Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Sermon scripture is found in Romans 12:9-21. Romans 12, beginning in verse 9. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honor, preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality.

Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 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. Dearly beloved, revenge 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 thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

2,000 years of the church. This is also the third week. We’re working off essentially the same outline and we’re finishing up now with points four and five of that outline this morning or this afternoon. And then next week I’ll actually be taking—before we get into sloth—I’ll actually be taking one week to talk about the life of Joab as a good picture of some of the things we’re talking about this week and the last couple of weeks. So that next week you might want to prepare for that by reading a little bit of his life. Joab, David’s right-hand man.

I wanted to just again stress this morning what I think we—or this afternoon, I think we talked about a little bit last week. I mentioned that the path of righteousness referred to in the Old Testament frequently. The word is actually more like a rut. The cure to some of these besetting sins—and anger is one I know that many of us experience on a regular basis. The cure begins with making the effort to know that we do sin but not to be discouraged or dismayed by our own inadequacies and backslidings. That is the beginning of righteousness.

Confession of sin must begin the process of the cure of that sin, and then a continual effort to maintain a right relationship to things and people around us that irritate us. As I quoted from one author, the effort of goodness, no less than the surrender to evil, can become a habit and little by little will help restore us to a correct mindset relative to some of these things. And so the point of all that is encouragement for you as you hear things today that bring you the conviction—not to be discouraged or dismayed. See it as God bringing you to awareness of a particular problem that you’re going to try to deal with, and then realize that some of these habitual acts such as habitual anger can be very difficult to overcome in one’s life.

When you fall off the horse so to speak, the key is not commiserating over it. The key is confession of your sin and getting back on the horse.

I noticed that the last support group meeting for the women of our church—homeschool support group meeting—dealt with family devotional schedules and family devotions, and that’s good. Family devotions are very important, and I’m really glad that they spent a night talking about that and encouraging people and giving suggestions of how to do these devotions. That’s really good.

But of course you all remember that it is the primary responsibility of the fathers in the household to conduct family devotions. Now, many wives wisely start their homeschooling day with family devotions and that’s a real good thing. I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t do that. But what I’m suggesting is that husbands, we cannot, if our wives are being faithful in an area, back off from our own perseverance in doing family devotions.

And I bring that up again to illustrate this point of falling off the horse and getting back on. I don’t know anybody who has successfully had family devotions every day of the week for the last couple years. Since we’ve been stressing it the last four or five years in this church, we all fall off that horse. The key is: are you going to lay there in the mud, or are you going to get up and get back on? And the next day redouble your efforts to have family devotions.

No matter what, things are going to come up. This last week was a winner for me in terms of various things coming up that I hadn’t planned. Schedules have to be flexible to God’s plans for your week as opposed to your own plans, and continue to take whatever opportunity you have in those family devotions at home.

I was teaching American history this year to my two older daughters and another gal from another church, and we were reading through the stories of the 13 colonies. The particular book I have is a book that’s about 100 years old—Barnes Primary History of the United States, used in public schools by the way. The very front piece has a verse out of the Psalms about how we didn’t do these things with our own arm—God did these things for us—that kind of verse used in public schools in America 100 years ago.

Well, in any event, in the story of Virginia, one of the first of the colonies, they were talking about the severity and the morality that was enforced in Virginia in terms of family devotions. If a father failed to regularly lead his household in Bible reading, devotions, and prayer, the third offense—you ready for this? The third offense for failure to do that was death, according to the laws of Virginia. Very important thing to do those things in our homes. And I’m trying to encourage you this morning.

By the way, I also noticed that in Virginia whenever they’d have a minister come in, they would give them 100 acres of land and also a portion of the best and first gathered corn and tobacco. So be good to remember these histories of these colonies.

Okay, devotions are real important. And this thing about anger—in the context of all this—is trying to encourage you. If you keep getting commitment, it’s always followed by testing in the scriptures. And if you’re making commitments to drive out some of these sins we’re dealing with in this process of the seven deadly sins, realize that God is going to test those commitments. And you’re probably going to have more opportunities than ever to get angry if you’re going to really try to make a real strong effort to drive it out of your lives. Keep getting on the horse. Confess your sin. Stop doing what’s wrong. Start doing what’s right and move on.

Okay, so we’ve already dealt with the first three points. But just briefly summarizing it again. We began with talking about Ephesians 4, where it says to be angry and don’t sin—a command to be angry. And it’s interesting there that I haven’t done a lot of word study in this particular aspect of this, but it’s interesting. We think of anger as an emotion that something just kind of comes over us. But here we have a positive command to be angry about certain things. And it’s almost as if there is an emotional aspect, of course, but there’s a volitional aspect to anger as well.

And so on the positive side, you should be stirred up to righteousness, a righteous indignation about certain things. On the other hand, that also means that these emotional angers that come over us are not without the ability to control them. Our volition can exercise control over that particular problem. Anger—be angry, don’t sin.

We talked a little bit about and kind of trace some of that through in a backwards fashion if I remember correctly. Leviticus 19:17 and 18—in the case law, that is one of the verses that’s referenced in this passage from Ephesians. And in Leviticus 19, we remember we pointed out in Leviticus 19:17 it says, “You shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart. You may surely reprove your neighbor, but you shall not incur sin because of him.” Be angry if he’s sinned and done something against the honor of God. Be concerned about that. Be motivated enough to try to deal with the problem, okay? And reprove him, but don’t sin. Don’t hate your brother. Hate is long-standing anger. Instead of being worked through, it sits there in your heart.

Leviticus 19 reinforces what Ephesians 4 tells us: be angry and don’t sin. And then we looked at in the Psalms in Psalm 4, which we just read responsively. It’s a little confusing in the King James version. The verse reads, “Stand in awe and don’t sin.” Remember we talked about that in Psalm 4? The New American Standard Version, for instance, says, “Tremble and don’t sin.” And tremble—the word means there to tremble with anger. And the idea is that David and some of the people around David at this point in time weren’t angry over the fact that he, a righteous man, was suffering at the hands of unrighteous men.

God wants us to be angry about things like that. But then he warns us not to sin: “Meditate on your heart upon your bed and be still.” Paul says be angry, don’t sin, and don’t let the sun go down in your anger. Don’t give the devil an opportunity. And we talked about replacing the quickness of anger or rather the length of anger with the meditation of God in the evening. That’s a wonderful psalm.

Psalm 4 concludes in that wonderful verse 8: “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for Thou alone, O Lord, dost make me to dwell in safety.” And then we looked at Zechariah 8:14-17 in the same connection. And there we read it says, “Speak the truth to one another.” And Paul quotes that a few verses earlier in Ephesians 4. He quotes that verse. Speak the truth to one another. Judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. Also, let none of you devise evil in your heart against another and do not love perjury. For all these are things that I hate, declares the Lord.

So he says, first of all, judge with truth and judgment in your gates, but don’t sin as a result of it. Be angry at unrighteousness. Judge it, reprove it, but don’t sin. And so there’s a positive admonition throughout the scriptures in those four examples to be angry about certain things. And yet it’s always cautioned with: watch it, because it’s too easy to fall into unrighteous anger. And one of the keys to avoiding that is to not let your anger linger in the bosom. Remember Ecclesiastes 7: Wrath resides—it stays in the bosom of the fool. Wise man, he may get wrath occasionally or righteous indignation, but it passes as he deals with it. He doesn’t let it linger and build up in him.

And so the idea is to replace the crockpot anger—the long simmering anger—replace that by when you go to bed meditating upon God and who he is. It’s a positive change. It’s not just stopping one thing and starting another.

Last week we talked about not letting the sun—or excuse me, went on to talk about how James 1 tells us, “Let every man be slow to wrath.” And we looked at the characteristics of God. God is slow to anger. Multitude of verses telling us that. And so we’re not supposed to have crockpot anger—the long-standing stuff—but we’re also not to have powder cake anger that flares up immediately. God is slow to anger. It doesn’t say don’t ever anger. It says be slow to anger. And we suggested then that it was a control of our spirit—properly governing ourselves under the dominion of the Holy Spirit—and that makes us fit for rule in our families, in our churches, in our households.

A man whose spirit is not under his control is like a city without walls. He’s easily beset upon and destroyed by his opponents. And then we talked about the wisdom of not flaring up in anger. Wisdom acknowledges God—that he is, and that God is goodness and God is justice. And so when we flare up in anger over circumstances that God brings into our life, we’re denying his goodness. The way Balaam did with his donkey.

That was the picture we used. God in his goodness gave Balaam a donkey that tried to warn him about God’s angel that was going to slay him. And Balaam kicked against the goads and cursed the donkey instead of thanking God for it. And it’s also a denial of God’s justice. If we get angry over particular societal problems in America, you certainly have a righteous anger about that. But to let that flare up too quickly, to take matters into our own hands, is a denial of God’s justice—that there is a God and he’s working things through in his providence.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. One thing I wanted to mention last week, and I didn’t get to it, was the last page of my notes. In terms of this being quick to anger, I again think we should accept the limitations of the world that God has ordained for us. And sometimes if we’ve been habitual in being quick to anger, it’s hard to drive that out. And so you’ve probably heard about some of these remedies.

Apparently, a man who was retiring from the court of Augustus Caesar gave the last piece of advice he gave to Augustus Caesar was that whenever you get upset about things and feel like you want to lash out, recite the alphabet before you take any action. Go through the whole alphabet. Thomas Jefferson said that if you’re angry, you should count to 10 before you do anything. You probably heard that: count to 10. And he said if you’re really angry, you should count to 100.

Now, I would like to—and I think I might have mentioned this, I’m not sure, and I’ll mention it again even if I have—one lady noticed that the first 10 words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” comes up to 10. And so instead of just counting to 10, which is to delay our anger, she wanted to put something positive in there and help her to meditate on the person of God. And so she started having her children—herself, instead of counting to 10—go through the first 10 words of the Lord’s Prayer. That’s excellent because anger isn’t just to be stopped. You’re supposed to turn it into something positive. You’re supposed to turn to a consideration of the God who has brought that circumstance into your life. And the Lord’s Prayer reminds us of that. So that’s a good practical thing to teach our children.

And I think I might have mentioned before: you might want to have them, if they get real angry, have them stand there in front of you and recite the Ten Commandments. That’ll slow most of them down for a while.

Anyway, okay. One other thing I mentioned: I noticed this week I went to a pastor’s seminar Bill Gothard had last Monday here in Portland, and I thought it was interesting in the providence of God what he was speaking on. The morning he spoke mostly on child rearing, and he talked about how one of the things we have to do with our children is to help them discern pride in their own lives, because pride is the root sin. And we’ve been talking about that in these seven deadly sins—all going to flow out of pride. What we’re trying to do here is sensitize us through the seven deadly sins and its various manifestations to realize that these things are all manifestations of pride—the exaltation of self and the demotion of God.

It’s saying that we’re God instead of him. And pride leads into these other sins such as anger. We don’t like the circumstances. We don’t like the fact the car is broken in God’s providence. We don’t like the fact that somehow we tripped over something and hurt our knee. We don’t want our circumstances—being god—to define the sort of circumstances we should encounter during the day. That’s pride. And as a result of that pride, when it’s crossed and we understand that we’re not in control, we’re not the masters of our fate so to speak, that flares up in anger.

The point is that to root out anger in our lives, you also have to be rooting out pride. That’s the root sin here. And with our children, we should be teaching our children when they feel covetous, when they feel envious, when they feel anger, and then later as we get into sloth and greed and lust—these things are all manifestations of pride. We want to take the scriptural implications of that particular sin like we’re doing with anger and work it through. But we also want to be helping our children understand that these things are evidences of a prideful spirit, a failure to submit to God at its root.

And so we really want to work on that with them too at the same time. You don’t leave pride behind as just one of these seven. It’s kind of involved in all of them. And we’ve been talking about that some. So by the end of this series, hopefully we’ll be able to teach our children to sensitize themselves to all these deadly sins as evidences of pride.

Okay, let’s see. So anger really attempts a redefinition of goodness and justice. I said that anger is a denial of God’s goodness and God’s justice. And you might want to go one step further and say that anger wants to redefine goodness and redefine justice out of pride. In other words, Balaam would have liked to have redefined goodness to be that his donkey would go straight ahead instead of going off to the side. And so when off to the side, he wouldn’t accept God’s goodness toward him. He rebelled against it.

So our pride causes us to want to redefine goodness on our own terms. We want things to go this way. God takes them another way, and then we chafe against his definition of his good acts toward us. We act in unbelief. Now in Balaam’s donkey, we can see real clearly in that story why certain things happen. Many things we go through in life, we don’t know why they happen. We’ll never find out why they happen, perhaps in some of them.

Some of them it’s a matter of faith that there’s a God in the heavens who controls all things, and then relying upon that: the ultimate reason for all events is God’s glory and not our own well-being. And of course, that’s one of the lessons that we struggle with throughout all of our lives. But beyond this, he also tells us that all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.

And I can’t hardly think of that verse anymore without thinking of what Doug H. told me a year and a half ago or so: that people seem to forget the last part of that verse. We like underlining that all things work together for good, but then we forget that we’re called according to his purpose. God has a purpose for us, and that purpose is to glorify him. And if you understand that, then you can see how all things do indeed work together for good to us.

The last half of the verse is very important. And really, it’s what separates theists from humanists—that we’re called for his purpose. God isn’t there as a humanist. He’s there to get honor and glory from us, not to give us honor and glory ultimately. It separates pagans from Christians, and it separates those who get angry and refuse to deal with that anger as opposed to those who submit to God’s will in all the circumstances of our life.

Okay. I mentioned the first 10 words of the Lord’s Prayer. If you’ve gotten that far, count your children to count to 10 with the first 10 words of the Lord’s Prayer. Remember the next two clauses that come after that in a time of anger: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done”—not my will. And that’s really the root of a lot of anger: we want our will to be done instead of God. That’s hard. It’s hard with circumstances that come across our lives. It’s even harder when we live in a country of injustice and unrighteousness.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about this afternoon—anger in response to unrighteousness and the limits on it. And I guess that really the outline’s kind of screwey in that the second point of the outline was “don’t let the sun go down in your wrath.” The answer to that is meditate upon God in the evening. The third point of the outline is “let every man be slow to wrath.” The answer to that is meditating—not just slowing yourself down, but meditating again on the person of God and his kingdom and his will.

The fourth point of the outline is “avenge not yourselves.” Romans 12. And the answer to that really is the fifth point. Instead of avenging yourselves, be a peacemaker. See, all of them are negatives and then adding on a positive admonition. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about then this coup.

Avenge not yourselves, but instead we’re to be peacemakers. Now, before we get into this, I want one more caveat by way of introduction to this. And I know it’s taken a long time to get into it, but in Numbers 25, why don’t you turn there? Numbers 25. And I don’t have all the answers to this story. I can tell you that right now. But I think it’s important to look at it for just a minute before we get into talking about how we don’t take revenge, we don’t avenge ourselves.

Numbers 25: we have described there idolatry going on by God’s people, and what happens. This is the story of Phinehas, in verse four. Verse three: Israel is joining themselves to Baal of Peor, and God is angry against Israel—see there’s a righteous anger. Verse four: the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people, execute them in broad daylight before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.”

So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.” Now we have a command there by God out of his righteous anger to kill men who have engaged in this terrible idolatry. That’s the setting.

Then verse six: “Behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting.” They’re having a confession time in front of God’s tent of meeting. They’re confessing their sins and they’re weeping over the sins of the nation. And this guy comes up with a Midianite woman—the very thing they weren’t supposed to be doing. See, she was ungodly. She was a pagan. She was trying to seduce him off into ungodly worship.

Verse 7: “When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest—the high priest’s son here—saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation, took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, pierced both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked.”

Now there’s a word here in terms of where he goes. Says he went into the tent. That word tent is the only place in the Old Testament where that particular Hebrew word is used. Its meaning is unclear. Okay? Its meaning is unclear. That’s important because there are several things in this story that are not easy to discern. And I’m not able to answer all the questions about it. But I’m giving it to you as a picture of a righteous anger and vengeance being used through God’s ordained instruments in a righteous sense.

You see, this isn’t just then left with no comment. In verse 10, the Lord speaks to Moses saying, “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away my wrath from the sons of Israel, and that he was jealous with my jealousy among them. So that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, behold, I give him my covenant of peace. And it shall be for him and his descendants after him a covenant of a perpetual priesthood because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.”

We could spend a lot of time on this passage. Point is, we’re going to be talking about “avenge not yourselves,” but there is a proper place. In Romans 12, it goes to Romans 13. Romans 13 tells us the proper vehicle for God’s vengeance being poured out on the ungodly. There are ordained agents of vengeance.

Now, the hard part about this is that Phinehas is an ecclesiastical officer. Okay? And the implication in the first couple of verses is that it’s the civil officers—it’s the judges who are supposed to go execute the men for their capital crime. And yet, we’ve got Phinehas involved in this. Now, it’s interesting that when Phinehas is mentioned several times in this text, it always declares who he is. Says “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest.” So God wants us to keep in mind in this account that Phinehas somehow involved in all this was his official duties. He is identified in terms of his vocational calling as one of the representatives that God had given to the people.

And now I mentioned the unclearness of the verse about the tent that he goes into. One of the responsibilities of the priesthood, of course, is to guard the holy things of God. And this event is occurring in the context and at least in close proximity to the tent of meeting. And so there may be some things going on there too where Phinehas is protecting the worship of God in that sense. I don’t know. But I do know that there is a place for a righteous vengeance executed, however, by God’s chosen officers of vengeance.

Okay? Now I said we could spend a lot of time on that, but I want you to realize that this was a good thing that Phinehas does here. And we don’t want to try to imply anything else. We say here that there’s not a proper place for vengeance on the part of the officers that God has given to execute his vengeance.

And notice that the result of this action of Phinehas’s wrath displaying God’s wrath was a covenant of peace—covenant of peace. Kind of interesting. Jack Phelps and I were talking the other day about the fact that it’s God’s wrath against sinners working through the unrighteous wrath of men who nailed Jesus Christ to the cross that produced peace for the covenant people. God’s wrath poured out against Christ. The secondary means he used was the unrighteous wrath of men who nailed Christ to the cross. And through that, God brings about peace.

This has implications. By the way—I think I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not—but the fact that Christ’s death was an expiation. It atoned. It settled down God as the way that—what that means there: God was righteously angry against us for our sin, and Jesus’s death paid the price for that. Yet it atoned. It made expiation. It satisfied God’s anger, okay, for his people. So he’s not angry at us anymore.

Now see, this limited atonement—it seems to me, and maybe I’ve missed something here, you can tell me afterwards if you think I have—people who hold the doctrine of limited or unlimited atonement, that Christ atoned for the sins of the whole world. I think that would mean that God is no longer angry with anybody. But the scriptures seem to tell us that God is angry with the wicked all day. And so that’s another argument for limited atonement: God is no longer angry at the sins of his people because that anger has been placated by the death of Christ through his expiation.

Okay. Mostly I wanted to have a caveat there. There is a place for righteous indignation on the part of various officers to the point of actually rising up in anger and doing something about it.

Okay. Romans 12 then tells us to avenge not ourselves. Now there’s a couple of parallel passages here. James 1:19 and 20 tells us essentially the same thing. Remember we looked at that before. Be quick to hear—it’s important we just mentioned there communication is tough. Be quick to hear. Listen to people. Very important. Be slow to speak and slow to anger. Be slow to speak. Consider what you’re going to say wisely, and particularly when you’re close to anger. Don’t speak in anger. Particularly when you’re angry, be very slow to speak.

Okay? Be slow to speak, quick to hear, slow to anger. Why? For the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. In terms of vengeance, your vengeance meted out apart from God’s ordination does not achieve the justice or righteousness of God. See, Phinehas was not his wrath. It was the wrath of God being worked out. And it did achieve the righteousness of God because it wasn’t the wrath of man. It was the wrath of God. You and me, most of the time, our wrath is the wrath of ourselves—the wrath of men—and it will not achieve the righteousness of God.

And so, Romans says the same thing: avenge not yourselves. Leave room for God’s wrath—God’s vengeance—to be meted out. Let’s turn to Ephesians 4 for a couple of minutes. We’ve been at this passage several times in the series.

Okay. Ephesians 4, when we read in verse 26: “Be angry and don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down your wrath. Don’t give the devil an opportunity. Let him who steals steal no more. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” Verse 31: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

So again there’s a commandment in terms of our anger: not to be that. Instead, be kind and tender-hearted. Don’t be involved in bitterness, wrath and anger. Now the interesting thing here is that in the very next chapter he goes on to say, “Therefore be imitators of God, slow to anger. Do what’s right. Be kind and gracious, as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”

“But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you as is proper among saints, and there may be no filthiness or silly talk or coarse joking, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.”

Point is that when I tell you that your anger should not result in trying to take revenge yourselves—again, there is a proper place for righteous indignation. He tells them here: be long-suffering, be loving, don’t strike out. But don’t let these things be named among you in the context of the church. Let that go on.

So being peaceful here and being a peacemaker and not being vengeful does not mean kind of just pulling back out of all interaction with people. No. Ephesians 4 tells us, and going into Ephesians 5, the same thing: that there is a place where to draw the line.

Okay. Now with that as background, let’s go to Romans 12. Very good passage because, you know, really a lot of things about the world at that time were similar to ours. There were lots of opportunities to get upset about injustice in the land.

Romans 12, verse 9: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cleave to what’s good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor.” Then it goes on down there. It says, “Bless those who persecute you.” Verse 15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” Verse 16: “Be of the same mind toward one another. Don’t be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Don’t be wise in your own estimation.”

You see there again: he says don’t be prideful. Don’t be haughty in mind. If you’re haughty in mind, you’re not going to be able to fulfill these commandments—not to be envious, not to be covetous, and then not to be angry.

Very next verse: “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Okay? Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. You see the caveat there? You can’t be at peace with all men. That isn’t possible. But what he’s saying: if it is possible in terms of a right relationship with men—when it’s up to you—don’t you break the peace as it were. Don’t take vengeance into your own hand and get angry and then move out and strike against somebody. But instead be at peace.

Now verse 17: “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.” You know, that’s just the reverse of the wisdom of the world today. Of course, you want to get even. I saw a magazine or some book published, “100 Ways to Get Even with an Enemy,” and various ways and things you can do to him, etc. Just a terrible book. In fact, today it’s gone so bad—to show you where the world has degenerated to. It’s no longer just “get back whoever does something to you.” Increasingly, the philosophy is “get him before he can get you.” In the world, that’s how far we’ve sunk here.

But the point is that God says, “Never take your own revenge.” In verse 19: “but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay,’ says the Lord.” And of course, he goes right on in chapter 13, rather, to tell us how that’s normatively going to be meted out through civil authorities—not always, but more normatively those civil officers ought to mete out the vengeance or wrath of God against sinners.

Okay? Now, these words tell us—in the words of Reverend Rushdoony in Institutes of Biblical Law—that there is a limit to the extent of our right to war against evil. A limit to the extent of our own right to war against evil. Only God can dispense perfect justice. Only God can. We cannot get perfect justice apart from God’s ordination and his working all things out in time. And to do so is sin.

Now, I’d suggest two specific ways in which we are supposed to fulfill the admonitions in Romans 12 to avenge not ourselves and if possible to be at peace with all men. The first way is to overlook minor faults in others. Overlook minor faults in others.

Proverbs 19:11 says, “The discretion of a man defers his anger. It is the glory to pass over a transgression.” Now, you know, there’s lots of things. Lots of people do—many times inadvertently—hurt one another in the context of a family, in the context of the extended family of the church, etc. This verse is very important to keep in mind with these minor faults of others. We’ve got to learn to overlook things. We can’t get down, you know, to a gnat’s eye on all this stuff and work out every last little injustice that’s been done against us.

You got to overlook it. And it’s a glory to you to be able to pass over a transgression, such a minor sin against you that somebody has committed—maybe just through not thinking about you or whatever. You got to learn to overlook those minor faults in others. So as far as is possible in you, when you do that, you remain at peace with people.

But secondly, for major sins and major problems in society—such as some of the things that many of you know about in our day and age—we have to trust God for those major areas. When the civil governor doesn’t punish people the way he should, we have to trust God for major violations of the scriptures.

Psalm 37:8: Let’s see here. Let’s turn to Psalm 37 for just a minute. Psalm 37:8 says, “Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It leads only to evildoing.” Okay. And then what’s the context of that in verse 7? “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.”

“Cease from anger against him. In other words, forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It leads only to evil doing.”

Why can we do that? How can we fulfill it? It seems awful hard to do. Well, it tells us: “For evildoers will be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord, they’ll inherit the land. Yet a little while the wicked man will be no more, and you’ll look carefully for his place, and he’ll not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”

We can overlook major faults that are outside of God’s calling to us to exercise vengeance or his wrath against by recognizing that there is a God in the heavens who rules the affairs of men. This verse is not contingent upon a proper civil magistrate. This verse says that the wicked will be cut off from the land—period. And over time, God does that. If the civil magistrate doesn’t do it, he uses other means. Frequently, the prayers of his people are one of those means.

The Psalms are full of David trusting God in difficult situations without knowing, from the eyes of sight, how he can get out of this situation, but believing with the eyes of faith that God’s justice will be meted out by the evildoers who commit those major sins.

And so James 1:20 and Romans 12:19 says it’s not just that you’re supposed to take it and really just take it and take it and take it and never think more about it. The point is you’re supposed to realize the fact that God’s justice will be meted out against evildoers.

Frederick Van Til wrote, “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small. Everything is taken care of in those mills of justice. Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”

And we’re supposed to have that patience to know that God’s justice is worked out in the world around us.

James 5:7-9. Let’s turn there. James 5:7-9. The same essential statement of the Psalms is repeated here.

James 5:7-9: “Be patient, brethren. Be patient. It’s the reverse of being angry and irritated. Be patient, therefore, Brother, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

“Don’t—do not complain, brethren, against one another, that you yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. And then it says, as an example of suffering and patience, take the prophets.”

Point is that when we get tempted to get angry, and as a result of getting angry, get even apart from God’s providence and his decree and his law, then we’ve got to remind ourselves there’s a God in heaven who will take care of those problems. If we acknowledge that, then we’ll be able to check ourselves from taking vengeance ourselves.

Okay. You know, it’s interesting as I was thinking about this that again here—remember we said that in the classic study on envy by Helmut Schoeck—only Calvinists can successfully resist envy because of their world and life view and the providence of God that they understand. And really only a Calvinist can believe these verses.

If you think that whether or not people get punished and whether or not God cuts the evildoers off the land depends on the decisions of men, then—if you’re an Arminian, then in other words—you’re not going to be able to stand there and take that with patience. But if you’re a Calvinist and you know that God has ordained all these things come to pass, that he is accomplishing all these things, that even the wrath of man will praise him, then you can be patient and wait for his justice to be worked out.

And this is the answer too. This is another answer as opposed to some people when they talk about the peace that we’re going to be talking about a couple of minutes. Peace as opposed to anger—it’s kind of a neoplatonic, you know, kind of a retreatist spiritualism where only the thing that matters is the spiritual. All the physical stuff doesn’t make any difference. That kind of patience saying “It doesn’t make any difference if evil men rule the world forever, it’s okay for me.” That’s not the peace of the scriptures.

The peace that God wants us to have is knowing that God over time, in history, in space and time, works out his justice against evildoers.

Augustine said that when the winds and waves of angry passion rush upon our soul, do what the disciples did when the tempest fell upon them in the boat: called to Christ to pray. And frequently this sort of patience and failure to get angry is very difficult to work out. But the only way to accomplish that is to call for God’s help in doing so.

Now, I want to give you a picture here of Simeon and Levi. And I’m not sure if we’re going to have time to really turn to the verses or not. I’ll just essentially kind of run this story by. You might know this story, you might not. In Genesis 34, the first few verses, let’s turn there, I guess.

Genesis 34: The situation here is that Dinah, the daughter of Leah, verse one, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. Now, that’s a good verse to remember in this whole story and to remind our daughters not to go out and visit the daughters of the land. But in any event, Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, verse two, sees her, takes her, lies with her by force.

Now, the words that are used in terms of his action toward her are somewhat ambiguous here. It could have been seduction, could have been rape. It’s hard to say. But in any event, he gets a liking for this gal. And he says in verse four that he wants to marry her, and he says to his dad, he says, “Get me the young woman for a wife.”

Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. But his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob kept silent until they came in. And then Hamor comes out and goes out to Jacob to speak with him. And the sons of Jacob come in from the field where they heard it. The men were grieved and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter. For such a thing ought not to be done.

But Hamor said, “Well, I really want to marry this gal.” Okay, that’s what’s going on here. And finally then in verse 25—well, let’s see up a little higher in verse 13. Jacob’s sons—well, in any event, Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi specifically, tell these people that they’ve got to be circumcised before they can marry their sister. “We’re circumcised people, you got to you got to be circumcised, and all the men of your tribe have to be circumcised in order for this marriage to proceed. And once you do that, we’ll let you go ahead and marry the gal.” Okay?

So, they do that. And then in verse 25, we read that “it came about on the third day when they were in pain—that was pain from the circumcision that had been performed on them—that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares and killed every male. And they killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and went forth.”

What Simeon and Levi did was the reverse of what Romans 12 says to do. They avenged themselves. They took revenge into their own hands to defend their sister and her honor and integrity here. They had unbiblical ends in mind—the death of all the men—and they used unbiblical means to achieve that death. They took the covenant sign of circumcision and instead turned it into a weapon of war.

In other words, they did just the reverse. Instead of waiting for God’s vengeance, instead of even looking for God’s ordained prescription for seduction to take place—even if it was rape, the only person that raped her was the one who should have been punished and murdered or killed. But they didn’t do that. They took vengeance against the whole tribe of them and killed every male. They were way out of line.

And it’s an example to our kids of what not to do when faced with an ungodly situation—to take affairs into our own hands. Seemed like a neat idea to them, but it wasn’t such a neat idea. And it didn’t end up to be such a neat idea in terms of their posterity either because God—we read later on in the scriptures in Genesis 49—of what happened to Simeon and Levi because of this event.

Turn to Genesis 49, though. And this is Israel’s prophecy concerning his sons. Now, I don’t know how clean Israel was in all this affair either. It sounded like he was maybe a little bit too much on the “we’ll just overlook things” side of this thing, where his sons were too much the other way around. But in any event, we have here Israel’s prophecy concerning his sons.

Verse 5: “Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are implements of violence. Let my soul not enter into their counsel. Let not my glory be united with their assembly. Because of their anger, they slew men. And in their self-will, they hamstrung oxen.”

“Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.”

You see, because of what they did and the reflection of their character there—no control over their spirit, and rushing into disastrous anger and as a result murder—they were cursed by Israel in terms of the prophecy relative to them in the land. And if you go on in the scriptures to read about what happened to those two tribes, it’s indicative that that was an efficacious curse that was put upon them. The tribe of Simeon, while at one time a fairly large tribe, as you go through the censuses in the book of Numbers…