Where is the God of justice?
Malachi 2v17
Part 1
30th April 2021
Speaking through the prophet Malachi, God said:
Malachi 2v17
You have wearied the Lord with your words.
"How have we wearied him?" you ask.
By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased
with them" or "Where is the God of justice?"
I hope it's clear the first part of this prophecy is not literally true. God doesn't get weary. This is what we call "anthropomorphism". God's speaking about Himself as if He were human. When we read the Bible, we need to understand that God speaks about Himself in this way. Compare this passage with:
Isaiah 40:28
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator
of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding
no one can fathom.
Isaiah 40:28 and Malachi 2:17 don't contradict each other. One is literally true and the other is a figure of speech.
When God says through the prophet Malachi that the Israelites have wearied Him, He means that He's fed up with hearing their complaints. He's rebuking them because they're finding fault with Him. God is our Creator, our Saviour, our King. God is perfect in every way. He is utterly without sin, utterly without weakness, utterly good and loving. And yet His people find fault with Him.
The Israelites were complaining because they were suffering from injustice, in many ways. The uncomfortable truth is that Israelite society was riddled with injustice. You can find evidence for that is the books of Judges, Kings, Chronicles and the prophets, in passages like:
Amos 5:11-12
You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have
built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush
vineyards, you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offences and how great your sins. You oppress the
righteous and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Micah 2:1-2
Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning's
light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of
his home, a fellow-man of his inheritance.
Isaiah 5:20-23
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light
for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.
We would do well to gain a more realistic – more Biblical – understanding of Israelite social history. Although the Lord was their God, injustice was rife. But it wasn't God's fault. God is perfect.
By saying"All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them" God's Old Testament people were accusing God of the very error that Isaiah accused them of, calling good evil and evil good. They were implying that God treats good people and evil people exactly the same. In which case, why bother being good? But as Abraham said in Genesis 18:25, the Lord is the judge of all the earth, and He will do right.
The Israelites were also asking "Where is the God of justice?" but this was a rhetorical question, a question that didn't expect an answer. They were saying that either God didn't exist, or He did exist but he was unjust. No wonder He was offended.
But let's ask the same question, "Where is the God of justice?" in a humble and submissive way.
Firstly, what is justice? Justice is whatever God says it is. And God speaks through the Bible. Thus justice is doing what the Bible requires, and not doing what the Bible forbids. The most obvious place to go for a definition of justice is the Ten Commandments. By studying them, we know that murder is unjust, theft is unjust, adultery is unjust and telling lies about people is unjust. We also know that serving any God but the Lord is unjust, that disrespecting our parents is unjust, and so on.
We live among a generation that likes to redefine justice frequently. We must be careful to trust in God's word, not in changeable fashionable ideas.
Just as in Malachi's day, there is terrible injustice in our day. In many parts of the world, people are persecuted just because they believe in Jesus. Many unborn children suffer the ultimate injustice, killed before they see the light of day. Increasingly, freedom of speech is under attack, and people's livelihoods are threatened if they express an unfashionable opinion.
And we'd like to understand why.
I don't think any of us would actually say, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord and he is pleased with them" I don't think we'd demand "Where is the God of justice?" I think we know that saying such things would be disrespectful to God. But perhaps we sometimes think these sorts of things.
I think we know why unjust laws are passed, why good Christians are persecuted, why godless values are promoted and those who speak up for righteousness are silenced. It's because our nation is turning away from God. And when a nation turns away from God, deception and sin increase.
But why doesn't God do something about it? We know that answer to that:
2 Chronlcles7:14
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and
seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and
I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
God has done something about injustice in our land: He's called His people to repent and pray, and He's promised that when we do that, He'll come and turn our country around. A more important question is: why don't we do something about it? Why don't we repent and pray?
Even in a land when justice is more-or-less done in parliament and the courts, there remain wicked people who prosper and good people who suffer. Haven't you sometimes wondered why wicked people have more money, bigger houses, and faster cars than you. Haven't you wondered why they enjoy better health than you? Or live longer lives than your loved ones? Haven't you occasionally cried out to God, like a teenager to his father, that "It's so unfair"?
It can be tough for a child when he sees that other children have nicer bikes or more fashionable clothes than he does, especially if his dad is the richest man in town. It's only natural to wonder why my dad won't give me nice things. It's harder still to wonder why my dad doesn't protect me from harm, when He's the all-powerful God.
Our God – our Father – loves us perfectly, and is perfectly powerful. Our God is in total control of the universe. But Christians can suffer dreadful persecution, terrible diseases, painful relationships, poverty and depression. It's only natural to ask why.
But the answer is not that God's love has grown cold, or His strength has withered. He remains omnipotent, and He loves us enough to send Jesus to die in our place.
So why do we suffer so much? Why do we have less pleasant lives than some of our wicked neighbours? We'll answer these questions next time.