Put Off Anger

Famous through many interviews that news agencies and different people had to them in March, April, May of 1980 as the volcano was showing signs of erupting. And then in on May 18th of that same year all of a sudden the volcano exploded. Mount St. Helens exploded, a worldwide or a great, great event, and Harry Truman ended up being buried under 150 feet of volcano debris and so ended his life.

Now he was warned many times that he should leave the area, he should move out, he should go somewhere else. There were other touristy people, tourists and people that were in the area, other people that lived in that area as well, they were warned and many, many of them fled, I think most of them fled. A few of them, like this stubborn old man, he was a World War I vet and so if I got it right he was probably close to 80 by this time and so he was stubborn and he was like, no, I am leaving here.

Now imagine living in a place like that where everything seems calm and tranquil and nice and yet in the distance, not too many miles away, there is a volcano that appears to be showing signs that it might all of a sudden erupt, you know, loud noises, maybe smoke coming up, steam comes up, different things like that and you have the pressure of something building up underneath the earth. Imagine living within a few miles of a place like that. Now let me take you to another scene, not long ago here, just a few weeks ago actually we had a few birthdays in our family and my wife was out doing some shopping at a local store, I am not going to name the name of the store, but a local store and as she was gathering some of her items in the store and walking around looking at what she wants and picking some items and taking them, all of a sudden she started hearing this commotion in the back by the counter there and one of the employees, maybe the manager, he was very, very angry, he was very upset and so he was yelling at his fellow workers there and going on and on and talking very loud and very upset about something, my wife I don't think could hear exactly what it was, but anyway he was making an incredible scene about this, whatever situation he was having and so very loud, very dramatic and very difficult to just stand there and watch and so my wife finally just comes to the place of putting her items down on the counter and walking out, she said she just couldn't handle this, just was too much, she couldn't handle the outburst.

My subject today that I'd like to consider, maybe before we go there, turn to James chapter one and I'd just like to read two verses here and then I'll name my subject. So James 1 verse 19, it says wherefore 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. And I'd like to talk today a little bit about the wrath of man or anger.

I've titled it put off anger, we'll look at that later on, some of our response to it, but I want to talk about anger a little bit. The subject of anger, the scenario that I just described to you here, we've had individuals come into the store that were very upset about something or another that didn't work out the way they thought. I have to confess to you, I've been in that case where I've not been responded the way that I should have.

So anger and the wrath of man is a very real thing in each one of us, a very, very real thing and I don't justify it here, excusing any of my actions that were wrong, but we want to look at today a little bit this subject and consider it and talk about it, bring it to the forefront. And as the song that I picked there, the heart of God is that you and I would become more and more holy. You and I would become more and more righteous.

You and I would become more and more into the image of Christ. And as we consider this subject, I think God wants to make us more holy, more righteous. So we're going to look at several things.

What is anger? Where does it come from? What's the consequences of it? Different things like that we want to go through and hopefully I can inspire you and challenge you to meet with God and have God deal with your heart as I want him to do with mine, that God would deal with us. So anger, you know what is it? What is it? It's this feeling of tension or maybe warmth that comes over you when something doesn't go your way. When something happens and all of a sudden this passion rises up within you and the demonstration of it is like that or can be like that volcano that we talked about earlier.

So this desire reaching forth to a point of excitement of the mind, you know, a violent passion that comes out, a movement or an agitation of the soul. Your soul just becomes riled up. You know, this glow, this passion, a violent emotion, a few definitions here.

One of the definitions in the Strong's referred to the nose or the nostrils flaring. You know, that idea of the nostrils starting to flare. Rapid breathing in passion.

And I don't know if you're like me, maybe you've felt some of those things rise up in your mind over the years, over different circumstances, different situations. Something happens and this passion comes up and the temptation is to respond to that. The Webster's 1828, I meant to look it up and write it out.

I didn't. I read it, but I don't have it written down here. It says something like, you know, this passion that rises up with the purpose of vengeance.

The purpose of vengeance. You got to do something about this situation and then this passion for vengeance. So that's that's anger.

And I feel like it may be in some ways. I don't know if I really need to describe it per se. Maybe each one of us have had that feeling rise up.

And and and as we've been sanctified by the blood of Christ and God has worked in our hearts that we've learned to control it or God has taken it away. And we can we've learned to respond the way that God wants us to. However, my desire here is to lift this up.

So if we don't aren't there that we would seek for God's grace to to bring us to a place that we can respond like him. Notice what the verse said. It said end of the last phrase of 19 said slow to wrath.

And then for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Now, sometimes we we see a situation and it to us, it looks like something needs to be done. And now and we respond in haste, in passion, in a flaring of the nostrils.

And that response and what potentially can happen thereafter does not work. The righteousness of God. A.W. Tozer says the quick tempered man is one who habitually broods over wrongs and insults and thus conditions himself for the sudden fit of temper that seems to have no mental origin.

So he's brooding and brooding and brooding and all of a sudden something happens and there's a trigger and boom, that temper flares and you have an explosion. So where does anger come from? Where does anger come from? Galatians describes anger as one of the fruits or works of the flesh. Yeah, Galatians 5. Well, yeah, we'll read that here.

Galatians 5. It says 17 for the lust, the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And there these are contrary, the one to the other. So the flesh and the spirit, they're contrary to the one toward the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.

But if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh. So notice what he's saying here, the works of the flesh, meaning if we live in the flesh, these are the works that will come out of our life.

And our subject here is not the first nine today, it's the tenth one. If you count out, if I counted right, the tenth one is wrath there. The tenth work of the flesh is wrath.

And so that tells me that when wrath, anger, comes from our flesh, it comes from an unregenerate state. It comes from our wicked heart, is where anger and wrath comes from. And when we are led by the spirit, the way that the verse says here, then we have the power of God, the spirit of God within us, then we can respond in the spirit, then we will not respond in the flesh, the way that it's describing it here.

So the tenth one is the wrath. So the fruits of the spirit, I tried to find one that was kind of the opposite of wrath and or anger, and really I had to, to me it just seemed like there was at least several of them, and so I have four. The four fruits of the spirit, love, long-suffering, gentleness, and temperance.

And when we consider those four fruits of the spirit, each one of those, in a sense, is opposite to anger. When somebody has an outburst of anger, there is a lack of love, there is a lack of long-suffering, there is a lack of gentleness, it's usually done very forcefully, there's a lack of self-discipline. So those four seem to fit perfectly in the opposite side of anger.

And if we live with those four, in the sense that we're led by the spirit in those four, then anger is one of those things that doesn't come out of our lives. So where does it come from? It comes from our wicked hearts, the heart of man, within the heart of man. See wrath here, I'm still talking about what it references here in Galatians chapter 6, wrath speaks of violent forms of anger.

Violent forms of anger. It represents storms of uncontrolled temper, it pictures the person who loses control when the car won't start, or the fish won't bite, or the calf won't drink, or the meals aren't ready on time. The husband who steps out of a room and slams the door behind him because something doesn't suit him.

It is displaying such fits of temper, such conduct indicates that he is still living under the grip of the lower nature. The lower nature, the sinful nature, the works of the flesh are still being manifested in his life. Consider verse 16 as well, I did not have that one typed out here in my notes, but verse 16 says this I say then, walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Notice the victory over the works of the flesh, and again we're considering the tenth one today, which is wrath or anger. And he says, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill that manifestation of that fleshly passion that is bound in our hearts. Walk in the spirit.

Again, that tells me that flesh, or the expression of this outburst of anger is the opposite of an individual who is walking with Christ, the opposite. Okay, consider this proverb about where anger comes from. Proverbs 29, 22, it says this, an angry man stirreth up strife and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.

Aboundeth in transgression. Now, we could probably look at that in a couple of ways, but one way that I would like to look at it is when an individual is in sin, when an individual is in sin, then that individual responds in anger. When you are not right with God, and your child does something, or somebody else does something, it is much, much easier to respond in an ungodly manner, in a quick manner, in a passionate way that is of the flesh and not of the spirit.

And I think another way that we can look at this verse is that when a person, when an individual is an angry man, transgression is just, if you would describe the man, you would describe him as being a very sinful man. Kind of go hand in hand there. Consider that.

Notice what Paul says before the works of the flesh. So that's what I referenced already here, Galatians chapter 5. So why do people get angry? I think there's many, many reasons, many situations, scenarios that we could look at. A couple that I'd like to consider here.

One of them is that they lose control. A situation happens, and the individual is not in control anymore, and hence the response is one, the temptation is to respond in an angry manner. A child does not do what you want it to do.

You tell them to do something, and they don't respond, they don't obey. That person now does something you don't want them to do, or you've lost control of that scenario, that situation. The response potentially could be one of anger.

You have an issue here just this week, trying to reschedule our children's flight. The travel agent was not very cooperative. And so I actually felt a bit of, in my heart, and I was like, no, no, no, I can't go there.

I'm preaching on anger this Sunday. I can't go there. So that temptation to just rise up, no, no, no, we can't do that.

And it wasn't just because I want to preach on it. I want to live it, too. I want that to be a part of my life.

But that situation that's beyond your control, and the temptation is to respond in an angry way. So, consider the story of Haman. The Jewish people right in this season are celebrating their Purim.

And the Purim is the whole story of Haman, how they were delivered by Esther's, or Mordecai's forethought and Esther's intervention. But consider the story of Haman right after Haman goes into Esther and the Queen, or the Queen there and the King, right after their first meal together. You know, we don't have the time to look at it today, but to turn there, but just take your mind there a little bit.

And as Haman leaves that banquet, you know, this beautiful experience, just him and the King and the Queen, I mean, he felt extremely, extremely honored. And as he walks out of this, out of the city, going back to his, or out of the palace, going back to his house, he sees something. And what does he see? He sees Mordecai.

And Mordecai is the one that refused to bow down to him. And so all of a sudden, the scripture says that Haman was joyful and glad of heart. And then when he saw Mordecai, he, let's see, it says he was full of indignation against Mordecai.

So this anger just rose up in his heart. And then it says, nevertheless, Mordecai, or sorry, Haman refrained himself. So he controlled himself, but he went home and he planned Mordecai's execution.

That was the timeline there. So, Esther chapter 5, if you want to read it. So that idea there of this excitement that a person has, happy, go lucky, you know, he's just enjoying life.

And all of a sudden this situation that comes up, that person that you are angry at, or that situation, or something else comes up. And that anger just rises up within a person's heart. And they respond in that way.

Riles up the individual. So anger, the scripture says that anger is learned. Did you know that you learn anger? Proverbs 22, 24 through 25 says, 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.

So notice that. Avoid an angry person. A furious man, don't have anything, don't spend time with them.

And it says, why? Because you're going to learn his ways and do the same thing. Do you know how often it is when you work with somebody, or you hang around with somebody a lot, you start talking the same way that that person does. You use the same slang words, maybe, that that person says.

You start, some of the expressions that you do and say and share are the same as the ones that the other person is. And you rub off on each other. And the scripture warns us and says, don't spend time with an angry person, because you will become an angry person.

And then he says, for the reason that your soul does not get caught up in this. And then, potentially, you lose your right standing with God. Your soul, potentially, could be in jeopardy.

Consider some of these cross-references about learning, that we just looked at, this verse on learning anger, where anger comes from, and that it's learned. Proverbs 13, 20 says this, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. The company that we keep, Psalm 106, 35, but were mingled among the heathen, talking about the Israelites, and learned their works.

1 Corinthians 15, 33 says, Be not deceived, evil communication corrupt good manners. We're warning, the scripture warns us over and over and over, that we become like the people that we are with. And when we're with an angry individual, we learn to respond the way that that person does.

And we learn from that. Our mindset sometimes is, it says this, these four verses, and there's many more, but somehow, we often excuse ourselves and say, yeah, but that won't affect me that way. So I can spend time with them, but it won't affect me negatively.

We somehow seem like we convince ourselves that. I think we err when we do that. So many years ago, before I was married, as a young person, I read a book about preparing for the future, considering a spouse.

And in the one section there that was addressed more to the girls, it was mentioned that if the girl had a potential mate, a potential boyfriend, or a boyfriend that was angry, she should cut that off right away. You should not pursue a courtship or a relationship with a boy that is angry. And I think it's right to say that if a boy is pursuing or considering a girl, and she is angry, I think there's the same way they should not pursue a relationship with an angry young lady.

And if someone is in that situation, they should break that off. You do not know the pain that you will create for yourself in the future. Somehow, love is blind, right? They say, I can change him.

He'll change. It'll get better. And yet they just walk into this trap and it almost becomes a snare for their souls, as we saw earlier.

We are told, so here we are told in these verses, and I told you, I told you to avoid spending time with angry people. But what if that angry person is your dad? What if that angry person is your mom? And you are a child, a young person in this scenario, and you have an angry father or an angry mother. Is there a way to leave? Is there a way to go somewhere else? All of a sudden, the scenario is a little bit different.

You know, I remember reading about a wife. She wanted some advice on how to respect her husband. And so she was sincere.

She wanted some advice. And she said that, you know, one incident she described, they had a water line that broke in their home. And the husband went outside and started digging a hole beside the house there where the water line was broken.

And he's down in the mud and in the water and in the dirt trying to fix this thing. And his wife is there trying to help, you know, get him stuff that he needs. And so he says, well, I need this and this.

It's there and there. And she doesn't quite get it. I mean, you know, she's not the handy lady.

She's not the one with the tools. She's not that. And so she doesn't quite know what he wants.

And the husband responds in a grunt and a glare and works his way out of the hole and does it himself. And so the wife is wondering, how do I respond to a husband like this? What advice would you have for that woman? An angry mother may be yelling or being frustrated at her children for not listening to her. Proverbs 21.19 says it is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman.

You know, somehow God has made you and I to be social creatures. We love to be with people. And yet here Proverbs says, I'd rather be all by myself than to be in the same house with an angry woman.

It's not just the men. It's not just the ladies. We're looking at both sides.

The potential is there. But again, what if the child, the young person, is living with an angry dad or an angry mom? So if you learn anger from someone else... Sorry. Yes.

So now we're still talking about learning anger from someone else. We say, well, my dad was angry, so now I'm angry. My mom was angry, so now I respond in anger.

It's just who I am. It's always been in our family. This is who I am.

Well, if that's the case, if you've learned anger from someone else, you must beg God to be renewed so that you can be free. Romans 12.2, renewing of the mind through the Word of God, through the Spirit of God. You need to be renewed so that that does not get passed on to the next generation.

You cannot use the fact that you had an angry father or mother as an excuse to justify your own angry outbursts. It does not work. I don't believe God will overlook that.

So moving on here now a little bit, the foolishness of anger. Anger, somehow it looks strong. It looks like someone is responding correctly, but anger often is very, very foolish.

Proverbs 14.17 says, He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly, and a man of wicked devices is hated. Ecclesiastes 7.9 says, Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Do you want to be a fool? An angry person is a fool, is what the Scripture says.

Picture a man working in a shop, maybe in a fabricating shop of some sort, and he's working on a piece of machinery, and as he's using a particular tool or a particular wrench, and something slips or something doesn't work the way that he wants, and he takes this wrench and whips it across the entire shop. Boom! It clatters on the other end of the building. And then he has to calm down, and once he's calmed down, he has to sheepishly walk all the way to the other side of the shop, pick that tool back up, come back over here and keep working.

I heard another account of an individual, you know the old days when, the old old days, not my old days though, very old days, when you still had to start a tractor with a, I'm going to say in German, Wrang, I don't even know now, the crank. Yes, and that thing wouldn't go and wouldn't go, and he grabs the crank and whips it across the farmyard. And again, once he calms down, he has to walk over there, get his crank back and come back and start his tractor.

You know, the sad reality of these incidences is they're true. The first scenario, I know the person. I don't know him, I don't get together with him very much anymore, so I hope he's matured and dealt with this, but that's the sad part.

I know these people. These are real scenarios. So the foolishness of anger, we could go on there a long time of other situations.

Now let's consider a little bit the consequences of getting angry. Here I want to take us to Numbers chapter 11, and Moses is described as a very, very meek man. I think the Bible says he's the meekest man on earth.

So someone that we would not consider to be an angry individual, a very, very respectable man that I think we can learn much, much about and from. And yet we see here in Numbers chapter 11, Moses was dealing with some very, very hard-hearted people, very difficult scenarios, very difficult people to work with, and they constantly provoked him. There was a constant provoking, provoking, provoking, and eventually Moses snapped.

It's an unfortunate situation, but we see that he did. And in one of those scenarios, Moses is complaining to God, verse 10 there, and then as he's talking about what's taking place, and he's complaining to God about the scenario, right at the end of verse 15 we have an interesting phrase here. I'll read the whole verse 15.

It says, And if thou deal thus with me, Moses speaking to God, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight, let me not see my wretchedness. So what exactly is Moses asking here? I mean, I'm not 100% sure, but when I read this, it almost seems like Moses is saying to God, there's all this stuff, and I know I'm angry, and I don't know what to do, and I'm frustrated, but Lord, don't let me see my wretchedness. Please don't let me see my heart.

Because I think when God reveals our hearts to us, sometimes it's very, very ugly. It's very, very ugly what's inside of our hearts. And God reveals that, and here Moses at this particular point, maybe he just felt like, I can't handle it.

Don't show me how ugly it is within my heart. And that response, it seems like, I mean, did God honor it? Did God not? I think God's heart is that God wanted him to be sanctified. God wanted to work in his heart.

God wanted to deal with him in this matter. And I think he did. He was, like I say, he was a meek man, very, very respectable.

But you kind of wonder, I kind of wonder, if Moses would have allowed God to deal with him a little deeper in this area here, would Moses have been able to go into the Promised Land? And maybe you're asking, why would I say that? Let's turn to Numbers chapter 20 now. And this is the account where, again, Moses is kind of frustrated with the people, upset with them. And there's this continual provoking, and Moses doesn't know how to help these people with water.

And God tells them that he should, again, go and take the people, gather them together in front of the rock. And then he tells them that they're supposed to speak to the rock, and then water will come out of the rock, and they will be all fed, exactly like what they're complaining about, the fact that they have no water. But then notice in verse, I think it's verse 10 here.

And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, so Moses speaking to the people, he says, Here now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of the rock? Now, that statement does not typically display what Moses' response is. Here he's speaking very direct to the people. He's calling them rebels.

He's almost in a mean way talking to them. He says, Aaron, ye rebels, must we fetch water out of the rock? Out of this rock. I think he's upset here.

Then verse 11, and Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice, and God honored it. The waters came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts drank also. And then we see that verse 12, the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I will give to them.

And there's the consequence. We could say, well, he struck it because, instead of speaking to it, well, why did he strike it? His passion rose up. His frustration, his anger rose up, and he responded with striking the rock instead of speaking to it.

And his response, I mean, this is what he had longed for. How does the Bible describe Moses when he dies? It says his eyes were bright. He was 123 years old, but he had bright eyes, and he was ready to go.

But God said, no, you can't go in. And I think it was a response to this, a consequence of him getting angry here in this scenario. It seems like a link there.

There are more. Titus, Timothy, 1 and 2 Timothy, actually, I'll reference a few of these verses. They reference the church leaders.

And this directly applies to me, but it also, I believe, this does not give an excuse for all other men and individuals that they can get away with it. But notice in Titus, or when a church leader, and I go on beyond that, and when a Christian responds in anger, the testimony of Christ is marred because of that angry response that an individual has. The testimony of Christ.

So Titus says that an individual, so referring to a minister or a bishop, that he should not be soon angry. Titus 1, verse 7 and 8 is the ones I'm referring to. Not soon angry.

And then he says, the next statement is not given to wine. The next one is no striker. No striker.

You know, lashing out. I was, I think, reading, listening to, I think, one of A.W. Tozer's books on Titus. He references this striker, and he said it seemed like the culture in the Grecian area was that the Grecians were pretty outgoing, and it wasn't uncommon when an individual did not respond the way that he wanted him to, a Grecian would punch the other person.

Now just imagine in a brother's meeting, you have a discussion happening, and things don't happen, it's not going the way that this Grecian deacon maybe wants it to, and he gets up and decks the brother that is disagreeing with him. And so this is what, it seems like, one thing that Titus was trying to address, a bishop must not be a striker, that they lash out at the other person. You know, we kind of giggle at that, and kind of look at that and say, that would be almost funny.

Maybe in some ways it would be, unless you were the one with the 10 or 20 brothers in that brother's meeting, and you witnessed this thing, I think the heart would just crash. Would just crash. I think at times we've learned that, okay, we shouldn't respond physically, but we respond, it wants to jump up in our heart.

And I wonder, is that what God means? Just don't respond physically? Or is there something that God wants to do in our hearts where it doesn't even get to that place where we just want to respond? So I think God wants to do a sanctifying work. 2nd Timothy, again, the context here, he says, the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. 1st Timothy 3.3, again, the office of a bishop, an elder says, no striker, but patient.

I realize I'm just picking a few words out here and there, but just to get some of the points across that I want, and to help move this thing along here as well, with our limited time. So another consequence that we have, that we see, certainly church issues are there, but what we see often is anger in the family. So a consequence is pain in the family.

When I was growing up, my dad used to say something like, why do you children not do what I say until I get mad? Maybe that reveals how unbehaved we were as boys, as children sometimes, but we did notice that with my father's response at times to us. I want to be respectful. He passed away a number of years ago, but he did.

We kind of knew when the line was. Okay, dad would say something, but it's okay, I don't have to do it yet. Then he would say it again.

I don't have to do it yet. We know the tone of his voice. It's not there yet.

And then all of a sudden, boom, now it meant do it or else. And so we knew where that line was. And so my admonition to us as parents, and I include myself here too.

I'm not pointing just at you, is say what you mean and do what you say. When you tell your children to do something, make sure to follow through that it gets done. And if you want them to do it and you say it, make sure you say it.

If you don't want them to do it, then don't say it. By that I mean, if you give a command and they don't do it and you get frustrated because they don't do it, and you get more frustrated and they don't do it, and eventually you lash out, don't even say it if you don't want them to do it. Or mean it from the start versus escalating this thing until you blow up in a way that is hindering your relationship with your child and causing pain in their situation and in your heart as well.

It's not a good feeling. This is not well. It doesn't work well in parent-child relationships.

So children know what you expect of them. They know how far to go. I mean, they know when dad's and mom's voice rises to that place where I have to do it now or else.

And we as parents, we don't want to be mean. We don't want to be aggressive. We want them to willingly respond.

And so we're patient, right? We say it once. We say it twice. We say it three times.

And eventually we just come to the place where we snap. And that is not God's heart. God desires that you and I as parents train our children.

You know, when we train our children, spankings are less. We don't need as many spankings. Sometimes a parent's response or attitude seems to be the more I spank or if I spank, that fixes my problem's behavioral issue.

And I disagree. I think spanking has its place in the overall picture of spanking. But spanking is not the first go-to.

Child disobeys, wham, wham, wham. And then child disobeys, wham, wham, wham. Something's wrong with that picture.

Something is wrong with that. Like I say, I believe in spanking. I think there's a place for it.

It's the right thing to do in the right circumstances. But it's not the only go-to. Train your child that they learn when, as a parent, you give the command, you expect them to do it, and it gets done.

What happens sometimes, I'm guilty of this as well, you give a command and you're busy. You want, I don't know, the living room needs cleaning. So you say, hey you, Ernest, clean up the living room.

And I've got other things to do. I've got to do this, A, B, C, D. We're always busy. And so then an hour goes by, and you happen to walk by the living room and, wait a minute, didn't I tell somebody to clean this up? And there's no checkup to make sure that the thing got done.

And so children notice this. They notice if you don't really mean what you say. And I'm not saying that we mean it in a mean way.

I'm saying we mean it in a way that it gets done. And if you don't want them to do it, then don't say it. That's what I'm saying.

So if you don't want them to clean up the living room, don't say it. Don't tell them to. That's all that I'm saying.

If you want them to, then tell them to. And then follow through. Give them 5, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is.

Check up. It's not done, son. And then you need to be firm and apply that something needs to be done here.

When we do it in that way, as I've learned, and maybe some of you probably know better than me. By all means, I want to learn as well. But when you approach it from that perspective, you don't get angry because they didn't do what you told them to do.

You're training them to respond and to do what is expected. And that helps control your emotions, your passions, your outbursts. And I believe God is honored in those scenarios when we respond properly.

If we do not train our children and we respond angrily or sometimes the temptation, what I've seen is people, so they get angry and realize that's wrong. Dad feels convicted. This is wrong.

Mom feels convicted. I just shouldn't do this anymore. And so they go to the other side where they allow their children just to do everything.

And they leave them alone. They don't train them. Because I'm just going to get angry, so they back off.

And now you spoil a child and you just let them alone. You don't discipline them. You don't teach them.

You don't train them. And now you have this spoiled child. And often when we think of a spoiled child, we give them everything that they want.

But I think a spoiled child is also someone that's not trained and gets, I guess in that sense, they do get whatever they want. Now, I don't know, well, here's some time back we had some food in the fridge that had been left there a little bit too long. And it was mentioned at brother's meeting that we should keep an eye on if we put anything in there that we take it out in a timely manner.

Why was it such a concern that we take it out on a timely manner? Because it stinks, right? You open the fridge and you have this rotten smell come out of there. Well, a spoiled child who is not trained also starts to stink. You know, parents who spoil their children have trouble staying in a good church because they will defend their children even when they are wrong.

Even when they are wrong. So the Bible says, Colossians 3 verse 21, it says, Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. This anger here, to anger, is actually an italics.

If you notice that in your Bible, it will be an italics, meaning that it's not in the Greek. And so the translators have inserted the word there to help us to understand a little bit more what Paul is trying to say based on the context there. But if we compare this passage to the one in Ephesians, Ephesians where he says, Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

And so I think as they looked at that passage and they looked at the Colossians one, it seems to match. And hence they added that word anger there in Colossians. But notice what it says.

Provoke not your children to anger or to wrath. Why? So that they will not be discouraged. Do you want to discourage a child? Angry outbursts? Anger towards them? This all comes with a strong admonition here.

As fathers respond this way, they're provoking their children to get discouraged and give up and then eventually give up the faith. So what provokes a child to anger? Well, their father's anger. Their father's anger.

You know, when I was growing up, my mom made a comment that I constantly got hurt. I got scrapes, I got cuts, I got bruises. I mean, if I understood it right, I think I was one of the boys that got the most scrapes and the most cuts.

And I mean, I did do some crazy things and things that my body, or tools that I maybe should have never used for those situations. I remember one time I used an ofa knife to cut out some paper and hence I cut a gash across all my fingers. And so it wasn't very smart of me, but hey, I got these long scars.

So here I am, you know, got all these cuts, all these things, and eventually these things heal. You know, one time I was crawling along some chairs and my hand slipped and hit my head on the edge of the chair and cracked my head open. I still have a scar on the side of my head.

So when my hair is short, you can see the little bald spot there. You know, each one of my injuries, my scrapes, my bruises, my cuts, they've healed. However, you can still see a lot of them.

I could tell you stories about different scrapes and cuts or wounds, sorry, scars that I have and tell you the story of how it happened. So I have them, but they healed. And when we consider the situation of an angry father or an angry mother in a home, and you have a scenario there where healing potentially can take place, God wants to heal, but there will always be the scars that are seen.

The scars will always be there. You know, when we wrong someone, it is right to make it right. We need to apologize.

We need to seek reconciliation. When we've been wronged, so someone else wrongs us, we need to forgive, maybe forgive even before the apology comes. You know, sometimes we feel like, Ah, he didn't even apologize yet.

I can't forgive him. Maybe I'll forgive him when he apologizes. The Scripture's command, I think, is we forgive before they even come to us.

But in each of these scenarios, and these are more emotional scars that are there, each one of these, the scar is still there. So an injury happens. A bad, sorry, not a bad word, a harsh word is said by a husband towards a wife.

Or a demeaning word is said by a wife to a husband or a parent to a child. And that puts a slash or a cut or a bruise or a scrape on that child, on their emotions. And that scrape is there.

And if it's done in anger and wrongly, an apology, a correction needs to be made that that can be healed over. But the scar will probably be there for the rest of their life. Maybe scars fade.

You know, any of mine, the scrapes I've had, they've faded over the years. But they're still there. And so I remember them.

These ones are much, emotional scars are much harder to heal. And we don't always recognize that because we don't see them. We look at an individual and we say, I just get over it.

We get over it. And yet the reality is that there's something deep in the soul that needs some healing. I believe that God wants to do that healing.

He wants to do that in your heart. He wants to do it in my heart. If you've had, you know, these situations of an angry person, and they responded that way, you have some scars, or maybe even some open wounds still, the scripture does command us to forgive.

And I believe God will give the grace to grant healing for that open wound. So, you know, why do we want to inflict pain on the very ones that we love? Why does sometimes a father inflict pain on the child that he loves? Not pain in the sense of a proper discipline. I think there's that place.

What I'm talking about, trust you understand what I'm talking about. Or a husband inflicting pain on his wife through a harsh word or lashing out. Why is that? You know, by an angry outburst or a mean word, etc.

Our loved ones living close to our volcano that could burst any minute. Back to my original question. How would it be to live within a very short distance of this volcano? You know, when a child, a wife, a family lives in this scenario, this brings uncertainty, instability, unrest, a lack of peace, and great difficulty for those that are close to them.

If there's this constant feeling of an eruption. You know, I guess how would you feel living from March till May on the foothills of Mount St. Helens? You know, every so often you hear this rumble. You know, sometimes some children testify they already can read their dad when he pulls up, their car pulls up, and he gets out of the vehicle.

They know if I should stay away from him or if we're going to have a good evening. You know, they already see it. If he comes in a certain way, he's going to be angry and avoid him at all costs.

And the sad thing, or I guess I just want to plead with us that we, as Christians, respond in a way that is loving, as a loving father and a loving mother, to respond in a way that our children can prosper and we have a strong, stable home. You know, one of the hardest things for us as men often is to listen. You know, our children come to us, our wife comes to us even, and wants to explain how she feels.

And here we are, men, thinking different, understanding this thing different. And it's like, it seems to want to go over us sometimes. And yet, they want to explain.

And so sometimes I've learned, probably not very, I think God's continuing to teach me, but I've learned that the best thing at times is to listen. And we want to justify ourselves. We want to explain.

We want to say, no, I responded right. No, I wasn't angry. No, I did it right.

And yet, there comes a time when we just listen. And if there's some, maybe a rebuke that comes from a child or a wife, as much as it hurts in our hearts, we just listen. And we take that rebuke and we bring it before God and we say, God, is this me? Or is our response like, Moses, don't show me my wretchedness.

And I hope that our response is, God, is this me? And if this is me, God, deal with my heart that I can be free from this. And that I can teach and direct my home the way that God wants it to. Deal with me.

So moving on, my last point here, anger and the Christian. Colossians 3.8 tells us that, it tells us this, it says, but now ye also put off, put off all these, and here I just want to read the first two, anger and wrath. Put them off, as Christians, put them off.

Hence the title, Put Off Anger. The scripture, our heart, I think each one of us, our heart is that we should be as Jesus. The scripture says in Psalm 135, sorry, 145 verse 8, The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow in anger, of great mercy.

So a slow in anger response. Michael Hyatt, he was the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers from 2005 to 2011. And at one point he hired an individual, kind of a mentor to keep an eye or to help him.

And after one of these meetings, his mentor said to him, Are you angry? And he said, No, I'm not angry. And then she said, this mentor said to him, Well, then show it on your face. And somehow we sometimes respond in a very, I'm more serious minded.

And so we respond very serious, very sober looking. And I think the scripture teaches us to be sober. But at the same time, our joy that we have in Christ should show itself.

If we have the joy of the Lord, we should show that joy out of our, it should show on our face. We should not appear upset. We should respond properly.

Proverbs 16, 32 says, He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh his city. Better than the mighty. Now, a thought here on how should we respond to an angry person or an angry situation? You know, somebody comes to you being very, very angry.

The scripture says in Proverbs 15, verse 1, A soft answer turneth away wrath. You know, if your wife is upset for whatever reason, and she wants to come and talk to you, and instead of responding with self-defense, you just say, Honey, I will listen. It's that soft answer to take in what she has to say.

A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs also says, 21, verse 14, A gift in secret pacifieth anger, and a reward in the bosom strong wrath. In conclusion here, if you are an angry person, you sense the feelings of angry passion rising up in your life more than it should, or at all, I beg of you, allow God to deal with your heart.

Allow God to come in and work. One man, he recognized his need for God to do a work in his heart, and he told his wife one Monday morning, he said, I'm going into my study, and I'm going to be there until God meets with me and deals with me on this subject of anger. And Monday went by, Tuesday went by, Wednesday went by, and he did not come out of his study.

Thursday, and finally towards the end of Friday, he came out and he said to his wife, God dealt with me. And he was a new man, and he came out different than he had gone in one week before. You know, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Isn't that a famous statement there? And I think there's a time when we set aside, and we say, God, you have to work with me in this area. Deal with me, no matter how long it takes, until I get the victory. And from what my experience has been, even God is faithful.

God does this. He does come and meet with us, and He does help us. I think often He wants to see, are we real? Are we real and willing to pay anything to have it? And so God does meet with us.

So we can rejoice in faith, and even do these things and seek Him in faith, that He will respond and give us what we need. So again, if you need God to deal with you, allow Him to break your heart and change it, so that your wife will have a new husband, or your husband will have a new wife, or your children will have a new father or a new mother, or even your parents will have a new child. I think this is God's heart for each one of us, that we could be sanctified in this area.

May God add His blessing.