Contempt, says our Lord, is murder in the heart, and the death penalty is equally deserved. Beloved, what Jesus is saying is what you feel, now listen to me, what you feel inside is enough to damn you to eternal hell as much as what you do on the outside. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. When you hear about a murderer or a terrorist or some other horrible criminal, it's easy to say, I'm not as evil as that person. But what does Scripture say about comparing yourself with other people, comparing your sinfulness, or for that matter, comparing your righteousness with that of others? Today on Grace to You, John MacArthur sounds a warning against having a smug attitude toward sin, as John continues his series called The Sinfulness of Sin. Taken from Matthew 5, this study is a call to examine not so much your behavior, but your thoughts, your heart attitudes, the breeding ground for sin. So open your Bible or the study Bible app to the gospel of Matthew, and here's John. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 21, ye have heard it said by them of old, thou shalt not kill.
Where did that come from? Well if you know anything about the revelation of God, you know it came basically from Exodus chapter 20 when God gave the Decalogue and said, thou shalt not kill. But Scripture has a lot more to say about murder than just that, and that's why Jesus goes on in verse 22 and says this, but I say unto you. Let me tell you what God really meant by that word in Exodus. Let me give you the right interpretation. Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother Rocka shall be in danger of the council, and whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire.
Jesus simply says it isn't the issue of murder alone, it's the issue of anger and hatred in your heart. And he uses three illustrations to reveal the sin in verse 22. Three. Let's look at them.
First one. Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgment. Now that's the first illustration. Jesus says you want me to show you how serious this issue is. Whoever is angry with his brother is in danger of judgment.
Now let me say this. I think there's a righteous anger that we need to talk about, but that is not what Jesus means here. You know, there were times when Jesus took a chord, right, and started throwing people around. There are times when God's indignation reaches its absolute limit and explodes.
There are times when the vengeance of God bursts loose and people lose their lives for a time of eternity. And there are times when a believer has a right to be angry. In fact, I believe that the holier we get, the angrier we get about some things, right?
And I think we need a little more of that, you know. In a day when everybody wants to talk about love and let's all get together and don't say anything against anything, we begin to get so mealy-mouthed about everything that we won't stand for anything. And I think maybe that some of us ought to learn a little bit about righteous indignation and start getting mad about some things. There are lots of things going on in our country we ought to be mad about or be angry about with a righteous indignation. There are some things going on in our schools that we ought to be angry about and have righteous indignation over. Some of the things our children are exposed to we ought to be angry about.
Some of the trends in our society we ought to be angry about. We ought to get angry about some things. We ought to have righteous indignation. We ought to be angry, Ephesians 4 26 says, with the kind of anger that is not sin. He says, be angry and sin not. There is a right kind of anger. But here he's talking about selfish anger. You're angry with a brother. Something has happened and you're really hopping mad. You're angry. That can be a slow burn or it can be a flaring thing. The word is orgizistai and the root is orgei and orgei is a sort of a brooding nursed anger that is not allowed to die.
It's just a smoldering, long-lived kind of thing for the most part. And when you hold a grudge against somebody, when you hold a bitterness against somebody, when you hold anything no matter how small against somebody, you are as guilty, says Jesus, as the person who takes a life and you deserve the same judgment. If you are angry with your brother, you are in danger of judgment.
There shouldn't be any difference. It's just as serious. By the way, the judgment at the end of verse 21 that the civil court would give would be execution.
And he says the same thing right here. If you're angry, you are in danger of execution. Capital punishment should belong to you for anger just as much as for murder. Now this is a tremendous statement, devastating because it forces us inside.
It isn't what we do so much as what we are and what we feel. I don't know a civil court in the world that would give the death penalty to somebody for getting angry. They may give it throughout history for murder but not for anger. But if God's calling the verdicts and God's sitting on the throne, He is saying in effect that the one who is angry is as guilty as the one who kills. Now I want you to notice the second illustration He uses in verse 22. Whosoever shall say to his brother, Rachah, shall be in danger of the counsel. Now what does this mean? Well this person is also condemned as a murderer. This is another person who ought to go before the counsel and get the same death penalty. He's saying to the Jews, you're afraid of the death penalty for murder?
On God's terms, there ought to be the same penalty for anger and there ought to be the same penalty for saying Rachah to somebody. Now Rachah is an interesting term. I really...it's very hard to translate. It is an untranslated epithet. In other words, it doesn't mean anything. It was sort of a term of derision that doesn't really translate.
It meant something in that time and they all knew what it meant. It is a malicious term. Some have said it means brainless idiot. Some have said it means worthless fellow, silly fool, empty head, block head, rock head.
Commentators go all over every place with it. But what it is is a verbal expression of slander against the person. Contempt, says our Lord, is murder in the heart and the death penalty is equally deserved. Beloved, what Jesus is saying is what you feel, now listen to me, what you feel inside is enough to damn you to eternal hell as much as what you do on the outside.
Do you hear that? That's the message. There's a third illustration in verse 22. Whosoever shall say, thou morass, from which we get our word moron, shall be in danger of hell fire. Now apparently this was even a worse thing to say to somebody.
It seems as though there's a rising level. If you notice the word morass, from which we get moron, comes apparently from a Hebrew root marah, and marah means to rebel. And in the Hebrew Bible, a fool was one who rebelled against God. And so to call someone a rebel against God, now if it's true, you did him a favor. But if you're doing it as an epithet of hatred, then it is a sin.
Let me show you the difference. Jesus said to the Pharisees, you fools, you morass. Only it wasn't wrong for Him to say it because it was true, wasn't it? They were fools. They had rebelled against God. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God, it says in the Psalms. The fool, according to the Proverbs, lives against God. The fool lives a life set against God. He lives a life of self-will and self-design and you do a man a favor to go and say you're a fool to live like that. Jesus walking on the road to Emmaus said to those disciples, fools and slow of heart, to believe there is a time when we do people a favor to say you're foolish. And what Jesus is trying to do, and He does it very well, is absolutely destroy the system of self-righteousness.
It can't stand that kind of examination. And so our Lord gets to the core of the matter. Now you notice the word hell fire at the end of verse 22? It's a very serious word, the word hell. The Greek word, translated hell here, is the word gehenna. And I want to tell you about it.
It's fascinating. Gehenna is a word with a history. Gehenna is used and translated hell very commonly.
It's Matthew 5, 22, 29, 30, Matthew 10, 28, Matthew 18, 9, 23, 15, and 23, 33, Mark 9, Luke 12. It's used in James. It's a very common word. It means hell. But gehenna, now listen, is a reference to Hinnom.
Gehenna is a form of Hinnom. It means the valley of Hinnom. When we were in Jerusalem, it was pointed out to us where the valley of Hinnom was. It is southwest from Jerusalem. It's very easy to see.
It's there today. It is a notorious place. I'm going to read you a little of its history. It was the place that Ahaz had introduced into Israel the fire worship of the heathen god Molech to whom little children were burned in the fire. He burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and he burned his children in the fire, says 2 Chronicles 28, 3. Further, Josiah, the reforming king, had stamped out the evil worship of Molech in the place of Hinnom and ordered that the valley should be forever after an accursed place because of what had gone on, because it had been defiled, because in the valley there had been the fire of Molech. Now in consequence of this, the valley of Hinnom bore that curse throughout all of Israel's history. It became a place where the Jewish people dumped their garbage.
The valley of Hinnom was the garbage dump of Jerusalem. And what they had there was a public incinerator that burned all the time, all the time, all the time, never went out, never went out. And when Jesus referred to Gehenna, or hell, and described the eternal state of the wicked as Gehenna, what He was saying is, it is an eternal, never-ending fire in an accursed place where the rubbish of humanity will burn and be consumed.
Vivid language. Always, says the historian, the fire smoldered in Hinnom and a pall of thick smoke lay over Hinnom at all times and it bred a loathsome kind of worm which was very hard to kill. That is what our Lord refers to in Mark, where the worm dies not.
So Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom, became identified in people's minds as a filthy, vile, accursed place where useless and evil things were destroyed and Jesus used it as a vivid illustration of hell. And He says, if you're even angry and if you ever say a malicious word to sort of put down some person, or worse than that, if you ever curse them as it were to hell, you are as guilty and as liable for eternal hell as a murderer is. And so Jesus attacks the sin of anger, the sin of slander, and the sin of cursing. And with it He destroys their self-righteousness. His words have a second effect in verses 23 and 24.
They affect not only their self-righteousness, but they affect their worship of God. And I want you to see this. This is really powerful.
Very simple. Now, Jesus moves from the Pharisees and the scribes and the people to Himself. And for us, He takes us to the area of worship.
And I want you to see what He says. Worship was a major issue with scribes and Pharisees. Their whole life was worship.
They were in the temple all the time doing their thing, worshiping God, making sacrifices, carrying out the law. Their life was a circumscribed life of worship. But our Lord here condemns that very worship. Look at verse 23, therefore...therefore.
In other words, the therefore means since God is concerned with internal things, since God is concerned with attitudes toward others, how you feel about your brother, how you speak to your brother, and whether or not you curse your brother, since God is concerned with internal things, listen to this. If you bring your gift to the altar, here you come for worship. And remember, when you get there, you remember your brother has anything against you. Leave there your gift before the altar. Go your way. First be reconciled to your brother.
Then come and offer your gift. In other words, reconciliation comes before worship. Boy, what a powerful point.
Go away until it's right with your brother. That's what the Lord is saying. Now the Lord brings us to a very fascinating point. Look at verse 23 again. If you bring your gift to the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, did you see that? It isn't even that you're angry, it is that He's angry at you.
Amazing. Do you see how important it is that we have right relations? Now I believe that the implication here is that the one offering, the offering has caused the anger or contributed to the anger of this other one. But you see, in verse 22 He says, if you're angry, you're in danger of condemnation.
And in verse 23 He says, if anybody's angry at you, I don't want you. I don't want your worship. Go away. Leave your gift. Be reconciled to your brother. And then come and offer your gift. God doesn't want you angry. Get this one. God doesn't want anybody angry with you.
That is rendering you guilty of murder. That's pretty strong stuff, folks. Pretty strong stuff. And sometimes we sit around and say, how can we make our church more what it ought to be? Oh, you know, people say we need greater...people ask me this sometimes. They say, how can we increase our worship? How can we have a more worshipful time? And, you know, they think, well maybe if we had more of a certain kind of music or maybe if we had more aesthetics around us, maybe if we had better hymns or better special music or better sermons or whatever it is. Listen, if you want to enhance worship, then everybody who's got something against a brother will leave and come back when it's right. And we'll see the power of the Spirit of God in our midst. Amen. Thank you, both of you. It's hard. This is where we live, isn't it? Pretty tough.
Pretty tough. Listen, people who discuss what we can do to increase the worship always miss the point. The way to increase the meaningful worship is to get the people out who don't have any business being here because there's something wrong. You know, so I believe that every Sunday there are husbands and wives who have bitterness between the two of them. They try to worship God and God doesn't want anything to do with it. I believe there are families that come where there's animosity from the kids toward the parents or the parents toward the kids and God isn't interested in their worship. I believe that there are times when we come to church and there's a feeling against somebody else in the fellowship or a neighbor in the street or somewhere, and we know there's a bitterness.
We do absolutely nothing about it. There's a fellow Christian that we don't particularly care for and something has happened and we let that thing settle in the bitterness and the Bible says, go away. You offer nothing to God. He is not interested in your worship.
It's a sham. Psalm 66 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. 1 Samuel 15 22 says, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifice as in obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken is better than the fat of rams. You say, John, how do I find that person who's angry with me? Well, I think the implication of the text is that you know this person's angry with you. I mean, obviously there are people angry with me. I don't even know it.
I can't run around just asking everybody. And there are other times when I know somebody's angry with me and I try to reconcile with them and I do my best and I ask their forgiveness and I try to make it right and they don't forgive me, but I've done the best I can. There's nothing more I can do. Then I'm free to worship God. I try to be reconciled with some people.
It's very hard. There are some people I should reconcile with, but I don't even know that they feel that way. But listen, when I do know it and when I can do something, I must, says Jesus. And so Jesus' words are devastating. They affect our own self-righteousness. They affect our worship of Him.
Finally, they affect our relations with others. He says, now that you've taken care of the worship part and you've left, here's what to do. Now that you've left to get it right so you can worship God, find your adversary, agree with Him quickly while you're in the way, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into prison. And truly I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out from there till thou has paid the utter most farthing."
The last quarter of ascent, the Greek is. Now what's He saying? The imagery of our Lord is graphic. He is saying, you better go and get it right with your brother. And He uses an illustration borrowed from the old legal method of dealing with debtors in Jewish society. And Jesus here is saying, settle it out of court. Reconcile before its severe judgment, and you can't reconcile at all. Now what does He mean here? Does He mean that the time will come when the person will die and you'll never be able to reconcile? Does He mean the time will come when God will chasten you and judge you and it will be too late?
Possibly both of those things. He doesn't really explain that. But what He does say is this, you can't worship Me unless your relations are right, so hurry, hurry and make them right. Don't let them go to the place where there will be a civil judgment made and somebody loses in the end. Don't let it go too far is the idea. Don't let it go to the place where God in judgment moves in.
Act before then. And I believe in the final analysis He's saying that God is the real judge and hell is the real punishment. And if you don't make things right, you may find yourself in an eternal hell with a debt that never could be paid. Now what He's saying, let me sum it up right now. You Pharisees and scribes who are depending on your own self-righteousness, just because you don't kill, you think you're holy.
Let me tell you something. If you're angry, if you've ever said a malicious word about somebody's character, if you've ever cursed anybody, you're like a murderer. If you've ever come to an altar to worship God and had something against your brother, you are in danger of such judgment, such hypocrisy would be enacted in your worship that you leave that gift and run to make it right. And when you get into a conflict with somebody immediately as fast as you can resolve that issue because you too are in danger of hell.
The point He's telling them is this, the fact that you don't murder is a little piece of the iceberg. You've got grudges that you've never settled. You worship in hypocrisy. You curse. You malign. You're angry. And the same judgment comes upon you for that death and hell are what you deserve.
That's what He's saying. And so does Jesus speak to their self-righteousness, speak to the issue of worship, and speak to the issue of relationships with others. He devastates their comfort, their confidence, the smugness of their self-righteousness.
Now watch. By setting a standard so high that nobody keeps it. And so you say, well, how do we escape? I mean, if we're all murderers and no murderer will inherit the kingdom, if we're all murderers and we all deserve death and hell, then how do we escape? I mean, we've all worshiped in hypocrisy. We've all been angry. We've all said malicious things.
We've all thought a curse or said a curse. We've all been unreconciled to a brother. We've all done that. What are we going to do? And that is exactly what Jesus is after. He wants to drive them to the fact that they cannot be righteous on their own, which will drive them to their knees at the foot of the cross to accept the imputed righteousness that only Jesus Christ can give. See?
Everything that He says here is to drive them to frustration and inadequacy so that they come to Him. He died our death. He entered our hell that we might have righteousness. You deserve death. I deserve death. You deserve hell.
I deserve hell. We're all murderers. All the Pharisees were, the scribes were, and everybody is. And so Jesus went to the cross, died our death, suffered our hell, and offers us the gift of His own righteousness. That's the meaning of the gospel. We are completely dependent on Christ for salvation.
It's a gift. That encouraging truth is at the heart of John MacArthur's current series here on Grace to You. It's titled, The Sinfulness of Sin. You hear John each day on this broadcast.
He also serves as Chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary in Southern California. Now, John, we just heard you use that word imputed, imputed righteousness. And that, I know from experience, is a word that many people in churches have never heard. And yet, the whole gospel hinges on it in a way. Explain to our listeners, why is this idea of imputed righteousness so vital to the gospel? Well, just a little anecdote.
I remember having conversations with my dear friend R.C. Sproul years back, and he was always saying to me, John, we have to come up with a new word for our movement. We can't use fundamentalist because that has overtones of legalism. We can't use evangelical because that could mean anything.
It's so broad. We've got to come up with a word. We've got to come up with a word. We've got to come up with a word.
So one day he said to me, I got it. We're going to call ourselves imputationists. So I said, imputationists. I said, R.C., people are going to think we amputate limbs.
That word is not going to work. So he laughed, obviously, of course. But he understood that nothing was more definitive of what we believe about the gospel than that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. What does that mean?
Credited to us. To impute something to someone is to give them something that's not their own. Paul says to the Philippians, look, I don't have a righteousness of my own. My righteousness is, as Isaiah said, filthy rags. By the deeds of the flesh, no one will be justified.
I can't come by works. I don't have a righteousness of my own. So he says, I have that righteousness which was imputed or credited to me, the righteousness of God credited to me in Christ. That is the gospel core, that salvation comes to those who believe in Christ because the perfect righteousness of God is credited to them.
I like to think of it this way. God treats the believer as if he lived Christ's life. The very robe of righteousness that is true of the Son of God is credited to the believer in Christ. That's imputed righteousness, and by that we are saved.
Right. And, friend, to enrich your understanding of the glorious truths in the gospel and to help you better explain those truths to others, let me suggest John's book, The Prodigal Son. It's a compelling look at Jesus' most famous parable. Order your copy when you get in touch today. The softcover book is available for $12.50 and shipping is free. To order, call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org. If you have questions about the extent of God's grace, maybe you wonder if God is willing to forgive you, make sure you get this book. It's a stunning look at God's mercy and His willingness to forgive those who repent.
The title again, The Prodigal Son. Order a copy when you call, 800-55-GRACE or shop online at gty.org. And while you're at gty.org, look around, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of resources that we have available free of charge. You can read practical articles on the Grace To You blog. You can download any of John's sermons from 51 years of his pulpit ministry. You can read daily devotionals and much more.
The web address one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making Grace To You part of your day, and be here tomorrow when John continues to show you how to root out the sins in your life, especially the hidden ones that no one else sees. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
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