Let's start with a word of prayer. Father, we again are thankful to be here. We're thankful for the privilege of meeting together and being with those who have been born again through faith in Christ. as you call us, Father of the Saints. And we thank you for that privilege. We thank you for the gifts that function here. And we ask your blessing on our time. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're in First Peter. Start in verse 22. of chapter one to bring us up to where we should be. And Peter says, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere heart of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. You might ask the question, why? And so he explains. For you've been born again. There's a new you, if you've put your faith in Christ, called also the new man. For you have been born again. Not of seed which is perishable. It's not like your first birth where the seed was perishable. Not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable. And then he tells us, how were you born again? That is through the living and abiding word of God. Through God's word, we were given the gospel. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and rose again on the third day. And so we have this comparison, verse 24. All flesh is like grass. The perishable seed produces physical life that's going to end. So all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. You think about, well, because I don't take good care of my lawn, I'm mostly mowing dandelions by the zillions. They come and they go. I wish they'd go more than they come, but at any rate, God says, that's like your life. You sprout up. Blossom, done, okay. Your physical life. The grass withers and the flowers, or the flower falls off. But this new life that we have, that's a result of the eternal seed, the imperishable seed, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And this is the word which was preached to you, okay. Therefore, so here we go. Therefore, therefore means keep the whole first chapter in mind and jump into the second chapter here. Therefore, putting aside, I'll read it, all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and slander. like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. So, I hope you see the connection here. We read in chapter one, verse 22, since then you have in obedience to the truth purified your soul, that's when you put your faith in Christ, for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. So this first verse of chapter two is going to remind us or teach us about attitudes that come from the old man, the sin nature, that will not allow love to be what it should be. Okay, and the thing I hope that we're gonna see is these things, there's five of them, were so much a part of our life as unbelievers. And they still crop up and we find ourselves in a conflict. as we deal with people, as we deal with other believers. We find that we're, our first response so often is of the flesh. We get angry, we get proud, we wanna fight. However, that fight is being set up and I think of Stupid things. But here I am, a believer, and I can't even remember what happened, but somebody did something when I was driving, and the next thing I know, they're shooting me the bird. And I right away think, so I start following this guy. And all of a sudden I think, Wendells, what are you doing? You know? I'm thinking, I'm going to follow this guy. I'm going to beat him up, you know? And I was a pastor at the time. It's not good. But how easily that crops up. How easily that's there. You said this to me? Well, let me tell you, you know? And so let's start with the list. First one's malice. Let me give you some synonyms. It means evil, maliciousness, wickedness, badness, depravity. Not a nice list. One of the commentaries had this explanation. The harboring of evil thoughts against another person. And I like that picture of harboring. Do you ever harbored something for, I can remember a long time ago, I was just really upset with somebody, mad at him, and all of a sudden I realized, I'm not hurting him at all, but I'm having trouble staying awake at night, thinking about this, because I'm harboring these things, and I love what this, I think it was McDonald said, the harboring of evil thoughts against another person, holding on to them, harboring, keeping them on the front burner. He went on, he says, malice nourishes antagonism, builds up grudges, and secretly hopes that revenge, harm, or tragedy will overtake another. you know, pretty fierce stuff, but there's a root to that, and the root is malice, you know, holding on to these things, and they build and they build, and your sin nature, my sin nature, are really good at making something that's just about nothing into something really huge, you know. Scripture says, you know, husbands, don't be bitter. Don't be embittered with your wives. Well, a lot of times, you know, if you were to sit in on how did this start, you'd say, what? That's all it was? You know? It was just something that the wife did that irked the husband, and he got all bent out of shape, and he allowed his sin nature to take this thing and turn it into bitterness, you know? I often think, you know, we're the bride of Christ to be, and what if the Lord treated us that way? You know what I mean? All the things we do that from a human standpoint we can say he could really be upset about this and really bitter toward us, but he's not. He continues to be faithful and just and loving. Okay, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter five. And in 1 Corinthians five, when it started, verse six. Now there was a grievous sin going on at Corinth and Paul's dealing with that, but he says to them, your boasting is not good. They're not handling this situation correctly. Do you not know that a little leaven you know, that which makes the bread rise, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. So there's this theme, we're not gonna develop it, but there's this theme in scripture about leaven, and it's a picture of sin and false teaching and all kinds of things, but never can I find anything good attributed to leaven, okay? And at the Passover, the Jews were to, in preparation for that week following, they were to get rid of all the leaven out of their houses. And you know, I remember years ago, listen to a, it was a pastor who, Marv Rosenthal, Jewish guy, a Marine, and a good teacher of the word. But as a Jew, he was talking about this, and he says, I remember my grandmother. Now, this is in modern times. He says, I remember my grandmother taking a broom and sweeping the entire house to make sure that there was no leaven anywhere. Fascinating. So notice where it goes. Verse seven, clean out the old leaven, that sinfulness, that malice, okay, that you may be a new lump unleavened. not permeated by the leaven of sin, just as you are in fact, in other words, you're standing before God because of what Christ did, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, Nor with, notice how he concludes here. Nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Okay. Then, Ephesians chapter four. And we'll come to verse 31. Here's some more of these things that interfere with love. Let all bitterness, all, notice the word all. Don't hold on to a little, because it's like leaven, and a little leaven leavens what? The whole lump, okay? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor, lots of shouting, and slander, be looking at that one, be put away from you, and then he says, along with all malice. Remember? Along with all maliciousness and wickedness and badness and depravity and the alternative, and be kind to one another. Tenderhearted. You know, it's such a thinking, changing thing. to say, if I was on the receiving end of what this person's dealing with, how would I handle it? And so often I think about, they're having a little trouble, I would too. To me, that's a good way to look at what's tenderhearted. It's just saying, okay, look at where they're at, okay. and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Remember the parable where the slave of the master owes his master a tremendous amount of money. And he says, please, be merciful to me. And so the master forgives him. And he goes out, and there's another slave that owes him money. And he grabs him by the throat and says, pay up. And that's a great picture of, here we stand, entirely forgiven as believers in Jesus Christ, there will be no sin ever held against us, okay? It's a most magnificent truth. And yet, we can be unforgiving to someone who wrongs us. And their wrong is nothing in comparison to our wrong that Jesus Christ bore on the cross for our sins. Okay. and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Okay, the next word is therefore putting aside all malice and all guile. That word means craft or craftiness, deceit, Any dishonesty, the idea is, the word that caught my, as I was looking at this and the meaning, it's related to the word for decoy. I think about when we're out duck hunting and we have the decoys out and What are we doing? I mean, you get the picture. The duck comes down. He says, oh, this is a safe place. And he's coming down, and it's a trick. And that's one of the meanings of this word, a trick. It's a decoy. We come down, and we shoot him. And so, all right. has the idea of, and a lot of these are so close together, or some of these are, that a person appears one way when they're really some other way. I've mentioned this many times, but my dad's business partner, Luke Lucas was his name, and he used to say, That guy, he's making fists in his pockets. Which I thought, what a great way to say that. He's probably smiling on the outside, he's got his hands in his pockets, but he'd really like to be punching you in the head. And then we find similar, let's go to Psalm 55. Psalm 55. And I'm gonna start in verse 20, talking about this person with Gael. He has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him. He has violated his covenant. Now here it is. His speech was smoother than butter, but his heart was war. His words were softer than oil. yet they were drawn swords. What a great picture of this guile that we're talking about. Similar Psalm 28. Psalm 28 in verse three. This is Psalm of David. David says, do not drag me away with the wicked and with those who work iniquity. And he's gonna describe now, who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts. Okay, and again, that great, what a great picture of what guile is. Okay, so we've got malice and we've got guile. And we don't want any of those. Next one is, it's very close to, I think it's related kind of to the guile that we just looked at, but it's hypocrisy. And the word means hypocrisy, pretense, sham, pretending to be what you are not, okay? usually pretending to be what you should be, making believe you're this, but you're not really. And the word comes, I remember years ago, the word comes from speaking behind the mask, okay? Goes back to Greek drama. I remember seeing this up in the, up in the theater, I think, in Tillamook. They've got those two masks there. One's a smiley face, and one's a sad face. And it goes back to Greek drama, where the people might be well removed from the, what we might call the stage, and they want to know what the, you know, is this person saying something sad or something happy? And so they would hold up this, it was linen and it was painted and it was a face, and they would look at that. But you realize, who knows what's going on behind the mask, you know? And so it's a great, a great picture of hypocrisy. And the Lord talked about, oh boy, talked about hypocrisy in his day. Matthew 23. Matthew 23, and we're gonna start in verse 27. Let's go back to 25. Woe to you, scribes. These are the religious leaders of the day. Scribes are the ones that wrote out the scriptures, copied the scriptures, I should say. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside, they're full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee. First, clean the inside of the cup. Start with your own thinking, your own attitude, your own heart position before the Lord. Okay. First clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also. Then he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs. What a picture. So in that day, they would take the tomb and they would, so to speak, paint it white. And it was pretty, you know, nice, clean, neat, okay? But then the Lord says, You're like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside, they're full of dead men's bones. You know, you think of the tremendous... difference here. He's talking about people. He's saying, you scribes and Pharisees, you're like this. You look pretty good on the outside, but you're disgusting on the inside. Who wants to go on the inside of a tomb where there's a decayed body? You are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. Their history, you know, going all the way back into the Old Testament and saying, this is what they were known to say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. They killed prophets. You know, the prophet would come and say, thus says the Lord. They didn't want to hear thus says the Lord, and so they killed him, or tortured him, and you know, all kinds of things. Put him in jail, prison. So the Lord says, this is what you say. We never would have done that, okay? Consequently, you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. And then he says this, well, fill up then, fill it all the way up, fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell? Do you let the, places like this, do you let the shock aspect of the words of Christ sink in. Can you think of any way that he could have offended these scribes and Pharisees anymore? So he says, verse 34, therefore behold, I love this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Do you see what he just said there? They just think he's a man. But how can a man send scribes and prophets, you see? He's claiming, he's making a very clear statement that he's God. Only God can do this. And so he says, therefore, behold, I'm sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Peter, who's probably listening to this, was crucified, okay? And some of them you will scourge in your synagogues. You're gonna give them these serious whippings and persecute from city to city that upon you may fall all the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth. Whose blood are they gonna shed? The blood of Jesus Christ. that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. Okay, then, Very similar, go to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11, and we're gonna come to verse 37. Now when he had spoken, the Pharisee asked him to have lunch with him, and he went in and reclined at table, and when the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that he had not first ceremonially, not scripturally, ceremonially washed before the meal. They had a regimen that they went through, and you were out of line if you didn't do it, okay, as far as they were concerned. But the Lord said to him, Now you, same thing, now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you. But woe, you Pharisees, notice, for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. Notice, woe to you Pharisees, you love the front seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you. for you are like concealed tombs. So now we've got, as far as I understand, a tomb that's underground and nobody even knows it's there, okay? You are like concealed tombs and people who walk over them are unaware of it. The people of the day, Christ is saying, they have no idea when they're in your presence that they're in the presence of something like a tomb filled with all kinds of decay and terrible odor and so forth. All right. Okay, Father, we thank you. for your word and oh lord how we need to be learning these things and be reminded of them father so that these things do not dishonor these things of malice and guile and hypocrisy that they don't dishonor your name and the name of your magnificent son. So Father, help us to be aware of anything of the flesh that would creep in and do damage to our testimony and to the glorification of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So make these things real to us, Father, and may they become part of our lives, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.