Love Your Enemies

All right, good morning. Welcome to all of you again and glad to be here with you. I do again greet you in the name of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, I came in just at the end there of Brother Mel and appreciated the words there that he had for you as he was ending. But I would like to go on a bit more in the vein, but change the course slightly from what we've been doing. And I'd like to hear pass out some papers that you can just pass to each other.

There's something on the front and back. Just look at it and pass it along. And I'm going to give another one starting here and you can pass it on.

All right. Could we rise again for prayer? And I'll just pray this morning. Our Heavenly Father, we come again in the worthy name of our Lord and we desire, Father, that you would be glorified here this morning.

I desire, Father, that you would use my lips to speak that which you would have spoken. To these dear brothers and sisters here this morning, as they hear the word of God, that it could take root, that it could affect their lives for the kingdom of God. Lord, I do pray that you would just use my lips, Lord, to be your oracle here this morning to speak that which you would have spoken.

And Lord, may it be that in time to come, your kingdom would be glorified, your church edified. And Lord, that you would reign supreme because of it. We commit this time now to you and we pray in Jesus name.

Amen. All right. So.

I'd like to title the message this morning. Love your enemies. I remember years ago reading and I can't remember where, but I remember reading that they did some type of a survey or something like that is my recollection.

And asked, what is the most outstanding teaching of Jesus Christ? And as I recall, this is what they said it was, that he taught to love your enemies. I did a bit of a search to see if I couldn't find it and didn't find it. I didn't spend much time looking.

So I don't know where I had seen that or whether I dreamed it for sure. But that's my recollection. I do believe that it is an outstanding teaching of Jesus Christ.

I believe that it is something that is. Yes, there are some other religions that have some similar teachings. But when you look at how he went on and you can turn your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter five.

As he went on and not only told them about how to love their enemies, but he told them practically how it affects their lives in different ways. It's something that stands head and shoulders above any other religion that I have ever heard of when it comes to the Christian religion in that way. And if you look at it in the sense of how it has affected humanity, I believe you can say the same thing.

That's not to puff ourselves up as Christians. But it is to recognize that Christ living in the hearts of men and women affects their lives to such an extent that they affect the lives of others and so affect the world. That is what God's desire is for all of us.

That we are affected by Jesus Christ himself and then from that, that we affect the world. That we, he said, are a light to the world. Salt of the earth.

That's our calling. It's not something that's just kind of a theory, something that's figurative, something that is nebulous, that we can't really put our mind or our fingers on. It's something that's practical and real and it should be lived out in each one of our lives.

I don't know what you think about when you think about loving your enemies, but many of you might think about, oh, well, yeah, well, I wouldn't go to war or I wouldn't serve in the military or something like that. I'd like to get a little bit closer to home than that this morning. So, the paper that you're passing around there this morning is on one side a picture of President Putin and on the right with him there is the Patriarch Kirill, who is the kind of the Pope of the Russian Orthodox Church.

And this picture is from an Easter service this year. This Patriarch, or Pope, has blessed Putin and the war in Ukraine. In fact, he has called it a holy war.

Is it any wonder that just, I think, two weeks ago, maybe, could be more, I'm not sure, but not very long ago, a Assistant Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, a man by the name of Alexei Pavlov, called for the de-Satanization of Ukraine. The de-Satanization of Ukraine. Saying that there were hundreds of sects in the country where citizens have abandoned Orthodox values.

Quote, I believe that with the continuation of the special military operation, it becomes more and more urgent to carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine, Pavlov said. According to state-run Russian news agency TASS. You think they're loving their enemies? Another headline that I noticed in reference to the Ukrainian conflict that's going on, and this is, to me, it's just very, very sad to see these type of things going on.

But the headline is this. Russian priest beats Ukrainian priest with cross at soldier's funeral. A Russian priest beating a Ukrainian priest at a soldier's funeral.

I looked at the article a little bit, and what happened is the Ukrainian priest was speaking at the lectern, was there speaking at the funeral, and this Russian priest came up with that cross and tried to rip the cross. He had one hanging there. Tried to rip his cross off, and I think the Ukrainian priest kind of backed up a little bit, and he just grabbed his own cross and started hammering down on him.

Till some other people came in and separated them. Again, it's sad to see the ministers of the gospel, that's what they would claim to be. Doing such things as this.

The other side of that picture that's being sent around, some of you can read it, I'm guessing, is Gott mit uns. That is God with us, is what that says. And what that is, and I think it actually says that with the picture there, it's something that the Nazi soldiers had on their belt buckles.

Gott mit uns. God with us. And they had it even before Nazi Germany.

The German army had it after the Nazi. But it's something that they believed, I suppose, that God is with us, and we know from history the terrible atrocities that happened in that war. The Germans and the World War II and all of the things that happened, as well as with the Holocaust and all of that.

All right, so this morning we want to look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, verse 38. And we could read more, but I'd just like to break in there to look at a bit of what Jesus told us, his disciples, his followers, what he called us to. Matthew 5, verse 38.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Have you ever been hurt? Let me see a show of hands. How many of you have been hurt in life? Okay. Maybe I should ask this.

How many of you have not been hurt? I don't see any hands. I'm glad to see that you're at least recognizing that we get hurt. We have feelings.

That's what I mean by getting hurt. Yeah, obviously, we probably cut our finger sometime or something too. But I'm talking about the hurts of our emotions.

I'm talking about hurts that hurt us deeply maybe. What did you do about it? I think all of your hands went up. You have been hurt.

What did you do about it? How we handle hurts says a lot about who we are in life. How we handle hurts tells a lot about how much Christ has done in our lives. If we get hurt and we sulk, we go off to our corner and we pout and we grumble and complain and it's just not right that somebody had the nerve to do whatever it was that hurt us.

If that's our attitude, it's not right, it is not fair, I deserve better, then you're showing how much Christ has affected you. Because, can we agree, that's not how Christ, that's not how Jesus reacted when he was hurt. When people said unkind things about him or did unkind things to him.

The next question. Do you have an enemy? And you don't have to raise your hands for this one. It would be interesting probably to see what your response would be, but you can answer that one in your own heart.

Do you have an enemy? I had a friend, they called him Preacher Wilson there in Tennessee. He was a long shot from a preacher, but the reason they called him a preacher was when he was a little boy, or that's at least the story that followed him. When he was a little boy, he would get up on a preacher and just verbatim preach the message that he heard at church that morning, you know, get up on a stump and do that.

And so he was Preacher Wilson the rest of his life and he liked it. He liked to be called, most people around there didn't even know what his name was. But anyway, he would come, I had a service station there and he would come every day.

He'd come by there, I say every day, basically every day he'd come by there. But that's one of the things that he told me. And I think he did, he tried to make this true, but he said, I don't have an enemy.

I don't have an enemy. I would say that's a high goal for every one of us to have. Now, it's possible that somebody is going to hate you for the kingdom of heaven's sake.

You shouldn't try to bow down or to stoop down to make them like you by doing something that's unchristian. But I tell you, if we look at what we see here in Matthew chapter 5, I think that we are going to have very few enemies, especially in the country that we live. It's almost unheard of that you will have an enemy if you will live out these verses that we read this morning.

If you live out that when someone smites you on the one cheek, that you turn the other. I had a friend who lived not too far from here many years ago. I say many years ago, more years than any of you are alive probably.

One evening when he was at home, someone knocked on his door and asked him to come out. And he knew the guy, young man, and so he went outside. He stepped outside.

I think it was dark already. Happened in Delaware, so if you wonder where. Stepped outside and he hadn't much more than stepped outside and that man hit him for all he could right in his nose.

And then he held his hands like this and said, hit me, hit me, please hit me. And he said, I can't hit you. I love you.

That's a real story. It happened. The reason the young man hit him is because my friend had gotten in between him and a romance that he was developing.

And he was mad. That's real life. My friend, he was able by the grace of God to not do anything.

I think it's a very real possibility that he wouldn't be alive today if he had hit him. It's very possible that the young man had a weapon in his pocket. In fact, I think it's quite likely.

All he wanted is to have something to show that he needed to use it. That's not the reason that we don't hit back is because someone might have a weapon in their pocket and be able to to take our life. The reason we do is because and I don't know.

Yes. Let me tell you what I'm focusing on today is this love L.O.V.E. Let's put the emphasis on L.O.V.E. Not on the enemies. L.O.V.E. And make that the emphasis.

That's where we are looking this morning is we are emphasizing love. Love, whether it's enemies, whether it's friends. Love, whether it's family or whether it's acquaintances or whether it's someone we've never met before.

Love in our lives. Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples. How is that? Our love one for another.

Do you think that there are lots of people coming to Christ in Ukraine and Russia today because of what they see or hear in the stories I told you this morning? Where you have the Pope going and blessing Putin. Do you think there are lots of people coming to Christ because of that? I doubt it. I seriously doubt it.

Do you think there are lots of people coming to Christ because they hear about priests beating each other? Of course not. But where they see love, where they see real Christian love, it affects the world, brothers and sisters. It makes a difference.

And that is what I believe the world needs to see today more than ever. Maybe not more than ever, but as much as ever. It needs to see you and I being what Jesus called us to be.

Love in action. Love that has shoe leather attached to it. Love that is not some nebulous thing that we talk about, but rather we practice in our everyday lives.

Not just when we say, no, we will not go off to the battlefield to fight. But in our everyday lives, God is love. In 1 John it says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love.

If God is love, His children are love. If we are going to follow Christ, it has to be that we have the nature of God coming forth from our lives. I'd like for you to compare.

Not because we want to lift one up and put another one down. I have no desire to slander nor to set anyone up on a pedestal. But I'd like for you to, just because it's good for me at least, to recognize where I see righteousness.

Where I see the right way being practiced. And where also I see the other and learn from those circumstances. I talked a little bit this morning about what we see going on in Ukraine and in Russia there.

And maybe I should just say this as one of the things that, I'll just be honest with you. And I don't know how it has affected you. But when I hear of the atrocities being committed in Ukraine.

When I hear of these innocent, as I see it, innocent people who are suffering so terribly. The electricity is off, the heating is off. And they are being bombed just continuously.

There's something that wants to rise up in my heart. I'm going to tell you the truth. There's something that wants to rise up in my heart and say, That's not right.

That's not fair. Somebody ought to do something about this. That's what wants to rise up within my heart.

I believe that there is something that is God instilled and put in each of our hearts. Or generally speaking, in each of our hearts. There is something about justice that God puts there in our hearts.

And so I don't think it's necessarily wrong for us to have feelings that that is an injustice. That's not right. But when we get the feeling where we want to get involved, to do something, to put these Russians in their place.

That's where we have crossed the line. That's my thoughts on that. But I went off on that side stream just a little bit because I felt it's something that probably enough of us are following or aware of what's going on in Ukraine.

And God bless any of you and all of you who may be making a difference, whether it's with finances or or going over there to help. I think it's the time right now for us to show Christian love. It's a time for us to show what the love of Christ does in the hearts of believers.

And by the way, I keep going off on other rabbit trails here. But what I hear of the Christians there in Ukraine, there are many of them there who would not fight, who would not go and participate in the military. And God bless them.

And I I'm so thankful to hear that the the truth of God's word has affected their lives to that extent that they will suffer rather than go and fight others. What I was wanting to draw your attention to is the difference, the different response that you see with, for instance, the priests there beating each other up or the one priest beating the other up to the nickel mine shooting back. What was it in 2006 down here, just a little south of us? That was a horrific thing that happened.

That was terrible. It was something that, yes, I think, again, would be something that we could in our hearts say that is a terrible injustice to those poor little innocent girls. But I want you to remember what those Amish people did.

They showed the love of Christ. They showed real love to real people. What Marie Roberts, in an open letter to her Amish neighbors, said is forgiveness, grace and mercy.

She said, your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you've given have touched our hearts in ways no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and it is changing our world.

And for this, we sincerely thank you. That was the widow of the man that killed those girls and wounded the others. That was his widow.

They went and showed the love of Christ to his family, to his parents, and it made a difference. And she, the widow, says that it's changing our world. We can, brothers and sisters, we can make a difference.

And we must and should. It is something that is an outstanding teaching of Jesus Christ. I titled my messages, or the messages this week, Distinctive Doctrines.

I think this is a very distinct doctrine of Jesus Christ. It's a very distinct teaching that He gave us. And God bless you as you put it into practice in your everyday life.

And I keep saying everyday life because I don't want this to be something where you have a mindset, oh, I'll practice it sometime in the future. I'll practice it when this circumstance comes up or that. I want to give you just a sum of why I say everyday life.

How do you respond when you don't get the respect you feel you deserve? What is your response? When someone does not respect you like you feel they should, what is your response? Whether it's something that you say with the words or whether it's with actions or whether it's just in your heart. How is it? What about when you are reproved? How does that go? Somebody reproves you. What do you do? When you don't get the credit for something you've done, what do people see? How do they know you? What's going to happen? When you're picked on, what do you do? Or maybe it's when the neighbor turns up the loud music or does something else that annoys you.

What do you do? Or what about when someone pulls out in front of you when you're going down the highway and then turtles along at 20 miles an hour? What happens? In your heart, you get up right on their tail and let them know that's just not right. I'll be honest with you. I've done that.

Should I have done it? No, I don't think so. Those are everyday actions where you can show love. You can show at least, you can show something when it's not love is when it probably shows up more.

But anyway, kind of went off on that one. I believe that Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Not because it's right, although it is.

Not just because it's moral, though it is. And not just because it's the only practical solution. But I believe He calls us to that because our Lord loves His enemies.

Our Lord loves His enemies. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for the ungodly. We're just being like our Lord.

Today, many theologians and Bible scholars will tell you they don't take this literally. It's just something that is taken metaphorically. This is not something to be taken literally.

It's just a metaphor. I believe it's literal. I do believe, like I said in my first message here this week, that Jesus meant what He said and said what He meant.

We don't need to try to interpret this. This is what He meant. And this is what He expected us to think He meant.

Luke chapter 6. I'll just read that. Luke chapter 6, verse 27. It's basically a parallel scripture, but I thought I would just read it to go along with it.

Actually, we'll read it quickly and then go on. Luke chapter 6, verse 27. But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies.

Do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other.

And him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? For sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again.

But love ye your enemies and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward shall be great and ye shall be the children of the highest. For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. Very clear words from our Lord to us. Telling us what he is calling us as his sons and daughters to do.

I'll just give you another example of something that happened to me personally. Used to be in an EMS and would make calls day and night. And one night I had a call and was the first one on the scene.

And it was quite close, lived close enough. I didn't remember knowing him, but he knew who I was right away. When I came up to the door, the door was open and so I said, hello, what's going on, whatever, and walked in.

And there he was before me and he was doing this. He's saying, leave, Simon, leave, Simon, leave, leave, leave. And I was like taken aback.

This is in the middle of the night, just woken from sleep. And I'm not one to just automatically do what I'm told, which is not necessarily a great attribute. But I, instead of leaving, grabbed his arms and what am I going to do now? OK, so the guy, I thought he didn't look like he's going to be near as strong as I am, but he was a little stronger than I bargained for.

So I have him there by his wrists, holding him there. But I could feel that he's going to be able to get loose. So what I did is there was a couch to my left.

I just swung him over into the couch. And so doing my radio was knocked off. And then I did do what he told me.

I went outside. But my radio was laying inside there. And he was hearing all of the traffic now from our communications on the outside.

And he got concerned. He was afraid he was going to be apprehended for what he had done. And so he comes out with my radio and is apologizing and whatnot.

I just give that story to give you what I, it was a spur of the moment decision. While I didn't hurt him, I did feel a check in my spirit for the resistance that I gave him at that point. I think it would have been better for me to have listened to him and just stepped outside.

I give you that as just a story of what I did. Again, you heard my apology yesterday, and I give you this here. With that in mind, I am not trying to slam anyone, but I'm going to write some numbers up here.

OK, so can you see that? Twenty one, twenty seven to twenty one, twenty seven, thirty, thirty one and thirty four. That is the divorce rate of different groups of people. Now, let me tell you which groups of people that is a divorce rate for.

And you tell me which one you expect should go where. So it's the divorce rate for Muslims, for Jews, for Protestants, for born again Christians, for Catholics and for atheists. If you're writing it down, I'll give it again.

It's the divorce rate for Muslims, for Jews, for born again Christians, Catholics, Protestants and atheists. It's sad to me. It's another one of those sad things to me to look at this.

This is the divorce rate. And the spread from atheists to born again Christians. And by the way, this survey was done by the Barna Group, which claims to be a Christian group.

So it's not some secular organization that has an agenda to skew the numbers. I'll tell you the order. The top one was atheists.

They have the lowest rate of divorce. The next one is Catholics. Under that at 27% is born again Christians.

Under that at 30% is Jewish. Under that at 31% is Muslims. And the lowest of all, 34%, is Protestants.

That's the divorce rate of these different segments. Now, I'm not sure how they differentiated between born again Christians and Protestants, because I would have thought most born again Christians would claim to be Protestants. But evidently they made some type of a differentiation there between born again Christians and Protestants.

It ought not so to be. It ought not so to be. Is there any wonder that the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ is not shining? It's not shining when you have statistics like that.

Okay. Could it be? And by the way, you say, well, what's that got to do with loving enemies? Well, do you think those people that divorced each other loved each other? Again, I said we're focusing on L-O-V-E this morning. The focus is not on the enemies.

The focus is on the love. But they were enemies when they divorced, for many of them. They became enemies.

They weren't enemies when they married, but they became enemies after living together. Of Jesus, it says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

When Jesus was on the cross, he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That was the real example of Jesus in real life doing what he has called you and I to do. We see the same thing with Stephen.

And I could have given, I'll give you the references if you'd like them. In Luke chapter 23, verse 32 is where Jesus, or actually in verse 34, is where Jesus asked the Father to forgive those who were crucifying him. In Isaiah chapter 53 is where I was reading from the prophecy of Christ about the lamb going to the slaughter.

And then in Acts chapter 7, verse 60, we have Stephen there, the first martyr of the New Testament there. And he kneeled down, cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

I am going to try to draw this to a close. I'd like to just give you a little, a few examples from the early Christians. Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, he said this.

He called the Philippians to obey the word of Peter and, quote, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing or blow for blow or cursing for cursing. That was Polycarp. Justin Martyr, he said also, he wrote in the middle of about around 150 A.D., I think is when he was from.

We have changed our warlike weapons, our swords into plowshares and our spears into implements of tillage. Again, taking it from a prophecy. In about 180 A.D., Athenagoras reported, we have learned not only not to return blow for blow nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those who smite us on the one side of the face to offer the other side also.

And to those who take away our coat to give likewise our cloak. The first evidence of a partial breakdown of this is Tertullian, who made a bitter cry against the participation of Christians in being soldiers. I think it was mostly those who had come to Christ and didn't want to give up arms.

He said this, shall it be held lawful? He demanded to make an occupation of the sword when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword. And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? On the contrary, insisted Tertullian, if a soldier gets converted, he must immediately abandon the military, which he says many have done. There's a story, comes from the Armenian church of the Turks.

I told you, I just mentioned a little bit yesterday about the Crusades and that this is, I think, during that era. They were persecuted so terribly and a Turkish officer raided and looted an Armenian home, killing the aged parents and giving two of the daughters to his soldiers and keeping the oldest for himself. Later, she escaped his clutches and ended up training to be a nurse.

One night she found herself in a hospital ward of Turkish officers. And in the light of a lantern, she trembled as she saw the unforgettable face of this man who had torn up her life. He was gravely ill, unconscious, and without skilled nursing care, he would certainly die.

Days passed and he gradually recovered. One morning after the man was again alert, a doctor stood by his bed with a nurse and said to him, but for her devotion to your care, you would be dead now. The patient focused his eyes on her and said, haven't we met before? Yes, she said, we met before.

He remembered. Why didn't you let me die? He asked. She replied, I am a follower of him who said, love your enemies.

That is love with shoe leather. When you see someone who so horribly hurt her and you nurse them back to health. I have several more stories, but I'm going to try to leave it at that for now.

I'd like to just again, in conclusion, mention that we don't just love because we have to. We don't just love our enemies because that's what Jesus commanded us to do. But we love our enemies because God loves enemies.

Jesus loved his enemies. And we, his followers, can do no less. We, his followers, are called to the same.

We're called to love when we're hated. We're called to love when there is no love in return. We're called to love when all that we get is hate.

Love. Brothers and sisters, I believe that the world will be changed when we live out Christianity in this way. When the love of Christ emanates from our lives to such an extent, I believe that it will affect the world just like Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples.

It's what is going to change the hearts of people. It's not going to be some fiery preaching. Maybe that will help.

Maybe that will do some of it. But it will be when they see you and I living out the Christian life, doing what Jesus did, and doing it day in and day out. I think that is where you're going to see that it will affect the world for Jesus Christ.

May God give you the strength, the Holy Spirit working through you to accomplish his purpose in all of these things. God bless you. Thank you for listening to this message.

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May the Lord Jesus bless you.