Address—Stephen Rule
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Just like to start this afternoon by rereading the last three lines. Well, for connection, I'll read the last four that we sang this morning. This is the subject that's on my heart this afternoon. Hope we'll enjoy together.
We sang #245 the last stanza this morning. It's the last few not lines that are on my heart.
We show thy death, Lord Jesus, and here would seek to be.
More to thy death conforming. Whilst we remember thee here would seek to be more to thy death conformed.
It's also saying #186 I'm thinking particularly the last couple stanzas, but let's sing the whole hymn if someone would start #186.
You need to turn around.
And see how long I'm saying.
That I'm here.
And for stanza we just sang and fully all to have attained the image of our Lord. It's really my desire this afternoon is that all of us fully would approach that moment. It's going to come when we're with him. But while we're here, it's his desire that we would express his image in this world.
Because of that, half of what we'll talk about this afternoon will be the topic of anger.
And that sounds really strange. It's going to be the middle part. I want to start with the whole purpose for dealing with anger and finish where we start. But in between we'll come that topic of anger just so you know what's coming. And it's going to stand in the place of perhaps other things that you deal with. The Lord's only exercise me on that subject in the last maybe year or so. And so it's what He's been taking me through in part.
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Are one of the things, and that's why you're going to get that one particular topic in the middle. But the purpose of it is so that we put away those things. Now, anger is a big topic. There's righteous anger. I'll touch on it briefly, but that's not the subject that we're going to deal with here in the middle. It's not the aspect of it. It's the anger that comes from the flesh. But I want to start with the purpose. So if you'll turn with me to first, Peter.
Chapter 2.
Read a couple verses here, one of which we're not going to dwell on, other than I do want to touchback on it a little bit later on in the hour. First Peter, chapter 2.
We'll read two very well known verses.
But one will be.
One aspect of one of them will be our subject. Second Peter, First Peter chapter 2 and verse five. He also, as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, our priesthood toward God, including worship.
And in verse 9, the ER a chosen generation.
A royal priesthood and holy nation, A peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who have called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. I'm going to read the last part of that verse from Mr. Darby's translation, that he might set forth the Excellencies.
Of him who was called, set forth the Excellencies.
Of him who has called you. That's the character of our Lord. That's his moral character. And it's to be on display in our lives. Every single one of us is called by God to put on display the excellencies of our Lord. And we'll look at an example later on of a person totally unconscious to themselves pouring out the excellencies of the Lord in their life, their hindrances to it. That's why we'll talk about anger in the middle.
But the excellencies, the Lord, or what are to be on display in our life?
In the first chapter of this epistle, first Peter one and verse three, I also want to touch on just a little something there and by way of introduction.
I'm sorry, not first Peter one, but second Peter one.
Second Peter one and verse 3.
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. That word virtue right here is the very same word that's given where we just read the excellencies of Him. The excellencies of him are the virtue that they're in this verse that we're called to.
Verse five as it begins to get developed and displayed in our life, verse five says and besides this giving all diligence, add to your faith.
Virtue, same word again. It's the excellencies of the moral character of our Lord that are to be on display in our life. And some of the things that we'll talk about today are hard. They're very difficult. They involve the little day-to-day tough moments, the big difficult life moments and everything in between. But we have here in verse three, it's according as his divine power hath given unto us all things.
I've loved that emphasis this morning in the memory verse on all.
I wish I could do it with the same voice, but perhaps you could hear a child's voice this morning with that all. And if you can hear it again in this verse, it's the same emphasis. It's all. There's nothing left out. There's nothing left out. The power of God is present so that in your life this afternoon, this evening, tomorrow, and every day until he calls us home, the excellencies of God's Son can be on display and there's no excuse.
And there doesn't need to be. And when we fail, there's forgiveness. We'll come to that. But the beauty of it is the power is there and the purpose is there. It's God's purpose. He says, call this to glory and virtue, or by glory and virtue. And so that very purpose of God is that you and that I would look just like his Son.
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Sometimes we don't. Sometimes there are those little things that come in and I want to turn and lay out for you some principles. Really In Matthew 5, we'll touch on a few other scriptures, lay out some principles for how that image sometimes gets marred.
Really, the Lord may not touch your conscience with this particular topic of anger as He has mine.
But perhaps there's something else that he would touch you with, and that's fine. The purpose is that you and I both would look just like our Lord. That's the that's the focus.
Before we begin to read these verses in Matthew 5, just say about anger.
This and then you can take this. You're gonna have to do it on your own. You can take it and apply it if the Lord touches your conscience somewhere else are quite a few years ago.
I don't remember how long we've been married, but there was a young couple that had been in the gathering there in Addison and they had left. We still had some contact with them in one way or another and we got a call late 1 evening and the sister.
I was quite concerned because her husband was out, He was going to be coming home. She was pretty sure that he was going to be drinking and she knew he'd be angry. She wanted somebody with her when he got home. And I don't remember the circumstances much, but I do remember that we left and we went and we were sitting on the couch in the room and she was kind of pacing around waiting for him to walk in the door. And you can see the door. And also from where we were sitting, you could see.
Big hole in the plasterboard there on the wall. And while we were waiting, she said that's where he had punched a hole in the wall a little while before. He'd never been violent toward her, but he had.
Anger and.
So it's like the Pharisee. And then my heart was I thank thee that I'm not, as other men are.
Hole punchers.
But there's a lot of ways that anger gets shown on the life. You know, we've got those types that are we lived on the side of a volcano for six years and twice while we were there, it erupted. One of the times was standing on the roof. And you can watch those clouds of ash going up, hitting the jet stream, traveling across and overhead. And they dumped their masks on the roof and.
And it was gone. The period of volcanic activity that time lasted a few months and it was over.
It left its mess and it was gone. And some people's anger is like that, if I can put it that way. There's that explosion and it's messy and it's ugly and it's gone. There's another kind of anger, and perhaps not all of us see it in ourselves.
It's got that glacial kind. People take pictures. In fact, we had a nice big poster taken by a brother there in Quito with a verse on it of one of the eruptions. And it was big and it was memorable and it was worth discussing and had a nice verse put on it. And we had it in our home. But people don't take photos of the glacier event.
What glacier event? It just grinds slow and quiet and cold, and it leaves sand and gravel in its wake, and it's just as deadly. And God wants all of it out of our lives. I don't know who I'm speaking to here, because I'll absolutely tell you this is not geared toward anybody. These are things the Lord's laid on my conscience. But He wants you, and He wants me to look like His Son. So I'm going to suppose there's a couple.
And one of you has got that we lived on Mount Pichincha. You've got that Mount Pichincha anger. The other one of you has got the Glacier National Park anger. And you're, you're well aware that your spouses got that Mount Pichincha explosive stuff and you're concerned about it. You haven't seen it in your own heart. And it's grind slow and it grinds fine. And it's anger too.
That's what we do with sin.
We draw this tight little box around other people's sin. I'm speaking generally. I'm going to point to the verses here in a moment. We'll look at them in Matthew 5. When we draw this tight little box around other people's sin and maybe the occasional sin in our own life, and then everything outside that box is OK.
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Now watch what the Lord does Matthew 5 and verse 21.
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. That's what I'm calling This tight little box comes straight out of the law. Thou shalt not kill. It's clear, It's definite. It involves action, wrong action. That is an outflow of anger.
Now the Lord speaks.
But I say unto you, the Lord's here present on earth, speaking these words, and you can't put God in that little box. It doesn't fit. And we can't do it in our lives either. We can't do it if we want to look like Him. We can't stick that sin down in that little box and then say, I'm not doing it. Everything else out around it, we're good.
Doesn't work. So here's what he says, and I'll read the entirety of it and we'll go back through it.
But I say unto you, verse 22, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raka shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say, thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire.
We'll stop there.
Three things.
Remember, we started with an action murder.
Killing.
Big, obvious out there, we didn't do it. We're good. And that's what the flesh does, right? So you pick a different spot in this chapter. You can look at lust in the same way. Big out there, adultery and what's under the hood and God's dealing with what's under the hood, what's not showing, what I want to bring out in this progression here and the verse we just read three things.
The first one.
Where's the action?
Let's look back at it. Verse 22 Whosoever is angry with his brother without a 'cause that says are lightly angry. Mr. Darby's translation gives.
Tried to look up the word a, very hard time grasping the exact nuance and.
Be very happy for your help later. So rather than trying to exposit what lightly angry means because I can't.
I want to bring out this.
Are there any words mentioned here?
Are there any actions mentioned here?
I don't see either.
Says I'll read it for Mr. Darby's translation.
Everyone that is lightly angry.
Lightly angry.
It just suggests this to you as a very practical matter. It's a very practical matter that's been very helpful to me.
And dealing with this route that God wants dealt with because he wants us to look like His Son.
If you find yourself in your head and we're going to look at a man who had words in his head. If you look at yourself with words in your head, nothing coming out of your mouth, no actions with your hands and your feet, and you're destroying that other person with your argument.
You've already lost.
Because you shouldn't be in it.
Anger is alive there in the heart, and I can't speak to anyone here. I don't know of anyone in this circumstance. This is the kind of thing that comes up in my own heart, and the flesh is the flesh in each of us. You go through a circumstance and you feel insulted. Maybe it happened to you here at this conference. Something came up and you feel insulted, and we'll look at the Lord when He was insulted. In a little bit, that circumstance comes up and you're insulted and you start to go through where that other person was wrong.
Or maybe somebody did something and it wasn't very nice. Maybe it wasn't very nice toward your child.
There will touch briefly on righteous anger later. What I'm talking about what comes from the flesh in those circumstances, and you're running through it and the other person is the focus of it, not the glory of the Lord, not the need of the child. If it was the child, it's that other person that's the focus.
We're already into lightly angry, but it goes from there.
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The next expression is something that comes out. And so whosoever shall say to his brother Raqqa believe this is the only time this word, Raqqa is used in the New Testament. And again, I've struggled in the past with understanding really, what's the weight of that word. I've looked through half a dozen lexicons, and I'm lousy with memory.
So I will read to you the definition I found the most helpful.
Of this rack on comes from the Aramaic, the street language of the land of Israel, the time of the Lord the Lord when he spoke Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani from the cross was speaking in that child heart language of Aramaic. It's that just day-to-day flow of things. This word Raqqa comes from the Aramaic and here's the definition.
A mildly insulting word used to tease.
Meaning empty used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence.
Used here in the context of anger. Remember the heading for this is Thou shalt not kill, and the Lord is bringing out the moral weight that lies behind that expression. And when He does the first word out of here as a light, mildly insulting word, use the tease.
I'm guilty on many occasions of teasing. My mother went to be with the Lord of Lobo three years ago and.
Shortly before her death, just a few weeks before I teased her, brought a smile to her face. Well, no, I didn't. She was indignant, but in a good way. And when I teased in that circumstance, I don't think that it was intended in any way to be mildly insulting. So I'm not trying to cover all of teasing here, but I think what this is, is inside there's that little.
Churning and the person's there. Maybe it's maybe it's a child in your family.
And they are always leaving their messy clothes around. It's just always, and it bugs you and it's in there and there's training, right? So it's in there and you're working on the training program and you're asking the Lord how you can help and what it tells me about that. No, sometimes what's in there is not again. And so to make it not so heavy.
You use an expression which is.
Mildly insulting. We're used to tease and it's intended to hurt and hopefully inflict some pain because there's a little anger on the inside.
Or your husband and wife and you're in the home and there's that thing and for.
Next week, now a little bit more than one week, will be my 31St anniversary. We'll say that there is something in my life that's been going on, and I'll say in my wife's life, because the sin is on the side of the person angry here. Let's say there's been that little habit for 31 years and it's there and it's never going to go away. And you keep tripping over it and maybe it's not even sin. Maybe it's a natural thing and you keep.
Tripping over it and there's just that little dig there.
Let's say I'm not going to pick a real example here. I'm not going to leave a mess behind. Let's say it was that my wife was always late.
Thankfully, though we have different senses of time, we're not that different in time.
Umm, we're in the same time family anyway.
And so she's late again. And rather than thank the Lord for the wonderful character and all that's in it, and the reason she was late was she was taking care of a child who had a need. I really enjoyed looking over yesterday and seeing my wife bandaging a knee and I thought, oh, OK, Yep, that's her. And so maybe that's what was going on and that's why she's late.
But that's not what you're seeing. You're the husband. And this is wow. Let's see. Calculate at least once a day, 365 days, 31 years. Wow, that's a lot.
And a little dig.
Let's raka. It's not the pronunciation of the sounds.
So what's going on under the hood, coming out of the mouth? That isn't the love and grace of Christ. It's not His attitude, it's not His spirit, it's not the virtue and the excellencies of him that have called you. It's your flesh displaying itself.
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There's one more.
And it is.
Whosoever shall say thou fool.
Whosoever shall say thou fool.
This is stronger as far as I can understand. And again, I'm not going to present myself as an expert on the language. I did struggle with it. I did look through half a dozen lexicons again, and I'm going to pick one, the exact same one that I just read you a definition from so that it's at least consistent because I think it shows the graduation of the thought.
Fool is the Greek word moros, and it's a foolish person who?
Lacks good judgment.
It's a subtle difference here. It's not so much the action in the heat of the moment and the irritation. It's a judgment on the whole person. It's a foolish person. And as I understand it, it is a word that's at least related to. I don't know if it's derived from, maybe it is. One of the lexicons I looked up said it's related to this Hebrew word, perhaps drive from it, but it's certainly in the Greek here.
And it's related to the word used for nabal, who was a churro.
Enable the whole character of Nabal in the Old Testament, nobody could say anything to him. He was the law where he was. Nabal was a churro, and apparently that's the basic sense of the word. And his wife says of him that he, Nabal, is his name. And he is, he's a fool. Nabel was a fool. His whole character was that.
These words here are pronouncing judgment on my brother.
And saying or my sister, my wife, my child, the other person. It's a settled conclusion about the other person and it comes from a lot of thoughts all collected together. This is anger that's built up to the point where there's a settled conclusion brought out of the mouth and stated about the other person.
There are very few places where it's used in the New Testament, but just to give a little bit more flavor to the word, we'll turn to one of them. And it comes from the Lorde mouth. So that's not the pronunciation of the syllables, fool. That's in in question here because the Lord himself uses this exact same word. And clearly that was not sin, but the word is used by the Lord in.
Matthew 23 a couple times actually, and.
He's speaking the scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and Matthew 23.
And verse.
17.
It's almost like the Lord has to say this.
He had no other choice.
It's at the end of his public ministry. He's ready to go to the cross and he's yearned over this people. These are not words of frustration coming out of his mouth. This is the divine Son of God pronouncing a statement on these people. And he says verse 17, Matthew 23, verse 17, ye fools and blind.
That's the same word.
That's the same word, and it's his statement as the divine Son of God, as God, as the one that could evaluate and make a statement about this one. You're fools. All that I've poured out towards you, all that love that I've shown to you, and you're closed to it. The foolishness was in shutting the mind and shutting the heart to the person who was there.
That's an expression of anger and I trust it doesn't come from our mouth. That can be used with a lot of different words.
But again, it was a stronger set of words than what came before.
Now which action did the Lord talk about?
Remember back a little while ago I mentioned looking on my brother. I believe he's a brother in the Lord. Although these walks gone a long way from the Lord, the one who put his first through the the the plasterboard pounded a hole in the wall. An action of anger. Which action of the anger has the Lord laid his finger on in this verse?
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Model 1.
Not a one.
That's anger too, right? My point is this, we create this little box and I didn't hit him. I didn't put her in a headlock. I didn't. I didn't this, I didn't that, I didn't the other.
So I wasn't angry.
No, the Lord says. If it's not my character flowing from you.
If it's not my grace, if it's not my love, then it's not me. It's not me and it shouldn't be coming out of you. We're going to come to how how it's drained really in a little bit, but.
Let's not draw the block so small that we're smug and comfortable outside it. Let's take God's definition of what this is and judge it in the thought, in the light word, in the heavy word, before it ever becomes an action in our life. And if something that's ongoing, it's something that hinders the display of Christ.
In our life, let's look at one more verse related to anger. This one. Well, 2. Two more passages. You don't want to take too much longer on them. I want to look at God's solution, but I want to look at the root of it.
At least suggest to you a root of it back in Genesis. The first case that I know of, of the display of this anger in Genesis 4. You know the story well. It ended in action. But I want to show you what comes before that action with Cain murdering his brother Abel.
So Genesis chapter 4.
Says in verse three, the process of time it came to pass that came broad of the fruit of the ground, and offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And we know this story well. We know that it was faith in Abel that laid hold of an offering.
And he was accepted because that offering was accepted.
Cain brought an offering of his own work, and that's not the aspect I want to bring up. I want to bring up what happens now in what follows. And Cain was very rough, and his countenance fell.
What insult has Cain said to his brother at this point?
Talks to his brother in a moment.
They haven't said a word to him yet.
Hasn't killed him yet. In fact, he hasn't done anything.
But it's leaking. His anger has leaked out of his heart, and it wouldn't need to leak out, but it has leaked out because it's showing on his face and God is dealing with it. I just want to suggest this to you. God is immensely faithful. That's what I love about the Lord right here. At this particular point, Cain hasn't murdered yet, and God's working with them. He sees that sin leaking out.
And he works to stop it.
And the Lord speaks to him, He speaks to him about it, and the Lord speaks to us. If it's not anger in your life that's simmering a little there under the hood, that pops up here and there, that's expressed toward another brother or sister in your assembly or someone in your family, it is God's desire to stop it growing.
And he speaks, it's a beautiful thing. And he talks to Cain and he says to him.
And the Lord said unto Cain, verse six. Or art thou Roth? And why is thy countenance fallen?
Just.
Or tried to say this to me a lot in the last year, and I'm going to give you the kind of example people involved. And I want, I want to illustrate a principle here with anger, because the Lord is immensely faithful, wonderful.
Often.
Let me give an illustration of something first, because I think it will help in understanding the application of it. I know next to nothing of forest fires, but I, I looked up some information on it. I was meditating on it from my own personal need and this particular subject thinking of fire. Some words we may look on touch on a little bit. And I understand that there's a, there's different places the fire can run through the forest. They can run through the canopy, it can run through the basic.
Of the tree or it can run essentially underground underneath the leaf cover where isn't it seen through the root systems. And so if you build a fire and you do it in an unapproved place in the Forest Service gave you a spot to build your fire and you found that one that looked a lot nicer it was more comfortable to your tent and so you built according to your own view of things where you thought you should build and you ignited your fire there and then it ran along under the ground the fire itself can pop up 30.
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Away, 30 feet away. I don't remember the exact distance, but it's a long way from where you ignited that fire. And where it pops up over here is not where the problem started. The problem started way over here.
And let me give you a very concrete example for the purpose of focusing on it, but for not keeping things in this tight little box. That's that's the desire of my heart is that we would properly apply God's Word to all of our lives, all of it, and put away what dishonours him that his character would show.
I have far too often in the workplace in my life, done a job that's easier.
Not a non work related item, a work related item, but a work related item that's more pleasurable. It's got less pain in it, it's simpler, it's easier rather than the real priority.
Don't want any confessions of procrastinators here, but you're hearing one form of procrastination. No show of hands. That's not the point. The point is, I think there's a couple of you out there and we're not procrastinating and you know, playing games or anything like that. It's, it's work that's work that needs to get done. It's just not the number one priority. And the clock is ticking and ticking and ticking and ticking and ticking and tensions building inside and you've got to deal with that top priority. So you start to tackle.
Top priority and you think of the top priority, real high speed, you got to get it done real quickly because you're running out of time because you only had about two hours left and you really should give it six hours. And so you're tackling it as quickly as you possibly can. And somebody comes in your office and wants that again, ask you that question. Why do they always the anger that's popping up is because of self six hours earlier. The rushing at that point is coming in and the anger is coming out.
Because the fire got started in the non approved place way over here.
30 feet away because it just was a lot nicer to work with that fire in front of my tent with that project, that was a little nicer. And now it's popping up over here as anger. That's not where it started. It started a long time ago. Maybe no words come out of my mouth, but that probably leak out of my face.
Leaked out of Cain's face and God spoke to him.
And God would speak to us right then and there pops up. He'd speak to us because he wants his character on display. He's so faithful, He's so wonderful. And I want to just suggest something to you. I believe it's a thought of scripture.
It's given by one of the older writers here. There's a lot of discussion as to what the end of verse 7 means.
I'll read the first part. There's little argument there. If they'll do us well, shalt thou not be accepted. So a lot of discussion on how to to translate the last half of this verse. I'm just going to give you an interpretation which I believe is supported by Scripture, and Mr. Kelly gives it here for this half of the verse.
And I love the thought of God acting in this way. And if thou doest not, well, Sinliath at the door, that's been translated by many, Mr. Darby, Mr. Kelly on down. The most modern translations give that somewhere and along the lines of sin lies crouching or lying at the door. It's out there in the open, Cain. You haven't hit a thing that's out there in the open, you know.
That's a wonderful thing to know. When our sin we think it's hidden. We deny it. We deny it to our family.
Your wife says to you, what are you mad about? I'm not mad. Yeah, right.
It's leaked out on your face. It's there and she can see it and God says it's out there. There's also the thought of and there's a there's a sacrifice for it.
But it seems that the main thought is it's out there and seen at your door, and then there is a way to deal with it, and all the scripture gives us the way to deal with it.
There's a second aspect here of I love what the Lord does here, and I believe it's what He does with each of us. He says unto them, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
If you have a.
Anyone of many conservative modern translations, it'll give the sense of this part as.
00:40:02
Sin itself is lying there crouching, ready to devour you and.
It's the true thought sin is there ready to cause wreak havoc. So I take nothing from it. But I believe the following is a scriptural thought and I enjoy seeing it here as Mr. Kelly gave it here, and that's this.
Is the interpretation this way of that expression says?
Came.
I made you the first born, my hardest towards you, my hardest towards you, and I haven't taken it back.
And I haven't taken it back.
Believe. That's a scriptural thought for a believer. We'll see it clearly in the life of David, but I enjoy it here in this first example. Here God's heart is toward that one who sinned in the heart, and it's not fully out in the life yet, but it's leaked out on the face.
And God says, my heart is towards you.
My favor that I've given to you is still there. It's still there.
Be that as it may, we'll clearly see that in the life of David, I want to turn very briefly to the New Testament and just cover this principle and ask for your help on something here.
Give you something to look up for me and Ephesians chapter 4.
Street 2 verses.
Well, I'll read 3 but with very little comment verse Ephesians 4 verse 26.
Lord has just mentioned in verse 24 holiness, and in verse 26 He says be ye angry and sin not. This is the righteous anger. It says be ye angry. It doesn't say don't be ye angry. It says be ye angry. And the root word behind that anger is one we're going to see in a moment in the fleshly sense. But I believe this, the sense of it is God's holy wrath against sin never changes.
Same root word that you see here with be angry.
Give you a second to guess which two New Testament books use it over and over and over again. Two of them over half the times in the New Testament of one of the words for anger come up or about a third of them, very roughly speaking, a third of them. So this word root word for anger appears in the book of Romans.
When it speaks of God's wrath being revealed, it's that this holy God hates sin and it's a subtle disposition against it, with consequences, with retribution that will follow. And about 1/3 of the references appear there in the book of Romans. I bet you can guess what the other book of the Testament is then where the another third of those references appear. It's the Book of Revelation.
Book of Revelation where it's poured out, but in the Book of Revelation it adds a second word.
Over roughly half of the times that second word for anger appears in the New Testament appear in the Book of Revelation. Because when it's carried out, there's heat that comes with it. Now down to verse 31.
Let all again, can you, can you call back to mind that beautiful emphasis of all this morning? Let all.
Let all.
Bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. I'm going to read that. Just a couple of those words in Mr. Darby's translation, verse 31, it says heat of passion and wrath.
You'll have to use a Greek concordance to trace these words, because it doesn't appear to me that they're consistently translated and or translated in the same way throughout Mr. Darby's translation or the King James or most others. But the two words in verse 31 are thumas. That's the heat of passion, as Mr. Darby gives it, and orge the wrath, as Mr. Darby gives it.
Thumas, I believe, is a little bit more of that boiling up of passion.
Used to the Lord in the Book of Revelation. It's the pouring out and the passion.
In that brief period of time when he publicly deals with sin, it's the pouring out.
Of that passion, heat of passion and wrath. Is that settled?
Judgment against sin and it too is poured out in the Book of Revelation, but is prominent also in Romans. But this is what comes from the flesh, their equivalents in the flesh in US. And all of it is the go, not just what shows not just the big stuff, all of it so that the next verse and be kind one to another can't read this verse.
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Without hearing my mother's voice.
This is the most quoted verse in my life as a child. You can guess why.
Probably not because she was underlining, emphasizing and highlighting the beauty of that character in my life, but rather wishing for it. So there are three words that got the the emphasis.
Be kind.
One to another.
Tender hearted.
Forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you that, and we're going to look at it in a second here. And the time that we have remaining that forms the fountain, an understanding of that fountain, of the forgiveness of God to us causes the character, causes grace to pour into our lives and causes.
Causes these things to pour out tender hearted.
Forgiving.
About my mother when she was saying these words.
The last thought in our mind is the fact that I would be quoting this verse in this context here. So if you're a mom and you're quoting quoted that same verse or given the same thought or the same instruction to your child 49 times and you're ready to have a little bit of thumas on the 50th time, look ahead to God's purposes and just just count on him to work in your child's life. And really that's that's the heart of it. It's when we seize the rains and try to run the show that we.
Flow over and anger. But when we count on God, we don't.
There's a beautiful example in David's life. I want to give you a homework assignment. And this is genuine. This is not, hey, I've got the answer. Come to me afterwards. This is because I don't know. But I, I say it to you because I think the word of God is just immense. It's rich, it's full. And I think there's more on this subject that I haven't, I don't know. And that is in Ephesians, right where we read it.
It gives the order of what were to put away as thumas followed by or gay, the Burlington, the boiling up of passion and that settled anger with retribution. But in Colossians it flips the order. It says orgay followed by thumas. The heat of passion comes second. I have no idea why. I'm sure there's a good reason. Probably learn something helpful about anger from it and how to put it away. I'd be happy for the answer, but I want to turn it over to something I really.
On this subject in Ephesians, I'm sorry, not in Ephesians, but in Luke Chapter 7.
When you assume you know this story.
It came before me because this is a circumstance and I meditated on it for myself. This is one of the circumstances that tend to produce anger in our lives. The Lord and Matthew and Luke 7 and the verses we're going to read was insulted. He was rudely insulted. He was treated terribly and the in a social sense, and maybe you have been this weekend. I trust not, but it happens in life and treated in a terrible way and I want you to see how he responds. This is the Christ life.
This is the excellence of Christ coming out in the Lord Jesus and what he would produce. And you and I, I'm not going to read the whole story. You know it pretty well, but this is in Luke 7 toward the end. Verses 36 to 50 are well worth going back and reading through and thoughtfully, I'm going to presume that you know it well. The Lord enters the House of the Pharisee, Simon, and I'll give the brief summary. He enters the house.
Simon the Pharisee and.
There are three people in the story. There have to have been more in the house, but there were three in the story, the Lord Simon and a woman.
The Lord displaying the excellencies of Christ because he was He couldn't do anything else. The woman pouring out the excellencies of Christ that were the result of forgiveness. See, she didn't have this little box to stick her sin in and feel good.
She couldn't do it toward the beginning of the story. You read it for yourself. I'll touch on the highlights toward the beginning of the story. It says God's statement narrating, writing the book.
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She was a Sinner.
Simon, looking on, says she's a Sinner. Everybody knew it.
I'll just suggest when we try to hide our sin, maybe it's just from our wife. I'm not mad, no, not upset.
Just your imagination, we're not hiding anything.
It's not hidden, it's out there. It's on the face, it's in the words, it's in the tone. And we're missing out on grace because grace comes pouring out when there's that sense of the need of forgiveness. And this woman's sin was out there. Simon knew it. I take it the whole village knew it. The Lord knew it.
But she'd seen something in this one, and she came to him, and what was pouring out of her wasn't her sin.
What was pouring out of her was the excellence of Let's Die back where we started. She's worshipping all our actions, call out worship for that person that had grabbed her and taken a hold of her heart and pouring out of her as one of his characters. She's just giving, you know, there she was weeping. There's no doubt repentance. She was washing his feet with her tears. I would presume that was her tear bottle that she was pouring from, not just her eyes.
She's pouring from her alabaster box ointment on his feet. This is flowing out of her because she knew forgiveness from a God who gives, who's full of grace. And when we draw that tight little box and say, I don't need forgiveness, we're denying him an expression of his grace. We're cutting off from ourselves the forgiveness that's going to draw out the praise and the worship.
Maybe we think we're maintaining our reputation and our family and our home assembly and our work or whatever it is, but.
We haven't said I'm sorry I was wrong in the last week.
You've already reached the end of the hymn that we started with. You're already looked like the Lord, awful lot like the Lord.
If we haven't in one way or another said it, because we do offend in many ways, we all offend. But taking a hold of that forgiveness and this, the worship pours out of her. And I would like to suggest that she's pouring out the excellencies of Christ. She's putting them on display. There are no words recorded of this woman here.
It's there's the royal priesthood isn't all about words. It's not about going out and preaching. It's a display of the life that shows Christ.
And that's what she's doing here. She's displaying the life and Simon is looking on. But Simon doesn't get it because like so many other Pharisees, he's like the one that later in this book praised us with himself, saying I am not as other men are. And look at what the Lord does with her offering in verse 40. Well, Lord.
Maybe I should just say before I show what the Lord does with it. This portion came before me originally because.
It's beautiful. What did the Lord say to Simon when he walked in and was insulted, didn't get the kiss? In Ecuador, you would be socially in trouble if you walked up to somebody and didn't give the the air air kiss. You go cheek to cheek, you each blow a little kiss into the air and you go all the way around the room. And everybody be kind of hard in the room like this. And they do skip it at a conference because it would be a little impractical. But in small social situations, you just would not, would not walk in and not give the air kiss.
To somebody, Simon there and he didn't do the other common courtesies of his day and the Lord, the Lord of glory, the Lord who merited him more than anybody that ever did. What did he say? He didn't bring it up until he wanted to bring out the beauty of this woman who was being attacked, attacked in the thoughts, by the way of Simon. Simon didn't think the Lord was a prophet.
So the Lord chose. He's a prophet. He brings Simon's thoughts right out.
And he deals with them. But here's how the Lord made use of her offering, He says in verse.
And.
Verse 44, after telling Simon the story, the 550 pence debtors, he says, and he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into my house? And he goes through the list. And then he says in verse 47, Wherefore I say unto thee, he's talking to Simon. This is a message to Simon, not to the woman.
Her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much. Now here's I believe, what's going on, he says. That love pouring out of her is evidence to you, Simon, that this woman is forgiven.
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He's not saying because she's loving enough, I'll forgive her sins. That's not it. That's not the thought I don't believe. The thought is she's putting on display the excellencies of this person and it's evidence of a work that's gone in on in her heart. When he speaks to the woman, he says in verse 50 and he said, the woman, thy faith has saved thee, go in peace. There's the root of it. There's the assurance of her salvation from the testimony from his mouth. His word gives the testimony and assurance for the peace.
Tour. The basis of it was faith, but what was pouring out of her was the evidence of it and that the Lord uses to speak to Simon's heart.
I have no scriptural justification to say with any confidence that I'm going to give Simon a hug and glory someday, but I'd love to think so. And the reason I'd love to think so is that the Lord was addressing Simon the Pharisee, and he was addressing him on this very issue. And because the Lord addresses me on these issues because he loves me, I know he's addressing Simon because he loves Simon. And perhaps.
It would be wonderful to think that that message reached home. Maybe Simon was one of the ones in the beginning of Acts that believed. I do not know. Scripture does not tell us.
But it is the heart of our God. It is the heart of our God to delight in and to bring out the excellencies of His Son. I'm going to finish with a few verses back in first Peter. It was a wonderful example of these things in the life of David, if you want to look at it in second Samuel 6 and seven. But we're not going to turn there. We're going to turn and finish just a few verses and first Peter.
Verse Peter chapter 2 again.
Again, there's a wonderful situation here at the end of the chapter with servants. They are the household servants beginning in verse 18. Not slaves, not the do lost slave, but a household servant much closer in direct analogy to you and I in a work environment. And there's difficulties there where anger might come up. We'll skip over them and I'm going to just read from verse.
21 For even here unto were ye called.
Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. It hurt him. Reproach broken my heart. It's not that there's not pain when anger is directed toward us. It's not that there's not pain when insult comes toward us. But what flowed from that perfect man was perfection. And in those circumstances when he was reviled, he reviled not again. He didn't try to be.
The one to ultimately deal with a situation that says when when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him the judgeth righteously who his own self bear our sins, and his own body on the tree, though we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. That's been my burden this afternoon. Though we spoken so much on anger. Someone has said this is the complimentary set of verses to what we had in the Sunday school this morning.
Romans 6 It's dead to sin, and that whole sin nature and that whole root, and God doesn't want the fruit either, and it's here.
Bear who? His own self? Bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Why? So that our bodies would live unto righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed. We're dead to sins. Sins plural. Dead to sins complementary to Romans 6. Why?
Because everything. All of it.
Needs to go so that.
Verse 425 You were a sheep going astray, but you are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls.