Insight for Living

Host: When someone betrays us, humiliates us, or deliberately hurts us, every fiber of our being screams for revenge. That burning desire to strike back, to make them pay, to show them they can't mess with us. It's as natural as breathing.

But what if God has a radically different plan? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll explains how letting go of our resentments isn't a weakness. It's the pathway to true freedom described in Romans 12.

When we surrender our battle, we allow God to settle scores in ways we never imagined possible.

Host: I'm reading a very convicting section of scripture. You thought Romans 12, 1 and 2 was convicting. It was.

And then Romans 12, 3 through 13 convicting, and indeed it was.

But now we come to the section that really does ring the changes.

Because there isn't a person that I'm talking to today who hasn't known the hurt of someone who has done them wrong. We all have that in common. Some to greater degree than others.

So I'm speaking today not only to myself, but I'm speaking to you as if you and I were the only ones in the room. You and I.

Take it that personally, otherwise it'll be just sermon number 31 in a list of sermons in Romans.

You need to be transformed in an area of your life that has lacked attention long enough. You need some habits broken. You need to respond in a transforming way rather than a natural way.

And God is ready to do that if your heart's prepared.

Romans 12, 14 and then 17 through 21.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Verse 17. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Host: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the book of Romans on your own, be sure to purchase our searching the scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message, Doing Right When You've Been Done Wrong.

It was Will Rogers, the late actor and author and humorist, who once said, "I never met a man I didn't like."

Can you believe that?

I mean, get real, Will.

Some of you ladies are thinking, it's because Will Rogers never met my first husband. Some of you guys going, Will Rogers never met a guy I used to work for.

I would say Will Rogers never met Sergeant Fishburn of the United States Marine Corps boot camp. Not even a mother would love, as I recall. About three-fourths gristle and the rest backbone.

I mean, get real.

All of us have people we don't like. To make it worse, we've got people that don't like us either.

So there is this battle going on more often in strange silence than in verbal warfare. But it's there nevertheless.

They turn us off. Our stomachs turn when we think of them and mentally we have their face on our dartboard.

What's interesting is we say we have put them out of our minds, but they hound us and they haunt us. Truth be told, we think of them when we wake up and we are thinking of them when we go to bed at night.

There's an old seventh-century couplet that says, "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere."

Maybe you have one you've been meeting everywhere these days.

To make it more difficult is that we're Christians. If we were lost, we could just smack them in the mouth and walk right on. You know, we just cut their lips off and roll on, but we can't do that.

We have Romans 12, 1 and 2, crawled on the altar and placed ourselves as a living sacrifice. I'm serious now. We placed ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, H.O.L.Y. holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable act of worship. We've done that.

We've done that. While there, we have decided that we want our minds renewed and the spirit of God is armed and ready to transform our thinking, so that we think differently than we were raised, than we were taught.

We think in such a way that old habits are broken and former actions are no longer taken. It's transformed mind.

But we keep bumping up against this individual that has done us wrong and keeps doing us wrong. What do we do?

Now, I could pontificate on that for the next 30 or 40 minutes. It would do no one any good. Rather than doing that, I'd rather start with a story. Let me tell you a story. So just sit back and listen. It's a true story.

It's the story of a handsome, well-built, rugged, outdoorsman kind of teenager in his mid-years, 15, 16 years old. He's the youngest in a family of eight boys.

He's a shepherd, a sheep herder.

One day his father whistles from the back porch and says, "David, David, come in."

David walks in and in this little house where the family of Jesse lives, he finds his brothers in sort of a semicircle and an old bearded man is there. He's never seen before. Mumbles something strange like, "I will anoint him for this is he."

And the next thing David knows, he has oil running down his hair and the back of his neck. The brothers are sort of frowning because it wasn't them.

And words about being the king of Israel follow. And as quietly as the old man arrived, he left and is gone.

That's it.

There's no coronation, there's no parade, there's no applause. David slips back out into the field and begins to keep his father's sheep again.

In the meantime, the one who is anointed king named Saul is slowly losing it. His acts of disobedience along the way have rendered him disqualified to serve as the king of Israel. But he remains. Remember that?

He remains on for years, like over a decade.

And little by little, he's losing it. Word reaches him through one of his confidants that there is a young man who plays a fine instrument and might be able to soothe his troubled conscience and heart.

And he says, "Bring him."

David moves from the sheep to the very throne room of the king, where he plays his instrument. And the king's heart is soothed.

Then something happens between the two of them that's wonderful to imagine.

The battle turns and the Philistines make a move in the valley of Elah. This vast valley over a mile across with a ravine in the middle.

And Saul and the Israel troops are bivouacked on one side and Goliath is on the other.

Once again, the father calls David, asks him to take some food to the front lines. David carries the food to the front lines. He looks out, wonders why everybody's so afraid.

And they say, "Look and you'll see."

David takes the tools with which he's most familiar, a slingshot and a stone. And he finishes off Goliath. Man. Who doesn't love that story?

I mean, the ground shakes when Goliath falls. And the tremor is heard all across Israel and his name becomes a household word.

Saul has slain his thousands, but David has ten thousands. And Saul does the math and he hates him. He hates him.

And the scripture says he looked at him with suspicion from that time on. All David's been doing is keeping the sheep, letting oil be poured on his head, playing his instrument, killing a giant.

And now he's the object of Saul's ire.

His celebrity grows. But David's not interested in wine, women, song. He's not interested in that. He's interested in honoring God. He doesn't know what the songs are all about. It's not why he did it. He did it because he loves God.

And he can't figure out why Saul's after him. And all of a sudden, a spear lands right near his face.

And within a matter of a brief period of time, another spear. And he realizes this is for real. I got to get out of here.

Saul by now is disintegrating. H.G. Wells in one of his characters, Mr. Polly describes Saul. "He was not so much a human being as a civil war."

If you've ever been around someone disintegrating mentally, you know it's often good to stay out of their way. They need help. But there's no one to help. David's on his own.

After a while, he makes his existence possible in the caves of En Gedi. If you ever go to Israel, be sure your guide takes you to the caves of En Gedi.

And look in the caves. David slept in many of them for over a decade, running from Saul.

First Samuel 24, there's a turning point in the scene where David has a chance to get back. To get even. Allow me.

Now it came about when Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, saying, "Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi."

You wonder if Saul was serious. Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all Israel and went to seek David.

You know what the mission was? Terminate David. Don't bring him back alive.

And the boots of the soldiers could be heard at the mouths of those caves as David lived, wondering which time the soldier would walk in and find him.

And he's done nothing wrong.

He and a handful of warriors that have teamed up with him, wondering if they'll ever get out alive. Now watch closely.

They went to seek David and his men in front of the rocks of the wild goats. Verse 3 tells of Saul, who came to the sheepfolds on the way where there was a cave. And Saul went in to relieve himself.

Okay, I'm just going to give you a moment to picture that. Bible's a real book. Doesn't dodge when nature calls.

So Saul is in a very vulnerable position. What's makes it interesting is it is the very cave where David and his men are hiding.

Can you imagine the counsel, David? Well, you don't have to imagine, you're going to read it.

Verse 3 concludes, "Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of that cave."

The men of David said to him, "David, David, this is the day which the Lord has made. Slice his throat. He won't know it till he sneezes."

Sort of a Swindoll paraphrase of what we're going to read. "This is the day which the Lord said to you, 'Behold, I am about to give your enemy into your hand and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.'"

You know the problem with that? It isn't a verse of scripture. But you always have people around you that misquote things and tell you what you want to hear when it's time to get revenge.

So David hears them and for a moment he yields somewhat.

Here's where the story gets very interesting. Remember Saul?

He doesn't know David's anywhere near. Verse 4. "Then David arose and cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly."

You imagine. What a moment. I love scenes like this. Saul has no clue.

But it bothers David. That's why you got to love him. That's why he's called a man after God's heart.

Verse 5. "It came about afterward that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe."

I mean, folks, back in those days, they took the king of the land seriously. We who shatter and assault and attack our president, in the days of Israel, they respected the anointed king.

Even one doing them wrong.

And David is bothered.

He said to his men, "Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed."

Can't you hear the men? "David, David, get a hold of yourself. We're sick of eating roots, drinking from the waterfall. We're sick of these nasty clothes we have to wear day after day. This is your moment."

We read David persuaded his men. Take that for what it means. Guys, no, no, listen, stop. No, no, we're not going to do that.

He persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. What were they saying? You may feel bad about it, not me.

And you'll always have people that'll want to run your errand for you when you don't strike back.

This is the best part of the story.

Verse 8.

"Afterward David arose and went out of the cave and called after Saul, saying, 'My Lord the King! King Saul!'"

Saul looked behind him. David bowed with his face to the ground and prostrated himself. David said to Saul, "Why do you listen to the words of men, saying, 'Behold, David seeks to harm you.' Behold, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord has given you today into my hand in the cave. And some said to kill you, but my eye had pity on you and I and I said, 'I will not stretch out my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.' Now, my father," the how close they were, they'd spent months together. "My father, see."

And he holds up the hem of the garment. He holds up the robe. This piece he cut off. "See, indeed, see the edge of your robe in my hand, for in that I I cut off the edge of your robe and did not kill you. Know and perceive that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands and I have not sinned against you, though you are lying in wait for my life to take it. Look, Saul, that's how close I was to you. And I never drew my knife to thrust it into you."

Verse 15. "The Lord therefore be judge and decide between you and me. And may he see and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand." Please note that.

"I now leave it with the Lord. I have my moment and I'm ashamed of what I did. In the moment I yielded, even though it was not a treacherous thing. It was a shameful thing. I'm not going there. I'm going to stand and wait. I'm going to trust in God."

Look at the response. Saul said, "Is this your voice, my son David? You are more righteous than I, for you have dealt well with me while I have dealt wickedly with you. You have declared today that you have done good to me, that the Lord delivered me into your hand. Yet you did not kill me, for if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safely? Watch, may the Lord therefore reward you with good in return for what you have done to me this day. Now behold, I know that you shall surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand."

He heard words from Saul he could have never forced with the point of a knife.

Saul, realizing how much more righteous this young man is than he, says to him in remarkable vulnerability, "You deserve the kingdom more than I."

Now, fast forward to the 21st century. As you turn to Romans chapter 12 and get your pen handy, because I am going to give you principles you will need and you will claim in the days ahead.

Our focus now falls on the verses in Romans 12 that I read earlier, but a warning is in order. I need to warn you of something.

Not only does the enemy hear everything I'm going to be saying, you're going to be tempted to erase it from your mind because you're going to justify your situation thinking it's unique.

You're going to want to push the delete button about the time you put your key in your car. You're going to say if Chuck only knew what I'm going through. It would have said except for you.

There is no exception.

I am talking to you. Don't tell me the excuse. I am talking to you. More importantly, God is speaking to you today.

And I am going to urge you for a few moments to think supernaturally rather than naturally.

Verse 14.

"Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse." Principle number one, write it down. Deliberately resist your natural instinct.

Deliberately resist your natural instinct. That's verse 14.

All of us have built-in instincts. When something comes too close to our face, we blink and we turn away. When we're about to fall, we throw our hands out. That's a natural instinct. We're in our car leaving, another car's backing up quickly and doesn't see us. We honk, honk, honk. That's a natural instinct.

When someone does wrong, the natural instinct is get even. Get back. Hopefully.