Anger - Righteous and Sinful 1/3

O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise, Thou the rays of my God and King, Thou triumphs of His grace.

This is Lecerre Bradley, Jr. welcoming you to another broadcast of the Baptist Bible Hour. Do not I love thee, O my Lord, Behold my heart and see, And turn each cursed idol out, That dares to rival thee. Do not I love thee from my heart, Then let me nothing love, Dead be my heart to ev'ry joy, Which thou dost not approve, Is not thy name melodious still To mine attentive ear? Doth not each pulse with pleasure beat My Savior's voice to hear? Hast thou a lamb in all thy flock I would disdain to feed? Hast thou a foal before whose face I fear thy calls to plead?

Thou knowest I love thee, dearest Lord, But, O, I long to soar Far from the sphere of mortal joy, That I may love thee more. As we have mentioned, our new website is up and we hope that you will visit it. We had a little difficulty for a few days with the donate button and that can be a problem because we must have support from our listeners to continue. So if you had a problem with it, please go back and try again. If not, you can go to the old fashioned way of putting a check in the mail and sending it to us at Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. To get to our website, you go to BaptistBibleHour.org.

I'm trying to get used to some of this new technology and I'm a little slow in that area, but I'm thankful that it's there and some of you younger people won't have any problem with it at all. But I understand that if you're adverse to writing us a note, you can send us one at the website. So we look forward to hearing from you. Today we begin a new series on the subject of anger.

Now that may be one where you say, well, I'm just not interested in having to hear that. But there's a lot said about anger in the Bible and it's a subject that needs to be considered because it is a plague in the life of many individuals. Where rivers of pleasure I see. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows the dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand.

A wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. He taketh my burden away. He holdeth me up and I shall not be moved. He giveth me strength as my day. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows the dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand. With the wordless blessings each moment he crowds, and fill up with his boldness divine. I sing in my rapture, O glory to God, for such a Redeemer as mine. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows the dry, thirsty land.

He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand. There are a lot of angry people in America today, and a large number of angry people the world over. You can hear them vent their anger as they call in on talk shows.

You should have any experience of operating in the customer service department of a particular business. You may get the irate complaints that come from people who are not only dissatisfied, but vocalizing it in very inappropriate words. You can encounter angry people on the highways. If you make a turn or drive at a speed that doesn't happen to suit another driver, many are not timid about letting you know their displeasure.

Some have gone so far as to get out of their automobile, take out a gun, and kill another driver just because they didn't like the way they were conducting themselves on the highway. You see it when an angry person plants a bomb and blows up a building or destroys an aircraft full of people. Anger, seething anger. How sad it is to see anger out of control in the lives of professed Christians. To see anger tear a marriage apart.

To see anger passed along from parents to children so that those children are taught by example to also be angry. God's Word has a lot to say on the subject of anger. And we want to look at a number of things that are to be said about it in the Word of God.

Learn what we need to know about it, how we need to deal with it, when it is appropriate and when it is sin, when it is useful and when it is destructive. We turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 26. Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Verse 31, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

As the apostle says, be ye angry. He is not stirring you up to anger. He is not telling you that you must try to be angry as some of the modern therapists do as they talk to people who are frustrated. And will say, you've got to vent your anger, you've got to get it out, it's deep inside of you and you need to express yourself freely. Some have been known to tell a person they need to take a baseball bat and start beating the stuffings out of a teddy bear.

They say you need to imagine that this teddy bear is that husband that you can't stand, that father or mother that mistreated you when you were a child. And some in recounting these experiences have gone so far as to say, the therapist told me you're not angry enough, you need to become more angry. Come on, you can use sterner words than that, and some have been encouraged to the point of a frenzy as they let their anger out.

Now that concept comes from the field of psychiatry and not from the word of God. What the apostle is acknowledging here that anger is a human emotion and that anger in and of itself is not sinful. The question must be asked, why am I angry? The reason for being angry may indeed be sinful. The way in which we're handling our anger may be sinful. But the first thing we want to observe about anger as the word of God deals with this subject is to consider righteous anger. We turn to Psalm 7 verse 11 and learn that God Himself is angry.

Psalm 7, 11th verse. God judgeth the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. Now we can say without hesitation that this is righteous anger. All that God does is in harmony with His character and He is a holy God. God is never out of control, God never does anything that's improper, none of His thoughts, none of His actions are wrong or sinful. God is holy in all of His ways and God is angry with the wicked every day.

Now you may say that's what I've been looking for, some justification for my anger. Just a lot of things that make me angry and if God is angry then I'm entitled to be angry too. But let us hasten to add that God knows all the facts. God is angry with the wicked and He knows the wicked inside and out. He knows their past, their present and their future. He knows their thoughts and their motives and their actions.

He knows what they say and what they think. Now you may decide I'm going to be angry over this given situation that appears to be an act of wickedness and you may not have all the facts. Somebody comes to you and says I hesitate to tell you this but you probably ought to know it. I'm going to tell you what so and so said about you. And what they say may be the truth, that person may have said exactly those words but the person who relays it to you uses a different tone of voice. The individual who initially spoke those words was not so wrought up and agitated and so angry as this person represents them to have been. You respond then not to what actually was said but to the report that you received of what was said. You say I am indignant, I am righteously angry but you don't have all the facts.

How easy to judge a situation from our vantage point assuming that we know all the details. We know everything that relates to this situation and so I am justified to be righteously angry. And we have miserably failed. And we're going to see that there is a place for righteous indignation.

But be very careful in this area. That's why in our text the apostle says be ye angry and before the sentence is ended the next words in fact say and sin not. It's extremely difficult for us as sinful human beings to be angry and not sin. Now because God is holy he can be angry with the wicked every day and he doesn't sin. But you try being angry and not sinning and you'll find it to be a real challenge. Because your human nature is corrupt and contaminated by sin.

You're inclined to think the wrong thing, read between the lines, assume that something is so when it's not, defend your own personal interests, expect that you have rights that must be demanded and defended that don't even belong to you. So it's very easy for you to sin. Let's look at another example of God's anger just so you can see these references. This one Deuteronomy chapter 29, we could look at a lot more but this will suffice for the limited time that we have. Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 26, For they went and served other gods, God is talking about his people, the Israelite nation, they went and served other gods and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not and whom he had not given unto them. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book. And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation and cast them into another land as it is this day. You look at that, God was angry because his people had worshipped other gods, they were guilty of idolatry. They had forsaken him, they had rebelled against him and he was angry with them.

The Lord dealt with them in anger, his anger was kindled against them and he brought them out in great indignation and cast them into another land. Now if you are prone to listen to the thinking that's popular today that because God is a God of love, God has no wrath, see that your thoughts are immediately corrected on the basis of what we read here in the Word of God. God is love, God's love is marvelous.

We love to think about it, we love to hear about it, we love to read about it. We realize it's the very basis and foundation of his grace and only on the basis of that can we have the hope of salvation. But in this day when so much preaching is man-centered rather than God-centered, it's a feel-good religion.

It's an endeavor to boost one's self-esteem rather than to declare who God is and what God demands. Many would like to overlook the fact that God is angry with the wicked every day. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So God's anger is recorded for us in his Word.

Not only so, but as God manifests himself in the person of Jesus when he came here into the world, Jesus Christ also was angry. The Gospel of John chapter 2 verse 13. And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence, make not my father's house a house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Now friends, it's evident that Jesus Christ on this occasion was moved emotionally. Jesus was not just calmly rebuking these who had brought these oxen and sheep into the temple of God. These who were the money changers, these who had polluted God's house, he was angry.

Now notice an important point here. When Jesus himself was crucified, though it was unjust because he was a perfect man, his enemies despised him, Judas had betrayed him. They had cried, crucify him, crucify him, they put the nails in his hands, the crown of thorns on his brow.

What did he say then? Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. When it came to his own personal situation, there was a spirit of forgiveness.

When it came to his concern about the honor of his father's house, the zeal of the Lord's house had eaten him up. And he drove them out with righteous indignation. See, some people get the idea that love brings you to the point that you never stand for anything. You never oppose error nor evil, you just say everybody's wonderful, just love everybody and love everything.

One doctrine is just as good as another, it doesn't make any difference, just so you feel good about it, just so you're sincere. Jesus didn't approach things that way. These individuals were dishonoring the house of God and Jesus drove them out. Now let's look at Mark chapter 3. Looking at the first verse, once more the reference is made to Jesus manifesting what was a righteous anger because we know that he had no sin.

He's the only perfect man. Mark chapter 3 verse 1. And he entered again into the synagogue and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him.

Now here are these self-righteous Pharisees, these constant critics of Jesus always looking for an opportunity where they might accuse him. He saith unto the man which had the withered hand, stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil, to save life or to kill?

But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto them, Stretch forth thine hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored whole as the other. Jesus looked around with anger, grieved for the hardness of their heart. Here were these who were the religious leaders of the time, but the most severe critics of the Son of God, more concerned about their interpretation of the law than about really honoring God. Far more concerned about the commandments that they had added than about the welfare of this man who had a withered hand. And Jesus was angry. Friends, I feel sure that God's people are often stirred when they see the Pharisaism of our day, the self-righteousness and corruption even of those who would attempt to lead God's people, the evils that so pollute this country of ours, the sins that so offend our God. There should be a righteous indignation against sin, that which is dishonoring to God and offends Him. Jesus spoke words of forgiveness to repentant sinners, but words of stern rebuke to self-righteous religionists. What a lesson to be drawn from it, to be careful and search our own hearts at all times, that we not allow ourselves ever to be exalted as were the Pharisees, feeling themselves to be superior, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men and more concerned about their tradition than they were about the glory of God or the welfare of suffering people. I'm glad you've been with us today. I encourage you to visit our website at BaptistBibleHour.org, where you can make a donation to help support the program. Till next time, this is Lisera Bradley, Jr. bidding you goodbye and may God bless you. It is my glory, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long. This is my glory, this is my song, praising my Saviour, praising my Saviour, praising my Saviour all the day long.