“Love your enemies” – but even the evil, mad, and dangerous ones too? 

We’re sort of stuck because the Father, whose children we are, “causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” Matthew 5:45. And Jesus then says in verse 48: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

Which means, as Jesus points out in verse 44, that we are to “love our enemies” just as the Father loves them. And Jesus lived that way too, when asking the Father to forgive the evil, mad, and dangerous people who were instrumental in his death, “for they do not know what they are doing,” Luke 23:34. 

But does that mean we treat everyone with love, compassion and forgiveness, no matter how monstrous or hideous they are? 

Well, God set the boundaries on how we deal with people in John 3:17. Simply put, he’s not into condemning, he’s into saving. Which gives us a clue on how we love our enemies: our focus is not on wishing eternal death on them, it’s hoping that in some way they will wake up to their awfulness and want to put it behind them forever. 

For example: some of the most evil, mad, and dangerous people on the planet right now are those who want to sexually mutilate young children and teenagers through surgery to supposedly change their gender. Does God still cause the sun to rise on them and send rain on them? Yes. So he doesn’t condemn them, does he? BUT, he also sent Jesus to save them. 

Our hope, therefore, is “that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will,” 2 Timothy 2:25-26. 

This was Peter’s hope too, when he told Simon the sorcerer to “pray that the treachery of your heart may be forgiven you” in Acts 8:22. That’s because, Simon, “God is not mocked,” Galatians 6:7. He makes sure that “we reap what we sow.” We get what we deserve. We are held accountable for what we do. Paul put it bluntly in Romans 2:9, that “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil.” And Jesus said of such people, “How will you escape being condemned to hell?” Matthew 23:33. So whatever one thinks hell is, it’s guaranteed for people with “stubborn and unrepentant hearts,” Romans 2:5.

But what if these stubborn, unrepentant, evil, mad, and dangerous people realize what they’ve done is “evil in God’s sight,” Psalm 51:4, like King David did? And again, like David, they beg God for the chance to “teach transgressors your ways, (so that) sinners will turn back to you,” verse 13? It happened to Saul the psychopath, who “was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief,” 1 Timothy 1:13, who then became Paul the apostle as evidence of “God’s unlimited patience,” verse 16. And how many sinners did Paul then turn back to God? 

So amazing things can happen to evil, mad, and dangerous people, because God is God and he can get through to the worst of them – and maybe through how we deal with them too. We love ‘em – BUT – we also wish upon them whatever it takes to wake them up.