WHEN NOT TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK

Transcription

1 Annual Sermons: Vol. 3 Sermon Bob Marcaurelle Mt. 5:38-42; Lk. 6:29-30 WHEN NOT TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK Jesus Christ was a man who refused to retaliate. He turned the other cheek. He walked the second mile and then some. He willingly gave what was snatched from Him. Isaiah predicted He would be One who gave His back to the smiters, His cheeks to those who pulled out His beard, and His face to those who wanted to spit in it (Is. 50:6). And Jesus teaches this same way of life to His followers. He states the way of the world - personal vengeance - an eye for an eye. He gives the way of the Christian - resist not evil. Then He lists four examples: personal injury, public litigation, personal injustice and pesky borrowing and stealing. And He closes with the famous golden rule, Treat others the way you want them to treat you. This is one of the most difficult passages to understand in all of the Bible. It has been the cause of much disagreement and devisiveness. D. Martin Lloyd Jones says no passage has produced more heat and disputation than this one where we are told to be loving and forgiving. The reason is that many people take it literally and applying it to every situation, say we are never to resist evil. We are to lie down and let it roll over us and those we love. Thus groups like the Anabaptists, Mennonites and Quakers have derived the doctrine of Pacifism from these verses, and refuse to bear arms in the military or to stand and fight when personally attacked. The famous writer Tolstoy went so far as to teach that it was wrong to resist evil by having policemen. Such are the extreme of pacifism and non-violence born of literal interpretation and universal application of these teachings. The question is, Is it scriptural to never resist evil, or are there times when it is wrong to turn the other cheek? The teachings of the Bible and the example of both Jesus and Paul reveal there are times when we should resist evil and not turn the other cheek. Here, as everywhere else, we must interpret scripture with scripture. For

2 example, the Bible says, Thou shalt not kill (Ex. 20:13). Some people take this to mean that capital punishment is wrong. However, when you compare scripture with scripture, you find that the Bible teaches that capital punishment is actually commanded (Ex. 21:12). We must take the time and trouble to see what God means by kill. The same is true here. We must search the scriptures and see what God means by turning the other cheek and when we are and we are not to do it. The person who says, I just take the Bible like it is and do exactly what it says, is often not pious but lazy. He has not taken the time to think or to search the Bible. Today, before we turn to the interpretation and application of these verses, I want to compare scripture with scripture and give you some principles of interpretation which will help us understand our Lord s teachings. I. THE PROPER APPLICATION First and foremost, we must remember that Jesus is not laying down laws of state. He is not telling this lost world how to carry on its affairs. He is talking to His born again followers. And even here He is not telling His followers how to act in matters of citizenship and society at large, but how to cat and react, on the personal level to those who do us wrong. This is brought out in verse 39 which the King James Version wrongly translates resist not evil. The newer translations bring out the presence of the personal pronoun, Resist not HIM who is evil (American Standard Version). The New English Bible captures the meaning, Do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. Today s English Version says, Do not take revenge on someone who does you wrong. We are thus not dealing here with the principles of law and order in society at large but with our personal attitudes and actions toward those who do us wrong. For example, the Word of God teaches we are not to turn the other cheek in matters of GOVERNMENT OR OF LAW AND ORDER. The powerful agencies that rule, says the Bible, are ordained of God (Rom. 13:1). When Paul wrote these words, the ruling power was the pagan Roman Empire. The Bible goes on to say these ruling powers...are

3 servants of God for our good...are ministers of God s judgements (Rom. 13:4). In society at large God resists evil and sets up law enforcement officers to aid Him. It would be positively wrong for them not to resist evil. Thus God is not telling America to turn the other cheek to Communism or telling the community to turn the other cheek to its criminal element. Jesus, Paul and John the Baptist all came in contact with soldiers. Not once did they tell these soldiers to lay down their arms. They just told them to be the right kind of men with those arms. This principle of turn the other cheek does not apply IN OUR COURTS. As a matter of fact, the law, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, repeated three times in the Old Testament (Ex. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:19, 20; Deut. 19:21) is God s law. It was not His law for our personal dealings, as the Jews in Jesus day made it; but the law for the courts of Israel. God has given us courts and He instructs them to practice fair and equal justice - an eye for an eye. It is wrong, under God, to turn the other cheek in dealing out punishment to the criminal. The judge does not say to the murderer, Go and murder again, or to the rapist, Go and rape again. One thing wrong in America today is that we have forgotten God s standard of justice and allow murderers and rapists to walk our streets after we have slapped them on the wrist. We need more eye for eye justice in the courts of our land. Finally, we are not to turn the other cheek and refuse to resist evil in all our PERSONAL DEALINGS. When our honesty or honor is at stake we must stand up for the right. We must do it in love and with forgiveness for our enemies, but many times it is our duty to stand up for what is right and not turn the other cheek. Jesus Himself did not always turn the other cheek. When, on trial before the High Priest, He was slapped and He did not turn his cheek but responded with an honest rebuke. The Bible says,...one of the guards there slapped Him and said, How dare you talk to the High Priest like this! Jesus answered him, If I have said something wrong, tell everyone here what it was. But if I am right in what I said, why do you hit me? (Jn. 18:22-23). Jesus stood up for what was

4 right, yet He stood up in love for the soldier who slapped Him. His response was strong and true but had no mixture of hate or revenge in it. Jesus taught His disciples to stand up even to fellow church members who do us wrong. He said in Matthew 18:15-17, If your brother sins against you, go to him and show him his fult. But do it privately, just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have won your brother back. But if he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you... But if he will not listen to them, then tell the whole thing to the church. And then, if he will not listen to the church, treat him as though he were a foreigner and a tax collector. Here is a case involving disharmony in the church where Jesus prescribes the steps by which we are to resist evil. Arthur Pink makes the strange comment, (Jesus) resisted evil, attacked wrongdoers and when smitten did not turn the other cheek. He did not lie down before the evil traffic in the Temple but drove out the dishonest money changers with a whip. That, says Pink, was not passive resistance, but vigorous aggression. The Apostle Paul, when slapped, did not turn the other cheek. When he was on trial before the council, the High Priest ordered him slapped. And Paul responded with a severe rebuke, saying, God will certainly strike you - you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the Law, yet you break the law by ordering them to strike me. (Acts 23:3). We must remember that at times we ar4e CITIZENS OF SOCIETY WITH THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY TO RESTRAIN EVIL. If you and your family are walking down the street and a drunk attacks you, what is your Christian duty? I believe it is to stop him. This is not personal injury; this is an animal let loose on society and God s will, according to Romans 13, is that he be stopped. You should do it with love and with a desire to see the person helped, but you should do it. To turn the other cheek would be sinful and harmful. The same is true of someone who breaks into your home to brutalize your family. Your duty is not to lie down before him, but as a servant of the God of law

5 and order, to stop him. It was Solomon, the Christian soldier, who wrote, Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles... If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink... (Prov. 24:17; 25:21). This same principle applies to what Jesus says here about indiscriminate giving. We must temper this with verses like 2 Thessalonians 3:10 which says, If a person is unwilling to work, he should not be allowed to eat (2 Th. 3:10). We do positive harm when we give people what they should be willing to work for. The saintly William Law, who greatly influenced John Wesley, took this literally and never turned a beggar away. He helped them by the thousands and thereby thoroughly demoralized the community. Thus you can see the difficulty in knowing when and how we are to obey these strange teachings. They do not apply to the law and order principles that restrain evil in society. They do not mean we are not to stand up for what is right. They primarily mean we are not to retaliate with eye for eye revenge when people do us wrong. And when we stand up for what is right, we are to do it with love. In other words we are to also have... II. THE PROPER ATTITUDE Jesus is not merely trying to get us to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, hand over the cloak and open the door to beggars. He is trying to get us to truly LOVE these people to the point that we want to do these things. That s why He goes on to say, Love your enemies (v. 44). We can be obedient legalists and turn the other cheek with a heart full of hate. We can walk the second mile and begrudge every step. We can give to the taker and the borrower and despise them while we do it. If we act like this we have not come within a million miles of what our Lord is saying. This message has been frustrating to me because I can t bind up this truth in a neat and tidy package and tell you when to and when not to

6 turn the other cheek. I hope I have shown you from the Bible that there are times when the Lord would have us NOT to turn the other cheek to evil. I close with the illustration of a soldier. Suppose his nation is at war with a godless enemy. It is his Christian duty, as I see it, to obey Romans 13 and be God s servant in resisting evil. It is his Christian duty, according to Proverbs, to show what mercy and kindness he can to the enemy. If his country court martials him on a false charge, it is his right, as Jesus and Paul did, to resist evil lies with the truth, if he does it with love. A certain soldier (we will let it be this one), practiced his Christianity openly before his comrades. He went to chapel, read his Bible, refused to engage in sin and knelt by his bunk each night to pray. His fellow soldiers laughed him to scorn. One night, as he knelt by his bunk, the fellow above him took his nasty, muddy boot off the locker and dropped it on his head. The barracks roared with laughter. The praying Christian looked up at the fellow who dropped the book and then went on with his prayers. The fellow then took the other boot and dropped it. Once again the laughter rang out. The next morning, when the fellow who dropped the boots woke up, he found his boots back up on his locker. They had been cleaned and polished and shined as never before. Later, when they became friends in combat, the Christian won this young man to Christ. This, to me, is exactly what our Lord has in mind in these verses. We are not to take revenge on the person who does us wrong and we are to go the second mile and return the muddy boots that come our way, cleaned and polished and shined. God help us all to love lie that. Amen. WHEN NOT TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK (II) Jesus was not some visionary pacifist living in a dream world. He knew first hand the brutal realities of life and the necessity of law and order and just punishment in our courts. The state is not to turn the other cheek to violence and crime. To do so is to invite anarchy. But neither are Christians, in individual dealings, to ALWAYS turn

7 the other cheek. We are to no more take these commands literally than the command to cut off our hands in Matthew 5:30. The key word is love which seeks a person s highest good. We will weigh all the factors and do what is best for all concerned. The eye for an eye legal justice of the Old Testament was a law of love. It put a stop to revenge which far outweighed the crime. When a man killed a member of your family, you made him pay with his life, but you did not destroy his whole family or village. Thus God, in love, taught His people fairness and equal justice. But just as courts are to include mercy in their justice, so are we as individual Christians, to include justice and fairness in our mercy. Even in our personal dealings there will be times when we are NOT to obey these commands literally and are NOT to turn the cheek, walk the second mile, give up possessions without a fight or give to every beggar. Let s see how this works. Look first at... I. THE PRINCIPLE Jesus gives us the general principle, four concrete illustrations and then a grand summary. The general principle is this, Do not resist one who is evil (Matt. 5:39a). The TEV translates this, Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. The NEB says, Do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. There is an old saying, Cruelty puts you below your enemy; justice puts you even with him; but forgiveness puts you above him. Jesus says here, Don t come doen to the level of your enemy by getting nose to nose with him in bitter retaliation. There are three levels of life - the demonic, where we repay good with evil; the worldly, where we repay good with good and evil with evil; and the Christian, where we repay evil with good. There is a positive note here. Jesus forbids not just retaliation but even resistance. He says we are to stand above those who do us wrong, not just by refusing to fight, but by offering our hand in love. We are to offer the other cheek, the second mile and the coat. In other words we are to deny self and work toward truly loving and helping those who do us wrong. The Bible gives us four steps to take when

8 we are wronged: (1) First we are not to retaliate - Do not take the revenge on someone who wrongs you (Matt. 5:39). (2) We are to offer love and forgiveness (Prov. 25:21). (3) We are to turn them over to God - Never take revenge, my friends, but let God s wrath do it (Rom. 12:19). (4) We are to pray (Matt. 5:44) for their conversion, hoping that our example of love will make them burn with shame (Rom. 12:20). II. THE PARTICULARS Jesus gives four particular areas where we are to refuse to stand up to evil. There is INSULTS (Someone slaps you). There is INJUSTICE (Someone sues you). There is INCONVENIENCE (Someone forces you to submit to their authority). And there is INDISCRIMINATE BORROWING (Someone begs or steals from you). On this last one, if we give to every beggar we actually violate the teachings of Paul where he said, If you don t work you don t eat (2 Th. 3:10). However, if we, like the Pharisees, apply this with a cruel legalism and help no one, we violate all those scriptures that tell us to feed the hungry (Matt. 25, etc.). We don t have a neat set of laws, but like the courts must learn to balance justice and love. Let s look at two of our Lord s examples. The first example is insult or injury. Jesus says, If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek also. The key idea here is not physical attack but insult. To the Jews, one of the most degrading, insulting gestures was for someone to slap them with the back of their hand. The right cheek would naturally be slapped with the back of the right hand. This showed utmost contempt. It was like spitting on a man. We are wrong, I believe, to take this literally, and say a Christian must offer his face to someone who might mutilate him for life and that every insult should go unanswered. A fist can do terrible and permanent damage to the human face. If we literally obeyed we would first be encouraging this person to sin again. And second, we would not be following the example of Jesus Christ. When He was literally slapped before the High Priest (Jn. 18:22-23), He did not

9 literally turn the other cheek. Neither did He respond with anger and vengeance. But He did challenge the right of the soldier to hit Him. And He did it in a way to convict those around Him of the wrong they were doing. No, my friends, we are not to expose our bodies to permanent injury. The great Puritan preacher, John Brown, put it well, Our Lord...does not forbid us to defend ourselves when we are in danger. To do so is one of the strongest instincts of our nature, the law of God written on our hearts. But with regard to personal injuries, when there is no hazard of life, as in the case specified, it is our duty to repress resentment and to abstain from violence. Neither are we to always allow insults to go unanswered. When the Pharisees criticized Jesus for drinking wine, He did not passively turn the other cheek. He told them they were as fickle as children because they rejected John for not drinking wine and Him for drinking it (Matt. 11:16-10). Here again His response was not to trade insults but to convict them of sin and lead them to repentance. In neither case, insult or injury, did He literally turn the other cheek. But in both cases He offered a loving rebuke aimed at saving His enemies. The second example is injustice. Jesus said, If someone takes you to court to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well (Matt. 5:40). I ran head on to the difficulty of taking this literally in my first church out of seminary. A man in that church owned a business. His brother, who was a partner, died and his widow tried to gain control of the business in the courts. This Christian man came to me and asked if God, according to this verse, expected him simply to hand over his business without any legal resistance whatsoever. My answer to him then and to you now is no. It was God Himself, establishing law and order, in the Old Testament, who gave us courts to protect our property. And God would not forbid the proper use of that which He has given us for our own good. Both Jesus (Jn. 18:22-23) and Paul (Acts 16:37) stood up in the courts and told the truth. Paul, to protect his rights as a Roman citizen, appealed to the highest human court in the land, that of Caesar (Acts 28:19). What then did Jesus mean? What is the improper use of courts and the improper response to injustices?

10 Jesus teaches here first, that we are to avoid going to court if at all possible and settle our differences in love even if it means we come up on the short end. He condemns here the common practice of hauling people into court over petty issues and out of anger. This is exactly what happened years later in Corinth. Believers were hauling fellow believers to court (1 Cor. 6:1) and Paul said, Shame on you! Surely there is one wise man in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between the brothers... Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? Instead you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another (1 Cor. 6:5, 7, 8). A slap brings out instant anger but a suit brings out settled resistance and seething anger that drives you to the sorry level of your attacker. Thus says Jesus, don t take a person to court because he piles trash in your yard, puts his fence a foot over on your property, cuts a limb off your favorite tree and causes it to die, calls you a dirty name or cheats you out of a few dollars. The shirt and coat speak here of petty issues. It involves the loss of a garment, not a business or a reputation. You know, this is not only scriptural, but sensible. It just makes good sense to stay out of court when possible. You usually wind up with broken relationships, dirty hands, and stomach ulcers. The only ones who win are the lawyers. To say we must never go to court is unscriptural and ridiculous. If a drunken driver hits our car it is our duty to take his tag number and testify in court against him. If someone tries to take our business it is our right under God and our duty as Christian employers to use the courts God has given to protect the rights of our employees and their families, and of our own family. That which Christ condemns, says Pink, is not the legitimate use of the courts, but going to law over trifles. Jesus teaches here, second, that we are not to use the courts to vent our anger and seek personal revenge. When we do go to court we are to go as Christian gentlemen, with love and mercy for our enemies. We are, like Paul and Jesus, to present the truth and stand up for the right. It is so easy to let the courts do our dirty fighting for us.

11 I have recently tested this scripture in my own life. My uncle always intended to leave me his ten acre farm with two houses, to keep it in the family. He remarried in hiss 60's and instead of making a will had his new wife sign an agreement that she would forfeit all inheritance rights to the farm. When he died she refused to accept the legality of the agreement. As next in line to inherit what was I to do? As a Christian nephew I felt it was to honor his wishes. I felt it my duty to use the courts. I prayed about the matter and felt I should harbor no ill feelings toward the woman and get in no personal wranglings with her. I left it with the courts. The lawyers concluded that the marriage contract was binding over this contract and she inherited the land. Since that time I have prayed and God had led me to the point that if a will is found, I would give this woman one of the houses for life. Since I had hoped to use this for retirement, I also had to trust God for a home for my family. I claimed the verse, The cattle on a thousand hills are Thine. And a year after all this our church voted to enable me to buy my own home and provide housing needs for my family and for my retirement. I believe I obeyed God, not by refusing to go to court, but by refusing to be drawn into bitter conflict and angry confrontation. And God, through your generosity and wisdom, as always, has taken care of me and mine. Jesus teaches us, third, that we are not forever and always to be standing up for our rights. The Jews used this outer garment or cloak for a bed at night when they were on the road. It was their only protection from the cold, the heat, the wind and the sand. It was so vital that the Old Testament made it a law that if you legally seized a man s cloak you had to return it before sundown (Ex. 22:26). To keep their cloaks was a right and Jesus said we must be willing to give up our rights. It is better to be cheated and leave the matter with God than to fume and fret over the fact that you have been cheated. In our personal dealings we are to respond with love and forgiveness when wronged. Why should we do it? For one thing, because it is Godlike and Christlike. Jesus said, Love

12 your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you, so that you will become sons of your Father in heaven (Matt. 5:45). The idea is that you will act like sons by bearing the family image. For another thing, it is the pathway to the abundant life. The miserable person is always keeping stock of how much is owed him. He knows what his rights are and demands them. He carries grudges and nurses revenge and never really seems to break even. I have seen families fall apart over arguments involving a few dollars. I have seen farmers worry themselves into an early grave over disputed land lines. I have seen people spend their lives in misery, remembering a time in their past when they were cheated. Love, which Paul says, does not keep a record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13), sets us free from all this. Hatred and revenge make us prisoners.