THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: Living By Faith In God

LVIII. Handling Evils In The Judicial System

(Psalm 58:1-11)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

Many great evils occur in the judicial system, and we as law-abiding citizens need to know how handle it all:

(1) Such evils occur with our state schools: An “assistant principal in Greenwich explained . . . to Project Veritas last year” that “‘you present everything in a way that’s subconsciously influencing the kids to vote liberal but not doing it in such an explicit way where the parents can actually get mad at you for it.’” (Chris Powell, “Schools resent FOI because they have so much to hide,” Republican-American, March 3, 2023, p. 6A) “Six months have passed,” but the “investigations of the assistant principal that supposedly were undertaken by the Greenwich school system and state Attorney General . . . still haven’t reported. Presumably the scandal is expected to fade away,” Ibid.

(2) Such evils occur with our criminal-justice system: “ . . . (P)olice often arrest offenders who have incurred 10, 20 or . . . more convictions but who remain free and may not ever have spent much time locked up . . . (H)alf of parolees have a serious drug problem and 60% are mentally ill . . . Almost half . . . lack high school diplomas, 85% have less than five years of work experience, and . . . (e)ighteen percent have no housing,” so “(d)umping uneducated, unskilled, unhoused, and disturbed people on the street, as Connecticut long has” done “is only asking for more crime and is a crime in itself.” (Chris Powell, “Put away chronic offenders,” Ibid., March 7, 2023, p. 6A)

(3) Such evils occur even with Congress: “For more than two years . . . the Democratic Party and their media allies told a one-sided story about what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, . . . (T)he surveillance footage from the Capitol riot, aired . . . by Tucker Carlson was kept from the . . . public . . . so a false narrative became cemented in the public consciousness . . . (F)ootage that could have exonerated Jan. 6 defendants was kept from their legal teams. People are in prison because of that coverup. Take the footage . . . of . . . ‘QAnon Shaman’ Jacob Chansley being escorted around the Capitol by police . . . who help him open the door and enter the empty Senate chamber. It is hard to reconcile these calm and even cordial scenes with the prison sentence Chansley now is serving for ‘obstructing an official proceeding.’” (Miranda Devine, “Egregious denial of due process,” New York Post, March 9, 2023, p. 15) In addition, Tucker “Carlson’s team says the [Democratic-controlled Jan. 6] committee added audio to silent CCTV footage, inserting screams and other crowd mayhem sounds, to make it seem more ominous. The bookmarks on the video trove show the committee had access to the same footage yet chose to show America only what suited its divisive narrative.” (Miranda Devine, “Why Dems dread 1/6 reveal,” Ibid., March 6, 2023, p. 15) Carlson showed “hundreds of peaceful people inside the Capitol behaving like tourists, queuing politely, walking within the rope lines, taking selfies, stopping to pick up an overturned bollard, all while police look on.” (Ibid.)

(4) Such evils occur at the international level: “International law has long regulated the management of global health threats” in order “to harmonize quarantine procedures” (Oona A. Hathaway and Alasdair Phillips-Robins, “COVID-19 and International Law Series: WHO’s Pandemic Response and the International Health Regulations,” December 8, 2020; justsecurity.org), but “Chinese officials reportedly attempted to cover up the initial spread of the [coronavirus] disease.” (Ibid.) This gross violation of international health law was met by no immediate response from the World Health Organization (Ibid.), resulting in failure to establish timely and effective quarantine measures in China that likely led to many more needless deaths worldwide!

Need: So we ask, “How does God want us to respond to the great evils that occur in the judicial system?!”

I. In Psalm 58:1-2a, David criticized the grave injustices that were being committed by judges in the land.

II. He denounced the great wickedness of these judges in Psalm 58:2b-5:

A. In their hearts they devised injustice and they imposed violence on the earth by their verdicts, Psalm 58:2b.

B. These judges went astray from the way of righteousness from birth, speaking lies, Psalm 58:3.

C. Like serpents that poison without concern for the serpent charmer, they “were deliberately destructive and deaf to remonstrance [criticism]” and “to correction,” Psalm 58:4-5 (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 837)

III. In response to this situation, David called on God to “break their teeth,” a figurative expression for keeping the judges from “communicating their injustice” in courts of law, Psalm 58:6; Ibid.

IV. David also used several similes to ask God to punish these judges quickly and completely, Psalm 58:7-9:

A. He asked that the unjust judges might vanish like water that evaporates so that their court verdicts, likened to damaging arrows, might be made ineffective, Psalm 58:7; Ibid.

B. David asked that the judges might melt away like a snail that perishes in a drought, Psalm 58:8a; Ibid.

C. He asked that these unjust judges might quickly die like a stillborn who does not see the sun, Psa. 58:8b, Ibid.

D. David asked that they might die like brambles that are quickly consumed by a fire so that before the cooking pot on the fire can even feel the heat, they are swept away before their evil decisions can do harm, Psalm 58:9.

V. Using “metaphorical and hyperbolic” language, David anticipated the joy of the righteous who would see God’s justice administered on these unjust judges, Psalm 58:10-11 (Ibid.):

A. David asserted that the righteous will be glad when God avenges them as in a military conquest, v. 10; Ibid.

B. The psalmist also anticipated how this judgment would give hope that God rewards the upright, v. 11; Ibid.

Lesson: Though evil judges commit harmful injustices, if the righteous call on God to execute judgment on such judges, He will do so quickly and completely, encouraging the upright.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) In response to great evils in the judicial system, (a) may we ask God for swift and full justice on guilty leaders. (b) However, we must recall that Revelation 3:21 with 7:17 implies that TODAY, God lets a “mini-Great Tribulation” occur where evil judges to a DEGREE oppress people that they might turn to God’s truth, that we then heed Scripture and lead the oppressed to the balm of God’s Word.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and provide additional guidance . . .)

(1) To apply this sermon, our initial response to evils in the judicial system (a) is to trust God to deal with the evils and (b) to ask Him to thwart the errant, harmful rulings that evil rulers make. (c) We can also apply Proverbs 28:2, that where rebellion against lawful order is widespread, a “common man” (‘adam, Kittel, p. 1189; Robert B. Girdlestone, Syns. of the O. T., 1973, p. 45-52) of understanding and knowledge will influence society to endure long. Our part is to read and heed Scripture for the understanding and knowledge for God to use us to help stabilize society.

(2) Second, the evils we see in our judicial system reflect what occurs in society: Chris Powell’s column, “School-to-prison pipeline starts at home” (Ibid., Republican-American, February 15, 2023, p. 6A), asserted that “Connecticut and the country are awash in social disintegration – from the schools to the streets and highways, where reckless driving now abounds; to crude behavior in markets and at public meetings; to shootings, including shootings at schools.” Mr. Powell noted that the cause behind it all is “little parenting and especially little from fathers.” (Ibid.)

To address this cause of national social disintegration and thus eventually judicial evils, we view Scripture’s directives on how especially fathers at the grassroots level can parent their children well: (a) Good fathering that is explained in Ephesians 6:4 begins with a father’s being “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18, 21) as follows: (+) The Ephesians 5:18 order to be filled with the Holy Spirit produces four results that are listed in Ephesians 5:19-21, one of them being the submission of subordinates to their superiors and the proper conduct of superiors toward their inferiors in martial (Eph. 5:22-33), family (Eph. 6:1-4) and business (Eph. 6:5-9) institutions. (Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 640-642). (+) The “filling” of the Holy Spirit of Ephesians 5:18 is contrasted with being filled with wine, so “filling” in this verse refers to being controlled by the Holy Spirit, what occurs when a believer in Christ has his sins confessed so that he is in right relationship with God (1 John 1:9) and then he relies by faith on the Holy Spirit for thought and action. (b) Thus, controlled by the Holy Spirit, (+) a father is NOT to “provoke to anger” (parorgizete) his children “by unreasonable demands, petty rules, or favoritism” that “cause children to become discouraged (Col. 3:21),” BUT (+) to “rear or nourish (ektrephete, ‘provide for physical and spiritual needs’ . . . in the (-) training (paideia, ‘child discipline,’ including directing and correcting . . . in righteousness . . . and (-) instruction (nouthesia; cr. 1 Cor. 10:11; Titus 3:10) of the Lord.” (Ibid., p. 642) (c) If fathers nationwide practice these things, it will solve the vast array of problems that are causing social disintegration in families in our country! (d) Then, in time, the corruption that occurs in institutions higher up than the home will change for the better because properly reared sons and daughters will mature into adulthood and come to fill the roles of adults in human institutions higher up than the family such as the judicial system, improving those institutions. (e) May we then apply this Biblical insight and (f) teach it to others who are oppressed and seek solutions in our current “Mini-Great Tribulation” era!

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. May we then rely on the Lord to judge unjust judges while also adjusting to the current “Mini-Great Tribulation” era where we need to heed Scripture and teach it to other oppressed people who come our way. May we fathers at the grassroots level of society especially do our part of relying on the Holy Spirit to heed Paul’s directives in Ephesians 6:4 that we rear godly sons and daughters in our homes to grow up to fill and hence impact society’s institutions for the better!