Scripture
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
~Romans 12:19, NIV
Quote
Ultimately, no one will get away with anything.
~Ya’akov
God said through Moses, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” [Deut. 32:35] What ever the LORD says, He will do. Psalm 94 begin…The LORD is a God who avenges. The prophet Nahum said, The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. There are more but you get the picture: revenge belongs to God. It is never our responsibility to level the playing field by getting even with someone who has offended us or treated us unjustly. There is not much in this world that is fair: Solomon said, “I have seen slaves living like kings and kings living like slaves.” It is a mixed up world where the deserving go without recognition and the undeserving are praised.
When Moses drafted the lex talionis {eye for an eye and tooth for tooth} it was a huge advancement over the law of unlimited revenge. If a member of one tribe took the like of a member of another tribe: only one life was required for justice to be served. Before the law of Moses, one tribe would retaliate by whipping out an entire tribe. Jesus taught us a better way: turn you enemies over to God and let Him deal with them. Relocate them: move them from your hand to God’s hand. Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:43, “Rejoice, you nations, for he will avenge the blood of his servants.” I don’t have a single doubt: God will avenge His servants. I spend absolute no time worrying about my enemies paying for their offenses. First of all, I can’t think of an offense worth mentioning but as I look back over these 50 years of ministry–God has always taken care of me.
I’ve been threatened more than once. I even had a guy pronounce a curse on me. One man vowed to ruin me; actually two have vowed to ruin me. All of this has happened in the last 40 years and I don’t think I’ve lost a single nights sleep over these threats. One threat was so severe that fear arose in my heart but I got alone with God and He assured me that He could handle it. He took my anxiety and my fear and I praise him for it. There is an old proverb: he who seeks revenge must first dig two graves–one for the person he wants to destroy and one for himself because in our effort to destroy another, we destroy ourselves. This is basically what Paul says in Galatians 5:15,
But if you keep attacking each other like wild animals, you had better watch out or you will destroy yourselves.
You may not have needed this blog but I got another one of those headaches yesterday and I had to go back and pick up some old notes.
Loving the cool weather: we had a fire in the outdoor fit pit last night. We had some quality fam time around the old camp fire.