Introduction:
A. There is a story told about a girl who was writing a paper for school and asked her father for help, "Dad, what is the difference between anger and exasperation?"
1. The father replied, "It is mostly a matter of degree. Let me show you what I mean."
2. With that, the father put his telephone on speakerphone and dialed a number at random. To the man who answered the phone, the father said, “Hello, is Melvin there?”
3. The man answered, “There is no one living here named Melvin,” and hung up abruptly.
4. "See," said the father to his daughter. "That man was likely a little unhappy with our call. He was probably very busy with something, and our call annoyed him. Now watch...”
5. The father dialed the same number again. “Hello, is Melvin there?” asked the father.
6. “Now look here!” came the heated reply. “You just called this number a minute ago, and I told you that there is no Melvin here!” The receiver was slammed down hard.
7. The father turned to his daughter and said, “You see, that was anger. Now I'll show you what exasperation means.”
8. He dialed the same number, and a angry voice roared, “HELLO!”
9. The father calmly said, “Hello, this is Melvin. Have there been any calls for me?”
B. There are so many things that can cause us to become angry.
1. As you know, our society is rife with all kinds of angry eruptions.
2. Almost every day we hear news stories about anger and violence.
3. Whether it is on the highways, or in the grocery store, in the work place, in politics, in schools, or in the sports arenas, we see outbursts of anger far too often.
4. Anger is a God-given emotion that was given to us for our well-being and good health, but Satan has twisted it, and we have become conditioned by what we see in our homes, schools, and society to let our anger get out of control and become destructive in all kinds of ways.
C. Social commentators warn that people today are sitting on emotional powder kegs.
1. We’ve gone from short fuse to virtually no fuse.
D. Psychologists have done many in-depth studies of anger.
1. While they have come up with no guaranteed answers – for there is no ultimate answer outside of God – they have helped us analyze the emotional dynamics of anger.
2. They have told us that anger rises along five stages, each stage more intense than the last.
a. Anger, we are told, begins with mild irritation – it may be as mild as a traffic jam or a car full of noisy children.
b. Mild irritation begins to build and leads to indignation – a deeper level of intensity.
c. The third level is wrath, which psychologists say never goes unexpressed.
d. Wrath soon becomes fury, the fourth level. Fury introduces violence to the mix.
e. The fifth stage is rage, the most intense of angry expressions.
1. Rage, we are told, is the most dangerous form of anger.
2. It can so overcome a person that it inspires acts of brutal violence, sometimes performed without conscious awareness.
E. Before we sit in judgment upon anyone who struggles with anger issues, we must confess that we all have within us the very same potential for anger and violence.
1. The only difference is a matter of control.
2. Those of us who have given our lives to Christ know that we have the Spirit inside us who enables us to control our anger.
3. If you are not a Christian today, then I must tell you that I have no hope to give you in this area of anger.
4. The living Lord is the only one I know who can give us the power to overcome sin and the sinful expressions of anger.
5. It may be that even though you are a Christian, you still wrestle with controlling your angry outbursts.
a. If this is the case, then I’m sure you feel guilt and shame about it and may be at a loss to know what to do that this point.
b. I want to assure you that God cares, and forgives, and wants to help you find the control you lack.
6. Christ does offer hope to those of us who struggle with anger – He can help us find a healthy way to express our anger.
7. We must do our part to take advantage of the resources the Lord offers us, but if we fail to do our part, then we will continue to struggle, just as Moses did.
I. The Story
A. Let’s turn our attention to Moses.
1. Most of us don’t normally think of Moses as a man given to a violent temper, but I believe that the biblical record shows that he never did get complete control of his anger.
B. This surprising observation about Moses may benefit us in at least two ways.
1. First, on the one hand, it may give us some hope that if a man like Moses struggled with anger, then I don’t need to feel so badly that I struggle with it also.
2. Second, on the other hand, when we see the terrible ramifications of Moses’ uncontrolled temper, it should motivate us to keep working on controlling our own.
3. So let’s do a brief survey of Moses life and notice his lifelong pattern of anger issues.
C. The first snapshot of anger comes from an episode when Moses was 40 years old.
1. The Bible says: 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Ex. 2:11-12)
2. So about the time Moses was 40, he saw an Egyptian slave-driver beating an apparently defenseless Hebrew.
a. The beating was an unfair, unreasonable and unjust act, and Moses, the Hebrew, quickly became indignant.
b. Fury boiled up like a geyser and Moses committed an act of murder.
3. Immediately after this incident, Moses escaped to the desert.
a. For the next forty years he cooled his heals in the school of desert self-discovery.
b. While he learned many valuable lessons, he still did not learn how to control his temper.
D. The second snapshot of anger comes from the time when Moses was confronting Pharaoh.
1. After God sent Moses to Egypt to set the Israelites free, Moses had many encounters with Pharaoh, before the final face-off prompted the death of the Egypt’s firstborn.
2. When Moses visited Pharaoh between the 9th and 10th plague, he became violently angry with the king.
3. Even though the Lord had repeatedly told Moses that Pharaoh’s heart hard was hardened and that he would not let the people go, Moses still allowed himself to become furious with Pharaoh.
4. Exodus 11:8 reports that Moses went out from Pharaoh “hot with anger.”
5. Moses’ blood had reached the boiling point; he walked out of that place in the throes of fury.
6. But why was that? God had basically laid out how things were going to go. None of Pharaoh’s actions should have been a surprise to Moses.
7. It’s almost as if God said to Moses, “You don’t need to get mad at him. All you have to do is tell him what I am going to do.”
8. But Moses couldn’t handle the assignment.
9. He was not content merely to deliver the message, he had to get angry about it. I think he enjoyed getting angry. It had become his habit.
E. The third snapshot of anger occurred months later as the people of Israel had left Egypt and arrived at Mt. Sinai.
1. Moses had climbed that mountain and had received from the Lord the tablets of stone containing the Law.
2. Meanwhile, the people he left below grew weary of waiting for Moses’ return.
3. The Israelites began to get jumpy and jittery in Moses’ absence and finally said, “Let’s build a golden calf and worship it.”
4. So the people began to prance around and commit obscenities in front of their new idol, and at the height of their revelries, Moses returned to the camp.
5. The Bible says: 15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. (Ex. 32:15-16)
a. Keep in mind that these tablets were made by God and written by God Almighty Himself.
b. Can you imagine carrying a book written in stone by the very finger of God?
6. The story continues: 19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. (Ex. 32:19-20)
a. Did you notice that it said that Moses’ anger burned?
b. Well, shouldn’t Moses have gotten angry? Absolutely. He should have felt righteous indignation.
c. But what should be done with that kind of anger? Not what Moses did!
7. Moses smashed the tablets that God had made.
a. This was simply an act of an out-of-control temper.
b. God was not pleased by what Moses had done in anger with the tablets.
8. When God was ready to give another copy of the law, the Bible says: 1 The LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” (Ex. 34:1)
a. In other words, God said, “This time you make the tablets, since you broke the first set that I had made.”
F. To see the final snapshot of Moses’ anger, we have to fast-forward many years.
1. The people of Israel are again on the edge of the land of Canaan.
a. When they had been at this same border 4 decades earlier, they had not been allowed to go in because of unbelief.
b. Now that the old generation had died off, God was about to give the younger generation the opportunity to enter the promised land.
c. Unfortunately, Moses had been forced to wander with the Israelites for 40 years and he had listened to them complain every step of the way.
2. By the time Numbers 20 rolled around, Moses’ had had it with the people.
a. The Bible says: 1 In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. 2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. (Num. 20:1-2)
b. This is a familiar scene, isn’t it?
3. The story continues: They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! 4 Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!” (Num. 20:3-5)
a. This is the same, tired old refrain.
b. The Israelites were still griping and complaining.
c. Moses had heard this same thing a thousand times!
d. What the people didn’t realize, and what Moses himself may not have realized, was that they were about to push their leader over the edge.
4. The Bible says: 6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.” (Num. 20:6-8)
a. What could be more clear, right? There was nothing ambiguous about the instructions.
b. Take the rod, go to the rock, speak to the rock and water will flow.
c. But remember, Moses is red hot. He has had it with the people.
d. So Moses took the rod, as the Lord commanded, and went out to the rock, as the Lord had commanded, but then he deviated on his own angry course.
5. The Bible says: 9 So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Num. 20:9-10)
a. Now, wait a minute! Did we miss something?
b. Where was Moses told to give the people a scathing address?
c. Where did this come from? It came from Moses’ anger.
d. Brimming with hostility, Moses preached an angry sermon to the people.
e. And did you notice that Moses even stepped into the realm of blasphemy?
f. Moses declared, “Shall we bring water out of the rock?”
g. Since when did Moses have the power to bring water out of the rock?
h. Isn’t God the one who summons water and who provides miracles?
6. The Bible says: 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. (Num. 20:11)
a. God had told Moses to speak to the rock, but Moses struck the rock, not just once, but twice.
b. Moses belted the rock – Wham! Wham! – and water came out.
7. Don’t think for a moment that God overlooked or excused Moses’ temper tantrum.
a. The Bible says: 12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” (Num. 20:12)
b. As we read these words, we’re tempted to think, “Isn’t that punishment a little harsh? I mean, all Moses did was hit the rock, and who wouldn’t have been fed up with the Israelites?”
c. Later in Deuteronomy, we see that Moses prayed three times that this judgment might be reversed. Finally God said, “Don’t pray for that again. My answer is no.” (Deut. 3:26)
II. The Application
A. So what can we learn from Moses about anger danger?
1. The apostle James offers better counsel than we can receive from anyone or anywhere.
2. James wrote: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. (James 1:19-20)
3. Surely in his heart, Moses must have known that, as we all do.
a. Deep within, he must have been aware that his own raging temper could not advance the righteous cause of a holy God.
b. Yet through the years, he never worked with the Lord to slay that destructive monster within, and in the end it rose up and consumed him. How tragically sad!
4. What can we learn from Moses’ unwillingness to tame his anger?
5. Let’s consider three lessons.
B. First, we learn that an act of disobedience stems from unbelief.
1. God’s assessment of Moses’ disobedience is that it stemmed from a lack of faith.
2. Moses had not said, “I don’t want to do it your way, Lord, because I don’t trust you.”
3. Yet that is the meaning and reality of it – when we know God’s will and willfully move in another direction, then that is unbelief, plain and simple.
4. When Moses turned a deaf ear from God and did what he wanted to do, then he demonstrated what he really believed and that was that God didn’t know the best way to handle those rebels.
5. Commentator F.B. Meyer wrote this comment: “It is a solemn question for all of us whether we are sufficiently accurate in our obedience. It is a repeated burden of those sad chapters of Hebrews, which tell the story of the wilderness wanderings – the cemetery chapters of the New Testament – that ‘they could not enter in because of unbelief.’ But throughout the verses the margin suggests the alternative reading of ‘disobedience’; they could not enter in because of disobedience, because, you see, disobedience and unbelief are the two sides of the same coin – a coin of the devil’s mintage. They who disobey do not believe; and they who do not believe disobey.”
6. At the very root of it all, our disobedience stems from unbelief.
C. Second, we learn that an act of public disobedience diminishes God’s glory.
1. God declared that Moses’ unbelief failed to treat God “as holy in the sight of the Israelites.” (Num. 20:12)
2. In other words, “You’ve tainted My holiness, Moses. You have encouraged these people to forget that I am a holy God.”
3. We must realize that all of God’s servant-leaders live in a divine fish bowl – we are on display.
4. All of our acts of disobedience cast a shadow on the glory of God, and God is jealous that His holiness not be tainted.
5. This is the high calling that all of us have answered, especially those of us who lead and teach.
6. Let’s stay away from anything that would diminish God’s glory.
D. Finally, we learn that although any such act of disobedience is forgiven, it bears painful consequences.
1. God forgave Moses for his sin prompted by anger, but that didn’t remove the earthly consequences for the sin.
2. We can trust that God forgives all of our sins, but that doesn’t mean that He removes all the painful earthly consequences of our sins.
a. God can forgive a drunken binge, but you may still have to deal with a DWI.
b. God can forgive a violent outburst, but you may still have to deal with an assault charge.
c. God can forgive an adulterous relationship, but you may still have to deal with the loss of your marriage and family.
d. Just being sorry and forgiven doesn’t make it all better.
3. There are times when even forgiven sins bear terrible consequences.
E. Wouldn’t you love to have the ability to go back in time and change something you did or said? Wouldn’t you love to have a “do over” button, like Staples “That was easy” button?
1. I can imagine that Moses would have liked to have had the opportunity to go back and get it right – I’m sure, if given another chance he would have kept his anger in check and spoken to the rock.
a. But unfortunately, he couldn’t go back.
b. In a single moment of rage, he forfeited his right to lead Israel into the Promised Land.
2. We can think of many other people in Scripture who would have liked a retake – a do over.
a. What would Eve give for another chance before that tree in the Garden?
b. What would King Saul give for another chance to be more patient as he waited for Samuel to arrive and offer the sacrifice?
c. What would David give to relive that night on the rooftop when he first saw Bathsheba?
5. But the sad fact is, we cannot go back. None of us can.
a. We cannot undo sinful deeds or unsay sinful words.
b. We cannot reclaim those moments when we were possessed by rage, or lust, or indifference, or pride.
c. Like Moses, we may be forgiven for those sins, but we must live with the earthly consequences.
F. This is a sobering reminder to me that life on earth is really nothing more than a string of moments, one after another.
1. I do not want my life and testimony for Jesus to be shattered by a single moment of indulging my flesh.
2. I don’t want one moment of rage or pride or lust to cast a shadow over a lifetime of walking with the Lord.
3. Frankly, I fear that possibility. And do you know what? I want and need to fear that possibility.
4. Whenever you or I stop fearing that possibility, then we are in grave danger.
G. Here’s a wonderful prayer that we should often say: “Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:13)
1. No, we can’t go back and change the past. Thankfully we are forgiven.
2. What we can do is learn to walk much closer with the Lord.
3. We can keep short accounts with the Lord and we can lean on the Holy Spirit to guard our hearts and shield us from destructive, life-shattering sins.
4. And God will do that if we will allow Him to.
5. That is a wonderful promise we have in the Word: No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Cor. 10:13)
6. God provides the way to overcome temptation.
7. If this becomes our way of life, then when God says speak to the rock, we will speak, not strike.
8. And the water that flows from that kind of obedience will refresh us with no aftertaste of regret.
9. Praise God that He can give us the power to control and direct our lives, that we might be like Him, and that we might avoid the dangers and destruction of sin, especially anger danger.
H. I realize that the thrust of this sermon is to point out the destruction and danger that anger poses, and to challenge us to avoid it.
1. But I want to leave us with some simple action steps that will give us something to put into practice to manage our anger.
2. Here are four words to keep in mind:
a. Awareness – of our weakness and vulnerability.
b. Preparedness – what we will do when we begin to go in the wrong direction.
c. Slowness – how to proceed slowly when things are going the wrong way.
d. Prayerfulness – constant connection with God to help us to overcome.
Resources:
Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication, by Charles Swindoll, Word Publishing, 1999
