A. I was recently reminded about an old story about Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle that I think is a good launching point for today’s sermon.
1. The story goes like this: One day Mickey Mantle took his friend and teammate, Billy Martin, with him to hunt on another friend’s ranch.
2. When they arrived at the ranch, Billy stayed in the car while Mickey went to let his friend know they were there.
3. The friend asked for a favor - he had an old mule that was going blind and had become crippled, but he didn’t have the heart to put the mule out of its misery.
a. So, he asked if Mickey wouldn’t mind shooting the mule for him as a favor.
4. Mantle said “sure” and on his way back to the car decided to play a trick on Billy Martin.
5. Mickey climbed into the car and acted angry.
a. Mickey said, “My friend said we can’t hunt today” as he pounded his fist on the dashboard.
b. “Why that guy has made me so made I’m going to the barn to shoot one of his mules.”
6. With that, Mickey jumped out of the car and headed for the barn.
7. In quick order he took care of the mule and started back to the car to tell Martin it was just a joke.
8. At that moment Mickey heard two shots fired and found Billy Martin standing over two dead cows.
9. Mickey asked Billy, “What are you doing?”
10. Billy Martin answered, “I saw how mad you were and so I wanted to let your friend know that he couldn’t fool around with me either.”
B. Both Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin loved to tell that story, though sometimes it involved putting down a cow and Billy shooting three of the farmer’s horses or bulls.
1. In reality, the story was based on an old joke told on stage and radio.
2. Mickey and Billy fine-tuned the story and made it their own and it worked like a charm thanks to Martin’s well-known temper issues.
3. The pair told the story so well in bars across the nation, and on television, that thousands of people believed it.
4. It looks like they got the best laugh of all.
5. In any case, no cows or mules were injured in the telling of this joke.
C. But sadly, that’s not the case in many real life stories of anger and lack of self-control – often many people get injured in the process.
1. O. J. Simpson died last month and with his passing came the renewed attention on that tragic double murder and the sensational, captivating trial of O. J. Simpson.
2. He was found “not guilty” in that criminal trial in 1995, but a year later he was sued by the victims’ families for wrongful death and was found guilty in that civil trial and had to pay 33.5 million in damages.
3. Rules are different in criminal and civil trials and it’s harder to prove guilt in criminal trials than in civil trial.
D. So, was O. J. Simpson guilty or not? We don’t need to speculate, because God knows the truth and God will bring whatever judgment and justice that is needed.
1. But here’s the thing I want us to think about for a moment…the prosecution had to find a way to convince twelve citizen-jurors that one of the great American icons was actually capable of committing a horrific deed—a bloody double murder.
2. Here are a few of the things that Mr. Darden said to the jury: “It is not the actor who is on trial here today, ladies and gentlemen. It is not that public face. It is his other face.”
3. What a chilling phrase — “His other face” - the face we never see running through airports and driving rental cars - the face that never appears in the movies or on the talk shows.
4. Mr. Darden said, “It is the face he wore behind the walls at Rockingham, his Brentwood home. It is, he said, the face of a batterer, a wife beater, an abuser, a controller.”
E. I don’t know for sure if that was O. J. Simpson’s “other face,” but I do know that all of us struggle with our “other face.”
1. I know that within the human heart there is an enormous capacity for evil.
2. The Bible says in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
3. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
4. Is it possible that a man who seems to be friendly, positive, up-beat, genuinely good-hearted could commit a cold-blooded murder? I don’t know.
5. But could he or any of us commit hot-blooded murder? The answer is “yes.”
6. Uncontrolled anger can lead to great destruction.
7. In a moment of anger, all of us are capable of horrible deeds that we would never commit otherwise.
8. This is why the Proverbs and the rest of the Bible warns us about the danger of anger.
F. We all know that anger is a powerful emotion which can be used for good or for evil.
1. Anger isn’t always wrong.
2. We know, for instance, that anger is something that God experiences.
3. Did you know that the Bible speaks over a hundred times of the anger of the Lord?
4. We know that God never sins, yet the Bible speaks repeatedly of His anger toward sin and disobedience.
5. Therefore, we know that there are times when anger is justified and even righteous.
6. Ephesians 4:26 instructs us: “In your anger do not sin.”
7. When we see people hurting other people or people being treated unjustly; when we watch the wholesale slaughter of the unborn; when we see children being lured into drugs and prostitution; when we see families torn apart by sin, these things ought to make us angry.
8. If we sit idly by while the lost world goes to hell, if we don’t get angry, if we don’t weep, if we don’t care, then something is wrong deep inside us.
G. So then, anger can be very useful, however, righteous anger can quickly lead us in the wrong direction.
1. The same verse that says, “In your anger do not sin,” adds this phrase, “Do not the let the sun go down while you are still angry.” (Ephesians 4:26)
2. That is, don’t go to bed angry.
3. Even if your anger is justified, don’t go to sleep that way.
4. Deal with it, talk it out, pray it out, walk it out, but don’t try to sleep it out. That won’t work.
5. What happens when you don’t deal with your anger?
a. It settles deep in your heart, it hardens like concrete, it distorts your personality, it squeezes out your joy, it oozes the smelly black gunk of unhappiness over every part of your life.
6. That’s why the very next verse in Ephesians offers this warning: “Do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:27)
a. All rock climbers understand that verse.
b. In order to get up the side of the mountain, you’ve got to get a firm foothold.
c. That’s what Satan wants to do in your life and mine, he wants to use our anger, even our legitimate anger to get a foothold in our hearts – but we must be wise and not let it happen.
d. I’m reminded of the scenes in the Star Wars movies where the evil emperor is trying to get Luke to give into his anger.
H. This is where self-control comes into play.
1. Proverbs 25:28 says: A person who does not control his temper is like a city whose wall is broken down.
2. You probably are familiar with the story of the book of Nehemiah and how upset Nehemiah was when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem remained broken down and how with God’s help he led the Israelites to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
3. Walls played an important role in the defense of ancient cities.
4. Cities were surrounded by great, high walls, sometimes fifteen to twenty feet thick (these were not merely fences!), and sometimes there was a double wall, just in case the outer wall was breached.
5. In the days before modern warfare, a city’s wall was its first and best defense against invasion.
6. When attacks seemed imminent, people in the surrounding countryside would hurry inside the city walls, and the gates would be securely shut.
7. Once that occurred, the city was very difficult to overthrow.
8. So, the wall of a city was a symbol of security, which is why the book of Revelation describes heaven as a beautiful city surrounded by a great wall.
9. What Nehemiah bemoaned was the fact that Jerusalem - minus its wall - lay as a hapless victim to any and every enemy who might want to invade it.
I. And the same is true for any of us who lack self-control – we are like a city with a broken wall.
1. Self-control gives us the ability to restrain our appetites and overcome our temptations.
2. Because self-control is so vital to our well-being, Proverbs has a lot to say about it.
3. There are proverbs that warn about not exercising self-control in regard to eating, drinking, working, speaking and sexual indulgence.
4. We will examine some of these topics in future sermons, but for today, I want us to focus on controlling our anger.
5. Let’s look at a number of Proverbs that help us see what anger does and how we can deal wisely with anger.
J. Proverbs 29:22 says: An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered one increases rebellion. (CSV) - NIV: An angry person stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.
1. The Hebrew word translated “angry” is a graphic word - the Hebrew word literally pictures a person’s nostrils flaring.
a. This word describes more than irritation, it’s red-hot anger, wild eyed, bulging veins, and clenched teeth kind of anger.
2. The term for the “hot-tempered” person is just as vivid as the term for “angry” in Hebrew.
a. The word for “hot-tempered” literally means “full of poison or venom” or “master of rage.”
b. Like a snake with fangs full of lethal venom, the hot-tempered person is full of poisonous venom and rage that is just waiting to spill out.
3. This kind of person commits lots of different kinds of sins, because anger blinds us with rage.
a. Uncontrolled anger opens the door to many kinds of sin in our lives.
b. When we don’t learn wise ways of dealing with our anger, it heats up in dangerous ways.
c. And once it starts to heat up, it’s like a pressure cooker that builds to incredible pressure.
d. If the pressure isn’t released in healthy helpful ways, it will get out of control and we will find ourselves doing things and saying things we never imagined possible.
4. Other Proverbs point to the destruction that comes from unchecked and uncontrolled anger.
a. A quick-tempered person acts foolishly, and one who schemes is hated. (Pr. 14:17)
b. A patient person shows great understanding, but a quick-tempered one promotes foolishness. (Pr. 14:29)
c. A person with intense anger bears the penalty; if you rescue him, you’ll have to do it again. (Pr. 19:19)
d. All these verses point out the obvious and inevitable results of being quick-tempered or being intensely angry – the results are foolish and costly behaviors.
K. Proverbs 30:33 says: For the churning of milk produces butter, and twisting a nose draws blood, and stirring up anger produces strife. (CSB)
1. This verse points out the inevitable result of each of these actions – churning milk leads to butter, twisting noses leads to bleeding, and stirring up anger leads to strife.
a. We shouldn’t be surprised that these actions lead to these results.
2. The words “churn, twist, and stir up” in this verse are all the same Hebrew verb.
3. What stirs up anger in our lives?
a. We often get angry when we feel hurt.
1. We get mad when someone hurts our feelings and doesn’t seem to care about it.
2. We get angry when a person steals the parking space we’ve been waiting for or cuts us off in traffic.
b. We also get mad when we feel helpless.
1. Like when we are experiencing injustice or see other people being exploited.
2. When we are helpless to change our situation or pay our bills, we can react with rage.
c. Also, there are times that we stir up anger in our own hearts.
1. When we dwell on what another person did to hurt us, we stir up anger like churning milk produces butter.
2. When we hang out with people who tell us we have every right to be mad, when we rehearse our revenge in our minds again and again, we’re stirring up anger.
4. Now according to this proverb, doing this produces strife.
a. This word describes a quarrel or argument between people.
b. Uncontrolled anger damages our relationships with people because in our anger we often say hurtful and damaging things.
c. Proverbs 12:18 says: Reckless words pierce like a sword… (NIV)
d. Whoever said, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me” didn’t understand the power of words.
e. Our bodies can heal from being hit with a stick or a rock, but our hearts don’t easily heal from reckless words spoken in a fit of rage.
L. Most of us know far too well the damage that uncontrolled anger does, but how can we wisely learn to control our anger?
1. Let’s start with Proverbs 29:11 which says: A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise person holds it in check.
a. NIV: A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise person keeps himself under control.
2. When it comes to anger this proverb teaches us that anger must never be given total freedom.
a. Anger must never be given a full vent.
1. You are familiar with the vents in your car and the difference between having the vents closed or fully open.
2. Notice the picture on the screen of the person with a leaf blower blowing in their face – that is a very uncomfortable thing to experience, but illustrates how it feels to have someone come at us with their anger fully vented.
3. Foolish people just throw open their vent and allow their anger to come out in full force, but the wise person, in contrast doesn’t give full vent to their anger.
4. That doesn’t mean that they don’t feel anger, but it does mean that they control how their anger is vented.
b. Intense anger and rage are like a bomb, and when we give full vent to our anger, we light the fuse and let the bomb do its thing – which is usually destructive not constructive.
3. So how do we express our anger without exploding?
a. Remember, we often get mad when we feel hurt or helpless, so if we can express the hurt and helplessness, in healthy ways it will extinguish our anger.
b. Sometimes talking about it with a person who is not the one we are mad at can help prepare us to talk with the person we are mad at.
c. Writing down what we’re thinking might help if there’s no one to talk to about it.
M. An important way to resolve our anger appropriately is to exercise forgiveness.
1. Jesus could easily have experienced anger and rage at the people who had physically abused Him in the process of His crucifixion and at the people who were verbally abusing Him while He was on the cross, but rather than being overcome by anger, He extended forgiveness.
a. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk. 23:34)
2. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, we can follow Jesus’ example and obey the command of Scripture that says: 30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. 32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. (Eph. 4:30-32)
3. Without giving the Spirit the control of our lives, we would never be able to do the things commanded in these verses.
4. I know that this is a whole lot easier said than done, but following Jesus means learning to express forgiveness.
5. If we find ourselves dwelling, over and over again, on an offense against us, bitterness and resentment will turn us into angry, bitter people.
a. Harboring anger and bitterness, rage and resentment is like having deadly poison inside us.
b. The poison of internal anger and bitterness will kill us and others, and that’s why it must be drained and released through forgiveness.
6. Proverbs 15:1 says: A gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath.
a. This is true both when the other person is the angry person and when your are the person who is angry – gentle answers turn down the heat and harsh words turn up the heat.
b. One of the most gentle things a person can say is “please forgive me” and “I forgive you.”
c. Those words have a way of calming anger and allowing wrath to calm down.
N. How can we learn to wisely handle our anger?
1. First, we need to understand what anger does: how uncontrolled anger opens the door to sin, damages our relationships, and leads us to say reckless words.
2. Then we need to understand how to deal with our anger wisely, by expressing it without exploding, by diffusing it with gentle words, and by extending forgiveness rather than harboring bitterness and resentment.
3. All these things require the development of self-control which only comes by the Holy Spirit.
4. One of the parts of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
5. When Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, he reminded him: For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (fear), but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline (self-control and sound judgment). (2 Tim. 1:7)
6. And when we walk in the Holy Spirit and yield to the Holy Spirit, then it isn’t really self-control, but it is Spirit-control, which is far better.
7. When led by the Spirit, we are able to be wisely handle our anger and that’s a very good thing!
Resources:
• Don’t Be Dumb! The Wisdom of Proverbs for Today, by James T. (Tommy) South
• Wise Up About Your Anger, Sermon by Timothy Peck, SermonCentral.com
• Self-Control: The Fine Art of Keeping Your Cool, Sermon by Ray Pritchard
