KILL OR BE KILLED
Part 2-Feeding the Beast
Genesis 4:7, “Sin is crouching at your door.”
October 14, 2007
Pastor Brian Matherlee
INTRODUCTION
I heard the report of two brothers. They came from about the most perfect home you could come from. They were involved in a group doing volunteer work for a prominent leader and it required them to give of their own time, talent and resources.
In the course of their work they each presented a finished project but one brother’s was approved and the other’s was not. The older boy had held back some. It wasn’t his best and when his little brother received praise for the effort he had put forth and the sacrifice he made he couldn’t stand it. Everything within him turned on his brother and when cautioned by the leader he disregarded his advice. In the course of time he couldn’t stand the praise of another and he murdered his brother.
Of course, this is the true story of Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve. (Read Genesis 4:1-8)
Have you ever heard of the 7 deadly sins? Of the 7 there are 4 that feed the beast of full-blown sin. They can be sin in and of themselves but I see the 4 we will talk about today as the first chapters in the devil’s playbook. Just like God told Cain, God tells us that these things are crouching at our doors.
1. Anger
a. A young girl who was writing a paper for school came to her father and asked, "Dad, what is the difference between anger and exasperation?" The father replied, "It is mostly a matter of degree. Let me show you what I mean."
With that the father went to the telephone and dialed a number at random. To the man who answered the phone, he said, "Hello, is Melvin there?" The man answered, "There is no one living here named Melvin. Why don’t you learn to look up numbers before you dial"
"See," said the father to his daughter. "That man was not a bit happy with our call. He was probably very busy with something and we annoyed him. Now watch...." The father dialed the number again. "Hello is Melvin there?" asked the father. "Now look here!" was the heated reply. "You just called this number and I told you that there is no Melvin here! You’ve got lot of guts calling again!" The receiver slammed down hard. The father turned to his daughter and said, "You see, that was anger. Now I’ll show you what exasperation means. “He dialed the same number, and when a violent voice roared, "Hello!" The father calmly said, "Hello, this is Melvin. Have there been any calls for me?"
b. Ephesians 4:26, 27 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
c. Not all anger is sin. It is the motivation and expression of anger that makes the difference.
i. Jesus became angry with the disciples on occasion and expressed it. He became angry at the money changers in the temple taking advantage of the people and he took action. But these were not sinful motives or actions.
ii. God’s anger came upon the rebellious people of Israel and Judah in 2 Chronicles 24.
d. If my anger is motivated by my hurt pride, my greed, my envy it is sin. If my anger is motivated by revulsion to sin or injustice, for example, then it is not sin unless expressed improperly.
e. Anger is involved with most of the other sins we will talk about today.
f. It’s important to understand your anger. If you want to uncover the source of your anger use AHEN.
i. When you see Anger (the “A”) it is usually covering a
ii. Hurt (the “H”) If you peek under that Hurt, you’ll see you had an
iii. expectation (the “E”)And if you look under that expectation, you’ll find a
iv. need – the “N”
2. Pride
a. A woman came to confess her sin of pride at the altar. As the pastor listened she explained how she couldn’t help but coming into church every week feeling she was the prettiest woman in church. The pastor reassured her that she didn’t need to repent of sin since in her case it was only a horrible mistake.
b. What is pride? Inordinate self-esteem; self-absorption; unwillingness to submit (rebellion); unable to be taught; desire for supremacy.
c. Isaiah 14:13, 14, “You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
d. Story of Belshazzar in Daniel 5
3. Envy
a. Desiring what others are or have; inability to rejoice for other’s blessings without wishing you had it yourself; “it’s not fair” mentality.
b. D.L. Moody tells the fable of a pheasant that was envious of another that could fly better than he could. One day this pheasant saw a hunter with a bow & arrow and said to him, "That pheasant flying right above you would provide great food if you could shoot him down." The man said, "Well, I could shoot him down but I have no feathers for my arrows.” So the first pheasant pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot but missed his rival. So the envious bird said, "Try again, try again!" and he pulled out another feather and another. After an hour of shooting, the pheasant was out of feathers and said with great indignation, "You worthless hunter, now you have no food because you’re such an awful shot." The hunter looked at the featherless pheasant & said, "Who says I have no food?" Envy’s greatest victim is the one who envies.
c. Matthew 27:18, [Pilate] knew it was out of envy that they [the Jewish leaders] had handed Jesus over to him.
i. Envy is what killed Jesus.
ii. If the people weren’t going to follow them then Jesus wasn’t going to have a following either…so they killed him.
d. Envy insists on keeping up with the Joneses Ecclesiastes 4:4, “And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor.”
e. James 3:16 tells us, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”
4. Greed
a. Insatiable desire for things; money on the brain.
b. In Dante’s Inferno the residents of Hell are being punished for the deadly sins that characterized their runaway lives. The picture drawn for greed is an image of a person in Hell with his head pushed down in the dirt with a caption saying, “I have turned my back on heaven.” (Randy Rowland, "Sins We Love," p. 134)
c. Greed tells God that we don’t trust him to provide for what we need.
i. The Israelites did this in the desert when they tried to gather more manna than God had instructed.
ii. Achan did this when he took some of the possessions from Jericho God had told the Israelites to destroy. (He told them this because He didn’t want them becoming satisfied with things that wouldn’t last and these things were for future use and benefit of the entire nation by being placed in the temple treasury).
iii. The Rich Young Ruler did this when he walked away from the invitation of Jesus to sell what he had and follow him.
iv. Ananias and Sapphira didn’t trust God when they sold property and only brought a portion of the money while claiming it was all the money.
CONCLUSION
There’s an old story about a man in Africa who had to sell his house to a wealthier man to whom he owed money. The man agreed to sell the entire house except the rights to a peg that was beside the door. The odd request was granted and the sale was completed. After a couple of weeks a dead animal was discovered hanging from the peg to the house. The wealthy man began to remove it when the previous owner, waiting nearby, stopped him and reminded him that the peg was his. Of course the smell worsened and the wealthy man and his family moved out and gave the house back to the poor man. The poor man removed the animal and moved back into his house.
All the devil needs is a peg to hang something on.
Anger
Pride
Envy
Greed
Is there APEG in your life the devil has claimed?
