Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000108S
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00:00 - Now, I don't know about you,
00:01 but there are these moments in life 00:03 when I'm in a really stressful situation, 00:06 and I can feel my temperature start to rise, 00:09 and I'm pretty sure if I don't walk away 00:11 from that situation right then and there, 00:14 I'm gonna blow my stack. 00:16 And then, of course, a few minutes later, 00:18 I'm gonna hate myself for doing that. 00:20 Today on "Authentic", we're gonna talk 00:23 about getting unjustifiably angry. 00:26 [soft pensive music] 00:38 [soft pensive music continues] 00:47 The other day I was running over to the hardware store 00:49 to get some furniture polish, 00:51 when I think I probably met the angriest guy in town. 00:54 Now, right up front, I should probably confess my sins. 00:58 I was in a hurry, and I was obviously breaking 01:00 parking lot protocol, because the lot 01:02 was almost completely empty. 01:05 So, like I've done in the past, I cut across the lot 01:08 diagonally to get to the spot where I wanted to be, 01:11 and my infraction was more than this guy could handle. 01:14 He was pushing a cart with what looked to be 01:16 some bags of garden soil, and honestly, 01:19 I came nowhere near him. 01:21 I'm not even close. 01:22 But I could hear him cursing me 01:25 through the closed windows of my car. 01:27 Now when I stopped and rolled down my window, 01:29 he was ready for me. 01:30 And because this is a family show, 01:33 I cannot repeat what he said. 01:34 But man, he was hot. 01:36 It was the weirdest case of road rage I've ever seen. 01:40 Obscene gestures, foul words, 01:42 and when I tried to talk to him, 01:44 it only made things worse. 01:45 He just got madder. 01:47 Eventually, I gave up. 01:48 I told him I'm sorry he was having such a hard day, 01:51 and I hoped that things would start to improve. 01:53 And I walked away. 01:55 It was one of those rare times when you see 01:57 somebody coming completely unglued. 02:00 And who knows what was going on in this poor guy's life 02:03 before I got there? 02:05 Maybe he'd just discovered his spouse was leaving him, 02:08 or maybe he'd just been fired, 02:10 or maybe he's quitting a long time habit, like alcohol, 02:13 or cigarettes, or even prescription drugs, 02:16 and his body chemistry was all out of whack. 02:19 I mean, who really knows what kinds of things 02:22 lead up to that moment when the camel's back finally breaks? 02:27 I mean, if we're honest, we'd have to admit 02:29 we've all been there. 02:30 There comes a moment when your bottled up stress 02:32 finally gets to you, and you start to dump 02:35 on some poor victim who just happens to be there 02:38 when you finally hit the limit. 02:40 I've seen it happen in workplaces, 02:42 on the freeway, in a shopping mall, 02:44 and more and more and more, I've been seeing it 02:48 happen in airports and on airplanes. 02:50 It's as if the stress of travel 02:52 suddenly pushes some people over the precipice. 02:55 Now from where I sit, it seems like our collective anxiety 02:59 in this society is rising. 03:01 People are more frustrated, they're more anxious, 03:04 and of course, that means that a lot of people 03:06 are getting angrier, too. 03:09 And if we're honest about this, we'd have to admit 03:11 that we've all made contributions to the overall problem. 03:14 I mean, if you're human, you've done it. 03:17 And then when you're finished blowing up, 03:19 you suddenly pass through several different 03:21 phases of thinking. 03:22 First, you kind of hate yourself for losing control, 03:26 and then you justify what you did, 03:28 identifying the people who provoked you, 03:30 or the circumstances that shouldn't have been 03:33 allowed to happen. 03:34 And then, as your anger begins to dissipate, 03:37 you find yourself mentally revisiting that moment 03:40 30 seconds before you lost your cool, 03:43 and you wonder what you might have done differently. 03:46 Then, after some time goes by, there's a pretty good chance 03:48 that you begin to realize that you probably owe 03:51 somebody an apology. 03:53 I mean, they did do the wrong thing, 03:56 but it really wasn't worth the level of anger 03:58 you expressed, and maybe you even escalated 04:01 the situation unnecessarily until it lost 04:04 all sense of proportion. 04:06 When you and I get angry, we often lose control, 04:10 which can lead to an awful lot 04:12 of shame and regret. 04:14 And because of the way we experience anger, 04:17 a lot of people have trouble with the idea 04:18 that God might also get angry. 04:21 "I don't know what kinda god you worship," 04:23 I've heard some people say. 04:24 "But my god doesn't get angry." 04:28 As if we all get to reinvent or redefine God 04:31 to suit our own sensibilities. 04:34 But let me ask you this. 04:35 Does God actually get angry? 04:37 That's what I want to explore today, 04:38 the concept of God's wrath. 04:41 For this generation, that's become an uncomfortable subject, 04:44 because over the centuries, the Christian church 04:47 has often painted a very unfair picture 04:49 of who God is and what he's like. 04:52 Preachers have been known to describe God 04:53 as a severe, unforgiving, angry deity 04:57 who can't wait to deliver his wrath on your head. 05:00 Just make one wrong move, and that angry God's 05:02 gonna strike you dead. 05:04 All he needs is the slightest excuse. 05:09 We preached a God who can't wait to be rid of human beings, 05:11 a God who even hates us, and maybe, just maybe, 05:15 he'll accept you into his kingdom 05:17 if you somehow manage to find a legal loophole, 05:20 but it's gonna be begrudgingly. 05:22 It's a regrettable portrait of God 05:25 that isn't really supported by the writers of the Bible. 05:29 After all, the most pointed explanation 05:31 of the character of God that you find in the Bible 05:34 is one single word. 05:35 That word is love. 05:37 And if there's one thing that some preachers 05:40 have been guilty of, it's skipping right past 05:42 that definition of love to preach 05:45 about the condemnation of sinners. 05:48 But you know, there's another ditch that we fall into 05:50 sometimes, and that's ignoring what the Bible 05:52 actually says about the wrath of God. 05:56 It's an uncomfortable subject, to be sure. 05:58 And here in America, a lot of consumer-driven churches 06:01 don't seem to think that God's anger is good advertising. 06:05 That concept sometimes leads to a one dimensional 06:09 meaningless God who always seems to think 06:11 that everything's A-okay, no matter what happens to who. 06:16 But in our more honest moments, we have to admit 06:18 there's no way to read the Bible 06:20 and avoid what it says about God getting angry. 06:23 Let me give you just one example 06:25 from the Book of Numbers, 06:26 where it tells us that God decided 06:28 to punish the nation of Israel. 06:31 It says, "And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, 06:35 "and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years 06:37 "until all the generation that had done evil 06:40 "in the sight of the Lord was gone." 06:43 Now let's be honest about that. 06:44 There's no way of getting around what it said. 06:47 You can't just dismiss that as some kind 06:49 of semantic misunderstanding. 06:51 It tells us that Israel provoked God 06:53 to the point of anger, and what exactly was it 06:57 that made him angry? 06:59 Evil behavior. 07:00 So, maybe the preachers of yesterday 07:03 who pointed to the wrath of God kind of had a point. 07:06 Sometimes, the almighty God really does get angry. 07:11 And I think there are reasons we tend to squirm 07:13 when we think about that. 07:14 First of all, most of us realize that when the Bible 07:17 says that every one of us falls dramatically short 07:20 of the glory of God, and we think about the way 07:22 we've chosen to live, the decisions we've made, 07:25 the people we've hurt, well, it's not too hard 07:28 to understand that could easily be directed at us, 07:32 and we would have it coming. 07:34 So from that perspective, we'd like God's anger 07:37 not to be true. 07:40 But then, you know, I think there's another reason 07:41 that some people find the idea of an angry God 07:44 to be really unsettling. 07:45 It's because they've been the victim 07:47 of some human being's anger, and they were hurt by it. 07:50 Maybe they spent their childhood in an abusive home, 07:53 or they've just escaped from an abusive marriage, 07:56 or maybe they're the ones with an anger problem, 07:59 and they know full well they have victimized 08:01 an awful lot of people. 08:02 So, of course, when they read about the wrath of God, 08:05 that can stir up a lot of painful emotions and memories, 08:08 because they're projecting unjust human anger 08:11 onto the character of God, 08:13 and to some extent, that's understandable, 08:15 because all we really have in this world 08:17 is a human perspective. 08:19 When we wanna know what God is like, 08:21 we tend to compare him to our own experience, 08:24 and that's kind of where the problem lies. 08:26 Of course we anthropomorphize God, 08:29 because that's what the writers of the Bible do. 08:31 God relates to us in human terms. 08:34 And then, of course, he suddenly shows up in Bethlehem 08:36 as one of us, and encourages us to learn more 08:40 about him as a real live human being. 08:43 Then what we sometimes do is run the comparison 08:45 in the wrong direction. 08:47 We compare God to ourselves instead of the other way around. 08:51 I'll be right back after this. 08:54 [soft music] 08:56 [bright music] 08:57 - [Announcer 1] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 08:59 we're committed to creating top quality programming 09:00 for the whole family, like our audio adventure series, 09:03 "Discovery Mountain". 09:05 "Discovery Mountain" is a Bible-based program 09:08 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 09:10 Your family will enjoy the faith building stories 09:13 from this small mountain summer camp and down. 09:15 With 24 seasonal episodes every year, 09:18 and fresh content every week, 09:20 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 09:26 - You know, I think one of the trickiest bits 09:29 about learning to read the Bible 09:30 is the tension between the fact that God 09:32 is somewhat like us on the one hand, 09:34 because we're made in his image, 09:36 but then on the other, we have the fact 09:38 that God is not like us, because we're fallen. 09:40 So, when the Bible tells us in 1 John 4 Verse 8, 09:44 that God is love, we can, to some extent, 09:47 grasp that concept, because human beings 09:50 also practice love and tend to treasure it. 09:53 But then once you really start to examine it carefully, 09:56 the Bible suddenly reveals that God practices love 09:59 in a way that you and I can't. 10:02 His love is bigger, it's better, 10:04 and it's completely selfless, 10:06 which leaves you wondering. 10:08 What would pure love, completely uncompromised 10:11 by human brokenness, actually look like? 10:15 The same thing happens with the Bible's 10:17 treatment of anger. 10:18 There's just no getting around the idea 10:20 that God gets angry. 10:22 It gets mentioned in the Bible far too often 10:24 to just dismiss it. 10:26 And of course our natural tendency is to compare 10:29 God's wrath to our own, just like we do with love, 10:33 and what we discover is that God's anger 10:36 is not exactly like ours. 10:38 There's a very brief statement 10:40 over in the Book of Psalms that kind of underlines 10:42 this concept. 10:43 "Be angry," it says, "And do not sin. 10:46 "Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent." 10:50 Now, tell me that description isn't different 10:52 from your human anger. 10:54 I mean, how many times have you been upset, 10:56 and the way you handled it was completely selfless, 11:00 completely sinless? 11:02 This is what makes you suspect that anger is always wrong, 11:05 no matter what the circumstances, 11:07 but according to the Bible, 11:08 anger is actually a perfectly valid emotion. 11:13 But it can become wrong very quickly, 11:15 the way that you and I do it. 11:17 In a fit of anger, it's easy to let selfish concerns 11:20 start to dominate, and it's easy to lose control 11:23 of our rational faculties, so that we start 11:25 to act in irrational ways. 11:28 The task that challenges the student of the Bible 11:30 is to learn to exercise legitimate anger 11:33 in a Godly way, what some would call righteous indignation. 11:38 And I know, there are people who really struggle 11:41 with the idea of a God who gets angry, 11:42 but again, it's really, really important 11:45 not to take our own experience with anger 11:47 and project it onto God. 11:49 God gets angry, all right, but not the way that we do, 11:52 and honestly, let's think about this. 11:55 Would you really want a God who never gets angry? 11:59 Many years ago, I went to this New Year's Eve party 12:02 where there was an elderly woman sitting in the corner 12:05 watching TV. 12:06 Sadly, she was struggling with dementia, 12:09 so that was about all she could handle, just to sit there. 12:12 And of course, because it was New Year's Eve, 12:14 a lot of TV stations were showing the year in review, 12:17 the highlights, the news stories that happened 12:19 over the last 12 months. 12:21 And at one point, they came to the case 12:23 of a notorious serial killer who'd been executed 12:26 during that year, and they were very briefly 12:30 listing some of the terrible crimes 12:32 he'd committed against children. 12:35 Now, this lady was understanding enough of that broadcast 12:37 that she started to fidget in her seat. 12:40 She was getting visibly upset, 12:42 and at one point, to the surprise of the people 12:45 who were not watching that TV, she suddenly blurted out 12:48 her indignation, telling us exactly what she thought 12:51 of that guy. 12:52 It was a pretty good example of righteous indignation. 12:57 So of course, it makes us angry when an evil person 13:00 hurts the innocent. 13:01 And of course it makes us especially angry 13:03 when children are involved. 13:05 This ministry is currently involved 13:07 in rescuing young girls from the sex trade in India, 13:10 and I'm not sure I can adequately describe 13:12 how it makes me feel when I hear about grown men 13:15 who use these young girls for unspeakable things. 13:20 That kind of stuff should make us angry. 13:22 I mean, what kind of a person just shrugs their shoulders 13:25 and chooses to be completely indifferent? 13:28 So think about this. 13:30 Why would we think that God should never get angry, 13:33 especially when you consider the fact that he has to witness 13:35 all of our evil acts combined? 13:39 Would you even want a God who isn't bothered 13:42 by pain and suffering? 13:44 I like how Garrett Kaiser puts it 13:46 in his book, "The Enigma of Anger". 13:48 He writes, "The thoroughly gentle God, 13:51 "the unceasingly kind God, the God of the unalterable smile 13:55 "is also the fairy God, the clown God, 13:57 "the stuffed animal God, perhaps not a great deal 14:00 "more helpful than the threadbare little giraffe 14:03 "that a child clutches in his dark room 14:05 "as he winces with every cry 14:06 "from his battered mother's throat, 14:09 "the God who never gets mad for fear of offending the abused 14:13 "must sooner or later be construed as the God 14:15 "who never gets mad at the abuser." 14:19 A god who never gets angry would be 14:21 a one-dimensional work of fiction, 14:23 a god without real personhood, 14:25 a vague, impersonal presence, 14:27 a nebulous deity whose more like the force from "Star Wars" 14:31 than he is the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 14:34 And of course, ultimately, he would be a god 14:37 who didn't really care about the suffering 14:39 of his own children. 14:42 Maybe you've noticed some of those passages in the Bible 14:44 where Jesus himself is said to get angry. 14:47 Like this one, found in the Gospel of Mark 14:50 when he realizes that the religious leaders 14:52 are more worried about their interpretation of the rules 14:56 than they are about people. 14:58 Listen to this. 14:59 It says, "And he said to them, 'Is it lawful on the Sabbath 15:03 "'to do good, or to do harm, to save life or to kill?' 15:07 "But they were silent. 15:08 "And he looked around at them with anger, 15:11 "grieved at their hardness of heart." 15:14 So here's the important question 15:16 I really want you to wrestle with. 15:18 What exactly is it that makes God mad? 15:21 Let's start to piece together an answer 15:23 from the pages of the Bible itself. 15:26 In the Book of Revelations, Chapter 16, 15:28 we find a description of God's final wrath 15:31 as its poured out during the seven last plagues. 15:34 And the chapter opens like this. 15:37 "Then I heard a loud voice from the temple 15:39 "telling the seven angels, 'Go and pour out on the earth 15:42 "'the seven bowls of the wrath of God.'" 15:46 According to John, this will be the final display 15:50 of God's wrath against sin, 15:52 right before the second coming of Christ. 15:54 And back in Revelation 15, 15:57 these seven bowls are called the seven last plagues. 16:00 Why are they the last ones? 16:03 It's because they're emulating another set of plagues, 16:06 one that you probably know about. 16:08 In the Book of Revelation, John uses language 16:10 from the Old Testament. 16:11 About two thirds of what he writes 16:14 is actually imagery from other parts of the Bible, 16:16 and one of the books that it draws on most heavily 16:20 is the Book of Exodus. 16:21 In fact, if you glance through Revelation 15, 16:24 you'll see a description of God's redeemed people 16:27 singing something called "The Song of Moses". 16:30 [soft piano music] 16:32 What it's doing is comparing the ultimate liberation 16:35 of this world to Israel's liberation from Egypt. 16:39 And you remember that right before Israel left 16:41 for the Promised Land, God sent 10 devastating plagues 16:45 on a Pharaoh who refused to let his people go free. 16:48 That would make these the first plagues, 16:51 and they were also an expression of God's anger. 16:54 Somebody was harming his children, 16:57 and they refused to stop doing it. 17:00 Which brings me to the original encounter 17:02 between God and Moses, the one you find 17:04 at the burning bush. 17:06 It takes place right before Moses goes 17:08 into the Pharaoh's palace to deliver the news 17:11 that God intended to free his people. 17:13 And as soon as we take another really quick break, 17:16 I'll come back to liberate you from the suspense 17:19 of not knowing what I'm gonna read next. 17:21 I'll be right back after this. 17:26 [soft music] 17:28 - [Announcer 2] Life can throw a lot at us. 17:30 Sometimes, we don't have all the answers, 17:33 but that's where the Bible comes in. 17:35 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 17:39 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, we've created 17:41 the Discovery Bible Guides to be your guide to the Bible. 17:44 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 17:46 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions, 17:49 and they're absolutely free, 17:51 so jump online now, or give us a call, 17:54 and start your journey of discovery. 17:57 - All right. 17:58 Just before the break, we were headed 17:59 to Exodus Chapter 3, where Moses talks to God 18:02 for the very first time. 18:04 Of course, this takes place right before Pharaoh 18:07 refuses to liberate the Hebrews, 18:10 at which point, God delivers the plagues, 18:12 which reveal his displeasure with the Egyptian prince 18:16 in a really tangible way. 18:18 So listen to this. 18:19 As God is about to tell Moses 18:21 to go to Egypt to confront the Pharaoh, 18:23 you'll find this in Exodus Chapter 3. 18:26 It says, "And now, behold, the cry of the people 18:30 "of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen 18:33 "the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 18:36 "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring 18:39 "my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." 18:43 So what is it that provokes God's anger? 18:46 Suffering. 18:48 It's the individuals who use other people 18:50 for their own selfish purposes. 18:52 God essentially tells Moses, look, I know that some people 18:56 think I don't respond when people are suffering, 18:58 but I haven't missed a thing. 19:00 I have heard the cries of my people, 19:03 every single one of them. 19:05 A couple of verses earlier, 19:07 God says this. 19:09 "Then the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction 19:12 "'of my people who are in Egypt, 19:14 "'and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. 19:18 "'I know their sufferings.'" 19:21 So what is that really angers God? 19:24 It's the way that sin and selfishness hurts us. 19:27 I mean, I know it's impossible, 19:30 but for a moment, try to look at all of this 19:32 from God's perspective. 19:33 When the human race was ushered into existence 19:36 back in Genesis Chapter 1, God stood back, 19:39 looked at the entire creation, 19:41 and said, "Behold, it is very good." 19:44 [soft music] 19:46 In the beginning, there was no suffering. 19:47 There was no pain, no funerals, no hospitals, 19:52 no broken people sitting on a sidewalk, 19:54 hoping for a little bit of change 19:56 so that maybe today, they won't have to rummage 19:59 through a trash bin. 20:01 God's children, you and me, we were designed for joy, 20:05 and when we had children, it was the same thing. 20:08 That was supposed to bring us joy. 20:10 There was no such thing as neglect or child abuse. 20:15 But now, in sharp contrast to the way 20:17 that we tend to see the world, God sees everything, 20:20 all of the pain, all of the suffering, 20:23 all of the heartbreak, and he knows full well 20:25 this is not what he intended. 20:28 You and I have taken something marvelous, 20:30 something designed to reveal a god of love, 20:32 and we have twisted it, making it about us instead. 20:37 So then you've got to wonder, why doesn't God 20:39 just blow the whistle, and stop it? 20:42 That's probably the number one question I get 20:44 as a minister, why doesn't God just put a stop to it? 20:48 And I'll be honest, sometimes I've been hurt so badly 20:52 that I find myself asking the same thing. 20:54 Why don't you just stop it, God? 20:56 But then it occurs to me, if God were to start 20:59 systematically eliminating evil, 21:01 where exactly would I want him to stop? 21:04 Before he gets to me? 21:06 Because as much as I'd like to tell you 21:07 I'm not a part of the problem, I know I am. 21:10 So are you. 21:12 Oh, for sure, maybe you and I haven't committed 21:14 the kind of unspeakable crimes that people remember 21:17 when they're talking about the year in review, 21:20 but you know full well you've contributed to the mess. 21:24 I mean, let's just be honest, 21:26 just how certain are you that you've never, ever, 21:29 ever hurt somebody? 21:30 How confident are you that your actions 21:33 haven't been a major source of discouragement 21:35 for somebody else? 21:37 How do you know for sure that somebody out there, 21:39 when they think back about how hard 21:41 their life has been, when they're trying to assess 21:44 just where everything went wrong, 21:46 and how they got hurt, how sure are you 21:49 that you never come to mind? 21:51 "The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man," 21:54 it tells us in the Book of Psalms, 21:56 "To see if there are any who understand 21:58 "who seek after God. 22:00 "They have all turned aside, 22:01 "together they have become corrupt. 22:03 "There is none who does good, not even one." 22:09 Can I really convince myself that my sins 22:11 are less serious than somebody else's? 22:14 I know the temptation to think that 22:16 is pretty overwhelming, and it's easy to point 22:19 to the serial killers and the architects of the Third Reich 22:21 and say, "At least I'm not like that." 22:24 But then I'm reminded of that parable that Jesus told 22:27 about the Pharisee in the public. 22:30 "Two men went up into the temple to pray," he said. 22:33 "One, a Pharisee, and the other, a tax collector. 22:37 "The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. 22:40 "'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, 22:43 "'extortioners, unjust, adulterers, 22:46 "'or even like this tax collector.'" 22:50 You know, even the pride we feel 22:53 when we think that our behavior 22:54 isn't quite as bad as somebody else's, 22:57 well, that constitutes yet another crime 23:00 against the God of heaven. 23:01 I mean, let's suppose that the entire human race 23:04 is on a bell curve, and you've got the righteous life 23:07 of Christ on the right-hand side of the curve, 23:11 and all the rest of humanity to the left. 23:14 Where exactly do you think your dot would be 23:16 on that line? 23:17 Do you really think that you'd make it up 23:20 out of the bottom two or five percent? 23:25 Am I so far ahead of the guy on death row 23:27 that I'd be able to see a difference 23:29 from the perspective of heaven? 23:31 From what I've read in this book, I'm guessing no. 23:33 And just imagine the pain God must feel 23:36 when he sees the collective pain that you and I have caused, 23:39 when he sees the tear-soaked pillows 23:41 of the people we've hurt. 23:43 You and I get justifiably angry 23:45 when we see somebody hurt our children. 23:48 How exactly would you expect a loving God to feel 23:51 in the same situation, when you and I level hatred 23:54 against each other? 23:56 I'll be right back after this. 23:59 [soft music] 24:02 [soft tense music] 24:03 - [Announcer 3] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues. 24:07 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid, and confusing. 24:11 If you've ever read Daniel or Revelation 24:13 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 24:16 Our free Focus on Prophecy guides 24:19 are designed to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 24:22 and deepen your understanding of God's plan 24:24 for you and our world. 24:26 Study online, or request them by mail, 24:28 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 24:32 - Okay, let me tell you what I'm not saying, 24:34 just so I'm perfectly clear and don't get 24:36 a bunch of letters. 24:38 I really do think there's a world of difference 24:40 between what somebody like John Wayne Gacy did 24:44 and what most of you do, at least, I hope so. 24:47 Is there a moral difference between killing somebody 24:50 for the sake of entertainment and say, I don't know, 24:53 taking a pen home from work, or cheating on your taxes? 24:57 Yeah, probably. 24:59 But all of us, absolutely all of us, 25:02 are part of the problem, 25:03 and we're fortunate that God's wrath 25:06 against the pain and suffering we've caused 25:08 is tempered by his unbelievable love and mercy. 25:12 One of my very favorite statements in the Bible 25:14 comes from Peter's Second Letter, 25:16 where he's talking about the line in the sand 25:19 that God has drawn, the line where he finally 25:22 brings it all to an end, because he cannot stand 25:26 the suffering, and he reveals the reason 25:28 that God has not yet started to systematically remove 25:31 everything that's evil. 25:33 Not yet. 25:34 Just listen to what he writes. 25:36 "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise 25:39 "as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, 25:43 "not wishing that any should perish, 25:45 "but that all should reach repentance." 25:49 That statement, if you think about it, 25:51 it's really almost beyond all comprehension. 25:54 If you would take the time to read this whole book, 25:57 you'd discover that God has actually figured out 25:59 how to stop evil without having necessarily to lose you. 26:05 God really can be perfectly just, 26:08 and perfectly merciful, at the very same time. 26:12 But us, you and me, on the other hand, 26:14 we haven't even gotten close, 26:17 because when we get mad, 26:19 it's usually not righteous indignation. 26:22 In fact, that's pretty rare. 26:24 It does happen, there is such a thing, 26:27 but not most of the time, 26:29 and we all kinda know that. 26:30 We all kinda know what we're made of 26:32 if we're honest for a moment. 26:34 [soft music] 26:36 So, how could I learn to be angry 26:38 and not sin at the very same time? 26:40 Maybe the answer is here. 26:43 Maybe the answer is understanding 26:44 the patience of God with me. 26:47 Maybe the answer is this thought 26:49 found in the 103rd Psalm. 26:52 Here's what that says. 26:53 "The Lord is merciful and gracious, 26:56 "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 26:59 "He will not always chide, nor will he keep 27:01 "his anger forever. 27:02 "He does not deal with us according to our sins, 27:05 "nor repay us according to our inequities, 27:08 "for as high as the heavens are above the earth, 27:10 "so great is his steadfast love toward those 27:13 "who fear him." 27:16 For if you forgive others their trespasses, 27:18 Jesus taught during the sermon on the mount, 27:20 your heavenly father will also forgive you. 27:24 Now that kinda puts it all in perspective, doesn't it? 27:27 Personally, I'm pretty sure I've got as much reason 27:29 to be sorry as I do to be mad in this world, 27:32 and I'm guessing that's probably true for you, too. 27:36 How to conquer anger, focus on Christ. 27:39 How to understand God's anger, focus on Christ. 27:42 At the foot of the cross, it's gonna start 27:45 to make a lot of sense. 27:47 Thanks for joining me today. 27:48 I'm Shawn Boonstra. 27:50 You've been watching another episode of "Authentic". 27:54 [soft pensive music] 28:06 [soft pensive music continues] 28:16 [soft pensive music continues] |
Revised 2024-09-11