Waiting on the Lord. First, the urgent appeal to God. It is very urgent. It's addressed to the Lord God, Yahweh, El, here in the psalm, the two familiar names for the Lord. And attached to the name of God here is a phrase twice over, so emphatic, to whom vengeance belongs. It is an address to God with an appeal to one of his attributes, and that is his justice. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. It actually is this principle in text that the Apostle Paul was quoting when we read from Romans chapter 12. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. The psalmist is acknowledging something here about God. Two things, one, that God is a God of justice, and two, that he will make things right. That because he is just, all wrongs will be punished. He appeals to God's character. He appeals to God in this address twice over, to whom vengeance belongs. Oh God, to whom vengeance belongs. He is convinced in his opening appeal that the righting of wrongs belongs to God. Fundamental justice, that our God is a God who is right and righteous. It's an attribute of God that is often underestimated. In our day, there are a lot of people in our culture who cry for justice, some form of social justice, while often flaunting all of his commands and not willing to submit to his holiness or his will. The attribute of God called as justice is so often underestimated, but it's really true. No wrong will ever go unpunished by God. There is not one wrong that will not meet its due punishment in history by God. And he sees everything. He's perfectly holy. He doesn't forget anything, nothing. He doesn't miss anything. He doesn't forget anything. Loralee and I often, when we discuss, maybe if we've been disagreeing on something, she often has the upper hand, and I don't mean a serious disagreement, but let's say we're trying to remember something that happened. Usually I can't remember what happened, and she can. She can remember everything, and I can't remember. I was talking to somebody this week about my memory, which is not always that good. And some of us who can think that God is somewhat like we are, he has a limit in his capacity that he might forget things. And we think Psalm 50, 21, you thought that I was like you. He's not. Ecclesiastes 12 says, the judge of all the earth will bring every work into judgment, whether public or secret, every hidden thing. He has the record. He has the books of heaven. And he will hold court at the end of the age, and he will judge everything. He is not forgetful. He is, look at verse 2, the judge of all the earth who will render punishment to the proud. He is the one to whom we will give an account. Paul writes to the Romans, we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And he will measure human life and all of our conduct by his holy law, comparing our conduct to his holy standard, his own resplendent holiness. Sin is any want of conformity to that law, and the wages of sin is death. And James says, you break one command, you break them all. Vengeance belongs to him, and vengeance is not just justice. It's justice meted out. It's the punishment of wrongs. It's the inflicting of retribution, which God does righteously for all those who rebel against him without repentance. This idea of God's justice is all through the scriptures. It's how he declared himself to Moses. the mountain that he is the one who forgives inequity, transgression, and sin, but also by no means clearing the guilty. And the only way those two things can both be true, both just and the justifier of the ungodly, is through the cross of Jesus Christ, where justice is satisfied for all those who receive forgiveness. And if you would not have perfect justice, then you would not have Christ. This idea of God's justice, he is the rock. Moses spoke in the hearing of the assembly of Israel, the words of this song, Deuteronomy 32, four, he is the rock, his work is perfect. For all his ways are justice, a God of truth without injustice, righteous and upright as he is, three times over, perfect accounting, perfect justice, perfect judgment, perfect righteousness. The Psalms are full of the same principle. The holy, unchanging, powerful justice of God, inescapable in its holiness, perfection, and knowledge. Psalm 10, verse 18. The Lord is the one who does justice to the fatherless and the oppressed that the man of the earth may oppress no more. Psalm 37, we read the same thing concerning the justice of God. For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever. And we could go on and on. Christ, in Psalm 72 and verse 2, he is the great judge of all the earth, the executor of the justice of the triune God. He will judge the people with righteousness and the poor with justice. We are to be ready, Peter writes, to give an account to him who will judge the living and the dead. Don't underestimate justice and vengeance. The execution of justice belongs to the Lord, the Lord our God. And the psalmist appeals to that psalm. Now, to that attribute, that reality about God. The second thing he does, the next step, if we keep reading, is he calls on God to act then according to that justice, which is why he's calling for vengeance. Justice meted out, justice executed. And there's verbs of action. If you keep reading, shine forth, show forth this glorious justice at the end of verse one. Rise up, render punishment. And those are all imperatives. Here's a very bold prayer. These are commands. It's astonishing. Move. Act, O Lord. Do not delay. Out of your holy justice, shine forth. Remember Nadab and Abihu and the holy of holies. When the light of the glory of God flashed out, they were destroyed. It's the kind of thing he's asking for, for God, in his holy execution of vengeance, to punish. Why? Verses 4 to 7. Because justice appears to be delayed. Verse 3 brings us a bridge between 1 and 2 and 4 to 7. Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked try? Psalm 73 has the same pain in it. Psalmist looks out over the world and he says, very bad people are running the world and getting away with very bad things and nothing ever seems to happen. There seems to be a whole corner of social media that's fixated on this question. Whether it be the social justice warriors, so-called social justice, that's a whole nother question. Whether it be people that are perplexed with very evil wrongs that ought to be righted in the world. There's this crying out, why is there a world like this if there is a God of justice? Where is God? How long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph? And now, the psalmist describes the wicked, so we're to, in the phrase the wicked, we can insert the description of verses four through seven. They are very wicked. A rising description of sort of a willful, intentional rebellion. They utter speech and speak insolent things. All the workers of iniquity boast in themselves. They break in pieces your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. Their words are wicked. They're boastful. They persecute God's people. They break them in pieces, afflict your heritage. Listen to this language. They slay the widow and stranger. This is very strong language. If you go to the prophet Micah, the prophet Micah in Micah chapter 3, some remarkably graphic language to describe this kind of wickedness, and let me say something sobering. It was not outside of the people of God in Micah's day. It was within Israel. Hear now, O heads of Jacob and you rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice? You who hate good and love evil, who strip the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones. How's that for a graphic description of ungodly evil, oppression, and cruelty? You get a sense of the heart of the psalmist when he starts describing this. They slay the widow and the stranger. They murder the fatherless. What is a fatherless? That's an orphan who doesn't have a dad to stand in between. And there are wicked people. who would take that little one, kill them. That's the pain of heart. Verse seven brings this to a higher level. While they do this, yet they say, the Lord God does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand. He doesn't know what's happening. Anyways. I was scrolling through the news this week. I saw a comedian who actually is fairly funny sometimes, but you shouldn't listen to him. He's gifted at being funny. He's not godly. There was a clip, and he was talking about the fires in California. And he made this joke about the fires in California. He said, people have all these crazy theories about why they happened. And then he listed all, about 100 of them, and he said, I've come to the conclusion that there's so many different reasons why there were fires. And then he made this as a joke. God hates those people, probably because they're sodomites. And the crowd laughed. The crowd laughed. We don't know why God does what he does where he does it. But when we see calamities, we ought never to laugh. That is the spirit that the psalmist is talking about. Where is God? It's a mockery of him, a mockery of God. It's a mockery of his justice. It's a taunting of God. Calvin calls here this a taunting of God, a throwing his justice in his face. And considering it to be a small thing, I think actually of the symbol of perversion of our days, which is a rainbow flag, even though it's being altered more and more, but it was historically a rainbow flag. I always think that's the covenant with Noah sign being lifted up to God. under which the whole world lives under that great covenant of mercy of the settled order after the flood. It's lifted up as the symbol of pride. The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand. Remember when there was that great debate over, after Roe versus Wade was overturned in our nation, and billboards started popping up over the nation where governors of states where this wickedness called abortion was still legal, which it still is in our state, very sadly. They were advertising for people to come to their states. The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand. Two lessons to learn at this point. We need to be careful before we point fingers outside the church. I'm giving examples of humanity. Every time you commit a sin, particularly sins against the clear knowledge of the will of God, we participate in this spirit of rebellion that basically says God doesn't see or he doesn't care. We so often live like this and we should be humble when we read this. Second lesson, there's common burden. I said earlier, injustice exists, and here's the burden of the psalmist, and the Lord does not appear to be doing anything about it. That's in the psalmist's heart, but it's also in the unbeliever's heart. I can do what I want. Seems to be true. God won't do anything. And the believer says, Lord, it appears people can do what they want, and you won't do anything. Profoundly, even within Israel. Now, here is a warning. At this point in your life is one of the most profound places where Satan could tempt you to make a very bad conclusion. To accuse God and believe that you shouldn't suffer in this life and that he's wrong in his execution of justice. Why did you not give me a better life? Again, notice, two groups in a sense are saying the same thing. The psalmist with the burden of the believer, the unbeliever, they're both denying that there's coming justice. The believer by not seeing how God and when, and the unbeliever by saying it'll just never happen. God's answer to the question is a sort of double rebuke in verses 8 through 11. It's a rebuke. Notice it falls right on the end of verse 7. Nor does the God of Jacob understand. That's what the unbelieving, rebellious, ignorant of God's justice world says. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know what's happening. Look what God says. Understand you senseless or stupid people. He's saying the problem isn't my lack of understanding, it's yours. Rebuking the wicked here, he says, you fools, when will you be wise? And here are just some extraordinary questions. He who planted the ear, do you think he doesn't hear? Do you think God doesn't hear what you're saying? Do you think God doesn't hear when you say that they say the Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand? They're talking amongst themselves. God says, you think I can't hear you? And then we keep reading. He who formed the eye, shall he not see? They say the Lord does not see. He says, I made your eyes. I gave you the gift of eyesight. Do you think the originator and creator of the ability to see can't see you or hear you? Have you lost your mind? You fools, when will you be wise? He who instructs the nations, I have the prerogative, capacity, and authority to tell the world what to do. Shall he not correct you? I teach man knowledge, and then finally the hammer blow, I know your thoughts. I don't just see you, I don't just hear you, but I know what you're thinking. And it's senseless, it's futile. You are on a fool's errand. If you are questioning my justice, it's unquestionable and perfect. Nothing can be hid from God. He knows all things. He sees all things. You know, our technological world, everything we do and say, slowly being recorded and compiled in massive servers and searched for people to sell us things and probably do worse. Nothing compared to God's knowledge of your life. He knows your thoughts from afar off, which also means that If you're being persecuted for righteousness' sake, he knows the thoughts of the wicked from afar. Nothing can be hidden from him. Nothing. The doctrine of omniscience here is the first answer in the psalm to the question of justice. It's that he never misses anything. Nothing. Not one word, not one thought. He sees it all. He hears it all. All happens before the face of God. He's not overwhelmed by it. He's not surprised by it. He rules over it. But he permits it. Jesus explained this in the peril of the wheat and the tares. He said, in this, in my kingdom, even as my kingdom in the new covenant era grows. You need to know that there's going to be wickedness in the world and righteousness in the world. And it is my divine purpose that both would grow up together until a final reckoning or judgment, an ultimate judgment. Yes, there are temporal judgments in between here and there where God deals with the wicked. But God has purposed that until he comes again, the judge of all the earth to finally make all right, there will be a waiting. It's something in God's plan in which evils are permitted until a future final judgment. Which tells us a few things. There is no utopia in this present world. Again, I would say this, this pointedly. The utopians among us are rebellious. And they are unwilling to wait for heaven. It doesn't mean that our hearts don't break when we see injustice. It means that there is often a divine time and place for waiting. If you deny this, then you would place the fault with God. You would question his justice and his rule. And I would submit to you that Satan is using this temptation very successfully in the present age. as increasing wickedness and sadness causes us to strive and sometimes question the ways of God, when sometimes he's saying to us, wait. It's instructive that, back to Romans chapter 12, that Paul quotes the principles of this psalm as he deals with the church at Rome. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. We just read it a moment ago, that there is a coming righting of all wrongs that belongs to the Lord, ultimately, that justice in this life is at best imperfect and that we are willing to wait. I will repay, the Lord says. It belongs to me. It's often delayed. Look at verse 13. There's going to be a wait until the pit is done for the wicked. There is going to be one day a judgment that will return to righteousness. Verse 16, when the question is, who will rise up for me? The Lord will be my help. There's a future. And then at the very end of this psalm, he has brought on them their own iniquity and shall cut them off in their own wickedness. The Lord our God shall cut them off. There's a period of waiting. And Christians of many generations wait for this. Christians in heaven are still waiting for this. It's interesting that heaven is a place of sinless peace with God and bliss, but there's also, in the present age, in Revelation chapter 6, a great cry. When the fifth seal was opened by The lamb took the scroll. John says, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, till you judge and avenge the blood of those who dwell on the earth? How long? Until that final reckoning, that will be the cry of the people of God. There is a sense of imperfection and waiting yet in heaven for the final resurrection and the final judgment. So we have a sort of double instruction here. To the wicked, God sees it all. To the righteous, God sees it all, without distinction. A rebuke to the wicked, an instruction to the faithful to wait on the Lord. So instead, here's the question, where does this leave the believing sufferer? The rest of the psalm gives the answer here. We call life condition of spiritual growth through affliction. In affliction, we learn to lay hold of the unchanging and unalterable and unlosable blessedness of knowing God, as we often wait on his justice. The problem here is simple. The Lord has not yet acted and we have asked him to. Our hearts are broken rightly. What do we do? Some things from the psalm first. How does God grow us in this? First, he makes us thankful for the blessing of communion with him in trials. Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law. There's this explosion of light that comes before the answer of justice comes, the answer to the justice cry comes. It's that in the middle of this, I presently have the blessedness of the knowledge of God and communion with him from his word. And that God wants me, as I wait on him, to grow in this. What makes a difference between the righteous and the wicked? The righteous lives by the word, by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He can discern between good and evil. He has the spiritual power by the power of the Holy Spirit to resist evil and do what is good, and so stand against evil in the present world. And for us, we know that the source of that power and glory and communion is the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. And like in Psalm 73, it's when faced with these burdens that often God works in our heart a breakthrough to see his sufficient glory for us in that moment to carry us through it. Second, we have confidence in future rest. Verse 13. that you may give him rest from the days of adversity until the pit is dug for the wicked." It's very clear here that there's a period in between and that God's already giving rest before the pit for the wicked, the final judgment, is dug or finished. That there is a sense of God's mercy and confidence in future rest, the promises of a Sabbath rest for the people of God remain unshaken. A future rest becomes more precious. You start to hold on to promises that all things work together for good for those who love God, the called according to his purpose. I probably told you this before, but when my father was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease of ALS, it became his favorite verse. He was a strong man who could overcome, it seemed, almost anything in his life until the Lord took everything away slowly by slowly. And he began to confess more and more that all things that God is doing are for good. Though I don't understand them, I'll wait. As God stripped his natural strength away, sometimes God strips our comforts away. Sometimes God brings us affliction, sometimes God brings us kinds of hardship we cannot understand, we can't see the end from the beginning. He can, we can't, it hurts more because of this. What does that do? loosens your grip on the things of this world. And you start to think like Abraham, here we have no continuing city. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Abraham looked for a city that had foundations, whose builder and maker is God. You start to think like Paul in prison, for our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly await a savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. We think, and he will wipe all the tears away from my eyes one day. And he will, without exception. And even when we can't understand or see the end from the beginning, he calls us to look up to him and remember that he is just and righteous and compassionate. And we turn our eyes from our circumstances to the God of rest and comfort. Third, he gives us a sense of the security of his love Verse 14, he will not cast off his people, nor will he forsake his inheritance. It is when that faith is tested that it grows. And the psalmist here goes from the question, Lord, ride forth in vengeance, to a confession now that says, I am understanding that whatever happens, he will never leave me or forsake me his covenant. Promises are true. They're yes and amen in Jesus Christ. They're unshakable. You learn that when you're tested. You learn that in pain. Fourth, he teaches us to cultivate a patient waiting on him. We wait for his time of justice. We already saw verse 13, until the pit is dug for the wicked. Verse 15, judgment will return to righteousness. Again, we read at the end of the psalm, the Lord shall cut them off in their own wickedness. He shall cut them off. And so we learn, verse 16, to trust him. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Verse 17, unless the Lord had been my help, my soul would have been settled in silence. There is a cultivation of waiting, which is not just the passing of time, but in the passage of time, the movement of faith, the eyes of faith, lifting of the eyes of faith to God, and the learning that unless God had been my help, I would have perished. He's carrying me through. He really is. He does. If you're in that valley, he has not left you or forsaken you. If you hold to Christ, he never will. He never can. Though we cannot understand the end from the beginning, he can. And vengeance belongs to him. He will right all wrongs. We experience at this point, verse 19, supernatural divine comfort in the multitude of my anxieties within me. How's this for two things at once? In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul. The God of all comfort, the Father of all mercies, ministering by his promises, by his spirit, reminding us of the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, the glories that will follow. giving us a hunger for the power of the resurrection and the better day. He makes us wait. Fifth, he cultivates in us a sense of pity for evildoers. This is what a world of justice will never understand. Give me justice now. Verse 20, show the throne of iniquity, which devises evil by law, have fellowship with you. They gather together against the life of the righteous and condemn innocent blood. Throne of iniquity, there's an evil kingdom. It writes laws that are the reverse of God's laws. It has no fellowship with you. It condemns innocent blood. It's wicked, evil, the world system apart from God. But the Lord has been my defense, my rock, and my refuge. And then we read the following. He has brought on them their own iniquity and shall cut them off in their own wickedness. Paul in Romans chapter one is picking up the same theological theme when he says the wrath of God is revealed against the unrighteousness of men. When you see abject evil in the world triumphing, the Bible tells you that that in itself is the beginning of God's justice. When he loses the restraints, Romans chapter one, and wickedness begins to flourish, it is a sign of impending judgment, final judgment, and it's sobering. You should think about that in your own life. If you find yourself going deeper and deeper into a sin, you need to get on your knees and say, Lord, please forgive me and help me turn. But I want to run from that. Suddenly, the psalmist sees in all of this sadness that the sin unrestrained is even the beginning of the holy judgments of God. He has brought on them their own iniquity and will cut them off in their own wickedness. The Lord our God shall cut them off. Their wickedness will be the reason for and the confirmation of the holiness of the final judgment that will sweep the wicked away. He'll be indisputable. Against the backdrop of the resplendent beauty, justice, and holiness of God, the rebellious wickedness of men will be the warrant for everlasting judgment. I said earlier we should have a sense of pity. You can imagine that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, could have prayed this psalm, prayer, He looked out into an entire world of unjust and sinful humanity. And Elijah's cry, I, even I alone am left, could be the cry of our Savior on the cross to a depth and magnitude far beyond anything that Elijah could imagine. His own disciples forsook him and fled, his own people Together with the Romans, the whole world nailed him to the cross. In Luke chapter 23, we read the following, that while he was on the cross, and he looked down on the masses of unjust, wicked humanity, slaying and murdering, speaking insolent things, and the workers of iniquity boasting in their wickedness, saying, the Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand, as they taunted the Lord of glory. I don't know if you've ever thought about Christ's view from the cross. It's all he saw on every side. It's all he saw in humanity. It's all he saw in every direction, forward and back in time and in every north, south, east, and west. And then he prayed, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He had pity. He said the same thing earlier in his ministry, Matthew 23, verse 37, when he looked over Jerusalem. He said, I wish I could gather you under my wings, this rebellious city that has refused her king. Oh, that I would gather you under my wings like a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing. You wouldn't come. One of the reasons why God does not execute his justice immediately, because he is patient. Gracious, not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance. And God forbid that we asking God to hurry his justice would be missing mercy. If we go back to the Apostle Paul, this is why I worry about the call for justice, justice, justice, justice. If God had given you justice, and not been patient, you wouldn't have mercy. Think about that. That's why Paul writes this, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, how's this? Feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. What the Word of God is saying is that your task is not to be the judge. Your task is to leave that to the Lord. He will make it right perfectly. Paul goes on to say that this is a dangerous position because if we go down the wrong fork in the road, We will be overcome by evil instead of overcoming evil with good. In other words, we'll find ourselves on the side deserving the vengeance instead of the side of mercy. The gospel compels us to be those who are willing to wait, for God is forbearing. God is patient. The gospel calls us to look at the world of injustice and evil and to think about our Savior on the cross and say, Lord, I understand now because you saw me there in the crowd and you had mercy. We're in a time when the church is being tempted to get this all very wrong, to invert the gospel in the name of justice. It doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to sin and suffering, but God is the God of justice. We are all not permitted to exact retribution or to live in bitterness. We do weep with those who weep, but vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. When we're perplexed, we get on our knees and we plead with the God who rescues, saves, and delivers in his time according to his will with a character that is not only full of justice, but also mercy and love. And we submit ourselves to his safe, tender care while we wait. Let us pray. Lord our God, we pray for grace that we would trust your ways. We know that Your purpose is one day to wipe all tears from our eyes and right every injustice. We thank you that we as believers come to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who took the justice that we deserve that we might have the mercy that we don't deserve. We pray that as we walk through life which often has that sensation of the valley of the shadow of death that you would temper our hearts. that we might know the blessedness of communion with you, learn the art of waiting on you, trust your holy justice, that it will come in due time. And Lord, be willing from our hearts to overcome evil with good. We pray that the spirit of the age, which demands, even in rebellion, against so many of your clear precepts, some sort of ungodly justice. Lord, we recognize your holy justice and submit to you in your patient mercy. Lord, we do long for the day that you wipe all tears from our eyes and we wait for it. We pray that when we go low that you would comfort us and bear us up and even guard us from evildoers. Lord, you are able. But we entrust our lives to you. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Go now with the blessing of the Lord. Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity. Amen.