THE TIME FOR JUSTICE 

Romans 12:19

By Ernest O'Neill

Your own heart inside, you know, your own feelings inside, are meant to be a peaceable kingdom. That's right. Your own heart and all the feelings you have inside, even at this very moment, are meant to be a peaceable kingdom. 

Your inside feelings are meant to be filled with peace, you know, and calmness and quietness. And your whole relationship with the rest of us is meant to be filled with great enjoyment, a kind of bubbling joy as you know us and as we know you, and you have contentment and peace with us, and we have contentment and peace with you. That's what our hearts are meant to be like, loved ones. 

Our hearts are meant to be filled with serenity and calmness and peace, and our personal relationships with each other are meant to be filled with gentleness and contentment and with love. Now, if your dear heart is not like that, if your own heart is filled with turmoil at times through the week, or you find yourself unable to sleep at night, or to get to sleep at night because of all kinds of apprehensions and worries and fears, then it's possible that the things that God says in these verses will change that experience for you if you will act on these directions. So, I'd ask you just to look at the verses again that we've read in connection with that, the state of your own heart. 

If you would look at Romans 12, you could see the verses we talked about a couple of Sundays ago, and really it deals with a whole set of situations that bring turmoil to your heart, you know. What do you do when somebody cuts across your lane at the stoplight? What do you do at that moment? Is your old heart filled with all kinds of turmoil? Or what do you do when some colleague passes on some false information about you to the boss? Or what do you do when somebody just tells you a downright lie and you find out about it? What happens in your heart, you see, at that moment? And God says this in Romans 12:17, Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.

That's always right. That's always right. Even when the guy takes your $200 and gives the car back and it's no better than it was when you left it in. You do yourself more harm than you do him by working yourself up into a frenzy. And that's where this comes in, you know, repay no one evil for evil. Somebody lets you down, let them let you down, but don't destroy yourself even more by setting the old adrenaline working inside the stomach and by tightening up all the muscles and stopping the blood flow to other parts of your body and literally killing yourself. Don't. Repay no one evil for evil. Because by doing that, you do yourself more harm than you'll ever do them. 

Now, this morning, God is so good, you know, he knows the way our twisted little minds work. And he's so good. And he told Paul about this and he said to them, Now, once you've said that to them, you know, they'll all be concerned about something else.

So I'd like to deal with that. So that's what he does in the next verse. And you see the way he does it in Romans 12:19. “Beloved”, -- and that's “agapētoi”, the Greek word, and it means “my dear ones”, dear to God and dear to me. Now, wait a minute. I know you're concerned about something. That's what he's saying. He's coming close to us and saying, Now, I know I've given you the general direction. 

Now, I want to deal with some of the weak questions you have in your mind, because some of you are thinking, “Well, wait a minute. This is a kind of one-sided counsel. Repay no one evil for evil. They'll walk over the top of us. They'll destroy us. They'll wear us out.” 

No, that's one-sided counsel. What about all these other things, these questions that I have in my mind? And Paul says, “Now, I'm going to deal with those. Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.  For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.”

Now, to help you understand what God is really talking about here, I would point out that if vengeance is the issue in this verse -- that is paying somebody back for what they've done to you -- then Paul's already talked about that. He already talked about that back in verse 17, “Repay no one evil for evil.” So, if vengeance is the big issue in this verse, then Paul's just repeating himself.

You remember, we talked about that several Sundays ago when we talked about the high cost of getting even and how we shouldn't pay other people back for what they do to us. So, if that's what Paul's talking about, he's repeating himself. But worse than that, if he's talking about downright vengeance, kind of a hateful, paying the other person back for the harm he does to you, then even humanists believe that vengeance is wrong. 

Forget about Christians. Forget about anybody who follows Jesus. Even humanists know that vengeance in the sense of paying somebody back for something they do to you with a feeling of hatred and resentment in your heart, that's wrong. 

So, everybody knows vengeance is wrong. We all feel it's supposed to have gone out with the flood. So, loved ones, it's strange if vengeance is the issue, and actually it isn't. The word used is a word in Greek, “ekdikēsis”, and it doesn't mean vengeance. It means exacting justice, exacting justice. 

Romans 12:19 really reads, “Beloved, never exact justice on your own behalf, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, the act of exacting justice is mine. I will exact justice, says the Lord.” And that's what the verse is about, exacting justice. We're talking about it in the realm of personal relationships. We're not talking about it in the realm of public justice. There, justice has to be exacted. 

Some of you are policemen, some are judges, some are teachers, some are parents, some are bosses in businesses. There, you have a responsibility of exacting justice -- that is, of ensuring that people do the right thing, and of telling them when they do the wrong thing -- and to the extent that you're able, making them do the right thing. You have that responsibility in the public area of justice. But we're talking about the personal realm of our relationships with each other as friends and as colleagues. That's a different realm, loved ones.

The area of public justice which is ruled by the civil laws, based on the Mosaic laws, is a hedge that God has set around us all, and that ought always to be maintained. That is not what we're talking about, that realm where justice is governed and exacted by judges, and by parents, and by teachers, and all of us who are given specific positions by society and by God. We need to use that hedge. We need to use it. We're told in the Bible not to use it against each other, but we do need to use it in the world. 

That set of civil laws is a hedge to protect us from the violence and the chaos that sin is increasingly bringing in the world. That is part of God's preserving grace. But do you see, God isn't talking about that realm? He's talking about this personal realm of our relationships with each other. He's saying, “No, don't exact justice. That is not your job. Don't exact justice.” 

In other words, when the person on the shift before you should have cleaned up and didn't clean up, and a mess has been left for you, don't exact justice by leaving them a mess so that they find out what it's like. Or, your wife comes home late. It's your night for making supper. Or your roommate comes home late, and the thing is now a burnt sacrifice in the oven. It's been there so long. Don't exact justice by coming home late when it's your turn to show them how difficult it is to keep food warm. Don't exact justice. Don't try to teach the other person what is right by giving them back a bit of their own. Don't do that. 

Somebody puts you down in a conversation with sarcasm. Don't exact justice by putting them down so that they get a taste of their own medicine and find out what it's like. That's what God is saying in this whole area of our personal relationships with each other: “Don't exact justice from each other. Don't do that.” That's to be done in the public realm of civil laws, but in the personal realm of relationships, don't do it. 

Now, why? Well, there are several reasons, loved ones, and maybe you'll look at the first one. It's in John 8:7. Why not exact justice from somebody, you see, who treats you rather off-handedly, either in business or in an ordinary social intercourse? Why not just treat them off-handedly? “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?” Why not just give them back a bit of their own? Well, John 8:7, “And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” That's the first reason. Who are you? Are you so perfect you've never done wrong? Are you so perfect you've never done anything wrong to anybody? Then what right have you to exact justice on somebody else? What right have you to set yourself forward as the guardian of justice in the world? “No, I can't let this person get away with this, because if they do, why? The whole world could fall into chaos, and so I will take upon myself the responsibility of defending world government here in this situation.” 

Well, are you so perfect that you can do that? Now, you may say, “Oh yeah, but I mean the judges and the policemen, some of them are as bad as the criminals, and yet they can exact justice.” Yes, and God allows them to exact justice in that public realm, but loved ones, there the task is to maintain justice in the world. Here our task is to make people just, and your friend or your husband or your wife is not made just by you giving them back a taste of their own medicine. 

They're rather driven away from you by that, and they're driven away from any desire to be better, except maybe from the point of view of fear, or to avoid the awkward situation next time. But our task together in our personal relationships, in our businesses, and in our families, and in our friendships is to make each other just.  The only way you will make the other person good is by them seeing your goodness. That is, by you having that meal on the table again, and again, and again, and again, by it being burnt up again, and again, and again, and again. If you can't get to them that way, you'll never get to them really anyway. Any other kind of getting at them will be purely superficial, and will produce no change in them. 

The same with that guy at work. He's continually left you with the dirty work. The only way you will ever change him is by you being so continuously, and so patiently, and yet so obviously, knowingly, and consciously -- because he realizes you see it -- being continuously faithful, and being careful, and neat yourself and doing more than your part of the work. Gradually the Creator of the world is able to get through to them. 

A lot of us in our families, our marriages, come up against those problems that do not yield to the textbook answer, or do not yield to the little gimmick that we've been taught to try. Eventually you find that the things that yield to those things are not problems at all. The real problems are the ones where there seems no life in the person. There seems no desire to change. Now in that situation, justice is not what's needed. The enlivening and creating of a desire in their hearts is what is needed. That only comes when they see you and your goodness, not when they see your self-righteous exacting of justice. 

There's another reason, loved ones, if you look at it. It's Job 38. So, somebody doesn't invite you out to some party, or some outing of some kind. Why not exact justice by not inviting them to yours next time? Well, here it is in Job 38.

Job 38:1-11, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me, Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars signed together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth from the womb? When I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.’"

Why? Why should you not exact justice on the person who has just told a lie to a friend about you by you treating them with the same indifference? Because wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, it's not your job. It's not your job. You don't have the burden. You don't have to work out how to keep the Pacific Ocean from drowning the west coast of the states. That's not your job. You don't have to work out how to thaw out the Antarctic. That's not your job. 

Praise God, that isn't your job. It's not my job. It isn't our job to maintain justice in the world. It isn't. It's God's work through the courts, and through the judges, and through all who are put in positions of authority in business or in politics. But in our personal relationships, it's not our job to ensure that justice does not crack into pieces because our friends or our colleagues are not treating us or others right.

It's not our job. Loved ones, it's too much for us. It's too much for us. 

Too much for you or me to have to try to talk up the failures of our friends and to give them due recompense for each failure. Our minds aren't made for it. God's mind is capacious and is joyous, and He is able to do that without being overwhelmed by the evil of the world. 

But if you and I take on the responsibility of exacting justice from everybody that we meet day by day, we will be utterly overwhelmed and preoccupied with the evil and chaos in the world. That is not our job. Our job is to rejoice in God, to give people love, to repay no one evil for evil, to pay back goodness and kindness, and to be what God has made us, and not to try to ensure that they do the same.  Whatever they do, good. Let them do it. If they happen to catch some beauty from us or some goodness, good. That's good. But our job is not to punish them for what they're not doing right. 

That brings maybe the most important reason for this. It's in Psalm 103:10. So, you have some friend or some colleague who makes use of you just for their own purposes, just whenever they want. You know that fine well. Then they just ignore you when they're finished with you. Now, why not exact justice against them on your own behalf by doing the same towards them? Psalm 103:10, "Because he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor equate us according to our iniquities."

Where should you be if the Creator of the world had dealt with you according to your iniquities or rewarded you according to your sins? Where should you be now? Where would you and I be if he rewarded us according to the things that we'd done wrong? My loved ones, we'd be in hell. Well, you know what, we'd be in hell.

Now, what right have we in the universe that is run by such a dear father as this? What right have we to run our own tight little unforgiving justice against our friends and our colleagues or those whom we meet in our day-to-day business life? With the dear Father who has far more to forgive than we could ever imagine when He has not dealt with us according to our sins or rewarded us according to our iniquities, what right have we to reward our friends according to our their sins or treat them according to their iniquities? In other words, you and I know fine well that ever since Jesus died [ and you remember we all died with Christ because Christ died for all and therefore all died] justice in God's world has not been the exacting of punishment for sins committed, but it has been the extermination of sin in the sinner. 

I mean, that's what happened when God put us all into Jesus. He destroyed the sin in each one of us so that we would have a chance to live. Now, that's what justice is. It's defined by God. That's what justice is. God does not define justice in this realm of our personal relationships and our heart feeling towards each other. He does not define it as punishing a person's sins.

He defines it as exterminating sin in the sinner so that the sinner can be saved. That's why Jesus said, I came not to condemn the world but to save it. Now, loved ones, if our God is about that, then you certainly aren't exacting justice when you pay somebody back for something that they did against you. Besides, not even a judge has the right to exact justice on his own behalf. But even if he had, certainly in God's covenant in Jesus, we have no right to pay somebody back for the evil that they've done to us. Thinking by that means, “We will make them right. We'll shape them up. We'll protect the justice of this world.” We have no right to it, loved ones. That kind of justice is retributive. It isn't remedial. Ever since Jesus died, justice has become remedial, except in the realm of civil laws. 

But in this whole realm of personal relationships, justice is remedial. So you and I have no right to run our own little retributive justice system where we pay back out of the hardness and the resentment of our own heart somebody for something that they did against us. In other words, God says, “Don't exact justice. The business of exacting justice is mine, and I will exact justice.” It's interesting, the verb that is used in the Greek is a sudden verse, a sudden verb. And if you look back at the verse, I'll show you how it runs. 

It's Romans 12:19, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves." But really it is never exact justice on your own behalf. And then the verb is in the Greek Aorist [tense] and it says there, “but leave it”. But the meaning of it is, “Step aside. I'll do it. Never exact justice. Step aside. I'll do it. That's my job. Your job is to enjoy your friends and your colleagues and to be like My Son and to let My love come through you. I'll take care of the justice. Justice is Mine. My wrath will take care of that.”

Well, in what way? “First of all, in protecting you from the evil consequences of the other people's actions.” That's right. Because you must admit, in our high-minded justice, there's a good deal of fear. We're thinking, “Wait a minute, if I let this person get away with this, I'm going to have to face this for the rest of my life. And not only that, but they're destroying my life by doing this.”

First, if you step aside and let God take care of the situation, He will protect you. I'll show you how it works, loved ones. Back in Numbers 12:1-2 in the Old Testament, “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married. For he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? And the Lord heard it.” So they were, of course, beginning to undermine their leader. Talk about him, murmur about him, criticize him. 

Numbers 12:3, “And the man, Moses, was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth.” He was an expression of this attitude, don't exact justice. That's God's job. 

And then in verse 12:9-10, "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, Miriam and Aaron. And he departed. And when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.” 

If you leave it to God, he'll protect you. He'll protect you. If you leave exacting justice to him and simply love other people, whatever they do to you, God will protect you from the actions that they are engaged in. He'll protect you from the consequences of those actions.

It's like an invisible shield is around you, almost like Star Wars. There's an invisible shield around you. And it doesn't matter what they do. If that shield didn't exist, their actions would have tremendous consequences for your life. But when you leave it in God's hands, that shield of faith protects you from their actions, so that whatever they do, it will not have the effect upon your life that they want. The moment you try to corral their actions, the moment you try to control them -- husband, wife, friends, colleagues, enemies -- [you know the way we do it] the moment you try to move them around a bit that way. “If I could get them around that way, I could manage them.” The moment we try to do that, we cease to trust that God is in charge, faith ceases, the shield is shattered and dissolved, and their actions come through without any opposition. It's like that. It's miraculous. 

If you leave it to God, he'll take care of it, and he'll defend you at the same time. And then finally, we should look at it because it's just the truth.

Romans 2:8-11. [Because justice is His and it belongs to Him.]  “But for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality.” Because final justice only God can exact, and He will, and it's not our job.  

So really, God has called us to a beautiful life, He really has. Our job is not to get the other guy back, and our job is not to protect ourselves from their terrible actions, because God Himself has promised He'll do that. And God has said, “You're my children, I'm the Father, and I'm the judge of the whole earth. Now I want you to trust me, and I want you to love and live the way I've told you to, and I will protect you from the consequences that you fear will follow from living like that. I have not set you out there undefended. I will defend you. You repay no one evil for evil. Don't you bother with this business of exacting justice or putting all your friends right. You keep a heart that is sweet and fragrant with My love, and be like Me, and I will defend you and protect you.”

Now, loved ones, have you ever tried it? I mean, we get so cynical in our society, but have you ever tried it? Have you ever tried it? Have you ever tried living without any resentment or without any anger or without any feeling that you ought to get back on the other guy? Why not start today? I mean, you and I know you can just change. You can. You know you can.

If I told you that smoke was killing you with cancer, you'd stop it today. This would be your last cigarette. You know we can do what we want. God has given us the freedom and the ability in Jesus to do what we want. 

So, would you look into your dear hearts, and if you find any of the iron in your soul or the old knife going out, or the desire to control that wild person that you live with or that you work with, why not hand the whole thing over to the Father and try just being a child and be happy? 

Let us pray. Dear Father, we see that we're so high and mighty and so self-righteous. Father, it almost makes us sick when we see how pure we think we are. Lord, we ask forgiveness, and we thank You that it is true. You have not dealt with us according to our sins or rewarded us according to our iniquities, and we of all people have no right to reward our friends according to their sins or to deal with them according to their iniquities. So, Father, we thank You for showing us that this morning.  We thank you, Lord, that it doesn't mean turning over the world to chaos. You are alive. You will protect and govern. You will maintain justice in the public realm through the judges and the police and the courts, and in this personal realm through the silent working of your Holy Spirit, defending us with that invisible shield. Lord, we thank you. Thank you, Father, that you are saying to us this morning, “Go out and enjoy my world and be happy and be kindly and loving and tender-hearted one towards another, forgiving those who do things against you for my sake, and I will take care of justice. Lord, thank You. Thank You for your dear heart and Your goodness to us this day. We intend to live differently this week for Your glory. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.