"Be Ye Angry…”

There are many things in life that someone can say to us to make us angry.

Illus: I think about the teacher who became very angry at something her student had said. The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. She said:

• "Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ’There’s Jennifer; she’s a lawyer, and that’s Michael, he’s a doctor.’"

• A small voice from the back of the room said, “And we can say, look, there’s the teacher; she’s still old, nasty, and ugly."

Illus: One of the things that causes a lot of people to get angry these days is the way people drive their cars. In New York City last week, a taxi clipped a car while veering across four lanes of traffic to pick up a fare. The two drivers got out to examine the damage. The cabbie was a short man but the other driver was a very large man.

As the cabbie approached, the large man grabbed him by the shirt and hoisted him off the ground. There, at eye level, with the cabbie's feet dangling in the air, the large man began screaming, every third sentence being, "This is your lucky day!"

Eventually, the cabbie was lowered back to the ground. Then the large man said "Don't you want to know why this is your lucky day?" He then proceeded to answer his own question. He said, “I'm on my way to anger management class and I don't dare show up with blood on my shirt!"

There are things that people SAY TO US and things that people DO TO US that can make us very angry. People can be very annoying and cause us to get very angry.

The Bible says, “Be ye angry and sin not.” Let’s see how we can accomplish that.

We need to recognize that there are two kinds of anger. We see -

I. THE GOOD

There is a GOOD ANGER that the Bible teaches we Christians should possess. ALL ANGER IS NOT SINFUL!

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT?

Illus: Jesus lived a sinless life, but there were times when He was angry. Jesus expressed anger on several occasions. For example:

• Toward the money changers in the temple - John 2:13-17

• Toward the hypocritical Pharisees – Matt. 23:13ff

God is a God of anger as well as a God of love. (Rom. 1:18; 2:5; Eph. 5:6)

So we know that all anger is not sinful, because Christ was angry and He lived a sinless life.

The Lord commands us to be angry about some things.

Notice, He says, “Be ye angry and sin not”. Anger can be very useful in many ways.

Illus: Politicians recognize the need for anger in their political base. Often, before an election, they throw out what they call “RED MEAT” issues. Such as:

• Abortion

• Homosexual marriages

• Immigration

These kinds of issues will get people angry and will cause them come to the polls and vote.

There is an anger that can do a lot of harm, but also there is a good anger that can do a lot of good.

A lot of things in this country are taking place only because God fearing, Bible-believing people have not gotten angry enough to rise up and do something about them. They will fuss about these things but they will not go to the polls and vote on these issues.

But even GOOD ANGER has to be under control.

Illus: For example, as Christians we might be angry about abortion. We should do everything within our power to stop it, but we should not get so angry that we will go down to the abortion clinic and blow up the clinic, killing people. When we do this, we are as bad as the abortionists because we are also taking lives.

Many people use anger as a means of getting their way.

Illus: Anger has been compared to the combustible explosions in a car engine that produce the power to make the car move. When those explosions are under control, they will take the car safely to its destination.

But, if instead of controlling the flow of gas producing these orderly explosions -- we ignited all the gas in the tank at once -- we'd blow both the car and ourselves up.

Prov. 29:11 says, "A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards."

We are told there are four words we use to describe different levels or types of anger that we experience.

(1) RAGE

Rage is used to describe a short-fused-intense-explosive-uncontrolled anger. It's a "fly off the handle," anger.