It seems like everywhere I turn I hear about someone suing another person, often for some silly reason and the verdicts are surprising!
Here are a few recent examples:
Case #1: A lady in Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle when she tripped over a toddler who was running inside a store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering that the misbehaving little kid who made the woman trip was her own son!
Case #2: A 19-year-old guy in Los Angeles won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. The victim apparently did not notice that there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was stealing his neighbor’s hubcaps!
Case #3: A Pennsylvania man was leaving a house that he had just robbed and decided to exit through the garage. He couldn’t get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning.
He could not re-enter the house, either, because the door connecting the house to the garage locked when he pulled it shut.
The family was on vacation and the thief found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi that he found and a large bag of dry dog food.
He sued the homeowner’s insurance claiming that the situation caused him “undue mental anguish.”
The jury agreed and gave the thief a half-million dollars!
Case #4: A fellow in Oklahoma City purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back and make some coffee.
Not surprisingly, the Winnebago left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
The owner of the RV sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he could not do that.
He was awarded $1.7 million, plus a new motor home!
According to recent statistics, we live in a country that boasts one lawyer for every 244 people.
And even though it seems like many people are getting away with frivolous lawsuits right now… there is coming a day when every person will stand before the true Judge and give an account of their lives here on earth.
When that day comes, how will you plead?
Let me leave you with one more case involving a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.
One day an angry man stormed into Lincoln’s office demanding that he bring suit against an impoverished debtor who owed him $2.50.
Mr. Lincoln knew the debtor couldn’t pay the debt, he knew the creditor didn’t need the money and he felt society shouldn’t be run by such greed and insensitivity.
So, he declined the case.Unfortunately, since Lincoln was the only lawyer available, he was forced to serve the suit.
First, he charged the man $10 for legal fees.
Then he brought the defendant in, gave him $5 for his time and asked him if the charges were accurate. The debtor agreed and, out of his $5 from Lincoln, paid the $2.50 he owed.
Everyone was satisfied, even the irate plaintiff who never realized he spent $10 to collect $2.50.
That is exactly what Jesus did for us. Justice demanded payment for our sin.
He took the debt we owed, paid it and left us with money in our pocket.
He’s the greatest lawyer anyone could ever have!
Do you know Him?

Rev. Doug Johnson is the senior pastor at Raven Assembly of God in Raven, Virginia.