Jan. 14, 2018 Vengeance is … Whose? by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 12 and the Christian Life Together

I'll turn please to chapter 12 of Romans with God's help and blessing. This morning we will finish this chapter, verses 17 -21 will be the text for the preaching this morning. However, I want to start the reading at verse 1 of chapter 12.

And the reason for that is, and I think you'll understand this as I've been trying to preach through this ethical part of the book of Romans, if you will, where after 11 chapters of doctrine and theology, he gets to chapter 12 and it's, therefore, you need to do something about this gospel.

The what then, how do we live, how should we behave, how should we look, part of this epistle. And I have endeavored to not simply give you a bunch of to-dos, to not simply say to you, well, be better in this way and behave more qualitatively like Christ in this other way and just do it.

I've tried to keep it all together as a holistic picture of what the Christian is to look like. If 11 chapters of wonderful doctrine and theology mean anything, they mean something in our daily life. And here in chapter 12, primarily in our daily life in interacting with each other as brothers and sisters together in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so with those thoughts in mind, as we prepare ourselves for the end of this chapter, verses 17 through 21, I want to start at verse 1 of this chapter and read the whole thing so we keep the picture in mind, this overall thrust of what the Apostle Paul is driving us towards.

Can't pick and choose. We don't want to take it in little bite-sized chunks because it's a single picture of the single person, the man or woman who is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Beginning at verse 1, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them, if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor, do not be slothful in zeal, but be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who bless you, bless and do not curse them, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty but associate with the lowly, never be wise in your own sight.

Vengeance Belongs to the Lord, Not to Christians

And now the text for this morning, beginning here at verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all, if possible so far as it depends on you, live peacefully with all, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Now I wondered quite a bit why this particular instruction is here at the end of Romans chapter 12, this instruction against us taking vengeance for things. I mean, if you read through Romans, there doesn't seem to be any hint that anyone there in that first century church in Rome was taking vengeance against someone else.

Paul at the end of the book doesn't name anyone, says now you need to instruct Theodosius to stop taking vengeance against Justin or anything like that. We don't have anything that would give us a direct context for this particular instruction.

The persecutions that Nero, the emperor, would soon initiate, they were still a ways off, and it seems implausible that Paul is preparing them for that in a prophetic sort of way. You know, the persecutions are coming and you need to prepare now not to take vengeance, though that would be true, but we don't have that hint there to tell us that's why he put this.

In this chapter, in this chapter 12 of Romans, he writes of unity, he likens the church, this local fellowship, to a body, to a physical body, to a human body, with each part of it doing its function, everybody doing their part so that as a human body functions properly when every part of it is doing its part, so also the church.

He writes of humility of mind as the necessary entrance into proper Christian fellowship. We are told to use our God-given gifts to the benefit of others here in the church. Last week in verses 9 through 16, we looked at genuine love, what it is to have genuine love, what it means to abhor, to constantly hate what is evil, to hate what God hates, and conversely, to love what is good, to love what God loves.

And all of a sudden, here, why is this here? This warning against vengeance. Well, you know, among the many vestiges that we've inherited because of Adam's sin, is this desire, this desire for vengeance, this need for revenge.

We want to get even. I think that's just a part of the fallen human nature. Part of that nature is what Christ has overcome on the cross by the transformation of the Holy Spirit. We should no longer be that sort of a person who seeks any kind of vengeance or revenge.

Think of Cain, his immediate concern when he heard his punishment for having committed history's first murder. His concern was that people would do what? Take vengeance upon him. Not so, said God, if anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken upon him sevenfold.

Cain was worried about vengeance, and properly so it would seem. Almost immediately after that incident with Cain killing Abel, we have this individual introduced to us named Lamech, and he makes himself out to be greater than God.

Do you remember that? He said, if Cain is avenged sevenfold, I, a mere man, if you will, I will be avenged 77-fold. He's making himself greater than God, at least in his words. And he does so, how? By boasting about how much more vengeance he will take than God has promised.

What do we have in Romans chapter 12? We can say it as simply as this, the Apostle Paul to the Christian absolutely forbids this. It should never be that the Christian is one who would take vengeance against another.

Period. It's that easy. Now I could almost say, amen, let's go have our fellowship meal, but there's much more to it than that. We need to understand how deep this runs. We need to understand how easily it comes from our lips because it comes from our heart that I want to get even.

I want to make you pay the way you made me pay. But no, no, the Christian is not an avenger. As much as we may like to be, the Christian cannot be that. Vengeance must be left in God's hands. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

I will repay. You heard how I read it there. I put the emphasis on the pronouns. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. And the Apostle Paul picks that up and says, therefore, Christian, you not should not, must not.

Vengeance must be left in God's hands. It's a matter of obedience. It's a matter of faith. It's really a matter of humility. This chapter opens with, do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And here is a rubber-meeting-the-road application of exactly what that means. Here is a direct abandonment of worldly ways, of worldly thinking, a repudiation of all that, and an immersion into God's ways.

Here, in denying this satisfaction, let us admit that there's a satisfaction involved in getting even. And you, brother, sister, and the Lord, you, the one that Paul calls brethren, dear ones, saints, all of us, cannot be that way.

Do not be conformed to the world. That's a very worldly way of thinking. And then verse 17, where we had there at the beginning, repay no one evil for evil, give thought to what is honorable and good in the sight of all.

It echoes the first half of, or excuse me, the second half of verse 9. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Do you see the parallel there? Abhor what is evil. Don't take vengeance. Hold fast to what is good.

Give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. And the question has to ring out to us. How then do we avoid giving back evil for evil? The world cries out to us. You need to give back as good as you get.

How do we avoid giving back evil for evil? Well, part of the answer to that question would go all the way back to verse 9, which I read just a moment ago. How do we not give back evil for evil? Well, by abhorring what is evil.

I hate it so much that even if it seems deserved, and we could do that in quotes, if it seems deserved, and you and I are not capable of determining what is actually deserved or not, only God can do so perfectly.

It's a matter of really hating it so much that no matter what the circumstance is, it's not going to issue forth from my lips. The world says no, no, no. This non-conformed thinking, this conforming yourself to the wrong thinking, says you need to give back as good as you get.

You need to stick up for yourself. You need to show them just what they did. You know, there was a boxing match many years ago between a man called Thomas Hitman Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. I think Sugar Ray was one of the greatest fighters since Muhammad Ali himself.

And at one point, Hearns has Leonard on the ropes. And Sugar Ray, he counter-punched, and he fought his way out, giving back as good as he gets, and eventually wins the fight. He's a counter-puncher, giving back as good and eventually better.

But you see, that was a boxing match. That was a sporting event. But too often, that's how we are in our everyday life. We want to counter-punch. Somebody puts us on the ropes. They hit us with a surprise defront or an insult or something that we take the wrong way, and we're going to fire back.

We're going to get ourselves off those ropes, and we're going to do so how? By hurting the other one. We know the power of the tongue from the book of James. We know in the book of Galatians, where Paul speaks, he doesn't call exactly the tongue, but he's talking about the way we speak to each other as biting and devouring each other.

And that's what we do. Like a prize fighter, like a Sugar Ray Leonard, who was famous for being able to counter-punch and get his way out of the corner, off the ropes, as we would say. What do we do?

Someone hurts our feelings. We punch back. We use our tongue against them instead of our fists to pummel. We take a comment as a slight, and we fire back with both barrels. And what do we end up doing?

We're paying evil for evil. And I think Romans chapter 12 would scream back at us and say, how can this be? How can this be in the church with a brother or sister in the Lord, speaking to another brother or sister, one for whom Christ also died?

There's an inherent structure in these verses. I just want to point it out to you quickly so you can see how important this matter of vengeance is. So important to the apostle Paul that really where there's no hint of Romans, anybody in the Roman church there in the first century actually being a vengeful person.

So important to the general human condition, even we who are in Christ, that Paul just throws this in here. It's not unrelated to all the rest. I don't think it's just a random brain dump or anything like that.

It just sort of jumps out at us, which is why in this paragraph I broke it off of verse 16 last week, and I wanted to handle this one by itself. So I just want to point out to you, it seems to me that if you look at verses 17 and 19 and 21, they all say basically the same thing.

Repay no one evil for evil. Give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves. Leave it to the wrath of God. Verse 21, do not become over, do not be overcome by evil.

Overcome evil with good. What are these three verses saying to us? 17, 19, 21. Stop it. They're saying don't do that. Can it be that simple? Bob Newhart played on TV a psychologist, and a few weeks ago I was showing a YouTube of one of these scenes where he has a woman come to him with all these problems.

She has all these funny reactions to life, and she does these things that are not helpful to herself, and Newhart hears it all, and he's getting paid for this advice. He says, okay, I have two words for you.

Stop it. Don't do that anymore. Vengeance. Stop it. Don't do that. It's unseemly. It's unchristian. It's a failure to be transformed. It's being conformed to this other way of thinking that very early in this chapter, Paul says, don't be conformed that way.

You're no longer that. If you're in Christ, you are this by the power of his spirit who transformed your very soul. You can stop it. So that verse is 17, 19, 21, and then sandwiched between verses 18 and 20 is the alternatives.

If possible, live peaceably with all. To the contrary, verse 20, if you're any hungry, feed him. In other words, do good. We'll talk about these some more as we go on. If we think back to the first or that second half of verse 9, abhor what is evil, is if we have this deep and abiding hatred for what God hates, for evil, then giving it back to someone, no matter how egregious their offering to us was, it won't even enter your transformed mind.

But instead of letting that even come into your thought process and be even possibly something that you would do, rather than that, holding fast, clinging tenaciously to what is good, to what is honorable in the sight of all.

Who is all? All cannot mean the world. Chapter 12, verse 2 makes it clear that their way of thinking cannot be our way of thinking. What they see, what the world sees as honorable is the Leonard-like counterpuncher, the one who makes his opponent pay for his mistakes.

Our definition, the church's definition, Christ's definition couldn't be more different. Honorable in the sight of all means the church where the word of God rules as the standard of all our faith and practice.

So what is it to do what is honorable? To do what the scripture says. What is it to do what is honorable? To don't do what the scripture says don't do. What Newhart said in that skit. Stop it. Think carefully.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think of yourself with sober thinking as we went through some weeks ago. He says give thought to what is good. Repay no one evil for evil.

Don't do that. That's not possible. Give thought to do what is honorable. It has the idea of planning ahead. When the situation comes up, there's going to be a gut reaction to shoot back, to counterpunch.

The time to resolve and to remove the evil response is not when the need arises. It's not when it happens, because when it happens what's going to rise up within us? I'm going to make you pay. I'm going to make you pay.

I'm going to make you see that you insulted me, that you in front of me, that you're wrong, whatever the case is, and we're going to shoot back with what we got. The time to remove the evil response is not then.

Rather than that, assume the need will arise and plan for it now. Imagine opening a missile silo to send a warhead back to a belligerent country, and all the codes are input, and the door is open, and the target is acquired, and then just before the general gives the final order, a messenger bursts through the door and says, general, you have to stop.

He says, why? What's the problem? He says, well, sir, there's no missile in the silo. You see, the time to empty the silo, the time to disarm is now. Because, brethren, if the weapon is there, we'll use it.

Let's admit this. If the weapon is there, that's what we're going to use. We will fail to abhor the evil, and when faced with undeserved evil, even if it's absolutely undeserved, that's what we're going to shoot back with.

This doesn't mean that life is always peaceful like one of those scenes in Disney's Bambi where the cute skunks and the hummingbirds are all getting along, and they're singing and flying together. It isn't always possible to live at peace.

You read Fox's Christian Martyrs of the World and see how peaceful men, peaceful men of God, were treated for nothing more egregious than sticking to their testimony of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I've been reading through that again for the second or third time recently. It reads like a modern rendition of Hebrews 11. These men were chained in stocks. They were ridiculed. Their properties were confiscated.

I just read where one man's family was forced to stand and watch him be burned, and him watch his family as they watched him. Peace is not always possible, but these men did not bring it on themselves, except by what?

Except by their faithfulness to Jesus Christ. And upon the evil being done to them, how did they respond? Did they curse? Did they cry out in a precatory prayer, quote a psalm, Lord do unto them as they have done unto me, or anything like that?

No, they said things that could hearken back to what Jesus said, though they said it many different ways. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. One man, as the flames engulfed him, said, God save the king.

I forget who it was, said, may God open the eyes of the king. Convert him. They died with Christ's word flowing from their lips. All this to say what? Who are the saints? Who is this hall of faith that we have in Hebrews chapter 11?

Men with the spirit like ours. Who are these men who died in the persecutions of the Catholic church against the Protestants? Men with the spirit like ours. All of which is to say we have in history, in the scripture, and after the scripture, examples that people actually did this, or should we say actually did not do this.

They did what? They responded with Christ's word. Did not what? Did not respond with vengeance. How are they able to do this? I think by giving thought to the matter, by planning ahead for the matter, by studying the scripture, and knowing God's word, by reading what Jesus read to you from 1st Samuel 24, where David had his chance for vengeance.

As men reminded him, the Lord said, I will deliver your enemy into your hand. You could do with him whatever seems good to you. What seemed good to David to do? Not to harm the Lord's anointed. Not to take revenge.

Does that mean that he easily tolerated, just said, well I'm gonna hate the sin and love the sinner? No. He showed Saul his error, but he did not take revenge upon Saul. Two very different things. Which one would you say matches to Romans 12?

Clearly, what he actually did. Had he gone with what his men told him to do, which is to take vengeance, to take revenge, to get even, to counterpunch against Saul, he would have been on the wrong side of Romans 12.

May it never be. No, he denied vengeance, and he did what is good. He did what was honorable in the sight of all, which was what? To say, Saul, I have evidence that your hatred towards me is wrong, factually incorrect.

No, you have to plan ahead for this. We need to get our transformed mind set and ready for this, so when and if this happens, oh Lord, may it never occur, then this is what I'm going to do or say. I'm going to follow David's example, or greater yet, I'm going to follow Jesus's example, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

Give thought to it now. Give thought to it now when collecting your thoughts is a lot easier than when the moment's in front of you. I'm one of those that after an intense conversation, even if it's not something that's argumentative with someone, I'm the one who's out, I'm halfway home, and I thunk my forehead with my heel in my hand, I go, oh, I should have said, or I forgot to mention.

Think about it now, so that when this foists evil upon you, you're ready to give back what is honorable, to give back what is good, to show that you abhor what God abhors, what is evil, but love to do what is good.

Give thought to it now. Verse 19 repeats the whole thing, never avenge yourselves, leave it to the wrath of God. This is faith, this is faith to leave it to the wrath of God, to believe that God's wrath will be executed as he sees fit, which of course is infinitely superior to what we see fit.

It is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. What does this tell us? Never. It is forbidden. Transformed minds don't think that way. Christ lovers abhor evil in all its many disguises.

We haven't the ability to respond with evil because evil has been removed from our arsenal, and it leaves us with what? The love of God having been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

What response would that give us when evil comes upon us? Verse 19 tells us to do what is honorable by vacating the evil response. This one makes it a matter of faith, does it not? Leave it to the wrath of God.

It's written, vengeance is mine, I will repay. That comes from Deuteronomy chapter 32, Moses' final prayer, his song to Israel as they go into the promised land. He had to stay behind. It says there, God will avenge himself against those nations that he, that God uses to reprimand them, his people, which eventually did come.

The basic idea is when God restores his people, they are not to turn against the nations that God had previously used to judge them. God sent all kinds of pagan nations against his people as his, as God's instrument of judgment against them.

And upon restoration, what are they being told here? You shall not avenge yourselves. If they went further than I would have them to have gone in bringing my vengeance against you, if they went further, as happened so many times, it is mine to repay, not yours.

The question is, do you believe this? I mean, do you really believe this? It's a harder question than you might think. To leave vengeance to God requires, first of all, that you believe him to be a knowing and a caring God.

Does he know what you've just endured? We might say, well, I need to fire back now. God doesn't know what I'm doing, what happened to me. He doesn't know how much it hurt me. He doesn't know how much I didn't deserve this.

Of course he knows. And this is the first article we have to have here. God does know. Read the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, as Jesus Christ dictates these letters to them. And there's a repeated theme.

What does the Lord Christ say? I know your works. I know your tribulations. I know the persecutions that have come upon you. I know your strengths, and you've got a few. I know your weaknesses, and you have many.

I know, says the Lord Jesus Christ. He does know. Do we believe that he really does know? Or is it just an intellectual assent to a proposition? It must be an article of faith. It must be something that translates into our daily life.

God does know. In the parable that Jesus read, Jesus promises that God will give justice speedily. And that word for justice is often translated as avenge. God will avenge speedily. Again, we need to ask ourselves, do you believe this?

Or is that just an intellectual assent to a proposition? No, it must be an article of faith. It must be something upon which we rest. God does know what we've gone through. God does know whether we deserved it or not.

And God will bring it all to a right end. He will avenge or bring justice speedily. I mean, if waiting on the Lord means anything at all, it has to mean not giving in to our own agendas. It has to mean trusting God to act as we restrain ourselves from acting.

They say baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than adults. I don't want to test this, but what I've read before is that the babies can't regulate the amount of poison. So even though they're very small, they inject much more poison than the more adult rattlesnakes who can regulate it.

And I think that's sort of why we're barred from avenging ourselves. I mean, some of us, most of us, I think very few of us even have that necessary personality to confront evil, to call it what it is when it issues out of others.

And we fire back, and some of us are like those baby snakes striking out wildly and injecting far more poison than the situation could possibly call for. And so being unable to regulate the venom that escapes from our lips, let us follow the apostle's instruction.

Would that not be safer? Simply this, never avenge yourself. Stop it. So what then? Do we ignore the evil done against us? Are we to go along blithely as though nothing has happened, as though it didn't hurt?

Well, thankfully God's will for us is in these matters far more practical than that. He would have us respond when evil is foisted upon us, and here's how. Here's how. Verse 20 starts it out for us. It says, to the contrary.

Verse 19, never avenge yourself. Go up a little bit, repay no one for evil for evil. Verse 20, to the contrary. As opposed to that, on the other hand, do something different. Do something that doesn't conform to this world.

Do something that is a transformed mind. Opposed to what you may want to do, what does he say? Feed the hungry enemy. Give water to the thirsty enemy, this one who has done this against you. That's simple, isn't it?

Isn't that very simple? What is that? That's the good Samaritan all over again. The good Samaritan who saw a Jew who needed help. And we know Samaritans and Jews, they hated each other. Jesus' point was that the one who needs help is the neighbor who God would have us love as we love ourselves.

We do no violence to that parable by extending it. When your enemy is in need, provide it to him as though he were your neighbor in every way that Jesus meant it. By so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

The meaning of burning coals heaped on a head has been debated for a long time. I mean, is it the fire of judgment? I don't think so, because if it were the fire of judgment, if that were the case, then it seems to put us uncomfortably close to judging for God.

Something like, see Lord, I put the coals in place, now you do your part because I have determined this one deserves your judgment. I've even read some commentators who liken this thing to this practice in Egypt of giving somebody a burning ember.

And they kept, it was the fire for the house. It was like having a pilot light going in the furnace of your house, because timber was so rare there. And they would carry it in some device, some type of pot on their head.

And so it was a good thing to do. That's a little bit esoteric. So I'm not quite sure that that's what the apostle means. There's no hint that he's going back to some Egyptian practice like that, but it's sort of interesting.

And it does tie to, it does lead kind of nicely to what I think the apostle Paul is saying, which is by doing good, you're putting something good upon them. And in this case, bringing them, as it were, to shame.

As they see the difference, as they see the contrast between what they did that caused you this harm, this evil that they put upon you, this thing that you might want to revenge or take vengeance for.

Instead of that, seeing the good you do, giving them something good and right, something useful, something that they need, would bring shame, would bring embarrassment. I don't think this is what the picture means, but you could think of something hot on your head making you sweat with embarrassment, with shame, as though you can't look this person in the eye anymore because it's just so embarrassing for you.

Listen, anybody can return evil for evil. Now some of us are better at matching it, some of us are better counter punchers like Leonard was against Hearns, but without judging how good you are at returning evil, whether the evil you return is as intense as what you get, or maybe it's better, without even thinking about that, just think of this, anyone can do that.

Anyone out in the world can fire back with an insult. Anybody could be sarcastic if they receive sarcasm. Any of us are capable of being hurtful when we're hurt. Brethren, anyone can do that. What's special about that?

Some of us are just better at it than others. Just reach down, find that old reserve of pride, it's not too far away, and give back as good as you got. And the trouble is not just that anybody can do that, the trouble is that that comes from a mind that has not been transformed.

Or at least it comes from a mind that for that moment is not heeding the transformation that God has worked in your soul. It's to act as though your mind is still completely conformed to the world. Anybody can be mean.

And anybody, really, can be mean in return. And how mean can we get? Just think of the situation where you fire back with sarcasm or something as awful as what you received and the person just doesn't get it.

Has this ever happened to you? And then you just keep ramping it up and ramping up next thing you know you've got a nuclear war on your hands. No, that's not for us. Not just the Apostle Paul. Jesus Christ himself in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, beginning at verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.

Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away. Is there not congruence between what the Lord Jesus Christ gives in the Sermon on the Mount in that part of Matthew chapter 5?

The charter for the church from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there not congruence between that and what the Apostle Paul is saying to us about vengeance at the end of Romans chapter 12? Romans 12 ends with, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

A reiteration of verse 17, giving thought to what is honorable. Verse 19, leave it to the wrath of God. There's another incident with David that I want to talk about. We're not going to go back there and read.

It would take too long. This idea of people in history, men with a spirit like all of ours, no better, no worse than you or me, who forewent vengeance. There was a time when David and his men protected the flocks and the men and the herds of a man named Nabal, N-A-B-A-L.

And at one point, David's men were hungry, and he sent a messenger to Nabal and he says, you know, we've protected your men, we've protected your flocks, we've protected your ranch, your whole place, and nothing's been missing as long as we've been watching out for you.

And my men are hungry, we just need some food. Do you remember this incident? And Nabal sends back and says, who's David? Now, I'm not going to give you anything. I don't owe you anything. Get away from me.

David is furious. He tells his men to strap on their swords, and he's going to go make Nabal pay for it. Is he not? And he runs across this beautiful, intelligent woman, Nabal's wife, Abigail, who talks him out of this.

Says, no, let not my lord shed innocent blood. She talks him out of it. He unstraps his sword. The men stay there. We know how this story ends. One night, Abigail came to Nabal. Behold, he was holding a feast in his house.

This is first Samuel 25. Like the feast of a king, and Nabal's heart was married within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning. In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

And about 10 days later, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died. That's just one incident in the inspired history of our scripture. As we need to ask ourselves, do we believe this? Do we believe that God supernaturally did, in fact, avenge himself upon Nabal, who so badly treated the Lord's anointed?

He wasn't king yet, but he had already been anointed king. Do you believe that? Do you believe that God does and has acted in history to bring about this vengeance that Paul says, no, you don't do it, because God holds it as his own charge?

Do you believe that? You see, we're easy prey to evil, especially this kind of evil, giving back, counterpunching, being vengeful. Overcoming, verse 21, can also mean to be conquered. So don't be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

I wonder if we realize how low the bar actually is here. You know, we think of evil that will bring about God's vengeance as the supposedly big stuff. I mean, murder, and bribery, and corruption, and embezzlement, and those sorts of things.

And those are all certainly evil, but it's more subtle than that. I think the bar is much lower than that. The whole context of Romans 12 is interpersonal relationships. As I said last week, we do a disservice to the point here if we draw these boundaries and say, okay, this is for the church, and this is for the one who's in the world.