There in verse 21, our Lord says
to you, You have heard it was said by them of old time, Thou
shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger
of the judgment. Thou shalt not kill. This is
one of the first in a series of six things where our Lord
takes the law and shows that you've heard it said, but I'm
going to say unto you. I'm going to tell you what it
really means. I'm going to tell you the application of it. I'm
going to tell you what it is. And then you look in light of
all these things, and he said, you heard it said. That's why
I said, except, you know, these scribes and Pharisees, they had
a righteousness, but it was according to the law. Paul said, I had
a righteousness after the law, which is blameless. And that's
why he said immediately after, he said, except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Because their righteousness
was based upon law, on conformity to the outward letter of the
law. They could look at the law, and any of us here could tonight.
I dare say, any of us could look at that law, thou shalt not commit
murder. Thou shalt not kill. And none of us has actually killed
somebody physically. We haven't shot anybody, we haven't
stabbed anybody, we haven't run over anybody with an automobile,
we haven't killed anybody. And so you know, but that does
not mean that we haven't committed murder. Not by no stretch of
the imagination. And so when he said, accept your
righteousness, they had a righteousness. You know, our Lord did several
things about them that he says, they've done their works for
to be seen of men. One thing they did, one of the
things that they did, is this, is they said, you do as we say,
but don't do as we do. You know, they laid heavy burdens
upon people, and they told people what to do, but they themselves
would not do it. You can find that in Matthew
23. And not only that, but they've done their works for to be seen
of men. They've done their prayers on the street corners for to
be heard of men. And the Lord said that they did their alms
for to be seen of men. That's why He said don't let
your right hand know what your left hand is doing. And they
took these scriptures called the phylacteries and they put
them on their arm and put them across their head and took the
literal interpretation. When God says, you know, put
the scriptures before your eyes, they actually thought that that
meant they'd roll them up and they'd put them over here between
their eyes, up here with a little band around there, and that was
a phylactery. They had scriptures in there. And they wanted everybody
to know how, and see, you know, the more pious they was, the
broader their phylacteries. They wanted everybody to know
how pious they was. But it was all outward. And that's why the
Lord said, You have heard it said, Thou shalt not kill. That's
the law. You can look at that law, and God gave it on Mount
Sinai, wrote it on a tablet of stone, Exodus 20, verse 13, Thou
shalt not kill. That's what He said. And you've heard it said, and
Paul, and these fellows had this outward conformity to the law.
And let me show you how it's spiritual. But look over here
in Romans 7, just a moment. Let me show you how that it's
got to go. Here's a man who had a righteousness after the law,
but when the law came to him, when the law came in his spirituality, when the law came to him, he
was like these Pharisees, the scribes. He had a righteousness
after the law that was blameless. A Pharisee of Pharisees, a Hebrew
of Hebrews. But look what he says here in
Romans 7.7. He says there in the last part
of the verse, I had not known sin, but by the law. He knew
the law. He had kept the law. He had a
righteousness according to the law. But he said, I never did
know what sin was, but by the law. For I had not known what
lust was. I never felt lust. I mean, I
felt it, but I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel condemned. I didn't
feel like a sinner by doing it, by desiring, by desiring the
praise of men, by desiring the approval of men, by desiring
to attain to a certain position in the church. He said, I had
this lust, this evil desire, except the Lord said, thou shalt
not covet. Now why do you reckon he was coveting? I'm sure he
was coveting some outward position, some power, some upper position
in the church or something like that. But he said, I didn't know.
He looked at the law and had never found him guilty until
it got to his heart. And that's the way these fellas
was. If the law don't go past the outward, it ain't going to
do anybody any good. And oh, our Lord Jesus said,
He says, Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. And so what they've done is that
they took the law and they made it into the law of the land,
just like we do. They took God out of the equation. Instead of, thou shalt be in
danger, thou shalt not kill, and God said thou shalt not kill,
they said you'll be in danger of the judgment. You'll be brought
to the local civil court. They didn't talk about the judgment
of God. No need to fear Him. He won't
punish you. Now, murder is awful. It is awful. It needs to be punished. And first degree murder, just
murder out of maliciousness and bitterness, needs to be punished
by death. And God made allowances, even in His words, for manslaughter,
accidents. If somebody's out working, you
saw a tree down and it hits on a fella, you're not going to
go to jail for that. You're not going to get punished
for that, even according to God. If you're out swinging an axe
and an axe head comes off and kills a fella, You know, that's
just an accident. Those are the things that happens.
And God made all allowances of that. But just to take and murder
a man. Just to kill a man. And so what
our Lord does is He takes this thou shalt not kill and He starts
dealing with the heart issues that will cause a man to commit
murder. The things that goes on in a
man's heart and mind and soul that will bring him to he would
actually kill somebody. Now there have been lots of times
that you and I have been angry enough that we would have been
able to... And we thank God that He kept us from it. Kept us from
it. Kept us from it. And when our
Lord said to him, Thou shalt not escape. Now we cannot escape
the letter of the law. You and I can't. I don't want
to kill anybody. I don't want to hurt anybody.
But He explains. This commandment not only includes
the physical, but look what He says here in verse 22. I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment. They said you've got to kill
somebody to be in danger of the judgment. Christ said all you've
got to do is be angry without a cause. Then you'll be in danger
of the judgment. And here he's talking about the
judgment of God. He's not talking about the civil
court. The civil court don't know anything about your anger.
You don't know anything about my anger. But God knows my anger. And that's why it says that if
you have a causeless anger, and that's what happens when anger
starts working in a man, bitterness starts springing up. And that's
why they said, whosoever is angry, angry. Don't listen to these
teachers. They think that just because you don't kill somebody
that you're free. But the law goes beyond that.
The law goes beyond the letter. Don't you even get mad. Don't
you even get angry at somebody unless you've got a just cause
for being angry with them. And that right there makes every
one of us guilty, most of the time when we watch television,
of committing the sin of anger. Now that's the truth. You know
what, do you want me to say that again? When you sit down and
watch television, you get mad and you get angry and you grit
your teeth and everything else at people, Amen. But that's what our Lord
is saying here. A causeless anger. Just to get
angry. Oh, and our Lord said, don't
listen to these teachers who tell you that the law is only
dealt with the outward. The law addresses the heart.
It addresses the enmity of the heart. And this is our Master
teaching. This is our Master talking here.
To hate, to be bitter, to hold grudges and resentment towards
a person without a cause. God says it's murder. God says
it's murder. God says there's no difference
in that than you think. Don't kill nobody. He said, don't
you even have anger without a just cause. Now, I know our Lord was
angry and out of his zeal, he drove all those fellows out of
the temple. He says, be angry and sin not. Don't let the sun
go down on your rack. There is a righteous anger, a
righteous indignation, and everybody has to come to their own conclusion,
but I get angry over sin. I get angry over abortion. I
get angry over socialism. I get angry over people taking
up issues besides the gospel. I get angry over a lot of things,
but I hope that I don't sin in that, and I hope that I don't
hate anybody, and I hope that I don't hold bitterness, and
certainly don't want to hold grudges. And oh my, when you
wish harm on somebody, and fill in towards someone, you know
what that amounts to? When you want harm to come to
somebody, you're the one that ends up taking the poison. Because you're just wishing harm
on them, don't hurt nobody but you. And that's what the Lord
is saying here. He said, I look at your heart. If you could take that anger,
and that bitterness, and that wrath, Anger that you have, take
it to the next degree, and the next thing you know you've hit
somebody, take that to the next degree, the next thing you know
they fall back, the next thing you know you've killed them.
And that's why our Lord starts dealing with the heart. You know,
look over in Romans 13.9 with me just a moment. That's why so many people have
so much guilt. Especially if it was in the military
and that, to have done things that their conscience just torments
them over because God made us that way. Look what it says in
verse 9. For this thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
bear not false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there
be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this
saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now
watch this. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. If you have
the love of God in your heart, the love of Christ in your heart,
why would you have ill toward anybody? Toward you, especially
those in the church, especially your neighbor. Therefore, love
is the fulfilling of the Lord. And that's what our Lord said,
and I look back over here, and that's why He says, you know,
these fellows think, well, I listen, I've seen. And that's why, you
know, that guy down in Alabama, That one of those Ten Commandments
in the building, they took them out, you know. There's nothing
wrong with putting a Ten Commandment, I'm not saying that, but yet
they, but you know that began to be, that was a battle. And
it was a lot of, you know, you feel self-righteous about it.
I want the Ten Commandments here, I want them here. And they get
pretty hard about it, and get adamant about it, and people
protesting, don't take them out, and people protesting, take them
out. Cost a lot of money to take that great old big heavy stone
out of that building. And they got pretty high-minded
about it. And there's a lot of hard things done. People laid
down in the street and all that to keep them from bringing that
out of there. Do you reckon any of them kept the law doing that? You reckon any of them honored
God in doing that? You reckon any of them acted like the Lord
Jesus Christ in grace and mercy and love and forgiveness doing
that? See what I'm talking about? And
oh, we must not be guilty. Look what else he says. I say
unto you that whosoever anger with his brother without a cause
shall be in danger of the judgment. Now watch this. And whosoever
shall say to his brother, Rekha shall be in danger of the counsel.
Not only must we not be angry, but expressing that contempt.
Whosoever shall say to his brother, and that word raka means a worthless
fellow, a vain fellow. You're useless. Just useless. You don't say that to somebody
here in this congregation, say that to you, you're just useless.
You ain't worth nothing. And say, whosoever shall say
you're worthless, but show contempt, expressing contempt. Contempt
towards your brother. And in God's sight, this is murder. This is murder. This is, you
know, when you express this awful contempt, you're just contentious
towards a person. You're contentious towards them.
And you know, let me say this. There's not one of us that does
not have a trace of our nature that we don't like. And that
other people don't like them. I mean, you know, you love your
wives, your brothers, your sisters and all that. You love them with
all your heart, but there's things about their personality that
just grates on your nerves. You love them, but there's just
things about them, about their personality and things like that
that just grates on you. But you don't be contentious
to them. You don't be contentious. You
don't say, well, you're vain, you're foolish, you're contentious. You absolutely are just empty,
got nothing to offer, nothing to give, nothing to do. And that's
what he's saying here. You're just looking down at somebody
and looking at them with contempt. And that's what our Lord is saying
here. And our Lord, here's what He does. Look over here in Matthew
15. And you know, first of all, you
just got anger. You ain't said nothing. Then
that anger leads you to start talking. That anger leads you
to start talking ill, talking contrary, talking down, talking
angry, expressing your contempt. Look what our Lord said here
in Matthew 15 and verse 18. You know that he had offended
the Pharisees because he said in verse 11, not that which goeth
into the mouth defiled a man, but that which cometh out. Oh,
explain that to us, Lord. Explain that to us. And he started
down in verse 16. Jesus said, Are you without understanding?
Do you not understand that whatsoever enters into the mouth goeth into
the belly and cast out into the draft? But those things which
proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and that's what
defiles a man. For out of the heart, the first
thing is evil thoughts. First thing is evil thoughts.
Next thing is murder. Next thing is adultery, and adultery
is the next thing we'll deal with down through here. So here
our Lord Jesus Christ, and he said here, don't sit in the seat
of the scornful, just contentious towards somebody. And all these
feelings, it's these feelings that lead to murder. And all
the venom, all the venom that's in the heart and in the tongue.
Oh, my soul, if we could just, you know, the scriptures tells
us, you know, he that can control the tongue can control the whole
body. And David said, Oh, Lord, set a watch on my mouth. Because if you start feeling
anger, pretty soon you're going to start acting angry. And after
you start acting angry, then you know you're going to end
up doing something to somebody. You see, beloved, kill is not
only destroying physical life. You can murder a man in a lot
of ways. You can destroy a man's reputation. You can destroy a man's Feelings,
you can destroy a man's bed, you can destroy a man's home,
you can destroy a man in a lot of ways, you can destroy his
job. There's a lot of ways you can destroy a man, and if you
try to destroy him in any shape or form, our Lord said that's
the same as murder. That's the same as murder. You
say, well, I don't know, but that's what he said. He said,
you said, that's what they say, so I'm going to take this a step
further. Now, when you ran down something I killed in the Ten
Commandments, you didn't see all that in it. But our Lord,
when He says, Thou shalt not kill, what's it going to take
to bring you to where you kill somebody? And He's showing us
what it takes to get us there. And then He goes on to say here
in the last part of verse 22, And whosoever shall say, You
fool! You fool! Now, you know our Lord called
people fools, but when He says fool here, He means somebody
that's a moron, an idiot. And if you as a Jew, and somebody
called you a fool, they'd call you a moron, they'd call you
an idiot, that you didn't have any brains. And what our Lord
said here, if you take somebody that God has created, somebody
that God has made, and you call them an idiot, you call them
a moron, and you call them, and He says here, you're in danger
of hellfire itself. Danger of hellfire itself. You
know, the abuse of vilifying somebody. Vilifying somebody. bitterness, hatred in the heart,
exposing itself and expressing itself in words. Now, let's look on down through
here. How in the world are we going to feel like this? How
are we going to undo it? How are we going to undo it?
If we do some of these things to our brother, we're angry without
a cause. We abuse him with our words, call him a vain, foolish
fellow. Call him a fool, a moron, an
idiot, shall be in danger of hell fire. And look what he says here, Therefore
if you bring your gift to the altar, and dare remember that
thy brother hath ought against thee. You see, it's wrong not only
to murder, but it's wrong to harbor ill feelings. It's wrong
to say contemptuous things. And what he's saying was that
if we do this and we offend a brother, if we cause a brother to stumble
in any way, and we come into the presence of God, and there
you remember. There when you come to pray,
you come to worship God, you come to offer your praise, you
come to offer your thanksgiving, you come to offer your worship
to God. And there you remember, not what you've done to somebody,
but what somebody's done to you, but what you've done to them.
What you said to them. He said, if you remember that,
Oh my. You know, if we think, and here's
the situation that we're in. This is just how awful this human
nature is. We think that if we don't actually
do something physical to somebody, and do it out in public, that
you know, if we come to worship and go through our rituals, and
come to the services and pray and read our Bibles and all that,
that's going to take care of it. That's what these fellas
thought. They thought, well, if I didn't commit murder, I
could still go right on up there and offer my sacrifices. Regardless
of what I said to anybody, regardless of how I treated anybody, regardless
of how much I hated them, regardless of how much I had bitterness
toward them, regardless of how angry I was with them, regardless
of what I said to them or said about them, I can still go up
there and offer my sacrifices. God said, our Lord said, here,
you can't do that. Huh? You can't do that. If you're
going to come into my presence, and you've hurt anybody, you've
caused anybody to stumble, and you've had anger, and you've
had bitterness, and you've had wrath, and you've hurt somebody,
you get up before you come into my presence, you're going to
make that right. You're going to make that right. You go and
say, Lord, forgive me. Forgive me. Huh? Oh my, we've
got to have a right relationship with Him. We just must. And I
thank God, oh I bless God for this, that we do, we do, we've
had, some of us had our ups and downs, but we've always been able to
say I'm sorry, and I appreciate that, I'm grateful for that.
I'm grateful that the gospel keeps the enmity beat down, and
keeps the flesh beat down. And you know, that's why you
don't want to live out of somebody's pockets. You know, familiarity
breeds contempt. And he said, here we are, we're
going to God. And oh my, we've got to go. And he says, leave your gift.
He said, just get up, leave your gift. What he's saying here is,
and I want to say this in all reverence about God, in all reverence
that I possibly can, you leave God waiting. You leave that altar,
and when we're talking about an altar, coming into the presence
of God. And you leave, when you're coming out, you leave, you just
leave God. God's not going anywhere. And
you go, and you leave your gift, you leave your prayers, you leave
your thanksgiving, you get up and you go make things right.
Huh? Leave the presence of God, go your way. Look over Psalm
68 with me, just a moment. Excuse me, Psalm 66. Psalm 66. Look what it says here in verse
18. If I regard iniquity in my heart,
the Lord will not hear me. What do you reckon that means?
We're coming into the presence of God. We're coming here to
worship. Right now, we're in God's presence. Right this moment. We come with the fruit of our
lips, giving thanks. We come offering spiritual sacrifices
only acceptable to our Lord Jesus Christ. And here we are, we're
standing in the presence of God, but He says, if I go to God Almighty,
and I go into His presence, and I begin to call on Him, I began
to need Him, and I began to talk to Him. He said, if I regard
iniquity in my heart, what does that regard mean? That means
that if I've got sin, and I know that it's there, and I regard
it, and I won't acknowledge it, I will not acknowledge it. I
won't drag it out. I won't say, this is what's going
on in my heart. We won't acknowledge it. We won't
come clean with it. Let me give you an illustration. I was with
a fellow one day, a couple people was doing some work. And this
one fellow, you could tell he didn't like the other guy. Didn't
like him at all. And this fellow is a believer.
This fellow I was working with, he claimed to be a believer.
Let's put it that way. And he got ill and hateful and contrary.
Every time this other fellow does something, he'd just cut
him off, talk to him awful. And finally the guy just said,
well, evidently I can't do nothing that suits you or anybody else,
so I'll just go down. Couldn't work it, walked off.
I told this fellow, I said, you know, I said, you just mistreated
that man. You need to go right now before
he gets out of here and go over there and apologize to him. He
said, you're so mean to him. You're mean. I said, that was
just, why would you treat him that way? You need to go apologize
to him now. Don't let him leave here. I'm
going to tell you what he told me. He says, I'm too proud to go
tell him I'm sorry. Now you reckon God ever, until
he made things right with that man right there? He's regarded
iniquity in his heart. If you're too proud to say, I'm
sorry. If you're too proud to say, forgive
me. God ain't never humbled you yet. Huh? That's just the long and
the short of it, ain't it? You know, God forgive us. Why
in the world can't we forgive others? And why would anybody
be so mean that they'd want to mistreat somebody just because
they can? If you're around somebody that you can't get along with
and you don't like, just don't go around them. Don't put yourself
in that situation. That's why I said, and look over
at Psalm 19 with me. If I regard iniquity in my heart,
I regard it. That means that I'm treating
it like it's nothing wrong with it. You know, we'll write a letter
that says, give your wife my regards, or give so-and-so my
regards. Let them know I'm thinking of them. My mind's on them. And if I regard iniquity, I regard
it, and I don't see it to be anything wrong. Look at Psalm
19, verse 12. Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse thou me from secret faults. You see, that's what the law
is doing. That's what our Lord said the law is doing. It's going
into our thoughts. It's going into our hearts. It's
going into our motives. It's going into why we do what
we do. You don't want to hurt anybody,
so don't be angry with people for without a cause. Don't go
around bad-mouthing people. We use such strong language.
We either hate something or love something. That's the way we
say that. You know, I hate that, or I love that. We never say,
well, I don't like that much, or I enjoy that. It's either
love or hate. Never, you know. There's nothing in the middle. How do you like this? Oh, I hate
that. Instead of saying, I hate that,
well, I just don't care much for it. Or, I love that. Well, you're
instead of saying, well, I kind of enjoy that or I like that.
It's just a love or a hate thing. We just don't know how to express
ourselves. People don't know how to express
themselves. And that's why, beloved, they do that in relationships.
They either hate or love. They either are down on somebody
or all together for somebody. And they don't view the whole
race as all of us in the same mess. And if God don't do something
for us, we're going to all go around. Why would it be like
if God took the Spirit away from us just for one service? If He took the guard down for
us and let us If He just opened our minds up and let one another
read one another's thoughts, you see these people say, well,
I can read his thoughts and all that. You want God to let somebody
get in your brain, open up your brain, let people see what's
going on in your brain at any given time? Oh, my soul, no, I don't. And
that's what He's saying here. And then He said here in verse
13, Keep back thy servant. Also from presumptuous sins. That's sins that are sins for
everybody else but you. That's sins for everybody but
you. You know, they're not sins for
me, they're only sins for the other fellow. Let them not have
dominion over me. Then shall I be upright and I
shall be innocent from the great transgression. Oh my, so our
Lord is showing us this thing. Now let's go back over to Matthew
and I'll hurry along. I'll hurry along. And what he's
saying here is, leave thy gift, in verse 24, leave thy gift before
the altar, and go thy way, and first be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift. Then come and offer your praise
and your thanksgiving. And he's saying you can't be
in a right relationship with God if you're not right with
your brethren. That's what he's saying. You
know, our Lord said, I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. People want to offer sacrifices
to make themselves feel better. When God says, show mercy, I
showed you mercy. I want you to express mercy without
sacrifice. You go and you show the love
of God, the mercy of God. And don't bring your sacrifices
without that. Just don't bring them. And then
he says here in verse 25, and he's showing us how that we need
to be right with God. This is the great thing. Agree with your adversary quickly
while you're in the way with him. Now you have this adversary,
somebody that's against you, and I personally think this is
our Lord showing us that God and His law, and if you want
to say that I'm conforming to the outward conformity of the
law, I'm not committing murder, I haven't shot anybody, I haven't
stabbed anybody, I haven't been to anybody's little club. He
says, now listen, it's because he saw it further than that,
and then he comes down to say, you must be right with God, You
must have a right relationship with God or you can't have a
right relationship even with your brethren. He said, Agree
with our adversary quickly while you're in the way with him. Now
the adversary here, the adversary here I believe is God himself,
God's holy law. And while you're in the way,
you're going through this world, you're in the way. And lest at any time that adversary,
you agree with him. You agree with him. He says you're
guilty. You're guilty of causeless anger. You're guilty of sandbane
fool. You're guilty of murder in your
heart. You're guilty of holding out
bitterness. You're guilty of hatred. You're
guilty of these things. And you agree with him quickly.
Lord, yes, I'm guilty. Yes, I've hated. Yes, I've said
things. Yes, I've expressed. And yes,
Lord, that as far as you're concerned, I've killed no telling how many
people in my heart. You're the only one that knows.
And oh, I agree with him. Lest at any time that adversary
deliver thee to the judge, deliver you into the hands of God, the
hands of the law, the hands of justice. And he takes you to
the officer and he casts you into prison. You're not getting
out of here. Oh my, this is where, that's what
I say, this is where the rubber hits the road. This thing's a
hard issue. And oh my, you're going to agree with God that
you're a lawbreaker? You're going to agree with God
that your problem's in your heart? You're going to agree with God
that it's this enmity in your heart? You're going to agree
with God that it's bitterness in your heart? You're going to
agree with God that you've got this enmity, you've got this
rebellion, you've got this desire to say angry and be mean and
hateful and contrary to other people? And oh my, You see, when we do these things,
we're not just offending our brother, we're offending God
Himself. Huh? We offend our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why He says here,
we're always before the judge, always before God, and He's the
only one who can justify us. Huh? And that adversary, that
law, that law that comes, it makes its demands. And it makes
demands that we have right relationships with our brother. And if we don't
have a right relationship with our brother, we don't have a
right relationship with God. And we must have a right relationship
with God in order to have a right relationship with one another.
And that's what he says. The Lord said here, settle it
at once. Agree with the adversary. Settle
this issue now. Look at Matthew with me, just
real quick, just a moment. You know, and this is a model
prayer that our Lord gives us. I'll show you just exactly what
I'm talking about. Now, here our Lord says to the
people, you know, teaching His disciples here, the model prayer.
And He goes down there in verse 12 of Matthew 6. And we pray
in there and He said, Lord, forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. Those things that we owe to people,
and people will owe no man nothing but to love him. And lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. For if you forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Now watch it. But if you forgive not your trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive you yours. I mean, there can't be no plan. It's just beyond me that a man,
it might have been Bruce or somebody, you asked me one time, can a
man be a Christian and hate somebody? Hate another believer? I said,
there ain't no way. There's no way. You could not
be a believer and hate me, or me be a believer and hate you.
It can't be done. It cannot be done. Now that's the truth, you just
can't do it. You know, that's what our Lord's
teaching here, that's exactly what He's saying. Huh? And oh my, that's why He goes
on down there and says, Berely I say unto thee, you will by
no means come out of there. If God ain't going to let you
go, you've paid that of most fathers. And when you ain't got
nothing to pay, what are you going to do? You can't go and
make things right when you're in jail. Then I'm going to let
you out and I'm going to let you say, well, I'm sorry. You
know, you commit murder, they put you in prison. They're going
to say, well, I'm going to go over and I'm going to apologize
to them, tell them how sorry I am. Would you please let me out?
Then I'm going to let you go out and tell the family how sorry
you are. And that's what Christ is saying here. Once you're there,
you're not getting out to go make things right. You've got
to be right to start with. And the only way to be right
is for Christ. to go and face that adversary.
For Christ to pay the most bodily. For Christ to come and pay that
debt and set us free from prison. And in God we are without self-defense
and before God we are without self-justification. Oh my! Oh, the gospel is clearly seen
here. How are we going to be forgiven
of what goes on in our hearts? How are we going to be forgiven?
How's our hearts and souls and bodies going to be? How's our
minds going to be cleared of this stuff? How, when we face
God, we face Him every day, and we come to Him every day, in
the morning, in the evening, in the afternoon, at night, and
we go to Him and say, Oh Lord, You see my heart, You know me.
And we know our mind. Now, I don't know about you all,
but this is the way, if I ever have a problem with somebody,
it's not their fault, it's my fault. You know what I'm saying? If I ever feel ill towards somebody,
I don't think it's their fault that I feel ill towards them.
I'm the one with the problem. You understand what I'm saying? I don't have to do anything.
Nobody has to know anything about it. But I know and God knows.
And God won't even allow His children to feel ill towards
somebody without them just feeling ill about it. We got a new heart. God gave us a new will. He gave
us new affections. And oh my, the gospel so clearly
seen, had not Christ paid that uttermost pardoning, then we'd
be delivered. Let me show you this in closing.
Ephesians 4 with me, just a moment, then I'll close with this. Ephesians
4.24. Ephesians 4.29. That's what our Lord said, accept
your righteousness, exceed that righteousness. Where are we going
to get a righteous bed of the nurse? It's got to be more than
just an outward conformance of the law. We've got to have the
heart think right. Look here in Ephesians 4.29. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying, building up, establishing. that it may minister grace unto
the hearers. I was with the preacher the other
day, and he had written some words. I said, well, what did
you think about that preacher? And he said, well, he says, I
hate to comment on any preacher. He said, I generally don't know
enough about them to make comment one way or another. And I thought,
well, you know, but he didn't know this one particularly. But
anyway, I thought that was pretty good. And grieve not the Holy
Spirit of God. And oh, when you lot these corrupt
communications, and this anger, and bitterness, and wrath, and
clamor. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are
sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath,
and anger, and clamor. You know what clamor is? Just
taking you in old buckets, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom. And that's what you're doing. You're just rattling,
making a lot of noise. Just in an uproar about something. Clamor.
And evil speak be put away from you with all malice. Here we go. And be ye kind one
to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake. has forgiven you. We forgive because we've been
forgiven. We love because we've been loved.
We show grace because we've been shown grace. Our blessed Lord Jesus, thank
you.