What's Wrong With Getting Even

Written by Ed Allen
 Saturday, 20 May 2000 19:00

Lessons From The Life of David

1 Samuel 25:36-38

On Father's Day, 1999, Amy Shanabarger of Franklin Indiana, found her chubby-cheeked infant son, Tyler, facedown and dead in his crib. Two days later ? just hours after the baby's funeral ? Ronald L. Shanabarger told his wife he had killed their son. The next day he gave police a confession saying that not only did he kill the boy, he had planned the crime even before the child was conceived as a way of exacting revenge against his wife.

Tyler did not die of sudden infant death syndrome as the coroner had ruled, Shanabarger said. He confessed to suffocating the 7-month old with plastic wrap. He said it was revenge because Amy, before they were married, had refused to cut short a vacation trip to comfort him when his father died in 1996.

"Shanabarger said he planned to make Amy feel the way he did when his father died. He married her, got her pregnant, allowed time for her to bond with the child, and then took his boy's life," according to an affidavit prosecutors filed to support a murder charge. When arrested Shanabarger begged officers to shoot him.

We would love to condemn poor, sick Shanabarger, but before we do we should be honest and acknowledge that we are separated by this man's action only by degree not by kind. I like the way one writer put it:

"Have you never tasted the luxury of indulging in hard thoughts against those who have, as you think, injured you? Have you never known what a positive fascination it is to brood over their unkindnesses, and to pry into their malice, and to imagine all sorts of wrong and uncomfortable things about them? It has made you wretched, of course, but it has been a fascinating sort of wretchedness that you could not easily give up." (Hannah Whitehall Smith)

There is something intoxicating about revenge. It is seductive and almost irresistible. Like scratching poison ivy, contemplating revenge is deliciously painful. We make speeches ? scratch, scratch. We picture accidents and embarrassments ? claw, claw. We avoid. We withhold conversation or some other human contact in order to punish ? rub, rub. We obsess. We talk about it with others whom we are fairly confident will be sympathetic. We make sure they understand the depth of the injury and injustice. And we find it absolutely impossible to imagine that we could ever act in any way like we have been acted upon. Scratch, claw, rub and the poison spreads. God could not have been clearer in His condemnation of revenge. "Bless those who persecute you ? Do not repay evil for evil ? Do not take revenge, my friends."

But why? Doesn't God care about being fair? Doesn't He care when injustice is done? God did you happen to see what my wife did? Does God intend to make us doormats?

So why would God prohibit revenge?

A. Vengeance is a burden.

  1. This is the point that Abigail makes for David. "Do not mar your conscience with the staggering burden of needless bloodshed," she said.
  2. In one episode of the old Amos and Andy TV show, Andy was angry because a big man continually slapped him across the chest every time they met. Andy finally had had enough of it. So he told Amos, "I'm going to get revenge. I put a stick of dynamite in my vest pocket. The next time he slaps me on the chest he's going to get his hand blown off." Of course, Andy will also get his heart blown out.
  3. God forbid revenge because He knows that it does damage to our hearts. It is too heavy a burden for us to bear.

B. Vengeance puts us in the place of God.

  1. Another web site advertising ultimate revenge kit
    • Says unless you are "truly wronged" don't continue
    • Who decides that we are truly wronged
    • This is God's territory, only He decides
  2. Some of you are troubled at the idea that seeking vengeance puts us in the place of God. Don't have room for vengeance in your picture of God. Just know that your picture of God is not the Bible's picture. (Nahum 1:2)
  3. But interesting to me that throughout the prophets, God's vengeance is mentioned in the context of justice and righteousness.
  4. God steps in when the cause of justice is perverted.
  5. But He is patient. He exercises the same patience with the unjust as He does with us.
  6. In the place of God ? not where we want to be. I imagine some irate fan being asked to ref a pro game. Once the irate fans and players started yelling at them, they might wish otherwise.

So, if revenge is prohibited, what do we do instead? What should we think and how should we act when we are mistreated?

A. Recognize that God is involved, not matter what the situation is.

  1. David's story ? God not involved, just some jerk and I'm going to seek revenge.
  2. But as soon as David hears Abigail's word, he recognizes it as a word from God.
    "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands." (32-34)
  3. God is just and He will deal with things in His time. (Romans 12:19)
  4. God is in control. Even when life is unfair, God is in control.

B. Forego the right of striking back.

  1. "Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought to him and said, 'Go in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.'"
  2. David accepted her gift and her word. And to accept what Abigail said, he had to renounce his own desire to strike back.
  3. Proverbs 25:21-22 quoted in the Romans passage says: ?
    • burning coals may be a reference to purifying
    • or to judgment
    • In either case, by doing good to your enemy you are leaving the matter in the only hands that can settle it with true justice: God's.

C. Replace the feelings of resentment and anger with good will.

  1. Romans 12:14 "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."
  2. This is certainly the kind of life our Lord modeled for us. In fact, he loved us in this way.
  3. We can do this by remembering that this person is our neighbor!
  4. Leviticus 19:18 "`Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."
  5. David would have been tempted to say, "this man is not my neighbor."
  6. But Jesus taught us that our neighbor is anyone in need.

1 Samuel 25:36-38

(36) When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until daybreak. (37) Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. (38) About ten days later, the LORD struck Nabal and he died.

This story reminds us of the power and the certainty of God's vengeance. If we leave it in His hands He will deal with it. But we are not in the right place with Him, we have not let go of the burden of revenge, until we hope for our enemies that God does not deal with the situation in the way He dealt with Nabal. We must hope that God will bring them to right understanding of themselves and of Him. This is what replacing the feelings of resentment and anger with goodwill look like. In David's case, he lost an enemy, but if God had restored Nabal, David would have gained a friend.

Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnapper, angry with the boy's family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, then shot him in the head and left him to die in the Everglades. Remarkably, the boy survived, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested.

In 1997, a man confessed to the crime. Carrier, now a youth minister at Granada Presbyterian Church, went to see him.

He found David McAllister, a 77-year-old ex-convict, frail and blind, living in a North Miami Beach nursing home. Carrier began visiting often, reading to McAllister from the Bible and praying with him. His ministry opened the door for McAllister to make a profession of faith.

No arrest is forthcoming; after 22 years, the statute of limitations on the crime is long past. When asked if he felt the desire to seek revenge against McAllister, Carrier said, "While many people can't understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn't not forgive him. If I'd chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn't be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be."

Is there some resentment that you are allowing to keep you from being who God wants you to be? Are you carrying a burden that is simply too heavy to bear? Or do you know someone to whom you need to play the part of Abigail? Is there someone with whom you need to intervene and set free from the burden of vengeance and from the sin of playing God?

 

Website developed by ChurchKatalyst