Anger

I invite you to turn in the Word of God this evening to Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22. Earlier in the year, we began a series on what I titled Bible Answers for Inner Battles, seeking to address some of those more silent challenges that sometimes we forget believers also deal with. We covered things like anxiety and depression and other matters that are common to the nature of man.

There are a few more left to do. We took a break, and we’re returning to the series. Tonight we wish to address the subject of anger. Anger.

I was maybe going to skip this one, so common, but I think—and also because sometimes it’s so associated with outward expressions, something visible that you see, a very evident mark of someone being angry—but most expressions of anger are more to the point, most of the sins relating to anger happen within us. And so it is one of those inner battles.

So I turn your attention to Proverbs 22. Proverbs 22, and you see near the end there, verse 24, verse 25. This is our text as we look at the subject that will have us in various places in the Word of God.

Proverbs 22. Let us hear the Word of the Lord, short reading tonight, verse 24. “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. 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.”

This, beloved, is the Word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, amen.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We rejoice in its plainness. Oh, there are areas where we struggle. There are portions of Thy Word that we acknowledge are challenging. There are times where we understand why Peter said of Paul’s writings, some of which are hard to be understood, but much of Thy word is plain.

Oh, help us to understand especially the plain things. And we ask that they would have early mastery over our souls. Oh, not that we would so much master the Word, but that the Word would master us.

Therefore, tonight, let Thy Word run, have free course, and be glorified. Let Thy truth prevail with power. Let us know what it is that Thou hast revealed.

I pray that the Spirit—O blessed Spirit of God—as Thou didst attend Cornelius’ household, so attend this gathering. May the Holy Spirit fall on us, convicting us, dealing with us, as Thou dost sovereignly see fit. Save the lost, restore the backslidden, humble the proud and the stubborn, and give comfort to Thy meek and humble saints, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

The Stoic philosopher Seneca, who lived around the time of our Lord Jesus, has a treatment on the subject of anger in which he notes the following—I thought this was amusing in some ways. He says, “Some wise men have said that anger is a brief madness, for it’s no less lacking in self-control, forgetful of decency, unmindful of personal ties, unrelentingly intent on its goal, shut off from rational deliberation, stirred for no substantial reason, unsuited to discerning what’s fair and true, just like a collapsing building that’s reduced to rubble even as it crushes what it falls upon.

Moreover, you can tell that the people whom anger seizes aren’t sane by considering their very demeanor, as mad men exhibit specific symptoms: a bold and threatening expression, a knitted brow, a fierce set of the features, a quickened step, restless hands, a changed complexion, frequent, very forceful sighing—so do angry people show the same symptoms. Their eyes blaze and flicker. Their faces flush deeply as the blood surges up from the depths of the heart. Their lips quiver and their teeth grind. Their hair bristles and stands on end. Their breathing is forced and ragged. Their joints crack as they’re wrenched. They groan and bellow. Their speech is inarticulate and halting. They repeatedly clap their hands together and stamp the ground. Their entire bodies are aroused as they act out anger’s massive menace. They have the repellent and terrifying features of people who are deformed and bloated. It would be hard to say whether the vice is more abhorrent or disfiguring.”

Well, he gives something of a description of the ugliness of anger as it is expressed at times in men.

Aristotle presented also a concise expression of when anger can be acceptable. It’s not always, in his view, wrong. And he said, “The man who is angry at the right things with the right people, and further as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised,” end quote.

And so he insists that anger must be evaluated along five axes: its cause, its target, its expression, its timing, and its persistence.

Now, anger is not something that has escaped the view of the modern therapist, because when they’re dealing with people, they at times are going to be dealing with anger. And they have noted that it’s often fueled by false assumptions, that it tends to lead to this ability to—or this tendency to—mind read, to exaggerate, to fixate on offenses, and so on.

And they suggest that chronic suppressed anger correlates even with things that we see physically: hypertension, heart disease, depression, and anxiety. These are seen in people who have especially some kind of suppressed anger over a long period of time.

Secular medicine warns that unresolved anger corrodes the body as its effect upon us. In fact, modern brain studies show that when anger escalates, the amygdala—the alarm bell—fires, but the frontal lobes that are meant to apply restraint—so there’s this impulse, but there’s also a part of our brain that measures and assesses what’s going on and holds us back—that that fails, and people literally lose rational control.

Which, of course, we know from God’s Word, Proverbs 25:28: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”

And so Solomon had observed the same: men who don’t have a rule over themselves, they lose control. And part of the brain, of course, not functioning as it should.

I’ve read to you tonight as really a launchpad text of the problem of anger and certainly the warning of it, Proverbs 22:24 and 25. “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.”

Matthew Henry made a very cutting and helpful comment on this portion of God’s Word. It is the law of friendship that we accommodate ourselves to our friends and be ready to serve them. Therefore, we ought to be wise and wary in the choice of a friend, that we come not under the sacred tie to anyone whom it would be our folly to accommodate ourselves to.

Though we must be civil to all, yet we must be careful whom we lay in our bosoms and contract a familiarity with. And among others, a man who is easily provoked, touchy, and apt to resent affronts, who when he is in a passion cares not what he says or does, but grows outrageous. Such a one is not fit to be made a friend or companion, for he will be ever and anon angry with us, and that will be our trouble. And he will expect that we should, like him, be angry with others, and that will be our sin.

Good cause given for this caution: lest I learn his way. Those we go with we are apt to grow like. Our corrupt hearts have so much tinder in them that it is dangerous conversing with those that throw about the sparks of their passion. We shall thereby get a snare to our souls, for a disposition to anger is a great snare to any man, an occasion of much sin.

You think about the implications there. Aside from many other things that could be said, even the recognition that being an angry man scripturally implies that you should be a friendless man, because anyone with any sense will keep their distance from you. That is the observation of Matthew Henry, and I believe it to be true from the text that we have read.

So we want to deal with anger because we want deliverance from it. This is a common sin. It’s expressed in different ways, but it must be addressed, and we should not make room for it in our lives like the other matters we have addressed.

So let’s consider, first of all, its character. We consider the character of anger.

Let’s look first at a definition. Anger is said to be a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism, or it’s been put this way by the dictionary: a threatening or violent appearance or state.

Anger is a passionate response of the soul to a perceived wrong. It can be, in the first place, holy. It can be righteous, such as we see that which reflects God’s character when it’s targeted at sin, when it’s controlled, when it’s brief.

But in our state and condition, more often than not, anger is sinful, it’s self-centered, it’s excessive, it’s uncontrolled, it’s misdirected, and it carries on far too long.

Often it can be disguised as zeal, especially in the church. You want to act or pretend in some way that this is zeal. But one of the key distinctions between zeal and anger is that zeal is governed. Anger is not.

And you can often, more often than not, tell whether something is being governed—a response is a governed response versus one that is ungoverned.

Let’s consider also its manifestation, not only its definition, but manifestation. How do we see it? How do we identify it? In what ways does it express itself?

Well, anger wears many masks. In one place, we might consider explosive rage. That’s often what we first think about when we think of someone who’s angry: an explosive rage, a sudden outburst, slamming doors, raising your voice, acts of aggression.

The Bible knows that this goes on. You remember Saul, 1 Samuel chapter 18, when all again the attention has been given to David, “and Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” and Saul, in response to that, eyes David with suspicion, and in a fit of rage hurls a spear right where David was. That’s explosive rage, violent, sudden, irrational. No doubt you’ve seen it. Can be a frightening thing.

There’s also that form of anger that’s not explosive rage, but more a simmering resentment. Comes with a long memory. Often brings about coldness in the eyes as one looks upon another. There’s a person who has anger in the soul because they’re keeping a ledger of what has been done, and it has developed an anger within them.

Remember Absalom in 2 Samuel 13, after Amnon defiled Tamar. We’re told there that Absalom didn’t say a thing, neither good nor bad, just left it in that moment. In two years, he nursed that resentment, that hatred that he had toward him, before finally he murders him when he has the opportunity.

This is the kind of anger that we put in—we refrigerate. It’s put there, kept in cold storage, but at some point it’s going to come out and manifest in great sin.

There’s that passive aggressive form of anger as well. You know whenever someone’s angry with you, but they won’t tell you that they’re angry with you. They give you the silent treatment. They have expressed certain delays about things; they may even sabotage things in ways, but there’s no real outward, honest, open, transparent expression of the reasons why they are upset.

Sometimes it can come across in certain language, like sarcasm, and that’s sarcasm. You start reading the sarcasm; you say, there’s some things amiss here. All the spouses here know there can be this. And it’s sinful.

We’re told of Israelites’ various occasions in which they were harboring resentment against God for various things, and it led them to a murmuring—a behind-the-scenes murmuring, not going and being upfront, not inquiring with the appointed leader, Moses, and saying, “Look, can you help us through this? We’re struggling with this. Can you give us some understanding of how to look at this matter?” But instead, they just stayed in their tents and they murmured, had their complaints, sowed their discontent, grumbled indirectly among one another, and again, you have—you have this as a warning, that kind of anger and resentment is not to be permitted.

You have a kind of anger that’s a form of contempt, expressed as mockery and scorn. Think of Michal when she observed David dancing before the Lord, and we’re told that she despised him in her heart and considered what he was doing vain. And this disdain again, it wasn’t some great outrage of anger, but there was a scorn of heart.

There is that more sullen withdrawal as well as a form of anger—anger that causes the person to withdraw and just become quiet, and they start to stonewall, withhold affection and friendship. They get upset, maybe even pout, and they’re quiet in the privacy. It’s like Ahab when he couldn’t get Naboth’s vineyard. And he’s found there again in this kind of spirit of refusing food and being all upset and pouting and withdrawing. It was a form of anger. It’s expressed in a very petty way, but it was a form of anger.

There’s that kind of indignation that is—it has the appearance of being sanctified as well, that’s anger, dress itself as righteous anger, but it’s not. It’s not what it is. It is of the flesh. You can think of James and John, and they expressed their fury at the Samaritans, wanting the very fire of God to fall from heaven. This was not of God. It was carnal; it was fleshly, even though they tried to sanctify it.

There’s all forms of suppressed anger, maybe particularly against God. You think of Jonah when he has this kind of inward despair, broods over this whole matter because he’s upset at God—he’s angry at God. It tells us that he was exceedingly displeased and very angry when God spared Nineveh. So again, it’s a form of anger. It’s not outward. Most people would miss it, but it’s a suppressed resentment and anger of the soul, and how awful it is, especially when aimed at God.

There’s vindictive retaliation, like Haman. He tried to destroy Mordecai and perform wickedness against the Jews.

There’s envious anger—you might think of Cain again. They were dealing with envy last week. And so as his countenance fell, this envy flames up, and it’s a form of anger as well.

And there are other forms as well. You get the point. It comes in these different ways. Anger isn’t just that outburst of rage. There’s more to it.

So what’s its exception? You can think of the exception then. There’s a form of righteous anger. I have to say, I think it to be rare in men.

Scripture concedes a place for it. Ephesians 4:26: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” You can be angry without sin.

And from that we would deduce that its cause is definitive sin. To be angry and sin not means that the reason for the anger, the cause of the anger, is something that God is angry with.

Its manner is governed by reason and charity. And so we have anger, but there’s no sin, because again, love always must be there. There must always be love. If you have not love, you’re nothing.

And according to Ephesians 4:26, it’s brief. This anger will be brief. “Not to let the sun go down upon your wrath.” You are to not lodge it in some way and store it overnight. You are to address the issue. If there’s an offender, we have to address it for the good of the offender and for the glory of God.

But I say such anger is rarer than we would like to think. The default for us, when something is likely to upset us, is to fall back on patience, to limit our passions, rather than find some kind of exception clause where we can justify how we’re feeling.

So that’s its character. What’s its causes? Why? Why do men get angry? Why do we see anger expressed in men?

Well, first of all—and we’ve seen this a lot—pride. Pride and self-importance. “Only by pride cometh contention,” Proverbs 13:10. Only by pride. Pride is there. Any form of contention, flare-up of anger, any form of sinful anger—which is most anger as expressed by men—is giving away the fact that pride is right there.

When the Apostle Paul has to address the pride and the contention and division within the church at Philippi, you see him addressing pride as the issue. There’s contention there, but he puts his finger on pride. And he points as a remedy to the humility found in Jesus Christ: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

We think too highly of ourselves, beloved. We do. We do. And so when we are slighted, we must punish it. We must address it. We do not follow the path of meekness. We follow a path of self-monarchy. We ought to crown ourselves with authority and deal with issues as if we are God. And so whenever we are hurt in some way, our pride gets inflamed; we go against it.

Also, idolatry. Idolatry is an issue as well. James 4:1: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?”

And so they have these lusts, or they worship the wrong thing. And so we worship comfort. Someone’s upset our comfort, removed our comfort; we get upset at them. Some matter happens in work. Someone has said something or done something, or—you know, they haven’t turned up and now your work has doubled. And you’re upset at that; you get angry at it.

Someone touches our control. We want sovereignty over something. Someone tries to take that away from us, undermines us.

Our reputation as well, when that’s attacked. Our reputation matters more to us than even the honor of God. You can see it by our response. God is slandered. God is sinned against. We’re able to look at it and remain balanced. But when we are attacked, our reputation is under assault, you see—you see it just flare up. It shows you what you really worship. You worship yourself.

And so we don’t like our idols to be touched. The self rises up.

You think of how we see this in our home. You want to come in after a long day’s work. You want the house to be quiet. But you have children, and children and quiet don’t easily go together. If we are not careful—and I’m not giving license here for all-out riotous living within our homes—but we can take something, we can elevate “I must have quiet in the home.” And then justify the rage that is expressed against what in most instances is a natural expression of childlike behavior.

You moms can work so hard to keep everything in order, everything organized, rooms are tidy, everything is in its place. And the children, they don’t always comply. They don’t keep those things in their place. They don’t return things to where they belong. And you turn your back, and within minutes it’s like a bomb has gone off in the room. And what’s the response?

Oh, I know we can justify it. We can see it as a form of dishonoring parents. Yes, and I can argue that. I can go that way, and certainly—we can start justifying it. They’re breaking the fifth commandment; they were told. Yes, that’s true as well—that’s on them. But the response—the fact their sin doesn’t justify our rage.

We betray—we betray the altars we have erected to our false gods by our angry responses.

There’s also unbelief in providence. In Psalm 37, David there notes that—he says in verse 8, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” And it’s in the context of recognizing God is in control. That’s why verse 8 can be said: cease from anger, forsake wrath, fret not thyself in any wise to do evil, because God is in control. He will right the wrongs. He will vindicate truth. He can restrain evil.

But we forget this, and so our response at times shows the unbelief of our heart. You don’t really believe that God is in control.

I’ve mentioned this a number of times. It’s such a help to me, I guess, every time it comes into my mind—usually it’s never in my notes; it just comes to mind because it has become such a part of my own being. The counsel that Paul gives to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2—you’ve heard me say it before—that the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

That passage bolsters the very point I’m making, because what pastors do—they’re in places of authority. They have authority. But that authority is not to be equated with sovereignty. And so the servant of the Lord must not strive. You strive because that contention—which is the sense, contention—is an expression of personal sovereignty. You think you are in control. And so as you minister to people, you’re going to force an outcome by your contention.

It’s unbelief. It’s unbelief. Don’t be contentious. Don’t express that. All you’re to do is to be apt to teach. You open up the Word, and you talk in meekness and gentleness to those who are destroying themselves, opening the Word and showing them the Word. And as you’re showing them the Word, there’s something else operating within you: faith to God, who alone can give repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.

So, abandoning personal sovereignty or any sense of personal sovereignty—you’re not contentious. And your patience toward men is an expression of not just the grace of patience, but it’s also an expression of a faith that is waiting on God to work.

Now I repeat that because it has application not just to pastors, but to parents as you deal with children who are being difficult, who are not listening to what you’re saying, and are repeating the same course and pattern of behavior that has you concerned. And you are going to exercise—your temptation is—to have this personal sovereignty and to get more contentious and more forceful, using your authority as a parent, and that’s not what God wants you to do. Oh, there’s a place for discipline.

But don’t—don’t mistake—have the discernment, pray for the understanding of when you are disciplining as God would have you to, and when you’ve stepped over the mark and you are thinking yourself to be sovereign and you’re gonna force an outcome. Because it’s going to fail eventually, because God wants you to believe Him. He will change the heart. He will change the heart of your child. Unbelief—God changes the heart.

Ignorance, a refusal to listen. Ignorance is a problem for man—huge problem.

Go to James 1 for a moment. I was almost going to use this text as the text for this evening, but decided against it. But James 1.

Man’s problem is ignorance. And a wonderful thing happens when you’re converted. Verse 18, James 1, verse 18: “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

Wherefore—on the basis of that, on the basis that God by His will gave you life through His Word—”my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”

This is quoted often in man-to-man relationships, and it has application. But the passage is actually dealing with how man begins to rebel against God and His Word. The Word that gave him life, the Word that by the Spirit made him a believer, he starts to turn away from. And he won’t listen.

And so the swiftness to hear, the slowness to speak, the slowness to wrath is dealing with people who are getting angry at God. They’re angry about what God is doing or what God has permitted, some other providence that they don’t understand. He’s saying, you remember the Word that gave you life, and you slow down and you listen. Pay attention, because your wrath does not work the righteousness of God.

This is ignorance: man quarreling, not listening to God, arriving at his own conclusions, determining that this is what God is doing. But it applies also in the realm of our own relationships with one another. Ignorance. We refuse to listen. We believe we have all the facts already. We’re so convinced of our own conclusions that we can’t actually hear the facts of the case. Ignorance.

There’s also misjudgment and hasty speech. “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.” That’s Proverbs 14:29.

So again, we misjudge. Again, it flows out of the ignorance in the prior point. We come to judgments, determinations. So we interpret things, and we amplify things. There may be a seed of truth there, but we’ve amplified it, made it far worse than it actually is, or we absolutize things as well. “This is the way it is.” We use language like “always” and “never.” It’s not the case; it doesn’t apply.

And so there’s a little spark, a little issue, and we pour gasoline on it. “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding.”

Our fears and insecurity also can be a problem. You see that—we mentioned Saul. That’s definitely the case with him. As he lost out with God, he became more insecure within himself. We’re not told all the details. We’re not told about how Saul was seeking the Lord or not seeking the Lord each day. I mean, we’re not gone into the granular details of Saul’s life, but I think we can read between the lines. A man who’s been greatly gifted and favored and he’s drifting from God, and it results in this insecurity within his soul.

So when he sees the young man, he knows instinctively that there’s divine favor on that young man, and he’s jealous of it because he once had it himself. But instead of actually getting about the business of repenting and returning unto the Lord in order that he might know the favor of God, he hardens himself. His insecurity is allowed to inflame, turn a friend into a rival.

There’s also the aspect of environment, learned habits. Our text, I think, addresses that, does it not? “Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go, lest thou learn his ways.”

And I was reading that and thinking to myself, “God have mercy on the children who cannot avoid the angry man,” because they have no way of escape. Those of us with autonomy can discern the angry man and say, “Mark and avoid. Move around that person.” But oh, for the children—the children who have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no way to avoid it, the angry man, the angry woman—where children get discipled on how to express their frustrations.

Though they may be rebuked for the times when they mirror what they have seen and are told, “Do not do that,” yet there is put there the very seed of what is going to be expressed later in life.

You must also understand that fatigue can have an influence on our response to things. You know, you think of Elijah again in 1 Kings 19, and we know this—we know this—that tiredness can, let’s say, impact our resilience. And it does. You know, I mean, tiredness—the brain, the brain by which you process and by which even the principles of your living and the truth that you abide by, all of your ability to live by that weakens when weariness sets in. The will to do right weakens as the body tires.

So many sins are done late at night, not just because everyone’s gone to bed and there’s privacy, but also because the will has diminished. Strength is gone. And so it is when we’re tired, we tend to be more easily triggered, to use that word. Tiredness makes us a little more prickly. And so sometimes the answer is making sure we get rest.

There’s also unresolved guilt and shame. I think Cain could play in here. You know, as he observes his brother being accepted, there has to be a sense of shame within his own heart, which he won’t resolve by the path of the gospel. God opens His arms to him, welcomes him to come, try again, but he won’t. Shame is allowed to govern. Guilt takes root.

And we must not overlook Satan as well. That portion about warning us against anger in Ephesians 4 also says we need to give place to the devil, which we can do. We can give place to him. He can see that. He sees his moment. He strikes. “Oh, here’s an opportunity. I can start a war right here.”

He comes in, and I don’t know all of his machinery, but we can give place to him, not being mindful of his endeavors to destroy us through anger. Oh, because he knows. He knows the damage done. He knows the outburst and the impression that leaves on children, on the spouse.

So what’s its cure? Is there a cure? Yes, there’s a cure. Christ heals angry men and women. He does. He renews the heart, changes them.

I’ve divided this tonight into two ways: the doctrines and the practices that may help us just look at this slightly differently. There’s a lot of overlap with the other things that we’ve looked at. But let’s consider, first of all, doctrines.

First of all, believing repentance. Believing repentance. Genuine repentance is always believing repentance. And people can have remorse, but that’s not the same as biblical repentance. Biblical repentance is believing—believing that God receives sinners and coming and confessing them to God in the knowledge that He will pardon and forgive. There’s a faith at work in genuine repentance.

Our Confession of Faith, chapter 15, tells us to turn with grief and hatred over sins—grief and hatred. So our repentance then has to come to a point where there’s grief and hatred. And we’re thinking tonight about anger: that we should have grief and hatred about our anger.

And some of you might say, “Well, what else would we think about it?” Well, you might find those who will refuse to name it in such a way, and they hide behind it as a—”this is a family trait.” It’s a family trait. Won’t do. I’ll address that later.

There’s also divine wrath. Not only think of believing repentance, but divine wrath. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,” as we read in James 1. By way of deduction then, we know that God’s wrath is an expression of righteousness. The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. The wrath of God does.

God’s wrath is pure. God’s wrath is patient. God’s wrath is just. Our wrath, more often than not, is impure, impatient, unjust.

So we think about God’s wrath, and we have to remember that in most cases my wrath is nothing like His. Let me not try to justify it, as if I can express anger in the way God does.

Think also of Christ’s meekness. You’re looking here at Christ and specifically in the meekness of Christ. We’re told of him, 1 Peter 2:23: “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”

There is faith at work—what we were talking about earlier—faith at work. He committed it to the Father, all that we would see Him, the meekness of Christ, the spittle of other men dripping from His beard, the blood of His wounds, His hands, feet, side, the crown of thorns upon His head, and still, with all that vindictive, wicked behavior, He says, “Father, forgive them.”

We ought to think about that. It should be in our mind. The wrathful man should frequently visit the cross. Bring yourself to the cross of Jesus Christ and remember then the meekness of the Lord Jesus. He shows pardon, shows mercies, constantly reflecting this meekness. Learn of Him.

The doctrine of justification. I made mention of it, I think, in the closing prayer, maybe. At some point this morning, I made mention of Luke 18. And the publican cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

And you know, you never graduate from that in this life. Do you understand that? You don’t graduate. That’s not a one-and-done thing. “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And I might say, you should never graduate too far even from the very posture of that man our Lord Jesus describes in Luke 18. He would not so much look up to heaven but said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” There’s a recognition of the wickedness of his own life. He’s crying out, “God be propitious to me.”

That man went home justified. And if he remembers what the Lord has done for him, and he visits that location with frequency, and remembers that he’s been taken from the pit, the fearful pit, and from the miry clay and been set upon a rock, that’s all of divine grace. It’s going to suppress expressions of anger.

Our adoption—we’ve been looking at it in Hebrews 12, going through that section where our Father chastens us for our profit. And so, we remember our adoption and remember that God is at work providentially. When our reflexes anger toward Him, let it be suppressed.

There may be no—think about this—there may be no greater evidence of ignorance than man’s anger directed toward God. You want to see an ignorant man? You see a man who’s angry at God. Is there greater folly? Anger toward God?

We were reading through the sixth commandment and the larger catechism. You’re dealing with “Thou shalt not kill.” “Thou shalt not kill.” And what are the duties? Quietness of mind, meekness, gentleness, patience. What are the sins forbidden? Sinful anger, hatred, desire of revenge. They’re not the marks of the child of God.

The doctrine of sanctification as well, finally. The fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. So much of it there checks our anger.

And our confession teaches us that on the doctrine of sanctification, the believer—what’s true about the believer is the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they are more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces to the practice of true holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed in the believer.

That’s what I say—you’re not doomed to your father’s or your mother’s temper. You don’t have to repeat it. You’re not subject to its authority in your life. It may be a matter of very deliberate prayer. It may be something of very direct mortification. It may be something constantly at the forefront of your mind to be killed, but it cannot be allowed nor should it be permitted to conquer without a fight.

I could speak very personally. I will not—it’s not the time nor the place. I will say this: I know—I know violent expressions of anger in the home. And it does not have to be perpetuated.

What are practices we can keep in mind? Really quick.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Do that. When anger rises, lean into hearing. Hold back on the need to speak.

Two, put off the sin and put on Christ. “Now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.” “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering,” Colossians 3. Put off, put on. Replace that with the positive.

Again, this morning’s message: you’re looking to Christ. You’re considering Christ. You’re dwelling upon Christ. You’re treasuring Christ. The excellency of your heart is Christ. Put Him on in all the perfections of His character.

Remember to—kind of doubling up a little bit here, but—delay and soften, delay and soften. What I mean is, holding back. “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression,” Proverbs 19:11. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty,” Proverbs 16:32.

Slow down, slow down, delay. When the feeling is there, delay. And remember, even—I mentioned it this morning—Proverbs 15: “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

So wait, lower your voice, choose the gentle word. Choose perhaps even not to answer in that moment. Don’t retaliate tone for tone.

Forgive as forgiven, Ephesians 4. “Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” that is what you’re to do. It’s not a feeling. You may not feel like forgiving, but it’s a transaction, a transaction containing a promise. “I am not going to bring this up.”

They seek for forgiveness. They seek it from you. “Please forgive me.” And you transact in obedience to God, remembering the very forgiveness you have, in which it would be horrific to think of God holding out on pardoning your sin.

Imagine you came with your sin. Imagine the thief on the cross. “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” And he’s moments from death. And the answer, the divine answer would be, “I need to wait a while because that’s how you treated people. I’m going to hold off. I’m going to delay on the pardon. I’m at the point of death.”

Oh, what relief for that man to hear, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

The swiftness of God to pardon, to forgive. “And as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” so you forgive others swiftly. I’m not saying it’s easy. Is obedience always easy? But do it.

You do not weaponize; you do not gossip about; you do not dwell upon. Let it go. Oh, you’ll remember it. Unless you’re malfunctioning, you’ll remember it. I’ll tell you what though: you’ll remember a whole lot less if you don’t talk about it.

I don’t have many gifts. I think I can almost say that’s one of my gifts: I don’t talk—don’t dwell upon, don’t rehearse, don’t repeat the wrongs are done to me. And in most cases, I don’t remember. I don’t remember.

See, those people who can often give you to the exact detail of things that happened 15 years ago—in most cases, it’s because they rehearse it over and over and over and over and over again, in their minds at least, often to others.

Be a peacemaker at all times. If the grounds of your anger is justified, be prayerful. Aim for restoration, not retribution. Follow the biblical steps when you’ve been wronged.

In your speech, even in following those steps, “let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying,” Ephesians 4:29. If they’re an adversary, bless them, do them good, Romans 12.

I guess one exception would be if you’re in a position of authority, act justly. If you’re dealing with peers over whom you do not have authority, follow the steps. And if they’re adversaries, bless them. Do good to them.

This needs to be quenched. I don’t know if it exists in your home or to what degree it exists. Are there going to be moments? Yes. Would it be better if there were none? Yes. But there are some homes where this is dominant. It’s the prevailing passion of the household. It is the perpetual sin that is afflicting wounds constantly. And if you don’t kill it, you’re gonna lose more than you ever imagined.

We men, our anger tends to be forceful. For a woman, it tends to be verbal. These are not absolute rules. That’s how it tends to be. That’s why women are told explicitly to have a meek and quiet spirit, because she’s not gonna overpower the man, but she may—she may use her tongue, show her anger with her speech.

You young men, you young women, learn. Learn to be one who ruleth his spirit. Proverbs 16:32: “He that ruleth his spirit” than “he that taketh a city.” Rule your spirit. Rule it early. If you have grown up in an environment where this has been default, regular, learn of Christ. Do not follow these patterns. Do not take them as acceptable. Do not defend them; do not excuse them.

“Make no friendship with an angry man.”

Our Lord Jesus, while we were yet sinners, died for us. Isn’t it a marvel that He made friendship with any one of us? Oh, I know, the lens through which is possible. I understand. He didn’t just come alongside angry men. He took the heart of the angry man, the angry woman, and He changes it so that He can be the friend of those once angry.

He can change you too. Let’s bow together in prayer.

Seek the Lord.

Beloved, let me be honest with you. I fear that this may be more prevalent across churches and in the body of Christ than is acknowledged.

If you struggle with this, I promise you, if you come seeking help, we will help you. We will not stand in judgment over you. We will come alongside you. The accountability in and of itself may transform the very environment of your home.

But I am not telepathic. If you need help, you need to come and say. Don’t let anger rule.

Lord, we pray, bless Thy Word. Help us. There’s not a person here who has or can claim complete victory over this sin. There’s not one of us who can claim perfect expression of it when it is justified.

We pray, Lord, that Thou wilt help us. Grant great mercy to Thy people. We pray that Thou wilt be kind to give us the humility of heart that will call upon God for help, and may You be pleased to flood in abundant grace.

We thank Thee that Thou art ready and waiting to pardon and forgive us. Pray that even in the homes where it may be expressed, that there would be a readiness to forgive those who in the past have harmed with their anger.

Bless us, we pray. Grant us more of the fullness of Thy Spirit. Clothe us with the Lord Jesus Christ to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Empower us to live as witnesses in this world in which we dwell.

Bless our time of fellowship. Encourage us throughout the week before us. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of every child of God now and evermore. Amen.