Jonathan David to the angry, the indignant, the upset. Well, to anyone who has trouble with these hard to deal with emotions in their lives.
I try to write about what I am going through, that way you might feel and understand me a bit.
The devil will attack us where we are weak and will continue to as long as you keep succumbing to his attacks. But what if you become stronger and his attacks are not doing its job. What will he do then? I believe he will throw the whole sink at you. If sadness doesn’t break you, then here comes happiness (but through evil means, not godly ways). The devil will hit you with anything and everything and they will come like a roulette wheel, one after the other. You must remember that he is a deceiver, basically trying to copy the ways of the LORD but in an evil fashion. Sadness, happiness, joy, pleasure, anger and, more are feelings that can and only should be applied in our lives in a godly manner. Many times these emotions start off right and we then pursued by the devil, go about things wrong. So let’s do a short study on anger today. Why? Well, I am going through it yet again.
Mild irritation, indignation, wrath,f ury and, rage. These are different levels of Anger. Although I will discuss a bit of each one. What we will be looking into today is, “Is my anger justified or am I in the right when I am angry?
Below is a short section from the book of Moses by author Charles Swindoll, he explains it better than me. Great book brother, may God bless you always…
“Psychologists have done many in-depth studies of anger. While they’ve come up with no guaranteed answers- for there is no ultimate answer aside from Jesus Christ-they have helped us analyze the emotional dynamics of anger. They have told us that anger rises along five steps,each step more intense then the last.
Anger, we are told, begins with mild irritation. This stage is marked by uneasiness, brought on by some unpleasant disturbance. It may be as mild as a traffic jam or the pressures of rearing a group of noisy children in the same small home, in tight quarters with not enough money or patience or sleep. So mild irritation begins to build.
That can lead to indignation, a deeper level of intensity. Indignation is a reaction to something that seems unfair or unreasonable. It can be expressed in violence, as sometimes happens as sporting events, when someone in the stands throws a beer bottle onto the field or court and strikes a referee. The fellow in the stands is angry because he believes the umpire’s call was unreasonable. So he expresses himself in that form of overt indigniviolence.
The third level is wrath, which psychologists say never goes unexpressed. No one restrains wrath. When your anger reaches this level, you have a strong desire to avenge, to fight back, or to defend, and you will not hold back. Wrath wears many faces, all ugly.
Uncontrolled anger soon becomes fury, the fourth level. Fury introduces violence. it may include a momentary loss of control-even a temporary loss of sanity. In a moment of fury we strike out against someone else. I watched a television documentary several years ago that paraded before the viewer one case after another of murders in the Los Angeles area. Most of them happened inside homes, between husbands and wives. Unresolved domestic conflicts often lead to fury. The fifth stage is rage, the most intense level of angry expressions. Rage, we are told, is the most dangerous form of anger. It can so overcome a person that it inspires acts of brutal violence, sometimes performed with out conscious awareness. Experts say a person filled with rage can commit murder while hardly realizing he or she is doing it; psychologically, the person blacks out.”
So there you go a quick overview of different levels of anger, according to man. Now you must all know that what applies to man, does not apply to God Almighty. Look at these verses in Nahum 1:6-7-“Who can stand before His indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him.”
He knows what to do and how to do it, the revenge is His. Read Nahum 1:2-3.
On Friday the 9th of Aug. They,(the warden, CO’s etc), had us all taken to the Rec yard. Over 200 men were held in the inside Rec for hours and even the lights went out. They did this so that they could do a shakedown, it comes with the “territory”.
This was not the cause of my anger to begin, this is actually normal for me now. Most of the afternoon they sent us to the outside Rec yard in the heat of the day. I tried to do the best in the situation that I was in, so I took in the sun and walked and talked with God. All was good, but when we came back to the unit, I couldn’t take a shower and we were locked down for 3 days. Although we were able to shower on Sunday, thank God. Anger began to ferment and build up with in me. Have you been punished for not doing anything wrong, actually for doing what is right? Try everyday for years and the punishment increasing daily for continuing to do what is right. Did you know that these evil, luciferian agencies, so called government agencies do what they want? They don’t care about the law. You have no rights. When are you people of the world gonna wake up?
Sometimes I feel so angry because of the continued abuse that I and many others in this world receive on a daily basis. It might not compare to others in the world but a continuous drop can drive someone mad. The devil thinks he will break me, me being so vulnerable to anger. But he forgets that the One in me overcame the world and Jesus Christ alone is LORD and KING of my life… I must use this anger to bring honor and glory to our LORD and His Kingdom, this is my duty and the duty of all men. Not to live the life that I want, but to live my life for HIM, He alone is worthy!!! To harness and direct this anger in the correct manner takes wisdom, which can only come from God. Time in hardships can teach us this wisdom.
But this wisdom can only come from the WORD of GOD led by His Holy Spirit. In these hard times and all times for that matter, we must seek His face and ask Him for this wisdom. James 1:5-6 says-” If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not;and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
I must be a decisive man and come boldly to the throne of God and ask Him for this wisdom.
So LORD, how can I use this anger to do what is right and just? To do Your righteousness my Father? It takes wisdom, my God, where else can I go but to Your precious Word? Well, everyone, lets see what God’s Word has to say about it. In Ephesians 4:26-32 it says-” Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath; Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace until the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
I like the following commentary: The Bible doesn’t tell us that we shouldn’t feel angry, but it tells us to handle our anger properly so it doesn’t control us. If vented thoughtlessly, anger can hurt others and destroy relationships. If bottles up inside, it can cause us to become bitter and destroy us from within. Paul tells us to deal with our anger immediately in a way that builds relationships rather than destroys them. If we nurse our anger, we will give the devil an opportunity to divide us. Are you angry with someone right now? What can you do to resolve your differences? Don’t let the day end before you begin to work on mending your relationship.
In James 1:19&20 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.”
As you can see the wrath of man does not do the righteous work of God.
Proverbs 15:1-2 & 18 says-” A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness… A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.”
Not much explaining needed here, I believe God’s Word is pretty clear.
My question is; how do I fight back with righteous anger? How can I use my anger to bring more people to the knowledge of Christ? How can I use this anger against the enemy, the devil? Because I don’t know about you, but my anger motivates me to do something. To see the people being blinded and going to hell, to see the poor, sick and needy abused, evil getting worse and worse, it all affects me. I hate the sins and wrongs in the world. Heck, I hate it in my own life. I just want to do what is right. But until we hate sin in our own life, we will not make a stand for what is right. That is why God sanctifies us(sets us apart). To refine and purify us so that we will hate sin and then no matter what or who comes up against us, we will stand with righteous anger. I want my anger to be justified in the eyes of the LORD Jesus. Do you remember when Jesus was angry? What did He do when they were polluting His Father’s house? He cleaned out house. Now, where and who are the temple of God? We are!!! So we need God to clean out our temple with His righteous anger before we can really touch people for Jesus. Because our bodies,hearts, minds, souls, well all of us, are His. He bought us with His precious blood and rose from the grave to give us eternal life.
The enemy is ruthless and sometimes unpredictable, yet spiritual warfare need not be met with equal force. The warrior yields to force and redirects it. Disadvantage can be turned into advantage. What is meant for evil can be for good. 4 oz.. can move 1000 lbs.. Faith can move mountains. Remember Proverbs 15:1-2 & 18. Also 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 a city.”
So I must be tranquil as a forest but on fire within. That’s righteous anger. How do I react when abused, when treated with contempt and unfairly? I choose to not lay down but redirect this evil force unto itself, the devil and his whole evil horde. I need to be angry with sin, I need to hate evil, but I also need to love my neighbor. O what a paradox, O what a mystery that only faith in Jesus Christ will overcome. I cant or wont do it without Him, it is impossible. But with our LORD Jesus nothing is impossible. So do the impossible and turn your anger into righteous anger by loving our LORD Jesus Christ and loving our fellow man. That love will redirect your anger to where it needs to be directed. Its not what you feel that should control you. But it can be a tool in the Kingdom of God. Used in the correct manner of course.
Lets talk about Moses for a second. (Note: I thank brother Charles Swindoll for the Moses book he wrote years ago. it has been so helpful. I recommend it) Moses the meekest man on the earth at the time, gave way to his anger. What can we learn from his mistakes? In his heart, Moses must have known that deep within, he must have been aware that his own raging temper could not advance the righteous cause of a Holy God. Yet through the years, he never allowed his patient LORD to slay that destructive monster within, and in the end it rose up and consumed him. How tragically sad!
What can we learn from Moses’ unwillingness to tame his anger? I suppose there are dozens of points to ponder, but let me highlight three of the most important ones that stand out to brother Charles Swindoll. I will not go into each point as his book does, I think you should get the book for that and more great info he provides.
1. An act of disobedience stems from unbelief.
2. A public act of disobedience diminishes God’s glory. (We are speaking of disobeying God here, not disobeying man to obey God) Always read the Bible in its context.
3. Any such act, though forgiven, bears consequences.
I hope everyone will learn something from this newsletter. May God guide and bless you all. I do love you all. Pray for me as I pray for you.
Jonathan David
A servant of the LORD
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