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.
We try to excuse this kind of anger by saying, "I know I lose my temper really fast, but it's all over in a few minutes."
Illus: So is a bomb explosion, but an awful lot of damage can take place in those few minutes.
Illus: Will Rogers said, "People who fly into a rage seldom make a good landing."
People who express this type of anger are walking time bombs with hair trigger tempers, ready to explode.
James 1:19, gives some sound advice. We read, "…be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:”
(2) WRATH
Wrath is used to describe an anger that wants revenge, that desires to retaliate, that wants to return the hurt or injustice the offender has caused them.
Wrath anger is an anger that holds a grudge. It's an "eye for an eye," or a "tooth for a tooth,"
Illus: Austin O’Malley said, "Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you."
(3) RESENTMENT ANGER
Resentment anger is used to describe an anger that stems from a grievance.
Illus: This reminds me of a story that took place when Barbara Walters went to Iraq and talked with some of the Iraqi women before the war that liberated them. She asked one of the women, “Aren’t you women in Irag angry that when you walk down the street you have to walk three steps behind your husbands?” And privately they told her, “Sure we are angry!”
She came back after they had been liberated and they were walking fifty feet behind their husbands as they walked down the street. She said to these women, “Before you were liberated, you walked a few steps behind your husbands, but now since you have been liberated you walk fifty feet behind them … I do not understand!”
One of the ladies smiled and said, “I will tell you why we walk fifty feet behind…LAND MINES!”
It is an anger that the person suppresses over a long period of time and allows to quietly smolder down inside them
RESENTMENT ANGER DOESN'T BLOWUP, BUT CLAMS UP.
A lot of times, this kind of anger comes from someone not having it their way.
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger said that years ago he had a song leader that would not speak to certain members in the congregation. Dr. Belger felt his attitude was hurting the church service because the ones he would not speak to had a hard time worshipping the Lord with a man like him leading the song service. Dr. Belger sent a couple of deacons to talk to him about this problem. The next Sunday, when it was time for him to be on the platform to start church, he was sitting in the congregation with his arms crossed, anger written all over his face. Dr. Belger said that even though he was a small man, he had almost doubled his size because he was so swollen with anger.
Resentment anger damages the human personality and destroys relationships with others.
(4) INDIGNATION
Indignation anger is used to describe an anger that rises up in us as a result of seeing someone or something of importance to us being mistreated or suffering an injustice.
Indignation anger is free from rage, resentment, and retaliation.
• It's a healthy anger that is aimed at the problem and not the person.
• It's an anger for the right reason and expressed in the right way.
• It's a controlled anger that is meant to be corrective and constructive.
Indignation anger is the kind Jesus displayed. The Gospels tell of Jesus becoming angry on several occasions, but it was always INDIGNATION ANGER!
Indignation anger is the only type of anger that Scripture allows. Any anger that rises up in us and fills us with rage, wrath, or resentment must be immediately challenged for it is destructive anger.
Anger that comes as a result of righteous indignation must be cultivated, because it is a constructive anger that God does not condemn.
We looked at THE GOOD. Let’s look at:
II. THE BAD
In Prov. 25:28, we read, “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”
Illus: Someone said, “Anger can and will surface at the strangest times, is brought forth for the strangest of reasons and is exhibited in the strangest ways.”
We need to learn to control our anger before it controls us.
• Many have destroyed their homes through a divorce because they could not control their anger
• Many are sitting on death row waiting to be executed because they could not control their anger
• Many good churches have been destroyed because someone could not control their anger
There are three things we can do to try and rid ourselves of this bad anger.
A. REPRESS IT
Repression, we are told, is a form of denial. If I deny that I am angry, then I won't have to deal with it. If I just ignore it, it will go away. I just work real hard at pretending it's not there.
But has it gone away…NO! Repression is not the healthiest way to handle anger.
If anger is not dealt with, usually it is the physical body that feels the effects of that repressed anger. For example:
• The blood system - producing heart attacks. This is why God say we are not to let the sun go down on our wrath
• Muscles tense up - elevating blood pressure
• Digestive tract - producing ulcers
Nothing can take place in the body without it affecting everything else about us. Anger affects our state of mind, and our state of mind affects, in many ways, our body.
REPRESSION IS NOT THE SOLUTION.
B. SUPPRESS IT
In suppressing anger, we are very much aware that we are angry, but actually we silently nurture it within and allow it to simmer on the back burner of our mind.
Suppressed anger is usually drained off on a less threatening, unsuspecting person, usually that person is another family member.
Let me give you an illustration of how this works.
• An employer calls a worker in and confronts him angrily over some work problem
• The employee feels the employer is wrong and anger rises up in him.
• The employee is afraid of losing his job so he suppresses his anger and "stuffs" it down inside of him and goes home.
• The wife (unaware of what has happened) greets him at the door with a smile, but the man, still angry, only snarls at her.
• The wife now has two options open to her. She can snarl back or she can "stuff it." She chooses to "stuff it."
• Just then, the teenage son comes in and mom unloads her "stuffed anger" on him by finding something to yell about.
• The son in turn "stuffs it" until later when he unloads on his younger brother, who unloads on his little sister, who unloads on her doll she was playing with by breaking its head off in anger.
The effects of repressed anger eventually flow over into our bodies.
C. EXPRESS IT
Expressing anger can be good, if it is done in a CONSTRUCTIVE WAY, not a DESTRUCTIVE WAY
When people get angry:
• Their thinking process usually gets short circuited,
• Reactionary impulses race through their mind in a disjointed fashion and they are not likely to think things through in a rational way.
Illus: This is one of the techniques they teach in DEBATING. If you can get your opponent angry, the blood will rush to the brain and short circuit everything. They will start stuttering and soon will not be able to articulate their view point.
They say that any politician who is going to be successful has to learn to control their anger. They must learn how to EXPRESS THEIR ANGER in a way that they can articulate their view points and not allow other people’s viewpoints to cause them to go into a rage.
Conclusion:
There are things in this life that can cause us to get VERY ANGRY! But there is nothing in life that with God’s help, we can not handle in the right manner!
We have looked at:
I. THE GOOD
II. THE BAD
