Who Is a Murderer? B

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 dam you to eternal hell as much as what you do on the outside.

Welcome to Grace to you with the Bible teaching of 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, well, 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 towards sin. As John continues his series called

the sinfulness of sin, this study can help you see the depths of your sin and even greater depths

of God's love and forgiveness that are yours when you are united to Christ. So now open your

Bible to the gospel of Matthew as John begins the lesson. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 21,

you 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 Raka shall be in danger of the counsel, and whosoever

shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hellfire. 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 it. First 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 time and 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 melee-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. We ought to 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 hop and mad. You're angry. That can be a slow burn or

it can be a flaring thing. The word is, or gets the style and the root is orgay and orgay 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 state. 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 a 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, Raka, 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 and God's terms, there ought to be the same penalty

for anger and there ought to be the same penalty for saying Raka to somebody. Now, Raka 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. A

some have said it means brainless idiot. Some have said it means worthless fellow, silly,

fool, empty head, blockhead, rockhead, and commentators go all over every place with it.

But what it is is an 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 dam you to eternal hell as much as what you do on the outside. You hear that?

That's the message. There's a third illustration in verse 22.

Whosoever shall say thou moross 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 it, the word moross from which we get moron comes apparently

from a Hebrew root, Mara. And Mara 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 moross. 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

that's 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 a mess 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 hellfire 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. Now 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 hymnum. Gehenna is a form of hymnum. It means the valley of hymnum.

When we were in Jerusalem, it was pointed out to us where the valley of hymnum was.

It is south, west, 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 where Ahaz had introduced

into Israel the fire worship of the heathen god Mulek to whom little children were burned in the

fire. He burned incense in the valley of the sun of hymnum 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

Mulek in the place of hymnum 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 Mulek. Now in consequence of this, the valley of hymnum bore that curse throughout

all of Israel's history. It became a place where the Jewish people dumped their garbage.

The valley of hymnum 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 hymnum and a pall of thick smoke lay over hymnum 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 hymnum, 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. Now,

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 they're

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 with 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 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 to 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 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,

leave. And come back when it's right. Then we'll see the power of the Spirit of God in our midst.

Amen? Thank you both of you. That'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 and 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 a

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 bird 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 than I'm

free to worship God. I can, 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 they'll be cast into prison. And truly I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out from

there till thou hast paid the utter most farthing, the last quarter of a cent 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. Jesus here is saying, settle it out of court, reconcile before it's

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 chasing you and judge you and it'll 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 as 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 think, make things right, you may find yourself in an eternal hell.

With a debt that never could be paid. Now what are you 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 all or the 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 two 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 worshipped 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 unreconsiled 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 or all murders.

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.

You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Our current

series is called The Sinfulness of Sin. Now, John mentioned a word in the closing moments that I

want to highlight. That word was imputed, imputed righteousness. That is a central concept to

Christianity. So we asked John some time ago to expound on this idea of imputation. This is what he

said. Well, just a little anecdote. I remember having conversations with my dear friend,

RC 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 fundamentalists 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. So one day he said to me, I got it. We're going to call ourselves

imputationists. So I say imputationists. I said, RC 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.

That's right. And what a remarkable and encouraging reality that is. And friend, if you are

encouraged by today's lesson, if you've been strengthened in your battle with sin,

if you've been equipped to tell others about the gospel or if you've come to faith in Christ

after hearing John's teaching, we would love to hear about that. When you have a moment,

write a note and send it our way. Be sure to include this radio stations call letters when you

email us at letters at gty.org. That's our email address one more time, letters at gty.org.

Or you can send us a letter to grace to you, PO Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412.

And let me encourage you to visit our website gty.org. There you're going to find thousands of

free Bible study tools, including blog articles on issues that affect you and your church.

There are daily devotionals. We have John MacArthur's entire sermon archive. That's more than

3,600 sermons free to download in both MP3 and transcript format. So if you're looking for

further study on the ugliness of sin and the grace of Christ, or virtually any biblical topic,

you're sure to find the study tools that you need at our website, the address there one more time

gty.org. Now for the entire grace to you, staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast

part of your day. Join us again tomorrow when John continues to show you how to root out the

sins in your life, especially the ones no one sees. We're continuing John's study called the

Sinfulness of Sin with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you.