Let's turn to Ephesians chapter
4. Ephesians chapter 4. Let me forget, I have some announcements
to make at the end of the service. Ephesians 4 verse 26, verse 27. Be ye angry and sin
not. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Now, this is another
particular way in which we put off the old man and put on the
new man. Now, in the context, we know
that the Holy Spirit has been teaching believers, speaking
to believers, teaching us to endeavor to keep the unity of
the Spirit in the church. That's the message here. That's
the purpose of the message. And our motive for this, we've
seen from the beginning of the book, is the electing grace of
God our Father who chose us in Christ. It's the redeeming blood
of Christ our Savior who redeemed us. It's the grace of God the
Holy Spirit who regenerated us and gave us life and faith in
Christ. He's our motive. He's made us
one in Christ, one with God in Christ, one with one another
in His body. He's our motive. And then we
saw that our motive is that Christ has given us faithful preachers.
He's put us under the sound of the gospel. That's a rare and
precious thing in the world. He's given us this great privilege
so that We can be grown in grace through the message so that we're
no longer tossed by every wind of doctrine. He's given us this
privilege so that as the gospel goes forth, He grows us inwardly,
unites us together, and keeps us, and shall do so. He shall continue to keep His
people through the gospel. We're saved through the gospel,
we're being saved through the gospel, and we shall be saved
through the gospel, and that by Christ. And our motive is
that God's created in us a new man. We've heard Christ, we've
been taught by Christ, we've learned Christ so that there
is a new man created within us now by Christ. Christ in you
the hope of glory. And so that now we don't walk
as unbelievers walk like we once walked. Not anymore. So, by the
mercies of God, we're exhorted to put off the old man and put
on the new man. That is to walk in the Spirit
with our affections set on Christ and not in the flesh with our
affections set on the flesh. Now, the context has to do with
the edification of Christ's body. That's what this whole letter
has been about. The edification of Christ's body,
the church. The edification of our fellow
brethren. That's the whole end motive here for which Paul is
telling us this, for which the Holy Spirit is telling us this.
Now, and that's the end purpose of all these exhortations that
are given. It's for the edification of the body of Christ. For the
glory of Christ. Now, he says here, verse 26.
Be ye angry. Now, according to the context,
if we're one with God our Father, if we're one with God the Son,
if we have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in us, then brethren,
In our inner man, we will be and we should be angry at all
evil, at all sin, at all falsehood, at all false doctrine. Anything
contrary to our God in our inner man will and should make us angry. It really should. He says, Be
ye angry. And then he says, And sin not.
Sin not. Now, there are two sides to this
coin. If we sin, we sin if we're not angry toward falsehood. He
says, be ye angry and sin not. If you're not angry, you sin.
That's right. And He says, and when we are
angry at sin, don't sin. When you do become angry at sin,
don't let it turn into sin. And then He says, let not the
sun go down upon your wrath. Though anger against falsehood
is just, we must quickly let go of it or it becomes sinful.
And there's only one way to do that. That's fleeing to Christ. So that's what these exhortations
are telling us. They're telling us to put off our old man and
flee to Christ. Now, no believer obeys this exhortation
in righteousness. Christ alone is our righteousness. And it's for the sake of Christ
that we should both be angry and flee to Him immediately when
we are angry. Do you understand what I'm saying?
We've not done this in righteousness. Christ only has. And it's for
His sake. that we should be angry at all
evil, at all falsehood, at all sin, and flee to Christ as soon
as we're angry. That's what he's teaching us
here. And you say, well, preacher, you spent the whole first hour
telling us that the message that he's going to bless is the hearing
of faithfulness, not the message that's the hearing of the works
of the law. This sounds like you're telling us to do something.
Well, let's hear the message. First of all, this is what we
must understand. You and I have not fulfilled
this in righteousness and we never can. This is not given
for us to fulfill in righteousness. This precept, like every other
precept given, we failed to do it. In righteousness and holiness,
we failed to do it. When we were dead in sin, in
our old man of flesh, we didn't have spiritual discernment. We
didn't know. We didn't have the love of God
in our hearts. So we never did become angry at falsehood. Can
you remember this? I learned the doctrine of grace
when I was an unbeliever, unregenerate man. My grandfather was a preacher
and taught the truth and he taught me. I knew total depravity, unconditional
election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance
of the saints. I could tell you what all those
doctrines were. And I could argue with men, but I didn't have the
love of God in my heart. So it didn't matter to me if,
well, you want to go on worshiping the Armenian God, that's fine.
It don't matter to me. You want to speak up for the
Armenian God, that don't matter to me. Because I didn't have
the love of God in my heart. And that's how we were when we
were dead in sin. And as believers, since we've
been believers, due to our old man of flesh, due to that sin
that's in us in our old man, We hear lies, we see sin, we
see evil, and we're just lukewarm about it. Not angry. That's sin. That's sin. We're not being angry
as we ought to be about it. Times we become angry too quick,
that's sin. There's times we hold on to anger
too long, and that's sin. And we've not been nearly as
angry about our own personal sin as we ought to be. That ought
to make us angry. But we don't. Not like it should. And we've let anger bring forth
all kinds of ugly, sinful thoughts and words and deeds. And that's
sin. We've been angry without a cause.
That's sin. The Lord said, whosoever is angry
with his brother without a cause should be in danger of the judgment
That's what we deserve. We've been angry without a cause.
I have and you have. Since we've been believers. So,
in each of these cases we've sinned and in each of these cases
we've given place to the devil. We've opened the door and said,
come right on in and have a seat. Come here and sit down. Make
yourself at home. That's what we've done. So, none
of us have fulfilled this exhortation. No precept given in the Scriptures
has any sinner fulfilled. Because God requires righteousness.
He requires perfect righteousness, perfect holiness. So, none of
us can look at these things and try to come to God by our obedience
to these things. We can't look at them and say,
well, I ought to be accepted because of that. No, no, no,
no. Not at all. They're not given
for that reason. They're not given for us to try
to earn a reward over our fellow brethren. That's not why these
exhortations are given. They're given for the good of
the body of Christ. They're given for your edification
and my edification to turn us from ourselves to Christ. That's
why they're given. For the good of the whole body.
So sin's mixed with all we do. So be clear on that first point.
This is not... We've not done this. We failed.
We've sinned. We're sinning. We're depraved
by nature as all men are. Now secondly, be sure to understand
this. Christ is the only one who's
fulfilled this precept just like all other precepts in perfect
righteousness and holiness. He's the only one. The Son of
God was sent by God the Father to fulfill the whole law of God.
That's what He was sent for. to magnify it and make it honorable.
Isaiah 42, 21 says, The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness
sake. He shall magnify the law and
make it honorable. That's Christ's work. That's
what He's sent to do because His people couldn't do it. Now,
Galatians 4, 4 says, When the fullness of time was come, God
sent forth His Son made of a woman, because that's what His people
were, flesh, made under the law. for this purpose, to redeem them
that were under the law, to pay the perfect righteousness to
the law's demands, to save us from our sins and ransom us from
the curse of the law. That's what he came for. Christ
said when he walked this earth, don't think that I came to destroy
the law. When men heard him speak, when
men heard, they heard him saying what they hear us saying. This
is what men think when they hear the gospel. They thought he was
saying he came to destroy the law. to just do away with it. And it would have no bearing
on anything whatsoever. And he said, don't think that.
That's not what I'm preaching. That's not what my Savior was
preaching. Christ did not come to destroy the law. He came to
fulfill the law and the prophets. That's what he said. Think not
that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to destroy, but to
fulfill. Now the legalist will say, well
see there, what Christ means by that is, even though you believe,
you're still under the law. He didn't destroy it. You're
still under it. Well, if that reason stands, then that means
you also have to fulfill the prophets. Because he said, don't
think I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I came to fulfill
the law and the prophets. If that's what Christ meant,
then you've got to fulfill the prophets. You see how stupid? That's not what he meant. He
meant I came to fulfill the law just like I'm going to fulfill
everything written in prophecy. And that's what he came to do.
Christ alone does it. Now look at Exodus 20 with me
just a minute. Here's the first commandment.
Exodus 20 is where God gave the law at Mount Sinai. And here
we have what is commonly called the Ten Commandments. And I want
you to see I've got so much paper in my Bible. Exodus 20. And look at verse 3. This is
the first command God gave. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth." You see, before the image comes, there is a heart
that says, I have another God. So you shall have no other God
before Him in your heart, neither shall you let that come out into
make engraving images or any likeness of anything in heaven
above, or that it is in the earth beneath, or that it is in the
water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God. All willful sin, all willful
falsehood, all is against God who is truth. Everything that's
sinful is against God. Everything that's a lie is against
God. It's against the glory of God. It is to serve another God. Now, the Lord's merciful and
the Lord is gracious and He's slow to anger, the Scripture
says. He's plenteous in mercy, but... The Lord is angry with the wicked
every day. He is angry with the wicked every
day. The wrath of God. Look at Romans
1.18. I want you to see this. Romans
1.18. The wrath of God. We are talking
about anger. The wrath of God. The wrath of
God. is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness. That's the first table of the
law. Against God. Anything against God. Against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness. That's the second table of the
law. against men. Both of these, ungodliness and
unrighteousness, are of men. And it says the Lord is the wrath
of God revealed against it, and against those who hold the truth
in unrighteousness. That's those who have the light
of nature and reject God. That's everybody. Everybody. That's those who know the gospel
and reject it. That's those who profess the
truth, profess to be believers, yet prove themselves to be vain
hypocrites. That's those who know the truth,
but refuse to declare the truth. Those that hold the truth in
unrighteousness. God's anger and His wrath is against those.
We've seen it. It's revealed from heaven. We
saw it in the old world when the Lord destroyed the whole
world in the flood. That was the anger and wrath
of God. We saw it in Sodom and Gomorrah
when He destroyed those two cities that were full of sodomy, full
of homosexuality. That was the anger and wrath
of God. We see it in the plagues against
Egypt. When Pharaoh would not let the
people go, that was God's anger against the people in those plagues.
And all the storms that you see and all the tempests you see
in the earth, the tsunamis and all these things, you're seeing
the wrath of God. You're seeing the anger of God
toward all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and those who hold the
truth in unrighteousness. Hell is a place of God's fiery
indignation. His holy, righteous, just anger
which shall devour the adversaries. I just wish... I can't... I know
I can't... I cannot make anybody hear me.
I can't make anybody believe what I'm saying. But you've got... you've got just a... you've got
a blink of an eye and you're going to stand before God. We're
going to stand before God. Is the first heaven real? This
atmosphere we live in, is it real? Yeah, it's real. Is the
second heaven real? We've been there. We've been
to outer space. We've seen it. Yeah, it's real. But whenever
they were stoning Stephen, God opened up the third heaven so
Stephen could look into heaven. And there was a place where was
a throne, where was Christ, and He stood up. to receive Stephen
into His presence. Heaven is a real place. God is
real. There is a third heaven. Paul
was carried up to the third heaven. And he said, and I saw things
and I heard things. It is not even lawful for me
to speak what I saw and heard there. So listen, you are going
to stand before God. And when you stand before God,
if you don't have perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, as righteous
and holy as God, God will not allow you in His presence. And
you'll be cast out. And it's going to be... You look
now and you think, man, it's horrible that men are cast out
of our presence into federal penitentiary, where they have
to spend all their life in that place, locked up. That's nothing. That's nothing compared to what
it'll be to spend all your life under the fiery indignation of
God. Would you just listen? Would
you just listen? God is plenteous in mercy. He
is slow to anger. He is going to give you however
many years He is determined to give you on this earth before
He is going to vent that anger against you if you beat Him without
crying. So, listen to God. Listen to what He said. In order
for Christ to fulfill the law of God... Now, what I've showed
you here, I've showed you that God is holy, He's angry against
the wicked. Now, in order for Christ to fulfill
the law in perfect righteousness, when He came to this earth, the
Lord Jesus Christ had to have the same heart as God. You see,
God's anger is not a passion like ours is. Our sinful flesh
is full of passion. It's anger. You get mad. That's
not what we're talking about here. It's God's anger against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness. It's God's nature. He's truth.
He's holy. He's righteous. So it's God's
nature to be against anything that's contrary to God. And that's
what we're talking about here. So for Christ to come and fulfill
the law and perfect righteousness and perfect holiness, He had
to have the same nature as God. He had to have the same character
as God. He had to perfectly be angry
at all sin and all evil and all wickedness. He had to do so perfectly. He's God and He's truth. And
he's the only one who loved God and kept His commandments in
righteousness and holiness, even being angry as he should. He did. It would have been unrighteous
for Christ not to be angry at falsehood, for Him not to be
angry at sin, for Him not to be angry at evil, for Him not
to be angry at those attempting to rob God of His glory. And
so being angry at ungodliness and unrighteousness and at those
who hold the truth in unrighteousness, that was necessary for Christ
to fulfill all righteousness. Now, I want to show you some
examples of Christ's righteous and holy anger. Turn to Matthew
4 and look at verse 8. What I'm trying to show you here
is Christ fulfilled this precept for us just like He did all others.
This is what I'm trying to show you. Look at this now. First of all, We seek Christ's
righteous indignation against the devil. Matthew 4, 8. Again, the devil taketh him up
into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms
of the world, and the glory of them. And he saith unto him,
All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down
and worship me. Then Jesus said unto him, Get thee hence, Satan,
for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve. That's righteous indignation
against him. Get away from me. This is the
first commandment right here. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and him only shalt thou serve. Another example similar
to this is when Peter was trying to forbid the Lord from going
to the cross. It was simply because Peter didn't want to see Him
go to the cross. He didn't want to lose Him. He didn't want Him
to die. And the Lord looked at him and He says He rebuked Peter
saying, Get thee behind Me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things
that be of God, but the things that be of men. He should have
been righteously indignant at Peter, what Peter was doing.
And he was. He was righteously. You and I What do we do? Well,
I better not say anything. I don't want to offend him. And let a man go on gnawing on
the things of this world like a big old T-bone steak. Now here's
another example, Mark 3. Mark 3. Look at verse 1. He entered again into the synagogue
and there was a man there that had a withered hand. The man's
hand's all drawn up, he can't do anything. And they watched
him, these are the religious folks there, whether he would
heal him on the Sabbath day. All these good, fine, religious,
moral folks want to keep the law of the Sabbath. That they
might accuse him. They wanted to accuse. He's going
to heal a man. And they're more concerned whether
he's going to break the law of the Sabbath so they can accuse
him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand,
Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good
on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? Which one is lawful? You
see, he was about to do good. And in their hearts, they had
in mind to do evil. He said, Which one is lawful
to do on the Sabbath day? But they held their peace. And
when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved
for the hardness of their hearts. He said unto the man, Stretch
forth thy hand. And he stretched it out, and
his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees
went forth, and straightway, on that very day they pretended
to regard, they took counsel with the Herodians against him,
how they might destroy him. Christ healed. They want to kill. Christ did good. They want to
do evil. But Jesus withdrew Himself with His disciples from them.
Why was Christ angry? Why was He angry? Well, the law
of the Sabbath, brethren, was given. We saw this last week.
The law of the Sabbath was given to glorify God. It was given
to show that God rested in Christ from the foundation of the world
and Christ came and accomplished all the works of God for His
people so that when God gives you faith, you can rest in Christ. He that has entered into Christ's
rest has ceased from his own works even as God the Father
ceased from His works back before the foundation of the world.
We cease from our works. But when these men were trying
to fulfill the righteousness of that law themselves, they
were serving another God. And that God was themselves.
They were looking to themselves to do this. And so, their hearts
were filled with evil rather than mercy. Their hearts were
hard rather than compassionate. They were angry at that which
they should have been rejoicing in. And they were rejoicing in
that which should have made them angry. And Christ, therefore,
looked at these men who were trying to rob God of His glory,
who were trying to murder God, And that's what all sin is. And
this is what your sin is, is sitting here today without Christ.
It's murdering God. It's attempting to rob God of
His glory. It's attempting to come to God
by your own righteousness. And Christ looked upon that with
anger. With anger. Grieved at the hardness
of their hearts, brethren. But He did so in perfect righteousness. He did so with no sin. He did
so without giving place to the devil. He did so perfectly. Now, Christ was fulfilling all
righteousness when He cast out the money changer. Let's go to
Matthew 21. These things were necessary,
brethren. This was not just an emotion,
like an incident. You and I come across and we're
angry about something. We get upset. Somebody crosses
us. No, these cases of Christ being
righteously angered, they were necessary to fulfill all righteousness. They were necessary. He must
be proven perfectly righteous. He must be angry. He must hate
what God hates. Look here, Matthew 21, 12. Jesus
went into the temple of God. The temple of God. You think
God regards what goes on? This house, when nobody else
is here, when the firefighters are here, it's just a regular
old firehouse. But when God's saints are here, it's the house
of God. Do you think God regards His house and what goes on in
this house and how you approach Him and how you and I regard
Him? in the way we worship, in the
way we sing, in the way we dress, in everything. Do you think God
has any regard to that? Yes, He does. Because it's His
house. And He said, you ought to treat
me like you do nobody else. You ought to approach me in holiness.
Separate, higher, holier than anybody else. Now look at this.
Jesus went into the temple of God. And he cast out all them
that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the
money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves. And
he said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the
house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. What
were these men doing? In another place he said, Woe
to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! He said, You
devour widows' houses. and for pretense make a long
prayer and therefore you receive the greater damnation. In God's
house, under the pretense of worshiping God and serving God,
they came in there and they were saved. Folks traveled a long
way and they didn't have their sacrifice. They couldn't bring
their sacrifices with them. And so they said, we'll sell
them here at the temple, save you the trouble. It'll be a quick
stop right here at the temple. You can just stop in and grab
your sacrifice and run in and make your sacrifice. You don't
even have to give it a lot of thought. You can just do it real
fast, real conveniently. You don't have to put him up,
look at him and examine him and see how holy he is so you can
think on the holiness of Christ. You don't have to bring him there
and put him down on the block and cut his head off with your
own axe and think of the justice of God and the fury of God. You
don't have to take his blood and look at his blood. You don't
have to do any of those. You just stop in here and grab
this lamb, run in there and give it to the priest and give it
a second thought. That's about like what most worship
is today. Come and hear you a little 10 or 15 minute sermonette, sing
some songs, get all whooped up in the spirit and go out and
live like a hell the rest of the time. Got it done. Got it over with. And so the
folks that didn't have money to buy the doves, they would
have to go to the money changers. And the money changers said,
we'll solve that problem. We got a whole other market here now.
We'll give you the money. We'll change your money for you
at a price. We've got to pay for our services.
All these things you see preachers doing, I'm amazed at conferences
I see, and they advertise, this is what it costs to come to it.
Yeah, I pay a price to come to it. I'll tell you what, that's
a telltale sign. If you've got to pay a price
to go hear the gospel preached, that's a telltale sign you're
walking into a den of thieves. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Freely you have received, freely
give. Freely give. And so Christ run
these men out. He run them completely out. He
was angry at these fellows. You think He went in there and
said, now, I love you fellows, but now you're just going to
have to do that on the outside. No, He took a whip and went in
there and ran their butts out of there. That's what He did.
Hell will be the just wrath and anger of Christ Himself against
sinners who reject Christ. People talk about Craig like
he's so loving and so sympathetic, so effeminate that he just can't
do anything without a man letting him do it. Listen to this in
Revelation 6.16. Men say to the mountains and
to the rocks, fall on us, hide us from the face of him that
sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Hide us from the wrath of the
Lamb. For the great day of His wrath
is come, and who shall be able to stand? You know what the Lord
said in Psalm 22? Kiss the son, lest he be angry. Bow down and kiss the son, lest
he be angry, and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled
but a little. Now, our text says sin not, let
not the sun go down upon your wrath. Now turn to Psalm 4. Turn
to Psalm 4. Christ did this. And He did this
in righteousness as He walked this earth. He was angry in righteousness. But now, He did not sin. He did not let the sun go down
upon His wrath. What did Christ do when He would
become angry? What did He do? When you read
the Psalms, the Psalms are primarily Christ speaking to the Father.
That's what the Psalms are. Take David out of it and just
read him as Christ speaking with the Father, and you'll get a
lot more out of the Psalms. And the Psalms are Christ speaking
to His people, teaching us. It's Christ between God and us,
and He's teaching them and He's teaching us. And He sometimes
speaks to unbelievers. But now listen to what... This
is Christ speaking right here. Psalm 42. He says, O ye sons
of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long
will you love vanity and seek after lies? I can hear the master
say that when he was casting those people out of the temple.
Oh, how long will you be turning my glory into shame? This house
was here to picture me. All these sacrifices were to
typify me. How long will you turn my glory
into shame? How long will you seek after your vanity and love
your lies? I can hear Him saying that in
His heart when He was angry at those Pharisees who were standing
around acting like they were all holy and keeping the Sabbath
day. But sinners... He's the glory of God. But sinners
turn His glory into shame. They seek vanity and lies instead
of Him who is the truth. Now in the next verse, Christ
is communing with His own heart. He's speaking with Himself. He's
looking to God whom He served. And he's teaching us as well.
Now look what he says here, verse 3. But know that the Lord hath
set apart him that is godly for himself. He's teaching us, but
he's saying this about himself. The Lord set me apart. He's the
godly one. And the Lord God has set me apart
for himself. It doesn't matter if these men
reject me. It doesn't matter if I'm angry. But it doesn't
matter if they reject me. He set me apart for himself.
And the Lord will hear me when I call. He'll hear me when I
call. This is Christ's communion with
His own heart. Now look, in the next verse, He's speaking in
His own heart. He's teaching us how to be angry
and sin not. Verse 4. Stand in awe. It means
be ye angry and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed. Don't let the sun go down upon
your wrath. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be
still. That is, don't give place to
the devil. Christ stood in awe. He was angered at the hardness
of man's heart who turned His glory into shame. But He did
so in perfect righteousness. He did so without sin. He communed
with His own heart, looking to God who separated Him and God
who would hear Him. And so He was still. He gave
no place to the devil. How many times do you see him
after a long day of being rejected and despised and you see him
doing this work like casting out the folks in the temple?
And he goes away that day and he goes into the mail alone by
himself and he begins to pray to the Father. These are the
things he's speaking. God, you've separated me for
yourself. You'll hear me when I call you. I'm communing with
my own heart between me and you, Father. This is what the Son,
as He served the Father, that this is what He did. And so the
next verse is still Christ speaking with Himself and He's teaching
you and I who believe. Verse 5, Offer the sacrifices
of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. What are the
sacrifices of righteousness? The sacrifices of God are a broken
heart. A broken spirit, a broken and
a contrite heart he won't despise. Christ teaches us the way that
he gave no place to sin. The way he gave no place to the
devil is by pouring out his broken heart to God. He was grieved
in his heart by the hardness of the heart at the same time
as he was angry. But the way that he, the holy
sinless one, didn't become sinful in that was he went to the Father
and poured out his broken heart to the Father. and by putting his trust in Jehovah,
who sent him to be the righteous servant of God. So, now we've
seen here Christ fulfilled the righteousness of this precept. He was angry righteously. We've
seen here how Christ sinned not. He quickly let go of it, commuting
with His own heart before the Father, putting His trust in
the Father who sent Him. But not only did Christ represent
His people being righteously angry and sinning not, When Christ
presented Himself to the Father as the spotless Lamb of God,
He was made sin who knew no sin. Now get this. He was made our
sin for not being angry when we ought to be angry. This one who was angry when he
should be angry. This one who sinned not when
he was angry. He was made our sin of not being angry as we
ought. or being angry too quickly, or sinning when we were angry. He was made our sin for that.
And He bore the anger of God. He bore the wrath of God. He
bore the fiery indignation of God. And that's the only reason
when you and I are angry without a cause, we're not in danger
of the judgment. Because He bore it. He bore it. And He satisfied justice. And
by doing so, our old man is crucified with Him. The body of sin is
destroyed. He's purged the sins of His people.
He obtained eternal redemption for us. He perfected us forever. He reconciled us to God. He blotted
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. And therefore,
for every believer, God says, Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. He says, you're
not under the law, you're under grace. He says, sin shall not
have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, you're under
grace. He says, if you're led of the
Spirit, you're not under the law. So we see Christ alone established
the whole law of God, including being righteously angry as He
should. And then we see He went and He
bore our sins and put away our sins for not being. And so we
establish the law through faith in Him. We can only enter into
this precept through faith in Him, the righteousness of it.
Now then, These exhortations, they're not to bring us under
the law. They're not to make us attempt to try to earn a righteousness
or a reward above our brethren or any such thing. What are they
for then? Alright, here's the third thing.
Now let's try to understand the exhortation. Seeing as how Christ
has justified us, seeing as how Christ has made us the righteousness
of God in truth, therefore in that inner man that he created,
at every false way which is against our God and our Savior, be ye
angry. Be ye angry. If we'd be angry
and not sin, We must be angry at nothing but sin. That's what
somebody said. If we would be angry and not
sin, we must be angry at nothing but sin. And we should be more
jealous for the glory of God than for any interest or reputation
of our own. That's what it is to be angry.
Jealous for God. It's popular in our day. for
religious folks to say, that you want to just get along with
folks who speak lies against our Redeemer and don't let points
of doctrine separate you. That's not scriptural and that's
not love. It's just not. It's just simply
not true. Love is to speak the truth in
love. Love stands with Christ and his
people against all falsehood. I was speaking to a man this
week, and the man is in a church where they're mixing law and
grace. He knows it. And I asked him, I said, why
do you stay there? I said, there's something that's
bad wrong if you can stay there and hear that. And a believer
just... Can you stand to hear lies against
God? It angers me. Just like it would
if somebody spoke lies against my earthly father, or my wife,
or my children, or if they speak evil against His people who He's
made righteous. And this man is sitting there
listening to this, and his excuse was, well, there's people there
that I think really are believers, and I love them, and I want to
try to help them. And I told him, I said, well,
according to God's Word, He's not going to bless you trying
to help them by condoning a lie. He's not going to bless you helping
them by you being unequally yoked together with an unbeliever.
The only way He's going to bless it is if you stand with Christ
and stand with His people. And He's near enough to be in
a church where the truth is preached. He's near enough to be in a place
where the gospel is preached. But He won't. He won't. That's
not love. For the sake of Christ our righteousness,
when a believer sees or he hears sin or falsehood and he's not
angry with it, we sin through not being angry. We should be
angry at our own sin, at the ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, and at those who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
We should be angry. A believer that's never angry
at these things doesn't have any conviction in it. And if
he's not angry at these things, how can he rejoice in the truth?
If he's not angry at lies, how can he rejoice in the truth?
You've got to have some conviction and you've got to have life in
you. You've got to have the love of God in your heart. Be ye angry. Why?
One reason is so we teach those nearest to us the error of all
falsehood. Another reason is to be true
to the body of Christ and His people. And the third reason
is to be a witness to those that are yet lost that Christ shall
save by His grace. And here's the fourth reason.
This is a good reason. To not let our silence be a commendation
of sin and falsehood. We lie by not saying anything.
And by not being angry about something, we commend it. That's why we ought to be angry.
We catch this next part, verse 26. He says, "...and sin not.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place
to the devil. Be not angry without a just cause,
and don't be quick to anger." Ecclesiastes 7, 9 says, "...be
not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the
bosom of fools." Don't be hasty to be angry, don't let it rest
there. Don't let it rest there. Let it go quickly. How am I going
to let this anger go quickly? Did you see what Christ did?
Father Christ, did you see what Christ did in Psalm 4? He said,
Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.
When you become angry at what God has done, or what sinners
are saying, or what they are doing, or what your own sins,
or what have you, the lies you speak, whatever it is that is
evil that you see, and they ought to anger you. But just as quickly
as it angers you, you remember this. God has set apart him that's
godly for himself. If a man's not speaking the truth,
God hasn't set him apart. But God's set me apart. And He
set His people apart. God only can do that. And He's
done that for me. And He'll hear me when I call
on Him. And so, He says, stand in awe, be angry, and sin not. Commune with your own heart.
As Paul put it, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. He
means run as fast as you can to Christ, just like he ran to
the Father. And call upon Him, and he says,
offer the sacrifices of righteousness. Come in the name of Christ, our
righteousness, and come with a broken heart and a contrite
spirit that God loves. He will not despise it. And pour
out. If you're angry at that, at the same time, the believer
is going to have a broken heart about it. Christ was angry at
the Pharisees and grieved in his heart because of the hardness
of their heart. See, it's not just anger. It's
not an anger looking for revenge. It's an anger with a brokenness
of heart. Sad for them. Jealous for the
glory of God, but sad for them. and go to God with that broken
heart and pour out that heart to God. And he says, and put
your trust in the Lord. You see, this exhortation is
not given to you to tell you, you know, you be angry and you
go around putting folks in their place and telling them how...
No, no. He said, be angry, okay. You should be. But run as fast
as you can to Christ. Put off the old man and put on
the new man. Run to Christ and trust Him. He's on His throne. He can separate
the godly for Himself just like He did to you. He can teach them
truth in their heart just like He did to you. You run to Him
and you pray to Him. You ask Him to do so for them.
This is it right here. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. Lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways
acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path. Be not wise
in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from
evil. It will be health to your navel
and merit to your bones. Now, we've seen here first of
all that we didn't keep this precept in righteousness. The
righteousness of all these exhortations is Christ for the believer. And
second thing, Christ has done it perfectly. He's all our righteousness. And so, with Christ as our righteousness,
with Christ as our motive, and with Christ as our refuge from
sin, When you're angry at sin, run to Christ, run to Him. Be
ye angry at sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath,
neither give place to the devil. Amen. All right, Brother Eric.