Dennis Tuuri

We have been raised to the throne room of God to give him worship and praise and to learn. We have just sung of that the spirit might rule in our hearts. He gives us a message to take to the nations. The sermon scripture today from the law word of God is found in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 15. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 15. Please stand to hear the word of the Lord.

See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and all men.

You may be seated. This time the younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools if their parents desire that for them. They’ll rejoin us at the conclusion of the sermon.

We continue this afternoon going through a series of sermons going through the book of 1 Thessalonians. We’ve probably got about six left. They’ll be interrupted in the middle of January with various other sermons. We’ll have our sanctity of human life Sunday observance as we do every year. And included in that will be a service of malediction asking for God’s special curses upon those that commit abortions in our land, murder. And there’ll be other people giving sermons in the month of January as well. And then we’ll go back to this toward the well I guess gets back into February. But this week, next week and the following week, we’ll continue going through 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

Today we’re verse 15, which really has a couple of commands in it. Two really hook together, but I’m handling them in one sermon. I think they go together very nicely, and we’ll see that as we develop this. And I want to first of all just give a brief overview of the text itself.

Verse 15: “See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men.”

Remember we said last week there’s a transition here from relationships within the church to now this command obviously relates to all men including those outside of the church. We have here a proscription of retaliation as well as a prescription of seeking the good. A proscription means that it’s something you’re not supposed to do. To proscribe something means you can’t go within the circle that’s proscribed. So it tells us what not to do: render evil for evil and what to do instead, which is to seek the good. And they really go together.

“See that none render evil for evil unto any man.”

That’s the proscription, the prohibition. “See to it here, the word see in our King James version, I don’t know what it is in your translation, indicates an imperative here. It’s a strong term and it means that really work hard at seeing that this doesn’t happen in the context of the church or in the context of the Christian community as it’s dispersed as well in terms of the world. So, this is an important thing and it’s going to be somewhat difficult. We see that from the use of the term see here to it what we’re to see that does not happen in the context of the church of the world is that evil is rendered for evil to render means to be an exchange for.

Matthew 6 verse 16: the Pharisees the hypocrites when they fast or when they pray they want to be seen by men and Jesus said verily they have their reward they have their exchange for what they do in the very fact that they’re seen by men and that’s all they’re going to get. So to render evil for evil means to exchange it in exchange for again.

In Genesis 44:4 Joseph in terms of dealing with his brothers and he sends them away and they’ve got stuff hidden in their stuff and they don’t know about that. He says follow after these men and when thou overtake them say unto them wherefore have you rewarded evil for good to exchange evil for good. Joseph was good to them and he’s getting them to think through the fact that they should didn’t exchange evil for good. They didn’t do it in this case, but they had done it, of course, to him. And so, he was bringing them to a realization of their sinfulness of rendering evil for good to him.

Tit for tat is a modern expression, I suppose, for this idea of exchanging one thing for another. And certainly in terms of evil for evil, the word evil here means has its basic meaning of being base or mean—meanness of not meanness in the sense of angriness, but in the sense of commonality. Useless really is another way to put it. But also it can mean actual evil acts of course, but they’re evil because they’re base and they’re opposed to the good. And the two words here evil for evil are both the same word.

So you don’t want to in the light of persecution, light of problems, in the light of somebody doing something that isn’t right, you don’t want to do something to them that’s wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Simple saying. But this isn’t simply a proscription against that. Rather, there’s a prescription as well as I said and that is to instead of doing that instead of two wrongs make it don’t make a right. Don’t do that.

“But ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men.”

The word for follow here follow that which is good is translated in Acts 22:4 as persecution. Paul says that I persecuted this way under the death to follow after in the sense of persecuting. 1 Corinthians 15:9 Paul says that on the least of the apostles that I’m not me to be called an apostle because I persecuted I followed after the church of God. So this word to follow, to pursue, to go after frequently is the word we read across in the scriptures for persecution. Kind of interesting. Now what this means is that this doesn’t happen naturally. We can’t expect ourselves naturally to fall into doing good but it has to be worked at. Effort is needed to move in this direction.

Okay. Exchange tit for tat two wrongs. That’s an easy thing to do. But to pursue something is not easy. That takes some zealousness. The persecutors were including Paul among them. If nothing else, they were zealous. They worked hard at their job. They were self-sacrificial in their pursuit of persecuting the church of Jesus Christ. So there’s work and effort implied here for rendering what is good to those that do evil.

As a hunter hunts the prey, so we must seek out and hunt actively pursue the good. We’re not to persecute, but rather we’re to pursue or chase for good. Here in the in the context of our verse, Paul puts the same intensity and he did in his own life and he calls us put the same intensity into our altruism biblical altruism, biblical seeking for good that he had put into persecution. Same word.

Well, what is this good? what are we pursuing? It is the good. And it’s not somebody else’s good. Good in the in the grammatical structure here it is the good not just something good. As Lensky says in his commentary but the good the thing good and beneficial. Psalm 38:20 says they also that render evil for good are mine adversaries because I follow the thing that good is so this is an Old Testament concept as well we follow after the thing that is good and that’s what we’re being told to hear to seek the good. The term itself means good in its character or composition and hence good in its effect. Useful, beneficial, good in terms of action is this particular word. There’s another word he could have used that has reference simply to the intrinsic quality of a thing. This means that the intrinsic quality thing is good but to the end that it is useful and active. It’s distinct from this other word which is basically just good in character.

So, in contrast to this good, the evil we were talking about is essentially useless or incapable in terms of its result. Result in and of itself it’s not good and its actions evil that is are also not good and hence bad.

Okay, so that’s that’s basically what the verse says. It says don’t render evil for real evil but instead do the good thing. But it’s a confusing text for a lot of people apparently. This is one of the this text was probably one of the ones that was the commentaries I consult and I consult I don’t know probably at least a dozen of them every week were more probably close to 20 by now. But in any event, the commentaries are basically useless for this text. Most of them I have are fairly moderate. And that’s one of the reasons this verse is really whacked out of shape by people who are modern commentators and taking a modern dispensational or antinomian or law grace distinction into the text. They really mess it up.

Before we get into the next part of the outline, the continuity of the text with the Old Testament, I want to just talk about some the error of so many commentators and seeing this text, not all of them, but a lot of them. Seeing this text in opposition to the Old Testament and of course we have similar texts in the Gospels.

Matthew 5:39: Jesus says, “I say unto you, resist not evil. Whosoever shall smite thee on the cheek, turn the other cheek.”

Matthew 5:44: “I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”

And this is much of what our text is saying as well. And many commentators see a differentiation in this ethic or the New Testament from the lex talionis the principle of retaliation in kind that god commanded in the old testament some go so far as to say that even within Paul he seems to have these two different ethics in place he was struggling with his old testament Judaism don’t you know they say that while Paul earlier in Thessalonians in chapter 2 14-16 talked about the wrath of god coming upon those that persecute the church and Again, in the next epistle to the Thessalonians in chapter 1, he talks about the wrath of God that’s going to come down on those people that hate God and persecute God’s people.

Some see within Paul himself a tension here between the humanizing influence of Christianity and the Christian New Testament ethic upon the world and the loveless Christianity of people tied too closely to Judaism. And this is a this is a slur sometimes spoken at most times I would say spoken in ignorance, but it is a slur on the mean meanness of uh not meanness of the sense of angriness, but in the sense of commonality.

Before we get into the next part of the outline, the continuity of the text with the Old Testament, I want to just talk about some the error of so many commentators and seeing this text, not all of them, but a lot of them. Seeing this text in opposition to the Old Testament. And of course we have similar texts in the Gospels. Matthew 5:39: Jesus says, “I say unto you, resist not evil. Whosoever shall smite thee on the cheek, turn the other cheek.”

Matthew 5:44: “I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”

And this is much of what our text is saying as well. And many commentators see a differentiation in this ethic of the New Testament from the lex talionis the principle of retaliation in kind that God commanded in the Old Testament. Some go so far as to say that even within Paul he seems to have these two different ethics in place. He was struggling with his Old Testament Judaism, don’t you know, they say. Yet Paul earlier in Thessalonians in chapter 2:14-16 talked about the wrath of God coming upon those that persecute the church. And again, in the next epistle to the Thessalonians in chapter 1, he talks about the wrath of God that’s going to come down on those people that hate God and persecute God’s people.

Some see within Paul himself a tension here between the humanizing influence of Christianity and the Christian New Testament ethic upon the world and the loveless Christianity of people tied too closely to Judaism. And this is a slur—sometimes spoken, at most times I would say spoken in ignorance—but it is a slur on the character of biblical Christianity and the Old Testament law of God.

Now, I want to show you that the continuity here. That the prohibition against personal retaliation is not new to the New Testament. It comes right out of the Old Testament law of God. And even the positive command to seek the good was there also in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 19:18 says just like Paul says really it’s a restatement of this statement from the law of God. “Don’t take don’t evangel or bear any grudge.”

Leviticus 19:18 goes on to say, “But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord.”

Right? You know, people like to say, well, yeah, he said, “Love your neighbor in the Old Testament.” But that was just within the context of the community, you know, but in other places, for instance, in Exodus 23:4, still in the case law of God, “if thou meet thy enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him.”

Do good to your enemy. In other words,

Proverbs 25:21: “if thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink.”

Don’t render evil to evil, seek the good. Okay? And these were real enemies in the Old Testament, by the way. You know, these are the words used of enemies who would come and wait, lay and wait for you all day, you know, just waiting to see if they could kill you. And Paul says, if you got an enemy like that, you find his ox, you return it to his ass or his donkey rather, you return it to him. And if he’s thirsty, you give him water to drink. God says that rather in the Old Testament.

So there’s continuity. But a third element here quite important is there’s continuity in relationship to the reliance upon God’s wrath. Now our text you can’t see it clearly necessarily but let’s look at another text Romans 12 which really is a fuller treatment I guess is one way to put it from the summary form that Paul gives us in 1 Thessalonians.

Romans 12 says verse 17: “recompense to no man evil for evil. Don’t do evil for evil. Same prescription.”

“Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it possible, as much as life in you, be live peacefully with all men. Goes right on to say, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves.” That’s what the proscription is.”

“But rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, sayeth the Lord.”

Therefore, now you’re thinking, one, he’s changing subjects. But now he gets to the positive side of the command. Very next verse in Romans 12:

“Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. And 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.”

We’ll return to this text a little later. But you see, what I’m saying is the proscription against retaliation, the prescription to seek the good. And Romans 12 says the context is a reliance upon the wrath of God to avenge those who are God’s enemies.

Okay, remember Paul, he doesn’t say it right here in our little verse, but remember the context is that passage from chapter 2 where he says, “The enemies that persecute the church will be judged by God.” There’s a day of wrath coming. 2 Thessalonians 1, the other book in if you want to look at that for this command we’ve got today. Reliance upon God’s wrath.

2 Timothy 4:14: Paul says, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works.”

Now, Now you can do one of two well one of three things I suppose with this one. You could say well Paul just was confused you know and of course when you do that you’re not saying Paul was you’re saying the whole scriptures are not trustworthy. If we’re going to find statements like this where Paul’s revealing his personal sin that are judged by Paul’s other statements. You know we’ve basically thrown away the word of God. We’ve made our mind the judge over what is legitimate in this in this scripture and what isn’t.

Otherwise you can say well I don’t like that. If that’s what Paul means when he says, “Don’t render evil for evil, but pursue the good.” If he at the same time can say that his enemies, he hopes that God rewards him according to his works for doing evil to Paul, then I don’t like that. And if you don’t like that, you got two choices.

One, you can get to like it. Or you can quit calling yourself a Christian because this is the word of God and this is the standard by which Christianity is measured.

So there’s a reliance upon God’s wrath. Clearly, in the in the scriptures in the New Testament. And of course, this is also true in terms of the Old Testament. I won’t go to all the verses, but I’ve listed some verses there that show that in actuality, the portions of the Old Testament case law that talk about stripe for stripe, wound for wound. They’re talking not about personal retaliation or revenge, which is what Paul is addressing in our text and other places of the Old Testament addressing. Rather, those retaliation lex talionis refers to the magistrate. You know the magistrate is the one who is supposed to render eye for eye tooth for tooth etc.

Okay. Again looking at a couple of other verses in terms of the context of the reliance upon God’s wrath upon the wicked.

Proverbs 20:22 which we already quoted but it’s important to hear. I’ll say it a little bit. “Say not thou, I will recompense evil, but wait on the Lord and he shall save you.”

Wait on the Lord. We talked about that some last week. What is waiting on the Lord related to in the context of the of the Old Testament? Well, Psalm 37:34 says to wait on the Lord and keep his way. We’ll get to it, but that’s what he’s saying when he says seek the good. Keep God’s way. Don’t take revenge. Wait on the Lord. Keep his way. Keep God’s law. And he shall exalt thee to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.

We can wait on the Lord and we can defer personal revenge because God has promised not that there’s no lex talionis in place in the world, but rather because it is God’s job through God’s chosen magistrates and church, state, and family, etc. to bring people to people’s deeds to judgment. And so because we can rely upon God’s wrath being meted out in history, that’s why we can avenge not ourselves.

See, he’s saying it’s not your job. He’s not saying it’s nobody’s job. He’s saying it’s my job. You wait for me. Okay.

Now, so first of all, this error of saying somehow there’s a difference between Old Testament, New Testament ethic is goofy. It’s just wrong biblically.

And then secondly, another error that you’ll find as a correlation of what I just said in terms of Old Testament, New Testament is the error of cheap forgiveness. And this stems, I think, from essentially a failure to understand what good is in the context of the text.

Some say that what the good means here is good means beneficial to those people that you’re dealing with as opposed to harmful. Williams translation says you should always keep looking for ways to show kindness. The aim of the Christian, some commentators say, must be to seek the greatest good, good of all.

Okay. Thicket in his commentary on this passage is the clearest statement of the this error says when someone wrongs you even if he doesn’t ask for it, you are to forgive him. Then prove that you have done so by going out of your way to do something nice to him. So says first you got to forgive him and then go out of your way to prove that you’ve forgiven him by doing something nice to him. Even if he hasn’t asked for it, even if he’s not repented.

Vic says this is nearly impossible. Well, he’s right. It is nearly impossible. His reason for saying it’s nearly impossible is wrong. He says this is nearly impossible because it runs contrary to our Adamic nature. Well, I would say it’s nearly impossible because it runs contrary to our new nature. God doesn’t tell us to forgive people blanketly apart from their confession of their sin and statements of their repentance.

Forgiveness, if it means anything in the scriptures, is essentially the not remembering of a person’s sin to hold them to judgment for them. So forgiveness says if I forgive you for your sin, I’m telling you that I’m making a pronouncement here that I’m not going to hold your sin against you. I’m not going to take you to court and I’m not going to try to see you suffer as a result of your sin.

And so if we were to obey what thicket says this scripture tells us to do, we’d have absolutely no way for instance to institute Matthew 18 that we spoke of several weeks ago. I mean you think about it. If a person sins against you and if thicket is right? That this text means you’re supposed to forgive them and then go out of your way to be kind to them in that sense of forgetting forgiving rather and not holding it against them. How are you ever going to obey the commandment of Matthew 18 that if a brother sins against you to go to him and confront him and admonish him about his sin?

How can you do that? Well, you can’t unless you’re lying to him. Unless when you say I’m going to forgive you, you mean something other than what the Bible says, which is to say that I’m not going to remember it anymore. I’m not going to charge you with it. You know, so this idea that somehow that this means is that we’re supposed to uh the ultimate standard of the good here is the well-being, the health of the person that we’re dealing with. And that means we’ve got to forgive everybody unilaterally. That’s just plainly unbiblical.

And in fact, and I think I’ll show this in well, I guess I’ll hold on to that for a couple of minutes till we show what I think the good means here. I think that thicket is wrong. I don’t think that such forgiveness necessarily run counter to the adamic nature that he proposes.

We live in a world for instance where the great idol is humanism and pragmatism but humanism especially I think and the kind of forgiveness that says whoever wrongs me I will forgive without seeing that they have been forgiven by God and without correlating my forgiveness to God’s forgiveness which is what the scriptures say we’re supposed to do. That kind of forgiveness can make us feel pretty good. You know it’s not a tough thing to do necessarily. Yeah. It’s sometimes hard not to take revenge upon somebody who’s hurt you badly, but if a guy hasn’t hurt you all that badly, you can feel pretty good about yourself for saying, “Well, I’m going to forgive him.” You know, makes you feel you’re a good guy then, right? You can get kind of a I think a false sense of piety if you apply that kind of principle to your life.

It’s not necessarily hard because against our adamic nature. In fact, the rejection of God’s requirements for the declaration of forgiveness is absolutely in line with our fallen Adamic nature. Our fallen adamic nature wants to reject God’s word as the source of definition for instance for forgiveness. And so to twist forgiveness into something that is not biblical is certainly not contrary to our adamic nature. It fits up very well with it.

Additionally, it doesn’t help the other person. And this is very important.

Proverbs 12:10 says that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

May sound real nice to say to the to the person who is wronged you and sinned against you and offended you that you’re supposed to be confronting. May sound real nice to say to him, “Well, I forgive you.” You know, I’m just going to look overlook that. It’s no big deal. And okay, so you killed my wife, you know. But but is that helpful to the person?

No. I think that Proverbs 12 says that may seem like tender mercies, but if you’re wicked and not following God’s standard in these things, those tender mercies become cruel to the person. God says the purpose of Matthew 18 is to bring people to repentance. And how are you going to help somebody else and really minister to their good if you don’t use God’s standard to bring them to God’s evaluation and repentance. You can’t do it.

It’s designed to make you feel good, but you’re not really if you get right down to the bottom a lot of times in such a case, you’re not really interested in helping that guy. He goes off his way sinning, not repenting and not repenting, and you think, well, you know, ultimately I think it’s a sort of a selfish concept that fit proposes.

And a concept that’s very much in terms of our world. There’s a lot of good people around you know a lot of altruism in the sense of overlooking sin etc and trying to help people but that’s not what the scriptures I think talk about.

What is the relationship what is good? And the third point of the outline is the relationship of good to God’s law and this is so important this is really the crux of what I’m trying to say and we’ll see how it works out in terms of the development of civilization and culture in a couple of minutes but we can’t see that until we get to the understanding of what this good is that we’re supposed to seek.

And that’s the problem with most of the commentators. They say, “Well, what it means is to be kind to somebody.” Well, that doesn’t help us a lot, does it? What does kind mean? And what they usually bring is import in modern humanistic beliefs in terms of what’s nice to somebody else. And that becomes what’s nice then instead of looking for biblical definition of this term of what the good is.

And we’ll spend a couple of minutes now looking at the relationship of good to God’s law because I think that’s really the core of where we find what this definition is.

First of all, notice that love and law are correlated in 1 Corinthians 14:1. We’re to follow after the good. Paul says that’s what we’re really supposed to be pursuing. In 1 Corinthians 14:1 says to follow after charity or love. Okay, so there’s a correlation. These are the two things we’re supposed to be following after.

Romans 13:10 says that love works no ill to his neighbor. See, that’s really kind of a spin-off, isn’t it? Love doesn’t render evil for evil. It doesn’t render ill to his neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of what? the law, the law of God.

Love is the summation of the law of God. We learn to love God and love our neighbor by looking at those ten commandments. And that’s the definition of what love is. Love is not some feeling. Love is action and obedience to the word of God and to his law. And so the law tells us what love is. And love is correlated in the scriptures to what the good is.

1 Thessalonians 3:12: “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men. even as we do toward you.”

Romans 12:21 says, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Now, this is an important verse because earlier in Romans 12, there are many references well, I mean, I’m sorry, after this, there’s these references to evil until we get down in this section of Romans 12 and 13 to verse 10 of chapter 13 where we read that love workketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

And what he’s saying is that don’t over don’t render evil for evil. Instead, do what’s good and do what’s right. And then he goes on to say that the end result of that is that love is the fulfilling of the law. So he contrasts doing evil to doing what’s good. And he contrasts doing what is evil to loving somebody. Then he tells us that love is the fulfillment of God’s law.

And so the scriptures tell us that love is the same as the good. And those things are defined by God’s law.

In Matthew 19:16, a man comes to our savior and says, “Good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” Calls him good master. He says, “What good thing should I do?” And Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? There’s only one that’s good, and that is God. But if thou want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

So Jesus says that good is God. And God, how we know who God is through the commandments. And so he tells this man who wants to do the good thing, to seek after the good, do the commandments. What clear? Clearer thing could there be? The scriptures correlate goodness to the law of God.

Also, goodness is correlated to obedience action.

Romans 2:9 says that there will be tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile. Goes on to talk about those that do good. So good and evil are actions and it relates the doing of good to obedience. And of course obedience has its reference point, God’s commands.

Romans 16:19: “your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad, therefore, in your behalf. But yet, I would have you be wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil.”

So, he wants them developing their sense of goodness. And he relates that back to their obedience that has gone abroad into the message of their obedience which has gone abroad into all the land. And so, Paul relates obedience to goodness as well. And that is obedience to the word of God.

1 Peter 3:10 and following relates goodness to peace and righteousness is the thing we’re supposed to follow.

“He that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips they speak no guile. Let him assue evil and do good. What does it mean? Goes on to say, let him seek peace and ensue it. For the eye of the Lord is over the righteous. His ears are open under their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”

See a lot of contrast evil and good here. And he says the good is to seek peace. Peace is God’s order is defined by God’s law. It’s a state of blessing in relationship to the blessings of the law. And he relates those who do good as he calls them the righteous.

In verse 12, the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous. So the people that do the good are those that do righteousness. Righteousness according to the scriptures is justice. Justice according to God’s law.

All these things are wrapped up in 1 Timothy 6:11.

“Thou, oh man of God, flee these things, the bad things, and follow after, pursue, run after righteousness. godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness, fight the good fight of faith.”

So the scriptures correlate the goodness with love and peace and righteousness and obedience and essentially then to the reference point of God’s law. God’s law.

Again in 2 Timothy 2:22:

“flee youthful lust, but follow pursue righteousness. Again, conforming to God’s law standard. faith and God’s word. Charity, love is defined by God’s law. Peace, the blessings of God’s law with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

Hebrews 12:14:

“follow peace with all men. Pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Holiness conformity to God’s standard.”

Okay. So, it is true that the scriptures correlate goodness with his law.

And in addition to that, it tells us of the cruelty of goodness without law.

I just quoted from Proverbs 12:10 a little ahead of time apparently. But you remember Proverbs 12:10 tells us the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. To try to do good without referencing God’s law is really neither useful to the person nor honoring to God.

And essentially, this text tells us our actions must be both of those things. They must honor the God who gives us his standard. and they must attempt to be beneficial to the person we’re dealing with. And if we’re not using God’s standard as how we deal with people, we are not being beneficial to them because God’s law is the thing that brings men to repentance.

And ministering God’s law of positive sense to people can bring them to a realization of their own sin as well and conviction for their evil doing. And so it is cruel to attempt goodness without God’s law.

And I would almost go so far as to say remember that good and evil are contrasted here in terms not primarily in the sense of their intrinsic value. Remember I said the good comes from the good thing is good in itself but it is good in its actions as it works itself out to you and that’s a definition of God’s law. It is a good law because it is emanates from the person of God and manifests its character and it’s efficacious in the world around because this is the world God made and it is effectual.

God tells us for putting legs to the feet the Lord’s prayer in terms of that God’s kingdom might be manifest here on earth as it is in heaven. That kingdom is characterized by a law over a people and the blessings of that law.

So if that’s what good is and evil is the reverse of that is not good in its character and doesn’t work out good in the world around us or in the lives of the people we minister to as well then it is almost in that sense of being not useful evil to render somebody something outside of God’s law relative to him.

Okay? In other words, if you use something other than God’s law as the standard by how you’re going to do good to somebody, you may well be doing evil to that person. You may well be falling into the very thing that the proscription was before. It said, “Don’t render evil for evil. Don’t use your own standard, whether it’s retaliation and your standard of goodness, to render to an evil man something. Rather, pursue the good.”

Now, the good is not an easy thing to know what it is. You know, it’s not just like, “Oh, That’s easy. My scripture doesn’t say so because Hebrews 5:14 says, “Strong meat belong to them that are of full age, mature, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.”

Why do people make so many mistakes? Why does the people that try to help the poor, for instance, or those who won’t work, why do they bring about more problems than they solve? I mean, the federal government wants to solve the you know unemployment or whatever and they end up breaking up families in the minority and neighborhoods across this country and they’ve turned neighborhoods into war zones because of redu removing the family government in the context of neighborhoods in economically depressed areas.

They didn’t want to do that. They wanted to help people by giving them food stamps or welfare and by essentially providing for the family through the state and not going through the head of the household the man by having the women work who are on welfare instead of getting the men in the neighborhoods work that they might exercise the responsibilities of heads of households. But why does all these things happen?

Because their tender mercies to people that are find themselves in economic difficulties are cruel to those people. And if you look in areas of this country today, minority areas, depressed areas that have turned into war zones, don’t forget in parceling out blame for the situation to people do good. as they sometimes are called and the dogooding they do is not in relationship to the standards of God’s law and as a result people are in bondage to the state not because the state doesn’t you know people in the state don’t want to be nice and kind to people but because they want to be nice and kind in their own way and as a result they end up enslaving people they end up being evil toward people I can use that word I think it’s not easy to discern good and evil in terms of actions toward people.

If you’ve worked with people very long, counseling and trying to help people that are having big problems in their life, you’ll find out real quick that it’s not easy to figure out what the good is. Hebrews says you got to be mature. You’ve got to work at it. And as you work and mature in the faith and with obedience to God’s word, he’ll give you discernment more and more.

Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

And they presupposition here is that if you don’t work at it by applying yourself to God’s word as the only standard to measure goodness, then you’re going to fall into the standard of the world. You’re going to be conformed to the world’s version of goodness. And that’s going to minister cruelty and evil to people instead of seeking their good and God’s good.

First Kings 3:9:

“the wisest man on the face of the earth, save Jesus Christ, of course, Solomon, praise, give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad. man. For who is able to judge this by so great a people?”

Solomon who knew much prays that God would give him discernment and wisdom and understanding heart to judge his people. It’s a tough job. It needs prayer. It needs a lot of experience in terms of the word of God. And it needs maturation in the faith before you can discern good and evil very long, very far. And so if you fail to do this, you minister not goodness but evil.

I think bases no value in and of itself, the world’s standard, and no efficaciousness to helping people either. And it is difficult to know the good. The means, as I said, is God’s law word.

Another passage I should have thrown in was Romans 7 where he says, “The good that I would do, I don’t do, but the evil which I would not, that I do, not if I do, I would not. it is no more that now if I do what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law then that when I would do good, evil is present with me.”

Paul’s using evil and good in relationship to God’s law which he says in the context of Romans 7 is good and it’s a tough thing to do that good. Now and that goodness is defined as God’s law.

Okay. Now the good of the law and societal advance one of the other things that many commentators say is they talk about this change from Old Testament to New Testament from retaliation to complete and total forgiveness and no judgment. They talk about the tremendous advancement this has made to the world.

Well, it is true that properly understood this verse, this principle which has been operative since the case laws that God gave man is one of the tremendous engines of social advance in the world around us.

In Romans 12, of course, is the preeminent statement of this. We just read it, but I’ll mention it again. He says that, you know, don’t do evil for evil. Rather, do what’s honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible as much as lith in you, live peaceably with all men. Don’t avenge yourselves. For it’s written, vengeance is mine, sayaeth the Lord, I will repay.

Therefore, if thy enemy is hungry, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink. For in so doing, you shall heap coals of fire on his head. By the way, quoting from the proverbs, do not or rather be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul gives an eschatological statement here that says that the end result of this application of God’s standard of good and trying to achieve the good in the world to pursue it and seek after it is that evil will be overcome by good.

The quote from the proverbs that he makes in terms of doing good to a person and heaping coals of fire on his head. what does this mean? Well, I think one thing it can mean is that when you do good to people, you show them up. If somebody persecutes you, reviles you, and instead of cursing, you bless and you’re kind to him, not making excuses for his sin, but being kind to him anyway. And giving him water to drink etc. when he requires when he wants it you’re going to shame him by that and coals of fire upon his head I think can stem from his own sense of penitence in terms of God’s grace to him minister to him through your actions.

Or if you instead engage in rendering evil for evil:

Proverbs 24:24 says:

“he that saith unto the wicked thou art righteous him shall the people curse nation shall abhore him but to them that rebuke him shall be delight and a good blessing shall come upon time that every man shall kiss his lips to giveth the right answer.”

Well, you know this in the context here that seems a little funny too at first, but remember what he’s saying. He’s saying that it is not good to the evil person to tell him that his evil is good to give him excuses for his evil. Terrible thing to do. And people are going to realize, most people are going to realize you’re being stupid. That guy is wicked. Do not tell him that he is righteous if he’s not. And if he doesn’t come to repentance, for his actions, for his sin against God, against God’s people. Don’t come to his assistance. Don’t tell him he’s righteous, or you’re going to suffer rebuke.

Then verse 28:

“be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause. Deceive not with thy lips. Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me. I will render to a man according to his work.”

See, he says that don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t break God’s law. And God’s law says don’t testify falsely. You say, “Well, this guy, I know he killed three people. And in this particular case, I don’t know if he killed him or not, but I’ll testify that he did so I can get this guy off of the land and get rid of him because he’s such a lousy guy. No, don’t do that. God says, “Don’t take matters into your own hands. Use God’s standard for justice and it’ll work out. Trust God.”

In other words, don’t you be think you’re God. You work out things, you’ll work it out. God says, “I’ll work it out.” A wicked man, if he goes and runs into his house to prevent himself from danger coming upon him, he’ll lean up against the wall and a spider or a snake bite him or something. See, God has ways and the ways he uses are not violations of his law.

He goes on to say in verse 30:

“he went by the field of the slothful. He goes on for the next four verses talking about how his house falls down around him. The slothful man. You see, frequently it is sloth and failure to attend to God’s word and to diligently pursue.”

Remember I said it was hard work to pursue what’s good toward people. It’s difficult to discern it. It’s difficult to do it. You don’t got to feel like it necessarily, but you do got to do it. to help a person to give him a glass of water if he’s thirsty or enemy even. You got to do those things that God’s word says. It’s not easy to do. It’s easier to be retaliatory. It’s not easy to discern what’s good and instead do what you think is good to somebody, too. But that’s sloth as well.

And if you do either one of those errors, God says the end of that is going to be destruction for your house.

And now Romans 12, I tell you, we’d return to that, but Romans 12 Again, he says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In verse two, to prove what’s good, to know how to do good. In other words, part of what going on there, verse three, don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Don’t think you’ve attained to the ability to discern and judge if you haven’t. Be patient with yourself and your growth, too.

Verse 9:

“the love be without dissimulation. Abhore that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. goes on in verse 12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. continuing instant in prayer, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice at them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.”

Verse 17:

“recompense no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lith in you, live peaceably with all men. In other words, not going to be possible to live at peace with all men. There’ll be a state of conflict between you and some men. Even with those men, you try to do what’s good to them, you try to be to not take personal revenge, but rather to extend acts of loving kindness to them. And if so be then God would bring them to repentance. Fine.”

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. Rather give place into wrath. Again, you take vengeance into your own hands. You try to subvert God’s vengeance. His vengeance is what’s at play.”

“If your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you shall heap coals of fire on his head. Those coals of fire can be one of two things, I think. And I don’t know, it’s a hard phrase to figure out. Commentators have disagreed for years about it, centuries. But I think part of it could be that you heat coals of fire, you bring him to repentance, you bring him to sorrow for his sinful actions against you.”

“But you know, if our understanding of Proverbs 24 we just read is right, that if you take personal vengeance, God’s wrath will stop. And if you instead do what’s good to them in terms of helping them, that God’s wrath will continue. The other thing that of fire upon the person’s head could be the damnation of God coming down on his head. Not because you have an enemy you want to see hurt, but because he’s an enemy of God that God will deal with.”

“And either way, see, one way or the other, he’ll either feel the heat of pain, of his own awareness of his own sin, or he’ll feel the heat of God’s judgment and justice. And as a result, as I said, verse 21, be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Then he goes on, of course, to talk in Romans 13 about love being law, but also about the vehicle that God chooses in his providence to minister his vengeance.

God does in our times give civil magistrates the ability to wield the sword and he gives family magistrates the ability to wield the rod. And he gives church magistrates the ability to wield the terms of suspension and excommunication.