Proverbs 19 11 the discretion
of a man deferred his anger And it is his glory to pass over
a transgression Now discretion not a word we use commonly, but
it's prudence and good sense That's just a simple plain definition
good sense if you got good sense And if you and I have any of
that, we know it came from the lord We don't have any by nature. And if we have any, we will defer
anger. Deferreth means to prolong, and
it has to do with longsuffering. It's a form of the word longsuffering.
These two things go together, discretion and longsuffering,
or the deferring of anger. that quality of character which
the Lord gives, which is just good sense. We're missing that these days,
aren't we, in this world? Just good sense. You see, that's
different from having a degree, being a bachelor of whatever
or a master of whatever. you can attain the highest levels
of academic achievement and just flat not have any good sense.
And the Lord just gives that. He just gives that. You don't
study for that. The Lord gives it. And the thought
which you do study for, the Lord gives that too, of course. But
the one is the cause of the other. When the Lord gives this quality
of character to a sinner through salvation, he doesn't give that
apart from Christ, and Christ is our salvation, not just our
new nature. When he gives that, it results
in a certain reaction and behavior. Proverbs 2.6, I'll refer to you
again, as we often do throughout these Proverbs. Proverbs 2.6,
for the Lord giveth wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge
and understanding. Key verse throughout the Proverbs,
because we read of wisdom and understanding so much in the
different facets of teaching in the Proverbs. It comes from
God, and notice the way he gives it in what I just read. The Lord
giveth wisdom. How does he do that? It comes
out of his mouth. It's his word. It's the gospel
whereby he gives it. That's how he gives it. The gospel,
think about it, the gospel saves It's able, Paul said, to make
you wise into salvation. By that means, it's God, it's
Christ that saves, but he does it by means that please God by
the foolishness of preaching to save. He does it by that,
the gospel. The gospel saves, teaches, it's
profitable for doctrine, which just means teaching. is profitable for reproof. The
gospel reproves us. You don't need me to rant and
rave and say, quit doing this and quit doing that and start
doing this. If the honor of Christ, you think about that for a second.
If the honor of Christ doesn't mean enough to you to change
your behavior, me making an idiot out of myself, what's that gonna
do? Or anybody else shaming you or
hitting you over the head with the law? It's the honor of the Lord that
motivates us. It's the love of Christ that
constrains us. We thus judge if he gave himself
for us, then we ought to live for him. That's not complicated.
It's profitable for correction. It instructs us. It's profitable
for instruction in righteousness. The gospel does all that. And
it causes, it gives us the grace from the Lord in the teaching,
through the teaching of the gospel. God gives us some good sense.
He really does. We have the mind of Christ in
that regard. He just flat gives us good sense.
Hearing from God affects us. It changes us. And we may not
even notice it. You may not even notice that
about yourself. You don't need to notice it. It's not an achievement.
It's a grace. And our text doesn't mean that
we're never to get angry. We know that from scripture.
Jealousy for God's glory causes anger. Is that a bad thing? Our
Lord put it on display, didn't he? By overturning tables of
the money changers, in the temple, and you remember why he did it?
He said, it's written, my house shall be called the house of
prayer, and you've made it a den of thieves. It was dishonoring
to his father, to God, and the Lord Jesus said, enough. This
is the day you quit doing that. But let's face it, all of our
displays, if you think throughout the years, how many times you've
gotten angry and shown it, How many of them, how many of those
times have been motivated by jealousy for the glory of the
Lord? Stupid displays of anger do just
the opposite. They dishonor the Lord whose
name we bear. whose name we associate ourselves
with. That's why this is so clearly
and thoroughly dealt with in the Word of God. Proverbs 14,
29, he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. That's just simply saying that
when the Lord saves somebody, and gives them understanding,
he gives this quality with that. Doesn't mean that we 100% of
the time act that way, we still have this flesh, but the new
man is slow to wrath. It doesn't say he ought to be,
he is. Proverbs 16. 32, he that is slow to anger is better
than the mighty. If somebody gets mad about something
and he's got power, you know, he's strong, he's got ability,
he's got armies or whatever. And he puts on a display of that
anger by conquering. The one that is offended or has
cause to be very angry and may be very angry on the inside,
but is able to control that, is able to repress that by God's
grace, is able to think rather than react, he's better. We see the display of anger,
we're impressed by that. Our flesh is impressed by that.
Sometimes if it's not, just on the surface stupid. But we can
be impressed by displays of anger, but not the Lord. Not the Lord. He that ruleth his spirit is
better than he that taketh a city. It takes more strength, more
might, more wisdom, more power, more strength of character, to put it in check, to let it
go than it does to take a city. Thank God the Lord's not quick
to anger. He's not only our savior in this,
he saves stupid, angry people, but he shows us what it means
to be wise and prudent He said of his people in Isaiah
48, nine, for my name's sake, I will defer my anger. He gets glory like that. For
my name's sake, for the glory of his own name, he defers his
anger and for my praise, he said, will I refrain for thee? I'm
not gonna strike you down and put you in hell. And I do that
for my own praise, for my own glory, for my name's sake. I will refrain for thee that
I cut thee not off. He doesn't give us what we deserve.
He doesn't react to our evil and our sin hastily, but he has mercy. And look at the second part of
our verse this morning. Look at the second part of it
again. It's the glory of a man to pass
over a transgression. Turn with me please to first
Peter chapter two. I ran across this passage of
scripture before I ever started studying, not long before, but
just a little bit before I started studying for this lesson. And the Lord impressed it upon me
then. And then we came to this verse in the scripture, in Proverbs,
and it came back to my mind. 1 Peter 2, 18. Verse 18, when
you think about this, servants be subject to your masters
with all fear, with respect, not only to the good and gentle,
it's easy to respect a boss that you like, that treats you well, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy. If a man for conscience toward
God, because he's not thinking of himself, he's thinking of
the glory of God. And for that reason, he endured
grief. Think about our reaction every
time when we endure some grief. It's not pretty, is it? And in
this sense, a wrongdoing. Somebody done us wrong. It's like a fire in it, it's
like a fire. Suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, and there's
that word glory from our text. We're talking about a man's glory,
and that word means beauty. What beauty is therein if when
you be buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently? You should
do that. Even that is not gonna happen
without God's grace because we think we're God by nature. And
so anytime anybody rebukes us or wrongs us, irks us, whatever you want to
call it, we're not going to take it patiently
even if we deserve it. But if you take it patiently
when you deserve it, where's the beauty in that, the Lord
says. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it
patiently, this is acceptable with God. Now it's acceptable with God
in Christ. This is the character of somebody
that's in Christ, that has the grace of Christ, because we can't
even do it when we deserve it, much less when we don't. When I thought about that, The
times that I have done the right thing and then been criticized
or wronged for that, you talk about a fire in my heart. I don't ever think I've ever
reacted the way that the Lord teaches us to. I don't think I ever have. How about you? Which is why I'm thankful that
He's not only our example, He's our Savior. He's our Savior. We don't do the right thing,
but He did for us, as us. That's our hope. That's a beautiful thing. If
the Lord ever gives you the grace, to do that. Somebody does not
deserve your forgiveness at all, but you give it. Boy, there's a limit to that
in there because of our sin. We can't just leave it in the
Lord's hands. The Lord said, I'll repay if there needs to
be anger, if there needs to be retribution, if somebody needs
to pay for their behavior, I'll take care of that, he said, not
you. You're a sinner. You don't have the right to look
down on anybody. You don't have the right to be
mad at anybody. I don't either. Not for wronging us. And look now, not only is he
our example, look at it, and we see that so beautifully here.
Verse 21, for even here unto were you called, because Christ
also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should
follow his steps, that you should imitate him who did no sin, neither
was guile found in his mouth. who when he was reviled, reviled
not again, when he suffered, he threatened not. And what did
he suffer for? For telling the truth. For telling sinners the
only truth that can make them wise unto salvation. For giving
hope to a wretch like me, he suffered for that. But you know
what he did? And this, still remember this
is talking about us too. He's our example in this. And
what did he say? What did he do? Why didn't he
react and just, I mean, he had the ability to just drop people
in hell whenever he wanted to. I think he did that a couple
of times, didn't he? Those ones that, was it Janice
and Jambreeze? He dropped them in hell on the
spot. If he went around doing that
to everybody that deserved it, who'd be left? But he committed himself to him
that judges righteously. You sit there and say, well,
this person, boy, if anybody ever deserved a little retribution,
This person does, and they fixin' to get it. They deserve it. Not if they're in Christ, they
don't. And if they did, if they do,
if they deserve, they don't owe it to you, they
owe it to God. I should know that by now. I
should know that by now. And look, he's not just our example,
though. He did it for an example for
us that we might imitate him, but also who his own self bear
our sins. Because I am the way I am, because
I am stupid. I think I told y'all this before,
but I don't know if all of you were here. Somebody got kind
of irked with me one time for calling us stupid, which is scriptural,
by the way, very clearly scriptural. I don't like the word stupid,
they said. Well, do you like the word sinner? If stupid offends you, you don't
know what a sinner is. Stupid is being kind. Compared to sinner, does it make
you mad when I call you a sinner? We're stupid. But he also not only gave us
an example to follow, but he bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. That we being dead to sin should
live under righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. Not by whose stripes you were
taught how to live, which we are, but that's not what it says. You were healed. For you were a sheep going astray,
but now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Again,
we're shown not only Christ, as our example to imitate, but
as our savior, because how to perform that which is good, we
still find not. And I'm thankful that my hope
doesn't rest on me and my behavior. It's not that the exhortation
of Scripture is in vain. He does exhort us to be wise,
be prudent, be slow to anger. He's given us a new heart. He's
created us anew in Christ Jesus that we might honor Him. It's
just that our honoring of Him is never our righteousness. Christ is. Amen, let's pray.