 chapter 12, beginning at verse 9. Romans 12, beginning at verse 9. We're looking at a brief study related to what has been called body life. So you'll see what I mean in just a moment. But beginning at verse 9, reading to verse 13, Romans chapter 12, the apostle Paul writes, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. The Bible is referred to the church in a variety of ways. I mean, we know ourselves as the church, but the Bible speaks of us as being the bride of Christ, the church, and also refers to us as being the body of Christ. And so what we're looking at is really under the category of body life, life in the body of Christ. And we know that Paul had been writing in Romans chapter 12 to the church. And in the first two verses, he had said that they're to present themselves to God as living sacrifices. He said this was what is reasonable to do. And as he was speaking about presenting yourself as a living sacrifice, he went on in verses three through eight to speak concerning the spiritual gifts that God gives to the church. Because as we have yielded ourselves to him, which is reasonable, he's now pouring into us his spirit, his gifts. And as he pours into us his gifts, we're supposed to be ministering to the body of Christ and reaching out to the world through the energies of the Holy Spirit. And so Paul has been speaking concerning that here in Romans chapter 12, especially verses one through eight. Now now he begins to speak concerning our commitment to the body of Christ and what we're to do for one another. And so he begins to speak concerning life in the body by saying in verse nine, let love be without hypocrisy or what is evil and cling to what is good. So now he begins to tell us how we're supposed to relate to one another. What we're supposed to do as the church, what is the church supposed to do? Well, he begins by saying, let love be without hypocrisy. It's interesting how after he speaks of the gifts of the spirit in verses three through eight, that he goes right into the fruit of the spirit, which is love. He did the same thing in First Corinthians because when he was speaking in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 about the gifts of the spirit and reminding us that we were baptized by one spirit into one body, he went on to speak concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so Paul wants us to know that the gifts of the Holy Spirit really are going to be operating through the love or the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And if I really have a relationship with God, if I really presented myself to God and I'm really operating in the spirit under the spirit's energies and influence, then I'm supposed to have a quality about me that's going to distinguish me as a Christian and that quality is the quality of love. Jesus said, a new commandment give I unto you. He said that you love one another as I have loved you. And he went on to say by this shall all men know you're my disciples if you have love one for another. So the mark of the believer according to Jesus himself is love, the love of God that is not just toward God, but to toward those who love God and who are loved by God. Now when we speak about love, very often the definition given to the word love is really not a biblical definition whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the definition of the word love as nonbelievers would define it really diminishes what love is. It doesn't enhance it whatsoever. For many love has not been modeled properly and therefore the result of having love modeled improperly will be a faulty understanding of it in an improper definition of love. The world's definition of love falls short of the biblical definition because today's concept of love doesn't include certain things that are indispensable. If you're really going to have love, what you need to do is you need to look at what the Bible says love is and you can see the qualities of love. And I have to tell you I encounter quite a number of people. I've been ministering for a long time. I've been ministering the word of God for over 40 years now and I can tell you in ministry for over 40 years that I can tell you that there are so many people who don't even have really a biblical clue about what love is and what they've done is they have taken the definition of love from the world and they've used the standards of those who don't even know God to establish their own standards as it relates to how they feel towards others and what they do. For many people, love is simply a word that we use. It's a convenient word or perhaps it describes an emotion, but it certainly doesn't have certain qualities that are necessary. And listen, if you don't have these qualities, I guarantee you you'll be unhappy all your life. And not only that, if you don't have the qualities of love that are spoken of in Scripture, I guarantee you a marriage, if you get married or if you're already presently married, a marriage that will not be a satisfying marriage because you're not operating under what the definition of love is. And if you do not allow God's love to work in you, I guarantee stress and trial and pain for your entire married life because there are certain things that relate to love that are biblical that the world will never teach you. You will not learn these words. You won't learn that love, for example, is supposed to be permanent, that when you love it's supposed to last forever and that it includes the element of faithfulness. You're not going to learn that because today many people who say they love one another will get married to one another and then a year, two, three years later they divorce. Their love was not permanent. It wasn't something that was settled. It wasn't built on faithfulness to one another. When God speaks of love and His love in Jeremiah 31-3, we read, the Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness, I've drawn you. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Love has an element of permanence and faithfulness. Love has an element of sacrifice. Once again, if somebody's married and they're not happy because they're not getting their needs met, because after all it's all about us anyway, isn't it? And my needs aren't being met. You're not showing me the kind of attention that I need. We just bail. We'll try and find somebody that will show us the attention we want, but the Bible says that love really in its essence is sacrifice. God so loved the world that He gave, the Scripture says, His only begotten Son. Jesus was speaking on one occasion and He said, greater love has no one than this, than a man laid down his life for his friends. Love has an element of sacrifice. Love has an element of commitment. I'm going to be with you for the long haul because I'm committed to you. Hebrews 13-5 says, He Himself has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. The world's definition of love doesn't include really forgiveness. It's kind of a temporary thing. I'll forgive you this one time, but don't do it again, because I'm not quite sure whether I'll forgive you again a second time. If you do it a second time, I doubt very much whether I'm going to be able to forgive you or not. It really depends on a few things. But in Luke 17, 3 and 4, we read, take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If you repent, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. So love has the element of a willing forgiveness. Love has patience and love has kindness. The world doesn't speak of love as having those elements whatsoever. But in 1 Corinthians 13-4, it says, love suffers long and is kind. Love has an element of honesty to it. When you really love someone, you will speak the truth to them. Like it says in Ephesians 4-15, you speak the truth and you do so in love. Listen, when I was unmarried and I wanted to ask a young lady out for a date, and she didn't want to go out with me, which was pretty normal, I never really appreciated it if she wasn't honest. No, I didn't want her to say to me, no, David, I don't want to go out with you because you're as ugly as a toad. And frankly, I don't like to be with you in public. That would have hurt a little bit, I'm sure. But I would have preferred an honest response like, you know, no, I'm not available on Friday or Saturday, or by the way, ever. I would have preferred that than to be given false hope that maybe in the future we'll be able to go out and maybe she'll like me. But so many times a day, people don't tell the truth. Speak the truth. Speak it in love. Speak it in love. Be willing to tell the truth. And especially in marriage, I mean, there are people who say, oh, you shouldn't say that to your wife or you shouldn't say that to your husband, you're going to hurt his feelings. But listen, my feelings are not that, you know, they're not that, I'm not that weak. You know, give me a break. I mean, just tell me the truth. And so my wife has the freedom to tell me the truth. And she needs to be able to do that because she loves me more than anybody. So she's going to speak the truth. But do it in love. If you don't like something, let me know. But do it with kindness. Do it in a loving way. And I'll receive it from you. And that's just part of really loving one another. Love should be done with peaceableness and gentleness and humility. Those are elements that you don't find in the world's definition. But Titus chapter three, verse two says that we're to speak evil of no one, but rather we're to be peaceable and gentle and we're to show all humility to all men. Love contains within it the element of modesty and purity. You know, modesty is a word that has to be defined because people don't understand what that word means. And even sharing about such things as modesty, people don't get it. I can still remember very early in the history of this church we were meeting on a Sunday morning and we had at that time something called cassettes. And some of you may remember them in ancient history. That comes after the four tracks and then the eight tracks. And that comes after these little plastic things that were called records. But anyway, we used to have cassettes and we would sell them after church and all. And I remember walking into the area that the cassette sales was to take place in. And as I walked into that area, one of the young women in our church who was there to serve selling cassettes after the service, it was a warm summer day as I recall, was inside this room. And she was wearing these shorts that were very, very, very... Well, there were shorts. Very, very short, as I recall. And she was wearing one of these tops. They used to call them crop tops or something, but there it was real high. And so her whole midsection was showing. She had these little itsy bitsy daisy duke type things on. And I walked in and I said, Oh, you know, no, she was selling tapes. You know, we never had such a large line of men buying tape. Now that I remember that we sold a lot of tapes. Some guys came two or three times. But that's another story. I remember walking in and seeing her and and going, Oh, no, Oh, no, no. How are we going to deal with this? And I grabbed one of the ladies and I said, do me a favor, go let her know that, that she cannot be dressed like that here. It's going to stumble every guy in his wife in this church, please. You know, and she went home and she changed into more modest apparel. But I have to tell you, that was over 30 years ago. And we still have to remind people to dress modestly. It's not just the women. I mean, sometimes today women want to go workout and this and that. And then they come dressed up in their workout clothes. And sometimes those are inappropriate even in the workout place. And I realized that, but sometimes we have guys who've come in here wearing those little bicycle shorts, those little rubber things that you wear, you know, then I came walking in, you know, like that. Are you kidding me? Those are just long speedos, bro. What's up? I want to run around like that in here. Stop it. It's gross. I've had them sit in the front row like that, the front row. Why don't you ride your little bike out of here, man? It's just all right. It's just not right. Somebody has to tell you. Yeah, so I am. Don't do that. Oh, it's their fault. If they got a problem looking, it's their fault. The ones who are looking, it's their fault. Pluck your eyes out. Didn't Jesus say, pluck your eyes out? Put some clothes on. Stop it. You don't want to stumble anybody. Love doesn't stumble a brother or sister. Love wants the best for them, right? That's what the Bible teaches us. So it's not all about me. It's not all about my fashion statements. It's not all about how I am free and you've got the problem. Love cares for other people and love has within it the sense of modesty and also love has self-control. Galatians 523, when it speaks of the love, the fruit of the spirit, being loved gives eight words to describe that one word, love. And one of those words is self-control. You find that in Galatians 523, love has self-control. And so the person who's saying, well, you know what? Yeah, we're having physical intimacy and this and that, but I'm in love with her, you know? I just can't help it. I'm in love with her. You need to understand that love has self-control. Love has self-restraint. When you really love that person, you're not going to do anything to harm them for love does no harm to a neighbor. Thus love is a fulfillment of the law. You would never do something that would undermine their walk with Jesus Christ and make them less than what God would intend them to be. And most certainly in a dating relationship, you don't jump into bed with them because you say that you're in love with them. You need to understand that the word love is not the same as the word lust. Those are two different words. And you need to understand that you're not in love when you're trying to get in bed with somebody. What you're in is called, you're in heat and there's a difference between the two. And so what God has called us to do is to exercise self-control. And if I really love that person I'm with, I am not going to harm them. I'm not going to diminish them. You see, but none of that stuff, you're not going to hear that on the news guys, what I just told you. You're not going to hear it in one of the movies that you go and spend your money to go and watch these romantic comedies where nobody's even married but they're all having their children. Or these two men are together, these two women. You're not going to hear anything like this there. Ask yourself, have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard anybody say these things? No, why? Because the world's definition of love is not biblical. And the church has been flowing in the stream of the world for so long that when things like this are said, even with scripture after scripture after scripture, the person listening is saying, oh, you're just a legalist, you don't understand grace. No, the Bible definition is what we're looking for so that we'll understand what love is. And so Paul is speaking about and he speaks about love and he says, let love be without hypocrisy. That word hypocrisy, the hypocrite, is a word in the original language in the Greek language of the New Testament that was referring really to an actor because the actors would wear the mask. You had comedy and you had tragedy. So the actor would put the mask on, he was called the hypocrite. Today we call them actors, but they were called hypocrites at that time because they were wearing masks. And so they put the mask on because it was a joyful scene. They take that, put a sad one on because it's a sad scene. But the one behind the mask had none of those emotions that were being shown by the mask. It's called hypocrisy. So he says, let love not be hypocritical. Let it be real. It's easy to pretend you're in love. Judas did. Judas was there on the night. Jesus was betrayed. He's the one who goes out to betray him. And when Jesus speaks concerning the ones at the table, one of your hands will be raised against me. Everybody started asking, is it I? And even Judas himself said, is it I? But later on, there in that garden, Judas came up and gave Jesus a kiss. And Jesus said, are you betraying the son of man with a kiss? Hypocrisy. It's easy to pretend you love. Oh, brawl, man. Yeah. Love you. Uh-huh. Praying for you. Yeah, right. You know, here they were in the air, man. Yeah. Love you. Then he walks away and you say, man, I can't stand that guy, man. It makes me sick. I don't like him. He thinks he's so good. Where do we get that phrase from? But people say that when they don't like something. He thinks he's so good. He thinks he's better than us. You ever think that maybe he is? Is that a possibility that maybe he is? Because maybe he's not doing what you're doing. Maybe his life is honoring God and yours isn't. And therefore, he is better than you. Not in his own sight, but in the sight of God. Maybe God is more pleased with him than he is with you because you're doing things that God is not pleased with. And that guy isn't. And instead of us making judgment on him, say, no, he thinks he's better than us. Well, maybe his life is bringing more honor to God and he's not being a hypocrite because there are those who run around letting love be with hypocrisy. Oh, yeah. Praise the Lord. Love you, man. But in reality, they're just living in the world and they don't really care. So he says, don't pretend to love. Judas did that. You see, real love is going to provoke us to do certain things. He says in verse nine that love will provoke us to hate, to abhor what is evil. And love will provoke us to cling to what is good. So love provokes us to hate what is evil. It's been said, hate sin as you would hate the hell to which it leads. Hate it. The psalmist says it in Psalm 9710, you who love the Lord hate evil. But he says that we're to abhor evil, but we're to cling to what is good. So if you love Jesus, you're going to hate that which caused his death and you're going to cling. You're going to hold on to that which is good. My daughter, Corinne, was about six years old and we decided to take her so that she might learn to swim. And she at that time was not very confident in pools. And I remember bringing her, she may have been even younger than six. She may have been four or five. But I remember taking her, walking her to the edge of the pool with a guy who was going to instruct her teacher how to swim was. And I remember picking her up and handing her to this guy who was going to show her how to learn to swim. My daughter would not let go of him. She put her arms around his neck and squeezed him till his face was getting red. Her legs were around his waist and she was holding him and screaming at the top of her lungs. No, no. And the guy's looking at me with his red face, you know, like, get her off me. She's killing me. I said, no, man, it's your turn. I've been older than her like that for a year. I'm getting a cup of coffee, man. I'll be back. Teacher to swim or drop her in. I don't care. I'm out of here. No, we had to, I had to peel her off of the guy. I peeled her off. I got you. I got you. Cling to what is good. Cling to what is good. Like my daughter thought she was going to drown. She was hanging on to that which would keep her safe. Have you ever thought of it like that? Cling to Jesus. Cling to him tightly. Don't let go of him. Cling to what is good, but hate what is evil. And you're going to be learning what love is. He says in verse 10 to be kindly affectionate to one another in honor, giving preference to one another. In other words, instead of looking out for myself all the time, I need to learn to look out for somebody else. This, this kind of affection that he speaks about is the kind of picture of a mother and her love for her baby. It's that love, that kind affection that a mama has that she, she loves a little one. He says to give preference to one another. In other words, to learn to put somebody else before you. Love empowers us to consider somebody else to be more worthy than we ourselves are. Love is courteous in that way. You know, we've had over the years we'll have on occasion a special musical group and we'll open up the church and and say tonight we're going to have such and so group and they're well known and if you'd like, love to have you with us as they come and perform their ministry. And normally what happens when we have a special group here for something like that is people who don't normally come to the fellowship will be lined up outside. So when we show up, if the doors are going to open, open at 6 30, they'll be here at six and they'll be waiting out there and they stand at the door and they kind of just wait because they're going to hear somebody sing about the love of God and who Jesus is. And then man, when those doors are open, look out because they come flying down the center aisle, they sit down in the chairs, they're throwing elbows and they put their bibles down and then they're saving seats for all the people that didn't show up in time and they're trying to take up whole rows. And it trips me out because the people who are going to come and perform their ministry are going to talk about the love of Christ. And so they'll be the first ones to knock you out of the way. I'll care. Your nose got blood on it. Oh, you know, I don't care. And then, oh, Jesus, and they got their hands up. Oh, I love you, Lord. Oh, I lift my voice. It trips me out. What's that? That is so wrong. That's part of the reason why I'm not big on bringing groups in. I just got tired of seeing it. I got tired of people just showing up, being all weird and then, you know, Christian groupies. You know, it's all about Jesus, isn't it? You know, but when you've got a guy who dresses in a certain way and the whole front row is filled with skinny jeans and weird spiky hair, I say, well, I can't do this. I am old. I realize it, you know, because I can't hang with this at all. But it's that weirdness that we get into the body of Christ. And we're not showing preference to one another. We're not helping them to get closer to Jesus. Watch out. It's easy for us to get weird. And so he's saying we need to love one another and prefer one another. In verse 11, he says, don't lag in diligence. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. In other words, maintain your fervor. Maintain your zeal. Don't go back into that old life and don't become lazy because you've been saved for a while. When you first got saved, how many Bible studies did you go to? How much service did you do? Are you doing the same now? A lot of people can't say that they are because, oh, no, but I got saved. I was single when I got saved, didn't have kids. When I got saved, I wasn't working. When I got saved, and what we do is we lag in our diligence, we become, well, we lose our fire. We just lose it. We stop making priorities of Jesus and serving Him. And Paul was speaking to Timothy and he said to him in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6, that he was to stir up the gift of God, which was in him through the lane on of hands. Stir it up. Rekindle it because an unwatched fire will go out. So Paul says stir it up. Rekindle it. Let the flame once again fly. Do not succumb to laziness and slothfulness in your walk. I've been walking with the Lord for a long time now, 43 years in December. I've been teaching the Bible 40 years in September, just past my 40th anniversary. Yeah, praise the Lord. Thank you for acknowledging that. It's a blessing. And people will ask me, they will ask me, what has kept you strong? And I'll tell you right now, the Word of God, the Word of God, get into it every morning. I have my iPad next to me. I've said this to you recently more than once. I have my iPad on the nightstand next to me. In the morning, the first thing I do is I open it up. First thing, when I wake up, I open it up, I go to my Bible program and I read my daily reading. First thing, then I go on Facebook and I'll give a devotional thought. This is what the Lord just spoke to my heart about this passage and I spend my time with my Lord. When I come to the office, I turn on the radio and listen to Christian music and I saturate myself with him because the world that doesn't love Jesus is trying to influence me not to love him too. And so I know that. I have to rekindle the flame to keep it stirred up. And if you're not moving forward, you are going backwards. You just don't realize it. And so you need to be rekindling that, be fervent in your service to the Lord. And God will keep moving and working in you. And that's what he's saying, continually serve the Lord. In Colossians 3, 23, and 24, it says, whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, not to men knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ. He says in verse 12, rejoice and hope, patient and tribulation and continuing steadfastly in prayer. Because the Christian walk is a walk through dangerous times, we're to walk, but we walk with a hope. We walk with a patience and we walk prayerfully. The Lord Jesus said, these things I've spoken to you that in me, you might have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but be a good chair. I have overcome the world. And so we walk in that way. We walk carefully and prayerfully. And then he said in verse 13, we distribute to the needs of the saints and we are given to hospitality. So love, love provokes us to be generous. Love provokes us to meet the needs of our brother or our sister. And believers trust the Lord to provide for them as they care for others. The one who lends to some poor person is actually lending to the Lord, the scripture says, and God will repay him. We do so with an act of faith, guys. When you're generous to somebody else, when you're giving to somebody else, it's an act of faith. You're giving something that was yours to somebody who has the need. And that's what God has called us to do, to care for them. In 1st Timothy 6, 17 through 19, Paul said, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. He says in verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Don't set your mind on high things, associate with the humble. Don't be wise in your own opinion. And so we're going to be persecuted. I remember on one Sunday morning asking the church, I said to the church, would you like to avoid persecution? And they just kind of sat there smiling and I said, you want to avoid persecution? Would you like me to teach you how to avoid persecution today? And there were people who responded not in their head. Yeah. How do I avoid persecution? How many of you would like me to teach you to avoid persecution? Hands go up. I said, here's your answer. You want to avoid persecution? Yes. Backslide. Because those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. It's a promise from God. And you may not like it. I don't like it. God knows that. You shall be hated by all men for my name's sake. That's not one of those promises you want to get in those Bible promise boxes. What's my promise today? You shall suffer persecution. Oh man, I got my wife's promise instead of my own. Your other head, not the tail. Yes, Jesus. But that's what Jesus said. And it takes all kinds of things, all kinds of forms. They can revile you, which means getting in your face. They can physically attack you. They can say all manner of evil against you, meaning they can lie and they can gossip about you. Without belabor in this point, I can tell you that after 40 years of teaching the Word of God and all the years of ministry here and other churches, I can tell you that there are those who have said some of those off the wall things that I've ever heard in my life. I remember someone calling me up back in 1992. I normally don't remember things like this. I do remember this because it's still fresh in my mind of how interesting it was, that I got a call from somebody who was mad at me because my car was red. My car was red. And they wanted me to know that I shouldn't have a red car. And I remember talking to him and he said, you know, you need to know you shouldn't have a red car. I said, really? I shouldn't have a red car? No, you shouldn't. I said, oh, well, what color car am I supposed to drive? White? I said, oh, really? I'm supposed to drive a white car? And he said, yes. I said, may I ask you why I'm supposed to drive a white car? It's the color of purity. I said, in red is the color of the blood of Jesus. Now, your turn. I mean, what? I had some, I had people saying that I live in a five story house. And I said, what a lie. It's only four stories. No, I had a five story house in some private millionaire gated community. And so one of the people who believed that actually went out on a prom with one of my son. And they came over to my house. And I was actually happy that they came over so they could see that we live in a normal track home like everybody else. But there are so many people who will say things that are just so off the wall and so wrong. How do you deal with that? What do you do? You bless them. You pray for them. Look at what he says here. He says in verse 17, repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it's possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, don't avenge yourselves, but rather get placed to wrath where it's written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy hungers, feed them. If he thirsts, give them a drink. For in so doing, you'll heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So don't be trying to find vengeance for yourself. Leave it in the hands of the Lord, guys. When you're seeking to get even with somebody all the time, you are living a very miserable life. It just is not worth the time. If I were to, and this is a true statement, you can believe it or not, but if I were to catalog all the things over the last many years that people have unkindly and maliciously said about me, my wife, my children, my grandchildren, I could have a volume that was very thick of stories and lies that have been not only said, but repeated and believed. But you know what? When you do something good for the Lord, you can expect that. You can expect people to say unkind things. So how do you respond? You simply pray for them. If you give an opportunity and you have an ability to see them and speak to them, then by all means take that opportunity to try and reconcile and bury the hatchet in their head, but bury the hatchet nonetheless. If you have a chance and share with them and let them know your heart, but don't, you don't have to run around defending yourself all the time. You know, you can either defend yourself or allow God to be your defense. And I learned a long time ago, let the Lord be my defense. Even if I would have gotten up after all of these stories that have been said that have resulted in sometimes hundreds of people leaving, and it just wasn't true of the things that were being said. If I would have gotten up all the time and said, oh, by the way, you probably have heard this one. It's not true. Then I'm going to look like I'm always defending myself. Why in the world would I do that? I'm not here to do that. I'm there to present Jesus and what Jesus can do. I discovered a long time ago, people will believe what they want to believe. So you lift them to the Lord. And if they should approach you and speak to you, then you win them over with love and kindness. You know, when he says here in verse 20, if he thirsts to give them a drink and doing so, you'll keep coals of fire in his head. I remember when I first read this passage, I thought, oh, great. You can burn them up, Lord. Thank you. You can drop hot coals on the head and just let them suffer. You know, you're too much, Lord. All right. I got a list. Can you burn this guy up and next, that guy over there? Burn them all, Lord. Burn them all. May they be on fire for you, you know. What is he talking about? Well, one commentator said it like this as he was looking at this and speaking, concerning this, this image in ancient Egypt, when someone demonstrated shame and guilt, they publicly carried a pan of burning coals on their head. This represented pangs of conscience that burned the heart. In other words, what he's saying is, when you love an enemy, your love for that enemy will shame him because of his hatred for you. There's truth to that. When you do not revile in return, when you do not try and get your vengeance, when you do not argue and get angry and in the flesh with these people, when you just leave it alone, leave it in the hands of the Lord, eventually what happens, and I've seen this happen, is that people will realize they were wrong and you didn't even have to defend yourself. Pastor Chuck taught us something once. He said, listen, he said you can defend yourself and you can lose, or you can let God be your defense. He never loses. Make up your mind. Who do you want to have defend you? God who doesn't lose or yourself who very often can. I learned a long time ago, let God be my defense, let him be my shield. Just live for Christ and let him do what he does. Learn to pray for those who are unkind to you. Listen, some of you need to hear this because some of you are hurting because people are saying stuff about you. Leave it alone. Leave it in the hands of the Lord. It is not worth it. It isn't worth it to be all upset and crying yourself to sleep and mad because they said this or they did that or they didn't do this. Leave it in the hands of the Lord. Don't be seeking vengeance on them. Just say, Jesus, please just take care of this. Help my heart to remain pure towards you because I don't want to put myself on a shelf because I'm there so angry at something that wasn't done or was done. I'm going to leave it in your hands and I'm going to just trust you and I'm telling you from experience that the Lord has a way of restoring and he has a way of healing that you cannot do on your own. It comes from him. So, Paul is just simply saying that to us. Do not be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good.