Pastor David shares a sermon asking the question whether revenge is ever appropriate for the Christian.

<p>Pastor David shares a sermon asking the question whether revenge is ever appropriate for the Christian.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Avenge Not Yourselves

Father in heaven, we praise you for being our God, our Savior, the author and the finisher of our faith.

We thank you that great is your faithfulness.

Your blessings, your mercies are new every morning.

And Father, we pray that as we pause for a few moments of quiet reflection upon spiritual and heavenly themes that You would instruct us, that You would inspire us and draw us closer to you.

On the screen I have an infamous photograph that was taken in 1972 at the Munich Games in Germany.

There was a terrorist group called Black September with duffel bags loaded with AK-47s that scaled the fences of the Olympic Village there in Munich, Germany.

And they took hostages and made some demands to the German government.

All of the hostages were athletes and they were Israeli.

They asked the German government for a plane, and the German government said that they would provide the plane.

But at the airport, there was a trap that was laid with snipers that were positioned around the plane.

And as history goes, that operation went south very quickly and the terrorists, recognizing that this was a trap, executed all of the hostages.

It's probably 1 of the most tragic Olympic Games in history.

Back in Israel, Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel, met with her advisors and issued a public statement.

What Many people do not know, well, history has revealed it now, but many people did not know at the time that she had put into motion an operation known as Operation Wrath of God.

It was to avenge the murders of the Israeli athletes and she commissioned assassins from the elite force of the Mossad and over the period of the next several months, and years for that matter, across Eastern and Western Europe, people were winding up dead.

I read 1 account where they planted explosives underneath the phone of a person that was associated with the massacre, associated with the group Black September, and they called that phone at a strategic time when the person picked it up and said hello.

It exploded, that person was paralyzed, ended up in the hospital and died a few months later.

Finally, the Prime Minister had to stop the operation when a waitress was killed and she was mistaken for someone else.

I didn't buy it, but I did read some of the caption, and it says, 200 dirty tricks for those who are serious about getting even.

And there's something about society where you are almost given a pass for getting even, for settling the score.

When someone hurts you, you're almost entitled to hurt them back.

The Bible actually talks about this notion of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth, And we live in a culture and society where we feel that, look, some people deserve revenge.

And when someone hurts us, we want them to feel the same pain that we have felt ourselves.

And it's many times the word justice is ascribed to this notion of revenge.

I went to college with a gentleman, his name was Male Bone.

Not kidding, that was his name, Male Bone.

And it's interesting because his name epitomized his character.

I remember there was this burly big guy that challenged him 1 day.

He wasn't a big guy, he was stocky and he had perfected this punch where he could 1 inch away, it's called the 1 inch punch, knock someone over.

And this burly guy came over and challenged him from accounts, eyewitnesses' accounts, this guy was flown back by his punch and he never bothered him again.

He tells his testimony about how he was growing up in his home, his father would physically abuse his mother.

And he vowed that he would become an expert martial artist because his father was as well.

And his whole life goal was to get strong enough and quick enough to the place where He could kill His Father.

He met the Lord Jesus and is a Bible instructor today.

What does the Bible say about how we as Christians are to respond when someone hurts us?

And I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me today to our scripture reading.

Many people associate the book of Romans with justification and the gospel, but there's a whole other part to the book of Romans as well.

After going through the beauty of justification and sanctification and what God does for us and the gift of eternal life, Paul spends several verses in the book of Romans about practical godliness.

And I heard this quotation from Mark Twain.

He said, you know, the issue I have with Scripture is not the things that I do not understand.

It's with the things I do understand and find very difficult to practice.

Love your neighbor, very easy to understand, difficult to practice.

Love your enemies, easy to understand, difficult to practice.

And this passage in Romans chapter 12 verse 17 through 19 is 1 of those challenging portions for Christians not to understand but to practice.

Have regard for the good things in the sight of men.

If possible, as much depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

In other words, do not have revenge, but rather give place to wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay says the Lord verse 20 therefore if your enemy is hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him a drink for in doing so you'll heap coals of fire on his head.

Verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I'm not just talking about hurt, but deeply wounded Emotionally physically And there is this sense of revenge, wanting to get even.

He says, here's another old saying that deserves a second look.

I love this from Eugene Peterson's Message Bible.

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, is that going to get us anywhere?

Here is what I propose, don't hit back at all.

Verse 44 and typographical error, 45, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven.

Challenging statement from the words of Jesus.

And this is not what Jesus said, this is what Jesus lived.

Often his work was made unnecessarily severe because he was willing and uncomplaining.

He did not retaliate when roughly used, but bore insult patiently.

He manifested a patience that nothing could disturb, a truthfulness that would never sacrifice integrity.

These are the words of Jesus and I want to clarify from the beginning here I'm not talking about abuse.

If you're in an abusive relationship, I'm not saying, look, just take it and live under those circumstances.

Report it to the authorities and get help.

This is talking about, I believe, an application.

Those idiosyncrasies of people that many times just get on your nerves.

Husbands, wives, parents, children, church members.

It's not only talking about annoyances, it's also talking about times that we've been deeply wounded and God is saying, you know what, there is an appropriate way that we should respond as Christians.

There's a documentary that came out, It's called Beyond the Gates of Splendor.

And it is the story of 5 missionaries that went down to Ecuador to minister to a group of unreached natives.

And Jim Elliott was 1 of the missionaries.

And he made this statement before he went down there.

He said, you know what, we're gonna have guns on us.

But he said, look, if the natives attack us, we're not going to use our guns.

Because we're ready to meet our maker and they aren't.

So they flew over the village with dropped gifts, landed on this strip on the beach.

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Avenge Not Yourselves

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