Resist Not Evil

Driving home: If you want to know what you'll be like if you become a religious person without becoming a reborn person, then just study the Pharisees.

The Pharisees serve as a perfect example of religion without the transforming experience of the Spirit, concerned only with external conduct but not the heart's attitude toward God.

If you want to know what you'll be like if you become a religious person without becoming a reborn person, then just study the Pharisees. For here's the perfect example of religion without the transforming experience of the Spirit of God within the human heart. If you want to know what it's like to become a religionist who's merely concerned with being in the right place, saying the right words, doing the right thing, but having no concern about the attitude of your heart, then just study the Pharisees and you have a perfect picture of what it's like to be a religionist who's merely concerned ...

1:39 - 2:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The human heart is continually perverting the word of God, and only a heart taught by the Spirit can handle the Scriptures without destroying itself.

Just as people pervert 'saved by grace' to mean 'live as I please' or 'works add to salvation,' the human heart continually twists God's word to justify its own sin.

The Pharisees so interpreted as to give a license to evil. It's amazing how the human heart will, risk the word of God to justify its own sin, isn't it? If the Bible teaches we're saved by grace and not by works, then people say, then I'll live as I please.

6:36 - 6:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If it was simply something of turning the other cheek, this would be an easy command. But what the Lord is saying, you've got to have a heart like mine, free from revenge.

Billy Bray, a converted pugilist, was punched by a coworker in the mine. Instead of retaliating, he forgave the man, leading to the coworker's conversion, illustrating turning the other cheek and letting God vindicate.

Billy Bray, some of you have read about his life. Have you ever read about Billy Bray at all? He was a Cornish miner. He was a profligate, wicked, cursing miner.

24:15 - 24:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Apply the principle of not retaliating when someone shows contempt to your person in your homes, especially between husbands and wives.

Husbands and wives often react with vengeance when they perceive an act of contempt from their spouse (e.g., late dinner, unwashed dishes), highlighting the need to die to the spirit of 'vengeance is mine'.

Can you see what would happen if we by the grace of God and by the power of the Spirit began to apply this principle in our homes? You husbands and wives, what's the root of most of your squabbles? It's because you feel your husband or wife has done something or said something that was beneath your dignity. Hmm?

27:38 - 28:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn that it's not your business to repay; let the Lord repay when your brother or sister wants to start a scrap.

A Christian soldier, taunted and hit with muddy boots by a barracks mate, polished the boots and left them at the man's bunk, demonstrating turning the other cheek and not retaliating.

Perhaps you've heard the story of the young man, Christian, who went into the service. And he determined that no matter what it cost, he was going to let these fellows know what it was to follow Christ. And so he would kneel every night by his bunk there in the barracks and pray. And the fellows would taunt him, make fun of him.

29:25 - 29:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn that it's not your business to repay; let the Lord repay when your brother or sister wants to start a scrap.

Churches split because individuals feel their 'rights' have been ignored or contempt shown to them by leadership, leading to retaliation rather than self-denial.

You see what this would mean in churches? Someone feels, I haven't been given my rights. The pastor's ignored me. Well, the board has ignored me.

30:53 - 31:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not fight tooth and nail for every last shred of your legal rights, especially in daily situations within the home, school, government, or workplace.

Family fusses arise when one person feels their 'right' to bathroom time is trampled by another, illustrating the flesh's reaction to defend legal rights.

Come on now, isn't it? Let me make it practical. Your brother or your wife or husband spends too much time in front of the mirror in the bathroom and you want to get in there and shave or crimp your hair. I've got a right to as much time as they've got.

34:22 - 34:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not demand an apology as a right, hindering reconciliation until it is given.

While acknowledging the right to legal action against injustice, Martin critiques the 'clamoring for rights' in civil rights issues when the sole motivation is self-vindication, contrasting it with God's frown on both injustice and selfish demands.

But when it comes to this matter of self-vindication, may I speak very practically this morning, this is one of the great problems in the whole civil rights issue. I've gone on record from this pulpit and will continue to do so, that any Christian who has any hard attitude to any man of any race or any color contrary to love and to perfect openness and willingness to fellowship with him, that Christian is living in gross sin. And I thank God that as a fellowship we've had no problem here along this line that I know. And I also believe that every person in a minority group who's being persecute...

37:44 - 38:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not demand an apology as a right, hindering reconciliation until it is given.

When someone sins against us, the flesh demands an apology as a 'right,' hindering reconciliation until that right is met, illustrating the pervasive nature of self-vindication.

Can you think what would happen for one week in a home where the father and mother and the children were dead to this matter of my rights and simply sought by the power of the Spirit to manifest the attitude which said, if you're going to press me for my rights, you'll get no retaliation from me. Do you think what a home would be like? Let me get more specific. Someone sins against us and we say, I've got a right to have an apology from you and until you apologize, I don't think you're going to get next to me.

39:38 - 40:21 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third illustration, being compelled to go one mile and going two, speaks to impositions on personal liberties by constituted authority. Martin emphasizes a willing and glad…

Simon being compelled by Roman soldiers to carry Christ's cross illustrates the government's right to impose burdens, setting the stage for the 'second mile' principle.

It was the right of government in a time when our Lord spoke and the Romans of course ruled over Palestine, that if a group of soldiers were coming along with some of their supplies and they saw you, they'd say, look, we want this taken from this point to that point, you carry it. You didn't have any choice. You remember it says that when Jesus was going out to be crucified, they compel one, Simon of Cyrene, to bear his cross. He just happened to be in the area and they said, you, Buster, come here.

41:10 - 41:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Manifest a glad attitude towards paying taxes, even giving the benefit of the doubt to the government.

The Christian's attitude towards paying taxes, whether grudgingly or gladly, and giving the 'benefit of the doubt' to the government, illustrates going the second mile in submission to authority.

Tribute to whom tribute is due. Now what's your attitude when you have to make out your income tax check? If you have to give more? Or when you get some back, what's your attitude?

44:23 - 44:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not do homework grudgingly or sloppily, but with a willing spirit, as a testimony to your teachers.

Students' attitudes towards homework, doing only the bare minimum grudgingly, illustrates a failure to go the second mile in submission to teachers as constituted authority.

Homework. Homework. Now what's your attitude to homework? I'll tell you what the attitude of some of you is.

45:30 - 45:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Gladly submit to employers even when they infringe on personal liberties or break promises, rather than reacting with resentment.

Parents' attitudes towards employers who infringe on personal liberties or break promises illustrate the challenge of going the second mile in submission to authority in the workplace.

I want to turn the tables. How about you parents and your attitude to your employers? Hmm? And they require things that go beyond what you thought was involved in your original contract and they begin to infringe on your personal liberties.

46:09 - 46:24 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin turns to Christ as the ultimate example, who 'emptied himself' and 'gave himself,' enduring indignities, impingements on His liberties, and illegalities in His trial, all…

Martin wishes for a moratorium on Christmas gift-giving and trappings, so Christians could meditate on Christ's self-emptying and self-giving, highlighting the core message of the sermon.

Emptied himself and gave himself. You know what I'd love to do at this Christmas time for every child of God, for every Christian? If I had the power, I'd like to declare a moratorium on all buying and exchanging of gifts, all the trappings and all the garbage connected with Christmas. I'd like to declare a moratorium on the whole business and ask every Christian to sit in his room for eight hours quietly with an open Bible and meditate on those two words.

49:02 - 49:37 Read in full sermon