Now, we're going to look today at an extremely relevant problem, and it's the problem of anger. Dr. Jay Adams, who's written many books, probably one of the leading Christian counselors today, in his book Christian Counseling writes this, anger is a problem for every Christian. Sinful anger probably is involved in 90% of all counseling problems. And then just a week ago, I found this quotation by Henry Drummond in his very famous book, Sold in the Millions, The Greatest Thing in the World. And Henry Drummond points out that anger is what he calls the vice of the virtuous, the vice of the virtuous. Many good people And godly people can often spoil and damage and hurt people with anger. Listen to what Henry Drummond writes. The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blood on an otherwise noble character. You know, men who are all but perfect and women who are and would be almost entirely a perfect but for an easily ruffled, quick tempered and touchy disposition. So don't sit here and think, I'm not an angry, ill-tempered person. You might not be an angry, ill-tempered person as your natural disposition. But you may justify outbursts of anger, occasional outbursts of anger that you think is not normal to your persona, but still does terrible damage. And we find it very easy to justify this kind of behavior. Let me give you four introductory remarks about anger in the book of Proverbs. And then we're going to spend most of our time this morning on solutions. So four introductory remarks. Each of these remarks has a key word. I will have the verse in back of me on the screen, but I really would like you to see these in your own Bible. Dads and moms, you need these verses at home. So it's not good enough just look at them at the screen. You need to be able to find these and use these. Four key statements, introductory statements about anger. Number one. Anger makes people act foolishly. Proverbs 14, 17. You might want to open to the book of Proverbs, because some of them I really want you to focus on, and you should be able to find these. These will help you and your family. Proverbs 14, 17 says, a quick-tempered man acts foolishly. The key word is foolishly. A quick-tempered person acts foolishly. Does foolish acts. It's like the young man who has a bad temper and he gets into a big fight with his girlfriend and in a fit of rage walks out of the house and slams the door and jumps in his car and nails the gas pedal, tears off down the road, gets to a curve and he can't make the curve and he goes right into a tree and kills himself. Just in a fit of anger. Or a husband who in a fit of anger against his wife just lands off with his fist and breaks her jaw. Or as one man did in this church years ago, took a 45 magnum and took it and bashed it into his wife's head and blood coming all over her head. But he was angry. Or the child who's angry at a parent and runs off, does horrible things. Person's angry and they go out and they drink and they get drunk and hurt themselves. Or they say cruel words that can never be taken back. The point is this. When you're acting in anger, foolish things will happen. Number two. Anger stirs up fighting among people. Proverbs 15, 18. A hot-tempered man stirs up strife. Proverbs 29, verse 22. An angry man stirs up strife. And then, I don't believe this is on the screen. Proverbs 30, verse 33. Write it down. Proverbs 30, verse 33. For the churning of milk produces butter. The pressing of the nose brings forth blood. So the churning of anger produces strife. You know, when people get angry, they think they can say whatever they want to say, do whatever they want to do, act any way they want to act, because they're angry. And one of the interesting things about uncontrolled anger is that it's easily excused. We've got all kinds of excuses for terrible anger. That man who took a gun and bashed it into his wife's head, and another time he bashed her head into the wall, as hard as it is to believe, was perfectly justified in his mind that he had a right to do this to his wife. That's what you must understand about anger. You may normally not be this way, but you let loose once, And be careful of excusing that and justifying it. It's a characteristic of anger. It stirs up strife. You think of how much marital discourse is related directly to anger. How many women have suffered at the hands of an angry husband? And the husband, when he goes to the counselor, is sitting there justifying himself the whole time. There are women, and I've met them and counseled with them, that have gone in weight down to 90 pounds as a result of angry husbands who just lay into them all the time with their angry, vicious temper. And they can hardly see it, and they justify it. How many church fights have been based on out-of-control anger? I was visiting a friend who was here on vacation up at Estes Park, so I ran up to see him. We had a lovely dinner together, and he was telling me that his son goes to a church here in Colorado, and there was this fight that started very small in the church, and now both sides have lawyers, and they're suing one another for the building. Terrible, terrible things happen in churches as a result of out-of-control anger. And then anger between nations. How many nations become angry at one another and they start wars and thousands of people are killed because of an angry leader against another angry leader. And so the second key word is strife. Anger produces foolishness. Secondly, anger produces all kinds of division and strife. Number three, anger causes other sins. Anger escalates sins. Look at Proverbs 29 verse 22. A hot-tempered man abounds in transgression." Notice the word, abounds in sins. Husband and wife are having a terrible argument, and they're just fighting with one another, and just doing terrible things to one another. And the husband, in just sheer anger, or the wife, in sheer anger, goes out and has an affair. That's what the verse says. The hot-tempered man, he abounds in transgression. In other words, he gets into all kinds of other sins. Or the child who's angry at the parent and will fail at school just to punish the parents. Or runs away from home and joins some street group and the life is ruined. How about employees who get angry at the employer and they do destructive things at work? Or the employee who hits another employee or curses or threatens another employee? All these kinds of things happen all the time. Proverbs 27 verse 4 says, wrath is fierce, but anger is like a flood. You think of the damage a flood does. Did you see in the news yesterday in India, parts of India, the terrible flooding? Three feet of rain in one day. Three feet of rain in one day just flooded and destroyed everything in its path. Well, that's what Proverbs says about anger. It's like a flood. It just ruins and destroys everything in its path. Found an article here in the Chicago Tribune of a couple on the Northwest toll road in the left lane with their van and two little children in the back. And then some man in a white Cadillac pulled up in back of them in the left lane and was just literally inches from their back bumper, just pushing them along and blowing the horn to get them off that left lane. So the fella just started, in the left lane in the van, just started slowing down, slowing down, slowing down to aggravate the man in the white Cadillac. So the man in the white Cadillac pulls out all the way across, goes all the way to the right-hand lane, comes out, finally gets himself positioned right in front of that van. And then slows down, slows down. And so the van, he starts to do the same thing, try to get in front of the white Cadillac, and then they start chasing each other. And then they have an altercation where they're yelling at each other with open windows and gesturing to each other. And finally, the man in the white Cadillac who had just got out of prison was an ex-con, pulled the gun out, and he shot into the car. And listen to what the newspaper reported. The bullet entered the side of the van and hit the baby girl, entering under her left ear and exiting above her right ear. The little girl lived, but she is blind in one eye. half-blind in the other, partially deaf, and suffers severe mental and physical disabilities." A fit of rage. We call it road rage. Nothing worse and more ridiculous and sinful than road rage, the consequences of such an act. The point Solomon is making is that anger causes other sins if it is not immediately checked and brought under control. And then number four, Anger has its consequences. Proverbs 19, 19. The interesting thing about the book of Proverbs is that there are so many verses about this. Proverbs is a book of wisdom and it matches with life's problems. Did you know that more verses are in Proverbs? The most frequently used proverb deals with the tongue. Well, of course, we'd understand that. We do a lot of verbal work in a day. And the second or third is the emotion of anger. Now, the fourth thing said is anger has its consequences. 1919. A man of great anger will bear the penalty, for if you rescue him, you will have to do it again. There's always a penalty to anger. In some cases, you may lose friends. People get tired of it. People don't like to be around an angry person. They may not say anything to you because you're angry. You may not even see this problem, but people just withdraw. They don't want to be around you. You know, there's couples we've been with in the past, and every time you're with them, you're at the table, maybe you're having dinner or doing something, they start fighting with one another. It's so embarrassing, and it just ruins the whole evening. Remember once I was at a couple's home. I knew very very well and the man was on the couch with me We were watching the news and his wife was in the other room And he started yelling at her and then he started screaming at her and it was just really very ugly And I just put my hand on his knee. That's all I did. We're good friends I put my name is this I wish you wouldn't do this in front of me and He turned around and leased into me you mind your own business He said I'll do with my wife as I want to then the next day. He told me off again. I Well, you know, he's a good friend. But you know, I don't want to be around him. I don't want to be around that. You may lose your job. You may lose your marriage. Many marriages are lost and broken by uncontrolled anger. And one spouse finally gets fed up with it and says, I'm out of here. Or children who are out of the home as fast as they can get out of the home because of uncontrolled anger. So anger has its consequences, and the consequences are often very destructive. Let's look next at anger as a powerful emotion, difficult to control. Let's remember the four things, the four general things. It produces foolishness, it produces fighting and division, it produces other sins, and always has bad consequences. That's the general teaching of Proverbs on anger. But anger is an emotion. It's a human emotion. God gave us this emotion. When you sense anger, you're not sensing something that is sinful in itself. We'll see at the end of this message that anger actually has good parts to it. But anger has a dangerous side to it. But anger itself, per se, is not sinful. Psalm 711 says God is angry with the wicked every day. God is angry. Righteously, justly, inflexibly angry at the sin and destruction in this world. The Lord Jesus Christ was angry, Mark 3, 5 says. And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The Lord was angry at the hard-heartedness and stubbornness of the people. And then on two occasions, Jesus went into the temple and he cleansed the temple. He took a whip and he drove out the money changers and he told them, this is my father's house and you've made it a den of thieves. You've made it a casino. There is righteous, holy anger. God is angry and he's angry with holiness and righteousness. Now, when you see on the news, as we've seen this particular summer, there have been at least three or four captures of these sexual predators with children, pedophiles. And some of these cases have been just absolutely horrible. If you sense anger at that, that is proper and right. Society should be angry at children being killed and molested, and some of them molested repeatedly. So if you're angry at that, that's good. God made us to see that there is a righteous anger to make us move and do something. Here is the problem with the motion of anger. Anger per se is not wrong, but it's such a dangerous thing in the hands of uncontrolled, undisciplined people, people who lack wisdom, or people who are just not emotionally in control of themselves anyway. William Arnott, in his wonderful commentary on the book of Proverbs, likens anger to fire. It is like fire in the hands of children. Although it is possible for them in certain cases to handle it safely and usefully, we know that in point of fact, they most frequently do harm with it than good. Nothing wrong with fire. Fire heats your home. Fire cooks your food. Fire does many wonderful things. A fire can burn your house down. Fire can kill you. It can scorch your body. We had here just in this church, one of the ladies in this church, her uncle, It was right here in our newspaper and in the news. He was burned severely, over 60% of his body. Hardly anything more painful than having your body burned with fire. But he was dealing with the problem of propane and the furnace. It was a good thing. Kept the house cabin in the mountains nice and warm. Wonderful thing. But then it blew up in his face and nearly destroyed his life. So that's what anger is like. It's an emotion. It's part of normal human life, but it's a dangerous emotion. Easily gets out of control and can do severe long-term damage. So I want to spend the rest of my time now dealing with solutions. That's more important. I think I've said enough about the problems. I think you all know it is a big problem. You've had it in your own family, your own life. We all have to deal with it from one degree to another. Let's look at solutions. First of all, stay away from angry people, and I want to add angry images. Stay away from angry people or images. Now, please open your Bibles now, if you haven't opened them, and there's a Bible in front of you, if you don't have one, to Proverbs 22, verse 24 and 25. Do not associate with a man given to anger. Now, this is that same advice that we have received already in Proverbs, stay away from sin. We looked at that weeks ago. Or go with a hot-tempered man. Now, here's the key factor. Or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself. The key word is learn. Anger is learned. And you can unlearn it. It's a response. If you hang around with people who handle things with cursing, and their fists, and gestures, and violence, you'll become like them. I had a very dear friend. We grew up together, and his father had a very wicked temper. It was a wicked temper. Everyone in the family lived with fear. And one evening, my dear friend and his sisters, they were out in the living room, and they were playing the TV too loud. And they heard the bedroom door open, and they knew they were in trouble. The father came running out, grabbed this large-sized TV. He was a big, strong man. Ripped the plug and everything out of the wall, went over to the stairs and threw it down. flight of stairs, ending their TV show. This was just one example out of many of his rage at anything that frustrated him. Now my friend hated that, and he often spoke of his father's anger, and he had been hit by his father many times. Today you'd be arrested for what he did in those days. But my dear friend, as he grew older, had his father's same temper. And one day playing baseball out in a cemetery right near my house, my brother struck him out and he got so mad at my brother. He's a big six foot three guy, over 200 pounds, took that bat at full force and threw it right at my brother to hit him with it in rage, just like his father would have done. Just miss my brother. You see, he learns his anger from his dad. He hated it in his dad. But it became his problem as well. Anger is learned. And so the proverb says here, if you associate with angry people, well, then you'll learn their ways. Now, dad and mom, I want you to listen to me right now. If you go to other countries in the world, these countries, as they look at America, see America as a very violent place. And they wonder why the violence. We've got prosperity. You can see violence in poor countries where people don't have anything. We have everything. And one of the most disgraceful things worldwide, as they look at America, is particularly the attack on children. In many places in the world, children are safe. But you're not safe here in America. So we're viewed by the world as a violent place. Now, I want you dad and mom to think about this. The Bible says you learn anger if you associate with these kind of people. What about angry games, video games, that do a lot of killing and senseless violence? How about movies that are just senselessly violent? There are movies that are known just for extreme violence and people go and they say, oh, this is great. They kill everybody. They chop off heads. What happens in the society is a society, and this happens in Rome, a society feeds off of violence and loves violence. It becomes a way of stimulating the mind and stimulating the glands. I want you to be careful. This is a real thing. You teach violence and the whole culture handles problems with their fists and with cursing. And we're seeing that in our culture today. Young people who grow up and they can't negotiate They can't compromise. They can't solve things. They got a curse. They got to start a fight. I want to say the opposite is true. You can teach people peace, loving negotiation and calmness. You can teach that. So I'm asking you parents to think about violence on TV, violence in the movie, violence in the video, because the scripture says you will learn their ways. Maybe that's one of the reasons we have so much violence. Now, of course, there's a very simple approach to this, and I think it's a very true approach. And sometimes we ignore this, but monkey see, monkey do. You see something, you do it. Children are like little baby monkeys. They see something, they copy it. I was in a home once, and I came into this home to visit, and the children were all in the living room. And I poked my head in there to say hi to the children. Here were these children, little children. I don't know, five, six, seven, the oldest. And they're all sitting on the couch there. And on the TV is a man going around the house with a knife, repeatedly stabbing this woman so he finally can rape her. And these children are sitting there, and I'm going, my heavens. First of all, it was so disgusting, just emotional. It was mostly shocking to me. Going from room to room, stabbing this woman, and these three little children are watching this. Well, you know, I don't care what you say, monkey see, monkey do. You're putting these concepts, images, in a child's mind, and you see enough of them, and all kinds of studies have been done to show this. There's plenty of information that if you see enough violence, enough sex, after a while it doesn't mean anything. In fact, it actually becomes something normal and enjoyable. I don't think any child should be subjected to seeing that kind of murder and see it, sometimes daily, on the TV. You will learn their ways. In 1 Corinthians 6, we learned just weeks ago, flee evil, flee fornication. When you see this kind of violence in your children, you just get away from it. And if you're with people who are violent, now sometimes children can't do anything about it, you need to stay away from those people. And don't let your children hang around with violent people. Bad company corrupts good morals. One dead apple ruins the whole bushel. So if your children are hanging around with young people who fight a lot and curse a lot and are violent and enjoy violence, your children will become just like them. So the first thing is stay away from violent or angry people or angry images. Number two, don't vent anger at will. Don't vent anger at will. Proverbs 29 verse 11. A fool always loses his temper. Notice, a foolish person always loses his temper. The verse goes on to say, but a wise man holds it back. A fool always loses his temper. In other words, a fool is a person who's a slave to the impulses. It's at the mercy of every Single impulse or feeling. Uncontrolled venting of anger. We call it the volcano going off. We have other terms for blowing up. You can use whatever term you want. Volcanoes going off, bombs blowing up, are always injurious to anyone close by. Proverbs 14.29 says, For he who is quick-tempered exalts folly. I read this article in the newspaper that if you're angry and you're always losing your temper, it's just something that happens on a daily basis, you're actually hurting your health. A study conducted by the Gallup Organization report in 1994 rated Philadelphia ranked as the first in the US cities as the most hostile city, hostile index. Now, I'll let you know, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, these were all angry cities. And I want you to know some good news. You're living in the right city. Denver was very low on the hostility index. None of you feel hostile today, do you? You all look very calm. That's why in Denver you live longer. See? So don't complain about paying taxes in Denver. You'll live longer. Medical experts looking at the results felt it was no coincidence that cities that rate high on the hostility index also have a high death rate. By the way, I don't want to get into this, but there have been numerous newspaper articles about Russia's low death rate or how many people are dying at a very young age in Russia. A lot of it is related to the whole culture. Dr. Redford Williams of Duke University Medical School says, anger kills. There's a strong correlation between hostility and death rates. The angrier people are, the more cynical they are, and the shorter their lifespan. You're really not to just venture anger anyway, anytime you want. I don't know if you remember this, but back in the 60s, there was this whole movement psychologically to venture anger, you know, beat the pillow, tell people off because it's better to do that, or just kick and scream whenever you want. Well, that was popular for a short while until people started to look more closely at that. It was not actually good for people. It was actually hurting them emotionally. So the point was that you do have to vent anger, but there's a constructive way to vent anger, and there is a very destructive way to vent anger. And one of the things about this anger expression movement was that it was hurting a lot of people. So someone's letting off steam. but at the cost of other people being damaged. So you are not to vent anger at will. It has to be constructively controlled and properly used. Number three. And I would have to say this is probably the most important point in our message this morning. Be slow to vent anger. Be slow to vent anger. This is throughout the whole Bible. It actually starts, and many of you might remember when we did our Moses series in Exodus a few years ago. Right at the beginning of the Bible, when God reveals himself to Moses, one of the first things he says to Moses, I'm slow to anger. And all through the Bible, that comes out. God is slow to anger. He is long-suffering. He suffers long. Well, if he wasn't, we'd have been destroyed years ago. God, in his character and person, is that he is slow to anger. And one of the virtues of the Christian life is patience, or slow to anger. Long-suffering is another word we use. Now, let's look at some of these proverbs, because there's some very good proverbs. And some of these, as a family, you should memorize. There's a couple of these. As a family, we memorized them years ago, and that's probably one of the reasons we are still all alive. Okay, Proverbs 14, 29. He who is slow to anger has great understanding. Hotheads don't have understanding. People who are slow to anger have great understanding. Now, doctors used to talk about intellectual IQ. What is your IQ? It's 150 or 200, you know, off the charts. Well, today they talk about something else called emotional IQ, which they say may be more important. Your whole emotional makeup. There are people with fantastic IQs, but you don't want to be around them. They'll punch you in the nose or they're strange and they do... odd things, they have no discipline, and doctors started realizing that's only one index, the power of the brain. There's actually something that's probably more important. It would be the interest of the book of Proverbs, your emotional IQ, your self-discipline, your control of anger, your perspective on things, a balanced personality. So what he's saying here is the one who's slow to anger has good emotional IQ. And then a second verse, and this is a key verse, Proverbs 19, 11. A man's discretion makes him slow to anger. This is a great verse. A man's discretion. Discretion, understanding, insight, grasp of things. A person with discretion is slow to anger. Well, why is that? Well, you know, there's not a lot of things you need to be angry at. Foolish people get angry at everything. They're just angry over all these problems. We had this guy come visit us, and he got this brand new car, and I went out with a drive-in car, and this is really how he was driving. He's driving down the street with this brand new car. Look at that guy over there! Look at that guy over there! He was afraid someone was going to hit his new car, and then someone put a scratch on it. He went berserk. He went so berserk. This is the honest truth. He went so berserk that someone put a scratch on his car. He was so afraid someone was going to hit his car that he went and sold the car and got another car. That's actually the truth. I knew this fellow. So what to get a scratch in your car? It's just all these little things. Discretion tells you there's not that many things to get that angry over. I remember I was at the 24 hour fitness and was over there on mineral. And word got through the company that they're going to take it and move it from Mineral out to 470 on Broadway there. We were down in the men's room there, in the locker room, and this one guy starts complaining about moving it from Mineral to 470 because he lives right over there, and that's why he likes to go there. And he was getting hotter and more angry. And then he started to cursing. And then what kind of place is this? They should have had us vote on it. And he was getting angry. And finally, he fell over. He had a heart attack. And within minutes they had the ambulance there and they took him out. And I thought, heart attack because you're going to move the building from that place to that place. It was absolutely preposterous. When you have discretion, and some of this does come with age, you realize this, 97% of the things we're angry at we don't even need to be angry at. You get to know people, understand people, you know the human situation. You have to laugh at a lot of things and not just get angry. So a person with understanding and wisdom of people and situations realizes, be slow to anger. There's very few things that are that important. Now a very important verse, Proverbs 15, 18. The slow to anger calms a dispute. Oh my, this is such an important verse, particularly if you're dealing with people. Now I don't know if you saw your newspaper yesterday, but there was a whole big two or three page spread in our newspaper yesterday on former Senator and Congressman Hank Brown. He's the interim president at CU now. And it was a wonderful article about his life, but here's what I caught for our lesson today. His wife said, and his close friend says, Hank Brown has a marvelous ability to come into a troubled situation and make it calm. I said, what a gift that is. An ability to come into a troubled situation and just make everybody feel calm and feel there's a solution and there's hope. And they need that, I see you right now. You need this in your family. We need people like this in the local church. People get real hot and bothered about things. You need a calmer. The slow to anger calms a dispute, calms a dispute. Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 15. We're going to put it right here. It's not on the screen. Proverbs 15 verse 1. Some of you here with young small families if you as a family will start taking some of these key verses and memorizing them I want to guarantee something to you. It will help your whole family life You know if mom and dad are screaming in the house and yelling at one another Your children are people too they hate that stuff they hate it and I They'll grow up to be like you. They'll hate it, but they'll grow up to be like you. Don't do that to your children. So get them to memorize these Proverbs and you memorize them and make the change. Proverbs 15.1. Now, this is a proverb that our family memorized when the children were little. And I probably weekly we use this proverb probably weekly for many years, particularly with four young ladies, all of them trying to on a Sunday morning, get through the bathroom and do all the amazing things they do within a couple hours. This verse saved our family and saved me as a man. All right. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Repeat this to yourself every day. Every time you're in a dispute or you feel your temper, your blood pressure going up in your face, turning red, you know, all this kind of stuff. And you just say a gentle answer turns away anger and wrath, but a harsh word. Well, it actually just stirs it up, gets it worse. This is a fantastic principle, and it goes right along with Proverbs 15, 18. Remember, they're in the same chapter. The slow to anger, well, he calms the family. Children are fighting, calms the children. Fighting in the church, people are getting angry, I'm getting angry, escalating, and this guy said this and they said that. No, it's nothing that important that we have to act like this. Let's just calm down, and let's all go out and have a cup of coffee together, and let's see how we can work this thing through. A gentle answer turns away wrath. I've seen this many, many times practiced. People start getting hot on the call. People get mad at something. In a church, you know, it could be doctrine. It could be the music. It could be someone said this about someone who did my job. And people get really angry and just amazing how people can flash with anger. And then if you just lower your voice, lower your voice, Watch your body language. You don't you don't go like this, you know You just be calm. Maybe put your head down a gentle answer to say now, you know I know you're upset about this and just lower your voice and it's amazing how people will calm down just amazing But they yelled and you yell they you they have a close fish You have a close fish their eyes are bugged like that and your eyes get bugged like that and it's just thing escalates out of all proportion and at times people come to blows and come to blows. It happens right in church. Dave McLeod just told me when he was here the last time that a church he had visited and there was a man there that I knew and he was telling me the story that they came up to do the offering and this two men came up to do the offering. The one took the basket and the other took the basket and the one started pulling on the basket and he pulled on the basket and they were just pulling on the basket and they went pop, pop, popped them right there. What a worship service. Could have put that on C-SPAN or something and get some money out of it. Popped each other right there in the worship service, fighting over the basket. Harsh words, stirs up anger. It's amazing things that have been done in churches. Amazing. You can get hurt in churches. Do you see in the newspaper up in Maine that the church board that someone poisoned two of the board members. You see that in the newspaper? They poisoned them. The police came in. One of them died. I tell you, you can lose your life in a church. So, well, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word. Don't ever use harsh words. There's no reason to. There's just no reason to. It's just going to escalate the problems. I want to tell you, these verses will save your life. It will save your life. Proverbs 16, 32. He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. Now, the mighty means a mighty warrior, a hero. In other words, a person who's slow to anger actually is a powerful person because most people can't control their anger. When they get angry, they escalate it and they can't. They're out of control. Once you're out of control, well, anything can happen and you can wind up in jail. We've had people right in this church wind up in jail. because of their anger that got out of control. Now, I want you to look at another verse with me in the New Testament. It's a verse, James chapter 1. It's a verse that has come to my mind, I am not exaggerating, maybe in the thousands of times. James chapter 1. Now, our purpose in this series is not just to give you an interesting lecture on anger, but to take it and implement it in your home. That's the purpose of this this whole series. James, chapter one and verse 19 and 20, very important verses. But, you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear. In other words, be a good listener. Good listener. We're usually poor listeners and quick speakers. That's not what the scripture says. Be quick to hear. In other words, get the facts, get the information, know what you're talking about. And then secondly, slow to speak. And then the last one, slow to anger, that's a command, you're to be slow to anger. Now, here's why for the four gives us an explanation. The anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. My dear friends, the work of God is not going to be accomplished by your anger. That's the point. Your family is not going to be a better family because of your anger. Your work situation is not going to be a better work situation because of your anger, because God's ways and God's righteousness is not achieved by human anger. So be slow to anger, be a very good listener and be slow to speak. That is the scriptural principle, and it will be a great, great wisdom to your life and to people. And that is a verse I've used many, many times in my life. Now, number four. Anger has to be controlled. It has to be controlled. Anger has to be controlled. Chapter 29, verse 11. A fool always loses his temper. Now that means he has no control. The fool always loses his temper. Whatever impulse, whatever situation arises, he loses his temper. In fact, there are people like this. I know this. I know this. I know this about them. That if we get into an altercation, it will be an ugly battle. I just know that. There's people that if you're in a meeting and a group of people there, you just know that if some problem comes up, we're all in trouble because they always lose their temper. They have no self-control. But a wise man holds it back. Now, you want to be wise? There's only two people, two major people in this book. There's the fool and the wise man. The fool, well, he has no control over his temper. Any situation will provoke it, and you know what's going to happen. But a wise man, he holds it back. In other words, he has self-control. Now, Proverbs 16, 32. He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. We looked at this just two weeks ago. He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. That means a mighty warrior. He who rules his spirit, that's self-control, than he who captures a city. In other words, a man with a mighty army, he goes and he captures a city. Proverbs says, if you have self-control, you're better, you're stronger than the person who is a mighty military warrior. You're better. He who rules his spirit than he who captures a mighty city. It's been said, and I'm sure you have heard it said, oh, I can't control this. I can't control my temper. Frankly, that's not true. You can control your temper. The Bible says you can, and psychologists today would tell you, you can control your temper. This is just an excuse. It can be control, and it has to be control. Now, I agree with some people it's more difficult, and they'll have to work at it more. There are people, their blood's more like molasses, and it takes a lot to get them angry. They just, you know, they're slower. But there are people, their blood, you know, it's got a lot of cumin in it or something. It just goes real fast, you know, and they go from zero to ten in seconds with their anger. So there's no question there are people who will have to, before the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit, because one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self-control, they're going to have a harder time. Now, let me just add one little point. Sometimes anger can be a medical problem, and you need to be aware of that. There are drugs you can take. There are pathologies you can experience that cause people to be out of control with anger, and then you may need a doctor for that. But put that aside. We are to control our anger. We cannot say, oh, I cannot control my anger. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, through good counsel with others, and with consistent prayer, you will get better at this. Don't excuse yourself. William Arnott, who's written a very, very fine study in Proverbs, says this very good thing. A wise man may indeed experience the heat. In fact, the word for anger in Proverbs is several words. One is a red nose. Your nose and your face, it just gets all red. Your blood pressure goes up. And the other is hot. So all the physical symptoms of anger are brought out through these words. So a wise man may experience the heat, the heat of anger. Your face gets red, you can feel the pulsating in your head, and your blood pressure is going through the roof, and you start breathing more, and you just have this sense of loss of control. So we've all experienced it. But he will do nothing till he cools again. Now notice the physical images. There's the heat, there's the cooling. Very good wisdom. Don't act when you have that heat in your head, your body, because there's literally biochemical changes going on in your body that you can't control yourself. So you don't do anything. Keep your mouth closed at that time or you'll preach the best sermon you'll ever regret. When your clothes outside are on fire, you wrap yourself in a blanket. if you can, and so smother the flames. In like manner, when your heart within has caught on fire of anger, your first business is to get the flame extinguished. Thereafter, you will be in a better position to form a righteous judgment and follow a safe course. So just like when a fire happens, you get a blanket and you cover and you smother the fire right away. Well, when you feel in your body that heat coming and that sense of you losing control and you're not even thinking straight, you can't think straight. And all these kinds of biological changes are happening. The first thing is extinguish that heat. It's got to cool down. I would say in my own years of ministry, the moments that I was most disappointed with myself and look back and say, why in the world did I do that? It was moments of uncontrolled anger. And you're very sorry for it later, but sometimes there's not a lot you can do about it. So you learn through some ugly experiences in your life, it doesn't work. the righteousness of God is not achieved by our human anger. We'll probably do a lot of harm to people in our human anger. We've got to get cooled down, extinguish the flames, and then we can think straight again. You literally cannot think straight when you're out of control. Now, number five, do not internalize anger. These is for 27, be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. What he's saying here is, when you are experiencing anger, you've got to deal with it properly. If you let it burn, we call it a slow burn, inside you're angry, it leads to bitterness, resentment, bodily illness, irritability, pouting, withdrawal, silence, unreasonableness. In fact, one thing you want to know about anger, there's a lot of psychology to this and I don't want to get into it, But let's say you're very, very angry at this situation over here. It's a very frustrating situation. You're very angry at it, but you sort of suppress it. You push it down. Well, what will happen is, over here, poof! Something will come up. You'll blow up at someone, or you withdraw. You don't want to talk to anyone anymore. Actually, it was that anger over here that just sort of went under the ground, went under the ground. It pops up someplace over here, with tears, or bad judgment, or spend a whole bunch of money. Doctors will tell you that anger seething not being dealt with properly pops up at different places You don't even realize that that's the source over there and it popped up over here and that can happen in marriage a lot So what he's saying is don't let the Sun go down in your anger. Don't brood Because if you do you give the devil an opportunity. Well, how do you handle and not internalize anger? Well, here's a couple of real quick suggestions. First of all, you have to confront it and Matthew 18 tells us that someone's hurt you, you have to confront it. And that I know a lot of people would rather deal with the anger internalized and confront. But the Bible says you've got to deal with it. And then number two, you have to communicate when you have been really upset by your spouse or your children or your parents or someone here in the church. What you've got to do is say something like, I need to talk to you because there's been something that's been very upsetting to me and I'd like to talk about it so we can get this solved. It's amazing how if you'll just start communicating about that problem, you'll just see the steam goes out of it. I've seen it myself many, many times. There's this tense situation, it's rising, it's very tense, and you wish you never have to see those people again in your whole life, but you have to see them. And if you'll just talk with them and start to communicate, all of a sudden, all the pressure is deflated. And then three, pray. You need to pray about anger. Don't just let it see. Don't excuse it. You're angry underneath the surface. Maybe someone at work. Maybe your spouse. Maybe your parents. Maybe it's someone you're working with in the church. You've got to pray about it. Say, Lord, I'm very angry at this situation. It's distracting my mind. And I'm fine. I'm building up more resentment. Getting very edgy and irritable. You have to pray. You have to confess. And then number four, consult with a responsible person. So you've got yourself in an altercation, you're in a situation where there's a lot of seething anger, go talk to someone about it. Even talking to someone else about it will just release the pressure. And you share it with someone responsible, a responsible person, not someone who's just going to inflame you more and then maybe together you can deal with this. There are many other things. Number six, Redirect anger to solve problems and pacify anger. It's a very important point. Redirect anger to solve problems and pacify anger. Anger actually has a good side to it. Let me give you a couple of good sides. The good side to anger is that it's a great problem-solving motivation. I read about a doctor whose father, this was years ago, his father was dying of colon cancer. And he was a very brilliant New York doctor and he couldn't find another doctor to deal with the colon cancer. This was in the early days of colon cancer. They could, you had colon cancer, you're basically a death warrant. This brilliant Jewish doctor got so angry that no one could help his father and no one knew much about it that he then turned around and became the leading doctor in America on colon cancer. And he is the doctor that discovered the importance of fiber in a diet to keep your intestines clear and clean. He was the doctor who discovered that and wrote some very important books. He has probably saved millions of lives of people as a result of getting angry at no one being able to help his father. You think of social injustice, slavery, abortion, moral outrage against these horrible heinous crimes. And as a result of the anger, people have made changes in our society. There's people very angry today at this pedophilia in our country, very angry at guns and children. And as a result of the anger against us, a righteous, holy anger, people are doing something about this. And the laws are coming down as an awareness. And then in theology and philosophy, Martin Luther said he wrote best when he was angry. They said he had a flying pen. He said when he would get angry at some falses he'd read, he'd be writing so fast, even the printers couldn't keep up with it. So there's this good side directing anger to problem solving and construction, where anger is a motivation, a tremendous motivating power. If properly channeled, many good things have come out as a result of this. And then there's pacify anger. Now, let me read a proverb to you. It's not here, but I want you to listen to it. Proverbs 21, 14, a gift in secret subdues anger. A gift in secret subdues anger. Proverbs 29, 8, but the wise man turns away anger. What he's saying is a kindness subdues anger. In other words, we're to be proactive in bringing down the level of anger. one of the ways you bring down the the level of of anger hostility is by a gift a Kind deed done a kind word sent done. It's sort of assuages the situation Mike Douglas always liked to tell this story, so I'll tell it today But he always tells the story this time he and I was having this big fight We elders fight don't think we don't fight and so I went over his house to fight with him But I brought with me a giant big cream cheese kalua pie And like all men, he was more interested in the pie than the argument. And he said it assuaged him. I think he ate the whole pie himself. I don't know. Chris, did he eat the whole pie? Yes, he did. It's a terrible thing. So, a gift in secret subdues anger. In other words, you need to pacify anger. And one way you do it is some act of kindness or gentleness. We do this in our home all the time. You get in a fight with your wife. It's a terrible fight. And you're just going at it. You say, honey, please, I'm going to buy you a new car. Oh, she says, oh, great. Great. I don't even remember what you're arguing about. And if you buy our new house, then you're really in. OK. And then Proverbs 6, 14 says, 6, 14 says, But the wise man will appease it. The fear of the king is like a messenger of death. And over in the king gets angry. You're in trouble. But the wise man, he appeases it. He brings it down. All right. Let's close with this. God is angry at sin and his answer to his anger. Sin is the cross. That's God's answer to sin, a constructive answer to anger. He could have just consumed us in his anger and be absolutely righteous and perfect in consuming us in our rebellious, stubborn planet here on earth. Every right to. But he directed his anger to the cross, and upon the cross Christ bore the wrath of Almighty God against the sin of this world on his son. And now because his son has satisfied a gift that's been paid, God is satisfied with what His Son has done in bearing the sin and the guilt and the punishment for sin. God can now turn to us because of what Christ has done and He can forgive us. A righteous, holy, just anger taken out on the innocent sacrifice, provided by Him Himself, satisfied in Himself by the sacrifice of His Son. God can now forgive. And he can now cleanse us. One more thought. When we are born again of God, when the Holy Spirit comes into us, he gives us power over anger. God wants the Holy Spirit to come into your life. He wants to cleanse you of your anger. And we've all have needed this in life. We've all done things to our spouse and our children we're very sorry about. We've hurt them. Maybe we've hurt them very, very deeply with our anger. He will cleanse that by precious blood. And then he gives us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit gives us power and self-control in our lives. Stand with me as we close in prayer. Father in heaven, we just ask you to speak to us today about your anger directed at Christ upon the cross that will understand this. There is righteous anger, just anger. And you are angry at sin every day, the psalmist says. But you have given a constructive answer to this by giving your son, by placing sin and judgment upon him and appeasing your own righteous character. We thank you for this. And I pray for every single man and woman here today that you would speak to them about their salvation and about forgiveness of sins and the power of the Holy Spirit. To each one, draw them, may they see your power. And for us, your people, that we would not be an angry people, an out-of-control people, but we would be calming agents, pacifying agents, and constructive in the use of this mighty emotion within us. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.