Introduction:
A. A man with a terrible temper, was playing a round of golf with his preacher.
1. After leaving three straight putts on the edge of the cup, the man exploded, “I missed again!” “How could I miss?”
2. With that he heaved his putter into a nearby lake, kicked a wheel on the golf cart and drove his fist into a nearby tree.
3. The preacher was shocked. “I have never seen such a terrible display of anger,” he said to the man.
4. “Don’t you know that God doesn’t like it when we are angry? I have heard that there are angels whose one assignment is to search out people who express their anger so ferociously and to send lightning bolts from heaven to burn them to a crisp.”
5. The man was embarrassed and fearful. Heeding the warning of preacher, on the next few holes, he managed to control himself.
6. However, on the last three holes his putting failed him again.
7. When the last putt veered off to the right just in front of the cup, the man went crazy. “I missed!” he screamed, “How could I miss?”
8. He broke his club across his knee and threw it as far as he could, he kicked up several large clumps of grass on the edge of the green, and once more drove his fist into a nearby tree.
9. Suddenly the sky grew dark as an ominous cloud appeared. There was a clap of thunder and an awesome burst of lightning came out of the cloud and hit the preacher and burned him to a crisp!
10. An eerie silence filled the golf course. All that could be heard was the voice of an angel in heaven: “I missed again! How could I miss?” (Contributed by David Lansdown, SermonCentral)
B. In know that’s a silly story, but we’ve all seen displays of anger like that man on the golf course.
1. I admit that I’ve lost control and acted that way in times past.
2. It seems that we live in a world that has gone MAD.
3. People seem to be more and more angry than ever before.
4. We keep inventing new terms to describe people’s angry feelings and actions.
a. Psychiatrists today describe a condition called LFT (Low frustration tolerance).
b. The phrase “road rage” officially entered the English language in 1997 when it was first listed in the New Words edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
c. An even newer term is “air rage” which is used to describe disgruntled passengers who take their frustrations out on airline personnel.
5. According to one anger management firm, “one out of every five Americans has an anger management problem.
6. According to FBI statistics, 28% of murders come as a result of arguments occurring at home.
7. Anger related violence is the reason stated for 22% of divorces of middle-class marriages.
8. Studies show that 79% of violent children witnessed some form of violence between their parents.
C. So, as I said, it seems that the world is going mad.
1. People are getting more and more angry and are showing it.
2. So many people are allowing situations, schedules and people to hinder their ability to tolerate frustration.
3. So many people are living on the edge of anger, on the brink of eruption.
4. For that reason we must understand that anger is one letter short of DANGER.
5. Giving in to the mistake of anger can be very costly.
D. The Proverbs address the topic of anger as much or more than any other topic. Here is a sampling:
1. Pr. 14:17, “A quick-tempered man does foolish things…”
2. Pr. 19:19, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.”
3. Pr. 29:11, “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
E. So, today we want to talk about “Avoiding the Mistake of Anger.”
1. Our good/bad example is Moses.
I. His Story
A. The story of Moses is one of the better known stories of the Bible.
1. His story begins as the book of Exodus begins.
2. The Israelites are living in Egypt and are being brutally oppressed as slaves.
3. The Israelites are multiplying so rapidly that the Egyptians order the midwives to kill all the Hebrew baby boys that are born by throwing them into the Nile River.
4. When Moses was born his parents hid him for 3 months, but when they could hide him no longer they made a little basket boat for him. They put Moses in the basket and put the basket in the reeds along the bank of the Nile, near to where the Pharaoh’s daughter bathed.
5. The Pharaoh’s daughter found the crying baby and even though she recognized that he was a Hebrew, she decided to raise him as her own son.
6. Moses’ sister, Miriam, had been stationed near the baby to watch what would happen.
7. She said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” (Ex. 2:7)
8. So, Miriam went and got her mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter paid her to nurse the baby until he was weaned. Afterward, she brought Moses to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.
B. Many years later, after Moses had grown up, he showed his first anger problem; he was about 40 year old at the time.
1. One day, he went out to where his own people, the Israelites, were working.
2. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man.
3. Moses glanced this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
4. Somehow, people found out what had happened, and when Pharaoh heard about this he tried to have Moses killed, but Moses escaped to the desert where he lived for the next 40 years.
C. When Moses was 80 years old, God appeared to him and sent him on a mission to liberate the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.
1. Reluctantly, Moses went back to Egypt, confronted Pharaoh, performed miracles and brought the plagues on Egypt.
2. In one of Moses final meetings with Pharaoh, the Bible says, “Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharoah.” (Ex. 11:8)
3. After the final plague, the death of the first born sons of Egypt, Pharaoh let them go.
4. The Egyptians were glad to see them go and gave them silver and gold and articles of clothing, and so they plundered the Egyptians.
5. Under Moses’ leadership, they crossed the Red Sea and made their way to the land of Promise.
D. When they reached Mount Sinai, God called Moses up the mountain and gave him the 10 Commandments and the entire Law of God.
1. Ex. 31:18 says, “When the Lord had finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.”
2. Moses had been on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, and the people feared that he was dead.
3. So they turned to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and asked him to make them gods who would go before them.
4. Aaron made an idol in the shape of a golden calf, and told them “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Ex. 32:4)
5. The people began to party, “they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” (Ex. 32:6b)
6. The Bible says, “When Moses came down from the mountain 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.” (Ex. 32:19)
7. There’s a story is told of two little boys discussing who was the “baddest” person in the Bible.
a. One boy said he didn’t know who it was.
b. The other boy said, “Moses is the ‘baddest’ because he broke all 10 Commandments at the same time.”
E. So far in our review of the story of Moses, we have seen his anger flare up on several occasions.
1. We might be inclined to justify his anger calling it righteous indignation.
2. He killed the Egyptian because the man was beating another man.
3. He was angry at Pharaoh for not submitting to God and honoring his promises.
4. And when Moses found the people rebelling against God in idol worship and revelry, that would be enough to cause anyone to blow a cork. Right?
5. Wrong. Consider this – Couldn’t God have taken care of the Egyptian task master?
6. Couldn’t God have taken care of Pharaoh? Did he need Moses to burn with anger?
7. What about breaking the tablets? These were the work of God, made and engraved by the finger of God.
8. If you don’t think God was a little upset by Moses’ actions, consider this: later, the Lord told Moses to chisel out two new stone tablets and bring them to the top of the mountain.
9. God said, “I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke” (34:1).
10. God had made and written on the first tablets and all Moses had to do was carry them down the mountain. Because Moses broke the first ones, he had to make the second set and carry them up the mountain. (This was no small mountain!)
F. The final and most severe example of Moses anger, came many years later.
1. Moses led the people to Canaan and sent spies to check it out.
2. The 12 spies surveyed the land and returned with this report: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey…But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.” (Num. 13:27-28)
3. Caleb, one of the 12 spies, silenced the people and told them, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” (13:30)
4. But 10 of the spies continued to convince the people that the land could not be taken. They said the people there are stronger and bigger, and the land devours those living in it.
5. The people were so disappointed that they talked about killing Moses and Aaron, and returning to Egypt.
6. God intervened and declared that these people would not be allowed to enter the land of promise.
7. They were doomed to wander in the desert for the next 40 years until they all died.
8. Only Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb, and all the children 20 years and younger would be allowed to enter Canaan, but unfortunately they would have to wait 40 years as well.
G. In Numbers 20, we find Moses still leading Israel and the 40 years of wandering is almost over.
1. Miriam, Moses’ sister has just died, and they have arrived at a place where there is no water.
2. The people begin to quarrel with Moses saying, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 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!” (20:3-5)
3. This was like the ultimate Déjà vu for Moses.
4. We have to go all the way back to Exodus 17 to find the account of the similar experience.
5. They had just crossed the Red Sea and they came out of the Desert of Sin and camped at a place where there was no water.
6. The people complained and Moses went before the Lord.
7. God told Moses to gather the people at the rock at Horeb and strike the rock with his staff and water will come out of it for the people to drink.
8. But here in Numbers 20, Moses finds himself in the exact same place, but with a different group of the Israelites, because the older ones have died, but the instructions for Moses are different.
9. He is supposed to assemble the people take his staff with him, but he is supposed to speak to the rock.
10. The Bible says, “So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. 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?’ Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.” (Num. 20:9-11)
11. Here we have the same God, same staff, same place, but a different group and a different instruction.
12. God had not told Moses to speak to the Israelites, yet Moses gave them a tongue lashing. He called them “rebels.”
13. Moses used the personal pronoun “We” saying, “Must we bring you water…” It really had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with God.
14. And then Moses struck the rock with the staff, and not just once, but twice. See, he was certainly out of control.
H. How did God respond to Moses’ angry disobedience?
1. The Bible says, “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)
2. We might think that this was a rather high price to pay for this sin, but we need to understand that Moses not only disobeyed God, he claimed the glory meant for God and he was no longer qualified to lead them.
3. Does this mean that Moses doesn’t get to go to heaven? Not at all. He is forgiven, but he was no longer capable of leading God’s people.
5. To show you that all is well with Moses at this time, do you remember who appeared with Jesus at the time of Jesus’ transfiguration? Moses and Elijah.
6. At the end of Deuteronomy, chapter 24, the Lord had Moses climb Mount Nebo and look into the land of promise, then Moses died and the Lord buried him. Moses was 120 years old.
II. Our Lessons
A. Moses made a lot of mistakes because of his anger, and we want to learn from his mistakes.
1. James wrote in James 1:19-20, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
B. All of us have the capacity for anger because God made us that way.
1. Someone put it this way: “Our anger is a matter of speed – how fast; scale – how far; and schedule – how frequent.
2. There is a good and necessary use for anger, and it is possible for us to not sin in our anger – that is God’s will for us.
3. But as we mentioned James wrote, “man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
4. And we’ve already been reminded of these Proverbs – “A quick-tempered man does foolish things” (14:17), and “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty” (19:19)
C. So how can we keep from sinning in our anger? The Bible gives us 4 tools to help.
1. First, we are encouraged to get rid of our anger.
a. Numerous passages say things like “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…” (Eph. 4:31)
b. We can’t start out with pent-up anger and expect that we won’t have angry outbursts.
c. Someone has said, “Hurting people hurt people.”
d. So, we must bring to God for help and healing any pent-up anger we feel.
e. The offering of forgiveness may be the prescription necessary for pent-up anger.
f. In the movie Forest Gump (which is not a movie that I recommend), there is a scene where Jenny, his friend, returns to the old homestead after her father had died.
1. The old farm house is abandoned and rundown.
2. As she reflects on the sexual abuse she endured as a child from her father, she is overcome by rage and begins throwing rocks at the house.
3. She throws and throws until she runs out of rocks and falls to the ground exhausted.
4. The scene closes with Forest saying, “Sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks.”
g. Through Jesus we can find the strength to lay down our rocks, and let go of our anger.
2. Second, we are encouraged not to let the sun go down on our anger.
a. Paul says in Eph. 4:26-27, “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
b. In other words, address things in the present. Don’t let them fester.
c. Pent-up anger becomes a foothold for the devil.
3. Third, we are encouraged to be slow to speak and act.
a. James gave us these instructions: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19)
b. There’s a professor who used to give this advice to all his ministry students to help them when they faced conflict in their ministries, “Go slow, stay low, and don’t blow!”
4. Fourth, we are encouraged to ask God for help.
a. Gal. 5:22-23 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit include patience and self-control.
b. These are not things we can accomplish all by ourselves.
c. We need the Spirit to bring transformation.
d. I want to end with an illustration.
e. There’s an old proverb that says, “The emptier the pot, the quicker it boils.”
f. The less water in the pot the easier it is to bring it to a boil. So, the key for us is to keep as much water in the pot as possible.
g. Water is often used in Scripture as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
h. In other words, the less the H.S. has us, the quicker we act like we don’t have the Spirit.
i. Let’s be full of the Spirit!
