Justice Is But A Breath

Good to worship with you guys. Please open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

Thank you, Gary.

We have been in the book of Ecclesiastes for the last four weeks or so, five weeks.

And now we're in chapter 3, verse 16, going to chapter 4, verse 3.

Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word.

Heavenly Father,

truly there is no one righteous, no not one.

And we stand here before your holy presence

because of the merit of Jesus' righteousness.

So now, Lord, graciously speak to us as you always do from your Word.

Meet us here in the presence of your Holy Spirit.

Lord,

conform us to your Word.

Teach us how to live

with the wisdom of humility.

Surrender to your will.

So we might navigate this unjust world

without losing hope,

with great faith and love.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

If you are able,

please stand and join me as I read this passage.

We stand to honor God's Word

that God has given us.

I'll read from chapter 3, verse 16,

to chapter 4, verse 3.

Moreover,

I said in my heart,

God will judge the righteous and the wicked,

for there is a time for every matter

and for every work.

I said in my heart,

with regard to the children of man,

that God is testing them,

that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

For what happens to the children of man

and what happens to the beasts is the same.

As one dies, so dies the other.

They all have the same breath.

And man has no advantage over the beasts,

for all is vanity.

All go to one place.

All are from the dust,

and to dust all return.

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward

and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth.

So I saw that there is nothing better than that

a man should rejoice in his work,

for that is his lot,

who can bring him to see what will be after him.

Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun,

and behold the tears of the oppressed,

and they had no one to comfort them.

On the side of their oppressors there was power,

and there was no one to comfort them.

And I thought,

the dead who are already dead,

more fortunate than the living who are still alive,

but better than both is he who has not yet been

and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

This is God's holy and authoritative word.

You may be seated.

A pastor friend of mine passed away last month,

and he was in his 70s.

He died of chronic lung disease.

And he used to say this often.

He used to say,

all you have to do to suffer is live long enough.

I think he is right about that.

Suffering in this sinful, broken world is inevitable.

You don't have to do anything special to experience suffering.

You just have to live long enough.

And one significant cause of suffering throughout the world is injustice.

Many people throughout the world have valiantly fought to eliminate evil

and to eliminate injustice in this world,

but to no avail, as you can see in the world around us.

Some prominent examples of people who have sought to form a utopia,

a utopian society, come to mind.

One example is John Humphrey Noyes.

I don't know if you guys have heard of him,

who founded the Oneida community in 1848 in Oneida, New York.

The community was founded on principles of communalism, free love, and equality.

Sounds good on the surface.

But the commune shared everything.

They shared all their income.

They shared all their possessions.

They even shared their partners.

Noyes instituted so-called complex marriages

where every man in the commune was considered to be married to every woman in the commune.

So if you think all this talk nowadays is about open marriages and polyamory is new,

no, it's not new.

There's nothing new under the sun.

The members of this commune called themselves the perfectionists

and believed that their practices would shape a man-made Eden.

But the experiment crumbled when Noyes was charged with statutory rape

and other sex crimes and fled to Canada.

Honestly, that result doesn't surprise me at all.

The communes stopped enforcing their idea of complex marriages after that.

No matter how hard we try to create a perfectly fair society,

a truly just society,

even the U.S. is that experiment,

there is no way we can hermetically seal ourselves from injustice

which always finds a way to warm itself in.

That was actually a point of the book

which title, the word utopia comes from Thomas More's book,

Utopia, written in 1516.

It describes a fictional island of utopia,

which is an ideal society.

And the word utopia is a combination of two Greek words,

utopos, which literally means no place,

because there's no such place as utopia.

Only some of us in this room have been victims of grave injustices,

but probably all of us have experienced some kind of injustice.

Maybe you were misunderstood or misrepresented.

Maybe you were discriminated against.

Maybe you were manipulated by a significant other

or backstabbed by a friend.

Maybe you were abused by those who had power and authority over you.

Given the stubborn persistence of injustice in the world,

how do we find the faith and the courage

to keep fighting for justice?

How do we make sense of so much senseless injustice in this world?

Ecclesiastes 3, 16, 4 to 3 teaches us the answer to that question.

In this unjust world, this is the main point of this passage,

where life is breath and death is gain,

we should rejoice in our work and wait for God's time of judgment.

We're going to talk about that in two parts.

First, we'll talk about how to live is breath.

And secondly, we'll talk about how to die is gain.

In chapter 3, verse 16, it says this,

Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice,

even there was wickedness.

And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.

The repetition of this and the parallel structure of these lines

convey the preacher's horror and indignation.

In the very place where justice ought to be residing,

there in that place is wickedness.

In the very place that should be characterized by righteousness,

there is instead wickedness.

Imagine the horror of seeing in the temple of God an idol.

That's the kind of horror that you're supposed to feel,

the shameless blasphemy of it all.

The word justice here is also translated judgment in other places.

It's in the very place where right judgment should be rendered

and where the right verdict should be given,

where the right judgment should be executed,

there is wickedness.

Take Thomas Maloney, for example,

who served as judge in Illinois for 14 years.

One of the most corrupt judges in U.S. history.

He fixed three murder trials after taking bribes.

Or think of Timothy Evans,

a British man who was executed by hanging on March 9, 1950,

after being falsely accused

and wrongly convicted of the murder of his own daughter.

During his trial, the man insisted,

it wasn't me, it's my downstairs neighbor.

But the downstairs neighbor was a chief witness,

the star witness for the prosecution.

He was wrongly convicted and he was hanged

and then later it was discovered

that it was the downstairs neighbor who was the murderer.

In fact, he had killed seven other women in the same house.

He was a serial killer.

Imagine the pain,

not only of losing your daughter to murder,

and then being accused of killing her yourself.

You guys have probably read the book

or seen the movie, Just Mercy,

where a black man named Walter McMillan

was accused of murder and sentenced to death in 1988

despite the fact that he had an ironclad alibi

confirmed by dozens of witnesses,

including a police officer.

No motive for the murder whatsoever

and despite the fact that there was no physical evidence

and no corroborating circumstances,

he was still sentenced to death.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending,

but still he was sentenced to death

because of the false testimony of one man,

a convicted criminal himself,

in exchange for a lesser sentence for him.

He testified against falsely Walter McMillan.

In the place of justice,

even there was wickedness.

However, this is no cause for despair

because it says in verse 17,

I said in my heart,

God will judge the righteous and the wicked

for there is a time for every matter

and for every work.

Remember I mentioned the word justice

is the same word that means judgment.

It's the noun form of the verb judge here in verse 17.

So there's a contrast between the two verses.

Humans in the world do not judge righteously,

but God does.

Under the sun,

we find wickedness in the place of justice,

but God judges both the righteous and the wicked

for there is a time for every matter

and for every work.

Now that should ring a bell

if you've been with us

through this Ecclesiastes series

because that phrase,

there is a time for every matter,

is a repetition of chapter three, verse one.

It said,

for everything there is a season

and a time for every matter under heaven.

So verse 17 is linking back to that poem

about time in verses two to eight

that we looked at last week.

And the main lesson of that poem,

if you missed it, was this.

Yes, God has made everything beautiful in its time.

Yes, God has put eternity in man's heart,

but God has made it so that we cannot find out

what he has done from the beginning to the end.

That's what it says in the Bible.

The times that verses one to eight speak of

are not our times, but God's times.

Eternity and knowing what is going on in this world

in the light of eternity

is God's unique prerogative and purview, not ours.

That's why it said in chapter three, verse 14,

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever.

Nothing can be added to it,

nor anything taken from it.

God has done it so that people fear before him.

God has instilled in the heart of every human being

this inkling of eternity,

a longing for eternity,

but because we are finite and temporal creatures

that inhabit fleeting time,

we can't quiet grasp hold of it.

We can't quiet make sense of it.

We can't understand why everything happens in its season.

We can't understand why there is injustice in the world.

God, you are holy.

You are just.

You are righteous.

So why is there so much evil and wickedness

and injustice in this world that you've created?

Yes, of course, there are good, logical,

and biblical answers that we can give to that question.

But even the best apologists

cannot fully answer that question

because God has hidden it from us

because it stretches beyond our scope.

God has made it so that we cannot find out

what he has done from the beginning to the end.

As finite creatures,

we are unable to connect the dots

in this great chain of events in our lives

stretching to eternity.

We're like rats in an impossible maze.

The maze is too vast,

and our knowledge and our memory,

our experience,

too limited

so that we cannot connect

from the beginning to the end.

God has ordained the world to be like this

in order to instill the fear of God,

it says in verse 14 of chapter 3,

so that we might know how small we are

and know how big he is.

In the same way,

a parent might say to a child,

you can't quite understand this yet,

but when you're a little older,

I'll explain it to you.

My kids are probably tired of hearing that from me.

So when the preacher says in verse 17,

I said in my heart,

God will judge the righteous and the wicked,

for there is a time for every matter

and for every work,

he's assuring us that the ultimate time of judgment

and for justice

is God's time and not ours.

We want justice now.

We clamor for justice now.

Look at the George Floyd protests in 2020.

Millions of people demanded justice and got it.

Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison

for second-degree murder.

But many other times,

we don't see justice under the sun.

Take the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China.

The government,

the communist government,

the students protested against it.

A million people gathered in Tiananmen Square

to protest the Chinese government.

But it did not end with the overthrow

or the reform of the communist government.

It ended with a military crackdown.

300,000 troops sent into that historic square.

Killed hundreds of civilians.

No human judge presided over that atrocity to condemn it.

In the place of justice,

even there was wickedness.

But verse 17 reminds us,

God will judge the righteous and the wicked,

for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Justice comes in God's time, not ours.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said,

the arc of the moral universe is long,

but it tends toward justice.

That arc of the moral universe is in fact so long

that we cannot see it from the beginning to the end.

We can't quite make sense of it,

but we can trust that it bends

toward God's ultimate justice.

The preacher continues his musings in verse 18.

I said in my heart with regard to the children of man

that God is testing them

that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

Notice that both verse 17 and verse 18

begin with this phrase.

I said in my heart.

The preacher's sayings in Ecclesiastes

often begin with a different phrase.

I saw.

You see that in chapter three, verse 16,

verse 22, chapter four, verse one.

I saw, I saw, I saw.

These are the observations,

his observations of the world and the way it works.

But the phrase I said in my heart

signals to us that these are his reflections

based on those observations.

And so these are key verses

for understanding what this passage means.

Verse 18 is connected to verse 17.

By reserving his judgment and justice

to his eternal timeframe

to which man has no access,

God is testing them

that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

In other words,

the preacher is saying the same thing

that he said earlier in verse 14.

I perceive that whatever God does endures forever.

Nothing can be added to it

nor anything taken from it.

God has done it so that people fear before him.

Once again, God has made his judgments inscrutable to us

in order to put us in our place,

to humble us,

to make us revere him

and to put our hope in him

and depend on him.

And how does God remind us that we are but beasts?

Look at verses 19 to 21.

For what happens to the children of man

and what happens to the beasts is the same.

As one dies, so dies the other.

They all have the same breath.

And man has no advantage over the beasts

for all is vanity.

All go to one place.

All are from the dust

and to dust all return.

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward

and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth.

It seems that there was in the days of the preacher

this popular idea, speculation,

that the spirit of man goes upward when he dies

but that the spirit of the beasts

goes down into the earth.

It's a predictably prideful and man-centered idea.

Of course, our spirits cannot go to the same place

as these lowly beasts is the logic.

But the preacher pokes holes into that fancy notion.

He says,

We all have the same breath.

And man has no advantage over the beasts

for all is vanity.

All go to one place.

All are from the dust

and to dust all return.

Now, please don't hear what I'm not saying.

I'm not saying that human beings are equal to animals.

I remember getting into trouble

with one of my friends in college.

I was peeling a banana to eat it.

And as I was peeling the banana,

she told me,

You're opening the banana the wrong way.

And I said,

I didn't know there was a wrong way to open a banana.

I said,

What do you mean it's the wrong way?

And then she says,

Well, you're supposed to open it

the way monkeys open it.

This way.

And I,

you know,

being the,

back in those days,

I know I was a lot more prideful

and contrarian than now.

And I thought,

you know,

I'm going to ask you a philosophical question.

I said,

Why should a man

copy an animal?

Why should I learn

how to peel my banana from a monkey?

And then she got mad at me.

She said,

You're just an animal like all of them.

You're just a beast.

You're just like,

And then she got into evolution

and we had this long conversation.

And,

so that's not what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that humans are the same as animals.

In one sense,

she was right.

We are no different from the animals,

as the preacher says here.

But in another sense,

we're all also very different from the animals,

aren't we?

In Genesis 1.27,

it says,

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God,

he created him.

Male and female,

he created them.

Human beings are the only creatures

that God creates in his own image.

In order that we might represent him

to the rest of creation

as rulers over creation

and so that we might resemble him

to be like him as his sons and daughters.

Only the human beings are created

in the image of God.

However,

with that said,

there is still one important sense

in which we are no different from the beasts.

We all die.

After forming the man

from the dust of the ground,

it says in Genesis 2.7,

that God breathed into the nostrils

the breath of life.

His nostrils,

the breath of life.

And the man became a living creature.

That's how we become living creatures.

The breath of God.

The spirit of God.

And this applies not only to mankind,

but also to the animals.

It says in Genesis 1.30,

and to every beast of the earth,

and to every bird of the heavens,

and to everything that creeps on the earth,

everything that has the breath of life,

I have given every green plant for food.

So then,

only mankind is created in God's image,

but all creatures have the breath of life.

We depend on it for life.

And the Bible teaches consistently

that when creatures die,

our bodies return to the dust,

but our spirits return to the God who gave it.

We see that in Ecclesiastes 12.7,

Job 34.14.15,

Psalm 104.29-30,

among other places.

And that's the point

that the preacher is making here.

In this sense,

we are all but beasts.

We have no advantage over the beasts.

This is what we call

the creator-creature distinction.

God is not quantitatively different from us.

He is,

but he's not merely quantitatively different from us.

He's not just a superlative form,

a bigger and stronger

and wiser and kinder version of man.

He is qualitatively different from us.

He is,

as one theologian,

Karl Barth calls it,

a holy other.

He is different from us.

No matter how advanced

or perfected

or wise we become,

we will never be God.

That's the creator

and creature distinction.

God is as different from us

as the potter

is to the clay.

God is as different from us

as the author of the book is

from the character

that's in the book.

God transcends time.

We are confined to time.

God is sovereign

and we are subjects.

God is the infinite creator

and we are finite creatures.

And this is why

we cannot grasp hold of eternity.

This is why

we can't make sense

of the injustices in life.

And this is why

we stand in awe of God

in worship

because we see that he is big

and then we are small

and we can't quite see

all that he is up to.

What then?

Do we simply despair

of justice in this life?

Answer is in verse 22.

So I saw that there is nothing better

than that a man should rejoice

in his work

for that is his lot.

Who can bring him

to see what will be after him?

Notice the same word work

which we saw in verse 17

where it said

God will judge the righteous

and the wicked

for there is a time

for every matter

and for every work.

Ultimate judgment

is God's work

which will occur

in his own perfect time.

But there is still work

for us to do here on earth

which is our lot

it says here.

Yes, there is no ultimate justice

here on earth

but we are still required

by the Lord

in Micah 6.8

to do justice

and to love kindness

and to walk humbly

with our God.

Yes, there is no ultimate justice

under the sun

but we are still supposed

to long for that justice

and pray for that justice

as the psalmist does

in Psalm 82

Psalms 82:3–4

verses 3 to 4.

Give justice to the weak

and the fatherless.

Maintain the right

of the afflicted

and the destitute.

Rescue the weak

and the needy.

Deliver them

from the hand

of the wicked.

But when we learn

the wisdom of Ecclesiastes

it radically alters

the way we go about

doing justice

in our work.

it enables us

to rejoice

in our work.

If we think of

doing justice

if we think of justice

as something

that is within our grasp

and something

that is ultimately

up to us

as human beings

then we're going to

try to make it happen

in our time.

We're not going to

wait for

or hope for

God's justice.

We're going to

become impatient.

We're going to become

triumphalistic.

We're going to

become sinfully angry

and we're going to

take things

into our own hands

and then that's going

to create new

miscarriages

of justice.

And then the pendulum

swings back and forth

back and forth

back and forth.

And then when we're

faced with setbacks

which is inevitable

in this world

we will be plunged

into cynicism

and despair.

that's what

pursuing justice

apart from God

looks like.

But if we recognize

that God's ultimate

justice is coming

then we can rejoice

in our various

works of justice.

Is our work

to bring about

justice

futile?

Yes.

In an ultimate sense

yes it is

in this life

under the sun.

Will we ever

eradicate injustice

from this earth?

No we will not.

But it is still

the right thing

to do.

We are obeying God

and we are honoring God

and we are imitating

God who is just

and who is righteous

and that's why

there's pleasure

and joy

to be had there.

Knowing that the arc

of the moral universe

and the arc

of human history

is bending

toward God's

ultimate justice.

We can do justice

not out of desperation

or frustration

or anger

but out of faith

and hope

and love.

Then in chapter 4

verses 1 to 3

the preacher returns

to the theme

of oppression

and injustice.

He says,

again I saw

all the oppressions

that are done

under the sun

and behold

the tears

of the oppressed

and they had no one

to comfort them.

On the side

of their oppressors

there was power

and there was no one

to comfort them

and I thought

the dead

who are already dead

more fortunate

than the living

who are still alive.

But better than both

is he who has not yet been

and has not seen

the evil deeds

that are done

under the sun.

The phrase

no one

to comfort them

is a common feature

of lamentation

and mourning

in the Bible.

It occurs repeatedly

for example

in the book

of Lamentations.

It is meant

to evoke great pity.

At least

most of us

have shoulders

to cry on

in times of sorrow.

But there are

some people

some oppressed

people in the world

who have no one

to comfort them.

How pathetic

is the person

who has no one

to comfort him

or her?

Have you beheld

these tears

of the oppressed?

Maybe you think

the preacher

is being a little bit

overly dramatic.

Oh, it's still

definitely better

to be alive

than to be dead.

Let's consider

some of these

examples.

First one

is a fictional one.

I recently watched

one of my favorite shows

Les Miserables.

So it has been

on my mind.

In the show

the details

are sparse

but if you look

at the book

which is the original source

Victor Hugo's novel

Les Miserables

Fantine

is a young

naive girl

working class girl

with bright future

ahead of her

but then she's

impregnated

by a rich student

who then

abandons her

leaving her

to raise her daughter

Cosette

by herself.

Needing child care

in order to work

and provide for her

she entrusts

the care of Cosette

to the thenardiers

who are innkeepers

not knowing

that they actually

abused her daughter

treat her as a slave

and then lied to her

in their letters

to extort her

of more money.

Fantine sinks

further and further

into the moral

mire of society

in order to provide

for her daughter.

She's unjustly

fired from her work

by a meddlesome

supervisor

forcing her

to work at home

which earns her

a meager sum

barely enough

to support her daughter

let alone herself

which leads to her

overworking

and then which leads

to her becoming sick

with a fever

and a cough.

The thenardiers

lie to her

saying that they need

10 francs

to buy Cosette

a woolen skirt

and then

so Fantine

having no other way

cuts off her

long beautiful locks

of hair

sells them

saying to herself

my child

is no longer cold

I have clothed her

with my hair

not realizing

that Cosette

will never

get to wear

those woolen

coats

or the woolen skirt.

Desperate

Fantine

takes on a lover

who uses her

beats her

and abandons her

again.

Then comes

another letter

from the thenardiers

who demand

40 francs

to buy medicine

for Cosette

claiming that

she has fallen ill

in order to make

the money

Fantine has her

two front teeth

removed and sold

and her woes

still don't end

and in order

to keep up

with the thenardiers

ever increasing

demands

she eventually

prostitutes herself

sacrificing her

dignity and self-worth

and hitting rock bottom

and in that role

she is still

again harassed

by a man

and when she retaliates

she's the one

who is arrested.

With John Valjean's

interpretation

she's freed

but still in the end

Fantine dies

of tuberculosis

not knowing

whether Cosette

is going to be

taken care of

after she dies.

and then her body

is unceremoniously

tossed into

a public grave.

Can anyone

tell Fantine

it was better

for her

to live

than to die?

And I thought

the dead

who are already dead

more fortunate

than the living

who are still

alive.

Yes,

she's a fictional

character

but things like this

happen to real people

in real life.

Why is power

so often

found on the side

of the oppressors?

There's some people

in the world

who have known

such deep suffering

and injustice

that they think

death more fortunate

than life.

Take the example

of Job

from the Bible.

Job 3,

3-5

he says this

Let the day

perish

on which I was born

and the night

that said

a man is conceived

let that day

be darkness.

May God above

not seek it

nor light shine

upon it

let gloom

and deep

darkness claim it

let clouds

dwell upon it

let the blackness

of the day

terrify it.

How bleak

does your life

have to be

for a man

to say something

like that?

Jeremiah 20

14-17

Cursed be the day

on which I was born

the day when my mother

bore me

let it not be blessed

cursed be the man

who brought the news

to my father

a son is born to you

making him very glad

let that man

be like the cities

that the Lord

overthrew without pity

let him hear a cry

in the morning

and an alarm at noon

because he did not

kill me in the womb

so my mother

would have been my grave

and her womb

forever great

why did I come out

from the womb

to see toil

and sorrow

and spend my days

in shame?

Most of us

are desperate

to live another day

longer

because we haven't

experienced

such suffering

is anyone

in our society

more weak

and vulnerable

more than children?

Earlier this year

a 16 month old

toddler

named Jalen

died in Ohio

because her mom

left her in the crib

and took a 10 day

beach vacation

with her boyfriend

in that jail cell

of a crib

she was dehydrated

she died of dehydration

and starvation

she whimpered

and howled

through the night

but nobody heard her cry

there was no one

to comfort her

she was found

emaciated

with sunken eyes

with fecal matter

smeared all over her

dry lips

and between her fingertips

physical pain

is one thing

but can you imagine

the psychological

and emotional pain

of a child

a toddler

at the peak

of separation anxiety

being abandoned

like that?

According to

the Guttmacher Institute

66 million children

have been aborted

in the United States

since 1973

Roe v. Wade

66 million

and we like

to pretend

that we are

civilized

that we're better

than those people

who lived

in the ancient world

behold

the tears

of the oppressed

and they had

no one

to comfort them

on the side

of their oppressors

there was power

and there was

no one

to comfort them

who comforts

those unborn children

who are aborted

by their own parents

who are meant

to care for them

who wipes away

their tears

did you know

that infants

in the womb

babies in the womb

cry?

I learned this

this week

they don't have air

in their lungs

so they can't make

sound

but apparently

they mimic

everything

that a born infant

does

when they are

subjected to

certain stimuli

they cry

in the womb

but even

they are better

off than Jalen

because they

were never born

and I thought

the dead

who are already

dead

more fortunate

than the living

who are still alive

but better

than both

is he

who has not

yet been

and has not

seen the evil

deeds

that are done

under the sun

as the English

philosopher

Thomas Hobbes

famously said

life is nasty

brutish

and short

this is the condition

of this fallen world

ravaged by sin

we work in a cursed ground

that produces thorns

and thistles

reducing all of our labor

to futility

Genesis 3.18 says

as Romans 8.20 says

the creation was subjected

to futility

so that it presently

groaning together

in the pains

of childbirth

that word futility

in Romans 8.20

is the Greek equivalent

of the Hebrew word

hevo

the same word

that's translated

vanity

vanity

of vanities

all is vanity

in Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:2

chapter 1

verse 2

and the new

obituaries

that get written

every single day

remind us

that we still live

under this futility

all of us

who live under the sun

experience this futility

whether you're a Christian

or not

and in this kind

of unjust world

life is breath

and death is gain

but is there an end

to this?

is there any hope

for us?

by God's gracious

intervention

this seemingly

endless cycle

of life and death

will come to a decisive end

when God brings

the new heaven

and a new earth

when God redeems

our mortal bodies

in the resurrection life

and that's when

this cycle

will finally end

and that's why

for us

those who have repented

of their sins

and trusted in Jesus

for salvation

to live is Christ

and to die is gain

in a far deeper

and greater sense

in this world

where in the place

of justice

there is wickedness

and in the place

of righteousness

there is wickedness

that is true

but there was one time

and only one time

in human history

all of human history

when in the place

of wickedness

there was justice

and in the place

of wickedness

there was righteousness

and that's on the cross

of Jesus Christ

for the Greeks

and the Romans

crucifixion

was torture

and execution

wrapped in one

reserved for the lowliest

of slaves

and criminals

the most shameful

kind of death

you can die

and that's where

Jesus

the son of God

the holy one

the righteous one

the perfect one

the unblemished

lamb of God

died on that cross

in the place

of wickedness

there was righteousness

hanging there

there was justice

hanging there

why?

he did not deserve

to be there

I deserve

to be there

he's the only man

who did not deserve

to be

on that cross

every single one

of us

deserve to be there

that's what Romans 3 says

no

there's no one

righteous

not even one

because if you're

honest with yourself

and you examine

your own heart

in all of us

there is this

heart of darkness

there is this

thing that the Bible

calls pride

of self glory

and self love

and self righteousness

and self centeredness

which is at the root

of every evil

and every injustice

in this world

and so

in every single one

of us

resides in seed form

the very thing

that grew into

Hitler and Nazi Germany

that's us

we deserve

to be on the cross

but Jesus

died

on the cross

he took

our place

to pay

the penalty

for our sin

because God

loves us

and he wanted

to save us

that's the one

place

in history

where righteousness

took the place

of wickedness

and that's why

we read

in our assurance

of pardon today

in 2 Corinthians 5

21

for our sake

God made him

Jesus

to be sin

who knew

no sin

so that in him

we might become

the righteousness

of God

so now

if you renounce

yourself

you repent

of your sins

you turn

from your sins

you renounce

yourself

and you

pledge allegiance

to Jesus Christ

as your Lord

and Savior

then here

in our hearts

in the place

of wickedness

now there is

justice

and here

upon our lives

where there is

wickedness

in the place

of wickedness

now we are clothed

with the righteousness

of Christ

that's what we were

singing about today

our sins

they are many

his mercy

is more

praise the Lord

his mercy

is more

stronger than

darkness

new

every morn

our sins

they are many

his mercy

is more

that's mercy

only people

who have received

mercy

can rejoice

in the work

of doing justice

in this unjust world

so