Below is a paper I wrote the week after 9/11. Though the event is 7 years ago now the issues I was relating to seem relevant even today.

I'm watching SportsCenter Tuesday morning when a friend calls from Seattle. She frantically asks if we are watching TV then screams, "The Pentagon and the World Trade Center have been bombed!" She's gullible and I crack a lot of jokes on her so I'm pretty sure she's trying to pull one on me. Then I turn the TV to CNN and see the chaos unfolding in New York and Washington. I sit amazed. I watch a Boeing Jetliner slam into one of the tallest buildings in America. I see that same building crumble to the ground. A while later it all happens again. At the same time a good portion of my country's military headquarters lay in rubble and on fire. All tolled, thousands dead. Families like mine, torn apart. Husbands wondering if their wives got out. Kids asking Mommy why Daddy isn't coming home tonight. It's so surreal, the stuff you only see in movies. This must be Die Hard 9 or something.

Then it hits me. A calm, settled sense that someone must pay. I'm sick of our embassies getting bombed, of our ships getting blown apart while they're refueling. I'm furious to see Arab children cheering in the streets because my countrymen are dead or dying in a heap of ruins. Now I'm ticked. Afghanistan's foreign minister says that Afghani's "feel America's pain." I think, "Yeah they will." Why don't we just go through places like Iran, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria with bulldozers and pave the whole place. It would make a nice parking lot. One tactical nuclear missile on the capital of every country that sponsors terrorism or harbors terrorists ought to do the trick. Justice must be done and we're just the ones to do it.

Then it gets ugly. "You thought you were serving Allah in the most supreme and holy way. How does it feel the moment after your holy sacrifice to find out there is no Allah and that the one you call Allah is actually the Devil. How does it feel to be receiving the eternal reward for all your hard work in his service? It's hot down there, too bad for you. Now back to steam rolling the rest of your kind for the sake of justice."

Then it gets personal. As my rage for justice is just hitting full force something strikes me. The Bible teaches me that God's glory is infinitely valuable and that every time his glory is not treasured by human beings infinitely it is an infinite offense. And I just happen to be one of the "all" who have sinned and lack the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). If justice were done God would pay me with the eternity of hell I deserve because through my own pride, lust, and loving the pleasure of this world, I have trampled his glory under foot. So my zeal for absolute justice is arrested by my own need for mercy. What if I got what I'm screaming for?

Enough of that. It's too biblical and doesn't gratify my lust for vengeance. Back to indulging thoughts of nuclear missiles and pavement for a while. Just as my rage for justice is building again a terrible thought creeps into my head. Jesus taught that I'm supposed to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me (Matt. 5:44). You've got to be kidding. I quickly begin to work my way around this one. I think to myself, "I know, I'll pray for them all right. 'Lord I pray for my enemies that you would thrash them to little bits for what they've done.'" Unfortunately, too many years and one too many degrees in biblical studies won't let me get away with that. Besides, this is what Jesus did for me. "While I was yet a sinner (the vilest of enemies to the glory of God) Christ died for me" (Rom. 5:8)

Then I read a paragraph from John Piper's weekly email.

"So the resounding command of the apostles is, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. . . . Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. . . . Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord. 'But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink'" (Rom. 12:14-20). When we live this way we magnify the glory of God's mercy and the all-satisfying treasure that he is to our souls. We show that because of his supreme value to us, we do not need the feeling of personal vengeance in order to be content."

I wonder if my soul would actually be satisfied if not a single bomb drops from an American plane. I wonder if my soul treasures God more than the feeling of personal vengeance. I trust he is working this all out in me.

So I somewhat sadly realize that I can't ask for justice unmixed with mercy. God has been merciful to me and asks that I be like just like him. But I still want to know about justice. Then I remember that the Bible does teach that God gives human government authority to prosecute evil. I think I'm on to something.

"There is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. . . . [This authority is] a minister of God to you for good . . . it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil" (Rom. 13:1-4).

God does entrust some of the execution of justice to civil governments and when they bring justice, when they restrain evil and sin and misery in the world his own justice is magnified. So God is honored when states exercise the authority he gives to stamp out evil and uphold righteousness. Now we're back to talking my language.

But what if the bombs do start dropping? What if America unleashes its entire arsenal? What if every military asset and national resource was brought to bear on whomever it is that did this and whomever aided or supported them? What if God were glorified by our government exercising its God-ordained authority to "bear the sword" and act as "an avenger who brings wrath on the ones who practiced such evil?" What if the Middle East was a parking lot? Would my soul be satisfied even then?

Nope. Because there will be more. More embassy bombings, airplane hijackings more crimes that go unpunished and more abortions. The wicked will continue to mock the righteous, the innocent will continue to suffer, Christians will continue to be persecuted for the name of Christ and I will endure countless personal offenses until the day I die. No matter how many injustices are righted there will be more. So I'm left asking, "How long, O Lord?" When will there be justice in this sin-stained, misery filled mess of a world we've made? When will my soul be satisfied that everything is as it should be?

Now I'm really thankful for the years of biblical and theological studies. The word comes to my mind . . .

Isaiah 2

Now it will come about that in the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.'' For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased. And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up, Against all the oaks of Bashan, Against all the lofty mountains, Against all the hills that are lifted up, Against every high tower, Against every fortified wall, Against all the ships of Tarshish And against all the beautiful craft. The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, But the idols will completely vanish. Men will go into caves of the rocks And into holes of the ground Before the terror of the LORD And the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble. In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats Their idols of silver and their idols of gold, Which they made for themselves to worship, In order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs Before the terror of the LORD and the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble.

Revelation 21

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.'' And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new.'' And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true.'' 6 Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. "He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.''

Revelation 22

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true''; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. "And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book. Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly."

This then is my hope. There will come a day when the Lord will make everything right. For the vindication of his people, for the defense of the innocent, for the cause of the unborn, for the sake of righteousness and for the lavish display of his glory throughout the earth. Though it delay I am to wait for it in faith, loving and being merciful to my enemies, seeking and working for justice to be done on the earth. I am to wait for that day because it will surely come. So I am left at the end of an unbelievable week saying with the Apostle John,

 "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

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