“Vengance Is Mine”

Scripture

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”says the Lord.

~Romans 12:19

Quote

Seeking revenge is not our responsibility. The LORD claimed ownership of revenge

~Ya’akov

Alexandre Dumas is famous for five novels: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, The Three Musketeers, The Nutcracker, The man in the Iron Mask and the Count of Monte Christo. I love them all. Edmond Dantès is a sailor on a commercial ship and he is about to be promoted. Edmond is a commoner, not from an aristocratic family. His success causes jealousy among his so called friends. Three men conspire to destroy Edmond: one due to jealousy, another who is in love with Edmonds fiancée, Mercédès, and the third because Edmond has a letter that incriminates his family. Edmond was the currier and he had no idea what was in the letter. He is arrested without a charge and shipped to the Chateau d’If, a notorious prison on an island in the harbor of Marseilles.

Long story short: Edmond meets an old priest in prison who educates him and tells him about a burried treasure on the island of Monte Christo. Fast forward 15 years and Edmond miraculously escaped and then located the treasure. Instantly he becomes one of the wealthiest me in Europe. He makes his way home in search of his fiancée and discoved that she is married to one of the three men that betrayed him. He goes from grief to anger and then determines to investigate and find out who was responsible for him spending 15 years in a horrible prison. Once he acquires the documents he proceeds to destroy all three men. He uses his wealth to carry out the plan and he successfully destroys all three, but unfortunately, he destroyed their families as well of which many were innocent. To carry out his plan, Edmond repressed his positive emotions and gave way to hate and revenge. The result was: he was unable to love. His desire to get even, to make them pay destroyed his ability to love. The once sensitive and compassionate Edmond become hard, cold and unyielding.

The moral of the story is simple: we humans are not make to seek revenge; we must leave this to the righteous anger of God. He promised us three times that He would take care of it. Give it to HIM. Seeking revenge will do to you what it did to Edmond.

Extra

Keith Dotson’s visitation is tomorrow at Grace Point 12:00-2:00 with COLS at 2:00. Men’s breakfast in the morning at 8:00 am. DBC’s Senior Adult luncheon is today.

I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for reading the blog.

Extra/Extra

~National Day of Prayer May 7, 5:00 am-11:00 am