Alright, Romans chapter 12. Paul, speaking under the power
of the Holy Spirit, told us in verse 1, using this motive, the
mercies of God, he said, present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. You
know, all the burnt offerings, they were offerings of thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving. And they were wholly devoted
to God. They gave every bit of that sacrifice
to God. And that's what He's telling
us here. Make our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly devoted to
God. And when you behold what our
Lord Jesus has done for us, How that God the Father sent His
only begotten Son and you see what Christ did for His people.
That's reasonable service. That is reasonable to make our
lives be totally devoted to Him. And then He tells us in verse
2, be not conformed to this world. We really don't get that because
we spend most of our lives trying to be conformed to this world.
And God says, be not conformed to this world. But be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may prove, be able to
discern and test and approve of what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. It's only when we're walking
in a renewed spirit and been focusing on God's word that we
can discern God's will. Because if we're conformed to
this world, we're not going to recognize that. So now verses
3 through 13, he told us God's will concerning our brethren. How we to make ourselves wholly
devoted to God toward our brethren. Now in verses 14 to the end of
the chapter, he's telling us God's will toward our enemies. This is God's will toward our
enemies. We're not talking about toward brethren here, we're talking
about enemies. Enemies. And it's all summed up in that
last verse, verse 21. Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good. That's the sum of this whole
passage. That's exactly what God our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ did. He overcame evil with good. That's how we're saved. That's
how we're saved. And that's the point of this
whole passage. Now, when I preach from a text like this, there's
three things I want to do. First of all, I want you to know,
without a doubt, that you cannot do these things to be made righteous
and holy before God. These are not things to do in
order to make yourself a righteousness that you're going to present
to God. That's not what this is for. It's not to give you
a clean and pure heart. That's not what this is for.
No sinner can make ourselves righteous and holy before God. That is the work of God. Christ
is the righteousness of His people. And Christ is our sanctification. He's our holiness. Scripture
says that plainly. Plainly. So this is not how you
make yourself righteous. If you have a heart to do these
things, it's because God already made you righteous and holy.
And then the second thing I want to do is I want you to know that
our perfection in these things is the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is what Christ did when He walked this earth. He fulfilled this
perfectly. And not only that, He went to
the cross and took the sins of His people. He took our sins
for not doing this perfectly. Everywhere we've sinned in this,
Christ took those sins and paid them in full. So He's our perfection
in this. He's our righteousness in this.
Not us. He is. Don't forget that as we
go through this. And then thirdly, I want you to know that as children
of God, motive is so very important. God looks on the heart. That's
what that means. It means God's looking on the
motive. And he knows it. And motives are of utmost importance.
Paul said, I beseech you by the mercies of God. That's our motive. The love of Christ is our motive. Not legal motives. We're not
doing this to earn a righteousness before God, but we're motivated
by Christ who laid down His life and made us righteous before
God. We're not doing this to be made holy but because Christ
came forth and that pure holy redeemer walked this earth in
perfection and then went to the cross and laid down his life
for us and scripture says by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. When God came in spirit and revealed
Christ to us, of God, are you in Christ? Who of God is made
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption? So that he that glories, let
him glory in the Lord. And then, we don't do this to
impress people. When I try to impress people,
we do these things because this is how Christ went about doing
good. This is how Christ went about
accomplishing the work of God. And we're following Him and what
He did. So we're constrained by His love
for us. And I'll add one more thing I
want you to know too. When I preach from passages like
this, the first person I'm preaching to is me. is me. When you prepare passages, prepare
messages, usually, more times than not, the Lord uses that
passage to rebuke the pastor. I mean, you will enter the pulpit
most of the time feeling like an utter hypocrite, like you're
just a failure, not even qualified to preach. But that's one way
God keeps His preacher from being big-headed and preaching down
to His people. He keeps you down. He keeps you
humbled where you need to be. So I'm preaching this first to
myself. I want you to know that. I'm not trying to preach these
things in a way to say, well, you need to do this. I'm saying
we. We, including myself. Our constraint
to treat our enemies with kindness. is remembering how Christ treated
us when we were His enemies. That's our constraint. If we're
going to bless our enemies and curse not, we're going to have
to look and see how Christ blessed us and cursed us not when we
were His enemies. Now this message starts to come
into focus, doesn't it? Oh, I'm saved because somebody
blessed and cursed not. I'm saved because somebody was
not overcome with evil but they overcome evil with good. And
this is how we see how to walk in this by looking at Christ
who did this to accomplish our redemption. First of all, consider
the persecution that Christ encountered in this earth from us who were
his enemies. Think about persecution Christ
encountered in this earth from you and me who were his enemies.
Everyone our Lord Jesus Christ encountered, everybody persecuted
Him. Think about that. Scripture says
the carnal mind, the natural mind is enmity against God. He's not subject to the law of
God, He's not subject to the word of God, neither indeed can
be. And therefore they that are in
the flesh cannot please God. Our Lord Jesus Christ walked
this earth where there is none righteous, where there is none
that even seeketh after God. And every spiritually dead sinner
that our Lord encountered hated Him. Hated Him. Oh, they might not have showed
it outwardly, but in their heart they hated Him. You and I don't
know men's hearts. We interact with people on a
daily basis and we may walk away from a conversation thinking,
well, they really do like me. When in their heart they may
be thinking, I can't stand that guy. But our Lord knew the hearts
of men. Some come to Him being real sweet
and kind and their motive was wanting to trip Him up in His
words. Scripture says Christ knew their heart. He knew the
heart of those that hated Him. Everybody he came in contact
with, even his apostles before they were converted, hated him. Everybody hated him. Troubled
him. Persecuted him. Everybody. Can you imagine that? You and
I may have one or two people that, you know, you can't really
get along with. Everybody he encountered. Talk
about not having a friend. Talk about not having somebody
that you could count on. Now remember this too, brethren.
Christ only came into this world to save God's elect. I am not
ashamed to say that because that's what Scripture said. Our Lord
Jesus himself said, I lay down my life for the sheep. And he
talked to those Pharisees and he said, you don't believe because
you're not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice because
I speak it to them, Christ said. And I know them, internally,
spiritually, in regeneration. I know them. And the result is,
they follow me. You don't believe because I wasn't
speaking to you. You're not my lek. You're not
my sheep. He came to lay down his life
for his sheep. But I'll tell you this, carnal men, the reprobate
even, All his enemies never were treated as good by any other
man as they were treated by our Lord Jesus Christ. They were never treated as good
by any other man as Christ treated them. Christ never did anything but
good to his enemies. That's it. There was no reason
for them to charge him. There was no reason for them
to be angry at him. He did nothing but good toward his enemies. Verse 15 says, Rejoice with them
that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Our Lord Jesus
rejoiced with them that rejoiced. He went to a wedding in Cana. Most people at that wedding were
unbelievers. They were His enemies. But He went to that wedding and
rejoiced with them. And He wept with them that wept.
At Lazarus' tomb, Scripture says He wept. And the majority standing
there at that Lazarus tomb didn't know God. But they were weeping. He wept with them that wept.
You think how you and I persecuted those that Christ sent to us
in the beginning. There's not a one of us, none
of us that did not have persecution in our heart toward that one
that Christ used to preach us the truth of the gospel. Every
one of us rejected the gospel when we first heard it. That's
just so. In doing so, we were an enemy
to Christ. Scripture calls us enemies in
our minds by wicked works. That's what we were. But Christ
would not take no for an answer. He would not take no for an answer.
He blessed us, though we cursed Him. He blessed us, though we
persecuted Him. And through His gospel, He saved
us. Now, as the church of Christ, as the Lord Jesus Christ be in
our head and we be in the body of Christ and be in His church,
He's left us in this earth to preach the gospel. That's why
He's left us here. We have one mission, to preach
Christ and Him crucified. To declare the truth of God in
this earth. That's why He put us here. Our glorified Redeemer
shall call out each one He redeems. He's long-suffering to us-ward. That's He is to His people. He's
long-suffering to us-ward. Not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance. Now, if your God's not sovereign,
you probably say, well, that means the whole world and He's
just going to end up frustrated because He couldn't accomplish
His will. But if your God's the God of this Bible, the sovereign
God, then you know whatever God wills, He does. And when it says
He's not willing that any should perish, He's not willing that
anybody for whom Christ died should perish. They're going
to be brought to repentance. And that's why Peter said, you
account the long-suffering of God to be salvation. Because
God's going to accomplish it, whatever He will. But we don't
know who those elect are. We don't know who they are. And
so He's telling us as we go through this world to bless them which
persecute you, bless them and curse them not. Because if you
curse Him, you may just find out He ends up sitting on a pew
right beside you. What's your witness to Him going
to be then? I've seen this happen, brethren.
I'm not just making this up. I've traveled to lots of churches
and you see in churches, I've heard these stories before and
I've seen it in multiple churches. Somebody had a co-worker, a believer
had a co-worker, and he tried to tell them about the gospel
and they hated it. They hated the doctrine of election. They
thought that was just unfair. They hated particular redemption,
that Christ died for his people. Oh, that's not fair. But the believer, they would
persecute them. They would push back on them,
you know. They just kept on. Invited them
to come to church with them. Invited them to listen to some
scriptures. And now, that co-worker, who
was an enemy, is sitting on the pew right beside them, believing
the gospel. Brother Gabe Stoniker, you all
know Brother Gabe. He's got two brother-in-laws. two brother-in-laws
that worked together with Bob Morrell, Jimmy and Tommy. They didn't want to hear the
gospel and he just kept talking to them and invited them And now they're sitting there
rejoicing in the gospel. God saved them. But now think
if he had just considered them an enemy and just treated them
mean. You know? Now secondly, our Lord Jesus
shows no respect of persons. He shows no respect of person.
He doesn't base things on a man's social position. He doesn't say
based on race. He doesn't say based on education.
He doesn't say based on your sex. He shows no respect of person. And he tells us here, verse 16,
he says, Be of the same mind one to another? He was of the
same mind. And he says, He was not impressed
by high things, but he condescended to men of low estate. Brethren,
aren't we thankful for that? Aren't you thankful that Christ
condescended to men of low estate? That's the description of who
we are. That's who we are. We're men of low estate. You
can't get lower than dead in trespasses and in sins. You can't
get lower than being a God-hating rebel against God. That's where
we were. And yet, our Lord Jesus didn't
mind our things, He condescended to our lowest state. He condescended
to our lowest state. He gave us a new mind, the mind
of Christ that we might be of one mind. I'm thankful that He condescended.
You think about this. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
mighty God. He is God. And yet He condescended
to take a body formed in the womb of a virgin. that He might
be made like flesh, like His brethren. That's called in the
Old Testament, the lowest place of the earth, the womb. He was
formed in the womb. And then He came forth, and our
Lord Jesus Christ condescended to be made under the law, to
be under the law He gave, and to be a servant of God under
that law, so that God looked to Him instead of His people. God looked to Christ serving
instead of our serving. We didn't serve perfectly. We
served in sin. We were slaves of sin. Christ
came forth and served God in holiness, in perfect righteousness,
representing His people. And then our Lord Jesus condescended
by going to Gethsemane and presenting Himself to God, sweating, as
it were, great drops of blood, And his soul in agony so that the Lord could make him
sin in our room instead. Make him bear our sin. And then he condescended to the
cross. He condescended to the cross
where God cursed him. Made him a curse in place of
his people. so that God will have nothing
but blessings for His people. Towards His people, the only
thing God will do is bless and He curses not. Why? Because Christ has made a curse
for us. See how He condescended? That's how He treated His enemies,
brethren. And right now, He's still in glory and there's still
one thing He's still doing. He's condescending. to send His
lost people the Gospel using unimpressive means to do it.
Using the preaching of the Gospel, using nobodies, using simpletons
to preach and proclaim His Word and send forth His Gospel. And
through that, He's making His people, His lost sheep who thought
they were somebody, He's making them to be nobodies before God. and in making Christ to be the
one thing needful in their heart. Listen to this. You see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and base things of the world to bring to nothing
things that are. that no flesh should glory in
His presence. That's why He does it. So knowing
our lowest state, knowing how Christ condescended to us as
sinners saved by grace, we ought to be the last people on earth
to treat our enemies mean. We ought to be the last, we ought
to, you know, if you have an enemy, it comes to you and their
enemy, The only way you can overcome that evil, you can't overcome
it with evil. If you treat them the way they're
treating you, you're not going to overcome it. What's happened
is you've been conformed to the world. But if you love them, that's how you overcome evil
with good. Remember I've told you all this
when I stopped off on the way up here with a load of furniture
and stopped in Fairmont and went to Brother Henry Mahan's room
and we were visiting and last words he said to me, love them
to Christ. Love them to Christ. James said, my brethren, he tells
us here, let me read this. He said, be not wise in your
own conceits. That means don't be conceited.
Don't think you're wise and be conceited in yourself. James
told us, he said, my brethren, have not the faith of our Lord
Jesus, the Lord of glory with respect of persons. He said,
if there comes into your assembly a man with a gold ring and he's
decked out in a fine suit, don't bring him up and say, we're going
to give you the front seat. And then some poor fellow walks
in and just came out of the field in his overalls and you make
him sit in the back. He said, you become a respecter
of persons. That's evil, he said. No, no,
don't be a respecter of persons. Christ didn't save us based on
anything in us. He saved us because it was His
grace to do so. By grace. Unmerited. Unworthy. He did it by Himself. By grace. Thirdly, the God of all grace
didn't recompense to His people evil for evil. He recompensed
grace for grace. He didn't recompense evil for
evil. We were evil toward Him. What did He recompense to us?
Grace. Grace. Look there, verse 17. Recompense to no man evil for
evil. Provide things honest in the
sight of men. You know what He's saying there?
Whatever you do to your enemy, don't do it from some ulterior
motive. You're saying something nice
to him, but really it's a backhanded compliment. He's saying, do it
on the up and up. Be honest from a pure heart. And he says, and if it be possible
as much as life in you, live peaceably with all men. Avenge
not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, because vengeance
is God's. Vengeance belongs to God. He
said, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy
hunger, feed him. If he thirsts, give him to drink.
For in doing so thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. That's
not a bad thing. That's warming. That's something
that will warm him. He's saying here, be not overcome
of evil. but overcome evil with good.
That's what he's talking about. Now, we were the evil before
holy God. Can you say that? Can you say
that you were evil before God? What about as a believer? Can
you say that in your flesh you're evil before God? Christ Jesus
was speaking to his apostles and he said, if you being evil
know how to give good things, In ourselves, we're nothing.
In ourselves, we're sinful flesh and that's it. Evil. All the
goodness is of God. Everything that God's created
is of God. We did nothing but evil all the
days of our rebellion. And as born again believers,
we still do much evil toward our God. But has the God of all
grace, now listen to this, has the God of all grace ever recompensed
evil for evil? Not one time. Not one time. We know that all things, that's
everything, work together for good, for good, not evil, for
good. to them that love God, to them
who are called according to His purpose. Everything! He never
recompensed evil to us for our evil toward Him. He only recompensed
grace to us. So rather than recompense evil,
did God provide things honest for us? Did He provide things
honest for us? Was there any deceit in God in
what He was doing in matters of salvation? Was Christ walking
about and telling people one thing but doing things against
them while He was doing that? Christ is the truth. He is the
truth. The Spirit of God is the Spirit
of truth. The gospel we preach is the truth. Everything Christ
did, He did in truth. The reason He had to go to the
cross and be lifted up for all to see. Everybody saw Him satisfy
justice because He's doing all things in truth. He didn't do
anything dishonest. When Christ walked this earth,
even when we did evil, when we charged Him falsely and we hung
Him on the cursed tree, He opened not His mouth. He did no sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth. There was no evil found in His
mouth. When He was reviled, He reviled not again. When He suffered,
He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously. That's what He did. He committed
Himself to His Father. And He was doing this while His
own self was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree so
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto Him, should
live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. The
whole purpose of that cross was to create a people that live
unto Him, that are like Him. That's what the new man is. It's
formed after God, after the image of Him that created him. After
God's image. So we're to be like God. And
now He's the Bishop and Shepherd of our souls. We're doing everything
unto Him. Christ even said, I restored
that I took not away. Speaking of not doing any evil
towards His people, He said, I even restored that which I
did not take away. We did evil toward God, He gave
us mercy and justice. All in Christ. We did evil toward
Christ, He recompensed grace. We sin, God recompensed righteousness
to us. Free. Free. You realize, believer,
that on the cross, God has already taken vengeance on us. He says
there, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
so saith the Lord. How do you know He exercised
vengeance? Scripture says, Christ came to
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance
of our God. And the next word is, to comfort
all that mourn. How would vengeance comfort us? How would God taking vengeance
comfort us? Because God took vengeance on
us in our substitute. That's how it comforts us. He
came to declare the day of vengeance. And what that means, if you're
not found in Christ, if you don't trust Christ, you don't believe
on Christ, there's coming a day when God's going to take vengeance
on you. For those that believe on Christ, God already took vengeance
on us at the cross. And so He teaches you and me
now, don't take vengeance on anybody. Wouldn't it be horrible
if you took vengeance on a person and that person turned out to
be one of God's elect for whom Christ died? When we took vengeance
on them, we would be doing that to Christ. Christ said, as much
as you've done it to one of these that are mine, you've done it
to me. So he says, don't take vengeance. Remember Paul in Corinthians,
he said, judge nothing before the time. You know, commit it
to God. God knows the truth. We don't.
You may see somebody that walks out and leaves the assembling
together and you think, well, he's a reprobate. Judge nothing
before the time. I've seen God bring them back.
Make them more faithful than they were before. Judge nothing
before the time. Don't take vengeance on them. Now, seeing this evil that I
did to God, and seeing how God recompensed grace upon grace
upon grace to me, this is what God says. Verse 20, If your enemy
hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink.
For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Be
not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. We were starving
of righteousness, and He provided full righteousness for us. We
were thirsting. Christ freely gave us the water
of life. We were strangers out in the
bitter cold. Christ came to us as our great
coal heaver and warmed us by His grace. We were overcome of
evil. We were absolutely overcome of
evil. But Christ came and He overcame
evil with good. He overcame evil with good. What's
the one thing that'll make darkness disappear? Light. Light. And the only thing that'll
destroy evil is good. Is good. So, if you think about
our purpose for being here, brethren, to preach the gospel. Be turning
to Luke 6. You think about our purpose being
here to preach the gospel. The purpose of these precepts
are very simple. We're holding forth the word
of life in a perverse generation. We're holding forth the truth
of the gospel of Christ. We're preaching Christ crucified
in the midst of a dark, perverse, evil generation. As we do this,
we need to preach only Christ and exalt only Christ and make
the focus be on Christ alone. And therefore, in the things
we do in the church and amongst our enemies, the things we do,
we don't want to draw attention to ourselves. Not in an evil
way, and not in a self-righteous way either. We don't want them
to see us. We want to focus to be on Christ.
And if I do something, take vengeance on my enemy, or he comes along
and he's starving and I won't give him any food, I'm putting
the focus on me. I'm going to leave them walking
away going, well his God's not very powerful. He don't even
believe his God. We want to focus these precepts,
the whole purpose is so we treat one another with love and with
grace so that everybody's focus can be on Christ. I'll give you
an example of this. Anytime there's trouble in an
assembly, in a congregation, It ends up troubling everybody
in the whole congregation. And you can't hear the gospel
anymore. Your eyes are taken totally off Christ. You hear
the gospel go forth and you think, I hope he's preaching that to
them. I hope they're hearing that. No, he's preaching it to
you. But you can't hear it because
that's what you're worried about. See, our purpose is to get rid
of that trouble. and treat each other kindly so
that everybody's focus can be on Christ. That's the purpose
of all these precepts. It's just that simple. Listen
to Luke 6, 27. Christ said, I say unto you which
hear, love your enemies. This is where Paul got this message.
Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them
that curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you. Have
you ever done that? Somebody was just spiked. Just spiked. That's all it was.
You ever walked away praying for them? That's what Christ
said to do. Pray for them. Look here. Unto him that spiked thee on
the cheek, offer also the other. Him that taketh away thy cloak,
forbid not to take thy coat also. Talk about not providing things
honest. or providing things honest. I remember one time when somebody
used that phrase there, give them the other cheek. Somebody
said something mean to this person. And the person said, alright,
here's the other cheek, smite that one too. That's being dishonest. That's not doing something with
an honest heart. He says, give to every man that
asketh thee and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not
again. And as you would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if you love them
which love you, what thank have you? If sinners also love those
that love them, if you do good to them which do good to you,
what thank have you? For sinners also do even the
same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive,
what thank have you? For sinners also lend to sinners
to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, See,
he's saying that's not love. But here's love. Love ye your
enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And
your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of
the highest. For he's kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as
your Father also is merciful. Amen. All right, Brother Art.