Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today we're joined again on Telling the Truth by guest speaker Charles Price. He's speaking from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to show you what Jesus had to say about love and justice. That's coming right out.

Guest (Female): We want to help you grow strong in your faith as you conquer temptation by sending you Triumph Over Temptation, a powerful four-message series by Stuart and Jill Briscoe. We'll send you a copy of Triumph Over Temptation as thanks for your gift today to help continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of helping others experience life in Christ.

So call today to request your copy of Triumph Over Temptation, 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Charles Price with today's message.

Charles Price: I'm going to read from Matthew's Gospel in chapter five, first book of the New Testament. We're looking into the Sermon on the Mount, which begins in Matthew chapter five, and which is the most concentrated set of teaching that we have from the lips of Jesus Christ in the entire Gospels.

I'm going to read to you from verse 38 down to the end of the chapter where Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let them have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

"You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Don't even pagans do that? Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect."

If you have your Bible open, please keep it open. I'm going to refer back to those verses. Matthew 5 has a series of six statements that follow a sort of formula where Jesus begins by saying, "You have heard that it was said," and he quotes either the Old Testament scriptures or an interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures. Then he says, "But I say unto you," and he adds and sometimes appears to change some of those things.

But what Jesus is doing in every instance is going behind the effect to the cause, to the reason. So for instance, when he says, "You shall not murder, you heard it said, you shall not murder, I say unto you if you're angry with your brother, anger is the cause of murder. You've heard it said you must not commit adultery, I say unto you if you lust after a woman, lust is the cause of adultery. You've heard it said if you divorce your wife, give her a certificate, and he says no, your commitment is a commitment," and he explains that.

Then he said, "You've heard it said, don't break your oath, but I say unto you, don't swear at all. Let your yes be yes, your no be no. Anything more is an expression of the corruption of your heart," and we talked about the need for truth. And then these last two I'm going to put together. The first is about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that's what they had heard. In other words, it's about justice, about revenge. The second is about love your neighbor and hate your enemy, how you deal with your enemy and those who don't like you. And there's a clear progression from the first one to the second. And I'm calling as a title "Christians and Justice and Love."

The first thing we'll talk about is from verse 38 to 42, the first section, which is about law and justice. Now there's a difficulty here when we first read this because when Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," and then he says, "But I tell you," and seems to change that, he is actually quoting from the Old Testament scriptures where in the book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus and the book of Deuteronomy a similar kind of statement is made in each case.

Let me read you as one example, Exodus 21:23, where Moses talks about people who are squabbling with one another and then he says, "If there's serious injury, you ought to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." And similar things are said in Leviticus 24, Deuteronomy 19. But now Jesus apparently says, "No, do not do that. Rather do the opposite. Do not resist an evil person."

And more than that, if somebody strikes you on the cheek, turn the other one and let them strike you on that cheek. If somebody sues you for your tunic, don't just let him have your tunic, give him your cloak as well. If somebody forces you to go one mile, go two. And these verses have inevitably been controversial in various ways. These verses are used for a Christian doctrine of pacifism, that is of non-violence. You don't resist an evil person.

And of course, there has been division amongst Christians on this issue, but this passage in the Sermon on the Mount played a part in the argument for pacifism, not least verse 39, "Do not resist an evil person," and verse 43, "Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you." Now I'm not going to discuss the pacifist arguments nor to dismiss pacifism, but it is very important and this is a classic case where it is very important to interpret Scripture in its context.

We can't just take a text, a sentence, and interpret it outside of the context in which it is found. And I want to ask two questions. First question: what did Moses mean when he said "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, limb for limb, etc."? Second question: what did Jesus mean when he actually challenged that here in Matthew 5?

Well, when you read the context of the statements in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, it becomes fairly obvious what the meaning is because in that context Moses is writing about justice and the law courts in the nation of Israel. Part of the law was devoted to the civil governance of Israel. And the question how is a nation to be governed, what are the principles that address crime and punishment are all part of what is involved here.

And in Deuteronomy chapter 19 and verse 15, let me read you these verses where it describes how a law court is to operate. And Moses writes, "One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation. If the witness proves to be a liar giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. Show no pity, life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

Now that section clearly is addressing how a law court is to operate in Israel. And it says one witness is not enough. You've got to have a minimum of two, preferably three witnesses at least in order to convict a person. The judge there must make a thorough investigation. Don't go on hearsay, make a thorough investigation. And the punishment must have two ingredients. First, it must equal the crime. That's why he says, "Show no pity, life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

And the second thing the punishment must do is it must serve as a deterrent to frighten others from committing similar crimes. So he says in verse 20, "The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid and never again will such an evil thing be done among you." It's designed to instill fear in other people to prevent them from actually committing a similar crime.

Now that's the passage in Deuteronomy chapter 19. In Exodus 21, he talks there about personal injuries if men are fighting and injure each other. He says in verse 24 of Exodus 21, "If there's serious injury, you ought to take life for life, eye for eye, foot for foot, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise, etc." Leviticus 24 talks about the law courts again, the same thing, that if anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he's injured the other, so he too is to be injured.

Therefore the context is very plain. The law courts in Israel were to administer justice and the punishment was to be equal to the crime, not greater than the crime, not less than the crime, equal to the crime. That's what Moses was writing about. Any civilized society must have its judicial structures that cause crime to be addressed and responded to.

So then what is the problem that Jesus addresses here in Matthew 5 when he seems to change that? Well, the problem that he addresses is also very plain, and that is that people were taking those statements from Moses and taking the law into their own hands. So if you hit me, I hit you back. And Jesus said no, that is not what that is teaching. You do not take the law into your own hands. You do not take personal vengeance. What you do do is bring the law into operation if somebody unjustly attacks you in some way. And it is the right and responsibility of the law courts to then sentence in such a way that the punishment equals the crime. But you don't take this into your own hands.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Telling the Truth. Today we're joined by guest speaker Charles Price. He's bringing you a message about love and justice from a Christian perspective. Stay with us, he'll be right back.

Guest (Female): Temptation is nothing new. It's been around since the dawn of mankind and it's not going anywhere as long as we're on this earth. You'll face temptation every day, but sometimes moment by moment. So we want to send you a special resource to help you stand strong in God's word when temptation does come along.

It's a four-message series from Stuart and Jill Briscoe called Triumph Over Temptation. They created it to help you not only conquer temptation, but to grow stronger in your faith as you do. This series will give you powerful biblical tools to defeat sinful desires and encourage you with the truth that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right.

We'll send you Triumph Over Temptation as our thanks for your gift today to keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's word with people across the globe through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. So call today to request your copy of this resource: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now let's return to today's teaching.

Charles Price: But actually what Jesus is saying here is don't take the law into your own hands. You have a similar situation almost identical in Romans chapter 12 and 13. In Romans 12 verse 17 it says, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil." Now if you take that sentence out of context, put it on a text, put it on the wall, "Do not repay evil for evil," what that means is let people get away with everything. Sounds like it, doesn't it?

But if you read on five verses later in chapter 13, verse 1 says, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities." And then verse 3 says, "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant and agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore it is necessary to submit to authorities not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience."

Now you've got to take that whole section together. Do not repay evil for evil, but you make sure you have a healthy fear of authorities because they are God's agent carrying the sword that God has given them to punish the wrongdoer. But don't you repay evil for evil. Don't you take this into your own hands.

You see, do we believe in justice? The answer is yes. Do we believe in law courts? The answer is yes. Do we believe in the legitimacy of a police force? The answer is yes. Do we believe in the legitimacy of the military? Unfortunately, yes. But do we believe in vigilantes taking law into their own hands? The answer is no. Do we believe that terrorism, that is illegal means of aggression, is a right way to correct wrongs? The answer is no.

And that is what Jesus is addressing here. There are rules of justice laid down which are God ordained, but it does not include me taking law into my own hands and getting vengeance. And here is the big tough challenge that comes out of this that we can't escape. And I will show you why in a moment. That our attitude to those who commit crimes against us, or those who endanger our society, or those who act destructively, is not just a legal one, though we uphold the legal principles and forces. But the attitude that should characterize us is love towards such people.

That is what the next section is about, verse 43 down to verse 47. I called the first section being about law and justice; the second section is about love and generosity. You see, he says in verse 43, "You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy." Well, of course they'd heard no such thing from Scripture. What they had heard from Scripture, Leviticus 19, is love your neighbor as yourself.

But they did a bit of faulty mathematics. They said, "Love your neighbor as yourself, okay. Who's my neighbor? What about my non-neighbor? Oh, I don't have to love them, therefore I can hate them." This was behind the question to Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" and Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. Remember that? He was answering a question. Your neighbor is somebody, actually a Samaritan was normally regarded as an enemy of a Jew. They were hostile to one another. That's the very context of that question, "Who is my neighbor?" They had concluded falsely that to love your neighbor permits you to hate your enemy, which is why this question of revenge has arisen in the first place because you don't have to love those who you regard as your enemy.

But actually, says Jesus, you regard not just your neighbor who may be your friend in love, but you regard those who persecute you, you treat your enemy in love for this reason: that you may be, verse 45, sons of your Father in heaven. And then he explains what that means. That is you carry the likeness of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Now that's the context of that statement: that you are to be indiscriminate in who you love in the way that God is indiscriminate in who he blesses. God actually blesses the bad as well as the good, the evil as well as the righteous, says Jesus here. And of course that is a fact of life that we need to recognize. You know, he doesn't cause sunshine to rise on the good and a permanent cloud to sit over the evil. He doesn't send rain on the field of the righteous and the unrighteous next door experiences a drought. No, the unrighteous gets as much rain as the righteous.

And it's very important we understand this truth. God actually does not favor—understand me when I say this—God does not treat Christians with favoritism. If a plane crashes with Christians and non-Christians on board, as many non-Christians as Christians die or survive. He does not treat us with preferential treatment. Christians get sick like non-Christians get sick. Christians die prematurely like non-Christians might die prematurely.

Now you say, "Well, what in the world is the benefit of being a Christian?" I'll tell you. The benefit of being a Christian is you have Christ with you and in you in the situation, in the difficulty, in the tragedy. You're not alone. But he doesn't exempt us from them. Now if you don't understand that, you'll be from time to time thoroughly frustrated with God. But you're frustrated because you don't understand the way God treats the non-believer as kindly as he treats the believer.

Guest (Male): Charles is coming back in a moment with some closing thoughts for today, but first: we all struggle at times with sinful desires and selfish motives. And when you do, you must remember that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right.

That's the empowering truth Stuart and Jill Briscoe wanted to help you grasp when they created their four-message series Triumph Over Temptation. This series will equip you with powerful biblical tools to help you triumph over temptation and grow your faith in the process. Triumph Over Temptation is our thanks for your gift to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many people around the world.

Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience life in Christ and find strength to carry on with courage. So if you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out around the world to you and many others. And remember to request your copy of Triumph Over Temptation when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388, 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Here's Charles with some final thoughts for today.

Charles Price: The point of this passage is to say you need to be sons of your Father in heaven, and he causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, and you need to not just love those who are nice to you, but equally to love your enemies and to love those who persecute you.

Now, of course, this, what I've just said now, has always been a problem to the people of God. It's a problem in Scripture all the time. I can give you a number of instances this. It'd be a rabbit trail to go down this line, but in Psalm 37, David asks the question, "Why do the wicked prosper? Why is it that the righteous have a hard time?" In fact, one of the psalmists, his name was Asaph, he wrote Psalm 73 amongst other Psalms, and in Psalm 73 he says he almost backslid over the fact that God blessed the unrighteous as much as he blessed the righteous.

He says this, I'll read it to you, Psalm 73, part of it at least: "As for me, my feet almost slipped, I nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Then he generalizes, you know, "They have no struggles, their body is healthy and strong, they're free from burdens, etc." And he says in verse 13, "Surely in vain I've kept my heart pure, in vain I've washed my hands in innocence, because all day long I've been plagued, I've been punished every morning." This is a man of God saying, "Why is it the wicked seem to have a good time and I have a bad time and everything seems to go wrong for me? Because God does not treat you with favoritism."

Now, we don't like that, but we need to get used to it, otherwise you'll shake your fist at God many times in your life. Jeremiah raised the same thing in Jeremiah chapter 12. He says to God, "I'd like to speak to you about your justice. God, I've got a problem with your justice here. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do the faithless live at ease? You have planted them and they've taken root. They grow and bear fruit." He's saying, "God, why in the world are the wicked prospering? I have a problem with your justice, God."

And God says—you read the chapter—God says to Jeremiah, "What would you like to do about it, Jeremiah?" and Jeremiah said, "Butcher them. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered." Well, that's a pretty healthy perspective. And then God says, "No, I'll tell you what the word is, Jeremiah. If you are tired running against men, what will happen when I run you against horses? Jeremiah, if you think it's tough, it will get worse and you are not exempt."

Job and his friends all asked the same question. In fact, Job's friends said, "God does favor the righteous, and therefore, Job, you must be unrighteous even though everybody thought you were righteous. There's a secret life under there, there's a reason why things have gone wrong." And says Jesus here that you are to love your enemy, those who persecute you, those who abuse you, those who take advantage of you because you're sons of your Father. He actually is impartial and loves even those that act wrongly.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Charles. Before we go, we want to remind you when you give to continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll say thanks with the Briscoes' four-message series Triumph Over Temptation. These encouraging messages will help you defeat temptation and grow in your faith as you do.

So please request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388, 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Thank you for joining us today on Telling the Truth. Come back next time for more biblical teaching to help you experience life.