Printer Friendly VersionNew Testament scholar F. F. Bruce has written a book entitled,
The Hard Sayings of Jesus. None of Jesus’ sayings are more difficult
for us to deal with, and yet more important for us to face, than what has
been described as Jesus’ “Third Great Commandment.”
“LOVE ENEMIES?” You’ve got to be kidding! The
first and great commandment is Love God. Nothing new about that. Moses first
spelled it out in Deuteronomy chapter six as the shema, which even today stands
at the heart of Israel’s faith and worship. Love your neighbor? Not only
Jesus and Moses but all the world’s great religions teach that.
But love your enemies? That’s another matter. Neither Moses
nor any of the prophets of Israel ever said anything like that! Neither Confucius
nor Buddha nor any other religious leader ever uttered anything so bizarre,
so impractical, so impossible as that! Of all the “hard sayings”
of Jesus, none are harder than that! “Love enemies?” It cuts across
the grain. It violates every human instinct. It simply doesn’t make any
sense.
Peter Cartwright was a Methodist circuit-riding preacher back
in the days when our nation was young and expanding westward. He was a top
ranked prize fighter before his conversion. He was accosted by the town tough
where he was trying to organize a Methodist church who said,
“I’ve heard that you Methodists believe in Entire
Sanctification.”
“That’s right.”
“And that entire sanctification so fills you with perfect
love that you’ll not fight.”
“That’s right.”
“That means if I slug you, you’ll not hit me back.”
“That’s right.”
But before he could hit him, Cartwright jumped in, grabbed the
fellow by his collar and said, “But pity thy poor soul, brother, if thou
should inadvertently discover that I am not entirely sanctified.”
In all due respect to Jesus’ radical love ethic, I want
to speak, first of all…
I. In Praise of Hating One’s Enemies and Dealing with Them
Severely.
Verse 43: “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbors
and hate your enemies.’” I can think of at least five reasons, right
off, why it makes very good sense to hate one’s enemies and deal with
them severely.
A) We have a moral responsibility to take a strong stand against
enemies.
To mollycoddle enemies is to blur the distinction between right
and wrong, between good and evil, and it is to risk compromising the truth.
We must draw sharp lines. Take a firm stand. There are, after all, matters
of principle at stake! To go soft on enemies is to encourage them in the error
of their ways. Furthermore, how will enemies ever realize the error of their
ways and change if we do not deal with them severely?
Deanna, my youngest, was in the fourth grade. One night she
said to me, “Dad, I’ve made a Christian out of Bobby.”
“Marvelous,” I replied. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, Bobby was the meanest boy in my class at the beginning
of the year. He cussed all the time. But since I made a Christian out of him
he has been so nice. He hasn’t said one bad word!”
“Great, but how did you do it?” I asked.
“I beat him up!”
B) We have a psychological need to identify our enemies clearly.
We define who and what we are by declaring passionately who
and what we are not! I did not become a Nazarene until I was in college. Wanting
to find out what kind of a church it was that I had joined, I read what was
then a newly released book entitled, Why I Am a Nazarene. The first eight
chapters were devoted to “Why I am not a Mormon, why I am not a Jehovah
Witness, why I am not a Seventh Day Adventist,” and so on, with the final
chapter answering the question, “Why I am a Nazarene.” It is much
easier to declare what we are not than to define who we are. We are somewhat
like the woman who told a friend, “I ran into an old high school classmate
yesterday. Couldn’t believe it. She looked terrific! Didn’t have
one wrinkle. Hadn’t gained an ounce. So I ran into her again.”
C) Our survival depends upon taking a strong stand against our
enemies.
Not only are President George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice born-again
Christians, but evangelicals who occupy the highest governmental offices in
our land. In the hundreds of addresses, speeches, and interviews given by
our Christian national leaders justifying our preemptive invasion of Iraq,
a sovereign nation, this business about “loving enemies” was not
so much as mentioned. There’s only one language that national and international
enemies understand, and that is the language of cruise missiles, smart bombs,
and overwhelming superior military force.
If loving enemies and praying for those that persecute us is
ridiculous in terms of national policy, what makes us feel that it makes good
sense anywhere else, particularly in our interpersonal relationships? Our
enemies are enemies precisely because they are out to destroy all that we
value, prize, and believe in. They are enemies simply because they are seeking,
night and day, to subvert the gospel! Distort the faith! Destroy the Church!
Hence we must take a strong stand and be ready to strike back with a swift
and terrible sword, or we will be eaten alive!
D) It feels right and good vanquish one’s enemies and deal with them
severely.
Winston Churchill was accosted by his arch-political enemy,
Lady Astor, at a social gathering. Said Lady Astor, “Sir Winston, you
are drunk. You are very drunk. You are very, very drunk.”
“Lady Astor,” he replied, “you are ugly. You
are very ugly. You are very, very ugly. The difference between you and me
is that tomorrow morning I will be sober.”
Oh, that feels so good!
E) God hates enemies and deals with them severely!
That is the clear message we get from the Old Testament, at
least. After all, did not God send floodwaters to destroy a wicked world during
Noah’s generation? Did not God rain fire and brimstone from heaven upon
corrupt Sodom and Gomorrah? Did not God command Joshua to waste the degenerate
Canaanites down to the last crippled, old lady and newborn child? Did not
the prophets of Israel thunder again and again,
“Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it” (Isaiah 13:9ff)?
In Jesus’ day Jews would stand up in their synagogues and
denounce the Gentiles, denounce the Samaritans, denounce the hated Roman oppressors,
denounce the immoral, and denounce all the enemies of God. What better way
to identify yourself with God’s cause than to expose and denounce God’s
enemies? What better way today for us to affirm our devotion to the true Gospel
than to expose the manifold errors of the cultists, the kooks, the crazies,
the feminists, the abortionists, the liberals, the Satanists, the pornographers,
the New Agers, and of course, the Secular Humanists—whomever they might
be? To be on God’s side is to be against whomever God is against.
I know all about how good it feels to burn against one’s
enemies. There’s nothing so calculated to focus the mind and stir the
passions as to become exercised over some great wrong that has been done,
some terrible evil, heresy, or error that is being perpetuated. I never feel
more right, more together, or more keenly perceptive than when I burn against
enemies, against those who are a threat to the faith, to the Church, and to
all that is decent and holy. I search the Scriptures and arm myself with 1,000
verses. I mount my great white horse named “Righteousness and Truth.”
I march to battle convinced that God and His Word are firmly on my side. The
band strikes up. The flags unfurl. The trumpets blow. The music plays. Angel
choirs sing. I mount up with wings as of eagles. I search out God’s enemy.
I unleash the sword of the Lord. I find a vulnerable spot. I take careful
aim. I thrust with a “Thus saith the Lord.” And I twist it. Oh,
does that feel good! To strike a mighty blow for righteousness’ sake!
The enemy staggers. Stumbles. Falls. Mortally wounded. Hallelujah!
Righteousness has triumphed. Truth has won! Justice has been served! One less
enemy to lead the ignorant astray, to corrupt the innocent, to blight the
gospel. I mount my great white steed of holiness and begin to sing, “Onward
Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of…cross of…cross
of…”
But wait a minute. Who is that stranger kneeling beside the
enemy? Wiping his forehead, binding his wounds, giving him a cup of cold water
to drink? Something familiar about Him. Imprint of nails in His hands. Impress
of thorns on His brow. It cannot be! Jesus?
“But Jesus, what are you doing down there? Beside the enemy!”
I look again. What is that? A sword lodged in His heart? I study it. I am
shocked! It is my sword! Jesus looks at me. Tears in His eyes. He doesn’t
have to say a word. It whispers in the deepest part of my being, “In
as much as you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me!” I am
devastated! My heart is broken!
Beloved, no matter how bizarre, no matter how impractical, no matter how impossible, if we are serious about following Jesus, we have no choice but to take with utmost seriousness what He had to say. Jesus commands us to love our enemies because He loves our enemies! The misguided, the wrong, the unprincipled, the devious, the dangerous, the divisive—even the ungodly. He loves them all! Since Jesus loves enemies, let us turn the coin over and speak briefly…
II. In Praise of Loving One’s Enemies and Dealing with
Them Mercifully.
Verse 44: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, pray
for those that persecute you.”
I can think of at least five reasons why it makes even better sense to do
it Jesus’ way in loving our enemies and dealing with them mercifully.
A) We must love our enemies because God loves His enemies!
This is the radical new revelation about God brought to us by
Jesus of Nazareth! (vv. 44-45.) Jesus says that if we are to be true sons
and daughters of our Father in heaven, we will treat enemies like He does.
He loves enemies!
But you say, “What about the Old Testament and its statements
about God hating enemies?” That’s why we needed Jesus to come. Jesus
opens a window and lets us see something about the character of God which
was not fully perceived by the holy men of old, or by any other religious
leader in history. Namely, that while God hates sin, he loves the sinner!
“For God so loved the world, the whole world, the ungodly as well as
the godly, that he gave his only begotten son…”
Nowhere do we see this radical love of God expressed as clearly
as in the cross of Christ. In Jesus we see a God who would rather be destroyed
at the hands of sinners, would rather be hung by heretics than hang heretics,
would rather die than damn, and who did!
We were shocked, some years ago, to hear about four Point Loma
Nazarene University students who had a terrible accident while on their way
home. The driver fell asleep and drove at about 90 miles an hour into the
back of a parked semi-truck. Esther Frampton was killed instantly. Her sister,
Elizabeth, died about 20 days later. That summer, we vacationed in San Diego
and visited First Church, where Jerry White was then pastor. At the close
of his sermon he told a story about that tragedy I’ll never forget. The
friends had already filed by and paid their last respects. Only the family
was left in the sanctuary and one heavily bandaged young man in half a body
cast. He was the driver of the death car. He had just been released from the
hospital for this funeral. Painfully he raised himself up, got his crutches
under his arms, and hobbled down the aisle to stand before the casket of his
fiancée. As he stood there, the girls’ mother, Betty Frampton,
got up, came over, and stood beside him. Then she put her arm around him,
pulled his head down, and whispered in his ear, “Gordy, I love you!”
That’s God’s kind of love! It is God saying, “Even
if you kill my only begotten son, Jesus, still I love you. And I will love
you as long as eternity shall endure!”
B) Retribution doesn’t work!
The problem with the Mosaic code of “an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth” is that it never works out quite like that!
So, you take my eye out. I have the moral right and obligation to strike back
and take your eye out. The problem is that, with only one eye, I can’t
see very well. So I take out not only your eye but cut off your head. Well,
that angers your family who comes back and wipes me and my family out. That
angers my village who wipes out your village which makes your country angry,
and it isn’t long until the violence escalates and we have another World
War on our hands! Or a divorce. Or a church split. Or the collapse of a beautiful
friendship. Look at what the ancient law of retribution has done and continues
to do to the Middle East.
C) Retribution often misfires. Its target inappropriate, its aim faulty.
I just read about a manufacturer who made a surprise visit to one of his factories.
As he was being led through, he saw a young man leaning up against
a packing crate in the warehouse, obviously loafing. So he went up to him
and asked, “How much are they paying you?”
“Two hundred dollars a week,” he replied.
The owner pulled out his wallet, peeled off ten $20.00 bills,
gave them to him, and said, “Here’s a week’s wages. You’re
fired. I never want to see you again.”
The young man pocketed the money and disappeared through the
door. The warehouse foreman looked stunned.
The owner asked him, “How long has he been working for
us?”
The foreman answered, “He doesn’t. He just delivered
a package and was waiting for someone to sign.”
D) In loving our enemies, the enmity is destroyed in that we
move over onto their side and make them our friends.
Suppose, however, that the enemy will not be reconciled to us.
What then? Well, how did Jesus respond to Judas? Is there any greater enemy
than a trusted friend who betrays you; who, under the cover of darkness, stealthily
stabs you in the back? If there was ever just cause for Jesus to call down
fire from heaven upon any man, it was Judas.
Yet how did Jesus treat him after he knew full well what Judas
was up to and what he had done? How did Jesus treat Judas after he had rejected
the Master’s gentle overtures of warning and reconciliation? He invited
him to supper. He gave him the place of honor. He presented him with the first
and largest serving of food. He offered to Judas, before any others, the cup
of forgiveness. Jesus treated Judas with kindness and respect. Even though
He knew that Judas had already committed himself to betraying Him, He did
not expose him or humiliate him in front of his friends. He let him stand
tall. And in the garden, Jesus greeted His betrayer by calling him “Friend!”
Do you want a good definition of hell? It is to turn our back
on Jesus and go through eternity with Jesus’ last word ringing in our
ears, “Friend, friend, friend.”
Do you want a good definition of heaven? It is to make Jesus
the Lord of our lives and hear Him say, throughout eternity, “Friend,
friend, friend.”
E) In loving our enemies, we are released from the terrible
burden of hatred, resentment, and bitterness, which eats at the core of our
spirit like cancer, robbing us of God’s joy and peace.
Lee Iacocca, in his best-selling autobiography of some years
back, shouted out for millions to read that he hated Henry Ford II. He says
of his former mentor and friend who unceremoniously fired him as president
of Ford Motor Company, “I hate Henry Ford not only for what he did to
me but for the pain and suffering he caused my wife and two daughters. For
what he put them through I’ll never forgive him!” Ironically, when
he fired 25 of Chrysler’s vice-presidents shortly after taking over leadership
of that company, he showed not the slightest sensitivity to the pain he was
causing wives and daughters of those executives. No wonder that when Lee Iacocca’s
face appeared on our TV screens in the mid-’80s, there was a hard set
in the expression of his face and a steely cold glint in his eyes. How could
he exhibit warmth and joy when he was carrying around the dead corpse of Henry
Ford wherever he went?
Now, let’s set in contrast to that, Jesus. Historians tell
us that most criminals sentenced to execution on a cross would cry, beg, and
plead for mercy with their executioners as they were being led out to be crucified.
When that moment came, when the cross was laid on the ground, when they were
spread-eagled across it, and the sharp nails pierced their flesh, it was at
that moment of excruciating pain that they would give up all hope. Then they
would curse their executioners and spit in their face.
But it was at that very moment, that Jesus looked deep into
His executioner’s eyes, and saw not only the Roman soldiers merely doing
their job, but all of the foul bitterness and hatred of the scribes and Pharisees,
the chief priests and rulers of the people—all who had rejected Him.
It was at that very moment that Jesus cried out, with a loud voice, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do!” And, in that moment, Jesus
released all of those responsible for His death, all of us who have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God—He set us free to receive forgiveness
of sins and reconciliation with the Father. Not only did Jesus set us absolutely
free, but He himself was set free! Set free from the curse of bitterness,
grudge, and hatred. So free that, a few minutes later, He could pray the simple
bedtime prayer that every Jewish child learned at its mother’s knee,
“Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Then He died!
When Jesus died, the great veil in the temple which represented
all the enmity that separates humanity from God, and all the enmity that separates
us from each other was torn in two, from the top to the bottom! Oh, what a
glorious release it is to be set free from all hatreds, all resentments, all
grudges, all anger and hostility until there is absolutely nothing in our
soul but the love of God for everyone, friend and enemy alike!
Several years ago I held a revival at the Auburn, California
Church of the Nazarene. On our way into church one evening, my host pulled
the car off the road at a sharp curve a few miles out of town. He told me
about the Sunday morning when he, his wife, and their five children were in
the car on their way to Sunday School. The children were busy memorizing their
Sunday School verse for the day, when at that very corner, a drunk came around
the corner too fast in a pickup, crossed the center line, and hit the car
right at the driver’s doorpost. It smashed the back door into their oldest
son, killing him instantly. It so tore up the body and face of their oldest
daughter, that she has subsequently had over 20 operations and will never
be fully normal. And while they were waiting for the ambulance to return to
pick up the rest of the family, their two-year-old girl, whom they thought
was not injured, died in her mother’s arms, of internal injuries. Of
course, the driver of the pick-up was unscathed.
Bud Anderson told me about the anger, the rage that overwhelmed
him when he recovered from the shock—so much so that he went to the altar
at church and poured it all out in agonizing prayer. Gradually, there was
superimposed over the image of that drunk staggering around on the highway,
the image of Jesus on the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them.”
He went to the jail where the driver was held, told him that
he was a Christian, and that he forgave him. The man was so overwhelmed that
he burst into tears. Come to find out, he wasn’t your typical drunk at
all. He was a working man who had been out of work for months, couldn’t
find a job anywhere, had lost his car, was out of unemployment, and was about
to lose his house. In despair he had gone to the bar for a few drinks and
the rest is history. A friendship was built which resulted in this man and
his whole family coming to know Christ. Bud took care of the man’s wife
and children while he served a prison term for manslaughter, helped him to
find a job when he was released, and the whole family was saved for Christ
and the church.
But that is not the end of the story. Bud and Loraine had two
other sons, then in junior high, only slightly injured in the accident. They
saw how their father responded to the man who wiped out nearly half of his
family. They said, “I want my Dad’s kind of religion!” They
committed their lives to Jesus. Ted Anderson went to Point Loma Nazarene University
and is on their faculty today. Dan came to NNC, survived several of my classes,
went on to the Seminary, and is today serving as a Nazarene missionary and
field director in Africa.
You and I simply have no idea what might happen when we do it Jesus’ way: that is, forgive our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us! I want to invite you to the altar this morning to do that: forgive your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
