Nearly Forty Years For Justice?
We come to church to worship God, to gain fellowship with our. brothers and sisters, and. maybe even to become aware of how to move forward in other areas or lire. Church for. African Americans has traditionally been all of that and more since the earliest days of our being able to assemble together in this nation. No one thinks of church as a place where they will literally go and meet their Maker:
Yet, that is what happened one day in Birmingham, Alabama when four little girls went from being in Sunday school to being in heaven. For on September 15, 1963, a bomb explode3d and killed three fourteen year old girls. and. one eleven year.old. Twenty other people suffered serious injuries and a nation looked on in horror as protesting Black citizens. were met with violent resistance from Alabama police and state troopers and two more Blacks lost their life that day. To review the horrific events that set the four Ku Klux Klansman free for many years is painful. It took nearly forty years for all of them to receive life sentences, and even then that could never compensate for the loss of lives to their family members of those little girls and the world who shared their sorrow.
Crimes have been committed throughout the ages. Some have even boldly committed crimes in church:
And there is also this: They’ve defiled my holy Sanctuary and desecrated my holy Sabbaths. The same day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they walked into my Sanctuary and defiled it. That’s what they did—in my house! Ezekiel 23:39 (MSG)
While it seems as if some people get away, what man fails to realize is that there is a Judge who keeps score and in His time, He opens the book of records and tallies the score, rendering final judgement to all:
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:10-15 (KJV)
Man’s justice is but for a moment in light of eternity, God’s justice is for eternity,
Maria