God's Perfect Justice

The prophet Jeremiah says something quite striking in chapter 12 of his book of prophecy. He says, you are righteous, oh Lord. And he says, but let me speak with you about your justice. He says, why does the way of the wicked prosper Why do those who deal treacherously thrive? Jeremiah looks out around the nation of Judah, he sees his fellow Israelites, and he sees wicked people prospering. He sees people for whom God is near in their mouth, but far from their heart. And yet they are the ones who seem to be rising up They're the ones who seem to be doing well, and meanwhile, in the midst of all of their treachery and oppression and wickedness, they are bringing destruction and misery on others, including those who actually love the Lord. And which of us here can't relate to Jeremiah when he says, you're righteous, Lord, but let me speak with you about your justice. You know, whether we explicitly articulate that or whether we just think it in our hearts, the reality is that we live in a world that is full of injustice. We look around and so often it seems that those who are dishonest and self-seeking actually have advantages in terms of getting ahead. whether it's cheaters at school, whether it's coworkers who shift blame or take undue credit, or whether it's the empty promises of politicians. Often people's lack of mooring to any sort of moral standard almost seems like an advantage. We also see terrible tragedies befalling the innocent. How often we open up the paper to read of yet another accident caused by a drunk driver. And yet so often it's the drunk driver who is fine and this other person who is dead. We see this with the partiality and oppression by those in power. How many just oppressive government regimes have risen up with governmental leaders abusing that authority to become rich and comfortable while their people are subjected to grinding poverty? Or maybe in a more mild form, even at work, how often it is that there is partiality and maybe it's that coworker whom you have worked harder. And yet there is preference by those in authority. And if we're honest, this injustice is, you know, it's not just out there, but it extends even within the church. Not only are there false churches with prosperity preachers selling lies for personal profit, but even right here in our own church. We've all experienced little slights. We've all experienced ourselves or we feel ourselves being unfairly treated. There's always vestiges of clicks and sometimes the people who seem to get ahead seem to do so for the wrong reasons. And so friends, the reality of injustice which pervades our world, is coupled with what the Bible presents as a God who is good and powerful. And that creates this great tension. And yet it's a tension that the Bible is very realistic about. It's not something the Bible just sort of pretends is not there, but we discover it on the pages of scripture. When we turn to Psalm 73, we read of the Psalm of Asaph, and he says, quite honestly, he says, I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. He goes on to say, pride is their necklace, violence covers them as a garment, they scoff and speak with malice, loftily they threaten oppression, and therefore people turn back to them and find no fault in them. Or another example of this is of course the story of Job. Here we have someone who seems to be quite possibly the most righteous man on the face of the earth. And yet, in a single day, Sabian raiders come in, kill his servants, and steal his oxen and donkeys. There's some sort of, perhaps, a volcanic eruption that consumes his herds of sheep. Then there's Chaldean raiders who come in and kill his other servants and steal his camels. And then some sort of windstorm or tornado comes through. And while his 10 children are all having a party at the oldest son's house, the house is knocked over and all 10 of his children die. And then just a short time later, Job's own body is afflicted with sores and boils all over. And if that were not enough, his friends who come to supposedly comfort him, they simply come and accuse him of sin. They say, Job, the reason all this happened is because you sinned and you're just not admitting it. And Job himself comes near the very breaking point because he understands that God is sovereign. And yet he sees this terrible affliction and the injustices around him. And as he comes near the breaking point in chapter nine, picking up in verse 15, he says this. He says, though I am in the right, I cannot answer him. That is God. For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause. He will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty. If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me. Though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. I am blameless. I regard not myself, I loathe my life. It is all one, therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges. If it is not he, who then is it? And you see Job just in the agonies of perplexity over this reality that God is sovereign and yet injustice prevails on the earth. And friends, this is exactly the reality that we come to when we turn to the book of Malachi. We're picking up here in the six of the six different disputations in the book of Malachi. And just to remind you of some of the historical context, Judah was taken into exile by Babylon in three waves between 605 and 586 BC. Then beginning in 538 BC, the decree from Cyrus went out and they began to return to the land. And yet life was hard. They're returning from slavery with nothing. They come back to Jerusalem, which did not have walls until 445 when Nehemiah comes. They eventually rebuilt the temple in 516 BC, but sometime after the rebuilding of the temple, and I think probably before the rebuilding of the walls, Malachi is there prophesying. And what we see as we turn to this last disputation is that the people are looking around them and they're making two basic observations. Number one, they see evildoers who are prospering. Surely this includes some from other nations, pagans who know not the Lord, who practice all sorts of evil and yet seem to be getting along just fine. And this also would have included fellow Israelites, You know, those who, on one hand, profess to know God, but on the other hand, showed absolute disregard for his law and his commandments, and yet many of them seemed to be getting ahead. And yet, the other observation they make is that piety seemed to be going unrewarded. You know, the people are looking around and saying, look, we're going around in mourning. We are trying to obey God's laws, and what is it getting us? We see no visible correlation between godliness and welfare. In fact, the arrogant, we say, are the ones who are being blessed and the godly afflicted. So how will God respond to this? And how do we make sense of this inherent tension between a perfect, all-powerful God and the reality of pervasive injustice in our world. Well, I think this passage speaks into that in three main ways. And the first way it does so is this. This passage reminds us that God is to be feared, never judged. God is a God who is to be feared, never judged. And really what I'm getting at here is that before you and I even try to address this problem of injustice, we first need to address the attitude of our own hearts. And so notice right at the beginning of our text that we see two different groups of people, who are both living in the same place, exposed to the same circumstances, who see all the same injustices, and yet they respond to them in two radically different ways. Look at this first group of people in verses 13 through 15. We read, your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, how have we spoken against you? You have said it is vain to serve God. It's useless. There's nothing good from this. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? You know, what good is it to fast and mourn and pray? Verse 15, and now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape. They seem to be referring to high-handed sin. You know, you think of from number 16, right, we have Korah, Abiram, and Dathan, how they arrogantly lifted themselves up against Moses. But there, God stepped in, right? The earth split open, they were swallowed. He sent fire down to consume them. But now they look around and these high-handed sinners seem to just escape. They're not punished. And so basically what this group is doing is they're starting with their life and their circumstances and they're looking around and they're concluding serving God just isn't worth it. Because obviously, God's either not powerful enough to do anything about this or else he's just not good enough to care. Now contrast that with this second group, which we read about in verse 16. It says, then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. And again, here you have another group of people in the exact same circumstances, and they get together and they talk with one another, and we don't really know anything about what they said, but the one thing we know is that instead of judging God, they feared him. Instead of beginning with their circumstances and looking around, they begin with God and God's own self revelation of who he is. And so they're interpreting their circumstances in light of what God has said about himself and about them and about this world. And brothers and sisters, this is so important for us. You know, just last Sunday, I had to drive to Louisville for a seminary class, and you may remember there was a snowstorm, and that was a miserable experience. There were just accidents everywhere, and I had about 12 hours to think about, you know, this experience. And while I'm going down the road, I mean, you know, these tractor trailers come whizzing past, and I'm thinking, okay, my life is, you know, on the line here. You know, one of the things that crossed my mind as I see accident after accident is, you know, if I get in an accident and something terrible happens, I'm injured severely, I'm paralyzed, would I be able to say, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. You know, if you lose a child, If your career aspirations come crashing down, if you fall into terrible sin, when you have loved ones who don't know Christ, all of these are terribly difficult scenarios. And the question is, will you respond by then trying to evaluate God and see, okay, does God fit into my view of the world? You know, can God sort of justify himself given my circumstances and the injustices that I feel that I have faced? Or will we let God be God? Will we fear the Lord? Will we let the one who made us The one who made the whole world, will we let him be the one to tell us who he is, who we are, what this world is, why it's the way it is, and how to understand these things? You see, that is exactly what this first group in verse 13 to 15 have failed to do. They've brought their own view of the world to the table, and they're evaluating God in light of that. And we see that a number of ways. First, look at verse 14. They say, it is vain to serve God. What good is it to keep his charge? I don't think they realize that is a completely unbiblical worldview. You know, do you notice how me-centered their view of the world is? Because serving God is not primarily a question. It's not about personal benefit. We don't serve God just so we can have a better life. We don't serve God just so we can escape hell. We don't serve God even just so we can go to heaven. We serve God because he's worthy. As it says in the second group, they esteemed his name. We serve God because as Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 says, worthy are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. Another thing to notice is, look at the way this first group, they seem to think that they deserve more from God than God says they do. And they believe this because they're playing the comparison game. You know, they look around at these evildoers and think, why are they not being punished like they deserve? Well, look how God begins it. He says, your words have been hard against me, and they respond with shock, as if they're just oblivious to their own sin. And the reality is, when we stop comparing ourselves with others, And thinking, well, I'm better than that person. And we start comparing ourselves to God's word. We see that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we realize that actually the standard is not, what have I received compared with what other people have received? But really, I need to understand, what have I received compared with what I deserve? And life itself is owing to the grace of God because we are all sinners who all deserve condemnation and yet God in his grace gives us all that we have. And so yes, there is injustice in the world. But to call upon God to bring down the hammer of justice without recognizing our own need for grace is really just to call down our own condemnation because that injustice begins within our own hearts. And notice also that this first group, they have a very worldly conception of what it means to be blessed. Verse 15, we call the arrogant blessed. But friends, that's not what God says blessing is. You know, they don't mean by that, oh, you know, these Aragon are blessed because they have this wonderful fellowship with God. No, they look and they say, oh, they're blessed because they, you know, they are getting ahead in life. They have material prosperity. They have worldly privilege and position. But God tells us that real blessing is this. He says, in my presence there is fullness of joy, and at my right hand are pleasures forevermore. God's word tells us that to be a doorkeeper in God's house is better than to dwell in the tents of wickedness, and that a day in God's courts are better than a thousand. So friends, how foolish we are to be envious of the wicked as if, even if they gain the whole world, as if they're blessed. when it comes at the forfeit of their own soul. So you see, this first group, they have their own view of the world, their own view of true blessing, their own standards of righteousness, and their own definition of profit. And according to that view, they're judging and evaluating, does God really fit? But friends, this is as foolish as taking a ruler and measuring a piece of wood to decide where to cut it. You cut the wood and then you take that same piece of wood and you try to use it as, you know, say, well, does the ruler, is it really the right length? Does it measure up? You see, God himself is the standard. He's the creator, we are creatures. And we must never come to God demanding that he justify or vindicate himself to us. We come to him fearing the Lord, trusting the Lord, honoring the Lord, revering his name. And when we come to him with that posture, yes, it is okay like Jeremiah to say, God, I have honest questions about your justice. But remember, Jeremiah started with this. You are righteous, oh Lord. We come to God with faith, seeking understanding. We don't come to God demanding understanding in order that we may have faith. And one of the places you see this so clearly is the story about Job. We saw Job's complaint, we saw all his questions. God, how can you be just? I'm right, I know it. God comes to him, he doesn't answer Job's questions. He doesn't explain his justice. What does God do? He reveals his glory. And Job fears the Lord and he repents in dust and ashes. And so friends, the first way this passage speaks into the problem of injustice is by reminding us to check our hearts. God is to be feared, never judged. Now, second, This passage also speaks into the problem of injustice by promising future vindication and judgment. It promises future vindication and judgment. Look back at verse 16. It says, then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. the Lord paid attention and heard them. And a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name." Now, it's interesting to know, well, how does Malachi know this? And I think the best explanation is that God gave him some sort of vision in which he sees the very, you know, throne room of God and, of course, this would have been a familiar picture for Jews returning from from Persia, we know in the book of Esther, for example, that kings would keep these books of records. In fact, Mordecai, you may recall, he discovers this plot against the king Ahasuerus, and he's warned, and so it's recorded in the book, and then sometime later, the king can't sleep, and he has someone come out to read him the book, and he hears about Mordecai, and he thinks, you know, what good have we done? You know, we need to bless this guy. And so, you know, you have this picture of God having this book of remembrance to ensure that he never forgets those who feared his name. And now, of course, it's not like God needs a book to remember. In fact, even saying that God remembers is using human language, because for God, he knows all things all the time. He doesn't remember things. He is omniscient. And yet this vision is given for their and our encouragement. that God sees and he knows and he listens. And even though there was no immediate action taken, there was nothing that happened right then and there, yet there is a promise. And in verse 17, God says, they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. And the language here of ownership and treasured possession and a son who serves is significant because it basically ties us back to Israel at the Exodus. In Exodus chapter 19 verse 5, God says, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. And then in Exodus chapter four, verse 22, God said to Moses at the burning bush, then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. And so when you see the connection in the language, basically what God is saying here is that for those who fear him, he will be faithful to fulfill the promises of the Mosaic covenant. They will receive all of the blessing that Israel was entitled to. Because God never forgets his promises. He is utterly faithful and true. And it says in verse 18, then, that is in the day that's mentioned in verse 17, once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. Now this mention of the day, it ties in with many places in the prophets which speak of a coming day of the Lord. For example, Isaiah chapter 13, verse six says, wail, for the day of the Lord is near as destruction from the Almighty, it will come. Jeremiah 46, 10, that day is the day of the Lord, God of hosts, a day of vengeance to avenge himself on his foes. And Joel chapter two, verse 31, the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And what Malachi is doing here is he's stressing that that day will come and that it will bring about a clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked. The very distinction that is so often so hard to see right now. In fact, Jesus himself speaks of this coming day of the Lord. And he actually helps us understand what it may mean that this says once more there will be a distinction. Because Jesus says this in Luke chapter 17 beginning in verse 26. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the son of man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In other words, what Jesus is saying is that his second coming will be this great and awesome day of the Lord. And it will be a day that brings about sudden and full and complete justice. just as the flood came and wiped out all of the wicked in the days of Noah, just as God rained down fire and sulfur from heaven upon Sodom in the days of Lot, so will it be when the Son of Man returns, riding on the clouds with power and great glory. As Malachi says here in chapter four, verse one, for behold, the day is coming burning like an oven, and the language here, this would be the hottest fire known in that place and time, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. And some translations say straw or chaff. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. It will utterly consume the plant. In other words, the wicked will be like dry straw cast into a blazing furnace. And this seems to be exactly what John the Baptist had in mind when he said in Matthew chapter three, verses 10 to 12, even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. But then he says, one is coming. whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And then finally, this is what John the Apostle saw at the end of his Revelation. We come to in Revelation chapter 20, where John describes seeing the dead. Standing again, the dead from the sea, the dead from all over, all the world brought to life before the great white throne of God who will be judged according to what they had done, according to what was written in the books. We find that anyone not found written in the book of life, A little bit like that book of remembrance mentioned in verse 16. Anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. But on the other hand, Malachi makes clear that this coming judgment, it will bring judgment on those who have sinned and done evil, but it will also bring about vindication and life for those who fear the Lord. Chapter four, verse two. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. And this is just a beautiful image of the sun dawning over a land that was once covered in gloom and darkness. The very rays of the sun are described like the wings of a bird, bringing life and fruitfulness to a barren land. And friends, after millennia of this earth being subjected to oppression and gloom, what glorious beauty it will be when Jesus, the son of righteousness, dawns. Jesus, the light of the world. Jesus, the one that Zechariah prophesied in Luke chapter one, who is the sunrise from on high, who has come to give light to those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide their feet into the way of peace. And as it says at the end of Revelation, right after that mention of the great white throne judgment, there's suddenly a new heavens and a new earth as part of a new creation. And in that place it says, there will be no more need for the sun or lamps. And there will be no more night because the Lord God is its light. His glory will so fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. And his very throne will then be the source of this river of the water of life. alongside of which the tree of life grows with its leaves for the healing of the nations. And Jesus says, behold, I am making all things new. And then Malachi continues in verse two, he says, and you, you who feared his name, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you picture the exuberance of a well-fed calf, you know, kind of exercising its muscles, skipping about, and this becomes the image for what it will be like for those who have feared the Lord, who on that day will have resurrected bodies and will step forth into this new earth where there is no more curse, no more death, no more sickness, no more bodily affliction, but just joy and rejoicing. And then Malachi continues further and he says, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet. On the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. And now this is not here a picture of the righteous trampling the wicked to death, right? The wicked were already burned to death, they are ash. But the idea here is that the meek shall inherit the earth. and that the very ones who were at one time oppressed by these wicked people will now dance upon the ashes of their oppressors. And secondly, this image, it brings to mind the promise of Genesis 3.15, where God said, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And we know that Christ is the one who came and crushed the head of the serpent, that is Satan. But we too will participate in that victory trampling upon the ashes of the serpent's seed. And so the clear teaching of this passage is that yes, there's injustice in the world, but it's only temporary. The day is coming, burning like an oven, when God will bring about perfect justice and perfect vindication. And that should, first of all, be a great encouragement to us in the face of injustice. This is why we, as Christians, are never to retaliate. That's why Paul says in Romans 12, verse 19, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And friends, this is also a reason to never lose heart as if our work in the Lord were in vain. You know, this world is full of injustice. You may do lots of wonderful things that no other human being will ever notice, will ever praise you for, will ever reward you for. But God sees and God knows, and Jesus tells us, whatever you did for one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it for me. And if anyone gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly, I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward. What an encouragement it should be that God will bring about justice, God will bring about vindication. And yet, if we stop there, there would be something deeply unsatisfying. Because as much as that is a great encouragement, if we're really honest, this idea of this coming day of the Lord, like the day of Noah, when one family was spared, like the day of Lot when one family was spared, it is a frightening thing. And when we're honest about ourselves and our lives, we know that that injustice that we long to see judged is not just out there, but it is in here. And so this passage speaks into this problem of injustice by, number one, reminding us that God is to be feared, never judged. Number two, reminding us or assuring us that a day of judgment and vindication is coming. But number three, this passage speaks into the problem of injustice by pointing us to Christ and his cross. Look with me finally at verses four and five of four through six of chapter four. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." Now, this is the very end of the book of Malachi, the very end, at least in the way we order the books of the Bible, the very end of the Old Testament. And initially, it's really not obvious, well, okay, how does this point us to Jesus? But I think it does. And the first thing I want you to notice is that we have mention of both Moses and Elijah. And that's significant because these two men actually seem to appear together a number of places in the Bible. We're actually gonna look at this in more detail next week, Lord willing. But we see this at the Transfiguration. We see this in the Book of Revelation. We see this here. And I think one of the ways that these two men go together is that Moses is the great lawgiver of Israel and Elijah is both the forerunner to the prophets and also in many ways the prototypical prophet. And of course one of the ways Jesus himself speaks about the whole of the Old Testament is he calls it the law and the prophets. So it's interesting that right here in the very last three verses of the last book of the Old Testament, we have mention of Moses and Elijah, who in some sense seem to stand for the whole. Now notice also that there's a call to remember the law of Moses, so to look back. And there's also a call to behold. And in this context to look forward to this coming prophet. So let's think about that first. Looking back, what would it mean to remember the law of Moses and his statutes and rules? Well, certainly it does mean to carefully obey the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law. But the fact is the law itself showed that true righteousness was unattainable. I mean, not only does the law itself have this whole sacrificial system built into it, but even the most pious of Jews, I mean, they lived their life and they would reflect on their life in light of the law of God. And they knew they fell short. Psalm 130, verse three, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, oh, Lord, who could stand? Or Psalm 143, verse 2. Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous. And so there is built into the Old Testament this inherent tension. I mean, how does anyone go to heaven? How can a just and a holy God allow a man like David, a murderer, and an adulterer to go to heaven. You see, in fact, if you read the law, what does it bring? It promises blessing for obedience, but it also threatens destruction and curse for disobedience. And so rather than the law really bringing about the blessing it promised, what we see is not generational faithfulness of fathers and sons having hearts turned together, obeying God, keeping the commandments, no. We see 1500 years of virtually no generational faithfulness. And we see Israel in absolute deserving of a decree of utter destruction. That is what they have earned. That is what they have deserved. And yet there's also this call to look forward. And of course, with Elijah, who is sort of the prototype and the forerunner of the writing prophets. And now there's mention of Elijah coming back at the end, sort of surrounding this whole group, standing for the whole of the prophetic witness. And what do the prophets say? Well, on one hand, they prosecute the covenant. They say, because you've done all these things, God is gonna send you into exile. God is gonna judge you. And yet, they don't stop there. They promise again and again, God is going to send his Messiah. God will send his Christ. God is going to raise up the son of David who is going to come. And he is going to bring about the fulfillment of all of the promises of the old covenant. And in fact, it will be such a full, wonderful thing. He's going to bring in a new covenant. And it's not going to be like the old covenant where the law is written on stone tablets. He's going to write it on your hearts by the spirit. And he is going to bring about this new covenant that brings about forgiveness of sin, whereby you can know the Lord and no longer with every man teaches brother know the Lord because they will all know him. And so Malachi is saying is that there is this coming last prophet. who will stand on, you know, in the tradition of all of these prophets. And as it was mentioned in chapter three, verse one, where it says, behold, I will send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. This prophet will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. And of course, we see this in the ministry of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the one explicitly identified both by the angel Gabriel and by Jesus himself as the Elijah to come. And John the Baptist comes standing in the stead of all of these prophets, and what does he do? He preaches a baptism of repentance, right, that is calling Israel to prepare your hearts for the coming of the Messiah, And he preaches that baptism for the forgiveness of sins, saying, even though you have sinned, yet there is forgiveness and this just and holy God will forgive you. And we say, well, how? How can God do that? And then this final prophet. Unlike all the ones who spoke about him, this final prophet is the one who can point directly at Jesus Christ and say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so friends, what this mention at the end of the book is doing is it's showing how, you know, you look back to the law and you look forward to the prophets and all of it is pointing to Jesus Christ, who comes to resolve this problem inherent in the Old Testament of how a just God can forgive unjust people like us. Because when Jesus went to the cross, he took all of the sin of all of the people who would ever believe in him. And he was punished. He was crushed under the wrath of God so that justice could be satisfied. And so that God could be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, so that God could look on sinners like us and legally declare us to be righteous in his sight. And meanwhile, look upon Christ, who was perfect. and sentence him to death because he had to suffer the price to satisfy justice. And so we have this morning been considering this problem of injustice. And just consider for a moment that problem in light of the cross. You know, and we're tempted to think, you know, maybe God is just not as just as he ought to be, as just as we think he should be. Well, consider that God is so inflexible in his justice that not even his own son could bear sin without suffering his wrath. And yet at the same time, this God is so rich in mercy that even the most wretched sinner who trusts in Christ will be wholly forgiven. So brothers and sisters, this morning we have been considering this problem of injustice, and we've been reminded that God is to be feared, never judged. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are above our ways, and where do we see that more clearly than at the cross of Christ? And we've been assured that God will bring about perfect justice and vindication. Injustices, they are temporary. And finally, we have been pointed to Christ and His cross, where perfect justice and mercy meet. Let's pray.