Are We Happy When Our Enemies Die?

The Scripture tells us to love and pray for our enemies. Needless to say, humanly speaking, this is difficult to do, particularly for believers involved in war like what's happening in the Middle East. But even without this kind of violence, most would admit that loving or praying for people we do not like and who we consider opposed to us in some way is, again, challenging to say the least. More likely, we tend to wish they'd get what we think is their just desserts. One thing is clear, though, it is impossible to pray for others while maintaining ill will, especially hatefulness, toward them. Scripture does not say that in loving enemies, who are indeed threatening wrong-doers, we must wink at their indiscretions or approve of sin. No, we trust God to judge right and wrong, and with St. Augustine, we seek to love the sinner even as we hate the sin. On the cross, Jesus said, "Forgive them for they no not what they do," an example of loving and praying for ones others at least would call enemies. What about us? Is it possible to pray, even love, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis? Short answer, No, not without the Spirit of God's enablement. But with the God, all things are possible.
#pray #enemies #loveenemies #hamas #hezbollah #Christian

Transcript

Are we happy when our enemies get what we consider their “just desserts”? How do we square this with the biblical command to love our enemies?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #176 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life. 

When I was a kid, I remember times when I came home from school and started telling my mother about some other kid who had annoyed, bothered, upset me, or otherwise got under my skin. Mom would listen to this for a while, then invariably would say, “Well, have you prayed for him?” Prayed for him? No, Mom.  I was thinking more about punching him.

This is a simple illustration of the human inclination and experience to react against other humans, to dislike them, maybe to hold them in contempt. Adults may not talk to their mothers that often, but they still react to others like I did back when. It’s in our nature, our sin nature.

On a much larger, sensitive, and dangerous level, individuals, people groups, and countries get at odds, then think, speak, and act badly, often-times violently toward others. Such is happening today in the Middle East where rockets are flying, pagers are blowing up, military units are advancing on ground, and each of several antagonists is trying to kill their enemy.

It is in this context of real-life war and danger that my SAT-7 Lebanese colleagues at our studios in Beirut recently held their weekly devotions focused on the question, “Are we happy when our enemies die?”

The fact that they did this got my attention. They are living real-life, not a parlor game. They are concerned about their safety and even more the physical safety and emotional well-being of their children. They are Christian believers now living, literally, in the midst of a war zone that is none of their doing or choosing.

Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel almost daily since October 2023, and Israel is now responding, surgically targeting and killing Hezbollah leaders.

Rockets hit specific buildings within the city of Beirut, not very far from our studios or where our staff live, and these rockets have killed the Hezbollah leaders at which they were aimed, but also, they’ve killed nearby civilians, innocent noncombatants. These unintended victims, so-called “collateral damage,” could be anyone. 

Our SAT-7 Christian staff wanted to apply their Christian faith to their fears, concerns, and attitudes, wanting to respond as Jesus told us to respond: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” Matt. 5:43-44.

We are to love and pray for our enemies. This is not easy to do.

I have never been in combat, but I’ve spoken with several who have survived combat, including my late father-in-law, James B. Stone, who was a U.S. Marines in the second wave of troops to beach on Guadalcanal, engaged in some of the most difficult fighting. He suffered shrapnel wounds and damaged hearing that eventually caused him to go deaf, and he came home with a Silver Star. He was a war hero who later became a Christian.

Once or twice, he talked about how he and his fellows were taught to think of the Japanese during WWII, including insulting nicknames and ethnic slurs, forms of hate. Remember, the Japanese at that time were the quite capable and threatening enemy. Then he talked about how years later it was difficult to give over those deeply embedded feelings to the Lord, to not hate or not even think poorly of Japanese people, rather, to pray for them. 

If we are to pray for our enemies, we first need to define what or who is an enemy. Then there are other considerations, like self-defense, war, what is a Just War, and the meaning of the Imprecatory prayers in the book of Psalms. 

Our natural response to enemies is often to fight back, get even, put them in their place, work to assure they get their “just desserts,” or to demand justice. But when we obey Jesus and respond to our enemieswith love, prayer, forgiveness and blessing, we take ourselves out of Satan’s line of fire and make room for God to handle justice as only He can. We don’t have to worry about our enemies. 

This includes those among the enemy people group who are loveable, like children, but also those who are by their attitudes and actions decidedly “unlovely,” like radicals, extremists, and terrorists. And certainly, this includes enemies who persecute others, like al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, Hamas, Houthi, Hezbollah, and the Iran red guard.

In “Ezekiel 33:11, God said, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ God is not even happy even when an evil person dies. As Christians, we should reflect the mourning and love of our Lord, who grieves the loss of lives on both sides of the conflict.” 

Ultimately, our “enemies” are just people, just wayward individuals trapped in an “ism.” Can we then model the Lord and pray for our enemies, whatever the nature of their evil ideologies? 

This does not mean we surrender our responsibility to make judgments about right and wrong, or that we wink at wrong in some warped definition of love. No, with St. Augustine, we still “hate the sin and love the sinner.”

For me, it’s amazing to think: God cares about the “worst kind of sinner.” He can even draw people to himself who are involved in wicked aggression, for even this malevolence is not the unpardonable sin. 

The most compelling example of praying for one’s enemy was the prayer of Jesus on the cross. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” Luke 23:34. This prayer draws together three acts of the heart involved in loving our enemies: prayer, forgiveness, and mercy.

What about the other considerations? It is true that the Bible leaves room for self-defense, condemns murder but does not say, never kill, never use weapons, never go to war. There is a place in this fallen world for legitimate use of coercive force as noted in Rom 13:1-7. God says of legitimate government authority, “For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” This teaching is not in conflict with love your enemy.

Then there is Just War theory – the right to go to war, the right conduct within a war. For Christians, Just War theory dates to St. Augustine. Thinking about when a war is just and justifiable and when it is not is one way we can love our enemies.

In the Old Testament we find what’s called imprecatory prayers. To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon or curse” one’s enemies. King David, the psalmist most associated with imprecatory verses, often used phrases like, “may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them” (Psalm 35:6) and “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!” (Psalm 58:6).

But the Psalms that include imprecations are not filled with only imprecatory prayers. In fact, there is not a single Psalm that ONLY has imprecatory prayers. Rather each Psalm is filled with multiple subjects that usually combine these imprecatory prayers with the hope that the psalmist has in the Lord. They do not conflict with the command to love our enemies.

How then should we pray for our enemies?

·       Our own ability to forgive.

·       That they come to revere and submit to God via the Gospel.

·       That their sins are forgiven and that they become forgiving people.

·       That they will seek to do God's will.

·       That God protects them from temptation and the devil.

·       That right, justice, and peace will be recognized and established.

Loving and praying for our enemies, whether personal and social or international and political is a very “un-human” thing to do, meaning our human inclination is to not love but to promote ourselves against others. But this is the point: we cannot simply decide to love our enemies and thus make it so. Rather, we need God’s love in us. “We love because he first loved us” 1 Jn. 4:19.

Finally, “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” 1 Thess. 3:12.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

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