Do you love the wicked?

S

sermonindex Nov 24, 2009

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them
without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will
be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is
kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
--Luke 6:35 (NIV)

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Quotation:
Jesus once declared that God is "kind toward the unthankful
and evil" (St. Luke 6:35), and I remember preaching a sermon on
this text to a horrified and even astonished congregation who
simply refused to believe (so I gathered afterwards) in this
astounding liberality of God. That God should be in a state of
constant fury with the wicked seemed to them only right and
proper, but that God should be kind towards those who were
defying or disobeying His laws seemed to them a monstrous
injustice. Yet I was but quoting the Son of God Himself, and I
only comment here that the terrifying risks that God takes are
part of His Nature. We do not need to explain or modify His
unremitting love towards mankind.
... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole, London:
Highway Press, 1952, p. 27-28

E

enid Nov 24, 2009

When we read scriptures that say, "...You hate all workers of iniquity" Psalm 5v5.

And also that God is angry with the wicked every day, Psalm 7v11, then perhaps the congregations reaction is understandable.

Yet God is kind towards all.

Indeed, in Acts 17 the apostle Paul is telling the Athenians that God gives to all life, breath and all things, verse 25.

Also, in Acts 14, we find Paul appealing to the people not to sacrifice to them and pointed them to God who, "...gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filing our hearts with food and gladness."