Should Christians Indulge in Revenge Stories?

In a lot of ways, it seems like the Bible is a revenge story in a certain way, in a certain aspect. Obviously, a lot of the Bible is God showing his mercy on people who don't deserve mercy inherently.

He shows favor and love towards people who don't deserve it. But then there are still people in the Bible who are judged, who are destroyed, who there are the saints are even asking God to avenge them in Revelation and they're asking God how long do we have to wait before you do it, essentially.

And so, there's this common acknowledgment in the Bible that vengeance is God's and God's alone. So then the question is, why is it that God is allowed to take vengeance but we are not?

And any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our head. They will hear his words, they will not act upon him and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bash where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrigg and Pastor Tim Mullett and today we'll answer the age old question, should Christians indulge in revenge stories?

Now Tim, as we kick this episode off, what Bible verse do you have related to revenge stories?

So, Amos 515, hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. So, there you go.

Okay, so how does that relate to the topic of revenge?

Revenge stories. I mean, so the idea though is just to say that God over and over again, this is just one verse, there's tons of verses like this where God calls us to hate that which is evil and to love that which is good.

And this is an example of that. But yeah, I think when you think about entertainment, there should be something about the Christian that is recoiled, that recoils essentially at iniquity, that recoils at evil.

And so, there's a lot of shows that are built upon premises that are contrary to everything that we believe in as Christians. And so, then the thought of a Christian sitting there and marinating in the sin and kind of glorying in the sin, right?

That's problematic for sure.

Yeah, you know, I used to really love, maybe this is an example of what you're talking about, I used to really love the John Wick movies. And, you know, I mean, I think they've made, what, probably, I think four of them and they're making a fifth one now because it just keeps making so much money.

And, I mean, they're choreographed really well and all the fights are really entertaining. But I remember at some point, I remember I sat down and I watched the first movie again. And I remember thinking to myself, did he really do all this because they killed his dog?

And I understand it's a little, you know, the story's a little bit deeper than that, just in the sense that the dog is sort of the last remnant he has of his deceased wife. And so he loves the dog, not because he's necessarily invested in the dog in and of itself, but rather because the dog represents, you know, his wife who's gone now.

And so I understand it's not just that they killed his dog, but when you just sit back and you think about it for a second, I mean, I looked it up after I started thinking about this because I was like, how many people does this guy kill?

And all of these movies and it's literally hundreds of people. He kills hundreds of people and it all starts because some, you know, I think Italian mobsters or Russian mobsters or something killed his dog.

And I just remember sitting down and thinking about that. I was like, I don't know if I like this movie as much anymore. There's something about it that doesn't feel right to me. Yes, it's entertaining.

But then I don't know. There seems to be something wrong about what is happening here. And and but but the thing is, those movies are so popular. I mean, at this point, it has to be John Wick is one of the most popular action movie series of all time.

It has to be. They're so successful. So the world loves those things. But then I was finding myself more and more troubled by them overall, I think probably because of what you're saying, like, hey, you're sitting there and you're thinking about it's like, man, it's basically just this guy going around and and killing a bunch of people to get back at all of them.

And there's definitely a lesson to be learned in that movie that they're trying to portray that maybe redeems it a little bit. But I don't know. It's hard for me now. I feel like I feel like the more I've thought about it, the more I've had those movies ruined for me.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think so. The reaction most people have in this kind of conversation, if you're to say something along these lines is, I mean, you really do have a lot of people who are very addicted to entertainment and then they they love entertainment way more than they should.

Right. So if you think about Romans one in the language of Romans one, like man is condemned not only because he does all these abominable practices, but then he gives hearty approval to those who do.

Right. So like there's a glorying like there's glorying in shameful things as a category in the Bible. So what you love matters. So for a lot of people, like morality just basically reduces to their actions, essentially.

So and I mean, this is the whole error that Jesus is trying to correct in the Sermon on the Mount, like the notion, like the idea that morality simply consists of what you do on the outside and not your heart.

Right. Like your heart behind it. So a lot of people will appeal their heart as if their heart is like universally good in any kind of encounter or whatever else. But but I really like the God wants you to love good.

He wants you to hate evil. He wants you to be repelled by evil. You shouldn't like the idea of being entertained by evil is about as contrary to a biblical worldview as you could possibly imagine. Right.

Right. So like that. I mean, and you can you understand what I'm trying to say. If you just think about any socially unacceptable kind of sin that you could imagine. Right. So like if if people, you know, people like think about something like child porn or something like that, like our society still thinks that's wrong and we still have like harsh legal punishments for something along those lines.

But then like the idea that someone would watch that, the idea that someone would possess that that's considered a crime in our country if you like are in possession of that. Right. So but then the idea of just like neutrally watching that as a form of entertainment and distancing yourself and saying, well, I'm not doing it or something like that, you're still stained in the process.

And no one should like doing that. Right. They can. If you can imagine some of the more unpopular, I mean, that's about as unpopular as you can get. But I mean, imagine now for things that are a little bit less unpopular, less unpopular than that, but like more than like just imagine like some movie where the whole premise of the movie was just like, you know, white slave owners who are like basically just abusing their slaves from start to finish nonstop and calling them names and beating them and everything else.

And like that's the plot of the thing. Right. There's no it's not like a parody or something along those lines. Like most people look at that and say, hey, I don't know that you should be entertained by that.

Right. Now, I mean, if you say something like that, like people will instantaneously come along and they'll say, hey, you know, like, well, if that's your standard, right, like they'll go straight to like a like a argument at that point.

Like if that's your standard, then you can't watch any movie because all movies have sin in it or something like that. Right. And so but it's like, I think that you don't understand like some basic premises here.

Yeah. Like, hey, hey.

Okay. All right. First argument. The Bible also has sinful people in it doing very bad things. So what are you saying? So you think we can't read the Bible now, either?

So the idea, though, is just to say that the Bible is a book. It portrays sinful acts that people have, but it never does so in a glorifying way. Right. Right. Like it doesn't glorify those sinful acts.

And then when you're reading it, you're not meant to come away thinking, okay, the good like the bad guys are the good guys. Right. Like the bad guys. So what the Bible is not doing is the Bible is not writing a revenge story.

And then you're going along with a revenge story story where everything is designed to make your sympathies align with the guy taking revenge. Right. So, I mean, you obviously have like a great capacity when you're within yourself to want to take vengeance.

And there's, you know, when you watch like a revenge story, there's a lot of you that might be tempted to say, yeah, well, I'm glad you did that. That made me feel good to watch you do that because I know that I'm not allowed to, but I know that there's a part of me that would like to take vengeance in plenty of the situations I find myself in.

And it was good for me just to like vicariously live through you with that kind of experience. You know, so like the issue is like, yes, it matters how these things are being portrayed. And, you know, I mean, if you imagine, I just imagine watching a movie where the premise of the movie is that all the Christians are hateful bigots and like gay marriage needs to be legalized, right?

Like sodomite marriage needs to be legalized to all the Christians in the story are bad people. You know, I mean, plenty of these movies have been written, right? Like these kinds of movies, like to where the, you know, the Christians are the bigots who are persecuting the LGBT minority.

Now, to the extent to which that is the story, right? That's not like a minor plot point or something like that. Things get really clear at a certain point. Like, why would you enjoy doing that? Like, why would you enjoy watching that?

You know, so then the conversation shifts from, are you allowed to watch it to like, why in the world would you even want to watch something like that? You should hate evil. Your heart should be totally repelled by this from start to finish.

You should find no enjoyment in that story whatsoever. And to the extent to which you find enjoyment in that story, it says a lot about where you're at, right? So like the same thing, like, yeah, I remember when I was in Bible college or whatever, I would go over to my cousin's house and her husband was in seminary and he didn't want her watching Jane Austen movies because they were just a bunch of gossipy old women the whole time.

Like, that was a major point of the movies or whatever. And it's like, yeah, I mean, I don't think we're as sensitive to these things as we probably should be. Like, is that helpful? Like, you know, are these good examples of women that you want to follow?

You know, like I remember a show when I was, you know, probably in my early college years, Gossip Girl or something like that. I mean, I never watched that, but like, why would you want to watch a show where the whole premise of the show is to highlight a sin, right?

So, I mean, you think about that, the same thing is happening with these revenge stories. I mean, like, if the whole plot is to take a bath in sin, like to glorify sin, then I'm not sure why any Christian should really find a whole lot of enjoyment.

I mean, you should hate revenge, right? You should detest revenge. You should loathe revenge. So it shouldn't be enjoyable. There shouldn't be part of you that's secretly rooting for the guy taking revenge.

You should spend the whole time, like, just uncomfortable. And yeah, I don't know. That's not Christian, right?

Right. So then what is, I mean, what is the difference? Because I've seen this a lot where, you know, I think probably in most people's minds, most normal people's minds, there's a difference between getting revenge and defending yourself, right?

Or, you know, maybe even some people, there's probably a third category in between those two that's, you know, avenging others, maybe. But the two main categories being revenge and self-defense. How do we distinguish between those two ideas?

And is self-defense okay? Or are they both wrong?

Yep. So, yeah, I mean, the idea of self-defense, I mean, self-defense is a biblical concept. You don't have to just, any time any evil person wants to do you harm, you just let them do whatever they want to you, right?

You got to turn the other cheek, right?

Well, yeah, so the idea of turning the other cheek, so if someone hits you on your right side of your face, right? You turn to them the other cheek also. So we used to have different categories for like the physical application of force from one person to another.

So like if you imagine this is my right side of my face, most people are right-handed. So if you're right-handed and you're going to punch someone, you're going to normally punch them on their left side of their face, right?

So the way that someone is going to hit the right side of your face is they're going to backhand you. Does that make sense? Yeah, got to keep the backhand strong. Right? So the issue then is just to say like Jesus is addressing a kind of situation where someone is trying to publicly embarrass you.

Like that's different than like if someone like hits you in the face with a brass knuckle or takes a baseball bat to your face or something like that, right? Then you turn the other cheek also or takes an axe to your face.

You turn the other, you know, that's a totally different situation. So like now, like you're living in a society that treats it all as if it's just the same, right? So we don't have it. But I mean, Jesus doesn't say if they try to curb stomp you on the right side of your face, then you let them curb stomp you on the other.

If they try to stab your kidney, turn to them the other also.

I mean, they have knives and they had swords. So he didn't say if someone stabs you on the right side, then you turn to the other side also. So I mean, like the idea is not just that you callously throw away your life to any evil person who wants to take your life from you, right?

Sure. So I mean, at various points, I mean, Jesus instructs his disciples to go buy swords, right? Like you can think about, there are biblical stories where, you know, Esther approaches King Hasuerus and is asking for permission because there's a plot to kill all the Jews for them to take up arms and defend themselves.

And they're given the right to do that. And that's a tenet of the story to where like they're taking a defensive posture. It's not an offensive posture. This isn't revenge. Like they're just preventing themselves from dying, right?

Preventing evil people from killing them. So, you know, a husband has a responsibility to defend his family. He has a nation has a responsibility to defend their citizens. An individual has a responsibility to defend himself because this is God's life.

You can't just take away God's life in that way. So self-defense is one thing. I mean, now vengeance is like a completely different kind of dynamic. So there's, God has appointed the government to be an avenger of wrongdoing, right?

So God says that vengeance is his. He will repay. God ultimately will take vengeance on everyone. Like when he comes back and, you know, fire and fury, taking vengeance on his adversaries and our adversaries and everything else.

God is going to avenge us of all wrongdoings. Everything will be put right in that way. So vengeance is his prerogative. And we're told over and over again not to take vengeance, right? So I think there are appropriate channels to pursue justice in that way.

And the government is like a means of doing, like an imperfect means of taking vengeance in this life that we're instructed to because God's behind that, right? God has ordained government to have that function.

And then one day he's going to accomplish perfect vengeance, but it's his prerogative. It's not ours. So, you know, like the idea of vengeance is very different than the idea of self-defense. So, you know, like if someone were to, I mean, so like the idea, I mean, you can even think about like the, if they strike you on the right side of your cheek.

Yeah, we used to have a category for backhand. We used to have a category for someone just trying to publicly embarrass you and shame you. So you don't, like in that kind of situation, Jesus says, turn the other cheek.

He said, like, you don't take vengeance. You don't slap him back and try to embarrass him back, right? If someone were to spit on you, you don't spit on them back because you're trying to take vengeance on them or something like that, right?

You're not, your life is not in danger. You're just being embarrassed. And Jesus tells you to accept wrongdoing, right? So, but I mean, that's very different than like if someone were to kill your daughter, then you actively hunt them and all their family and destroy, you know, everyone associated with them piece by piece, one by one, you know, as you're like a lone vigilante who is Batman type or something like that, right?

Yeah. Like that's vengeance. Like, and so what you do is you appeal to the government and you seek justice in that way. And if you can't get it, then you're like, God take care of it. And so, yeah. So that's, that's different than self-defense.

That's like, that's, that's taking vengeance in that way is like more proactive.

And if that makes sense. Yeah. So basically vengeance and all of its forms is bad. But then there is a category of self-defense that is justifiable for the Christian without any sort of. Yeah. Personal vengeance is bad.

Like there are means like God, God will like, it's not our, it's not our prerogative as individuals. The government's instituted as a means of vengeance and God will take vengeance in the last day for us.

Right. So vengeance isn't bad for him. It's just his prerogative. And he's delegated that to the government, but then we have to content ourself with that.

Yeah. Now, I mean, when it comes to avenging others, so not necessarily ourselves, is that, does that fall in the same sort? You kind of touched on that, but then I wanted to ask it a little more directly.

Because I could see someone, I could see someone coming along and saying, hey, look, I'm not the, you know, I'm not seeking vengeance for myself. I'm seeking vengeance for so, you know, I'm the, I'm the Batman dog.

Yeah. I'm the Batman kind of person. I'm, you know, arguably like the equalizer kind of, I mean, I don't know exactly where the line is with that, but you get what I'm saying. The person who is justifying their revenge by saying, hey, this isn't for me.

It's for someone else.

I mean, do you have a category for an adventure of blood in the Bible and the old covenant? But I mean, I get the new covenant. I mean, that's, there's, God is the inventor and he's appointed government as that task to do it.

So like when you're, you don't, you don't have that role. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's not your role to take vengeance upon another human being. So God's instituted government to accomplish that function.

Now, I mean, you'll see that people like, you know, the woman in the video of the woman in court who shoots her daughter's rapist or something like that. And you'll even see Christians who praise that kind of thing, you know, but that's, that's not self-defense, right?

That's not protecting the innocence. That's just you becoming judge Jerry executioner and taking vengeance into your own hands in a way that's inappropriate. So, yeah, I mean, I, I, there's a lot of Christians right now who are filled with vengeance and they're looking at a broke government, a broke system.

Right. And they're saying, hey, stick it to the man or whatever. And in a way that's pretty, pretty bloodthirsty and wrong. And so, yeah, there's no, there's no good form of vigilante justice here. You know, the vengeance committed to God is tasked to a government and you allow them to do their job and they're not going to do it perfectly.

And that's, you know, that's, it's a difference that in the society that we live in right now. I mean, you listen, you used to, you used to live in the kind of society that thought it would be better for a hundred guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be condemned.

Like we used to live in that kind of society. And the reason why we thought that was like, and so then you have the presumption of innocence, meaning like they're innocent until proven guilty. And in, so we used to think that way because we think we thought that God existed and no one is ever going to get away with anything now.

Like in, in the final analysis, if that makes sense, they may get away with it now, but not at the end. But now, I mean, we're living in a society right now where we don't believe in God anymore. And so we think we must have perfect justice right now.

And I mean, there's example after example, example of people who are basically saying that they'd rather, you know, the a hundred guilty men go free than one or a hundred innocent men go be condemned than one guilty man go free because, you know, the problems are so bad.

Right? Right. At this point, you know, and this is what, what the me too movement is arguing is they'd rather like a hundred innocent guys go down than one guilty guy get off the hook because it must be stopped no matter what.

Right. And that's what happens when you live in a godless society, essentially. So vengeance is bad. You shouldn't be taking vengeance on behalf of other people as much as, you know, as much as people are rejoicing in that, that reveals that they have a heart trained in vengeance and that's not good.

Uh, so two final questions sort of wrapped up into one and a lot of ways that, and you've touched on this too, but I want to hear the, I want to hear about this a little more directly. Uh, you've, you've told us that revenge is God's not ours.

Right. And in a lot of ways, it seems like the Bible is a revenge story in certain way. And in a certain aspect, obviously a lot of the Bible is God showing his mercy on people who don't deserve mercy.

Inherently, he shows favor and love towards people who don't deserve it. But then there are still people in the Bible who are judged, who are destroyed, um, you know, who there are, the saints are even, the saints are even asking God to avenge them, uh, in revelation.

And they're, they're asking God, how, you know, how long, how long do we have to wait before you do it essentially? And so, um, there's this common acknowledgement in the Bible that vengeance, uh, is God's and God's alone.

So then the question is, why is it that God is allowed to take vengeance, but we are not?

Well, I mean, over and over again, the Bible basically says that. So, you know, Romans 12, 19, beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God for his written vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord to the contrary.

If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing, you will eat burning coals upon his head. And when you think about Jesus's ministry, he, like he will one day return in vengeance and fury and set everything right.

But then, um, like there's, um, the reality is that he's competent and capable to do that in a way that we're not, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like, like meaning, meaning, um, that God judges the secrets of the heart.

God has all the information. God is absolutely omniscient, right? He's all knowing, he knows everything. Uh, and so he's never going to get it wrong in that way. Like when God, when God, um, avenges us, it will be perfectly done in the perfect proportion.

Everything about it will be right. Does that make sense? Yeah. So then like, like the issue is like you, like you really don't have to think about this very long to understand why that would be the case.

I mean, right now, like you just look at the way social media works and once an accusation is made in the court of public opinion, you have a mob that gets worked up based on very minimal facts. Right.

Um, and like, you know, people, people just like in the court of public opinion, I mean, there's been scenario after scenario where individuals have been tried in the court of public opinion, determined absolutely to be scoundrels.

Right. And if, if vengeance were just in the hand of any individual at that point, they could have felt perfectly justified in coming along. And I mean, think about the George Floyd, Derek Chauvin kind of situation, things like that.

I mean, people saw very minimal evidence, like carefully selected evidence at the very beginning. Uh, you know, the footage that they had was withheld for months and months and months. Right. Uh, that was showing George Floyd at the very beginning of the encounter saying he can't breathe and no one's on him and everything else.

But I mean, like if vengeance was in our hands, you could have had any number of people just walking up to that man and killing him without having all the facts. Right. And so, I mean, like you, you think about the Johnny Depp kind of thing where Johnny Depp was, uh, like absolutely villainized and scoundrel and a vengeance were in our, in like the hands of us, like as individuals, we, you know, we would have taken them out.

Right. And then, you know, it comes out later on that, you know, Amber Heard's kind of a monster. Right. Yeah. I mean, they're both have significant problems or whatever, but it was significantly more complicated than what it, you know, it was being made out.

Uh, I mean, we just have a great capacity to jump to conclusions. We have a great capacity to, you know, form emotional decisions on the basis of limited information. Like we're all kind of sheep. We go with the crowd and it takes a lot to stand up to the crowd and basically saying, Hey, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, the Bible over and over again says the first plea, their case seems right until another one comes along to examine them. And I've been in plenty of situations where I've heard one side of a story and it appears one way and then I hear more information and it appears another way.

So, I mean, we're rash, like we're prone to judge poorly, uh, to jump to conclusions, to like settle a matter on the basis of very limited information. But like all of, like the way our, our court system is set up and the way the biblical court system is set up, like charges shall be established on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Like you need multiple lines of testimony, right? In order to, you need a trial, like you need a trial to determine the truthfulness of this. Like there's like ways to do that impartially and then partially.

But even in our best efforts, like we, we get it wrong at times. Right? So like, you know, you, because we have such a great capacity to get this wrong, then like we need to be very cautious as to how we go about it.

Okay? And then God's like set up procedures in his word for how we should go about it. And it's not just an individual's job. Um, you know, so, I mean, I, I mean, there's any, I, I, um, I think I watched a video today of a, of a, a lady screaming at a man in a airport or something like that.

And, you know, she's laughing him, he's, you know, he ended up after a few of that, he slapped her back. And, but I mean, you really don't even know what the story is to the whole thing. Like it looked like, you know, based on the video that she was kind of out of control and he ended up responding in force or something like that.

Uh, but without commenting on anything along those lines, it's just like, you look at this video and it's like, I don't even know what I'm looking at right now. You know, and we should train ourself to think that way.

It's like, well, what happened before this? What is the context? How did these people know each other? You know, what led up to this situation? What all was going on here? And I, what, what, what was this about?

And, and what you see is just people just polarize on these kinds of situations. They take sides really easily and they just, they don't really have a whole lot of facts. They don't have information. So, I mean, like anytime there's a, like a police shooting where it's a white person shooting a black person, you know, the battle lines are form and, you know, we'll go from there.

Right. But I mean, cops are corrupt. Cops are corrupt. Um, you know, like, like there's situations where it's like, they're obviously behaving in a wrong way. And at the same time, like there's situations where like a lot of these, uh, racial shootings where it's like completely and totally justified, right?

Like, and it's not, so I think, yeah, God's designed, um, like human life is precious and we're not God. We don't have the information that he has. And so we can really jump to a lot of conclusions based on very limited amount of evidence and do a lot of harm in the process.

And that's why you need a fair trial. And, you know, and all that really is based on this assumption that it would be better for, you know, it would be better for like a hundred guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be falsely condemned.

And we've lost that notion. So, but then like to your other question, though, I mean, you're, you're basically saying, you know, the Bible in a certain sense is a revenge story. And so I guess the question you're trying to ask behind that is like, should we like read the Bible at that point?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so, or, or I guess, or I guess, you know, there's also, there's also the, the fact that there are people in the Bible who take revenge for themselves. Is that somehow a justification for in some way avenging ourselves?

Yeah. So like the issue is like, you know, the Bible will like the narratives, they, they show you theology and then the didactic passages, they tell you it. And so the other examples of individuals taking vengeance in the Bible, but then like the Bible over and over again says vengeance is God.

So you interpret those kinds of examples in light of the passages would say that this is inappropriate. And so the Bible doesn't glorify human beings as individuals taking vengeance. Right. But then like vengeance is God's product.

Progressive vengeance isn't a bad concept. We should glory when God takes vengeance perfectly. And then we should also rejoice when God's instrument of vengeance, the government does it well. Right. I mean, so you can imagine like a scenario where like the movie, like the plot of the movie is, you know, man murders woman, whatever else there, like the whole plot is trying to figure out who did it.

And then at the end of end of it, the cop finally figures it out. They catch him. Right. Justice is done. That's a vengeance story too, but it's glorifying vengeance in the right way. Following the procedures.

Does that make sense? And so like, there's nothing wrong with like being happy that justice was done.

So murder mysteries, they're fine. As long as they get the right person.

Yeah. Depending on how, you know, there's more to it, but in the abstract. Yeah.

You're not ready to give the blanket statement. All murder mystery.

Yeah. No, definitely not. I mean, there could be a lot of stuff in there that isn't okay. You know, they put on film, you know, for sure. But yeah, I mean, like in the abstract. Sure. Like you can rejoice when like vengeance is taken properly, you know, by God's appointed means of vengeance.

You know, whether God's doing it or himself. I mean, one day we're going to rejoice when like God's enemies are thrown into hell because vengeance is his prerogative and they deserve it. Right. And he's glorified in that.

So so like the issue is like, yes, like vengeance is not a bad concept. It's just not given to everyone because we can't handle it.

Okay. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on. So thank you, Tim, for answering all my questions. And it definitely like I said, I mean, John Wick, for example, those movies are incredibly popular.

They have made so much money through that series. And so then it but then it does seem like as you watch it, there should be something in you that's like that's that's thinking to yourself. Something feels at least something feels weird about this, you know, and that was kind of where where what happened for me.

And, you know, I think it kind of made me I think that's the Holy Spirit, you know, sanctify sanctifying us. And and, you know, thankfully, so, because the more and more I look at it, the more it's just it's it's disturbing more than it is entertaining a lot of times.

And it's not just John. I mean, there's plenty of there's plenty of revenge stories out there. But this is certainly probably probably something that we are. Unfortunately, in a lot of ways, we are callous to where we're just kind of oblivious to it at this point.

We're just so used to it that we're completely desensitized are our consciences. And so we just kind of accept it as normal. And and you to even say anything against it, you you kind of you kind of get weird looks and people treat you like, oh, you're really going to take this that far.

And it's like, well, I mean, I guess I'm just trying to ask myself, does this really honor the Lord? You know, and I think that's the way we should all be thinking about this kind of stuff. So thank you for talking, talking through that, answering everything.