With or without justice, we will all some day rot
© lipowski – Fotolia.com

There was this guy at a church I attended for a period of time who had a story; it went like this. He was an accountant who entered into a partnership with another, but one day federal agents came and told him one of the deals he and his partner conducted was illegal. This was strange to him, because he did not know anything about this deal. It was his partner’s, but the partner’s name was not on the documentation. After years of being harassed by federal agents and taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court, he learned that his partner was actually connected to organized crime and had dumped the illicit business on his shoulders. However, the courts were so convinced he was a well-connected gangster that they initially denied his request for court appointed counsel, which he required since his assets had been frozen; his fate was sealed when the appointed counsel did not call any witnesses to his defense. The counsel apparently also believed he was a gangster. He spent four years in prison and can no longer practice his profession. That business partner, who truly was a gangster, died peacefully in his bed without ever experiencing justice.

Switching gears, I was watching a TV interview of an atheist group promoting their viewpoint at a booth (or rather, opposing the Christian perspective), when they were asked, “What happens when you die?” Their response was, “You rot.”

I think this is significant. If there is no God, no ultimate Creator, no Supreme Being looking out for us, then when we die, we rot. There would be no judgment, which some people would cheer about, but there also would be no justice.

I have another example, something that affects us all. A few years ago America went through an economic crisis that we, and the world, are still recovering from. Why did we have this crisis? The political and financial leadership of this country knew what would result from the risky lending and yet they allowed it to continue. None of the leadership elite suffered from the economic crisis, it was the poor and the middle class who suffered, and continue to suffer. The 10% of the country that is without work, the families that lost their homes, those driven to complete homelessness, these all suffered because the leadership of this country failed to do their job and interrupt something that was completely preventable. None of them will ever be punished for doing that to us. Not in this life, and if the atheists are correct, not after they lay to rot in the dirt.

I read a quote from a secular humanist society that went something like this, “What makes our belief so unattractive is that it is just so bad.” What this was referring to is that if there is no God then there is no morality, no punishment of the wicked, no vindication of the oppressed, and ultimately no hope. You are all on your own.

My point is that justice does not always happen in this life and often the wicked persevere, living comfortably while their innocent victims suffer until their death. These two examples of mine are about socio-economic suffering, but what about all those children kidnapped every year who are never found, possibly taken across borders to be forced into prostitution? Rape and murder victims whose assailant is never caught? How about the tens of millions of Chinese who died because of Mao Zedong’s screwy policies and political maneuvers, and other victims of self-serving dictators? There are copious examples that are even more extreme.

Apart from God, we are all on our own, destined to struggle and rot.

My book The Rage is about redemption, because I believe there is Someone looking out for us.

Be Blessed