Litigation by Loophole
Transcribed Sermon
Year 2001
This transcription has been edited to a reader friendly format. Every effort has been made to be true to the speaker’s original message. Any mistranslations are unintentional.
Litigation By Loophole
To say I have gained a lot more wisdom and knowledge
since this sermon was preached in 2001
is a serious understatement.
www.luke1425.org
This sermon really is way too much. I feel like this is jumping off the high dive at the deep end without ever having tried the shallow end or learning to swim. We’re going to dive in and we’re going to look at justice in a general sort of way. We’re going to look at all kinds of different facets. Like I said we’re going to jump in and look at different areas. Things that really could be a whole series in themselves we could go much deeper with, but we’re not going to have time to do it today. Let me say that I’m not a lawyer. I didn’t grow up in a lawyer’s home. So I don’t speak from that vantage point or that viewpoint and that will be important here in a moment. I speak from someone who just looks at justice and looks at a God who says that He’s a God of justice.
The reason why I call it “Litigation by Loophole” is because when I look at the justice system as a whole, you don’t find justice within the justice system. You ask any lawyer and they will tell you that if you want justice, certainly don’t bring it to court. Everybody’s looking for loopholes, looking for areas that aren’t spelled out as to exactly what the law says, either trying and achieve some measure of justice or to get out from underneath the justice system. Really our whole court system, and I’m talking about our American court system, is based upon loopholes. Litigation means you just take something to court, you just argue in a contest in a court or arena. You’ll see on your handout I have the definition for loophole down there also. I like the first definition; it said a small opening in a wall through which firearms may be discharged. You know, where you can shoot at your opponent in safety. That’s pretty much what the legal system is about. You try to surround yourself with all kinds of words and power structures and things in order to wound or to injure or even to kill your opponent. Of course, the second definition is, a means of escape, an ambiguity or admission that allows one to evade the intent of a law or contract. Again, I’m not going to delve too much into all the legal terminology, but when you go to law school, they talk about the intent of the law versus the letter of the law and it’s that contest and that fighting and all that goes on which creates all the injustice that we see that has happened. Now I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what I’m preaching here.
Look at Romans 13:1 for a moment. This sermon is not about trying to reform the court system. I’m not trying to start a new freeman foundation to join some club or group to get out from under the laws of the American constitutional system. In fact, if anyone were to even attempt to try and do that, to establish our own system of laws, that would fail just as much as this failed.
Romans 13:1 – Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…
Whatever governments are around the world, God has allowed them to remain to be in power for a certain period of time.
Romans 13:1 – The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Even those that hand out injustice. I’m not saying that God wants them to be unjust, but He’s allowed those government systems to be there and anyone who thinks that the American law system is any better than anything else has not had much contact with it and is pretty naïve. It is not a system of justice, it is a system of injustice.
Deuteronomy 16:20 is one of my favorite passages. Most everybody in this body knows that on my desk I have a plaque with this scripture. It says,
Deuteronomy 16:20 – Follow justice and justice alone…
Sometimes justice demands mercy. We’ll touch on that here a little bit today, but when it comes to this whole issue of justice, we are to be a people that is only able to see justice and to act accordingly without favoritism, without bribery, without any measure of self being within the judgments that we are pronouncing or demanding happen.
Deuteronomy 16:20 – Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you.
Our God is a god who’s highly concerned about justice, so I hope that nobody is tuning me out because it seems irrelevant to our everyday life. It is very relevant and will become more and more so as you want God to bring justice in your life. The whole idea about Jesus Christ paying the price for our sins is that God had to fulfill justice and Jesus had to pay the price for your sins. It is as if you were brought before God and you were guilty and Jesus Christ stood up and said, “I will go to jail, I will pay the penalty for the crimes and the sins of man.” We all were touched by the God of justice.
So this sermon is not about trying to reform the legal system, it really is a call of hope, that those who are involved with the legal system, that become burdened by its laws and its game-playing and all the sin and corruption, that they would realize that there is a God of justice. It is easy, especially I can imagine if you were involved in the court system, to just kind of throw up your hands and go, “What is justice? It’s not even achievable.” I know for many lawyers, their job becomes just that, it becomes a job. They may leave college with some ideas of idealism or achieving some justice or doing some good in this world, but as they begin to plow into that and seek to do that, they begin to realize that it is extremely futile, if not impossible.
But I want people to discover that God is a god of justice and that justice has law and it has mercy involved with it.
Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy…
Can you imagine working as a prison guard? The last thing that you are filled with when you come home from a day on the job is that it was a joyful place to be. You’re around people who lie and who sin, some that are even innocent, you’re trapped and you’re part of the system. The last thing that you feel when you come home from that day at work is hope. Or for lawyers that try to represent people that they know are innocent because of the way the system is set up, you know you’re not going to achieve for them any amount of justice. They’re not going to feel a sense of hope. So I want people that are involved with the injustice system, or the justice system, to come to know a God that is a God of hope. Let me read some more of it.
Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
To know a God that fills us with a hope and a joy even in spite of injustice. You know, when I was in college, I was studying a little bit to be a psychologist and one of the famous studies or at least it stood out to me was that a college campus decided to take a dormitory room and they converted the basement part of the dormitory into a jail. And it was supposed to go on for like eight weeks I think. So what they did was they got some students and they randomly chose certain students to be prisoners and randomly chose certain students to be guards. Well they had to cancel the whole study within a week because the prisoners began to act like prisoners and the guards began to act like guards and they began to become abusive to one another. The reason why this happens, the reason it takes place is because men’s hearts are dark. And if you put them in a situation where that darkness can be revealed, it will come out. So they need a God of hope, whether they be lawyers or guards or prisoners. Everybody is a prisoner to sin, whether you’re in jail or out of jail. Those that are in jail should learn, especially if they claim to be Christians to confess their sins and to be clear about their sins.
1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
I have from time to time visited prisoners in jail and one of the running jokes among prisoners and among guards is that everybody there is innocent because everybody runs around saying they’re innocent. They either have excuses or justifications or they were trapped or whatever it might be. Well any prisoner that claims to be a Christian, once he becomes a Christian should confess those sins clearly and in detail.
I become so weary of watching certain individuals, especially those who have committed mass murder crimes supposedly come to Jesus Christ and they come to the Lord and they say they’re sorry for their sins, but they’ll never come out with details as to what they have done. And the preachers that are there preaching to them, never demand that they confess fully the sins that they have committed. In a lot of prison systems right now, it’s very hard to be a chaplain or to send Bibles or to get in. It’s gotten more difficult over the years. When I first began, it wasn’t hard at all. There was a respect for ministers, but that no longer is the case. I think part of the reason is simply that pastors have gone into prisons not demanding righteousness and holiness, but the same whitewash that is being preached out among those of us that are not in jail is preached within jail and the guards look at that with cynicism and say, “You’re not achieving anything. There’s no truth, you just justify their lie.” So we must return to a God of justice who demands that. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”
One of the things I want to read here in just a moment is from this book. It’s called Under the Black Flag and it’s about pirates, at least it’s the true historical perspective about pirates, not your Hollywood version where it’s kind of romanticized, but true pirates who were what they were, the worst of criminals out on the high seas, killing and doing all the things that they do. One of the things I want to read is from an epitaph that a pirate had left. A confession of sins, and you’ll see why it’s important as we move along.
Let’s read through it.
In youthful blooming years was I, when I that practice took;
Of perpetrating piracy, for filthy gain did look.
To wickedness we all were bent, our lusts for to fulfill;
To rob and see was our intent, and perpetrate all ill.
Again, when was the last time you heard of any prisoner writing an epitaph or a poem or professing their sins in such a manner that you knew there was deep conviction there.
I pray the Lord preserve you all and keep you from this end;
O let Fitz-Gerald’s great downfall unto your welfare tend.
I to the Lord my soul bequeath, accept thereof, I pray.
My body to the earth bequeath, dear friend, adieu for aye.
So he senses his guilt. He knows his sin and he knows his shame and he speaks of it freely to warn others. Most of what we see in the prison system, if a prisoner confesses his sin, he admits his guilt and he doesn’t warn anybody else not to go that way. His lawyers will advise him, “Confess and say that you’re sorry, but offer no details” for fear that you’d get a worse punishment. Again, play games with the court system, but don’t look for justice. Do not serve justice alone, protect yourself at all costs. Find that loophole where you might put the guard around you in order to shoot your arms through.
Isaiah 35:3-4 – Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
It is not from a position of fear that I preach about the injustice of the justice system, nor do I walk around all paranoid thinking, “Okay, I might be arrested at any moment, and hauled off to jail.” Again, this is not a rebellious kind of sermon, my God will bring justice. He tells us to be strong.
Isaiah 35:3 – Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way.
Well how can we be strong when there is so much injustice? Because there is a God who will come and who will bring justice and we should strengthen our knees, we should strengthen our hands and we should look for the living God, knowing that as we speak against injustice, as we stand up and demand justice, that He will fulfill and bring about justice. No Christian lawyer should become weary in doing good in defending the innocent, because God will make right every judgment that is wrong.
Isaiah 35:4 – Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.
Anyone that is in prison that has been falsely accused, God will repay. Any of us that might be caught up in the justice system in order to be witnesses for Jesus Christ, Got will make right that injustice. Let us remember well that Jesus Christ lost when He went to court, but He will win the victory and God will bring about justice.
The court system is a mess and I just want to touch on a few things. Again, I am just skipping stones on this whole issue. There isn’t time to go into all the details, but just to give you some things to think about and to observe. As I began to work upon this sermon, I began to find things here and there that were coming out everywhere, speaking of the injustice, but nothing seems to change.
Jeremiah 9:3 – They make ready their tongue like a bow…
What are lawyers? They’re tongues that are ready like a bow to shoot arrows. That’s why people go to them. One of the reasons lawyers become so cynical is because everybody that comes before them is not servicing justice and justice alone, they’re serving themselves and themselves alone. So it just becomes a job, “Okay, I’ll do this or I won’t do that.”
Jeremiah 9:3 – They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies…
I know of one lawyer, there’s probably many more that have quit the whole system because he says, “I will not lie.” It is not uncommon, it is not an exception to the rule for lawyers to lie and defendants to lie and those accused to lie. It is the rule of thumb. It is the nature of man and is incorporated in a system called the justice system.
Jeremiah 9:3 – They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies; it is not by truth that they triumph in the land…
You might win a court victory but it may have more to do with a loophole than the fact that the truth ever came out. You might win a court victory and odds are you might win it because they just can’t prove their case, not because the truth of the situation came out. “It is not by truth that they triumph in the land,” and I want you to start watching court cases and situations that come by and ask yourself, did they win by the truth or did they win by manipulation of the law? By he who could lie the best and not be uncovered. By him who could find a loophole and get out of the situation. “It is not by truth that they triumph in the land.” Rare, rare would it ever be that you could walk away from a court case and say, “Truth prevailed and the whole truth came out.” I’ve served on juries several different times, and it wasn’t truth that prevailed. In fact, when you go to court, you can’t look at the whole truth of a situation, it has to be narrowly focused and that’s all you’re allowed to examine. How many times do you hear a lawyer say, “Well, a jury cannot hear that testimony.” Or “They weren’t allowed to hear this over here.” Or you often hear a judge tell a jury, “Disregard that particular testimony.” It is anything but a pursuit of justice and truth. It is not by truth that they triumph in the land, it is by some other means or schemes.
Jeremiah 9:3 – “They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me,” declares the LORD.
And here is the rub and here is what most people are not going to like. That in order to understand justice, you have to know the living God. There is no understanding of what justice is, how to administrate it, or how to discover it, apart from Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah 9:4 – Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer.
Does this not describe our time?
Jeremiah 9:5 – Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning.
And the root cause is because they do not acknowledge God. There’s not a firm foundation and relationship with Him. They don’t know a God of justice, therefore, they do not understand truth or justice.
Jeremiah 9:6 – You live in the midst of deception…
If you went to trial, what would be happening around you? You would be literally in the middle of deception. The prosecuting attorney would seek to hide anything that might be favorable to your case. He’s not interested in truth. Do you understand that? The prosecuting attorney works on a commission basis. Whenever they run to keep their position, what do they say? “So many convictions achieved.” Now that’s justice by a commission. The more sales that you get, the more convictions you get, somehow the better prosecutor you are. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a running prosecutor saying, “We seek justice and justice alone.” And if they weren’t guilty or if we didn’t have enough evidence, we let them go, but you need to put us back in office because what we’re concerned with is justice. “It is not by truth that they triumph in the land.”
Jeremiah 9:6 – “You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the LORD.
Those that are guilty, those that are in the defendant’s seat, what do they seek to do? They seek to cloud over their words. They seek to hide the evidence that would show them to be guilty. The idea of a fair trial is to get off. But the true idea of a fair trial is that you’re guilty, but let’s be fair about the punishment, and so any lawyer that is a Christian lawyer, that is representing someone who is guilty, his goal for a fair trial is different than the world’s. His goal would be to see that he gets a fair trial as he confesses being guilty.
But the problem here is what. We do not acknowledge God. People become lawyers for the money or it becomes a career or the power. All the things that man desires in his flesh, but they do not acknowledge the living God. What do we see in our court system today? More and more God is being pushed out.
There’s a book that I found when I was doing some research for this, it’s called The Lawyer’s Calling. I eagerly ordered this book thinking there will be something in here to lay hold of that’ll give me a basis to understand what a Christian lawyer thinks and how do they come to their decisions? How do they survive this whole thing? I want to read you what was in the first part of this book on page 5. I didn’t need to read the rest of the book. He said this,
Although I write from a Christian perspective, I believe that my reflections can prove useful to any lawyer or law student who’s seeking to make connections between his or her faith and work.
In other words, you can understand justice apart from the living God, apart from Jesus Christ, and he claims to be a Christian lawyer who speaks to thousands of other Christian lawyers. And if you begin by saying, “Everything that I’m teaching you, you can put into your life apart from Jesus Christ,” is it any wonder that there is no justice within the justice system.
I have shared the ideas of this book with Christians, Jews and Moslems, all of whom share important core religious values. What is important is that each reader feel free to translate my thoughts into the language of his or her own faith or tradition.
It would even say that if even unbelievers should take their core beliefs and translate that into the work. You see the goal of this book was to find fulfillment in being a lawyer, not in serving justice alone. I can’t imagine coming fresh out of law school if I was a Christian, saying “I will only serve justice and justice alone.” You better give up before you start. That’s what makes the battle, shall I say in a worldly sense, interesting.
I have also discussed these issues with those who profess no religious faith. Even here I have found more points of convergence and agreement than disagreement.
It is not by truth you triumph in the land, it is by taking those that are atheists and those that are pagans, those who know nothing, who don’t know a living relationship with God and finding convergent points. That sounds like a lawyer, doesn’t it? So I have to ask, “What does it mean to be a Christian lawyer?” Does it mean you just go and you pray with him if he takes your $200 from you for an hour’s worth of work? Where are the true Christian lawyers? They would be indignant at this.
I forget mediation groups. 1 Corinthians 6:4. We’ve bumped into a few of those from time to time. Where are the mediation groups that understand a God of justice, who do nothing without favoritism, who know the message of the cross and can deliver a verdict that really would be true?
1 Corinthians 6:4-5 – Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?
Very little has changed it seems, since Paul wrote this to the Corinthians. Where is that mediation group that understands the offensive message of the cross that can bring two people opposing each other in and come to a decision by the power of the Holy Spirit? I daresay you check with any mediation group, they’re not going to boast that they know the message of the cross, that they’re impartial in their judgments. They’re going to talk about all their successes and all their training. They’re just like any other worldly group.
Let’s go to James 5:12 and get to a little bit of the core of the problem. When you go to court, you know you have to swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. They’ve dropped the part that says, “So help you God.” They don’t even have that in there anymore.
But James tells us in James 5:12, and I want to leave this to your conscience that if you are called to court, I want you to listen to what James says;
James 5:12 – Above all, my brothers, do not swear…
Now we checked with our attorney and asked, “Well, what if we go to court and we say that we cannot swear to tell the truth, what happens?” He said “Your testimony would just not be accepted in court.”
James 5:12 – Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else…
Now I’m not laying down a rule right now that says you can’t go to court and promise to tell the truth. I’m not sure where exactly I stand on this issue, but I can tell you this, that when I am taken to court and that happens, I’ll know what to do at that time. But this is where the core of the problem is.
James 5:12 – Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned.
What is God saying to us? What He is saying to us is simply this. What I would testify to in court should be no different what I say outside the doors of the court or sitting in the stand. I promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth whether I am in court or outside of court. But because each man is playing word games, suddenly somehow I come into court and I sit down, “Okay, now I promise to tell the truth.” Whereas at any other time, I may not tell the truth? Our yes should be yes as Christians and our no should be no. Anything else comes from the evil one. Anything else puts us in a position where we can easily be condemned.
This is why the justice system doesn’t know what to do with true Christians. We’ve had our encounters and our share of lawyers and they don’t know what to do with us. We say that we will do something or we agree to something and we stick to that and it bugs them to death. We just went through a protracted thing with a rental lease and all kinds of stuff going back and forth and we said, “Okay, this is what we are going to do.” Boom, boom, boom. And we didn’t budge from what we said we were going to do. Our yes was yes and our no was no and it drove our attorney who’s supposed to represent us, crazy, because that’s not how everybody does it. Everybody comes in with what, throwing out the worst scenario—”We will sue you for everything! Even the way your hair is parted.” And they lay out everything they can to win one little point. So their words don’t mean anything, so lawyers on both sides are going to go, “Nobody means anything they say, so let’s just throw it out, look for the loophole and see how we can win.”
You can see how it becomes very easy to become cynical. So God may do nothing else but run into some legal conflict just so you can go, “Yes.” And just so you can go, “No.” And then you stand on that issue—especially if you’re charged with a crime. What does the prosecutor do? He comes in and he will invent things, he will throw everything at you to get you to agree to anything and if you go in and you say, “I am not guilty,” then why would you agree to anything that they bring? But the way the system is built in, it’s built in with injustice, so they pile on all the charges so that you will change your mind because your yes is not yes and your no is not no and you say, “Okay, I’ll take this over here and I’ll admit to this, even though I’m not really guilty.” It happens all the time, brothers and sisters. And the attorneys advise it to happen, they say, “You’ll never win in court, it’s way too much of a battle.” And people cave in all the time. The system knows that this is how it works, this is how they put the pressure on. It is a system of injustice.
In Matthew 12:36, Jesus says—and I want to say that again— Jesus says;
Matthew 12:36 – But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
Our yes is yes and our no is no. This is why it’s so important that if I tell somebody, “I will be at your house at 4:00,” my yes should be yes. One of the things that began to happen when I became a Christian was that I quit making promises.
People would say, “What are you going to be doing?” or “Can you do this?” I’d go, “I don’t know.” Because we will be judged for every careless word.
Matthew 12:37 – For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
He uses legal language. It’s based on our conversation, what we say and what we promise and what we don’t promise and all that we are. As Christians, if we ever stand before a judge, if we ever have an attorney, if the prosecutor’s ever accusing us of anything, our yes is yes, our no is no. If we’re guilty, we’ll confess it. We’ll walk in the light and we’ll be clear. If we are innocent, we will stand by it. No matter what charges are piled on.
Now in Acts 5:29, we need to add this in here for just a moment. It doesn’t mean that we follow every rule, every law, everything that is set down by the legal profession or by lawyers.
Acts 5:29 – Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!”
They were being told to shut up and to not preach the gospel. We are not to be mindless robots. You can never ever say, “Well that’s the way the rules are,” and get off the hook with God. No policeman can say, “I have to stand guard over an abortion clinic because that’s my job.” Or, “That’s what the rules are.” Every single Nazi leader that was brought before the tribunal used the excuse that they were following orders, that they were only doing their job.
Now, you remember James said, “Above all brothers, do not swear…” How does a policeman swear to uphold the laws of the constitution if those laws begin to violate God’s law? How does somebody in the military promise and swear to uphold the Constitution and at the same time have to qualify that and to say, “If the laws violate God’s promises, if the law violates God’s word, if it violates justice, I will not be obedient.” I’m not saying Christians can’t be policemen or they can’t join the military or whatever it might be, but you need to take your stand long before you swear in and say that, “I will only uphold laws as long as it does not contradict the law of God.” Otherwise we’ll just become mindless robots like Nazis. We’ll go in and arrest Jews because it’s the law. I will arrest people that I know are innocent or should not be even declared guilty, because it’s the law. We must say with Peter and the other apostles: “We must obey God rather than men!” There comes that line that is drawn that says, “I have to do what is right. I have to do what is just. I have to be a person of justice because God is just.” That’s what love demands.
You need to give thought to your ways. You need to think about the rules and the laws and the regulations that come in. You need to know that the legal system will seek to make you feel guilty when you’re not guilty. It achieves and uses their purpose.
In Ecclesiastes 8:11, again, this isn’t seeking to undo the legal system or to start some new form of government or even to be paranoid, it’s just the facts.
Ecclesiastes 8:11 – When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.
We see that more and more in the land; the more lawyers we have, the more crime we seem to have. Because why? The lawyers look for the loopholes and crimes are not punished quickly and speedily. Things are delayed for a purpose. Supposedly you are entitled to a swift and speedy trial, but try and get one today. They know how to use the system as much as everybody else and they will seek to delay, to put psychological pressure to win their battle, not by truth, but by human torture, by making it agonizingly slow, so that those that are truly guilty don’t get to court and to punishment quick enough. And so people’s minds are filled with schemes to do all kinds of things.
I’m appalled as I watch things go around and the contempt for the court system. Of course the court system whines about it and why shouldn’t they? People really aren’t punished. They delay, they put off, they thumb their nose at it. It’s not the wicked being punished. It’s those that demand justice seem to be ridiculed and thrown in the corner. Just ask yourselves something. When was the last time you heard of any lawyer going on strike because the law was unjust? When was the last time a group of lawyers signed a petition saying, “This law is unjust.” When was the last time they went into a courtroom and said, “We will not play this charade. This judge is vile, this judge is corrupt, we will not share or be a part of it.” I can’t name but one.
I can name one. Now there might have been others. He was Justice Benjamin Robins Curtis. Do you guys remember—do you know what the Dred v. Scot decision is? It’s where the Supreme Court ruled that a black man was property and so the South was entitled to all of its slaves because the black man was not a person, he was property. And he was one of two dissenting judges and he wrote a stinging rebuke. I wish we had time to read it but we don’t. He read that review to the court system and then he quit the Supreme Court. And he went back to his home state and he practiced law.
As each loophole is filled today, we have ever-increasing laws. And the more laws that are created, the less rights that you have. And there’s one delay after another delay; one scheme after another scheme comes to mind and they’re invented by lawyers and by people who are accused.
Ecclesiastes 3:16 – And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there…
Again, we can barely look at it.
Ecclesiastes 3:16 – …in the place of justice–wickedness was there.
You know I think of laws like this: A loving mother lets her child by accident, drown in the bathtub, and she’s going through all of the grief that takes place. And what does the legal system do but arrest her. Charge her with a crime. And I’m thinking, “Oh, that’s going to convince that mother never, ever again, to allow a child to drown in the bathtub.” If our court systems cannot even understand that kind of justice, that they consider it their duty to arrest such mothers, what does that say to the rest of us?
Ecclesiastes 3:16 – And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there.
If you want justice, don’t look for it within the legal system. Lawyers will tell you that. It has become a lynch-mob mentality. All these T.V. cases where you watch court T.V. What has happened over the years, as the emotions of people get welled up, more and more laws begin to reflect the lynch-mob?
You know it used to be, during the Wild West days the idea was that you would stop the lynch-mob and enforce the law. Now the law is beginning to reflect the emotions of man and this is why you find all of this injustice happening.
Exodus 23:2 – Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd…
There is to be the law over here. There is to be justice over here and over here is to be the emotion of the people and the two are not to blend together. This is why court T.V. does more to undo justice than people can ever imagine—where judges are forced to send you to jail.
You’ve heard of “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law? Where judges are forced to send people to jail if they commit three crimes, they’re gone. And we expect them to go to jail to be reformed. Now we have people in prison for life, no telling what they did. America itself is becoming a snitch-society. Long gone is any concept about minding your own business. It becomes your patriotic duty to turn other people in. Whatever happened to the right to face your accuser? You know there are reasons for that and we’ll see why here in a moment in the law.
Do you know that you can be found innocent in criminal court but be sued in civil court. If you are found innocent, you should be innocent. I don’t care if they’re guilty. I’m willing to put up with some people walking free, but it is unjust for somebody to be declared innocent in a criminal case and then somebody sue them for money and find them guilty over here. If you serve your time in jail, you can never vote again if you’ve committed a federal crime. I thought if you paid your debt to society, it was paid for. So now there’s a whole group of people within the injustice system who face all that abuse that can never vote to have it changed. How convenient that is.
Think of the dehumanizing conditions in jail. Why do you think Jesus talked so often about visiting those in prison? We lock people away and we forget about them. The highest court of the land says that it’s okay to kill your children. Of course it’s now becoming a right to be sexually perverted. Jury trials are not about facts, no matter how much they tell you. I’ve served on juries several different times. And I guarantee you, when you go back into those rooms, it’s not the facts that you’re discussing. It’s what people feel about it. And why do you think the judge is somebody that will ask for the facts and the judge will say, “Just go on what you remember.” Sometimes you can get the facts, most of the time you can’t. Because they want you to respond in an emotional way. So what does justice become? Justice becomes “which attorney can move the emotions of the people that are sitting there.”
Have you ever heard of jury nullification laws? Anybody ever heard of that? Anybody know they exist? You know what jury nullification laws are? That as a juror, you have the right, that if you’re sitting on a trial and you’re on a jury, and you think the law is unfair, if you think the prosecuting attorney has been unjust, you can nullify the law. It was to be a safeguard. It would have saved Nazi Germany. Every jury that came back saying that a Jew was to be condemned could have said, “The law is unjust, we will not render a verdict on it.” You have that right in many states. But when you go to serve on jury duty, will they tell you about your rights as a juror? Will they educate you on the way you’re supposed to conduct yourself? Will they give you any teaching whatsoever to tell you how to administer justice?
No, they bring you in, looking starry-eyed; you have no experience in the whole thing. Everybody else is doing their thing. They throw out the facts they want you to hear. They tell you to go make a decision and come back and render a decision on a man’s life. That judge is not going to turn to you and say, “You know, you can nullify everything that just went on here if you think we’re being unfair and unjust.”
And he will tell you what? You may disagree with the law, but it is the law. Therefore, you must render a verdict according to the law. As a Christian, we can never do that. I never render a decision because it is written in stone, it is a law. I render because of what is just or unjust.
Time and time again, groups and organizations have to be told what our constitutional rights are. Why do they have to be told? Why do the police and judges and other groups have to be told that we have constitutional rights? Why do they have to be informed of those things? Should not those rights be common for all of us to know? Let me give you some basic stats here for just a moment real quick. Do you know that America has the number one percentage of people in jail in the whole world? You take Russia where they put in people in jail for disagreeing with the government. America still has more people in jail percentage-wise than anybody else in the world. Two million Americans are in jail right now, because why? Everything becomes a crime. Everything is becoming a federal offense because nobody’s yes is yes and nobody’s no is no.
Many jails right now are beginning to charge you for your time in jail. If you’re sentenced to a crime of littering, you could literally spend your life in prison. You can be charged with a crime, put in jail, then you’re charged $40 a day or $20 a day, or whatever it might be for going in to jail, for the housing and all those things that are going up. If you can’t pay that, where are they going to put you? Back in jail. If you refuse to pay that, where are you going to go? In jail. You literally could be in jail for life for littering.
In Exodus 23:6, you know that old saying, “How much justice can you afford?” is really true. I praise God that we serve a God who doesn’t base things on how much you can afford, indeed it’s how poor you are, that assures justice.
Exodus 23:6 – Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
You know just on some basic things, we don’t have time for it all. Whatever the state would use in terms of money or effort to convict me of a crime the same amount should be available to me to spend for my defense. That when I’m accused of a crime, do you realize they have whole departments to investigate you. They have unlimited resources in which to do that with and they give you a public defender that you might see three days before court. If they spend three million dollars to investigate me and whatever teamwork it takes, my side should have three million dollars to do the same thing so that it is equal. And if they lose their case they should pay for my attorney.
Now that would uncloud a lot of court systems. That would free a lot of resources to go out and get real criminals—people that are guilty. Then people would only be convicted who are criminals or whom they could prove it rather than torturing them out of a confession.
Proverbs 28:5 – Evil men do not understand justice…
They can’t do it. You cannot understand justice apart from Jesus Christ. That’s going to offend probably 99.9% of the lawyers out there, but that’s just the way that it goes.
Proverbs 28:5 – Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD…
Look at this, this sounds self-righteous and it sounds arrogant, but it is true.
Proverbs 28:5 – …but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.
I don’t grasp that, “Well, what is justice here?” Since I know the Lord and we begin to fellowship, I can understand what is just in a full sense of the word. If we are dead enough to self, we’ll be overflowing with His heart and wisdom to understand what is just and proper in every situation. Of course again, there has to be a death to self.
Ecclesiastes 5:8 – If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised…
None of this should be a shock, it’s part of the system. Because why? Everybody is doing their job. And brothers and sisters, there is not a single Christian who should ever say, “I’m just doing my job.” I mean you hear that whether you go in to the bank or wherever. “Well, that’s the rule. That’s my job, and that’s what I have to do.” Well, let’s just carry that out to its logical proportion. “I’m paid to torture you. That’s my job and that’s the rules.”
Ecclesiastes 5:8 – If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things;
The reason why is this:
Ecclesiastes 5:8 – … for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still.
Now think of our court system. Is it not one thing after another thing higher and higher and higher? Well the steps in the system the more impersonal it becomes, the more likely injustice will take place. Because there’s no feeling, there’s no emotion.
You know, part of truth is within other people’s hearts. Part of truth is the love called for in the situation. Not what the letter of the law brings. That’s only part of the equation. And so judges become too unfeeling. They become too prideful to care. They’re too busy to be able to be concerned about those things. So, let us not be surprised that we go into a situation and there’s injustice. I mean, we can be indignant and we can demand justice, but you should never be surprised. If you’re arrested, the officer has three other people over him and it just keeps going on up. All they’re going to get is paperwork about you. Not you.
Again, I want to come back to the book on pirates for just a minute. This is unheard of today, but look at this quote.
At this point in the proceedings, the court came to the merciful resolution that further evidence should be brought against each person singularly.
A merciful resolution. When was the last time you heard anybody in the court system talk about mercy? I bet they couldn’t even use the word without getting in trouble today. Lynch-mob, T.V., the camera crews, everybody would be swarming in. But sometimes justice demands mercy and you’re not going to find that within the court system. Remember I talked about the shotgun approach to justice? They come and they charge you with everything that they can get and then hope that one thing will stick.
I heard an attorney one time say you could indict a ham sandwich. You’ll read in the paper, “A Grand Jury Indicts So and So.” Or you might read some day. “Grand Jury Indicts Timothy Williams.” No, it doesn’t mean anything. You know what happens in a Grand Jury? They bring together emotional people; the prosecuting attorney and only the prosecuting attorney presents all of his evidence of why he should bring charges against somebody and the jury goes, “Okay.” But I guarantee you that Grand Jury is not told, “Quiz that prosecuting attorney. Ask him for truth on that evidence.” He doesn’t have to back any of it up. He just has to go in with some basic evidence. Now I’m not saying he makes up everything. He’ll have a certain amount of evidence, but he’s not going to show other things that show a defense. He will come in with everything, so when somebody says they’ve been indicted on 5,000 different counts; maybe one of those they’re really guilty on. There’s no mercy involved. There’s just ego and pride.
In Luke 11:45 and this is right out of the NASB:
Luke 11:45-46 – And one of the lawyers said to him in reply, “Teacher, when you say this, you insult us too.” But he said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”
There is right now, I’m almost sure of it, enough laws on the book to convict everybody in this room of anything and everything. Good night. You have to have tags on your mattress that says, “Do not remove under penalty of law.” Everything is becoming a federal crime and so if the justice system ever focuses on you, do not be surprised that you’ll be guilty of something. You cannot possibly, if you try with all your effort, obey every single law out there today.
These lawyers weight down heavy burdens and then they charge us to get out from under them. Most of the people in Congress are lawyers. You know you don’t have to be a lawyer to run for Congress, but they go and they make all these rules that we cannot possibly keep, and then what do they do on top of it? They charge us a fortune in order to get out from under them to be free from them. They don’t lift a finger. They don’t help in any fashion or form.
I mean, if you earn $25 an hour right now, and most of us don’t earn that. Yet with lawyers right now the going rate’s around $250 an hour. That’s at least 10 times the normal amount and they expect us to find justice or to be happy with the justice system? They can’t figure out why we get upset when we have to serve on jury duty and they give us $25 a day, if you’re lucky, or $10. They can’t understand why nobody shows up. Sure, I want to show up, watch a couple people make $100,000 a year and you pay me $10 and then you whine at me because I don’t support the justice system.
Bribes are a part of the system now. You know, in Deuteronomy 16:19 it says:
Deuteronomy 16:19 – Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Well now a bribe is a part of the system. Any man earning $250 an hour upon the misery of somebody else is being bribed to represent you. It becomes part of the system and so words get twisted and they become blind to what justice is. They don’t care about justice; it’s whether you can afford it or not. If any of you have gone in to talk to an attorney, what do they want? They’ll give you maybe a half hour and within that half hour they’ll say, “If you want me to represent you, I need at least $2,000 up front or $5,000 right here or we won’t even begin to talk.” That is, on a very basic level, a perversion of justice. It is saying, “You know, it’s illegal to take a bribe, so let’s make it a law to take a bribe.” It is how much justice can you afford.
That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 6:24—and I tell it to every attorney who claims to be a Christian:
Matthew 6:24 – No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Think about the legal system. It is the most deadly of all sins. It is a love of money. It is a love of power. It is the pride of man and it is the nobility of man with his words, all wrapped up into a system. Anyone claiming to be a Christian lawyer had better approach it with a thorough understanding of the message of the cross and the deepest, deepest of humility.
You know God’s word is very practical. Look at Numbers 35:29.
Numbers 35:29-31 – These are to be legal requirements for you throughout the generations to come, wherever you live. Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.
The reason why I’m reading this is because our God is a very practical God and anyone claiming to be a Christian, anyone claiming to be a Christian attorney should understand that God is very practical in His application of the law. That no one can be put to death on the basis of one person saying they saw them do the killing and if you have no witnesses, they can’t be put to death. So it doesn’t matter if you’ve got DNA or lie detectors.
They give people lie detectors but they’re as accurate as flipping a coin. They don’t tell you that. I guarantee you, if you’re pulled in, they’re going to want to give you at a certain point, a lie detector test. And I want you to agree to it under one condition; that if you pass, they drop all the charges and everybody goes home. And the police system and the justice system will say, “No, we won’t do that. We won’t drop all the charges.” Then you can go, “Well, why not?” And they’ll be forced to say, “Well they’re not that accurate.” Well then why use them against me?
Deuteronomy 17:6 – On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.
Let’s have some common sense in the justice system, that if a loving mother lets her baby drown in a bathtub we do not charge her with a crime.
Deuteronomy 17:7 – The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death…
Do you see how personal God makes it? Not some system. Not somebody higher up upon the chain so that it becomes impersonal, you pay a guard to flip the switch. If somebody’s going to say, “I saw them commit the murder. They get the death penalty,” they are the ones that are supposed to pull the switch. But no, we have laws now where you can pick up the phone and you can turn somebody in and your name remains anonymous. You no longer get to face your accuser.
Why do we think injustice increases in the land? Why do we think there’s more and more gossip and bearing false testimony against one another because the justice system has allowed it and put it into place.
Deuteronomy 17:8 – If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the LORD your God will choose.
It has to be a seeking of God. I am not trying to reform the court system, because the only way to reform the court system is for everybody to seek the living God and I don’t think that’s going to happen. Call me naïve, but I don’t think it’s going to take place.
Deuteronomy 17:9 – Go to the priests…
Who do you go to for legal matters? A lawyer? God bypasses lawyers, he’s taking them to the priests. Take them to those who preach, who know God.
Deuteronomy 17:9 – Go to the priests, who are Levites, and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
The priests were the judges. That’s why at any lawyer convention, who should they invite to speak? Not lawyers. They should invite me. I’m not part of the legal system. I can give them a vantage point that they know nothing about. That’s why if you go to a writer’s convention or a writer’s cruise, they should never ever have as a keynote speaker that’s a writer. They should have somebody who doesn’t know how to write, whose grammar is terrible, but knows the living God. Go to the priest; don’t go find more lawyers to solve this problem. Seek out those who know their God, the living God.
Again God is very practical. Look at Luke 3:12. This is what I love about God, His justice is just right there. This isn’t all that complicated, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Luke 3:12 – Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
Can you imagine a tax collector asking a lawyer what he should do? Those two can’t even agree with what the law says among themselves. They’re wrong a large percentage of the time. It is so complicated.
Luke 3:13 – “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
How complicated is that? Do you mean for me to enter the kingdom of heaven that’s all I need to do? Think about what John the Baptist is saying here. Tax collectors are asking, “Okay, look, I want to go to heaven. I don’t want to burn in hell. What do I need to do?” John says, “Don’t collect more than you’re supposed to. That gets you in.” That’s easy, but how hard that is to do if you’re a tax collector? Because what is the goal of every tax collector? They work on a commission basis. When was the last time you heard a tax collector talk about showing you mercy? When was the last time you heard a tax collector say, “You know, the law is unfair and I’m going to try and work the best I can for you.” They will say, “It’s my job, it’s what I’m supposed to do. I am supposed to wring you to death and get everything out of you that I can. Please smile.”
Luke 3:14 – Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
None of this is all that complicated. That’s why they need to invite me to speak at a lawyer convention. It’s not that complicated. We can take all those legal books and just kind of set them aside and say, “Nobody lie. Everybody tell the truth.”
Luke 3:15 – The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.
It is this kind of practical understanding of who God is and living it out that causes people to go, “Who is this Jesus Christ?” You know you can’t blame some of these lawyers. All they see are people coming in defending themselves. And can you imagine the “Christians” that they see? And I use Christians in quotes. Would you eagerly look for Jesus Christ?
Something happened that sent a shiver up my spine the other day. We were working on some stuff and looking at some laws and somebody made the comment, “You know, you need to arrange things so that if you’re ever accused of a crime when you go to court you’ll be judged by your peers.” That is they’ll find a group of twelve pastors to judge whether I’m innocent or guilty. The last people that I want to be judged by are my peers. Give me sinners anytime.
So what should lawyers do? I don’t have time to go into all these in detail and I know you’re getting tired, so let’s press on just a little bit. All these are based on scripture, but the first thing a lawyer must do if he’s to understand justice is to love God through Jesus Christ. There is no other way.
The second thing to do is to associate with people that aren’t around the law. You know when you go to law school, they talk about getting a law-botomy because your whole mind and the whole way that you think, your whole world becomes centered around what they call justice, what they call law. Hang around other people. Pastors do that. We hang around sinners all the time. You have to get out from your little circle. You have to see there’s more to it.
Third. Debate with the common man, see what’s important to him. Well, what happens is when you go get an attorney, you wind up fighting your own attorney. Because why? They’re in their world over here and you’re in your world over here and the two never seem to meet. Dare you suggest something be done a certain way. No, no, no, that’s not how it’s done.
Fourth. Devote a portion of your practice to small stuff. Traffic fines, rent problems, the average and the common man. Get in there and try to make justice happen at that level.
Number 5. Crucify cynicism that just wants to give up. The bottom line is, if you’re becoming cynical and you say, “Aw there’s no point in it,” you’re just selfish. What do you suppose would happen if God had that attitude? “Oh, they’re all trying to sin. What’s the point? Everybody go home and let’s just wrap it up.” He loved you enough to lay down His life. Get involved in the system for which I know the battle is hopeless, but what a joy it is. I love fighting battles I know that I’ll lose because I’ll win the war in the end. I’ll glorify God. Stop thinking like a lawyer and get the mind of Christ.
Number 6. Let God work some humility. In Proverbs 17:15, again a fair trial in legal circles today is a matter of getting people off. That’s not what a fair trial is about. A fair trial would be if somebody is guilty, making sure they get a fair trial as you move toward that guilt because Proverbs tells us in 17:15 that, “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-—the LORD detests them both.” I run across many a lawyer and many situations where we’re innocent of the situation and they make us out to look guilty. They do this because they don’t agree with it or their opinion doesn’t agree with whatever. Both are detestable to God. To be a lawyer and to get one man off on purpose whom you know is guilty, is detestable toward the Lord. To ask a defendant who is innocent to plead guilty is also detestable to the Lord. We are to be a people who will stand up and say, “This is the truth. He is either guilty or he is innocent” and let the justice system fall where it may.
Again you know, the pirate book. That was quite a gem. I had to read that to the last chapter just to get to this section about how they were brought to trial. Let me read what they did here. It says,
The Admiralty Court ensured that all present at a pirate trial were aware of the wickedness of piracy and the evil nature of those who practiced it.
I can just hear all the judges, the ACLU and everybody rolling over like, “How could you do this?” The Admiralty Court understood justice. They were going to get a fair trial. They didn’t bring them to trial unless there was a large measure of understanding that these guys were pirates. Not like today where you make somebody look guilty. The job of the clergy, that would be me. The job of the clergy was to extract confessions of guilt from the condemned men and to persuade them to repent and to see the error of their ways.
Why do you think a lot of clergy aren’t welcome into prison systems any more? Because they play the lie, they play the game. If I were invited into a prison system or if I were a prison chaplain, and I began to convert some of the people there, they would have to confess their sins and admit their guilt to everyone. Their lawyers would be running to drive me out of there.
The conversion with John Brown, a 25-year old Jamaican who had been taken by pirates off Cuba, went as follows:
“Brown, in what state, in what frame, does thy death now within a few minutes of thee, find thee?”
“Very bad! Very bad!”
“Do you see yourself then a most miserable sinner?”
Have you ever heard of the court system talking about anybody being a sinner today?
“Oh! most miserable,”
“You have had a heart wonderfully hardened.”
“Ay, and it grows harder. I don’t know what is the matter with me. I can’t but wonder at my self!”
His heart is growing hard, he senses the hardness of it and he’s amazed at it.
“There is no help to be had, anywhere, but in the admirable Savior, whom I am now to point you to.”
Do you see where this pastor is taking this man? He’s showing him the hardness of his heart and he’s crying out saying, “Yes, I see the hard heart and I am amazed at how hard that it is and that I can’t soften it. That I want my heart to be softer, I want to hurt over my crime, but I cannot.”
And the pastor turns to him and says, “I can point you to Jesus Christ.” We don’t even do that in our conversions with one another, let alone to talk about a pirate. The first time somebody says they want Jesus Christ, we’re like moving right in. Put them on the rolls.
“Oh! God, be merciful to me a sinner!”
“A sinner. Alas, what cause to say so! But I pray, What more special sin, lie now as a more heavy burden on you?”
In other words, the man is convicted, saying he needs Jesus Christ and does the pastor say, “Okay, let’s now stop and pray and ask Jesus in our hearts.” Does he say, “Really good to see you are convicted?” No, what does he say, “Okay, what other sins lie especially upon your heart? Confess them, get them out in the light.” And look at what he says,
“Special sins! Why, I have been guilty of all the sins in the world! I know not where to begin.”
He’s saying, “More than the court could ever fine me for, more than this court will ever hang me for. I am far more guilty than any man could convict me.” This is a chaplain, a prison chaplain brothers and sisters.
I know not where to begin. I may begin with gaming! No whoring, that led on to gaming; and gaming led on to drinking; and drinking to lying, and swearing and cursing, and all that is bad; and so to thieving; and to this!”
We don’t have men’s souls in mind. Anybody that is a Christian lawyer, their primary concern is not putting forth their opinion about the law or working what they call “justice,” or feeling good about themselves and their role and their calling. It is the soul, the salvation of men. And when you are brought to trial, let your concern not be about your own defense and your own justice, but the fact that the prosecuting attorney and probably your defense attorney and the judge and the twelve people sitting up are all in need of Jesus Christ.
Again, this is not to speak against lawyers like, “I hate lawyers.” But I would like to have a lawyer I can show some love to. Titus 3:13 “Do everything you can to help Zenas the lawyer.” Scripture mentions lawyers, not in a negative sense. They can serve a real purpose in Jesus Christ. But know this, it is from the Lord that you receive justice.
Proverbs 29:26 – Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the LORD that man gets justice.
One of the things that I am praying for and hoping for, is a lawyer that would be in this body that would deal with the small things. You can find lots of lawyers to defend our rights to religion or the abortion issue, or whatever it might be. They’re all out there on the grand things. But where are the lawyers that are fervent for all? Where are the lawyers that are concerned with the small things that the law does to the small people? Each church should have a Christian lawyer as a ministry. That would curb far more of the injustices going on in the system than anything else.
We expect to be able to go before the Supreme Court and win this tremendous victory in the favor of Christians. It’s never going to happen. But we need lawyers who won’t live on $200,000 a year or whatever they earn or the money that or the pride that comes from the perfection of those that wash the feet of one another. For whom you have to say, “Give them everything they need and send them on their way and on their missionary journey.” True missionaries in the land of America, showing what justice is. Going into the court system and standing up and saying, yes is yes and no is no. It’s sad that I even have to pray for such a ministry and I don’t even know that it’s even possible, that it could even take place. If we had a lawyer that said, “I want to be a part of that ministry,” do you know the first thing that I would give him to do? Stuff envelopes. Put stamps on envelopes and mail them out. Talk on the phone with average people. Become a servant of all, and then you’ll understand what justice is. Then God will be glorified and truth will be held up, instead of playing things according to rules. Have we forgotten brothers and sisters, that the whole world is under the control of the evil one? If we play by his rules, we’ll lose. God has a way of bringing good trees glorifying His name. I pray that it happens some day.
Finally, let’s end with Luke 18:7 because I want our eyes to be fully on God, no matter what happens to any of us.
Luke 18:7 – And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?
The question I ask you is, how much do you cry for justice? How much do you go through the newspaper and see injustice being done and in your heart cry out to God, saying God bring justice on this earth. You see most people are just too selfish and self-centered about their life to be concerned about people in prison or the justice system. They don’t really care until they are the ones that are in the system. Until they need the court. But we are a people for whom we see injustice and we hurt. We don’t hurt just in an intellectual sense, what does it say, “…Who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” Whether I see injustice done or not, you know I don’t care if it’s a landlord taking advantage of a tenant or somebody falsely accused that’s in jail on death row. They are both injustice. You cry out to God to bring about justice.
Luke 18:8 – I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Will Jesus Christ find lawyers that have faith? Will Jesus Christ find people that are involved in the legal system that the world has, trusting Him to work justice? You know, if you have that kind of faith, you can really relax and spread the fragrance of Jesus Christ because you’re going to get justice. You know that when you cry out, you will get it and you will get it quickly. In the meantime, spread the fragrance of Jesus Christ.
Let’s go ahead and pray.
Father we praise You that You’re a God of justice, and yet, we pray that with fear and trembling, knowing Father that, if Your eye of justice would look at us in terms of the law, just in terms of pure holiness Father, we each would be condemned and none of us would have the right to come before You Father, to ask for justice. In doing so Father, we ourselves would be condemned. We praise You O Lord, as Your word says that mercy triumphs over judgment. We ask O Lord that many that work in the prison system, whether it’s lawyers or guards or prisoners or whoever’s involved Father, that somehow they might be able to share the hope and the love of Jesus Christ, knowing Father that You will bring about justice. The criminal that has committed a crime, this too Father can be a passage of sweet rest, knowing that whatever wrong he or she committed Father, You will make it right. At the same time Father, You are able to work mercy and forgiveness. Show Yourself Father, to be a God of justice and work within our hearts and minds an understanding Father what justice is. And as we die Father, may we be crying out to You day and night, bring about justice. Amen.
This transcription has been edited to a reader friendly format. Every effort has been made to be true to the speaker’s original message. Any mistranslations are unintentional.
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• Opinion From His Righteousness •
Psalm 119:102
Errors
Because of the current sins within the Legal Profession, Media and Law-Enforcement any statements are subject to change. If you have any information about an issue, please communicate such facts.
Repentance
The only viable solution for those in the legal profession is to repent. Because sooner than they want to think God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:14)
© Justice Alone • All rights reserved. • Opinion From His Righteousness • Psalm 119:102
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(Habakkuk 1:4) Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
See Seattle’s King County Prosecutors.
