Thank you, Brother Ken. We appreciate that so much. Take your Bible, turn to Proverbs chapter 21. We'll read some in Proverbs 21 just as a jumping off point and just by way of mentioning, of course, what is happening in the Middle East. Just bear in mind that a lot of the news that you'll hear will be slanted to the left. I believe that As time goes on, you will hear more and more news that is in opposition to Israel. They're doing the right thing by trying to destroy Hezbollah. You say, well, Pastor, what is that? Is it a terrorist organization? Certainly it is a terrorist organization, but it also is an arm of the Lebanese government. You said, Pastor, that's a strong opinion. There are members of Hezbollah in the Lebanese government. The Lebanese have never even sought to attempt to get the southern part of their territory under control. You say, well, that's because Pastor Hezbollah is too powerful. No, that is because they want Hezbollah. I want you to understand something. I do not care how moderate or progressive is an Arab state, Every Arab state is by its very nature prone to be sympathetic toward terrorism. You say, why? Because their religion spawns and sponsors terrorism. It's time we learned how to just draw a clear line in life. You know, people try to make things so complicated. Part of the reason things don't get done in this world is because people over-complicate things. It's a very simple matter. The Islamic Arabs hate the Jews. I had a lady come up to me. I don't know her name. Maybe she was a first-time visitor here Sunday morning. I'm not absolutely sure. I don't think I've had the privilege to meet her before. She talked about a relationship that she had with an Arab man who was apparently, I guess, an American citizen. After 9-11, she said that he expressed absolute joy and giddiness over the success of the terrorism in 9-11. Let me tell you something. Anybody who is happy about what happened on 9-11 ought to be deported from these shores. Anyone who wants. And if I had a neighbor that I knew that rejoiced over the 9-11 tragedy, the very least I'd do is toilet paper their house. The very least I would do. I'm not going to say what more I would do because I don't want to indict myself. Proverbs chapter 21, in your Bible with me, please. I'll tell you, that's un-American. And why can't we just stand for America and put your quibbling and put your... Pastor, you have to understand how other people feel. Nope, nope, nope. If they feel that way, go back there. Go back there. Somebody said, oh, but Pastor, there's these Arab folks that were vacationing in Beirut. What are you doing vacationing in Beirut? Okay, you're not too bright if you went on vacation to Beirut. But that's where they're from and they miss it. Okay, go on back. Stay there, okay? No, listen. You listen to me. I've about had it with this. They're terrorists that live in our midst. And we want to smile and say, that's okay. Every mosque in the United States of America is a harboring point for terrorism. Now, did you hear what I said? They are sympathetic to terrorism. Why? Their religion teaches that. They can't read three verses in the Quran without coming across those points. Understand something today. There is a threat from within. They're now claiming that there is a danger of Hezbollah. We've talked about Al-Qaeda before. Now Hezbollah sleeper cells in the United States of America. Where do these people worship on Fridays? They worship in the mosque. They go to a mosque. There was a mosque in Minneapolis, where that one particular, I forget his name offhand now, but the one particular 9-11 co-conspirator actually worshipped in a mosque in Minneapolis. I have preached on the street corner across the street from that mosque. I know exactly where the mosque is. I had men from the mosque come out and threaten some of my teenage boys who were passing out gospel tracts on the street corner and said, if you continue to do this, we will cut your tongues out. This was before any of this terrorism mess ever started here in the United States. It is a vile lot of people. You say, Pastor, you're just painting a very broad brush. Yep, sure am, because I love America. And the only way to deal with the problem is sometimes to paint a broad brush. Well, Pastor, Israel's just, they're just lobbing bombs over the border to Lebanon like nobody's business. Yep, that's called painting with a broad brush. You know why? They put up with it for years. over and over and over and over again. And Israel finally said, you know, enough is enough. Paint it with a broad brush and drop a few bombs. And you say, Pastor, what about a ceasefire? How are you going to have a ceasefire with terrorists? That doesn't work. You say, what's the only answer? They're going to have to eliminate that whole crowd since the Lebanese government not only failed to eliminate them, but joined hand-in-hand with their activities. All right, that's enough of this commenting on current events. I hope you're watching the news. Boy, it raises my blood pressure a good 20 points every time I turn it on. I can hardly wait till the next time I get to speak to say something about it. Quickly, Proverbs 21. I have a lot of ground to cover tonight. Proverbs 21, beginning at verse 1, the Bible says, The King's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whether so ever He will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord pondereth the hearts to do justice, and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. A high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin." Now isn't that interesting? The plowing of the wicked is sin. You say, preacher, is there any sin in plowing? Plowing ground. Tilling the ground. How come the plowing of the wicked is sin? Any action that is done that does not give the glory to God is sin. The accomplishments of the lost are sin because they don't give the glory to God. Verse 5, The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but every one that is hasty only to want. The getting of treasures by a lying tongue and a vanity tossed to and fro is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death." And then verse 7, "...the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them because they refuse to do judgment." pouched within the verses that we read were references to robbery and to lying and to actions that take place out of hearts that are evil. Now, I'm continuing on with the general topic of taming the temperament. And tonight I'm going to talk about negative emotions, what we call negative emotions, those being hatred and anger. Now, don't tune this out tonight just because you say, well, Pastor, I'm not guilty of harboring hatred or anger in my life. As a pastor, I deal with people really seven days a week and have done so since I became a pastor essentially. And I've been amazed to find that how many people, some even good people, at least externally speaking, good people, can still have a problem with deep-seated hatred and anger. And so we're going to see what the book of Proverbs says about those emotions tonight. Look at the introduction quickly. God created man with an array of emotions. Each emotion has its proper place and none is inherently sinful. Now, everyone look this way please. I have referred to hatred and anger as negative emotions. But they are not inherently sinful. We are to hate evil. Part of the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. We are to hate evil systems. Pastor, do you have a hate life? Yes, I do. There are certain things that I hate. For example, I hate communism. I hate communism. Now, I did not say I hate communists. Most of them are victims of their system. But I said I hate the system of communism. I hate it. I hate Islam. I hate Islam. Boy, if I put that up on the church sign, oh, wouldn't there be a flack. in Avon. If I put it in words, I hate Islam. Truth is, I do hate it. Why? Because with the psalmist, I hate every false way. And that is legitimate. Anything that takes men and women to hell, as does the system of Islam, I hate that because it is a false way. That is not the improper use of what we term a negative emotion. There are certain things that you have to hate in order to love other things. In order to love righteousness, we must have a growing hatred for sin, for example. However, continuing the introduction, if an emotional response dominates one's life, that emotional response becomes a besetting sin. Anger and hatred are perhaps the most common besetting emotional sins. Now, everyone listen please. Any emotion that takes predominance in the life can become sinful. I think that it is good to be happy, but it is inappropriate to be happy on certain occasions. For instance, if someone were always giddy with joy, and they went into a funeral viewing, maybe held over here at Conco Funeral Home, and they were just laughing and happy and giddy and telling jokes. Why did the chicken cross the road to avoid the casket and all these different, I don't know, so many ideas for that. If they were doing that, it would be inappropriate. behavior, and that could become sinful. Now, it's usually not our temptation to be too happy. It's frequently our temptation, perhaps, toward depression. That can be, by the way, a sinful response. Not necessarily. Oftentimes it is a medically treatable problem, and I won't go into that tonight, but sometimes when we're angry, sometimes when we have hatred, those negative emotions, which are legitimate in and of themselves, can turn to sinfulness. Probably there are no two emotions that turn to sinfulness any more rapidly than do anger and hatred. So let's look at the negative end of these emotions. Understand tonight that I'm going to be speaking at them from the standpoint of where they have caused a problem in a person's life. In other words, the person is characterized by anger, or he's characterized by hatred of people, rather than hatred of wrong principles. And we're not to hate people. Let's look at the Bible tonight. Proverbs 29, verse 22. An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression." Anger and hatred quickly lead to an array of other sins. And the first will speak of his sinful words and deeds. An angry man is prone to stir up strife and a furious man aboundeth in transgression. Proverbs 14, 17, He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly. and a man of wicked devices is hated." Now notice in both of these verses. In the first verse, Proverbs 29-22, the man is characterized as being an angry man. No Christian should have as his primary characteristic anger. There is a time for anger in the Christian life, but your primary characteristic, what you may be described by, should not be the word anger. In the second verse, Proverbs 14, 17, the Bible says, He that is soon angry, dealeth foolishly. In other words, you'll make foolish decisions. Let's look at some of the outline points. Number one, Because anger finds expression in overt demonstration. You say, what does that mean? That means a blow-up. Lose your temper. Explode all over the place. Because of that, it influences others who come in contact with it. An angry man stirreth up strife. Angry people always seek to make converts to their anger, thereby engendering strife. Listen carefully, please. Those of you who have been around an individual who is angry, you know you cannot be around that person long without it causing trouble. And not only does it cause trouble to you because it's bothersome to be around an irascible and angry individual, but that anger quickly spreads and causes strife among others. For example, and probably some of you could tell stories of the workplace. Let's say, for example, that you have a boss who is an angry man. He's characterized with anger. And he comes into the office, and maybe he is speaking to a group of the employees. He's angry over something that has occurred in the corporation, and he begins to yell at all of the employees together, and his anger is kindled, and it's another session of this bully's wrath. What happens when he leaves the room? there is immediate strife among the employees as to who's to blame for the boss's anger. Do you see how this works? The Bible says an angry man will stir up strife. He will get other people at each other who normally would not have been at each other. And then look at point number two, extreme anger, and that's the word furious in Proverbs 29. Extreme anger is an indicator of additional sins. Why? A furious man aboundeth in transgressions. Someone who is characterized by a furious attitude has deep spiritual problems. Now listen, I love this. Boy, the Bible is a barometer. I was in the emergency room today and someone was taking Benny's temperature and they had the thermometer. Sometimes they use the kind they put on the head. How many have seen that? That little strip? It looks like the mark of the beast, doesn't it? Boy, I don't want that on my head if I go to the hospital. I might just use the old one you put on the tongue. But they were taking temperature. Why? To determine what his interior temperature is. Is it too high? Is it too low? These verses are a thermometer, if you want, a barometer for an individual's life. If someone can be characterized as furious, the Bible says he abounds in transgressions. Do you know, I may not know, I may not have all the skinny on an individual. I may not have all the dirt on him. But boy, if they walk around furious all the time, my Bible says they're loaded with sins. Where there's smoke, there's fire. The Bible says it so. By the way, doesn't that give you great wisdom in dealing with people? Because you understand something about them just based on that verse of Scripture. Point three, people who frequently lose their temper do not make wise decisions. He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly. Their decisions will be rash, illogical, and frequently unbiblical. Do you know somebody that just flies off the handle real quick? Gets all worked up. Emotionally pent up. Explodes. You know what they often do? They make all kinds of rash statements and decisions. They do extreme things in an attempt to correct whatever they viewed as the problem. And the Bible says most of the time, those extreme choices are foolish. And later on, when the storm has passed, that person looks and says, I've made some horrible and foolish decisions. So anger really, when it dominates the life and is a controlling feature of the life, is an indication of foolishness. Anger and hatred lead to an array of sins. We looked at words and deeds that are sinful. Secondly, dishonesty. Did you know that a person that is angry is frequently dishonest? Proverbs 26, verse 24, He that hateth, dissembleth, we'll examine that word in a minute, dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him. He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander is a fool. Proverbs 10, verse 18. Number one, those who possess deep hatred frequently seek to disguise it by their speech. This is an amazing thing, and I've seen this to be so. People who have a deep, deep sense of hatred They know that it is inappropriate to express hatred for an individual. They know that. And so they suppress the expression of that hatred, and sometimes they'll even cover it. The word dissembleth means to disguise it, to put a dressing on it, to put a mask on it. They disguise their hatred because it's not socially acceptable to express it, and yet at the same time, the hatred is deeply in their heart. Because of that, you cannot trust the words of a man who's filled with hate. Now you say, preachers, that's obvious. Sometimes it's not as obvious to people as we would like to think. If an individual is filled with hate, the wrong kind of hate, his words cannot be trusted. He'll make an effort to hide hatred by deceitful speech, and that is the tip of an iceberg to bad character. Now, I'm going to teach you something I think I've taught it numerous times, but here goes again. This is probably one of the most practical things you'll ever hear said from the pulp of this church. If you forget everything I ever say, remember this about dealing with people. Jesus said, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. The word dissembleth means he'll disguise his speech. But even a disguise can be seen through. Even a disguise wears thin. And speech always betrays the life behind it. Now you hear me. James 3. The tongue can no man tame. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Watch this. That means what is in my heart in abundance will come out of my lips in little slips. I may not just pour it forth, but the abundance of the heart is displayed in the little things that come out of the mouth. I learned this as a young preacher. I pastored first down in North Carolina. and the people of the South are dear and wonderful people, but they're not confrontational like people up north. When somebody has a problem with me, I appreciate it, and they walk right up to me, look me square in the eye, make sure they have my attention, and they say, preacher, I have a problem with you. Well, I like that. You know why I like that? Because they've got my attention, because they realize that they're going to communicate. That's kind of a northern way to communicate. Down south, that isn't so. Where I pastored down south, this northern boy had to learn, you don't just approach somebody with a problem, but you beat around the bush. So you've got this bush. And you start nudging the bush a little bit. And you edge up to the problem and then you back away. Then you circle around the bush. And you never really get to it, but you hope that they take a hint. That's how we dealt with things. Whew! That doesn't work with me, but you know what I had to learn? I had to learn, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If somebody in the South walked up to me and said, Pastor, You had the air conditioning set just a hair too chilly in the auditorium last Sunday morning. Do you know what that meant? That meant that that person had frostbite. And they needed to be clinically treated. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The little samples that come out of the mouth reveal a huge abundance of the heart. My speech is the tip of the iceberg to what is in my heart. If a man has hatred, he may seek to cover it with a disguise, but that disguise will grow threadbare and will be seen." Be careful then if you know someone who's hateful because they're not going to be telling the truth. Point two, because expressing hatred is not socially acceptable, those who hate will cover it with lies. However, people typically indulge the temptation to occasional slander and they reveal inner character. You'll note the end of verse Proverbs 10, 18, He that uttereth a slander is a fool. It's very difficult for people to at all times be able to resist the temptation to slander, and so frequently they give away their own disguise. But deceit is part and parcel with hatred and anger. Point C. The next problem or sinful behavior that can come because of hatred and anger is personal conflict, or just the word conflict there. Proverbs 15, 18. Again, a wrathful man stirreth up strife, but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins." Proverbs 10 and verse 12. Now, watch this. Observe in life how anger and strife go hand in hand. Now watch. Listen. Marital strife frequently arises because of anger within the marriage. Anger is the emotion Strife is the result. Anger can bring up strife in a marriage faster than any other element. If you can keep your anger under control, you will minimize the strife in your marriage. I want everyone to hear me please. I did not say that you're going to agree with your spouse on every single thing that comes down the pike. Because the truth be told, you will have disagreements with your spouse. but can you learn to disagree without the level of anger rising? I've done hours, hundreds of hours of counseling in my life, and it amazes me how quickly the level of anger can rise in some people. And the more frequently the level of anger rises in those people, the more easily it will arise the next time. And so pretty soon, even little issues, tiny little issues, things that don't even matter, frankly, folks, things that are ridiculous, it's dumb! Sometimes I just want to say that when I'm counseling people. I just want to say, this is so dumb! They got angry! because of the smallest little infraction. But that happens because a pattern of anger is set. And all of a sudden, everything is horrible as it can be. Oh, life is awful! No, it's not. Take a vacation to Beirut. You'll see life that's awful. Everything rises. to a level of unbelievable passion, and then strife occurs. The Bible teaches that wrath and anger stirs up strife. Hatred does. Wrath and anger, pardon me, anger and strife go hand in hand. When controversy continually swirls around an individual, he may be characterized as wrathful. Now, peacemakers tend to have longer fuses. Why? He that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. A peacemaker is slow to anger. Now listen carefully, because I'm tired of this excuse. Well, pastor, I just have a problem with my temper. You have a problem with you, buddy boy. Quit using the word my temper as if it's a dog on a leash that gets out of control. You do not carry along with you a pit bull on a chain. That is you that has the problem. It's so funny. Our whole society is into this. Let's blame my temper. My temper. Oh, pastor, you've never seen my temper. No, but I've seen you act like an idiot. Pastor, boy, my temper gets out of control. No, listen, listen. You get out of control. Don't blame this shadow you call your temper. Well, I was just made with a shorter fuse, no? Buddy, you cut your fuse short. That's why it is the way that it is. If you say that you cannot control yourself, then you are a denier of Scripture because the Bible says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The Bible says, yield yourself as servants or your members as servants unto God, alive to righteousness. There is a yielding and an empowering of the Holy Spirit that can get you under control. Stop making excuses. Stop saying, this is just the way that I am. Grow up. Realize it is a character flaw. It is a Christianity flaw. Get your heart right with God and determine Amen! You're going to learn to be under control. Oh, preacher, I need anger management classes. Heaven help us. What you need is a good dose of the old-time religion, the love of Jesus Christ in your heart, and some humility. And by the way, are you a student of yourself? Are you a student of yourself? You ought to be. You live with yourself all day long. You ought to know what you like and dislike. You ought to know what can irritate and what does not irritate. By now, I'm 39 years old. I have an idea of what situations are going to just set me on edge and which ones are not. If you're a preacher, what does that help you to do? Stay away from stuff that sets you on edge. Say, listen, I went to that Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium in Gallenburg, Tennessee, the one with the world's longest fish tunnel where there's this big glass bubble and you go through this thing and there's fish swirling all around you and the sidewalk is moving and there's little children running all around and it's dark and it's hot and it stinks like dead fish and this sidewalk just crawls along and I was in this tunnel and I just broke out into a sweat and my chest got all tight And I thought, oh no, I'm having a heart attack on the family vacation. What a way to wreck the family vacation so that I'll just not tell anyone about it and have my heart attack quietly so no one else gets their good time messed up. And then I finally got out of that thing. Do you know what? I will never go back in that fish tunnel again. Why? Because the atmosphere just made my skin crawl. Everything about it was irritating. Thankfully, the tickets were free. But everything about it, It's irritating. I studied myself enough. I don't think I do good in one of those enclosed MRI things either. Fish or no fish. I've studied myself enough to know what will irritate and I avoid those situations. Every person in this room has the ability to do just that and to keep yourself under control. Continuing on, remember that hatred is the core of strife. It is the core of strife. Real love tends to overlook faults and exercise mercy. Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins. Now that does not mean that we make excuses for sin or that we minimize sin, but it does mean this, if I have real love in my heart, then the irritations should not make me fly off the handle. Hey, married people, let's just be real practical about this. I mean, do you still love her? Do you still love him? If you still love her, then that little thing that she does that irritates you, you're not going to fly off the handle. Preacher, I told her about it 25,000 times! It didn't help after the third time you mentioned it. Why did you bother after that? It doesn't seem too smart to keep bringing it up. The truth of the matter is, if it's something very minor, love overlooks that. And it's amazing the dynamic of love in a relationship. Have you ever seen these couples that are in love, these young couples that are in love? Love is blind. Marriage is the eye-opener. But these young couples in love, boy, they just stare into each other's eyes and they say how wonderful it's going to be when they're married. And they'll always say stuff like this. They'll say, oh, when we're married, we're going to be different from every other couple in the whole world. Those people are the first ones to divorce court. But we're going to be just different. We're going to live on love and bologna sandwiches. Well, that's wonderful. But there comes a reality where that love better be strong enough to overlook the irritations, and real love does that. Real love does that. And I would encourage you about that. Now, hatred stirs up strife. I've given you some New Testament verses. What's another thing that can happen because of hatred and anger? Violence. Proverbs 27, verse 4, the first part of the verse, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous. The wrathful or hateful man expresses his wrath in cruelty. This is abuse of actions and words. Association with hateful people invites abuse. Wrath is cruel. Boy, I wish we had some wisdom tonight. This is the Bible. This is the Bible. Do you know, ladies and gentlemen, and really our teens, I kind of wish the teen girls were here to hear this tonight. If teen girls are dating a guy that's abusive with his mouth, that's wrathful, that flies off the handle, you say, preacher, what should they do? She's dating so-and-so and he can be abusive and he can fly off the handle and he has a temper. Preacher, what should she do? Run the other way. You know why? The Bible says wrath is cruel. A wrathful person always will play out in cruelty. It may be physical abuse. It may be. And oh, I wish young ladies would understand something. If a man is physically abusive, if he kicks the dog, he's going to kick you. And by the way, if he picks on somebody not his own size, whether it be a child or a dog or the cat or the parakeet, he's going to do the same thing to you. Understand, wrath is cruel. And that cruelty will not be withheld from you. It will not. If he speaks to others in cruelty, he will turn that speech on you. Why? Because the Bible principle is wrath is cruel. And that cruelty is not discriminating in relationship to its victims. Whenever you associate with hateful people, you invite abuse. There are some people that are poisonous. There are people with whom this preacher will not associate because they are poisonous, and I do not want to pick up on their verbal abuse. Hateful people invite abuse. Point two, the word outrageous. I like that word. The word outrageous means overflowing. Anger frequently overflows the banks of restraint resulting in a flood of abuse and harm. Oh, pastor, he gets a little angry, but he'll never treat me that way. Oh my, are you ever deceiving yourselves? Have you ever seen a flood of water that discriminated? Hurricane Katrina came in and overflooded the levees and overran the levees in New Orleans. Was the water discriminating as to where it went? No. Once the water overflowed the banks, it went everywhere and touched everything. Rich and poor, black and white, didn't matter. It obliterated everything because the water had run out of control over the banks. That is exactly what the Hebrew word outrageous means. When anger gets out of control, it overflows its banks and will result in abusive behavior, whether it be speech or physically, to everyone in its wake. Point number two, very quickly, keep anger and hatred under control. I've given you a couple of verses. Proverbs 19.11. The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. A discreet man. A man who has wisdom. A man of discretion. He defers. What does defer mean? It means to set his anger aside. Now watch this. Here's a guy that has such control over who he is as a person, that when anger over a situation begins to well up in his soul, without letting it take over, he can consciously think to himself, I am becoming angry over this. I better watch myself. I'm going to set my anger aside so I do not act in a way that is inappropriate. I will set my anger aside and I will continue to function. I will defer my anger. Why? Because I am a man of discretion. And when he finds this ability to set aside his anger, he learns there is a glory in passing over a transgression. Now hear me, folks. Do you know, I do not have to return every insult that comes my way. I do not have to hurl back an accusation or an answer to every ugly thing that is said to me. In fact, it is a glory, watch this, when I can walk above the clouds and not care what someone thinks and simply overlook it. It is a glory further when I can view an individual and say, well, you know, I know he said some hasty things, but he was under great pressure at that time, and maybe the pressure's in his life, and I can actually seek to look on the happy side or the good side of that person. You say, preacher, is that realistic? It's a whole lot better than blowing up. If I blow up, my blood pressure rises. If I blow up, my heart rate beats faster. If I blow up, my body produces all kinds of hormones and chemicals and the glands start pumping stuff out into my bloodstream that'll be there 72 hours later. The fight or flight response and all of that is degenerating to my personal health. And my anger overflowing does nothing to solve a situation. Keep anger and hatred under control. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. Boy, this is good. He that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. What a great verse of the Bible. He that is slow to wrath. Proverbs 14.29. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. A man of wisdom is a man with a long fuse. Now, you know what you can do? You can take that verse conversely, and you can say, you know, I'm going to get my advice from the guy that doesn't have a temper problem. Because the Bible says he is of great understanding. If he's patient in this area of life, he's probably got some wisdom in another area of life. Everyone following me on this? Boy, again, the Bible is a barometer for people's wisdom or lack thereof. Then I should seek to neutralize anger in others. Proverbs 15.1, a soft answer turneth away wrath. Grievous words stir up anger. Preacher, what do you do if somebody explodes? Do you just get back in their face? No. Just smile and say something pleasant. That's like keeping coals of fire on their head. You ought to see how angry they get then. And by the way, have you ever thought when someone was just blowing up and angry at you, have you ever thought how funny they look? I think of an individual right now. When he gets angry, it just cracks me up. His face contorts in such an ugly fashion that it's cartoonish. I mean, it's just contorted. And you say, well, preachers, does it just, do you get angry right along? No, because I think it's funny. A good way to look at it. Proverbs 16, 14, the wrath of a king is as the messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it. While a preacher so-and-so is angry, should I get angry right back? No, maybe just pacify it a little bit. The Bible says a wise man will pacify it. You know what Jesus said? Jesus said, agree with thine adversary, while thou art in the way. What does that mean? If I'm walking into church on Sunday morning and somebody comes up to me and says, Pastor Monty, I disagree with that strong-armed message on Lebanon and Israel and the second coming of Christ. I didn't like it. It was strong-armed. It was pro-Israel. I just didn't like that message. Pastor, I didn't like it. Well, I can either get up in their face and yell at them, or you know what I can say? I can say, yeah, you know, probably wasn't a very good message. Like most of the messages I preach. Here we go. Maybe I'll do better this time. That might diffuse it just a little bit. By this I'm saying humorously, it is unnecessary to argue every point with people. People say stuff to me all day long that I disagree with, and I just kind of nod my head and smile and think something different in my mind. Move on. If I stopped and had a fuss with everybody I disagreed with, folks, I'd be fussing all day long. People are going to say stuff, they'll make a statement on the phone, they'll make a statement here, here, here, here, just junk that they're saying. I'm not going to analyze every moment of junk that comes out of their mouth. Why? It would be a battle all day long. Simply neutralize it, pacify it, and move on. And then, and the last one, and I had to get to this, Avoid angry people. Boy, this is great advice. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go, lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy soul. What a great verse. If any verse in this whole lesson you ought to commit to memory, it's that one. Make no friendship with an angry man. Everybody tune in to what I'm about to say. I have some rules in life, personally in my life. I will not be close to any individual who is given to or prone to anger. I will not. I will not. Why? The Bible says not to do it. Make no friendship with an angry man. With a furious man thou shalt not go. Why? Lest thou learn his ways. The Bible says, "...as iron sharpens iron, so doth a man the countenance of his friend." We become like the people whom we closely associate with. I do not want to learn anger from an angry man. Therefore, I will make no friendship with an angry man. And what would be the result if I did? I would get a snare to my soul. Anger is a trap. Well, Pastor, he blew up. He just expressed himself. Look, there's freedom of expression. That freedom of expression that you saw are the bars of an iron cage in which that man lives. And the cage is made of his own personal passion. And he cannot break free from his passion. And his display, though it is overt and outward and loud and declaratory, and while it is explosive to watch, that display does not indicate a freedom of spirit. It indicates an enslavement of the soul. Because that man who cannot control his spirit, his temper, and his attitude is a slave to the emotions of anger and hatred. Don't get that snare to your soul. Do not learn the ways of an angry man. Seek to fellowship with those who are pleasant, those who are peacemakers, and those who are patient. Let's pray together. Father, thank You for Your Word. How wonderful and practical are these lessons. Lord, there is so much here. We cover only the surface just a bit when we examine this Thy Word tonight. Holy Spirit, I pray that You would take the Word of God tonight, and may it mold us. Lord, if we have an anger or a hatred problem, I pray that we would understand that that problem is our own. that it is not to be blamed upon our environment or the folks that are around us who are our antagonists. Lord, it is to be blamed upon our sinful nature and our being a slave to those passions that rage out of control within. Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit would quiet those hearts as some would recognize their need to perhaps go to a place of repentance and sorrow for sin. Father, I pray that you take your word tonight and help us to grow as Christians, make us more wise in this world as we deal with people, and keep our associations what they ought to be to please thee. Again, Lord, thank you for the practicality of the word of God. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.