JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE IN COURT - ON TRIAL – BUT WHAT IS THE VERDICT? PART 1 OF 2
INJUSTICE FOR CHRISTIANS
A disgraceful thing is happening in Australia. In New South Wales, football is god. The football code is Rugby League. One football club, Manly Sea Eagles, made a decision to make its players wear a “Pride” jersey. Pride is the name given to the promotion and arrogance of homosexuality. There are Pride marches, Pride conventions and now Pride jerseys with some rainbow colouring. The behaviour of Sodom is a stench in God’s sight. Be warned all you who promote that perversion (a bible word incidentally; also “degrading passions” from Romans 1) and those who support it, God is not mocked. The judgement of the great white throne awaits in the future and you will be without excuse.
Seven players of that Manly club refused to wear that jersey so they can’t play, and they have been vilified by the media and politicians all over Australia. The seven players are from the South Pacific Islands – Melanesians and Polynesians, men who maintain the standard of the bible. These Pacific Islands are Christian so most of their their representatives are also. The greatest Rugby Union player who was in Australia – Israel Folau – you might remember was sacked and vilified horribly just because he posted a bible verse on social media that contained a mention of homosexuality in a bible verse. This was the verse – {{1Corinthians 6:9 or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 1Cor 6:10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God,}} HE WAS SACKED FOR THAT.
I won’t continue too long with this, but I am shocked at all the media personalities coming out to attack these faithful Christians. Just to give one example, and I quote - “Aussie TV icon Magda Szubanski has attacked the religious stance of seven rugby league players involved in the Manly pride jersey scandal in a series of tweets. The popular performer declared the seven Sea Eagles players, who are boycotting their team’s Thursday night clash with the Roosters, were failing to show the tolerance demanded by their religion by refusing to wear a LGBTQIA-themed jersey.”
Such hypocrisy! That woman despises Christianity and Christians, so she knows nothing about what Christian tolerance is. The Thursday mentioned is the 28th July 2022, a day that will go down as a further step in the sinking of Australia in the moral abyss.
Australian National Rugby League is going to bring in a “Pride Round” for the nation next year and this perversion will go national and be paraded around flaunting all the laws of nature. Those who turn from God are capable of the worst sins.
The local Federal member for the Manly area called those dissenting players hypocrites. She is one who hates Christians and what they stand for. One media outlet in a hateful attack was blaming the missionaries for the trouble because through God, they converted these Pacific islands to Christianity in the 1800s. The media outlet accused the missionaries of destroying the way of life of Pacific Islanders. Praise God they were converted because they lived in a fearful blackness, practising cannibalism, and were violent people to each other.
Nations such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, Tahiti, Cook Island, Samoa in particular, and even Hawaii, have been blessed and brought to the light through the early missionaries, many of whom lost their lives and some were eaten. I have had the privilege of visiting all the above places more than once, except Cook Island and it is a joy to see their plentiful churches. I have been present at some of their church services, some of which went for over 4 hours but such is the devotion of these people from the Pacific Islands. Now vile men and women are attacking their Christian faith. It comes from Satan, no other place.
There is such a growing hostility to Christians in Australia and hostility for the moral stance they take on issues. These organisations attack Christians but they will never say a word about a Moslem or Islam. I wonder why? We all know the answer to that. I know this increasing opposition is not just confined to Australia but wickedness is spreading rapidly in the world. Is this any surprise to us? No it is not. We know it will not only happen, but is going to get worse. Consider these very relevant verses –
2Timothy 3:1 Realise this, that in the last days difficult times will come, 2Tim 3:2 for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 2Tim 3:3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 2Tim 3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
“Difficult times” in verse 1 mean “times or hardship”. (Perilous is the KJV word). I know we all apply those verses to the world at large, but I have always thought they are more specifically addressing Christians. It is Christians who will undergo the difficult times of hardship. We see it happening now.
Justice and injustice are on trial. The jury is stacked. The verdict is always for the support of injustice. What is injustice? It is the upholding of any move, or law or decision that goes against the clear law of God. Any travesty against what God has decreed is injustice. This includes evolution, abortion, homosexuality, corruption of marriage, the destruction of children’s sexuality, the destruction of gender that Jesus said was male and female. {{Matthew 19:4 He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, Matt 19:5 and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh?’}}
In speaking of the last days Paul went on to say, {{“2Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2Tim 3:13 Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2Tim 3:14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them.”}}
There are so many things that can be included here, issues that have been turned upside down. Each item God laid down in the first two chapters of Genesis has been inverted by wickedness. That comprises, creation, the origin of man, gender, sexuality, marriage, headship, management of the earth, and no doubt there are others. There is no justice for those.
That is enough on that. I want to move to the main area – more matters dealing with justice and injustice.
JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE NOW OPENED UP
“Since 1972 in the United States, 180 men and 2 women have been freed from death row after been found innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced to die. The condemned people were caught up in a nightmare, often caused by police or prosecutorial misconduct, or by witnesses who lied or who were mistaken. Most of the wrongly convicted had poor legal representation. They sat on death row, typically in solitary confinement, sometimes for decades. They missed their own parents’ funerals. Their children grew up without them.” (National Geographic March 2021).
Today we will have a look at the matter of justice and injustice. It is such a big subject and we can only explore a few thoughts on it. The world is full of atrocities; of evils done to people. Justice will have its day, but it won’t rest in the hands of men. We cry for justice on earth but find none. There is no one to plead our cause. People are framed, cheated, robbed, dishonoured, vilified, charged with spurious crimes and allegations, dismissed from their work on false pretences, denied their rights, cheated by the legal system, falsely accused, murdered without recompense, and they are just a few of the things this world hands out to people. Yet nothing changes; it only gets worse. The bible indicates it will get worse.
Are we unique in our generation in the matter of injustice? Certainly not. From the creation of human beings, justice is like an orphan still waiting to be adopted. In the very first book of the bible, we read this, {{Genesis 4 v 10 He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”}} Here was a murder crying out for justice. Cain had killed his righteous brother; the righteous slain by the unrighteous; God’s justice trampled into the ground, the red ground testifying to the injustice of man. In that Genesis case, the justice of God prevailed.
Then we go to the last book of the bible and read this – {{Revelation 6 v 9-10 When He broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”}} In this account we have cries for justice, which here is retribution by the way, coming from those who had been killed in the Tribulation, the first part of it. They cried to God for retribution and vengeance which will be a correct prayer for the time of the Tribulation. Not so for us now, but for those in the future, a legitimate prayer. In that case the justice of God will prevail.
However, in the 6 000 years between those two events, Genesis and Revelation, what of the terrible injustice of man against his fellow man? Did the justice of God prevail through all that time? I say, in most cases, it has not. In those 6 000 years justice was often unrequited. The evils done to people were not addressed, but dismissed or circumvented or just plainly denied. But is that injustice really forgotten? Has it been closed up and the book locked away in a file, “Never to be opened”? Certainly not, for God is a holy and just God, and for God to sweep away the injustice of some, but address the injustice to others, then that is not a righteous God.
The following verse is written to Christians, but it is based on the universal justice of God – {{2Corinthians 5 v 10 “for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”}} It is a principle that applies to all individuals of all ages for 6 000 years. God’s justice is not forgotten, just deferred for the appropriate time.
JUSTICE WILL HAVE ITS DAY
For all those who have been unjust to their fellow human beings in any way, the day of accountability awaits them in the form of the great white throne when all the deeds of all the unsaved, recorded in all the books, will be revealed as the books are opened. In this we can say, “Justice will have its day.” Can you recall the days when you were younger when one kid would say to another, if something was done he thought unfair or did not like, “God will punish you,” but nothing happened. That might be a childlike attitude, but in fact it is based on reality. As Christians, we must be always grateful and thankful to God who has saved us by delivering us from the wrath of His justice. God will punish, for unpunished sins stand in opposition to the holiness of God, but for the Christian, he is not punished for his sins. The justice of God has deemed that all who belong to Jesus are delivered from punishment because Christ was punished on our behalf. That is what we remember each Sunday at the Lord’s Table.
The world thinks it can laugh at the justice of God and mock the existence of God, and be dismissive of any recompense that might follow, but we live in the age of grace where God is not going to hurl lightning bolts from the sky as the Greeks thought of Zeus. He is longsuffering, patient, desiring that all men might repent. Do not expect an open display against injustice coming from God in our time.
Our governments and the people who elect them can not carry out justice because they all are seriously flawed. Romans chapter 3 would clearly show that. Therefore individually, nationally and internationally, injustice is everywhere. It is as if the persecuted, the oppressed, the neglected, the deprived and the downtrodden are crying out for justice in this world but it does not come. It is as if justice is crying out in the street; weeping in the street; failing in the street.
The expression about crying out in the street is not mine. It is God’s and if you wish to turn to this passage in Isaiah you will see this as we read. You might think Isaiah is describing our time, our world, but he speaks of his time. Human depravity is the same yesterday and today - - - and forever, UNTIL the Lord returns.
For today, I would like to stop there without reading from Isaiah, and we will continue with it next time. This is a very important subject and I do not want to rush it. God bless you all and keep us true and faithful because it is going to get harder.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
