How to Think and Act in Evil Days, Part 2 B

Does God love His enemies? Yeah. How does He love His enemies?

By being good to all, by showing compassion to all, by warning all, and by offering the gospel. So just do that. Okay? That's how you live your life.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You may have heard about a California couple that was notified that their home Bible study violated a zoning ordinance. Then there's the story about a teacher who ordered a little girl before her piano recital not to announce that she would be playing Jesus Loves Me.

You've heard stories like those. Maybe you anticipate similar troubles will come your way as society becomes less tolerant of Christianity. So how should you respond to persecution or hostility? Consider that as John MacArthur continues his study on grace to you, titled How to Think and Act in Evil Days. If you have your Bible, turn to the gospel of Matthew, and here's John.

I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 5, verse 43, and let me just read it to you, and then we'll talk about it. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for He causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the pagans do the same? Therefore you're to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now as we look at this text, I just want to show you three things, okay? Number one is the tradition of the Jews, and then the teaching of the Old Testament, and then the final truth from our Lord, the tradition of the Jews. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Their tradition then was very simple, love your neighbor, and they added, hate your enemy. Love your neighbor, hate your enemy.

Now they conveniently omitted something. They omitted love your neighbor as yourself. So they diminished the requirement of that love. Love your neighbor, but of course you don't want to love your neighbor like you love yourself because you're far more important than your neighbor. You deserve more love than your neighbor.

That would define the culture in which you're living right today, the self-centered, self-fulfilling, self-aggrandizing, self-esteem mentality. But the Old Testament says love your neighbor as yourself. Let's look at the teaching of the Old Testament just briefly because I want to get past this to the most important part. Teaching of the Old Testament. What is the teaching of the Old Testament? What did the Old Testament say? People say, well, look, if you go to the Old Testament, you might understand why they had developed this very narrow view of neighbor because the Jews, when they entered the land of Canaan, were given the first command. The first responsibility was to exterminate the Canaanites, obliterate them. They were told in Deuteronomy 23, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Midianites were not a people to be treated with kindness. And if you get into the Psalms and you get into what are called the imprecatory Psalms, you can read like Psalm 69, 22 to 28, all these things that are prayers to God to destroy the wicked.

How does that kind of work with love your enemies? I think there's a very simple and lucid statement that was penned by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew what it was to be a Christian in the middle of vicious, vile, destructive, slaughtering, murderous Nazis. And this is what Bonhoeffer wrote, and I think it's true, the wars of Israel against the pagan nations were the only holy wars in history...the only holy wars in history. The only wars prescribed specifically by God against idolaters for the preservation and protection of His people for redemptive purposes in the bringing of the Messiah and the salvation of the elect.

He's right. The prescribed, commanded holy wars that Israel engaged in directly by the command of God are the only holy wars in history. As for the imprecatory Psalms, what do we make of those where David is praying these kinds of things? Well, the way to understand that is the Psalmist speaks not with personal animosity...not with personal animosity, but as a representative of God's chosen people. He is, after all, Israel's King and He is defending the integrity of God. He regards the idolatrous enemies of God as worthy of judgment. You see that earlier in Psalm 69.

He regards them as God's enemies and He is upholding the honor and the glory of God, sort of like Revelation chapter 6 where you have the martyrs under the altar and the fifth seal and they're saying, How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord, will You allow Your people to be martyred and You will not vindicate Your honor and Your glory? Or maybe the message of Habakkuk, the same message, the prophet, How long, O Lord?

How long, O Lord, are You going to let the enemies of Israel be triumphant and be victorious? These are judicial cries. They're not personal vengeance and personal animosity.

The people of God take up the cause of God. Like the psalmist said, The reproaches that fall on you in the same psalm, the reproaches that fall on you are fallen on me. In other words, when you're dishonored, I feel the pain. So what you have here in the imprecatory psalms are cries for the justice of God to go forth for the vindication of His name, not personal retaliation, not personal vengeance.

It's very different. For example, you have in David who offers these imprecatory psalms on behalf of God, a desire for God to be honored. And then you have the very opposite situation. If you remember, in 1 Samuel 24, David could have killed Saul and he would have, I suppose, on many levels had been just in doing that because it would have been an act of self-defense since Saul was trying to kill him. But he looked at Saul in his vulnerability and you remember in 24 he says in verse 10, I had pity on him.

I had pity on him and he wouldn't take his life. And again in 2 Samuel 16, the cursing enemy, Shema comes against David and he's told, you need to get rid of this guy, you need to get rid of this guy. And David's response is, let him curse, let him curse. The Lord will deal with this. And that's kind of like Romans, isn't it? Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

You don't take that into your own hands. So what is instructing us here? Verse 44, but I say to you, love your enemies, love your enemies, love your enemies.

Apart from a holy war, apart from an imprecatory prayer for the vindication of the glory of God and the dishonor of His name to stop, it comes down to the personal attitude of the believer. And what is my personal attitude toward the enemies of the cross, toward the enemies of the gospel, toward the enemies of the church? It is to love them, to love them.

What does that mean? What do you mean to love them? Maybe to desire that they will repent. That's where it starts, to desire that they will believe the gospel, to desire that they will be saved. To hate them? No. To want them to go to hell? To want them to die in their sins?

No. How about having the attitude of Jesus who looks at the city of Jerusalem and what does He do? He weeps. He weeps. How often I would have gathered you as hen gathers their brood, but you would not. You who murder the prophets are about to slaughter me. That has to be the attitude. No matter how vile or violent, no matter how threatening, we love those enemies.

The worst Islamic terrorist, the most foul-mouthed, anti-Christian person that irritates you, the one who criticizes Christ and dishonors Him until it literally causes pain for you. What's your attitude? It's an attitude of love.

Let me say it again. To love them is to ardently and passionately and genuinely desire that they will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And that has to be the hard attitude that we take into this dying world. In Exodus 23, 4 and 5, it says this, if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him. You shall surely release it. If you find the animal of someone who hates you, care for that animal.

That's communicating love. In the 31st chapter of Job, Job defends his virtue, and this is what he says. Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy? What an interesting insight. You want to know my character? Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or rejoiced when evil befell him? Do I get some kind of pleasure when a terrorist blows himself up? Do I get some kind of pleasure when a politician, an immoral, ungodly, profane politician succeeds in leading some kind of movement that changes laws for the worse? Do I rejoice when his plane crashes? Well Job said this, no, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life. I've even heard people say maybe the best thing that would happen would be the president would be assassinated.

What? The best thing that would happen would be the president would be what? Saved, along with every other person who's on the other side of the gospel. Proverbs 25, 21, if your enemy's hungry, do what? Feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him water to drink. And oh by the way, the Lord will reward you. That's Proverbs 25, 21, 22. Well that's the Old Testament. The Old Testament is love your neighbor, and your neighbor includes your enemy. All right, so you've got tradition in Jesus' time. Love your neighbor and your neighbor is this very, very narrow group of people that you prefer, and hate your enemy.

That's tradition. Old Testament teaching, love your neighbor and your neighbor means everybody, including your enemy. And the final point is to look at the truth from Jesus. How did He give us clarity? I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who's in heaven.

There's three things there that I...you can see them yourself. Three principles will correct a faulty understanding. Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, and demonstrate your sonship. Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, manifest or demonstrate your sonship.

Nobody has problems living with their friends. Jesus goes to the real issue in that second and great commandment, your enemy is your neighbor. Remember the Luke 10 Good Samaritan story? That's a story about loving your neighbor.

Your neighbor was an outcast alien. Here is a Samaritan and a Jew, and they had no dealings. And yet there's an expression of love. Love your enemies.

The possessive pronoun there is very definite. Love your personal enemy. Love is agapotē. It's a present constant command, be constantly loving.

And agapao is the love of the will. It's the noblest of all loves. It's the love that's not the love of feelings and emotion. It's not phileo which has a shade of kind of affections. It's the love of the will.

It's the love that determines. It's the unconquerable benevolence of an invincible good will. Love your enemies. Love your enemies. Luke 6, Jesus says, to the point that you do good to those who hate you. Second, pray for your persecutors. It can come to that. Pray for those who persecute you.

Who's the best model of that? Jesus on the cross, what did He say? Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they do. That forgiveness went into action fast because a thief was forgiven on the spot and so was the Roman centurion. Again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, this is the supreme command. Through the medium of prayer, we go to our persecutors, stand by their side and plead to God for them. You pray for your persecutors. You go to your persecutor's side, to your enemy's side, spiritually speaking, and you take hold of your enemy and you lift your enemy before God in prayer.

It was back in 1880, some words were written that affected Bonhoeffer by another. He wrote this, this commandment to love your enemies and pray for your persecutors will grow even more urgent in the holy struggle which lies before us. The Christians will be hounded from place to place, subjected to physical assaults, maltreatment and death of every kind.

We're approaching an age of widespread persecution. Soon the time will come when we will pray. It will be a prayer of earnest love for these very sons of perdition who stand around and gaze at us with eyes aflame with hatred and who have perhaps already raised their hands to kill us. Yes, the church which is really waiting for its Lord and which discerns the signs of the times of decision must fling itself with its utmost power and with the armor of its holy life into this prayer of love," end quote. That has to be the attitude of the true church. Love your enemies, show it by praying for your persecutors.

And thirdly, that will demonstrate your sonship, verse 45, so that you may be sons of your Father who's in heaven. That is just a profound statement. The most God-like thing you can do, the most God-like thing you can do is love your enemies.

Let me tell you something. If God didn't love His enemies, there wouldn't be any Christians, right? Even while we were enemies, Paul says, He loved us.

That's the basic principle. We manifest that we are genuinely the sons of God when we love the way God loves. We were all enemies and He made us friends. He made us sons.

He made us joint heirs. We are to behave toward our enemies the way our heavenly Father behaved toward us. How does God treat His enemies? He loves them. He loves them.

How do we know that? Verse 45 causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. The world is full of the enemies of God. They hate God. They defy God.

They resent God and the rain falls and the sun shines and they live life and they smell the flowers and they eat the food and they fall in love and they have children and they suck in all the wonders of life and creation. This is what Calvin first called common grace that manifests the love of God for His enemies. Psalm 145, 15 and 16 says, The eyes of all look to Thee and Thou dost give them their food in due time. Thou dost open Thy hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Common grace...common grace. You know, when you think about that love of God that extends toward everyone, I like to break it into four simple categories.

We're running out of time, I'll give them to you quick. Number one is general goodness...general goodness, just life in the world. Just look around you, we're living in Santa Clarita.

How many real believers are in this town? But what a delightful place to live. That's common grace. Music is a common grace. Food is a common grace. Friendship is a common grace. Recreation is a common grace.

Scenery is a common grace. There's a second way in which God loves His enemies...compassion...compassion. He feels pity for them. Matthew, Jesus weeps. Luke 19, Jesus weeps. Jeremiah 13 and Jeremiah 48, Jeremiah literally cries the tears of God...tears of compassion. We see the compassion of God toward His enemies in the healing ministry of Jesus. Why did Jesus heal people? He could have come into the world and demonstrated His deity a lot of ways. How about flying? Huh? Just standing there and levitate...go up to Galilee in the air.

Take a few guys with you. Fly back, land...pretty impressive. Or maybe He could leap a tall building at a single bound like Superman. Why did He do what He did? Because He was not only demonstrating miraculous power, He was demonstrating divine compassion. There is compassion. Medicine is the evidence of God's compassion. There's a milk of human kindness we talk about in even fallen, wretched people that's part of the image of God that makes them care for people. Not everybody that runs hospitals, not everybody that runs charities, not everybody that tries to relieve suffering is doing it because the Holy Spirit is in them. But it's part of the image of God. So God's love for His enemies is shown in common grace and compassion. And thirdly, warning. God loves enough to warn. You must repent or you will all likewise perish. That's what we saw yesterday.

You're all living on borrowed time. And the fourth way in which God demonstrates His love for His enemies is in the gospel offer...the gospel offer. God's general love for mankind, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Tell them to repent.

Tell them to believe in Christ, to be saved. God's love extends across the world, through us, to the corners of the world to bring the gospel offer to sinners. Does God love His enemies?

Yeah. How does He love His enemies? By being good to all, by showing compassion to all, by warning all, and by offering the gospel. So just do that, okay?

That's your assignment. Live the rest of your life loving the way God loves His enemies. That's how you live your life. You extend to your enemies love the way God extends love. No different.

You can't improve on it. Show them kindness, goodness, compassion. Warn them of what is to come and offer them the gospel.

That is your calling as long as you're here. That's John MacArthur showing you how to think and act in evil days, along with teaching here on Grace to You. John is also Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, which is where he originally preached this current series. Now today, John, you made the point that if God didn't love His enemies, then there would be no Christians. And that's a humbling thought. Maybe you could close this study by talking about that a bit more. What does it look like to love our enemies while we still have to point out their sin and call them to repent?

How do you do all of that at the same time? Well, I think that is the message of the gospel. Just go back to Christ himself, the very God who is love incarnate, right? God is love. Christ is God. Christ is love. No one ever loved as Christ loved. But that love caused him to speak the truth about sin and death and judgment, about righteousness and about salvation.

And what did they do? They crucified him. That's an inevitability in this world that there will be hostility toward the gospel. Jesus said that in the Beatitudes. Blessed are you when they persecute you, and see all manner of evil against you falsely, and all of these things.

So we have to expect that. You can't back off of that because it offends people. You know, it seems to me that evangelicals in this climate today are working very hard to make sure they don't offend anyone. I remember doing an interview not too long ago on television, and somebody asked me, does it bother you that you offend people?

And I think I said something like, well, no, I exist to offend people. That's exactly why I'm in the world, is to offend people who are comfortable in their own sin and don't realize the deadly reality that looms ahead of them in divine judgment. So being able to think and act correctly in evil days comes down to being willing to confront sinners. And that's what I was trying to say to the young people at the Masters University Chapel where I gave this series.

It's easy to be kind to people. It's very difficult to come across as unkind because you confront their sins, but that is what is most necessary. So the series How to Think and Act in Evil Days is available in two CDs, a little album that we're glad to send to you. Good for you to listen again and to give to someone else. Also available in two MP3 downloads at GTY.org.

Yes, John's study, How to Think and Act in Evil Days, is an ideal resource for a person graduating from high school or college. Although the lessons apply to you, too, whatever your age or circumstance in life, if you want to purchase the CD album, or if you just want to download the MP3s, contact us today. To order the CD album, call 800-55-GRACE or visit our website GTY.org.

The two-CD album is reasonably priced and shipping is free, and you can download both messages from How to Think and Act in Evil Days free of charge at GTY.org. That's our website, and there you'll find all of John's messages from five-plus decades of his pulpit ministry. While you're at GTY.org, I'd also encourage you to download the Study Bible app, if you haven't got it already. This free app gives you the entire text of the Bible in the English Standard, New American Standard, and King James versions, as well as instant access to thousands of online resources. To get the free Study Bible app or to download any one of John's sermons, you can visit our website GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here Friday when John kicks off a compelling study of your future home if you're a believer. Don't miss John's series called When We All Get to Heaven. It starts tomorrow when we're back with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.