Trust God to handle the sin against you, your family, your neighbor, your community, or others. God will. He does not release the guilty. God’s wrath functions in righteousness and keeps you from the poison of your own. Your wrath spoils. You only hurt yourself.
Possibly you, like so many, have been sinned against in one way or another. Sometimes this desire for justice can seem overwhelming. You long for the person who sinned against you, your family, your neighbor, your community, or a group of people of which you connect to get what he has coming, to get what she is due, or to get a taste of their own medicine. Often other emotions are comingled with this desire. Hurt. Anger. Shame. Guilt. Helplessness. Hopeless. These all work together, at times, to forge a giant crevice through your soul where every day you are affected by these things. If you are one of those who desire justice, I have some good news for you today.
Justice for Your Perpetrator
Listen how God describes Himself in Exodus. Here, God talks with Moses as He prepares to once again give him the Ten Commandments. This text was partially quoted often in the Bible.
Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5-7)
First, we must point out that to the guilty, God made all the preparations in necessary for you to be forgiven in Jesus Christ. This text emphasizes God’s willingness to forgive. Notice the key words: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Oh guilty friend, these are good, deep, and meaningful truths for you. God forgives. This truth applies to all of us.
