Understanding the
Awful Power of Anger
 

Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure aroused by a wrong.

It can be a sorrow, a grief which can rise to levels of wrath, rage, irritation and violent frustration.

Here Moses's wrath and frustration is displayed against the people for building a golden calf to worship when he was on Mt. Sinai...

Cain fumed, became depressed, and killed his brother because his "offering" was rejected by GOD and Abel's was accepted. Genesis 4.3-7    Cain could not stand the fact that Abel did it the right way. Cain was jealous.

Haman was filled with rage when Mordecai refuse to bow before the king. Esther 3.1-6

When we do not get the respect we think we should have, we flip out!

This is when we don't get our own way, or have a self-imposed level of how important we are...

When our pride gets hurt becomes a reason to vent frustration...

Numbers 22.29 Balaam shouted out that he felt he was made to look like a fool. Balaam's donkey stopped at seeing an angel...

This passage perfectly illustrates the right and wrong usage of anger...

Uzziah became proud and violated the spiritual protocol that GOD had set up in the sanctuary.

Azariah and 80 priests were correctly upset and called Uzziah the king on his arrogance and forbidden activity...

They challenged Uzziah's sin.

Uzziah was "wroth" - that is, he was  pretty upset. He refused to stop what he was doing...

GOD steps in. Suddenly, judgment hits Uzziah in the form of leprosy on his forehead.

Uzziah had become too self important and refused to do things GOD's way...

2 Chronicles 26.16-21 "But at that point he became proud—and corrupt. He sinned against the Lord his God by entering the forbidden sanctuary of the Temple and personally burning incense upon the altar. 17-18 Azariah the High Priest went in after him with eighty other priests, all brave men, and demanded that he get out.

“It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense,” they declared. “That is the work of the priests alone, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to this work. Get out, for you have trespassed, and the Lord is not going to honor you for this!”

19 Uzziah was furious and refused to set down the incense burner he was holding. But look! Suddenly—leprosy appeared on his forehead! 20 When Azariah and the others saw it, they rushed him out; in fact, he himself was as anxious to get out as they were to get him out because the Lord had struck him.

21 So King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death and lived in isolation, cut off from his people and from the Temple. His son Jotham became vice-regent, in charge of the king’s affairs and of the judging of the people of the land.

Esau came in from the hunting fields and smelled the stew and then he said, "I am so tired. Give me some of that lentil soup." Jacob made a deal. Sell me your birthright, you can have the soup...

Esau hated Jacob because he had "stolen" his birthright. He said to himself "I will kill Jacob" - he was planning to do just that when someone told Rebekah...

She urged Jacob to flee to his uncle Laban's house. He did.

Anger separates and destroys family relationships...

Saul did not accept that GOD had already chosen David as the next king based on his character...

1 Samuel 20.30-32 "Saul boiled with rage. “You fool!” he yelled at him. “Do you think I don’t know that you want this son of a nobody to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother? 31 As long as that fellow is alive, you’ll never be king. Now go and get him so I can kill him!”

32 “But what has he done?” Jonathan demanded. “Why should he be put to death?”

Proverbs 15.1

"A gentle answer turns away wrath!"

“Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.’ The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.” (Matthew 21:12-14)

Be motivated by love, not anger. Let us be angry at the sin.

James 1.19-20 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

20 For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God."

In simple terms: It doesn't work!

Mark 3.1-5 "While in Capernaum Jesus went over to the synagogue again, and noticed a man there with a deformed hand.

Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man’s hand? If he did, they planned to arrest him!

Jesus asked the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. Then turning to his enemies he asked, “Is it all right to do kind deeds on Sabbath days? Or is this a day for doing harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them?” But they wouldn’t answer him. 5 Looking around at them angrily, for he was deeply disturbed by their indifference to human need, he said to the man, “Reach out your hand.” He did, and instantly his hand was healed!

Jesus looked angrily at those who sought to condemn his healing of the man with a withered hand...

Proverbs 22:24,25 "Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul."