Anger (No. 61)

What is Anger?

The word for anger in the Bible is harah meaning “to get angry or be angry”. Thus it is a verb. This word appears in the Bible 92 times. Vines Expository Dictionary states;

In the basic stem, the word refers to the burning of anger: as in Jonah 4:1. In the causative stem, harah means "to become heated with work" or "with zeal for work"(Neh 3:20).

Anger is an aggressive word; however, the definition of the word is with zeal for work, so it is a motivation. Anger motivates us, and the two emotions that make us perform more than any others are fear and anger. They will motivate us to action. Fear can paralyse us, but anger can bring us out of paralysis. If we look at anger in a positive light, when there is a time to be angry, then we can see that it can give us a zeal for work.

The noun for anger is haron or burning anger. This word occurs 41 times in the Bible and covers every period. The word refers only to divine anger or anger from God, which poses a number of questions. If it is wrong to be angry, then did Christ and God sin when they became angry? No! Obviously, there are two types of anger, and the one that we need to understand and use is the correct anger, and we need to expel the wrong anger from our thinking.

Genesis 4:1-3 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.²And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.³And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. (KJV)

We look at the story of Cain and Abel. This is the first expression of a thought into an action. We see here the first real presence of pride in a human being. Cain didn’t like rejection, and that is what it was. His attitude and his spirit weren’t right, and God rejected his offering. It poses a lot of questions as to why Cain’s countenance was allowed to develop the way it did, and what forces were working within his life at that time. If we consider Cain’s actions after the slaying of Abel, they present a lot of questions as to why he did it? What was he doing that allowed him to develop the attitude that he had developed?

Genesis 4:6-7 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."

God is warning Cain. He sees the anger, and He is saying, “master it, or you will suffer judgement from me”. Its desire is for you, but you must master it. Cain is starting to sin and think in terms of sin, and God is warning him to conquer it.

Genesis 4:8 Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field." And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

We see the logical extension from the emotion of anger to murder. That is what anger is. It is murder, and every time we get angry with a fellow human being, we commit a murder in our minds. Anger is the embryo of murder, and so every time we get angry, we have to think that the logical extension of the emotion here is murder.

Genesis 4:9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"

He tells a lie to cover himself, and so we see that one initial act of anger has brought upon him the breaking of two commandments in the space of a short period time.

Gen 4:10-14: And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. ¹¹And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. ¹²When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." ¹³Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. ¹⁴Behold, thou hast driven me this day away from the ground; and from thy face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me." (RSV)

There are certain concepts in these passages that pose questions we need to consider. Abel is dead and only Adam, Eve and Cain are alive, but Cain is worried about people wanting to kill him. Thus we are dealing with people other than those three on the earth. Why would they want to kill Cain? Why does God have to put a seal on Cain, so that people would not kill him? He is obviously dealing with some very angry people, and the view is that those people had contact with Cain before the death of Abel (cf. the paper The Nephilim (No. 154)).

Who taught Cain how to kill? Who taught him how to be angry?

The story of Cain, Abel and Adam is the story, in human terms, of the rebellion of the Host. The two sons of God are represented by the two sons of Adam. Abel represents Christ. Cain is the equivalent of Satan - a rebel having the same pride and the same rejection of the Spirit of God that led Satan to make an act of rebellion. Thus he was banished down to earth. We see the anger portrayed was a simple process of moving away from the Law of God, and the spirit of a sound mind that God gives us. The first one to do that was Satan in his rebellion. God showed us clearly that the concept can be brought out in all aspects of our lives, and we need to stamp out the embryo of these negative thought processes when they occur in us.

Cain was jealous, self seeking and proud, and he could not accept criticism from God. Pride is the biggest cause of anger. A proud person will get angry before anyone, because he has a very high opinion of his position, and if we effect that he will become angry. He does not like criticism.

Exodus 10:1-11 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them,²and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your son's son how I have made sport of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them; that you may know that I am the LORD." ³So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, `How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. ⁴For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, ⁵and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land; and they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours which grows in the field, ⁶and they shall fill your houses, and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians; as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.'" Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh. ⁷And Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God; do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?"⁸So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh; and he said to them, "Go, serve the LORD your God; but who are to go?" ⁹And Moses said, "We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD." ¹⁰And he said to them, "The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. ¹¹No! Go, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you desire." And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. (RSV)

Pharaoh being a proud man was angry with Moses.

Exodus 10:12-16 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left." ¹³So Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night; and when it was morning the east wind had brought the locusts. ¹⁴And the locusts came up over all the land of Egypt, and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever shall be again. ¹⁵For they covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. ¹⁶Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron in haste, and said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you. (RSV)

We see a temporary repentance but the lessons hadn’t been learned.

Exodus 10:17-26 Now therefore, forgive my sin, I pray you, only this once, and entreat the LORD your God only to remove this death from me." ¹⁸So he went out from Pharaoh, and entreated the LORD. ¹⁹And the LORD turned a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. ²⁰But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. ²¹Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt." ²²So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; ²³they did not see one another, nor did any rise from his place for three days; but all the people of Israel had light where they dwelt. ²⁴Then Pharaoh called Moses, and said, "Go, serve the LORD; your children also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind." ²⁵But Moses said, "You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God. ²⁶Our cattle also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the LORD our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the LORD until we arrive there." (RSV)

The Israelites were the chosen of God and therefore had to go with Moses. There was no negotiation and this would have only further attacked the pride of Pharaoh. His ultimate decision was to go and attack and kill all the Israelites at the Red Sea. So we see by doing the will of God, we attack those against us. We are doing the same thing to those groups who hold power in our world, in our political systems, and our church systems. We make those people angry, and when Christ says blessed are those who are persecuted, it is because we attack the very structure of the world’s systems by standing up for what we are doing.

Numbers 22:21-30 So Balaam rose in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. ²²But God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him. ²³And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the road, and went into the field; and Balaam struck the ass, to turn her into the road. ²⁴Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. ²⁵And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she pushed against the wall, and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall; so he struck her again. ²⁶Then the angel of the LORD went ahead, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. ²⁷When the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam; and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the ass with his staff. ²⁸Then the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" ²⁹And Balaam said to the ass, "Because you have made sport of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you." ³⁰And the ass said to Balaam, "Am I not your ass, upon which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Was I ever accustomed to do so to you?" And he said, "No." (RSV)

We see again the anger when his pride is hurt. The donkey mocked him and he was allowed to be tested. He was tested in that way and his first reaction was to get angry. Secondly, it was to kill. We see the process and the destructive nature of anger.

Matthew 2:13-15 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." ¹⁴And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." (RSV)

When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi he was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity that were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. We see then that his pride again was attacked, and his first instinct based on anger was to kill. He went to the point of killing every child under the age of two. When we attack the pride of men they turn to anger and ultimately kill. Anger is the same concept as killing; it is murder; plainly and simply. We have seen that in three examples now.

Pride mixed with power, is an even more dangerous problem.

Daniel 3:10-15 You, O king, have made a decree, that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image; ¹¹and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. ¹²There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego. These men, O king, pay no heed to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up." ¹³Then Nebuchadnez'zar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego be brought. Then they brought these men before the king. ¹⁴Nebuchadnez'zar said to them, "Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image which I have set up? ¹⁵Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image which I have made, well and good; but if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace; and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?" (RSV)

We have a monarch who has set up a system contrary to the God system, and the three men of God stood up against it and refused to bow down to these foreign gods. We see a man in great power, a man of great pride, who has had his authority attacked, but not in a physical or a verbal way, but just by making a simple stand of refusing to agree with it. His whole structure was questioned and to question that structure was to question the rulership of Nebuchadnezzar. Anger and thus the threat of murder were again brought out.

These are biblical examples of human anger. There is anger today, and we see the same sort of thing in sport. Contact sports are an example of this concept. We see fights in football, basketball, American baseball, which are made into a spectacle, and people go for the spectacle of the fights. These men are put up as role models for the children. The angrier, tougher and more violent person we are on the sporting field, the more respect we have. We see that Satan in this world is twisting things. Our heroes are the Arnold Swartzeneggers of the world, who have glamorised and perfected anger to make it into something that is quite wonderful, exciting and great. It conditions us all, and it comes out in our advertising, our fashions and our social makeup, with the street gangs and the home boys, all sorts of things that are starting to form and create a large power on the streets in the world today.

Once a famous Australian footballer was arrested for selling military weapons. This man was a high profile footballer, and the children who were growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney saw this man who basically told them that he got caught, but it was all right to deal in military machine guns, and he was selling machine guns to the children in the streets of Sydney. We do not know how God is going to deal with that, but these men are glamorised, and their violence is glamorised on television. These men are never brought to question, and our leaders are not bringing these men to answer for their decisions.

Another form of anger that we have seen is personal attack. We saw this when we decided we wouldn’t go along with doctrinal changes in the churches to which we belonged. We made a stand and we all suffered personal attack for that. It is anger that others feel, because if we are right, they are wrong. It makes them angry because they would have to change the way they think and what they do.

If we are in a school situation and we are going to do something different from the rest of the group, we will receive attention for that position. What we are doing is diminishing their position. They will attack us regardless of what we have to say, or what we think. Luke 4 is a good example:

Luke 4:14-30 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country.¹⁵And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. ¹⁶And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; ¹⁷and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written, ¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, ¹⁹to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." ²⁰And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." ²²And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" ²³And he said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, `Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Caper'na-um, do here also in your own country.'" ²⁴And he said, "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.²⁵But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eli'jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; ²⁶and Eli'jah was sent to none of them but only to Zar'ephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. ²⁷And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli'sha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Na'aman the Syrian." ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. ²⁹And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. ³⁰But passing through the midst of them he went away. (RSV)

They wanted to kill Christ, the son of God, but of course they couldn’t. All Christ did was to speak the truth and they hated him for it. This was a personal attack. If one speaks the truth then one will be hated for it. The anger that dwelt in these people is something we are all going to come up against. How we master it, and do not allow ourselves to be sucked into the same mentality, is how we understand the concept that iron sharpens iron. When we understand the full process of this anger and where that thought process can lead, we can work on shutting it down very quickly.

God often uses anger and hostility to bring about His will as we have seen in our own personal lives. Sometimes He uses the anger of others to deal with us and make the relationship with Him one of dependence and reliance. God used the anger of other people to bring us into the church. We could see first hand that the spirit of anger we saw in people at that time was not a spirit of a sound mind.

People of the world tend to choose the churches that are in based on their own prejudices, and they do it to justify their own prejudices.

The Athanasian Church operating from Rome changed the Christian Faith to justify their prejudices against the Jewish system. Satan used those prejudices to move away from the Sabbath and the Holy Days. This was made possible by their anti-Semitism. They created their own religion to justify their prejudices (cf. the papers The Origin of Christmas and Easter (No. 235); The Golden Calf (No. 222); Heresy in the Apostolic Church (No. 089); The Cross: Its Origin and Significance (No. 039); Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127); Works of the Law Text - or MMT (No. 104); The Development of the Neo-Platonist Model (No. 017).

Many religions or sects of these days are built upon the prejudices of those involved. People like doctrines because they suit the individual’s lifestyle or because they like particular individuals in the sect. Many people look at a church based on their perceived needs and then attack other churches because they do not suit their particular paradigm.

This is not the way of choosing one's church. This places the individual in the position of making one responsible for that decision and nothing else. The real solution is to concentrate on the Law and the Bible as the determining lifestyle. One then has a set of rules with which to make rational decisions.

If we choose a church or anything material or human, then we are locked into that mindset with no foundation. The greatest anger comes from people who have dealt with their spirituality in that way.

One is then in an insidious psychological situation that forces one to move from one point of reference to another and forces one to oppose other points (often regardless of merit). It is very difficult then to recover or reverse one’s opinion. If all our decisions are based on the word of God we will not promote this human anger.

The Consequences of Anger

Job 5:2 For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one. (KJV)

Psalm 37:8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. (RSV)

Psalm 37:8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. (KJV)

Psalm 55:3 Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. (KJV)

Psalm 76:10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. (KJV)

Proverbs 6:34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. (KJV)

Proverbs 12:16 A fool's wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame. (KJV)

Proverbs 14:17 He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated. (KJV)

Proverbs 14:29 He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (RSV)

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. (KJV)

Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (RSV)

It can go on and on. We are given examples throughout Psalms and Proverbs. There are many proverbs that deal with anger. By studying those we can understand the consequences of anger. Then we read of other situations.

Exodus 22:24 And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. (KJV)

Exodus 33:5 For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. (KJV)

Numbers 11:1 And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. (KJV)

Numbers 11:10 Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased. (KJV)

Numbers 11:33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. (KJV)

Joshua 23:16 When ye have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you. (KJV)

We have just read in Proverbs and Psalms about the consequences of anger and how wrong anger is. We have seen the examples, and yet there are multitudes of verses dealing with the anger of God. Obviously we are dealing with a different anger, and that anger is the haron that we talked about at the beginning, the divine anger; the burning anger. So are we saying then that it is all right for God and Christ to be angry, but it is not all right for us, because God is God? That would be the same mentality as saying. “well I am an apostle, or “I am a minister, so I am above the law”. It is the same logic. If there is a position where Christ or God can be angry, then the concept is that there is a time for us to be angry. There are situations where we should be angry. On looking at the definition of anger it becomes evident that it is seen as being a zeal for work. The work it is talking about is a zeal for the work or God. Anger about what is happening will give us that zeal for the work of God. Correctly used it is a powerful tool for good.

Matthew 21:1-16 And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth'phage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,²saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If any one says anything to you, you shall say, `The Lord has need of them,' and he will send them immediately." ⁴This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, ⁵"Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass." ⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them;⁷they brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon.⁸Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"¹⁰And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, "Who is this?" ¹¹And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." ¹²And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹³He said to them, "It is written, `My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers." ¹⁴And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant; ¹⁶and they said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, `Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast brought perfect praise'?" (RSV)

In verse twelve, Jesus was not happy when he did this. One does not go in all smiling and overturn things, and kick people out of the synagogue. Christ was angry. He was angry because his temple, his place of worship, had been profaned. Within minutes of being in this rage of expelling these people of being angry at this profanity, he started healing. This was almost straight away. He wasn’t angry with those people. He was angry at a practice. We are commanded to hate sin, not to hate sinners.

This concept of cleansing the Temple is an analogy for us on purging sin from our lives. Christ didn’t purge sin from himself as an example to us. He was blameless in all his ways. He went into a temple, a synagogue, and cleaned out the poison within the synagogue by cleaning out the practises. That is an example and an obligation or a duty for us. We too must look to purge our problems from within our structures, and from within our biblical government structures; i.e. the Church (cf. the papers Sanctification of the Temple of God (No. 241); Josiah’s Restoration (No. 245); God’s Feasts as they relate to the Creation (No. 227).

The reason everyone is together in the Christian Churches of God is because we wanted to do just that, to purge error and sin from our midst. When we were sitting in the aisles in our previous churches, and doctrinal changes were being made, and all sorts of different ideas were being presented, we became angry. We saw that the word of God was being profaned and we were stirred into action, and we were given zeal. It is that anger that brought us all together. We don’t hate anyone in the other churches. We are not angry with them. We are angry at the fact that these doctrines exist.

If we are sitting in any church and we know that there are wrongs being preached, and we don’t stand up, and we don’t tip over the money-changers table, then we are not fulfilling the obligation that Christ set out. God allows the anger of the world to destroy itself, and that is part of the judgement on all people. It kills ninety percent or more of the world’s population and that is allowed to happen because of God’s anger, because His laws are not being kept. What Christ is saying here when he is cleansing the temple, is if you want to save lives, then get haron; get angry against the profaning of the law. That is the anger that we have to develop; that concept of hating sin will stir us to action.

What we do is to perform tasks, and draw these problems to the attention of people. If we are in a church that is preaching wrong doctrine, then we have an obligation to write to the ministers and tell them that we are angry about the profaning of the law.

Many in this church have gone through that process, and that is a testimony to the concept being developed here. One thing that is obvious is that we are getting attacked a lot in speaking the truth. People don’t address what we say; they attack us as individuals. That is part of that human anger spoken about before. It is very easy to get into that situation. By pointing out the weaknesses in others people can justify their own position.

That is not what we are here about. We don’t get involved with people who do that, because it is not Christian; it is not the mindset that we are trying to develop. There is a time to be angry, and there is also unrighteous anger. God gets angry when He sees His laws profaned, and we too should be stirred up over that fact. We should not be ashamed to feel angry that the laws are not being kept. We, by Christ’s example, are being commissioned and commanded, and given duties and obligations to see that the laws are kept.

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