Please turn with your Bible to James chapter 5. Continuing our exposition of the book of James this morning, we'll move to a new section of the 5th chapter. We'll be looking this morning at verses 7 to 11. We're going to title the message, The Christian Response to Injustice. The Christian Response to Injustice. We're gonna see, James is going to speak to us and to the Christians to whom he wrote about the injustice that they were experiencing. And he gives us the blueprint for how God wants us to respond to injustice. There have always been, since the fall, the reality of oppression and injustice, but there is a distinctly Christian godly way to respond to the wicked injustice and oppression that we see in this world. And James sets out that blueprint for us in verses 7 to 11. So, a Christian response to injustice Let's read God's Word, James 5, 7-11. Well, let me set the context by reading the first six verses, too, because you're going to note one of the key words that I want you to see is in verse 7, the word therefore. And we're going to see it connects verses 7-11 with what was immediately preceding it. So I want us to read that in context. Chapter 5, verse 1, "'Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure. Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you. And the cry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man. He does not resist you. Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets to early and late rains. You, too, be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door as an example, brethren, of suffering and patience. Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. Let's pray together. Father, we ask that you might now grant us, by your grace, just the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit to make your word clear to us. May it accomplish the purpose for which you sent it in each heart. May you bring about conviction, expose our sin. Lord, show us the way of righteousness. but most of all show us that Christ is that way, and that we might run to him. We pray this in his name, amen. A Christian response to injustice. How are we supposed to respond to injustice? This is what James is dealing with, and I want you to see that. You remember that we noted, and if you've been with us in the previous weeks, when we were looking at James 5, one to six, we explain that we believe that what James was doing in those six verses was that he had turned aside from his main audience who are Christian believing Jews in the first century. Those are the people to whom he's writing. He's writing to Christians of Jewish background that he has a pastor's heart for, because remember James is the half-brother of Jesus, who became... became known as James the Just who led the church in Jerusalem, who was the essential leading elder of the church in Jerusalem. And so, he has a pastor's shepherd's heart for these Christians who've been dispersed through times of persecution, and those who've been spread out throughout that area, the area of Palestine, Syria, and even the broader Roman world. and He writes to them to encourage their faith, to strengthen them. It's a very practical letter. We've noted again and again and again how many imperatives He employs, how many illustrations He employs. He wants to see them do the Word, not just believe it, not just accept it intellectually, but to truly believe biblically is to do. And so his objective is to have them become doers of the Word. And he's dealt with all these practical issues throughout the book. But then in chapter 5, verses 1 to 6, he turns aside from his main audience to speak directly to unbelieving, ungodly people who are afflicting the people to whom he wrote. He's speaking to the ungodly rich in verses 1 to 6. And we noted how the only imperative, the only instruction for them is to weep and howl, judgment's coming. There is no positive instruction about repenting. They're told to weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them because God is going to judge them. And we noted how this is much like you see in the Old Testament prophets, that from time to time the prophet is primarily speaking to the nation of Israel, the people of God to call them to repentance, because they're being judged. They're about to be judged when the prophets are writing. They're about to experience judgment because of their sin. And so the basic thrust is, turn from your sin, people of God. Look to God. Look to Christ. And yet, from time to time, you'll have the prophet turn aside and say, woe to Philistia. for the things that you have done to my people. Woe to Edom for the things that you've done to my people." And he pronounces judgment and promises that his judgment is coming swiftly. But he puts that in a prophetic letter to God's people, you see. He didn't send out leaflets to the people in Edom. He's telling, because the Word of God is for the people of God, He's telling for those who will repent and believe. It's for anyone who will come and sit under it and follow Him and submit to Him. But He's writing to His people and He's encouraging them to say, look, I know that you're dealing with injustice. You need to repent of your own sins, but you're dealing with real injustice and oppression. And you sometimes wonder Does God even notice? Does God care? Is God going to do anything? And the answer in the Old Testament and the New Testament is that though it may not appear to you that God sees, It may not appear that justice is coming. The message of the Scriptures is God sees, He cares, He is going to deal with all wickedness. He's going to deal with all injustice and all oppression. He will deal with it. And so in the same way the Old Testament prophets did this, James has done the same thing in 5, 1 to 6. He's turned aside to speak to the ungodly rich who are oppressing the people of God to whom James was writing. He's writing to first century Christians, Jews who are largely poor, and in that particular society the gap between rich and poor was a chasm. And there had become more and more rich landowners, less and less property owners. The middle class had gone away, as it had been earlier in Israel, when they all had their own ancestral land, their property that they were farming. At this time, it's become more and more the rich landowners, and you're basically like a serf working for them, and they were being oppressed. And so in that context, he's spoken directly to the rich, and he said, listen, you ungodly rich, you who love money, you're guilty, and remember he made four charges. You've been hoarding up wealth in a day when you're hoarding it up so much that you're wasting it. Moths are eating it. Your food's spoiling. When there are hungry people around you, there are people who don't have clothes, and you're letting it rot. You have so much. That's hoarding. Secondly, you're guilty of injustice. You're stealing from your laborers. You who have all this money are stealing and holding back from those who are living hand-to-mouth. And Lord Sabaoth, the Lord of armies, has heard their cries. He's not only heard their cries, He's heard the cry of the money in your pocket that you've withheld from them. So, injustice. It's hoarding, injustice. Then he talks about indulgence, incredible self-indulgence, lavish self-indulgence to the point of just over lasciviousness, pleasure. And then, finally, to oppression. In verse 6, you're willing even to kill. You're judging, you're condemning, and you're killing the righteous because of your love of money. And the message is, God has seen and God will deal with it. Now, so think about that. You're one of the oppressed. You just heard the Lord turn aside and speak directly to the rich. And now James says, okay, wait a minute. Stop cheering for what's going to happen to them and wanting to join maybe to pick up your pitchforks and to charge. What's the Christian response? What is the response for the people who are called to follow Jesus Christ? What is our response to injustice? And you see that it's so clear this, the therefore, right in verse, therefore, it's an inferential conjunction. In light of all I've told you in verses one to six, therefore, I've told you about these four charges of wickedness, that God sees it. Therefore, what is your response? What are you and I to do? And so the Christian response to injustice in a word, the theme of today's message in a word, the Christian response to injustice is patience. The imperative is repeated twice in the text. Be patient. There it is, verse seven. Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Verse eight, you too be patient. Strengthen your hearts. It's an imperative again in that verse. A command. He's commanding, be patient. He says it twice. And the word patience comes up two other times in the passage. In verse 7, The farmer who's waiting for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, same Greek word, same Greek root word. Verse 10, as an example, brethren, of suffering and patience. Do you see that? Four times in the span of four verses, this word patience. That's the essential Christian response to injustice and oppression is patience. And it's trusting that God's going to deal with it in His way. God will deal with it through governing authorities. God will deal with it in His time. And ultimately, we're going to see God will deal with it truly and rightly at the second coming of Jesus Christ. And until then, no injustice is fully dealt with. We live in a world of injustice, in a world of oppression, in which we cannot escape these things. And God, who sides with the victim, is telling us how to deal with that. We're not to be defined as victims, though. We're overcomers because we serve the God who is on the throne of heaven and throne of glory. So in a word that the response, the Christian response to injustice is patience, to be patient. Now what I want us to do in the time that we have, I want to consider We're gonna start into as many points as we can. So we're gonna probably get at least four, Lord willing, today. And we'll continue looking at this. There's so much here, we'll probably be working on it at least one more week. But the first thing I want us to talk about is the need for patience. The need for patience. That's the first point in the outline. The need for patience. It's obviously an important need for the people he writes to. As I said, he mentions it as an imperative, a command. Therefore, be patient, brethren, verse seven. You too, be patient, verse eight. And then he gives them examples of patience so that they can really be patient. Now, the need for patience. Basically, what James is showing us is we live in a world of injustice and oppression, and it's been that way since sin entered the world. The moment sin entered the world, it became a world of injustice and oppression, where someone tries to get on top of someone else and put them down. First thing that we see in the garden, remember when God says to Adam, what have you done? What does he say? It's the woman whom you gave me. And the woman says it's the serpent. And then there's going to be now, as a result of the fall, there's going to be a conflict between the man and the woman in the house. She's going to have her desires for you, but you will rule over her. It pictures a power struggle in the home. conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. There's this spiritual warfare that's been unleashed. The world has become a place, that was a place of harmony and justice and righteousness and beauty. Unsoiled, unmixed, perfect beauty and righteousness and glory has now been sullied and damaged because of sin. And we live in a world of injustice. The history of the world is a history of injustice and oppression. You read any history book that tells with any kind of reliability what happened, and you see again and again nations trying to rule over nations, people taking advantage of people, and it's what we see in our lives. The Jews in James Day, as I mentioned, they were experiencing financial oppression. They were being taken advantage of by their employers. They were experiencing real, in a real personal way. It's hard for us to relate to this. I think one of the blessings of being an American and just being in our day in general, but in the West, but particularly America, We are so wealthy, relatively speaking. It's interesting, when I was in South Africa, I was talking to different people, you know, meeting different folks from different parts of Africa, and one of the people there, the Afrikaners, which is the white South Africans, he said that the joke is that, because he says, we think a lot like Americans. And he was saying that, you know, they basically, the land of Africa, you know, with all the wild animals, and they had to kind of be pioneers and move out and conquer areas of, and there was certainly oppression involved in that too, but there was, I'm talking just the actual physical dynamics of eking out a living. They had to go and they had to build a bridge across something so their wagon could go across. And then they had to till up the soil that hadn't ever been tilled up before. And so he says there's a sense in which Afrikaners think a little more like Americans. We call ourselves poor Americans. We think like Americans, but we're a lot poorer than they are. Because people tend to think of Americans as the richest people in the world. And I think we are by any realistic standard. Our level of blessing has been probably the greatest in the history of the world. And so it's hard for us to relate then to people who, for them to lose a job, to lose income, didn't just mean that you had to turn off your cable or you couldn't buy all the clothes that you want to buy, or the things that you want to buy, or that Christmas was going to be down this year, to lose a job meant that you might starve to death. That your children would go hungry. And then to realize that this is happening because of the injustice and the wickedness of my ungodly employer. You see how much, it's a whole different thing, isn't it? It's personal. That's what they were experiencing. They were experiencing financial oppression, not only that they were not being paid, but they were being, even the guys who were starting to make it a little bit, the merchants and the small businessmen of the day were being hauled into court and taken advantage of. by those who had the money to pay the lawyers. There's a lot of things that still resonate even today, don't they? You can see that same kind of stuff happening. It's always happened. That's one of the reasons, one of my favorite lines from, forgive me for those of you who are lawyers, but favorite Shakespeare lines is, let's kill the lawyers first, or something like that. Remember, the first thing we do is kill the lawyers when we take over. I really don't mean that. But you understand where the sentiment comes from. that the system is made in many ways so that people can gain the system and the people who are making the system work make it so that you need them to pay them to make sure that you can gain the system. It's just the built-in incentives and it's not that these people are inherently worse than we are. They just happen to be in a position that if we were in the same position we'd be doing the same thing. Why? Because of sin. because it is the nature of sin to exalt self and to be so self-focused that it doesn't matter to you that you're stepping on other people as you make your way and get what you want. So, this is the need for patience. We live in a world of oppression, and it's not just, the kind of oppression we experience is not just financial oppression. This applies to us in so many different ways. It speaks powerfully to those who are living as victims of political oppression. I think this passage will be especially precious to believers in the Sudan, or even in China. or the former communist countries, Soviet Union and others that lived faithful for God in a country that actively persecuted their faith and penalized them for being people of faith. But not just in big picture stuff like that. Oppression is something that gets very specific and personal. It can be the oppression of growing up in a home where you were verbally abused by your father. You were mistreated by your mother. Or you were sexually abused. You were oppressed. Now, when those things happen, let's be clear. The Bible is clear about if that's happening in your life now, you need to report that. You need to open up and share it with an elder, and if there's sexual abuse going on or physical abuse going on, we will let the state do what the state does. Romans, according to Romans 13, you call the police and the state has an interest in protecting the victim. The gospel is there for everyone, the victim and the perpetrator. Repentance and faith bring healing and forgiveness, but it doesn't change the consequences of what someone has done in oppressing like that. And so the state has a role. But maybe that's far in the past, and there's no longer an opportunity for that, and you're dealing with the pain of that. Or imagine someone who's experienced the horror of rape. And so the person may have been caught, it may have been punished, but they're still dealing with the damage that has happened. What has happened? They were oppressed. Someone in power exerted their power over them. That's what James is describing. He's saying, how do you deal with it when you are in a place where you're under someone else's thumb and you cannot get out from under it? Like I said, in a free society, you call the police, you do the things that you can do, but even then, beyond that, what's your heart to be toward what you went through and toward the oppressor? The beauty of the word of God is it's so practical and it gives us exactly what we need. And what the need is, patience. We live in a world of oppression and injustice, and the clear teaching of James is that the way that you deal with it is patience. Now, so let's talk about what patience is. That's the need for patience. Secondly, the nature of patience. The nature of patience. Word so important, he repeats it four times in the passage. The Greek word, it's helpful to understand this because this word patience in English has many different meanings. And the word in Greek is a word which means to prolonged restraint of anger. Prolonged restraint of anger. It's because the word is macrothumia. Macro, you may remember if you took macroeconomics, or you talked about the macro picture, the big picture. Macro means, when it turns, time is long. In terms of space, it's big. So, macrothumia is long. Thumos, in Greek, is a word for anger and wrath. It's a word for heat. It pictures decisive action in response to something. And so, macrothumia came to mean, then, the restraining of anger. You have a legitimate reason for anger, but you're restraining it. And so, this word is often translated, in the King James, particularly, as longsuffering. To suffer long. It's this word in 1 Corinthians 13, 4. Love is patient. Actually, it's better translation is love suffers long. And so the idea really in this word is that you are being offended or you have an offense and you're restraining your anger by God's grace. And the one who is ultimately like this is God Himself. In fact, one of my favorite verses is Exodus 34, 6. The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger. When you look at that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, remember it was written in Hebrew, but when they translated it into Greek in the second century B.C., they took that phrase, slow to anger, and they put the word macrothumia there. The Lord, the Lord, slow to anger. The Lord, the Lord, patient. And so you can really see this word really means slow to anger as well in our context. Therefore, be slow to anger, brethren. You too, be slow to anger, brethren. Strengthen your hearts. It's interesting to compare this. There's another word that's used in the passage that's a synonym for patience, and it's the word endurance. I'm reading the New American Standard Bible, and so different translations come up with different words. Some words say steadfastness or, I can't remember the other one, but patience I think actually. But in verse 11, we count those blessed who endured You have heard of the endurance of Job. Those two words are another word that's often translated something like patience, and that's the word hupomene, and it means to remain under. Hupomeno means to remain under. And so, it's interesting. These words, endurance and patience, they are very similar. To endure is to have patience. It's to remain under a situation. It's to remain in a difficult circumstance. and to be patient is to remain in a difficult circumstance. But the difference tends to be in the scriptures that hupomene, endurance, is usually referring to remaining under circumstantial trials. You're going through difficult times, circumstances, or, you know, an illness. Or something happens, the economy goes down. The word patience that James is using four times now uses the word endurance too. We need both. But the word that's used four times emphasizes more not that you're experiencing affliction from circumstances, you're experiencing affliction that has its root in another person or persons. macrothumia, to restrain your anger, you have a legitimate offense against another person who is being unjust to you or oppressing you, and your patience is your restraint of that against that person or those persons. That's the nature of this patience. He says, as a Christian, we have the power to be patient, and the world doesn't have that. And in fact, when you look at the history of the world, it's interesting. I mean, you can go anywhere. You know, like I said, racial issues are there in every culture at every time. So they're in America? Yes. Are they in any other country? You name it? Yes. I remember doing some reading, you know, we had a pastor come one time to preach. You guys remember John Carrick? Some of you will remember he came and preached here. He was an Englishman, and he came to preach here, and at that time we had a member of our church named Chew Yew, who was a Korean guy. and he's a minister in Washington, D.C. now. And so both these guys are ministers of the gospel. Well, I was out that week, because John would come preach when I would be out. And so John preached, and now he's an Englishman, so he's got the accent, and he's preaching. But you know how it's hard to pick the accent sometimes, right? I know some of you are skilled enough that you know an Australian accent, from an English accent, from a Scottish accent, from an Irish accent, and some of you can tell even the parts of England. I don't think many of you can, but I can't. But anyway, Chul couldn't either. And so John Carrick gets through preaching, and now John, he knows, is a Presbyterian. He's a professor at a Presbyterian seminary in Greenville. And so Chul, in making conversation with him, Chul, you, the Korean brother, says to John Carrick, his English brother, you know, thank you for the message today, you know, what part of Scotland are you from? Because he thought a guy with an accent like that, that's Presbyterian, it's pretty good inference, has to be Scottish. There aren't many English Presbyterians now. So he made a good guess. But John Carrick looked at him and without batting an eye said, he said, I'm English, are you Japanese? He recognized Chew was not Japanese, he was Korean, and the most insulting thing you say to him was, you're Japanese. Because if you look at history, the history of the Japanese and the Koreans is a ugly history. Look at the Baltic states, and you remember what happened with the whole war in Bosnia. the Croats and the Serbians and the Bosnians. And it's just a history of them killing each other and then later on you get the power and you kill them and then you get the power and you kill them. That's the way of the world. But when Jesus comes into your heart and your life, He gives you the ability to no longer have to respond with an eye for an eye. He gives you the ability and the perspective to have patience. to be able to be long-suffering, to have legitimate offenses, to really... And God, you see, one of the reasons we can is because we know God actually sees it. We're not explaining in a way, we're not playing Pollyanna kind of Christianity. I'm just going to pretend everything's okay, but it's by the power of positive thinking. That has nothing to do with Christianity. Christianity is not about the power of positive thinking. Christianity is about the power of the truth. We face the truth, the world as it really is. But the world as it really is, Jesus Christ is on the throne. Jesus Christ is coming again. That's the world as it really is. And so when we put whatever we're suffering in perspective, that is the kind of paradigm shift that happens and redefines the way you see life, the way you see the things that have happened to you. the way you see the things that are happening to you, transforms it. The nature of patience, long-suffering, restraining our anger. We're told that we're supposed to do it, and they've told what it is, the need for patience. Secondly, the nature of patience. Thirdly, the focus of patience. The focus of patience. How are you patient? How can you do this? He tells us, look how he makes this so clear. Verse seven, therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Until the coming of the Lord. Verse eight, you too be patient, strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. You see the coming of the Lord repeated twice there. In fact, the word, you may have heard people talk about the parousia. Theologians or pastors sometimes preaching will say that it's actually the Greek word that's here translated, coming of the Lord. And the word, the coming, it's the coming, Not the coming of the Lord, but it's the coming, and then of the Lord is also there in the text. The coming is a word which means to be beside. Par, para, beside, parallel lines, to come beside. Uzziah being. It's when the Lord is going to be at our side. It's when the Lord is going to be at hand. Now, think about this. We believe, the Bible teaches, and again, and again, and again, that Jesus is with us now through the Holy Spirit. Because God is triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To have the Spirit inside of you is to have Christ inside of you. So that you can truly say, He can truly say to us, I will never leave you nor forsake you. in your weakness I am strong." He's with you at every moment. He will never abandon you. But there is a day coming, the parousia, when He will be at hand. What's happening? The physical body, the glorified body of the resurrected Christ is going to come down from Heaven to this world, and He's going to be at hand. In all of His glory, in all of His might, He's going to come, and that's the blessed hope of the Christian. That's what all history is pointing toward. And what he's saying is, when you're experiencing injustice and oppression, what do you do? You set your focus on the coming of the Lord. In fact, this is one of the most redemptive things about injustice and oppression. What would make us want heaven and Jesus to come back more? This is, I mean, this is one of the reasons that I think when we sin, God allowed sin to have the consequences it did. If you look at Romans 8, 18 and following, he says that, you know, the sufferings of this age are not present, not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed in us, and we're longing for that. But he says that in this age, God, the creation has been subjected to futility by Him who subjected it. That is by God. God subjected the creation to futility, emptiness, difficulty, He did that to show us the reality of our sin. He let sin corrupt everything so that we could see that we're corrupted. And if He left everything the way it was, this is why He drove them out of the garden. Remember, He drives them out of the garden. Why? Because Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and he may reach out and take the tree of life and live forever in his unredeemed state. To live forever, separated from God, is to die forever. God made us. He knows He made us for Himself. That our longings are all satisfied in knowing Him, and loving Him, and seeing Him. We're made to reflect and radiate the radiance of His worth back to Him, to see His beauty and His glory, and to praise Him, and in doing that, find our deepest fulfillment. And we become most human when we worship God. So now think about that. So he subjects the world to futility. Death becomes a reality, disease, decay, so that we would look around us and... I mean, we're so dumb. To be separated from God, we were completely in the dark spiritually. The Bible says dead. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. We have not a clue about what our problem is. We come into the world thinking we're great. That's the nature of sin. We come to the world thinking that we have it all together. Isn't it amazing how, have you had this experience? I mean, if you're a parent, you have, and if you have nephews or nieces, you'll have like a four-year-old trying to do something. I mean, maybe put together something, and it's something that you don't wanna break. And hey, I need to help you do that. No, I got it, I know what I'm doing. I mean, something they have no idea what they're doing. They have no idea that you don't even know that you have no idea what you're doing, and yet you think, why do you think that you do? It's the nature of sin. We think that we're in... we're totally independent. We come into this world completely self-centered and completely confident in ourselves. We have a high view of self. We have an incredibly, ridiculously high view of self. And we have a low view of God. And when the gospel comes and we see, and as you live in the world, one of the things that has to happen is you have to encounter the thing that you just can't fix things. You break things and they don't work and you, relationships don't work and things just hurt. And that's because God is trying to call you to see that not only is the world messed up, you and I are radically messed up. We have, our sins have separated us from God, the one who gives us life. And until that is restored, we are just broken and truly spiritually lifeless. Without God, without hope. And so the Lord uses our afflictions to remind us that there's something more here. And that's why the circumstances of injustice can make us long for the coming of Christ. It helps us remember, wait a minute, I'm not home yet. This world is not what we were created for, even at its best. We long for the day when Jesus will make everything right. The focus of patience, what gives you patience, is to look to the coming of the Lord. Now, what that means is, first and foremost, you can trust that God has seen the affliction, the oppression, the injustice. He has seen it, and he has noted every detail. And he is the only one who can make it right, and he's determined to make it right. I mean, I think about that when you're really the victim of wicked oppression. Often, we're victims of people who, you know, they're sinners and they're selfish, but they don't mean to do the damage they do. It's not intentional, it's just, I mean, it's not that they're guilty, yes, but we're all guilty. But when there are some times where people are just wickedly wanting, out of malice, to hurt you, God knows that. That's why he says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And at the coming of Christ, when he comes back, he is coming to deal with all of the oppressors. I mentioned the history of oppression and the whole Japanese-Korean thing. I mean, you go back to what happened before World War II as a part of the lead up to World War II, the oppression of the Korean people by the Japanese, the wicked, awful things that were done by many soldiers. Not all Japanese, of course, but there was a lot of incredibly wicked things done. I remember hearing about, reading about a missionary who had been ministering over there and saw a Korean church just growing in the Lord, and one of the things they did, they felt burdened to do was to, they heard about a need in Japan, and they gave to that need, and they went over and ministered to those Japanese people. This was like in the 70s, so it was a few years out from the war, but there were many people who had been a part of that oppression. And they were talking about how incredibly powerful it was that these believers who had all the reasons for animosity and yet the gospel brought them together. There's something about even the affliction though that reminds us that we need the gospel. And so the focus of patience is the coming of the Lord. Jesus is coming again, and when He comes, He's going to make everything right. He's going to deal with injustice, and He's going to bring us to the fullness of life as it is intended to be lived. One of the passages I love speaking of the Second Coming is Malachi chapter 4. Wonderful word picture that the last book of the Old Testament, the last prophet in the Old Testament, Malachi. And here again, here's the prophet writing to the people of God who live in a midst of oppression. When you look at the history of Israel, especially after the Babylonian captivity, through the Babylonian captivity and then afterwards, I mean, they were oppressed by the Persians, they were oppressed by the Greeks, they were oppressed by the Romans. It was a history of oppression. And so Malachi writing to them during the time they're being oppressed by the Persians, he reminds them, chapter four, verse one, for behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace. What's the day he's talking about? The day of the Lord, the day when Christ comes to make everything right. The day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But you who fear my name, the son of righteousness, will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. You will tread down the wicked, for there will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says the Lord of Hosts. So the wicked will be those who will not worship God and who hate God and who hate us because we love God. God will deal with them. And until that day, we're to continue to plead with them to return to Him, to come back to Him, that He's a God of mercy, full of compassion. We're to witness to them for their salvation. But if they will not believe, then God will deal with them. I love that word picture in verse two. You who fear my name, when the sun of righteousness rises and sets ablaze the wicked, it's not a terrible thing to the believer. It's not a fire setting us ablaze. It's the sun rising with heliant swings. And you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. I love that picture. Calves skipping. I mean, you never see cows running. And cows are just sitting there looking dumb most of the time, right? They seem moving slow. But except for a calf, a calf, before he's gotten all heavy and all of that, being let out of the stall, filled with joy, it's like I've been bottled up, I've been bottled up, I have all this energy, all this energy. You let me out of the stall. He runs, leaping. He said, that's what it's gonna be like when Jesus comes back if you know Christ. that even the best moments are like you're pinned up in a stall. You're not what you're supposed to be. It's not like it's supposed to be. Everything is still wrong in this world. You see injustice around you. You see wickedness. And more than that, you see injustice and wickedness still in your own heart. That's the thing that we need to be set free from, is the sin in our own hearts. Even after we come to understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, and we repent and place our faith in Him, and we're declared righteous forever because of what Christ has done, and His righteousness is imputed to us forever. We still have this treasure, the knowledge of God, in earthen vessels. We still have a sin nature. We still battle with the flesh every day. We battle with oppressive tendencies ourselves. We battle with injustice in ourselves. The enemy's not just, he's not just upon you, he's within you. And so when Jesus comes back, the most wonderful thing for the Christian is he's gonna set you free from your sin. And you will know what you were created to be like never before. How wonderful it is to be clean when you've been dirty. Think about that. Now multiply it by a trillion. It's gonna be something like that. to have put off sin forever. To see our Savior and realize we're accepted not because of who we are, because of what we've done, but because of what He's done. And to realize He's dealing with everything, He's made it all right. And the most even wonderful thing is that we not only, we not only know that he's gonna make things right, but that he's even used the affliction and the oppression and the injustice that has been done. If you belong to Christ, every act of injustice and oppression that you have ever experienced or ever will experience, God will use to make you like Jesus. And you will see in heaven The wonder of it all. That every stripe, every pain, every moment of agony came from the heart of a loving God who was drawing you to himself. Who was purging and purifying your faith. Who was loving you. Some of these things happened before you were a believer. Of course they did. But yet God, who loved you before the foundation of the world, and who chose you to be in Christ, predestined every act of everything that's happened in our lives, and so that we can say, we can say like Joseph said to his brothers. Remember, he was a victim of injustice and oppression, Joseph, of his 10 brothers who hated him. He could say to them what we can say to our oppressor, And they may not want to hear it, and sometimes you don't get to say this, but in our hearts we know, you mean it for evil, or you meant it for evil, but my God meant it for good. This is what it means to be more than a conqueror in Christ. No matter what comes, we walk, He leads us in the train of His triumph. And what does Jesus' life look like? He was, what, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He was afflicted. He was stricken. and yet he was a mighty victor over sin, and he has conquered sin, he's conquered death, he stands forever as king of kings and lord of lords, and he says, follow me. I'm going to use suffering in your life, even though I'm gonna measure it out carefully, not give you more than you can bear, but I'm gonna use it, the sufferings of your past, the sufferings of your present, to bless you and to draw you to myself. And to know that in what you're doing Lord through this injustice presently at the moment that I'm really angry about as I look at the wickedness of that person and the hatred, the terrible attitudes that they're displaying to me, the vicious things that they've done to me. You're using that to remind me that I'm not home yet. You're making me want your return more. and you're loosening my hold on the things of this world. So that is good. That is wonderful. If God did not spare his own son, but offered him, delivered him up for us all, how we not together with him freely give us all things? If God put Christ on the cross for you, if He loved you enough to do that, you can know that everything that happens in your life is an expression of His love and kindness. That's the message of the Bible. This means that we can have hope. Every day, something good is gonna happen. I don't know about you, but isn't it funny how it centers, I wake up, I want my good things to happen, and I have a clear definition of what good looks like. It's having something good to eat. Well, it's first of all having coffee. Good coffee, not instant coffee like we had in South Africa. It's having good food. It's having things go well. It's having every light become green right as I approach to it so I don't have to slow down. It's people agreeing with me. It's things going well. And you know, I find that that just never happens. And when I understand that it's really not God's purpose for that to happen in this world, it makes it so much easier. I have to remember that continually. His purpose is through difficulty and trial to make me know how much I need Jesus. Because when I go through difficulty and trial, I remember that I am not adequate for these things. I need Jesus. and going through difficulty and trial reminds me I'm not home yet. This world's not gonna be right. It's not gonna work. Everything's not gonna be perfect. We're supposed to do our part each day, yes, to make things a little better. We're to do that, but ultimately, until he comes back, it's not going to be right. And knowing that, I can rejoice, especially that he's coming back. For all those that love his appearing, that day is going to be a glorious day. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, how grateful we are for the truths of your word that you have not left us in the dark. You have allowed us to see in your word how things really are, that you really are governing every every molecule in the universe. You're not the author of sin, you're not tempting anyone to evil, but you're governing the actions of free agents, evil spirits, people who sin and do horrible things. You're still using those things to accomplish your purposes in the same way that the most evil acts that ever happened were the acts of Herod and Pilate and the Jewish Sanhedrin that nailed your son to the cross. in those most heinous and evil acts you had foreordained before the beginning of time to bring about a great salvation. So that means that everything that happens in our lives, no matter how random it appears, you are doing something good and beautiful. And that when we see it, we will say, like the psalmist said, the Lord has done it, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Father, increase our faith. Help us repent of our impatience. Help us repent of our hatred and our anger that we have not, that we've expressed or that we have not brought before the cross. And help us be like Christ, to be truly patient with those who hurt us, And Lord, let us work through the means that you've chosen, when it means we go to the police or we trust in those things at the appropriate level, but ultimately trust in you. And Father, we pray that you would use everything in our lives that is hard to make us long for heaven more. How often I think to myself or express to you, I don't want heaven enough. Lord, make me want it more. And thank you that you're determined to do that. And the work that you've begun in us, you will complete to the day of Christ Jesus. We pray that you would be glorified in our lives. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.