Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" (Jeremiah 12:1)

One of the perennial theological problems is the apparent prosperity of the ungodly along with the suffering of the righteous. Why would God seem to endorse such a system?

It has been this way for ages. Some 2,000 or more years before Christ, Job asked essentially the same question as did the prophet Jeremiah in our text above. "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? They seem to spend their days in wealth, and  say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Likewise the psalmist Asaph complained,  he tells the reader that he was envious when he first saw the prosperity of the wicked, but the good news we know how the it ends for those that choose to love darkness verse loving God. what does it profit a man to gain the world and loose his soul? I would rather crawl into heaven having lost a leg than to walk into hell having both of my legs. Oh men of God let us love righteousness more  than the things of this world, for silver and gold can be stolen away or rust away, if thrown into the fire they shall melt, but that which is of God shall stand the test of time and can not be destroyed. Let us put our faith and place value in the word of God. Not in the things of man.

The real solution to this paradox is not in this present world, but in the world to come, where hell awaits the ungodly, and heaven awaits those whom seek after  God  and  those who have been  redeemed through faith in Christ. The fact that a man may prosper materially is not necessarily a measure of God’s approval. The previous economic boom in this country made many men very wealthy, and most of them seem either indifferent or hostile to God, but their wealth is very ephemeral. As David said in another psalm, "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not