From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: And I should like to call your attention this evening to the last two verses, namely verses 20 and 21 in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. "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."

Now, this is obviously connected with what has gone before and what we were considering last Friday night in the 19th verse: "Dearly beloved, avenge 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," etc. This statement, in other words, completes the previous statement that we’ve been considering about the way in which we react to and treat those who hurt us and who offend us. That's the theme, as you know.

Indeed, it's a part of this entire theme which the apostle has in this section of this great and practical chapter. It's the question of maintaining peace. This is the thing that he keeps on saying to us. We are not to be wise in our 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. And last Friday night, we were seeing that a very good way, of course, of doing that is not to avenge ourselves. If you do avenge yourselves, you will certainly not be preserving peace; you'll be adding to the trouble. You'll be pouring oil on the fire and making it yet worse and worse.

But we see negatively there in the 19th verse that we are not to do that. We are not to avenge ourselves. We're rather to make place, stand aside, leave that to God. It is for God to take vengeance. And you may remember that we ended on this note: that it is as important for us to realize that God does and will take vengeance as it is for us not to take vengeance ourselves. If we don't keep this balance, well then we will misinterpret the injunction not to avenge ourselves into some flabby notion of love which never stands for righteousness and truth and justice at all, but just allows the enemy to win all along the line. That isn't the case. We are not to take vengeance. God will. God is just and righteous and holy; he is the judge of all the earth, and he will ever do that which is right.

But there in the 19th verse, the emphasis is mainly negative: we are not to avenge ourselves. But the apostle doesn't stop at that. He never stops at a negative. He generally starts with it—and as I said, don't neglect the negative; the negative is important—but we mustn't stop at it. He then goes on to the positive. And this is the glory of the Christian position. The Christian's not just a negative man. This idea that the Christian is just a man who doesn't do certain things is a complete travesty.

The Christian's a very positive man. Of course, there are things he doesn't do, but what really makes him a Christian and what shows that he is a Christian is the positive element in his whole conduct and outlook and behavior. So the apostle goes on to the positive. And here it is at the beginning of this 20th verse: "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." Now, here, you see, is the positive thing. Not only are we not to do our enemy any harm, but we are to do him positive good. This is essential Christianity. You don't just stop at not doing things; you become positive. And this is where we so often find the difference between Christian teaching and the morality of the world at its best and at its highest.

Well, here it is. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." Now, this injunction proves, I think, beyond any doubt, the correctness of our interpretation last week of the 19th verse, where we said that you just don't refrain from taking your own vengeance simply that God may give it him still more, that God's punishment will be severer than yours. We dismissed that. We said that’s quite wrong because it's a contradiction of the spirit of what the apostle is saying.

And now here we’ve got absolute proof of that. "Therefore," he says, don't do that yourselves; leave it to God because God alone is just, and he sees the whole, and he’ll do it properly and he’ll do it rightly. Leave it to God because you mustn't desire harm to your enemy, and you mustn't do harm to your enemy. Now, here's the absolute proof of this. Therefore, you actually go on and you do good to your enemy in this matter of food and drink or anything else that may constitute a need for him.

Now here, of course, we are dealing with a quotation. It's a quotation from the book of Proverbs, chapter 25, verses 21 and the first half of verse 22. So once more you see, we find a further reason for describing as folly and as completely wrong interpretation to pit the New Testament against the Old Testament. Here once more, the apostle is establishing what is essentially positive New Testament teaching by a quotation from the Old Testament.

Now, we saw that last week, and we're constantly finding illustrations and examples of this. Christian people who dismiss the Old Testament are showing not only a failure to understand the Old Testament but also a failure to understand the New Testament. It is astonishing how so constantly the apostle is able to clinch an argument or give a final demonstration of a point he’s making by an apposite quotation from the Old Testament. Well now then, here it is. This is what is taught even in the book of Proverbs by the wise man.

As I say, you don't confine this to food and drink. This is just an illustration. Do good to your enemy in any way you can. Whatever opportunity presents itself—it may be like food or like drink—it doesn't matter what it is. Take advantage of the opportunity to do him good. Though he is your enemy, this is the way in which you are to treat him. Then we come on to this statement in the second half of this 20th verse: "For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." Now, here again is a statement that has caused considerable discussion amongst the commentators. It's a part of the quotation from Proverbs. It's Proverbs 25, first half of verse 22.

Now, what exactly does this mean? Well, once more, you see, there are people who’ve interpreted it like this. And they're the people who give the misinterpretation of the 19th verse, as we saw last week. They say it means this: do good in this way in order that you may make the punishment of your enemy all the greater if he doesn't respond to what you do for him. In other words, you deliberately give him food and drink in order that the punishment he may get from God will be yet greater because he doesn't respond to what you're doing. Your motive, in other words, is the punishment of your enemy and the increase of the punishment of your enemy.

But of course, we have to reject this absolutely, not merely to be consistent with our interpretation of the 19th verse and the previous verses, but because it is entirely out of line with the whole spirit of what the apostle is teaching us here. It contradicts the very spirit which he’s trying to inculcate in us. And not only that, if you read the second half of that 22nd verse of Proverbs 25, you will find it ends like this: "and the Lord shall reward thee." If you do give your enemy food and drink, you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord shall reward thee. So it is something that is well-pleasing in God’s sight. And a revengeful spirit, as we’ve already seen, is never well-pleasing in God’s sight.

So that cannot be the explanation. Well, what is it then? What does he mean by saying that if you do feed your enemy and give him drink, in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head? Well, it does seem to me, as indeed to the majority of commentators, that there can be only one explanation of this. The idea of coals of fire on someone’s head obviously carries with it the suggestion of pain and of acute discomfort.

Yes, but this is a metaphorical statement. And it doesn't mean the actual thing; it’s not actually putting coals of fire on the head, neither does it mean calling down thunder and lightning from heaven or anything like that. What it means, surely, is this: it means that you will cause him pain, but not physical pain, but the pain of shame and the pain of remorse. It means that as the result of your treatment of him, that though he's been offensive to you and has been acting as your enemy, you nevertheless, you give him food, you help him when he's in need, you go out of your way to be kind and helpful to him.

This should have the effect upon him of making him feel an intense feeling of shame and of remorse. He should know a kind of burning, keen anguish in his mind and heart and in his spirit. And your hope is that he will feel this to such an extent that it will lead him to repentance, that he will begin to examine himself. You’ll shock him, you’ll amaze him, and he’ll begin to reconsider what he’s done to you. And then he’ll see how terribly wrong it was. So in this way, by treating him in this manner, well, you cause him to feel an anguish and a pain in his spirit such as he's never felt before. And he’s in real trouble. And your hope is, as I say, that that will lead him to repentance.

Now, that is surely the only meaning that these words can carry. In this metaphorical sense, you heap coals of fire on his head. He will probably be more miserable at that point than he’s ever been before—certainly much more miserable than he was when he did whatever he did to you in an unkind and in an inimical manner. Remorse, repentance can be extremely painful. And you, by treating your enemy in this way, you cause him to pass through this trial, this anguish, this painful experience. He'll feel he's a cad; he'll condemn himself; he won’t know what to do with himself. You produce all that by treating him in this truly Christian manner.

Now, this is something, of course, which can’t be guaranteed. He may not respond. But that’s not your business. Your business is to do everything you can to bring him into that condition. You must aim at that. And thank God, this kind of behavior on the part of Christians has often led to this most desirable result. There have been many, many examples in the history of the church and of God’s people where people have even been converted as the result of this kind of action. Christian people putting into practice the apostle's injunction, it has been used of God to lead to the conversion of those who were most at enmity with them. But whatever the result, I say, this is what we are told to do.

Well now then, there is the sort of exposition of the 20th verse. And that leads us to the 21st verse, the last verse in the chapter. Now, this verse not only sums up the immediately preceding argument, it does seem to me to sum up the argument of the entire section. It’s again a very typical and characteristic thing for the apostle to do. He generally does this, as we've been seeing so often in working our way through this great epistle. He works out the details of his argument, then he crowns it all by one of these great statements in which he seems to put the whole case in a nutshell. And this verse, I feel, is an example of that. It's a most important statement. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

Now here again is one of these pregnant statements which puts before us the principle of the Christian life in its very essence. But again you notice, he puts it negatively and positively. And again, as usual, the negative before the positive. "Be not overcome of evil." Don't allow evil to overcome you and to defeat you. That's the negative. But why does he put it like this? Now here, I say, he is giving us the principle which governs all he’s been saying in all the previous sections.

What's the principle? Well, I’ve tried to divide up this great principle into a number of propositions which seem to me to be absolutely vital and essential in a true living of this Christian life. Here's the first: we must always put into the first position what happens to us as souls, not just as human beings and individuals. Everything in the life of the Christian must be subordinated to the interests of the soul. Now here, of course, is something which is absolutely basic. It's the dividing line between the Christian and the non-Christian.

The non-Christian doesn't think of himself as a soul. He thinks of himself as a member of society, as a member of a nation, a member of a family or something like that. But the Christian doesn't, and the Christian shouldn't. You see this on Armistice Day. And why do you get wars? Well, because men think instinctively in terms of nations: "My country, right or wrong." That’s the way the natural man thinks. And "My family"—it doesn't matter that your family can’t be wrong; other families are all wrong, but yours, oh no. And my country, the same. That's why you've got wars and that's why you have an Armistice Day. But the Christian doesn't think like this. The Christian thinks essentially, primarily, always as a soul.

You see, our Lord has laid down this principle once and for all: "What shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" You see, the enemy insults you, or he takes something from you, or he does something to you that he shouldn't do. And as a natural man, you react. But now the Christian mustn't do that. The Christian always remembers that it is his soul that matters. You gain the whole world, it's useless if you've lost your soul. But though the world may rob you of all your possessions, if you’ve still got your soul intact, as it were, well, they haven’t taken much from you. They've only taken some trappings that you're going to lose in any case sooner or later when you come to die.

Now this, you see, is the Christian way of thinking. You start always with not what this has done to me as a human being so much, or as a man or a member of a family or a nation or society, but what's it done to my soul? And the moment you start along that line, you're on the road to victory. It's only the Christian who can do this. But then secondly, let me put it like this: it isn't things in and of themselves that are important. It is what they do to us as souls, and it is the way in which they affect us as souls that matters. What I'm trying to say by that is this: the trouble with us all by nature, the trouble with the natural man is that he only sees the action of his enemy as an action. "He’s insulted me," or "He’s taken this or that from me." He sees it in and of itself. He’s interested in the particular action.

Now, the Christian isn't. What interests him about this action is its effect upon his soul. He’s not interested in the actions per se so much as in the way in which they're going to affect him as a soul and in a spiritual sense. Or let me put it still more plainly to you by putting it like this: the Christian is not interested in these actions of the other person, whether it be an enemy or whatever he is who’s doing you harm at the moment. The Christian is not interested in the actions in and of themselves so much as in the power that is behind them.

In other words, this is the difference between the non-Christian and the Christian. The Christian is facing a man who’s done him a wrong, who’s done him some harm, who’s being offensive. Now, the non-Christian simply sees this offensive person, and he deals with him as such and he avenges himself. The Christian doesn't. The Christian doesn't see so much this action that that man has done. He sees the evil principle that made him do it. The Christian sees the devil behind it that made him do it. In other words, it's as Paul puts it there in Ephesians 6:12: "We wrestle not," says the Christian, "against flesh and blood," either in ourselves or in other people.

It isn't mere flesh and blood. What then? "Oh, the principalities and the powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." In other words, the apostle doesn't say, "Be not overcome of men." He says, "Be not overcome of evil." He doesn't say, "Don't let men overcome you." He says, "Don't let evil overcome you." But you see, he’s talking about the actions of men. That's why I say this is the principle: that the Christian never takes a superficial view. He doesn't just take things in and of themselves. He sees what's behind them. He sees the hand of the enemy, the hand of the devil, the hand of evil.

And that is the thing, therefore, about which he is concerned. Now this, to me, is one of the most important principles for us to grasp in connection with the whole of the Christian life. I’ve often put it like this: that all of us tend to be far too interested in particular sins instead of being interested in sin. In other words, you see, it is this danger of looking at things in and of themselves. And people come and talk to me about a particular sin. And they always give me the impression—and it’s a correct impression—they really seem to think if only they could stop doing this that they’d be perfect.

Now what I have to tell them is this: look here, even though you get a complete victory over that, you’re still not perfect. You’ve still got to fight evil. You’ve still got to fight sin. You’ve still got to fight the devil. This is but one manifestation. This is only a particular symptom. It isn't the symptoms that matter; it is the disease that matters. So the apostle, you see, is not so much interested in the persons or in their particular actions, what they do to you. Now the world never rises beyond that level. He did this to me, she said that, and this particular thing. No, no, he goes beyond, behind—the principle of evil, the devil.

Very well. So what he’s telling us here is this: we must never allow evil to conquer us or to overcome us. Never. Doesn't matter what form it takes. The form is comparatively unimportant. It is the principle of evil. "Never allow evil or sin or the devil to overcome you," says the apostle. Well, what's the relevance of all that to this? Well, it's very relevant. What he's really saying is this: if you take vengeance, you are allowing evil to overcome you. You see, it's a part of this whole argument. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves."

If you do avenge yourselves, what is really happening is that you have allowed evil and sin to overcome you. You've allowed the devil to have a victory over you. Well, in what way? Well, in this way: if you allow what this other person does to you to get you into a temper, into a passion, if you become angry, well, he’s defeated you. Not he, but the devil has defeated you. You are committing sin. For anger and temper and passion are sin. We shouldn't be in such a condition, whatever happens to us. These things are always sinful, they’re always wrong. Whatever the other man may have done to me, if I’m in a temper and a passion and a rage, well, the devil has got me.

And that's the important thing, much more important than the particular tool that the devil used at that particular point. Or let me put it to you like this: as Christian people, we shouldn't be disturbed in spirit. We shouldn't be agitated. This is again, of course, another way of putting this point about passion. The Christian should never lose the peace of God and the peace of Christ. You remember a fortnight ago, we ended on that note: Colossians 3:15, "let the peace of Christ act as umpire within you."

Never lose it. We should never lose that. We should never lose this central, essential peace that we are given in this great and glorious salvation. For a Christian to be agitated is always wrong. It's sin. Whatever somebody else has done to you, the devil has got you at that point. You've lost this glorious peace of spirit—the peace of God which passeth all understanding, that controls your heart and your mind. The moment you’ve lost that, you’ve sinned. You’ve been overcome by evil.

Or to put it still more plainly: the moment a Christian loses control of himself or herself, it just means you've been overcome by evil. Doesn't matter how great the provocation, doesn't matter what somebody may have done to you. If you lose control of yourself and you're either saying it or thinking it or trying to do it, it isn't what the other person’s done to you is important. It's what the devil has done to you. And you're defeated. You're overcome by evil.

Or you take it, if you like, in the form of pride. If your pride is hurt, and if all the natural man is rising up at once in self-defense and desire for revenge, it's again a defeat by the devil. The Christian has no right to be proud in this way. A Christian should never suffer from hurt pride. We have failed if as Christian people we are suffering from hurt pride. It is always sinful. You see, all that’s true of the natural man, and we are to be so essentially different.

And obviously, it needs no demonstration to say that if we are harboring any hard thoughts in our mind or heart or spirit against anybody, we are being defeated as Christians. Now our Lord himself, you see, brings this out so clearly. It isn't enough that you don't actually in a physical sense avenge yourselves of your enemy. Remember how our Lord puts it in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:21 and following: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

Hard thoughts, even against an enemy, are sinful. You remember about killing Kruger with your mouth? And we’ve all committed murder in spirit in that way. It’s a terrible thing. It means that we've been overcome by evil instead of overcoming evil. In other words, to desire evil to anyone is something which is sinful in and of itself. And all these various things which I've just been enumerating to you are but ways of saying that if we are guilty of any one of them or all of them together, we have been overcome by evil.

And that is altogether worse than anything that any human being can ever do to us. There is a limit to what men can do to us. But when evil overcomes us, we are being overcome at the highest point of our being, at the noblest part of our being, indeed in our very relationship to God himself. Very well then, we mustn't allow this to happen to us. Man, in a sense, can never overcome us. But we must be very careful that we never allow evil to overcome us.

Man can harm me on the surface, but man in a sense can't harm my soul. It is only evil that can do that. There is a limit to what men can do unto me. But the power of evil is the thing which we should ever keep in the forefront of our minds. So the apostle says, don't be overcome of evil. See evil rather than persons. See evil as a principle. See the devil rather than particular things. That’s the essence of the teaching at this point. But there’s the negative. Now let’s turn to the positive. Again, of course, you see how important it is not to stop at the negative. We are to be more than conquerors. We never stop at the negative as Christians. More than conquerors.

So here it is. We've got to overcome evil with good. How do we do that? Well, he's already told us: one of the best ways is "if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." Whatever it is that he’s in need of, go to him and relieve him in every way that you can. Now notice the term "overcome" evil with good. He’s not merely teaching us to hold a balance, as it were, or just to hold it at bay. No, no, the Christian is to overcome evil. He's not just not to give way to sin. He is to be more than conqueror—there's an overplus. He's to be victor. He's to get it down instead of allowing it to get him down.

And remember once more that he says that we are to overcome evil with good. And there is nothing else that really can overcome evil but good. In other words, this is the principle of antagonism, and it’s so antagonistic that it really can demolish it, this positive good. It’s the only way to overcome evil. That is why—and we could so easily expand this—that is why you see we are facing this mounting moral problem in this country today, and they’re doing the same, of course, in every other country. Your moral systems know nothing about this at all. Oh, I know the psychologists try to talk about sublimation, but it’s all talk. They can’t enable you to do it. No, no, they can do nothing more than try to control the manifestations of evil, keep them within bounds. That's all right; I'm not disparaging them, but they mustn't talk about a radical cure; they can't do it.

There is only one thing that can really deal with evil and overcome it, and that is this positive good. And that is why I say that all your moral systems and all attempts to turn this glorious gospel of salvation—which is miraculous and supernatural—into just moral, ethical teaching is a denial of the gospel, and it's useless. Education, culture, all these things, they fail completely at this point. The world is showing it today. No, no, there is only one thing that can overcome evil, and that is positive good. If you like, you can quote at this point the famous statement of Dr. Thomas Chalmers: the expulsive power of a new affection. Nature abhors a vacuum. You drive out the evil by the coming in of the good. The new buds in the spring push off the old leaves. It is only good in this sense that really can overcome evil.

Now, how does this happen? Overcome evil with good, says the apostle. Do what I'm telling you. Don't be defeated, but get a victory. And you do it partly by feeding your enemy and giving him drink if he’s in need of it. Well, how does this mean that you overcome evil? Well, it works out like this: you overcome evil in yourself by doing this. You get a victory over the old nature that is still left in you every time you do this. You don't respond to it; you’re mortifying it. This great principle of the mortification of the deeds of the body: "Mortify your members that are on the earth," and so on.

Every time you do this, you are helping to mortify the old nature, the evil nature that is still left in you. And you're making yourself therefore stronger and better. You are growing in grace. You really are overcoming evil in and of yourself. Thank God, we all know something about this, don't we? You've known every time you’ve put this injunction into practice how much better you've known yourself to be, how much stronger you've been. What a difference there is between your state and condition when you've avenged yourself and when you've put this into practice. You know you're better; you're cleaner; you’re purer; you're healthier; you're happier. You know it at once. You have really done your own soul good. You’ve built up your spiritual stock. You're a better Christian, you're a stronger Christian, and you're more ready to meet the enemy when he comes again. You're growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. So you overcome evil in yourself.

But not only that, you overcome evil also in your adversary, this person who’s acting towards you as an enemy. You do him great good if you behave in this way. As I was saying just now, you open his eyes; you make him stop and think. He acted impulsively; he acted as a natural man; he did this thing to you. But you pull him up. And the moment you pull him up, you've done him good. You make him think; you make him examine again what he's done to you. All this is an excellent thing for him. It is the treatment of his soul.

And you give him an understanding of the wrongness of what he's doing. You promote repentance in him. Everything that you and I do which helps another man to come to repentance, you are doing him the greatest good you can possibly do. You're doing him the greatest kindness. You are helping to overcome evil in him, and you’re showing him a new way. You’re showing him a better way. You're opening his eyes to a possibility he's never realized before—something that he likewise can know and experience. You're doing him endless good. You're overcoming evil in him as well as in yourself.

But add even to that: you are overcoming evil in general, in itself. Not only in yourself, his self, but in it self. Every time we live like this, we are defeating the enemy. We are getting a victory over him, as our Lord got victories over him in the temptations in the wilderness and at many other points—supremely on the cross on Calvary’s Hill. Every time you feed your enemy or give him drink, you are really saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan." And he’s got to go. "Resist the devil, and he'll flee from you." This is the way to resist him. Not fearfully to be negative, but positively to do something that causes him to run away. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Now, this is real victory—victory over evil. And of course, this is the high-water mark of the Christian life. There's nothing more wonderful than this. Did you know that to put this injunction into practice about not avenging yourself, but giving way rather to God, and feeding your enemy and giving him drink? Do you know that a man who can do this is a man who's able to do something that the greatest men of the world know nothing at all about? This is real achievement.

Now, again I remember that this is Armistice Day, and it's a day when people talk of valor and of great achievements, great victories won. And you go back and you look at the great men of history. And your history books remind you of them: they did this and that; they got great enemies; they conquered armies; they delivered countries, and so on. All right, you can praise them as much as you like. All I'm saying is this: that the man who succeeds in doing this is getting a victory that so many of those men know nothing about at all, and they were quite incapable of them.

Let me tell you how the wise man in the book of Proverbs puts this again. I’m quoting Proverbs now. It’s Proverbs 16:32. This is how he puts it: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Now, that's exactly what I’ve just been saying to you. We honor the men who can take cities. Yes, but says this wise man, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his own spirit" is greater than he that taketh a city. Look at your great captains and kings of the past.

They could capture other men, and they could control and take cities, but they couldn't control their own tempers. They were not in control of their own spirits. And that's the tragedy. Alexander the Great—what a mighty man. He could take almost anything, and he seemed to control the whole world. But he couldn't control his own lust, and he died at a comparatively early age as the result of his sin, as the result of his own lust. He died of what is called an aneurysm. He couldn't control his own spirit. But says this man, "he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Here's real achievement.

Haven’t we all known something about this? It's always much easier to control and to manage other people than to control and manage yourself, isn't it? But that's your job ultimately, and it's mine. I find it easier to control a congregation than to control myself. But this is the challenge, isn't it? There’s no point in controlling people if you can’t control yourself. If you can't control yourself, you’re defeated. You’re a miserable failure. This is real achievement. This is glorious victory. This is true greatness.

Very well. Let me wind it up by putting it like this: what is it that makes it possible? What is the secret of all this? This is glory. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." The history of the human race is one evil person defeating another evil person, but it's all evil at the end. One up, one down—comes and goes. That's the whole of your human history. But here is God's victory. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." What is it that makes the maxims of this chapter unequaled in all human philosophy? Why is this unique in its glory and in its wonder?

How does one ever come to this? What makes it possible for us to come to this? On what basis was it that the apostle was putting this appeal and giving us this injunction? Well, you see, it's all based on this: no man can rise to this level unless he has a right view of himself. That's always the first thing. You see, the apostle started the chapter: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God," in the light of all he's been saying in his great doctrine of what's happened to us—justification, sanctification, glorification, our adoption position as sons. It's all this, and nothing else can possibly do it. You have a right view of yourself.

Now remember, we're dealing particularly with what people do to us and how we react to that. But here is the principle: you are not your own; you have been bought with a price. You start, as I say, reminding yourself what you are, who you are. You think of your soul. Now the difference between the non-Christian and the Christian is this: that the non-Christian belongs to himself. The Christian does not belong to himself. He belongs to Christ. He belongs to God. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price.

So stop thinking in terms of yourself in all your ways. You react violently because you're thinking of yourself: "You've been insulted," "You've been offended," "You've been hurt," "You've been deprived." Self. That goes when you think in a Christian way: you are not your own. So stop thinking in terms of yourself in all your ways. But start thinking, in other words, and always go on doing it—think of yourself as a child of God. Don't think about yourself; think of your Father. Think of the family.

This is the way to react in an entirely new manner to the things that people do to you. So that what really matters, you see, is not your little reputation and mine; it is the reputation of the family. It is the reputation of God. It is the reputation of heaven. My defeat reflects upon the head. My defeat is in a sense a defeat for the kingdom of God, and it causes great joy amongst the devil and all his hosts and forces. This is how I think. This is what enables me to react to this thing in this new way. No longer in terms of myself—I am what I am, and I'm in this new relationship. So it doesn't matter what happens to me; it’s what happens to the name that is on me.

Very well. On the other hand, every time we get a victory, it commends the gospel. And it helps to win other people from the kingdom of darkness and translate them into the kingdom of God's dear Son. As I say, this has so often happened. As I was thinking about all this, an illustration came to my mind of a young lady I once saw as a candidate before a certain missionary society. And she eventually was accepted and went out to work in the Far East. And this was her story in a nutshell.

She was a student in Cambridge, and she was the secretary of the Communist Party amongst the students in Cambridge. But when I first saw her, she was a missionary candidate to go out to do missionary work. What had happened to her? Well, this is what she said: she happened to be in Cambridge during that very severe winter you remember of '46, '47, and everything was frozen up in Cambridge as in London and most other parts of the country. And she lived in a room—a number of rooms off a staircase in the college.

And of course, there was this terrible shortage. You could only have a bath once a week, and there was a queue always. And she simply made this observation: that there was one other girl on that same staircase—a Christian, the only Christian on that staircase. And all the Communist girl noticed was that instead of asserting her rights and always being in the front and always complaining like the others were doing, the Christian girl never did so. She just bore with it and allowed people to be assertive and selfish. She just went on quietly.

And this shook this Communist girl. She said, "Here is one who really is practicing and living what I claim to believe and to do, and I don't do." This attitude of the Christian, exemplifying our teaching here, not only opened her eyes and made her think, it led to conviction. It led to repentance. It led to her conversion. And she went out as a missionary preaching the gospel. It was just this simple action on the part of this Christian girl that led to that great result.

Now this is the attitude, you see, that we should always adopt. That our failure reflects upon the head, our success does the opposite, and it commends the gospel. So our attitude is, "Let nothing please nor pain me apart, oh Lord, from thee." Or take the apostle putting it in 1 Corinthians 4: "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." You remember the foolish people in Corinth had been comparing and contrasting Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and so on, and dividing themselves up into silly factions.

He says, don't think of us as men; let them account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment. Yea, I judge not mine own self. That's the position. And once a man gets there, he doesn't avenge himself. No, no. He's got this right view of himself—in his relationship to his Father in heaven, to his Lord, and to the entire kingdom.

Right view of himself. But he also has a right view of others, even of his enemies. The man who does him harm, he doesn't see him as a man; he sees him as a soul. He sees him as a lost soul. He sees this man as the victim of sin and evil. He sees him as one blinded by the god of this world. He's sorry for him. And he can pray for him. He does him good in order to help him. He sees a man going to hell; he thinks of him in terms of his eternal destiny, not just a man who's done this to me today. No, no—a soul that’ll have to stand before God in a final judgment and has nothing to anticipate but an eternal punishment. You see everybody in a different way, not only yourself but also others.

You also remind yourself that you're a soul here in a great warfare, that you're fighting the fight of faith, that you're wrestling against these principalities and powers. What matters? Oh, not what happens to me, but the defeat of the enemy and the triumph of the Lord and of his cause. That's the thing that matters. I don't think of everything in terms of myself, but evil and good, hell and heaven, the devil and God—this great cosmic fight. This is the thing. He sees that and not himself, nor so much the other people.

And then he realizes that being a soldier in this great battle, he must always fight in God’s way and not in his own way. You see, we hit back; we think we're defending ourselves. But we don't do that. Listen to the apostle again: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." You'll never defeat your Goliath in Saul's armor. No, no, the thing is ridiculous. Fight the battles of the Lord in this spiritual way. Take unto you the whole armor of God. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. It's the only way.

Give up doing it in the old carnal, selfish, personal manner. You've got to fight this battle in a spiritual manner. Overcome evil with good. And then think of the great privilege of being allowed to have any part at all in such a crusade, in such a fight, in such a skirmish. That God should deign to use us, that we're admitted into the army. We are fighting in the army of the living God, and there is no privilege on earth that is comparable to this. And it doesn't matter what men may do to us, as long as we're in this. Doesn't matter what men do. They can never rob us of the dignity and the privilege and the honor and the glory of having our part to play in this mighty battle of God against hell, light against darkness, truth against lie.

And finally, whatever men may do to you—whether they praise you or whether they hate you, whether they do the various things that that hymn that we were singing describes—what’s it matter? Keep your eye on the day of triumph that is coming, the crowning day that is coming by and by. The certainty of the victory. The day when he shall appear, and he'll look at you and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." He remembers the time when you didn't avenge yourself for his sake, because you were thinking of him and his kingdom and not of yourself.

He sees it all; his eye is over it all. The crowning day is coming by and by. And looking at everything in this way, you soon come to see that what happens to you in this world and this life is comparatively unimportant. What is your life? It’s but a breath, it’s but a vapor. Keep your eye on the recompense of the reward. That's the thing that matters. Whatever man may do to you, it doesn't matter. It is what he sees and what he will say to you at that great day that alone really matters.

Very well. Let me sum it up in a hymn which unfortunately isn't in our hymnbook. A hymn that is often given to children to sing—it's all right for children, but it's right for all of us. Here it is:

"We are but little children weak,

nor born in any high estate;

What can we do for Jesus' sake,

who is so high and good and great?

Oh, day by day each Christian child

has much to do, without, within,

a life to live for Jesus' sake,

a constant war to wage with sin.

When deep within our swelling hearts,

the thoughts of pride and anger rise,

when bitter words are on our tongues

and tears of passion in our eyes,

then we may stay the angry blow,

then we may check the hasty word,

give gentle answers back again,

and fight a battle for the Lord."

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And so fight a battle for the Lord and bring glory and honor to his great and holy name. May the Lord enable us to do so.

Oh Lord our God, we come unto thee just to offer our praise and our thanksgiving for having called us into such a high, such a glorious, such a noble life. Oh God, we praise thy name that thou hast ever honored us by calling us to fight in thy glorious battle. Oh, open our eyes, the eyes of our understanding we humbly beseech thee, to these things that we have been considering together. Write them deeply in our minds and hearts and spirits and enable us to overcome evil with good, to the praise and the glory of thy great and holy name. And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now, this night, throughout the remainder of this our short, uncertain, earthly life and pilgrimage, and until we shall see him face to face and be made like him in the glory everlasting. Amen.