I want to read the last two verses
in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 31 and verse 32. This is where
we came to in our study in this wonderful epistle. Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away
from you with all malice. And be you kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you." We have been studying in particular
about what the Apostle Paul tells us in verse 22 and verse 24 of
this chapter concerning what a Christian actually is. He's made up of a new man, which
is created in righteousness and true holiness, and that old man,
which is corrupt according to his distinct lust. And what he
tells us up there in verse 22 and 24 is to be putting off the
things that concern this old man, and be putting on the things
concerning the new man. Now, in the strictest of sense,
I wish this wasn't so, but it is, in the strictest of sense,
the old man will never completely be put off. Because the Apostle
Paul, as far as I know, was at least somewhat of an old fellow
when he wrote and said, O wretched man that I am at this very present
time. That was the old nature, the
old Paul. I wish this was so, but it's
not so either. Neither will this new man completely
be put on. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we
could attain to that place of righteousness and true holiness
in this life? But the meaning is here. To be
putting off the things that pertain to the old man and be putting
on the things that pertain to the new man. Now, who is this
old man? Well, that's me. That's you. Oh, wretched man that I am. I am the old man. Well, who is
this new man? That's me too. That's you too. I delight in the law of God. after the end of man. I am an
old wretched man, and I delight in the law of God. The same I.
It's me. Why should you and I remember
this? Because these two distinct men, the new man and the old
man, makes up only one person. Really, in the truest, strictest
sense of the word, we're not two people. We're just one person. Just one person. In the Trinity,
there's three persons, but just one God. And there's a new man
and there's an old man, but this old man and new man make up just
one person. And that's me. And that's you.
If I lie. If I lie. Or if I steal. Or I commit some other sin. I can't say the old man did that. I did that. If I do anything
to honor God in Christ, I don't say the new man did that. I did
that. I did that. It's we who sin. I sin. I confess my sin, David
said. I'm sorry for my sin. And then
when we do righteousness, We walk in the light. He says that here in verse 31
and verse 32, let all bitterness be put away from you. It's you
that can retain this bitterness and anger and wrath and clamor
and so on. Be you kind one to another. He is speaking to the very same
person, isn't he? There's only one of us, even
though we have the old man and the new man. And as you look
at verse 31 and verse 32, it's evident that the Apostle Paul
here is speaking of our attitude one toward another. A Christian's
attitude towards his Christian brother. I want you to look back
up in verse 25, because I want to remind you of that. I'm not
saying, surely I'm not saying that We're not to be good and
kind towards others. We know that. But primarily,
he's speaking here of the church. He says that in verse 25. Put
away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are
members one of another. Members of what? Members of Christ's
body. That's what he tells us there
in verse 16. that as members of Christ's body,
we seek to build one another up. And how do we do that? By
laying aside the old man, which can't help anybody, and putting
on the things that pertain to the new man. That's when we build
one another up. Okay, let's look at these words
just briefly. First of all, he tells us here
to put away bitterness. Let all bitterness. Now, what
is this? Well, I think we all know, even
though we may not be able to define it. Bitterness is something
of the spirit, isn't it? It's something that gets into
the spirit and the heart. And it usually comes because
we resent something. Somebody's done something to
us. Somebody's hurt us. Somebody's said something about
us. Or we perceive they have. And we resent that. And we harbor
that resentment until it turns into bitterness. Or maybe something has happened
to us in the providence of God. Maybe something has happened.
We've lost a loved one. Or we've lost our health. Or
we've lost our financial stability. Something has happened. And we
resent it. And therefore this bitterness
builds up within us. There are people who have become
so bitter in life that they can't hide it. They're so unhappy. They're so negative. They can't
find a good thing to say about anybody. They can't see anything
good in life. Paul said it's the way we were
before the Lord saved us. We were hateful and hating one
another. We had this awful bitterness
in our spirits. You could give them a rose, a
beautiful rose, and if it had one thorn on it, they'd look
at that thorn and they'd say, that's awful. Bitterness is of
the spirit. And what's the problem? Harboring
resentment against somebody or something that has happened to
them in this life. James said, if you have bitter
envy and strife, In your heart. In your heart. And here's one
thing to remember when thinking about this bitterness. It doesn't
come from without. Bitterness doesn't come from
without. Somebody may have truly did you wrong. Or you may have
ran into some awful trouble. And in one sense of the word,
your bitterness may be legitimate. I could come to you and say,
Glenn, boy, that's awful what they did for you. But you know,
that's not the cause of Glenn's bitterness. The cause of Glenn's
bitterness is that he's harbored this resentment because he's
mistreated or suffered so much torture. That's why the Apostle
Paul said, you let all bitterness be put away from you. It's in you, the problem. You've harbored it. And now look
what it's done to you. So put it away from you. Put
it away from your heart. If the cause of it was in something
else, you probably couldn't have it. But the cause of it is not
in that, even though that may have been awful. It's not in
that person that mistreated you, even though they may have truly
sinned against you. But the problem is you've harbored this resentment. Brother Donnie Bell said something
one time that really helped me years and years ago. He said,
you know, I can't help how people treat me. I can't help what people
do to me. But I can help how I respond. And that's what Paul said in
here. Put away this bitterness. It's not from some outside source. It's what Terence just read to
us a minute ago about food. Food don't defile you, does it?
Nothing from without defiles us. It's what comes from within.
So this bitterness is something that I'm heartening. And Paul
says, put it away. Put it away. And then secondly,
these next two words, wrath and anger. Put away wrath and put
away anger. And some commentators tell us
that these words can easily be reversed. And in Colossians chapter
3 verse 8, Paul does reverse them. He says anger and wrath. Put away anger. And it seems
like you can see how these things, one thing leads to another. Here
is bitterness. And what does bitterness ultimately
lead us to? Anger, doesn't it? We're bitter,
so we're short-tempered. We get angry easy. Our mind gets
excited. And what happens? We have this
feeling of vengeance in our hearts. I'm mad, and I'm going to get
even. This word anger here means, I
think in this particular place, because we've already looked
at it in just a few verses up, but here it means anger without
a cause. There's a good anger. Remember
we saw that? It's good to be angry with sin.
It's always good to be mad at sin. But here, put away this
anger that's without a cause. It's probably come out of this
attitude of bitterness. So put it away. If you're angry
with somebody, the Lord Jesus said, without cause, put that
away. That's sin in yourself. And thirdly,
wrath. Put away wrath. And what is wrath? One man said this about wrath. He said wrath is the effect of
anger that has lost control. You reach the point where you
bubble over with anger and you can't retain it anymore. So what
happens? It breaks out into wrath. It's not just thinking I'm going
to get even. It's then trying to get even. You remember when David and his
few hundred men were having to hide out from Saul. And this
shows you how anger can take a good man and turn anger into
wrath. David and his men were hungry.
And a man by the name of Nabal, he was a rich man, and he had
some sheep and shepherds. And David and his men were protecting
his sheep and shepherds while they were there in the wilderness.
And then David and his men later got hungry and they sent to Nabal.
He sent some young men to Nabal and said, will you give us something
to eat? And he said, we protected your
sheep and your shepherds. And Nabal said, why are you sorry
about your fellows? They're just nothing but rebels.
I ain't giving you nothing. He said, go tell your rebel leader
over there, your supposed king, who is he that I should support
him? And they came back to David and said, boy, David, he raked
us over the coals. David said, everybody put their
swords on. He said, this time in the morning,
there won't be a male left in that man's house. I'm going to
kill him. If he's got any kids, grandkids,
menservants, I want you to kill every one of them. And boy, they
strapped on their swords and David's countenance. You could
see the anger in his face. I want to get this man. Wrath,
wrath burned in his heart. And Abigail heard about it, Mabel's
wife. And she loaded up all this food
on her donkeys and ran down and met David and fell at his feet
and said, David, this man ain't worth it. And God's given you the kingdom.
And when you come to the kingdom, if you kill this man, what a
blot it's going to be on your character. Because all you're
doing is seeking vengeance against this man. He's not worth it.
Wrath. Wrath. I tell you, ain't you
been right at the point where you could choke somebody? I've
been there, haven't you? I've been right at the point
where I was out of control. Either somebody had to stop me
or the Lord had to stop me. And finally, I was like David.
David said, Oh, I bless God for you, Abigail. God sent you here
because if you hadn't, I'd have killed every man in his house
before daylight. Put away wrath. Put it away. That's the first effect of it. Anger. Anger leads to wrath. Look here, another effect of
anger. Clamor. Put away this clamor. And that word simply means to
cry out. Quarreling. Brawling. Screaming. I've been watching some of the
protesters. You watch some of the things that's going on in
the capitals around our country. And I was watching that the other
night, and I saw this one fella, a bunch of them, but I saw this
one fella. And I thought, boy, if you could see yourself, if
you could just watch yourself on TV. I mean, he had his fist
clenched, and he was up in the guy's face and cussing and doing
like this. Brawling. Do you remember when
Paul told them about there being no gods that's made with hands?
And these Ephesians got mad at him and they said they were filled
with wrath. The whole town of Ephesus was
filled with wrath. And the Scripture says they began
to holler and cry out for two hours. There was all this confusion. That's what this word clamor
means. Oh, you just brawl and fuss and cuss. That's why you
and I have to be careful getting involved in some of this stuff,
ain't it? These people want you to go out. I got a niece that
she's over this March for Life, this abortion thing. And man, there's nobody in this
country that abhors abortion more than I do. But I'm not getting
out here on the street and screaming and shaking my fist in people's
face. Are you? That's clamor. That's brawling and fussing and
feuding. And then something else. Look,
you're evil speaking. See how one of these things lead
to another. There's bitterness. There's anger.
There's wrath. There's quarrels. slander, evil
speaking, slandering and reviling, false accusations, spreading
rumors, speech against God and against man. Boy, these things
just connect one to another, don't they? I assure us this
evening, if we harbor bitterness and we don't put it away from
our hearts, our spirit, and we let these things graduate like
this, I'm telling you what, we'll become brawlers, we'll feud and
speak evil of one another. That's what it leads to. So put
these away. And he says here, when all malice,
all other evil, things that I can't even think of now, all the evil,
all sorts of evil, put it away. And then he comes here to verse
32. And see how the gospel turns everything around. He not only
deals with what we should not do and the way we should not
act, but now he comes to the way we should act. Don't do this,
but do that. Do this. Instead of bitterness,
be ye kind. Instead of wrath, be tenderhearted. Instead of feuding and fussing,
forgive. Forgive. The gospel never leaves
us neutral. It's not enough to say, well,
somebody's mistreated me, and I'm just not going to say anything
about it. Well, you're not going to do
anything positive either, are you? But see what the gospel
does. It won't let us be neutral. Somebody's
done something to you, so what do you do? Well, I just won't
have anything to do with them anymore. No, it doesn't go there. It doesn't. Overcome evil with
good. Don't become just neutral. If
somebody's done something to you, do something about it. Why? Be you kind. Be you kind. This word here, I had no idea
that this word meant what it means. And you can look it up
in Strong's and some of the other vines. It means to be employed,
to become useful and helpful. If someone has mistreated you,
instead of becoming bitter and standoffish about it and not
have anything to do with them, find some way to help them. Find
some way to be useful to them. Be kind to them. Love suffers long, and it's helpful. It's useful. It seeks ways. It seeks things to do for somebody
else, even those who have mistreated it. Be ye kind, be ye tender hearted. Be tender hearted. You remember
here in verse 18, Paul was telling us about this. In verse 17 and
verse 18, he was talking about this I say therefore and testify
in the Lord that you walk not as other Gentiles walk. In the
vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance
that is in them because of the hardness." That word there, blindness,
is hardness of heart. Being past feeling. Now he comes and says, don't
be like that. That's the way of the world.
That's the way of the old man, the unregenerate. He's past feeling. He's hard hearted. Be kind and
be tender hearted. You know one of the biggest problems
in our society is to be found right here in verse 18 and 19.
It's being past feeling. A hard heart, past feeling. You know what makes a man and
a woman call it quits. And just say, I don't want to
be married to you anymore. You know what causes that. Past feeling. They've lost their feelings.
What makes a dad leave his family and refuse to support them, or
what makes a mother leave her children? She's past feeling.
That's the problem in the home, isn't it? You can trace it back
to that. Past feeling. That's the trouble in our court
system, our judicial system. I was watching a documentary. The reason this made impression
upon me, I know a fellow over in Pendleton Prison. They know
he didn't do what they accused him of. They got him in there,
can't get him out. But I was listening to a documentary, and
this fellow was in prison for 19 years. And he was accused
of killing a man, and he wasn't even in that area. And the people
who accused him knew he was innocent. The detective knew he was innocent,
and the prosecutor knew he was innocent, and still they put
him in jail to live there the rest of his life. How could a
person do that? How could people do that? Past
feeling. Past feeling. I saw, I was listening
to another, I was watching this on the news just the other night,
of Egypt. It's just going on in Egypt.
Bogaric, the guy that just stepped down, he had these torture chambers. And this one man was telling
about how they tortured him, and they laid him on a mattress,
and it had wires, electrical wires ran through it. And they
tied him on that mattress naked, and they poured water on the
mattress and plugged in the thing. And he had black Burnt, dead
places all over his body were they burnt. How could a person
do that? How could one human being do
that to another? Past feeling. Past feeling. Paul said that's what's wrong
with the world. The hardness of their heart and
therefore their past feeling. And what does he say here? Be
tender hearted. Be tender hearted. Keep your
heart tender towards Jethre and keep it tender towards God. He's
given you a new heart. Now keep that heart tender. What is the heart? Well, it's
the seat of our affections, isn't it? It's the innermost being. Keep your innermost being tender. If you'll read the Scripture
sometime, you search these words out. Vows. Vows. That means the innermost being
or innermost emotion. Listen to what Jeremiah said
about the bowels of his heart. He saw the destruction of Jerusalem
and he said, My bowels, my bowels, I'm pained in my very heart. That means in my deepest affections. That's what bowels is. Joseph,
when his brothers stood before him with Benjamin, He was so
overwhelmed with love for Benjamin and to make himself known, he
found a place to weep and he said, for his vows yearned upon
his brother. Inward feelings, inward compassion. Paul said, God is my record how
greatly I longed after you in the vows of Jesus Christ. And he said, put on as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies. And John said, if
we see a brother have need and we shut up our vows against him. So this tender heart is the innermost
affection, Paul said. It's only used twice in the whole
New Testament. It's used here and Peter renders
it in 1 Peter 3.8 as pity. Be pitiful. Be tender hearted
and be pitiful. Put on this deep, deep heart
of compassion and pity and sympathy. Isn't it a good thing that God
put this ribcage around our heart? If He didn't, you just touch
it. Just touch it. But that's the way our spiritual
hearts ought to be. Where you can just touch it.
Oh, it can be touched. It can sympathize. It's pitiful. It's pitiful. I want to be around
somebody that's pitiful, don't you? Oh, boy, just the attitude
that they have. They can't hurt you. They wouldn't
hurt you. They can't hurt you. If they
hurt you, they'd hurt themselves worse because they've hurt you.
Have you ever seen people that just thought they did something
to you? Oh, it just kills them until they tell you, until they
apologize. They're just so full of tenderness. Be tender-hearted. And look at this. Be kind, be
helpful, be useful, be tender-hearted, forgiving one another. Forgiving
one another. This shows us, I think here,
that in some sense of the word, this
person may have really thought they had a reason to grow bitter.
Somebody actually had mistreated them. And now he tells them to
forgive. To forgive. What should you do? What should you do if somebody
sins against you? Well, don't get bitter. Don't
get bitter. What should you do? There's no
sense in denying it. One of the worst things you and I
can do if somebody does something to us is just brush it off and
say, yeah, no, they didn't. Yeah, they did. It's a false
humility to say they didn't do that. Yes, we sin against each
other. We actually sin against each
other. We might as well be honest. Yes,
Larry Baker has done me wrong. He sinned against me. Now what
am I going to do about it? Am I going to hold resentment
in my heart? Am I going to let this fester?
No. He's done me wrong. And I'm going
to forgive him. I just forgive him. Now, there's
times when the Lord Jesus said, in certain circumstances, I go
to Larry and tell him. But there are other times I just
forgive him, and nothing's ever said about it. And here we've
got the motive. Here's the motive. Look at this.
Even as God. There's the motive, isn't it?
When we're kind one to another, we're like God, aren't we? We're
like God. He is kind unto the unthankful
and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful as your
Father. There's the motive to forgive.
When you forgive somebody, you become like God, who has forgiven
you, even as God. This should be our motive in
everything we do, brothers and sisters, our whole attitude,
our whole relationship, one with another. This should be our motive. Imitators of God. He went on
in chapter 5 to say, Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children,
and walk in love, even as God. Even as God. There's our motive.
Here's how. Here's how. Here's how we forgive. Even as God has forgiven You. How did God forgive you? Freely. Freely. When He saw that you
had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both. You had nothing
to offer. Why did He forgive you? Just
so freely. So freely. I may apologize to
you, but you shouldn't wait for an apology. And my apology may not be sufficient
anyway. Forgive me just as God has forgiven
you, freely, even as God. Here is the degree to which we
are to forgive one another, even as God has forgiven you. How much has He forgiven you?
Everything. I love that verse in Colossians
2.12, one of my favorite verses in all the Bible, having forgiven
you all transgressions. I have cast your sins, all of
them, into the depths of the sea. I have blotted out as a
thick cloud, a thick cloud. Your sin against me will never
be a thick cloud. You could sin against me 490
pounds a day, and you still wouldn't owe me as much as I owe God. And yet He's free, forgiven.
Forgive one another, even as God. And look at this, for Christ's
sake. There's why He forgives. There's
how He forgives and there's why He forgives. For Christ's sake. We know love has something to
do with forgiveness. Revelation 1-5, He loved us and
washed us from our sins. We know that grace has to do
with forgiveness. Being justified freely by His
grace. But here is a why that stands
alone. For Christ's sake. I tell you,
love can't forgive your sins. Except it does it for Christ's
sake. Grace cannot put away that thick cloud of sin, except it
does it for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. Boy, that should be harmonious
too, shouldn't it? For Christ's sake. There may
be times when I have difficulty forgiving somebody. I'm not going
to say it's always easy to forgive somebody. Can you imagine when
David killed Uriah? Uriah was a wonderful man. Oh,
he was a kind, tender man. He loved David, loved Israel.
And David had him killed to hide his sin. Can you imagine the
difficulty his mom and dad had for giving David? Can you imagine
Uriah's mother and dad when they heard what David had done? Reckon
it was just so easy? I doubt it, don't you? I really
doubt it. And there may be times where if their duties keep going
to the throne of grace, Lord, give me grace. Give me grace
to forgive. Give me the love to do it. I'm
struggling with this thing. But boy, here's a reason to forgive,
for Christ's sake. When you look yonder to Calvary,
when we get a glance of the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, hanging
on the cross of Calvary, and you see the blood dripping from
His palms, you see the blood dripping from His feet, and dripping
from His brow, and you see the darkness all around Him, and
you hear Him groaning in His soul, and know that He's being
punished for your sins, that you might experience the forgiveness
of God? Awful, blasphemous sins of your
heart? Abominable sins of words and
deeds? And don't your heart melt when
you look there? If you and I cannot forgive for
Christ's sake, I doubt if we're Christians. Because God forgives for his
sake. And I think when we know that
and experience that in our heart of hearts, we have no trouble
forgiving for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. Oh, I tell
you, brothers and sisters, if we have the gratitude that we
should have, there's nothing we shouldn't do for one another
for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. I'll go with
you to the last step for Christ's sake. I'll forgive you for any
and all your transgressions against me for Christ's sake. I'll work
till I can't work anymore for Christ's sake, for Christ's sake. Be ye therefore fathers of God
with your children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved
us and have given Himself for us in an offering, an offering
and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling safer. I think every
time we forgive one another, it's this perfume, it's this
sweet odor that comes up in the nostrils of God It's the sweet
fragrance of His Son, because that's what His Son did. He died
that you and I could experience forgiveness. Let's pray.