RELIANCE - When Your Enemy Falls

Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their heart devises violence, and their lips talk of trouble making. Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established. By knowledge, the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong, Yes, a man of knowledge increases strength. For by wise counsel you will wage your own war. And in a multitude of counselors there is safety. Wisdom is too lofty for a fool. He does not open his mouth in the gate. He who plots to do evil will be called a schemer. The devising of foolishness is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. Few say, surely, but it did not know this? Does not he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul does he not know it? And will he not render to each man according to his deeds. My son, eat honey because it is good, and the honeycomb, which is sweet to your taste, So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to your soul. If you have found it, there is a prospect, and your hope will not be cut off. Do not lie and wait a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous. Do not plunder his resting place. For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him. Do not fret because of evil doers, nor be envious of the wicked, for there will be no prospect for the evil man. The lamp of the wicked will be put out. My son, fear the Lord and the King. Do not associate with those given to change, for their calamity will rise suddenly. Who knows the ruin those two can bring. Lord, We thank you for this time together. We thank you for your wisdom. We thank you for your mercy and your grace. Holy Spirit, be with us. Quicken your word. Speak to us what you would have us to hear. Anoint and bless this time. Lord, forgive sins, Remove every and all obstacles, Lord, that are in the path obstructing us from receiving what we need to receive from you today and every day. Lord, cover us in the blood of Christ. Use this time for your glory. Give us, Lord the spiritual riches of wisdom, of patience, of loving kindness, of mercy, of charity, of love, of faith, of hope. Give us all of the resources that we need spiritually in order to hold your banner high, to represent your kingdom appropriately, and to bring glory to your name. Lord. Only through your power is any of this possible. Jesus, pray that you would touch lives, that you would transform hearts, that you would save souls, and that your victory would be powerful, resplendent, and immediate in this generation. We love you and we bless you in Jesus' name. Amen. Every so often I'm drawn back to Proverbs twenty four seventeen that we read here. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles, and non verse eighteen, lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him. Now to square up this scripture with the command to love our enemies from the Sermon on the Mount is an interesting process because the picture that's being painted by this proverb is one that's a little bit more cautious. It's just saying not to rejoice, and the teaching of Jesus, the authoritative word of God for us, says to go even further beyond just not rejoicing, but that we should love even our enemies. Now, in this context, you can debate and go back and forth about the right attitude. If we're talking about people who are deceived versus powers and principalities. There are different potential orientations in those separate scenarios. But suffice to say, let's make this as concrete as possible for us today. When the Word of God talks about how our enemies will even be those in our own household, that is a true word of God and something that I would say the majority of people are living through in one form or another, even right now. It is extraordinarily rare for a family to be in worldview alignment and completely unified, and any pocket of unification that you have, any pocket of agreement, any alliance, any coming together under the banner of Christ, any alignment like that, should be celebrated and nurtured and fostered and fed and strengthened. But many people all so have enemies of their own household, immediate or extended family, people who are close to you but are not family, but people who you care for, friends, colleagues, co workers, all the above. And when we look around, there is a strong tendency for us in a retributive justice sense that when we know that people have done evil things, for us to earnestly desire and even to seek the kind of retributive justice that such an evil calls forth in our spirit. And the challenging part of the pathway that we're supposed to be walking here with the Lord is how we do that. Because, of course, we can turn to the Psalms, where David is using very aggressive and even violent imagery against his enemies, asking God to break their teeth, asking God to destroy, asking God and praying and seeking fervently that his enemies would be annihilated. Essentially, and this kind of language has the scriptural precedent. It's not entirely clear to me that this is one of those times where that kind of attitude, that kind of mindset is condemned, because there has to be an opposition to the work of evil. But to put everything in balance, it has to come from the right place, with the right motivations for the right reason. Again, I think about the disciples when Jesus found himself rejected in a particular place, the disciples asking if fire should be called down in an act of vengeance, and in that moment Jesus says, you don't know what spirit you're of, even though it could be said that there is some overlap, some consistency between that mindset and the words contained in the more aggressive psalms written by David. And so when we try to navigate these waters, what is incredibly clear is that in addition to being extremely diligent about scripture and not just proof texting, but taking the whole counsel of God into account, in order to come to a conclusion about the right disposition for us to have, we need to be in prayer about these things. Of course, when we are in scripture, we should be in prayer also asking for the Holy Spirit to guide us, to quicken the Word, to illuminate things, to give us knowledge and wisdom and discernment from the Word of God. But this is particularly true now at a time of tremendous tension, at a time when many are seeing those who they love and those in their families take on the position and the role of an enemy, and the profound human fallen tendency for schadenfreude, for experiencing pleasure at someone else's pain, in part because of a sense of evil and justice. There's always the dynamic where if something is wrong, then there needs to be this retribution to set it right. And what I have come into in terms of my own attitudes and my own approaches, is that I can't afford to not have skin in the game as it pertains to the major narratives in terms of the course of the battle spiritually between good and evil that manifests itself in our world on a day to day basis, and even down to the microcosm of each one of our lives, each one of our minds, each one of our thoughts. It's all encompassing. And so I have to have some skin in the game with respect to the idea that great evils are being perpetrated and they need to be addressed, and so there should be an emotional and real and heartbroken and even angry action to the damage that is being done by sin and by evil in our world in so many different ways, including in ways that are unspeakable, unspeakable levels of evil. For us, that is so shocking and difficult to acknowledge that for many people it takes a long period of adjustment and the disruption of a thought process that goes from oh, yeah, people are all basically good and that evil is an exception and generally speaking is marginalized, to one that says, the motivations of evil are actually in a prime and extremely influential position in terms of dictating our lives and the affairs of this planet and this world. That realization, that conclusion is extraordinarily challenging. It's something that can only be managed with supernatural strength. It can only be truly incorporated if it's paired with a greater vision of the context of what's going on here, of putting everything in light of eternity, because otherwise the sheer wickedness and the overwhelming nature of evil can just sweet people aside, particularly when that evil, this sin, these tendencies, these thoughts, particularly when different things are encountered close to us, even inside of ourselves. But know this, when we are in a position we see evil taking place, and we understand the problem of evil and the difficulties that that creates for so many people in terms of even being willing to dismiss not just Christianity, but Theism in general. Is an option because of the intuition that says a good, an all good, and all powerful God couldn't allow such evils to be perpetrated. And regardless of the technical philosophical literature, obviously, the logical problem of evil is not something that is put forth as a persuasive argument anymore because of the burden of proof. But it's still a massive problem at the emotional and at the personal level, because people have had experiences with evil, and many of those people have not seen up close and personal, either through testimony or in their own lives and the lives of people around them. They haven't seen the transforming, miracle working power of God. And so if you've seen this overriding evil, and you've felt it and there's no way to ignore it, but you haven't seen the power of God on display in a way that gives you confidence that the evil is not a primary power, even if it is a primary feature of the world. If you're not in the situation to recognize that Jesus is victorious and has overcome and will give us all the strength that we need in every situation. Then you can be swept away by this. And one of the ways that you can be swept away is to fall into this trap of rejoicing when your enemy falls. Because there's nothing in a way more human than a tendency to want to know and want other people to know that we were right and they were wrong, that we were on the good side and that they were on the evil side. There's nothing like or nothing quite like that, the temptation to appeal to not just our sense of justice for ourselves in that we were doing the right thing, but we were wronged. And then there's a moment of Catharsis where we are redeemed by virtue of what takes place in the world, evil is judged. We are triumphant, we are proven right, we are proven to have been on the right side of things, and if we brothers and sisters, are going to follow and obey the word of God into all things. It also includes this. It includes hearing and understanding and taking into consideration the absolute necessity of not rejoicing when our enemy falls, and in Proverbs, in the verses that we read at the beginning, in Proverbs twenty four, seventeen and eighteen specifically, you'll notice that the follow up here, the explanation is that if we do that, if we are rejoicing when our enemy falls, we may end up traversing into sinful territory, displeasing the Lord, and then the wrath that has fallen upon our enemy might be removed. Now this is perplexing to a certain extent. It doesn't say, it doesn't mirror the language of the New Testament, of the Sermon on the Mount. You know, do not rejoice when your enemy falls, because we are called to love even our enemies. That is the truth. But notice the justification, the rationale. It seems a bit more pragmatic to say, well, you shouldn't be jumping up and down, you shouldn't be celebrating when someone falls, not necessarily in a stated way, because of the tragedy of someone dying without being born again, the dread prospect of an eternity without God. The explanation the follow up is instead that we shouldn't do that because it would it would stop this wrath from falling on the enemies of God. It is challenging, but I think the best way to unpack this is to take the command do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles. In all of these different senses, well, why should we do this? Apart from it being the word of God and therefore authoritative and therefore the right thing for us to do in these circumstances. We should do this because it's in line with the teachings of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, as well as for the sake of God's continued justice, and in general, because it frames a disposition for us, and it frames a supernatural disposition that we can only do if we're given the ability and the power, and the mercy and the grace that we need from the Holy Spirit and from God to accomplish living in this mindset. Because who among us would say that there is a real, powerful, motivating part of our beings that is, someone wrongs us. If an enemy, particularly someone who is evil, who has hurt many people, even ourselves or our loved ones, or anything else like that, it is extraordinarily challenging to imagine the most heinous evil and the most dark opposition, and then when justice is brought to bear, when wrath is brought to bear on that, even understanding that it is the will of God and it's totally God's prerogative to bring forth vengeance and justice, because I mean and wouldn't trust myself with anything like that. To know that we have in us the capacity to rejoice when our enemy falls, and to know that very clearly that that is very much in our nature. It's why when we see people who forgive someone or extend love to someone who has done their family wrong. We see this if you go online and look up videos of families forgiving people or making a gesture of forgiveness in a courtroom for someone who's been convicted of harming even murdering their family members, their children. Those displays of compassion, of obedience to the will of God, to some strike an extra ordinarily naive and powerless and counterintuitive, and you know, it's just sort of this pointless thing. But what it should demonstrate to those of us who are trying to follow the Lord, those of us who are born again and who proclaim Jesus as Lord, and who have placed our faith in Him. For those of us, we should be heartened and encouraged by those things. And that's the that should be our natural proclivity because recognizes that someone is truly being obedient to the commands of God to love and not to curse, to be sorrowful. For people who are have ended up on the side of evil and who find themselves fighting against God in an almost impossibly fleeting and feudal battle, you would stand against the creator of the universe. You would stand against an almighty God. You would stand against that kind of perfect power. You would stand against the love that Christ demonstrated. You would actively seek to do everything that you can to perpetrate evil in the face of the most loving, perfect, holy, unimaginably just God. It's a startling thing. So why should we care about this? My view is that we need to prepare ourselves for challenging conversations. We need to prepare ourselves for potentially difficult times. We need to prepare ourselves to be strong in the word. We need to prepare ourselves to lead, and we need to prepare ourselves to avoid the potential pitfalls that can arise when we really want to see justice and righteousness, and we really want to see evil eliminated and destroyed. So if we are going to see anything like that, we must be prepared to respond appropriately lest our feelings and our natural proclivities get the best of us and we do things that go against the will of God that we end up regretting. It is a difficult thing, if not impossible, in our own strength to follow the instruction to obey the command that Jesus has given us to love our enemies. And regardless of the various ways that that has been misinterpreted and misused, I just want to make a simple message clear to everyone today. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not fret because of evil doers. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Do not fret because of evil doers. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Do not fret because of evil doers. God is on the throne, Jesus is Lord. The best thing that you can do in any situation is to obey his will. And so how do you find what the will of God is for you in every situation? Go to scripture, go to prayer, go to godly council. But press in until you have a breakthrough. Press in until you find the peace of the Lord. Press in until you know that you know that you know that you are in alignment with God's word, and that you are in alignment with God's will. Jesus is worthy of that, particularly in times such as these, where there is great tension and the stakes are incredibly high, and the potential for devastation, change, an uprooting, a transformation. When we're at this moment in history, in this season that feels very much like an inflection point. Know this that if we are going to see the kind of harvest, the kind of move of God that we so desperately need to see, if we are going to be the people of God in this generation that He has called to be, that we need to take every bit of scriptural council and we need to incorporate that knowingly into our lives, into our prayers. We need to ask God for the strength to be obedient to these things, because without the Holy Spirit, without the strength of the Lord, without the resources that He can provide us, he is asking us to do the impossible, because we can't do these things in our own strength, but with God, all things are possible. So remember, do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not fret because of evildoers. Lord Jesus, we thank you, We bless you, and we praise you. We'd love you God, and we pray that your name would be high and lifted up. Jesus, you are so good, so wonderful, so holy. We thank you for your cross, We thank you for your atoning death. We thank you Lord, that you all are risen and alive, that you are ruling and reigning and interceding and forgiving and cleansing and healing and moving and working now and forevermore. Lord, we pray that you would quicken our hearts, that you would use these words, that you would use this time for the edification of your people. Lord, I pray that you would touch someone's life who needs to hear this particular perspective from your word. I pray that you would show forth your mercy and your grace and your power and each and every one of our lives, protect us, safeguard us, and send us forth, Lord, properly prepared to take on whatever this world has to throw against us. We love you, God, and we bless you in Jesus' name. Amen,