Blessed be You, our Lord and our God, the Eternal God, the One who is the same yesterday and today and forever. We know that Your law is perfect. We know, Lord, that your testimony is sure, and we would ask that you would revive our souls and make us wise. We know, our Lord and God, that your precepts are right and your commandments are pure, and so let us rejoice, and may our eyes be enlightened. Let your spirit be at work in us, granting to us understanding, eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to receive. May your word come and settle in our hearts and grow well. We pray all these things through Christ. Amen. You may be seated. First thing I'll say is that we should change the title. So scratch out what you have there. Let's call it The Problem of Delayed Justice. This is one of those, upon further review late last night, I thought a better title is in order. The Problem of Delayed Justice. A British statesman and politician, William E. Gladstone, he's very well known for his political writings, was known to have said this. He said it in 1868 in the House of Commons, and he said, quote, justice delayed is justice denied. And for most of us, I think we would agree with the sentiment that he's getting at. I think in the United States, we have sort of based on this sentiment, the right to a speedy trial. This quote, this sentiment is not actually original to him. Some 650 years earlier in the Magna Carta, so that'd be 1215 for those keeping score, they wrote in clause 40, to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice. So part of the English common law and part of the English rights that eventually come to the colonies and states are based out of the Magna Carta. This idea of delayed justice was seen as something that was bad and that a speedy trial or quick justice was the favored position. And so what this is getting at is that the efficiency and the fairness of justice are compromised if there's this long delay in getting to your trial and getting the justice that you seek. Now, Kolowat, the preacher here in Ecclesiastes, he actually is very clear that even long before the Magna Carta in 1215, so even a couple thousand years before that, roughly, he says the same thing. There's a problem with delayed justice. Now, he does it right in a pithy way. as Colette does, he takes his time to tell us something that we might think is simple or simplistic, but he has this conundrum that he observes, that justice delayed is a problem. Point two is that what he's going to tell us is very commensurate with the scriptures as a whole, so his take, if you will, on delayed justice. So it's very commensurate with the scriptures. And to the believer, we recognize this conundrum And we see it as a possible problem. Even though we generally put this towards unbelievers, it's actually a believer's problem that we actually think of this as a problem with God or with the way he works, that we want speedy justice. And I would just appeal to pretty much anyone who thinks of any kind of political action that they just want speedy justice, they want right to prevail, and they want it now. That's just common words that fall from our lips. And so we demand this, and we desire it, and we seek for it. But I'm gonna, like I do, I'll be the guy with the wet blanket and say, like, we need to temper how it is that we think about this a little bit anyway. But to the unbeliever, Koalet actually tells us, it's interesting, that the lame justice for the unbeliever is a gas pedal for more sinning. And we're gonna keep on sinning because there appears to be no justice. That's what he tells us. So I want us to think through this a little bit and what the preacher tells us about the late justice. I am going to frame it this way, though, that I'm going to say basically, you know, from King David, Psalm 13 is what I'm going to get at, all the way to the Apostle John, Revelation 6, verse 10, that God has promised that you are not forgotten. but that you should and ought to be rejoicing in his salvation. He's affected for you. So you're not forgotten, and you should rejoice in his salvation. Two points, two headings, two parts. The frustration of the forgotten. The frustration of the forgotten, that is delayed justice. That's our frustration. And the word forgotten is gonna come from Psalm 13 and Psalm 89. The frustration of the forgotten. But the second part is gonna be the hope of the believer, which is God's steadfast love. Okay, the second part's gonna be the hope for the believer, and that is God's steadfast love. Let's consider this, though. I'm gonna start with the end, verses 16 and 17, if you're kind of thinking through the passage, because it sort of sets for us the way that he goes about observing and concluding. So under the idea that there's a frustration with the forgotten, that there's this delayed justice, The preacher begins with acknowledging that there is a God who is an incomprehensible mystery. And to be quite honest, this is how we begin our thinking about God, that God himself is incomprehensible because he is infinite. And because he's infinite, he's incomprehensible, that you need to be incomprehensible to understand. Now, we don't stop there, but we do recognize that man cannot fully comprehend God. where Phaedite he is not. And so we know God by his revelation to humanity, both in general revelation, so in nature and such, and then in the scriptures. But this is where Colette begins his frustration, that he recognized, because he tells us several times that he's observing all that's under the sun, so we want to think of that as maybe more like a general revelation, he's not necessarily appealing to the scriptures, and he is saying that that I can't understand God and His works. He also tells us a little bit earlier in the passage, but several places throughout this, that man continues to be sinful and his mind is clouded. And so he's kind of putting up all these thoughts of, well, why can't we understand certain things? Well, there's some incomprehensibility that we don't get. We also recognize that we're sinful, and that also limits us as well, and that just as finite creatures, we ourselves can't understand fully, comprehensively, the infinite. This is the third time that the preacher has said words like this where he has looked around and man has not ability to understand God or the things of God. And this is clear because man cannot fully and completely understand God just by looking around. There's a little bit that he can know, but not much. It's enough to make him guilty, but it's not enough to save him. But given our sinfulness, he recognizes that we cannot comprehend what we desire to know. And so we're like a bunch of blind people beating around trying to find that which we'll never find. But he even acknowledges, and this is the last sentence that he tells us, even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find out. So he just says there's a limit. And we need to be cautious that we don't think that we can get past the limit that even those, the one who is wise, has no ability to know. everything there is to know and often answer the questions, which the question would be delayed justice. In fact, what we're saying here is that we're acknowledging the mystery of what we call God's concurrence. That is, to use Joseph, that's the best example, that he looks at his brothers and he says, you have these sinful intentions to get rid of me. And everything that you did was actually sin, by putting me in the pit, and by selling me to the traders, and then them trading me over to the Egyptians, and this was all sin. And yet God's intention through all those sinful actions was that I would be standing here to save you today. That's an incomprehensible mystery. We get it, but we don't get it. And this is what Koalet is getting at. He's getting at the fact that we're looking around and we're trying to find answers to things that we can't just find the answer for. Like we have some idea, but we can't get it. And so he puts up a warning, and that's not the first thing, it's really the last thing he says, but he puts up this warning. We have to be careful that we don't come off as God himself, as if we know everything. We don't. And particularly towards the issue of delayed justice, we don't often know, in fact, I would just point out, I don't think we really ever know why justice is delayed. We think we know, we offer reasons, but I'm not sure that we can fully comprehend it. So this is what delayed justice from the divine point of view remains a mystery to man. That's what he's getting at. So the question then is, as you look back to the beginning of the passage, justice, in what way? Justice for what? What is he getting at? Well, I want us to consider three passages in close association with Ecclesiastes 8, and I want us to see how they are very similar and how they work through and come to the very similar conclusions that Koholet comes to, the preacher comes to, as well. So Psalm 13, verse one says, how long, O Lord, will you forget me? forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" He is crying out for justice. That's what the psalm is about. Psalm 89, verse 46, it's really a psalm about David becoming king, more or less, but in a kind of a history of Israel. But towards the end of the psalm, I think it's Ethan the Ephraimite who writes this psalm, says, how long, O Lord, so you keep that same refrain, how long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? Why will you not execute the justice that we all desire? How long will your wrath burn like fire? But Revelation tells us the same thing. The fifth seal of the seven seals in Revelation 5 and 6, in chapter 6, verse 10, there are these people, they're called the martyrs under the altar, and they cry out, and listen how they do it, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long? before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. It's the same question that David asked. It's the same question that Koahle is asking. It's the same question that Ethan the Ephraimite is asking. It's the same question that's being asked, God, why will you not render justice? Now, implied here can be, but not always, several things. God, you are deficient. God, you're weak. Particularly if you're maybe an unbeliever, you might be going in that direction. But to be honest with you, if you're a believer and you're asking this kind of question, you're at least in the back of your mind questioning who God is and how he acts. And it's somewhat in line with what the scriptures are telling us. But I will point out, I'm gonna cut to the chase here, just to be clear, they do not look at this philosophically and abstractly like you and I often tend to do, nor do they come at it from the standpoint of doubt. They always come at it from the standpoint of a believer, of faith. That yes, things don't seem to be good right now. My circumstances are terrible right now. That justice by God is not being done right now. But they don't ever shake their fist at God and say, you're weak, deficient, and don't know what you're doing. What they actually do is they all turn and say, God, you are, as they say up front here in Revelation, you are sovereign and holy and true. So I know who you are, and I trust. But still, God, seriously, can't you just work this out? Can't you just come and execute justice? Look, here we are. We're poured out. We're offerings that have been made. We're under the altar. Our blood has been shed. That's the framework. How does Colette, how does he recognize the delayed justice? He does four things, and I'm just gonna read them to you. This is verse 10, verse 11, verse 12, and then verse 14. These are the four ways that Colette is naming the delayed justice that he desires or is wondering why it won't be executed. that firstly the wicked are buried and then either praised or forgotten. So your translation might say praised with a footnote. It may say forgotten with a footnote. The real quick answer is this. It's not a translation problem. That the Hebrew text, I believe, uses the word forgotten. And the translation by the Jewish folks, the Septuagint, used, they changed the word to praised. So now when English translations make it, English translators, you know, in the Old Testament, they go back and forth between the Hebrew text and the Greek translation of that Hebrew text, and they actually use sometimes the Septuagint version. Don't ask me, I don't do this, but it is different. Two different words in two different translations long before English ever came around. But it gets at the same point, I think. He is saying that justice is delayed because the wicked people are forgotten, meaning that people then just continue to do wickedness because we don't learn from history what wicked people do. Or worse, they're praised because, well, they're wicked people. Why would you praise them? And so he's lamenting the fact that in some form or another, justice is delayed because these wicked people are either forgotten, or praised, but it leads you to the same point. Wickedness goes on seemingly unabated. Seemingly. In verse 11, he says delayed justice allows for more sin because man is sinful. This is what I said, that unredeemed people, they see it as a gas pedal. Oh, you keep saying there's a final judgment. You keep saying that the end is near. Well, I don't see any end, so I'm gonna just keep on keeping on. It's excuse and a license to sin. In verse 12, the sinner multiplies his sin and lives a long life. Here's that conundrum. Long life was to be for the righteous person, not the wicked person. And he observes this sort of reversal that the wicked person lives a long time and the righteous person dies. What is up with that? That is justice delayed. I don't understand, God. The promise seemed to work the other way. What is happening here?" But if you'll notice that none of these statements in and of themselves have solutions to them. His point is not to philosophically work through the statements propositionally and make theorems about them. He's observing what he sees, and in you know, the conglomeration of the whole, it is the fact that justice is delayed because, you know, this piece of evidence and this piece of evidence, this piece of evidence. And the fourth one is that there are these apparent reversals in the norm. The wicked get rewarded and the righteous get punished. That's verse 14. The deeds of the righteous get what the wicked should get, and the deeds of the wicked get what the righteous should get. It's this reversal again. What's going on? And so he's just simply putting out evidence. My observation is this. It should be the opposite. So what is happening? And so this is the question. In the face of this kind of delayed justice, the question comes out, how long? It's not unique to any one person. Maybe we could put it on the lips of Adam. I'm not sure if I want to, but it wasn't that the preacher comes up with it first, or that Gladstone comes up with it first, or the psalmist comes up with it first. This is the perennial cry of God's people. How long until you execute justice on this earth? How long? because sin seems to multiply without end. I say seemingly because our perspectives can be skewed, but they seemingly multiply without end. Sinners seem to get away with sinning and no temporal justice, and then this presents the challenge to people who are godly to attempt to live in a world that seems to celebrate that which is ungodly. There's a lot of peer pressure to be ungodly in a place where you are trying to be a godly person. So how long? But he doesn't offer a solution. He just lets the question hang. He doesn't really ask it that way, but it's the question anyway. He lets it just hang out there. Let's just let this go, and let's think about it some more. But what kind of justice is he getting at? Well, there is this cry seemingly for ultimate justice. But maybe temporal justice, maybe that would mete out some form of retribution that would satisfy. But ultimately, as you come to the people in Revelation, they're certainly thinking of ultimate judgment. When will you not come and make finalized judgment against these people who have come against us? But you'll notice that in providing somewhat of a solution, he begins to distinguish. people who fear God and people who don't fear God. And so he begins at least to make a distinction to say that there is coming a time, but like much of scripture, but not all of it, he looks in terms of the general ultimate rather than the specific, you know, the six bad things that are injustice in our town today. He doesn't do that. He looks more to the general and says, yes, there's a general injustice, but don't forget, there are people who fear God and there are people who don't fear God, and so he's kind of pointing to the end, the ultimate. And because there appears to be, and I say appears to be, because it's not absolute. There is temporal justice that takes place, we know that. But because there appears to be no temporal justice, what about the ultimate? Well, unbelievers get to mock, Right? And believers get to, I'm sorry, and believers get to lament all of this delayed justice. And it continues to be this mystery that we can't solve. Why? Why do the wicked live long and why do the righteous die young? I wish I had an answer. It would make my job a lot easier. But I don't have that answer. And neither does the scriptures in the way that we want them to have that answer. But there are hints to a resolution. But before we get to the resolution, does the Bible address the believer's problem with delayed justice? Abraham, hopefully you all were thinking of him, Abraham and God are talking. God is telling Abraham, I'm about to reign justice in the way that all of you here would probably be like cheering on, yes, bomb Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham is appealing to God not as the righteous judge who's vindictive, but the one who is compassionate and merciful and says, God, are you going to rain down your justice if there are 50 righteous people? Think about that, because I've intermingled with many of you, and I've been a Christian my entire life, and so I've been around Christians who, they just love to see God executing His justice. They love it when some natural disaster happens. I know, I mean, there's people recorded on TV saying these things, that, oh, this terrible event happened, and God got them. Maybe He did, I'm not gonna say He did or didn't, I don't know. Abraham doesn't appeal to that. He doesn't appeal to the lust of destroying. He appeals to God's compassion and says, well, shall the judge of all the earth not do what is just? Are you going to judge the righteous like you judge the wicked? And God assures him no. That is not the case. I deliver the wicked, I'm sorry, I deliver the righteous, and I judge the wicked. Paul, Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter six, Lord willing, next year we're gonna be moving into 1 Corinthians, but this is a long way off. In chapter six, in dealing with lawsuits, he asked this question as a serious way of dealing with your brother wronging you. This does not fly in the church today. He says, shall you not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? So as people are crying out for justice, Paul was saying, yeah, we should have justice, but think about who you are and where you are, and maybe the right thing, maybe the Christian ethic is that I should just suffer the wrong. That's not an ethic that you and I like to hear. It's not one that we like to promote. It's not one that gets a lot of press in the publications. But Paul says that, at least as an option for dealing with Christians who are coming against you. Why not suffer wrong, and then just go about your business? Just let that out there for you. Or consider what God says to the martyrs. In Revelation chapter 6, we read verse 10. Consider what he says to them in verse 11. When they cry out, how long? When will you avenge us? He says, you just hold your horses. Rest just a little while longer. Because as the rest of the book of Revelation points out, oh, that beast is going to come with some serious vengeance. But there's coming a day, but it's not today. So rest. These are not words that we like to hear. These are the answers to the very questions that are given in the scriptures themselves. How long? Well, here's how long. Until I say, I'm done. But not until then. So secondly, what is the hope of the believer? Is there a resolution? Well, I think that there is a resolution. It's just not the immediate effective resolution that we always want. I think what the preacher begins to do, and he has this famous passage again, this is the third time he's done this as well. He is out of the blue says, I commend you eating and drinking and being joyful, doing it with all joy. That's his solution. So he says already that there is this fear of God and not lack of fear of God. So here's who you are as the fear of God. Now, what I commend to you is be joyful and eat and drink. In fact, it's not simply a commendation like, well, you know, I recommend, you know, I don't know, Coke over Pepsi, or I recommend Mr. Pibb over, oh, but I don't drink it and stuff, you know, the other stuff that's like that. You know, like that's not what he's saying. No, no, no, he's actually giving a command. I laud you to joy. Joy is the thing that is praised and glorified, and this is how you should be living. The acknowledgement that God himself is the true God who provides. That's what he says. And so we have the joy of God's earthly provision. So this is what he keeps saying. He brings us back to eating and drinking and work. And he says, these are the things that you were created to do. And you should do them with joy and with maybe your family or your fellow believers, whoever it is. This is a place where you can find justice. This is a place that can ease your mind. This is a place where you can have joy right here at the dinner table. You can be thankful for these things. But I think that, as I've argued before, he points greater to that than simply just the earthly provision. I think he starts there. But the Old Testament is very clear, and particularly the law, that there were these feasts that these people had to do, that part of their worship was eating with God in his temple, and that they were to make a sacrifice and then sit down. You could think of Alcanna, right, and his family as they go, and his two wives, and, you know, Samuel's, you know, mother and father, and they'd go and they had this annual celebration feast when they go and they eat and drink at the tabernacle as part of their worship. That's the kind of worship I can get into, right? You know, like you just go and eat. I kind of like that. That's what he says. So you think about it like this. When he's commending them to eat and drink, he might be calling them to be commendable to actually thinking through how it is that they were to worship on a regular basis, you know, yearly, once, twice, three times a year, to go and to eat and drink in God's presence. Even as we come to the table each week and eat and drink in God's presence, that it was provision from God that we were reminded that God is still God, He is just, and He will execute judgment. And until that time, we can be satisfied with knowing that God Himself provides for us until the day when He brings it out. I think that's what he's getting at. What else does it say? Well, in those Psalms 13 and 89, it talks about the steadfast love of the Lord. So in the context of delayed justice, once more we have the steadfast love of the Lord. Well, that's what we just said. Eating and drinking, particularly if it points us to feasts that they were to eat and drink, were in fact the steadfast love of the Lord. Here's where your deliverance came from. Here's how you celebrate my deliverance from Egypt. You do it this way, and this way, and this way. So one day was a fast, you know, but there was the Day of Atonement, but they were to eat the Passover meal, and then they were to, you know, have the other feast, the Feast of Weeks, and Tabernacles, and the whole deal. If that's what he's reminding them of, and I think there's a good case to be made for that, then the steadfast love of the Lord is that which is the answer to each and every time that the cry, how long, in Psalm 13 and Psalm 89, that the steadfast love, this covenant faithfulness that God has to his people to deliver them remains. And that there is in some sense, at least, the issue of trust that comes with knowing that God will provide ultimate deliverance as much as he provides temporal deliverance. And so he points firstly to the steadfast love of the Lord. But then he points to two other things as well. Rest and patience. Two things that maybe, you know, Markans aren't really all that good at. Rest and patience. I mean, think about it. What does he tell those martyrs under the altar? Rest. Just rest in me. The day will come, but just rest. We talked about that a little bit. but he also says to them, have patience. Think about Romans chapter two, verse four. The Lord is being accused, at least in the scenario that's given, as one who is delaying justice. And Paul says, well, what if that delay of justice was because God wanted to extend kindness to you? What if his patience was such that he actually was waiting, if you will, until you came to faith? Not because you do it on your own, but you see, that's the language he uses. That his patience is not something that is bad, his patience is something that is good, and that patience is that he has an elect who is coming to him, and in that, he is bringing them in, but they don't all come in on the same day at the same time, they do come in over time. And so we have to be careful that we don't think that, well, now that I'm in, justice should be executed. No, other people are coming in as well. And imagine that, he just says you need to be patient. And so we need to rest, we need to be patient, we need to remember just one more thing, and that is this, that God is just, and he has executed justice on your behalf. We saw this last week when we went through the catechism question, 33, on justification, that God himself is just and justifier, so that he has executed justice on his son Christ for your sins. Your sins have been atoned for, they've been paid for. That is, the death that was required has already taken place. God has executed justice for you. so that he can forgive you, so that he can declare you not guilty, so that he can credit to you righteousness that is not yours. It's an alien righteousness that comes from Christ himself. That is God's justice in one sense. And in that, we can rejoice. And in that, we can call upon the Lord who is steadfastly loving to his people because he has demonstrated it already. Justice has been served in one sense. Yes, there's coming another day when ultimate justice will bring all things to an end. But until that day, like the martyrs under the altar, we can rest and be patient as the Lord brings in others who are his. He's not forgotten you. but it is a means for us to rejoice in the salvation that he's given to us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do give you thanks for your word to us, and ask, Lord, that you would bless it to our ears and hearts, and cause us to know you, that we may walk in your ways. Lord, we do give you thanks for these things, and we do pray all this through Christ, amen.