Amen. Well, if you take your Bibles out and turn to the Book of Romans, we are in Romans chapter 12 this morning. Romans chapter 12. Last time we looked at how Christians are to love all men, by always blessing and doing good and seeking to be at peace with everyone, even though there will be times and there will be people with whom we will not be able to be at peace. Either because they will not cease to do evil, or because the truth is at stake, and we cannot compromise the truth. We cannot create an evil piece, a false piece, a piece that further sinned. We must not do that.
So today, as we move on in the Book of Romans, we look at one of the most important concepts for Christians to grasp, I think, especially if we're going to be able to seek peace with all, to bless those who are cursing us, and that concept is divine retribution. We read about it in two different passages in the scripture reading. We said it in the call to worship, that God is the God of vengeance. Why does the scripture teach us that over and over again? What good things can we learn from that? And how will that help us to live for God, to be able to resist those who do evil to us? Well, it'll help us as we know for certain that God, one day, will make every wrong right. He will restore every loss. He will return what was taken. He will establish justice in all the world. That's good news. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father, we thank you that you are the God of vengeance, the God of justice. And though we see many acts of evil in this world, many that are not right in. We know one day they will be right. Lord help us to understand this word today. Help us not to abuse it. Help us to understand it rightly. We would humble ourselves before your word that we would walk by faith and not by sight that you would be glorified in our midst. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. We're going to begin in verse 17, this one, but really focused on 19 through 21. So here, the word of God. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible as much as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath for it is written. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap colds of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning. Well, if we are going to understand and correctly apply this text, if we are going to not take vengeance, as I called the name of my servant, sermon, do not take vengeance, we're going to have to remember God's justice. That's my first point this morning. You and I must remember God's justice. Look at verse 19, that first word, beloved. I like it when Paul says that, because a lot of times when he says that, he's about to give us a difficult word. That's the way we do it, right? Beloved, I love you. I want you to know that, and now here's something that's a little difficult. Well, that's the context in which it comes because God loves us. He gives us difficult words. He doesn't compromise the truth. He doesn't back down from things. He doesn't water it down to us. He wants us to know what we need to know in order to glorify him and enjoy him forever. And the difficult word here is, do not avenge yourself. Now you say, pastor, that's an easy word. I totally agree with that. I don't like vengeance. I don't want God to do that. That's, wow, there's anything I have down. It's that I don't take vengeance on people, and I don't want anybody to take vengeance on me. Well, let me just, let me just submit to you that I think if you look a little deeper, you'll see that's not true. I think we are very good at taking vengeance. I think we take vengeance all the time. Somebody says something to you, and you don't like it, and you just say something back to them. And you know why you did it? Or somebody does something to us, and you think, well, I'm going to treat him differently for that. Or it affects the way that you have an attitude towards that person. You and I do this all the time. I think, no, we're not out there, and I for an I. But then it's not very often that we lose an I either, is it? An insult for an insult, though, an offense for an offense, and ignoring for an ignoring. Oh yeah, yeah, suddenly I think we can do that a lot. I want to challenge you. I think we do that. We go out of our way not to greet somebody because of something they did do us. We go out of our way not to help somebody because of some perceived insult that they did to us. And I think we even use scripture at times, right? We'll give the person a verse to make them feel bad or we'll talk to them in such a way that, oh yes, we're just interested in their sanctification. My favorite way is when we get together and we say, you know, I'm really concerned about so-and-so, let's pray for him. And then we spend the next 15 minutes just ripping his reputation to shreds, right? Just saying all the evil things, but, you know, it's for prayer now. Let's say, you know, I just want to pray for this first. Oh, I think this is something that we do, and, you know, we've seen this command over and over again. Now this same kind of command in the book of Romans. I just want to walk back to it. In fact, in the second half of the chapter 12, which is the first chapter, really, where Paul is directly applying. All the doctors in the Degabe us in the first 11 chapters. Look back at verse 14, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Remember, I said he repeats it because the gut reaction is the curse. You know, on the playground, your body hits you, you hit them back. That's that's reaction. That's what we do. So he says, bless, no, bless, do not curse. Repay no one evil for evil. Paul says in verse 17, have regard for good things in the sight of all men. And then our verse, beloved, do not avenge yourself. And then verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Why would Paul say this over and over and over again to these Roman Christians? Well, it must be because this Roman church was really just a bunch of violent, you know, borderline animals. I mean, there are days where so much worse than we are, right? I don't think so at all. In fact, I think when you read the content of this letter, this most weighty letter of the apostle Paul, this must have been a very mature church. This must have been a very significant church, a sanctified church, a good solid group of Christian people, and yet over and over and over again. Don't take vengeance, don't curse. Don't do evil to people. He's saying this to Christians over and over again. And I think it's precisely because we have a tendency to do that this is our nature as Calvin said. And so to not avenge ourselves, not out of fear, while I don't want to do this to that person because he might do something worse to me, and that's not the spirit of this word, or to not avenge ourselves because, well, if I do this to this person, there's other people who see me and then they won't think of it, then I'm a good person. You know, we have some vested self-interest. No, to not avenge ourselves simply because it's the right thing to do, to not do evil when someone is done evil back to us. I think that is a powerful witness to God because it shows the grace of God in the heart like few things do. And it's not that we don't know that it's wrong by nature. That's why we say this as an easy command. Every non-Christian knows it's wrong to take vengeance. At the time of Paul's Socrates had written, well, not written, I always say that, Socrates had taught against personal vindictiveness. Epictetus who lives right after Paul was well known as a Roman philosopher who taught against personal revenge. And these were pagan philosophers. We know this is true. And of course, we ask, well, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. This one here is part of the verse, people wonder, what does that mean, give place to wrath? Well, is it give place to your wrath? You know, let it cool. I just, you know, I got to take a few moments. I got to go cool off. Is that what he means? beloved, do not avenge yourself, give place to wrath. Give your, not tell some time to get over it. Some people say that. Or give place to wrath. Give place to the other person's wrath. Hey, yes, they're doing able to you and just endure it. Give place to their wrath. Don't, don't return it back to them. Some say that. Or some say, give place to wrath in the, in the place of civil magistrates. Give place to the wrath that will come when, when the law comes down on them for what they did. Well, Paul, let's talk about that in Romans 13. How the civil magistrate is a servant of God to punish evil doers. See, that's talk about that and all these things. There's a little bit of truth to it. But now that's really not the point. Is it give place to wrath? Clearly, is give place to God's wrath. Do you see that? beloved, do not avenge yourself, but rather give place to wrath for, we don't have to guess what he means. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. I think this is the reason why Paul is giving, the Romans, this is the motivation he's giving to them, the incentive he's giving to them. This is why you don't take vengeance because God will take vengeance. The Bible says this is exactly the way in which Jesus Christ refrained from bringing wrath in his life. 1 Peter 2.23 says this, Jesus, when he was reviled and he was, did not revile and return, when he suffered, he did not threaten. Listen, but he committed himself to him who judges righteously. Do you see what it says about Christ? It doesn't say, oh, he endured all these things and he had no thought towards justice or making them right. No, he endured these things by committing himself to a judge who would judge righteously. Jesus understood that and it was not his time, it was not his place. We know when he first came, he came to bring salvation and he does not come to destroy, but to save, as he says. And so our incentive, our motivation, our power to refrain from vengeance is the sure and certain conviction that God will make things right. I think we've lost that in the modern church today. We don't want to talk about that, but when we lose that, we lose the incentive that we have not to take vengeance. To be able to let it go because you know God will make it right. What a powerful incentive that we have. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay. To make vengeance ourselves here clearly does two evil things. First of all, it steals from God. It's God's prerogative to do this. Do you see that vengeance is mine? It's God's right. We're all typically when we take vengeance, we are concerned with our rights. Well, that person treated me wrongly and he should have treated me better and so I'm going to just show him how wrong it was by doing the exact same thing back to him and it's for his good. And that's the way we sort of justified in our heads, right? But God says, vengeance is mine. We're taking from God. We're stealing from God. We're taking his rights when we do that. God said he will make it right. Therefore it not only steals from God, but it doubts his word. We're basically saying, I either don't think God can or I don't think God will. I don't think he will. I don't think God cares what happens to me. I've had this horrible thing happen to me and God doesn't care. And so I'm going to take wrath myself. Well, that's what we're saying when we act in vengeance. And there are so many scriptural examples that we read over and over again in our service that promises that God know, God will. God will take vengeance. God will bring perfect justice. We have the statement in chapter 13 where Paul says that even the civil magistrate, even human government has been willed by God for that very purpose that there would be justice in this world. No, it's not going to be perfect because we're sinners, but there is a way in which God has given even simple man a way to try and write wrongs. Several places in the New Testament, first Thessalonians 4 says God will take vengeance on adulterers and Paul is actually warning the Thessalonians against committing adultery because God will take vengeance on those who commit adultery. What a terrible thought that is. In Luke chapter 18, we have the parable of the unjust judge. We all remember that, right? The parable of the unjust judge. The woman keeps coming to him saying get justice. Get literally get vengeance. Same word. Get vengeance. Get justice. Avenge me on my enemies and the judge what? I don't have time for you. And he just gets tired of this woman pestering him. So eventually he says, I don't fear God or man, but I'm going to do with this woman. One just shows she lets me alone. You know what the point of the story was? The next verse. Verse 7, this is what why Jesus told that story. And shall not God avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them. That's the promise of that parable. That God will avenge his elect just as this unjust judge avens this woman. You see the thing that I think that where we we prevert in our own sinfulness when we take vengeance is justice should matter to us. We should be upset when we see evil in this in this world. When we see evil things being done and they're not being corrected. I know we don't have to watch the news long, right? To see murder and rape and kidnapping and just horrible monstrous things that are done. And we should be insensed at those things. And if something like that would happen to you, well, absolutely, it should be something that should cause you to cry out to God that he would write that wrong. Justice should matter to us. And it's good and right for us to make use of those institutions that God has established, the police, the courts, the civil magistrate. Remember, these verses, again, they're not talking about that. You and I, it's good for us to use the right. Remember Paul stands on his rights when they were going to beat him wrongly and so forth. This, remember, this whole passage is about our personal relationships. So it's not saying don't ever go to court or don't ever, you know, press charges. There are times that where we need to make sure that criminals are brought to justice. This isn't talking about that. It's talking about you and I. You know, I can't play the executioner in my personal relationship. That would be wrong. But even in all those things, even in those things, our hope ultimately is in God. Our hope has got to be in God because even in the best court systems, the best nations, justice is not perfectly carried out. And that's the point. If you and I are going to rightly be able, and truly from the heart, to be able to not take vengeance, we have to be able to trust in God and know he will make this right someday. I don't think there's another way in which we can keep this command except by knowing that because I know some of you have gone through terrible things, monstrous sins. Some of the sins that I mentioned maybe were committed against you. How can you let go? How can you forgive? How can you not take vengeance? By knowing there's a God who saw it, who saw every second of it, who hated it more than you hated it. And he will absolutely, certainly, perfectly restore all that was taken from you. I don't know how that can be, but I know that he will because he's a God of justice. He is the God of vengeance. Listen to the book of Revelation, chapter six, a couple of passages that just talk about this. As the hope of God's people, verse nine, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony, which they held, and they cried out with a loud voice saying, listen, how long oh Lord, holy and true, how long until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. These are sinless saints saying this, sinless, crying out for justice, for vengeance. Then a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they were was completed. There's a reason why injustice happens in this world because this is the time of God's mercy. If God brought justice, we would all be killed. But by the fact that God has mercy means there's going to be injustice that's committed, that's not going to be dealt with for a time. But the time is coming, Revelation says. And then when God's justice falls, how does the book of Revelation end? Chapter 18, verse 20, when God brings justice on that great evil city Babylon, rejoice over her, oh heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, or this is why they're rejoicing, for God has avenged you on her. They will rejoice. You and I will do so as well for Revelation chapter 19. After these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, hallelujah, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. Listen, for true and righteous are his judgments because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her. Again, they said, hallelujah. Her smoke rises up forever and ever, and the 24 elders in the four living creatures fell down, and they worshipped God who sat on the throne saying, Amen, hallelujah. Beloved someday, you and I will see perfect justice for every awful, unthinkable, unspeakable crime. We will see it perfectly corrected, and we will rejoice. This is how we don't take vengeance today. Secondly, in order to not take personal vengeance, we must practice God's goodness. We must practice God's goodness. Look at verse 20. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. You know, Jesus practiced this virtue in his life. Remember when James and John, while the disciples were going through Samaria, and they were going to go into this city and the Samaritans would not receive him. It said, and then James and John, you know, the sons of thunder, said to Jesus, do you want us to call it on fire from heaven and wipe off these Samaritans? Remember what Jesus says back to them? But he turned and rebuked them, and he said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are up. Here it is, for the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives. But to save them, and he went to another village. You know, all of Christ's efforts throughout his life were focused on the gospel of salvation, on the ministry of mercy, on doing good to those who were doing evil to him, on being a blessing to those who were cursing. And yes, he gave difficult words of review sometimes, but sometimes back what the situation called for, if he was going to do good, if he was going to be a blessing. Jesus Christ, practice this, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. God showed you and I mercy, not justice. And that means we should be able to show others mercy. God will take care of justice. It's our job to call men and women to repent, to believe, to desire, to truly desire the good of them that they would participate in the salvation that you and I have received. I think the error of James and John's day, well the error of James and John made that day was that they wanted to bring justice to God's, well to God's enemies, right, the Samaritans, like Jonah. Jonah had decided who God's enemies were, and it was an inner bite. And he didn't want to preach the gospel to them. And yet God had a different idea. God wanted to save those wicked sinners. And when you and I remember that we are saved wicked sinners, it might help us to do good to those who do evil to us. It was not yet the time. There is a time coming when God will range judgment down, but until that happens, you and I are to give food and drink to our enemies. We are to do good to them. That's what that means to do. To meet real needs, you know, the Old Testament was full of this kind of commandment. The Old Testament said, if you see your neighbor, if you see your enemies, I'm sorry, if you see your enemies auction, you know, loose out in the field. What do you do? Well, you call your buddies and you sit out in your lawn chair and say, I can't wait to see something happen to my enemies auction here. No, that's not what you do. You return it. You stop what you're doing and you return it. Even if they wouldn't return it to you, even if they would do that to you. Don't allow the evil of others to make you do evil. Seek to do good. Seek to help people. That's what pleases God. I think that's what what taking personal vengeance forgets. We leave God out of the picture. We forget about we're here to glorify God. We are here to please God. And all we think about is ourselves and our own glory and our own justice. And so we act, but we don't focus on God where this section, this whole section of scripture began in chapter 12 with what? That you and I are to give these these spiritual sacrifices. We're to be present our bodies. They living sacrifice are reasonable service. That's what we are to do. And this is one of the ways we do it by not taking vengeance, by not taking vengeance. It glorifies God. It pleases God by doing good when others do evil to us. It glorifies God. It pleases God. And God promises us reward. Listen to Luke chapter six, but love your enemies. Do good and lend hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the most high for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. This is how you and I are like God when we do good to those who are doing evil to us. Thirdly, we need to allow for God's conviction. We need to allow for God's conviction. Look at verse 20 again. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. That's how first, isn't it? What does that mean? Paul is simply quoting Proverbs chapter 25 verse 21 and 22. You see the same ethic of the Old Testament in the New Testament, right? They were called to love their enemies too. Coals of fire typically was used with reference to judgment in God's wrath. That's what reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah. These brimstone and fire from heaven reigned down upon them. That's what James and John wanted to call upon the heads of this American. Coals of fire. There's a lot of thought about what exactly this is. What does this refer to? Keeping coals of fire on their head. Well, some say, well, you know, they would put coals of fire on the metal on the anvil for the blacksmith and that would melt the metal. And some say, well, see, this would be sort of like a kind of self-tourment that the person will inflict upon themselves. If you do this good to them, then it'll be like this coals of fire that will just melt them, bring a kind of suffering to them in that way. Or some say that this is actually referring to a custom that was present in ancient Egypt, where if a person was really penitent about something, he would actually put a pan of hot coals on his head and walk around the streets saying, how sorry he was for what he did. Some say that Paul was talking about that. I don't necessarily think that that's correct. There are other things that it could be. Some say it refers to the future that at God's judgment. If you do evil to someone that does, I'm sorry, if you do good to someone that does evil to you and they continue to do evil in the face of your good, you're in their judgment's going to be increased. There will be an effect. Coals of fire heats upon them in their torment, in hell forever, because too much is given, much is required to sin against good, is even worse than to sin against evil, and absolutely that's true. There's truth in some of these other thoughts, but I think what this refers to is the conviction that the Holy Spirit brings. It's a powerful witness of man's evil when we do good to them because they look at that and they just don't understand it because they know full well what they would do back to us. If we did to them, what they did to us, it's just it's against our fallen nature to do good. And so it's such a powerful witness. It's like keeping coals of fire, the conscience, the heart, it's bringing a powerful source of conviction to them. Yes, if they harden themselves against that, it's going to be worse for them in the judgment, but that's not your incentive. You know, do it yourself. Oh, I'm going to do this good thing for them so that when they die and go to hell, it's going to be so much worse for them. That is totally foreign to the spirit of this fact, right? And the fact that God will judge more severely is God's business. We are the truly desire. They're good. And to truly allow the good that we do to maybe be that thing that God does to convert them. Wouldn't you rather than be converted? That they would be sorry, sincerely sorry for what they did to you. Even if it was monstrous, that the person would see it, that they would be horrified by it, that they would hate themselves for what they did, that they would cry out to God for forgiveness. Wouldn't that be better? Them, in a sense, persecuting themselves rather than you persecuting them against their will. Them willfully acknowledging, agreeing with you and crying out to you against the evil, or crying out to God against their own evil. Wouldn't that be better? It reminds me of a story. And I think I shared part of this with you. When I was growing up in Salzburg, we had this little story that we would go down to right at the, over by the reservoir area. And we'd run down the hill down to Amy's candy store, which is called a Amy's. And my dad would go to Amy's candy store when he was a kid. And the way he told me, she was an older woman then. I don't know how old Amy was. She was very old. And you would go to this door. It was like this storefront door, but it was on this yellow brick. It was just a house. And you'd open the door and the bell would ring. And I mean, this room was the candy store. And then there was like a, some other area with a cooler and some pop that you could buy, some pop that you couldn't find anywhere else. And then there was a doorway. And that was her house. And you'd hear her a lot of times. It would take her a long time. She was really hunched over, you know, a big bump on her back. And she would come out, you know, friendly as kind of old lady. And I told you what I did that time with Amy. And I knew that there were boys that would go in sometimes and shoplift. And it was really easy to do because by the time she came out of the store, you could be in and out and do whatever you wanted to. But I went in one time with this idea that I got, because we went to Monticello to see Thomas Jefferson's, you know, home. And one of the things, you know, Thomas Jefferson's on the nickel. And you could buy these little nickel rings. And it was a ring like I have on my finger. But with a nickel on the outside of the ring. And what I thought, and of course in my deviousness, I got this, like the Grinch, I thought of this evil thought and I thought it up quick, I turned my the ring around in my hand. And it looked like I had a nickel sitting on my hand. You couldn't see the ring. You just saw this nickel. And I thought, wow, that looks like that I'm holding a nickel. But I'm not. I have a ring. So immediately I thought, well, if I put four other nickels on that in my hand, it'll look like I'm holding five nickels. And I can drop those nickels into somebody's hand and they'll think I just gave them 25 cents, but I've only given them 20. And so I thought immediately, why I'm going to go do this. And I went down to Amy's candy store. She had the one scent candy shelf and the two scent candy shelf and the three scent, you know. And I got 25 cents worth of candy. And I held out my hand and I showed her what looked like five nickels. And she put out her kindly old hand and I dropped four nickels into her hand. Of course she never counted it. She put it in the cash register. And I walked out of that store thrilled that I just sold five cents of candy from a godly old woman. But you know, a funny thing happened as I did that. I started to think about it. I started to remember it. It started to bother me, continued to bother me because I'd go back down there and she was so kind to us all the time. And it was just her goodness that finally got to me. And one time I ran into the store and I could hear her in the back and I knew it would be a while before she came out and I threw two dollars on the counter and I ran back out of the store. And I had to do that because there were hot colds on my head, convicting me. I love it. That's what you and I are called to do to people, to do good to them, that God would use that. Even if they're doing evil to you. And you can do that as you trust God will take care of the evil. Trust in God's justice. Practice God's goodness. Allow for God's conviction and fourthly and lastly we need to trust in God's dominion. We need to trust in God's dominion here. Verse 21, do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. There's a word in the Greek language. It's Niche. But the way the Greek letters are, the end looks like a V. Looks like like Viche. And of course the Latin word here is the word Victus. It's conqueror. Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good. You know there's only one way that evil can conquer us. That is not if it causes us to suffer. Not if it makes us lose our possessions. Not if it hurts our reputation. Not if it persecutes us. Not if it puts us in prison wrongly. Evil can't beat us in any of those ways. In fact in all those things the Bible says we are more than conquerors through him and love them. The only way evil can conquer you is if it causes you to do evil. That's the only way evil can conquer you. If the evil of someone else would cause you to do evil back to them then and only then do you suffer loss. That's what evil seeks to do. There's two things going on. Either we are going to be making others more like us evil by our evil works or we are going to be giving others the opportunity to be more like us good by our good works. The God would use that as a conviction in their hearts. Words and actions of vengeance have one tendency. They seek to turn others evil and that's the very thing you and I are to resist. Calvin says when we do evil against evil we carry on war for the devil. We've just enlisted in the devil's army. We don't realize it. We think we've got a really good reason to do that. Well that person did that to me and I'm going to do it back to him and he'll probably learn a good lesson and that's so it's all good and it's okay and no. We've given it to evil at that point. We're doing evil. We're a soldier of Satan at that point. We lose.
When we give into doubting God and we do evil back to evil doers. That's when we lose. The effect of evil words and actions is only to make others evil whereas the effect of good words and actions by the grace of God would make others good and that's what God would use as God pleases. We either seek to improve the evil person or we are becoming like him. Don't be conquered by someone else's evil. Don't be overcome by evil. Overcome evil the only way evil can be overcome by doing good. You know I asked the question earlier in the sermon that Jesus asked and that parable the unjust judge in Luke chapter 18 verse 6 when or verse 7 when he says and show not God avenge his elect who cry out to him day and night though he bear along with them. Do you know what it's Christ's answer is and verse 8 does answer the question. I tell you the truth that he will avenge them speedily but then Jesus says this. Listen but nevertheless when the son of man comes will he really find faith on the earth do you hear what the context is there and someone's doing evil to you will you trust God enough to not take vengeance and allow him to do so will he really find faith that kind of faith when he comes let's pray father we thank you that you tell us not to take vengeance that's how we can be like you and we thank you that we can do so knowing that you will make every wrong right you will do it perfectly and Lord the truth of the matter is if you convert someone who has done monstrous evil to us it's not like that evil has gone unknown or unpaid for it would be the blood of Christ then that would have borne the wrath for that evil it will be judged fully and perfectly in Christ so there's no way for our suffering to go unnoticed unpaid for you will restore every loss you will bring justice inventions Lord help us to believe that and in the meantime help us to do good to trust in you to do good to really and truly desire good even the good of our enemies that we would see your goodness give birth to goodness in them help us to be servants of that cause and not soldiers in the devil's army and we pray this in Jesus name