“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.
The more than a century of feuding between the McCoys of Kentucky and Hatfields of West Virginia is believed to have its origins in a dispute over a pig.
The real origins of the feud are lost in time. There were apparently already bad feelings between the two families in 1878, when a dispute over the ownership of two razor-backed hogs in a Hatfield pigsty provoked the first recorded incident of violence. The McCoys, upset when a court decision over the pigs went against them, ambushed a group of Hatfields who were deer hunting. No one was killed, but a few days later Staton Hatfield fired on two brothers, Sam and Paris McCoy, injuring one before he himself was killed by a single shot through the head, and the feud was on in earnest.
Pettiness, deceitfulness, misplaced anger and bitterness. So many stories could be told, and I know that everyone here has seen it all their life. You may remember an account I used as an illustration sometime back, about the two deacons who feuded about everything, and when one of them hung a peg on the back wall for the pastor to hang his hat on, it caused such a fight between them that the church split, and to this day, those two Baptist churches are referred to in that town as “Peg Baptist” and “Anti-Peg Baptist”. A sad, sad state of affairs.
The preponderance of tales like this, and the evidence of wide-spread deception and petty feuding on every level of society, in every nation, culture and tribe, in every time, only serves to prove that Satan is an expert in what he does.
THE GREAT OPPORTUNIST
Satan is an opportunist. Not by choice. He has been reduced to that by Christ.
The last battle that Satan planned and set into motion, was when he deemed to rise above the Most High on the Throne of Heaven.
It was a short battle, apparently. Jesus saw him falling like lightning from Heaven.
Maybe you remember seeing movie scenes where a big-muscled bouncer carries some rowdy drunk by the collar and the back of the belt to the door of the tavern and unceremoniously tosses him into the muddy street outside.
Kinda like what happened to Satan, except the speed was like lightning.
Since then, as evil as he is, he has needed God’s permission to touch God’s people.
Now it’s true that those who don’t belong to God are his, and he doesn’t need permission to touch them; but he doesn’t have to plan and implement. He has them and can use and abuse them freely, and he does. Although he is still limited to a degree, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.
But he can’t plot against us, because he needs God’s permission to touch our lives. (Job 1:12, 2:6) He can’t make a plan and then come and exercise that plan of his own accord, because yes, even he, is accountable to God and cannot act against God’s people without permission; and when he gets that permission, it is for God’s ultimate glory, and for the eternal good of the Christian, as we see at the end of the book of Job.
So Satan is an opportunist, looking for any little crack or foothold we give him in our ignorance or self-pride, and he drives in a wedge. Tempting the old man, trying to catch us in weakness, trying to entice us to yield to the flesh and then act out the desires of the old nature. That’s called sin, and I’m sure he dances with glee every time it works.
LYING AND ANGER
No word of scripture is an accident. No word is there thoughtlessly or un-purposefully. So we need to spend some time considering why Paul would admonish his readers to put away lying and speak truth to one another, and then tell them to deal rightly with their anger, in the context of warning them not to give the enemy of their souls a foot-hold.
Taking in the wide shot, the first thing we see is that they are both products of self-pride. Self-conceit. The very sin that got Satan expelled from Heaven in the first place.
Whatever ‘categories’ we give to lying or anger (and here I’m speaking of sustained anger), pride is at the base. Self is the supposed beneficiary.
The Bible has a lot to say about pride and the evil thereof, because it is pride that divides, and God does not divide, but unites. It is pride that exalts the flesh, and God says that the exalted will be brought low. It is pride that seeks only the good of self, and God says it is the servant who will receive the greatest reward.
So remember as we go, that pride is the foundation these things are built on.
LYING
There are many ways to lie. Paul uses the word falsehood. That word covers a wider scope. When I say, ‘don’t lie‘, the first thing that would come to your mind is that you shouldn’t tell a lie; speak an untruth. But we can lie with a glance. We can lie by our silence. We can lie with a nod of the head or the shifting of the feet. We can lie by holding back information that another is not even aware he needs.
And the thing that makes falsehood not only detestable but something that should be considered impossible, is that we have been joined spiritually to the One who cannot lie, and therefore for the Christian to be deceptive is contrary to the very nature that God has imparted to him.
Titus 1:2 says, “God, who cannot lie” and in Psalm 51:6 David declares, “Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being”
Lying is diametrically opposed to the very character of the God who has saved us and given us life, and it is opposed to the very Life that is in us. More, it is diametrically opposed to the nature of our relationship to one another. We are members one of another, says Paul, just like body parts are all members of a single organism. How can one part presume to deceive another, and expect no ill consequences?
“It’s ok, hand, go ahead and stick your finger in that empty light socket, the electricity is turned off”. Nope, no good.
We wouldn’t instruct our feet to walk barefoot on broken glass and say, ‘go ahead feet, it‘s not really glass, it‘s soft plastic (if we’re in our right mind), and we wouldn’t try to convince our neck that the water we’re about to dive into is 8 feet deep instead of 18 inches; Christians deceiving one another is just as absurd if not more so. And infinitely more damaging, since it is a spiritual problem and not merely physical.
We are to speak the truth to one another. This is so very important, because the world does not have the truth. This whole world system is based on a lie and lying, and it is God’s desire that they be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim 2:4).
Lying seems to be a way of life for many people. We lie at the drop of a hat. A 1992 issue of Daily Bread quoted the book The Day America Told the Truth, saying that 91 percent of those surveyed lie routinely about matters they consider trivial, and 36 percent lie about important matters; 86 percent lie regularly to parents, 75 percent to friends, 73 percent to siblings, and 69 percent to spouses.
This should never exist in the Christian church.
I found a poem that very aptly defined the progression and damage of falsehood and decided to share it with you here before I go on. The author is unknown.
First, somebody told it,
Then the room couldn’t hold it,
So the busy tongues rolled it
Till they got it outside.
Then the crowd came across it,
And never once lost it,
But tossed it and tossed it,
Till it grew long and wide.
This lie brought forth others,
Dark sisters and brothers,
And fathers and mothers--
A terrible crew.
And while headlong they hurried,
The people they flurried,
And troubled and worried,
As lies always do.
And so evil-bodied,
This monster lay goaded,
Till at last it exploded
In smoke and in shame.
Then from mud and from mire
The pieces flew higher,
And hit the sad victim
And killed a good name.
So if these things exemplify the sharp division between the world and God; darkness and light, falsehood and truth; how determined should we be to manifest His Light and His Truth in our lives and among one another ~ and refuse to give the devil an opportunity?
ANGER
Next, and remember that its base is pride, Paul concedes that there is a valid kind of anger. There are times to be angry. Jesus was angered at expressions of unbelief, and at the injury unbelief caused to the innocent. When He stood in the synagogue and saw that the Pharisees were not at all concerned with the suffering of the man with the withered hand, but only in trapping Jesus, He was angry. Angry at their unbelief and their lack of compassion. My guess would be that He was also angry at the sin that had them so deceived.
I remember a few years ago when we lived in Del Norte, I was washing some dishes one evening when Jacquelynn, who at the time was about 11, came to me holding her dead hamster and crying her eyes out.
Her heart was broken and because of that my heart was broken. As she went away to find a shoe box to bury her hamster in, an anger welled up in me against sin itself as the thought came to me, ‘the wages of sin is death’. ~ that death came into the world originally through sin, and it angered me that this innocent little girl had to have her first experience of death and loss because of it.
So if I, an evil man, can be angry at sin because of its evil fruit, then I have to believe that our perfect and sinless Lord must be infinitely more angry at it than I.
There are times when anger is justified, understandable, even called for. But sustained, seething anger is prideful. Because unwillingness to let go of anger indicates unwillingness to forgive, and ultimately, it says ‘I am more important than the person I am angry with, because they are not deserving of grace or forgiveness’.
Pride.
Sustained anger destroys the one who is angry. Buechner wrote:
“Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
Anger leads to murder. Maybe not physical murder; the object of the anger may never come to physical harm ~ he or she may never even find out that you’re angry. The murder takes place in the heart. There is a progression (or perhaps I should say, a digression). Anger, Hatred, Bitterness, Loathing, Murder.
Do I need to point out that unrelieved and sustained anger, like falsehood, is diametrically opposed to the character of the God we are joined to?
With some people I might. There are many who think that is exactly what God is like. Angry, vengeful, wrathful, vicious.
That’s why I detest even some of the innocent and well-intentioned but shallow expressions of God that Christians make publicly. On billboards, bumper stickers, t-shirts, forwarded emails…
…may I suggest something to you here before we go on? We’ve found ourselves in a day of the instant message, the convenience of email…of rapidly reading a message we’ve received, getting a favorable first impression of it, and without any careful thought given, just clicking a mouse button and sending that message on its merry way to everyone we know…who will then send it on to everyone they know…
Think about this if you will; how simple it has become for the common man to communicate around the world in a flash.
So please bear with me and let me give you a small bit of counsel concerning that ability; please, please, Christians, be careful what you forward. Think before clicking, and be careful that you are not sending a message to someone that belies how you really feel and what you really believe.
There is one I have received several times over the past few years from different people and always from Christians, and it is comprised of little bumper-sticker-type sayings attributed to God…things that He has not said in scripture. I’ve even seen these things on cards in a Bible book store.
Examples: “If you think it’s hot here…” -God “What part of ‘Thou shalt not…’ didn’t you understand?” - God “Keep using My name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer.” - God
Some of you may remember seeing those either on your computer or at the store. If you read them and think about the spirit behind them, you will see that they portray God as angry, as vindictive, as legalistic and even arrogant.
Jesus said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” And the times I see Jesus angry in the scriptures, it is at deliberate unbelief and lack of compassion. Never do we see a picture of a God who holds a grudge. He chastens, forgives, reinstates, blesses. Over and over again.
His forgiveness and loving kindness and patience are evident throughout the Old Testament and in the New we see Jesus meeting Peter on the sea shore, giving him breakfast, and loving him back into fellowship, then giving him a commission.
The greatest expression of God’s willingness to forgive and His desire to redeem and restore relationships is in the cross of Christ and His resurrection.
As members of one another, the same willingness and the same desire should be visibly evident among us.
Another kind of anger that is sinful is an habitual outburst at the slightest inconvenience or imagined slight. What we generally call a bad temper.
We’ll occasionally hear someone excuse this type of behavior as just an element of their cultural heritage. “He just got my Irish up”. Give me a break. You were born and raised in the United States, you don’t have an accent, you don’t even have red hair for goodness’ sake! Call it sin and repent!
Bad temper, sudden outburst of anger; they come from pride! “What right does he have to say that to me?”
“Where does he get off, thinking he should sit in that seat and not me?” “She waited on that lady first, when it should have been obvious that I was there first!”
Pride. Self above others. Diametrically opposed to the character of the God we’re joined to.
Be angry, says Paul, but only at the things God would be angry at. And even then, don’t hold on to it. Forgive and extend love. Because you’re members of one another.
DON’T GIVE THE DEVIL AN OPPORTUNITY
The crimes that surprise us and catch us off guard the most, are crimes of opportunity. The unlocked door. The bicycle laying near the sidewalk. The clerk with his back turned. The lone man near the dark alley.
And perhaps the most detestable among criminals are the opportunists. The ones who go about looking for chances. Evil is on their mind or right under the surface constantly so they don’t miss an opportunity to attack. To sneak. To deprive. To harm.
That’s what Satan is like. So Paul warns;
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.“
He is an opportunist, believer, but if you are aware, then that characteristic becomes your advantage.
As I said in the beginning, he can’t touch you without permission. So if you guard your heart and mind, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and submit your members as instruments of righteousness, and practice Godly characteristics among the brethren, laying aside falsehood and speaking the truth in love, and dealing rightly with anger so as not to give the devil an opportunity…
…then that is like, locking the door. Putting the bicycle away in the shed. Staying alert by the cash register. Staying in the company of friends and away from the dark alleys.
Do you realize that there is power implied in this exhortation? In saying ‘do not give the devil an opportunity’, intrinsic in that admonition is the implication that we have power over him, to deny him.
He can be in the room. He can be at the next chair at the table. But if he is not given an opportunity he is powerless.
Now let me be clear here, that Satan himself, as a created being, can only be in one place at a time. But he has his minions, and to be frank, sometimes we do his work for him without any help from the spirit world at all. We just listen to our own sinful nature and do the damage to ourselves.
But in those times he wins, nonetheless.
However we do have the power to shut him out and shut him down, when by the renewal in the spirit of our mind and the putting on of the new self which is created in the likeness of God, we pursue holiness and truth, and speak it amongst ourselves with forbearance and forgiveness and love.
June 15, 2003
PIKEVILLE, Ky.--A pen and ink sealed the end of Appalachia’s most infamous bloody feud instead of a shotgun and bullets.
Descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families gathered Saturday to sign the truce, marking a largely symbolic and official end to a feud that had claimed at least a dozen lives from the two mountain families.
’’We ask by God’s grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America,’’ says the truce, signed by more than 60 descendants.
Reo Hatfield of Waynesboro, Va., came up with the idea as a proclamation of peace.
The broader message it sends to the world, he said, is that when national security is at risk, Americans put their differences aside and stand united. If these two feuding families can come together, anyone can, he said. - (Article copied from CNN.com website)
Do not give the devil an opportunity in your own life, believer. He finds too many laying along the way as it is.
Here, two families that fought and killed each other for over 100 years, made peace for the sake of sending a message to their country in the spirit of patriotism.
How much more should we, as believers in Christ and filled with His Spirit, be diligent to relate to one another as those made in the likeness of God, who cannot lie, and who says of Himself that He is filled with compassion and mercy?
