Father, I pray like George Gillespie did as a Westminster divine, as he was taking notes and his notes said one word, two words only, more light, more light. Lord, we need the enlightenment of your Holy Spirit so that we have something very, very useful to communicate. And we ask for your help in the name of Jesus, amen. I just want to review one part of what I said last week, and that is about Genesis chapter 9 and the institution of capital punishment. In my recording, though, I said that there were three provisions made because of the perversity of man's nature. And as I was listening to the recording, I said, prior to the fall, I meant prior to the flood. That means pre-deluvian and not pre-lapsarian is what the theologians say. And there were three institutions given. There was a propagation of life and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And verse seven, and you be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein. And number two, the sustenance of life. Genesis eight, verse 22, while the earth remains seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 9 to be in verse 3 and number 3 which leads us into the sixth commandment the protection of life and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens Genesis 9 and Verses five and six, and the promise was, or the command was, and surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require at the hand of every beast, will I require it at the hand of every beast. In other words, if even an animal was to take the life of a human, that animal must be put to death, which we still do very well in this country. It's a second part that we have become very lax in. And at the hand of man, and even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man, who so sheds man's blood. By man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man." In studying the penalty for the violation of the Sixth Commandment, I want to continue in this next slide, Michael, and talk about how this is carried on in the Mosaic legislation. And there is a footnote to this. We do not equate the United States with a nation of Israel. Oftentimes, you'll hear people praying for our country. What verse do they continually bring up? 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. But we want to be very, very careful the two are not synonymous. However, when it comes to this legislation that was enacted in the Mosaic legislation, some of the things that I am about to say have very good foundations for what I'm trying to press on you as we get to Romans 12. In studying the penalty for the violation of the Sixth Commandment and the Mosaic legislation, we are not equating Israel with this nation. But there are a number of judicial laws that establish how seriously the taking of another human is, that further emphasizes how seriously the sin is, and how the accent falls open upon man's being made in the image of God. It's a reason for the execution of the death penalty. John Murray, a book I told you that I was using last week, is called Principles of Conduct. A book, by the way, as long as I can remember, Trinity Ministerial Academy, the School of Theology in Grand Rapids, where Greg Nichols and Sam Waldron taught there and in the seminary as well, is usually required reading for ethics. It's a superb book, and the chapter is called The Sanctity of Life. John Murray wrote this, the reason given for the exacting of such a penalty, or if we will, the reason for the propriety of execution on the part of man is one that has permanent relevance and validity. This was given in the Noahic covenant, the three provisions. This is before the giving of the moral law and it applies to all people of all nations at all times that a life must be given for a life if murder is committed. There is no suspension of the fact the man was made in the image of God. It is as true today as it was in the days of Noah. To this must be added the observation that in respect of our relations to men, no crime is as extreme and as concerns a person who is a victim, none is as irremedial as the crime of taking life itself. Why, if we are to love our neighbor as ourself, The opposite of that is to take his life. How do you enact love for your neighbor if you have murdered him? So the violation of the Sixth Commandment is defined as premeditated assault upon human life. A distinction is made in the Mosaic legislation between this and the manslayer. If, for example, an axe head flies off of an axe and strikes someone nearby so that he dies, this is not intentional murder. And so there was provision made for that as well. They had to have more than one witness. So there were merciful provisions in the Mosaic legislation in providing cities of refuge to which the manslayer might flee. And he needed to flee there because the next of kin, the person that is closest to the murdered victim becomes a manslayer and the cities of refuge was a place that a person could flee if he did not murder somebody intentionally until the time that he can be tried and they can determine was this in fact murder or was it unintentional. They were established so that the manslayer might flee there until he could stand before the congregation for judgment. And the congregation was given well-defined criteria by which to distinguish between the manslayer who was a murderer and the manslayer who slew his neighbor unwittingly without hatred or intent of harm. In the latter case, the congregation was to deliver the manslayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood and grant him the protection of the city of refuge, whereas in the former case, the manslayer who was a murderer was to be put to death at the hand of the avenger of blood. And you say, possibly that's cool and exacting, cold and hard, but it was the best thing that they could do because the reason is Israel was going into Canaan. Why you had to put murderers to death is because if they did not, the land would become polluted. By the giving of a life for a life and putting the murderer to death, it kept the land from being polluted. Numbers 35, 9 to 28 talk of this. These criteria clearly indicates the lines along the prohibition of the Sixth Commandment is to be interpreted. In number 35, 29, the things shall be for a statute and ordinance to you throughout your generations and all your dwellings. In verse 30, it says, whosoever kills any person The murderer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses, but one witness shall not testify against any person that he dies. It had to be at the witness of two or more witnesses. Moreover, you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death. but he shall surely be put to death. A life must be given for a life. There was no expiation. There was nothing else that could be done. The only one that could keep the death penalty from being enacted, as was in the case that came before this legislation, and in the case of David at the proxy murder of Uriah. but life must be given for the death of the murderer. Another life must be taken. Now, in Deuteronomy 21, this chapter treats of the beheading of the heifer. Next slide, Michael. And this is an amazing law, but it shows how serious the blood guiltiness was and that the murderer had to be put to death. If someone is found slain in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has struck him, these people find this body. They don't know who murdered him and they cry out to God, Lord, surely, You're not going to require it at our hand because we don't know who the murderer was. And God says in one sense that is true. However, to show how serious it was, they were to take a heifer and break its neck. Then your elders and your judges shall come out and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who was slain. So they find a body, they find which city refuge is closest to it, and it shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to this lame man shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the oak. The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. The priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near. For them the Lord your God has chosen to minister to him. and to bless in God's name and the Lord's name and according to their words shall every controversy and every assault be decided. All the elders of that city who are nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. They shall answer and say, our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Forgive, O Lord, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don't allow innocent blood among your people Israel. The blood shall be forgiven them. So you shall put away the innocent blood from among you when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord. Israel's legislation was to declare the righteousness of God to the nations surrounding them. So what did that have to do with the foreign nations that surrounded Israel? Israel was to be a light to the nations. Israel was to be an example to the nations. And Israel was to take blood guiltiness seriously as a witness to the heathen nations around them. Now, when moving forward to the New Testament, Paul says that the civil magistrate is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath upon him who does evil. And that is for this reason that out of conscience toward God, we must be in subjection. It is as the avenger of evil doing and the pursuance of that function that the government The head of state bears a sword. He's doing the work of the Lord in this. And Peter puts the matter no less clearly when he says that governors are sent by the Lord for vengeance on evildoers. First Peter 2 verse 14. The sum of this teaching is that When the civil magistrate executes just judgment upon the crimes committed within the sphere of his jurisdiction, he is executing not simply God's decree of will, he is not merely the providential instrument of God's wrath, but he is actively fulfilling the charge committed to him and it would be a violation of God's perceptive will not to do so. It was very serious. This applies today, Romans 13. How seriously are we taking this? Is blood being requited in this nation? In Romans 12.19, it says, avenge not yourself. This is the ethic for the individual Christian believer when he is individually wrong, he was to give place to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. But the ethic of the individual Christian believer is not to be imposed upon the state. Next slide. So the liberal theologians in this country who are putting the individual Christian ethic upon the state, The liberal theologians are cooperating with humanists and they are bringing innocent blood upon this land until Almighty God will come down upon America and requite the blood with his own hands. This really weighs on us this week, some of us. There was this trial. and a young college student that had been murdered, and an illegal is brought to trial and 10 counts are brought against him, he wasn't put to death. He was given life in prison. Brethren, this is not a life given for a life. Now, I was here before you and I taught on 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians. And we talked about what does it mean the imminent coming of our Lord. And we said that certain things had to take place before our Lord will come again. But in unrequited blood, we're not talking about the coming of the Lord, his second coming. We're talking about the coming of the Lord and judgment. And I can't find anywhere in the scriptures that there is a prophecy that God has promised to protect America when they go on and murder babies in the womb and people are given life in prison or worse, they are set free. And brethren, that scares me because God has not promised that judgment is not going to come. It depends on nothing. It is purely his patience that keeps this land from being judged. And it has happened in times past. You look at Puritan England and look at what they went through in 1665. They had a plague and many people died, a third of that country. And then they had the great fire of London in 1666. God can, in his own time, bring judgment upon this nation, and we should be those that are marked in Ezekiel 9, 4, of those who sigh and cry for the abominations of the land. And I humbly believe, as far as I have understood better men than me that have studied this out, that our course of safety and peace, according to Isaiah, come into your chambers and hide yourself until the indignation be passed, that if the people of God will stay humble before him, acknowledge the guilt they are worthy of, that we can be afforded some protection. Now, moving on, next slide. This is Roman numeral number two. The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because some of this was covered. Last week, I had mentioned J. G. Voss. Johannes Gerhardus Voss, who is a son of Gerhardus Johannes Voss, who many of the people in our seminary are very fond of, a theologian in Princeton Theological Seminary, but his son did a commentary on the Westminster Confession. It was the first that I know of that had been done since Thomas Ridgley's work was done in 1731. But the reason I'm telling you this is that he didn't cover so much the sins that are forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. So I will not spend much time here, but I will read this for your edification. This is the Westminster Larger Catechism. Question 136. What are the sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment? Answer, the sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment are all taken away the life of ourselves or of others, except, and we talked about this last week in the case of public justice, lawful war or necessary defense. The neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life is a violation of the Sixth Commandment. As well, sinful anger, and we discussed that as an application last week, and I will tell you this for Roman numeral three of this lesson, because I discussed sinful anger, passionate, sinful revenge last week, I thought it would be helpful if I talked about in the application this week to discuss what is righteous indignation and to help people out that are not clear about this. But we'll wait till we get to the application. The other sins forbidden are hatred, envy, and those are the very sins committed by Cain, jealous of his brother Abel because Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's was not. So he rose up to kill him. Desire of revenge, even the desire of revenge is forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. So we don't just include those acts of violence that issue in murder, we must guard the passions of our heart that even desire it immoderately, inordinately. There is an indignation that is not sinful, which we will go into. All excessive passions, distracting cares, a moderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations. And I'm just going to put a footnote here. Some of you are aware of a book called Decretion Directory by Richard Baxter. It's 900-some, two-column pages. It's amazing work, and it was done in a year and a half. and I could read part of it for you, but I'm just going to allow you if you want to look it up, it's possibly in our seminary library, on Baxter's comments on excessive gluttony. What's so amazing about this work is Richard Baxter, and he died in 1691, so this is 17th century understanding of medicine, and physicians and so on, and he traces out. It is an amazing work. And Baxter was well studied in this area, the effect that gluttony, excessive eating, will have upon the physical health and disease. But that's just a footnote. Provoking words, when you lash out, It's somebody or you provoke them with your words and anger, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and whatsoever tends to the destruction of the life of any." End quote. So Thomas Ridgely, in his commentary, said, This commandment may be broken otherwise than by taking away the life of our neighbor. A breach of it may be committed by a person in his heart when he has not an opportunity to execute his malicious designs. He can't carry them out. And he wouldn't if he has any fear of the ramifications of it, but he can murder. In his heart, of course, the strongest commentary on that, which our pastor, Ben Carlson, opened up to us is You can commit anger in your heart, and it is the same as murder, though not to the degree of the physical act. So the apostle says, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. Of this, we have an instance in wicked Ahab who hated Micaiah because he prophesied not good concerning him, but evil. It is more than probable that his hatred would have broken forth in the murder. Could he have laid hold on the least shadow of pretense which might have put a color on so vile an action? Jezebel also was guilty of this sin who threatened to murder the prophet Elijah. The Jews likewise were guilty of it who were filled with malice against our Lord and Savior as he walked the earth. I mean, how many times? in a gospel of John alone, that it says they sought to kill him until you reach the climax of this in, I believe, John 15, 24. And so, because I have come and done my works before him, I have made it manifest that they have not only hated me, but they have hated my father also. Moreover, while this sin reigns in wicked men, there are some instances of it even in good men. Thus, David carried his resentment too far against Nabal through a churlish and ungrateful man when he resolved in his passion not only to take away his life, which was an unjustifiable action, but to destroy the whole family, the innocent with the guilty, and God's merciful providence kept him from carrying it out. Through he was afterward sensible of his sin and his passionate resolution, and he blessed God for his preventing it by Abigail's prudent management. There is another example of sinful and unaccountable passion which cannot be excused from a degree of heart murder in Jonah. It was very angry because God was gracious and spared Nineveh on their repentance. In his fit of passion, he desires that God would take away his life. And he justifies his anger and, as it were, dares God to cut him off, which was as bad a frame as ever any good man was in. All this, too, took its rise, not rightly distinguishing between what God might do and would have done. had they not repented in what he determined to do, namely, to give them repentance and so to spare them. I say, rather than be counted a false prophet, which it may be was a groundless surmise, he was angry with God for sparing the Ninevites." So I'll finish a class talking about righteous indignation, righteous anger, And I am indebted to the discussions of Robert Louis Dabney. Dabney was a professor of systematic theology of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. There were two Union seminaries. The other was in New York. And what's amazing, if you consider what happened to the seminaries in the South compared to the North, The northern seminaries, many of them went liberal far before the southern seminaries. And Union Theological Seminary, even in the days of William Shedd in the late 19th century, William Shedd was the only sound theologian at Union Seminary in New York City. And I saw a article about Union Seminary, Union College in New York City has become completely corrupt and liberal. But Dabney, I first bought Discussions Volume 1. There are four of them. In 1984, it was one of the first books that I purchased at Trinity Book Service in Montville, New Jersey. And a lot of people that talk to me because I narrate, John, I want to love. John Owen's works and they say, I can't hardly read John Owen. I have to read it over and over and over again to be able to make sense. Well, that's what it is for me to read Dabney, but I just stick to it because there's so much helpful. teaching in especially Volume 1, though Volume 2 has a call to the ministry, and Volume 3 has one of my favorites, which my good friends Adam and Terry Clark are familiar with called spurious religious excitements and the subject of sympathy. But he's helpful to me here, but to make it useful to you, I really have to try to put it in some kind of a modern English that with the command of the English language, I mean, between Robert L. Dabney and John Murray on Romans, you want to increase your vocabulary. Just read everything they have written and you'll have a feeling like, boy, are we kind of dumbed down in our education in our day. Now, what is the problem in righteous indignation that we can fall into. On the one hand, there are people that call something righteous indignation, and they get on Facebook, and there's so much carnal passion, and they're defending what they suppose is the cause of Christ. But they go way over the bounds, and their, quote, righteous indignation is full of a passion that is actually sinful. But on the other hand, good Christians, humble Christians, but maybe with a tender conscience, have feelings that are a righteous indignation about what's going on around us in this country. And they're asking themselves, because they have a tender conscience, am I allowed to feel this passion? And so I thought it would be worthwhile spending the time that I have in this. Some claim that there is an inconsistency You know what the term imprecatory psalms are, an imprecation against the enemies and the evildoers. They are called the imprecatory psalms, and they read these psalms and they say, man, there's a different code of ethics in the Old Testament compared to the New. And so they say, while reading the former, the imprecatory Psalms and so on, that the stern language of the imprecatory Psalms, for example, of the 35th, the 39th, the 109th, the 137th, and the 139th, where the inspired man prays, let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul. Let them be as chaff before the wind. And let the angel of the Lord chase him, or, describes the persecuted churches, crying to her oppressors, happy shall he be that rewards you as you have served us. Or they protest, do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate you? Am I not grieved with those that rise up against you? I hate them with a perfect hatred. And now then they turn to the Sermon on the Mount and they read the words of our Lord. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. They thereupon imagine that there is a discrepancy between the code of ethics and the passion righteous in the Old Testament and the new. Or maybe there is even a contradiction between them and they adopt a mischievous conclusion that the two testaments contain two different codes of Christian ethics. and we're well instructed we know better than that and we know that they cannot be set against one another and then as you study these things out you will find it in the New Testament there are these statements that are much like the imprecatory Psalms in a way of the Old Testament. And if you study the Old Testament, you will find that the behavior of somebody who is practicing the Sermon on the Mount, that they are actually calling for mercy to their enemies. Let's give you some examples in Acts 8.20. Peter exclaims to Simon Magus, your money perish with you. In Acts 23, verse 3, Paul sternly denounces the persecuting chief priest. God shall smite you, you whited wall. And in 2 Timothy 4, 14, distinctly expresses a prayer for retribution upon Alexander the coppersmith. And of Ephesus, he did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works. And 2 Thessalonians 1, 7 to 10, Christ coming in flame and fire to take vengeance on them that do not know God. And this is a subject of admiration and all them that believe. But in the Old Testament, it also says, if you meet your enemy's donkey or his ox going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again, Exodus 23, 4. Israel was enjoined to practice tenderness towards foreigners, a duty ignored then by the pagan world, and especially towards Egyptians and their ruthless oppressors, Exodus 22, 21, Deuteronomy 23, 7. Job, the oldest of the patriarchs whose creed had been handed down to us, recognizes malice even when limited to the secret wishes is an iniquity. If I rejoice at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him, neither have I suffered my mouth by wishing a curse to his soul." Job 31, 29. And David, the author of nearly all the imprecatory Psalms, repudiates malice with holy abhorrence. If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me, yea, I have delivered him without cause as my enemy. Let the enemy persecute my soul and take it. And in Psalm 35, 13, he describes his deportment towards his enemies as in contrast with theirs towards him and in strict accordance with Christ's command. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting and so on, that all this was not mere profession. We have splendid evidence in the sacred history where he did display, David did display such astonishing forbearance and magnanimity towards Saul after the most vehement provocation, twice delivering his life from the indignation of his followers and singing his dirge with an honorable affection. So, let's move on to that, that two testaments are not contradicting one another in their code of ethics and the demands of Christian love, even in the believers of the Old Testament. And let me use an illustration, and Dabney didn't use this, I'm trying to be helpful to you. Suppose in Matthew 18, 15, you have somebody that has sinned against you. There's two emotions that are going to take place. The first is simple resentment. Simple resentment is not in and of itself sinful. Animals can experience it. If you lash a cow with a whip, He's going to resent it. It becomes sinful when it becomes inordinate, which is very easy to do because of the remaining sin that is within us. But it is an instinctive emotion immediately arising from the experience of personal injury. It can scarcely be called a rational sentiment for it is felt by men and animals in common. An inhuman breast is often aimed against irrational assailants. It doesn't rise in view of the moral quality of the act, but immediately in view of the hurtfulness of the act. You've been hurt and you resent it. That in and of itself initially isn't wrong. But the second feeling that you have where your brother doesn't repent, and so you bring to another brother and you both talk to this sinning brother, That isn't resentment. We should never do that or bring it to the church out of resentment because I'm personally wrong. I've been injured. But because you know that if this brother continues in this course, it may issue in his apostasy. In the judgment of charity, we're calling him a brother. And if it goes on, it is going to injure his profession. And so that is a correct moral reprehensible act, in other words, a correct indignation, you're doing this because God's honor is at stake. And therefore, you will do this even if you're not the one injured. If you see something that has to be addressed, you do it because of God's honor. And both feelings are often combined together and people don't tell them apart. Hence, resentment obviously has no necessary moral character more than hunger, thirst, or pain. Its moral character only arises when it is regulated or directed amiss. Now, moral indignation or moral disapproval or disapprovation in its warmer and more emotional type is an affection often coexisting with simple resentment and often confounded with it. But the two feelings are essentially distinct. The moral sentiment is impersonal, personal. It is not directed merely to self-defense. So we're given this resentment that we use to protect ourselves. for self-defense. There's nothing sinful in that. But we need to distinguish it from moral indignation against an act. It is easy to recognize the feeling of moral reprobation as a counterpart to that of moral approval. In the latter, the mind has at its root a similar judgment in the reason of the virtuousness of the act. It by this recognizes the agent as meritorious for the act. So, a couple of verses will prove the point. We must have a moral indignation against wrong, and we are commanded to do so in Proverbs 17, 15. He that justifies the wicked and he that condemns the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord. Romans 1, 32, Paul condemns sinners as those who not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. So this pleasure is sinful. And when we witness it, we have a moral indignation against it. When violent crimes are committed against the law of the land and there is no penalty, the most virtuous citizens feel the craving of their moral nature for the retribution of justice upon the criminal in the grief of its disappointment. Now put yourself in the place of this family whose daughter, Lakin Riley, was murdered by Jose Antonio Iberra. and he escaped the death penalty, there is a great feeling of an unjust verdict. This feeling cannot be accused of selfishness, but is wholly impersonal, for it is vividly felt by virtuous persons who have no connection with the object of the outrage. So, of course, the family's outraged, but we're outraged, too, because we have a moral indignation that this was allowed to happen without a just punishment. That is not a feeling of selfishness, it doesn't affect us personally. It is found most often in the most disinterested and noble natures. It is impossible for the subject of it to rebuke himself for entertaining it. You don't rebuke yourself because you're indignant that this murderer got away with it and will spend the rest of his life in a jail that taxpayer funds. And he is not put to death, and his blood is crying out to God to be requited. For he feels that to lack this feeling would be to lack virtuous regard for the law, which has been dishonored in the innocent victim who has been wronged. Sympathy with the right implies reprobation of the wrong. The Bible, beyond a doubt, describes the saints in glory themselves as participating in the judicial triumph of the Redeemer when they, he shall pour out his final retribution on the wicked. And the satisfaction of this intuitive sentiment, which craves just penalty for demerit, is one of the elements of the bliss of the redeemed. Even these glorified saints in heaven cry out all along, O Lord, until you avenge our blood. They are martyrs. This is in Revelation 6. And is it wrong for us to, though we are not to take vengeance into our own hands, how can it possibly be wrong if we receive a satisfaction that God enacts His justice upon those who have done wickedly That's part of the saint's new nature. We glorify God when he executes wrath, but we are never to have pleasure in it ourselves. But only our satisfaction is when we see God carrying the things out. To understand the relations of godliness between us and our enemies, the elements involved in their injurious acts must also be distinguished. The sin of a wrongdoer against his fellow involved three elements of offense. One is the personal loss of natural evil inflicted. The second is the guilt or relation of debt to the moral law. by which the wrongdoer is bound to pay for his act and punishment. And the third is a moral defilement or depravity of character, which is both expressed and increased by specific acts of sin. Now, when the Christian has made the object of an unrighteous act, the element of loss is the only one which is personal to him and therefore the only one which is competent to him to remit. But we are not to take this into our own hands because we as sinful creatures, even as Christians, have remaining sin and we cannot do it well. Only God can because he has omniscience and a perfectly holy character. To pursue the aggressor with evil directly for the sake of this element of his offense is sinful malice on our part. The second element, that of guilt, is not personal to the injured Christian. It is not his business to pursue the satisfaction for guilt, but God's. He is to leave this element holy to God, only taking care that his moral sentiments touching it are conformed to those of the divine judge. And the third element of righteous indignation or an act that is done, that of the inward affoundment represented and fostered in the wrong act is also impersonal to the injured party. I didn't personally get injured in this, but my indignation is that the honor of God and of his moral law is disregarded, and that is a virtuous thing. The sum of the matter then appears to be this. The law of love does not require the injured Christian to approve or countenance the evil character manifested in the wrong done him or to withhold the verdict of truth and justice against it. You know it's wrong. You know it needs to be dealt with. It isn't your duty to do it. The law of love does not require him to intervene for delivering the aggressor from the just claims of either human or divine law for penal retribution. The law of love does forbid, though, his taking retribution into his own hands, and it requires him still to extend the sentiments of humanity and the love of compassion to the enemy's person so long as he continues to partake the forbearance of God, which love of compassion will prompt the injured party to stand ready to forgive. You're ready to forgive. the element of personal loss to his enemy and to perform the offices of benevolence to his person in spite of his obnoxious character. However, if what that person did is a serious crime, murder, or whatever, you can't just turn the other cheek. You want his forgiveness. But at the same time, if it's a serious offense and it violates the laws of the land, it must be confessed. And we cannot feel bad for having that indignation. It isn't inconsistent with still loving our neighbor. In conclusion, we must understand the difference of personal resentment. I personally resented that you have injured me. And moral indignation, if it continues in this brother and he's continuing in a pattern of doing this, the reason you bring another brother into this situation, and if he does not hear you and the other brother, you bring it to the church. For one, if it's left undone, it's going to pollute the unity of the church and the well-being of the church. But as well, if he continues in that course, it may end in his apostasy. But when we are on Facebook or whatever and we are drawn to get engaged in these type of things that we call moral indignation, we must ask ourselves, what are our reasons for doing so? And if we find that somebody disagrees with us, watch your heart. Brethren, I've been on the internet for 32 years. I was trained in computer telecommunications. And I learned very, very quickly that you cannot And I don't remember that I ever have argued a person to your position. Even if he is wrong, the passion in which you approach this will cause such a pride in him that he doesn't want to admit he is wrong. He fastidiously keeps going on because he doesn't want to lose the argument. Brethren, walk away. Don't get involved in these things and be careful. It happens too much. even among professing Christians on Facebook. And I try, I hope I'm getting better at this, I don't get into these kind of debates. Even when we are, as we suppose, standing up for righteousness, we are just that close always from getting our personal passions involved. and it becomes inordinate and it becomes sinful. And with that, I'll ask, is there anybody here who has anything that they would like to add to what I have said? Blake. Thank you. I used to argue with people on Facebook all the time. And then, then after a while, when the Lord was working in me and maturing me, It just wasn't worth it. It's better to have... debates and somewhat arguments offside of online. Because then it's like, well, OK, let's talk about that. Let's get a cup of coffee together. Let's talk about this together as brothers. Why do you disagree with this? And then have a mature dialogue and conversation. Because with the computer screen, you can't see the person's face. You can't see their eyes. You can't even see what their emotions they're going through. Well, the other thing to keep in mind, and, you know, because I've been online, I got online in 1991 before there really was an internet, a service called Prodigy, is often, you don't mean it to happen this way, but you're texting somebody. And so often in texting, and they don't hear the payoff of your voice, they don't hear your emotions and all that and texting tends to come across different than you mean it. And suppose it's a brother or a sister here in church and you've had this debate there on the internet and you're coming to church and it hasn't been resolved between you two. It cannot assist us in the unity that we should have in the church. Go ahead, David Phillips. When we talk about this subject, we're always talking about abortion and national sins and things like that, but bringing it down to a more practical and personal level, what about close relationships with you? What are the indicators we need to look for in ourselves? when someone's wronging us or someone continues to do something and, you know, we stand ready to forgive, but then you find yourself inside of yourself saying, God, I kind of wish you would deal with them, you know, because this is ongoing problems. Where, you know, how do we tell where that's righteous or unrighteous indignation? First, ask yourself at night when you're trying to sleep, how much is this stuff weighing on you? And then ask yourself, is it possible that I am crossing the line and to where I'm not approaching this in the judgment of charity? And I would say, unless it's something very serious, err on the side of charity. and benevolence, especially if it's your brother and sister in Christ. Because our Lord had a reason for saying, if your brother sins against you, how many times should you forgive him? And that's personal resentment. Unless you are sure that the conduct that he is or she is showing is not going to end well with their soul, always approach us an heir on the side of charity. It's already 8 after 10, so I'll close and thank you for your attention.