Love Your Enemies, Part 1 (Matthew 5:43–44) [Audio Only]

we come this morning to a passage of scripture in Matthew Chapter 5 that deserves our greatest attention deepest commitment for perhaps no other passage in all of the New Testament sums up the heart and attitude of a Christian as well as this one it expresses what I think is the most single powerful testimony that a Christian can have in the simple statement of Jesus in verse 44 love your enemies as we Embark upon this passage from verse 43 to 48 this morning in our continuing study of Matthew we come to a tremendously important port of

part of scripture I think that if there is one statement made by Jesus that in the eyes of the world sums up what Christianity ought to be like it's probably love your enemies I know will Durant was asked what he thought of the Christian ethic and he summed the Christian ethic up with the words well basically it's love your enemies he said without question Jesus set the highest ethic ever set in the history of man but too bad nobody ever lived up to it this is the Supreme facet of life if love is the greatest

thing then loving your enemies is the greatest thing that love can do and so the sunum bonum in a sense of all of our kingdom living should be found in this concept of loving our enemies and I want you to really think with me we have to lay some groundwork this morning so you'll understand and then two weeks from this morning we're going to resolve this thing wondrously as we hear how Jesus speaks starting with the Old Testament and moving to the fullness of the New Testament concept of loving your enemies but we have to

begin today with a little background and some foundation and I want you to get this because it's absolutely essential that you understand it in all the sermon on the mount I think there are two statements that more than any others and they're very obscure at first sum up the ethics the standards the requirements of the one who claims to be a member of the Kingdom of Heaven they're very simple statements the first one I want to point your attention to is in verse 47 of chapter 5 it says this in the middle of the verse

what do ye more than others now there is a tremendous summary statement of what Christ is asking in this whole sermon what does your system have more than any other human system What Makes You Different and then in chapter 6 verse 8 another simple statement be not ye therefore like unto them there's a second statement two statements that sum up the whole sermon what do you more than others and don't be like them what Jesus is saying in both of these simple statements is this my standards are not like other standards what I require is

not what other people do my standard is a higher standard and that's what he's saying in fact he's inditing the whole Pharisee religious judaistic system as being substandard when the best is said of your system what makes it better than any other what do you do different than anybody else what sets you apart if you were a part of my kingdom you would not be doing like them people in My Kingdom have a higher standard than even yours and theirs by the way was the highest religious standard of the day but it wasn't high enough

God requires for his kingdom a different standard unique separate holy in chapter 5:20 he pointed directly to their system and said this I say unto you that unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter the Kingdom of Heaven my standard is high he is saying my standard is higher than the highest human standard which is the standard of the scribes and the phes they struggled with all kinds of laws all kinds of religious ceremonies and rituals they were the most religious people of their time and

yet God says you're no different than anybody else my standard is that you do not act like them that you do more than even the best that men can do the highest human ethic falls woefully short of God's standard now this isn't anything new in the New Testament God has always called his people to a higher standard this is how God put it to the people of Israel soon after he had rescued them from their Egyptian slavery and made them his Covenant people he said this listen I am the Lord your God you shall not

do as they do in the land of Egypt where you dwelt and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I'm bringing you in other words my standard is not the one you came from and it's not the one you're going to you shall you shall not walk in their statutes you shall do my ordinances and keep my statutes and walk in them I am the Lord Lord your God now notice he brackets the statement by I am the Lord your God I am the Lord your God beginning and

ending with that statement and because I am the Lord your God you don't act like anybody else acts you don't live according to any standard not the one you came from and not the one you're going to because he was their Covenant God and because they were his special people they were to be different from everybody else they were to follow his Commandments and not take their lead from the stand of the people around them and that's hard it's hard for them it's hard in jesus' time and it's tough on us today to try to

live according to a standard other than the standard that engulfs us and traps Us in the world around us is difficult but that's what God asks for sadly throughout the centuries that followed Israel kept forgetting their uniqueness they kept forgetting that theirs was another standard and they kept falling into sin they were in balam's words uh people dwelling alone and not Reckoning itself among the Nations that sounds good they dwelt in isolation not mingling said balum but the truth is in practice they became assimilated to into everything around them so that scripture says this interesting

statement they mingled with the Nations and learned to do as they did sad commentary that commentary could be labeled on the church just as well they mingled with the Heathen and learned to do as they did from the very beginning God has always called a people to uniqueness he has always called a people to another standard to a higher level and God's people for some reason are always pulled down in fact it came to be that in Israel they desired to have a king and their state is this we will have a king over us

that we may be like the Nations they wanted to be like the rest of the world they even went so far as to say let us be like the Nations and worship gods of wood and stone so God kept sending them prophets and the prophets kept reminding them about their uniqueness prophets like Jeremiah who said people learn not the ways of the Nations prophets like Ezekiel who saido not defile yourselves with the gods of Egypt and Prophet after Prophet after Prophet came singularly and in Duos and trios and so forth they came continuously pleading with

God's people to be sure they maintained their unique standards to fall below was to dishonor God it's no different in jesus' time and today God wants his people to be different he wants his people to be unique and the standard that Jesus presents here regarding loving your enemies is not the mood of the mob that kind of a statement to the average Pagan today sounds like lunacy doesn't make any sense it is not an Earthly standard it is not the morality of the age it is unique it is a far greater ethic in fact want

to know the truth it's a far greater ethic than either you or I could ever keep on our own it's Way Beyond us to love our enemies but Kingdom character and I'll mark this Kingdom character is to be absolutely distinct absolutely unique and the key to it is that you can't live that way unless you are infused with divine power and so Jesus is saying to the Pharisees your system is substandard and until you come to me for power you will never be able to live by my standards this whole sermon really draws a contrast

between the best of men and God's standards and even the very best there were the most legalistic ritualistic religious people on the Earth the Pharisees couldn't qualify for example they thought it was enough not to kill Jesus says I don't even think you should hate in fact it's a command that you be angry with your brother they thought it was enough not to commit adultery he says you shouldn't even think about committing adultery they thought it was all right when they got a divorce if they took care of all the legal paperwork Jesus said you

shouldn't even be getting those unbiblical divorces they thought it was enough that they kept certain vows Jesus said you shouldn't even need to make vows because your word is so true and so pure they thought it was enough that they gave back an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth he says you shouldn't be retaliating at all in chapter 6 they said here's the way we pray Jesus says it's inadequate When you pray you're to do it this way and Jesus said here's the way you give and that's the wrong way to

give I want you to give this way and Jesus said you are concerned with material things I want you to seek the kingdom of God you see all the way through he's leveling a contrast and now as we come to chapter 5: 43 to 48 he contrasts their love with the kind of love that should characterize the subjects of his kingdom and what he's doing is telling them that they're not in his kingdom they don't qualify we are called on to be unique beloved that's the thrust of this whole sermon that's really what he's saying

and that's what I was trying to say earlier in the service this morning it God is calling us out of the system to be separated people with convictions and commitments and standards that we live by that are not the world's standards nowhere is the distinction between the life of man and the kingdom of God made more clear or unclear than in the life of a Believer that's where it all comes down and so Jesus is confronting Israel here because Israel is religious as Israel was was Walking In the Flesh he attacks their humanistic religious tradition

by saying it falls woefully short of God's standard let's look what he says about this subject of love in verse 43 it's such an important one 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 and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the sons of your father who is in heaven for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth reain on the just and on the unjust

for if you love them who love you what reward have ye do not even the tax collectors the same and if you greet your brethren only what do ye more than others do not even the Heathen so be ye therefore perfect even as your father who is in heaven is perfect he says to them as he has said in the five previous comparisons beginning in chapter 5: 21 your law says this mine says this your says love your neighbor hate your enemy I say love your enemy your substandard he's saying your ethics are too low

first as I said he had exposed their perversion of the Divine statute Thou shalt not kill then he had attacked also their unwarranted whittling down of the Commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery then he had attacked their desecration of marriage then he had spoken against their Wicked tampering with the injunction not to take the name of the Lord your God in vain then he had shown how they corrupted the judicial law of an ey for an ie and now he attacks them on the basis of the highest and best of things love and says your

supposed commitment to love your neighbor is inadequate and I have to say that I feel that this is the Supreme statement here because it's a statement on love and love is the greatest thing and loving your enemies is the greatest thing that love can do he really comes to the to the peak the sunum bonum as he speaks of love to compare with what we just read Matthew chapter 22 a lawyer came to Jesus and asked him what was the greatest commandment and in verse 37 Jesus said unto him Thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy mind this is the first and great commandment and the second is like it Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets in other words you can keep all the law and all the prophets one by one or you can just love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself and that'll cover it all that is the sum of it all it is also indicated in Romans

13 by the Apostle Paul who says oh no no man anything Romans 13:8 but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law for this Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not bear false witness Thou shalt not covet and if there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying namely Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself love worketh no ill to its neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law Paul says love fills up the whole law Jesus says

love fills up the whole law and so in Matthew 5 when our Lord begins to speak about loving he is touching on that which sums up the whole law here is really people and we'll see this in the next few weeks as we cover this here is a devastating death blow at the Pharisees in fact it is so direct that it must have curdled their blood when he said to them you can be compared with heathens in verse 4 7 which is exactly what he says your love is no better than anybody else you don't

have anything on publicans and sinners tax collectors and pagans the point is this the people in My Kingdom have a love that is beyond the best of loves the world can ever know we don't just love our neighbors and hate our enemies we love our enemies and in so saying he indicts them because they don't love their enemies and shows them their need for a savior now in each of these contrasts and there are six of them in Matthew 5 we have marked out three major points the teaching of the Old Testament the tradition of

the Jews and the truth from Christ and those are the same three points in all six let's look first of all at the tradition of the Jews the tradition of the Jews and that is referred to in verse 43 look at it ye have heard that it hath been said now that little introductory phrase is a reference we have seen now for the sixth time that refers to Jewish tradition it is not a statement related to the Old Testament it means your tradition has been passed down saying this this is your system this is what

you have developed and you have been taught this is the rabinal current religious teaching and what is it Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy now that's what they were taught love your neighbor and hate your enemy that's pretty open-ended wouldn't you say the first thing you do is figure out who your neighbor is then you can hate everybody else and be okay you can just hate up a storm depending on how you define your neighbor right if you define your neighbor as your wife and three best friends you can hate the whole

world so it all depends on your definition of neighbor and that's exactly what Christ gets into not only here but elsewhere as we shall see in our coming studies look first of all at the first part Thou shalt Love Thy Neighbor now that sounds so Pious Thou shalt Love Thy Neighbor oh it sounds so good you were say where did they get that well that's in the Old Testament sure it is Leviticus chapter 19 they got that right out of the Old Testament you know whenever they wanted to make up a rule they made sure

that they intersected somewhere with the Old Testament like the clock that doesn't run they're right twice a day every once in a while they're going to hit the truth and they always to find some kind of a basis for truth somewhere and so here they are in Leviticus 19:18 which says Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people but Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself that's Leviticus 19:18 love thy neighbor as thyself that's where they got that but did you notice something they left something out you have heard

it said Thou shalt Love Thy Neighbor what did they leave out as thyself as that's a convenient Omission isn't it in their state of unbelievable Pride they were so puffed up that that kind of a phrase at the end of a sentence would only confuse their desires and so rather than be trapped in a thing where they would have to treat others equal to themselves they dropped it now granted the one who came to Jesus in Mark 12 adds as thyself and the lawyer in Luke 10 adds as thyself but it may have been that

they wanted to make sure they were accurate because of who they were speaking with apparently the nor was Thou shalt Love Thy Neighbor period they didn't want to love anybody like they love themselves that would be crowding them they were too proud to love anyone equally you ever thought about what that means to love someone as you love yourself if you were just to love someone and it didn't say as yourself you could just sort of love them at a distance you could treat them a little less than you treat yourself whatever you do for

yourself you do half for them or a third or a tenth I mean if you just could drop that little phrase it would be so convenient if it just said love your neighbor period but the Lord has a way of driving things right into the heart of our being love your neighbor as you love yourself oh come on equally to I you say how do we love ourselves listen you love yourself you do I mean whose Teeth did you brush this morning morning whose hair did you comb whose wardrobe hangs in your closet whose savings

account is in your bank you are concerned about yourself you love yourself to love means to serve the needs you serve your own needs let's face it you have an unfeigned unhypocritical total love for yourself there aren't some days when you fall out of love with yourself you love yourself all the time and you're true you're genuine about it you really do you're fervent about it you're habitual about it it's a permanent love why whenever you have an interest you want to fulfill it whenever you have a need you want to meet it whenever you

have a want you want to supply it whenever you have a desire you want to fulfill it whenever you have a hope you want to realize it whenever you have an ambition you want to see it come to fruition I mean you are really working in your own behalf it's just the way life goes you're are very concerned about your own welfare your own Comfort your own safety your own interest your own health physical spiritual temporal Eternal things we're very concerned about ourselves we seek our own pleasure and we know of No Limits to gaining

what we want now that is exactly the way you're to love everybody else Jesus said even your enemies in other words you are to have that same totally consuming unfeigned fervent habitual permanent love which brings into your heart their interest their needs their wants their desires their hopes their Ambitions and prompts you to do everything you can to make sure that all their welfare safety comfort and interest is met and whatever they need and whatever they want and whatever pleasure they have you are anxious to fulfill on their behalf how do you measure up the

last time you had a choice between doing what you want or sacrificing yourself so somebody else could do it which way did you go who do you really care about the standard is very high people love your neighbor as yourself is very very high very high humanly speaking it is impossible because humanly speaking we are totally absorbed in ourselves I mean just think of it think of it from the standpoint of your income I mean probably at best you keep 90% of what you finally get after taxes and maybe give the Lord 10 when it

comes to how much you spend on you as opposed to how much you spend on the people on your block I mean it's minuscule to even think of how much you might spend on them as to how much you give to the needy and how much you use for yourself those kind of comparisons are very remote because we don't even think like that that's how far we are from these kind of principles loving your neighbor as yourself is a very very very heavy principle and that's the way we're to love but you see they you

weren't interested in that and so they just dropped it love your neighbor and so they omitted something but beyond that they added something what did they add and what hate your enemy now where did that come from did that come out of the Bible no nowhere has the Bible command us to hate our enemies where did they get that I mean what do they do just make that up that's right it was The Logical extension of their perverted thinking you see what they did was they said all right we are to love our neighbor now

we got to figure out who is our neighbor right so they said our neighbors are the Jews not the Gentiles that's what the Pharisees believe only the Jews qualified and among the Jews only certain Jews right certain Jews didn't qualify as neighbors for example look at Matthew 9:10 and Jesus passed for forth from there verse 9 saw a man named Matthew Matthew was a tax collector all right then verse 10 he's Jesus meeting with a tax collector it came to pass as Jesus sat eating in the house behold many tax collectors and sinners came and

sat down with him and his disciples now you have two categories of people tax collectors and we'll see more about them in our future study they were the Renegade traitor Rebel extortionist Jews that were despised by the people because they had sold out to Rome for money and then there were the sinners they are the public Sinners the displaying Sinners the prostitutes and the criminals and the Pharisees saw it and they said what why each your master with tax collectors and sinners so they said their neighbors are the Jews but only the Jews who aren't

Tax Collectors are sinners so we eliminate all of them they aren't our neighbors in fact they found a woman taken an adultery one time and they picked up stones to Stone her so it was a very defined neighbor that wasn't all look at John 7:49 in John 7:49 they went even further and the Pharisees are kind of giving away themselves here and in verse 49 they say but this people who knoweth not the law are cursed and what they mean there is this rabble mob here talking about a crowd this Rabel mob of uneducated not

knowledgeable people with no commitment to Pharisee tradition this riff wrath that doesn't know the law are cursed so they have eliminated the tax collectors and they have eliminated the Sinners and they eliminated the rabble mob that weren't committed to the law the way they were you know who their neighbors were the people in their group that's who and if you were in their group you could you would be loved but outside their group you were an enemy whether you were the Rabel mob or a tax collector or a public sinner if you weren't one of

them you know it was us for No More Bar the Door commitment to ourselves and nobody else they fed their evil proud Hearts by concluding that anyone not a neighbor was to be hated in other words they said the Bible says love your neighbor therefore if someone who is not your neighbor therefore someone who is not your neighbor is not to be loved and the opposite of Love is hate so love your neighbor means hate your enemy that's what's known in legal arguments as a nonsecular argument it does not necessarily follow but that's the way

they reasoned because they had a perversion in their hearts to begin with their Prejudice found way by the way they didn't read far enough in Leviticus 19 either if they had have read verse 34 they would have read this the stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself if they'd have read a little farther they would have known that even a non-jew a stranger whatever he was was to be loved as they loved themselves had they conveniently ignored Exodus 12:49 there shall be

one law for the native and one law for the stranger who sojourns among you there aren't different laws for different people if you are to love you are to love and that is as broad as the Commandment of God is Broad it wasn't only the Pharisees who were like this we know of the three groups in Jesus time the three sects of Judaism Pharisees Sadducees and essenes essenes were the hippie cult they were the ones that went out of town and they set up a community on the edge of the Dead Sea which is now

known as kumran it's the place where we have found the Dead Sea Scrolls and they lived apart from society they lived out in the wilderness in A Primitive life and uh copied copies of scripture and lived in a very austere antisocial way and the essenes have among their writings these statements that show they had the same attitude as the Pharisees quote love all that God has chosen and hate all that he has rejected love all the sons of Light each according to his lot in God's community and hate all the sons of Darkness each according

to his Guild and God's Vengeance and then this the Levites curse all the sons of B and to them the sons of B were the nonen so they cursed everybody who wasn't in their group just like the Pharisees their love was a Prejudice narrow ugly thing that just gave them license to hate everybody if you don't think they hated just watch them interact with Jesus Christ they were so filled with hatred one of the evasive maxims of the Pharisees that we've discovered in Archaeology is this statement listen if a Jew this is what they taught

if a Jew sees a gentile fallen into the sea let him by no means lift him out for it is written Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbor but this man is not Thy Neighbor in other words if you see a gentile drowning stand there and enjoy it don't save him he's not your neighbor with such an Outlook it is little wonder that the Romans charged the Jews with hatred of the human race now frankly there's some reason to see why they were able to twist Leviticus 19 to fit their own

prejudices no place in the Old Testament does it ever say to hate your enemy but there are some things in the Old Testament that at first might be a little hard to understand so let's move from our first point the tradition of the Jews to the teaching of the Old Testament where did they ever get these ideas and we're going to see a lot of this we'll see some of it today and some of the teaching of the Old Testament in our next study and finally we'll see the truth of Christ as he clears up

all the misconceptions but let me just give you the tension that created their sort of opening for them to do this they wanted a way to hate they wanted to justify it in their religious system so it wouldn't encroach on their self-righteousness so they had to invent some way to hate and no doubt they found a couple of good excuses one would be the Old Testament promises to exterminate the Canaanites you'll remember that when God brought Israel into the land of promise the land was filled at that time with the Canaanites who were vile wretched

people in fact archaeology has shown us that there has not been a race of people found that were worse than the Canaanites they were a Despicable thing they were a cancer on Human Society of the worst kind human sacrific blood leing uh massacres of babies you name it the Canaanites did it horrible or ortic kind of things and so the Canaanites were to be wiped out and when Israel came into the land they were told regarding the ammonites the moabites and the midianites to wipe them out they are not to be treated with kindness Deuteronomy

23: um 3-8 that whole section there says that all of these people midianites ammonites moabites are to be treated with no kindness but they are to be done away with now later on we read that also the amalekites were to have the same Fate In fact God says wipe not only them off the face of the Earth but the memory of them as well so they won't even be remembered so here was God saying to these people you go in there and you clean those people out of that land and certainly the Pharisees would have

looked on this and said you see God says Boy you know you got to hate your enemies go get them and some people been confused by this they say how could God be the same God who said love your enemies and the God who wanted to wipe out all these nations now that's a kind of a confusing thing at first but there was another thing that probably added fuel to their fire too and that's what is known as the imprecatory Psalms those are the Psalms in which David prays judgment on his enemies and people have

often said well how can how can the Bible say love your enemies and then David's praying oh God judge my enemies oh God punish my enemies catch them in a trap catch them in a snare you know and so forth and so on judge him Lord do away with them how can he be praying that if he's supposed to be loving his enemies and so no doubt they had taken some of these imprecatory Psalms and use them as a basis I'll give you an illustration turn in your Bible and I want you to look there

with me to Psalm 69 because I think it'll help you to understand this in Psalm 69 David here is praying one of these imprecatory Psalms he is calling judgment down upon these evil people and notice in Psalm 69:22 it gets pretty heavy it's really pretty stirring Mal ditions that he gives he says regarding these enemies let their table become a snare before them and that which should have been for their welfare let it become a trap let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their loins continually to shake pour out thine indignation

upon them and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them let their habitation be desolate and let none dwell in their tents for they persecute him whom thou has smitten and they talk to the grief of Those whom thou Hast wounded add iniquity unto their iniquity and let them not come into thy righteousness let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous now that's pretty heavy stuff I mean that's given both barrels God and don't spare anything now did this become a justification for the hatred to

the Pharisees very possibly along with the destruction of the Canaanites they would say well see this is the way it is to be boy the enemies we are to hate and they use it as a justification for their own personal hatred and vendettas but if they did that and it's likely they did then they missed the point of both the word to destroy the Canaanites and the Psalms because they have nothing to do with personal relationships just like our last study on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth there are certain

things that are judicial laws that do not apply in terms of personal relationships and they had again confused that they had taken the Judicial Code of an eye for an eye and they dragged it down and made it a way of living on a day-to-day basis and the same thing is true here they had taken the judicial acts of a holy God in preserving a righteous seed and they had dragged it down to be a justification for their personal hatreds let me show you what I mean by that in the first place the Canaanites were

a vile people so nauseating and corrupt were their Abominations that the Bible says the land vomited them out they were a vile wretched people when someone goes to the doctor with cancer and the doctor cuts the cancer out we don't say the doctor is a cruel unloving uncaring unsympathetic without compassion person we thank him for cutting cancer out and when God said get rid of the Canaanites that was not an act of evil that was an act of goodness to take out of human society a wretched filthy vile people that would do nothing but pollute

it and that is a Judicial act on God's part that does not give license to an individual Jew to despise an individual Canaanite or to hate him because of some that he has done what God does in his judicial Rel does not change the fact that the same God who judged the Canaanites loved every one of them with the same love he loves you just as I love my child when I punish my child the punishment comes because of the evil it does not deny the love so there is a Judicial element if Israel had

followed their Customs Leviticus 18 says she would have shared their fate and God wanted to preserve a righteous seed why to bring out a righteous Messiah to redeem the world and so the preservation of Israel was a great concern with God's heart so that he would have a witness in the world and he was cutting a cancer out of human society we have enough sense even today at least a few places in the world to set apart individuals in our society who do nothing but bring cancer on our society who kill and Ma and steal

we set them aside and God was doing no more than that in a collective way in setting aside those evil people for the good of society the wars of Israel wrote Dietrich Bon Hofer were the only Holy Wars in history for they were the wars of God against the world of Idols it is not this enmity which Jesus condemns for then he would have condemned the whole history of God's dealing with his people on the contrary he affirms the old Covenant there there was a place for a holy war then but what about the imprecatory

Psalms what about David calling down all his judgment on his enemies listen you missed the point in Psalm 69 if you don't read verse 9 because that explains verses 22 to 28 what does Psalm 699 say for the Zeal of thine house hath eaten me up stop right there for a minute David why are you so upset David why are you so concerned David why are you praying judgment on these people because of what they have done not to me but to your house you see it is not personal David believe me had the greatest

enemy in his life be his only son or his son absolum and David prayed that God would judge his son and God would judge his enemy and yet he cried from the deepest part of his heart oh absum absum my son my son the fact that he prayed for judgment to glorify God and preserve his people didn't mean he didn't love his son and those are things you have to hold intention we love the lost and yet we pray that God would be Vindicated and their sin would be stopped do we not we love the

lost with all our hearts and our hearts ache for those without Christ and yet we pray that Jesus would come and set his kingdom up and put the unrighteous people aside we have the same reaction of Dear John the Apostle as he saw the vision in Revelation 10 and he said and when it scroll went into my mouth and I saw what was going to happen it was both sweet and bitter it is sweet to see Christ reigning again it is bitter to see what happens to the Lost why because he had the tension of

loving God with all his heart and loving people too and that's the way it was with David it was Zeal for God's house that ate him up and the reproaches of those who reproached you are fallen on me he says I'm not defending myself it's you I'm defending it's one thing to defend the glory of God and the honor of God it's something else to hate people personally and you have to understand those two in Balance the judgments and curses are always judicial not personal what is to be my attitude toward anybody even my worst

enemy my attitude is to be one of forgiving love while at the same time I pray oh God do not let your enemies continue to dishonor your name but take the glory that is due to you my great attitude toward an enemy is to love him and to pray God would save him and if God doesn't save him that God would judge him him so that he can bring Christ to be the rightful ruler of this world and set righteousness in its proper place again God punished Adam but he loved him God loved Cain but

he punished him God loved the whole world but he drowned them God loved Sodom and Gomorrah but he burned them to ashes God loved the nation of Israel but he set him aside for a time God loved his only begotten son but he let him bear sin and die and God loves the world today but he promises that it's going to go up in a flame someday God loves you but you'll spend an eternity in hell if you don't know his son well you see the scribes and the Pharisees never made any distinction in this

tension they took judgment passages and because of their evil perverse and Prejudice Hearts they allowed them to become justification for them to hate people that was a wrong thing altogether I think I can sum up my thoughts this morning by having you look at Psalm 139 Psalm 139 this is just the introduction really Psalm 139: 19 now listen most interesting scripture Psalm 139:19 David again is saying surely thou Wilt slay the wicked oh God in other words he's saying God it can't always be this way it wasn't meant to be this way depart from me

therefore you bloody men for they speak against the wickedly see that's the right attitude it's not me I'm defending God it's you and thine enemies take thy name in vain do not I hate them oh Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with those who rise up against thee I hate them watch this with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies stop right there now wait a minute David you're hating yes he says but I'm hating them with what kind of hatred perfect hatred let me ask you a question is it right to

be angry is it right to be angry no is there such a thing as righteous indignation yes is it right for me to be angry when somebody offends me no is it right for me to be righteously indignant when some somebody dishonors God yes would have been right for Jesus to say you can't talk to me that way and punch somebody no but when Jesus came to defend the Holiness and the honor of God with a whip it was right there's a difference between anger and holy wrath and you want to know something there's a

difference between personal hatred and perfect hatred that's what David's talking about Lord he says I hate them oh Lord not that hate me it isn't me I don't care for me me as far as I'm concerned I'll forgive them and I'll love them but for your sake I hate what they do to your honorable name I am grieved with them who rise up against thee and so I hate them with perfect hatred and then he says this and Lord I know this is perfect hatred I know it isn't personal verse 23 and you search me

oh God and you know my heart and you know my thoughts and you see if there be any wicked way in me you check out my heart Lord and you'll see that my hatred is a perfect hatred it isn't personal it's not a vendetta it's not a wrath for someone who's an enemy who's opposed me I love that you see David is saying Lord I hate him with a perfect hatred you examine my heart and see if it isn't so see if it isn't the right kind of thing what are we saying beloved perfect hate

is not personal as we walk through this world I'll tell you something what puts us A Cut Above everybody else what puts us above everything is the capacity to personally love our enemies yes we pray for God's glory to be Vindicated yes we pray for an end of the unrighteous who curse his name yes we allow God to come in Fire and flaming Vengeance yes we know the same Jesus who said love your enemies to the Pharisees also said to the Pharisees you are woeful Matthew 23 and I pronounce on you doom yes we know

that judicially there will become a judgment judicially God will act in punishment but that's for God to do and in defense of God will'll uphold His holy name but in our personal relationships we are to be characterized by loving our enemies that'll make us different than everybody in the world people in the world love their friends they do pretty good job at that they love their families not bad at that either and they're even compassionate and sympathetic to people who don't have much but people in the world don't love their enemies believe me they don't

love their enemies people in the world may not kill but they get angry people in the world may not commit adultery not all of them but they do it in their heart Hearts people in the world may do all legal things in their divorces but they shouldn't have divorces anyway people in the world sometimes keep their word but they ought to always keep their word people in the world retaliate some of them on a very equal basis but they don't forgive and forget and people in the world love but they don't love like this and

Jesus is saying I don't want you to be like them go back to verse 47 again what did he say and what do you more than others What Makes You Different you're not going to be different if you just sprinkle a little Christian activity on your human life you're not going to be different if just a little bit of commitment goes over to Christ what makes you different than anybody else if you belong to my kingdom for one thing it is that you love your enemies it's pretty high standard to love them said John stot

is ardently to desire that they will repent and believe and be saved if you love them enough they just might respond to the Christ who lives in you made visible through that love let's pray who am I Lord to speak this message when the standard is even Beyond me or anybody but I speak as your spokesman and I speak to my own heart teach me to love not those that are easy to love not the lovely and The Lovable but the unloved and the enemies teach me to love the people who hate ha me teach

me to love the people who curse me teach me to love the people who would silence me who would harm me who would harm my family and those I love most dearly but oh God teach me to hate the sin to hate the unrighteousness that sweeps over the world to hate to see Jesus Dishonored give me a perfect hatred that calls for a righteous day A righteous Kingdom with a right King to make things right may I understand the difference between that great longing for God's glory and a personal love for those who offend him

most may we love people father people who don't love us and so may they say of us they must be Christians for no one else can love like that may Grace Church be known as a place where people love with a love love that is unearthly Supernatural may we not retaliate may we not give back what is due but may we give back forgiveness and love and so as your son said be the sons of Our Father who is in heaven may we love like you love like Jesus loved even those who hate us most

father we can't do it on our own there's no way thank you for the promise of Romans 55 that the love of Christ has been shed abroad in our hearts you've given us a new capacity to go with a new command to go with a new life as new creatures called to A New Kind of Love may we tap that capacity that's there by the presence of the spirit of God give us magnanimous big forgiving loving hearts that there might be a validation of Our Testimony and Jesus lifted up and truly some of your enemies

turned into friends in response to such Love For Your Glory we pray PR amen you've been listening to John MacArthur Bible teacher with grace to you for free access to all of John's lessons and a listing of study Bibles and books available for sale visit Grace toou website at gty.org John MacArthur and grace to you reserve all copyright protection under applicable law our copyright policy is available at gty.org and it includes instructions for and limitations on duplicating this digital file