Freedom From The Spirit of Anger (Video)

It's a great Sunday night crowd, good spirit, enjoy the music and the fellowship. Let me talk just a moment about the table back there. If you're not receiving our free monthly email newsletter, if you sign up for it, we will give you the book of the message we're preaching on Tuesday night on how to win the heart of a rebel. For example, our latest email newsletter went out a couple of weeks ago. A really key message I gave away was entitled, Don't Stop Communicating, where I explained how a lot of people think that the solution to problems, especially with adult, prodigal children, is to cut off communication with them. They use certain scriptures that talk about that kind of thing in order to justify it, and I show why those scriptures are often wrongly used and wrongly interpreted and wrongly applied, and what you should actually do. So just that thought about that, and we have catalogs back there. You're welcome to the catalogs. The message we're giving tonight is this one, and the DVDs are me preaching. The graphics, like you see, come up on the screen. Later in the message, I refer to this message, which is my newest message on anger, the one I give probably the most, is on the demonic-like nature of anger. They are both a part of the anger series, 10 DVDs in the anger series, and I'll explain later what you can do with that, and then on tomorrow night, I'll be giving to the couples this message on oneness, God's goal for your marriage, and just thought I would comment about this message. I'm not actually giving it, but it's a very important message. It's brand new on the table since I was here last year, entitled The Power of Secrets, and it explains all kinds of things about how secrets that are the right kind of secrets can build relationships with people, but how that secrets that are the wrong kind of secrets can actually destroy relationships, and explains what secrets should be told, what secrets should not be told, and those types of things. Several years ago now, I talked to a committed Christian father who was having problems with his 16-year-old third-born daughter. She was attending a large Christian school and had developed a dangerous soul tie with another girl in the school. The daughter had a bad attitude, but was still somewhat obedient. One night, the father told me that he came home and, quote, our daughter asked to talk to me outside. She told me she had been arrested with her friend for shoplifting. She was crying and truly seemed sorry for what she had done. I told her that I was glad she had gotten called and asked if it was the first time she had done this. She said that it was. I asked her if it was the first time that her friend had done it. She didn't want to answer, but finally admitted that it was not the first time for her friend. The school expelled both girls for a semester. We homeschooled our daughter, and she was diligent in doing her studies. The big mistake we made during this period was in allowing her to stay in contact with her friend. She was constantly on the phone with her friend. When the new semester started, both girls were readmitted to school, and our daughter spent the night before school started at her friend's house. After the first day, we found out both girls had been called to the principal's office for wearing their skirts too short. Our daughter had been belligerent to the assistant principal about it, and I didn't trust myself to talk to her. One evening, I needed the phone line, and my daughter had been on the line to her friend, and when she finally got on, she said to me, Dad, you need to get your own line. That broke the camel's back and released a torrent of anger that scared my daughter, and I could see the hatred for me in her eyes. She left home the next day and spent the next three days with her friend. I called her up the third day and apologized, and she came back home, but her home was still very filled with tension. Next I started recording her phone conversations without her knowing that I was doing so. I found out horrible things she had been doing, and there was a boy involved who was in rebellion against his father and also involved in drugs. We decided to confront my daughter with her sin and institute measures to get her heart back. I first confessed my sin. I could not stop from crying as I asked her for her forgiveness. When asked if there was anything she would like to confess, she said no. Then I set the tape recorder on the table and started it playing, and she started screaming, I hate you, I hate you, I'm glad I did those things, I did those things so I would not be like you. The father cleansed his daughter's room, then separated her completely from her friends. Her friend found out and reported them to the state. An HRS representative showed up at their house. A letter intercepted from the friend, and this is an actual picture of the letter itself, said, I called HRS. If you talk to them, tell them you're scared for your life. If you really want out, hurt yourself and say that your dad beat you. If I can get you a cell phone, we're going to buy a teddy bear and put the cell phone inside. With his pastor's permission, I talked to the father. I suggested that he get away from home and spend time one-on-one with his daughter in a remote area, and we have a special thing where if you go to our website it explains how to do this, and we suggest that they take a whole group of videos and that they watch one a day with the daughter or the son, whoever it might be, and discuss them after they do so. They got away together and took a bunch of my videos, and for two weeks they rusted in the mountains of northern Georgia. I talked to him once or twice, but he was really seeing no headway with this rebellious daughter at all. A few days later, we met he and his family in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the father, the mother, the daughter were all there. My wife sat down. Where's my wife? Here. She's back there. Here. She's closer tonight. She sat down and talked to the girl, and we discussed it, and she said to me, honey, this is the worst kind of a rebel. On Tuesday night, I'll give the message Changing the Heart of a Rebel, and I'll explain how to turn around a teenage rebel or how to prevent teenage rebellion, but she said, honey, she's the worst kind. She is polite and nice on the outside. She looks great on the outside, and she is completely rejecting everything on the inside, and folks, the inside of your child is more important than the outside. My wife said to me, I don't know, honey. She's pretty hard. I don't think she's going to change, and I'll share more of that later. In Luke chapter 9, verse 51, we read, and it came to pass when the time was come that he, Jesus, should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and set messengers before his face, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, and they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem, and when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, consume them, even as Elias did? But Jesus turned and rebuked them and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them, and they went to another village. Now notice what Jesus did not say to these men. He did not say, fellas, you don't realize what you're saying. He said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, and the meaning was this. You do not realize the spirit that is coming from you. You don't realize the spirit that your spirit is putting off and emitting and revealing. Notice with me first of all tonight that the Bible mentions both personal and impersonal spirits. The Greek word pneuma, translated spirit, may be used in relation to the personal holy spirit in one verse, a personal evil spirit in another verse, and an impersonal spirit of meekness or truth or error or holiness or life and so on in some other verses. In fact, the phrase spirit of occurs 139 times in your Bible. To properly understand this, we need to recognize that there is a division between your spirit and good and bad spirits, whether personal or impersonal, which affect your spirit, and thirdly, the spirit that others sense coming from your spirit. And this is not necessarily either a demonic or an angelic spirit, this is simply what others sense coming from your spirit. A mother noticed that her obnoxious little boy had become kind and considerate after spending time around a certain teacher, and she said, Johnny, what does Mrs. Smith do to teach you to be polite? And Johnny replied to his mom, Mom, she doesn't do anything, she just walks around the room and we all feel polite. The children were sensing and responding to their teacher's gracious spirit. Secondly, we must try the spirits coming from ours and other people's spirits to make sure that they are of God. First John chapter 4 verse 1 says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, and the context means that we should try the spirits to see if they are of God or of Satan, but the principle would carry over even further, and this would mean that you and I must try, test, examine, and scrutinize the spirit coming from our own spirit as well as the spirit coming from other people's spirits. James and John were good men, righteous men, men with good motives, men who wanted to please Jesus, but Jesus said, Ye know not what manner of spirit you are of. You do not realize the spirit that your spirit is putting off. By the way, I meant to have mentioned this earlier, and I simply forgot to, but I have a message, I have a message, I forgot to bring any copies with me, but it's available. I have a message entitled, Reasons Why I Use the King James Version Bible, and one of the key reasons why I use the King James Version Bible is because these words that Jesus spoke disappear from almost every other Bible version. This message would not exist at all if I had not used a King James Version Bible. I don't say this critically, I simply say it informationally for you. If you have an NIV, an ASV, an RSV, an NASV, a whole bunch of others, and you look and try to find the words of Jesus that this message is built on, and you'll find out, they're usually, if they are there at all, they're in a footnote at the bottom of the page with a question whether they should be there or not. And in that message on the KJV, I explain why those disappear, and how many, many other passages disappear out of your Bible, such as Matthew 17, 21, Matthew 18, 11, 1 John 5, 7, Acts 8, 37. People don't realize that if you don't have, and I don't say it critically again, but if you don't have a King James Version Bible, you're just missing a whole lot of the Bible, that's all. And so anyway, that's just a little aside right there. Number three, there is a great possibility, we may not realize it, when our spirit is putting off the wrong spirit. You are body and soul and spirit, and the spirit is the main part of your being, and you are primarily a spirit with a soul, you're a permanent spirit, you have an eternal spirit in an eternal soul with a temporary body, and your spirit and soul are going to be forever somewhere in heaven or hell. And your spirit is the main thing, and there's a great possibility that we may not realize it when our spirit is putting off the wrong spirit. James and John didn't even know it, and their spirit of anger was so intense and severe, they wanted to destroy an entire village full of people. Think about Proverbs 16, 2 here that says, all the ways of man, of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. Jesus dealt with the possibility of our being blinded to major faults in our own lives, especially in our relationships with others. In Matthew 7, 3, he said, why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye? But considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye. How could anybody have a huge beam or a huge log in his eye and not know it? James and John did, and you and I may as well. Men, how easy it is to see the mote of our wife's lack of respect and yet not see the beam of our own spirit of anger. How easy to see the mote of our children's disobedience or stubbornness, but not see the beam of our own wrath. One way you might tell whether or not you have a problem in this area is to ask yourself if your father or grandfather had the problem. Anger is one of those sins that is very often like a family curse that passes down the generations from grandfather to father to son to grandson and so on. The dad in my opening illustration said to me, I got interested in my family history. I know my father always had a real problem with anger and there's still aunts and uncles who knew my grandfather. With little if any prompting, I heard stories about my grandfather's anger and to top it all off, I found newspaper articles from the 1880s that told of the fights that my great grandfather got into because of his temper. My wife and I, a number of years ago now, we're at a church in the Atlanta, Georgia area. A father with a rebellious 17-year-old daughter and a rebellious 15-year-old son asked to take us to the airport so he could talk to us as we went to the airport. As we rode along, the man described the problems he was having with his children and how he had tried to deal with them and that nothing seemed to be working. I said to him, do you have a problem with anger? Yes, he replied, and I traced it back to some guilt from some earlier unresolved conflicts. Then I went back and dealt with those things. I explained that in the message, Anger, The Destroyer. I said, you know, that's wonderful. So do you still have a problem with anger? He said, well, occasionally, but not very often. I said, what do you do when you get angry? He said, well, I heard somebody say I should do what I'm about to say you, so this is what I do. I've made myself accountable to my wife and my children. Anytime I get angry, I give the children $20. I give my wife $50. It's interesting to me every time I hear that. Some people say, I wish my dad would get angry and do that. I said to him, by the way, this was, boy, how long ago, Regine, was this? This was 12, 14, 15 years ago, something like that. It'd be a lot more money now. So I said, how much have you paid out in the last few months? He said, well, I'd say I've paid $150 to $200 to each of the children and probably $500 to $600 to my wife. In a little while, I'll tell you the rest of that conversation. What is the difference between anger and an angry spirit? An angry spirit manifests itself in a harshness that keeps those around us on edge. An angry spirit cuts back on a person's life potential. A person may have all kinds of talents, abilities, and potential. He may be loving, kind, and gentle. But the angry spirit causes people to be afraid to be around him. Now, I might clarify here. I'm not talking about the fearful respect that accompanies almost any strong leader. I'm talking about a wrong sense of fear that is created by the unpredictability of a man or a woman's angry spirit. The spirit of anger is the very opposite of the spirit of Christ, which was a spirit of neatness and gentleness. A spirit of anger is sometimes evident in a person's tone of voice even when he or she is carrying on a normal conversation. A couple came to talk to me about what they could do to reach their rebellious teenage son. And I said to them the question I almost always ask, do you have a problem with anger? They said, well, yes, but we feel like we've been dealing with it. And they sat there talking and talking and talking, and finally I looked at them and I said, I need to help you, can I help you? And they said, please, pastor, help us. I said, you both have a spirit of anger that comes out in your attitude, your tone of the voice, and your demeanor. We talked another 30 minutes sitting in my office, and they could not see it. So while we were talking, I stopped each of them two or three times and said, there it is. I said, listen to yourself. I repeated what they said and tried to repeat it like they said it. I said, there is a harshness in your voice and in your attitude. It's coming through almost all the time, and you don't even know it. They were humble and gracious and teachable, and they kept saying, thank you, we want to see it, keep pointing it out. And finally I said to them, you are going to have to make yourself accountable to other family members. This will not be easy. You need to say to other family members, correct me, not just for outburst of anger, but any time you even sense a spirit of anger or hear a tone of anger in my voice. Remember that we're dealing with the spirit of things. Incidentally, consider this as one definition of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. There could be others as well. But at least this, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, is the Holy Spirit so controlling your spirit that no spirit that is a wrong spirit is able to do so. Number four, victory in the area of the spirit that others sense coming from you is more important than victory in the area of actions that others see you doing. This is another way of saying it's good to obey the letter of the law. It is better to obey the spirit of the law. In fact, in Galatians 5.18 we read, but if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law. How easy it is to be deceived in this area and feel like you're fine because you obey the letter of the law, but disobey the spirit of the law. Jesus dealt with the Pharisees in this area. In Matthew 23 when He said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe, omit, and anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, justice, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone. So, if you get the spirit area right, then the actions will eventually take care of themselves. But just getting certain outward actions right gives no guarantee at all that other actions will be right. Notice that the spirit of obedience for your children is more important than the letter of obedience. Did you ever hear the story about the little boy whose mom looked at him and said, Johnny, sit down. He said, don't want to sit down. She said, Johnny, I said sit down. He said, don't want to sit down. She said, you sit down right now or I'm going to spank you. He sat down, looked up at his mom and said, I'm still standing up on the inside. See, which is more important? The spirit of obedience or the letter of obedience? He obeyed the letter of obedience. He still doesn't have the spirit of obedience. And the same is true with adults in relation to anger. It is more important to have victory over the spirit of anger than over the outward manifestation of anger. The truth is this. Read it with me off the screen, everybody, would you please? Where there is victory in the spirit, there is outward manifestations. I believe this is what the Bible means when it tells us to be slow to wrath. Step away, not just from anger, but from getting angry. Deal with the attitude toward anger and the action won't be nearly as likely to be a problem. Sometimes I talk to parents who have said to me, why is there so much contention and division in our home? We want our children to obey and have sweet spirits and attitudes, but if a dad or mom in a home is full of anger, that anger by itself stirs up strife. That's what Proverbs 29, 22 is talking about when it says an angry man stirreth up strife. It creates problems all by itself. Number five, there is no biblical justification for manifesting either anger or a spirit of anger. Now, allow me to give right here an observation about the typical Christian's attitude toward anger. And I've noticed this for many, many years now. The typical Christian will think something like this. Well, anger may be bad at times, especially if it causes you to hurt or kill somebody, but there's a place for anger. Anger may be a useful tool in the right setting or situation. Sometimes that's the only thing that will work to bring somebody into line. Releasing anger releases tension, and if you don't release it, then it can be bad for you. And of course, everybody should know there's always been a need for righteous indignation. Now, that seems to be the prevalent attitude for decades of time for the average Christian in relation to anger. And the truth is this, folks. My opinion or your opinion, either one doesn't really matter. All that matters is, what's this book say? Notice what it says. Psalm 37, verse 8 says, cease from anger and forsake wrath. Notice what the verse does not say. It does not say, keep your spiritual anger and forsake your carnal anger, because your spiritual anger is not really spiritual. Proverbs 19, verse 19, I've got a whole message on the table with this as the main text entitled, The High Cost of Anger. A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment. For if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again. And it means that if you're around an angry person, you're going to be delivering them from the consequences of their anger over and over and over again. Proverbs 27, verse 4 says, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous. And the word outrageous means like a downpour or a flood. It's like a tsunami. It is not possible for you to have a little bit of anger. Anger is a flood. There may be floods that are worse than other floods, but it is a flood that will destroy much in sight. Ecclesiastes 7, 9 says, anger resteth in the bosom of fools. My wife and I were riding along in the car with this man who had already paid his wife and his children a thousand dollars for his anger. And I looked at him and I said to him, Sir, part of your problem is you are not taking the problem of your anger seriously enough. He looked at me funny. A thousand dollars he had paid out and he's not taking it seriously enough? I had a little New Testament right in front of me. I opened it to Galatians chapter 5. And I read to him this, The works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication, witchcraft, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, and so on. Then I said to him, Sir, there are some things in life you get victory over because you know you just cannot do those things. The consequences are far too great. There are some things you don't do at your house. Look at this passage. You don't bring X-rated movies into your house and watch them as a family. I said, you don't do that, do you? He said, no, I don't. I said, you would not bring an idol into your living room and bow down before it. He said, no, I wouldn't. I said, you would not have a witch come into your house and hold a seance. And he said, no. And I said, you also don't get angry at your house. All four of those are in the same verse. Ephesians 4, 31 says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you. A father called me who had a rebellious 15-year-old daughter and six more children. The daughter had run away once for a few hours but then returned home and the father admitted to me that he had a problem with anger. But I could tell he didn't realize how serious his problem really was. He began to gloss over the problem by telling me the high standards that he had for his home and he felt that his daughter was reacting to his standards. He said, I want you to know we have no television, we have no rock music, we have no immodest clothing and he went right down the line and he felt like my daughter's problem is she's reacting to these high standards. By the way, every family has different standards and it is not high standards that cause children to rebel that is a false philosophy, that is a false concept. It is not high standards, it is harshness in holding to those high standards. That's what it is. Finally, he had told me all that and I said to him, sir, can I ask you a question? He said, certainly. I said, how often do you get angry? He said, maybe twice a month and there was a I don't know, there was a sense of a spirit of pride and harshness in his voice in the way he dealt with his family and I said to him, sir, let me explain this to you. I think it's fine that you don't have a TV but you'd probably be better off to have a TV set and let it run 24 hours a day on almost any channel than to get angry twice a month. You have no idea the amount of destruction your anger is bringing to your family. Another man said he had a problem with anger but didn't think it was too bad then he only got mad once every couple of months and my response to that is this, how would you like to live next door to a volcano that only explodes once every couple of months? Incidentally, he didn't know it but his family was sensing his spirit of anger all the other days of those months. Colossians 3, 8 says but now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Notice that anger and wrath are in the same classification as blasphemy and filthy language. 1 Timothy 2, 8 Excuse me, I will therefore that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. Holy hands are hands without wrath. Titus 1, 7 gives one of the qualifications for a bishop, not soon angry. It means not prone to anger. James 1, 20 says for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The wrath of man is always wrong. It is always carnal. It is never spiritual. It is never righteous. I've been asked Brother Davis, isn't there such a thing as righteous indignation? Well, study it for yourself please. Don't just take my word for it. That phrase, those two words are never used together in your Bible. The only adjectives used to describe indignation are great and fiery. Great indignation and fiery indignation. And they are used four times. Twice it is God's greater fiery indignation. Twice it is man's great indignation. And the indignation of God was righteous and the indignation of man was sin. That's it. Some people think but couldn't God give His wrath to somebody? If He did, He would violate His own command in Ephesians 4 31 to let all wrath and anger be put away from you. There are illustrations in the Bible where it looks like someone is receiving or assuming God's wrath but when you see the result, you realize that man cannot handle wrath at all especially God's wrath. If God gave righteous indignation to a man, that man would turn it into unrighteous indignation immediately. In Numbers chapter 11 verse 10 we're told that the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. Moses was also displeased. And it appears there that God's anger had stirred Moses to become angry. Five verses later Moses asked God to kill him. When Samson got angry, he stopped fighting for the Lord and started carrying out personal vengeance. Now the two questions I'm most commonly asked by people who defend anger are these But didn't Jesus get angry? And how about the verse that says be you angry and sin not? And I answer this actually in a different way in the message, the demonic-like nature of anger, but I'm gonna answer it this way tonight. Let's look at the first question Did Jesus get angry? I read every verse in the Bible that uses those seven words anger, angry, wrath, wrath, fury, furious, and indignation. And those words occur a total of 584 times in the Bible. And as I was reading through every one of those I was amazed to discover how many of those involve God's wrath. In fact I was so amazed I decided I would go back and count all the verses that were man's wrath and that were God's wrath and out of the 584 occurrences 470 appeared to me to be the wrath, anger, fury, or indignation of God. That is 4 out of 5 times or 80% of the anger in the Bible is God's righteous anger. Verses about the Lord burning with anger are very common. In Numbers chapter 11 the children of Israel complained and wept about having nothing but manna to eat. And verse 10 says and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. 1 Kings 14-15 talks about how Jeroboam provoked the Lord to anger when he led the people to worship calves of gold. Isaiah 30-27 says behold the name of the Lord cometh from far burning with anger and verses like those appear literally hundreds of times in the scripture. We could spend the next hour just looking at the verses that talk about the anger of God. Then I tried to find all the times that Jesus showed anger. The only time the Bible says Jesus used anger was in Mark chapter 3 verse 5. The Pharisees were watching Jesus to see if he would heal the man with a withered hand on the Sabbath day and when Jesus had looked round about on them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man stretch forth thine hand. And the interesting thing is it says there's anger there but you don't really see any manifestation of anger at all. What's also interesting is the same Greek word used in Mark chapter 3 verse 5 is used 34 times in the New Testament but is not used for any other human being in the New Testament at all. But the word does occur again in Ephesians 4-31 where it says let all wrath and anger be put away from you and the Bible is telling you and me that we cannot handle anger and we need to get rid of it completely. Now some people will hear this message and they will say well don't you think Jesus was angry when he cleansed the temple? Well, I don't really know. It doesn't tell us that he was. Maybe he was maybe he wasn't. Since it doesn't tell us we don't really know. God's anger is spiritual and produces justice. Deuteronomy 29-23 describes how God in anger overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Man's anger is carnal and produces injustice. In the book of Daniel is the story of Nebuchadnezzar the king who built the beautiful city of Babylon and tells how he got angry at a few of the wise men because they couldn't remember his dream and he was so furious he commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. In the book of Esther Haman was so angry at Mordecai that he plotted to destroy the entire race of the Jews and of course wound up hanging from his own gallows. Read off the screen with me everybody would you please? God can righteously man cannot righteously taint because man isn't God. Romans 12-19 clarifies this further and shows why man cannot and must not use wrath. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord. And a powerful thought you see in that verse is this that the purpose of wrath is vengeance so if you get angry with your child another verse here confirms that but if a parent spanks his child while angry he is not disciplined the child. He's carried out vengeance upon the child he has violated God's requirement in this verse and this verse that he is supposed to be just instead he is unjust and it causes the child to become disobedient and rebellious. I don't know about you dads but I had four daughters and it grieves my heart to think of the number of times I violated God's truth in this area. According to Romans 13-4 God does delegate the responsibility of vengeance to earthly rulers. He is the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil and the wrath mentioned there is God's wrath not man's. Read it please everybody. God doesn't delegate or give his wrath to anyone even earthly rulers are not given God's wrath. If a judge gets angry in the courtroom the whole case can be thrown out anger negates justice's ability to deal impartially somebody asked me but wouldn't a man need anger if he has to defend his family you especially would not need anger then and I'm not saying that a man wouldn't be greatly tempted to become angry and I'm not saying any of us are perfect yet and could never get angry but what you really need if your family is in danger is courage and discernment. Angry people tend to act out of rage instead of reason. Angry people have unjustly lynched innocent people in their wrath by the way did you notice that when I listed the seven words anger, angry, wrath, wrath, fury furious and indignation there's a word I left out and that is the word mad the word mad is used 21 times in the bible and is never used in relation to God it is almost always refers to a man being beside himself or crazy God is never beside himself and never crazy but Paul referred to himself as having been mad in relation to persecuting Christians before his conversion now the other question is this one how about that verse that says be you angry and sin not and notice first of all the number of clear scriptures that say to get rid of anger completely one of them only five verses away and but notice secondly that the Greek verb tense for be you angry is a present passive imperative present means that it is currently taking place passive means not that you're acting but that you're being acted upon imperative is a command and the meaning is this there are going to come times when you feel something or someone working on you to make you angry recognize that don't let it happen be angered don't sin by getting angry you may not be able to stop the initial emotion you feel that leads to the sin of anger but with God's help you can refuse to let anger express itself or deepen and turn into wrath years ago there used to be these articles by secular psychologists and Christian counselors who said you must release anger if you don't they said tension will build up and create problems I was on the airplane last year and there was a magazine that had an article I should put it in the sermon and use it and it talks about anger rooms and this guy started his own business where he finds out what you're really angry about who you're really angry at and what's got you all stirred up and he creates a room it'll cost you several hundred or several thousand dollars to walk into that room and you can just beat the daylights out of everything in the room you can destroy the furniture, you can destroy the pictures, the lamps, everything in the room and you just feel so much better when you come out of the room I said years ago that is not the way and did you know the psychologists and psychiatrists now, many of them have reversed their position and said we thought that was helping but the truth is, you know what folks, you can't get more up to date than this book it just doesn't get any more up to date there are people who would they would send their patients into a room with a pillow and the person is supposed to beat the daylights out of the pillow until they feel better two things wrong with that it doesn't take into account that anger is not really something you can properly control it usually gets out of control it's like a skunk spraying a little bit under your house it tends to not be a little bit anybody here ever had a skunk spray under your house I had a son-in-law and daughter who had a skunk spray under their house they had to move out of the house can I tell you when you use anger in your house it creates an atmosphere that makes everybody want to move out, anger is like a flood that has the power to wash away homes and churches and trying to have a little bit of anger is like trying to have a little bit of adultery or a little bit of idolatry or a little bit of murder you cannot have or a little bit of blasphemy or a little bit of filthy communication I have never yet met anyone who said they control their anger who did so the second problem with the world's reason about controlling anger is that it causes us to miss God's way to control anger I've got a whole message on God's way to deal with your wrong emotions where I explain that God's way to control any wrong emotion is to put the mind under the command of Christ in His word then have the mind tell the will the mind, the will and the emotions that's the three parts of your soul have the mind to tell the will what to do so that the emotion of anger is unplugged before it can get turned on my wife and I were on a flight to Chicago that arrived in Chicago an hour and a half late and we missed our connecting flight to El Paso Texas we wound up having to fly to Las Vegas then to El Paso we arrived six hours late at four o'clock in the morning we're standing in line at the Chicago ticket counter and the lady is standing there and she's trying to straighten out everybody's situation and I was standing there smiling at her thanking her for helping us she said thank you for being so kind do you know how much I hate having to deal with belligerent passengers and I looked at her and I said this you know ma'am I figure God is in control of the weather so there's really no reason for me to get upset now do you see what I did there? I wanted to scream and holler like everybody else but my mind accepted the biblical truth that God's in the mind of the will of the emotions my mind said to my will settle down those emotions there's nothing you can do about this God's on the throne just deal with it even after all of this I've shared with you there could be somebody feeling that you still need to defend anger and did you know there are verses warning you not to do that proud and haughty scorner is his name who deals in proud wrath that is wrath that is hooked to pride and says I have a right to have this and how about this one surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife and so if you're determined to have anger may I promise you you're going to have strife you know I have a list of every man in the bible there's those seven words I have a list of every man in the bible that those seven words were used in relation to incidentally they were all men 52 men are specifically named in the bible as being angry here's your little tidbit not one lady that I can find is specifically named in the bible as being angry now I think there were ladies in the bible who got angry I think Jezebel got angry I think Isaiah got angry I think there are others who got angry but it doesn't say specifically they got angry the main verse about an angry woman seems to be Proverbs 21 19 better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman anyway all us men are a little afraid to say amen right there rightfully so by the way I'm glad I don't have to live with a contentious and an angry woman there's a good spot say amen guys yes amen back to the men Peter got angry and chopped off a man's ear and he did that defending Jesus and Jesus told him to put up his sword and the message there is that Jesus doesn't want us using anger to defend him in Exodus 32 Moses anger waxed hot he cast the tables out of his hand and broke them beneath him out wait a minute God wrote those tables with his own hand was there really anything spiritual about breaking them here is a powerful picture of how anger breaks God's law it's also a picture of how anger destroys the very truth you were supposed to be presenting when you get angry it's also interesting that God required Moses to cut out replacement tables of stone and to walk up mount Sinai carrying those heavy tables of stone think about what you have to do to rebuild what you destroyed in anger so what can you do to conquer a spirit of anger number one recognize the problem and the seriousness of the problem it is really time that we recognize anger for the devastating curse that it is because denial destroys hope for help I have dealt with people who honestly don't want to admit lots of people this is probably the biggest problem in people getting victory over anger is they don't want to admit they've got a problem I talked to a dad and mom with a rebellious 16 year old daughter after a few minutes on the telephone I said sir do you have a problem with anger and very quickly he snapped back no I don't his wife very meekly said well maybe just a little problem he snapped back no I don't and I said sir may I be very honest with you well of course sir you have one of the biggest problems with anger of any man I've ever spoken to how can you say that when you've only been talking to me for a few minutes sir you don't even know me and you have rebuked your wife harshly three times in my presence in less than ten minutes sir you have a huge problem with anger that father had already sent his daughter away to a girls home for over a year and she had come home changed and in three months she had become a rebel again and he wanted to know if he should send her away a second time and I said to him sir the problem is not your daughters it is yours do not create a sense of rejection in your daughter by sending her away again it would not be just to send her away when this is your problem not hers in the message the demonic like nature of anger and I think I showed you this last year last year read this with me everybody would you please it's so important it's so critical if you have a marriage problem and an anger problem if you don't correct the anger problem then you can't correct the marriage problem keep reading if you have a parenting problem and an anger problem if you don't correct the anger problem then you can't correct the parenting problem we have folks who come to our table and they look at all the DVDs and they say where do I start and our first question is usually this anybody in the family have a problem with anger and they'll say well maybe they do maybe they don't and we'll say if anybody has a problem with anger that's where you start you start with the anger yet with working on the anger because if you don't deal with the anger you can't really fix anything else and we've had so many people who have said to us Pastor Davis you would not believe it when we finally started dealing with the anger lots of the other things the other problems we were having just started going away fellas ask your wife if you have a problem with anger and if she says well maybe just a little bit you probably have a big problem and she's afraid to tell you remember there's no such thing as a little bit of anger secondly desire the victory enough to cry out to God the truth is there are many who have the problem know they have the problem but a lot of people don't want victory in this area they enjoy the fear their anger creates in others they enjoy the carnal power that their anger gives them to control other people thirdly repent of the sin say to God I want to turn from this sin number four confess the sin of forefathers and ask God to break any curses that coming down the generations number five ask God to take back the ground Satan has taken because of anger because according to Ephesians 4 26 and 27 whenever someone or something causes you to become angry then Satan is able at that time to take ground in your life number six notice the connection between anger and lust in Matthew chapter 5 when lust prevails so does anger lust creates an insensitivity in the spirit that causes a person to be more likely to respond wrongly to God and others and lust and anger are like twin sins wherever you see one the other is often somewhere nearby the three big sins of men anger lust and pride anger and lust get us in trouble fellas pride keeps us from getting out and that's the reason three of the messages in the anger series are on the subject of pride and humility number seven watch for people and things that are going to come your way to make you angry and be prepared in your mind and in your heart to answer softly few things have as much power to make you angry as anger in somebody else and then number eight I love this thought purpose to enter the presence of family members and business associates with praise Psalm 100 verse 4 gives the principle enter into God's presence with thanksgiving into his courts with praise and the principle is you come before God with praise and thanksgiving is wonderful to come before others with thanksgiving and praise have you noticed that when you come to church one of the first things that you do is you come before God with thanksgiving and praise that's what the singing is about that's what the prayers are about your response and there's something that sets the stage and you know there's something about if the first thing every day you make yourself the first time you see your wife you praise her the first time you greet your children you greet them with praise you say how's Johnny today this is going to be a wonderful day you are such a wonderful son and I am so praising God that he let you be our little boy we are going to have a wonderful day today praise is a motivator a magnet and a defense against you using wrong words and attitudes number nine ask God daily to fill you with the Holy Spirit and to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life that's what this verse is talking about and then number ten this is huge make yourself fully accountable make yourself fully accountable and this is the reason we tell people if you've got a problem with anger get the anger series and there are ten DVDs in the anger series and put it on your calendar maybe it's on Friday night maybe it's on Thursday night one time a week whole family sits down and watches one of the anger DVDs you do that for ten weeks and then you do it for ten more weeks and after each time you watch it you discuss it and what will happen is it will build accountability into the family great I gave this message in Knoxville Tennessee I think it was let me see about fifteen years ago now and a man came up to me just a few months ago he said Pastor Davis you remember giving the spirit of anger message in Nashville Tennessee in Knoxville Tennessee years ago and I said yes sir I do he said you told us men that we should go home and say to our wives and our children anytime I manifest anger or a spirit of anger I want you to let me know here's what I want you to do he said I want you just come up and put your hand on my shoulder that's all you got to do that will be the signal that I'm manifesting anger or a spirit of anger he said I got home from there and I said I'm going to do this this is good so I looked at my wife and my children and I said I want you to do this just put your hand on my shoulder it will be fine he said Pastor Davis a few minutes later one of the children walked up and put their hand on my shoulder I looked at him and said yes and they said dad you asked us to do that he said what he said well you know what you said a while ago about a spirit of anger dad I could sense a spirit of anger in those children oh really oh okay he said but Pastor Davis I was manifesting a spirit of anger all time didn't know it he said my wife my children just kept coming up all the time putting their hand on my shoulder he said it took days it took weeks and finally I got it and accountability was a huge thing in getting victory in this area one father who knew he had a problem in this area listened to this particular message several times and later the father asked his son how he was doing and the son answered honestly dad I can still see the fire in your eyes and the dad looked at his son and said please son tell me when you see it it's a blind spot for me but I want to know it I want to deal with it another dad who heard this message said to me all my life I had a problem with anger and I finally dealt with it when I heard that message and three weeks later my wife pointed out to me that my little boy had stopped stuttering and I didn't even know it but his stuttering problem was because of the fear that I was creating in him with my anger and you remember my opening story I was talking to that father in Knoxville Tennessee we discussed the problem of anger he had listened three times to a different message of mine on anger and he had already made himself accountable to his wife and daughter so that anytime they just looked at him and said to him he was angry he would immediately apologize and I said to him brother there is still a spirit of anger in your life I can hear it in your voice even while we're standing here talking right now he looked at me he said brother Davis I don't know what you're talking about and I said you must not just repent of the outward manifestations of anger you must repent of the spirit of anger and make yourself accountable so that anytime your wife or daughter even hears the spirit of anger in your voice they can tell you about it he said I'll do it I'll do it I went over and talked to the teenage daughter I said your dad has had a terrible problem with the spirit of anger and you know it don't you and she said oh yeah I said I want you to know that I told your dad what it is and he's going to make himself accountable not just for the outburst of anger but for any spirit of anger as well and I want to challenge you please give your dad a chance it's really been a terrible blind spot for him and he honestly needs your help and I hope you won't make it difficult for him here's the end of the father's story in his words exactly 14 days later our daughter turned around and has been growing ever since it's like we got our daughter back from the dead it has been such a joy to hear her say dad I love you she wrote her friends dad and asked his forgiveness for not telling him what was going on in his daughter's life she pleaded with him to deal with his daughter like her dad dealt with her my daughter's friend got pregnant and the dad of Sunday school teacher said she should get an abortion which she did the girl's mother met my wife in the grocery store one day and blamed the Christian school for the problems she said they never should have kicked the kids out news of our daughter's turn around got around and I've been surprised at the number of parents having similar problems with their daughters I've been asked to talk to a number of them I have yet to find a father that is willing to pay the price that it takes to win his daughter back in every case I can sense a spirit of anger and resentment my daughter is now very strong in their commitment to the Lord is working with other young people who have problems he said for our family the spirit of anger was the key and some of you may actually know this father because he lives here in the state of Florida he came to our church about five or six years ago now and visited us in Illinois again his name is Tom Gillespie and he said brother Davis feel free to use my name feel free to use my picture that has been many years ago now and he said brother Davis it is such a joy to have a wonderful relationship with my daughter my son-in-law and my grandchildren Jesus look at James and John who wanted to call down fire from heaven and said to them you know not what manner of spirit you're of is it possible that somebody here tonight is putting off a spirit of anger that you don't know about talk to me here would you bring an x-rated movie into your home and watch it as a family would you bring an idol into your living room and bow down before it would you have a witch come into your house and hold a seance would you get angry in your house no would you bow with me please could be somebody here tonight who's never trusted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior the Bible gives us not only the directions of how to live human life but it tells us how we can get to heaven when we die you've got to admit to God you're a sinner and trust Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and if you've never done that please don't leave here tonight without either coming to this altar somebody will take the word of God and show you how to be saved or catch the pastor or myself or somebody else after the service and say I'd like to know how to get to heaven would you explain it to me we would love to do that I wonder how many here tonight would say Brother Davis there was something in that message I needed would you pray for me would you slip your hand up all over the house tonight something in that message I needed would you pray for me and you know a good place to start I know you don't have to do this but a good place to start is by just coming and kneeling at the altar and saying God I mean business you spoke to my heart tonight and I really want to do something about what you spoke to my heart about and I hope you'll let him do in your life what he wants to do Father thank you for the way folks listen tonight thank you for the opportunity to give your truth Lord I pray that you give homes here and lives here the victory they need as they deal with this very very important area of human life in Jesus name we pray we're standing with heads bowed eyes closed she's playing the hymn of invitation God spoke to your heart you need to come to this altar for any reason it's open please come if you're here and you're lost we'd love to take the word of God and show you how to be saved if there's some other need in your life