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When evil strikes

Psa 5

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 10 July, 2005

I AM sure that most of us are still struggling to come to terms with the evil perpetrated last Thursday in London. We stand with our mouths open at the demonic nature of this crime.

  No one can ever accept wanton evil. But we can sometimes understand it a little better, and we can find ways of coping with it.

 As we think of the people of London, fearful that there may be other attacks to come, our hearts go out to them. Britain has a large Muslim population, and it only takes a few radical hard–liners scattered among them to create a network of evil. Most ordinary Muslims are no more in favour of terrorism than the rest of the population, but there are always some who go to extremes.

 Let us never come to terms with this kind of evil, wherever it comes from. Let us never accept it or become accustomed to it. The more we accept it, the more we become hardened to it.

ANGER

  It is right to be angry about it.

  The Bible does not tell us not to be angry. It does tell us not to sin when we are angry.

 Studies done in recent years are very explicit. When we get a shock or a threat, we experience one of two emotions. We are either afraid, or we get angry. What science shows us is that exactly the same chemicals flow when we are afraid or angry. Fear and anger are part of the same thing, and we can’t prevent the chemical flow. We can decide what to do with it.

 I talked to a man once who had had a breakdown at work. A lot of it had to do with the stress of holding in anger because he had no safe way to release it.

 As he was recovering, he discovered the value of murder.

  We all know what it is like to think that murdering someone who harms you wouldn’t be a bad idea. I know a Catholic lady who says she never once considered divorcing her husband, but often thought of murdering him. Anyway, this man who had had the breakdown used to keep some cardboard boxes at work and, when he felt like murdering his boss or a client, he would go and murder a box instead. He improved a great deal when he had that as one of his outlets for anger.

 So we need to be angry. Some of us will feel the anger more than others do: that’s natural.

  Don’t forget how angry Jesus was with the money changers in the temple. He was not only angry, he was violently angry. The money changers must have been very afraid, but that fear only changed to anger after Jesus had been through the place and moved on.

 Don’t forget that the cross displays God’s anger, his righteous anger against sin.

  We think of the cross as a display of love, and it is — but only when you realise that it is a display of the kind of love which can withstand the blast of God’s passionately just wrath.

 At Calvary, God poured out his judgment against sin — and Jesus bore its full brunt.

  That is something Muslims can’t grasp, that, in a man, God could receive the judgment of God. It’s a radically different idea. It speaks of a God whose love for humankind is so intense that we could never fathom it.

 Anger is very right when there is evil about. God poured out his anger against evil when Jesus died on the cross.

 Anger is right when evil deeds are done, when men and women suffer for no good cause.

  We have seen the bloodied faces on TV. What they don’t show us is the bodies torn apart, the lives, the hopes, shattered in a moment of selfishness and depravity.

 Let’s be angry — as angry as each of us needs to be, because we are all different. But let’s always think how that anger can be turned to redemptive ends.

UNDERSTANDING

  We can’t condone evil, but we can, and we must, understand it. Why are Al-Quaeda and groups like it so violently destructive? If we don’t know, we will condemn ourselves to costly and futile attempts to force them to change their ways. They will never change if we can think of no better solution than to attack them or call them names.

 Do you know how long the Israelites were in Palestine? They got there around 1700BC, and they were driven out by the Romans around 135AD. That makes around 1800 to 1900 years.

 Do you know how long the Muslim Arabs were in Palestine? They got there around 700AD, so they have been there around 1300 years. They got there before King Alfred came to the English throne.

 That is a long time, and it is close to how long the Israelites were in the land. Maybe that helps you understand why the Palestinians aren’t all that impressed that Britain and the US supported the Jews to return to Palestine at the end of WW I and again at the end of WW II. You can understand that they get irritated that Britain promised to help the Arabs if the Arabs helped them defeat the Turks, but then the British ignored the Arabs and helped the Zionists instead.

 You can understand why some of them feel that the West is still carrying out a crusade against Islam.

  You perhaps can understand why uneducated and angry young men think that, if the West won’t listen to them, they will make them listen.

 All those kinds of things go into the explosive mix that leads people to attack and terrorise civilians.

  In the Middle East, some of the rulers like to fuel anger against the West, because it is safer to have people blaming the West than to have them looking too hard at the corruption and oppression in their own societies.

 In England, some of the Muslim clerics like to stir up hatred against the English people because of England’s involvement in the war in Iraq, and because the Muslim communities are often poor and in low–status jobs.

 Across the world, to be a Muslim is to be on the top of the pecking order. In Egypt, it is much harder for a Christian to become the boss than for a Muslim. A Christian has to be better than the best. If you have met a Coptic Christian, you will have seen a great sense of determination among them, because they have to learn from babyhood how to compete effectively, otherwise they get squashed.

 Imagine how a Muslim from such a culture must feel to come to a Western country and discover that promotion is based more on merit, and that religion rarely even gets a look in. He has left a middle management position in his own country and starts at the bottom in his new Western nation. There are many like that. You have been driven by a Pakistani taxi driver who was an engineer or a computer expert at home, you see how it works.

 It is easy for angry young men to say that the US, England and Australia, together with the Jews, are out to get Islam, and are engaged in a modern Crusade against them.

 It is vital, in times like these, to understand.

If we don’t understand, we will only make our enemies angrier and angrier, and these are enemies who are prepared to give their lives in the cause of hatred.

 As much as they turn their anger to destructive ends, we must turn ours to redemptive ends. They want to tear down: we want to restore and repair. Only when we face this whole situation with that in mind will we display to the enemy that they are truly in the wrong.

REVENGE AND JUSTICE

  When we look at the images from the attacks on London, when we think of it as the worst act of warfare on British soil since the Blitz in 1940, it is easy to want revenge.

 But God says,

DEUT 32:39 “See now that I myself am He!

There is no god besides me.

I put to death and I bring to life,

I have wounded and I will heal,

and no one can deliver out of my hand.

^32:40 I lift my hand to heaven and declare:

As surely as I live forever,

⁴¹ when I sharpen my flashing sword

and my hand grasps it in judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries

and repay those who hate me.

He also says,

ISA 35:4 say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.”

or

NAHUM 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power;

the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.

His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,

and clouds are the dust of his feet.

  And, as Paul puts it,

RO 12:17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

^{RO 12:21} Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

  The Bible repeatedly warns against seeking vengeance. That is God’s job. He will avenge; he will repay; he will ensure that justice is carried out.

 Human vengeance too often degenerates into letting off bombs on trains and buses. We might baulk at the idea of English terror squads attacking the Saudi populace, but that’s where the idea of vengeance takes us.

 Jesus could have sought revenge on his enemies, but he constantly taught, “Turn the other cheek.”

 I once heard a Rabbi and a Muslim leader discussing the spiral of violence in Israel, and the interviewer interrupted. “Surely all this talk of revenge and of tit–for–tat killing is a bit strange for religious men like yourselves?” he said.

 The Muslim replied, “You are mistaken. It is Christianity which teaches turning the other cheek, not Islam or Judaism.”

 The thought of revenge is sweet; but the honey turns to gall in your mouth. Vengeance only leads to further retaliation. It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys in the US who had been feuding and killing each other for so long that no one could remember what started it all.

 Revenge is never a realistic option, no matter what name you give it.

  But justice is very sensible.

What does the LORD your God require of you, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God?

— asks Micah.

  Micah mainly means that we live just lives ourselves; but that always spills over into seeking that the unjust be brought to justice.

 Even forgiveness entails confrontation. But to be silent in the face of wickedness, to refuse to act when evil abounds, that is in itself evil.

 The vision of Revelation has an interesting section:

REV 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. ¹⁰ They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” ¹¹ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

  There are many who cry out for justice and justice is delayed.

  In his mercy, God does not judge immediately. But the message here is clear: God will act, and when he acts, it will be particularly for those who have loved and obeyed him.

 The world has to act, too; and those who terrorise others need to be brought before properly constituted courts and made to face what their crime has done. I don’t think we can dispute that. We don’t have the time spans of eternity to work in, and we need to seek justice now.

 Let’s not seek revenge, and let’s not refuse justice.

REDEMPTION

  Our greatest weapon in these troubling times is salvation for ourselves and the message of salvation for those who are lost.

 Politicians are saying that nothing will change, and that our lifestyles will not be altered to the whim of these assassins.

 But what are they hanging onto? Is it something truly valuable? Or is it merely traditions?

  What we need to return to is the core values of our faith, because that is what will stand. We are confronted by a religion which demands firm commitment from its adherents. Where is a faith of love and hope and grace to meet this religion of violence and coercion?

 Where are the converts to join that band and show that Christianity still changes hearts and minds?

  We need a revived church. We need a reborn populace. We need a campaign that so changes our world that people who never knew the truth of Christ can not avoid meeting him and having to respond to him.

 Anger will not achieve this, though anger is more than appropriate at such times.

  Uninformed action will not achieve this, because it perpetuates the conditions which created Islamic violence in the first place.

 Revenge will not achieve this, because it only creates a cycle of violence.

  Justice will not achieve it, because justice does no more than punish fairly.

 Continuing as though nothing had happened will not ensure that our lifestyles are untouched, or that our lives are unharmed.

 But the gospel of Jesus gives us a fixed point whether we live or die. It gives us faith to live by and hope as we die. It is the solution for our world, and the solution for you and me.

 Let’s commit ourselves to transformation through the Word of God and the Spirit of Jesus.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)