The Murderous Heart (Matthew 5:21-26)- Dalton D. Vetter

Good evening. As Pastor Kenny mentioned, we are

beginning a new sermon series tonight. And due

to a mystery white substance that myself and

my fellow Midwesterners like to call snow, I

have the honor and privilege of beginning it

tonight. And as Kenny and I began talking through

the sermon series and what he had in mind for

it and dealing with issues of I thought back

on my own life and I looked at society. And I

realized that more than anything else, the sin

of anger unfortunately defines the life of many

Christians and the life of many non -believers.

And it's one we can see so commonly, even in

the interactions with our spouses. Maybe you

men have been gone for a long day of work, you've

been gone for... nine or 10 hours and you come

home and the first thing your wife asks you to

do is take out the garbage. Or wives, maybe you've

had a long day with the children, they've been

sick, they've been throwing up, they got into

too much Valentine's Day candy and they have

been running rampant all over the house. And

you just need some help but your husband comes

home and he collapses tired and he wakes up the

next day ready for you to yell at him. And it's

one that we can see amongst believers online

as they argue theology, or even in person when

they argue theology. They are quick to throw

insults. This sin, the sin of anger, is ultimately

defined as murder. And Christian, you need to

face it, you are a murderer. At least that is

how Jesus defines it. In our text tonight, Matthew

Matthew 5:21–26

5 verses 21 through 26. Again the the text that

Jesus uses to define anger is found in Matthew

Matthew 5:21–26

5 verse 21 through 26 You have heard it said

You heard that it was said to those of old you

shall not murder and whoever murders will be

liable to judgment But I say to you that everyone

who is angry with his brother will be liable

to judgment Whoever insults his brother will

be liable to counsel and whoever says you fool

will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you

are offering your gift at the altar and there

you remember that your brother has something

against you, leave your gift there before the

altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother

and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms

quickly with your accuser while you are going

with him to court. Least your accuser hand you

over to the judge and the judge to the guard

and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you,

you will never get out until you have paid the

last penny." Now if we are going to understand

this text, I think it is first right and proper

to go to God in prayer and ask for help and understanding.

Our Lord and our God, we ask you as we examine

the words of your son tonight that you would

open our eyes to see and our ears to hear that

we would understand. what you would like us to,

that we would understand how great of God we

have because we are great sinners, and we have

failed on so many accounts. And we need your

help, Lord. Help us tonight through your Holy

Spirit to understand what is in this text. And

I pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen. Now

as we move into this text, I think it's important

to understand where we are at to have some background.

because this sermon is right at the start of

Jesus' ministry. It comes after his baptism.

It comes after his 40 days in the wilderness

where he was let out and tested by Satan. At

this point, he has called his disciples and he

has began to teach. He started in the region

of Galilee as he gathered people around him from

Jerusalem and Judea and the Decapolis, really

the central and southern parts of Israel. and

he has taken them north to Galilee. And he takes

them up on this mountain to preach because Jesus

did not have the convenience of having a microphone

like we have this evening. He had to get above

the crowd. So he takes them up to the mountain

and he begins to preach. And he begins with the

Beatitudes, explaining the types of characteristics

that should mark believers in the kingdom of

God. Then he moves into how he fulfills the law

and the true meaning of it. And he begins, actually,

with the sixth commandment of the law, which

is, thou shall not murder. And he recounts this

in verse 21. You have heard it said that those

of old you shall not murder, and whoever murders

will be liable to judgment. Jesus, in this statement,

he's doing two things. He's quoting the sixth

commandment from Exodus chapter 20, but he's

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

also counting the scribes and the Pharisees.

the people that were deemed more righteous than

everyone else. These were the Billy Grahams of

your day, your R .C. Sproul, your John MacArthur,

your Pastor Kennes. But unfortunately, they did

not have the same level of grace that any of

those men have or had. They had their Pharisaical

view. It was very literal, it was very wooden.

And I don't even think... literal is the right

definition. It was literalistic. They made it

so literal, it forced any other meaning out of

the text. And so as the scribes and Pharisees

approached the issue of murder, they just said,

well, as long as I keep my hands clean, and I

do not lay my hand upon my wife or another man,

and I do not take their life and cold blooded

murder, then I'm okay. This verse is not referring

to killing in self -defense or killing in a time

of war, but this is cold, and this is a cold

-blooded murder, murder in the first degree.

And Jesus rightly explains that anyone who murders

will be liable to judgment. This is the idea

of eye for the eye, which actually comes from

Leviticus 24, 17, which states, whoever takes

a human life shall surely be put to death. It

is just in the eyes of God that those who murder

in cold blood, they should also have their life

taken. But Jesus does not want to stay on this

wooden understanding of the law. He wants to

get at the heart of it, what is behind it, to

the heart of the believer. The law was never

meant to be a box to live in. It was meant to

be a convicting sight that stood before believers

that made them look inward. That made them understand

their sin and the weight of it and that was meant

to drive them to a holy God to a holy Savior

and Jesus goes on to explain it says I say to

you to you Now it's important to understand that

Jesus is not adding something new to the law

He is doing he is explaining what the law always

meant That it was meant to get at the heart.

I love how pastor Adriel Sanchez puts it in this

passage, the law of God has jurisdiction over

our hearts just as much as he has it over our

hands. The law was always meant to guide the

heart just as much as it did our hands. And this

is where we will have our great accusation from

Christ that we are murderers. Because he begins

to say, whoever becomes angry with his brother

is liable to judgment. He takes the words from

the law, from the wooden understanding of it,

and he puts it into practice at the heart level.

He talks about anger. Now this anger is not a

holy and righteous anger. We know from Ephesians

4 that you can be angry and you cannot sin. We

see Jesus even execute this type of anger when

he goes into the temple to cleanse it out. He

goes into the temple and he sees the tax collectors

and the money changers exchanging money and selling

goods and selling things to sacrifice. But this

was not the place to do sale. This was the place

to sacrifice, to come and worship. And Jesus

and his anger drove them out, flipping the tables,

even forming a whip as he began to chase them.

This is a holy and righteous anger. And you might

not think, well, forming a whip and chasing people

out is not very righteous. But you are dealing

with the Son of God, someone who knew and knows

the law perfectly. And the mercy that he showed

in that forming of a whip and the flipping of

the tables was one that was designed to keep

those men, those people from eternal judgment.

That maybe in this one action of Christ, they

would repent and turn to God, that they would

come to worship instead of coming to sell. This

is a type of anger that many believers struggle

with. There's maybe one time in my life where

I could say I was genuinely angry in a righteous

way. Because usually our anger comes from a sense

of pride. It comes from a sense of self -righteousness.

It's the same exact sin that the serpent committed

in the garden. He put himself above God. And

that is what we are quick to do. We do not need

provocation. We do not need anyone calling us

a name or doing anything. We just need One action,

maybe they just look at us wrong. They don't

have to get to calling us a name. Maybe our neighbor

looks at us funny one morning as we were walking

up to the car and we do not like the way that

they look at us. So we decide to take vengeance

upon them. We decide to go over to their garden

and pull up all of their daisies and leave it

as a dirt bed. There's no reasonableness to our

anger. Our anger will make us punch holes in

walls, throw our keys out the window of our cars,

curse at people going down the street. And I

think for me, the perfect example of this comes

from freshman year in high school when I played

football. And I know many of the women are really

a football analogy. You're just going to have

to bear with me. I'll do my best to explain the

terms of the game. When I played football freshman

year, I was third string. As third string that

meant I was not the primary people. I was not

the backup to the primary people. I was the backup

to the backup. Which meant in rivalry games I

never got a chance to play. And we were playing

one of our main rivals one evening and I had

sat through about three quarters of the game.

Well enough people were tired from this bitter

rivalry taking place that I had the opportunity

to go in at kick return. Now kick return happens

when the game is progressing. and the other team

is not making it far enough up the field so you

get to go in and someone gets to catch the ball

as it gets kicked off and your job or my job

at the time was to protect the guy running up

the field. While I had sat there on the bench

being filled with more anger because we were

not doing well in the game I was not getting

a chance to go out there and fight alongside

of my brothers and I decided as we took off down

the field before the guy I was meant to defend

even got to the running back, I decided to hit

him with all my force and with all my might.

And if you know football, you know that would

be a massive personal foul and would result in

time on the bench if it was not for high school.

But what happened in that instance is he got

thrown on his back and I got thrown on my back

and I think we both stood up with a concussion

not knowing what just happened. And that is the

type of anger that Jesus is challenging here.

It came out of my own pride. Our anger comes

out of our own pride, and it makes us do ridiculous

things that often get us hurt, and most definitely

hurts those around us. And this type of anger

leaves us liable to judgment. It leaves us liable

to go before a local council, and this time it

would have been seven elders or seven religious

leaders that had the ability to pronounce a prison

sentence, or at worst even a quick death penalty,

something like a beheading, something that happened

instantaneously. they were able to handle unjustified

murder. And so in this case, they would be able

to handle our unjustified anger. Now this anger

does not usually stand on its own, it usually

progresses as Jesus progresses in the text. And

he said, whoever insults his brother will be

liable to counsel. Now if you have a different

translation, you might see the word, call his

brother Raka. It is a Greek term. And it's most

similar to the German word Doomkopf, which just

means dumb head if you translate it literally.

Empty headed, stupid, airhead, any of those types

of words that you can think of. It is a full

insult. It was really a cultural word that you

were not meant to say. It would be equivalent

to one of the curse words that we have today

because it even tied into the idea of The word

raka would be used with heretics as Jewish leaders

spit upon a heretic that was espousing theology

or things about God that were not true. The Jews

today actually have maintained this practice

in Israel. They will, as they walk down the street,

they will spit upon Christians as they tried

to proclaim the gospel and to proclaim the Messiah.

This is what the word raka is getting at. It

is a full insult. And I think most commonly that

happens most often to us in road rage. We are

driving down the street or trying to get onto

the interstate and someone drives around us in

their little car at a speed that is not necessary

or appropriate. And then they get in front of

us and they slam on their brakes for some reason.

And usually the thing that comes out of our mouth

is something to the extent of, you idiot, I cannot

believe you would do that. I have a place to

go and things to do and You could have hurt me

or someone else. It is a quick anger. It is an

insult. This also, as I mentioned, can come out

with our spouses as we get frustrated or we get

upset. We may have a way of doing things, and

then our wife or our husband comes in and tries

to do it some way else, in a different way than

how we would do. And we think, how stupid can

you be? Why would you clean the dishes that way?

Why would you clean the blinds that way? Why

would you vacuum the floors that way? And this

type of anger, as it progresses, leaves us liable

to counsel. This would be liable to the Sanhedrin,

the counsel of 71. It was designed to handle

the worst cases of heresy. This is the counsel

that Jesus had to go through and was spat upon

as he faced. the wrath of God on the cross, the

righteous anger of God on the cross. They could

pronounce stoning. They could put people up for

crucifixion. And this is the type of death that

Jesus says we deserve if we are willing to insult

people, if we are quick with our tongue. And

this continues to progress because often we do

not just stop at calling people stupid. We need

to attack them morally. We need to believe that

they are godless. And so Jesus gives us a warning.

And he says, whoever says you fool will be liable

to the hell of fire. And the word fool here is

often used in scripture. God uses fool in scripture.

Psalm 14 .1, for instance, says, the fool says

in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt.

They do abominable deeds. There is none who does

good. So the word fool is a moral condemnation.

If you call someone a fool, what you are saying

is they are without God. They have no knowledge

of God. They are far from him. You are excommunicating

people with your words and your thoughts and

your deeds when you call someone fool. The type

of fool that God wants us, or the word. fool

that God wants us to be able to use is the same

way he uses it in Psalm 14. There is an element

of grace to it. We can acknowledge that someone

is without God while also acknowledging that

they need great grace. Because we too were once

fools. We were blind to our sin. We were dead

in our trespasses. We were without God and the

wisdom of him. But it is out of his great grace

that he has called us to his mercy. He has called

us to know him. We are no longer fools, but we

have the wisdom of God because of his spirit

working in our lives. And if we are willing to

call someone a fool and morally condemn them,

there is only one punishment that Jesus lays

out, the hell of fire. And this is the word for

hell. This is the word Gehenna. It is not the

word that we see King David use in the Psalms

where he says, which is the place that people

would go as an intermediate state, the place

of death. This is the place of weeping and gnashing

of teeth. This is not a place of a little red

devil where there's just some fire around us

and we get to walk down a lane as we be punished.

No, this is a place of condemnation. And to understand

the picture that Jesus is laying here, we must

understand this word, Gehenna. The word comes

from the Valley of Heman. This is a place of

apostasy. Solomon would use the Valley of Heman

to set up places of Moloch worship. Moloch was

the god of child sacrifice. King Josiah, when

he took the throne and second king, he would

come in and he would destroy these places of

worship. And then he would use it not for pagan

worship or even just to throw away and things

that belonged to the pagans, he would use it

to dump bodies after a war, bodies that had died

that were unbelieving, and they would be burned

up. They would light the pile on fire, and there

would be condemnation for it. The Jews even continued

this practice in the Jesus' day, and they did

not use it to dump bodies, but they would use

it to burn their trash. So this is a place from

the Old Testament all the way into the new. that

was a place of condemnation, of apostasy, a place

of unbelief that was meant to burn the worst

trash. And this is the condemnation that we all

deserved when we walked without the wisdom of

God. This is the condemnation we deserve when

we are quick to look at people on the highway

as we drive down it and we see them holding up

their political signs of different messages and

we think, you fool, how can you think any of

those things? Or maybe you're having a Bible

conversation with one of your brothers or sisters,

and you start to think, you fool, how can you

not believe in infant baptism? Or maybe how could

you believe in infant baptism? We are quick to

do this condemnation. As we look through each

one of these, the gradation gets worse and worse

and worse in terms of punishment, but the sins

themselves become more and more common. Nowadays

it is so easy to see people, quick to say, you

fool, to claim that they are without God and

show them no grace. We are a little slower, but

not by much to call them stupid. And we are slower

yet to just pull off and use our fist, use our

hands to cause harm. And this should make us

ask ourselves as we reflect on this text, why

are you holding onto your anger? What is beneath

the surface? I understand that maybe you have

some sort of physical ailment that makes it hard

to get out of bed in the morning. I understand

that people abort children and those children

do not deserve it. But why are you holding on

to your anger? Why are you angry at God? Why

are you angry at your friend who tried to give

you good advice? Or at your wife who just wanted

your help? Or at your husband? who all he needed

was a hug himself. And we as Christians should

be quick to let go of this anger. We should be

willing to trade in this heart of anger, and

we should trade it in for the heart of Christ.

Ephesians 4, 31 and 32 tells us, let all bitterness

and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be

put away from you, along with all malice. Be

kind to one another, tender -hearted, forgiving

one another as God and Christ forgave you. Just

as God has shown us grace, we should be quick

to show grace. We even sing this or we pray this

when we pray the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our

debts as we forgive our debtors. We need to forgive

in the same way that Christ forgave. We need

to take radical steps. to fix our relationships

and to have relationships. And so we move on

from these three condemnations of murder, of

anger, to two demonstrations of how we should

be rectified with our neighbors, with our spouses,

with our friends. The first one comes when you're

going to worship. Worship, when you're approaching

it, is always a time where you're meditating

on the week before. You're thinking of of the

sin that you committed. You're thinking of the

fact you just got angry at your wife as you loaded

the children into the car. You're maybe thinking

of the time you cursed someone out at work and

they did not deserve it. And we should reflect

on these sins. And maybe you do it as you're

coming in or maybe you do it while we're praying

our prayer confession during that time of silent

prayer. Hopefully you're doing it during this

sermon. Right now you're reflecting. on these

times. But Christ tells us if you're coming in

to worship and you have a sacrifice to offer,

you have prayers to pray and hymns to sing, but

if you are still angry with your brother, do

not come. You do not have a worship. You do not

have a sacrifice that can truly approach the

Lord. The Lord wants a perfect sacrifice. In

the Psalms we were told, for you will not delight

in sacrifice, or I will give it. You will not

be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices

of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite

heart. O God, you will not despise. God wants

us to come and to worship with a broken heart,

a heart of repentance, one that seeks to have

right relationships with him and with others.

And we cannot come and offer our sacrifices unless

we have come repentant of all of our sins. And

as Jesus is giving this command, everyone in

the crowd would have been thinking, well, this

is preposterous. The trip from Galilee to Jerusalem

was an 80 mile trip. It was a four or five day

trip. And so they're in one way. And so they

have already come to Galilee. Now they need to

go back to Jerusalem. If they get there and they

have a sacrifice to give, but they have had a

fight with their spouse, if they have had a fight

with a friend who tried to give them good advice,

they need to leave their sacrifice, go back,

take another four or five days, make reconciliation,

and then come back to worship. Because only then

they can come with a pure sacrifice. As one commentator

ultimately put it, if you are unfit, for worship,

you are unfit to die. And so God wants us to

come before him with a broken and contrite heart

so that we can be worshiped, that he can be worshiped

properly, that we can be ready for the Lord to

come back as we sung this morning, as we talked

about this morning. And Jesus gives us a second

demonstration of how do we seek reconciliation.

And he talks about... Come to terms quickly with

your accuser while you are going with them to

court. Least your accuser hands you over to a

judge and the judge to the guard and you be put

in prison. Now this accuser has two different

meanings. There is the real life meaning where

a legal crime was committed. Maybe someone insulted

you and you thought the only just punishment

for them was to pick up your fist and press it

against their cheek. or maybe you had a coworker

who you thought he was lazy and maybe a glutton

and you decided to make it known before the whole

office. You decided to call him a liar and maybe

even pronounced sins on him that he did not even

commit. And now he's looking for a restoration.

He sues you for defamation or he gets sued for

assault. And before you even get to court the

commandment that God gives us, is to go and make

reconciliation. Go apologize in repentance. Pay

the hospital bill that the man needed to have

after being assaulted by you. Go to your boss

and say, hey, this coworker, there are times

he is lazy, but I am lazy, too, and most of what

I said was not true. You need to go before you

ever get to the court date. You need to go before

you even go to talk with a lawyer. The first

step you should take is to go and seek reconciliation

with this person because if it gets to court,

you will justly owe him everything. They could

take everything you have, all of your savings.

If there's not enough there, they could come

after your car or your house or anything you

own. They could take it and they are right to

do so because you have attacked them. You have

murdered their name. You have done great wrong.

against them, and it needs to be reconciled.

But then there's a second meaning to this. There

is a spiritual meaning that we must remember.

Because throughout this whole passage, Jesus

does not want to just deal with physical actions,

not just with the hands. He wants to deal with

the heart. The spiritual side of this is that

if we get to heaven and we have been unfit to

die, we have been unrepentant, we have Jesus

not as a mediator, not as a friend, but as an

accuser, and justly so. If we stand before God

with unrepentant sin, it does not matter how

loudly we proclaim Christ, we show ourselves

to be unbelievers if we are unrepentant with

our sin. Now, this does not mean that we can

never get angry. Even unjustly, the Lord knows,

Paul tells us in the scripture that we will still

wrestle against the flesh. But as John Owen puts

it we must be killing sin or it will be killing

you and especially when it comes to anger because

anger destroys relationships it destroys marriages

it destroys friendships and Often it is blasphemous

against God because as we dwell in our anger

We almost cease being angry at our spouse or

with our friend and we begin to be angry at God

especially if we're facing the loss of a loved

one or a medical issue. We start to wonder why

God would put us in this place, why God would

allow us to exist here. Why has he abandoned

us? It's very similar to the Israelites in Numbers

21. As they're pulled through the wilderness,

they begin to doubt God for the food and the

manna that he has provided, and they call it

worthless. That is often what we do to God with

our anger. We forget all of the blessings and

the graces that he has given us and we get angry

at him. Anger is a radical sin and you must take

radical steps to repent of it and have right

relationships. Let me say that one more time

because if there's anything you get from the

sermon, this is it. Anger is a radical sin and

you must take radical steps to repent of it.

and have right relationships. Maybe, Christian,

you are sitting here and you're thinking that

these things that I have described, described

yourself. Maybe you realize that you have forgotten

the grace of your good God who gave His Son in

your place, who took upon the wrath of God, the

righteous anger of God in your place. He was

spat upon for you. Reflect on your Savior. Turn

back. You do not have to be a slave to your anger

any longer. You can be a slave to righteousness.

You are an heir, a child of God. Take on the

heart of Christ. Take on a tender heart. Take

on a forgiving heart. Follow your savior. He

has given you the example. Now follow him. Leave

here seeking forgiveness. Leave here seeking

reconciliation and restoration. with your friend

or with your spouse. Now maybe you are here tonight

and you do not know this Christ that I've talked

about, but you do know that your life has been

one filled with bitterness and with strife, with

fighting, with yelling, with maybe broken marriages,

divorces out of it. You can turn to Christ. Christ

is the only Savior you can have. He died for

sinners. He died in the place of sinners, and

you can turn to him. Now, maybe you fit none

of these categories, but next time you get angry,

you should stop and say, does this represent

Christ? And if it does not, seek repentance.

Seek the radical steps to have right relationships.

Let's pray.