The Death of Justice & Evil ...

There is a difference between the condition of Satan, and the condition of man.  Lucifer (at the time), existed in a state of perfection and made a choice despite his long years, advanced knowledge, and perfect surroundings to break trust with God, to try things his way.  He ignored the warnings of God choosing not to believe them, instead trusting in himself.  This was completely done on his own.  No one led him to these choices, and in fact, many tried to dissuade him from these choices.  But in the end, Lucifer became Satan by using his freedom of choice to focus his love only upon himself.  He degenerated to the point where he cared only about himself, and wanted to be like the Most High, craving His power to compel others and deny them any freedoms at all.  It was Lucifer’s choice to become what he is.

Mankind on the other hand was new to the universe and existence.  We were a young species having just been created out of the nothingness of our rock tumbling through the dark void of space.  We knew nothing but truth, for God only ever speaks truth.  We had every reason to believe that each sentient being in the universe would also speak truth.  But Satan, in the form of a snake, lied to us, in saying that God lied.  We were deceived.  And then Adam made the choice to put himself with Eve, because his love for her was greater than his trust in the salvation of our God.  He chose death because of love, not for himself, but for his wife.

The love of God for every one of His creations is constant and limitless.  Salvation was offered to mankind, not because we deserved it.  But because the circumstances of our fall were different than that of Lucifer.  Eve was seduced by her own vanity, and the deceiving tongue of a talking serpent, something she had never witnessed before.  Adam fell because he chose to, out of his great love for his wife, instead of a greater trust that our God could fix it.  We were offered a second chance.  Lucifer does not see this as fair.  Satan at this point, sees it as unfair, unjust, and a complete hypocrisy to holiness.  To rehabilitate mankind from his fallen state, back to a state of perfection, because of the circumstances of his fall just seems unfair and unjust.  So the rallying cry of Satan has ever been, to give man what is coming to him, what he has earned by his life and his deeds.  Satan cries out for justice.

And Satan seems to have transplanted that cry for justice deep within us.  Even small toddlers on the playground complain when things are “unfair”.  We attribute that “unfairness” to evil, and we are right.  Things are unfair, because one person chooses to love or please himself, at the expense of another, and thus evil is reflected in the world and in the heart.  But the cure for “unfairness” is something none of us could have expected.  It begins with forgiveness.  A trait hard enough to master.  But then it goes beyond that.  It demands that the party who was treated unfairly, offer even more, to the aggressive party.  This is not only more unfair, it seems to make no sense.  Wouldn’t that make the situation even worse for everyone?  Well, therein lies the question.

Jewish society in the time of Christ, just like American society in our day, is built upon a sense of fairness.  The ancient texts of Moses were so often quoted … “an eye for an eye”.  Justice had been defined.  How often has this text been quoted in our day to justify our thirst for vengeance.  You do something to me, you can bet I intend to the same (or worse) to you.  This is our idea of fair play.  This is our idea of justice.  But this does not end the evil that causes unfair acts, it only promotes it.  Because how any of us see what is just, is a matter of subjectivity corrupted by years of bad choices, and a history of loving self.  There is a different way to fix things, a way Jesus Himself lays out.

When Matthew (a former tax collector who had personal experience with the concept of justice or not) heard the words of Christ, he could hardly believe them.  In his gospel, Matthew was attempting to show to his Jewish audience how Jesus was the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy.  But in recording what came next, he knew his audience would have a hard time with it.  Many would either reject the words of Christ while choosing to listen to other things, or, they would reject Jesus entirely because of these ideas and words.  Nevertheless, Matthew must record what was said in accurate detail. 

He picks up in his gospel in chapter five, starting in verse 38 saying … “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: [verse 39] But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”  Let’s get a few things straight.  Jesus is not excusing the perpetrator of their crime.  He is not in effect saying, we can all go around and start hitting each other when we feel like it.  Instead Jesus is redefining the end of evil, by the beginning of mercy, forgiveness, and grace from the wounded party, to the guilty one.  And what is more, Jesus is not connecting this first scenario to property that can be replaced.  He is making it up close and personal to your very body and conditions of health.

There will be no eye taken for the eye damaged.  There will be no tooth taken for the tooth we lost.  If this is how you measure justice, then mercy has just killed justice.  But love is not content to leave it there.  Love goes farther.  Love for the one who hit you, allows you to extend your other cheek.  The exact words of Jesus were … that ye resist not evil.  Those are hard words to take.  Those words don’t just imply, they empirically state, you are going to have bad things happen to you because of evil.  And when they do, you are to do nothing in return, not even block the punch. 

To remain docile when you are attacked creates an interesting phenomenon.  Anger feeds on anger in return.  When it gets no fuel, it is nearly impossible to maintain.  To fight, you need someone who fights back.  When they don’t, it makes “you” the schmuck to just keep hitting them.  Most folks lose interest in that pretty fast.  Even the very evil ones.  Why?  Could it be, that the kingdom of Satan is built upon lies, and when truth is illuminated, his kingdom falls apart.  Anger, and fighting, must find some sort of resistance to feed off of, to keep going.  Or it quickly tires, gets bored, and looks for something else to fill the void that only Love could truly fill.

The end of evil does not come from force.  The end of evil does not happen because of the fires of hell.  Those fires cleanse the earth of those who refuse to be transformed.  But the evil that has lived within you for so many years, is not extinguished because you fear hell.  It is extinguished within you, because of the transforming love of Jesus who can literally re-create you from the inside out.  Not just make you pretty on the outside, clearing up all your imperfections, giving you the instant diet, and making your health perfect – all that stuff is the side effect of immortality that Jesus gives you.  The inside.  The places deep within that crave sin, that want to do what we know we should not do.  Those are the places that must be transformed to truly be perfect.  And they are not afraid enough to change from fear.  It takes something more.  It takes more than justice.  It takes the infinite Love of Jesus.

The recipe for ending evil, is that only Love defeats it.  Beyond remaining docile, and humble, while you are attacked … going the extra mile for your attacker, seeing to his needs, even after he has beaten you.  That is a love that changes hearts and minds, and puts evil out to pasture forever.  That is what Jesus has done for you.  That is what He can create in you, so that you can reflect it to others.  But more than just our bodies should be sacrificed if we love enough.  Everything we own should be a cheap price for the redemption of someone else.  Jesus continues in verse 40 saying … “And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. [verse 41] And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. [verse 42] Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

Jesus does not ask if these actions against us are fair or just.  They may not be.  He does not ask us if these actions are convenient with us.  He asks something far more.  He asks that we value nothing we own, more than the relationship we could have with one we would bring into His kingdom.  Greed cannot be satiated.  Greed has no limits, no boundaries, no matter how much you have, greed would have you desire more.  It is a bottomless pit.  The antidote to greed is to value your goods merely as tools that could be used to make someone else happy.  To be willing to give everything you own away, and count that as a blessing, is the antidote to greed.  It ends evil within you.  And it has great potential to end evil in others, as you point them to the Source of how you are able to live like you do in Jesus.

Jesus now hits the Israelite right where he takes the most pride, in his religion.  And His words cut to the heart of the American Christian just as deeply.  Jesus continues in verse 43 saying … “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. [verse 44] But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”  The Jew was proud of his religion, and prayed usually for himself, and his family.  The American Christian does the same.  But the recipient of our prayers, asks us for something else, something new.  He asks us to take a genuine interest in the salvation and well-being of our enemies, of the ones who “despitefully use” us, of those who “persecute” us.    

When was the last time your heart broke over the pain your enemy lives in?  When was the last time you were compelled to drop to your knees and lift their names up to heaven, asking God to save them, and save you?  When your heart brakes for your enemy, for the one who lies about you, and tries so hard to destroy you, you have found a transformation ONLY Jesus can bring.  Imagine what our country would be like if all those who hate Trump and everything he stands for, decided to make Trump the object of their sincere prayers.  Imagine what our country would be like, if all those conservative Republicans, and Tea Party members who so hate Obama, or Nancy Pelosi, decided to make them the object of sincere prayer for their well-being, even if it was ahead of their own.  Instead of these prayers, we offer biting criticism, and the language of insults and hate.  And then we claim we are doing God’s work.  Obviously, we have found a new god to take credit for us, because it is clearly not the instructions Jesus left.

Jesus continues in verse 45 saying … “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [verse 46] For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? [verse 47] And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? [verse 48] Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”  Here Jesus defines how love can reach perfection.  By loving not just your family and friends, not just strangers you hardly know, but taking a real interest in the ones you hate, or that hate you.  Our God loved us, while we were still calling Him our enemy.  He loves us even when we do it still.  He is not a fickle God, loving us when we are “good” and hating us when we are “bad”.  He loves us all the time, wishing only that His love is allowed to take us away from the pain our sin causes.

His Love is the medicine we need to stop hurting ourselves with the badness we embrace.  His Love is the motive we need to actually think about wanting to change.  His Love is what will defeat evil forever.  Not just the evil that is washed away in the fires of hell in some distant future, but the evil that once had such a strong hold upon you, your desires, and your actions in the here and now.  That evil must also be washed away.  And the only force strong enough to kill it is His love.  When He is done with you.  Evil will be dead in you.  Dead, because YOU no longer want it.  That is when the death of evil occurs.  It occurs because His mercy killed the justice you deserve, and His love killed the evil you once embraced.

And the sermon was far from over …

 

Our Role ...

So often Christian witnesses take on a role from the analogy of the final judgment, they are not fitted to perform. And as such, they fail miserably at drawing people to Christ. A witness must understand his/her place in the “unseen war” between light and darkness in order to be effective. To that end we should first debunk a powerful myth about the “final judgment” of humanity. It is finished.

Yes, the verdict is in, and you, like all the rest of humanity has been found guilty. But before we get too far down the road on this, let’s begin with identifying the players in this drama. The most important role of course is the judge, final arbiter of justice and mercy. Our judge, even Satan recognizes as being bound by His own laws of love and justice. Our judge is fair, impartial, and cannot be lied to. He is incapable of being deceived so only the facts can be used in this trial. Our judge is God the Father.

In order to have a trial, at least a criminal trial, we must also have a defendant. We are that defendant. We are on trial for our worthiness to be accepted into the kingdom of God and His perfection. All of our motives, traits, weaknesses, and actions over our entire lifetime will be laid bare in this heavenly courtroom. The lies we have told ourselves to justify what we have done, are all exposed. The selfishness behind even those acts of kindness are revealed for all to see. In short, this trial will be different, because we will be unable to hide or exclude evidence. Our lives will be an open book for all to read.

We are accused of being unworthy of entering heaven. The accused must have an accuser, and so in our heavenly courtroom enters Satan, the great accuser of the brethren. He has a massive case file on each of us. Having been an instigator of, or present at, many of the wrong deeds we have committed in our lives, we cannot even hide the truth from him. Our prosecutor is convinced he has an excellent case against us, and that the facts and therefore justice, is completely on his side. He is right.

To defend us from the heinous truth of our lives is our advocate, our High Priest who speaks on our behalf, the greatest and only savior of the people, Jesus Christ. While Jesus will do an excellent job defending us against any false accusations, he will not lie, or cover up the truth of our guilt in any way. We therefore stand before God, accused of horrific crimes of selfish behavior, with full premeditation. For let’s face it, we always knew what we were doing was wrong, we just chose to do it anyway. So we stand charged of premeditated sin, premeditated evil, murder one, the worst of all crimes. And our sentence must be rendered by a Judge who sees all, and knows the truth of our guilt. And so we are found guilty.

There is only one penalty for the crimes of self-service we have been found guilty of. Death: For to continue to choose to embrace the pain of evil is to live a tortured life. To die then, is to be granted a merciful release from this self-inflicted pain of repeated evil actions in our lives, that hurt us, those who care about us, God, as well as our victims, and those who care about them. Our penalty of death is to be permanent, and the sentence is scheduled to be carried out very soon. This is the fate of all of humanity. There are none excepted from it. There are none who can withstand a trial of their life with the truth laid bare and not be found guilty and worthy of death. “No, not one”, says the scripture.

But then, a miracle happens; perhaps the greatest miracle in the existence of creation. Our defense attorney, Jesus Christ, approaches the bench and requests to take on our sentence Himself in our place. He asks the judge to allow Him to die in our stead, take on our punishment including any pain that may be involved, in order that our judge could still fulfill the requirements of the law, and yet redeem those who are lost and guilty as charged. The judge considers the motion. Satan nods his approval as he is more than willing to kill a God, than mere mortals weak in the flesh. This, he believes, will further his goals of becoming higher in the God-like food chain, after all once dead, Christ is less competition. The judge decrees he will allow the motion to go forward despite a great deal of personal pain on His own part. For you see, the judge sent His only son to be our advocate. He wanted for us to have the best defense possible, and now His sentence is to be carried out on His only son. Heaven mourns at this prospect.

Christ submits to our fate, in silence and humility. The God of the universe lays naked on the cross, the blood dripping from the wounds meant for our sin. He cannot see past the grave. He does not know if His own sacrifice will be enough to redeem mankind. The weight of evil He has never partaken of presses in on Him. Evil tries to convince Him there is always another way, He need not have to die, but He knows the truth, and the sentence must be carried out. In His great love for fallen man, for you and me, He submits to death, and dies on the cross for our lives, and our premeditation. In 3 days, just as He foretold, He springs forth from the grave. For He now holds the keys even to death itself. Still unsure if His sacrifice is enough, He goes to His Father. The verdict is in – His sacrifice is MORE than sufficient to redeem fallen man.

And so, those who are guilty, you and I, and the world at large – are granted a stay of execution. Those who will accept the gift of redemption Christ offers are to be saved, and spared death eternal. This gift is greater than we had imagined, for it is not just our final disposition that has changed – it is our current method of living life. Christ broke the chains of bondage that sin had over mankind. In His gift, He offers to change who we are from the inside out. He will change our hearts and minds so that we do not WANT to sin, nor do we WALK in sin any longer. Bit by bit, as we surrender to the gift of His salvation, yielding control of our lives and hearts to Him, He removes the pain we have so long embraced.

Perfection then, is no longer a far off dream. It is a current reality. It is a process we can begin in the here and the now. Through His gift, we are MADE FREE FROM sin. It is not by our actions, or our will, that we are set free, but by His divine power in our lives. We are born again, that is remade in His image, with His desires in our hearts, with His love in our minds. We are NEW creations, because our creator begins His work within us NOW! And THIS is what we have been called into existence to witness of – the victories of Christ wrought in our lives.

A Christian witness is neither Judge, Prosecutor, Defender, or even defendant. A Christian witness is one who is already chosen to be redeemed, and is now testifying as to what God is doing in our lives this day. We are stating what we have seen with our own eyes, in our own lives, by His power and His grace. We become character witnesses not to each other, but to our Lord and Savior. We testify that His gift works. His gift is the freedom we have long sought from the pain of sin and evil. We testify that ONLY Christ can SAVE fallen man from himself and his own desire to serve self. This is our only role in the judgment.

We have nothing to do with identifying the sins that plague the world and each other. The Holy Spirit will alone convict of this. We do not save each other, as only the Savior, can save from sin itself. We do not chastise or carry our sentences on each other as only the judge can render a sentence, and see it carried out. We do not condemn, or judge, or even remark the spiritual condition of others. We ONLY testify as to what God has done for us. Where it comes to our fellow man, we are to strictly follow the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ – LOVE one another, Love your enemies, Love unconditionally everyone. We are to love more than just those who love us. For so it was that God loved us while we were yet His enemy. We cannot love the sins and pains that others embrace, in this we feel as He felt for them, pity. But we can remain steadfast in our love of the person, and see them through the eyes of our God, see them without the sins they carry now, as Christ saves them just as He saves us.

We can finally trust God to save those we love, as we trust Him to save us from us. We are now free to love, without fear, without prejudice or pre-judgment. We are free to see the worth of every man. We are free to love the uniqueness of each individual and respect the differences between us. For we know God will lead every willing heart to His truth, in His time, and in His way. We know this because He is doing it INSIDE of us right now. This is our role, we have been called to give witness to what the Lord has done in us. When He is truly alive in us, we cannot keep silent. We are incapable of not sharing the good news of our personal benefits from His victories in us. The world will be drawn to this love, and this testimony, but only when it is real and meaningful in our lives. If the world is not knocking on your door yet, perhaps you do not have enough to offer it of Him. Let Christ truly change you, and your door will hardly cease from inquiry. Just remember your role when it does, you are a witness of His grace in action in you, nothing more …