Love your enemies?

And the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, “I came to Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to spend the night. And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me, and they violated my concubine, and she is dead. So I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel, for they have committed abomination and outrage in Israel. Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here.” 
And all the people arose as one man, saying, “None of us will go to his tent, and none of us will return to his house. But now this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot. . . .  (and) repay Gibeah of Benjamin for all the outrage that they have committed in Israel.” 
So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man. And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What evil is this that has taken place among you? Now therefore give up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and purge evil from Israel.” 
But the Benjaminites would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel. Then the people of Benjamin came together out of the cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the people of Israel. And the people of Benjamin mustered out of their cities on that day 26,000 men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who mustered 700 chosen men. . . .  all these were men of war. The people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God, “Who shall go up first for us to fight against the people of Benjamin?” 
And the Lord said, “Judah shall go up first.” . . . . 
(Judges 20:1–28)

The people of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and destroyed on that day 22,000 men of the Israelites. This happened again, but the third time, after prayer and fasting, and offerings to the Lord, they asked again and the Lord said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand.” 

Last night our home group were asked what quality of God we would emphasize: His kindness or His sternness? Most said His kindness as shown in Jesus Christ rather than His sternness as seen in this narrative in Judges. However, I thought of Jesus overthrowing the money-changers tables in the NT and the several times His anger was expressed. God is both gracious showing mercy, yet holy and displaying His outrage at sin. 

Romans 11 tells how He uses even the sin of the Jews to show mercy to the Gentiles, and the faith of the Gentiles to reach the Jews. Then Paul declares, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

It seems contrary to God's love and mercy to pit one tribe of His people against another, yet His attitude toward sin shows up in Judges, just as it shows up in the NT at the cross where His outrage against sin combined with mercy for sinners tell me that God is both. We would not realize His kindness if we didn’t know His outrage.

Jesus, You hate sin so much and love sinners so much that the only thing to do was take our sin upon Yourself and die for it so that we could escape its grasp. Your mercy is meaningless without realizing how badly we need it.

 

Death for sin

So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor. (Joshua 7:22–26)

Yesterday I glanced at this passage and spent some time thinking how it points to NT truth. Achan had sinned by taking spoil from a battle and did a forbidden thing; he hid it for himself, angered God, and the price was death.

In the NT, Jesus paid the price for my sin. Sin is simply living for myself and doing whatever I want that is contrary to the will of God. 

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Honesty must admit the extent of sin and its power to rule a person’s life, even a seemingly good person, if their lives are not motivated by faith. It is easy to take the spoils of our battles and the trinkets of this world for ourselves. According to the Word of God, this deserves death.

However, Jesus’ death set me free from the penalty I deserve. God hates sin and it must be punished, but He sent Jesus to take that punishment, unlike Achan who showed his lack of faith by his actions. There is another NT death though, the death of my old nature. 

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; (2 Corinthians 5:14)

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:3–10)

These passages stress the importance of saying no to sin because it is the way that my identity and relationship with Christ is made visible. Sin is the actions of a dead person, someone separated from God and the life of His Son. God put that nature to sin to death, but if I don’t obey Him, I might as well be under a pile of rocks.

Achan’s sin ruined the power of God’s army against their enemies but also robbed God of His glory by choosing his own way instead of obedience. 

Jesus, when I obey You, You are exalted. People see You in action and marvel. But I must die to my ways and consider the old me dead and useless. This means humility, not pride, and saying no to all my ideas and plans so I can hear and obey You. 

 

Protesting Evil

Piper’s devotional for today is a letter to a company that advertised an erotic film in a place where it could be viewed by children. He gave sound reasons why this was wrong, not only for children but for society in general.

He didn’t publish the results, but I remember making a similar protest many years ago. A local corner store had a magazine section with several close-to-porn covers on lower shelves, clearly visible to children. I didn’t write a letter. I called for the manager and made a statement and left the store. The next time there, not only were those magazines moved, they were not even on any shelves! Sometimes it’s possible to make a difference just by speaking up.

Piper makes a good argument to that advertiser. Mine wasn’t much. What stands out to me is saying what needs to be said and having the courage to say it. This is an obedience thing. The Word of God generally focuses on rebuking sin in other Christians, but it does not leave out commands to hold the unsaved world accountable for their sin.

AI says these are the most damaging sins to others: murder, adultery, lying, deceit, exploitation, abuse, neglect of others, and gossip. In one reference, the NT lists these:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19–21)

Such sin is deadly to the person committing them, but also harmful to others. How many families have been split up or destroyed by sin? How many nations and cultures are not doing well because of sin?

While Christians know that change of heart comes through the activity of the Holy Spirit, we are responsible to give the Spirit our cooperation. Silent Christians are not useful. Neither are sinning, self-centered Christians, or those too fearful for losing their own comfort so stay silent rather than being persecuted.

But how do I know what the result will be? Asking a store owner to move magazines could have resulted in her saying, “There goes a goody-two-shoes” and laughing, or much worse, but it didn’t. I’ve not thought about it much, but speaking up could have saved someone from a life of addiction to that junk. That seems minor, but it is on the list of the junk that resides in the human heart. That junk defiles us as well as hurting others. Jesus said:

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matthew 15:18–20)

While the NT speaks of my responsibility to warn others concerning their fate, the OT says if
I don’t, God will hold me accountable for their loss. The connection? If God wants me to speak so the Holy Spirit can use what I say, I must obey. I need to pay attention to His voice and do whatever He asks. My motivation is not to be thwarted by wanting my own comfort.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:17)

PRAY: Jesus. this is important stuff. You tell me that I “have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel” and to “speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests my heart.” (1 Thessalonians 2:4) May I listen to know when to speak, and to know how to do it, and to trust You for the opportunities and the results.

 

Two marvels in one action...

 

Multitasker's really are not. We switch from one to the other but humanly only do one thing at a time. Not God. In redemption’s great climax at Calvary, He not only made clear two contrary affections at the same time and in one act, but dealt with both. Charnock writes of this and fills my heart with worship.

At the Cross, God manifests great hatred of sin, and the great love to the sinner by punishing the sin without ruining the sinner, and repairing the ruins of the sinner without indulging the sin. God shows His eternal love and eternal hatred by condemning sin to what it deserved, and advancing sinners to what we could not expect.

He showed His hatred of sin in other ways: in punishing the devil without remedy; sentencing humanity to an expulsion from paradise, yet ultimately pouring out His wrath on His Son. In condemning Jesus to a horrible death, He was a spectator who was “satisfied” by that horrible scene.

God put on His Son the pain we deserved that we might be restored to the place we had forfeited. He hates the sin so as to condemn it forever, and loves the sinner who believes and repents granting us joy and eternal life. He is at eternal defiance with sin, yet nearer in alliance with the sinner than he was before sin happened, almost as if our rebellion endeared us to Him. These verses sum it up:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:7–12)

God, in great wisdom, twisted together the happy restoration of our broken relationship with an everlasting curse upon sin which caused the breach. Satan who seduced the sin fell also in this great plan of redemption. Hatred and love manifested together — hate for sin in the death of Christ, and love to sinners. This is the wisdom of God: Redemption that defeats sin and recovers the sinner.

 Christmas has become a gift-giving and gift-receiving event, eating too much and, for many, not a very happy time. The plan of God is sometimes celebrated in token, sometimes in deep reverence, but mostly not at all. Even so, we sense the wonder even if we do not understand what it is or why.

PRAY: Lord Jesus, I’ve sung “little Lord Jesus” but You are anything but little in my mind and heart. You agreed to the Father’s wisdom and in the power of the Spirit and the reality of Your love to do His will, You arrived, lived, died, and then rose again to redeem and deliver us from sin. What a wonder You are, and the best gift that could be given — and received.

God hates whatever harms us . . .

 

After much thought and reading Scripture, I’m fully convinced that the same God who pours His love into us that we might love what He loves, also gives us His strong aversion to the things that He hates. Otherwise, we could not love our enemies nor could we hate those sins that make us feel good.

God’s Word tells me what to love and not love. One example:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

By this I know that when “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life” pop up in my heart, I’m not walking in the Spirit and need to confess my sin and rely on Jesus as my advocate. The Holy Spirit motivates me to the only cure for sin:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Worldly sins are often subtle. Consider the ambition of those who said, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” But Jesus replied, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:22–23) They sinned by thinking what they did in Jesus’ name was their righteousness, but they did not have a relationship with Him so their ‘good deeds’ were from a sinful self-righteousness, the pride of life.

While the NT says almost nothing concerning God’s hatred, it is filled with instruction for what I must not do. He gives those commands because He knows the harm that sin does. He loves me, does not want me to experience that harm. In other words, His hatred of sin is motivated by His great love.

That does not mean He protects us from suffering. At times, that happens, but only because the love of God uses suffering to perfect our lives. When I doubt that is true (and my flesh wants comfort), I need to remember that He used suffering to perfect His Son . . . .

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Hebrews 2:9-10)

Suffering is not to be hated — if God allows it, He is using it . . .

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure . . . . For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps . . . . (1 Peter 2:19-23)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit . . . . And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 3:18; 5:10)

God hates sin for what it does to His beloved and to all those created in His image. Sin mars that image, subtle or otherwise, and it will destroy us unless we are saved by the power of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Once Christ comes in, salvation is secured, but Satan still tries to get God’s people to sin, even by trying to add something we do to secure what we already have. To this, God says:

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? . . . . Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” . . . . Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” so that in Christ Jesus  . . . we receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:2–14)

PRAY: Jesus, because of You, I hate sin and how it muddies my relationship with You. Thank You for saving me from sin’s penalty and working in me to overcome it — a lifelong battle that will end that day when I stand before You, made perfect by Your saving power.

PONDER: The love of God that hates sin and what it does, thinking of the wonder that He came here to die and set us free from sin’s destructive power.

 

 

Love is incompatible with sin

 

The devotional title for this day is, “Love never justifies sin” yet I could not find a Bible version that translates today’s verse that way. Instead, it says: (Love) does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6)

A bit of research on the word ‘rejoice’ reveals that love does not rejoice in sin because the love of God cannot rejoice in sin. The two are totally incompatible. In other words, if I am feeling good about seeing sin in others, then I am not loving them, indicating that the love of God, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is not in me. Thus any happy feelings that I might have are only a self-centered delight in getting my way and a certain indication that the love of God is not governing my heart.

This anomaly also indicates the reason for such delight — I could be using the sins of others to justify my own. For example, if talking about others behind their backs makes my old nature feel good and I am seeking those who also enjoy  that, then we are involved in a grave sin (gossip) and trying to justify it by spending time with others who also enjoy putting down other people. This is not about love at all, no matter how good it might feel.

MacArthur gives several examples of how people justify sin yet that does not always produce joy. Some who point at the sins of others to make themselves look good are grouchy and miserable. Living without love can produce all sorts of selfishness yet it cannot fill us with joy over sin. If happy feeling exist about sin, it is from the flesh or old nature. The reasons could include making excuses for my own sin, putting down others to make me look good, giving into worldly ideas, enjoying a sense of superiority when I see others who are ’worse than me’ and all sorts of ‘me first’ self-centered ideas.

Godly love cannot produce joy over sin just like cows cannot fly and trees do not go swimming. The Lord’s nature is never thrilled over sin. He is so against it that He sent His Son to die for it. No joy. However, He may laugh at it . . .

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. (Psalm 2:1–4)

Sometimes I watch a detective show on television, not because I enjoy seeing crimes committed but because I see the justice done at the end of the show. I’ve read novels where the villain got away with his crime and tossed that book in the trash. Rejoicing over sin is not an attitude that goes away by avoiding or never seeing sin. This joy or lack of real joy is a matter of the heart and of who is in control of my life. I cannot enjoy sin because Jesus lives in me. That is one of several evidences of the new life He gives when a person is saved. The only thing that can make me feel good about sin is when I’ve said NO to God and allowed the world, the flesh, and the Liar control my thinking. Then sin becomes appealing, but since sin robs me of joy, I seldom want to stay there. Fake joy does not last.

PRAY: Oh Lord Jesus, I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit joy that You give, and that nothing can be its substitute. Feeling good when I get my way is not like the joy that is deep within, there even when things are not as I’d like. It is related to Your “peace that passes understanding” promised to those who trust You. It is the evidence of the Spirit living in me. And when that joy is gone, it is evidence that my life is not right, that something needs to be confessed, and that You are calling me to come closer. Of course love does not rejoice in sin. If it did, that would be like You applauding when I do sinful things. That runs totally contrary to what You did about sin — You died for it.

PONDER: Do a NT word search for joy and note the reasons for it. Consider passages like Matthew 5 as well.