THE GENERAL PRAYER – PART VI
This
month we pick up were we left off with the General Prayer, found on pg. 23-24
of the Hymnal. The General Prayer continues:
May it please Thee
also to turn the hearts of our enemies and adversaries that they may cease
their enmity and be inclined to walk with us in meekness and in peace.
The
Christian faith runs contrary to human nature. This comes as no surprise, for
St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that “the natural man does not
receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” Such
is the case in this petition of the Church’s General Prayer. Human reason wants its enemies to suffer and have
their schemes and success thwarted. (By “enemy” I mean anyone who seeks to harm
you physically, spiritually, financially, or in any other way). Mankind’s
natural tendency is to think that if someone is against us then we must be
against them.
This is not the attitude the Christian is to take towards his enemy though.
Christ says in Matthew 5:43-44,
You have
heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.' But I say to you, love your
enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for
those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
How
different this attitude is from our natural inclinations! We are to love our
enemies, not merely tolerate them or avoid them. We are not to return the
curses of our enemy but bless them, do good to them and even pray for
them.
Jesus’
words aren’t merely a ‘golden rule’ by which men ought to live. Jesus isn’t a
moralist teacher who wants His disciples to merely be better people. Jesus’
words about loving our enemies are rooted in the soil of our own redemption. We
love, pray for, and do good to our enemies because that is what Christ has done
for His enemies. Consider what St. Paul writes in Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” St. Paul calls us God’s enemies. We
were not a neutral party in between God the Devil, able to lean one way or the
other. We were firmly planted in the Devil’s camp since our first parents left
God’s will and listened to Satan’s word in the Garden of Eden. Since then all
humanity is born as sinful enemies of God.
If we think that the designation “enemy” is too harsh for our
pre-conversion relationship to God, remember what Philip Melanchthon writes in
the Apology of the Augsburg Confession:
The human heart
without the Holy Ghost either in security despises God's judgment, or in
punishment flees from, and hates, God when He judges.
Therefore it does not obey the First Table. Since, therefore, contempt of God,
and doubt concerning the Word of God, and concerning the threats and promises,
inhere in human nature, men truly sin, even when, without the Holy Ghost, they
do virtuous works, because they do them with a wicked heart, according to Rom. 14:23: Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin.
Melanchthon certainly has Romans 5:10 in mind when he writes this, as well
as Colossians 1:21-22 which says:
And you, who
once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has
reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and
blameless, and above reproach in His sight.
All mankind is alienated from God by being born sinful. But the Lord is
mercy and provides reconciliation for His enemies through faith in the atoning
death of Jesus. Just as He immediately brought Adam and Eve to repentance and
gave them the Gospel of the Promised Seed (Jesus), so the Triune God still
wants to be reconciled to men through faith in Christ’s merits and passion.
When we consider that we are, by nature, enemies of God, and when we
consider what being His enemy entails, loving our personal enemies is put in
perspective. We love, do good to, and pray for our enemies because that is what
our Lord has gracious done and still does for us.
We are also motivated to love our enemies when we consider the fate of
those who are still enemies of God. When Jesus teaches us to pray for our
enemies He is speaking more broadly than just your personal enemies. He is
speaking also about the enemies of the Gospel. In the ancient church that was
the heretics and pagans. During the Reformation (and still today) that was the
Papacy because the papacy’s insistence on false teaching. In our day, the
church’s enemies are politicians who would destroy the church and the Muslims
who would eradicate Christianity through Jihad.
It is difficult to pray for these people when they want to take away goods,
fame, child, and wife. It is even more difficult to love them when they want to
snatch away the pure Gospel of the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake. The
Gospel is our true treasure in this life because it forgives our sins and fits
us for everlasting life. Nothing else on earth can do that! What is the fate of the enemies of the
Gospel, be they politicians who hate the church, Christians who teach a false Christ or Muslims
who teach Mohammedenism? The prophet Nahum says, “The LORD will take vengeance
on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath
for His enemies.” (Nahum 1:2) St. Paul says this of the enemies of
Christ:
For many
walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the
cross of Christ: whose end is destruction,
whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame -- who set their mind on earthly things. (Philippians 3:18-19)
Without faith in Christ, the enemies of Christ are damned. No matter what
they want to do to us and the faith, we do not wish hellfire upon anyone. Yet
we know this is the destination of all who reject Christ. So in love, we pray
for their conversion. We do not pray for the success of God’s enemies because
that would me our eradication and the eradication of the Gospel (which the Lord
has promised will not happen). This is why we pray in this petition of the
General Prayer that God would
Turn the hearts of
our enemies and adversaries that they may cease their enmity and be inclined to
walk with us in meekness and in peace.
We were once enemies of God, fleeing from His Word,
hating His judgments, and fearing His punishments. Having been justified by
faith and having peace with God and are no longer His enemies. With this in
mind we love our enemies and pray for their conversion to true faith in Christ
so that we may walk together with them in meekness and peace. To that end,
Amen.
