and we are to put on that exact number. The five things which are to be deadened represent man's rela tionship to himself. In this next category of six things to put off, we find that which represents man's relationship to others. First of all, we were talking about the sins of passion; now we are talk ing about the sins of disposition. "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." You see, while we may not be able to "kill" these things, the Spirit of God reminds us that we do not need to wear them. The Christian does not have to put them on nor even tolerate them. In the original the words "put off" have an even stronger conno tation — "put them clean off." In other words, there is not to re main one single evidence or indi cation of these things in our lives! Proverbs 6:16-19 tells us, "These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination un to him." And the list which follows closely compares with what we have here in the eighth verse of Colossians 3. "Anger" represents a chronic state of existence. The Lord was angry and rightfully so. He was able to separate the sin of anger, however, from the sinner upon whom He bestowed His divine love. We need to follow this pattern in our lives, too. Next is wrath. We might define this as a quick temper. Too many people have tongues that get into high speed before their minds ev er go into gear! The third word is "malice." Someone has described malice as Page 17
that your spiritual life may grow, bringing forth fruit and proving it self in the sight of God, as well as in the sight of man." In Colossians 3:6 we read, "For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of dis obedience." We have seen adul tery, immorality, coveteousness — all things which abound in the world. We do not need to illustrate them further. The daily newspaper is most explicit. God says that some day these things will be judged. In the future those who have con tinued in such lascivious sins of thought or deed will have to pay for them. Someday it will mean consignment to hell because of their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. Look at verse seven of Colos sians 3, where we read, "In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them." In other words, Paul is telling believers, "Don't fool yourself. We were not any better than the rest of the world; we have been subject to the same passions." This is why we are exhorted in Proverbs, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." If the lake is muddy, the streams which issue from the lake likewise will be polluted. Verse eight of this chapter gives us a listing of the things we are to be put off. Glancing back we see the five things we are to mortify in verse five, while here there are six things we are to put off and then later, verses 12-14 tell us in a pos itive sense what we are to put on. There are seven of those. We rec ognize six as the number of im perfection while seven is tradition ally the number of perfection —
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