Enemy Love - [Matthew 5:43-47]

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Some time ago my wife and children and I went to Poland and it reminded me of September 1st, 1939.
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Germany begins to bomb Poland. Air attack after air attack after air attack.
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Soon the armed troops on ground followed. By September 17th, after a secret concord with the
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Soviet Union, Poland ceased to be a country. Soviets got part of the country, the
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Germans got the other part of the country, and beginning in no time the Nazi occupation was in full speed ahead mode.
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Germans began to be everywhere, crowding all the streets and all the quarters. Curfew, 10 p .m.
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to 5 .30 a .m. A chief physician said this, who was
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Polish, I met a woman, she arrived from Chelmno. For some time
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I'd been receiving alarming information about the execution of mentally ill patients of the psychiatric ward at the hospital.
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It's so hard to believe anything as terrible as this could happen in our country. Soon the liquidation of the
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Jews began. One man said from early morning until late at night we witnessed indescribable events.
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SS soldiers and blue police ran through the city looking for Jews. The Jews were taken from their houses, barns, cellars, attics, and other hiding places.
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Pistol and gunshots were heard throughout the entire day. It made no difference if the victims were men, women, or small children.
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Poles began to be forced to dig the graves in Jewish cemeteries. After everything was said and done, 21 % of the
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Polish population died between 1939 and 1945. And 98 % of those who died weren't even in the army, they were civilians.
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1 ,600 ,000 Poles were deported, including 400 ,000 Jews. 700 ,000
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Poles were sent to Germany for forced labor. Many died there. See, after all,
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Adolf Hitler had to have some living room. He had to have some space for the Germans, and Poland was considered the living room.
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Operation Tannenberg in September and October of 1939 killed 20 ,000 of the most prominent
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Polish citizens. Later, 61 ,000 more Polish activists, actors, officers, pastors were shot.
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It was time to just destroy the culture of Poland. So you might as well start in the schools as well.
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Himmler wrote this memorandum. The sole goal of the schooling is to teach the children of Poland simple arithmetic.
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Nothing above the number 500. Writing one's name and the doctrine that is divine law to obey the
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Germans. Besides that, I don't think reading is desirable.
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Signs were placed up. Entrance is forbidden to the Poles, Jews, and dogs. They began to kidnap children for all kinds of tests.
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The ones that looked Aryan were taken to schools, given
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German names, forbidden to speak Polish, and re -educated by the Nazis. Children were decided if they were racially valuable or not.
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If you were Jesus, and you had to give advice to the Poles in 1939 through 1945 about the topic of how do we think about our occupiers, in what way do we address them, in what way should we think of them, you would say, if you're like me, you would talk about these people in the exact opposite way that Jesus did.
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What did Jesus say about enemies? What did He think about enemies? Certainly, this was an injustice.
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Certainly, this was wrong. But Jesus told people to what?
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Their enemies. To love their enemies. I saw a hand go up right there. That's good. You say, yeah, but why this kind of weird introduction, this kind of horrible introduction?
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Well, friends, if you read in Matthew chapter 5, love your enemies, and you do not consider that this command was given by Jesus to people who were occupied by the
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Romans, who killed over the years one million Jews, you'll not understand the passage. So let's turn our
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Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We must not forget that if we rewind 1 ,900 years before the
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SS and German invasion, that the Jewish people were occupied. There were soldiers walking around.
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There was injustice. There was murder. If you say love your enemies, well, you might think of your neighbor.
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You might think of your spouse. You might think of your ex -spouse. You might think of that person at work who is your enemy.
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But if you said love your neighbor in Palestine during the time of Jesus, the first thing that would come to your mind was the
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Roman occupiers. Antiochus IV Epiphanes decreed that Jewish religious rights should be banned.
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The Maccabeans revolted. 150 years later, Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the
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Great, came in, 63 B .C. Then before you know it, Herod the
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Great was appointed king of the Jews by the Roman Senate. Herodian family were half -Jews, and they were brutal and they were ruthless, so much so that Herod's son,
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Archelaus, was replaced because he was too brutal, and they had to replace him with someone who was kinder and nicer named
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Pontius Pilate. Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod, kills
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John the Baptist by beheading him. Antipas, Herod, is mocking
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Jesus. And in the midst of all this, you can imagine the desire and the yearning that the
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Jews had for a political king who would deliver them. Someone to come along and say, you know what?
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This occupation, this oppression, this injustice needs to be taken care of.
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And Jesus comes to the Sermon on the Mount, and He says these words that are staggering and amazing. And I would never say this, love your enemies.
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I'm surprised that He would say that. Yet we'll learn today from the greatest preacher who ever lived, why
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He said it and what we should do about it. Now, it's been several months, several long months, maybe a year that we've been in Matthew 5, and I'm bound and determined to be in Matthew 5 now.
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I had someone say at the door as they walked out last week, Matthew 5. We're back to Matthew 5.
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We have a great set of chapters on the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember just to give us a little context where we are?
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Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, Jesus sees the crowd. He went up on the mountain.
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Well, what mountain was that? It doesn't matter. It's called the mountain because that's the mountain Jesus was on. He's been to mountains for temptations.
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He's been to mountains for transfigurations. He's been to mountains for the Great Commission. But here early in the ministry, this was the mountain, the first mountain preaching experience.
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His disciples came to him after he sat down. He opened his mouth and began to teach them saying.
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And here we have the New Testament Mount Sinai as Jesus the King gives his law for his disciples.
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And he's going to be giving his law not just for a nation that would follow God, but regenerate people who believe in God.
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And if you look at the text, verse 2, he opened his mouth. Do you have to open your mouth to speak?
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Of course, but this is language that it's important. And then Jesus gives the
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Beatitudes, verses 3 through 12. He talks about salt and light in verses 13, 14, 15, and 16.
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And then he begins to describe what it would be like to live in his kingdom. What would be the norm for life under Christ Jesus?
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And he gives six antithetical statements. And you'll see the relationship between these as you'll look down at verse 21 for the first one.
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Six times he'll say something to the effect, you have heard it said, but I say to you. Here's what's been taught, but I'm now the king and here's what you should do.
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And he begins to say this because he's dealing with an environment of Jews, Pharisees, and scribes that say, you know, if it's external, you're okay.
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Forget internal, forget motives, forget your heart worship. As long as you do the externals right, everything's copacetic.
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And really the key to unlock this whole section is found in verse 20 of chapter 5. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, it's got to be internal, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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And Jesus gives now these six antithetical statements with a focus really shifting off the law and the focus shifting onto the person himself.
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As we move from Moses' instruction to Jesus himself, the supreme law giver, all of this driving people to a savior.
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Do you see the first antithetical black and white statement? It's about anger and murder. Do you remember?
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Verse 21, you have heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.
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But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court and whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court and whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell.
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He gives another one of these in verse 27 through 30. You have heard it said you should not commit adultery, but I say to you, now see how it's driving to the internal, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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Closely related in verse 31 and 32 for the third antithesis, we see divorce and remarriage.
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It was said whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
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Then he moves to the fourth antithesis. We have oaths and truths delivered found in verses 33 to 37.
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But I say to you, verse 34, make no oath at all either by heaven for it is a throne of God or by earth for it is a footstool of his feet.
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So Jesus is again after internal motive righteousness. And then we come now to number six, the sixth antithesis, the one we'll look at today, loving your neighbor found in verses 43 through 47.
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Let me read these things to you in verses 43 to 47. And I want you to remember the
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Roman occupation as we hear these words from Jesus, the new lawgiver at the new
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Sinai, as it were on the mountain. You have heard it, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
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If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the
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Gentiles do the same? That is an amazing passage to me, to love your enemies.
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You can imagine some of the Jews are thinking, well, in Deuteronomy it says you shall not seek your enemies' peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.
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And in my mind, if I was told by Jesus to love my enemies, I began to come up with all these kind of ideas about why
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I don't have to or how it's different in this circumstance. If you don't have enemies now, you probably will.
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If you're at this church long enough, you'll probably attract enemies. I think we somehow may be a church that has more enemies than other churches when you stand up for truth.
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How do we treat enemies? Who are your enemies? Are Muslims your enemies?
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Are abortion doctors your enemies? Are Democrats your enemies? Maybe Republicans, are they your enemies?
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Is Hillary Clinton your enemy? Somebody just said, yeah.
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There goes our tax exemption. How about terrorists?
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How about that person at work who is conniving and backstabbing and takes your promotion? How about that ex -spouse of yours?
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How about somebody in a church split? What do we do with our enemies? Without these words from Jesus, we would never do these things on our own.
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We just don't all of a sudden say, wow, I think I'll just love them. How do we love the unlovely?
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How do we serve the unservable? After all, do you realize what they've done?
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And Jesus just comes on the scene and just gives these words. And they're just like a wall of sound.
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I can just imagine a nuclear bomb and then the concussion, the wave of air that flows out of that, and you're 40 miles away.
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The bomb lands on some kind of test site in the middle of New Mexico. And all of a sudden you're 40 miles away, and moments later you can just feel that thing go, and your hair just flies back or what's left of it.
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I mean, you just can feel that. That's what these words are. If these words are not nuclear to you, then you don't understand
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Roman occupation, where Jesus is saying you should love your enemies, and everybody immediately thought that centurion right over there, that same centurion that can walk up to you and say, by the way,
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I have a sword, and I want your cloak, and I want your money, and I want everything about you. And I believe these verses here speak to us today because we might not have the government oppressors.
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We might not have occupiers here. But we have enemies in our lives, and we need to know how to treat these enemies in order that we might honor the
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Lord. How to treat enemies. Let me give you six ways to treat enemies. We'll get these done this week or next week.
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Six ways to treat your enemies. Six things to do so you'll know how to act biblical when it comes to enemies.
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They might be gospel enemies. They might be personal enemies. It's a very general term, loving your enemies.
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Number one, Jesus Christ the King said you must love your enemies no matter what anybody else says.
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He said you must love your enemies. Let's look at the text. I just read it earlier, verse 43.
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You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. By the way, in my text, hate your enemy is not capital.
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Not in capitals. Why is that? When you see something in many study Bibles with capital letters, it's showing what?
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It's indicative of Old Testament quote. Certainly in Leviticus 19, you're to love your neighbors, but the hate your enemy part, that was added.
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That was added by the Pharisees and the scribes and the hypocrites. It was added by the twins of misinformation, the
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Pharisees and the scribes. They're the ones who said hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies.
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Yeah, but I don't like them. Does the text say like your enemies? But I don't have romantic feelings for my enemies.
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Well, I don't think the text says anything about that, does it? How about does the text say have warm fuzzies for your enemies?
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No. You know what, God? I know I'm supposed to love them, but I'll wait for an open door to do it.
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Doesn't say that. God, if you'll just tell me in a still, small voice, I'll begin to do that.
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God, if you'll teach me the Greek word for love, I think I can begin to do that.
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You know, you have to understand things before you do them. So if you teach me that it's agape, then
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I might want to do it. Lord, I know there's lots of options, with love being one of those, and so maybe
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I can get the other ones done. It just sounds strange, doesn't it? It is our constitutional right to hate people in this world.
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Jesus says love your enemies. The representatives of Judaism basically said, when
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Leviticus 19 says love your neighbors, it said love Jews. And when it comes to anybody who's not a
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Jew, pagan, Gentile, non -monotheistic person, then we can hate them and we can despise them.
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But see, Jesus now, when you think of external, internal, the Pharisees and the scribes were good at saying external, watch out how you tithe, be careful of the
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Sabbath day. This is moving to the internal where it must be done from the heart.
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Matthew 23, Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees who would say, hate your enemies. So you too outwardly,
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Pharisees and scribes, appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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You say, Jesus, why so harsh? Pharisees weren't that bad. Well, the moment you start playing with the
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Bible and the authorial intent of God, you're in big trouble.
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The religious leaders blatantly, calculatingly, thought they were over God's word and they were keepers of God's word, and then they began to distort
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God's word. And Jesus said, love your enemies. Listen to what William Hendrickson said.
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When Jesus said, I tell you, love your enemies, he must have startled his audience, for he was saying something that probably never before had been said so succinctly, positively, and forcefully.
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Show your love to your enemies. Don't hate them. The word for hate is detest.
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He said, you're different, and in my kingdom we act differently. Everybody else says, hate your enemies. You're in my kingdom, you love your enemies.
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Anyone, including the Jews, the Romans, anyone. Persecutors. Do you remember back in Matthew 5, verse 11 and 12?
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Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you. Maybe your friends do this, but it sounds more like enemies to me.
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And falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. We're to love those kind of people.
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And it has nothing to do with feelings. C .S. Lewis, I think, had it right. Quote, mere
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Christianity. The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste your time bothering whether you love your neighbor.
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Act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of life's great secrets.
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When you are behaving as if you love someone, you will presently come to love him.
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If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.
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The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or likings and the
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Christian has only charity. The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he likes them.
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The Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on, including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.
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I think that's what Jesus is saying. This is the love of purpose, the love of intelligence, the love of giving.
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For God so loved the world, what did he do? He gave. The love of giving.
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The love of treating people like we would like to be treated. A love that 1 Corinthians 13 says is always patient and kind and never proud, never self -seeking.
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Do you love your enemies? When you see people on TV and you think they're a political enemy, what's your first response?
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I think you probably have many responses. Sometimes mine is, I wish they had muzzles that would fit on a human face.
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I have to admit that I think that sometimes. But that is not something from the spirit.
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That is something from the flesh, loving your enemies.
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Well, let's talk about something else here. Number two, this builds on it. Maybe it's part of love. How do you treat your enemies?
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Number one, you must love them. Number two, you must pray for your enemies. Verse 44, and pray for those who persecute you.
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You think, all right, I get to finally pray in Precatory Psalms. It says right there,
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God rain down fire and brimstone on their head. Finally, I have a verse in the
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Bible. Pray for your enemies. God, get them. And you know what?
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If you have to start there, start there. Basically, what
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Jesus is doing, I think, is he's showing how love can manifest itself. Here's what love does.
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Bonhoeffer, a pastor in Germany, who was killed because he was trying to protect
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Germany, other Christians. He said, praying for your enemies, this is the supreme command.
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He said, through the medium of prayer, we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.
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And the tense here is an ongoing thing. This is just not one of those, you know, said a quick prayer, they hurt me. God, don't give them what they deserve.
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Ongoing entreaty. Let's flip over to Luke, and I want to show you that in every one of these cases, love and pray.
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This is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus loved his enemies. Well, we can follow and be like Christ and love our enemies.
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So, too, did Jesus pray for his enemies? I think he did. Luke chapter 23, verses 33 and following.
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We not only have Jesus' words of pray for your enemies, but we also have his example.
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Luke 23, verse 33, just jumping in, when they came to the place called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.
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But Jesus was saying, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they were doing.
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And in the very same verse, and they cast lots, dividing up his garments among themselves.
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And I think some of the people that Jesus was praying for found in verse 35, and the people stood by looking on, and even the rulers were staring at him saying,
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He saved others, let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one.
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Do you think Jesus prayed for these men in verse 36? The soldiers also mocked him, coming up to him, offering him sour wine and saying,
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If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. Now, there was also an inscription above him, this is the king of the
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Jews. Do you think he prayed for any of these criminals by him? One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, saying,
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Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. Jesus prayed for his enemies.
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I think he taught us to pray for his enemies as he was on the cross, praying for his enemies. Stephen learned the lesson in Acts chapter 7, true or false,
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Stephen prayed for his enemies as he was getting killed. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, saying,
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Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice,
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Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
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You say, I can't do this on my own, it doesn't come naturally. Well, that's why we need self -control that comes only from the
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Spirit. If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, and the list goes on.
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.
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And if you have those things, you don't need a law. One of the best things you can do if you have an enemy is to pray for them.
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And my prayer is usually for my enemies. If I'm in the flesh, it's get them. And if I'm walking in the
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Spirit, it's God, grant them mercy. God, give them mercy.
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You say, well, I can't really pray for those people who have hurt me. One of the best things you can do if you're that kind of person is to think about your salvation.
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How many times has God forgiven us as Christians? So how many times should we forgive others?
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Seven times or maybe 70 times seven? You can read
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Matthew 18 and realize that we have a large debt that Christ has paid.
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If you have an enemy that's not saved, what would be the best prayer that you could pray for them? Lord, help them get their life all right and have them be good neighbors and have them pay their taxes on time and help them to vote for Republicans only and everything's fine and then they go to hell.
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That's not right. If you have an enemy, you pray this way. God, you demonstrated your love for me while I was yet a what?
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A sinner. And I was an enemy. And you love me. And so therefore, even though they don't deserve it,
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I'm going to ask, Lord, that you would give them what they don't deserve. See, here's what we do in America and in the world.
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We think that the value of somebody is in the price of the object. Or in other words, we think they don't deserve it.
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Instead of thinking about how great God is and how he can show his kindness and his mercy and his love towards those people that don't deserve it.
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So, God, this person is hurting me. You're probably teaching me something in the middle of it, but now
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I'm going to cry out like Jesus and say, forgive them. It's the good way to pray.
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God, grant them mercy. If they're saved people who are your enemies, what would be a good way to pray?
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What would you say to the Lord about them? Lord, I know you're sovereign over all, but in this particular case,
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I think you might have forgotten a few things. Can you imagine that if you have enemies, who gave you those enemies, as it were, from the direct ordained hand of God?
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Could he have said, no, I won't let that person do that to you. I'll protect you. I'll insulate you. I'll move you.
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I'll have that enemy die. I'll have that enemy be on the other side of the world. I'll have that enemy never born. But God has allowed, ordained, permitted, decreed you to have an enemy, yes?
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And you say, God, my... I think it's fine to be honest with the Lord and say, God, in my heart, there does not ring a melody.
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And if there rings a melody in my heart, it is I hate that person. And so,
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Lord, you're going to have to change me. You have shown me that in this particular case, I don't measure up to you and your standards.
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I'm not like your son in this, but I want to be. Lord, increase my what?
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Faith. When you're praying for your enemies, you start thinking more about yourself, and you think, the problem isn't really with my enemy.
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The problem is with me. Lord, help me. Change me. A new commandment
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I give to you, Jesus said, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
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One man said, this section here about praying for enemies, quote, is the most powerful teaching in Scripture about the meaning of love.
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And we throw the word around like, I love the patriots. I hope they're either blown out or blowing people out by 6 o 'clock tonight so you can come back and hear about the incomprehensibility of God.
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Well, what else do we do for our enemies? I believe there's more in Scripture. I believe that there's an apostle that looked at these verses and said, let me give you a little exposition of these verses.
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Let me flesh this out a little bit. Let's turn to Romans chapter 12. A whole section on how to treat your enemies that I think perfectly falls under this teaching in Matthew chapter 5.
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Obviously, Paul, the apostle, had some special teachings from Jesus Christ, private teachings of Christ, and I'm sure
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Jesus taught him what to do. The apostle would certainly have many enemies. And so we want to continue and look at how to treat our enemies.
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Number one, love your enemies. Number two, pray for your enemies. Number three, found in Romans chapter 12, verse 17, you must never pay back evil.
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What does love do? I mean, how do we treat our enemies? We love them, we pray for them, and we never try to pay them back with evil.
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Verse 17 of Romans 12. Verse 11 chapters have talked about God's great righteousness, how we had no righteousness, how
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God supplied our righteousness for us, righteousness for us through Christ. And here it says in verse 17, never pay back evil for evil to anyone.
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Respect what is right in the sight of all men. Do you see any loopholes there? Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.
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And I think God knows within the fall, certainly, we want to do that. We want exact revenge.
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We want to get them back. You can see it in kids. You can see it in yourself. It's like a reflex built in.
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The doctor takes a little mallet and hits your knee and out you go. And if he hits you too hard, you want to kick him right in the jaw.
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So he realizes, don't do that to me because I'm special. There's a Scotland motto, the
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Royal Arms of Scotland motto. I render evil for evil to every man.
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It's not what Jesus said through his apostle Paul here. Never pay back evil. You're going to want to, but don't.
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If you think eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth apply to you personally, then you've misunderstood that. That is something that the government does.
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That is something that the nation does. But for you, you cannot somehow pay back evil for evil.
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If someone cuts your eye out, then you have to let the state stand up for you. Never do that.
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Never pay back evil. Very, very difficult. And interestingly, look what the text says there in verse 17.
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Kind of a bad translation of the New American Standard. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.
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It's kind of odd. I think the Net Bible translates it well. Consider what is good before all people.
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The word there to consider or to respect means this. To think about something ahead of time.
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Why would he say that? Why would he say have a little predetermined plan, a decree, something that ahead of time you mull over, you ponder, you think about, you just kind of wonder about what you're going to do.
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Because what's going to happen? Somebody does something against you. They're an enemy. They do something evil. And if you aren't thinking, you're going to lash back involuntarily.
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So what God is saying here through Paul is, you think to yourself that if somebody ever gets me, I have to just bite my lip because I'm going to want to lash back.
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So think ahead of time. Get your plan of action now. Have it a fixed principle and purpose in your mind so you'll know
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I can't go after them. These words are riveted to my mind. Passion comes.
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You want to get back. Here we think ahead of time. We think beforehand. We take care, and we do this in the sight of all men.
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1 Thessalonians 5 says, See to it that no one renders to anyone evil for evil.
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1 Corinthians 6, Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 1
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Peter 3, Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but blessing with blessing.
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Why is this all over Scripture? Because we deal with these things. 1 Corinthians 4,
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When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure it. When we are slandered, we answer kindly.
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Paul says, Just think ahead of time because this is going to come up, and you are not to take your personal revenge. You cannot act like the government or the civil magistrate and say,
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You know what? I am the law, and I am Rambo. The sequel. I am not promoting any movie.
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Just a good illustration. Personal revenge is not encouraged by God.
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Retaliation is not holy. Jesus said in Luke 6 in the
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Sermon on the Plain, But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the
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Most High. For God is kind to the unthankful and evil. Somebody gets you, you get them back, and what does the world say?
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What do all those men say in Romans? They say, Christians are just like everyone else.
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They are no different than we are. I love the Proverbs. Let love and faithfulness never leave you.
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Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and of men.
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If you want somebody to get back at them, then the next chapter, chapter 13, the government is going to do that and they are not going to wield the sword for nothing.
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If you've got a to -do list in your life, which includes enemies, get them back off that list, is what
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Paul is saying. Number four, how do we treat our enemies? We love them, we pray for them, we never pay back evil to them.
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Number four, we instigate peace with them. We are the initiators. You must be the instigator of peace.
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Verse 18, uh -oh, now we've come to meddling. Verse 18, if possible.
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Condition one, so far as it depends on you. Condition two, be at peace with all men.
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We can't retaliate. There's no option for that. If possible, there are times that you can't have peace.
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Why? Because peace is a two -way street. And this person wants to get a false peace because they want to say, you know what,
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I'll ignore truth for the sake of some false peace. And James 3 says, wisdom from above is first what?
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It's not necessarily peaceful. It's truthful first.
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It's above all pure, then peace -loving. Some people say, well, we want to have a false peace because it's not dealt with biblically.
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Well, that would be one of the conditions. We couldn't do that, if possible. So far as it depends on you. Peace is not just a conditional, but it's a two -way street.
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But we're the ones who are supposed to initiate. You know, if you ever see couples who fight or people that have a relationship at work or other places, and there's friction, the one that wants to be godly, the one that wants to show maturity, is the first one that will say, you know what,
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I need to go to try to make this right. That's a good thing. That's a mature thing, to go. You can't say, well, you know,
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I'm going to wait for the unbeliever to do the right thing. I'm just going to camp, set up, and you know what, when they take a step, then
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I'll take a step. Here it says we're to be the instigator, the initiator. Be at peace with all men.
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Do you remember back in chapter 5 of Matthew? Blessed are the, what kind of makers? Peacemakers.
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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Show me someone that doesn't like to instigate peace, and I'll show you someone that A, is either not a
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Christian, or B, isn't acting like one. If possible. It's not always possible.
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But if it's possible, our part is peace. After all, we serve a
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God of peace, don't we? Jesus came preaching peace. Hebrews 12 says, make every effort to live in peace with everybody.
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We can't be the ones who said, well, I'm blaming them. If we say, we'll go to them, we'll try to have biblical restoration, and they say, no, we don't want that, we
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A, don't want restoration, or B, we don't want biblical restoration, then we can't do anything about it. Biblical restoration is mandatory.
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Any loose ends for us to tie up, we're the ones who need to go. Number five.
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Building, verse 19. How do we treat our enemies? We love them, we pray for them, we don't want to pay back evil for evil, we want to be the instigator of peace.
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Number five. If you want to love like Jesus said to love your enemies, you must, number five, never take your own revenge, but leave room for God's wrath.
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I'm just trying to let the text speak, I didn't have a bunch of alliteration here. Never take your own revenge, but leave room for God's wrath.
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Verse 19. Never take your own revenge, beloved. Interesting how he throws that in.
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Pastorally, kindly, lovingly. Never take your own revenge, beloved. How could you do that, beloved?
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But leave room for the wrath of God. Literally, leave room for the wrath.
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For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the
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Lord. Is God going to make all wrongs right someday?
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Will justice be perfectly meted out? Of course. We don't have to be the one making it all right.
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There is a Holy Spirit, there is a triune God. David said in 2 Samuel 22, it is
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God who avenges me. God allowed David two times to come up and almost kill
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Saul, and what did he do? He said, you know what? I refuse to kill Saul. Great principle right here.
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I love Nahum 1 .2. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious.
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The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies. You say, well, whatever
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God does, I do. Really? Here God does something, we are not to do it.
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God repays with vengeance, we don't. Deuteronomy 32, it's
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God's prerogative. Vengeance is mine and recompense. Their foot shall slip in due time.
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Paul, just with kind words, beloved, don't do that. God will take care of the situation.
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God won't overjudge, God won't underjudge, God won't be too severe, God won't be too lenient,
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God won't somehow forget or blink or not know all the circumstances. You do the right thing. You love them, you pray for them, you're initiator of peace.
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You don't want to try to pay back, leave room for God. Let Him get them. We are not to exact justice.
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We are with an imperative, give place for wrath. True or false, we are to play
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God. False, that's what Paul's saying. We are not to play God. One man said, in view of the fact that our
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Lord Jesus Christ, by His vicarious suffering, removed God's wrath from us, should we not be happy to refrain from taking revenge?
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Answer, of course. Dearly beloved, Paul says, don't do that.
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Jesus on the cross is not trying to exact revenge. He is trusting Himself to the faithful creator to do what is right.
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1 Peter 2, verse 23. And by the way, if you ever have a little thought like I have, you know what, if I don't get revenge, how could my revenge even add up to God's?
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They're really going to get it. God, I know you're going to get them worse than I could get them, so that makes it easy for me to say,
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God, you take care of them. I don't know if you think that way by some of your smiles. You must agree.
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God, you know, I don't have to get them back, because I can only get them back temporally, but you can get them back eternally. I truly believe with all my heart that if you could ever see your worst enemies, our enemy, in the bowels of hell, you would cry out for his or her mercy.
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And now we get to say, Lord, I deserve punishment. I deserve your vengeance.
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It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Our God is a consuming fire, and Christ stood in front of me like an asbestos protector of me, and he bore all that wrath of God, and therefore, how could
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I not ask for this other person to receive your mercy? Number six, how do you treat your enemies?
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Love them, pray for them, don't pay back. Be the peace bringer. Don't take your revenge.
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Know that God will make everything all right. Number six, serve your enemy's anthrax.
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Number six, you must serve your enemy's anthrax. Let's close in prayer. All right, anthrax, what do you mean anthrax?
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Let's find out. Verse 20, notice the capitals? But if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
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If he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.
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Whoo! Finally, hot, white, orange coals.
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It's one thing to get burned by fire, but the hot coals. Is that what it's saying?
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Well, before we get there, first it says, if your enemy's hungry, feed him. By the way, that's, for you Greek students, a present imperative all the time, command.
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We're bound to do good to our enemies. If he's thirsty, hard to get food and water back in those days.
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Give him something to drink. Do good things to him. And if you do, you're going to heap burning coals upon his head.
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Well, that's interesting. The word coal there is an interesting, fantastic word.
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It's anthraxus. It's where we get the word anthrax. You know, if you have anthrax, you will feel like you're hot, burning coals on the inside of your body.
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And here he says, if you do the right thing, you're going to heap burning coals on his head. Is that some kind of more punishment?
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You're going to make him kind of have more self -inflicted torment? No. Basically what this talks about is if you do the right thing, the punishment, the hot coals for this person will be his own conscience.
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He's going to be ashamed of himself for treating you the way he did, or she did.
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By dealing with our enemies this way, the Scriptures say we heap burning coals on their head. It has nothing to do with revenge.
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That's just been negated earlier. The coals refer to the guilt and condemnation of a stricken conscience, which our good deeds may produce in the sinner's heart.
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Same word for coals is the charcoal fire in John 18, 18, where the slaves and officers were standing there having made a charcoal fire, for it was cold and they were warming themselves.
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With Jesus too in the resurrection, John 21, 9, and so when they got out on the land, they saw an anthrax fire already laid out and fish placed on it and bread.
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As a person who gets anthrax today is hot and burning on the inside, so too when you do good to those who persecute you, the hotness, the charcoal coal gets their conscience.
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Heaping coals of fire on their conscience. I think about Elisha did that, 2
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Kings, listen. So it was when they had come to Samaria that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see.
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And the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and there they were inside Samaria. Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, my father, shall
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I kill them? Shall I kill them? But he answered, you shall not kill them. Why would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow?
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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 they drank.
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He sent them away and they went their way to their master. So the bands of the Syrian raiders came no more into the lands of Israel.
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The shame, the remorse in their conscience, the conviction that they've done evil, maybe even the apprehension that somehow they've sinned against God, that's what you want them to feel.
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We do not fight fire with fire. We fight fire with the figurative fire of doing good so that they might just be convicted on the inside.
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Figurative fire of shame. One of the best things you can do, I think, regarding this, is if you have an enemy, send them a gift.
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One of the best things you can do. Write a little note, praying for you,
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God bless you. You don't have to write, I don't feel any love for you. I'm not led by the
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Spirit to do it. You don't have to do any of that. It was Kim's idea once. We had a bad situation and so we just gave somebody a gift.
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We gave somebody a gift in front of a lot of other people. We just thought, you know what? We can't pay back.
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We want to pay back, but we want to be godly. I mean, what's worse than having an enemy? Being chastened by God and still having the enemy.
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I might as well obey God, have God's blessings, and then have an enemy versus have an enemy and having the discipline of God.
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And so just buy somebody a gift. Make it expensive. I mean, you don't have to bust the bank or anything.
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But you want to drown that evil. You want to drown that and say, you know what?
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I'm going to do something good, even though I don't want to. Put it in the mail, send it away, and you can just sleep well.
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Kind of in summary, here's what Paul says in Romans 12, verse 21. Summarizing all this, he says,
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Do not be overcome by evil. Don't throw gas on the fire, but overcome evil with good.
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Don't be overwhelmed by evil. Overwhelm the evil. And it's an imperative.
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And I love these words. Don't be Nike'd by evil, but Nike evil with good.
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You know what Nike shoes are? What's Nike mean? We are super overcomers in Romans chapter 8.
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We're super Nikes. And so when you have evil, you Nike the evil. Now that doesn't sound right.
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Overcome evil. Nike. Conquer. Don't be conquered by the evil. You be the conqueror.
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Subdue our vanquished evil by good. Barnes said,
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This is the noble and grand sentiment of the Christian religion. Nothing like this is to be found in the pagan classics.
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And nothing like it ever existed among pagan nations. Christianity alone has brought forth this lovely and mighty principle.
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The idea of overcoming evil with good never occurred to people until the gospel was preached. On this principle,
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God shows us kindness. On this principle, the Savior came and bled and died. And on this principle, all
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Christians should act in treating their enemies. And Paul said, do it with determined persistence.
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Jesus has a kingdom. He has kingdom citizens. They've been changed from the inside so they're able to obey.
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They have a desire to obey. They have a great example of Christ Jesus to obey. And he says, do you want to rock the world for Jesus?
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Go to Mozambique. Great idea. How about if you can't go to Mozambique? How about you want to rock the world upside down, teach them something they could never understand in a million trillion years, yet God will allow you to live it out in front of them, overcoming evil with good.
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May this week be a good week loving your enemies. Let's pray. Lord, these are hard words.
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Lord, these are difficult words. And yet sometimes, Lord, you don't even explain the rationale.
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But in this particular case, you do. You loved your enemies, and so therefore we are to love our enemies.
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Christ loved his enemies, and therefore, Lord, we are to love our enemies. Lord, I would pray that this would be a great week of restoration.
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Spouses, children, ex -spouses, church members, people at work, and every other situation.
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I pray there'd be good reconciliation, and we might be the ones who would go. And, Lord, may we do it not even for reconciliation as the goal, but for the glory of God, for your great glory, that we might be reconciled to other people so everyone would know.
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Only you could do that. And, Father, we would even surprise ourselves because we wouldn't want to do it, we wouldn't like to do it.
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Yet, Lord, when truth does not need to be compromised, may there be reconciliation in this church, in the places we work, and in the homes.