Lord, I swear there's no pain I know there's no danger In that bright world to which I go Welcome to this podcast from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. Faith Bible Church is a Christ-centered, Bible-teaching ministry dedicated to bringing the Good News of the Gospel to the whole world. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And now, for this week's message from Pastor Alan Battle. Today's reading is from the Book of Romans, the 12th chapter, verses 14 through 21. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil. but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 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. 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. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the word of God. So we're in chapter 12 of our study of the book of Romans. Let's just recall how this book is structured. The first 11 chapters could be titled, What We Believe. It's the doctrine of salvation and our new life. But the chapters from 12 through 16 could be titled, Do This. It's the practice of living our new life. So, last week we began going over some of the particulars of living that life. We saw that the Christian life can only be lived to its fullest in the context of the local church, where we can use our gifts to practice love on one another. to show in concrete actions and attitudes that love that God gives us for our brethren. We ended last week with the command for each of us to seek ways to show hospitality towards one another. It's that kind of personal interaction where we can truly love one another and where the world can see and witness that kind of supernatural love that God puts in our hearts for one another. And they can see the life that the Savior has given to us. The remainder of chapter 12 gives us several more of these practical commands. But instead of the random shotgun kind of points that we saw in verses nine through 14, our passage today begins and ends with a major theme. It's how to relate to your enemies. And then sandwiched in between those two bookends, we have passages that are to give us the character traits that we can, so we can develop the traits that are necessary to treat our enemies the way God calls us to. We are in a spiritual battle. and we come under attack from a ruthless enemy. And the practical question in today's passage is going to be, how should we react when that happens? And the answer can be summed up in the final command given to us in our passage today, overcome evil with good. So I've titled this message, We Shall Overcome. We Shall Overcome is a song that became the anthem of the civil rights movement in the 60s. It was the rallying cry for political liberation of the black community. And some of us old hippies, we remember Joan Baez singing this song at Woodstock. It had its origins, though, in an old Negro spiritual which fosters hope, not of an earthly political liberation, but of a coming heavenly spiritual liberation. You probably remember it. We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday. The Civil Rights Movement was a righteous cause, and its adherents, they were severely persecuted. It was a hard-fought war against injustice and was won through nonviolent resistance to evil. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. learned that principle from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who said, love thy enemy. This has been a distinctive character of the Christian church since its inception 2,000 years ago. Over the centuries, groups of Christ followers have come under severe persecution and have overcome evil with good. And one such group is the Salvation Army. We all become aware of this organization every Christmas season through their bell ringers in front of stores and their kettles. but how many of us are aware of how they were founded and the persecution that they went through and have endured over the years. For over 150 years, the Salvation Army has been helping people that are in need. They're now in 126 countries. Within the US, they service over 23 million people a year. And they claim to have a presence in every zip code in the US. They serve 60 million meals per year and provide 11 million nights of shelter. And they assist more than 200,000 people annually in their rehabilitation facilities. But how did it all begin? It began in New England under the leadership of a man named William Booth and his wife Catherine, who was equally responsible for the success of this ministry. William worked as an apprentice in a pawn shop when he was a young man, and he saw the seedier side of life. He saw the poorest areas of London. And he saw people hawk their belongings just to get something to eat. But more often than not, they used the money to buy drink. At age 15, William got saved and he began training to preach. And soon he and Catherine, who was a dedicated Christian from an early age, they met and they were married. It was reported that Catherine had read the Bible all the way through eight times before she turned 12. She was a serious believer. They married in 1855 and began ministering together. They were 23 years old, both of them, same age. Soon, they realized that church ministry was not their first love. William was an evangelist. He just wanted to go out and preach to people on the streets and see them get saved, see them delivered. So he and Catherine gathered a dedicated group of followers, and in 1865, they officially formed the Salvation Army with William as the general. And many people were responding to the message, the message of liberation that comes from Christ, the message of liberation from sin that comes from Christ. So many people were delivered from alcoholism, and so many of them that the local pub owners began losing business. And they got together, and they paid young men to go and disrupt the Salvation Army meetings. These gangs of hooligans, they began calling themselves the Skeleton Army. And they'd go and they'd hoot and holler during the preaching of the gospel, but they didn't just stop with words. They beat up Salvation Army soldiers. Some were even killed. And Booth himself arrived home many a night with cuts and bruises from the rocks that they would throw at him. At first, the government authorities were against the ministry as well. Instead of blaming the rabble-rousers, they blamed the ministry. After all, they said if they hadn't been having these meetings, there wouldn't have been any trouble. So just like the civil rights protesters in America 100 years later, they peacefully surrendered to the law enforcement, and they used their incarceration as a means to gain public support for their cause. Upon being released from jail, they would be greeted by a crowd of celebratory supporters who conducted parades through the streets. Now the focus of the army was on the preaching of the gospel, but they did other things. They established orphanages, homes for unwed mothers, agencies to help prisoners and immigrants, as well as those well-known soup kitchens. But these social programs were never an end in themselves. They were a means to bring the only true hope to mankind. William Booth once said this, In providing for the relief of temporal misery, I reckon that I am only making it easy where it was before difficult, and possible where it is now all but impossible. for men and women to find their way to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The salvation in Salvation Army is first and foremost salvation from sin. Eventually, because of their perseverance through persecution and their obvious love for the downtrodden, the Salvation Army won over the populace and the elites as well. In 1902, William Booth was invited to the coronation of King Edward. And when he died in 1912, Queen Mary attended his funeral. The legacy of the Salvation Army continues today. It endures due to the fierce adherence to the Lord that they have and to the faithful obedience to his word. And I'm sure that the passage that we're looking at from Romans today was prominent in their hearts. So we begin in Romans 12, 14. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. So you remember last week when I said that all the theology in the world is useless unless it affects the nitty gritty of everyday life. Well, right off the bat, we have a challenge to our theology here. Is your theology strong enough to enable you to obey this command? To bless those who persecute you and not curse them? On a natural level, this is almost impossible. I mean, who blesses their persecutors? Who refrains from cursing them? It's only those who've had their hearts transformed by the power of the gospel. It's only those who are living in the revolutionary kingdom ethic that Jesus outlined in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, this verse summarizes some of Jesus' teaching from that sermon. Let's look at Luke chapter six, beginning in verse 27. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer, excuse me, offer the other also. And from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. Now, it's one thing to hear this command, but it's another thing to actually live it, to actually accomplish it. And how does this relate to the theology that we learned in the first part of Romans? How does what we believe result in what we do? Well, if you look back at Romans 6, 4, it says, we were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Simply put, if you've been born again, you have the capability, the power to live this kingdom lifestyle. And as it is with all God's commands, they're for our good. Did you know that people that hold on to resentment and anger, they're not only unhealthy spiritually and emotionally, but they have significantly higher rates of physical disease. So learn to bless your enemies, and not the way they do it down South. When someone is saying or doing something stupid, you know what they say, don't you? Well, bless your heart. Now, for the next few verses, we're going to see several things that we must do in order to cultivate the kind of character that can bless its enemies. And all of the following can be summed up in one word, humility. So the first one is a dual command. It says, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. This may sound like an easy thing to do, and it may be easy in the microcosm of your immediate close relationships, but Paul is still speaking in the context of the local church here. How often are we completely ignorant of what's going on in the lives of our brothers and sisters? In order to obey these commands, we have to be intentional in cultivating those relationships. We have to get past the casual, hi, how are you? Oh, fine, how are you? We have to really be interested in one another's lives. And this takes honesty on both sides. We can't just be satisfied with those shallow answers. The more we open up to one another, the more we can bless each other with our presence. And small groups are the perfect milieu for this kind of empathy, if we're real there. And this supper club that we're starting will be a great catalyst to begin forming these closer ties. So when you meet together with other believers on a regular basis, you have the ability to enter into their lives in significant ways. And then it makes it possible for you to rejoice when they're rejoicing and to weep when they're weeping. But of course there's a risk in that. It's easier to stay safe behind your walls. True community requires vulnerability and the potential for conflict, which leads to the next command. Live in harmony with one another. Still, this is the context of the church. It literally means to be of the same mind with one another. It means that we need to strive to see things from the other's point of view. The more we interact with people, the more we have to subordinate our desires to the others if we want to maintain peaceful relationships. And that takes humility. Look at the next phrase. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Don't think you're better than anyone else. Now, Gina and I were just recently watching this documentary about the 60s, hosted by Michael Caine. You know the actor Michael Caine? And he was talking about how the hierarchy in British society was being dismantled during that time. For centuries, people knew their places in society. The lower classes were supposed to respect their betters. And Michael Caine remarked, I've never known anyone who was my betters. I've only known those who was my equals. And that should be true in every church. A person's position in society, their office, their wealth, their education, their skills, their lineage, none of that can elevate them above their brothers and sisters in Christ because we're all one in Christ. And this is true concerning the leadership in the church as well. There is no aristocracy in the church, in spite of what Catholicism developed into. In the Middle Ages, the higher-ups in the Roman Catholic Church, they were known as the princes of the church. Did you know that? But that flies in the face of the Bible's warning against esteeming ourselves better than others. When Paul gives instructions to Timothy concerning elders who were caught in sin, he says, do it without partiality. No one is above another and no one is above the law. Now we continue in verse 16. Christians can have a strong sense of security in who they are as a child of God. We can have a self-confidence based on the absolute fact that God loves us and has our best interests in mind. Yet, on the other hand, we should also have a strong sense of self-doubt, knowing our potential for foolishness, knowing our potential for selfishness and error. We need a healthy dose of self-skepticism. We just can't automatically assume that we're always right or that we can read somebody else's motivations or their intentions. How often does conflict arise when we misunderstand or misjudge one another? This verse is a reiteration of Paul's earlier admonition for us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. It comes back to humility. And we can never be real with one another or be at peace with one another without that humility. Now we return to loving our enemies in verse 17. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Don't retaliate in word or deed. Overlook a slight. Bite your tongue at an insult. Don't demand your rights. Just because something is legal doesn't make it moral. You know the story of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice? The moneylender Shylock, he was well within his rights under the law to demand a pound of flesh from his enemy Antonio. But exercising that right wasn't honorable. In attempting to do so, Shylock was exposed as a thoroughly evil man. And we see this same kind of thing in the courts today. Instead of seeking fair reparations from opponents in court, people try to use the courts to destroy one another. not only on a personal level, but on a societal level as well. This is what the LGBTQ lobby is doing in their attempts to destroy cake bakers, and flower shop owners, and all who refuse to kowtow to their sexual agenda. And when government officials collude with this agenda, they have become illegitimate public servants, and they should be removed from office. And if you value religious freedom, then you have the responsibility to vote for officials who will uphold that freedom. The next verse takes this a step further. It says, if possible, so far as depends on you, live peaceably with all. Don't just refrain from fighting. Do what you can to foster good relationships. This means that we should do everything we can to be peacemakers. One of the best pieces of advice in these situations is found in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 15.1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. You can diffuse a situation by simply lowering your voice and speaking calmly. This doesn't mean that we're to be wimpy or to cave in to bullies. It just means that we are trying to bring some civility into a dispute. But unfortunately, Sometimes it's simply not in our power to do that. Sometimes we just can't win over an opponent. And if that happens, and they do something nasty to you, how do you respond? Well, verse 19 says, 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. And we often think that the Old Testament gives us a greater license for revenge than the New Testament. But that is simply not true. Eye for an eye was a civil law in the Old Testament, not permission for personal revenge. This passage is also a quote from the Old Testament that we just read. And the Old Testament never permitted anyone to take the law into their own hands. Disputes were to be taken before the elders. It's never acceptable to take one's own revenge. In the next chapter, Paul is going to tell us that it's the job of the government to be a minister of God, to bring wrath upon the one who does evil. It's not your job, and it's not my job. And now Paul wraps it up by reiterating what he has said at the beginning of the passage. Instead of seeking revenge, it says in verse 20, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head. Paul is again quoting the Old Testament here. This is from Proverbs 25. What does it mean to heat burning coals on someone's head? It sounds pretty gruesome. First off, this is not saying that by doing good for your enemy, it will somehow hurt them in the long run. Some people take it that way. But that would violate the whole context of this passage. It would violate the spirit of this passage. We are to wish good on our enemies. This is an illustration of how to bless those that curse us, not the opposite. So I found a couple of different explanations for what this means. One explanation is that when someone's fire went out, they had to take a brazier to their neighbors and get some coals, and they carried them on their heads and go back and light their fire in their house. So heaping coals is an act of generosity to your neighbor, which goes along with supplying them food or drink. Another explanation says that there was an ancient Egyptian custom of showing contrition for sin by taking a brazier full of coals and walking around the streets. The penitent would make a public display of his sin by doing this. And maybe this is a custom that the Israelites adopted. That interpretation would mean that by doing good to your enemy, it will eventually cause him to repent. And that kind of thing has happened many times throughout the history of the church. There are many former persecutors who were baffled and finally humbled through the love shown to them by their victims. I don't have a strong opinion for either one of these interpretations, but they both adhere to the spirit of this passage that we desire good for our enemies. Now the final verse is a warning to all those who refuse to obey everything that has just gone before. It says, do not overcome, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. If you don't love your enemies, you will be consumed with hatred and you will be defeated by evil. Anger, resentment, bitterness, they damage the believer and they hinder the gospel from going out. But we can and we will overcome. Christians, like their Savior, are in the business of shining light into the darkness. And when the light comes, the darkness has to flee. So as we close today, I want you to ask yourself a few questions. Do you have a peaceful home? Do you live in harmony with your family as far as is possible with you? Or do you repay evil with evil? When someone says something nasty to you, do you respond in kind? If that's so, stop. Stop right now, actually, and just repent and say, God, I don't want to do that anymore. Is there anyone who's hurt you in the past that you've not forgiven? Take this moment to bless the one that cursed you. Do you desire to avenge yourself of the wrongs that were done to you? Again, then stop. Leave it in God's hands. He's far more qualified to do it than you are. So can you, like your Lord, pray for them? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Will you resolve this morning with me to overcome evil with good? Salvation Army has been overcoming evil with good for over 150 years now. The days of their being beaten and pelted with rocks are long past, but recently they've come under a new kind of persecution. They've come under the attack of the LGBTQ community. the forces who are accusing them of discrimination because they hold to a biblical view of marriage. And unfortunately, in this politically correct time, there are corporations who have been bullied into pulling their support from the Salvation Army. Never mind that they serve anyone who comes through their doors, which have always been open to all people, They don't ask about anyone's orientation, their identity, or their beliefs. They seek to ensure that everyone feels welcome and safe. And ironically, while we don't know the exact number, by their sheer size and ease of access, they have to be the largest provider of relief for people in the LGBTQ community. Those activists are only hurting their own people. But I'm confident that this latest attack will not prevent them from fulfilling their mission. They're gonna keep loving people in the name of Christ, despite persecution. And in the end, they and we will overcome. Let's pray. Father, you ask us to do hard things. Lord, we know that you give us the strength and the power to do whatever you call us to do. So Father, we ask that you would open our hearts, open our minds, to see when we are not loving our enemies, Lord, and give us the strength to do it. Lord, we pray that we might be beacons of light in this community, that we might show your love to those who don't love you, that they might come to love you. So we ask that you take these words, Father, sink them deep into our hearts, that we might live the gospel. And we ask it in Christ's name, amen. Thank you for listening to the preaching of God's Word from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. We hope that it has been an encouragement to you and that the Word of God will fill your hearts and minds as you walk through this world. 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