You are listening to a message preached at Front Range Baptist Church. It is our prayer that this message will be a help and an encouragement to you in your spiritual walk. All right, thank you, uh Luke. I know the Fenders well. They taught school. He taught school for us in the very early days of Temple Baptist and his wife, and then they moved away. But uh Rusty used to always laugh because he said he always had a brother or an uncle named Bent. Just think about that. Anyway, wonderful, wonderful singing. I wish I could sing. I was dropped on my throat when I was a baby and never have been able to sing. My mother used to say, that's not true. I said, Mom, it's a joke. There's got to be a reason for me being so bad. But anyway, thank you. Wonderful spirit here in this church. And I I do uh love uh Luke. He's uh I one of the things my wife reminded me uh uh of uh what he said when his uh baby sist baby sister was born. I said, Luke, girls are good. They never need a spanking. And he said, Pastor, that's not true. I've there's two or three in my class that need one right now. And uh so that's what he told me. And so uh anyway, my uh lovely wife right over here, Paula Ray, I call her my PR person, Paula Ray right over there. And uh I always tell her, if you ever leave me, I'm going with you. I just want you to know that. So uh we uh are going to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in November. So we're uh and I uh she's she's negotiating like an athlete. You know, she's wanting a signing bonus, you know, for uh after 50 years. I said that's not the way that works. But anyway, I I know I know your pastor. I know his dad uh better than I know him, but I know of him, and he has a wonderful name. Your pastor's a wonderful name amongst old preachers, and I are an old preacher, all right? But uh I uh uh am just thrilled to be here. Paula actually graduated from Colorado State University just a few years uh. But anyway, uh so it's good to be be back here in Fort Collins. We're going over to Grand Junction. Um I'm on vacation, actually, and going to try to catch some trout up on the Mesa. I don't know if any of you ever been up there fishing. It's uh trout fishing is a wonderful place to do that. But I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you will. Proverbs chapter number 19. Proverbs chapter number 19, and uh it's a uh wonderful passage of scripture that I want to give to you. Proverbs 19 and verse number 11 says, the discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. Proverbs 19, verse 11. The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. Before I get into the message, let me say there's something this verse is not saying. It is not saying that a crime doesn't need to be reported. Any of you young people, you ever have somebody who makes you feel uncomfortable, you go directly, your parents, you go to the law, you do whatever's necessary. That is not what this verse is talking about. It's talking about how somebody cuts in front of you when you're in traffic. Does that ever bother you here in Colorado? All right. I know it does here in Texas. But anyway, that's really what this verse is talking about. The discretion of a man defers his anger to his glory to pass over a transgression. Our son, uh, he got tired of his mom and dad telling him what to do, so he joined the Marines. How many, how many Marines are here? Let me see your hand. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Well, we got one over here. And uh he had just gotten out of boot camp. We went to his boot camp graduation. We were all in a van. So he was driving the van, uh, and we were headed to Paul Chapel's uh church to uh in California. Uh he was a Hollywood Marine, is what they call him. And he uh so we were we were driving to church and we decided we'd stop at McDonald's, get a little snack, you know, a couple double double cheeseburgers, french fries, and and a diet coke, because uh Paul Chapel's a long preacher. But anyway, uh so we get in that squawk box, and there's about six of us, seven of us in this van, you know, and we're ordering. And you know how the first one orders, and then you get around to it, and the first person decides to change their mind. Can I change my order? I like what the other person is saying. Well, it got to be long, and somebody cut in front of us. They got tired of waiting. You know, you ever been stuck like that? Got tired of waiting, and my son said, Dad, did you see what that guy did? I said, Yeah. He said, Let's ram him. I said, son, we don't need to do that. You just got out of boot camp. But Dad, isn't this a rental vehicle? I said, Yeah, but you're still accountable for it. I said, I guess he didn't teach you that in the Marine Corps. But anyway, um, so really uh that's kind of the thing of what this verse is saying here. But you know, if we're not careful, some of those things get bigger and we hang on to them. The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it's his glory to pass over a transgression. I don't know about you, but one of the hardest things at times control is our anger and to get a hold of it. We're seeing a lot of uh soccer. Seeing a lot of soccer on TV here in these last few weeks. Uh the story is it's a true story. You can look it up. In Detroit, there was a weekend soccer game going on, and there was a referee named John Bendewitz, 44 years of age. He was refing just a uh kind of a league soccer. He was refereeing, and one guy was just out of control, and he had to red card him. And of course, we found out what red cards mean. I had no idea what they meant, but uh he had to red card this guy. Well, this player who gets red carded by this referee in just a just a pickup, not a little more than the pickup game, but an organized game of soccer. When he got the red card, he doubled up his fist and punched the referee right in the jaw. The referee fell over flat, went straight to the hospital. Two days later he was gone. Just not but a few years ago, this this young man who killed who killed this referee, he's a father of two two kids. And he just he just lost his control. The referee no longer now, because the referee is gone, those those two kids no longer had a dad, a wife, uh, no husband, no father of the kids, all because he couldn't let it go. He just felt like it was a bad call. Now, all of us who have ever played any kind of sports, whether it's man or woman, you know sometimes the blame goes to the referee for a loss. Sometimes that's the way it goes. I have a pastor friend of mine who uh has a picture, has a picture on his wall in his study of the mistake that the uh St. Louis Cardinals had happened to them. The referee called him, or the uh the umpire should say, called the guy safe when it was clear from that picture that he was out. And that was decades ago when that happened, and he's got that picture still hanging on the wall. He's still aggravated about that because he believes if that if that umpire had called it right, then they would have won the World Series. He couldn't just let it go. Now, let me just say by way of the beginning here, you know, sometimes we need to learn to let go of our successes. You know, Cal Ripkin was such a great baseball player. He was called the Iron Man, shortstop, all the things that uh Cal Ripkin did. He played his last All-Star game, and the first time he was up in that all-star game, he hit a home run and he ran around. His dad was his third base coach, his dad was his actually his uh manager uh for a for a time, and somebody asked him, the announcer asked the man, said, Cal, Cal, what what would your dad say hitting that home run, your last all-star game? You know what he said? He said, My dad would say, son, get over it. Let it go. You're coming up to bat again in this all-star game. Now that's not a transgression, but sometimes we hang on to things so much that we don't go forward with what God has for us. And so I want to just take a few minutes of time and just kind of deal with some uh some things that you need to let just let go of. It's uh it's not an easy thing. You're just hanging on to it. When you get aggravated, you start thinking about something that happened in your life that you just can't get over and can't get past. I'm I'm praying tonight. I didn't just I didn't just come here just to be in the service, and I'd love to service. What an atmosphere. But I'm I'm bringing this message. I said, Lord, you really want me to bring this message? Yes, somebody here, for years you've been hanging on to something that has absolutely hindered you. But maybe being the dad or the mom or the husband or the wife, or maybe a son or a daughter. You've been aggravated with your parents. Tonight ought to be the night when maybe you would just decide, you know what? The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it's his glory to pass over a transgression. So I want to encourage you tonight here about some things that you could let go that I think I think might would be a great help. You know, we uh we need to decide in our lives that we are going to let go uh of uh some things that will just change us. It'll change you, it'll change your spirit, your attitude, and everything. And so I I want to, as I said, let go of your successes, although that's not a wrong thing. I want you to let go of your sarcasms that have hurt you, things that people have said to you. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. But that's not true. A lot of names have been called that maybe you stuck with while you were in school. You're just kids making fun of other kids. I think they call it bullying a lot nowadays, but the truth of the matter is sometimes that kind of stuff just sticks with you, and it and you you it's depressed you to a point, you know, maybe you tried to sing one time, and uh somebody said you can't sing. Uh anybody can sing and won't sing, ought to go to sing, sing until they do sing. I get that. But the truth of the matter is here tonight, sometimes maybe somebody discouraged you from something by just a sarcastic remark they made to you, and it just derailed you from becoming all that you ought to be. And you look back at that moment in time in your life and you think, you know what, I I just think maybe I could have done that, but I I was just never really encouraged about it. I I probably could have done better if somebody would have just given me a chance. But I, you know, there was just some things, sarcastic remarks that get said, you know, if you can't, if you can't give a compliment, Mark Twain said, you know, I could go two weeks on a good compliment. A good compliment. You know, all of us would say amen to that. And uh receive a compliment. When somebody compliments you and says this was a blessing, receive it. Don't just don't just uh put it off. But to receive that, don't get the big head, don't let it go to your head. Don't don't let praise go to your head, and don't let criticism go to your heart. And uh so, because it's a very hard thing, it's a very hard thing to deal with anger. And some people, you've you've known them. You know, they just you you can almost see it in their face, they're just angry. Someone has said, and I wrote this down, I want to read this here tonight, it says, anybody can become angry, that is easy, but to be angry with the right person to the right degree, at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, and it is not easy. My son said to me about getting angry, he said, now uh don't let don't let the sun go down on your wrath. The Bible says that. Don't let the sun go, in other words, now some couples, you know, we never we never we never go to bed to sleep where we're angry with one another. Sometimes we don't sleep for days, but we uh you know how that's uh been told. But uh he said, look, Dad, hey, how about this interpretation of that verse? If I'm I'm not gonna get angry until the sun goes down, then when the sun goes down, that gives me 24 more hours just to be angry. And I said, that's not the right interpretation of that verse. You gotta let go of your sarcasms that have been told to you that still hurt you. I was I was fat when I was a kid, and uh, you know, that used to always bother me. Kids make fun of you know of that. Some of you have been criticized for whatever the case may be in your life, no matter what it is, but you gotta you gotta let that go. The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it's his glory to pass over transgressions. Not gonna let that keep him from being everything that he ought to be for God's glory. And so, well, let go of sarcasms. I want you to let go tonight of some sadnesses that would happen to you. Well, life didn't turn out like I thought it would. Maybe some of you, your parents divorced. Maybe some of you, you just uh, you know, your home life. Um my dad, my dad was an alcoholic before he got saved. When he got saved, boy, he got he got saved, as a country boy would say, he got saved all over and it changed his life. But until then, he was a drunkard and just mean and beat my brother and did some other things, and finally, when he gave his heart to Christ, it changed him. Now, I I don't know the sadnesses that you have in your life. Some of you, you maybe didn't get the job you thought you were deserving. You didn't get the promotion that you thought you ought to have. You know, when you read you read the book of Esther, you'll see that Haman got promoted when Mordecai didn't. And it could have been that Mordecai could have just decided, I'm just gonna be angry about this. I'm gonna be bitter and angry and mad at God and everybody else, because I didn't get that promotion. But you see, it was all in the mighty hand of God as you read the book of Esther. A strange and unusual book where God's name's not mentioned, but you can see God's hand all over that book. But had Mordecai let that bother him, he'd have never been able to become what God wanted him to become. And some of you ought to just decide those sadnesses, you just says, when you get melancholy, you bring up some of those things. Maybe it's been years. Maybe it's been years since that sadness happened to you. And maybe it's turned into bitterness. You know, uh, that's uh Naomi, that's what Naomi said in the book of Ruth. You know, she said when she got back to Bethlehem, she said, Don't call me Naomi, which meant uh pleasant. She said, Call me Myra, call me bitter. That's what I am. I started Temple Baptist Church, but it said first Sunday we had 11 folks and a $12 offering, and if I'd have put more in, we'd have gotten more out. But uh that's the way we began. I was uh young and not real wise, and Paula says to me, Well, the young is certainly gone. And uh you dwell on that for a minute. But anyway, we uh we we started and after three years, we had a we had somebody that split the church, and we went from uh through running 300 after three years, and everything seemed to be going well, and uh split the church, and we lost a hundred and some people and a third of the offerings, and I want you to know that I became bitter. Somebody asked me one time, I said, Boy, you sound like you're bitter. I said, I am. I was almost proud of it. And you know what? For 18 months that bitterness kept us from getting past that because now that I look back on it, it was God's plan for them to leave. It was just God's plan for that to happen. Now, if I had let that go a lot sooner, we wouldn't have gone through 18 months. We're just I I wondered at times whether we were ever going to survive what had transpired. And some of you, if you don't decide here tonight, maybe to let go of something, you may not survive. You may not be able to be the dad or the mom that you could be if you can't let go of that uh sadness that's happened in your life. The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it's his glory to pass over a transgression. You know, uh, going back to the successes, I had this written down here. I I went pass right by it. Nolan Ryan, who pitched seven no-hitters, any of you baseball, big baseball fans, Nolan Ryan, a great great pitcher, and uh they asked him, what about all those no-hitters? He said, You know what? I found out that every time I pitch a no-hitter, that I'm really not that good very often. When you put all the innings and all the all the strikeouts that I've had. And he said, you know, but when I get knocked out in the first or second inning, I I find out that I'm really I'm really not that bad. It's just those things happen. And you know, sometimes you just gotta you just gotta think through what's happened in your life. And so you have you have all of the sadnesses and the sarcasms, and then I close with this thought, and that is the scars. Uh 25 years ago, this past June, I had a heart attack, massive heart attack, and had to have triple, triple bypass surgery. And I've got the uh I'm a member of the zipper club. If any of you, if any of you, yeah, some of y'all can relate to that. And so uh I uh every morning I still have that scar. In fact, they took an artery out of my forearm as well, and some out of my legs, and and so it was a disastrous, what I thought, situation. But uh that's been over 25 years ago. Now, sometimes my heart gets cold and hard, and my cardiologist said that's above my pay grade. And and uh so you know the truth of the matter is if you're not careful, you you look at those scars every day. I've been scarred. Why couldn't I look like so-and-so or have this or that? But you see, you really have been mightily blessed. And God intended for you to be you, because there's no one you are than you, as Dr. Seuss used to say. And so you be you and be whom God wants you to be, and don't be ashamed of it. He God don't make no junk. Amen. And when we can understand that and accept that and say, you know what, I believe, in spite of all of the struggles and the difficulties that I've been through, I'm still gonna rejoice and not allow those scars to stand in my way. And I've had a really literally had a lot of hard trouble since then. I've had uh I've had four stents and angioplasty and all kinds of things, but I'm just glad to still be at it. And uh I uh I I you know what that that fellow that split the church, that's be well it'll soon be 46, 47 years ago. I told him, I said, uh I said, I want I want you to know I'm I'm past what happened. He said, Well, I I know it hurts you. I said, Well, it really didn't really didn't hurt me. What really hurt me was your money leaving. It wasn't you so much, but uh, but uh yeah, you know, I'm just preaching here tonight, or I'm being a little being a little transparent, but that is what I said to him. But you know, uh, you know the truth of the matter is, boy, if we could just turn back the clock. But you can't. I have a little saying that I say to myself every once in a while, turn backward, turn backward, oh time in thy run, for now I see how it should have been done. You ever thought that? Boy, if I had all that to do over again, this is what I do, but you're never gonna have that to do over again. Never gonna be able to change some things. The scars are there. What are you going to do about all of those things that have hurt you, disappointed you? I mean, sometimes some deep scars. I know some people that just they they can't get past what was done to them. They have a hard time even dealing with life as it is now because of what happened. Oh, ask God to help you. You know, no telling what your life could become if you just let it go. Just let it go. Just lay it on the altar and then leave it there. Have you ever heard that from a preacher? Put it on the altar and just leave it there. But but, preacher, you don't understand what I've been through. I I know I haven't, but I want to tell you something. That'll be one of the greatest days in your life when you can say, no longer is that gonna have a hold of me. Uh the the lady named uh Smart, her last name was Smart. She was she was kidnapped. Some of you remember the story. What was her first name? Elizabeth Elizabeth Smart. We Paul and I went to hear her speak um some years ago. And she said, you know, he held me for months. For months he held me. And if you've ever read or heard, I mean, she was unbelievably transparent in telling uh folks what what had happened to her and how she was treated. And she said, when we when we finally, when I finally got found and was released and caught, she said, you know what I decided to do? I decided that I was going to forgive him. And she said, now not forgiven to the point where I I wanted him to spend every day in prison that he's supposed to have spent. Everything that happened to me, he needed to pay the price. But I he she said this statement, I'll never forget it. She said, he held me for those seven months. I was never gonna let him hold me any longer in my mind. You know what's happened to some of you tonight? You have allowed somebody or something to have hold of you. To which, if you could just the discretion of a man defers his anger, and it's his glory to pass over a transgression. And I know tonight is it's Wednesday night service, and I get that. But I I uh without a show of hands or anything, just a moment, I'm gonna ask us to have our heads bowed. And some of you may know somebody that's been hurt, they can't let it go. And uh you need to you need to take them to the Lord in prayer. You say, I don't have any problem like that, but maybe you know somebody that does been hurt. If you're like that tonight, I'm gonna ask you to just come and just a little bit. We don't do that, and I'm gonna turn it over to Luke. But uh to just that day when I said to that man, I know you split the church, I know you started it, but it's been the best thing ever happened to us, and I'm just letting that go. And that's been a that's been a theme. And for some reason I just felt like this is when when I got called about what I would I speak, and the Holy Spirit said to me, Bring that message on, just let it go. Just let it go.