“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father In heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father In heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48 NKJV)
We are not at war, so we don’t have enemies. But we have people who in their word or action: Abuse us, Bully us , Are contemptuous of us, Use us despitefully, Envy us, Harm us, Malign us, Persecute us, Spiteful to us, Threaten us, Wound us.
These people can be considered as our enemies.
What do we do with them? Our natural self is:
To retaliate in kind
To hit back with “a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.”
To seek revenge
To look for an opportunity to do them more harm
But Jesus Christ instructs the Christians to “Love your enemies” and what He teaches can be done. He doesn’t instruct the impossible! It is a definition of what the attitude of the Christian should be towards other people.
What does this mean? The first thing, of necessity, is that our treatment of others must never depend upon what they are, or upon what they do to us. It must be entirely controlled and governed by our view of them and of their condition. Clearly that is the principle which He enunciates. There are people who are evil, foul and unjust; nevertheless God sends rain upon them and causes the sun to shine upon them. Their crops are fructified like the crops of the good man; they have certain benefits in life, and experience what is called ‘common grace’. God does not bless only the efforts of the Christian farmer; no, at the same time He blesses the efforts of the unjust, the evil, the unrighteous farmer. That is a common experience. How does He do so? The answer must be that God is not dealing with them according to what they are or according to what they do to Him. What is it, if one may ask such a question with reverence, that governs God’s attitude to them? The answer is that He is governed by His own love which is absolutely disinterested (unconditional). In other words, it does not depend upon anything that is in us, it is in spite of us. ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ What made Him do it? Was it something loving, or lovely, or lovable in us or in the world? Was it something that stimulated the eternal heart of love? Nothing whatsoever. It was entirely and altogether in spite of us. What moved God was His own eternal heart of love unmoved by anything outside itself. It generates its own movement and activity---an utterly disinterested (unconditional) love.
This is a tremendously important principle, because according to our Lord that is the kind of love that we are to have, and the love that we are to manifest with respect to others. The whole secret of living this kind of life is that man should be utterly detached. He must be detached from others in the sense that his behaviour is not governed by what they do. But still more important, he should be detached from himself, for until a man is detached from himself he will never be detached from what others do to that self. As long as a man is living for himself, he is sensitive, watchful and jealous; he is envious and is therefore always reacting immediately to what others do. He is in intimate contact with them. The only way to detach yourself from what others do to you is that you first of all detach yourself from yourself. That is the principle.
Secondly: ‘Do good to them that hate you’, which means benevolent actions for spiteful actions. When somebody has been really spiteful and cruel to us we must not be the same to them. Rather we must respond with actions of benevolence. Though that farmer may hate God, and is unjust, and is a sinner, and has rebelled against Him, God causes His sun to shine upon him and sends the rain that is going to fructify the crops. Benevolent actions for cruel ones.
Lastly: ‘Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ In other words, when we are being cruelly persecuted by another person, we must pray for them. We must get on our knees, and talk to ourselves before we talk to God. Instead of being bitter and harsh, instead of reacting in these terms of self and in a desire to get our own back, we must remind ourselves that in everything we do we are under God, and before God. Then we must say: ‘Well now; why should this person be behaving like this? What is it? Is it something in me, perchance? Why do they do it? It is because of that horrible, sinful nature, a nature which is going to lead them to hell.’ Then we should go on thinking, until we see them in such a way that we become sorry for them, until we see them as going to their terrible doom, and at last become so sorry for them that we have no time to be sorry for ourselves, until we are so sorry for them, indeed, that we begin to pray for them.
This is the way in which we should test ourselves. Do you pray for people who persecute you and who use you despitefully? Do you ask God to have mercy and pity upon them, and not to punish them? Do you ask God to save their souls and open their eyes before it is too late? Do you feel a great concern? It is that which brought Christ to earth and sent Him to the cross. He was so concerned about us that He did not think about Himself. And we are to treat other people like that.
Lastly: ‘Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ In other words, when we are being cruelly persecuted by another person, we must pray for them. We must get on our knees, and talk to ourselves before we talk to God. Instead of being bitter and harsh, instead of reacting in these terms of self and in a desire to get our own back, we must remind ourselves that in everything we do we are under God, and before God. Then we must say: ‘Well now; why should this person be behaving like this? What is it? Is it something in me, perchance? Why do they do it? It is because of that horrible, sinful nature, a nature which is going to lead them to hell.’ Then we should go on thinking, until we see them in such a way that we become sorry for them, until we see them as going to their terrible doom, and at last become so sorry for them that we have no time to be sorry for ourselves, until we are so sorry for them, indeed, that we begin to pray for them.
This is the way in which we should test ourselves. Do you pray for people who persecute you and who use you despitefully? Do you ask God to have mercy and pity upon them, and not to punish them? Do you ask God to save their souls and open their eyes before it is too late? Do you feel a great concern? It is that which brought Christ to earth and sent Him to the cross. He was so concerned about us that He did not think about Himself. And we are to treat other people like that.
In order that we may be quite clear as to what this means and involves we must understand the difference between loving and liking. Christ said: ‘Love your enemies,’ not ‘Like your enemies’. Now liking is something which is more natural than loving. We are not called upon to like everybody. We cannot do so. But we can be commanded to love. It is ridiculous to command anyone to like another person. It depends upon the physical constitution, temperament and a thousand and one other things. That does not matter. What does matter is that we pray for the man whom we do not like. That is not liking but loving him.
People have stumbled at this. ‘Do you mean to say that it is right to love and not to like?’ they ask. I do. What God commands is that we should love a man and treat him as if we do like him. Love is much more than feeling or sentiment. Love in the New Testament is very practical---‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.’ Love is active. If, therefore, we find we do not like certain people, we need not be worried by that, so long as we are treating them as if we did like them. That is loving, and it is the teaching of our Lord everywhere. We have some glorious examples of it in the New Testament. You remember the parable of the Good Samaritan told by our Lord in response to the question ‘who is my neighbour?’ The Jews traditionally hated the Samaritans and were their bitter enemies. However our Lord tells us in the parable that when the Jew was attacked by thieves and robbers on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, several Jews passed by and did not help him. But the Samaritan, the traditional enemy, went across the road and cared for him and did everything for him. That is loving our neighbour and our enemy. Who is my neighbour? Any man who is in need, any man who is down through sin or anything else. We must help him, whether he is a Jew or a Samaritan. Love your neighbour, even if it means loving your enemy. ‘Do good to them that hate you.’ And our Lord, of course, not only taught it, but He did it. There we see Him dying upon the cross, and what has He to say about those men who condemned Him to that, and who drove in the cruel nails? These are the blessed words that come from His holy lips: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’
It also became the teaching and the practice of the apostles everywhere in the New Testament. How foolish to say that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply to Christians now but refers to the future, when the kingdom comes. No, it is for us now. Paul says: ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink’, which is exactly the same teaching. It is everywhere. And the apostles not only taught it; they lived it. Look at that wonderful man, Stephen, being stoned to death by cruel, foolish enemies. These were his last words: ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ He has reached the level of his Master; he is loving, as God in heaven loves this sinful world. And, thank God, the saints throughout the centuries have done the same. They have manifested the same, glorious, wonderful spirit.
Are we like that? This teaching is for us. We are meant to love our enemies and to do good to them that hate us and to pray for those that despitefully use and malign us; we are meant to be like this. I go further; we can be like this. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love and joy and peace, is given to us, so that, if we are not like this, we are without excuse and we are doing great dishonour to our great and gracious Lord. But I have a word of comfort for you. For unless I am greatly mistaken, every person confronted by these things feels at this moment condemned. God knows I feel condemned; but I have a word of comfort at this point. I believe in a God who ‘maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust’. But the God whom I know has done more than that; He has sent His only begotten Son to the cruel cross of Calvary that I might be saved. I fail; we all fail. But, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’
It also became the teaching and the practice of the apostles everywhere in the New Testament. How foolish to say that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply to Christians now but refers to the future, when the kingdom comes. No, it is for us now. Paul says: ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink’, which is exactly the same teaching. It is everywhere. And the apostles not only taught it; they lived it. Look at that wonderful man, Stephen, being stoned to death by cruel, foolish enemies. These were his last words: ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ He has reached the level of his Master; he is loving, as God in heaven loves this sinful world. And, thank God, the saints throughout the centuries have done the same. They have manifested the same, glorious, wonderful spirit.
Are we like that? This teaching is for us. We are meant to love our enemies and to do good to them that hate us and to pray for those that despitefully use and malign us; we are meant to be like this. I go further; we can be like this. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love and joy and peace, is given to us, so that, if we are not like this, we are without excuse and we are doing great dishonour to our great and gracious Lord. But I have a word of comfort for you. For unless I am greatly mistaken, every person confronted by these things feels at this moment condemned. God knows I feel condemned; but I have a word of comfort at this point. I believe in a God who ‘maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust’. But the God whom I know has done more than that; He has sent His only begotten Son to the cruel cross of Calvary that I might be saved. I fail; we all fail. But, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’
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