Title:- Mouthy Malice and How To Shut The Little Creep Right Up!
Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.
I don’t know if it’s still there, but the graffiti sprayed across a bridge as you drove up the M1 in England towards the city of Luton, always grabbed my attention. In desperate scrawl it read “A Town Called Malice.” A direct reference to a song by the 1980’s group ‘The Jam’.
Paul Weller penned some incredible words to
this song which was later used as part of the soundtrack in the film ‘Billy Elliot’. I suppose being British and originating from that part of British social structure, the lyrics, the location, the spirit of the song all echo deep in my being. Here’s the opening lines:-“Better stop dreaming of the quiet life -
Cos it's the one we'll never know,-
And quit running for that runaway bus -
cos those rosey days are few-And -
Stop apologising for the things you've never done,-
Cos time is short and life is cruel -
But it's up to us to change………
This town called malice”
I am acquainted with malice. Pastorally I have seen it to be that which is most manifest in the hurt, the rejected and the robbed. Personally, malice is always my most unwelcome, yet very welcome justifying minister and mentor, even tormentor. We all have a strange love-hate relationship with malice. You know what I mean? Yes, I think you do.
The sin of malice is insidious to humanity. It is linked directly to the proud house of sinful self. Malice clings to you like old gas, passed from the cabbage you ate yesterday or like malevolent misery, it sits astride your mouth and stretches your cheeks downwards in fearful weighted frowning. Malice manipulates the mind, has menace as its cousin and murder as its twin. Malice is hate incarnate. Malice is dear friends, nothing but dark, murky and malevolent sin. Yet we so often quietly welcome it throught the back door of our heart, late at night, when all the good neigbours are asleep.
Malice is a particularly tricky form of sin. For once welcomed into our hearts, it can morph itself into seeming light and righteousness. Yes, malice is very vocal in justifying its existence. After all, “Didn’t they…” and “If he hadn’t….” and “Except for…” and “I was only…..”
Friends, malice cannot be reasoned with. It is too powerful. I would suggest that neither can it be fought against and overcome! Attack it and it only gets stronger! Rather, malice is to be dealt with in a most disdainful way. Like a child with an old toy, we must continually lay it aside. I mean persiastantly and continually! This will offend it, but I tell you friends, it will shame it, quiet it, defeat it and suck the self-justifying and sour little life out of it. Make no mistake though; the process must be a continual and disdainful laying aside. Finally, and best of all, malice must be ignored. Mostly this is best done by taking up some new and righteous toy, even some better friend. If malice is in your house, ignore it with practical intent.
So child of God, today if your meal is mouthy malice, then why not lay the losing louse aside and start playing with the some of the better toys of the Kingdom. Yes , if you do both these things, that is, disdain it and ignore it, then eventually, malice will leave of its own accord, slinking out of the back door late at night into the foggy darkness, disgusted and hurt. It wont even slam the door. Try it and see if I am correct, for it’s up to us to change this town called malice and I tell you, this is just the way to do it!
Listen:- And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32
Pray:- Loving God, help me today, to lay death aside and pick up LIFE! In Jesus name I pray, amen!
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