Proverbs 16, 32, he that is slow
to anger is better than the mighty. And he that ruleth his spirit
than he that taketh a city. Now this is a proverb that I
love, not because I measure up to it in any mentionable
way, And it's not that I just enjoy
being rebuked, but it forces us to see our Savior. But it also forces us to run
to our Savior. It causes us, you can't see yourself
except in light of Him. The standard, the perfect stone
against which we are weighed is Christ, not the law. Christ himself, he is the keeping
of the law. We don't even know what the law
says. We don't even know it. If we ever heard it, we wouldn't
even pretend like we measure up to it. But by God's grace, we get a
glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thereby we compare ourselves
and find Not only that we look to Him as the example, but we
flee to Him for the things that we lack,
for the things that we're not. We flee to Him as our righteousness,
because unless this is us, we have no hope, but it's not us.
So where's our hope? Christ. And think about this again. He
that is slow to anger, better than the mighty, and he that
ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city. If somebody raised
the issue, if we started talking about being like Christ, we want
to be like him. And you begin to think of everything
that that meant. Of course, righteousness, holiness,
we want to please God. We want to do those things that
please the Father, like Him. We know that we can't. We can't
measure up to God's standard in that, but we can imitate Him.
That word, be ye followers of Jesus Christ, that means be imitators
of Him, like little children. It even says that, like little
children, imitate their Father. And we want to do that in his
compassion and tenderness. That's our text. We were so quick
to be upset and angry and bitter. His love, you think about his
love. To be able to love selflessly and. His mercy, his forgiveness. Forgive one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. He's the standard. It still doesn't say forgive
one another because the law demands it. Forgive one another because of
Christ and the forgiveness of your sin
that's found in him. Would you even think of this
at all if you were thinking about, I want to be like my savior?
Would you even think about this? Our Lord, he was mistreated,
denied, opposed at every step. Everything he said brought down
the wrath of the establishment religion upon him. Everything that makes us angry
was done to him over and over. And he could have shut down anybody
at any time he wanted to. He could have shut them down. He was grilled by pilot, scourged and mocked by the soldiers,
tortured by them, falsely accused and arrested. And I know it's easy just to
pass over these things, but think about that. If you were accused
of something that you didn't do, even to the point of dying
for it, it would eat you alive. If you had a way to get back at the ones that did that to
you, you'd do it. Ultimately, of course, he was
murdered in the most horrible way, and every step along the
way, he could have stopped it. He could have called his father,
he said, for more than 12 legions of angels. When he flashed his
glory for one second in the garden, the soldiers fell backward. What would happen if he had revealed
his full glory? All he did is say, I am, and
they fell backward. That was just him saying who
he was. That wasn't even a glimpse of
wrath. The only time that we see our
Lord ever showing anything like anger, and this is an important
point to our text, is when the religious Jews had turned his
house into a den of thieves. This brings up a very important
point. Look at us for a minute. Look
at us. We get angry and pouty and bowed
up about the most trivial and insignificant things. And then when it comes to that
which glorifies God, the worship, the ministry, supporting the
ministry and being there when things need to be done and things
like that. The love of his sheep. We know
that he takes that personally. We know that he considers the
treatment of his people as though it's himself. We know that. He said to Saul of Tarsus, why
are you persecuting me? So when it comes to those things
bearing fruit for his glory We're not near so ferocious about those
things as we are just the most trivial nonsense Our Lord was jealous for his
father's glory When he platted that whip and drove out those
that were turning his father's house into a den of thieves,
and he never showed any indignation, really, about anything else. His father's glory. And we tend
to be just the opposite. We just take those things that
matter to God in this world, we can just kind of take them
or leave them, but then something just, some nonsense. Something
that's totally insignificant, it's inconsequential, and yet
we flare up, we get passionate about that. Here's the exhortation to us
in James 119, wherefore, my beloved brethren, Let every man be swift
to hear, slow to speak, and that's another thing that's part of
our text. Slow to wrath, that's certainly
part of it, because the word anger is in our text. For the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. If it don't,
it don't. Now you may be thinking of that
verse of scripture that says the wrath of man glorifies God
and the remainder of wrath he shall restrain. There's a difference
between glorifying God and it working his righteousness. He
uses everything for his glory. But that don't mean it's right. When we do it, whatever we do,
he's gonna work it for his own glory. He's gonna get glory out
of us whether we like it or not. but that don't make us right
in the wrath, in the anger. And our text is not just about
anger. Again, they're swift to hear, slow to speak. That's part
of it too. It's the controlling of your
spirit. The ruling of the spirit is the
way it says it in our text. In every way, controlling your
spirit, not only in anger, but in lust, and that's not just
sexual lust, that's lusting after the things of this world, that's
all the things that become idols to us, that we desire so much
that we, it comes between us and the Lord
Jesus. Impetuousness, like Simon, That's
in all of us now. Not controlling what you say.
Be slow to speak. Be careful about what you say. That's what we just read. Being
a busybody in other men's matters, the scriptures addresses that. There are a lot of ways and every
one of them are addressed in the scripture that the spirit
is not ruled And think about the message in
our text. He that does, by God's grace,
rule his spirit, controls his anger, his lust, what he says, what he does, rules
his spirit, he's the one that's really the strong one. This world has it backwards. To them, strength is the loudest,
the most boisterous, the proud, the physical, impressed by the
physical aspect of somebody, or maybe their intelligence or
whatever. It's the loudest one, it's the
most boisterous, that are considered
strong. God says the one that's quiet, the one that doesn't have to
have an opinion about everything, the one that lets it go, he's
the strong one. Two men in conflict with one
another, and one of them is Boisterous and threatening and shouting
and the others just standing there taking it He's just standing
there. I've got a picture of that. I'd
like to show you how y'all ask me about that later I've got
a picture of that a literal picture Which one's the strong one I thought carefully about what
I'm about to say before I wrote it down in my notes, and I stand
by it. One of the hardest things in
this world is not killing somebody. You find that to be true, I mean
in our hearts. It's not that hard not to murder
somebody, because you know there's consequences for that, and they're
not good. So I mean in our hearts, mostly. Not taking somebody's head off.
Not getting back at somebody that's wronged you. Not retaliating
when somebody slanders you. Not proving somebody wrong when
they rebuke you. Even if they are wrong. to rule our own spirit. Another reason that we need the
grace of God at all times. All these proverbs, they point
us to Christ and they cause us to run to Christ. Don't neglect
to pray for this gift. This grace. Remember these three small words
that my pastor taught me 30 years ago. Let it go. Let it go. You've got to remember
that at the right time though. It's like, you know, Your, you know, your anniversary.
You remembered it the day before. But you got to remember it at
the right time. Let it go. Someone's wronged you, slandered
you. It happens just about every day. Somebody's insulted you. Let it go. You can't resist the temptation
to butt into somebody else's business. Happens all the time,
doesn't it? Let it go. They don't need you. Nobody cares. They don't need you in their
business. You're dying to boast. Our nature
is to toot our horn every time we get a chance. Let it go. Let it go, nobody cares. Nobody cares what you've done
or accomplished or what you're proud about. Nobody cares. And
if they did, remember this verse of scripture, Proverbs 27, two,
let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth. Do you know
how obnoxious that is? I'm talking to myself. That's
obnoxious. Let another man praise thee,
and not thine own mouth, a stranger, and not thine own lips. If somebody does care about you
enough to care what you've done, just do it and shut up about
it. You see what I'm talking about, ruling your spirit. The
anger, yes, is specifically mentioned. because
we'd have just about killed everybody by now if what was in our heart
came out. Somebody does or says something
and you want to tell all of your gossip circle. Everybody's got
a gossip circle, don't they? The two or three people, maybe
more, that you tell everything to that happens. Let it go, let
it stinking go. God give us grace to let it go.
That is real strength. The boisterous person, the person
that flies off the handle over insignificant, that person is
weak. I don't wanna be that. We're not gonna overcome it without
God's grace. If you can't rule your own spirit,
you're weak, and you need the grace of God, and God gives that
grace. He gives that grace. But as long
as we indulge this flesh, and that's what it is now, You
might think, boy, the believers back in the Old Testament, man,
they had it tough. They had to literally fight the
enemies of God with swords. David, I don't know how David
slept at night, do you? But I'll tell you what's harder
than that. It's what we have to do now if
we're gonna honor the Lord. Our enemy now, our own spirit,
is a lot sneakier than the Philistines. A lot more insidious than the
Philistines. And it takes a lot more strength to defeat him. It'll take the
grace of God to do it. As long as we indulge this flesh,
we're going to dishonor him now. There's all kinds of horrible
consequences. God forbid. Let's pray.