July 18, 2024

Passage Read: Nahum 2 - Habakkuk 2
Meditation Verse: Habakkuk 1:4

Thought

When the Law is ignored, justice can never be upheld. When rulers and judges ignore the law of the land, justice never comes, how much more when they ignore the Law of God? And why do they ignore the law? Because they themselves violate it and wouldn't want to be judged by it. They don't keep the law, so they would be condemned by the law. They are wicked, and so they must ignore the law and make justice whatever they want, whatever would not condemn them. The righteous submit to the law, their fear of it is fear of violating it, and it is a good fear. But even they cannot exercise justice, because they are outnumbered by the wicked, so their every attempt to uphold justice is distorted and twisted and perverted by the wicked who surround them.

Application

The law of man has some benefit; the Law of God is perfect. To ignore either one is to become lawless and to justify evil. To encourage or support or turn a blind eye to the lawbreaker is to turn away from the law and become unrighteous. We then have a hand in perverting justice. Then we wonder why we can't get justice when we seek it. We have had a hand in undermining justice by ignoring the law, because we ourselves wanted to be free to violate the laws we didn't agree with. We have become lawless; we pervert justice. The righteous uphold the law; the wicked refuse to do so, they pervert what the righteous stands for. I may end up standing alone, but the only way to uphold the rule of law is to submit to the laws of the land and even more to the Law of God, to live in accordance with them rather than in ignorance of them. There may be many perversions to righteousness encoded in the laws of men, but unless they violate God's Law, I must honor and obey them, or else I become one who perverts justice, fashioning it after my own likeness.