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APPROPRIATE ANGER IN THE A.M.

Hannah was really mad. I mean, she was ready to pick up an M-16 and splatter her enemy with bullets.

“I had been imposed upon,” she writes, “in what I felt to be a most unjustifiable way, and in what I can see now, in looking back, WAS really unjustifiable, and felt very much aggrieved, and was tempted to go into a fit of sulks and to show my displeasure by being sulky for a week or two.”

Have you ever been like that. “I’ll show him,” you think to yourself. “I’ll give him the silent treatment until Christmas — and here it’s only September 15.” Bill Cosby tells about how his wife would go into the bathroom and lock herself in there for nine hours. But it’s one thing for Camille Cosby to be angry, and it’s another for born-again QUAKER Hannah Whitall Smith to go around fingering the trigger of an assault rifle because she’s mad.

That brings us to our theme text for this Wednesday, and whether you’re a pacifist Quaker and author of the huge religious bestseller, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life or a comedian like Mr. William Cosby, this rule is a good one. Ephesians 4:26, 27:

“‘In your anger do not sin.’”

That’s quoting from Psalm 4:4, and we’ve noted before on this radio program that people in the Psalms used to go around blowing steam out their ears and looking for hand grenades too. So in both Testaments we have this warning: “In your anger do not sin.” More about that in a moment, but here’s the rest of it:

“Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

There are three things we find here in this powerful piece of Scripture. First of all, timing. Secondly, duration. And thirdly, Lucifer. There’s a time and a place to be angry. It’s dangerous to be angry for very long. And someone out there named Satan will use your dragged-out anger to reel you into his fishing boat. “Anger is a ‘half-open door’ for the devil,” C. H. Moule once wrote.
If you were with us yesterday, we’ve been studying this week how lying is so destructive — especially between Christians. We hyper-linked over to Matthew 18, which helps believers refrain from gossiping against each other; instead, we’re supposed to go privately to our adversary, one-on-one, and quietly work things out. Immediately now, we have these words of counsel about anger. Are Christians going to get angry with one another? Or against abuses in the world? Atrocities and deceptions and abuses of power in high places? Yes. And please notice that the Bible tells us this: IT IS NOT WRONG TO GET ANGRY! “IN your anger,” Paul writes, “don’t sin.” So anger itself is NOT a sin, but only if it’s timed right, doesn’t last too long, and doesn’t pull you into Lucifer’s web of resentful thinking.

The Message paraphrase goes right to this issue of duration. Listen to this:

“Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry — but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t STAY angry. Don’t go to bed angry.”

Now, friend, I don’t know how literally we ought to take this idea of bedtime truces. I’ve heard of Christian couples who stayed up all night to fight because they wanted to obey Ephesians 4:26. Better to do that than to let an argument linger, but I suppose there are wholesome campaigns against evil that could run across several days. But the principle here is clear: we should be angry at sin, not at people. We should quickly move to resolve disputes. And basically, anger should NOT be held over from one day to the next, or drag on for endless weeks. If there’s an “agenda item” between you and a co-worker, it shouldn’t get delayed time and time again while resentments fester.

The New International Version text notes for Ephesians 4 add this insight:

“Christians do not lose their emotions at conversion, but their emotions should be purified. Some anger is sinful, some is not.”

And we find that concept amplified in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary, which we’ve been using all through this Ephesians series.

“There is anger which is righteous anger,” Francis Foulkes writes, “such as we see in our Lord Himself; but His anger never LED to sin, because His emotions were kept under perfect control. The Christian must be sure that his anger is that of righteous indignation, and not just an expression of personal provocation or wounded pride. It must have no sinful motives, nor be allowed to lead to sin in any way. Moreover, the apostle, with his sure knowledge of human nature, is aware that what begins as righteous anger ‘against sins’ very easily becomes perverted and soured and ‘is turned against our brethren.’” That’s a John Calvin soundbite, by the way. “Therefore he [Paul] adds the wise practical instruction, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. There is a noteworthy change in the word used here. It is more strictly ‘provocation,’ (parorgismos; the corresponding verb is used in [Ephesians] 6:4), the personal resentment that righteous anger can become when harbored and brooded over in men’s hearts that are so stormed by temptations to malice and bitterness. Passionate feelings against people or their actions are not to be kept long, lest they break down the love that seeks to bring good out of evil.”

This same commentary writer takes us back to Psalm 4:4 again, which says:

“In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”

Let me ask you: have you ever lost sleep because you lay there in bed awake, fuming and filled with anger? Rehearsing the speech you would love to give that certain enemy? How spiritual can you be with your heart like that? And Dr. Foulkes comments:
“‘Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still,’ and Paul knew that such communing was impossible unless a man had set aside his anger before turning TO his bed.”

All of this links up, certainly, with the reality that unresolved anger takes us into Lucifer’s terrain. We can’t commune with God when we’re wrongly angry, can we? And let’s think about that too. When is it all right to be angry? Over what issues? The Adventist commentary for this great book of Ephesians weighs in on that question; see what you think:

“Righteous indignation has a most important function in stimulating men in the battle against evil. Jesus was not angered by any personal affront, but by hypocritical challenges to God and injustices done to others. Justifiable anger is directed against the wrong act without animosity toward the wrongDOER. To be able to separate the two is a supremely great Christian achievement.” Then they add this line, which would almost be cute and amusing if it weren’t so painfully true: “Someone has aptly remarked, ‘We do well to be angry at times, but we have mistaken the times!’”

Friend, let me take you back now to that story by Hannah Whitall Smith . . . and of course, she was kind of expected to call EVERYONE “friend,” even this person she was so angry at. But it wasn’t working. The sun had gone down, it was two in the morning, and she was still hopping mad — at least as hopping mad as a good Quaker in the 19th century can ever be. What did she do? Here’s her own confession, from another great book of hers, entitled The Unselfishness of God:

“But, immediately, when the temptation came [to sulk for a week, remember] a sight of the way of escape came also, and I rushed off to be alone somewhere that I might fight the battle out. I remember that I was so boiling over with provocation that I could not walk quietly, but fairly ran up to my bedroom, slamming the doors after me.” That’s a new Quaker paradigm, and how many of us are equally guilty? “When safe in the seclusion of my room,” Hannah writes, “I kneeled down and said, ‘Lord, I am provoked, I WANT to be provoked, and I think I have cause for being provoked; but I know I ought not to be, and I want the victory. I hand this whole matter over to Thee. I cannot fight this battle. Thou must fight it for me. Jesus saves me now.’ I said these words out of a heart that seemed brimful of rebellion. According to all appearances I was declaring a lie when I said the Lord saved me, for I was not saved, and it did not look likely I could be.”

But do you know what? It doesn’t matter what we FEEL like; it just matters what the Word of God says. The Bible says to give God our anger . . . and she did. The Bible says that God forgives us as He forgives our enemies . . . and He does. Friend, if you’re boiling mad in the midnight hour, just give it to God. Will you feel differently? Maybe yes, maybe no. Feelings don’t matter much. The important thing is: you SAY you’ve given it to God — and you do. That’s a victory of fact over feeling, and friend, that’s what faith is all about. Interestingly, this chapter in Hannah Whitall Smith’s book is entitled “The Way of Escape,” and that’s exactly what it is.