Know Justice, Know Peace

Thank you, ladies, for the beautiful special music, for the special music as well as the operatory. It just adds so much to a service to have such beautiful music being offered up before God. It's just incredible to be able to hear those things and certainly do appreciate very much the willingness to sing. You know, it is a challenge to be able to do, you know, singing and other things with masks on, controls your airflow and other things, and we're just very thankful that Jamie was able to perform for us today. We very much appreciate it.

Well, brethren, in the United States today, there is a great deal of talk about justice.

It's a great deal of talk about justice. We're in the midst, as you might have heard, we're in the midst of a nomination and a confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The role of that particular nomination to the nation's highest court is to provide and to render equal justice to the American people through the interpretation of the Constitution and the law of land. So the role of that individual is to be the final arbiter of the law. Final arbiter of the law. Making the call as to how the law is applied in specific circumstances and scenarios. So you might say it is their job to uphold and to define by legal opinion what that law is so that justice, quote unquote, can be upheld.

The branch it's involved with enforcing and administering justice, the Department of Justice, or the Justice Department, has been tasked with investigating a wide variety of cases in recent months and even over the past few years with an emphasis on enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States according to, again, the law. It's their role to seek out just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. They've investigated a number of high-profile cases that have affected the executive branch in the past couple of administrations to ensure, again, that the law is applied equally to all. In recent years, there have also been numerous cries for social justice.

Its advocates demand equal economic, political, and societal rights and opportunities for all.

They advocate for equal rights, equal opportunity, equal treatment under the law for each and every person. And often, these cries for social justice run the gamut from social safety net programs to calls for completely and totally revamping the entire economic system of the United States.

One of the aspects of these calls for social justice involves a redistribution of social privilege and the removal of barriers that are impeding process or progress, rather, for individuals of socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, which in their view would enable just and impartial behavior to be applied to all members of society. Okay, again, these are just things we've heard about in the last six to eight months in a large, large way. Just this past weekend in the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, protests and riots developed as people took to the streets to demand justice in the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed by police officers during an administration of a no-knock raid in March of this past year. The police officers, why are we waiting until now to be protesting about it? The police officers this past weekend were acquitted by grand jury on Friday, which sparked the deadly riot in which two Louisville police officers were shot. Similar scenarios have sprung up across the nation as societal and civil unrest has intensified over the past year. All these examples that we bring up, whether it's social justice, whether it's the Department of Justice, whether it's justice for insert name here, or whether it is, you know, the the Supreme Court justices of the land, all of these examples have one thing in common. A sincere desire for justice. A sincere desire for justice. A desire to uphold, to enforce, and to receive right and impartial treatment for all. Now, what makes the discussions that people are having today regarding these topics incredibly challenging is that people are looking at a variety of different definitions as to what justice is.

Very few can agree on a standard of right and wrong. A standard of right and wrong to be able to actually apply righteous justice to that standard to be able to treat all with justice.

Very few can agree on what that standard even is. At its core, if you take a look at the word itself, justice is the quality of being just, righteous, equitable, or morally right. Scripturally, when we see the word used, both Hebrew and Greek, it's essentially rendered the same, essentially, as the word righteous. It's essentially rendered the same. Justice then describes, what we would say justice, describes actions that are righteous, that are upright, or we might say actions which are just. There's degrees of equivalence in the discussion these days being made between two semi-related concepts, but that are different. Justice and fairness. Justice and fairness.

They are closely related, but they are not the same thing.

Justice, by definition, references a standard of rightness. It references a set of rules of conduct. It references, and you know, is something that is objective, or at least is intended to be objective.

While fairness is an individual's moral evaluation of that conduct, and how they ultimately interpret what has been done. And frankly, that can be something that is quite subjective.

So in that sense, between these two things, you can have something that can be just, but is not fair. And vice versa, you can have something that you might agree is fair, but it's actually not just. For example, you can have a financial settlement that gets arbitrated between two parties, okay? You're at the end of the settlement, you are in a position where this party feels okay with it, this party feels okay with it. Neither of them are happy.

But both of them are, quote-unquote, okay with it. They feel that there's been a satisfactory compromise.

It may be fair, but it may not be just. In that same sense, you could have a just settlement that is just based on all the external criteria, based on all the legal rules, all the moral codes, all the outside opinions and legal precedent. And while it may be just, it may not be fair, or perceived as being fair. There's an article, I'd like to read you just a small portion of it here, from the, it's on the concept of justice and fairness by the Markowitz Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. It says, when people differ over what they believe should be given, or when decisions have to be made about how benefits and burdens should be distributed among a group of people, questions of justice or fairness inevitably arise. In fact, most ethicists today, hold the view that there would be no point of talking about justice or fairness if it were not for the conflicts of interest that are created when goods and services are scarce, and people differ over who should get what. When such conflicts arise in our society, we need principles of justice that we can all accept as reasonable and fair standards for determining what people deserve. And therein lies the problem. People can't agree on what that standard is.

There are four basic tenets of justice that people seek when they perceive they've been wrong or they've been mistreated in some way. There's procedural justice. People will go, and they will do everything that they can to make sure that the rules are the same for everybody. Procedures are taken care of. Everybody's playing by the same rules. There's distributive justice, which is making efforts to make sure that everybody gets their fair share of what is there, whatever that thing may be. There's restorative justice, which is seeking some form of restitution or payback, so to speak, for the wrongs that have been done. And then there's retributive justice, which operates on the principle of punishment, that there was a wrong that was committed and a punishment that will be meted out for that wrong. So when there is mistreatment and when there is wrong, or even a perception of wrong, there will be strife and there will be conflict as people seek justice or reparations for what was done. One of the rallying cries of the protests and the violent riots that we've been experiencing over the past months is, no justice, no peace.

You might have seen that. You might have heard that in the rallies. No justice, no peace. In other words, the statement is there cannot and there will not be peace until justice is done. Until those protesting feel that fair and equitable treatment has occurred or that some form of retributive justice is taken, until that point, violence, riots, conflict, strife, they say will continue. Recall the book of James, James 4 and verse 1. James 4 and verse 1. Where do our conflicts come from? Where do conflicts come from? James 4 and verse 1. They come from our unmet desires. They come from our lusts. They come from our envies. They come from the hatred that we harbor and our hearts towards those that are different than us.

But don't think the same way that we do. We've talked about this. The differences that we have in the desires for pleasure that we have which wars in our members. But where did those lusts and those envies and those desires for pleasure come from? Okay, yeah, they exist, but where do they come from? They're symptoms of a greater issue. They're symptoms of a much greater issue. They are symptoms of a problem with the human heart that goes back to the very beginning of the human story. A heart which all too often inclines itself to evil.

A heart which is hardened at times toward our fellow man. A heart that can be hardened toward God. A heart that is deceitful, as Jeremiah says, above all things. And a heart that has, sadly, become enslaved to sin.

Injustice and conflict and strife have sadly become our human default setting.

When you look back over the extent of human history, yes, there have been some bright spots, but largely the human story has been one of conflict and strife and challenges.

And this is an issue that's been foretold to become worse in the latter days, in the time of the end, in those latter days. Let's turn over to 2 Timothy 3 this morning. 2 Timothy 3. And 2 Timothy 3 paints as a picture of what things are going to look like at this time and in these latter days.

2 Timothy 3. I think as we look at this, you're going to recognize and hear some of these things. Again, we've been here before. I'll try to get this podium set to where I can actually get all my stuff where it needs to be. It's a small podium. We have a giant podium at church. I got used to that.

And it's very tilted. This one slides a lot. Put something on it. It's like, whoop, down to the bottom. That's okay. 2 Timothy 3 paints as a picture. It paints as a picture of what this particular problem in the human heart is leading to. What it's building to. Kind of the result, we might say, or the end result, quote-unquote, of the human condition. As those hearts have continued to incline themselves towards evil, the symptoms are recorded for us right here in Scripture. Now, I'm going to read this actually from the New Living Translation. I'm going to read it from the New Living Translation because it paints a little bit more of a word picture, I think, that can be a little easier to follow and easier to understand sometimes. So in the New Living Translation, 2 Timothy 3 and verse 1 says, you should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. People will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They'll be unloving and unforgiving. They will slander others and have no self-control.

They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends. They'll be reckless. They'll be puffed up with pride and they will love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. And he says, stay away from people like that. Brother, and again, these characteristics that we see recorded for us here in the latter days by Paul to Timothy, these are characteristics that are symptoms of a huge issue in humanity. Humanity has a heart problem. We have a heart problem. We have a heart that has been hardened and a heart that's been inclined toward evil. We have a heart that, without God's spirit, is unwilling to yield to God. It's unwilling to yield to God without God's spirit working and softening up that heart, drawing that heart to Him, circumcising that heart, and then removing that heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. Now, this heart problem that humanity has been experiencing since its beginning, it has its roots in Satan the Devil. It has its roots in Satan the Devil and our adversary and his plans and what he is working towards. And until he is put away, until he is chained, until he is ultimately cast into outer darkness, brethren, man's heart will not change. It will not change. Until Satan the Devil receives the just recompense for his crimes against humanity, until God brings Satan to justice for his actions, mankind cannot and will not know peace. The title for the message today is No Justice, No Peace. K-N-O-W, Justice. K-N-O-W, Peace.

Our God is a God of justice. Our God is a God of justice, a God of impartiality. Let's go over to Psalm 146. Psalm 146, and we'll see a psalm that regards the joy and the happiness of having our help in the Lord. Psalm 146. Psalm 146, and we'll go ahead and begin in verse one. It says, Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul, while I live, I will praise the Lord. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. While I am here, while I am drawing breath, I will sing praises, the psalmist says. It says, Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth, and in that very day his plans perish.

You know, there's no hope, there's no help in man and his government.

There's no fix.

It says, Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners. He opens the eyes of the blind, verse 8, the Lord raises those who are bowed down.

The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers. He relieves the fatherless and the widow. But the way of the wicked, the way of the guilty, the way of the wicked, he turns upside down. He thwarts. The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. And you know, sometimes, brethren, the wicked don't get their just desserts in this life. Sometimes they are incredibly successful and they make a lot of money. But they don't avoid God.

They don't avoid what their actions have done. They don't avoid what they have done to other people, what they have said, what they have caused. God's aware. And justice will be done.

Justice will be done. God will thwart the plans of those who are guilty, those who are wicked, those who take advantage of or oppress the fatherless, the widow and the stranger.

Says that God gives food to the hungry, He gives freedom to the prisoners, and He executes justice for the oppressed. Our God hates injustice. Our God hates injustice. He hates partiality. And so Satan, in an effort to undermine God and His way, in an attempt to undermine God in His way, has sown injustice and oppression into the human condition.

That when you look back over human history, you see oppression, you see injustice, you see an enslavement of mankind to sin. These are the things that you see when you go back in human history. Throughout the Old Testament, we see that God instituted laws for His people to ensure that there weren't false scales, that there weren't corruption and bribery, falsehoods, ensured that these things were in place, instructing Israel to be above reproach when it came to their treatment of others, particularly in business, but extending out to other aspects of their society as well.

But interestingly enough, it wasn't just enough to avoid injustice. No, God actually commanded Israel to redeem and deliver those experiencing it out of the injustice which they face. Let's go to Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31 is the chapter that deals with the virtuous wife, but there's a section right in front of that that doesn't seem to fit, you know, to a certain extent. I mean, it's seems a little bit different, and then it gets to the end and it says, oh, these are what you're looking for in a wife, King Lemuel. But we're going to take a look at verses 8 and 9 here of Proverbs 31. We see, as you go through this section, starting in Proverbs 31 and verse 1 and on down, King Lemuel was instructed to remember the law of God. He was instructed to pay attention to it. He was instructed to know it. He was instructed to remain sober and to keep his wits about him so that he didn't end up making rash decisions in a drunken stupor.

He was also instructed in verses 8 and 9 to open his mouth for those who couldn't speak for themselves. It was integral to his role to speak for those who couldn't speak for themselves, judging righteously and pleading the cause of the poor and the needy. As the king, he was expected to uphold the protections of this group of people. These were his people. These were God's people. He was given charge over them. It was his job to ensure that they were treated in accordance with the law of God. Now, unfortunately, as we see through the lens of history once again, we see that this didn't always get done. There have been examples again and again of individuals who gained great wealth through the oppression and subjugation of their fellow man, through the mistreatment of those who were created, and the similitude of God. Even in Israel, which was intended to be God's model nation, this wasn't always done correctly. There were times in which God had to remind Israel of the injustices which they were committing and ultimately had to punish them because of their refusal to listen. Let's go to Jeremiah 22. We'll see an example of this. Jeremiah 22 records a message from God to the king of Judah, Jeremiah 22. We see this particular message is given kind of in the waning days of the kingdom of Judah. Babylonian captivity, at least the first wave of the Babylonian captivity, was to come on them soon, but Jeremiah was instructed to go to the house of David and to provide this prophetic word. Jeremiah 22, beginning in verse 1, says, thus says the Lord, go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak...he's speaking here to Jeremiah...and there speak this word and say, hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates.

Thus says the Lord, execute judgment and righteousness and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. He says, for indeed if you do this thing then shall enter the king or if you indeed do this thing, then shall enter the gates of this house riding on horses and in chariots accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David.

But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself says the Lord that this house shall become a desolation. God promises to execute judgment on Judah for the injustice that it's committed. In this case, these words were particularly leveled against the sons of Josiah because of the unrighteousness and oppression that were committed against the people of Judah. If you skip down to verse 11, skip down to verse 11 here of Jeremiah 22, says, woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness. Woe to him!

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness in his chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor's service without wages and gives him nothing for his work, who says I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers and cut out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion. Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar? In other words, is this what it means to be a king? To live the high life? To appreciate all the luxuries of the world while your people suffer? He says, speaking of Josiah, did not your father eat and drink? Didn't he enjoy these things? Of course he did. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice in righteousness? Then it was well with him. Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and the needy. Then it was well. And God says, was this not knowing me? Was this not knowing me, says the Lord. Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness, your shedding of innocent blood and practicing oppression and violence. God tells Jeremiah, or God through Jeremiah, I should say, tells the sons of Josiah, that judging the cause of the poor and the needy, doing justice and righteousness, was an equivalence to knowing him. Was an equivalence to knowing him, doing these things, because it was knowing him because it was practicing his very character. It was putting into practice and putting into action his very character. That by our exhibition of righteousness and justice, that characteristic, in doing so, we know God. We know his peace. We know his way of life.

Micah 6 verse 8, we won't turn there, we'll just reference it. He has shown you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you to do justly? To exhibit justice, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. This is something that God expects from all of us, to operate justly, to extend mercy into those that we come into contact with, and to walk humbly before our God, not allowing our pride to swell.

How does an attitude of injustice and oppression begin?

How does that attitude start? What's the first step down that road?

The first step down that road is pridefully thinking that you're better than someone else.

Either an individual, a class of people, thinking that you are more important than this person over here. And so therefore, what I want is more important than what they want. And therein lies, and there begins the conflict. That conflict and that desire of wanting what they could not have, and you know, lusting after things that they could not obtain, that has caused some of the largest and greatest atrocities in human history again and again and again. If we are able to maintain the view that God desires, that individuals that we come into contact with, are people who are created in the simultaneous of God, they have the same eternal opportunity, albeit perhaps for them it's delivered at a different time in the future. You know, their time of calling is not now. If we can maintain the humility that helps us to recognize that, then mercy and justice toward those individuals are what naturally follows. And when that naturally follows, we will treat other people fairly and equitably. But when our pride gets in the way, when our pride gets in the way, it is a challenge to maintain a proper perspective on humanity as a whole. When we begin to think that we are more important than everybody else, and it's what we do as people, you know, we have a very self-centered view of life generally. That's what God's calling us to overcome, calling us to look outward toward others. But if that pride gets in the way, it is a challenge to maintain a proper perspective on humanity as a whole. It requires a great deal of humility. Let's turn over to Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58. You know, we're fasting today as part of the Day of Atonement.

And in Isaiah 58, God talks about fasting, talks about humility, which comes from it, talks about what He's looking for in a fast. One of the methods that God's given man to provide humility is fasting. You know, it is humbling to realize how weak you can physically be from a day without food and water. You know, I don't know how many of you are caffeine coffee fans.

I am. I usually, I jokingly say that coffee makes me a better human being. But I usually have a cup or two in the morning, you know, and it's wonderful. I enjoy it. But I can tell that when I'm fasting, and when I don't have it, I get a headache, you know. It's interesting, and it's humbling to realize how weak you can become very quickly from just a lack of physical food and water.

But fasting also helps us to recognize our need for physical and spiritual food. Fasting in Israel by the time of Isaiah had become a way for Israel to attempt to force God's hand in something. And we've seen and we've experienced these kinds of fasts probably before as well.

We're after a very specific outcome, so we're going to fast that that outcome happens. We're not seeking God's will in those scenarios. We're seeking our outcome. Now if we qualify that and we say, well, but God, we accept your will, whatever that may be, that's fine, and that's okay. But fasting in Israel at this point in time had become a way for Israel to try to force God's hand for him to see their piety, to see their dedication, to see what they've done and how they've afflicted themselves for him, and that he would reward and then bless them as a result.

And in many ways, frankly, pride had entered the fasting process, a process that was entirely designed to erase pride. They found a way to put pride in and to insert it back into the process. Many things were being left undone. Isaiah 58. We're going to read the entire section, so you're welcome to follow along with me here in Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58, we'll pick it up in verse 1 because we need to get God's viewpoint on fasting, get God's viewpoint on humility, on oppression, on injustice, and much of that is contained in this passage. Isaiah 58, verse 1, says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, tell my people their transgression in the house of Jacob their sins.

He says, yet they seek me daily and they delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the ordinances of their God. They ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight in approaching God. Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls and you have taken no notice? It says, in fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure. It says, you exploit all your laborers. Indeed, you fast for strife and debate, to strike with the fist of wickedness.

You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high. Is it a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul is to bow down his head like a bull rush and to spread out sackcloth and ashes.

Would you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? God says, is this not, verse 6, the fast that I have chosen to loose the bonds of wickedness, to break the chains of oppression and justice and sin and bondage to sin, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, that you break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out, when you see the naked that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh? He says, when you do these things, verse 8, he says, then your light shall bring forth or break forth like the morning. Your healing shall spring forth speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard and you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry and he will say, here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry to satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall shine or your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be his noon day.

Verse 11, the Lord will guide you continually to satisfy your soul and drought and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you shall build the old waste places.

You shall raise up the foundations of many generations and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. You're describing things that happen in peacetime, the rebuilding of cities, the restoration of nations. You're describing things that happen in times of peace. Verse 13, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing my pleasure, or doing your pleasure, sorry, on my holy day, and call the Sabbath the delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasures, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. He says, if you do these things, if you extend your soul to the hungry and live justly, letting the oppressed go free, satisfying the afflicted, taking away the yoke from your mix, you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasures, God says, there will be great blessings, there will be great satisfaction, there will be great peace as a result of these things. Every 50th year on the day of atonement, after seven cycles of seven-year land sabbath, the Jubilee was sounded. And so there's a connection here between this jubilee of the 50th year and the day of atonement, because it was on this day that that was announced.

Slaves were released, debts were forgiven, familial estates were restored. The jubilee broke the cycle of debt and indebtedness, what we might even say is systematic oppression. It broke the systematic oppression and cycles of debt and indebtedness, allowing individuals to know peace and prosperity after a number of years of servitude. It enabled them to have their mistakes forgiven and not to be punished for their mistakes for a lifetime. God's system has this in place. God designed it this way. And we don't do it. We don't do it. You know, you'll pay the debts of, you know, your family back to the third generation at this point, the way we're operating, right? But God's system included a way for people to come out from underneath that, to return to their family homes if they had been sold in order to pay debt. It's an incredible system.

Integral to these days, integral to this day in particular, to the day of atonement, are the themes and the concepts of justice and peace. If you know true justice, true godly justice, then you will know peace. If you know true godly justice, you will know peace. You know, we're gathered here today before God to keep the day of atonement. We're assembled, fasting as we've been commanded in Scripture. We've afflicted our souls. You know, we've afflicted our souls. I don't know how many of you have noticed that, you know, a mask while you've afflicted your soul is a slightly bit more uncomfortable. You know, it's not the most pleasant scenario, but we've humbled ourselves through that fasting, reminding ourselves of who and what we are and who and what God is.

You know, we have gathered to commemorate the reconciliation that we have in Christ.

Christ is our propitiation we saw. Mr. Kester talked about this this morning, the sacrifice that enables us to come before God's presence. That's a sacrifice that's been given freely for all, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, gender. Sacrifice that was given forgave our sin, healed the breach between us and God, redeemed us, and provided the grace to receive the promise of eternal life. And it was on this day in the Old Testament that the high priest came before the presence of God and the Holy of Holies. The one time a year that he came before God's presence, before the Ark of the Covenant, the holiest day of the year. And through this elaborate ritual, you can read about it, Leviticus 16. Parts of it can be found in other places as well. The high priest came before God with the blood of a sacrifice. Incense filled the room. You know, put the incense on the sensor and it filled the room. And ultimately, the sins of Israel were covered. They recovered. After the events of that day, Israel as a nation came out again, clean, before their God. They had been cleansed. Their sins had been covered over by the blood of those sacrifices of that day. We might say their chains were broken. They were free. You know, these rituals, these events, they all pointed forward to Christ as that ultimate sacrifice that would be offered once for all. All these things are wrapped into the meaning of this day. But, unfortunately, as Israel came out of the day of atonement each year, it didn't take long for the sins to pile up again. It didn't take long for the sins to pile up again because one of the other aspects that this day symbolizes, an incredibly important aspect of it, has not yet been fulfilled.

But it is incredibly important. It recognizes the portion of the plan of God in which Satan, the devil, our adversary, is removed.

And when he's removed, mankind can finally know justice and peace.

Let's turn over to Revelation, the book of Revelation.

I have a chance to see some of the things here that Christ revealed to the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. We see in the book of Revelation descriptions of bowls and trumpets and seals. We see a number of prophetic visions that John was provided, some of which he did the best he could to describe, given his understanding of things at that time. You know, we don't have exact things of what the real representation is. He describes them as large locusts with faces like this and that.

We've often said in the past, you look at the old Apache attack helicopters with the face on them, and they fly, and they attack. So there are certain bits and pieces of prophecy that we certainly have to make predictions on. But in certain places, the revelation that John received is very clear, and it does not really require a whole lot of prediction at all.

Revelation 20 in verse 1 is one of those locations. Revelation 20 in verse 1, again, one of the aspects of this day, this day of atonement, is recorded for us in Revelation 20 and verse 1. Revelation 20 in verse 1 says, then I saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

He cast him into the bottomless pit and he shut him up. He set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things, he must be released for a little while. So we see that John was given prophetic insight into the fate of our adversary, Satan the Devil, that at some point in the future, before the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ, before that millennial reign, Satan the Devil will be put away.

He will be chained for his crimes and he will be imprisoned. He will receive justice. Now we see as we continue through Revelation that that's not Satan's ultimate fate, but this temporary imprisonment, this thousand years of peace and prosperity in the millennium as a result of his influence being gone, not being present, so that he can no longer deceive the nations. This thousand years of peace and prosperity, without this event in God's plan, without this day, there is no peace.

Without this day, there is no peace. For there to be peace, there must be justice. You know, God has dwelt among man before. The Word was in the garden. He was with Israel. He was here in the flesh as Emmanuel. His mere presence didn't cause peace because Satan was still in the picture. Again, brethren, for there to be peace, there must be justice.

Satan must answer for his crimes. True justice will come on this planet when the influence of Satan the Devil is removed. Until that point, our human hearts will continue to incline towards evil, toward injustice, towards oppression, and towards sin. Can you even imagine for a moment what that thousand years of the millennium will be like without Satan's influence on mankind? Without that voice in the back of your head that says, you should do this, if that voice is gone, completely, it's not there anymore. And all you have is the Word of God, and all you have is the Law of God, and all you have is the incredible blessings and the peace and the prosperity.

Can you even imagine? It's almost hard to fathom because we've never experienced anything like it in this life. But those who live through the millennium will have that opportunity. By the end of that thousand years, there will be generations of people who have known nothing else, just like we've known nothing else except having Satan's influence in our lives.

They will know nothing else. But the testing and the trying still has to occur, which is why Satan is released for a period of time at the end for those to make their choice. True justice will come on this planet when that influence is removed. You know, it's been 6,000 years since mankind has known peace. 6,000 years. And it has been punctuated here and there by brief periods of peace, but as I'm not 100% sure who the quote is, but as they say, peace is just more time to prepare for war.

Right? 6,000 years since mankind has known peace. True peace. A lasting peace in which the hearts of men are inclined towards God and only God. It's been 6,000 years since that has occurred. It's happened once in human history for a short period of time. Satan has had 6,000 years to wreak havoc on this world, but rather in the day is coming in which he will receive justice at the hands of God.

It's pictured in part by the events of this day, the day of atonement, and when the day's events come to fruition, when Satan is bound, again all of mankind will for the first time since Adam and Eve know true righteousness and true justice. The standard will be clear. God's law will be over the earth as the waters cover the sea. The standard will be clear, and so all will be treated equally and impartially because the law is the law. There's not differing laws for this person and that person. There's not, I desire justice, so I'm going to cause injustice to get justice. None of that's going to happen. There's the law and the way that you interact with said law. That's the way it is.

That's the way it will be. All will be treated equally with no partiality, with no injustice.

There will be no temptation to cheat the system for personal gain, you know, which exists today.

Those who will be there in that time, in that millennium, they will know justice. And for the first time in more than 6,000 years, they will have a true and a lasting peace. And brethren, God speed that day.