God's Answer to Anger | Part 2

Is all anger uncalled for?

Listen to Adrian Rogers. Welcome to Love Worth Finding featuring the convicting truth of the gospel found in the practical messages of Adrian Rogers. In part one of today's message, God's answer to anger, we learn that if we can't control our temper, we risk wrecking our lives and destroying our testimonies. If we don't control sudden anger, condemn sinful anger, and conquer stubborn anger, it will control, condemn, and conquer us. But there is a sanctified anger we are instructed to channel as Jesus did in Mark chapter 3. Turning your Bible now to Proverbs chapter 19 verse 11 as Adrian Rogers reveals God's answer to anger. Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 11. The discretion of a man defereth his anger. That is, a smart fellow is not quick to get mad. The discretion of a man defereth his anger and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.

The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion, but his favor is as the dew upon the grass. God's answer to anger. Now somebody has said that anger is an acid that destroys its container. Sudden anger is to be controlled. That is, if you're a person who prides yourself in having a short fuse, you better be careful.

Now when you're quick to get angry, dear friend, there is so much that you're going to lose. You can lose your job. You can lose your friends. You can lose your children. You can lose your wife. You can lose your health.

You may lose a few teeth. You can lose your testimony. There's nothing more debilitating your Christian testimony than for the fact that you just fly off the handle. Now the Bible tells us here that we are to defer anger. That is, sudden anger is to be controlled.

Well, how do you control it? Well, first of all, you have to confess it. Now there are a lot of us who just, we don't like to admit we get angry. I'm a Christian and I am not mad. I mean, sweet little dear, little us. Now we couldn't get angry, could we?

Of course we can. And so the very first thing we must do is confess it. By the way, if you repress it rather than confess it, it'll do you all kinds of damage. Now, that's the very first thing you need to do is to confess it.

And then the second thing you need to do, you need to consider. You need to say, I'm getting upset. Now you need to consider and say, what is it, Lord, that is making me upset? Look, if you will, in Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 29 here for a moment.

Chapter 14 and verse 29. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. You see, when you don't get angry right away or when you feel this anger coming, you just kind of confess it to the Lord and say, now, Lord, show me. He will show you.

He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. You need to analyze what it is that's making you angry so you don't go off half cocked. Confess it, consider it, control it. You say, I can't control it. Oh, yes, you can.

You know, the people say, ah, well, you know, if something comes over me, I can't control myself. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. You know, sometimes a husband or wife be having one of these family discussions can be heard about two blocks away. And they will just be at one another's throat and, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, and the phone will ring. You say, hello? Don't tell me you can't turn it on and turn it off. You can, right? Yeah, you know, don't you?

You say, pastor, how do you know? I know, too. I'm telling you, folks, that all is just a lot of excuses to say that we can't control it. We can control it. We can control it.

And we'd better learn how to control it. Look at Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 11. A fool uttereth his mind, but a wise man keepeth it till afterward.

Now, you can keep it. I mean, a fool just spouts off everything. A wise man can control it if he will. Now, we're talking about God's way to health, wealth, and wisdom. So what I'm trying to say is that if you find that first flash of anger over and over and over again in the book of Proverbs and in other places in the Bible, the Bible says that we are to control sudden anger. Do we have a chance to confess it, consider it, and contain it? All right, now, look, sudden anger is to be controlled. Secondly, sinful anger is to be condemned. Why do we defer anger, as our text tells us to do?

Why is it that we are slow? Though we might find out whether it is righteous anger or sinful anger. If it is sinful anger, it is to be condemned.

It is to be dealt with harshly. It is to be repudiated. It is to be repented of. Now, don't treat anger, unjustified anger, sinful anger, as weakness. It is not weakness. It is wickedness. It is something that God will not accept for sin.

It is an alibi. Well, by the way, what is sinful anger? Well, number one, it's anger without a cause.

You remember when Jesus said, Whosoever shall be angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of hell fire? It's anger without a cause. I'll tell you something else that is sinful anger. It is anger that is centered in a person rather than anger that is centered on an offense. Sinful anger is anger that burns and desires revenge. All right, sudden anger is to be controlled. Sinful anger is to be condemned. Now, stubborn anger is to be conquered. Now, the Bible goes on to say in our text, look at, again, if you will, here in Proverbs 19, The discretion of a man defereth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. What a glorious victory it is when we learn to pass over a transgression. That is to forgive and to get over.

But some people don't seem to be able to do that. You see, you're not to be conquered by anger. God wants you to be victorious.

Now, how are you going to do it? Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26, Be angry and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Now, here he's talking about stubborn anger again. When you let the sun go down upon your anger, that is when you live with your anger. Your husbands and wives, you get into an argument, and then rather than kneeling by the bed and getting right with God and getting right with one another, you go to bed back to back.

Angry. You let the sun go down upon your wrath. You know what you've done? You've opened the door to old Slewfoot, to the devil. What you've done is this, you've said, devil, come in and wreck my home.

Now, let me show you how the devil works when you open the door. You let the sun go down upon your wrath and you come in. The devil has six steps that he's going to destroy you with, this matter of stubborn anger that I'm talking about. Begin in verse 31. In Ephesians 4, verse 31, Let all bitterness, one, and wrath, two, and anger, three, and clamor, four, and evil speaking, five, be put away from you with all malice, six. Those are the six steps.

Six, the number of a man. When you open the door to the devil, and you let the sun go down upon your wrath, that is, sudden anger becomes stubborn anger. Let me show you what happens. First of all, he talks about bitterness here. What is bitterness? Bitterness is that feeling of resentment when somebody does you a wrong or you think they've done you a wrong, and you get bitter in your heart. Now, the Bible in the book of Hebrews calls this a root of bitterness.

In dealing with your lawn, weeding your lawn, do you ever try and get a dandelion up? You pull the tops off, but you haven't dealt with that rascal because the root is down there, and there is that root of bitterness. And it gets in there, and you begin to feel hurt. Now, what happens to bitterness? Well, the next thing is, the next word he uses here is wrath.

That's step number two. The word wrath comes from a Greek word that means hot. You get all hot about it. You get all hot and bothered.

And then look at the third step here. The third word is anger. Now, wrath speaks of that which is on the inside, but anger speaks of that which is on the outside. And the Greek word for anger here means that which is open and outward. It is outward hostility now, as the smoldering rags that are in the attic of the mind now burst into flame. We may have been bitter for quite a while. We may be doing the slow burn for quite a while. And then just the right catalyst happens, and then it's anger. That's the third step.

This is outward now and is active now. And then that's followed by number four, clamor. Now, the word clamor has the idea of being vocal, being loud. It may be tears, but most often it is shouting. That clamor turns to evil speaking. Then when we hear ourselves talking that way, and that open hostility breaks out, then we start to say things we never really meant. And then that evil speaking does what? Turns to malice. You know what malice is? That's when you want to hurt somebody. Pow! Or if you can't hurt them with your fists, you'll hurt them with words.

I think it's not that one of us hasn't been there one time or another. You say, pastor, that's exactly the way it works. Sure, that's exactly the way it works.

You don't need some psychologist to tell you. God's word is already here to tell us exactly what the devil wants to do, to harm us, to hurt us, to ruin us, to wreck us, to destroy us, to destroy our testimony. Now, what I'm saying is this, that sudden anger is to be controlled till you have a chance to think it through. Sinful anger is to be condemned immediately. Stubborn anger is to be conquered.

How are you going to conquer it? Well, number one, you must recognize it. I mean, you've got to trace it back, and you say, why am I such an angry person? And you've got to go back to find out where that root of bitterness is, because I don't care how much you pick off the tops of those dandelions, those roots are there, and you're going to have to get down to the root of the matter and analyze it.

First of all, you've got to recognize it, admit it, confess it. And then secondly, you've got to repent. Now, this verse says in verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and evil speaking be put away from you. Are you willing to put it away? Now, friend, if you're not willing to put it away, just forget it. God's not going to do it for you. You can whine and cry and all of that until you put it away.

The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means a change of mind. It means I'm sick of it. I had done with it. I don't want it. I don't want it. I choose against it. And nobody's going to choose against it but you.

Now, you must recognize it. You must repent. Recognition, repentance, and then repudiation.

You must repudiate the devil. I mean kick him out. You gave him a place and I'm taking it back. You can't have it anymore. You no longer are going to have a place in my life and in my home and in my family. Out you go in the name of Jesus. I gave you a place and I'm taking it back.

And the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed that place. And out you go. Out. The Bible says, resist the devil, he'll do what?

Flee from you. Kick him out. Put him out in the name of Jesus. And then rely, rely upon the Holy Spirit of God. Now the Bible says here, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed unto the day of redemption. That is, verse 30, the Holy Spirit of God is there. He's going to give you the power to do what? Look in verse 33, to be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

I tell you, dear friend, we'd better get into Ephesians chapter 4. We'd better get into the book of Proverbs and learn how to deal with this thing of stubborn anger. Some of you have been angry for a long time.

Your husband hurt you sometime a long time ago and you've been nursing a fever and feeding a grudge. Quit it. It's not worth it.

It's not worth it. Now what are we saying here? Let's go back to our text again. We are saying that, number one, sudden anger is to be controlled. We're saying, number two, that sinful anger is to be condemned. We're saying, number three, that stubborn anger is to be conquered. And number four, sanctified anger is to be channeled. Did you know there's something that I want to call sanctified anger? Did you know that it's all right to be angry? Remember what our scripture said there that I just read to you in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 26?

What does it say? Be angry. Be angry. Be angry. When's the last time you ever obeyed that command?

But wait a minute. Be angry and sin not. There is an anger that's not a sinful anger at all. If anger is sinful, then Jesus was a sinner, right? Because Jesus was moved with anger. Look, if you will, please, in Mark chapter 3.

Just turn to it now. Mark chapter 3. And he, that is Jesus, entered again into the synagogue and there was a man there which had a withered hand and they watched him. That is, the Pharisees watched him whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him. And he said unto the man which had the withered hand, stand forth. And he said unto them, that is to the Pharisees, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil, to save life or to kill? And 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 the man, stretch forth thine hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the others.

And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him. Now Jesus was moved with anger. And he was moved with anger, with a righteous anger. You can be angry and sin not, for Jesus Christ was without sin. What I'm trying to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, is you can be good and mad.

You can be good and mad. You can be angry and sin not. Jesus was moved with anger.

As a matter of fact, if there's some things that don't move you to anger, I think there's something wrong with you. You know what moved Jesus to anger? Was the attitude of these Pharisees toward that poor, paralyzed man.

Here was a man that had a deep need, but here were other people who were filled with selfishness and pride and arrogance and self-seeking. What did they have against Jesus? It was not primarily because Jesus was teaching what he was teaching. Their problem was not theological.

It was personal. What Jesus was doing was, as we would say today, he was eating their lunch. I mean all the people were bragging on them and following them and preening on them and all of these things.

And they had the chief places and so forth. And now the crowds were going after Jesus and they were filled with rotten envy. That was their problem. They were filled with selfishness and pride and self-seeking.

And they cared not for people who were hurting. There was a little half-pint preacher named Channing. He weighed 120 pounds. He said, when I get mad, I weigh a ton. Things ought to stir you up, move you. They did Jesus. Jesus never got angry when somebody harmed him. You never find Jesus retaliating. When people did things to Jesus, he was not moved with anger. And he never got angry even when they nailed him to the cross. But Jesus was moved with anger, righteous indignation when he saw other people being misused and abused. Now righteous anger is angry not primarily at the person, but at the injustice. It gets angry not primarily at the sinner, but at the sin. What do you say?

Now that's fancy footwork. You can't be angry at the sin without being angry at the sinner. Oh, yes you can. You can love the sinner and still be angry at a sin, can't you? Sure you can.

Sure you can. You know how I know? Because I get angry at me and I love my wife's husband. Do you ever get angry at you?

Of course you do. We get angry at ourselves. Why'd I do that? That's dumb.

That's stupid. But yet you love you. As a matter of fact, the reason that you love you is why you get angry with you. And it was the love that motivated the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes anger is love's clearest expression.

But we need to be careful. You see, that real anger, righteous anger, godly anger is not getting even with somebody. It is not trying to do somebody harm. It is a righteous indignation that does not sin. And real godly anger, pay attention now, comes at the right time, it is expressed in the right way, and it is against the right things. Righteous anger is to be channeled. I would to God that we would not just have so much rhetoric about the things that are wrong in our world, but when we get angry about the injustices that we see, that we do something about it. Listen, there are enough godly people in this city that if they were to get angry in the right way, they could get rid of the pornography in this city.

Could do. Oh, you say, I wouldn't want to do that. That would embarrass me.

Well, that's what I'm talking about. I'm not trying to stir you up to act ugly. I'm just trying to stir you up to act Christian.

In a beautiful way. You say, pastor, that's what we pay you for. You get out there on the firing line. We're behind you to the last drop of your blood, pastor. Listen, friend, you get a city where people get righteously indignant. That's worth more than all the laws on the books.

Did you know that? We get stirred up about what is happening, and we get angry at the right time for the right reason, against the right thing, in the right way. Sudden anger is to be controlled. Sinful anger is to be condemned. Stubborn anger is to be conquered. Sanctified anger is to be channeled.

God's going to help us when we let the love of God stir us up, and we'll take the stand for those who are being harmed and those who are being hurt. Look again, if you will, please, in Proverbs chapter 19. Look in verse 12, if you will, if you're not a Christian, if you're not saved, if you don't know that if you died right now, you'd go to heaven. Look, if you will, in verse 12. The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion, but his favor is as the dew upon the grass. Now, the king of kings is Jesus.

He's the lion of the tribe of Judah. You can face his wrath if you want to, or you can have his favor if you want it. Do you want the king's favor, like the dew on the morning grass, sweet, gentle, loving, fruitifying, and life-giving?

You can have it. You want to be saved today, not face the wrath of God, the king's wrath? Well, you can be saved by receiving Christ as your personal Savior and Lord.

Listen to me, friend. You're not going to be able to conquer anger or anything else until you have Christ on the inside. It is not victory over the devil you need. It is the victor of the devil, the Lord Jesus Christ, and having Christ on the inside, and you know, whatever you're filled with is what spills out when you're jostled, isn't that right? If you want to know what you're filled with, just see what spills out when you're jostled. If you're filled with Jesus, somebody jostles you. Jesus is going to spill out.

That's all there is to it, friend. Now, you need to be saved, born again, born from above. To be saved means that every sin is forgiven. To be saved means that Jesus Christ now lives in your heart. To be saved means when you die, you'll go to heaven. Are you saved?

And if your answer to that question today is no, or I'm not sure, and you want to surrender to Jesus right now, would you pray something like this from your heart? Oh, God in heaven, I know that I'm a sinner. I'm separated from you because of that sin. You're holy, and I'm not. But right now, I want to put my full trust, faith, and hope in what Jesus did on the cross for me.

I believe he lived a sinless life. He died in my place on that cross, and he rose again to new life so that I could spend eternity with you. I fully trust in his sacrifice for me today. Come into my life. Change me from the inside out, I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, if you prayed to receive Christ just now, we would love to celebrate with you and invite you to our Discover Jesus page. There you'll find answers you may need about your newfound faith.

We have a response section. You can share your testimony or tell us how this message has made a difference in your life. Simply go to lwf.org slash radio and click Discover Jesus at the top of the page.

Welcome to God's forever family. Please let us hear from you today. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message in its entirety, you can call 1-877-LOVEGOD and mention the title God's Answer to Anger. This message is also part of the insightful series Getting a Handle on Your Emotions. For that complete collection, all eight powerful messages, call 877-LOVEGOD or order online at lwf.org slash radio. Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183.

Is there a sudden, sinful, stubborn anger in your life that's controlling you? Recognize it, repent of it, and rebuke the enemy so that you can live righteously and protect your testimony. And join us next time for more from Adrienne Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener wrote recently with this encouragement, I pray that God would expand your ministry so that the messages of Pastor Rogers, which are pearls of inestimable value, would be made available to more people around the world.

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