Proverbs 20:22 - Homiletics

Revenge and its antidote

I. THE SIN AND FOLLY OF REVENGE . This passion appears to spring from a natural instinct; it pretends to justify itself as the fair return for some wrong, and it offers a compensation for the Wrong suffered in the triumph which it gains over the wrong doer. But it is both culpable and foolish.

1 . It is culpable. Even if revenge were desirable, we have no right to wreak it on the head of the offender. We are not his judge and executioner. God says, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." We have no excuse for antedating the Divine vengeance in our impatience by taking the law of retribution into our own hands. If another has hurt us, that fact is no excuse whatever for our hurting him. Two wrongs do not make one right. The spirit of vengeance in man is a spirit of hatred, and therefore one for which there is no excuse. Much as an enemy may have injured us, he is still our fellow man to whom we owe charity and forgiveness.

2 . It is foolish. At best it can offer but a gloomy compensation. Unless our nature delights in malignity, there can be no real satisfaction in seeing an enemy suffer. Though a natural passion may seem to be satisfied with a gleam of fierce joy in the moment of triumph, this must be succeeded by a dismal sense of the vanity of any such feelings. The after thought of revenge must be bitter. Moreover, the exercise of vengeance will not cure enmity, but only intensify it. Therefore it may just provoke a second and greater wrong than that which it is avenging. There is no prospect before it but increasing rancour, hatred; strife, misery.

II. THE ANTIDOTE TO REVENGE . We are not to be left to suffer wrong without compensation or hope. We may find a prospect of something better than the bitter harvest of vengeance if we turn from sinful man to God. Then we shall see the true antidote.

1 . It springs from faith. We have to be assured that God can and will help us. We can thus afford to ignore the wrong that has been done us, or, if that be impossible, we can learn to look above it and feel confident that. it' God undertakes our cause, all will be well in the end. This faith will not desire the ruin of our enemy. It is not an entrusting of vengeance to God, though he must see justice done to the wrong doer. But it is a quiet confidence in God's saving grace. It is better to be delivered from the trouble brought on us by the misconduct of others Than to remain in that trouble and see the guilty persons punished. We can afford to be magnanimous and forget the unkindness of man when we are enjoying the kindness of God.

2 . It is realized through prayer, patience, and hope.