Matthew's Gospel chapter 5. We
come here to verse 21. We're going to look at these
verses tonight. Verses 21 through verse 26 if
you want to read along with me. Matthew chapter 5. You have heard
that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and
whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But
I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without
a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall
say to his brother Raca shall be in danger of the counsel.
But whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell
fire. Therefore, if you bring your
gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath
ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and
go thy way, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come
and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly,
while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee,
Thou shalt not by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid
the uttermost pardon. unjust anger. That's what I want
us to consider tonight, unjust anger, the sin, maybe, of unjust
anger. And the reason the Lord Jesus
is preaching these verses here is to clear up a false view that
the scribes and the Pharisees were teaching concerning the
law of God. You and I have looked at this
so often These very religious scribes and Pharisees dreamed
that they were keeping the law of God, and all the assurance
they had of that was what they were doing outwardly. They thought,
and we've said this so many times, and the Lord tells us this, they
thought that as long as they didn't physically steal something,
then they weren't coveting something. They didn't realize to covet
means an unlawful desire within their hearts. Of course, they
didn't know their hearts. They depended fully, and they
thought all that the law required was outward, outward words and
outward actions. They thought that you just made
a mere profession, and the way you dressed, when you washed
your hands before you ate, you kept yourself clean. You prayed
publicly. You fasted publicly. You did alms publicly. And they
thought that was fulfilling the nature or the terms of the law. They had no idea the law reached
to the heart of a man, to the spirit of a man. The Apostle
Paul thought there was a time that he kept the whole law. He
did outwardly, no doubt. He never stole. He never committed
adultery. He never coveted somebody's thing
by going and getting it. He said, I was alive without
the law once, but when the commandment came, That is, when it came to
my heart in its power, when I saw the true nature of the law, sin
revived. Where did it revive at? In his
heart, Wayne. He saw for the first time, my
goodness, it's my heart that's breaking the law. And then he
made this statement. He said, and here's what the
scribes and the Pharisees never realized, the law is spiritual. The law is spiritual. It judges
the motives. It judges the intentions of a
man's heart. It reaches to the spirit of a
man. There's where sin has its origin,
isn't it? In the heart. The Lord Jesus
told His apostles one time, He said, Out of the heart proceeds
murder. How in the world does murder
proceed out of the heart? That's where it originates at.
We may kill a man and never lift a hand. We may kill a man and
nobody will ever know we did it. How do we do it? In the heart. It's heart anger. It's heart
hatred. And that's what the law judges.
That's what the law condemns. Not just lifting our hands to
kill somebody. But John said if we hate our
brother, what are we? We're murderers. we are murderers
and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him
so this is what we're considering this afternoon the Lord giving
the rightful interpretation of the law what does the law mean
when it says thou shalt not kill and you know they'd heard this
man they'd heard and they'd read what for four thousand years
now they'd read about the sin of murder And still they thought
it was just something you did with your hands. But boy, murder
goes back a long ways, doesn't it? Man, all the way back from
the very foundation of the world, we read about murder. The first
man that ever killed somebody was Cain when he slew his brother. He argued with him and slew him,
and the Lord said, Where's your brother Abel? I don't know where
he's at. I don't keep track of him. And
he said, I know where he's at. I saw what you did. I saw you
fussing with him and I saw you rise up and I saw you slay your
brother and his blood is crying unto me from the very ground. And he said that now are you
cursed and he said my punishment is greater than I can bear. His
grandson or his great grandson committed a murder. And he said,
if the Lord's going to avenge the blood of Abel on Cain, how
much more on me? What did he mean by that? He
meant Abel or Cain had no idea what the punishment was for murder.
But he said, I know what it is. It had become a matter of conscience. Murder became a matter of conscience. And he told his wives, he said,
I've killed a man and I'm in trouble with God because I know
that's wrong. Then right after the flood, I
think it's the 8th or 9th chapter of Genesis, you read it over
there, where the whole concept of murder changed in this sense. The Lord said if a man kill another
man, if you shed innocent blood, He said I'm going to hold you
accountable, you're going to have to face me for it, but not
only do you have to face my judgment, you have to face the judgment
of man. That's where capital punishment was first instituted
right after the flood. If you shed blood by man, your
blood shall be shed. And then we come over to Mount
Sinai. The Lord wrote it, first of all,
with His own fingers, the sin of murder. Thou shalt not kill. And then we come over to Romans
Chapter 13 all the way over in the New Testament and He still
tells us about the crime and the sin of murder. Why did God
ordain governments? To punish the evil doers. To
punish murderers. Then this book closes. I think it's in Chapter 21. This
book closes with this statement. No murder shall enter that city. No murderer shall enter that
city. So what do we see as we look
from Genesis to Revelation? The awful, awful sin of murder. You have heard it's been said
of old, and it's still being said when our Lord was here,
and it's still being said today. Murder. The soul that kills shall
die. It's a capital offense against
humanity. It's a capital offense against
God. You know, we hear today, it's just commonplace today,
especially in some of our cities, that you had 10 people kill last
night. You had 20 people kill last night. And one of the things
our society has forgot, it's not only a sin against humanity,
against our fellow man, but it is a sin for which God will hold
every man accountable. By man shall your blood be shed,
but God will hold men accountable for murder. Here in verse 22,
or here in verse 21, He said the old, old time, But the Lord here in verse 22
now, He said in verse 21, You have heard that it was said to
them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment. Now verse 22, the Lord
Jesus is going to interpret this commandment. What does the law
mean when it says, Thou shalt not kill? You know why the Lord
Jesus can interpret these passages? You know why He can interpret
the law? He's the lawgiver, isn't He? That's strange when we see
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary preaching like He is here
in the Sermon on the Mount and we realize that He's the very
God that was upon Mount Sinai and came down and gave the Law. Luther said it was a different
side of God. You see a different side of His
face but there's only one God and Jesus is God and He's the
Lawgiver. And now He says I'm going to
interpret that Law that I give. And here's what he tells us in
verse 22, but I say, let me interpret that, I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment. And the Lord Jesus is telling
us here that murder goes deeper, it goes farther than just us
killing a man with our bare hands, taking a weapon and taking a
man's life. It goes to the heart. If we are
angry with our brother without a cause, then that is murder. That is murder. I want us to
read carefully here though what our Lord says because I think
this is so important and it helps us because you and I are in a
struggle with these things ourselves. And we do not want to interpret
this passage to discourage us or to drive us to despair, Notice
what he says here. Anger without just cause. Angry at somebody when they never
give us a reason to be angry. They never gave offense and they
meant no offense. It's anger without a cause. We
looked at this a while back about being angry and sin not. Angry is good if we're angry
at sin. whether it's my sin or somebody
else's, nothing's wrong with being angry with sin. God is
angry every day. Why? Because of the wicked. The
Lord Jesus Christ became angry because of the hard hearts of
the scribes and pharisees. So anger is a good thing. I remember
Larry was talking just I think this week or last week about
this man that we know that used to go from... I know several
churches this man went to. And every place he went to, he
caused division. He just caused division. I have
a dear friend of mine, and I heard of this pastor, a dear pastor,
where he went for a while. And this pastor was a very meek
man, a very lowly man. But he said every time he stepped
out of the pulpit, this man met him and wanted to stir up controversy
about what he preached. And it made him angry. Was that a good anger? That was
alright. That was a good anger. That man
shouldn't have been dividing saints. He went to another place
and the pastor there ran him off. So there is a good anger. It's a good anger. Be ye angry
and sin not. Anger is good if it's a just
anger. But what the law condemns and
what our Lord condemns here is an anger without a Not a just anger, but anger without
a cause. I knew this man. I didn't need
to be a brother at the time. And I was talking to him one
day. I knew he had a problem with this other dear brother.
And he was talking to me, and it became very obvious that he
had anger in his heart towards this brother. And as I talked
to him about that, he started mocking this brother and making
fun of him. When it came down, he didn't
like the brother's personality. It was just a personality, a
conflict with his personality. But this anger had filled his
heart. And I don't know how deep it
went. It became obvious that it was
pretty deep. But I know this, the law knows how deep that anger
was. The Lord knows how deep that anger was, and there isn't
an anger that equates to murder. And that's what the Lord is telling
us here. If we are angry with a brother
without a just cause, then that is murder. That's the true interpretation
of the law. In verse 22, the Lord is telling
us here this anger can produce expressions of contempt of different
degrees. Boy, it's an awful thing. And
this is why I say that it's an unjust anger. It's an anger that's
uncaused because, boy, we struggle with this. We struggle with feelings
sometimes towards brothers and sisters, don't we? We struggle
with this and we need grace over this. But verse 22 here is telling
us where this anger rules in the heart, it produces expressions
of contempt of different degrees. He says in verse 22, the middle
of it, Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in
danger of the council. This word Raca almost... I almost chuckled when I read
this because I've used some of these things. It means to call
somebody or to think of someone, and here you say it, you blockhead,
you numbskull, you brainless idiot. And what it does, it shows
contempt for one's lack of intelligence. It's insulting someone's lack
of intelligence. It's basically being angry with
them because they don't see things your way or because they've done
something to insult you and you're filled with anger so you call
them racking. But he says here, here's another
degree of this anger, Whosoever shall say thou fool, that's a
stronger language isn't it? Whosoever shall say thou fool
shall be in danger of hell fire. This word fool, it means you
say to somebody, you think it in your heart and you say it,
you worthless, useless, empty, reprobate. You graceless creature
whose portion should be and will be eternal damnation. And what does this show contempt
for? The lack of one's character. This is a human being, and he's
being spoken to in such a degrading manner, and it's coming from
a heart of anger and contempt. Such expressions should never
be used in jest, and when they come from the heart of anger,
they are expressions of contempt for a human being, and these
are sinful. Now, buddy, I've said all along,
as I study these things, As I sat today and studied these things,
boy, they search my heart. And I've said it before, the
Sermon on the Mount is a searching sermon. As we read these things,
it's not so much they make us examine ourselves, they examine
us. That's the thing about the Word
of God. It comes to us as light and it opens our heart and shows
us what's there. And buddy, I tell you, it strips
us. We find ourselves being brought to repentance and confession
and faith when we read these things. James said this. He said, The tongue can no man
tame. It is an unruly evil full of
deadly poison. It's deadly because it's coming
from a heart of anger that would murder that person. and does
murder the person. Maybe not physically, but this
deadly poison kills somebody's influence. It kills their character. It kills their good name. It's
a deadly poison, James said. With a tongue we bless God, and
with a tongue we curse men which are made in the likeness of God.
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren,
these things ought not so to be." So boy, these characterizations,
these words that are being used here to define people, and it's
coming from an angry heart. The Lord says the law judges
that. The law sees that. And every
idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in
the day of judgment. This word our Lord uses, your
hellfire shall be in danger of hellfire. This is a Greek word. You see it probably there in
your center reference. It means Gehenna in the Greek.
But in the Hebrew they tell us it is made up of two words, the
valley of Hinnom, the valley of the son of Hinnom. That is
where this expression comes from. If you want to do a little bit
of research on the valley of the son of Hinnom, it will take
you all the way back over to the book of Joshua. When the
children of Israel came into the land of promise, there was
a man who was the son of Hinnom And he was given the right or
his portion of the land of promise was this valley of Hinnom. It's
just southeast of Jerusalem and at that time it was a beautiful
valley. And the kings, the idolatrous
kings of Judah finally begin to set up idols in this beautiful
valley and worship idols there. They set up the god Molech. You
remember the god Molech? It was this brass image that
had the calf's head and had arms stretched out like he's going
to receive something from their hands. He was empty. They put
wood in there and set this image on fire. And it got hot. You've seen the stoves, the heat
coming off the stoves. That's the way his arm was. They'd
take their little infants and put them in the arms of that
dumb eye. then they begin to beat their
drums loud and shout to cover up the screams of the little
infants for obvious reasons. That's what took place in this
valley, this beautiful valley. When Josias came into the kingship,
the Lord converted that young man, opened his heart. He went
and sent his soldiers down into the valley of the son of Hinnom
and they destroyed those idols and he said, I'm putting an end
to this. He told the Jews to bring all their refuge, all their
dead animals and all the things that they were going to burn.
They filled this valley full of refuge and they set it on
fire. And He said, When you have anything
to dump and burn, bring it here to this valley of the Son of
Hinnom. And that's what came to symbolize
the fire of hell. They said it was a stinking place.
It was a place of reproach. Be a good thing maybe for you
to research and see what it looks like today. I imagine they probably
cleaned it up. But at this time, it comes to
symbolize the everlasting burnings of hell. And the Lord means to
impress the seriousness of murder and what murder really is upon
our conscience that He tells us the terribleness of it that
the person that does it and is ruled by even this anger, He
is worthy of the everlasting burnings, the fires of hell. That is a serious matter, isn't
it? A serious matter. Here in verses
23 and verse 24, look at what the Lord is going to tell us.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
remember that your brother has something ought against thee,
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First
be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your
gift. And the Lord Jesus is emphasizing
here the nature and demands of the moral law. What is it? What is the nature of the law
and what is the demands of the law? I think it comes down to
this, love. Love. What's the two commandments? The Lord said they're just made
up of two things. What was it? Love God and love your neighbor. That's what He said. That's what
the law is about, love. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. Love is the fulfilling of the
law, and for this reason thou shalt not kill." You cannot have
a heart of love and kill, can you? Love worketh no ill to his
neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is not only about our reconciliation
to God, but it's about our reconciliation one to another. The love of God
that comes in regeneration and shed abroad in our hearts will
not suffer. Now listen to this and see if
this ain't so. It will not suffer this unjust, murderous anger
to subdue and rule in the heart. It will not. this is the commandment
that we have from him that he who loves God love his brother
also and that's what the Lord is saying here we're anxious
we who are anxious and careful about being reconciled to God
should be anxious and careful about being reconciled to our
brother that's what the Lord is saying He that is careful
and anxious not to harbor any hard feelings between himself
and the Lord must be careful not to allow any hard feelings
in his heart towards others. That's what he's telling us.
It's not just the worship of God that's important. He said
when you come to the altar to leave your gifts, you come here
to worship and lift your heart up to the Father in heaven. And
there you remember that you've got this controversy with your
brother, that it's an unjust controversy. He did you no harm
and He meant you no harm. It comes from the anger, an unjust
anger that's in your own heart. So leave your gift and go be
reconciled to your brother. And then come and worship the
Lord. So that's what the Lord's telling
us. This unjust anger is so serious it must not be allowed to affect
our relationship with our brothers and our sisters in Christ. I
guess we could say even with our neighbors, can't we? Whoever
they may be. I think it's very telling how
the Lord Jesus begins to enter to end this sermon. Look over here in the seventh
chapter. He told them in the fifth chapter when He began this
discussion, this message on the Law, He said, Don't think that
I've come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I've not come
to destroy but to fulfill. And then He preaches this whole
message. And then He comes here and He picks that up again or
He concludes it in verse 12 of chapter 7. Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, Do ye even
so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." What is the
law and the prophets about? Love. It's about love. Why did God reconcile us to Himself? Love. God so loved, He sent us
His Son to reconcile us. What's the law about? Being reconciled
to our brothers and sisters. None of us would want to profess
a grace that permits us to live contrary to the moral law. We're accused of that all the
time. Every time we make the statement, we're not under the
law but under grace. Somebody stands up and says,
you antinomians, you rebels against God. Nobody that I know that
believes in the grace of God wants a grace that permits them
or encourages them or motivates them to live contrary to the
moral law. Has the Spirit of God ever led
you to steal anything? To hate somebody? To kill somebody? To commit adultery? To lust after
somebody? And He never will. What is that grace worth that
will not subdue us and rule us and motivate us to love our redeeming
God and to love one another? What is that faith worth that
does not work by love? That's the whole Law and the
Prophets. Can it be said that we are possessors of the Holy
Spirit if that Spirit does not fulfill in us the demands of
the moral law? That's what he tells us in Romans
chapter 8 and verse 4, is it? The righteousness of the law
is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the
Spirit. And what our Lord is telling
us here, grace will do for us what the law demands. The law
demands it, but He has no power or strength for us. But grace
comes to our hearts, and grace strengthens us. Grace changes
our nature. Grace enables us to do what the
law commands. Don't you love your brother?
Don't you love God? That's what the law demands.
And grace enables us to do it. And I don't want a grace. I don't
want a grace that teaches me to live and think and act contrary
to the moral law of God. And it's nothing contrary, contradictory
at all for me to say, sin shall not have dominion over you because
you're not under the law but under grace, then turn right
around and say, you delight in the law of God after the inward
man. That's not contradictory at all,
is it? Not at all. Now here in verses 25 through
verse 25 and verse 26, where the Lord says, Agree with your adversary quickly
while you are in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary
deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison. You will not come out
by any means until you have paid the uttermost Now, if you read
the commentaries, they interpret this passage different. And I
think sometimes some of these passages can honestly be interpreted
two or three different ways and be lawful to do that. Some tell
us that this adversary is the law of God. It's the justice
of God. It's against us. It's against
our sins. And we're in the way with him
to agree with him. He's brought these accusations.
He's brought these charges against us that we've sinned. And what
we must do is agree with Him. Agree with Him that we've sinned
and accept, if you will, believe, if you will, the terms of reconciliation. That we come as a sinner and
Christ has made reconciliation by His blood. We come and own
our sinnership And we say, I'm reconciled in Christ. I own what
I am. I own what I've done. And you
know that's a good way to interpret this because I tell you the truth,
one of the reasons people don't seek the Lord, one of the reasons
people aren't saved is because they will not come on God's terms. I was talking with a young lady
just last week and I quoted her the Scripture in Jeremiah 17
and I said, Here's what God says about you. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. And you know what she
told me? You know what she told me? That ain't the truth. That
ain't me. And I saw the anger in her countenance
against God for even telling her what she was. And I said,
what you're doing, your whole problem is you're fighting against
God and it's a battle you can't win. You'll either wear yourself
out fighting against God and He'll break you and you'll come
and say, Truth Lord, I'm everything you say I am. I'm a sinner. I've
been against you all my life. And you'll throw up the white
flag, you'll throw down your weapons, and you'll look to Christ
and be saved, or you'll go on in your rebellion and go to hell.
That's what I told her. That's the problem men have is
they won't agree with the justice of God. They won't agree with
the law of God of what it says about them. But boy, we have
to. We're going to be brought to
that place. David said, I acknowledge my transgressions, didn't he? I acknowledge them. I own them.
That you may be clear when you judge. The Lord told him in Hosea,
He said, I'm going to smite you and I'm going my way until you
acknowledge your transgressions. And in your afflictions, you're
going to seek Me early. And that's what you and I hope
that God will afflict men's conscience, that He'll teach them in such
an ineffectual way they'll come like that woman and say, True
Lord, I'm a dog. I'm everything you say about
me. This is one of the ways they interpret this passage, and I
think that's fine. But it doesn't seem to fit the
context, does it? We're talking here about the
brethren being angry and reconciliation made with Him. I think if we
look at this literally, and I think we need to to start with, I think
the Lord is just stressing here the seriousness of being reconciled. If you've got trouble, if you're
in trouble with your brethren, don't be like a man that His
neighbors brought charges against him, saying, I'm going to take
you to court. You either settle it or we're going to court. Settle
it. I think that's what the Lord
is simply saying. If there's some conflict and
you've had this anger and you've expressed it, settle it. Don't be like this man that gets
stubborn and says, I'll just go to court, and I'll go to court.
Nobody's going to win if you go to court. So that's what he
said. Settle it. Agree. I'm wrong. I've thought wrong. I've been angry. I've done wrong. And just confess it to this man
and apologize and go on and clear everything up. I've had to do
that. Haven't you had to do that? I've
had to do that. I've had to go back and humble
myself before people and say, Listen, this is what I did and
I want you to forgive me. I want to have one person that
told me, I ain't going to forgive you. Only one person. Children
of God, when you go back and you say, we've got this controversy,
and I don't know how you're feeling about me, but this is the way
I've been feeling about you, and here's what I did, and I confessed it.
I bet you every child of God, when we confess, they'll say,
Brother, I forgive you. I forgive you. That's what this
is about. It's not about It's not about
outward things. It's not about fasting. It's
not about people seeing me down here on the street corner praying.
It's not about me getting a bugle and filling that box back there
full of one dollar bills. It's heart. It's keeping the
heart clear with God and with man. That's it. If you and me
have got some problems, Wayne, we settled it, don't we? We settled
it. That's the confidence I've got
in you. You'd call me. You'd call me. Larry would call
me. Wayne would call me. Clark would
call me. You guys would call us when you'd talk to one another.
Let's settle this, dear brother. And that's what the Lord is saying.
That's what this sermon is about. And buddy, it is a narrow way,
isn't it? It's a narrow way. It's a pressing way sometimes.
And you can't live it without grace. And you'll be finding
yourself slipping You find yourself falling and need grace to get
up. That's how this sermon finds
us, and that's what it does to us. It strips us. It searches.
May God bless His Word tonight. Let us pray.