Some Practical Instruction ... On Anger

Series – April 2016 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Some Practical Instruction On
ANGER

Unlike the three subjects we have already considered – selfishness, pride and envy – Scripture speaks of anger in two ways. The one points out when it is right to be angry and the other when it is a grievous sin. When anger is sinful it is always the result of some previous sin. When it is righteous it is the result of a righteous and holy feeling. Keep these points in mind as we consider several examples. It will be interesting to observe not only the results, but also the causes of anger.

Examples Of Anger As A Sin
The first instance of anger we find is with Cain. He was “very wroth, and his countenance fell” (Gen. 4:5 KJV), the result being the murder of Abel. In Genesis 27:41, in the case of Esau, we find another instance of how anger is allied to murder, as the Lord pointed out in Matthew 5:21-22. In Cain’s case, the cause was envy, in Esau’s it was jealousy.

In Numbers 20:10-11 we find Moses, the meekest man in all the earth, betrayed into anger by his impatience. The result of his anger was disobedience, and the punishment he received was exclusion from the Promised Land. Many might justify Moses on this occasion, yet God does not. It is true that he was provoked, but followers of Christ discover here that provocation is no excuse for anger.

It must be remembered that God’s anger is always righteous anger – ours surely is not. Hence we frequently have the expression “provoked Him to anger” rightly applied to God; but the believer, who is dependent, should not give way to anger. He should leave the matter with God as supreme. The Lord Jesus, when on earth, took the place of man and bore all with perfect patience and meekness, committing His cause to Him who judges righteously.

The punishment in Moses’ case may seem severe. However, we must remember that Moses was a great saint – “Moses the man of God” (Dt. 33:1) – and that a little sin in a great saint is worse than a great sin in a sinner. God cannot lightly overlook outbursts of natural passion in His people, even when provoked, for He has given them power to restrain it.

In 1 Samuel 20:30 we find Saul angry with Jonathan and seeking to kill him – his anger being caused by hatred of David. Ahab’s cruelty to Naboth (1 Ki. 21) reveals to us that anger leads to murder, being caused by covetousness. In 2 Kings 5:11 we see the anger of Naaman stirred up by his pride, leading this man to despise God’s message to him. We might easily multiply these examples, for the seeds of them are in every human heart.

Consider Asa in 2 Chronicles 16:10. He was very angry with Hanani because the latter had rebuked him for his disobedience. This led Asa to put Hanani in prison, an act of gross injustice. Years later, Uzziah’s wrath was the result of being rebuked for committing sacrilege, not holding as sacred the things of God (2 Chron. 26:19). For this sin God immediately punished him with leprosy. These two instances show us how often anger is a result in our hearts for being rebuked or faithfully reproved for sin that we have committed. Let us be on our guard against becoming angry in this kind of situation. It is enough to have committed the sin, but it is far worse when reproved of it by a servant of God to add to it a second and possibly a third sin, as Asa did.

In Esther 3:5 we find anger is caused by pride, as seen in wicked Haman and his attempted destruction of an entire people. The same cause, pride, filled Nebuchadnezzar with rage and fury to such an extent that the form of his visage was changed, his anger leading to intense cruelty on his part against his victims (Dan. 3). However, God miraculously overruled. In Jonah’s case we find great anger caused by impatience, leading him to speak against God. He appears to have given way to it so completely that in Jonah 4:9 he actually sought to justify his unrighteous anger to God.

In the New Testament we find the anger of Herod leading him to murder the children of Bethlehem. We further see in Luke 4:28 that the Jews, stung with jealousy at God’s favors to the Gentiles (vv.24-27), sought to murder Christ on that very spot. We find the Jews in Acts 7:54 again filled with hatred against Christ, actually rushing on Stephen with rage and stoning him to death.

From these illustrations we see that anger is caused by envy, jealousy, impatience, hatred, pride, covetousness and fitting rebukes through God’s people. If unchecked, anger tends to cruelty, murder, disobedience, injustice and despising God’s Word. We feel sure that if our Christian readers will carefully weigh these instances of anger and compare them in cause and effect with their own history, they will find that the Word of God is a wonderfully accurate mirror of the human heart.

Turn for a moment to see what is said in Scripture about anger:

• It is expressly forbidden (Mt. 5:22; Rom. 12:19).
• It is a work of the flesh (Gal. 5:20).
• It is characteristic of fools (Prov. 12:16, 14:29, 27:3).
• It brings its own punishment (Job 5:2; Prov. 19:19).
• It is often stirred up by bad words (2 Sam. 19:43) but pacified by meekness (Prov. 15:1).
• We should not provoke others to it (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21).

Examples Of Righteous Anger
In Mark 3:5 we find the Lord angry – “being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.” How instinctively we feel in this case the unselfishness of the anger. It was all for their sakes and for God’s glory. Righteous anger never has self, in any shape or form, as its cause. Moses was angry in Exodus 11:8, but it was for the indignities offered by Pharaoh to the LORD and His people – unlike Moses’ anger in Numbers 20 for which he was punished. We find Moses angry in a similar way in Exodus 32:19 and Leviticus 10:16. In Nehemiah 5:6 we find Nehemiah very angry against the extreme injustice done by others to others, not against him. Hence, he did “well” to be angry. Ephesians 4:26 gives us the exhortation to “be ... angry, and sin not” – not to treasure up anger and malice in our hearts.

Our Challenge
We who are believers have before us the two sorts of anger – the one generally the fruit of some other sin and always having self as its ultimate cause; the other springing from zeal or indignation for the Lord and having Him or His people as its motive.

We thus find that the first anger, like other sins we have considered, is a selfish sin. The surest way of being saved from it is to be free from one’s self. This should be at conversion, but it does not practically take place until Christ reveals Himself in sufficient power to one’s heart to replace the wretched idol of self (2 Cor. 4:10). A Christian can only be happy in proportion to this being the case, for a selfish Christian is a most miserable object and is indeed a contradiction in terms.

The surest way, therefore, to overcome the sin of anger is not by cultivating a peaceful disposition, which is only dealing with externals, but by striking at the root, which is self, and replacing it with Christ. Rather than for his own desires, the true Christian is zealous for his Master’s interests and may be righteously angry when His glory is concerned. May the Lord make us all more zealous for Him and deliver us from serving and pleasing ourselves.

By Alfred T. Schofield, (adapted)

Look for more practical instruction next month.

Sin And Its Consequence One of the worst things Moses ever did is referred to in Numbers 27:14, where the Lord charges him with committing an offence similar to that which the Israelites were guilty of at the same time. “Hear now, ye rebels,” said Moses, “must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (KJV). Instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it twice over with his rod of power and judgment, after having smitten it once before by divine command – a smiting intended by God to be “once for all” (Num. 20, Ex. 17). Moses had to suffer the consequence of his sin as he misrepresented God, who was acting in grace at the moment. This sin was very grievous in God’s sight, as seen by the severe judgment which fell on Moses. Later, however, Moses appeared with Elias in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17), and the apostle in writing to the saints at Corinth said, “When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). We see, then, what indignation God shows towards those who interfere with His ways in grace and dare to seek to hinder its outflow, whether toward saints or sinners. Therefore, while Moses was permitted to smite the rock, his sin in doing so was not allowed to stem the tide of God’s grace, which rose higher than the sins of His people – including that of His servant Moses. — The Christian’s Friend, 1896 (adapted)