Confessions of a Church: Wickedness in the Place of Justice
The Psalm writer wrote: Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your law. As we come before a Holy God and hear his word, may we have eyes open to the wonderful and fearful things from his law. May it move us to repent and seek forgiveness, fear disobedience, and live in light of the grace we have received. This is the word of God. It is eternally true and applicable for all of life.
Ecclesiastes 3:16-22 Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness. I said to myself, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every deed is there. I said to myself concerning the sons of men, “God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts.” For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?
At SKC, we pride ourselves with being Reformed, Evangelical, Presbyterians who fly the banner of liberty, individual rights, and like to resist tyrants. We see injustice in the world, and are quick to bring the gospel to bear. When the LGBTQ mob or a group such as BLM comes peddling their Gender fluidity and CRT mind shackles, we recognize it for what it is: man's wisdom attempting to address an issue where only God's wisdom will do. Though they give us much to be wary of and fight against, we must be very careful in our critique of movements like the LGBT and BLM and their cries of oppression and systemic racism.
"They are marxists" you say.
"They mock God with their twisting of His Word to fit their perverted agenda".
"They distort history, brush aside facts and logic as inherently racist, and are simply looking for power".
All true. Yet, should we brush aside their grievances so quickly?
Isn't it also true that "In the place of justice there is wickedness, and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness"?
I won't use our time together today to attempt an explanation for how I believe the Church is largely responsible for the low regard our culture has for God's Word, which leads to the twisting of it.
I won't use our time together this morning explaining to you how I believe our current system may very well be chock full of systemic racism, though not in the way BLM defines it.
What I am going to do, however, is show you with a brief example how every institution, every organization, every sphere of government (church, civil, and family) has at its head, whether Pastor, Governor, husband or father, an unjust, unrighteous leader who will most certainly be held accountable on the day of judgement.
Take for example a husband and father in the home.
Husband, as head of your home, you are charged with loving your wife, and laying down your life for her as Christ laid down His life for the Church. As a father you are called to discipline your children, to train them up in the way they should go, so that when they are old they will not depart from it.
Men, we can look at God's Word, social statistics, watch the nightly news, or hang out at a gay pride rally and quickly see the ramifications of disengaged husbands, fatherlessness, absent fathers, fathers who check out of their homes, physically and emotionally, and fathers who simply just don't care.
It is clear by simple observation, which shows God's perfect Word to be true, that in the most basic of human institutions, the home, we find wickedness in the place of justice and in the place of righteousness among the husbands and fathers.
In the home, where husbands are commanded by God to be leading their wives, and fathers lovingly disciplining their children, what we find are men who love their sin more than their wives and children.
Rather than sacrifice your lives for your wives, expecting nothing in return, you grow bitter and hardened toward your wife when she doesn't respond to your "leadership" the way you think she ought. As the Pastor described in a past sermon, you play nice guy in your home, expecting that since you do a, b, and c, you deserve something in return because you just give, give, give. Instead, you wind up with a bitter, angry wife who simply wants you to be a man and lead in accordance with God's perfect Law, rather than by your fickle, sinful, made up standards for what your home ought to look like .
Instead of disciplining your children, you let things slide because you fear everyone will call out your hypocrisy. You know your wife sees your sin. She knows you have a porn problem. Your children watch and learn as, instead of applying the rod and saving their souls, you attempt to verbally reason, and wrangle, and give one opportunity after another, waiting to see if your child will comply. When it becomes clear they will not obey, you blow your top and punish them when in a rage, rather than lovingly correcting all along the way, when they rise up and when they lie down. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
In arguably the most fundamental human institution, the family, with a husband and father at it's head, we see wickedness in the place of justice and righteousness. We see that the husband and father ought to be leading by the example shown to us by Christ in how He loves His bride the Church, and disciplining their children the way our loving Heavenly Father disciplines us, by His Word. Instead, we find men shirking their responsibilities. Rather than lead, men engage in escapism by playing video games, watching movies, listening to podcasts, and scrolling through twitter, when they are home, or work unnecessarily long hours to avoid your wife and children all together, when they ought to be leading their homes.
Then, we feign indignation, wondering aloud boisterously why movements like BLM and the LGBTQ mob have so much influence in our culture.
Want to go to war with Marxists and sexual revolutionists? Be a faithful husband and father.
Because Jesus commands that all men everywhere are to repent, if you are able, please kneel as we confess our sins to our Just, Righteous, Heavenly Father.
Heavenly Father,
We thank You for never being slack in being a Father.
We thank You that Your Son is a perfect example of what a husband ought to be.
We thank you for Your Spirit working within us, for apart from that we have no hope of leading righteously and justly in our homes.
Father, please forgive the husbands where they have failed to lovingly lead their wives in the home. Help them to remember the frames of their wives, to be patient with them, and to gently guide them in accordance to Your Word.
Help the fathers to love their children by discipline and correcting. Help them to set aside the wicked notion that to love their children is to allow them to find their own path and make their own way in matters pertaining to holiness, righteousness, and justice.
Father, please be with the wives, mothers, and children. Please soften their hearts toward their sinful husbands and fathers. Where they have sought to sinfully subvert Your will in the home, please forgive them.
Please bless all the homes of SKC with peace, joy, unity, and love.
In Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Please stand and listen to the comforting assurance of the grace of God, promised in the gospel to his church:
Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
To all those who thus repent and seek Jesus Christ for their salvation, your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lift up your hearts!
(From the 06/27/2021 liturgy of Sovereign King Church written by Aaron Sabie.)