The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - The Pharisees Were Antinomian, Not Legalistic

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00:00:42.000 Matthew, and our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.

00:00:47.560 Again, our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.

00:00:51.500 I'll read the text for us in its entirety.

00:00:53.800 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord,

00:00:56.540 at which point I would appreciate very much

00:00:58.320 if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:01:01.600 One final time, our text for today

00:01:03.140 is Matthew chapter five, verses 21 through 26.

00:01:06.460 The Bible says this.

00:01:08.240 You have heard that it was said to those of old,

00:01:10.860 you shall not murder,

00:01:11.980 and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

00:01:15.340 But I say to you that everyone who is angry

00:01:17.980 with his brother will be liable to judgment.

00:01:20.680 Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, 0.99

00:01:23.480 and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. 0.99

00:01:28.280 So if you are offering your gift at the altar 0.99

00:01:30.540 and there remember that your brother has something against you,

00:01:33.620 leave your gift there before the altar and go.

00:01:36.840 First be reconciled to your brother

00:01:38.600 and then come and offer your gift.

00:01:41.460 Come to terms quickly with your accuser

00:01:44.020 while you are going with him to court

00:01:46.340 lest your accuser hand you over to the judge

00:01:49.100 and the judge to the guard

00:01:51.000 and you be put in prison.

00:01:53.400 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

00:01:57.920 This is the word of the Lord.

00:02:00.300 All right, please be seated.

00:02:02.060 By way of introduction, I've written the following.

00:02:04.920 Jesus has now finished making it abundantly clear.

00:02:07.460 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.

00:02:20.660 So Jesus has finished making it abundantly clear that Moses and the prophets, that is the law of God, remained authoritative for all people.

00:02:29.580 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.

00:02:41.080 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.

00:02:52.740 The law of God does not merely apply to the church. It applies to the world.

00:02:58.120 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.

00:03:05.740 Rather, God issues his law to humanity on the basis of him being a universal creator of all.

00:03:12.100 It is on the basis of God's creatorhood that he issues his law to all his image bearers.

00:03:18.740 In other words, God's law is universally given to humanity, all people that he has created.

00:03:25.100 The universal creator gives his law to all his creatures on the basis of him being creator.

00:03:32.120 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.

00:03:49.520 So the law of God has not been abolished by the coming and the finished work of Jesus Christ.

00:03:55.540 He is explicit in our previous text to say that he has come not to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it.

00:04:02.420 So the law, it remains in play and not merely in play for Christian people, but for all people.

00:04:09.720 Not merely some people of whom Jesus is Savior, but all people of whom God is creator.

00:04:16.380 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.

00:04:29.420 Jesus demonstrates this overarching principle by expounding upon some specific laws as case studies to make his overarching point.

00:04:38.220 And he begins in our text today with the sixth commandment.

00:04:41.760 So again, as a summary, a bit of an introduction or synopsis to get us to our text today,

00:04:49.320 Jesus has been preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

00:04:53.800 And so far, one of the big ideas in the immediate preceding text to our text today

00:04:58.620 is that he has not come to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it.

00:05:03.120 So the law of God remains in play, not just for Christian people, but for all people,

00:05:07.400 and all the more so for those who would be his disciples.

00:05:11.200 Furthermore, so the law is still in play.

00:05:13.400 It's not abolished, but Jesus is going to fulfill it.

00:05:16.060 Now, with that law, Jesus is saying again and again, as we'll see throughout the remainder of this chapter,

00:05:22.400 he'll say, you have heard it was said long ago, but I tell you.

00:05:27.240 And what Jesus is doing again and again is ultimately not only upholding the law,

00:05:33.240 because he did not come to abolish it, but he's also extending, further extending the law.

00:05:39.360 So Jesus doesn't abolish the law.

00:05:41.360 That's what we saw last week.

00:05:43.040 And if I was to sum it up in a sentence,

00:05:45.000 the big idea for this week in our text today

00:05:47.780 is last week, Jesus says,

00:05:49.940 I have not come to abolish the law.

00:05:51.760 This week, Jesus is going to say,

00:05:53.880 I have not come to mitigate or shrink or limit the law.

00:05:58.200 So the law remains in play, not abolished,

00:06:00.980 and the law remains exhaustive, not limited.

00:06:05.120 What Jesus is saying is the law of God

00:06:07.260 has not been abolished,

00:06:08.480 and the law of God pertains to far more than you think it does.

00:06:12.940 The law of God does not only deal with the outward behaviors and actions of mankind,

00:06:19.380 but first and foremost, the law of God addresses sin at the level of desire,

00:06:25.840 at the level of the heart.

00:06:27.380 And this is what the book of James clearly teaches.

00:06:30.260 The book of James explicitly, outright asks that question.

00:06:35.840 It says, why are there divisions and factions among you?

00:06:39.780 Or why does this happen?

00:06:41.540 Why does murder take place?

00:06:43.820 Why does theft take place?

00:06:45.500 And James clearly answers the question.

00:06:47.540 He says, is it not because of your desires within you?

00:06:51.160 Your evil desires?

00:06:52.780 It's at the level first of inward, internal, evil, sinful desires

00:06:58.020 that sin begins to grow.

00:07:00.540 And then James outright says,

00:07:01.980 He says that desire eventually gives birth to sin.

00:07:06.780 If desire remains unchecked, if the law of God,

00:07:10.180 if we relegate the law of God to only dealing with outward actions

00:07:14.940 and we carve out absolution for our inward desires

00:07:20.200 and we say, as the Pharisees did, the law of God doesn't apply to the heart.

00:07:23.980 It doesn't apply to the level of desires.

00:07:26.240 It only applies to outward actions.

00:07:28.360 that what you're ultimately doing morally is you're carving out a space for the realm of inward

00:07:34.200 desires to allow sinful desires to fester and to grow and to go on unchecked. And what James says

00:07:41.720 is that if we do that desire, that is sinful desire, eventually gives birth to sin. And the

00:07:48.520 way that he's using sin in this instance is not to say that sinful desire is not already sin in

00:07:54.680 and of itself, but he's saying sinful desire, which is sin, internally eventually becomes

00:08:00.300 sinful action. He's using sin to describe actions outward. So sinful desires eventually become

00:08:07.060 sinful actions, and then sinful actions, if those aren't eventually held in check, eventually lead

00:08:13.240 to death. Desire gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. And so the

00:08:21.480 law of God must apply at the level of the heart. And this is what Jesus is ultimately dealing with

00:08:28.360 the Pharisees about. The big idea is this. I said it last week. I'll say it again, and I'll probably

00:08:34.900 say it multiple times throughout the Sermon on the Mount. The problem with the Pharisees is not

00:08:40.280 that they were legalists. The problem with the Pharisees is that they were hypocrites. 1.00

00:08:45.680 It's not that they taught the law of God. It's not that the Pharisees, Jesus doesn't come and 0.73

00:08:51.460 condemn the Pharisees because they were stretching the law of God too far. He doesn't say, hey, you're

00:08:57.760 getting far too much application out of the law of God. You're making the law of God regulate

00:09:05.640 too many facets of human life and society. And that's burdensome and a bit legalistic.

00:09:15.680 and I've come to say that it's really just about grace

00:09:20.460 and outward behaviors and holiness

00:09:23.660 and these kinds of things, law, don't really matter.

00:09:27.020 That's not the message of Jesus.

00:09:29.860 Instead, what Jesus is actually condemning

00:09:32.580 and criticizing the Pharisees for

00:09:35.600 is he says, you've actually,

00:09:38.760 you have not expanded the law too far.

00:09:43.200 you've shrunk it down too small.

00:09:46.720 You have taken the entirety of the law of God,

00:09:49.500 Moses and all the prophets,

00:09:50.680 and you've exclusively applied it

00:09:53.940 to the outward life.

00:09:56.540 And you've carved out

00:09:58.300 a complete immunity

00:10:01.580 to the heart and inward desires.

00:10:05.440 You've allowed for yourselves and others

00:10:09.400 to look clean on the outside

00:10:11.680 while harboring and maintaining and fostering sin on the inside.

00:10:17.880 Is that not exactly what Jesus says?

00:10:20.900 You're like whitewashed tombs.

00:10:23.300 Meaning what?

00:10:24.000 The outside is bleached and squeaky clean.

00:10:27.140 But on the inside, there's a rotting corpse that smells like death.

00:10:30.980 Or he says, you're guys who wash the outside of the cup.

00:10:36.300 But meanwhile, the inside of the cup,

00:10:38.800 the part where you actually put liquid into,

00:10:41.680 that goes into your mouth that you're going to drink and consume,

00:10:45.240 the inside of the cup remains a petri dish.

00:10:48.880 But the outside, that looks nice and shiny.

00:10:52.720 That's Jesus' message to the Pharisees again and again.

00:10:55.780 His message is not, you legalist, stop caring so much about holiness.

00:11:01.400 Give people a break.

00:11:03.140 That's not his message. 1.00

00:11:04.180 His message instead is, you hypocrites. 0.99

00:11:07.840 You've actually not overextended the law, 0.99

00:11:10.320 but you've actually shrunk it down too small.

00:11:13.820 You've made the law of God only apply to outward actions

00:11:16.980 while maintaining a full immunity and absolution for yourselves

00:11:21.280 for inward malice, inward sinful desires.

00:11:25.720 You're like whitewashed tombs.

00:11:27.380 You look good on the outside, but it's death on the inside.

00:11:31.260 You're like cups that are cleansed on the outside,

00:11:34.340 but filled with germs and viruses and disease on the inside. 1.00

00:11:40.320 you are not legalists, you are hypocrites. 0.99

00:11:44.060 Here's a quote from Matthew Henry that illustrates this point 0.98

00:11:47.240 as he commentates on our text today.

00:11:50.320 Matthew Henry says this,

00:11:52.520 The exposition of this command, namely the sixth commandment,

00:11:56.800 which is the case study that Jesus utilizes in our text today,

00:12:00.500 Thou shalt not murder.

00:12:02.420 The exposition of this commandment,

00:12:04.260 which the Jewish teachers of Jesus' day contended themselves with,

00:12:08.560 Their comment upon it was, whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.

00:12:15.140 This was all they had to say upon it.

00:12:18.920 Not willful murderers were liable to the sword of justice and casual ones to the judgment of the city of refuge.

00:12:26.940 For the instance, just for the record, there is a bifurcation of two categories when it comes to murder in the Bible.

00:12:34.900 In our case law system today, we've ended up with three or even four different categories of murder.

00:12:42.460 But in biblical times, there were two.

00:12:44.480 There was manslaughter, and then there was murder.

00:12:47.340 Manslaughter and murder.

00:12:48.880 For instance, like first and second degree murder within our system,

00:12:52.320 that would be the idea of first degree would be premeditated.

00:12:55.560 It was planned.

00:12:56.580 So it's something that you thought about for a very long time.

00:12:59.100 There was intent.

00:12:59.740 whereas second degree murder is not manslaughter meaning it's not an accident

00:13:04.740 but it also was not premeditated and and strategized and plotted out for months or

00:13:12.200 perhaps even years but rather it was a crime of passion so there was intent it wasn't an accident

00:13:17.580 it's something that you did on purpose but it's not something that you wanted to do for a very

00:13:22.160 long time. It was just in a moment, in the heat of passion, you discovered something or someone

00:13:29.720 did something to you and you were so overcome by anger that you killed this individual. It would

00:13:36.160 be really what we consider to be second degree murder, a crime of passion, would be very similar

00:13:42.440 to what Cain did with Abel. It's not as though Cain had always planned to kill his brother Abel.

00:13:48.140 It's not as though he was making plans from his youth or as a child, but one particular instance took place.

00:13:55.560 And in that instance, sin was crouching at his door.

00:13:58.740 Instead of mastering sin, he allowed sin to master him first at the inward level of desire, as we've been discussing thus far.

00:14:07.280 And in a crime of passion, namely jealousy towards God, accepting his brother's sacrifice and not his own.

00:14:14.680 He allowed that passion to get the better of his judgment, and he struck his brother Cain and his brother Abel and killed him.

00:14:24.580 So it wasn't an accident, not manslaughter, but it also wasn't premeditated for months or years.

00:14:31.360 It was this crime of passion.

00:14:33.100 But in biblical times, there really are only two categories, because whether you plan a murder for months or years,

00:14:40.580 or whether it is still intent, it's intentional, but an intent that came in a moment, in either

00:14:47.720 case, it's still intentional murder. And in that case, the punishment remains the same, whether it

00:14:53.700 be first degree or second degree, the punishment is life for life. The punishment is that if you

00:14:59.440 take the life of another willfully, right, because both are willful, rather whether the will was

00:15:05.560 there for months or years or whether the will was there for 15 minutes. Either way, if it's willful

00:15:10.420 and intentional taking of another person's life without justification, this isn't just war or

00:15:16.140 something like that, then it is murder. It's intentional murder. And the penalty is capital

00:15:20.840 punishment that you forfeit your own life. However, there is in terms of consequence, in terms of

00:15:26.400 the penalties, there is an actual category difference for an accident. And in biblical

00:15:32.700 times, that person would be permitted to flee to a city of refuge. So they could go and they would

00:15:39.100 be a refugee. They would have to remain in that city of refuge. If they were outside the bounds 1.00

00:15:43.860 of that city of refuge, then the avenger of blood, that would usually be the closest of kin to the

00:15:49.960 person who was married, the closest male of kin. So maybe a brother or an uncle or whatever it may

00:15:55.380 be. They would be fully within their rights to avenge their loved one that you had even accidentally

00:16:01.280 killed if you were outside of the city of refuge. But so long as you remained within the city of

00:16:06.760 refuge, then you had protection. Now notice the city of refuge was not a prison like our system

00:16:13.760 today. In the city of refuge, there's a few things that you would have to do. For instance, you would

00:16:18.500 have to get a job in that city and you'd have to work. So you committing a crime didn't punish

00:16:24.680 everybody else by now subjecting them through taxes to pay for your room and board. But instead,

00:16:30.880 you committing a crime actually punished yourself. You actually, how crazy is that, right? The guy

00:16:36.280 who commits the crime he gets punished and not everybody else you know so it's not like hey you

00:16:40.900 get you know you're going to get some outside you know activities and we're going to put you on a

00:16:44.860 weightlifting regimen you know and you'll do some community service and here's some free food and

00:16:48.920 here's some free ac and here's uh it didn't work like that you had to go not to a prison where

00:16:53.820 other people pay for your crime through their their hard work and taxes but instead you went

00:16:58.700 to a city where you had to get a job and pay for yourself and you would stay in that city until

00:17:03.700 the high priest died and there were multiple cities of refuge they were all geographically

00:17:08.400 plotted out to where it would be one day travel so if you accidentally killed someone within one

00:17:14.700 day you could get to anywhere in Israel there would be a city of refuge within one day's travel

00:17:19.740 of any place in Israel so that you could get there in a day to escape the avenger of blood

00:17:24.860 if you killed someone it was truly an accident and the only way that your sentence would end 0.87

00:17:30.100 and you were free to go back into society

00:17:32.660 was if the high priest in Israel died.

00:17:35.680 The moment that the high priest in Israel died,

00:17:38.380 then all of the refugees who were restrained to cities of refuge

00:17:42.520 would be free from that. 0.90

00:17:46.000 And the avenger of blood, even if he was still living,

00:17:48.700 could no longer avenge that blood.

00:17:50.600 It was done.

00:17:51.320 And the reason why that blood could no longer be avenged

00:17:54.100 is because the high priest was a type ultimately of the true

00:17:57.680 and final high priest, who is Jesus Christ.

00:18:00.320 And by his death, when Jesus died,

00:18:03.080 all avengers of blood ultimately are satisfied.

00:18:08.540 The true avenger of blood, who is God himself,

00:18:10.860 he's the one who truly has rights and justice

00:18:14.000 to avenge those who do wrong.

00:18:16.900 God's wrath was satisfied by the death

00:18:18.900 of the true high priest, Jesus Christ.

00:18:21.080 And so too in Israel, under the old covenant, 0.70

00:18:23.520 when the human high priest would die,

00:18:25.360 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. 1.00

00:18:32.520 And all those who were refugees would be set free. 1.00

00:18:35.220 It was a picture, even the old covenant of the gospel, as many old covenant signs and symbols and shadows are. 1.00

00:18:41.840 So all that being said, back to the text.

00:18:45.780 Matthew Henry says this.

00:18:47.440 This was all they had to say upon it.

00:18:49.740 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.

00:19:09.080 the courts of judgment sat in the gate of their principal cities, and the judges ordinarily were

00:19:15.320 in number 23. These tried, condemned, and executed murderers so that whoever killed was in danger of

00:19:22.560 their judgment. Now this gloss of theirs upon this commandment was faulty. This is what Jesus is

00:19:28.700 getting at. There was a problem with their exegesis and application of the sixth commandment. It was 0.74

00:19:35.080 faulty for it intimated that the law of the sixth commandment was only external and it forbade no

00:19:42.940 more than the act of murder right that that you could hate your brother in your heart and you

00:19:49.040 could want to murder him and you could even fantasize every single afternoon for 20 years 0.98

00:19:54.880 about all the different ways that if you could you would kill your brother and that would be 1.00

00:19:59.860 perfectly fine. Perfectly allowed. So long as you did not externally act upon it. That's the way 1.00

00:20:07.180 that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious rulers exegeted and applied the sixth

00:20:13.460 commandment. So Jesus, again, this is the case study. He's using the sixth commandment as just

00:20:18.900 a singular example to make his overarching larger point, which is the principle. The sixth commandment

00:20:25.200 is Jesus' case study in our text today.

00:20:27.760 The principle, though, remember,

00:20:29.720 the principle is that Jesus is coming in

00:20:31.660 and he's not saying to the religious rulers of the day,

00:20:34.560 you guys care too much about the law of God,

00:20:36.900 but I don't because I'm easygoing.

00:20:39.880 That's what evangelicals preach today.

00:20:41.940 You know that, right?

00:20:43.480 That is not what Jesus is saying.

00:20:45.800 Jesus is using the sixth commandment as his case study

00:20:48.880 to make his overarching principle.

00:20:50.860 And what's the overarching principle?

00:20:52.420 he's saying you guys have actually made the law of God smaller your fault is that you've made the

00:21:00.060 law of God too insignificant you have minimized its application the law of God does not just say

00:21:08.280 capital punishment for the one who externally murders his brother but the law of God also

00:21:14.760 says there will be eternal judgment and hell's fire for the one who inwardly hates his brother

00:21:21.720 That murderous anger of the heart may not be murder in action.

00:21:27.400 And so in terms of human courts, in human courts, temporal earthly courts,

00:21:33.200 that person has not committed a crime and therefore should not be treated as a criminal.

00:21:37.760 But internally in his heart, he has committed not a crime temporally, but a sin eternally.

00:21:44.720 And there is an eternal judgment that's far worse than capital punishment here in this life.

00:21:50.340 The eternal judgment is that he would be underneath the white hot wrath of God in hell forever.

00:21:57.420 And that too is an application and an exegesis.

00:22:00.940 So an interpretation and then an application of the sixth commandment. 0.94

00:22:05.000 So you Pharisees, you Sadducees, you religious rulers of the day. 0.51

00:22:09.620 Your problem is not that you stretch the law too far as legalist. 1.00

00:22:14.300 But that you have made the law too small as antinomians.

00:22:18.680 Antinomian simply meaning against law.

00:22:21.740 The problem with the Pharisees is that they were lawless.

00:22:25.660 They boasted in caring much for the law of God.

00:22:28.400 But remember, Jesus' number one label for the Pharisees is not legalist. 0.97

00:22:34.400 It's hypocrites.

00:22:36.520 They boasted of how much they cared for the law of God. 0.98

00:22:40.160 But Jesus exposes them and says, you care for the law of God far too little.

00:22:45.640 So Jesus, on one hand, he also criticizes the Pharisees

00:22:49.080 for neglecting the greater matters of,

00:22:52.220 but here's the thing, the law.

00:22:54.420 So he says, he does condemn the Pharisees

00:22:56.900 for not being gracious, for not being merciful.

00:22:59.000 But even these, Jesus puts in the category of the law.

00:23:02.940 Jesus says, you've neglected the weightier matters

00:23:05.460 of the law by not being merciful,

00:23:07.360 by putting heavy burdens on others 0.98

00:23:09.440 that you yourselves as hypocrites 0.97

00:23:11.380 are not willing to lift with one finger. 0.77

00:23:13.560 So Jesus does criticize the Pharisees for not being gracious, for not being merciful.

00:23:18.460 But he also criticizes them for being lawless.

00:23:21.840 What evangelicals want to preach today is they want to say,

00:23:25.380 well, Jesus' real problem with the Pharisees and the Sadducees was that they neglected the weightier things.

00:23:32.220 And they won't say the weightier things of the law.

00:23:34.760 They'll just leave that out because they ultimately want to juxtapose mercy against the law.

00:23:40.960 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.

00:23:51.680 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.

00:24:01.800 And mercy is one of those chief things.

00:24:04.060 And that is true.

00:24:05.400 Instead, they cared about the law and they were legalistic.

00:24:09.420 That's not what Jesus says.

00:24:10.640 He says, you neglected the weightier things, and these weightier things are weightier things of

00:24:15.860 the law, because it is actually commanded to exercise mercy, to show mercy. Mercy is a

00:24:23.120 commandment. It is part of God's law, and it is a weightier part of the law, and the Pharisees and 0.70

00:24:29.140 Sadducees did neglect that. Christ absolutely had that against them, and in addition to that,

00:24:34.640 He's basically saying it's both and not either or you should be more merciful and also you should

00:24:41.520 be more righteous, more lawful, more merciful and more lawful with the law. You need to apply it

00:24:48.900 not externally only or temporally only, but also internally and eternally. I'll say that again.

00:24:57.920 Jesus is saying you shrunk the law too small. You're not legalist. You're antinomians. You don't

00:25:04.120 care too much for the law. You care too little. You've made the law, you've made the law external

00:25:09.860 and temporal, but it's actually internal and eternal. So it's not temporal, but eternal.

00:25:17.280 And it's not merely external, but external and internal. It's both and. The law applies temporally

00:25:25.660 and also eternally, and it applies externally and internally. So you've got, you're functioning with

00:25:34.040 half of the law. So you need more law and more mercy, more mercy. And that's what I've noticed.

00:25:43.040 I don't know if you've noticed this, because again, we're operating as evangelicals in 2024.

00:25:49.620 You may not even know it, but subconsciously, I'd be willing to bet that just about everyone

00:25:54.060 in the room here this morning, you have been operating under this subconscious dichotomy

00:26:00.200 that your evangelical pastor

00:26:02.540 worked very hard for decades

00:26:04.060 to etch into your brain

00:26:06.220 and he was probably very successful

00:26:08.400 in doing so.

00:26:09.600 And the dichotomy is that

00:26:10.780 there's law and there's grace.

00:26:13.740 There's law and there's grace.

00:26:15.760 When the reality is

00:26:17.040 that Jesus is actually condemning

00:26:19.340 the religious rulers of his day

00:26:20.800 on both accounts.

00:26:23.080 You need more law and more mercy.

00:26:26.440 And mercy and holiness

00:26:28.440 are not opposed to one another.

00:26:31.060 There is a way to care immensely

00:26:33.380 about the law of God

00:26:35.000 and those things which He says are righteous

00:26:37.020 and pursue holiness,

00:26:38.960 for without which no one will see the Lord,

00:26:41.280 and to exercise mercy and grace and kindness.

00:26:46.220 These two things are not against one another.

00:26:49.080 And so what I've found in my experience

00:26:50.980 is that oftentimes the person who is very upset

00:26:55.180 about what they perceive to be as legalism

00:26:58.280 and the person who prides themselves in grace

00:27:01.720 tends to be the least gracious person you can find.

00:27:06.380 They're actually not very gracious.

00:27:09.320 What they'll do is they actually,

00:27:11.500 what typically is the case is they have a facade of grace,

00:27:17.980 a manufactured, man-made, generic, fake grace,

00:27:25.220 and they apply it to whatever they think,

00:27:28.840 whatever laws they just don't like, right?

00:27:32.340 So they'll be very gracious, for instance, towards,

00:27:37.500 well, I mean, in a nutshell, let's be honest,

00:27:39.320 they'll be gracious to anything on the left,

00:27:43.060 politically, culturally, morally, anything on the left. 0.99

00:27:46.380 So homosexuality, sexual sin outside of marriage, 1.00

00:27:51.120 abortion right well but I mean these these poor women they're the second victim like sure there's 1.00

00:27:59.300 a dead baby but but you know there's there's a second victim and it's the mother and and we're 0.98

00:28:04.460 just being gracious towards her and and you know don't think about it too long because you might

00:28:09.720 you might begin to realize that we're being incredibly demeaning because we all know that 1.00

00:28:14.540 women are too stupid at the end of the day to know that that a baby inside of their wombs is 1.00

00:28:19.500 actually a baby. That's why we can't hold the mother responsible morally is because she's 1.00

00:28:25.760 she's just intellectually in the same way that you couldn't hold someone who's mentally challenged 0.94

00:28:30.560 accountable in a court of law. That's how we as leftists view all women. They are so mentally 1.00

00:28:36.440 challenged that we can't possibly hold them morally culpable for abortion as murder because 0.98

00:28:41.760 they can't connect those two dots together that killing the unborn child would even be murder. 0.90

00:28:46.780 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. 0.92

00:28:58.460 That is, just so you know, that is the rhino, Republican in name only, or the Sino, Christian in name only. 0.95

00:29:08.600 That is their position. 0.58

00:29:09.880 That is absolutely Brent Leatherwood's position of the ERLC, the Southern Baptist Convention,

00:29:15.800 their whole ethics and religious foundation of the largest Protestant denomination in these United States.

00:29:23.900 That is his position.

00:29:25.920 And it's wrapped in a thin veneer of mercy and grace, just like the Pharisees would do.

00:29:32.260 It's wrapped in this thin veneer of mercy.

00:29:34.640 But it's actually, my point is, it's shrinking the law of God

00:29:39.800 to where the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder,

00:29:42.940 somehow doesn't apply to mothers who murder their unborn children.

00:29:47.000 So it's shrinking the law.

00:29:48.760 And at the same time, it's also shrinking mercy and grace.

00:29:52.400 Because in order to do it, he'll never outright admit it.

00:29:54.760 But in order to do that, what he essentially has to say is, 1.00

00:29:57.820 we can't hold women responsible because we all know women are dumb. 1.00

00:30:02.380 That is his position. 1.00

00:30:04.200 Ironically, believe it or not,

00:30:06.160 the internet would probably try to convince you otherwise, 1.00

00:30:08.440 but I actually think much more highly of women. 1.00

00:30:10.960 In fact, I think women are so intelligent

00:30:13.720 as image bearers of the living God,

00:30:16.780 human beings made in God's image,

00:30:18.620 that they instinctively, both intellectually and morally,

00:30:22.140 with conscience and the law of God written on their hearts,

00:30:24.500 know that when they murder their unborn child,

00:30:26.680 that actually is a human being, it's actually murder, 0.62

00:30:29.120 and they should be treated as a murder,

00:30:30.740 because I respect them. 1.00

00:30:31.780 I respect women so much that I believe that they deserve capital punishment if they murder their 0.99

00:30:37.420 child. That's how much I respect women. Brent Leatherwood doesn't. He doesn't respect women. 1.00

00:30:44.740 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.

00:31:53.040 The work of Christ isn't infinite.

00:31:55.420 The work of Christ is, you know,

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.

00:32:05.320 I don't even know if I needed to cross at all.

00:32:07.980 Or, alternatively, you can believe this,

00:32:11.380 that God is holy, holy, holy.

00:32:14.960 And that man is totally depraved in and of himself,

00:32:18.640 apart from saving grace.

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,

00:32:30.080 that this gap is infinite.

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.

00:33:31.720 It's a mercy that begins to make sense.

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

00:33:55.760 They didn't stretch the law too far. 1.00

00:33:58.760 They shrunk it too small.

00:34:00.760 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

00:34:13.720 as it truly stands in an eternal sense,

00:34:16.940 and that caused them to also lack a love of mercy

00:34:21.400 and the weightier matters of the law,

00:34:24.100 mercy and grace and justice and the like.

00:34:27.440 That was the problem with the Pharisees.

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.

00:34:52.960 Here's the big idea.

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,

00:35:51.860 you would actually feel demeaned by me.

00:35:56.260 You'd be like, what did we do?

00:35:59.000 Why is he going on about this?

00:36:02.260 Did we do something?

00:36:03.800 Why is he treating us like children?

00:36:06.400 Why is he preaching the most elementary milk

00:36:10.820 you could possibly imagine?

00:36:13.680 This is what Paul would consider milk.

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

00:36:40.500 But you need to understand. 0.97

00:36:43.480 Because sometimes we just we think that we're doing the Christian life in a vacuum.

00:36:47.820 You're not.

00:36:49.340 You're not, brothers and sisters.

00:36:51.080 I'm not.

00:36:51.960 You're not special.

00:36:53.020 I'm not special.

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.

00:37:04.520 You and I, what we are doing today,

00:37:07.280 the reason why this sermon is necessary

00:37:09.580 is because we are doing theology on the heels

00:37:12.780 of 80 years of an intense psyop,

00:37:17.660 an indoctrination from the church

00:37:20.200 to get people to hate the law of God.

00:37:24.680 That's why this sermon feels like

00:37:27.940 upper echelon, ivory tower,

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.

00:37:35.620 You need to know that.

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

00:37:45.580 Something happened in Christianity.

00:37:47.940 Something happened in church history.

00:37:50.560 Something happened to take people who are intelligent and courageous and moral

00:37:59.520 and to ultimately brainwash them,

00:38:05.180 break them, deceive them

00:38:08.660 to the point where they all of a sudden began

00:38:11.720 as a basic premise, subconsciously even,

00:38:14.900 to operate with a false dichotomy

00:38:16.940 that biblically has never existed.

00:38:20.180 Law against grace.

00:38:23.340 I mean, still to this, it's 2024. 1.00

00:38:25.720 They're transing kids. 0.99

00:38:27.660 And the average evangelical thinks

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,

00:39:52.160 for a time such as this.

00:39:54.580 To come and to dust off

00:39:56.760 the books of old.

00:39:59.260 Starting with the Scripture

00:40:00.460 and then beyond the Scripture,

00:40:02.740 the confessions, the creeds.

00:40:05.300 To work from old books 0.99

00:40:07.800 written by old men 1.00

00:40:09.440 who actually understood 1.00

00:40:11.160 the Word of God

00:40:13.040 before things were truncated,

00:40:15.800 before things were twisted,

00:40:17.920 before things got off course

00:40:20.540 and got off the rails.

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.

00:40:41.160 The law of God is good. Mercy is also good.

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.

00:42:26.560 and instead lower the bar

00:42:30.740 and say that, you know,

00:42:32.980 our biggest concern is legalism.

00:42:37.020 Okay, I'll just say it a little bit.

00:42:38.840 I won't say it much.

00:42:39.600 I will be careful,

00:42:40.460 but I'll just say it a little bit.

00:42:43.120 The evangelical church in 2024,

00:42:45.880 its biggest concern being legalism 0.80

00:42:47.700 is equivalent to America as a nation,

00:42:52.340 its biggest concern being fascism.

00:42:54.160 America is under threat of fascism

00:42:57.400 to about the same degree

00:42:59.340 as the evangelical church is under the threat of legalism

00:43:01.920 that is to say, not at all

00:43:03.840 not at all

00:43:06.080 the country is far more under threat

00:43:09.780 from communism

00:43:10.620 and the church is far more under threat

00:43:13.560 from antinomianism

00:43:14.860 and I do think

00:43:17.540 that these two things

00:43:18.760 I'm just giving it as an example

00:43:19.940 this is kind of like that

00:43:21.160 I would encourage you to perhaps

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

00:44:21.480 and it applies to anger,

00:44:24.160 which is what Jesus says in our text. 0.96

00:44:26.060 I tell you that even if you call your brother a fool, 0.99

00:44:28.560 you are in danger of hell's fire. 1.00

00:44:30.660 If this is true,

00:44:32.280 then what constitutes murderous anger

00:44:35.460 that would make us liable to hell's fire?

00:44:39.320 That seems like an important thing to know.

00:44:42.300 One of my goals in life is to not go to hell.

00:44:44.480 I don't know about you.

00:44:45.200 I think it's a decent goal.

00:44:46.320 I would suggest that all of you have that goal as well.

00:44:49.880 I'd like to not go to hell.

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.

00:45:17.280 Those things are important and valuable.

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.

00:45:54.220 There is a murderous anger.

00:45:55.880 That anger is a sin.

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.

00:46:03.840 So what is it?

00:46:05.020 Matthew Henry says the following.

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

00:46:15.040 breaks the sixth commandment.

00:46:16.680 So there's your first clue.

00:46:18.400 What is murderous, sinful anger?

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.

00:46:30.440 He breaks the sixth commandment.

00:46:32.820 Now, in this context, by our brother,

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.

00:47:58.780 And therefore, a sinful 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.

00:48:46.960 There needs to be a reason that you're angry,

00:48:49.240 and there needs to be something productive that you intend to do with that anger.

00:48:54.600 Notice this.

00:48:56.400 The Bible does not condemn all forms of anger,

00:49:00.840 but some things that the Bible very clearly condemns is this.

00:49:04.520 The Bible condemns long-standing anger.

00:49:08.760 So it condemns not all anger in a general sense,

00:49:12.200 not every regard, but it condemns quick anger.

00:49:16.160 You should come to anger slowly, not quickly.

00:49:19.660 So it condemns quick anger.

00:49:22.120 It condemns, which we could call rash anger.

00:49:25.180 It condemns unjustifiable anger,

00:49:28.100 anger without cause, without reason.

00:49:30.000 And it also condemns not just anger that springs up quickly,

00:49:34.040 but also anger that continues longingly.

00:49:38.220 Anger that comes fast, bad.

00:49:40.760 Anger that lasts a long time, also bad.

00:49:44.960 The Bible puts a very short shelf life, we could say, on anger.

00:49:51.440 Do not let the sun go down on your 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.

00:50:01.060 Where's that in the text?

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,

00:50:19.160 in both instances, the big idea is this.

00:50:21.960 Anger shouldn't spring up quickly.

00:50:23.900 And when we do have anger, we should come to it slowly

00:50:27.200 and we should also deal with it quickly.

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.

00:50:42.800 But also, it needs to have a good effect.

00:50:47.300 There's actually a purpose for our 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.

00:50:59.540 There is a cause for our anger and a purpose.

00:51:03.400 And it needs to be with moderation.

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

00:52:05.580 for our apathy towards

00:52:08.240 the murder of 70 million children

00:52:11.000 in the last 50 years and counting.

00:52:13.360 None of us hate abortion enough. 0.50

00:52:15.000 None of us are angry enough.

00:52:18.000 So you can sin by being too angry

00:52:20.160 or having too little anger.

00:52:22.260 So anger at the right time,

00:52:23.680 come to it slowly and at the right time.

00:52:27.280 Anger for the right things,

00:52:29.640 not just anger because I'm in traffic.

00:52:32.260 Right?

00:52:32.500 We'll get this angry about traffic 0.66

00:52:34.040 and this angry about abortion. 0.95

00:52:37.400 That's a problem.

00:52:39.420 And we all at times have fallen into that.

00:52:42.520 I'm this angry about some petty thing

00:52:44.400 and I'm this angry about 70 million babies murdered.

00:52:48.820 That's a problem.

00:52:50.280 So angry at the right time and slowly as we come into it,

00:52:53.660 angry for the right things,

00:52:55.320 not more angry than we should be or less.

00:52:57.760 So then angry at the right amount,

00:52:59.780 right time, right thing, right amount.

00:53:02.700 How do we avoid murderous, sinful anger?

00:53:04.820 Have anger at the right time for the right thing and the right amount.

00:53:08.460 Now, how do you do that?

00:53:09.840 Here's the trick.

00:53:10.920 And I'll land the plane here.

00:53:12.720 The way to, ultimately what I'm basically espousing here,

00:53:16.360 is how to properly order your hate.

00:53:20.760 We need properly ordered hate.

00:53:24.400 Righteous hatred.

00:53:26.140 God hates things.

00:53:27.000 You know that, right?

00:53:28.100 God is holy, holy, holy.

00:53:29.300 He's perfectly righteous.

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

00:54:53.860 and loving the wrong things

00:54:55.860 and exercising the wrong amount of love.

00:55:00.600 And this is why, and I know,

00:55:03.200 it really does, I'm not just saying this,

00:55:07.000 it really does break my heart.

00:55:10.300 Because I feel like the reformed camp

00:55:13.400 is like the pro-life camp.

00:55:17.120 They just want to split the penny a million ways

00:55:19.580 and never, and I feel like the reformed camp

00:55:22.280 is just fracturing and fracturing.

00:55:25.500 It's like every six months

00:55:27.000 we're dividing on a new thing

00:55:29.260 and then a new thing

00:55:31.620 and then a new thing.

00:55:33.700 And I understand when it's Gideon's army

00:55:35.540 and God supernaturally does it

00:55:37.100 because he wants to show off his glory.

00:55:38.940 But there's a difference in God

00:55:40.160 whittling you down to 300

00:55:41.540 through a divine commandment 0.71

00:55:43.760 given to Gideon

00:55:45.140 so that he would produce the victory

00:55:47.340 and show off his glory

00:55:48.260 versus us whittling ourselves down

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

00:55:55.660 but just because we're jerks. 0.99

00:55:58.520 That doesn't seem very strategic to me. 0.98

00:56:02.360 And so the reform camp,

00:56:03.360 we keep splitting the penny again and again and again.

00:56:05.680 And here's the deal.

00:56:06.780 This is one of the divisions that I've found.

00:56:09.920 And it's sad.

00:56:11.560 But one of the divisions that I have found

00:56:13.400 in the reform camp as we split, right?

00:56:15.400 In 2022, it was like,

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.

01:02:01.100 And that does involve nations.

01:02:04.300 It does mean that it is biblical and right

01:02:07.760 to love your countrymen

01:02:09.740 more than people on the other side of the world.

01:02:13.320 It means that if your fellow citizens

01:02:17.260 are drowning in a hurricane

01:02:19.240 and your current governing officials

01:02:24.820 are working on how can we send

01:02:26.540 a trillion more dollars to Israel,

01:02:29.080 then you as a Christian

01:02:30.700 have a moral obligation to say 1.00

01:02:32.720 that's dumb. 0.98

01:02:35.060 Please stop that. 0.98

01:02:37.640 If FEMA can't help

01:02:39.380 because they've already spent

01:02:40.620 all their cash

01:02:41.800 on illegal immigrants, 1.00

01:02:44.180 that's wicked. 1.00

01:02:46.160 That's wrong. 1.00

01:02:47.960 And as Christians,

01:02:49.000 we can hate that.

01:02:50.900 And that is not

01:02:52.180 an unjustifiable anger,

01:02:54.600 a murderous anger

01:02:55.460 that sends you to hell.

01:02:56.400 It's a righteous anger

01:02:57.660 because, again,

01:02:59.140 here's my point,

01:03:00.120 it stems from righteous loves.

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,

01:03:11.420 does not require you to hate them.

01:03:14.000 That is a false dichotomy.

01:03:16.020 That's the post-war consensus.

01:03:18.060 And I reject it.

01:03:20.340 Loving Americans, as an American, more than I love Ukrainians or citizens of Israel,

01:03:28.520 does not require me by loving my people more.

01:03:32.020 it does not require me to wish the worst upon others.

01:03:38.640 And anyone who says that

01:03:41.080 is not arguing in good faith,

01:03:44.880 but is actually muddying the waters.

01:03:49.020 And ironically, while hedging against globalism,

01:03:53.000 it's maintaining the theological framework

01:03:55.640 that allowed globalism to come in in the first place.

01:04:00.180 And that is a problem.

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

01:05:25.060 an entire people.

01:05:27.880 But you do have to hate wickedness

01:05:30.280 and you do have to hate wicked people.

01:05:33.620 And in my experience, very rarely,

01:05:36.520 when we say wicked people,

01:05:39.280 does that involve, in a general sense,

01:05:41.420 an entire people group?

01:05:43.320 It's not the case.

01:05:45.160 It involves wicked people who do wicked things

01:05:48.020 tends to involve individuals.

01:05:51.860 And not just making the world black and white

01:05:54.380 and oversimplifying and overgeneralizing,

01:05:57.380 but able to say, I love these people.

01:06:01.540 I love my people more because I'm commanded to,

01:06:04.500 but I also love these people.

01:06:06.600 And within my people, there are some wicked guys, bad actors,

01:06:10.040 and I hate what they're doing.

01:06:11.740 And until they repent, there's a sense in which God hates

01:06:14.920 not just the sin, but sinners.

01:06:16.940 And as David said, do I not hate those, not things,

01:06:20.460 but those who hate you?

01:06:22.520 And so there are people of my own country

01:06:24.980 that I hate as they do hateful things.

01:06:28.780 And over here, I love these people less

01:06:32.180 in terms of priority because God commands me

01:06:34.940 because I'm finite.

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.

01:06:42.520 But I still love these people.

01:06:44.400 It doesn't require me to hate these people.

01:06:45.920 But individuals, I'm able to think

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,

01:07:45.660 I'm going to repent and call that a sin.

01:07:49.880 I'm going to have righteous actions

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

01:07:59.420 by fostering righteous love.

01:08:03.220 And because I'm a finite creature

01:08:04.800 and I'm not the infinite triune God,

01:08:06.840 I'm a finite creature,

01:08:07.780 I cannot love everyone perfectly, fully, to the fullest extent.

01:08:14.000 I have to choose.

01:08:15.860 I can't feed every child, but by God's grace, I can feed my child.

01:08:20.460 I can't love every woman, but I can love my woman, my wife.

01:08:27.400 I'm going to prioritize like that.

01:08:30.420 And we do that with our day-to-day, our work, our priorities, our focus.

01:08:37.320 We do that with our vote.

01:08:40.160 I'm not telling you what you have to do.

01:08:43.780 But for me, as for me and my house,

01:08:46.280 I have become a one-issue voter.

01:08:51.080 I've always been a one-issue voter.

01:08:53.220 It was always the issue of life.

01:08:55.840 But when both candidates want to kill 0.84

01:08:57.980 pretty much as much babies as they possibly can,

01:09:02.720 and in terms of raw numbers,

01:09:04.380 it's negligible and a wash,

01:09:05.780 than I have become a one-issue voter,

01:09:08.900 except this time it's a different issue.

01:09:11.740 And the issue this time is

01:09:13.360 which candidate hates Americans

01:09:17.380 and wants our people to drown

01:09:23.320 and not be able to afford groceries?

01:09:26.640 And then which candidate says,

01:09:29.740 you know what? 1.00

01:09:30.800 we should deport millions of illegal immigrants and criminals who are murdering natural citizens. 1.00

01:09:45.000 That's where I'm at. I'm not even super excited about that. I wish the country, I mean, that's 1.00

01:09:49.140 pretty sad and pathetic. That's where we are. It's like, hey, who doesn't hate, you know, which person 0.99

01:09:54.140 running for local office doesn't hate the very people who are voting for them? You know, it's

01:09:58.820 like the lowest bar you could possibly imagine.

01:10:00.700 That's where we are.

01:10:01.480 But even that, even with the election,

01:10:03.680 these things are so tense.

01:10:05.200 Part of it's because it's 2024.

01:10:06.720 It's an election year.

01:10:07.580 But even with that,

01:10:08.420 it comes down to the order of amoris.

01:10:10.440 It comes down to natural affections, natural loves.

01:10:14.120 And these are categories

01:10:15.400 that Christians have always had

01:10:17.800 for a very, very long time. 0.96

01:10:19.920 But we lost them over the last century.

01:10:23.780 We lost them.

01:10:25.580 And we started to feel guilty for certain things

01:10:28.320 that the Bible doesn't actually condemn.

01:10:32.300 We were blessed by God, these United States,

01:10:36.200 with much prosperity, much success,

01:10:40.860 much strength and victory.

01:10:43.880 And instead of offering to the Lord as a response

01:10:46.820 for all His blessing, offering Him gratitude,

01:10:49.920 instead we chose to respond with guilt.

01:10:53.160 And so out of guilt for all the blessing that He gave us,

01:10:55.820 we decided that we should just give

01:10:58.160 all the blessing away.

01:11:00.120 And instead of it belonging to us

01:11:02.040 and our posterity, that is our children,

01:11:04.700 we decided to give it to strangers.

01:11:08.220 We have spit on the graves of our fathers.

01:11:11.880 We've broken the fifth commandment.

01:11:14.300 Our fathers read.

01:11:16.240 Read the founders and their writings.

01:11:18.960 They bled out and died and sacrificed. 1.00

01:11:21.180 They didn't do it for India.

01:11:22.560 And that doesn't mean they hated India, but they did it for us and our posterity.

01:11:31.740 And for you, the children of your fathers, who died for you as their children, to say,

01:11:39.140 Dad died for me and the kids, and we're going to take it and give it to strangers.

01:11:46.060 That is dishonoring Dad.

01:11:48.280 That is a breaking of the fifth commandment.

01:11:52.560 and you have to be able to talk about that

01:11:59.100 without being called a racist

01:12:02.080 and apparently very few people can

01:12:07.860 God help us

01:12:11.080 let's pray

01:12:12.120 Father please help us

01:12:14.480 help us to retrieve

01:12:16.800 old, better, more robust

01:12:20.880 more biblical theology

01:12:22.780 and help us to be able

01:12:27.120 to retrieve it

01:12:28.100 while also not overreacting

01:12:31.760 and becoming actual racist.

01:12:35.500 It's one thing to be slandered,

01:12:37.960 but it's another

01:12:38.900 to make your slanderers

01:12:44.440 and opponents

01:12:44.980 to prove their point

01:12:46.380 by saying,

01:12:49.720 well, hey,

01:12:50.020 if everybody's going to think this

01:12:51.300 and then I might as well just be it.

01:12:53.080 Lord, help us to be better men and women than that.

01:12:56.440 Because at the end of the day,

01:12:57.640 we're not living for what people think.

01:13:01.200 If that's what we were living for

01:13:02.820 and people were falsely accusing us,

01:13:04.780 if everybody called us a thief

01:13:06.380 and we were being righteous

01:13:08.400 and choosing not to steal,

01:13:10.560 but the opinions of man

01:13:11.780 were all we were living for,

01:13:12.980 then we might as well start stealing.

01:13:15.160 But we're not living for the opinions of men.

01:13:17.700 We're living for you.

01:13:19.580 It's your opinion that matters.

01:13:22.280 Let God be true, although every man a liar.

01:13:26.920 And so Lord, help us to be bold enough

01:13:28.720 to be called a racist by half the country,

01:13:31.020 but righteous enough to know that we really aren't

01:13:35.520 and to know that we're pleasing to you.

01:13:39.560 That we're upholding your law,

01:13:42.020 the fifth commandment, honoring our fathers,

01:13:44.040 but also upholding your law, the sixth commandment,

01:13:47.340 and not having murderous anger

01:13:49.060 towards our brother,

01:13:50.120 which includes not only our country,

01:13:52.520 but the whole world. 1.00

01:13:55.660 This used to be easy for Christians

01:13:58.160 back when we were well-read,

01:14:01.680 well-disciplined,

01:14:02.840 but it's become exceedingly difficult now.

01:14:05.360 We need your grace.

01:14:06.780 We've dug a pit for ourselves

01:14:08.400 by believing lies,

01:14:11.120 and it's only your supernatural power

01:14:14.160 that will be able to get us out.

01:14:16.560 Toward that end, Lord, we beg and plead that you might help us.

01:14:19.680 In Jesus' name, amen.

The NXR Podcast - October 13, 2024

THE SERMON - The Pharisees Were Antinomian, Not Legalistic

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