Is There No Justice?

Bryce continues our study in the book of Ecclesiastes, looking at Ecclesiastes 3:15-4:3. Everything that will be done already has been done. Everything we accomplish only lasts for a season, but the work that God does endures. So thankfully it is he that pursues justice for the oppressed! Because only he can achieve lasting accomplishment. But even here, in the pursuit of justice the Teacher has observed futility. There is wickedness, he tells us, in the place of judgment and the place of righteousness. Corruption in the courts. Corruption even in the places of worship. Don’t we know this all too well? We who have seen the innocent declared guilty and the guilty walk free? We who have witnessed money and power influence even judicial proceedings to cover up great evil? And if our courts – if that haven of blind justice itself is not immune to the cancer of corruption and wickedness, is anywhere? Maybe our churches? Maybe houses of worship and places of righteousness? But alas, when we dig beneath the surface, we uncover rot. We find that even the place of righteousness has long covered up great wickedness. Abuse. Bribery. Oppression. Favoritism. Scandal. At some point in her history, the church has harbored every wickedness of the world. Is there any hope for us? Is there any comfort?

There is in this: God will judge the righteous and the wicked. There is a time for every activity – a season for every work that must be done. And that includes a time for Him to call wickedness to account. So why hasn’t he yet? Why do we wait? The Teacher, in his wisdom, says to himself in his heart that this is so that we, the children of Adam, might behold our own insufficiencies. That we might see that left to ourselves we are like animals – the strong prey on the weak, and there is no justice for the oppressed. Left to ourselves, our fate is no different. One dies, so does the other. We all draw the same breath. We are all returning to dust. And who can know what happens after we die? Who can know where we go? No one has taken that great journey of death and lived to tell about it! And so, we – like animals – scratch out our existence here in the dust, fighting tooth and nail to survive (often at the expense of the weak). And we do so with no knowledge of what comes next.

But God, himself, is not like an animal. He knows what is to come. He is not a creature of the dust. And he will seek justice. He will judge the righteous and the wicked at the proper time. So, enjoy your activity here under the sun. It is your reward. It won’t last so enjoy it now. But in your enjoyment, know that a season will come to give an account for it. Everything under the sun is seen by the one above the sun. And praise God that it is. Becuase down here, there is no comfort for the oppressed - leaving us lamenting with Job, "May the day I was born perish!"