Dealing With Anger The Great Destroyer Series

THE SIN OF ANGER

Bob Marcaurelle

bmarcaurelle@charter.net

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"If you churn milk you get butter, if you twist a nose you get blood, and if you stir up anger you get trouble." (Proverbs 30:33)

THE SERIOUSNESS

Anger is both strange and serious. It is strange because we all do it; most deny doing it; and a few of us call it a sin. We brag about it like the man who said, “I weigh 130 pounds. When I’m mad, I weigh 200.”

To God anger is serious and sinful. The Bible re¬peatedly condemns it and gives examples of its destructive power. It is the first sin expressed by our evil nature outside of Eden (Genesis 4). God asked Cain why he was mad. It kept Moses from en¬tering the Promised Land (Numbers 20:10-13). It is the sin that killed Jesus. The religious leaders were "angry" at Him because He healed on the Sabbath (John 7:23) and the end result of their anger was the cross.

Anger is a HEART problem. In Galatians 5, Paul lists 17 foul works that come from our evil nature and seven of them point to this sin.

HATRED is enmity or the natural, fighting instinct of the human heart. VARI¬ANCE points to conflicts that arise between people who are by nature hostile. WRATH, the blazing anger or fits of rage, point to the harmful words and deeds that come out of conflict. STRIFE means "factious" (Barclay) where the angry person seeks support for his side. The result is SEDITIONS or "divisions" where homes, churches, businesses, neighborhoods, countries, etc., form opposing, hostile groups. HERESY points to dissent that crystallizes into settled hatred between groups.

Conversely, of the nine character traits of the Spirit led life, five point to the conquering of this particular sin (Galatians 5:14-26). LOVE, Paul says, is not irritable (1 Corinthians 13). PEACE is the absence of conflict. PATIENCE, is literally "long tempered" in the Greek language. GENTLENESS, accord¬ing to Aristotle, is the mean between too much and too little anger. And SELF CONTROL, which means "to take hold of", is most often used in our language in the context of anger as we speak of "controlling" our tempers.

Anger is a HOME problem. David and Vera Mace, after almost a half a century of marriage counseling in America, said; "The number one cause of divorce in our nation is plain, old-fashioned anger." Anger is a problem in the HOUSE OF GOD Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:20, wrote the Church at Corinth:

"I'm afraid that when I come I may not find you

being what I want /there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger,

selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder."

This sounds like an autopsy of a church killed by angry people. One man said, "The church is like Noah's ark. If it weren't for the storm on the outside, we couldn't put up with the stink on the inside." At home, at church, at work, at play and in your neighborhood, this sin will wreck your life quicker than any other. That's why an ancient proverb says:

"Whom the gods destroy, they first MAKE MAD."

THE SCRIPTURES

Psalm 37:8 says, “Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.”

Proverbs 14:17 says, “A quick tempered man acts like a fool.” My favorite verse is Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Be not quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of a fool.” Ephesians 4:31 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another.” James 1:20 says, “The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.” Our Lord said “If we are angry at our brother, we are in danger of the judgment. If we insult him we are in danger of the council (a great¬er judgment). But if we call him RACCA, you fool, you good for nothing; we are in danger of hell-fire.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

What about Jesus' anger at Pharisees (Mark 3:5)? What about His driving out the money changers (John 2:13-25)? This is righteous indignation, a virtue we all need but which few of us have. It is anger over someone else’s nose being punched and 99.9% of our anger is over our own nose being punched.

Abraham Lincoln, as a young man, saw a mother being sold away from her child on the slave block. He clinched his fists and said,

"If I ever get the chance to hit this, I will hit it hard."

What about Ephesians 4:26, "Be angry and do not sin; don't let the sun go down on your anger.” The Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, calls this a "conditional imperative" which means, "WHEN YOU GET ANGRY" deal with it immediately, before you do something foolish and harmful.

THE SOURCES