Wrath
Romans 12:17-21
A trucker was driving down the road when a motorcycle gang surrounded the truck and almost caused him to lose control. The trucker started to yell at the bikers and honk his horn, his face getting redder and redder. He even threw in a few obscene gestures. A couple of hours later, he pulled into a restaurant for dinner. He was minding own business when that same motorcycle gang walked in. Not wanting any trouble, he kept to himself. One biker got in his face. "Big man in the 18 wheeler, out of your truck, you’re a wimp", he shouted, pouring coffee all over his food. The trucker didn’t say a word, paid his bill and walked out. The biker turned to the waitress and said, "He’s not much of a man out of his truck" The waitress causally shot back, "not much of a truck driver either, he just ran over 6 motorcycles on the way out." Anger can lead to many things. It can lead to injustice, violence and retribution.
Anger or wrath is very much a part of our life and our world. We see it every day. You can’t turn on the news without seeing a story about some guy who got angry at his kid’s baseball game and nearly killed the referee or a violent crime of some kind in the street of New Orleans. Anger is all around us. We see it in others. We feel it in ourselves.
We’re in the middle of a series on the Seven Deadly Sins. And today we’re looking at wrath. The word for wrath in Latin is ira which is where we get the English word irate. Now wrath and irate are very strong words describing extreme emotion. Today as we look at wrath, we’re going to talk about the entire spectrum of emotion from being angry to being irate. Many believe that anger is a sin. When we think that, we fail to remember that anger is one of the emotions God created in us. That means being angry can be good but like anything else that God creates, it can be bad when taken to the extreme. It’s OK to eat, but you don’t want to be a glutton. It’s OK to have passion for your wife, but you don’t want to lust after others. It’s OK to be angry, you just don’t want it to lead to wrath.
Today, I want us to consider two different kinds of anger. The first is anger that is slow and simmers inside us. Think of it like a crawfish boil pot put on its stand. When you begin to boil for crawfish, it takes a long time for the water to come to a boil. Crawfish boil anger is the same, slowly simmering inside us. It doesn’t get expressed very much. We keep it inside, bottling it up. But what happens if we keep it bottled inside us is that it becomes a poison and begins to change us and our soul. For example, in a marriage there’s always the little habits of our spouse which get on our nerves. We don’t say anything but the habits continue and they begin to grate on us over time. As they do, we begin to look at our spouse with a critical eye. Our spouse innocently continues to do those things which get on our nerves because we haven’t said anything until the pressure finally builds up and the pot overflows. We see this a lot in families where there’s an anger which exists just below the surface for many months, years or even generations. It’s an anger that no one talks about but as long as people can remember, it’s always there. We’re afraid of speaking about it because of the affects it might cause. It can be anger at a parent, a grandparent or even a brother or sister. Or it can even be an anger focused on someone who’s not even alive.
Then there’s a second type of anger which I’ll call dynamite anger. It has a short fuse and then explodes. The thing about dynamite anger is that it damages everything that is in close proximity. This is the type of anger that you can’t help but notice when it explodes, whether it comes out in yourself or in other people. Dynamite anger is very unstable. You may never know when it will explode and makes other people walk on eggshells. An example of this is road rage. While driving, someone cuts you off and then you want to honk your horn, show them a sign you’re angry or even try to get retribution by cutting them off. It may also happen when you get an email that pushes your buttons and you immediately respond by attacking the other person with a message back and hit ‘Send.” In its more violent form, dynamite anger leads to physical abuse and even crimes of passion.
We see this in Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is a farmer and Abel is a rancher. Each brings an offering to God, Cain some of the crops from his field and Abel the choicest meat of the firstborn of his flock. They bring them before God and God accepts Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. Cain gets very angry about this and God notices. So God comes to Cain and says, “Why are you so angry. When you get angry, you know that sin is crouching at your door.” But Cain doesn’t hear God. And in the next verse, Cain has invited his brother into his field and murders him in an expression of dynamite anger.
We all experience anger in life whether it be crawfish boil anger or dynamite anger. But it impacts us. First, anger can damage us and our relationship to others. When you’re angry at someone, you avoid them and don’t want to have any contact with them. Anger shuts down communication with others. It can also lead to a silent resentment. Anger causes us to lose the opportunity to be reconciled. Anger doesn’t want to be resolved or even healed. It can take over a person’s life as they invest their energy, time and effort in their anger. Anger isolates us. Anger can also damage us physically. Doctors have found that anger contributes to ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, heart attacks, and even strokes. It can result in crippling arthritis and severe depression. In short, every system of your body is affected. Initially, you may not feel these devastating effects of anger. But in time, anger can ruin your health.
Second, anger can lead to revenge. Paul says in Ephesians 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.” Revenge is wishing physical harm on someone. It is seeking to take action against someone for a wrong done to us, purposefully hurting them, either with your words or actions. This can happen in the midst of an argument when something is said and you immediately want to toss something else out to hurt them or you can take later action against them for the hurt they inflicted. Revenge can feel good for awhile but it is never justice and it never leads to a positive outcome. Revenge never leads to reconciliation. Revenge never leads to anything positive.
What we need to be reminded is that revenge is not for us but is ultimately for God. “Do not take revenge my dear friends but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to revenge. I will repay.” Rom. 12:19 Revenge is God’s responsibility, not ours. We can express our anger but we should never seek revenge. Seeking to take revenge is trying to harm someone as a result of our anger. But ultimately, God is in charge of that. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take action when we feel angry but it does mean, we need to give our will over to God when angry and not seek revenge, trusting that God will invoke His own in this lifetime or the next.
Third, anger may lead to positive action. Anger doesn’t always lead to sin. You can be angry and not sin. In fact, anger can sometimes lead to things which are positive. It’s how we respond to anger which makes a difference. The Bible speaks of righteous indignation which is anger directed toward an injustice leading to positive action and even change. One example of this is MADD, Mothers against Drunk Driving which was formed in 1980 as a result of a mother who lost her child to a drunk driver. A second example would be Martin Luther King and his stand against segregation and fight for equal rights.
A third example of righteous anger is seen throughout the Scriptures in God. Out of the 7 Deadly Sins, anger is the only one clearly attributed to God in the Scriptures. How do we make sense that God angers and yet this is one of the 7 Deadly Sins? Let’s take a look at two well known stories of God’s anger. The first is in Genesis 6 when God sees the human race growing but also their wickedness so that every inclination and thought of humans was evil. God began to regret ever creating humans and so he decided to start over by flooding the earth, saving only Noah and his family. Another story which speaks of God’s anger is found in all four Gospels. It is the story of Jesus going into the temple and seeing money changers cheat people who have come to worship from afar and make sacrifice. Because they traveled so far, they had to purchase a lamb for sacrifice but in the process were cheated in the exchange rate. Jesus is so angry at this sight in the House of God that he turns over the tables and physically drives the moneychangers out of the temple. This is righteous anger directed towards sin and injustice. God’s anger is always directed toward sin. God does not hate the sinner, just the sin.
Let me be very clear: our God is not an angry God just waiting for us to sin so he can punish us. While God may get angry at sin, this is not one of His overwhelming characteristics. The Psalmist writes, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.” Psalm 85:16 God may be angry at sin but he is always slow to anger. More than anything, God created us to love us and that is His defining characteristic. God loves us, cares for us and longs for us to turn from our sin. In every act towards us, even in His punishment, God is expressing His love because more than anything he want us to return to Him. When we do, we find a God who is waiting with open arms to receive us. Is this not the lesson of the story of the Prodigal Son? No matter how far we may stray from the Father’s will, God is always waiting for us to return.
So if God wants us to avoid wrath and turn to Him, how do we do that? In New York City a taxi veered across 4 lanes of traffic to pick up a fare and in the process he clipped a red VW Bug. The two drivers got out to examine the damage, the cabbie a short man of Middle Eastern origin, the Beetle driver a hulking giant. As the cabbie approached, the VW Bug driver 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 Beetle owner began screaming at him how he was going to hurt him, but every third sentence being, "This is your lucky day!" Eventually, the cabbie was lowered back to the ground, but, then, the Beetle guy asked, "Don't you want to know why this is your lucky day?" Shaking his head yes, the muscle-laden man said: "Because I'm on my way to court mandated anger management class and I don't dare show up with blood on my shirt!"
How do we make sure that our anger does not lead us to sin? First, get to the root of the problem. Psychologists have found that anger always is rooted in other emotions. Is there an injustice which has been done to you which has frightened you or belittled you? Are you impatient because you can get what you want when you want it? Has there been sexual, physical, verbal, emotional or mental abuse? Are there unmet needs in the relationship? Is there jealousy which has caused your anger? Discover the real root of your anger.
Second, don’t say it and count to ten. Proverbs 29:20 reminds us that hasty words are a problem, so think before you speak is a good motto to follow. Count to 10 before you let those words out. That jab you want to say or email you want to write, don’t. You can write it down but then save it and come back to it a few days later. Then decide if it’s helpful or not to the situation. Third, admit you’re angry. That starts first with admitting to yourself that you’re angry but it might mean taking the situation to God and admitting that you feel angry and asking His help in dealing with it.
Fourth, seek God’s understanding and guidance. Pray for understanding and guidance regarding your anger and the situation at hand. Ultimately this is what causes us to sin, when we value our will over God’s will. When we are angry and seeking our own will, remember God’s words to Cain: “Sin is crouching at your doorstep.” But when we seek God’s will…
Fifth, address the other party, but in a biblical manner. In other words, talk things out in a calm manner and in a spirit of love. If you can’t without getting worked up, then it’s not time to address it. When you do, use the “hear, think, feel” process. This is what I heard you say, this is what I think about that and this is how it made me feel. Don’t make “you” statements, but also ask clarifying questions of the other person to see what they heard, thought or felt. Sixth, seek forgiveness and reconciliation. You may need to forgive that person but not always to their face. Because for someone to receive forgiveness, they have to claim they were wrong. You may also need instead to forgive yourself and/or seek the other person’s forgiveness. But in all situations, we need to seek God’s forgiveness.
Unfortunately, there are some people we will never be able to have a healthy relationship with. They’re too wounded and their anger bank is too full to allow them to process the issues that are destroying them and their relationship with us and others. We may need to temporarily accept those limitations on our relationship with them, but we can continue to pray that God will set them free and thereby enable us to develop a healthy relationship with them in the future. Keep the door open, the light in the window and the key in the mailbox and then we can follow the words of Leviticus 10:18, “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Amen and Amen.
