Do You Desire the Salvation of Your Enemies? - Voddie Baucham

0:00 This act of avenging myself means that I am satisfied with a finite punishment when an infinite one is what is deserved. think about it someone sins and even if they sin let's say their action is against me what i want and what i would be satisfied with is if i get to punch them in the face or if i get to take their life or if i get to say harmful words so that i feel as though they have received from me punishment significant enough and sufficient to satisfy the righteous requirement when God says that sin is so heinous. that that is not sufficient.

0:57 James 1, 19 and 20. Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Your anger is insufficient. Your retribution is insufficient. Your vengeance is insufficient. third problem is the hypocrisy of considering our sin worthy of forgiveness and theirs worthy of wrath you sinned against me and i can't believe you did that i am going to exact justice because what you did deserves justice as you stand there and speak the anger in your response is worthy of death and hell but you are such a hypocrite that you don't even see it Thank you.

2:00 you're blind to your own sin you're blind to the fact that you said and thought and did things last night that were worthy of God killing you in your sleep and yet you look at what this person did to you and immediately and on the spot you want to fix them you hypocrite Who do you think you are? Listen to Calvin's words here. The evil which Paul corrects here is more grievous than the proceeding which he has just stated. And yet both of them arise from the same fountain, even from an inordinate love of self and innate pride, which makes us very indulgent to our own faults and inexorable to those of others. as then this disease begets almost in all men a furious passion for revenge whenever they are in the least degree touched. He commands here that however grievously we may be injured, we are not to seek revenge, but to commit it to the Lord. And in as much as they do not easily admit the bridal who are once seized with this wild passion, he lays, as it were, his hand upon us to restrain us by kindly addressing us as beloved.

3:33 Isn't that beautiful? Paul knows this is hard to hear. Calvin says he puts his hand on us and gently says, beloved, do not avenge yourselves. So... what should our response be as believers then if we are wrong if we are not to vindicate ourselves how am i to look at those actions against me by others how am i in light of what we've learned in romans 1 through 11 how am i now to respond as one who has been purchased by the blood of christ when such a sin happens against me.

4:30 first with a sober assessment of the fact that you're as guilty as your fellow man and the fact that insisting on vengeance is a negation of the grace that you've received. beloved do not avenge yourselves he's addressing christians here beloved brothers and sisters in christ those who are the recipients of the grace of god that i spent 11 chapters outlining for you. Remember who you are and the forgiveness that you have received because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ and do not avenge yourself. Do not be so hypocritical as to look at the sin of another against you and forget the fact that you have sinned even more grievously against God. Don't do that. Remind yourself that you are walking around breathing borrowed air.

5:55 Remind yourself. that God has allowed you to live, not just because you make him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. but because he killed his son in your place. Secondly Know that God is serious about sin And he will make all things right That will change your attitude toward vengeance Know that God is serious about sin And he will make all things right In 1994 April, I believe The plane carrying the president of Rwanda went down. and it was a spark that ignited a smoldering fire that had existed in that country since the early 1900s and it had been brewing since 1962 in a more fierce way after Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium the Belgians had divided the Rwandan people into two groups. It was an artificial distinction of the Hutus and the Tutsis.

7:29 When the president's plane went down, there was retribution and revenge going both ways over the next hundred days. And listen to this. Over the next 100 days, 800,000 Rwandans we're slaughtered. That's more than we're killed in the Civil War. in 100 days of revenge and retribution, and you've had this coming for a long time. but here's the other thing that lay at the foundation of this kind of revenge and retribution brothers and sisters if you have no hope that there is a just God who is going to make things right at the end of the age then your only hope is you've got to settle the score but if you believe that a day is coming when God will exact vengeance, then you do not have to live with this overwhelming desire and responsibility in your heart that says, I have to make this right.

8:54 because you can't 800 000 people dead in a hundred days and not one person at the end of that hundred days looked at the skulls that were stacked sometimes several feet high or rivers that were filled with bodies flowing down them and said now it's right Thank you. The only thing people had left were sleepless nights. and overwhelming senses of guilt you and I don't live like that because we serve a God who is serious about sin Paul says listen to his words again beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay says the Lord Do you believe that?

10:07 because when you avenge yourself you testify that you don't believe that when you avenge yourself here's your testimony i do not believe that god is going to make this right or i do not believe that the punishment that god would inflict upon you is sufficient and what justice in this world really requires is for me to spit in your face or punch you in your face or take your life that's what justice in this world really requires because I don't believe that there's going to come a day when God will make all things right listen to this from thomas kelly's hymn that we love so much stricken smitten and afflicted ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great here may view its nature rightly here its guilt may estimate mark the sacrifice appointed see who bears the awful load tis the word the Lord's anointed son of man and son of God. How seriously does God take sin so seriously that he crushed and killed his only begotten son as the only means by which you could be forgiven?

11:37 That's how seriously. God will make all things right. and his son was crucified as evidence of that. We are not the Hatfields and the McCoys. We are not the Hutus and the Tutsis. We are those who have been redeemed by the death of the second person of the Trinity. We are those who know that our God is righteous and just and holy. We are those who know that he will return and that he will judge the living and the dead. And we are those who know that we do not have to make things right, nor can we.

12:24 Nor do we need to. God will do that. Do not avenge yourself. Never avenge yourself. You leave it to the wrath of God. God knows how to settle this. Thirdly you must have a desire to see your fellow man experience the forgiveness that is available as a result of Christ's death for sin. There are two ways that that sin can be paid for. this person can pay for that sin in an eternity under the wrath and punishment of God or that sin could be paid at the cross our desire as those redeemed by God who see his image in our fellow man ought always to be to see that sin taken care of at the cross what kind of a christian would i be if i look to myself and say yes christ died and his death is sufficient for my sin and i will spend eternity with him and glory because of the goodness of God. And God will be glorified by that. God has been glorified by that. God will demonstrate His glory in that. But you… No, you go straight to hell.

14:12 that's what I want having been redeemed from that I want you to experience that really are you sure you've been redeemed I don't want you to hear the gospel. I don't want your sin washed in the blood of Christ. I want you to pay an eternal price or even worse I want to speak words that hurt you because the death of Christ is not enough my painful words need to be added I want to spit in your face punch you in the face take your life because the death of Christ was not enough I want to add your death to the mix. Then, then, though God is already satisfied in the death of his son, I'm not worried about God's satisfaction. This is all about me.

15:18 Can you consider the cross of your Savior and say that? look at what paul says here to the contrary as opposed to vengeance to the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head this is counterintuitive why is it counterintuitive because i want to be avenged Thank you. what's the intuitive response your enemy is hungry good for him i hope he starves to death because he deserves it for what he did to me That is not Christ in us, the hope of glory.

16:29 this is quoted from proverbs 25 21 and 22 if your enemy is hungry give him bread to eat if he is thirsty give him water to drink for you will heap burning coals on his head and the lord will reward you by the way that heaping burning coals on his head that is not another form of retribution. You are blessing your enemy with kindness in hopes that the kindness, the kindness, the kindness that you are showing will lead them to repentance. That kindness will bring them to repentance. That's what is meant here. There is no suggestion that the wrath of God will be visited upon the wrongdoer immediately. On the contrary, Everett Harrison writes, that wrath is the last resort.

17:34 For the immediate future lies the possibility that the one who has perpetrated the wrong will have a change of heart and will be convicted of his sin and won over by the refusal of the Christian to retaliate. That's our goal. You wronged me. I know why you wronged me. you wrong me because you are a sinful human being you wronged me because that's who you are in your wicked heart you wronged me and ultimately you didn't even wrong me you wronged God and I know what it means to wrong God I wronged God and yet in his mercy God gave his only begotten son to die for my sin and instead of retribution God showed me mercy and my prayer for you is that you would