I’m going to drop my pastoral guard and admit something to you: I love Clint Eastwood westerns. There, I said it. Now hang on and hear the rest of it. I don’t love every scene in them, and I’m fully aware of the valid criticisms that can be brought against them. But I’m not going to lie and say I don’t love those movies. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve got Dish Network with a DVR feature that allows me to fast forward through scenes I’d rather skip.)

The reason I love Eastwood’s westerns can be summed up in one simple word: justice. In those movies, the bad guys get theirs. Consider the following examples:

• In those famous “spaghetti” westerns (The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly; A Fistful of Dollars; and For a Few Dollars More), Eastwood is the gunfighter/bounty hunter who takes care of the outlaws the law can’t handle.
• In Hang ‘Em High, he’s the wrongly hung man who turns marshal and rounds up the culprits.
• In Two Mules For Sister Sara, he prevents the dastardly French from making inroads into Mexico.
• In Joe Kidd, he’s the rancher who has to put a stop to Robert Duvall and his group of vigilantes who oppose land reform.
• In High Plains Drifter, he’s the marshal’s ghost who comes back to handle not only the hypocritical, cowardly citizens of Lago but also the outlaws who killed him.
• In The Outlaw Josey Wales, he’s the Missouri farmer who turns guerrilla fighter to avenge the senseless killing of his family.
• In Pale Rider, he’s the mysterious preacher (actually another ghost, that of a gunfighter) who saves a little group of prospectors from a greedy, ruthless mining company.
• In Unforgiven, he’s the ex-killer who gets back into the business to bring down not only the men who brutalized a prostitute but also the mean ole’ sheriff who pretty much let them get away with it.

Do I sense a pattern here? Sure do. If you want some real justice dispensed, call Clint Eastwood and give him a horse and a six-shooter.

What makes Eastwood’s justice so particularly appealing is the fact that it gets carried out so swiftly. In many scenes, troublemakers are dealt their comeuppance in a matter of seconds. In no case does the justice take more than the span of a movie. This stands in stark contrast to our own legal system, a system that typically gets bogged down in things like continuations, booked court calendars, recesses, appeals, appeals of appeals, and retrials.

Oh, and did I mention that the villain in a Clint Eastwood western never goes free? Forget loopholes, circumstantial evidence, and the like. If the guy’s got it coming, he gets it! No questions. No apologies. No regrets. In the late 1980s, Eastwood served a couple of years as the mayor of his hometown of Carmel, California. He missed his calling in that he should have been its sheriff.

Am I the only one who ever wishes that God would hurry up His justice? I have no doubts that His justice is found in spades in the afterlife, but why can’t it be found more in this life? Consider the following three examples of known murderers who, as best we can tell, escaped justice in this life altogether:

London’s “Jack the Ripper” taunted the police and got away with viciously, sadistically killing five prostitutes in the Whitechapel section of East London in 1888.

Josef Mengele, the German SS officer and physician known as “The Angel of Death” because of his horrific experiments upon Jews in Germany’s concentration camps of World War II, escaped to Argentina following the war and lived uncaptured for decades before dying of a stroke in Bertioga, Brazil, in 1979 and being buried under the name “Wolfgang Gerhard.”

The serial killer known as “The Zodiac Killer” killed at least five victims in Northern California between 1968 and 1969, taunted the police by sending them codes to decipher, but was never caught.

The families of the victims of these men could well have asked, “Where was God when all of these crimes were being committed?” Even more to the point, they could have asked, “Where was His justice afterward?” Frankly, there would have been no easy answers to either question.

I love Deuteronomy 32:4, which says of God:

He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

I read that verse and think, “Yes, yes. That’s the God I serve!” But then I hear the news about a crime that has remained unsolved for decades or some other grievous miscarriage of justice. Such things simply don’t appear to line up with Deuteronomy 32:4.

Actually, though, there are even scriptural examples of people who, evidently, escaped justice in this life. One that comes to my mind is Herod Antipas. Even though he had John the Baptist beheaded (Matthew 14:1-12) and played a role in the trial of Jesus (Luke 23:6-12), historians tell us he lived for several years after these events. Where’s the justice in that?

I think we have to admit that causing justice to get done in this world just doesn’t seem to be a high priority with God. If you think this is a blasphemous statement, then you’ll have to label Job a blasphemer, too. He himself admitted to being thoroughly confused by God’s lack of justice when he said of God:

He destroys the blameless and the wicked. If the scourge slays suddenly, He laughs at the plight of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If it is not He, who else could it be? (Job 9:22-24, N.K.J.V.)

Additionally, Job also asked:

Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? (Job 21:7, N.K.J.V.)

Such talk puts Job in good company. Another godly man, Asaph, once said:

Behold, these are the ungodly, who are always at ease. They increase in riches. Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued and chastened every morning (Psalm 73:12-14, N.K.J.V.)

Likewise, Jeremiah asked God:

Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? (Jeremiah 12:1, N.K.J.V.)

Similarly, Habakkuk got very blunt about the matter when he said to God:

Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore perverse judgment proceeds (Habakkuk 1:4, N.K.J.V.)

So, why does God so many times delay His justice until the afterlife? I would offer two reasons. Reason #1 is: God is merciful, patient, and longsuffering because He loves even the wicked and hates banishing them to hell. As 2 Peter 3:9 says:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (N.K.J.V.)

Likewise, 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God:

…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (N.K.J.V.)

Similarly, Ezekiel 33:11 says:

“Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’”(N.K.J.V.)

Reason #2 why God’s justice is delayed is: God wants to allow the iniquity of the wicked to reach its full measure so that His judgment upon them can reach its full measure. In Genesis 15:16, God explains to Abraham why His descendants can’t go ahead and possess Canaan. That reason was: The iniquity of the Amorites wasn’t yet complete, which meant that it hadn’t yet reached its full measure.

The Amorites were one of the most powerful of the races who occupied Canaan, and in the Genesis 15:16 verse they represent all those races. God knew that when He finally did give the order for the people of Israel to go in and claim Canaan, that order would be accompanied by the command to kill the land’s inhabitants, including the women and children (Exodus 23:23-33, 33:1-2; Deuteronomy 9:1-5, 19:1, 31:3-5; Joshua 6:21, 8:24-29, etc.). Such a cold, calculated command would demand a worthy reason, and delaying Israel’s conquest of Canaan for over 400 years would give the land’s inhabitants more than four centuries to revel in their sins and bring them to a boiling point that would befit such an extermination.

In closing, let me say that these two reasons for the delays in God’s justice are still at work today because each of them is indelibly woven into the very fabric of His nature. One comes under the category of hope while the other comes under the category of doom, but the immediate effect of both is the same: the delay of justice. You see, God has more than a quick scene or a two-hour movie in which to impart His justice. He paints on the canvas of eternity. That means that, in the short run, He can be more merciful, longsuffering, and patient than one of Clint Eastwood’s characters. But it also means that, in the long run, His brand of justice, one that lasts for all eternity, is much more devastating than Clint’s.