If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 and verse
43 through verse 48. Now, last week we looked at the
law for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And we saw that this
law was used by the Pharisees to promote revenge, or what they
termed it, the law of retaliation. among the people. But Christ
resets this law aright by shining it on the hearts of the individuals
who had been victimized. If they had been victimized,
the law was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But
this law was not for the individual, it was for the magistrates. It
was for those to keep order and justice in the land. But Jesus focuses on what is
to be true in the heart of the victim. To be true in the heart
of the victim in accordance with the law of God. Now the law does
demand justice. The law does demand justice.
It demands of its magistrates an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. And I tell you that happy is the land and the people
whose judges and magistrates, whose rulers obey the law of
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That nation is content,
that nation is happy, but the nation should be happy for this
by their magistrates, but a nation is not happy when the people
take vengeance in their own hands. The law was not meant for this,
it was meant for order and that grace and forgiveness was to
be in the heart of the individual. This was to be the law for their
heart. If a man smite thee on the face, Jesus said, turn the
other cheek and forgive him. If a man steals from you, don't
restrain him, but give him more than he would take. And if a
man forces you to work without compensation, the law says that
you should work double. You should work double. And if
that man that slapped you, if that man that stole from you,
if that man that forced you to work without compensation, if
he comes to your door and asks for anything, Jesus said that
according to the law, your heart was to be forgiving so that you
might give him that asks of you anything. And not to resist evil. Not to resist evil. Or to render
evil. for evil. Now, none of us has
ever done any of these things in perfection. You see, our nature
is not one of grace, but one of revenge. You see, we may have
isolated incidents. We may have isolated glimpses
of forgiveness in our hearts toward others. We might have
isolated incidents where we might have done this. But does the
law demand isolated events? No. The law demands absolute
perfection at all times in every way. In every way. So once again,
we are faced with our guilt of breaking God's law. But Christ
Jesus, our Lord, has done these things. He has done these things.
He in His heart never rendered evil for evil. When He was smitten, He gave
His back to the smiters, the Scripture says. He gave His other
cheek when He was stripped of His glory by man. When we would
have robbed God of His glory, what did Christ do but come and
fulfill the glory that we tried to rob? And He gave us the glory
of God to those that believe on Him. He gave us the fullness
of His glory. And when He was compelled to
suffer, You see that He suffered twice as much as was necessary.
The Scripture says we received of the Lord's hand double for
all our sins. And does He not freely freely
give us mercy and grace when we come dim. Who was it that
smit Him with our sins? It was us. Who was it that strove
to rob Him of His glory? That was us. Who was it that
compelled Him to come and suffer? It was us because of our sins. And yet what does He do for us?
Does He not freely give us what we don't deserve? Absolutely. And so in these verses before,
verse 43, We see a negative in that Jesus said, resist not evil. But in the other verses tonight
that we'll look at, we're going to see a positive in that you
are to love your enemies, to do good to them, to bless them
and to pray for them. A negative in the sense that
we are not to have revenge. That's what the law is saying.
The law is saying, don't take revenge. But it doesn't stop
there, does it? It goes on and gives us the positive
action of our hearts. I'll tell you, it's one thing
to not seek revenge, but it's another thing to not seek revenge
and actively, proactively do good to the person that has caused
us hurt. And that's what we're going to
be looking at tonight, the positive of this law. Not only are we
not to resist evil, but we are also to do good to those who
do us evil. It's one thing if a man abuses
us to not retaliate with violence for violence. But here where
commands goes beyond that to a positive action, that the law
requires us to love in positive expressions. Verse 43. Jesus said, you have heard that
it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine
enemy. But I say unto you, love your
enemies. Now, to the natural man, this
proposition, this law that they had heard sounds reasonable.
That you should love your neighbor, love your friends. and hate your
enemies." That just sounds natural to us, sounds reasonable to us. I mean, if they weren't our enemies,
we wouldn't hate them. If they were our friends, we'd
love them. That sounds just natural to the natural man. And so the
Pharisees taught this to men, that they should obey this commandment
of God, that you love your neighbors yourself. But what they did was
they added to the Word of God to excuse their hatred for everyone
who was not a Jew. You see, to the natural Jewish
man at this time, their neighbor was only Jews, and everyone else
was an enemy. Everyone else was to be hated.
But nowhere in God's Word does it command us to hate our enemies. Nowhere. You won't find it in
the Word of God to hate your enemies. God has and shall bring
justice and judgment upon His enemies. He has and He shall
hate all those that are outside of Christ. But friend, this right
belongs only to God. This right of justice and hatred
only belongs to God. We as believers in Christ, yes,
we are to hate things. We are to hate sin. We are to
hate sin. We as believers in Christ are
to hate all false religion. Yes, we should. We should not
compromise with sin or false religion in no way. But nowhere
in God's Word does it excuse us to hate man. Nowhere. Nowhere. The law of God says,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And I think this
is best seen in Luke chapter 10. You'll flip over to a parable
in Luke chapter 10. We have the parable of the Good
Samaritan. The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter
10. You remember that rich young
ruler came to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he said, what can
I do to inherit eternal life? And of course, he was asking,
what must he do in his works to obtain eternal life? And Jesus,
knowing this, says, what says the law? How do you read that?
And this man knew what it was. He said, love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength,
and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Well,
Jesus said, hey, you go do that. You do those things and you can,
by your works, earn eternal life. Oh, but this man knew that it
was impossible. He knew he was guilty. And therefore,
to justify himself, he said, Oh, will you tell me who's my
neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And so Jesus
gives the rich man here the parable of the good Samaritan. Now, I'll tell you this, friends.
The Jews hated two people most of all, two types of people.
A Gentile and a Samaritan were hated the most of the Jews. They
hated the Gentiles, called them dogs. But I'll tell you one type
of people they hated more, and that was a half-breed Samaritan.
That was a half-breed Samaritan. Samaritans were the most hated
individuals by the Jews. And so they were enemies of the
Jews. And yet Jesus here speaks of
a Jew who had been wounded, a Jew who had been wounded, and a Samaritan
that comes along and helps him. And Jesus said, you go act like
that Samaritan. And that must have been, no doubt,
a slap to his religious pride. But we know that this parable
that Jesus is telling us in Luke here, is a parable of the Good
Samaritan, which is a picture of Himself. A picture of Himself. And all men are pictured in the
man that was robbed. The man that was robbed and left
for dead is a picture of all of us who have been robbed and
left for dead by sin and Satan. And just like Jesus, just like the Jews, we were enemies
of the Good Samaritan. Enemies of Christ. This man who
lay dying, he was an enemy of that Samaritan. And there it
was that Samaritan came to him. You see, all men by nature are
haters of God and are in enmity. They are opposed to God. The Scripture says the carnal
mind is not subject to God, neither indeed can be. For it is at enmity
against God. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. And it's not subject of the law
of God, neither indeed can be. So, as this Levi then, and this
priest passed by this man. You got this parable now, the
man's robbed, he's laying there dying, dead almost. And here
comes a priest. And he was going from Jerusalem
to Jericho. Now, there was a school in Jericho. They would come from the sacrifice,
the temple worship, and they were going back down to Jericho.
And if they were to touch this man, if that priest or that Levi
were to touch this man, then they themselves would become
contaminated. They themselves would become
defiled, and they would not be able to worship. So then the
priest and Levite that passed by, they couldn't do it lest
they were defiled. And these are pictures of the
law. Friend, the law of God only looks on us who have been stripped
and robbed and left for dead. The law of God only looks at
us and can only condemn us. It cannot save us. It cannot
save us. You see, if the law were to bend
down and to show mercy, then the law itself would defile itself
and it would not be just. Not be just. The law cannot save
us. But God, who is rich in mercy,
has sent a good Samaritan. And notice in the Scripture in
Luke chapter 10, In Luke chapter 10, it says that
the Samaritan came where he was. He came where he was. You see, my friend, salvation,
true religion, always, always works from God to man. False religion always strives
to work from man to God. This has and shall forever be
the only hope for sinners is for God to come to them. False religion says if you'll
come to God, He'll come to you. He'll meet you halfway if you'll
just meet Him halfway. But we know that that's not what
happened with Adam, was it? When Adam fell, it was God that
came to Adam. It was Christ who came to where
we were. He came and took to Himself our
flesh, our nature. And He became a man and subjected
Himself to the law of God. And that's what He's here expressing
to us. He alone has loved His neighbor
as Himself. He was hated of men. He was hated by the Jews. The
Jews in John chapter 8 and verse 48, they called Him the two worst
names they could possibly think of. They said, Art thou not a
Samaritan and a devil? He was hated of all men by nature
and yet He came to them. He came to us,
His enemy, and healed His wounds. and put him on his own beast. That Samaritan knew this was
his enemy. Knew this man hated him. What
did he do? He got down off his horse and
he retched down there and he bound up his wounds, pouring
in oil and wine, and not only that, he put him on his own beast.
What is that picture of Christ? What is that picture to us about
Christ? That all who believe on Him It is because that He
by His Spirit has poured in oil and wine. His Spirit and His
blood. He has given His Spirit to us. And His blood, His Spirit resurrected
us. And His blood purifies us from
all sin. And He having loved us, took
our sins and bore them on His own body on the tree. That's
His love for us. For who? For his friends? No! He did it while we were yet enemies. Romans chapter 5 and verse 6
and 7. It says, For when we were yet
without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure
for a good man some would dare to die. And I tell you right
now, none of us were good and none of us were righteous. We
were neither one of these things. I can understand if a man would
come and die for someone who's good. I can understand someone
coming in and you've got a righteous man, a good man, and some would
even dare to die for them. But that's not what Christ did.
But God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died. Much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. If any man will ever see what
it is to obey the law of love, he will only find it fulfilled
in Jesus Christ. Friends, we will never find this
law of love for our enemies fulfilled in ourselves. Never! Never will
we find it fulfilled in our own experience in this life. He is not only negatively did
not render evil for evil, but he positively loved his enemies
and went about to do them good. He, like his father, had compassion
on the just and the unjust. And he spoke his gospel to both,
even though he knew some men would reject him. And when they
crucified him, what was his prayer? Was it not for Father, forgive
them? They know not what they do."
What great love for enemies! Could we do that if someone was
nailing us to a cross unjustly? If someone was crucifying us,
someone was killing us unjustly, could we look at them with such
love and compassion and mercy? No! No, but He did. He did. He fulfilled this law. We like
all men in verse 46 and 47, we love and salute those that love
and salute us. But have we ever loved our enemies
as ourselves? Have you ever done that? Completely? Perfectly? Absolutely? Every
time? Loved your enemies as yourself? No. But I can point you to one who
has fulfilled this law of love. who has loved His enemies and
done good to them that used Him and persecuted Him. I know of
one, and his name is Jesus Christ. Before we were saved, we used
up God's air, we used up God's world, we used up God's things
to fulfill our own pleasures and sin. We abused the things,
the goodness that He gave us. We abused it for ourselves. We
abused it for everything that we wanted to do against God. We used His reign and His sunshine
against Him. And even now Christ expresses
His long-suffering compassion on His enemies, some of which He has purpose
to save and to show His sovereign love unto. Stop! What manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God? How are we called the sons of
God? Who were His enemies? Because of His love and His offering
of His Son for our sins is the only way we can be called His
sons. Therefore, we should praise and
exalt our Lord Jesus Christ, who has manifest to us His love
for His enemies, that He gave His life and has always loved
us as His friends. You see, in time we were born
haters of God, enemies of Christ, but what did Christ call us?
He said, greater love, John 15, verse 13 says, greater love hath
no man than this. Then a man laid down his life
for who? His enemies? No. He laid down his life for
his friends. Is this not great grace that
we who are his enemies, that Christ looked upon us as his
friends? Believers, He has loved us. And He did not give us what we
deserve. But He loved us and did good
for us and has by His death interceded for us and reconciled us to God. And He is even now seated at
the right hand of the throne of God and is still loving us
and doing us only good. Believer in Christ, seeing that
our Savior loves us, seeing that He has laid down His life for
us, who were haters of Christ. And he would have been right
to have let us go into hell, wouldn't he? He would have been
just, but yet he set his love on us. How can we then have any
reason not to love our enemies? If we can truly see what depths
of grace Christ has come for us, we might be more inclined
to love our enemies. And those who are children of
God will love freely as they have been loved freely. How did Jesus say that? We will
be manifest to the world? How is it that His people are
manifest to all those around Him? How is it? Was it by their
much speaking of Jesus? Was it by their much talking?
No. Jesus said in John 13, 35, By
this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you
have love one for another. Believers in Christ, we know
that our obedience to this command is found only in Christ alone.
And in Him we are righteous. But is there any excuse for us
not to love our enemies? Is it? Is there any reason for
us to excuse ourselves of love for all men? No. We can and must oppose all
false religion. We can and must oppose all sin. The justice of God's law belongs
only to God, my friends. The payment of sin belongs only
to God. It doesn't belong to us. This
is why we should not hate men. Because when they commit sin,
it's not against us, it's against God. False religion is not against
us, it's against God. And He will repay them, not us. Let us therefore strive to love
as He has loved us. And we don't do this for holiness
because we're only holy in Christ. That doesn't make us any more
holy. We're not any more holy because we strive to love. But
because of His love for us and our love for Him, we should strive
to love everyone. I was talking to a woman about
the salvation of God by grace without the law. In other words,
showing her that Christ has fulfilled the law, that is, in Christ I
am made perfect and not by my obedience. And she asked, well
then, you know, how is it that you maintain, how do you keep
on following Christ if it doesn't benefit you in favor with God? Well, because I love Him. That's why. Because I love Him. You see, I long to love because
I love Him. I long to obey Him because I
love Him. Not though it helps me in my
standing before God. No. You see, Christ is my only
standing before God. Jesus said, therefore, be ye
therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect. Friend, that's the standard. There's the standard of God. Be perfect. Well, I am. In Christ, I'm perfect. In Christ, I'm perfect. And He
has imparted His righteousness to me in that I have a new nature
that's perfect. And so then I stand before God
absolutely perfect because of Christ and Christ alone. He alone loved His enemies. He
alone honored the law of God, both negatively, in that He rendered
not evil for evil, and positively, in that He loved His enemies
so much that He gave Himself for them, and died for their
sins, and has and is coming to get them, and save them by His
gospel. And one day He will return and
take them home to be with Himself. This is what it is to love mine
enemies as myself. I see that fulfilled only in
Christ. I pray this will be a blessing
to you.