Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing study in the book of Luke. If you'd open your Bibles
to chapter 6 again this morning. This will be our 46th lesson
in the book of Luke, and we're in chapter 6 about midway. Might be here a while. And today we're concerned with
these words of the Lord here in your red letter editions. Beginning in verse 27 after He
gives us these beatitude verses in the verse 20 through 23, and
then the woes that we looked at in verse 24 through 26. In verse 27 He says, But I say
unto you, Which hear. And we looked at
some of the importance of some of those words. They which hear.
And we know that hearing just comes by the word of God. Hearing comes by His power. He
says, I say unto you which hear. Love your enemies, do good to
them which hate you, bless them which curse you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee
on one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh away
the cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every
man that asketh of 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? For sinners also love those
that love them. And if you do good to them which
do good unto you, what thank have you? For sinners also do
even the same. And if you lend to them of whom
you have hoped to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also
lend to sinners to receive as much again. But love your enemies,
and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward
shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest,
for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore
merciful, as your Father also is merciful. And judge not, and
ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not
be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. So, we're kind of mostly concerned
here with this general tenor of the verses here that tells
us how we ought to treat those that are in opposition to us.
When we looked at our lesson last week, we learned that we
met the enemy and they is us. in our life here in the world,
in our natural state, we're at enmity towards God. We're at
enmity with Him. We're enemies, it said. And we
found that God loved us and sent His Son to die for us, even when
we were yet sinners, when we were yet in this state of hating
Him, of being at enmity with Him. One of the things we tried
to magnify concerning the Lord last week was the eternalness
of God in this view, the I Am, and how He doesn't treat us like
we would. He says, I'm not a man like you
are. you thought I was altogether
such a one as yourself." He says, I am. As we look at that, there's a couple of things that
words that are mentioned here in the scriptures. It talks about
love and it talks about mercy and we find that those are attributes
of God expressed through His Son and they are eternal. as his other attributes. This
mercy and this love are not things that he just came up with. They're
part of his eternal nature, and they are expressed in all of
his attributes. Every one of his attributes has
that quality of eternal, and not as we view eternal, but I
am, it's always now, it's always with God, there's no timeline,
no linear timeline. And the I am view is according
to his eternal purpose, which he purposed in. in Christ, before
He even created the world, He had these qualities, He had these
eternal characteristics, and they're unchanging. And He said,
that's why you're not consumed, because every day, even after
we're saved, we say, oh man, how could I have sinned like
that? And every day His mercies are new, we find in the Bible.
And they're new every day because we need them new every day. And
so he's saying here's some things that we should consider. Love your enemy. Boy, we just
have a problem with that in our natural condition. How can we
do that? Last time we looked at Paul as
an example and how the Lord saved him there on the road to Damascus
and the Lord appeared into this believer in Damascus and said,
I'm sending someone over to you. I want you to take care of him. And who would that be? And he
said, Oh, that'd be Saul of Tarsus. And he goes, Oh, we've heard
about that guy. He is the enemy of the church.
He is a He has raised much havoc in the church, and He's on His
way here to arrest us, and haul us back to Jerusalem in chains,
and have us maltreated. In the I Am view, the Lord said,
He's a chosen vessel to me. His name was written in the Lamb's
book from before the foundation of the world. He is a chosen
vessel under me to do what I want him to do to bear my name before
the Gentiles. I've had a purpose for him from
eternity, from I am. And we see many things like that. He was an enemy, but in God's
view, not. You wouldn't think there would
be anything in Paul's life that would enamor him to the Lord
in his previous condition. And thank God that's not what
the criteria is. The criteria is that he was in
the Lord from before the foundation of the world. His name was written. His name was engraved. He belonged
to the Father, it says in John 17, thine they were and thou
has given them to me. That is the eternal electing
love is the criteria there. Not anything that before the
children were born and had done any good or evil that the purpose
of election might stand according to him that worketh all things
according to his own counsel. That's the criteria. And it's a good thing too because
if it depended on each one of us to do something that would
merit mercy and kindness, we would all fall way short of that.
And so as we're looking at this love your enemy, and we think,
how can we do that? And throughout the Bible we have
examples of this Joseph, his brothers. Well, let's kill him. Okay. Oh, wait a minute. I have
an idea. Let's sell him. There's more
money in selling him than there is in killing him. You wouldn't
do that to someone you love. His brothers turned out to be
his enemies in this world. They threw him in a pit and sold
him. And he says, you know, you meant it for evil, but God meant
it for good to save much people alive. And God overcame that
with an I am view, with an eternal view that we don't always necessarily
have. As we go through this and try
to, you know, one of the things we're always trying to do with
the Bible class is trying to bring some relative application
that we can use. And so often we find that we
fall short in those things. Paul ran into that as he records
in Romans 11. He says, man, my brothers, the
Jewish folks, man, I'd give anything if they would come to know the
Savior and believe, but it's not in the purpose of God for
all of them. Some became believers as Paul
himself did. But he said, concerning the Gospel,
they're kind of enemies for your sake. They're after you to kill
you. and arrest you, and disenfranchise you. And yet, they're achieving
God's purpose in His eternal scope of things in redeeming
the church. And so, today, I wanted to spend
some time examining how this applies to the church and how
how we can look at these and receive the blessing of God in
it. And what we always find is that
whatever God requires, He fulfills. And then we find the answer to
all these things. How can I do that? How can I
do that? How can I do that? It's in Christ. Love your enemies. And in our
natural condition, we were the enemy. And God looked at us with
love, not with the eyes of, well, that person is terrible. you that were sometimes alienated,
and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He
reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, dying on
the cross for us. And you know, as we come up on
this holiday season, and we pick this time annually to celebrate
the birth of Christ, and we think of it in kind of a linear thing.
Well, God was in eternity, and He says, down there, 33 or 34 AD, I'm going to pop down
to the earth and go through all these maladies and then I'll
die on the cross. But as we examined last week
and we looked at Psalm 22 and we looked at Isaiah 53 and all
those things, in the I AM view, He was the Lamb already slain
from before the foundation of the world. It was done. He just
accomplished them in what we view as time as he came here. He set his view from the I am One of the interesting verses,
I don't remember if I mentioned it last time due to time, but
he set his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem and to redeem
his people. He set his face like a flint.
You know, flint is a hard stone. It's not malleable. And when
he set his face like a flint, it was just, I change not. It's
just an expression of that attribute of God. That he set his face
like a flint to Jerusalem. And so as we apply him and his
unchanging, his unhindered by time or any factor outside of
his own purpose, as he set his unchanging love on the church, We find the application here
that in Him all things are accomplished through Him. You know in Matthew
26 it says He was talking to the disciples and you know He
just kind of looked at them like, I love you guys. But the spirit is willing but
the flesh, she's weak. And he told them stuff all the
time that exemplified that. You know, the night that they
had the last supper there, he says, he was going to betray
me tonight. He knew that. He knew that from
the I am viewpoint. And they all said, they all except
the guilty guy said, is it I? Because in each of their hearts,
they knew they were saved. They knew they received grace.
And yet in their hearts, they said, I could do that. I could
be guilty of that. That could happen to me. And
yet he says, I love you guys. And so his eternal love is set
on the church, and even though in their natural state they're
enemies, and we tried to look at our enemies as, well, we don't
know who might be redeemed at some point by the Lord. I think it was Spurgeon that said,
Well, if the elect had a yellow stripe up their back, I'd be
going around pulling everybody's shirt up, and then I'd just preach
to them. But since they don't, we preach to everybody the unsearchable
riches of God and grace and salvation. And we leave it up to him to
apply it, because we can't know. And I think we mentioned Jonah.
I want you to go to Nineveh and preach the gospel to the Ninevites."
And he goes, they're awful people. I'm not going there. Those people
are bad. And he said, I'm not going. And
we found out how that turned out. Not only did he go, but
he He brought a portion of the gospel that we looked at. Three days and three nights he
was inside there. Then the Lord caused him to be
ejected there. I have a little quote from Hawker
regarding how we were mentioning from Romans the 11th chapter
about how the Israelites were using God's purpose to effect
the gospel being presented to the Gentiles. He says, and hence
all Israel, that is all the true Israel of God, given by the Father
to the Son, and redeemed from the Adam nature of the fall by
the Son, shall be saved. And in the effectual call of
God the Spirit shall be brought to the knowledge of the truth."
And we find that that's what happens despite us being at enmity
with him, despite being enemies. In Ephesians chapter 5, There's
a telling set of verses here in Ephesians chapter 5 verse
25. He says husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved
the church in the same unchangeable fashion, and gave himself for
it, that he might sanctify it, cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish. And so ought men to love their
wives as their own bodies, It's a picture of the relationship
between the church and Christ, this love that can't be stopped. He that loveth
his wife loveth himself, but God committeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know, when we enter into
a relationship of marriage with somebody, we usually do it with
somebody we like. We don't go pick somebody that we hate their
guts and say, well, I'm going to marry you and hope that works
out for the best. We pick somebody that we kind
of have an affinity for and we love them. But God says, but
Christ commended His love toward us
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Love your
enemies. Do good to them that hate you. In verse 27, what greater good
can be done than to lay down his life a ransom. for them who at the time hated
him. Yet in the I Am view, he had loved them from eternity
and did that. Greater love hath no man than
a man lay down his life for his friends. So we have these competing views. We have this world view, how
we perceive people and those that we perceive as enemies. And then we have the spiritual
view that God has. He said, I looked down amongst
the world sovereignly. There was a group of people that
were the fathers that he gave me to redeem. And I see them
out there. He preached the gospel to thousands
of people at a time. And yet, out of all of them,
only some Some were saved. A lot of them said, well, that
was a hard saying. I'm not going there. I can't
do that. But some of them said, we would
hear more of this. Some said, oh my word, how wonderful. He could look at them and say,
I know you hate me now, but I'm dying for you. I love you. I've always loved you. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness, have I drawn you. Bless them that curse you. Now
there's a hard one. How can you, how can you, and
not the, I was reading in a, can't remember where now, Some of the sayings that we have
as Christians just become so trite. There's people that say,
oh, Lord bless you, Lord bless you, no matter what. They just
say, Lord bless you, Lord bless you. But in their mind, they're
thinking, you rotten so-and-so. It takes
real grace to bless someone. And how can you bless someone
that's cursing you? The only way that's possible
is to present exhibit the gospel. Many times you don't have an
opportunity to do that the way that traditional religion would
say. Well, you need to just make them sit down and listen to you
and give them the gospel and threaten them with hell and all
that kind of stuff. Many times you don't have that
opportunity. Most of the time you'll find that if you try that
approach it's going to end badly. The best thing that you can do
is exhibit Christ-like fruits of the Spirit. And then if they
ask you for some reason, they say, why aren't you freaked out
by everything that's going on? Or why aren't you worried about
this? Or how can you have such calm
in the face of this or that? And then you have an opportunity
to talk to them about why that is. Be ready to give every man
an answer of the hope that lieth within you, I think the scripture
says. And that's what you can do. So in regards to the church,
the Lord absorbed so much of cursing of himself by those in
whom he had an eternal interest and an unchanging eternal love.
And even though they were mixed in among the throng of masses
that hated him, and they were all, he says, among whom you
all had your conversation. He only viewed them as in Christ,
and therefore in His eternal love, and therefore in no condemnation. In Luke chapter 22, a long, long
time ago, I remember in one of our previous Bible classes, we
talked about those thieves on the cross. They hanged Him on
the cross between two other malefactors, one on His right, one on His
left. hanging there and the people were reviling him and spitting
at him and calling him all kinds of, mocking him. And one of the scriptures says
in Matthew 27 verse 44 says, the thieves also which were crucified
with him cast the same in his teeth. And so we have these two
individuals there with him. One whose name was written in
the Lamb's Book of Life, and one who is not. They're both
reviling him. They're both mocking him. They're both saying all kinds
of evil things about him. And yet, in those final moments,
The Holy Spirit moved on the face of the darkness in the one
and breathed in him the breath of life and he said, hey, you
know what? We're guilty. You never find
that when you go to visit in prison. I was robbed. I had a bad lawyer. I was kind
of involved in a little prison ministry thing briefly for a
short time and there were no guilty people in there, just
bad lawyers. This guy says, we're guilty and
we deserve what's coming to us, but this man has done nothing
amiss. And then he calls him Lord. Remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom. And the Lord says, today thou
shalt be with me in paradise. Just that brief moment of time,
that was that man's appointed time. His appointed time was
not until that moment. And think of that man, he says,
I'm a thief and a robber and all these things, I'm guilty.
endless list of crimes like we all have. And suddenly the Lord says, I'm
taking care of those right here for you. Therefore, on you, there's
no condemnation. But only moments before, he was
an enemy. He was one that cursed him. And yet, the Lord blessed him
that had been cursing him. 1 Peter chapter 2. I think this helps shed some
light on how we view these Scriptures. In 1 Peter 2, starting in verse
21, he says, For even here unto were you called, because Christ
also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should
follow in his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found
in his mouth, who when he was reviled, or cursed, reviled not
again, And when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed
himself to him that judges righteously." He had that I am view in there. And he told the disciples, you
know, this is according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. This is I have to do this. I must do this. I want to do
this. I've set my face like a flint toward Jerusalem to do this very
thing. From the moment I came and was
born into this world of a virgin, as we're about to celebrate,
my goal, my aim was to fulfill what was determined in the I
am. His own self bear our sins in
his own body in the tree that we being dead to sin should live
under righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. For
you were a sheep going astray, but now are returned unto the
bishop, the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Well, you know,
we, we find that written in Isaiah 53, even in the past tense, Just
as the lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the
world, not going to be slain. The lamb slain. He was oppressed
and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before his shearers is
done, so he opened not his mouth. And when he did open his mouth,
grace flowed out. You know there was believers
out there in that crowd. And he said, Father forgive them
for they know not what they do. Not forgive the whole mass. The ones that you gave me are
doing, they're engaged now in an activity because of their
nature, because of the fallen from sin. They're engaged in
an activity that's animus toward me, that hates me, that curses
me, that they're my enemies, but they don't know what they're
doing because they haven't been regenerated. They haven't been
born again from above. Unless you're born again, you
can't even see the kingdom of God. He that smiteth thee on the one
cheek also offer the other and in the I am view of this Christ
that he did that. Lamentations chapter three verse
30 records this for us. He giveth his cheek to him that
smiteth him. He is fulfilled or he is filled
full with reproach. He gives this cheek to be smitten. That's written a long time before
it came to pass as we understand it in time. But in the I Am view,
it was done. Micah 5, verse 1, Now gather
thyself in troops, O daughter of troops. He hath laid siege
against us. They shall smite the judge of
Israel with a rod upon the chief. He knew that because in the I
Am view, it was now to him. Not something that, well I have
a crystal ball and I can see ahead of time what's going to
happen. In his I am eternal view, it's always now. Thou Bethlehem
Ephratah. We'll probably be hearing that
scripture in the next week or so. Though thou be little among
the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto
me, that is, to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been
from old, from everlasting." From the I Am view. The very
minute in our view of time that He came and was born into this
world. And not only is Cheek It says,
to them that smiteth ye on the cheek, turn the other one to
them, and allow that also. But not only his cheek, in Isaiah
chapter 50, verse 6, it says, I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. Well, let me tell you, these
cheek hairs are firmly in place. And if somebody comes up to me
and tries to yank them off my face, we're going to have a problem.
It's probably not going to end well. But in his view, he submitted
to all these things in our behalf. And he fulfilled all these things
in our behalf. Surely he is born our Greece.
carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted." He took the punishment that we deserved
but we didn't get because he exhibited that eternal I Am quality
of mercy and kindness to us. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes
were healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned every one to his own way and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all." And so when he says to someone,
smite you on the cheek, turn to him the other, Well, in our
worldly view, we're probably going to have trouble with that. We're in this flesh, in this
world. And we have the man, the new
man, the inner man, the spiritual man. And the Lord said to the
disciples in Matthew 26, The spirit part of you is willing.
The spirit part of you wants to comply with all these things.
But he says, but the flesh is weak. And you know what? That's the times that we have
to turn to him and say, I've got a problem with this. I can't
do this on my own. But we've always find that He's
fulfilled that for us and there's no condemnation. And it's not
to say that, well, we don't have to try or we should be satisfied
with the way we are and say, well, I don't have to comply
with that because I'm not under that. The spiritual part is doing
that. But the fleshly part of us is
sometimes we have more successes than others, but most of the
time we don't. And Paul said, the flesh worth
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that you
can't do the things you would. I'd like to be magnanimous and
say, go ahead, do that again. when I don't holler out too bad,
then you'll ask me a gospel question, and I can tell you the hope that
lies within me. My reflexes are probably going
to go. So he says, so you can't do the
things you would. And he says, the thing that I
want to do, I don't seem to be able to do that. And the thing
that I don't want to do, this thing, he says, that's what I
always end up doing. And if Paul wrote that about
himself, You know, how much more for us? So, him that taketh away thy
cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Well, we know that
he says in Psalm 22, written in the tense of this
is happening to me right now, thousands of years before. They
took my garments and gambled for them. They parted my garments. What a humiliation. They took
his garments and then nailed him up there to be exposed. How humiliating. I was thinking the other day
when I had my little procedure in the hospital, I'm glad I was
not awake when they did all this humiliating
stuff. But he did it. in a way for all
of us. Him that taketh away thy cloak
bid not to take thy coat also. Let's not tear this one piece
up, this part that exemplified righteousness and
grace and all those attributes of God that we, when we looked
at that in the Fabric of Grace series of lessons, we looked
at that robe of righteousness that was woven from the top without
seam. It was all, every fabric piece,
every piece of that thread touched another thread. And they were
all interlaced and they were all part of a whole. And that's
what we find all the attributes of God in salvation. Every one of His attributes is
exhibited in His salvation, His sovereignty, His grace, His mercy,
His love, His omniscience. All those things. His almightiness
that overcomes our unbelief. All those things are interwoven
and you can't pull one thread out and say, well, we didn't
need that one because I have a will. We need every single
one of them. And every single one of them
applied to us causes us to say, Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. So He fulfilled this when they
take your cloak. Forbid not them taking your coat
also. It was fulfilled by the Lord
from I Am in eternity and speaks spiritually to us. I was looking at that verse and
it just, he says, in the I am view of salvation, he says, him
that takes your cloak, and if you think about your cloak of
self-righteousness, don't forbid that to be taken
away from you. That's part of what has to happen. And if there's something else
in the way, Lord, take that too. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God in Christ. Take away any and all things
that have that effect. They part my garments among them
and cast lots upon my vesture. And we find that fulfilled in
John chapter 19. Give to every man that asks of
thee, in verse 30, And we talked a little bit about from 1 Peter
chapter 3 where he said, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and
be ready to give answer to any man that asks you of the hope
that lieth within you. And the Lord did that. Anyone that asked of Him said
He healed them all. John chapter 4 Verse 10, when he's speaking
to that woman at the well, if thou knewest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou would
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
She didn't know at that time, but she did by the time that
they were done talking. She says, thou art the Messiah. Come see a man that told me all
things that were I did. Is this not the Christ? And then we come to, as you would
that men should do to you, do also to them likewise. And in Matthew's version of this
in chapter seven, He said, therefore all things whatsoever you would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this
is the law in the prophets. And he doesn't mention a specific
one there, but it's kind of a culmination of eight or nine different Old
Testament writings in the laws of Moses and in the prophets
of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos and Micah and Zechariah and Malachi. There's a component of every
part of this in what these guys wrote a long time before concerning
Christ. And in the law, Leviticus 19.18,
love thy neighbor. What's the great commandment?
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
And the second is likely, namely this, that thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these. Well, anybody that complies with
that 100% of the time, fully, well, you don't have to raise
your hand. So what's required of the church
in all these things? You know, Paul wrote in Romans
12th chapter, he said, be of the same mind one towards another,
and mind not high things. There's a lot of stuff going
on that's in the eternal scope of things. In the I am scope
of things, it's not really relevant eternally. They're just things
that have been going on since Cain took care of Abel. They're just things that have
been going on that's according to God's purpose to redeem the
church. Be not wise in your own conceits. We have to pay attention to what
God gives us in the scriptures regarding Christ, regarding Himself. Recompense to no man evil for
evil. Provide things honest in the
sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. as much as lieth
within you." Because we're of this world and we have to deal
with this flesh, he wasn't going to say, well, you absolutely
must do this every time. And even if we did it in the
flesh, in our mind we might be thinking, I'm just doing this because it's
a legal requirement. He said, Dearly beloved, avenge
not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written,
Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if
thine enemy hunger, feed him if he thirsts, give him drink,
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Remember
that little part we had about the prophet and his servant,
and they were surrounded, and the servant comes in and says,
oh, they're surrounding us and we're doomed. And he said, remember,
Lord, open his eyes that he may see, remember that. And Elisha had the Lord open
his eyes and he saw that there were more chariots with the Lord
and angels and everything around him. He said, there's more with
us than there are with him. And so the next thing he said
was, okay, the host of the Lord go out there and slay all these
people that surrounded us. No. He didn't. He did inflict blindness on them
and then they led them away and took care of them and made sure
they were fed and everything and took them back when they
could have been destroyed. That'll heap coals of fire on
their head, it said. Who is a god like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever
because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, He will have
compassion upon us, He will subdue our iniquities, and Thou wilt
cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt
perform the truth unto Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, which Thou
hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old." Micah chapter
7. He delights in mercy. He will
take care of... I remember that lesson Norm brought
us from the apple of his eye. He that harms the apple of his
eye will not be held guiltless for that, unless they be like
Paul in accomplishing the Lord's purpose.
So we see that the blessing in that Christ has fulfilled completely,
all that's required in our behalf, and that's our example, and that's
our hope, is Christ is all in all the I am. So we'll stop there. We kind of went over time to
finish this up a little bit. Next time, Lord willing, when
we get together, we'll move on to Can the Blind Lead the Blind? Thank you for your attention
and be free.