May 1, 2016 Gods Mercy To His Enemies by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Our first Romans 12, beginning with verse 9, continuing with verse 21, which is found on page 948, if you're using the

Pew Bible in front of you. And then 2 Kings 6, beginning in verse 8, found on page 312 of the

Pew Bible. And when you reach Romans 12, verse 9, please rise to the beautiful front of the room.

Just a note, I will be reading from the New King James. I did not know we would have our new English Standard Bible here today, and my eyes are dependent on this big print, or else

I would not be able to read. My apologies for that. Romans chapter 9,

I'm sorry, Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 9. This is the word of the Lord.

Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, not lying in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the

Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patience in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, giving to hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble.

Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine,

I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink.

For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And now, Second Kings, chapter six, beginning at verse eight. Again, found on page 312, if you're using your cue model.

Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel and consulted with his servants, saying, my camp will be in such and such a place.

And the man of God went to the king of Israel, saying, beware that you do not pass this place, for the

Syrians are coming down there. Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place which the man of God had told him.

Thus he warned them, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice. Therefore, the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?

And one of the servants said, none, my lord. But Elisha, the prophet, who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.

So he said, go and see where he is, that I may send and get him. And it was told to him, saying, surely he is in Dothan.

Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots.

And his servant said to him, alas, my master, what shall we do? So he answered, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the

Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

And from here to the end of our reading will be Josh's text for today, just to call your attention that fast. So when the

Syrians came down, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, strike this people, I pray, with blindness.

And he struck them with blindness, according to the words of Elisha. Now Elisha said to them, this is not the way, nor is this the city.

Follow me, and I will bring you to the man that you seek. But he led them to Samaria. So it was, when they had come to Samaria, that Elisha said,

Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw.

And they were there inside Samaria. Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, my father, shall

I kill them? Shall I kill them? But he answered, you shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow?

Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master. Then he prepared a great feast for them, and they ate and drank.

He sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel.

Let us pray. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, we just thank you and praise you for your incredible, stupendous, and manifold mercy and kindness towards us.

We confess our utter dependence on that grace and mercy that you afford us every day. And thank you for the incredible price you will pay to procure that, even the precious blood and atoning death of your son.

And we just, Father, lift up our current situation and confess that we are in need of seeing your face, beholding your glory, receiving wisdom from your word, receiving encouragement, receiving guidance, receiving reproof.

Yes, even reproof. And I humbly ask that you send your Holy Spirit and open our eyes, open the ears of our heart, so to speak, that we may receive these things from you,

Father, that we may hide your word in our heart, that we might sin against you, that we may behold even more, that we may behold your beauty, so that we may become more like you.

And Father, we just humbly ask that you pour out your spirit in an abundant measure on Josh and grant him your words to speak to us and grant him clarity and,

Father, power by your Holy Spirit that our stubborn and often unrepentant hearts and minds may be quickened and may be receptive to change by these words.

Open our eyes, we might see wondrous things from you, Lord, we pray. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, Steve. So what would you do if you suddenly had your worst enemy delivered to you?

If all of a sudden, he, she, or they were in your hands, completely at your mercy?

You know, when the Russians finally retook Stalingrad from the Germans in February, 1943, after six months of horrific fighting and deprivations, the

Germans were shown no mercy. Under Stalin's direction, full vengeance was extracted from them, prisoners were starved, they were left out in the open during the winter, they were worked as slaves, they got their whole pound of flesh, if you will.

And all this, the Germans had done to the Russians with no regard for civilian or for soldier.

So here they were, delivered into their hands, and then they showed them no mercy whatsoever.

But point for point, gave them back what they had received from them. What would you do, what would

I do if, say, that bully who ruined your high school life were before you, defenseless and weak?

That coworker who always spotted and publicized your mistakes made one themselves, and you're the one who knew it, and you'd be able to bring it out into the office and take revenge and publicize it as they had yours.

Would you make them pay? The godless Soviets did what many through the ages have done.

They made the Germans pay and pay and pay. They left East Berlin and most of East Germany, in fact, in its post -war devastation.

I just use them for an example. As we consider the text that we're gonna go into this morning, what would you do?

What would I do? As a Christian, what must you do? What must you do? Is the phrase, vengeance is mine, says the

Lord, a fact or a concept? Did Paul really mean for us to withhold revenge when he wrote, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath?

For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay. Emphasis, I believe,

Scripture. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the

Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink.

For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Nice words, a phrase, a concept, or a fact, a command, an ethos which the

Christian must follow. Must follow, not just because God says it, though that's enough reason, but because we have such examples in the

Scripture of people with a spirit just like ours who are able to follow this command.

This, not a suggestion, but this pillar of our ethics. I mean, did Jesus really mean for us to do good to our enemies so much so that the magnitude of their evil against us is overmatched by the magnitude of our goodness to them in return?

Is this not what our Lord and Savior says in the Sermon on the Mount? Is this not what Paul is repeating in Romans 12?

The evil we receive, when we have opportunity to give it back, measure for measure, to get our pound of flesh, what does the

Scripture say? No, that magnitude of evil done against you is overmatched, it's overwhelmed by the goodness that is done in return.

Peter, an eyewitness to Christ's sufferings, he writes, for to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps.

And hear these words, hear the example that Peter says, you, me, we, disciples of Jesus Christ should follow in these steps, should do this, he goes on, speaking of Christ, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, when he suffered, did not threaten, but committed himself to him, meaning

God the Father, to him who judges righteously. Not just Jesus, but his children, you, and me, and anyone who claims faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, this is what we're called to. And these lessons and more come to bear on us this morning in this text that was just read to you.

What Steve just read to summarize the Syrians come down to this place, Dothan, to capture or to kill

Elisha. We covered the first part of this chapter last week, Elisha appears calm in what his servant thought was a crisis, and you'll remember from last week's message how the servant's eyes were opened and he saw, and what did he see?

When he looked out, when the Lord answered Elisha's prayer and opened the servant's eyes, what did he see?

Reality. He saw what was real, what was true.

He saw the forces of darkness that stood behind the Syrians, and he saw the hosts of heaven surrounding

Elisha. The reality was that the Syrians had no chance.

And as we'll see, this massive army, this massive Syrian army sent with the sole objective of capturing or killing one man,

Elisha, was completely at his mercy. Elisha prefigures

Jesus Christ and how he treats them, both in his demonstration of the power of God that was then working through him, and in his restraint.

The power of God working through Elisha in a unique way in that historical context, but also in his restraint, in his restraint.

As Peter would say, he left us an example. I wanna look at our passage this morning in terms of mercy, in terms of the mercies that Elisha showed to the

Syrians. I wanna look at our message, I admit, it's gonna be a bit of a moralism this morning.

It's gonna be a little bit out of character for us in this place to say, therefore, you do this way.

But I think it's appropriate to the text that we have. I think it's appropriate for the disciple of Jesus Christ to hear this and to see that in actual history, in time and place, this happened.

First, he disarmed the Syrians by blinding them. And second, he led them to safety. And third, he saved them from an impetuous king.

These were all acts of mercy. These were all prefigurements of Jesus Christ.

These are all examples to us. Begin at verse 18, the

Syrians came down to him, to Elisha, to finally take him.

Elisha prayed to the Lord, said, strike this people, I pray with blindness. And God struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

Now, it's a bit ironic what happens here. First, Elisha's servant got a dose of reality when his eyes were opened.

Now, the Syrians get a measure of the same, but by the opposite means. By having their eyes closed.

Now, the word for blindness is not used very many times in scripture. So, it's hard to really flesh it out and give you a lot of nuance on it because it's only used twice.

It's here and in Genesis 19, 11, when God blinded the men of Sodom who were pounding on Lot's door.

You see, this is not necessary a literal physical blindness. Rather, it's a spiritual blindness.

It was a spirit of stupor suddenly brought on by the Lord in answer to the prophet's prayer.

It's the sort of blindness Paul writes about in Romans 11, 25, speaking of Israel, speaking of unbelieving

Israel. Blindness, in part, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4, 18, of those who suffer from blindness of the heart. Peter says that Christians who ignore the means of grace that God has given us for our growth and our maturity in the

Lord are short -sighted, even to blindness. Jesus told the

Pharisees, they too were blind. He told the disciples, let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.

You see, Elisha prayed for the Syrians to be blinded, and they were. But not their eyes.

If that were the case, they couldn't have followed him to Samaria. Dothan was about 10 miles north of Samaria.

And so if they were literally blind, they couldn't have seen him. They couldn't have followed him.

They lost their senses, as it were. The Lord gave them the spirit of stupor and confusion.

They didn't know what to do. Maybe they were so dumbfounded, they no longer recognized their leaders to ask them what to do.

Can you imagine this? I don't know what they called the ranks back then, but they've got non -commissioned officers, they've got their sergeants in charge of the platoons, they've got lieutenants in charge of, what, squadrons?

They've got captains of companies and colonels of regiments and so forth. They didn't ask them what to do.

They were following Elisha. I think they were dumbfounded. I think their blindness was a dumbfounding.

If it was insanity to threaten and acknowledge the well -known prophet of God, going back to the beginning of this chapter, wait a second,

Elisha, the one who made the Jericho part? Elisha, who brought the dead back to life?

Elisha, who can speak the words that the king says in his bedroom and spread them to the king of Israel? Well, let's go after him, this one who

God is obviously working through. This is an insane plan. I think this is the reality then that is demonstrated in this blindness that God gave them when

Elisha prayed. What God did to them here is just a manifestation of their own true condition.

But also, I would argue, it was mercy.

It was mercy. If they had not been disabled as they were, the attack would have commenced.

Remember this, that he showed his servant reality. He saw the chariots and the horses of fire around this hill and around Elisha.

So what's around the hill is those who are quickening the Syrians. What's around Elisha is the host of heaven.

He sees it all. He sees reality. What would have happened to these

Syrians had they gone ahead and tried to lay hands on Elisha, who

God at that moment was protecting, and God was saying, no, you will not touch my prophet. I have one prophet in Israel, and I have declared he will continue.

What would have happened to that Syrian army? Think of Jesus when he was arrested, what he told the disciples.

If I called upon my father to send them, would he not send 12 legions of angels to rescue me? What would an arrest party, what chance would they have against that?

What chance would this Syrian army have if they had tried to go through the host of heaven that God had sent to protect

Elisha? They'd have no chance. They would have been snuffed, as we say today, in a moment.

You see, Elisha's prayer to blind them, to stop them in this headlong plunge, was to stop them in a headlong plunge, a dash to total destruction.

The blindness stopped them, and I would argue that that was an act of mercy by the prophet. And what else did he do?

He led them to safety. He took them away from this place. It was not God's will for his spokesman, or for that matter, this little town of Dothan, to suffer harm from them.

And so their danger was beyond anything they imagined, far greater than anything they had planned for.

No contingency could answer this. Elisha took them away from that danger when he led them to Samaria.

He was leading them to safety. And what a sight this must have been.

Here's this army sent after a single man, following their quarry wherever he would take them.

Whatever the Lord did to their faculties, they were so helpless that they could only do what they were told to do.

So the hapless army took the stranger's word for it and followed him. And we should note that they weren't struck completely dumb.

They still knew why they were there. They just couldn't recognize Elisha, though they were looking right at him.

This is the blindness they had. And this is the people, the army, that Elisha brought to safety.

I wanna address one thing, because many people are concerned about Elisha's lie.

The prophet lied. Elisha said to them, this is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.

But he led them to Samaria. The word but sounds kind of adversative, as if he did something deceptive.

He said one thing, but he did another that was different than the thing he said.

I think our English Standard Version gets it better when it says and. And he led them to Samaria.

It takes away that adversative flavor to it. The two points need to be made.

First, the man they sought, Elisha, was not in the city when he met them. That might sound like a technicality, but the literal truth is that the man they wanted wasn't in the city.

He was standing right in front of them. He said, no, what are you gonna go in the city for? He's not there.

That's not a lie. It's completely true. There's a good movie called

The Scarlet and the Black, done quite some time ago, with Christopher Plummer and Gregory Peck.

It's set in Rome during World War II, and Gregory Peck is a priest, an Irish priest at the

Vatican, and Christopher Plummer is the Nazi colonel in charge of that area, and he wants to kill this guy.

He wants to kill this priest because he's helping prisoners of war and Jews escape. But as long as he's inside the

Vatican, as long as he's inside that border, even the Germans can't touch him.

And knowing that they're all around outside the Vatican with guns pointed right at him, he walks up and he stands right on the white line that's the border between the

Vatican and the rest of the city. And he puts his foot right on it, and he swings his other leg and brushes around in an arc, looking right at the sniper rifles, and if he touches that line, he can be shot.

It's almost like that kind of a technicality. Well, he's not in there, but he really wasn't lying.

I want to settle your hearts down. I want you not to be troubled by this. The many people who say that Elisha lied and that bothers them, he didn't lie.

He wasn't in the city. The one they sought was not there. And the second thing to consider is the goal of the invasion in the first place was not to get

Elisha, it was to subdue Israel, and that was best accomplished by capturing their king and forcing him to come to terms with them.

When Elisha took them to Samaria, he took them to the king of Israel, the very one whose capture their king sent the whole army for.

That was the original point of the invasion. So let not your heart be troubled. He no more lied than did the prophet

Micaiah to Jehoshaphat and Ahab, or the prophet who condemned Ahab when he appeared to him as a wounded soldier.

The prophets, none of them ever lied, nor did Elisha in this case.

So I just wanna set that sort of as a point of order here.

And finally, he takes them to Samaria, Israel's capital city, and there he prays to the

Lord to open their eyes. And the vision they gained was different than what Elisha's servant was given. Because Elisha's servant's eyes were opened, he saw the chariots and the horses of fire all around the city, all around Elisha.

Their natural eyesight was restored. The stupor was taken away.

They didn't see the spiritual forces all around them. They saw themselves inside Samaria, and in all probability, surrounded by Israel's army.

They are at Israel's mercy, no less than they were at Dothan when the hosts of heaven stood as Elisha's defenders.

This army has been at the Lord's mercy from beginning to end. So the king can hardly contain himself.

My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them? You can see where the questions

I asked at the outset come from. What would you, what would

I, what would any of us do if our enemy was suddenly delivered into our hands helpless?

Helpless. Well, Elisha would have none of it. He had restrained himself at Dothan from having those who were with him destroy them, and he will have no less from the king.

You shall not kill them. Would you kill those who you've taken with your sword and your bow? Set food and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.

So first, no, do not kill them. They were unarmed, so it wouldn't be just killing as in warfare, it'd be a slaughter.

They had no defense left. And second, even if you had defeated them on your own, which you did not, but even if you had, you wouldn't simply kill them.

You might demand a ransom for their return. You might make them laborers or slaves or something like that, but you wouldn't just murder them.

Now, maybe you wanted to atone for his father. You remember his father had once gained a great victory over the

Syrians and could have killed their leader, could have slain him as the Lord would have him do, but he let him go.

Prophet, I alluded to this prophet earlier, the prophet who was bandaged and stood before him and gave him this story about being told to guard a prisoner, and he let him go, and Ahab says, well, your life are his, and the prophet says, well, you spoke in your own judgment because you let that king go and the

Lord would have him executed. This would be different than that.

This would have just been murder, and there's no way to atone for what his father had done back there in 1

Kings 20. Maybe he was just trying to show Elisha his zeal for God.

Maybe he was just gleeful to have his enemy in hand and was giving vent to his own sinful nature, but whose were they?

Well, they were Elisha's prisoners. Really, they were the Lord's prisoners because it was the Lord who delivered them to Elisha.

The king of Israel had nothing to do with any of this. Elisha had prayed for their senses to be restored and God again answered him.

They weren't the king's to dispose of. So finally, what does he do?

Well, he treats them as guests. He says, feed them. More than just not killing them, treat them well.

And Jehoram goes beyond the bread and water that Elisha specified and he puts before them a great feast and then, as commanded, turns them loose.

Militarily, this makes no more sense than Joshua's strategy against Jericho. We've heard our brother

Steve preach about this or use this in his preaching before about what a crazy plan this is in military terms to march around a city seven times to say nothing, then to shout and the walls are gonna fall.

That's a plan of faith, not a plan of good tactics. And here, what

Elisha told the king of Israel, Jehoram, to do with the Syrian army really doesn't make that much sense because they've been at war constantly all these years and war is going to occur again as we finish through this chapter,

Lord willing, beginning next week. So what should you do with them? Enslave them, put them in a

POW camp? Anything but turn them loose because you're gonna have to meet them again.

But God's ways are not our ways, nor are his thoughts our thoughts. God has greater purposes than we do.

And in the next chapter, the Syrians will attack again and they're gonna lay siege to Samaria and they're gonna cause great suffering.

They will reverse Paul's teaching not to repay evil with evil but with good, by repaying good, in other words, their release back to their master, they're gonna repay that good with extreme evil.

After this magnanimous treatment, one would expect some gratitude, but they're going to be like the ones the psalmist complains about.

They have rewarded me evil for my good and hatred for my love. But obedience to God is its own reward.

And we don't always get to see the fruit of obedience to God, especially in relationships, especially as we deal with each other, with other fallen, sinful humans, people like us.

And we're required to obey, we must obey him. And that doesn't mean that we're always gonna get to see the benefit of it here and now.

It must be, brethren, that obedience is, in and of itself, reward enough.

That because the scripture says do this, we do it and we trust God to work good from it, whether we see that good or not.

And by that I mean whether we see that good or not immediately. I would say oftentimes

God does let us see the good that he does. That's not a promise that he will, but sometimes it takes a while.

Sometimes it takes many years before that little child who's so obnoxious to us in Sunday school grows into a young man or a young woman and comes back and says, when you were in my

Sunday school teaching, you taught me about Jesus, now I remember, and he brought me to faith in him at such and such a time.

Sometimes it takes a long time to see the good God is working. If we wait for someone to do good before we do the same, brethren, if we wait until we judge your response to me to be good enough for me to give you a good response,

I speak as a fallen person to fallen people.

Well, we never will. If we wait until we judge that response to be good enough for us to give a good response back, it'll not happen.

It'll never be good enough. We'll hold people's actions up against a standard that we can't really justify.

Certainly we can't find in our Bibles, but we'll hold it up and never come, really, to a true obedience, to understanding that to do what

God says is reward enough and to trust him with the rest. Jesus, at the end of the

Beatitudes, he said, blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

And Paul says to bless those who persecute you. Israel had been under great persecution by the

Syrians and is going to continue as we continue in 2 Kings. What are

God's people called to do in response? Bless, be good.

Set bread and water before them and let them go in peace. Jehoram, that's the king of Israel.

Jehoram certainly saw how God's power and mercy flow together here. I mean,

Israel's kings were commissioned to represent God's rule, something they all failed at, even the ones who were recorded as good in Judah and having done what was right in God's sight.

We talked about that this morning. The Israelite kings never came close, yet here's

Jehoram, a son of Ahab, the most wicked of the kings. Jehoram is an eyewitness to this remarkable work of God when he has his enemy delivered to him like that.

It seems that someone went ahead on Elisha's behalf and told the king of Israel it was coming. So when the

Syrians' eyes were opened and they saw where they were and they saw the situation they were in, they were probably surrounded by Israel's archers or something like that.

Again, not having a chance. The Syrians brought great evil to Israel and much more evil is coming.

When the Syrians return in force again, the last part of this chapter for next week, this king,

Jehoram, he will tear his clothes. He will solemnly vow to kill Elisha rather than pray to him to blind his enemy once more.

This king is missing the whole lesson that's been laid out before him. He doesn't see the mercy of God and he's forgetting the power of God.

We'll see that next week. He forgets what God can do or what God has done.

This is a short history and much of 2 Kings is not given to us in chronological order, but the author is making a point.

He's trying to develop a theme. Syria here invades and they find that Israel's most effective weapon against them is a prophet.

They try to capture or kill him, but instead they are incapacitated by his simple prayer.

They're led to their enemy's camp and there they are treated well. So what, brethren, are we gonna take from this?

Well, for one thing, and we've covered this a couple of times already. Vengeance is the

Lord. You shall not kill them, he said. You shall not kill them. You see, this was not holy war.

That's a topic all its own, but this was not that. This was not a commissioned holy war.

Jehoram saw a chance to avenge himself, but he was denied it by Elisha's word. His instinct was much like ours.

What would we do if that bully from years ago was suddenly helpless before us?

Would we avenge the wrongs that we sustained? Or would we hear Elisha telling us that their disarming is of the

Lord? Would we feed them and set them on their way in peace? Or would we make them pay and pay and pay?

Oh, I'd certainly let them go. I'd feed him. I'd tell him the gospel. I'd send him away with the

Lord's blessing. But before we become too self -congratulatory, before we say, well, unlike King Jehoram, we see the lesson, before we get too far that way, let's look again at Paul's word to us in Romans 12.

Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

If it is possible, as much as dependable, if it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink.

And in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. You see, Paul here is not writing about great wars or campaigns.

He's concerned with how we live here and now. He's concerned with our mundane, everyday relationships with each other.

Not just our brothers and sisters in the Lord, but with all men. Look again at Peter's take on all this.

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps.

Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously.

You see, vengeance is not just the big stuff, like when Jehoram wanted to wipe out the

Syrians for having invaded him. Remember David, wronged so often and so greatly by Saul, yet he refused to harm him, so much so that he repented of even cutting his tunic.

Cutting the tunic of that man who would gladly have cut his throat. Peter and Paul would say that we're to refrain from vengeance, when?

In our daily life. In our common parlance with each other. Husband and wife, siblings, parents and children.

Brothers and sisters in the Lord. Everybody. It's in our daily life.

Now what is vengeance? Is it the big, dramatic stuff? Is it when they're put before you completely helpless, perhaps blinded in the same way the

Syrians were? At your mercy? No. No, Peter and Paul both bring it down much closer to us.

What is vengeance? It's the infliction of harm on someone who has harmed us. That's as simple as that.

It's to inflict harm on someone who's harmed you. What are we to do when someone has done us wrong?

Well, if they're fellow Christians, the answer's simple. It's really simple. It's not easy to do, but the answer is simple.

Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Between you and him alone. Those are very important words. But do you know what is eliminated from us?

Do you know what is completely taken away from the child of God through faith in Jesus Christ?

Something like this. Quote, I just wanted to show you what it was like when you, fill in the blank.

Or, now you know how it felt when you, whatever. Fill in the blank.

Or this. If you hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have done this.

See, in each case, what are we doing? What are we returning? We received evil, received something less than good.

What are we giving back? The same. We do that, what do we need to do?

Well, unless we can open our Bibles and find in the scripture where you can return bad for bad, or not good for not good, or evil for evil, if it's this or that or the other circumstance, okay,

I'll let you get away with it, says the Lord. Unless you can find that in your scripture, and obviously you're not going to find it, you need to repent.

Those kind of words should never come from the mouth of a child of God. I just wanted you to see how bad that bad thing you did was.

So I'm gonna do something bad, but I'm gonna do it for your good. It makes no sense. It's completely against what the

Bible says. It's not what Elisha demanded King Jehoram to do. When he had his enemy army at his mercy, and what does

Elisha say? Well, it's implied they're not yours. They're the Lord's prisoners. But beyond that, it's not just slaughter people, which is often what we do with our tongues.

Doesn't James say we kill with our tongue? So what do we get from 2

Kings 6? Well, it's just this. When in God's providence you have the opportunity to make someone feel as bad as they made you feel, we need to stop and remember what?

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. Yeah, remember that. Remember, just as King Jehoram should have known, that's the

Lord in his providence who led them to you, perhaps even disarming them.

Perhaps disarming them by showing them Jesus Christ and giving them a spirit to repent.

Is it possible that God worked his providence so that you could return evil for evil?

Is it even possible? Of course it's not. Then God would be contradicting his own word.

Can you really say to God, Lord, you know how awful that was? Thank you that I can now do the same.

Of course we cannot. Do you know why we return evil with good?

Because only good should come from the mouth of a child of God. Not just when we're returning something bad that happened, it was like, okay, this is a big one.

I better remember that command. No, let no unwholesome word come from your lips.

But what is good for necessary edification, says the Apostle Paul. You see,

Elisha's denial of the king's desire was God's denial. And Elisha's denial to King Jehoram is

God's denial to us. To ever take vengeance on anyone, much less a husband or a wife, a parent or a child, a brother or sister in the

Lord. What was he commanded instead? To release them, to set them free.

Whether they will ever know that the coals of fire had just been heaped on their head, that's

God's business. That's God's affair. That's his to repay. Ours is to repay with good, to live at peace with all men, especially with each other.

I wanna close with just a couple of thoughts about this. How do we hammer this home?

How do we make this a part of ourselves? Ask yourself this. Do you know

Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sins? Is your faith in what he accomplished on the cross and that alone to bring you to God?

I wish I could see every head nodding, every mouth shouting out amen. That is me who you just described.

If that's the case, ask yourself this. How did God treat you when you were his enemy?

How did he treat you when you were his enemy? If you're a Christian, if you love the Lord by faith in Jesus Christ, then instead of taking righteous vengeance upon you for all your insults and for all your blasphemies against God, how did he treat you?

He sent his son to the cross to die for your sins. That's what we need to remember.

If that's not the overarching ethos by which we live, brethren, you haven't looked well enough at the cross or long enough at the cross.

You need to ponder and consider the alternative. God, whose vengeance would be completely justified if he sent each one of us to hell and never gave us the faith to believe.

It would not be wrong on his part, and yet what did he do? Were we delivered into his hands from the moment of conception?

Yes. Did we blaspheme against God? Did we show ourselves as enemies?

Absolutely, for all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God. While we were yet enemies, what happened?

Christ died for us, the godly for the unjust. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might in him become the righteousness of God.

Do you think that that thought, if that was our overriding thought, those kinds of thoughts, if that controlled us, we would ever return evil for evil?

Couldn't. Can't do it. No, for us, what did he do? And this is what we must do to others, because God sent his son as an example, not just an example, but he is our example.

He sent his son to the cross, where he was treated as if he, not you and not me, but he was the blasphemer or the hater, the insolent one who's shaking his fist in defiance of the creator.

I think 2 Kings 6 really sets us in stark relief for us. Where King Jehoram, who did evil in the sight of God, did evil in the sight of the

Lord, by following the ways of his father Ahab and his mother Jezebel, whose end we're coming to pretty soon in this series that we're in.

He wanted vengeance. He wanted to show God or show Elisha probably just how zealous he was.

But we, the children of God, what do we have? We have Christ who died for our sins.

We have Christ who brought us to God the father, who we know will take vengeance himself and will do what is right, which we, brethren, never can.

What is the lesson of 2 Kings 6? Is to treat our enemies the way

God would have them treated. To leave it in his hands to bring final judgment.

To remember how we were treated by God in Christ, amen? Lord God, I thank you for bringing us together again this day and for giving us your word around which we can gather.

I pray, Father, that we would be the right children of God who would take these words to heart, see this example in history that really drives home the point.

That we, Lord, would be those who would always show the goodness and the kindness, just the sheer grace of our

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that we would, by faith, leave all things in your hands,

Father. So we thank you for this. We just pray you make us like your son. In Jesus' name, amen.