Taking the High Road - Live with Lon!

Well, hello, everybody.

Welcome to Live with Lon. So great to have you. And we're going to be continuing today in our study of the Gospels. Wonderful study in a wonderful section of the Word of God. But before we do that, let me just say we're going to pray. But just before we pray, let me remind you that we have a trip, a tour, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Planned in late April. I urge you, if you want to go to the Holy Land, this is a great time to go. We've got all our spots and we're ready and poised to step in right away as soon as Israel opens up. So it'll be very exciting.

And if you're interested, go to our website, lonsolomonministries.com, and we'll tell you all about it. Okay. And yes, we still have room. Okay, now let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today and we want to pray and thank you so much for this vaccine that looks like it's, no, 95% effective and that was developed at unprecedented speed.

Thank you for your mercy to us and to the human race. And I pray that this vaccine or these many vaccines will be approved and that we will see the end of this lockdown, quarantine, all of this stuff, and we will bring this coronavirus under control. Lord, I also want to pray for our nation after a very tumultuous week. Father, I want to pray now that you would bring calm and serenity to our nation. And Lord, I don't know all that's going to happen with all the political maneuvering, but Lord, just help us as believers, trust you, that you're in charge of our nation.

You have a plan for our nation and whether it includes Mr. Trump's reelection or whether it includes Mr. Biden's election, it doesn't matter. The plan of God is already set. So Lord, help us to take hope in that and help us to rest in that and to know that you are the one who's in charge of all of this.

And we can trust you to always do what's right and what's best. And now Lord, open our hearts and our minds to the Word of God. We pray this in Jesus' name and everybody said, Amen. Okay, well, we here at Lon Solomon Ministries remember what we do. We teach, say with me, the Bible, the whole Bible, nothing but the Bible, and then we apply that to your life and my life in a practical, everyday way. And what an exciting thing it is to teach the unvarnished truths of the Word of God and to watch God work in people's lives as a result. We get letters every week and emails every week telling us from all over the country how the Lord is using the Bible in their lives to radically transform their eternal destiny and their life here on earth.

And it's not us. It's the Bible taught the way it should be taught, that it means what it says and it says what it means. And we just praise the Lord. My word, the Lord says in the book of Isaiah, I will send my word and it will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish the purpose for which I send it, which is to give people eternal life and to change their earthly life.

So that's what we've been doing. We have been in the Gospels. We're working our way through the Gospel of Matthew and kind of supplementing it with information from Mark and Luke's Gospels since the three of them. The Synoptic Gospels are very similar, but particularly Luke has some passages Matthew omits and vice versa. So we are in Matthew Chapter 16.

And let's pick up there. And of course, just to repeat, we are using the New King James translation of the Bible. And as I said, we're in Matthew Chapter 16.

So look with me and let's begin. Let's let's get the context, because remember, a text without a context is a pretext. You say, what? What does that mean?

What again? A text, the Bible verse without a context of the verses around it is a pretext, a falsehood. People take verses all the time and they take them like a string of cooked spaghetti and they throw them up on the wall and it sticks. And they all stand around and go, well, what do you think that means?

I don't know. What do you think that means? Folks, that is not how to interpret the Bible. That's bad hermeneutics. Interpreting the Bible is done in context with the verses before it and the verses after it.

A text without a context is a pretext. So let's get the context here in Matthew Chapter 16. Peter has said, no, Lord, you're not going to Jerusalem and they're not going to kill you.

And this is not going to happen to you. And the Lord says, get behind me, Satan, because you're not thinking about the interests of God. You're thinking about the interests of man, yourself, and because you don't want me to die. But if I don't die, there's no plan of salvation for the human race. And then he says, verse 24 of the chapter, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Now, in the context, he's talking to Peter and the other disciples about the fact that they have to deny their personal wishes. Peter had a personal wish that the Messiah, the Lord, would not die in Jerusalem, but we have to deny our personal wishes. And we have to follow Jesus and the will of God and take up our cross, even if that means sacrifice or suffering.

That's OK. That's what we have to do to be a follower of Jesus for whoever desires to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus says, the way you find your life, the meaning, the purpose for your life is you give it to me. You lose it unto me. Now, you cede it.

C-E-D-E. You cede the ownership of your life to me. And then you find the real joy and the real purpose and the real meaning of living. The purpose for living? We get up to serve the living God every day, every morning. The meaning of living, we find meaning in and excitement in serving Christ with our life instead of ourselves. The joy in life that supernaturally comes from serving God. This is what Jesus is telling Peter and them.

You guys have got to forget about your own plans for life and give your life to me. And then finally, the verse we covered last week for what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Jesus is talking about our salvation that we get to heaven. And what good is it if we never gave our life to Christ? We never ceded the ownership of our life to Christ. And so we get to heaven and we have all that earthly treasure we built up, but we lose our own soul.

We don't get into heaven because the only way you get into heaven is by trusting Christ and giving him ownership of your life. And then Jesus says, what will a man trade? What are you going to bargain with for your soul? You're going to say, oh, God, like we talked about last week. Larry Ellison, I'll give you the island of Lanai if you'll let me in. George Soros, I'll give you all my money if you let me in. Well, what?

No, I'm sorry. There's nothing you can trade for your soul because the Lord owns it all anyway. And he's trying to talk to Peter and the disciples in context here about giving their life away to the Lord. Giving their plans for their life away and not thinking about things from the human perspective, but from the perspective of God. Now, that's where we've been. And since Jesus kind of mentions that you're going to lose your soul, he goes ahead to make a comment about his return.

Look at this. He says in verse 27, for the son of man, meaning Jesus, will come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to his or her works. Assuredly, verse 28, I say to you, there are some of you standing here who shall not taste death till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Now, verse 28 goes right in to the next chapter.

So we're not going to discuss that today. We'll discuss that next week because it really belongs to Chapter 17 and the events of Chapter 17. But look what Jesus said here at the end of Chapter 16. He said the son of man will come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he will not now, but then he will reward each person according to their works. Now, this theme throughout the is throughout the Bible that the Lord Jesus Christ, God, our God is a just and righteous God. And that no one is going to get away with anything in the end, no matter what they did, no matter how much it looks like they got away with it.

They're not going to get away with it. He's going to reward every single person according to what they did. Let me read you here in the book of Romans. All right, I'm in the book of Romans, chapter two, verse six, but I'll pick up a couple of verses before that. So we get the context of verse four. Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? God's patience with us is meant to help us come to repentance. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Verse six, who will render to each one according to his deeds? Well, isn't that what Jesus just said in Matthew, chapter 16? Of course it is.

That's exactly what he just said. And in Romans chapter 12, look at verse 19. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place for wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. And I love that verse. It doesn't say I might repay.

It says I will repay. Galatians chapter six, verse seven. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Nobody makes a fool out of God for whatsoever a person sows that that also shall they reap. And Romans two goes on to say there's no partiality with God. This is true for the Jew and the Gentile. The Jewish people may be the chosen people for certain reasons, but they're not chosen automatically to go to heaven. And they're not chosen to escape God's judgment upon their deeds.

It's for everybody. So this is the testimony of the Bible that God is going to even the score. And as a result of that, we have nothing to worry about. We have nothing to worry about.

Nobody's going to get away with anything, my friends. Now, that's as far as we want to go with our passage because we're going to stop now and we're going to ask our most important questions. So are you ready? Come on now. Here we go.

Ready? One, two, three. So what? Oh, yes. And you know what comes next, Jackie Gleason's old comment, how sweet it is. In fact, when you drive into Brooklyn where the honeymooners with with Art Carney and and Jackie Gleason was set. When you drive in, it's one of the roads.

It says, welcome to Brooklyn. How sweet it is. I'll get a picture of that maybe next week for you. Anyway, you say long. OK, I got that. The Lord's going to settle accounts. But when I walk out of my house on a Monday morning, what difference does it make to me? Well, friends, it makes a huge difference to you and me to know this and to be assured of this. I'll tell you why, because there's not a single one of us who hasn't been treated rotten by somebody along the way. Maybe it was a relative. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was an ex boyfriend or an ex girlfriend, an ex wife, an ex husband, somebody at work, a student at school, a neighbor.

On and on and on I could go. But we've all been treated nasty by somebody, really by a lot of some bodies in most cases. And what they have done has hurt us and what they have done in some cases has damaged us.

Sometimes seriously, parents can terribly damage their children, for example. And what is our first reaction, folks? Our first reaction is to strike back. Our first reaction is to first of all, in our mind, wish them badly with malice and thoughts of revenge and bitterness and anger towards them. And then very often we look for the opportunity to actually do or say things to them that will hurt them back, that will get them back. We all have done this.

And you know what? David struggled with this same thing, too. The great man of God. There's a group of Psalms called the imprecatory Psalms. Let me put that word up on the screen, imprecatory. The word imprecatory literally means to wish harm or revenge upon somebody. So these Psalms, there's 14 of them, are Psalms in which David expresses to the Lord the feelings that he has that the people who have heard him get it back, that they get paid back.

And I want you to read just a couple of these to you. Psalm 55, verse 15, David prays, let death take my enemies by surprise. Let them go down alive into the grave. Psalm 58, verse six. Oh, God, break their teeth in their mouths.

Really? Psalm 69, verse 28, may they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous. Send them to hell, God. Psalm 109, may my enemy's children be fatherless and his wife be a widow. Psalm 137. How blessed will be the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

David says, I'm I'm rooting for somebody to come take your babies and kill them against the rocks. This is amazing, these Psalms. And so, my friends, how do what do we do with Psalms like this? This is the inspired word of God.

And there it is. How do we reconcile this with Romans Chapter 12? Let's put Romans Chapter 12 up, repay no one evil for evil. If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, verse 19, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath.

Leave it alone. Let me do it, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy hungers, feed him.

If he thirsts, give him a drink. For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head. What does God mean by that?

God means by treating him nicely. You leave the job of avenging the wrong he's done to you. You leave that job to me, God says, and I'll do a far better job than you'll ever do. But if you avenge yourself, well, then I'm not going to do it.

You already did it. Look, last verse, verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Do not let your desire for malice and revenge and do not let your hatred and your anger overcome you, but instead be overcome with returning good to these people. Okay, how do we reconcile this with the imprecatory Psalms? Let their infants be dashed against a rock. Let them go to hell.

Let their children be fatherless and their wife be a widow. Well, I think it's really not that hard to reconcile this in the Psalms. David is expressing his deepest and most sincere emotions. That's why people love the Psalms, because when they read the Psalms, they read of a man who knew what it was like to cry, who knew what it was like to be in grief, who knew what it was like to be hurt and have anger against the people who hurt him, who knew what it was like to sin and have to come back and repent. David is very human in the Psalms, and so, just like in the Psalms, sometimes he expresses doubt. Oh, Lord, why have you forsaken me?

Where are you? Did David really doubt God? I don't think so on any major level, but I think he had moments that he did, but in the same way. Is David really going to go dash these people's children against a rock?

No, no. He was expressing his feelings and his emotions and his hurt and his anger, which we all feel when someone mistreats us. Outpouring of his soul to the Lord, but that doesn't mean, that's not the way we should live. God makes it clear. We should live according to Romans Chapter 12 and ask the Holy Spirit to help us live according to Romans Chapter 12. And let's look back at it one more time.

Just the high spots. Ready? Verse 17, repay no one evil for evil. 18, if it's possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to God's wrath. For it's written, vengeance is mine.

I will repay. Verse 21, do not be overcome by the evil of malice and revenge and wanting to return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. This is how God wants us to live. Now, I call this taking the high road.

That's the title of the message. Taking the high road, meaning we don't treat people the way they treat us when they treat us badly. We take a higher road. We, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink because then you're leaving vengeance to the Lord. And you're not taking that vengeance. You're not being a lynch mob for this person.

You're not being a vigilante force against this person. You're leaving it to God. You're being a tunnel to use our old phrase and not a wall. And you let me go right on through what they did to you. And you're saying, God, I'm not going to go down and lower myself to do back to them what they did to me. God, I'm not going to go down and lower myself to mud wrestling with this person. I'm not doing that. I'm taking the high road and that is the road that says I don't need to carry out my own vengeance on this person. I don't need to muscle a mud wrestle with them. No.

Why? Because I have an all-seeing, living, all-knowing, all-powerful, righteous, just God who promises me that he is going to take care of whatever vengeance needs to happen. And may I add, sometimes the amount of vengeance that needs to happen is not as much as you think. I mean, we get ourselves all worked up until we're convinced people have just been absolutely crummy to us.

But we didn't know their motives and we didn't know the surrounding situation. God does. My point being, God's the only one who's really capable of administering true justice, true vengeance, appropriate justice.

We will tend to take out a sledgehammer to kill a fly. God will take everything into account and administer appropriate justice. So he's the one that should do it, not us. Now you say, well, Lon, this is really hard to do that. I know.

I know. That's why we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us. That's why we need to be tunnels and not walls. And that's why we have to believe God and what he says about himself. Folks, if we have a weak God, if we have a God who can be bamboozled, if we have a God who can have the wool pull over his eyes by these people, then it's a little harder to get comfortable with him, you know, paying out vengeance.

But if we have the God of the Bible, remember what I said? He's all knowing. He's all seeing. He's all powerful.

He's just. He's righteous. And he's promised to take vengeance on those who've hurt us. If we've got that kind of God, then we can leave it with him. It's all about the size of your God. It's all about your concept of God. It's all about how deeply you understand who God is. The deeper you understand who our God is, the easier it'll be to leave vengeance to him. Get in the Bible. Learn who our God is. You'll be able then to turn loose of it and give it to the Lord. Hey, I love what Proverbs 24 12 says.

Let me put it on the screen. Proverbs 24 12 says, If you say, Surely we did not know this. We didn't know what we were doing.

Sorry. Does not he who weighs the hearts consider it? He knows what's in your heart. Don't tell him you didn't know what you were doing. He who keeps your soul. Does he not know it?

What you did? Of course, he knows that he sees everything. And will he not render to each man and woman according to his deeds? My friends, God sees it all. He knows it all.

You got nothing to worry about. You say, Well, Lon, can I go to God in an imprecatory way and pour out my heart and just tell him how angry I am and and how much I wish that he would take vengeance on these people? Well, David did.

David did. I think if that's how you're really feeling to get it off your chest. Sure. Why not? Tell God how you're feeling. But we can't act on that. We can't act on it in our mind. We've got to struggle against it to get rid of that malice, to get rid of that anger, to forgive those people by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we can't act on it physically and tangibly by taking vengeance on those people in time and space.

No, no, no. We can tell God how we're feeling, but we have to fight against it. Remember, our job is not to give in to sin. It's to fight against it. And those attitudes, even the David expressed were wrong, sinful attitudes, and we have to fight against them.

We have to fight against the Bible because David really felt them. But the Lord makes it clear that these are not the feelings he wants us to have. Putting away all malice, the Book of Colossians says, putting it away. Let every man be at peace with one another.

And my goal is to be able to say, look at this, Romans chapter 12, verse 18, as much as it depends on me, I am at peace with all men and women. I've forgiven them for what they've done, and I've let what they've done go right on through to Jesus. And I can think of them in my mind without going, No, no, no, no. I can think of them, and I remember what they did, but it's like scar tissue now. It's like ancient history.

Scar tissue has no feeling. It's just God's going to deal with it. And I don't do the gurgers at them. I take some time sometimes to get there with certain people. But that's our goal, to struggle against sin and sinful attitudes, not to simply give in to them and say, Well, I'm just human. Yeah, well, we are just human, but we're humans with the Holy Spirit, and our job is to struggle against the sinful attitudes of our flesh. May God help us do that. Let's pray. And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I'd like to give you just a moment. I'm giving it to myself as well, to talk to God about some of the people in your heart who, when you think of them, and they come up on the video screen of your brain.

You've got malice and anger and the gurgers against them. Folks, I'm here to ask you to covenant with God. That with the help of his spirit, you're going to let go of that. And it may not be today, but that you're going to begin today to struggle against it and let go of it by the power of the Holy Spirit and let God take the responsibility to deal with them. Let's take a moment and pray. Beloved, repay no one evil for evil.

But as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to God's wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, sayeth the Lord. Lord, help bring this to pass in our hearts. For the glory of God. And we pray this in Jesus name. And everybody said, Amen.

Okay, my friends, thanks so much for being with us. Remember, the biggest prisoner in the world is the person who's a prisoner to his own bitterness and malice towards people. This truth that God's teaching us here is liberating truth. It sets us free when we can be at peace with all men and women. And God is trying to set you free in love. So work with you. Hey, may God bless you and Lord willing in the creek, don't rise. We'll see you next week on Live with Harm. Thank you.