Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christians' armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Alright, guys, let's go ahead and wrap up the week. This week on the Daily Blade, we're leaning on the work of Al Robertson as it pertains to men being respectable in the context of marriage. So Al uses Job 31 to elucidate that, and we're spending some time in those passages of the Old Testament this week. And yesterday we used Job 31, verses 16, 17, and 24 to show how men should display consistent generosity and encourage contentment over greed. So today we're looking at Job 31, verses 29 and 30. Let's go ahead and look at that now, Job 31, verses 29 and 30. If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me or exalted when evil overtook him, I have not let my mouth sin by asking for his life with a curse. So how is a man respectable? He is not vengeful, but forgiving. Now I want you guys to think of a time when you were wronged. Okay, so I don't really want to give any specific examples because I know that each of us has been wronged, and some of you in horrifically evil ways, but just go ahead and get that instance in your mind. So in almost all those instances, the wrong that was done to you was done by a person or a multitude of people, right? These people may have been in positions of trust or power or authority, and they took advantage of you and hurt you in some way. So think about it. Now, was your default response to these people forgiveness or vengeance? And I don't mean how did you eventually respond. I mean in the moment, your knee-jerk reaction, was it forgiveness or vengeance? Was it mercy or violence? Now, I would assume for most of us, even those of us that are pretty far down our sanctification journeys, you defaulted to vengeance. And guys, I'm the same way. If we're being honest, we have or would have rejoiced in the ruin of that person because they're our enemy. You know, when evil has overtaken them, we would have been okay with that. But true godliness refuses to rejoice in the sufferings of others, because godly people are for mercy, not malice. So Proverbs 24, verse 17 and 18, do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from him. So a couple of examples came to mind as I was writing this. The first was the public reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk earlier this year. So obviously fans and supporters of his were in shock and distraught, but quickly their attitudes turned to gratitude for even having experienced him, right? And many of them ran to or clung to their faith in Jesus. But what about the other side? There were thousands, if not millions, of people that were celebrating his murder and hoping for the murder of those like me that believed and said the same things that Charlie did. I mean, their souls and their hearts were just filled with malice. I mean, it's like they wanted vengeance for someone that just simply disagreed with them. But then I thought about several examples I've seen over the years of sentencing hearings and capital murder cases. So at these hearings, it is typical for the family and loved ones of the victim to address the court and the person that actually killed their loved one. So there was one case in particular, and that's with Gary Ridgway. So he's otherwise known as the Green River Killer, who was convicted of killing 49 women in the 1980s and 1990s, and many more alleged victims. He is actually considered to be the most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States. Well, as you can imagine, there were a lot of people at his sentencing hearing, and many of them wished tremendous suffering on Ridgway. But there was one man, his name was Robert Rule. He was the father of one of the victims, Linda Janey Rule. He stood before his daughter's murderer and rapist and said that the that he did not hate him. He actually said, You are forgiven, sir. Which also reminds me of the words of Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica, at Charlie's Celebration of Life, where she, in front of, you know, tens of millions of viewers watching live at the time, forgave Charlie's killer. Now, I mean, you just have to wonder how could someone get there? Like, how could they get to a place where they are thinking forgiveness and not vengeance? It's because they refused to withhold forgiveness from man, even evil men that have harmed them, because our holy and just God did not withhold forgiveness from us. Paul says this in Romans 5, verses 6 through 11. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received reconciliation. So we can forgive because we are forgiven. And we should forgive. So, men, if you want to be respectable, especially as it pertains to your wife, you need to be forgiving and not vengeful. Thank you for your attention this week. Stay sharp.

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