THE SERMON - The Pharisees Were Antinomian, Not Legalistic
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1 hour and 14 minutes
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157.01694
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14
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Summary
In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus teaches us that the law of God has not been abolished by the coming and finished work of Jesus Christ, but rather that it has remained authoritative for all people in all places, in all times, and especially so for His disciples. God does not issue his law on the basis of Jesus being Savior of some; rather, God issues his law to all image bearers, all of his creation, all mankind.
Transcript
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Matthew, and our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.
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Again, our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.
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When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord,
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if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.
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You have heard that it was said to those of old,
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and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
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Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council,
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and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
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So if you are offering your gift at the altar
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and there remember that your brother has something against you,
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Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
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By way of introduction, I've written the following.
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Jesus has now finished making it abundantly clear.
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If you were with us last Lord's Day with our text, that not one jot or tittle, not one iota, not one dotted I, not one cross T of any of the law of God would pass away until heaven and earth pass away.
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So Jesus has finished making it abundantly clear that Moses and the prophets, that is the law of God, remained authoritative for all people.
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Jesus did not come to change that, that the inauguration of the new covenant and the ministry and finished work of Jesus Christ would not abolish the law, but rather Jesus came to fulfill the law.
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So the law of God, Moses and the prophets, remains authoritative and relevant, applicable to all people in all places in all times, and especially all the more so Jesus' disciples.
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The law of God does not merely apply to the church. It applies to the world.
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I've said it in the past, but it bears repeating that God does not issue his law on the basis of Jesus being Savior of some.
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Rather, God issues his law to humanity on the basis of him being a universal creator of all.
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It is on the basis of God's creatorhood that he issues his law to all his image bearers.
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In other words, God's law is universally given to humanity, all people that he has created.
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The universal creator gives his law to all his creatures on the basis of him being creator.
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It is not the particular Savior issuing his law to some people, that is his people, the church, Christians, but rather the universal creator issuing his law to all image bearers, all of his creation, all mankind.
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So the law of God has not been abolished by the coming and the finished work of Jesus Christ.
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He is explicit in our previous text to say that he has come not to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it.
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So the law, it remains in play and not merely in play for Christian people, but for all people.
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Not merely some people of whom Jesus is Savior, but all people of whom God is creator.
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Furthermore, Christ's primary principle was to show that the law did not only prohibit external actions, but its first use was to address the heart.
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Jesus demonstrates this overarching principle by expounding upon some specific laws as case studies to make his overarching point.
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And he begins in our text today with the sixth commandment.
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So again, as a summary, a bit of an introduction or synopsis to get us to our text today,
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Jesus has been preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
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And so far, one of the big ideas in the immediate preceding text to our text today
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is that he has not come to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it.
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So the law of God remains in play, not just for Christian people, but for all people,
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and all the more so for those who would be his disciples.
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It's not abolished, but Jesus is going to fulfill it.
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Now, with that law, Jesus is saying again and again, as we'll see throughout the remainder of this chapter,
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he'll say, you have heard it was said long ago, but I tell you.
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And what Jesus is doing again and again is ultimately not only upholding the law,
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because he did not come to abolish it, but he's also extending, further extending the law.
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I have not come to mitigate or shrink or limit the law.
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and the law of God pertains to far more than you think it does.
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The law of God does not only deal with the outward behaviors and actions of mankind,
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but first and foremost, the law of God addresses sin at the level of desire,
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And this is what the book of James clearly teaches.
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The book of James explicitly, outright asks that question.
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It says, why are there divisions and factions among you?
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He says, is it not because of your desires within you?
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It's at the level first of inward, internal, evil, sinful desires
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He says that desire eventually gives birth to sin.
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If desire remains unchecked, if the law of God,
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if we relegate the law of God to only dealing with outward actions
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and we carve out absolution for our inward desires
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and we say, as the Pharisees did, the law of God doesn't apply to the heart.
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that what you're ultimately doing morally is you're carving out a space for the realm of inward
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desires to allow sinful desires to fester and to grow and to go on unchecked. And what James says
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is that if we do that desire, that is sinful desire, eventually gives birth to sin. And the
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way that he's using sin in this instance is not to say that sinful desire is not already sin in
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and of itself, but he's saying sinful desire, which is sin, internally eventually becomes
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sinful action. He's using sin to describe actions outward. So sinful desires eventually become
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sinful actions, and then sinful actions, if those aren't eventually held in check, eventually lead
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to death. Desire gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. And so the
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law of God must apply at the level of the heart. And this is what Jesus is ultimately dealing with
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the Pharisees about. The big idea is this. I said it last week. I'll say it again, and I'll probably
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say it multiple times throughout the Sermon on the Mount. The problem with the Pharisees is not
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that they were legalists. The problem with the Pharisees is that they were hypocrites.
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It's not that they taught the law of God. It's not that the Pharisees, Jesus doesn't come and
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condemn the Pharisees because they were stretching the law of God too far. He doesn't say, hey, you're
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getting far too much application out of the law of God. You're making the law of God regulate
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too many facets of human life and society. And that's burdensome and a bit legalistic.
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and I've come to say that it's really just about grace
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and these kinds of things, law, don't really matter.
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while harboring and maintaining and fostering sin on the inside.
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But on the inside, there's a rotting corpse that smells like death.
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Or he says, you're guys who wash the outside of the cup.
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that goes into your mouth that you're going to drink and consume,
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That's Jesus' message to the Pharisees again and again.
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His message is not, you legalist, stop caring so much about holiness.
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You've made the law of God only apply to outward actions
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while maintaining a full immunity and absolution for yourselves
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You look good on the outside, but it's death on the inside.
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You're like cups that are cleansed on the outside,
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but filled with germs and viruses and disease on the inside.
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you are not legalists, you are hypocrites.
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Here's a quote from Matthew Henry that illustrates this point
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The exposition of this command, namely the sixth commandment,
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which is the case study that Jesus utilizes in our text today,
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which the Jewish teachers of Jesus' day contended themselves with,
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Their comment upon it was, whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.
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Not willful murderers were liable to the sword of justice and casual ones to the judgment of the city of refuge.
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For the instance, just for the record, there is a bifurcation of two categories when it comes to murder in the Bible.
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In our case law system today, we've ended up with three or even four different categories of murder.
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There was manslaughter, and then there was murder.
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For instance, like first and second degree murder within our system,
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that would be the idea of first degree would be premeditated.
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So it's something that you thought about for a very long time.
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whereas second degree murder is not manslaughter meaning it's not an accident
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but it also was not premeditated and and strategized and plotted out for months or
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perhaps even years but rather it was a crime of passion so there was intent it wasn't an accident
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it's something that you did on purpose but it's not something that you wanted to do for a very
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long time. It was just in a moment, in the heat of passion, you discovered something or someone
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did something to you and you were so overcome by anger that you killed this individual. It would
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be really what we consider to be second degree murder, a crime of passion, would be very similar
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to what Cain did with Abel. It's not as though Cain had always planned to kill his brother Abel.
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It's not as though he was making plans from his youth or as a child, but one particular instance took place.
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And in that instance, sin was crouching at his door.
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Instead of mastering sin, he allowed sin to master him first at the inward level of desire, as we've been discussing thus far.
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And in a crime of passion, namely jealousy towards God, accepting his brother's sacrifice and not his own.
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He allowed that passion to get the better of his judgment, and he struck his brother Cain and his brother Abel and killed him.
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So it wasn't an accident, not manslaughter, but it also wasn't premeditated for months or years.
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But in biblical times, there really are only two categories, because whether you plan a murder for months or years,
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or whether it is still intent, it's intentional, but an intent that came in a moment, in either
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case, it's still intentional murder. And in that case, the punishment remains the same, whether it
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be first degree or second degree, the punishment is life for life. The punishment is that if you
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take the life of another willfully, right, because both are willful, rather whether the will was
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there for months or years or whether the will was there for 15 minutes. Either way, if it's willful
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and intentional taking of another person's life without justification, this isn't just war or
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something like that, then it is murder. It's intentional murder. And the penalty is capital
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punishment that you forfeit your own life. However, there is in terms of consequence, in terms of
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the penalties, there is an actual category difference for an accident. And in biblical
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times, that person would be permitted to flee to a city of refuge. So they could go and they would
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be a refugee. They would have to remain in that city of refuge. If they were outside the bounds
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of that city of refuge, then the avenger of blood, that would usually be the closest of kin to the
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person who was married, the closest male of kin. So maybe a brother or an uncle or whatever it may
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be. They would be fully within their rights to avenge their loved one that you had even accidentally
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killed if you were outside of the city of refuge. But so long as you remained within the city of
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refuge, then you had protection. Now notice the city of refuge was not a prison like our system
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today. In the city of refuge, there's a few things that you would have to do. For instance, you would
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have to get a job in that city and you'd have to work. So you committing a crime didn't punish
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everybody else by now subjecting them through taxes to pay for your room and board. But instead,
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you committing a crime actually punished yourself. You actually, how crazy is that, right? The guy
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who commits the crime he gets punished and not everybody else you know so it's not like hey you
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get you know you're going to get some outside you know activities and we're going to put you on a
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weightlifting regimen you know and you'll do some community service and here's some free food and
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here's some free ac and here's uh it didn't work like that you had to go not to a prison where
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other people pay for your crime through their their hard work and taxes but instead you went
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to a city where you had to get a job and pay for yourself and you would stay in that city until
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the high priest died and there were multiple cities of refuge they were all geographically
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plotted out to where it would be one day travel so if you accidentally killed someone within one
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day you could get to anywhere in Israel there would be a city of refuge within one day's travel
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of any place in Israel so that you could get there in a day to escape the avenger of blood
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if you killed someone it was truly an accident and the only way that your sentence would end
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The moment that the high priest in Israel died,
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then all of the refugees who were restrained to cities of refuge
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And the avenger of blood, even if he was still living,
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And the reason why that blood could no longer be avenged
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is because the high priest was a type ultimately of the true
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all avengers of blood ultimately are satisfied.
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And so too in Israel, under the old covenant,
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The avenger of blood had to be satisfied at that point with the death of the high priest and could no longer gain vengeance for himself.
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And all those who were refugees would be set free.
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It was a picture, even the old covenant of the gospel, as many old covenant signs and symbols and shadows are.
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So the Pharisees and Sadducees and religious rulers and scribes, all they had to say about the sixth commandment in the Decalogue, Exodus 20, the law of Moses, was that willful murderers were liable to the sword of justice and casual ones, that's manslaughters, the manslayer, to the judgment of the city of refuge.
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the courts of judgment sat in the gate of their principal cities, and the judges ordinarily were
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in number 23. These tried, condemned, and executed murderers so that whoever killed was in danger of
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their judgment. Now this gloss of theirs upon this commandment was faulty. This is what Jesus is
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getting at. There was a problem with their exegesis and application of the sixth commandment. It was
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faulty for it intimated that the law of the sixth commandment was only external and it forbade no
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more than the act of murder right that that you could hate your brother in your heart and you
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could want to murder him and you could even fantasize every single afternoon for 20 years
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about all the different ways that if you could you would kill your brother and that would be
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perfectly fine. Perfectly allowed. So long as you did not externally act upon it. That's the way
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that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious rulers exegeted and applied the sixth
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commandment. So Jesus, again, this is the case study. He's using the sixth commandment as just
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a singular example to make his overarching larger point, which is the principle. The sixth commandment
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and he's not saying to the religious rulers of the day,
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Jesus is using the sixth commandment as his case study
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he's saying you guys have actually made the law of God smaller your fault is that you've made the
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law of God too insignificant you have minimized its application the law of God does not just say
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capital punishment for the one who externally murders his brother but the law of God also
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says there will be eternal judgment and hell's fire for the one who inwardly hates his brother
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That murderous anger of the heart may not be murder in action.
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And so in terms of human courts, in human courts, temporal earthly courts,
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that person has not committed a crime and therefore should not be treated as a criminal.
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But internally in his heart, he has committed not a crime temporally, but a sin eternally.
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And there is an eternal judgment that's far worse than capital punishment here in this life.
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The eternal judgment is that he would be underneath the white hot wrath of God in hell forever.
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And that too is an application and an exegesis.
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So an interpretation and then an application of the sixth commandment.
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So you Pharisees, you Sadducees, you religious rulers of the day.
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Your problem is not that you stretch the law too far as legalist.
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But that you have made the law too small as antinomians.
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The problem with the Pharisees is that they were lawless.
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They boasted in caring much for the law of God.
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But remember, Jesus' number one label for the Pharisees is not legalist.
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They boasted of how much they cared for the law of God.
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But Jesus exposes them and says, you care for the law of God far too little.
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So Jesus, on one hand, he also criticizes the Pharisees
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for not being gracious, for not being merciful.
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But even these, Jesus puts in the category of the law.
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Jesus says, you've neglected the weightier matters
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So Jesus does criticize the Pharisees for not being gracious, for not being merciful.
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What evangelicals want to preach today is they want to say,
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well, Jesus' real problem with the Pharisees and the Sadducees was that they neglected the weightier things.
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And they won't say the weightier things of the law.
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They'll just leave that out because they ultimately want to juxtapose mercy against the law.
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They want to make mercy as something that is against the law and that you basically they create a false dichotomy where you have to choose one or the other.
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And so then they put words, evangelicals, modern evangelicals today, put words into the mouth of Jesus and say his big problem with the Pharisees is that they neglected the weightier things.
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Instead, they cared about the law and they were legalistic.
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He says, you neglected the weightier things, and these weightier things are weightier things of
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the law, because it is actually commanded to exercise mercy, to show mercy. Mercy is a
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commandment. It is part of God's law, and it is a weightier part of the law, and the Pharisees and
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Sadducees did neglect that. Christ absolutely had that against them, and in addition to that,
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He's basically saying it's both and not either or you should be more merciful and also you should
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be more righteous, more lawful, more merciful and more lawful with the law. You need to apply it
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not externally only or temporally only, but also internally and eternally. I'll say that again.
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Jesus is saying you shrunk the law too small. You're not legalist. You're antinomians. You don't
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care too much for the law. You care too little. You've made the law, you've made the law external
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and temporal, but it's actually internal and eternal. So it's not temporal, but eternal.
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And it's not merely external, but external and internal. It's both and. The law applies temporally
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and also eternally, and it applies externally and internally. So you've got, you're functioning with
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half of the law. So you need more law and more mercy, more mercy. And that's what I've noticed.
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I don't know if you've noticed this, because again, we're operating as evangelicals in 2024.
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You may not even know it, but subconsciously, I'd be willing to bet that just about everyone
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in the room here this morning, you have been operating under this subconscious dichotomy
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is that oftentimes the person who is very upset
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tends to be the least gracious person you can find.
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what typically is the case is they have a facade of grace,
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So they'll be very gracious, for instance, towards,
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politically, culturally, morally, anything on the left.
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So homosexuality, sexual sin outside of marriage,
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abortion right well but I mean these these poor women they're the second victim like sure there's
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a dead baby but but you know there's there's a second victim and it's the mother and and we're
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just being gracious towards her and and you know don't think about it too long because you might
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you might begin to realize that we're being incredibly demeaning because we all know that
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women are too stupid at the end of the day to know that that a baby inside of their wombs is
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actually a baby. That's why we can't hold the mother responsible morally is because she's
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she's just intellectually in the same way that you couldn't hold someone who's mentally challenged
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accountable in a court of law. That's how we as leftists view all women. They are so mentally
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challenged that we can't possibly hold them morally culpable for abortion as murder because
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they can't connect those two dots together that killing the unborn child would even be murder.
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And so it's actually on our view of women and their limits and their intellectual capacity that we exercise our grace towards women and say that they're the second victim when it comes to abortion.
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That is, just so you know, that is the rhino, Republican in name only, or the Sino, Christian in name only.
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That is absolutely Brent Leatherwood's position of the ERLC, the Southern Baptist Convention,
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their whole ethics and religious foundation of the largest Protestant denomination in these United States.
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And it's wrapped in a thin veneer of mercy and grace, just like the Pharisees would do.
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But it's actually, my point is, it's shrinking the law of God
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to where the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder,
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somehow doesn't apply to mothers who murder their unborn children.
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And at the same time, it's also shrinking mercy and grace.
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Because in order to do it, he'll never outright admit it.
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But in order to do that, what he essentially has to say is,
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we can't hold women responsible because we all know women are dumb.
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the internet would probably try to convince you otherwise,
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but I actually think much more highly of women.
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that they instinctively, both intellectually and morally,
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with conscience and the law of God written on their hearts,
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that actually is a human being, it's actually murder,
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I respect women so much that I believe that they deserve capital punishment if they murder their
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child. That's how much I respect women. Brent Leatherwood doesn't. He doesn't respect women.
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He hates women. And he hates babies. And ultimately, it's because he hates both God's law
1.00
00:30:50.520
and he hates what would truly be God's mercy. He hates both. And what you do when you shrink
00:30:56.900
the law of God. Here's the point. When you shrink the law of God, you minimize the sin of men,
00:31:03.020
the sin of mankind. And when you minimize the sin of mankind, you ultimately minimize the gospel.
00:31:09.960
You minimize God's mercy. Because if man, if God is only this holy and man is only this sinful,
00:31:16.980
then the gap between a holy God and sinful man is really just, it's not that wide. It's not that big.
00:31:23.040
And so the cross that fills this gap doesn't really have to be a big cross.
00:31:27.900
It's not really an impressive thing that Jesus did at the end of the day.
00:31:31.820
Come to think of it, you know, I mean, we still kind of appreciate his sacrifice and all.
00:31:36.740
But at the end of the day, you know, God is over here and we got pretty far on our own.
00:31:41.660
You know, God is holy, but we're also not that bad.
00:31:45.220
And Jesus is bridging the gap, but it's a pretty small gap.
00:31:48.860
And we appreciate the work of Christ, but the work of Christ is not insurmountable.
00:31:58.960
it's just filling a gap that if I really got a running start,
00:32:03.340
I might have been able to make the jump all on my own.
00:32:14.960
And that man is totally depraved in and of himself,
00:32:19.960
and that the gap between God and His holy nature and His holy law
00:32:24.800
and man in His sinful nature and all His sinful desires and sinful deeds,
00:32:32.780
And that the cross of Jesus Christ and what He accomplished at Calvary
00:32:37.040
is no small deed, but that the gospel is as wide as the east is far from the west.
00:32:45.520
That the gospel and what Jesus accomplished in his life and death and resurrection
00:32:50.100
is as big as the distance between a thrice holy God and sinful man.
00:32:56.760
The point is this, when you minimize the law of God, you minimize mercy.
00:33:02.440
When you truncate the law of God to only deal with that which is temporal and external,
00:33:08.280
then you ultimately, you mitigate and minimize the sinfulness of man in such a way
00:33:15.500
that the mercy that God has shown through His Son, Jesus Christ, towards sinners
00:33:20.180
is no longer a mercy that takes your breath away.
00:33:24.100
It's no longer a mercy that's new every morning, that's astounding and surprising and overwhelming.
00:33:35.060
It's a mercy that we begin to understand on human terms.
00:33:39.600
It's a mercy that's calculated, mitigated, measured,
00:33:44.120
and at the end of the day, just not really that impressive.
00:33:48.620
The Pharisees failed in both regards, is my point.
00:33:52.700
They were not legalists. They were hypocrites.
0.99
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and in doing so, they were both lawless and without mercy.
00:34:07.040
They were lacking righteous desire and love for the law of God
00:34:16.940
and that caused them to also lack a love of mercy
00:34:30.760
And to make this, you know, as I often do, you guys are probably used to it by now, but to make it relevant and timely.
00:34:37.220
And I like to put our moment into the larger equation of church history and where we're at and where we've been and where we're going and what might need to happen if God is in his mercy and kindness to right the ship.
00:34:54.940
everything that i just espoused none of this was high level ivory tower you know phd in theology
00:35:04.140
you know or mdiv at at oxford or princeton or harvard or all of this was um these were sunday
00:35:13.920
school catechism questions for four and five year olds for centuries what i'm saying is for
00:35:22.660
centuries, what I've just espoused up to this point in the sermon, was basic knowledge for
00:35:26.900
children. In America, in England, in France, in Spain, all over Western civilization, for hundreds
00:35:35.740
of years, everything I've just said so far was basic knowledge. At this point of the sermon,
00:35:44.640
if it was a hundred years ago, all the people, all of you sitting right now in the chairs,
00:36:17.040
this is basic theology basic christian theology law of good a law of god good mercy also good
00:36:27.560
the two of these things not opposed the law of god applies both outwardly and inwardly eternally
00:36:34.500
and temporally the problem with the pharisees is they were hypocrites not legalist
0.90
00:36:43.480
Because sometimes we just we think that we're doing the Christian life in a vacuum.
00:36:54.660
We are not coming to the table in a vacuum apart from any context, apart from any culture, apart from any history.
00:37:30.400
we're getting into the deep theology kind of stuff.
00:37:32.460
Because something, here's my point, something happened.
00:37:37.520
Something happened in the church in the last 80 years.
00:37:41.840
Something happened in America and in Europe.
0.50
00:37:50.560
Something happened to take people who are intelligent and courageous and moral
00:38:29.400
still in 2024 that the big problem with the church is that it's legalistic oh my goodness
00:38:36.040
to miss the the plot by that much is just that's like that would be like a major a major
00:38:47.400
media company remaking the lord of the rings series and saying that you know maybe we should
00:38:56.620
be more sympathetic to the orcs because they had families and were just trying to survive.
00:39:02.400
Right? You'd have to miss the plot that much. Now, certainly that would never happen. For those
00:39:07.280
of you who don't know, that's literally just happened in the last month. Amazon has remade
00:39:11.780
Lord of the Rings. And one of the major themes is that the orcs just want to have families and just
00:39:15.960
want to be left alone, you know, and they don't really like Saruman either, you know, or Sauron
00:39:19.640
either. That's where we're at right now. If you want, again, we don't do the Christian life in a
00:39:25.520
vacuum. We're not doing theology with a blank slate. We're all products of culture and we're
00:39:31.600
certainly all products of time and history. But none of that, here's the good news, none of that
00:39:39.040
is ever an accident. God is infinitely wise. He is sovereign over all things and in his providence.
00:39:46.200
He has caused you and I to be born in this time and in this place for an hour such as this,
00:40:22.900
So Jesus is using the sixth commandment as his example, his case study, to make his larger principle ring true.
00:40:31.240
The larger principle is, I have not come to abolish the law, but fulfill it.
00:40:36.800
Not one jot, not one tittle, not one iota will be done away with.
00:40:45.060
The two are not in contradiction to one another.
00:40:48.460
And your problem, my the thing I have against you, you religious teachers in Israel, is not that you care too much about the law and too little about grace, but rather you care too little about grace because you care too little about the law.
00:41:04.980
you need to be more lawful not more lawless more lawful in your interpretation of the law
0.88
00:41:13.800
in your application of the law that it's not just a temporal and external application but also
00:41:19.040
internal and eternal application so better exegesis of the law better application primarily
00:41:26.220
a broader more exhaustive application of the law and in so doing you also need to have a greater
00:41:32.880
appreciation of mercy. And when the law is bigger, then it highlights and reveals bigger sin. And
00:41:40.600
when the sin of man is bigger, then the grace and mercy of God is also bigger. That basic Christianity,
00:41:50.160
basic Christianity. And you should ask that question. A lot of people right now are saying,
00:41:56.340
that's not good to ask questions. It is. Those people are wrong. It is good to ask questions.
00:42:01.820
And one of the questions you should ask is what happened over the last 80 years to where the church is so afraid of being called legalistic, to where the church wants to basically take every universal truth, anything that would be viewed as dogmatic, transcendent truth, and get rid of it because it might be dangerous.
00:42:59.340
as the evangelical church is under the threat of legalism
00:43:24.080
just wonder and beg the question are these two things somehow related? I don't think they're
00:43:32.060
entirely related but I do believe that there is some overlap. That what has happened to the church
00:43:37.820
theologically also happens to have a little bit to do with what has happened to our nation
00:43:42.860
historically. Okay last point that I'm going to make today. I have three points in your notes but
00:43:48.560
I'm just going to make one last point. Defining murderous anger. This is key. Okay so we've
00:43:53.660
already established last week jesus didn't come to abolish the law but uphold it jesus loves the
00:43:58.440
law now this week we're saying and in loving the law jesus doesn't want to limit the law but he
00:44:04.060
wants to apply it exegete it thoroughly and apply it exhaustively in every realm externally and
00:44:11.260
internally temporally and eternally now all that being said getting specific with the sixth
00:44:17.000
commandment now if the sixth commandment applies to the heart and not merely actions
00:44:26.060
I tell you that even if you call your brother a fool,
0.99
00:44:46.320
I would suggest that all of you have that goal as well.
00:44:51.480
Now, ultimately, the way to not go to hell is to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, his sufficient work, and to repent of your sins.
00:45:00.300
But in believing in Christ's sacrifice and repenting of our sins, it is helpful to know what things are actually sins and how to define properly these sins so that we understand what it is we're repenting of and what it is that Jesus actually paid for.
00:45:19.840
So Matthew Henry now, again, commentating in our text and fleshing out for us a working definition, a helpful, I think, and simple definition of murderous anger, the kind of anger that is sinful, because not all anger is, as you guys know, elsewhere in the scripture, the Bible says, be angry, but do not sin.
00:45:38.760
So there is a way of having righteous indignation, a righteous anger.
00:45:42.860
But there's also a way of having murderous anger.
00:45:45.980
And that's the kind of anger that Jesus is tying to the sixth commandment.
00:45:49.820
The sixth commandment is not just murder in deed, but also murder in heart.
00:45:57.320
And apart from his finished work at Calvary, that anger, that kind of anger of the heart will send you to hell.
00:46:07.420
Christ tells them that rash anger is heart murder.
00:46:12.260
Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause
00:46:21.080
It's not just being angry with your brother, period.
00:46:24.080
But the first thing that Matthew Henry says is this.
00:46:26.640
It's being angry with your brother without a cause.
00:46:34.900
there are other contexts where brother explicitly refers to the household of faith. In this context,
00:46:40.920
Matthew, Henry, and I agree with him, and other Puritans and other reformers in this particular
00:46:45.040
scriptural context agree with him as well, that brother is a little bit broader here than simply
00:46:49.700
referring to the household of faith. So not just a brother or sister in Christ, but in this sense,
00:46:54.260
it's fellow human being. All my brother, mankind. Mankind. Okay, so by our brother here, we are to
00:47:02.580
understand any person, though ever so much are inferior as a child or a servant, for we are all
00:47:10.180
made of one blood. So a murderous anger is an anger without cause, and it's an anger towards our
00:47:17.000
brother. And in this context, brother would refer to a child, a servant, a believer especially, or an
00:47:25.040
unbeliever someone in your country or someone in another it would be any human being made in the
00:47:32.900
image of god in this sense it's a universal mankind brotherhood that is in reference
00:47:39.300
and any anger towards any person that is now that we've established that brother simply means person
00:47:47.840
Any anger towards any person that is an anger without cause, an unmerited anger, an unjustifiable anger, is a murderous anger.
00:48:01.560
Because there is such a thing as righteous anger, but this would be a sinful anger.
00:48:06.040
So it's without cause, and it's towards another person.
00:48:09.520
And this other person doesn't have to be our peer, or our superior.
00:48:13.840
It could be an inferior. It could be a child. It could be a servant, an employee, whatever it might be.
00:48:23.800
For we are all made of one blood. Anger, Matthew Henry continues, is a natural passion.
00:48:29.900
There are causes in which it is lawful and even laudable, commendable.
00:48:34.880
But it is then sinful when we are angry without cause.
00:48:38.860
so we've already established that, without any good effect.
00:48:43.020
So not just without cause, but also we could argue without purpose.
00:48:49.240
and there needs to be something productive that you intend to do with that anger.
00:49:00.840
but some things that the Bible very clearly condemns is this.
00:49:08.760
So it condemns not all anger in a general sense,
00:49:30.000
And it also condemns not just anger that springs up quickly,
00:49:44.960
The Bible puts a very short shelf life, we could say, on anger.
00:49:54.340
Or in our text today, so that's a daily time limit.
00:49:57.560
In our text today, we could say there's a weekly time limit.
00:50:02.600
Well, you should be reconciled with your brother before giving your gift at the altar,
00:50:06.760
which is something that we all do each Lord's Day in worship once a week.
00:50:11.900
So in both instances, whether it's not letting the sun go down
00:50:14.860
or whether it's being prepared to offer your gift on the altar in weekly worship,
00:50:23.900
And when we do have anger, we should come to it slowly
00:50:30.080
Come to it, not quickly, and deal with it slowly,
00:50:33.180
but come to it slowly and deal with it quickly.
00:50:36.760
And in dealing with that anger, it needs to have a cause.
00:50:39.980
There's a reason, a justifiable reason for that anger.
00:50:49.900
Our anger, therefore, is going to drive us to some kind of effect,
00:50:55.100
some kind of action, not a sinful action, but a righteous one.
00:51:06.760
So you could say it like this, righteous anger, an anger that is not murderous or sinful,
00:51:12.440
is an anger that comes at the right time, and it comes slowly, and it's an anger for
00:51:19.240
the right things, not things that are petty or small, but the right things, the things
00:51:24.740
that matter, and it's an anger that comes in the right amount, so we're not too angry,
00:51:31.140
or you can also sin by not being angry enough, brothers and sisters, so not too much anger,
00:51:36.760
or too little anger, like for instance, you know, you'll see people from time to time,
00:51:41.560
they'll say, you don't hate journalists enough. And that is true. That is absolutely, you really
00:51:46.780
can't in 2024 hate journalists enough. But more than that, here's an even better example. You and
00:51:52.780
I, none of us in this room, none of us hate abortion enough. We are all probably in some
00:51:59.200
measure of sin, just a sliding spectrum. It's not even if, it's just how much in sin are we
00:52:44.400
and I'm this angry about 70 million babies murdered.
00:52:50.280
So angry at the right time and slowly as we come into it,
00:53:04.820
Have anger at the right time for the right thing and the right amount.
00:53:12.720
The way to, ultimately what I'm basically espousing here,
00:53:30.180
He has never sinned and he maintains hatred. So we, in following his example, we want to be like
00:53:36.940
God, right? That's a pretty big idea of the Christian faith. It's being like Jesus. Jesus
00:53:41.920
hates things. So we need to rightly order our hates. And here's the secret. Don't focus on the
00:53:48.100
hate. The way to rightly order your hatreds is to rightly order your loves. The reason you and I
00:53:55.680
don't hate properly, we don't have anger properly, is because we don't love properly. We don't hate
00:54:02.380
abortion enough because we don't love children enough. And we, we hate the petty little grievances
00:54:15.360
and ways that people offend us too much because we love ourselves too much. So there are some
00:54:25.280
things we don't hate enough because we don't love others enough. And there are some things that we
00:54:30.640
hate too much because we love ourselves too much. At every level, whenever the order of our hatreds
00:54:38.280
is out of whack, it's because the order of our loves is out of whack. We're angry at the wrong
00:54:44.900
time about the wrong things with the wrong amount of anger because we're loving at the wrong time
00:55:17.120
They just want to split the penny a million ways
00:55:50.260
because we keep shooting each other in the face.
00:55:52.280
without a divine commandment from the Lord,
1.00
00:56:03.360
we keep splitting the penny again and again and again.
00:56:17.200
if I could sum it up as succinctly as possible,
00:56:20.700
one of the big divides was this does the the civil magistrate human governments national governments
00:56:26.840
are they are they morally obligated to be distinctly christian and if so if they should
00:56:33.740
be christian christian nations does being a christian civil magistrate a christian government
00:56:38.700
um does that necessarily morally obligate the government to legislating the second table of
00:56:44.420
law only or both the first and second table of the law meaning do christian should christian
00:56:51.300
should governments be christian and if so if the answer is yes to that first question
00:56:55.280
should they just legislate christianly with commandments five through ten like don't steal
00:57:01.000
don't kill or also christianly like no high places and no altars to false gods and no blaspheming the
00:57:08.800
triune god those kinds of things first table of the law not just legislating christian laws as
00:57:14.440
it pertains to love for neighbor but also love for god and that was a big dividing line if you
00:57:19.180
guys saw that in 2021 and 2022 some people were on one side of the aisle and some people were on the
00:57:25.040
other and then you know it's like man there are fewer of us than i thought there were and that's
00:57:31.880
a little bit depressing and so everybody got together and decided what should we do well
00:57:37.820
there's already few of us, what if we made it even fewer? You know, stupidest idea ever, but that
0.97
00:57:46.380
was the idea, and we're dead set on doing it, and so here we are. And so the next dividing line
1.00
00:57:51.900
became this. It's like, well, we've got, you know, everybody who's down for Christian nationalism,
00:57:57.440
or whatever you want to call it, theonomy, or Christodom, or, you know, Christian nations,
00:58:02.140
Christian governments, and to be Christian, that means you can't just take arbitrarily half of the
00:58:06.920
law of God and leave the other half off. It needs to be the whole law of God. Both tables. All right,
00:58:11.480
so we're on the same page. Here's the new dividing line, the new aisle. It's nature.
00:58:19.220
And that's a big one. And I didn't, I'll be honest, I'm having to play catch up and reading
00:58:23.040
a lot of books and learning a lot of things that I should have learned after, you know,
00:58:27.020
the last 15 years, having to learn them in the last 15 months, you know, and, but this is what
00:58:32.980
it comes down to is that um it turns out that there are different kinds of christian nationalists
00:58:40.740
go figure and that you could both agree on both tables of the law of god being legislated by a
00:58:47.780
christian nation a christian government but you could still strongly disagree when it comes to
00:58:53.440
natural affections ultimately when it comes to theologically what is within the reformed
00:58:59.860
tradition, and even longer than that, within the entire Christian tradition for 2,000 years,
00:59:04.700
been known as the Ordo Amoris. And the Ordo Amoris, brothers and sisters, it just means
00:59:10.440
order of loves. And that's how it pertains to our text today. Our text today is about avoiding
00:59:15.640
sinful anger of the heart, murderous anger. How do you do that? You set a hedge against murderous
00:59:20.220
anger of the heart by reorienting the heart, working on love, right? You guard against sinful
00:59:26.880
anger and sinful hatred by giving yourself to righteous love. And to have properly ordered
00:59:34.340
anger, good anger, but not bad anger, you need to have properly ordered loves. And to have properly
00:59:39.680
ordered loves, you need the ordo amoris, the order of loves. Which turns out, Stephen Wolfe didn't
00:59:47.400
come up with that. Turns out that that's been around for 2,000 years. And then all Stephen
00:59:54.820
wolf did was honestly i think a case could be made against him for plagiarizing because he
01:00:01.080
literally just just copy and pasted 2 000 years of theologians but then everybody born after 1945
01:00:09.660
pretended like it was novel and shocking and terrible how could he verbatim repeat john
01:00:17.760
Calvin. Exactly. The guy that we claim to love. How could he? I can't believe it. How could he
01:00:26.700
dare post-World War II be so audacious to think like every single Christian that preceded World
1.00
01:00:36.340
War II? How could he do that? And so that has become the new dividing line, which is really
0.94
01:00:42.440
sad because it, as A.D. Robles would say, in his reasonable Latino way, it didn't have to be this
01:00:47.960
way. It didn't have to be this way. He keeps saying that. I appreciate it. And he's right.
01:00:52.240
It didn't have to be this way. That does not have to be a dividing line. You don't have to divide
01:00:57.320
over that. But apparently we do. I don't think we should, but apparently we do. The idea that Jesus
01:01:08.140
is getting at in our text is that there is a way of having hatred without cause that springs up
01:01:15.160
quickly, that is without not only cause, but without effect. It doesn't have a purpose. It
01:01:19.580
doesn't have an aim. So it's long lasting. The sun doesn't go down on it. It's it's a perpetual,
01:01:27.200
unjustifiable, nonproductive, murderous hatred towards your brother. And that church is a sin.
01:01:36.520
And apart from repentance and apart from grace that is found in Christ alone, it will send you to hell, whether you ever act on it or not.
01:01:44.800
But the solution is to rightly order your loves.
01:01:48.240
You start with God and then you look to the family.
01:01:52.760
You love your mother and father, your wife, your children.
01:01:56.500
Then you go out from that and from that and further and further.
01:02:09.740
more than people on the other side of the world.
01:03:02.720
You're loving your people more than those who are not your people.
01:03:07.760
And those who are not your people, by recognizing them as not your people,
01:03:20.340
Loving Americans, as an American, more than I love Ukrainians or citizens of Israel,
01:03:32.020
it does not require me to wish the worst upon others.
01:03:49.020
And ironically, while hedging against globalism,
01:03:55.640
that allowed globalism to come in in the first place.
01:04:02.020
And unfortunately, although I didn't decide this, it has been decided by others that that will be a dividing line.
01:04:10.620
So not just will we have Christian governments, but also how much of natural affections in the order of Morris will we allow Christians in 2024 to embrace before we call them racist?
01:04:28.180
essentially turns out that that one's going to have to be a dividing line too i didn't think it
01:04:33.980
would i certainly don't think it should but uh it's above my pay grade and that decision was
01:04:39.940
made by higher ups so what's the solution love god first rightly order your loves so that you're
01:04:49.000
you will righteously order your angers love god first love your family second beyond that extended
01:04:57.360
family beyond that love your country your citizens before your country love your state
01:05:04.620
love your county and work your way out and in doing so here's the cool thing i know it's crazy
01:05:10.560
absolutely crazy but you can love at different degrees and not actually end up having to hate
01:05:17.500
anyone you don't not in a general overarching sense you don't have to hate an entire country
01:06:01.540
I love my people more because I'm commanded to,
01:06:06.600
And within my people, there are some wicked guys, bad actors,
01:06:11.740
And until they repent, there's a sense in which God hates
01:06:16.940
And as David said, do I not hate those, not things,
01:06:36.440
I can't give all my resources equally to everyone.
01:06:39.380
He commands me to prioritize and love my people.
01:06:50.780
in categories of individuals and then collectives.
01:06:53.660
And at the individual level, some are wicked over here,
01:06:56.560
just like there are some individuals who are wicked in my own home.
01:07:00.940
And I'm able to think about all these things like an adult.
01:07:05.480
And I can have righteous anger because I've rightly prioritized righteous loves.
01:07:12.180
And then even with my righteous anger, I'm not going to go overboard.
01:07:16.240
Lord, I'm going to have it at the right measure for the right things at the right time.
01:07:21.500
And if I start to have too much anger, I'm going to repent and call that a sin.
01:07:27.620
And if I start to have mis-targeted anger for the wrong thing, I'm going to repent and call that a sin.
01:07:34.620
And if I have untimely anger that springs about quickly and is lasting too long and not going away
01:07:41.340
and causing me temptation to go off into dangerous places,
01:07:52.300
because it'll be the overflow of righteous desires.
01:07:56.480
And I'm going to guard against unrighteous anger
01:08:07.780
I cannot love everyone perfectly, fully, to the fullest extent.
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I can't feed every child, but by God's grace, I can feed my child.
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I can't love every woman, but I can love my woman, my wife.
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And we do that with our day-to-day, our work, our priorities, our focus.
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pretty much as much babies as they possibly can,
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we should deport millions of illegal immigrants and criminals who are murdering natural citizens.
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That's where I'm at. I'm not even super excited about that. I wish the country, I mean, that's
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pretty sad and pathetic. That's where we are. It's like, hey, who doesn't hate, you know, which person
0.99
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running for local office doesn't hate the very people who are voting for them? You know, it's
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like the lowest bar you could possibly imagine.
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It comes down to natural affections, natural loves.
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And we started to feel guilty for certain things
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And instead of offering to the Lord as a response
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And so out of guilt for all the blessing that He gave us,
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And that doesn't mean they hated India, but they did it for us and our posterity.
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And for you, the children of your fathers, who died for you as their children, to say,
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Dad died for me and the kids, and we're going to take it and give it to strangers.
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Lord, help us to be better men and women than that.
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but righteous enough to know that we really aren't
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but also upholding your law, the sixth commandment,
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Toward that end, Lord, we beg and plead that you might help us.