MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
ILL. There is no need for me to tell you that during the past few months our nation has been embroiled in bitter controversy. We have heard terrible allegations & angry words, & experienced the frustration of trying to determine the truth.
But if the polls are correct, there is an even deeper frustration present today. It is a frustration with our leaders, a feeling that some of them are more concerned about themselves, about maintaining their power & their privileges, than they are about serving the people of our nation.
A. But this is nothing new. There have been leaders like this in every age & every nation. Jesus faced them back in the N.T. days. Listen as I read from the 2nd & 3rd chapters of the Gospel of Mark. (READ Mark 2:23-24 & 3:1-6)
APPL. Now most of us, at one time or another, have had the experience of having a member of our body become temporarily useless because of some injury. And we have suddenly discovered how dependent we are upon that particular member of the body.
ILL. Thirty years ago my left elbow was shattered in an accident. For 4 months my left arm was practically useless. I found it almost impossible to button buttons or to tie shoelaces. I never realized how much I depended upon my left arm until that accident occurred.
The man that Mark tells us about was handicapped. His hand was shriveled & useless. Was he born that way? Or did something happen that caused his hand to shrivel? We don’t know. All we know is that it was a long-standing handicap for which there was no chance for any improvement or healing.
In that day people who were handicapped had little reason for hope. So you can imagine their excitement when they heard about Jesus. How quickly the message must have traveled from village to village, "Here is a man who can actually heal shriveled hands & blind eyes."
Suddenly, the hopeless had hope. They sought out Jesus wherever He went, & His popularity grew & grew until great crowds were following Him everywhere. Many were following Him simply because He could heal them, or feed them, meeting their physical needs.
But that wasn’t why Jesus had come. Jesus came to "seek & save the lost." Jesus knew their deepest needs, & sometimes He met them in a very direct way.
B. You see, when Jesus walked into the synagogue, He saw not only a man with a shriveled hand, but He also saw a group of Pharisees who were watching Him, & waiting for the opportunity to condemn Him for healing on the Sabbath.
So Jesus asks the Pharisees a very direct question. "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" These Pharisees knew the answer to that question. But they didn’t answer it.
Jesus knew what was in their hearts, & in vs. 5 it says, "He looked around at them in anger, . . .deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts." He knew that they weren’t concerned about the man with the shriveled hand. So Jesus said, "Stretch out your hand." When the man did, it was instantly healed.
There was great rejoicing in that room. This man who had been handicapped was whole. This hand could now button buttons, tie shoes, & do all the things which you & I do without ever giving it a second thought. So there was great rejoicing in that man’s heart.
But the Pharisees weren’t happy. They were angry at Jesus because He had healed the man on the Sabbath day. You can almost see the fiery darts going through the air between the Pharisees & Jesus. The Pharisees are angry at Jesus & that is easy for us to accept.
But Jesus was also angry at the Pharisees, & that is kind of hard for us to accept. You see, we have always pictured Jesus as the tender Lamb of God - the One who is always loving & compassionate. It is hard for us to imagine Him as one who is angry.
C. One of the reasons that we have such difficulty seeing Jesus as an angry person is because anger is usually associated with immaturity, not maturity.
ILL. You don’t have to be taught to be angry. Go to the nursery & find the sweetest baby girl in that nursery. Take away the bottle from that sweet little girl, or don’t change her diaper on cue, & you will see anger such as you seldom see elsewhere. You will see a red face contorted with rage, & you will hear sounds that penetrate the walls.
Anyone can be angry. The old can become angry as well as the young. The rich & the poor - all people have the capability of becoming angry.
D. In Psalms, we are told to "flee from anger." But the Apostle Paul says something that almost seems to contradict that. He says, "Be angry & sin not." He’s saying that anger is not always bad, but he does warn us that there is a close association between sin & anger.
You & I know that that is true. When we are angry our emotions are on the edge, & we are vulnerable to temptation. We say things when we are angry that we normally wouldn’t say. We do things that we normally wouldn’t do.
When Paul describes "agape" love in I Corinthians 13, he points out that "Love is not easily angered." So if there is real love in our hearts, then we aren’t frequently going to be losing our temper.
ILL. When Paul writes to Titus about the qualifications for an Elder, he says, "An elder should not be hot-tempered."
That is easy to understand when we look at the church. Elders, or bishops, or pastors, (those words are used interchangeably) are given great responsibility for the oversight & spiritual well-being of the church. But in carrying out their responsibility, sometimes people become angry with them.
Yet, Paul teaches that if you are going to be a spiritual leader, you can not return anger for anger. If you do, you have an explosive situation that may never be reconciled.
E. We know from personal experience that Christian testimony can be destroyed because of anger. We go to work & everybody there knows we are Christians & we read our Bible & say our prayers & we have Christian families. But losing our temper can destroy that testimony, & you know that that is true.
ILL. It is hard to believe that a person is really a sincere Christian when you see him honking his horn & shaking his fist at everybody else. It is hard to believe that a person is a real Christian when he uses language that is not befitting a Christian. Or when he behaves in his work the way that a Christian should not behave.
The Bible discourages anger, because anger usually is not in keeping with the kind of people we ought to be. That is certainly true of the anger of the Pharisees in this miracle. So let’s look at their anger & analyze it.
I. THE ANGER OF THE PHARISEES
A. 1st of all, their anger was brought about because of selfishness. They weren’t concerned about the man with the shriveled hand. They couldn’t care less whether he was healed or whether his hand was still shriveled. The only thing they were concerned about was their Law & traditions.
Why were they concerned? Because they were the rulers & if their Law & traditions were ignored that placed their authority in question. They weren’t concerned about the handicapped man. They were only concerned about themselves.
APPL. Are we ever like that? I think we are. We can read about people being persecuted but it really doesn’t bother us much unless we are persecuted. We see others being discriminated against & it doesn’t bother us too much. But when we are discriminated against then we get angry.
ILL. Jonah was sent to Ninevah to preach. And preach he did. He told the people that God was going to destroy the city in 40 days. Because of his preaching many people repented of their sins. So many repented, that God decided not to destroy Ninevah.
What was Jonah’s reaction? Did he rejoice because God decided not to destroy the city of Ninevah? Not at all. He was angry. God was being merciful, but Jonah didn’t rejoice because the people were saved & the city was spared. He was angry because his reputation as a prophet was threatened.
Selfishness is often the motivation behind the wrong kind of anger. And the anger of the Pharisees was brought about by selfishness.
B. One result of the wrong kind of anger is that it often tries to hurt the source of its anger. Notice, when the Pharisees became angry at Jesus they started conspiring with the Herodians to destroy Jesus. They wanted to hurt Jesus.
We do that sometimes, don’t we? We get angry at someone, so we want to hurt that person. The obvious way to hurt a person is to do them bodily harm, but most of us are too sophisticated for that. After all, we are civilized people.
But we can hurt in other ways. We use our tongue & cut people to pieces with words. If that doesn’t work we try another approach. If we can’t hurt them by our words, then we deprive them of our friendship. We withdraw from them. We become aloof.
ILL. The elder brother did that, remember? When the prodigal son came home, the elder brother said, "I am not going to the banquet. You never killed the fatted calf for me." As though the whole world was going to shed tears because he wasn’t going to go to the banquet.
C. That is the problem with trying to get even. Usually, we hurt ourselves more than we hurt the one we are trying to hurt. The other person may be hurt too, but we usually hurt ourselves much more.
That is what happened with the Pharisees. Their anger was selfish, & in their anger they reached out to hurt Jesus who was the source of their anger.
II. THE ANGER OF JESUS
Now I want you to understand that the anger of Jesus was all right. Not because Jesus was the one who was angry, but because the motive behind His anger was right.
A. 1st of all, it was not a selfish anger. Jesus wasn’t angry because they had done something personally to Him. In fact, when you study the life of Jesus you will never find Him becoming angry because of something that people did personally to Him.
ILL. There were many opportunities for Him to become angry. One night Jesus was invited to the home of a Pharisee, & it seemed like it was going to be a pleasant dinner. But once He was there they deliberately embarrassed & ridiculed Him. Jesus could have become angry, but He didn’t. I’m sure that He was hurt, but He didn’t become angry.
ILL. In the upper room that last night Peter said, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go, even if I have to die with you." Yet, within a few hours Peter denied with oaths & curses that he even knew Jesus. I am sure that Jesus was hurt by that, but He didn’t become angry.
ILL. When He was hanging on the cross, people were shouting at Him, "If you really are the Son of God come down from the cross." Many of them may have been people He had touched in a very direct way during His ministry. I am sure that He was hurt by that, but He didn’t become angry. In fact, He prayed for their forgiveness.
B. There were some things, however, that did make Him angry. When He saw the right being trampled underneath the feet of those who were mighty He became angry. When He saw the Law of God desecrated He became angry. When He saw the House of God being turned into a den of thieves He became angry.
He became angry at the right things. And it is important for us to realize that anger can be right when it is directed at the right things.
C. I wonder, as Jesus looks at the modern church today, what emotion does He register? Is He filled with joy, or is He angry? I believe that there are some things which make Him angry.
I believe that He is angry when a church is not concerned about the Word of God. I think that He is angry when a church is insensitive to the needs of the world. I think that He is angry when a church goes through the mechanics of praying, but never really prays.
I think that He is angry when a church doesn’t care about the lost, & has forgotten what the Holy Spirit is trying to do in our lives. I think that He is angry when a church has forgotten the real purpose for its existence & is simply going through the motions of being religious. And if He is angry, it would be a proper anger.
D. Anger provides energy. You know as well as I do that when you become angry you can find energy to do almost anything. If you are angry at someone you can stay up half the night planning how to get even.
If we can get angry for the right reasons then here is energy, too - energy to turn the world upside down - energy to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So get angry, but get angry at the right thing & for the right reason. If we will, we can become the mighty army of God that can change the world once again. If we can avoid being angry with one another & all start being angry at the evil one & the evil in the world, then there is a victory to be won.
This morning our time of invitation is offered for those who have decisions that they need to make now. There are those here who have never accepted Jesus as their Lord & Savior. Jesus invites you to come & He promises you forgiveness & the gift of the Holy Spirit.
There are others here who are already Christians, but who need a church home - a place to worship & serve & join with other Christians. We invite you to come as we stand & we sing together.
