Daily Meditation

Justice Will Be Done

John Piper

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

All of you have been wronged at one time or another. Most of you, probably, have been wronged seriously by someone who has never apologized or done anything sufficient to make it right.

And one of the deep hindrances to your letting that hurt and bitterness go is the conviction — the justified conviction — that justice should be done, that the fabric of the universe will unravel if people can just get away with horrible wrongs and deceive everyone.

That is one of the hindrances to forgiveness and letting grudges go. It’s not the only one. We have our own sin to deal with. But it is a real one.

We feel that just to let it go would be to admit that justice simply won’t be done. And we can’t do it.

So we hold on to anger, and play the story over and over again with the feelings: It shouldn’t have happened; it shouldn’t have happened; it was wrong; it was wrong. How can he be so happy now when I am so miserable? It is so wrong. It is so wrong!

This word in Romans 12:19 is given to you by God to lift that burden from you.  “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.” What does this mean for you?

Laying down the burden of anger, laying down the practice of nursing your hurt with feelings of being wronged — laying that down — does not mean there was no great wrong against you.  It does not mean there is no justice. It does not mean you will not be vindicated. It does not mean they just got away with it. No.  It means, when you lay down the burden of vengeance, God will pick it up.

This is not a subtle way of getting revenge. This is a way of giving vengeance to the one to whom it belongs.  It is taking a deep breath, perhaps for the first time in decades, and feeling like now at last you may be free to love.

Bloody Tyrant Remanded to the Highest Court

Zimbabweans Dance to Celebrate Death of Tyrant

Oliver JJ Lane
Breitbart London


After the news of the death of tyrant Robert Mugabe broke Friday, survivors of his rule gathered outside the Zimbabwean embassy in London to dance and sing to celebrate his passing, and to call for his legacy of murder and economic collapse to be destroyed.

Survivors of the 1980s Gukurahundi genocide of the Ndebele people, who were murdered in massive numbers by the Zimbabwean government after it achieved independence from white rule through a bloody insurrection, gathered in London over the weekend. While many mainstream media reports have written of Mugabe’s legacy in measured tones, his victims had a different story to tell.


One survivor told Breitbart London:  “Mugabe’s legacy? He doesn’t have a legacy. What other people see as a legacy, I see as brutality… my father was murdered by his regime in 1983… I didn’t go to school because of him.

“I was tortured in 2001 [at the] police station… they came and dispersed everyone with police dogs and batons, beating everyone up. I was locked up for six hours at the police station, hung by one leg from the roof, put inside a drum, beaten… I didn’t know whether I was going to survive.”

Another said while Mugabe had left a legacy, it was not a positive one, remarking: “we are now fighting to destroy his legacy that he left with the Zanu-PF [Mugabe’s political party]… the legacy of torture, intimidation, killing people, abducting.”

Mugabe’s legacy was also economic.

Facing Up

A Terrible Man About To Face His Maker

Teresa Cormack's killer Jules Mikus dying from brain tumour in prison

Anna Leask NZ Herald 

The man who murdered Napier schoolgirl Teresa Cormack - avoiding arrest for more than 15 years - is dying from a brain tumour in prison.  The 6-year-old's body was found face down in a shallow grave at Whirinaki Beach near Napier eight days after she disappeared on June 19, 1987.

In October 2002 Jules Pierre Nicolas Mikus was sentenced to life in prison and preventive detention for the historic crime.  A jury also found him guilty of raping, sexually violating, and detaining Teresa against her will.  He denied the charges but after a trial in the High Court at Wellington Mikus was convicted and jailed for life.  . . . . The Herald can today reveal that Mikus has a terminal brain tumour.

He was sent to prison for the first time in 1977 after he indecently assaulted a girl under 16.  Mikus also has convictions for multiple burglaries, assault with intent to rape, fraud, bigamy, escaping custody and various other driving, drug and weapons offending.  Before his arrest for Teresa's murder, his last conviction was in 1997 when be breached periodic detention and was fined $150.

Human sin is a terrible phenomenon.  Here we see it displayed in a most terrible, horrific example. 

The old Puritan slogan is helpful when we consider such evils and those who perpetrate them: "there, but for the grace of God, go I."  Such evil people serve as a signpost to all men and women: if God does not save us we are lost indeed.  If He does not apply the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus to any soul, that person will undoubtedly follow in the steps of Mikus.

This, then, is our only hope:

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand . . .

When He shall come with trumpet sound
O may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless to stand before the throne
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

May the Lord have mercy upon us!

The Pike River Mine Divide

Facing Up To A Fool's Errand

What do we want?  JUSTICE!  When do we want it? NOW.

Such has been the litany of  some people who have suffered as a result of miners being killed in the Pike River catastrophe on the west of the South Island.  They want the remains of their loved ones disinterred and given back to them.  The previous government took advice and decided not to attempt to re-enter the (now sealed) mine because the risks were too great.  Most accepted that reality.

But some of those who were connected by blood and/or marriage to the dead miners have been pushing ever since to get the mine re-opened.  They appear to have two objectives.  The first was to be able to re-claim the earthly remains of the dead miners, still entombed within the sealed mine.  They say they have wanted a place to bury their dead, so that they could pay their respects as and when they wanted.

We should say at this point that not all the families of the dead miners have agreed with this view.  They have quietly accepted the death of their loved ones, grieved, and moved on.  But others have not.  They have made lack of funereal rites a cause, claiming permanent long-term residual affliction because they have been unable to hold a funeral for their dead family member.  They also feel aggrieved because they have been prevented from having a grave site at which they could mourn for as long as they wanted.

The second objective of the re-openers is to gather forensic evidence of the cause of the deadly mine explosion and, therefore, be able to identify a soul to damn and a butt to kick.

We are told that the return of the bodies of the dead would likely be a misplaced pipe dream.