Mike Bickle addresses the pervasive issue of anger in his sermon 'Overcoming the Spirit of Anger,' emphasizing that anger is the root of murder and can lead to spiritual and relational bondage. He explains that unchecked anger can escalate into bitterness, affecting not only the individual but also their relationships and spiritual life. Bickle encourages listeners to confront their anger proactively, seek reconciliation, and understand the urgency of resolving conflicts before they escalate. He highlights the importance of humility and repentance in restoring relationships, particularly within families, and stresses that unresolved anger can hinder one's experience of God's grace. Ultimately, he offers hope that through addressing anger, individuals can achieve a vibrant heart and a deeper relationship with God.

We're going to continue in our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Father, we come before you and we ask you to release the spirit of revelation. And Holy Spirit, we acknowledge your presence as the great teacher. We just submit to you as the teacher right now. We ask you to teach our heart something direct and fresh right from you. I just want to encourage you to take five seconds and say, Holy Spirit, teach me today. I receive your ministry directly. We ask you to glorify Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. While we're continuing, this is our seventh session on the Sermon on the Mount, which is Jesus' most comprehensive statement about a believer's role in cooperating with the grace of God. Now, the great promise in the Sermon on the Mount is the word blessed. We've gone over this every week. He said, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the meek. And that means, part of that means that we could have a vibrant spirit, a vibrant heart even in this age. That it is our inheritance to experience the presence of God and to feel alive on the inside in our relationship with him. And of course, the way that we do this is by walking out the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. That's the way to the vibrant heart. Paragraph B, now we're moving into the section on the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus identifies and gives insight into six areas of temptation that must be resisted. Now he outlined this very strategically, and the analogy that I've been using is the eight beatitudes are like flowers in the garden of our heart. And there are six negatives, temptations that come against our heart, and they're like weeds in the garden that will choke the flower, unless these weeds are addressed. And then there's five positives, kingdom activities in Matthew chapter six. This is like watering the garden or putting nutrient on the garden. And if we say no to the six negatives, we pull the weeds, and yes to the five positives, we add the nutrients or we water the garden, then those beatitudes will grow in our life. Now, the first negative that Jesus addresses here is the issue of anger. And the revelation that he gives us is that anger is actually the beginning of the spirit of murder. That from God's point of view, murder is the problem and anger is the beginning of it. Anger is the beginning of the spirit of murder. Bitterness is part of the spirit of murder. And so Jesus is giving this expose. He's exposing the dangerous nature of murder and how even in its subtle forms, its beginning forms in anger, how dangerous it is and how pervasive the nature of anger is. I mean, it's all, it's all, it touches every area of our life is what I'm trying to say. So the question is, why does Jesus start with anger as the first of the six issues that he's addressing? Well, I think it's the most common, it's the most common sin that the human race partakes in. It's our biggest problem. I think it's bigger than any of the others that follow after this. And the fact that we start in anger so young, you don't have to teach a two-year-old how to be angry. They come by it honestly. From Grandpa Adam way back in the Garden of Eden, we've inherited it from him. Well, let me read the passage and make some comments. I'll kind of give you the overview of the whole message here, just read through this. Then we'll look through some of the notes, just a few of them, and then kind of reiterate some of the principles that I highlight as I read through this passage. Verse 21, Jesus said, you've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. Now he's talking about, he's referring to the Ten Commandments, he goes, you've heard the teaching on the Ten Commandments. And the sixth commandment is you shall not murder. He goes, you've heard that. And you heard that there was a certain danger that you would expose yourself to before the judgment. Now the judgment in this particular verse means the court system of the ancient world, I mean, in Israel, because that was the word Moses used on a number of occasions back in the Old Testament. He said, if somebody murders somebody, they have to be brought in before the judgment, which meant the civil courts, the civil authorities, and they would be tried, and then they would be put to death if they were found guilty. Now the problem with this is Jesus is saying that, he goes, the Pharisees, their approach to this commandment was so limited. All they were really concerned with when God said, do not murder, they were only concerned with the physical act of murder. And they were only concerned with getting in trouble before man in the civil courts. So if they didn't actually physically kill somebody, and they didn't get in trouble in the courts, they kept the command. Jesus says, no, far too narrow. Murder has many dimensions to it, and it grows like a cancer, it has many stages, many expressions. And the problem isn't just getting in trouble before the courts of man, the problem is also that your soul will be in bondage, and you'll get in trouble before God. So Jesus is exposing the Pharisees' very limited, inadequate view of the sixth commandment, and he's broadening it and giving us insight into what God meant when he originally said, back in the days of Moses, about 1500 BC, when he said, do not murder. Jesus said, I was there, I'm God. What me and my Father and the Spirit, what we mean by that commandment is far more pervasive than what the Pharisees think. Then he goes on, and he develops what murder really is, and he anchors murder, the spirit of murder, as beginning with anger. He links the two together. Now this is a new insight. Only he would have the understanding of the connection of anger and murder. And the reason Jesus is making this connection, because when we hear anger, we say, oh, well, you know, I have that, you know, and then you quote your nationality, you know, the Irish, the French, the Germans, the English, everybody, you know, whatever nationality, you know our anger, our temper, and we kind of downplay it as something we just are, you know, our national heritage is guilty of, and Jesus says, no, no, you're dismissing it. He said, it is the spirit of murder. And just that terminology alerts us, and we go, wow, that's pretty intense. And he goes, more than you know. And it has consequences inside of you, what it does to your soul, anger, and has consequences in your circumstances, how it affects people and circumstances and relationships around you. And it has consequences before the courts of God. It's far bigger problem than you think. He says in verse 22, but he goes, I'm going to give you more than the Pharisees will give you. I say to you, anyone, whoever is angry with his brother without cause, he will be in danger of those civil courts. The judgment he's talking in at this point in time, the courts of man, that's the words it's the same a word twice because it will escalate. If this anger is not held in check, it will cause you trouble at many levels and even extreme trouble that will involve criminal cases. He goes, he goes, anger will bring your life into great trouble. If not held in check. Now we have many problems in our life, in circumstances in our spiritual life, rooted in anger, but many of the criminal cases in society, if traced back, we could find many of them have their roots and anger that went unchecked. Jesus said, well, it's actually more serious than that, than just getting in trouble as it escalates in your life, getting in trouble in the human arena. He says, let me tell you this. Whoever says to his brother, Raka will be in danger of the council. And whoever says you fool, they will actually be in danger of hell. Now, the word Raka was a familiar term in that society. And it meant you idiot, you stupid one. And or the word fool, it meant it was a strong insult. It's not as big as an insult in our society as it was in the ancient world to be a fool in the Hebrew society was almost like being a reprobate denying God. A person who denied the covenant with God, he goes, it was, it was a, a curse word. It was a strong word of, of insult with contempt in it and scorn towards the person. Now what Jesus is saying here, he says, now you can have anger towards a brother and it's, and you're locked in, you're having this reoccurring negative emotion towards the same person over and over. He goes, take notice when that happens, because anger is beginning to go to the next stage. I mean, there's a general impatience and a kind of a general weakness involved in all human beings, but he goes, notice when it begins to be focused on particular individuals in a repetitive way, take note, anger is now going to the next level. It's set against a brother, but he's saying here, take particular note when you begin to verbalize it, because when it moves from just a preoccupation, uh, of, of a negative emotion towards a particular individual. Now you're beginning to say and verbalize your scorn and your disgust and your feelings towards them. He says, once you verbalize it, that spirit of murder, which we call anger, that's the beginning stages. It will actually escalate when you begin to say it with your mouth. Now, he's not saying, if you say to somebody one time, you're a fool, you'll end up in hell. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is if you're okay with talking to people at this level of anger, though, we wouldn't even consider it that big of a, of a level of anger. He goes, even that measure, it will set a domino effect. It will set into motion, emotional and spiritual dynamics in you that if you're okay, talking that way to people, let some months and some years go by and that anger will escalate and it will bring even hardness of heart to such a level over time that people will even deny Jesus and the salvation that he provides. They may technically believe he's the only savior, but their anger will, will hinder them from submitting to his leadership because they will actually end up in hell. If this thing goes unchecked, he goes, that's how dangerous this is. So Jesus wasn't exaggerating saying, if you say something one time to a person, you fool, you end up in hell. He was saying, no, it's that unchecked that you're okay. Talking that way to other human beings, watch out where this is going to go. It will have dangerous effect inside of you and it will cause trouble in your own soul. It will cause trouble in the courts of men and it will cause trouble in the courts of God. That's what he's saying there. Now, verse 23, again, I'm kind of giving you the whole teaching it here at the beginning and then we'll just kind of repeat a few of the key principles. And as we go on past the passage here, now, verse 23, here's the key phrase is the phrase therefore he says, therefore, if you bring a gift to the altar and remember your brother has something against you, leave the gift, go your way, go find the brother, first be reconciled to him, then come and offer your gift. Now the reason the word therefore is important is because it links this commandment to go find the brother that has something against you. It links it back to the person who spoke, uh, angry words in verse 22. So he's saying to the same person, if you speak angry words, you're in danger. If those angry words cause another brother to be troubled by them, you have to go fix it. You have to go talk to that brother and humble yourself and repent of your sin of venting your anger. Now, the reason it's important to recognize the meaning of the word, therefore you always ask what is therefore, therefore, that's what you do when you read the scriptures, you go backwards to the theme that was just mentioned, because if you read verse 23, just as it stands isolated, it says you get the idea that if anybody's bothered by you, you need to go have a personal meeting with them before you worship. And you think, well, that's a kind of a neat concept, but nobody does that. It seems unrealistic that how could you find and meet anybody who's bothered with you? That's not really what Jesus is saying. And the reason I, I I'm, I'm pressing this point because if you exaggerate that, then you can kind of dismiss verse 23 in your everyday life. I mean, who really goes and find somebody that's bugged with them because, uh, they're just bothered with some of the things you're doing and you have a big meeting with them. Now you might a little bit, but Jesus isn't saying do this a little bit. He's saying, do it to the brother that's has something against you, but he's linking it to the reason he has something against you because you spoke angry words against him. And those angry words have hurt him, or maybe he's not in pain, but he's troubled by them at some level. So you spoke the words to him directly is what Jesus is referring to, or perhaps I'm adding to it, but I believe it's in the spirit of what Jesus is saying. Somebody quoted your angry words to the brother. Now the brother's troubled and he goes, and if you know he's troubled in there, they're your words. You have to go to them and humble yourself and be reconciled. Then in verse 25 and 26, Jesus is giving a illustration from the Jewish society of his day of a creditor, a man that loans some money to somebody, but the creditor, uh, when he gave the money, the debtor, the one who borrowed it can't pay it back. And so the, he's guilty. He's guilty of, of, uh, of breaking the contract. He's he, he, he, he needs to commit to what he, uh, borrowed and the creditors upset and the guy who loaned him the money, he's on his way to the judge because he knows his case is sure. Because the laws of that land said that if you loan some money to somebody and they don't pay you, that guy goes to prison. Now, everybody in Jesus's day was familiar with that concept. He said, now here's the deal. That guy that you didn't pay back, he's going to go get the judge. Then the judge is going to find an officer of the court, a collection agency, if you will. And that officer of the court is going to go make you pay that money. And if you don't pay it, you'll end up in prison and you'll still owe the money, but it will be far more difficult to pay it in the new circumstance that develops. So what Jesus is saying here, he says, if you have, uh, caused anger in a brother's, I mean, if you've in your anger have injured another person or you have just anger unsettled in your heart, he's saying before the processes develop and escalate to where the situation is far more complicated, go settle it now. Settle that unresolved anger, settle the anger that you hurt the brother with, or the anger that you harbor in your own soul, settle it, settle it now. Because if you don't, the circumstances will escalate and you'll still have to settle it, but it'll be a far more difficult setting to settle it in. And so he gave that analogy, that parable, uh, if you will, and said, and his point was with urgency, if you have unresolved anger in your own soul that you're harboring, settle it. Or if you've vented it towards a person, go settle it with them and ask their forgiveness and humble yourself and make it right. Because it's only going to get worse. It's not going to go away on its own. Time will not heal anger and bitterness. You've heard the phrase, time heals everything. It doesn't. Anger and bitterness can go to the back burner, but it will be smoldering. Jesus said it will only be more complicated. It will only be harder to solve later. And he goes, I want to assure you, if you don't solve it fully, you will still pay the price for it. There will still be repercussions of which, uh, corresponding says you'll be in prison. Now in our spiritual life, if we allow anger to grow unchecked, we don't humble ourself and we allow the venting of our anger towards a person and we don't go heal that relationship. We end up in spiritual prison in this life. I'm talking about as believers, meaning emotionally and spiritually, we're stuck. We won't grow into that vibrant spirit that Jesus just promised them eight times in a row. He said, blessed are, blessed are, blessed art. He says you won't enter into that. You will be in a prison of sorts. Now in this parable that he gives, like in all parables, every detail in the parable does not have a symbolic meaning spiritually. He's just saying the trouble is going to hit you and it's going to be harder and you have to get to the bottom of the issue eventually. So why not do it now instead of waiting a few years to do it? It won't go away on its own. That's the message of what he's saying. Now again, what Jesus is doing, it's so gracious. He's not rebuking the disciples here. He's explaining as a gracious shepherd, the pervasive nature and the danger and the subtlety of the spirit of murder and how it operates in all of our lives. He's tipping us off in his kindness and his generosity. Now I believe that this passage here should be one of the number one teachings and for family life and for marriage. I believe there's a vast amount of the anger that's expressed in the earth is inside of marriages and within family units. Now often when we read about the brother that's troubled by our words, we think of the brother outside of our family. But beloved, that brother or sister is in your family, in your marriage. You live in the house with them. I believe a significant amount of the anger that's vented and expressed in the earth happens in marriages and in homes. And that's where we start with this. And the difficulty with this spirit of murder, this anger, is that we don't really see it. It's subtle. And we grow accustomed to a certain level of it. We acclimate to a certain amount of anger. We say everybody does it. We live with a dull spirit. We live with a defiled spirit by it, but we're used to it and everybody has it. And anyway, my spouse, well, she understands me and she's okay with me talking in a sarcastic angry tone. She kind of ignores it anyway, and it's okay. But what Jesus is saying, he goes, your spouse of 20 or 40 years may be okay with it, but the Holy Spirit is not. He goes, they may say, well, that's how you are, but you will still be in prison spiritually until you pay every last cent. Meaning, until you deal with every vestige of unresolved anger in your heart. That's what it means to pay every last cent, to address the anger in your heart and the anger you've vented to every relationship. Until you've done it completely, you will have a measure of bondage in your life. Even if your spouse says it's okay. It's not okay with the Holy Spirit, because the spirit of murder has no bias. Meaning, if we yield to it by speaking those words, the impact of it, the bondage of it will touch us, even if the person's not offended by it, it still operates in a negative way against us. So this teaching is so practical for marriage and family. It ought to be 101 in every marriage class, but this teaching actually does give us hope. Because if we know we're going to stay in some kind of bondage until we deal with every vestige of unresolved anger, that's the negative side. But the positive side is we know we'll get out of the bondage and our heart will be vibrant and alive if we will face this in a consistent way. So this passage gives us hope. As heavy as it is, and I read this, and I go, Holy Spirit, this is intense, and the Holy Spirit, I imagine Him saying this, I love you so much, I'm going to really hold you to this, because I want you liberated to the full degree. But you have to deal with anger to the very last cent. Unresolved anger in your heart. Paragraph C. Now we're just going to kind of repeat what I've just said, and I'll just look at a few of the parts of the notes here and leave the majority of it for you to read on your own. Now paragraph C. What Jesus is doing in context, you can read, I don't have it on the notes, but we're at Matthew 5, 21 and 22. Read the verse before, Matthew 5, 20. He's exposing the false teachings of the Pharisees. And He's saying they got a little bit of it right, but they made it so narrow. And they made it external. And only the sort of thing that if somebody sees you doing it, that's the only time you get in trouble. And Jesus said, no, no, He goes, the commands of God are to be obeyed internally in private without anybody seeing you before God. So Jesus is moving the spirit of murder dilemma in our life to a very personal issue that we deal with all the time in our life, that we always are resisting this negative weed, if you will, in the garden of our heart that is quenching this flower, these eight Beatitudes. Now, Jesus is not adding in the New Testament to what God meant when He gave the laws in the Old Testament, the moral laws I'm talking about. When God gave the law, do not murder, He meant all of this. And all Jesus is doing is explaining the original intention of God. Now it's interesting that the word murder, most translations use the word murder because that's the right word. The King James used the word kill instead of the word murder. And that's created a significant amount of confusion for hundreds of years because there's a big difference between kill and murder. To do not kill would mean in the absolute sense, don't kill anyone, any time or anything. But murder means don't premeditate the physical killing of an individual in anger in a premeditated way. My point is, the vast majority of the translations use the word murder. That's the right word. It's a different word than the word kill. Jesus is not teaching against capital punishment here, like some will use, but they use the King James and they do it. He's not teaching against a war of defense against an aggressive nation. He's not teaching against protecting yourself if someone broke in your house and they were going to kill your family. He's not saying do not protect yourself in that and we'll deal with that later on in the Sermon on the Mount. Because it is biblical to protect yourself. Jesus is not talking about accidental deaths. He's talking about murder. That's different than a killing that takes place as an accident. He's not talking about being a vegetarian, because vegetarians, some of them actually use this verse. You can't kill animals. You can't kill the mouse. Well, I would kill the mouse anyway. I leave it to my wife. Those things just terrify me. But anyway, paragraph D, I said that in the last service and Diane whispered over to her mother. She goes, they think he's kidding. Anyway, paragraph D, how does the spirit of murder operate? Well, it operates at many levels, many stages, and it springs up in subtle ways. Now that's what Jesus is going to highlight here. And his point is, don't take it lightly. Because it's like a spiritual cancer that's very aggressive, a little bit of the spirit of murder, of anger. It will grow and spread rapidly if it's not resisted. Take it very seriously, because it will pervade your entire being. If yielded to it, take a while, but it will spread and touch every part of your life. Well, there's many stages of the spirit of murder. I'm going to give you just a, just a sentence on a bunch of the early stages defensiveness is rooted in the early stages of anger, which is the spirit of murder. You ask the guy, hey, you going to the meeting? The guy goes, what? I love God. I'm going to the meetings. I still do the Bible. The guy says, why? I just wanted a ride. I wasn't really going there. You touched a nerve of his anger. And Jesus is saying, this is everywhere. This early stirring of anger, being agitated easily with people, complaints versus gratitude. I mean, we all do it, but those are expressions of anger that we have to keep in check. We yield and stumble on those, but when we address it, we war against it. It doesn't grow. That cancer doesn't become aggressive and spread. A very common one in marriages, but in relationships is speaking with an angry tone, speaking in sarcasm instead of making your appeal with sincerity, speaking a negative issue, pointing out a negative issue, but in a sincere tone, a critical attitude, a pessimistic attitude is rooted in anger. You know that guy that just, I don't believe anything anymore about anybody or anything. Now it's good to be cautious, but the pessimist anger is moving in them and that's a dangerous problem. It, Jesus called it murder. It's the beginning of murder. Now if we call it anger again, we can blame it on our nationality. Well, you know, those Irish, that's how we are, or what you pick any nationality you want. They all say it because it's true of every nationality and Jesus says, no, don't sign that thing off so quickly. It's the spirit of murder. Be alerted. It's going to spread. You know, the guy that so many won't trust people at all because their hearts guarded and shut down. That's because of anger. That's bitterness, the beginning seeds of it. The refusal to be involved in things that are in the will of God for their life. You know, I've heard a few times over the years, I mean, just, it's actually kind of common these kinds of things, but it seems so, so ridiculous. You know, I remember talking to the guy and he says, I'm not going to go to the prayer room anymore. I know God sent me. I can't sit and be involved in the prayer room. I'm not going. An usher told me to move seats and told me to be quiet. I'm not going back no more. I go, I wouldn't throw out the will of God for my life. Because an usher told you to move seats. You know, the guy that says, I'm not coming to church no more because they made me park somewhere else. Well, there's a hundred examples that are that small all through society. That's anger. That's not just, well, I'm just annoyed that they told me no, and I'm going to just go on strike. That's the beginning of those are early stages of the spirit of murder that we call anger. It goes on and on. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 12 verse 15. This is one of the most insightful passages on anger or the spirit of murder because bitterness is the spirit of murder that's developed past kind of introductory anger. Bitterness is anger times two. It's developing. When you have bitterness, that cancer is really aggressive, causes really bad problems down the road. Well, even right then, because the emotions of anger now are being expressed in words followed up by actions. Now look what it says here in verse 15, looking diligently, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, looking diligently, less any root of bitterness spring up causing trouble. And by this many become defiled. Boy, this is a, this gives more insight into the spirit of anger, which is properly the spirit of murder. So what the writer of Hebrew says, he goes, number one, look, he says, look diligently because it's subtle. You won't see your own anger and bitterness easily. Others will see it in you and you'll see it in others, but you won't see it in yourself. You'll easily dismiss it as I'm a little bit annoyed or frustrated. When we think of our failures, we typically have flattering terms. I'm frustrated. I'm tired. I'm a little annoyed. But when we see it for what it is, it's anger and it's the spirit of murder. And the writer of Hebrew says, be very diligent because you won't see it readily and be diligent for two reasons. Number one, as a born again believer, you can come up short in your experience in the grace of God. I mean, you're born again, you're going to heaven. He's not saying you're not going to heaven. He's saying you won't have a vibrant heart. You'll have a dull and defiled spirit. And many believers are so accustomed to having a dull and defiled spirit. It doesn't trouble them. Their anger only troubles them when they have an explosion. When it gets to another level, they go, oh, you know, I had an outburst of anger. But the truth is they're living in anger all the time at a smaller level. And their defensiveness, their sarcasm, they're going on strike in relationships, they're unwilling to be involved in various things in the will of God for their life because they didn't, they didn't get their way in it or somebody bothered them a little bit. Those are all the spirit of anger that they're operating in. And beloved, it doesn't go away. And the writer of Hebrew said, number one, you could come up short in your experience in the grace of God as a born again believer. But number two, he goes, it's, it goes beyond that. Bitterness has a root. It has a root system that develops underground. You don't see it. It has tentacles everywhere in your inner man. But it also springs up like a wild vine that all can see. The way that anger works at this developed stage called bitterness, there's a root system you don't see that influences your paradigms, your mindset, your emotions, your decision making process. But also this anger springs up and it manifests itself in your words, in your actions, in your decisions. And he says, it causes you trouble. Now anger doesn't just cause trouble when we go stand before God, it doesn't just cause trouble by causing our heart to be emotionally and spiritually in prison or just held stuck. When we get into anger, it causes trouble in many other arenas of our life. There are so many decisions that people make based on anger that they don't even know is anger. The things, many things they buy, the places they go, the houses they live in, the jobs they work at, the jobs they quit, the, again, the way they use money, time are related many times partially in angry responses and reactions against other things. And our life has many more complications rooted in this that we don't see. And Jesus is saying, would echo this, it causes you trouble at many levels. In your personal life, your circumstances, it can escalate to getting you in trouble with the law and it can get really escalate, it gets you in trouble with God in the ultimate sense. But he goes on and he says this, here's a really important part, he goes, this anger will defile, not just you in your spiritual journey, it will defile those around you. There are more people, I think probably the primary place human beings are defiled are in their homes, even in godly homes, meaning people who love Jesus. The way that the sarcastic tone that the husband speaks to the wife in a demeaning way, she answers back in sarcasm. The children, they grow up in this, they're being defiled and this whole way is being passed on to them. It becomes natural to them. And then they're defiled in their communication with one another, but they're defiled in their hearts, their hearts become imprisoned. I've seen many people who love Jesus, the way they talk to their children, the way they talk to one another, the way their family, their family culture is, permits bitterness as though it's normal through the defensive sarcasm and the put-downs that go on. And Jesus is saying, if you let this thing get into the verbal level, anger will escalate. And many people, they grow up in that kind of context and they're passing this on to their children, but their children listen to the way they talk to each other and the way they talk about other people. You know, again, the man says, well my wife doesn't mind that I talk to her that way. She's okay with it, but the Holy Spirit's not okay with it and it's impacting the children as well. Well, I'm not telling anybody else how I feel about that guy out there, I'm only telling my wife, but your children are hearing it and they're being defiled by the way you're talking about the guy at work. And they're growing up with a defiled spirit. So he's warning about the root and the fruit of bitterness, which is a, again, a development of the spirit of anger. Okay, paragraph E. I like how John the Apostle, 1 John 3.15, he calls this harboring bitterness, he calls it murder, because he wants us alerted. Because when we hear murder, we go, this is very serious, and Jesus says, I could not be more serious about this subject. It's so accepted in our personal lives and in our language and in our relationships, it is the spirit of murder. And Jesus is graciously revealing it. Now Satan is a murderer from the beginning, Jesus said in John 8. But here's what Satan wants to do. He wants to draw us into greater expressions of murder. He has us angry, but he wants the anger to accelerate. He wants it to grow to bitterness and hatred, but he wants it to go beyond that. He is the father of lies, a murderer from the beginning. His goal is to draw you into greater expressions of murder. That's his goal. He wants our weakness that we were born with, our sinful weakness related to anger. He wants our weakness to be turned into wickedness. That's his goal. But he can't do it if we don't cooperate with him. We have to say angry words to grow in anger. So he gives us a rationale why that's okay, and Jesus says, don't go there. Well, all the other believers do it, and Jesus says, yeah, they're still in prison spiritually. They don't even know it. They're so used to it. Let's look at top of page two. Let's get a, spend a moment on the principles. I've already said it all, and so I won't go and say it all again, which is my gift. Repetition. Principle one, Jesus said, whosoever is angry is in danger of judgment in the courts of God and the courts of men. They go, and the word danger, put the word you're vulnerable for the problem to escalate and for the circumstances to be affected in your life, your money, your job, your relationships, your family, your soul. It will escalate. He says in your day, he uses the word danger four times. You're vulnerable to greater trouble if you don't repent of it. If you repent of it, you can reverse the whole thing. But if you make light of it because everybody else does it, you're in danger of an escalating trouble that will affect your circumstances. Okay, look at number three. There is a strong relationship between what we say and how our emotions develop. If you talk in sarcasm and criticism and you vent it to the guy or about the guys to somebody else, your emotions will become defiled by your own words. Even if nobody catches you, you will become defiled by it. It will affect you. What we do and what we say opens the door in the realm of the spirit for blessing or for trouble. Okay, principle number two, Jesus says, it's more than just having anger unchecked. If it escalates to where you speak it with your words, paragraph B, principle two, the danger will increase is what he's saying. The danger will increase. Again it will affect your decision making. Anger affects, again, the things we buy, where we go, how we make decisions. We're responding. I mean, we're reacting to so many things because of other things rooted in anger. It's very pervasive and complicated. It's layered inside of us. Anger grows in us. Principle two here, others are wounded. Relationships are broken. Our body, our even sicknesses, not all sicknesses, but many sicknesses are rooted to anger being spoken. Now, number one, he said, if you say raka or fool, again, these were just insulting words of contempt. Again, much of this happens inside of marriages, within side of family units. It opens the door for defilement. Let's go to the top of page three, principle number three. Jesus said, here's the answer. He gives two answers and principle three and then principle four, he goes, the first answer act in the opposite spirit, act in the opposite instead of anger, go to the person that you vintage your anger on, or you were sarcastic or you had an angry tone. It doesn't have to be an explosion. You spoke to them in an angry tone with Sarka. Go to them. If they're troubled by it, go to them and humble yourself and ask for forgiveness and tell them what you did was wrong. Now they won't always forgive you, but most people will. Most will say, Hey, you know what? That's great. And it actually frees their heart up and helps them. Now, you're not responsible for everyone that's mad at you. There were a lot of people mad at Jesus and Jesus did nothing wrong, but some of the people that are mad at us, we stirred them up by our angry tone, our sarcasm and our words. Those are the ones we're responsible to go and to make right paragraph to Jesus said, leave your gift at the altar. That's amazing. Your gift is an expression of your love for God. You're bringing a gift to the altar, which meaning it's in your, uh, you're giving it to God. You're expressing your worship. You're giving him your money, your time, your adoration. You're going to the prayer room. You're going to the worship service. You're giving your money. You're going on the ministry outreach. All of those are included in this idea of your presenting your gift to God because you love him. And God says, well, you have to understand your relationship to me and your worship of me is connected to the angry words you speak to people. They are not different subjects. The way you talk to me and the way you talk to them, there needs to be a parallel of humility in talking in both ways. And if you violate it, just make it right. That's what the grace of God is for. Just admit it, acknowledge it to God, acknowledge it to them and move on. But don't move on without admitting it. I mean, this is amazing. Jesus said, I don't even want you to go to worship me until you go solve this. Solve it right now. There is the utmost urgency in this. Now, how do you repent? I don't have this on the notes, but it's real simple. When you repent, you don't go to somebody and say, if I hurt you, I'm sorry. That is not repentance. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. What that means is that if you're emotionally weak and you can't bear my words, I'm sorry about that. That is not repentance at all. Here's what repentance is. It's not if I hurt you, it's since I sinned against you, I'm sorry. Big difference. Now, in my personal experience, somebody taught me that and my wife, we've been married 35 years, at day one. From the beginning of our marriage, someone told us, we said, hey, sounds good to us. They told us the rule, don't say if, say since. Since I sinned against you. So we agreed that that's how we would confess our failures to each other, particularly in our speech, particularly in our tone. So if I, which I've never done it, because we made the agreement from day one. But if I went to her and said, sweetheart, if you're hurt, I'm sorry, that would just be ridiculous. I mean, she would look at me like, I'll pay for your counseling if that's how you're offering yourself to me. I mean, that would go nowhere. Because again, back when we were in our early days, someone taught us that and we bought it and I've, and I, 35 years later, I would tell you that is critical. Now when we have our two sons, which are in their thirties now, but when they were five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, all the way through the years, when I would speak to my sons in an angry tone, I would the best I know every time, because I made it a, uh, I said, hold me accountable. If I don't, if I miss this one time, say it to my wife and my children. And we all made the agreement to each other. I would look them right in the eyes at five years old, kneel down and say, Luke, Paul, the names of our two sons, I'd say, I am sorry. I sinned against you. Now my kids, they got that. I don't care. You know, let's go play ball. I go, no, it's important. I sinned against you. Okay, cool. I mean, it was kind of hard to get them to take it serious. Few times they did. And, you know, a few times they go, yeah, well, we know that. That was obvious to us. But then I required that they said that to mom and to me when they spoke in a wrong tone. Speak in a wrong tone, oh, no, we're going to have a family meeting. What a drag. The family meeting is worse than the penalty. We're going to stop everything and talk for five minutes. You're going to look mom in the eye and you're not going to say, mom, I'm sorry if your feelings got hurt. Uh-uh. Mom, I'm sorry. I sinned against you by what I said a few minutes ago. And when they talked to each other, we required that in our home. And we would sit and just have a little five minute timeouts. And we would do that. And we decided to have a culture where we dealt with anger. We all have anger and we all sin, but we had a culture where we were committed to dealing with anger in our family. And if I sinned at home by talking about a guy at the office, I would look at my boys in the eye and say, dad just sinned by saying that. That was wrong that I said that. And on occasion or two, I said, you know what, I'm going to go tell the guy I did that and I'm going to be right about this. And they go, okay, we think you should. They liked it. Now, the key is not if I, if you're hurt, but since I sinned. So I taught that. And so then the next guy comes along and says, okay, that sounds good. I'll do the sense principle. Since you stirred me up with all of your carrying on, then I spoke in an angry tone to you. I go, no, you can't use sense that way. You can't blame shift. You can't start your repentance by telling her since you got all stirred up, I got stirred up that Adam tried that in the garden with Eve. When God came, he said, Hey, the woman you gave me stirred me up. God says, I don't buy it. You're guilty. No blame shifting because we can't deal with anger. If we blame shift, we have to acknowledge it. It's not a big deal. I mean, anybody can do it. It's not mysterious. It's just one, two, three. It's just a matter of doing it. Let's go to the top of page four. So now the, so Jesus, the first solution, he said, be proactive, deal with it in the opposite spirit. Instead of anger, go in humility. That's the opposite spirit. Instead of speaking the angry words, retract them, own them and repent of them before the person or the angry tone. Now number four, Jesus said, I'm going to give you one more piece of advice. He tells a story and the, and the meaning of the story, it was again, a story of which every detail does not have a spiritual symbolic meaning. So don't try to figure out who the judges and where, where the, who this guy is of that he's giving a normal story in an economic situation in Israel of his day. And the message is this deal with this immediately. Don't let anything that, which was cut the same point he made the verse before he says it again, deal with it immediately. And he says, I want you to know you won't get out of prison spiritually until every vestige of the unresolved, resolved anger is dealt with in your life. You'll still be defiled and dull in your heart. But the good news about that is that if we will deal with it, that doesn't mean it's all gone that we never have anger. It means that everything we know to do, we're declaring war on the negative. We'll never in this age be free where we don't have an angry thought. But if we declare war on it, we could have a vibrant heart. If we, with honesty and humility, we call it what it is every time we do it, or the best that we know. We won't catch it every time, but whenever we're aware of it, if we say to God that was sinful, what I just did, what I just told him about that person, that was sinful. I can't, I don't want to talk this way. Or that was sarcastic, or that was demeaning, or that was defensive. Call defensiveness the seed of anger and release it in your own soul. Repent of it that way. Well, that's just how I am. I'm a little sensitive. No, you're a little bit angry. You are a little sensitive too, but you're angry. Don't make a big deal out of it. We're all angry. It's not that big of a revelation. The whole human race is angry. Deal with it and you won't be in prison. Oh, okay. Okay. So, the analogy, Jesus again, he says, agree with your adversary quickly. He says, this guy lent $1,000 to some other guy. The guy didn't pay him back the $1,000 or whatever the amount is, that's a made up number. So the creditor's going to the judge, and Jesus said, if that creditor goes to the judge, things are going to escalate. You're still going to owe the money, but you're going to be in a far more difficult situation to pay it back. Pay the guy now. You're guilty. Pay it now. You will have to pay it, but it will be a far more complicated situation later if you delay it. But the good news is, is that if you do address the issue of the unresolved anger, you can get out of prison, meaning you can have a vibrant heart in God. You can walk in the blessedness of which Jesus said eight times in a row. The adversary is the unresolved anger. That's what the adversary is. We have unresolved anger. We're harboring it in ourselves. Jesus said, deal with it. It will keep you in prison. And we have anger that we have vented towards people. Deal with that because that relationship will be in prison, you in that relationship, and you'll free that brother's heart up. Now there's whole other times where Jesus is talking to the brother who's hurt by the insulting word. There's other teachings for that guy on another day. But for today, Jesus is saying, take responsibility for contributing to his hurt. And if you do that with urgency now, you will solve the problems far easier, and you will avoid many kinds of danger of difficult circumstances that are rooted to anger that you can't even tie back to anger. Because again, it changes your thought processes, your paradigms, the people you meet, the places you go, the things you buy are all influenced by good and bad emotions we have related to anger or resisting anger. While the Lord's offering his grace to us, and he goes, because I died on the cross, I will freely forgive all of you, and I will free you from the power of this if you want me to. And one more thing, I'll just say this in closing. I don't have the verse written in there, but Ephesians 4.26 says, don't let the sun go down on your anger. That was one of the commitments me and Diane made 35 years ago. We would not let the sun go down on our anger. We would deal with our anger in a very short amount of time, meaning we would talk about it to each other. We would confess it before the sun goes down. And of course, at IHOP, for the night watch, it's before the sun comes up. That's what you have to do. Deal with the anger before the sun comes up. Amen. Let's stand before the Lord. Let's ask him to talk to us about this very important subject. Now again, it's like, oh man, I mean, if you don't feel bad a little bit, you're not listening. You're not listening. Everybody struggles with anger. But if you think I have mercy on you, I don't because I've had to go through this three times in a row. Once last night and twice this morning, I am just like, ah, I have to get alone and repent. For real. I'm not, I'm not joking. This has like been brutal on my carnal heart, which is a good thing. Let's ask the Lord to talk to us for real. I'm going to just take maybe one minute. I would just invite you all to just close your eyes for a moment, just so you're not distracted and ask the Holy Spirit, show me, show me, help me, cause me to remember before I bring my offering to you. Give me a name, a face, a picture. Start in your marriage if you're married. Start with your siblings, your parents and work your way out. Say, Lord, is there. If I spoke sarcastic, critical, have I vented? I want to go make it right. I want my heart free and I want them free. Holy Spirit, I ask you for living understanding right now. Father, I ask you for living understanding. Show me things I've, I've canceled out just because I'm mad and I don't even know I canceled out. I missed the out on just cause I got mad. Restore it to me and I'll repent of that anger. Lord, even now, we ask you come and touch our heart. Create in me God, a clean heart. Oh truth in my inner, would you search me and know me God? Renew a right spirit with the joy of knowing you. Give me clean hands and a pure heart. If you would like prayer for anything, physically, financially or related to this message, go ahead and come on up to these front lines. Search me and know me God. Lord, I ask you touch my heart even now. All the compromises. See if there be any wicked way in me. Come search me God. Jesus, here I am. Come and touch my heart. Lord, here I am. Lay your hand on my heart. Lay your hand on my heart. I want out of prison and my heart locked. I want freedom in my heart. Bless me with the spirit of conviction. Lord, I want to walk upright in your sight. I want to be healed. I want to take the key. I want to be healed. Give me the spirit of conviction. I'm going to ask others in the room just to come up and pray for two people. One minute a piece. Anyone in the room. I need about 50 of you to come on up. Take two minutes. Spirit of conviction. Give me an undivided heart. Lord, release your glory even now I ask. Lord, release your glory. Release your praise. The truth and the inner man of the Father. Search me and know me. I want to walk upright. Lord, I say yes to you. To your grace in this issue. Lord, I say yes. I say yes to your grace. I say yes to your leadership Jesus. I will follow your leadership. For you lead me in the paths of righteousness. Thank you that you will cleanse me. You will heal me even now Lord. I say yes to your grace. Open up my heart to you God. So wash me and I will be clean. Cleanse me and I will be set free. I'll be made whiter than snow. Restore to me joy. The joy of my salvation. Oh Lord. Create in me a clean heart. Search me and know me. Create in me a clean heart. I want to live freely. Create in me a clean heart. Search me and know me.