Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, what is the single most important issue at stake in this election cycle? Yes, with the election date bearing down upon us, there is, as I see it, a one issue that is most important for us, and that is justice, justice, God's justice. God says in Deuteronomy chapter 16, you shall not pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe. How many of our politicians in the District of Criminals are on the take? They are taking bribes, everything from defense industries to the drug companies, right? You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice you shall follow, God tells Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 16.

Justice, what is justice, dear listener? Well, justice is quite simply the administration of consequences according to a standard, that is, punishment for disobedience, and reward for obedience. And in the West, that standard has always been God's law. Well, if this is the case, dear listener, then there is a whole Trump tower full of justice to be administered here in the United States of America for the next few years. There's a maxim in English, jurisprudence, that can be traced back to our text for today, and that is, justice delayed is justice denied.

Let me read our text for today that highlights the idea of justice, and that is Ecclesiastes chapter 8, verses 10 through 13. And you can reference this if you would like. Ecclesiastes chapter 8, verses 10 through 13. Maybe read along with me, and that text reads thusly, then I saw the wicked buried, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 8, verse 10. Then I saw the wicked buried.

They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This is also vanity, he says. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.

Oh, unquote. Ecclesiastes 8, 10 through 13. Very significant for our own day and time, dear listener. And of course, the corresponding maxim in English jurisprudence is justice delayed is justice denied, right? Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, Solomon says, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

Well, the furthest back in English history that this maxim can be traced is the Magna Carta. And the Magna Carta says, to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right? Or justice, for justice delayed is justice denied. Oh, dear listener. Warren Berger, back in the 60s, the Supreme Court justice from the 60s, Warren Berger said, and I quote, a sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people.

And three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society. What are those three things, dear listener, that Warren Berger says could destroy confidence in the American system and do incalculable damage to our society? Those three things are, number one, and I quote him, he says, that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value. How has this been done in our culture, dear listener? We've lost our right to a speedy trial, for example.

The J6ers, the January Sixers, have languished in the D.C. gulag system for six months or over a year before even coming to trial. And then they've been thrown in jail for years and years and years, dear listener. Yes, we have lost confidence because of the inefficiency and delay of justice. And secondly, he says, and I quote Berger now once again, he says for number two, that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and overreaching. Oh, yes.

Oh, dear listener, our votes, for example, were stolen in 2020 and they're being stolen now in 2024. We hear it daily on the news broadcast. And when this issue is then brought before the courts, the courts dismiss it or else they rule in favor of the fraudsters. Yes, people who have long been exploited in smaller transactions of daily life, we have now come to believe that courts cannot vindicate our legal rights from fraud and overreaching.

Well, the third reason that destroys the confidence and does incalculable damage to society, that third factor is number three, and I quote Berger, that people come to believe the law in the larger sense cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work and on the public streets, unquote. Oh, how this has come true in our society. For example, not only are illegal aliens flooding our borders unchecked, but they are also raping and molesting our families.

Illegal aliens are taking over our streets and our living spaces, the apartments in Aurora, Colorado, for example, and they are also committing crimes against the persons and property of American citizens. Yes, people have come to believe that the law, as Berger says, in the larger sense, cannot fulfill its primary function to protect us and our families in our homes, our work, and on our public streets, unquote. Right? Is this not the case? Dear listener, justice denied is justice delayed.

Well, what can we say about God's justice and all these things? God's justice. Where is he, right? Why doesn't he intervene and settle these scores and these issues? Well, Solomon has some things to say concerning these issues in the text that I've just read for you.

He faced them squarely. The issues we encounter today are not new. What is more, his commentary is inspired commentary, too, unlike that of our politicians and pundits and philosophers, yes. Just a couple of points I'd like to make with you. First of all, number one, justice.

That's what we're talking about after all. Justice. Although God's justice may appear slow and diffident, it is actually certain and thorough. This is encompassed in verses 10 through 13 of chapter 8 of Ecclesiastes. Although God's justice may appear slow and diffident, it is actually certain and thorough.

Oh, yes. All this I observed, Solomon has said back in chapter 7. He says, all this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun when man had power over man to his hurt. Ah, yes, this is entirely in consonance than with our text today. Our founding fathers understood to their toenails that man's tendency is to lord it over his fellow man to his hurt and to their gain.

This is true regardless of the system it may go by. Dear listener, are you pharaoh, the embodiment of the gods, while the bulk of the people are there to serve you, building mighty marble pyramids as a cosmic sarcophagus for you and your descendants? Well, you still exercise power over man to his hurt, wicked in all your ways. Or perhaps you are a French king ruling your subjects in ermine and gold, dwelling in the palace of Versailles? Well, you still exercise power over man to his hurt, wicked in all your ways.

Are you president of a socialist republic as the Harris-Walls ticket? Aspires to do. President of a socialist republic, acting as the Marxist dictator of the proletariat, waiting for the workers' paradise to be ushered in. And make no mistake, Harris and Walls believe these things to their tone as well. You still exercise power over man to his hurt, wicked in all your ways.

Harris and Walls are wicked in all their ways. Well, despite what critics of our founding maintain, our founding fathers knew the science of government, as they called it, and they structured our own government to minimize the scope, extent, and power of government, giving the maximum latitude to the states and to the individual. When asked, for example, when Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, was asked, what kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin, after he was seen leaving the Constitutional Convention? Well, Franklin quipped, a republic, if you can keep it. Franklin and the founders knew that wicked men abound in every generation.

And as Adolf Hitler noted, and I quote him, how fortunate for rulers that men are stupid, unquote. That's what Hitler thought of the common man. How fortunate for rulers that men are stupid, or as our present dictator says, men are garbage, right? Trump supporters are garbage, nearly half the voting public. Oh, our founders knew that only an educated religious people could govern themselves in a republic.

If ever Americans grew ignorant of their rights and their system of government, while at the same time becoming morally degenerate, as we have, well, the republic was lost. The grand experiment in self-government that was the United States of America would be bound to fail. As John Adams puts it, he says, and I quote John Adams, he says, we have no government armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other, unquote. That is profound. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. That is after the Christian religion. That's what he had in mind.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. All government begins with self-government, dear listener. If you can't govern yourself, how will you be able to govern others? Oh, what say you, dear listener?

Are we there yet? Are we losing our republic? We see many symptoms noted by Solomon right in our text. The wicked, of which there are plenty in our system today, they go in and out of the holy place that is the center of worship of government, the temple in Israel, and in our day, Washington, D.C. in the United States of America. And those wicked have prominent places, and they have privileges and prerequisites that they grow to love and expect all on the public dime.

It was true in Israel. It was true in England. And now it's increasingly true in America. The wicked arrogantly assume entitlement to power and oppression. They are also praised and lauded for their wickedness and their achievements in pursuit of their wicked ends.

Even as David's sons increasingly enlarged oppressive government over the people, taking the people's wealth and their children into government service, even as Samuel warned that the kings would do. Well, so wicked men in our government grow it, and they rob us of our wealth. They too are praised for their achievements, whether a failed trillion dollar stimulus or a draconian health care system. And we also see that sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, as Solomon says. And as a psalm notes for us, they have no pings until death.

Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. That is the wicked, Psalm 73. It goes on to say, they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. They scoff and speak with malice.

Loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues strep through the earth. So it is with the wicked, dear listener. And finally, then as we noted right out of the gate, justice seems delayed. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Or as verse 11 says, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Oh, please, dear listener, be very careful when considering at what level this verse speaks. Two points here. Number one, this verse speaks to kings and government below the sun that is on the earth, not in heaven. Justice is an attribute of God, but it is an aspiration of man.

As Joseph Addison puts it so well, he says, to be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature. To be so to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of man, unquote. When men wickedly refuse to practice justice, exact, impartial, and swift justice, what does it nurture? What does that nurture? Does it nurture godliness?

No. Does it nurture goodness? No. Does it nurture righteousness? No, no, no, no.

As Solomon says, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. And the Hebrew is very strong here. The heart that is the central core of our being is fully set. That means there is no other thought or leaning of the will to do anything other than to do what? To do good?

No, to do evil. For example, when justice is delayed for those criminally responsible for unleashing the COVID virus on us, including the draconian lockdown, remember the masks and the distancing and the stay in your homes, right? Or the deadly vaccine, as it was called, which did multiple times more damage than it did good. Oh, when it comes to these things, men like Albert Borla of Pfizer or Anthony Fauci or Bill Gates, these kinds of men, as long as they come, fail to come to justice, they continue to do evil. Their hearts are fully set on doing evil.

Or when justice is delayed for voter fraud in the 2020 election, we still have to come to accounting for that. Well, then the hearts of the wicked remain set on doing evil, as we see playing out all over the country during the 2024 election. Oh, yes. These kinds of men are evil and their hearts are fully set on doing evil. And then number two, it speaks to man's attribution of God's approach to justice above the sun too.

This text also speaks to man's attribution of God's approach to justice above the sun. Is God unjust because he does not execute justice immediately? This is the oblique implication of this statement. Is it because God does not punish evil immediately, right after his commission by the wicked, that the, therefore, excuse me, the wicked is encouraged in his wickedness, right? They say to themselves, because it is in the mind of the wicked, they say to themselves, God does not see, he will not bring us to account, right?

They go on then and sin with impunity. They defraud the innocent. They lie in court. They use the justice system to rob others. They complain that a neighbor puts his fence line over his property while they steal the water that would otherwise flow onto his neighbor's thirsty land.

Now, all these things I have seen while living in Idaho. Yet God does not act to vindicate the righteous and punish the wicked. Is he not in heaven? Does not the God of justice do right? Well, to both of these issues, Koheleth, that is Solomon, he does speak.

Now, you may have noticed that I have left out the qualifications to which he addresses his speech. For example, these wicked ones who vex the righteous, they do die. Koheleth says, I saw the wicked buried, right? And the wicked lives and rain. They are all vaporous, not vain, but they're vaporous.

They go by so quickly. This is also not vanity. If you're hearing the preaching of our book of Ecclesiastes, you know that rather than vanity, we see things as vaporous. That is, they evaporate so quickly. This is also vaporous.

It goes by so quickly. Vanity is so then better translated as vaporous, precisely because no matter how long it may seem that the wicked prevail, it's not forever. And no matter how prosperous and full of success the wicked may seem, Solomon says, I know it is well with those who fear God because they fear before him. And of course, the wicked, no matter how long and full and prosperous they may seem on this side of time, they will not flourish on the other side of time, in the time above the sun, that is, to which all things progress. So, in the end, it will not be well with the wicked.

And we can say that about the wicked in our own day, in our own culture, who do oppress us and wish to oppress us even further, right? It will not be well with them. God will bring justice. Neither will he prolong his days like a shadow. That is, the wicked will not prolong their days like a shadow.

That is, even as a shadow in the evening lengthens far beyond the actual height of the person shadowed. It's an illusion on every front. Well, so, the supposed length of life and prosperity of the wicked is an illusion, dear listener. In the long run, it is a figment of the wicked man's imagination that only seems to thrive for the moment. In the end, his dream, his figment will perish along with his soul.

This is the destiny of the wicked in our own day and age, our own culture. And so, although God's justice may appear on its face to be slow in coming and diffident, that word diffident, I really like that word, it means reticent or slow in asserting itself. It may seem that way. It may seem slow and diffident. Well, it will come, and it will come with full force and power.

Justice and only justice shall you do in the land to which I am sending you, right? As St. Augustine puts it, when it comes to God's justice, he had faith in the ultimate triumph of God's justice. And St. Augustine says, and I quote, the imperfection of justice in this life is the strongest proof that in the next world, justice and vengeance will be fulfilled to the utmost, unquote. Indeed, God will fulfill justice and vengeance to the utmost. So, dear believer, do not judge by appearances.

God will bring perfect justice in the end. And that brings me then to verses 14 and 15 of chapter 8, where indeed Solomon says, there is a vanity that takes place on the earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. And there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. Oh, I said that this is also vanity, right? So, when we consider verse 14, although God's justice, and this is point two, although God's justice may appear convoluted and inverted, it actually prospers the righteous joyfully.

So, take heart, dear listener. Oh, there is a reversal of fortunes, as it's called, in which what is supposed to happen to the righteous happens to the wicked. What's supposed to happen to the wicked actually happens to the righteous. Isn't that the very definition of injustice, huh? Joseph knew this to his bones as his brothers.

His master's wife and Pharaoh's cupbearer treated him unjustly. Or Daniel knew this to his bones, being thrown to the lions in his righteousness, when it was the envious satraps and counselors to Darius, who deserved that treatment that he received, and profoundly. In the end, this is the foreshadowed treatment of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Even as we see in Acts chapter 8, verses 32 to 35, with the Ethiopian eunuch, the passage of Scripture he was reading, as chapter 8 says, was like this, like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth, unquote. That's from Isaiah. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or someone else?

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. Oh, justice was denied Jesus, wasn't it? Indeed, the Bible is dense with that profound theme. In a fallen world, there is by definition a reversal of fortunes, a direct expression of the curse, right? What are we to do then?

Are we to sink into abject despair? All is vanity, all is meaningless and empty? Oh, let's just end it all now. No, hardly. Rather than empty and meaningless, this cursed circumstance is rather vaporous, it's brief, it's fleeting, it will not endure forever.

Rather than vain, we should breed vapor, right? There is a vaporousness that takes place. This is also vapor. What then? Well, he says, I commend joy, for their man has no good thing under the sun, but to eat and drink and be joyful, right?

So, do this, dear listener. Eat, drink, and be joyful here in the brief stay that we have under the sun, and know that God will bring justice. That does not excuse us, indeed, from laboring ourselves to bring justice in government and as citizens of a free republic. So, we must do so. Justice and only justice shall you follow.

This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us for more information. Come and visit us on Sunday, 10 a.m., 101 4th Street, and you can call us for more information or feedback at 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.