http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15946156/dont-lose-your-head-about-the-second-coming

Once I had a friend who dated this woman.

She was nice, as I recall her, smart and extremely studious. She had ambitions to be top of her class. Yet her drive to excel wound her up a bit tight, in my opinion. She had this wide, bright smile — when she allowed her face to relax. She lived braced for the next exam, which, for her, seemed a year-round sport. Comparing her work with mine, it’s almost as if we attended different universities — or as if she were secretly training for the CIA.

My friend dated this woman, and he assured me they enjoyed “fun” times together. But all I remember is their study dates, quick trips to the cafeteria between library marathons, and endless flashcards. They were a power couple, too busy for a normal life, destined to leave their mark on this world. Until they broke up. I don’t have all the details, but soon after the relationship ended, I heard him do what I hadn’t truly heard before: he laughed.

Sure, I had heard him chuckle before, but never laugh. That’s the difference between grinning and smiling, speaking and praying, singing and worshiping. And his laugh was music not easily forgotten. Colorful as Joseph’s coat, alive as a rainforest, the sound of his joy brightened his listeners. His laugh, unkenneled, became a trademark. The contagious sound erupted from far deeper than the chest.

My friend was happier. And to all appearances, that newfound bliss was due to ending the relationship with this woman. The whole situation serves as an illustration of why Satan is so relentlessly after your joy in God. Let’s connect those dots.

Killed Joys Point to Killjoys

The mathematics of my friend’s gladness seem obvious: friend minus girlfriend equals happiness.

Fairly or unfairly, her presence and his deepest laughter couldn’t coexist. As one disappeared, the other appeared — like Clark Kent and Superman. Such a sudden change in demeanor reflected unfavorably upon the relationship and, right or wrong, upon her influence on his life. With her gone, he loosened up enough to laugh his real laugh; the clouds parted.

Back to Satan. He knows all too well about this connection between our joy (or not) in relation to some person, and how onlookers perceive that person. If the other kills our joy, others will see them as a killjoy. And so, Satan seeks to make us look miserable in relation to God.

Our audible joy (or not) says something about our God. No matter how we assure them otherwise, unbelievers assume our Christian lives are little more than morning study dates in Scripture, making flashcards of rules to memorize, and sneaking brief guilty pleasures during the week between Sunday services. They need to see our delight in God, hear the newfound happiness in our voices. Do they? They often see us more serious than we used to be, but do they also see us happier? Do they suspect we were more satisfied in our previous lives, dead in sins and living for the world?

You see, spiritual warfare rages over who appears to make people most satisfied: God or Satan.
Thus, sounds of human gladness in God taunt Satan’s ears. Saints have understood their joy as a polemic: “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound” (Psalm 4:7). This kind of combatant joy affronts Satan, especially when the boast comes from the man deprived of all worldly explanations for his happiness. Such a man provokes the darkness. He causes onlookers to wonder, gets them talking: What does he have that we don’t?

Satan’s Sermon

So count on it. If Satan cannot break you from God, he will attempt to make you look as miserable as possible while serving God. He means to preach about God through you, his manuscript. Your sighs and groans and complaints under the lordship of Christ begin his sermon:

Friends, relatives, neighbors, look at this man formerly free of religion now wasting away under its yoke. He was happy once, bright once, knew how to have a good time and carry a normal conversation to entertaining ends. But now the miserable creature has found God, receiving the wage of anxious toil. Further, he would attempt to evangelize you all into his same burdens and groans. He offers all that which he unhappily bears. Mark him well. Beware this uphill, narrow, and laughterless life of the Christian.

The point is not that we audibly laugh in every circumstance. There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). The point is that we should be known for bursts of laughter and dancing, not endless weeping and weightiness. Our regular expressions of joy serve as an act of spiritual warfare against one who labors tirelessly to make us curse God to his face and grumble behind his back.

Here is the inconsistency that the enemy loves. God is my Father, you say — yet you’re always fretful. He is the Joy of my joy — yet you’re consistently gloomy. He is my all in all — yet even your children weary from your dissatisfaction. Christ is my Prince of Peace — yet you’re short-tempered. Jesus is my Good Shepherd who gives all by grace — yet you’re seldom grateful. Everyone can see it but us.

In other words, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — and God is greatly dishonored in us when we are consistently curmudgeonly and dissatisfied in him.

Laugh, Christian

Our duty, then, is to make it abundantly clear: Our best joys and laughter were had not before coming to Christ but after. We aim to make it plain that before the Spirit made us new, we did not know what real happiness was. But now that we have him, we have more than we could ask for, more than we deserve. We live in the desert, testifying that we have water the world knows not of.

Consider how this relates to the use of our mouths. One reason God hates the grumbling of his children is this relation between our satisfaction and his glory. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14–15).

Consider what disrespect this respectable sin of grumbling offers to God. It says we have no Father in heaven, no Friend on earth, no Shepherd able to provide for us. The sound of our anxieties indulged ignores the birds of the air and the splendor of the flowers, claiming that whoever cares for these has not been caring for us. Complaining tells the sad tale of the orphan. But our God has not left us orphans.

So laugh, Christian. Make a habit of smiling. Relax those face muscles and rejoice, for he has destined you not for wrath but for eternal life. Put to death those grumbles and petty complaints that consume those without our hope. Yes, weep with those who weep, and sing of God’s goodness to you, of his love for you, which towers over every creeping dissatisfaction of this life. Show a world desperate for answers, desperate for life, desperate for a cure that you have happily found all in him.

I used to think of myself as a patient man. Then I got married. Then I had a child. Then another one. And another one. Through those precious gifts, God has exposed me to me. I’ve seen just how thin my “vast patience” can run.

Recently, I lost it with my eldest son. He needed discipline, and received wrath instead. I felt the red-hot fringes of my patience. I yelled a sinful yell. Afterward, I needed to kneel down eye to eye, humble myself, and ask my son for forgiveness — and I did. And he forgave me.

As I felt my bloodstream cool, I considered my anger — offended by his lack of respect, inconvenienced by his disobedience, hurt by his defiance, and then seeking some form of vengeance. My raised voice tried to avenge my bruised ego. Even though I love my two sons more than any other boy on earth, and would gladly die for their sake, I was still somehow tempted to fight back, to take up arms and go to war.

As I explored that impulse, I wondered how much more intense it must be for those who’ve actually been injured — the betrayed spouse, the abandoned friend, the slandered church member, the persecuted coworker, the abused child. What flames must course through their veins? How easy must it feel to want to hurt like they’ve been hurt, to make the other person pay for what they’ve done? Have you ever tasted a warm and bitter thirst for vengeance?

Vengeance Is Not Mine

As the apostle Paul unfolds what an authentically Christian community will look like for the church in Rome, he weaves in several vital one-another realities: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). Contribute to one another’s needs and welcome one another (verse 13). “Live in harmony with one another” (verse 16). Then he says,

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. (Romans 12:17)

Followers of Jesus don’t retaliate. When we receive evil — real, shameful, painful evil — we don’t compensate the offender with another offense, but instead with surprising grace and mercy, with a warm meal and a cold drink (Romans 12:20). We respond to our wounds in ways that even the God-hating world can admire (“what is honorable in the sight of all”).

“Believing in hell breeds healthier, more Christian relationships.”

How could a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child possibly respond like that? Paul goes on to tell us two verses later: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). Cravings for personal vengeance dry up and wither when held up before the fires of final judgment, when we remember that God will repay every evil against us.

The Relationally Practical Doctrine of Hell

When Paul writes of God, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” he’s reading from Deuteronomy 32, from the great song Moses sang to the people before he died. Why would Paul turn here when speaking to believers who’ve been sinned against? Because the new people of God, the church, still finds refuge, justice, and hope in the holy and unyielding wrath of God. Moses sings first of God’s righteous fury against the sins of Israel:

A fire is kindled by my anger,     and it burns to the depths of Sheol,devours the earth and its increase,     and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.And I will heap disasters upon them;     I will spend my arrows on them;they shall be wasted with hunger,     and devoured by plague     and poisonous pestilence. (Deuteronomy 32:22–24)

But just before he might wipe out his chosen people for their defiance, he turns his wrath instead against the enemies of Israel, “lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is triumphant, it was not the Lord who did all this’” (Deuteronomy 32:27). So, he says of those enemies,

“Vengeance is mine, and recompense,     for the time when their foot shall slip;for the day of their calamity is at hand,     and their doom comes swiftly.”For the Lord will vindicate his people     and have compassion on his servants. (Deuteronomy 32:35–36)

And why will God pour out such wrath against Israel’s enemies? Because the enemies of God’s people have made themselves enemies of God himself. Notice how their adversaries have now become my adversaries by the end of the song.

I kill and I make alive;     I wound and I heal;     and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. . . .I will take vengeance on my adversaries     and will repay those who hate me.I will make my arrows drunk with blood,     and my sword shall devour flesh. (Deuteronomy 32:39–42)

This isn’t only the God of the Old Testament. This is the God of the Old and New Testaments. The God who wrote the law and the God who wrote the gospel. The Beginning and the End. The God who shows us wondrous mercy in Christ will rain horrible wrath on all who reject and oppose him — a fire devouring the earth, a devastating famine, a poisonous plague, a sword soaked in blood.

Every unforgiven sinner will suffer that awful storm. And every unforgiven sin against you will face the same fate. This is how a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child can suffer harm and not retaliate. They know they will be vindicated and made whole again. Believing in hell, then, really does breed healthier, more Christian relationships.

The Cross as Vengeance

Not all sins against us will be repaid with hell, though. Because our own sins, in Christ, won’t be repaid with hell. God will punish every sin against you, either in conscious, eternal torment or in the crushing of his precious Son. John Piper says,

God will lift from you the suicidal load of vengeance and carry it to one of two places. He will carry it to the cross if the person repents, or he will carry it to hell where they will be forever. And you can’t improve upon either of those. If they’re in hell, you don’t need to add to their punishment. If their load was borne and forgiven and paid at the cross, you would dishonor the Lord if you didn’t share in the forgiveness. (“How to Battle Bitterness”)

Christ bore the horrors of Deuteronomy 32 — a fire devouring the earth, a sword soaked in blood, a crown of piercing thorns, a back ravaged by scourging, a cross of shame and agony — for all who would believe in him, even those who have hurt you. Would you try and improve on the vengeance of the cross? Do the sufferings of the sinless Christ seem somehow insufficient when it’s you who have been wronged? Christian, remember that God’s wrath once burned against you, his plague crept toward you, his sword stood high above you — and then Jesus bore that hell for you.

This resistance in us to entrust our injustices to God is why Paul goes after pride in the same verses: “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:16–17). Why are we reluctant to relinquish justice over the sins against us? Why do we assume we’d be a better judge than God? Because of a coddling and corrupting pride. Because we gladly overestimate our own sense of wisdom and righteousness in these painful situations, and because we grossly underestimate our need for God’s forgiveness, understanding, and justice.

If the sins against us were left in our courtrooms, before our broken and impartial benches, they’d be woefully mishandled. But thanks be to God that he himself judges every last case, that each and every wrong will be repaid with flawless justice. He doesn’t overlook a single offense or lighten a single sentence. He will either nail the sin to the cross, or he will consume it in hell. Can you bear to believe that? Can you surrender your secret cravings to retaliate, the bitternesses you quietly sip and refill?

So Far as It Depends on You

One last thread deserves attention in Romans 12. When it comes to the sins people commit against us, Paul isn’t content with a merely defensive strategy (“leave it to the wrath of God”), but encourages the forgiven and soon-to-be vindicated to actively and persistently pursue peace — if possible, even with their offenders.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. (Romans 12:16–19)

You can see how the two thick and colorful threads weave themselves together in this distinctly Christian love: let God enact your vengeance and do all you can to make peace. Don’t settle for a cold, distant truce when it comes to these offenses, but fight for the warmth of harmony.

And not only within the church, but strive to “live peaceably with all,” the apostle says. That means even the unbelievers — the neighbors, the coworkers, the friends, the parents, the children — who sin against you. The perfect justice of God — in hell and on the cross — makes this kind of miraculous peace relationally possible. We can hold out meaningful, heartfelt peace even to those who despise, harass, persecute, and harm us.

Very often, our enemies will not receive it (that’s why Paul says “so far as it depends on you”), but if they do, it just might be the day they, like you, are rescued from wrath and step into joy-filled peace with God.