109: John Evans - A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. Thank you so much for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help each one of us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post at the start of each week for you to listen with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to hear. And now let's hear more about this week's talk. This week's class is a midweek Bible class presented in 2016 by Brother John Evans at the Tea Tree Goli Ecclesia in South Australia. The title is Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath. This is the second class of two classes that he gave. They were both really, really good. So I would suggest looking them up on Christadelphianbibletalks.com where he also has his slides, which is helpful if you are going through these classes with your Bible open. That has all the passages laid out.

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   And the class was excellent. An excellent study on, I think, a really difficult but also really practical topic in anger. I think it was interesting. He does a great balance of kind of citing lots of passages and kind of working through different sections, but then also really applying it to our lives as individuals, as parents, as members of the Ecclesia. And then I think the really compelling section at the end was when we're angry with God. That's at the end of the class. So this was a suggestion from a listener, and I thank that person very much. And we live so much on those recommendations.

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   Very much appreciated this class and appreciate any feedback we can get. So please, if you, have a class of mine, please send it over to us at our email or through our social channels. But in the meantime, here is John Evans, class two, a soft answer, turneth away wrath. Thank you very much for all of you who came and spoke to me last time and those who have emailed me throughout the week to talk about this subject. I really appreciate that because it's wonderful when we get a subject up and then people want to keep coming and talking about it. Someone said, well, what you've done is given us permission to talk about it. No. You know what? There's no subject we don't have permission to talk about. Sometimes we don't see it jumping readily out of the Bible at us, but actually everything we're talking about is found in the pages of God's Word.

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   Otherwise, we have to say, well, why are we calling it a Wednesday night Bible class? And it's just thoughts about what we think. It's actually the Word of God that's speaking to us, isn't it? We can sit here on a Sunday morning, can't we, as brethren and sisters, and we can look around and think, well, nobody else would have an issue with anger in their life. It's just me. And I think perhaps what lots of us discovered was, no, a lot of our brethren and sisters, as we explored the scriptures last week together, actually had a problem with anger. And we got an opportunity to see how God worked them through those situations. And we'll see the same again tonight. One thing that might have struck you like it struck me, that is in the Old Testament, 455 times the word anger is used, and of that 375 times, or 82%, it refers to Yahweh being angry with the wicked or the nations or Israel. And we looked at that together, didn't we? We also looked at the five steps about what happens to us when we become angry and how we can actually stop from turning anger into sin.

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   Remember, anger was like that big red light, we said, in the dashboard of life that flashes at us and says, something's wrong. The challenge for us then is, what do we do about it? We looked at five points, which was first of all, identify that we're angry. Otherwise, we don't really know what's going on and we're quick to respond, aren't we? We then need to show restraint. Perhaps it's count to 10 or 100 or 1,000 or whatever it might be for each individual case. Because the Proverbs told us in chapter 14, verse 17, he that's soon angry dealeth foolishly. We look at why we were really angry, what was really driving the anger. We analyse our options and say, okay, what can I do about this?

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   And we looked at the options that we can follow, which were really two as brethren and sisters and disciples of Christ. And then take constructive action, either suffer ourselves to be defrauded or in love to confront the individual and to try and remedy the situation. We looked at good anger, didn't we? Anger that God feels towards situations. When he looks upon something that's evil and it distresses him and he says he's angry about that. And we saw the example of David and Nathan when Nathan came and told him that parable and David was very angry or he said his anger was greatly kindled because of the injustice of what that rich man in the story had done to the poor man and stole in his one little ewe lamb and barbecued it for the visitors.

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   And we looked at bad anger, didn't we? Bad anger where actually we allow ourselves to become upset and focus just on ourselves and why we're so upset and what's happened to us and the way we've been treated, whether that was real or whether it was the way we felt we've been treated and we've become angry. Well tonight, we mentioned last time, we have some subjects we want to try and get through in our period. First of all, we want to look at explosive and implosive anger.

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   We want to look at anger and forgiveness, anger in families and the problems that causes, husbands, wives, parents, children. Being angry at yourself, how to speak to an angry person from the scriptures and then, as we said, we look at when we're angry or if we've ever been angry with God and what does that mean? So starting off with explosive and implosive anger, what do we mean? Well, when we allow anger to affect our life, we experience either the reaction which is an explosion, we get angry, or we implode. We just take it all within us. And of course, the greatest challenge we saw last week was to do what Paul said, be angry and sin not. And so we want to think that through. How do we allow anger to motivate us to do something but not sin? And as we said, for us as human beings, it's very difficult.

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   Our Lord Jesus Christ managed that perfectly. But of course, we recognise he did everything perfectly. Everything that he did in his life was a perfect balance following his father. And of course, we think about it, we think about the number of times that anger, we've used anger in our life and it actually hasn't helped. It's actually inflamed the situation. It's made something that was bad, really bad.

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    And we don't want to end up in that position, do we? We want to be able to control and manage harmful expressions of anger. So what's an explosive anger? Well, someone who just launches straight away into a dialogue of being angry with an individual. You know what? They raise their mind, they raise their mind. They raise their voice and speak their mind. And we said last time, speaking your mind when you're angry is not a good thing to do. Someone once wrote a quote and he said, he who flies into anger will always make a bad landing. You fly off the hook, you get angry, it's going to end in tears. It's not going to be a good result when you are expressing that angrily to somebody else. Or of course, you get the situation, you might see this in the workplace, hopefully you don't see it at home, but let's be really honest about ourselves. We're here to talk about ourselves, not our partner, our husband, our wife or our children. We have to actually fix our life, don't we, by reflecting on the word of God. Person who vents their anger by slamming doors or pushing things over and telling anyone who will listen, anyone who will listen. And that might be someone who's four doors down the street, depending on how loudly you're shouting.

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    Anyone who will listen, how they are so angry and what has gone wrong for them. Both of those are examples of explosive anger. Some person's just exploded. There's no rationale behind it. And if that sort of behaviour goes on for a long period of time, weeks, months, dare I say it, even years, this person's going to need help. They've shown that they've fallen into a pattern of behaviour where every time something goes a little awry in their life, they just fly off the hook. Do you know what the challenge with that is? It's hard to go and say to that person, you're struggling with anger, because guess what happens? They get angry at you. They're not prepared to listen. Or the other way around, if someone comes to you and says you're getting angry, think about it. Before you tell them that you're not getting angry in a very loud voice, perhaps they're coming as a brother or sister to help you understand that you actually really are angry. Explosive anger, whether it's verbal or physical, we'd hope it's never physical and should never be verbal, is not acceptable. It's not a correct way to handle our anger. All right then, John, so what should we do? We just hold it all inside. No, that's not what we should do. We looked at that briefly last week too. When we hold anger inside and implode, as it were, you might not see the damage, but internally it's huge. What's happening is you're taking all this pressure inside you and you're not prepared to release it. Explosive anger begins with rage and ends up turning to violence or verbal abuse. Implosive anger, anger that you just let dwell

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    within you. It begins with silence and moves into being withdrawn and leads to resentment, bitterness and usually eventual hatred of the person who you're angry at or the object, if it's an object, because you've just internalised it all. You know, sometimes we can deny we're even angry. Perhaps I'm just speaking for myself. You can make comments like, I'm not angry, I'm just very frustrated.

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    Or perhaps you are. Or I'm not angry, I'm just upset. Or I'm not angry, but I am seriously disappointed about this decision or that comment that that person made to me. And in almost every one of those cases, that person is expressing anger. No, they're masking it behind saying, no, I'm not angry, but... But a person then starts to withdraw from the situation. And if someone was to say to them, is something wrong with you? Are you going all right? That person will normally, then say, no, what makes you think something's wrong? If you said, well, you just don't seem a normal, happy self. Usually you're actually engaged and happy to discuss things with us. A person might say to you something like, I'm just tired, and walk off. They've not actually dealt with anything.

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    They've given you excuses. They've moved out. They've left the room. And just like explosive anger, if you leave it, the longer the pattern of implosive anger continues, the more certain you can be that bitterness and resentment is going to follow. So just like day follows night, a person who continually exhibits those sort of behavioural traits are going to end up internalising it and then turn it into bitterness, resentment, and probably even hatred. And that's where anger's gone from being angry and now it's becoming sin because you're dwelling and thinking upon something and what you'd like to do. You know, a person who internalises anger may redirect his anger at someone else or something else. It might be nothing to do with the situation over here. You go to work, your boss tells you off, you feel very upset and angry, but you're not going to tell your boss off because, well, he's the boss. So you come home, you walk in the door, you kick the cat, you shout at the kids, you speak nastily to your wife or husband. Hang on a minute. You're angry with this person over here, but you're taking it out on this person over here. How rational affair is that? You've done nothing to confront the issue that's made you angry, but now everybody else in your sphere of normality are getting attacked or spoken to very firmly because you're angry. Well, that's completely unfair. You're taking out your anger on a group who have really no responsibility for you being angry. And a person who wants to dwell, actually let's personalise it, if we want to dwell on an issue where we feel that we've been hard

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    done by and we've been let down and nobody would understand what's happened to me, the great challenge is that becomes bigger and bigger in your head until finally you either internalise it and get very angry and bitter or perhaps you just explode with it. And that's why Paul says don't internalise anger. Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. We've got to resolve things. We've got to say, okay, the big red light of life is flashing. I'm angry about this.

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    This person has done that and that's ungodly. Or this person has done this and I need to make a statement about it. That's fine. Do something about it. Don't dwell on how this person has done something ungodly and I'm angry, but I won't go and deal with it. That doesn't solve anything for anyone. Or this person said the wrong thing to me. I'm not prepared to go and, as we spoke about, in love, chastise or rebuke them. No, I'm just going to stay here and I'm going to be angry and actually bad luck to the world. I'm angry and that's how it is. Well, that's not what Paul warns us to do. In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 31, he says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Bitterness and wrath. Get it out of your life. Don't dwell on it. Don't let it become the thing that controls you because the risk is it will control you completely and utterly. Put it away. He says to the Colossian Ecclesia, but now you also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications out of your mouth. If you thought perhaps that anger was just this little tiny problem, Paul puts it into context. He lumps it together with wrath, anger and wrath, interchangeable concepts, and he says it's the same as malice, blasphemy. Well, hang on, now we've elevated it a bit. Filthy communication.

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    That's anger and wrath. He said they lump them all together. They're all in the same vein. If you want to head down this path, these are the sort of things that you're up against. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Another translation says this, anger resides in the lap of fools. It's a resident. It's come to dwell. It's living in your lap and you've built a little house for it and you care for it and you look after it.

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    It's actually part of your life. The fool dwells on it. They haven't got rid of it. They haven't confronted it. They're just, they're keeping it there. It's sitting on their lap and every time they want, they can think about how badly they've been treated or how wrong this situation was. You know, we all experience anger. I don't think there's anyone sitting here who doesn't experience anger. Someone came to me, actually someone wrote me an email during the week and said, dear brother John, last week you made the following statement. Try and remember the last time you were angry. And he said, in my mind I went, that was about four hours ago. And then he went on to say, it might be 10 years or three years ago. And he went, next line, oh bother, I think I have anger management problems. Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn't. But he took the time to write me that email I think he was probably having a poke at me. But you see, things happen and they upset us.

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    We all get upset. But it's whether we brood on it and let it destroy us, whether we let that bitterness feed us. Well, the scriptures warned us about that. Let's look at the example of the apostle Paul. We're going through Acts. What do we read? But Saul increased the more in strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ. And after many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. Remember the story? He's been converted, he's in Damascus, he's preaching. And note the point, after many days, what happens? The Jews have had enough. They get angry and they're going to deal with this situation. They became so angry, they're going to kill him. Not out of character for that particular group of Jews at that time that steered the ecclesia of God. They just killed people. They'd done an effective job of the Lord Jesus Christ. They'd just killed Stephen. So, well, Paul's changed sides. We'll kill him too.

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    But it took time. It wasn't like he spoke for 20 minutes and they decided to kill him. No, they dwelt on it. They were angry. And the angrier they got, they said, right, we got so angry, we're going to kill him. Hebrews 12, look diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled.

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    What's happening? You see, anger doesn't necessarily need to sweep right over you. Anger and hatred and bitterness doesn't develop in a split second unless you've become very good at quickly responding with a sharp word. It might take time. It doesn't happen overnight. Those Jews in Damascus, it took them some days to get angry enough. But then when they got angry enough, they dwelled on it and they fed it. And then they said, we're going to remedy this. We're going to kill this man. That's what happens if you let anger develop in your life. Once again, I'll apologise. We've got a lot of quotes and I'm flicking them up on the screen. You're welcome to take notes. We'll get a copy afterwards. For those who are listening in at home, sorry about that, but we'll tell you what the quotes are as we move through them quickly. You might have time to turn them up quicker than we can here. So how do we deal with this in our life? Because that's a challenge, isn't it? How do we take this on and try and be a disciple of Christ? One of the things we can do is find a trusted friend to speak to. James says, confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you might be healed. Perhaps you know a friend. Perhaps it's in this ecclesia. Perhaps it's another ecclesia. And they're a friend and they seem to be harbouring anger. Seem to. You can only judge by what you witness, either explosions or someone falling back to not being involved. Then I guess the challenge is why not take the risk and go and ask them? You

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    might say something like, look, I could be completely wrong. I genuinely care about you. And so that's why I'm going to ask you this question. Are you angry about something? Is there something inside that's really eating you out? Because you've changed. If I'm wrong, just tell me. But if it's true, I'd like to help you process that because it's not going to do you any good. Would you like to talk about it?

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    Now, is that confrontational? Well, perhaps. Perhaps it's pretty scary to put yourself in that position and walk up to a friend. I'm saying you do it with something you don't know. I'm saying you're looking for your friends. And you're saying, actually, you don't seem the same as you've been. Is there something really worrying you? You're running a risk. A person might tell you, none of your business. Leave me alone.

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    Could happen. But we are our brother's keepers, brother and sisters. A true friend won't sit by silently and watch someone disintegrate. They won't watch a brother or a sister fall apart. They'll actually say, I need to actually go and speak to you. You might get pushed away. But it really is worth the effort if you're trying to help them with an issue, trying to help them with this anger problem. And you might think, well, husbands and wives are immune from that. No, they're not. We all struggle with issues in our relationships and our life together where at one point one party might be angry with the other party. Perhaps that's a thing that we can do with each other. Not to sit back and think, well, are you angry with me, Sonia, in my case? Actually, ask, are you angry with me? You might say, well, goodness me, you can't work out your wife's angry with you. No one's fed you for four days. No, that's not quite likely how it is. But the reality is that, yes, we do notice things, but sometimes we're a bit scared or not prepared to reach out and talk to our best friend who we married. Well, actually, we should be caring for them.

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    Well, what about anger and forgiveness? You know, we have to use God's God of forgiveness, don't we, in anything we discuss? That's the measure we need to use. And what is it? Well, look at Psalm 103 verse 12. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. He's removed them completely. He's forgiven us. If we've sought forgiveness and changed our ways, he has forgiven us. And Ephesians 4 verse 32, we've been in Ephesians a little bit tonight. Ephesians 4 verse 32, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Why? Even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. When we recognise, brethren and sisters, that we've been forgiven through the grace of God, it's pretty hard to hold back on forgiveness for our brethren and sisters, isn't it? We need to be able to apply that one to another. God took the example with the nation of Israel. We saw that time and time to get in the Old Testament. What would happen? Well, they'd turn away from him and he'd chastise them. Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 12. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, return thou backsliding Israel, saith Yahweh, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you. For I am merciful, saith Yahweh, I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity and thou hast transgressed against Yahweh thy God, and has scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree and has not obeyed my voice, saith Yahweh. God never forgave without the nation coming back and admitting they'd done the wrong thing, but when they did, he forgave them. Just like us,

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    brethren and sisters. His mercy is never ending. His forgiveness is amazing. We need to change. We need to move from a position where we might find ourselves in, which is not right before him, to a position where he can extend forgiveness and mercy. That forgiveness and mercy is what we're called upon to show to each other. In Matthew chapter 23 and verse 39, what about our Lord?

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    He sat and looked across the city and he wept because he knew what was going to happen to this city. He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, stonest them that were sent unto thee. How often would have I gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wing? And she would not. He wanted to work with them. Three and a half years of labour and toil. He'd tried and out of that he'd captured a little group of people whose hearts were prepared to follow the things of God. He says, what's going to happen? Behold, your house is left to you desolate. Jerusalem refused to change. They refused to yield on mass. Of course, we know there were brethren and sisters who are our brethren and sisters asleep in the dust of the earth, who changed and followed the Lord Jesus Christ. But as a general rule, Jerusalem's blown off the face of the earth in 8070 because they wouldn't change and they wouldn't repent. And so God dealt with them. Luke chapter 17 and verse 3, take heed to yourselves. If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him. If he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day and seven times in a day turn to thee again to say, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. Now we find that quaint little story seven times. But in reality, how would we go? Someone got angry and came back and said, I'm sorry. Then they got angry and came back and said, I'm sorry. And then they got really angry and came back and said, I'm sorry. Four more opportunities in that time period. And no, we're

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    not counting them so that when you get to seven, that's it all over. Stop, not listening anymore. That's not the point, is it? The point is that God's prepared to forgive us. But look what happens here. Someone's trespassed against you and you've rebuked them. Do you remember last time we looked up that word rebuke? It meant to admonish. And the Lord rebuked his disciples. He rebuked the two who wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans. He rebuked Peter for saying, no, don't go up, Lord.

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    You're not going to go up and get crucified. He turned and said, get behind me saying, thus save us the things that be of man and not of God. Why? He rebukes him. But remember what rebuke was? It wasn't verbal abuse. And sometimes we can rebuke someone and we think, well, we've told them off and now they really know. Well, they might really know, but you might not have helped the situation at all. We need to be able to be able to admonish someone. And do you know when the best time to admonish someone is? Not when you're feeling really hurt and really upset because of what they've just said or done to you. It's not a good time to admonish them because you'll probably not be admonishing. You probably might stray and sin. It's best to pick a time when you can quietly go back and calmly and say, as we talked about last time, look, I'm sorry. I might have misunderstood you, but when you said this, this is how I heard it. And I feel like this about it. And I need to talk it through with you. You know, forgiveness is not a feeling. It's a commitment to accept the other person in spite of what he or she may have done. And an example of that is Paul. Paul goes out as Saul and stones and imprisons and kills and destroys families and breaks up ecclesias.

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    And when God forgave him because he truly repented, his brethren, once they recognised what had happened to him, embraced him. And he went out as part of the work of God and turned the Roman world upside down. We know that. So you know what? Someone might have spoken against us. They might have sinned against us. Or we might have done something against them. We know this quote so well. Matthew 5 verse 23. If you're on your way to the altar as it is and you remember you've done something against someone, go and deal with that. Put that situation right and then come back and offer your gift. So whether you've sinned or whether someone's sinned against you, you've got the responsibility to try and work through reconciliation. It's no good sitting down and saying, well, when they come and talk to me, then I'm prepared to forgive them. You might be angry about it. And that's actually the red light saying, you know what? You need to deal with this. But I need to deal with it in the fashion that Christ has taught me and my brethren in scripture have shown me.

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    I need to actually go and talk and discuss this with them. Motivate us to take steps to something that is positive in our life. Well, what about anger in families? That was one of the subjects we had when we started. Well, I said earlier on, most couples, I'm going to suggest probably all couples have an argument at some stage in that relationship. And it's then how do we move forward from this?

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    Tragedy is some people think that's just the way you live. You argue all the time. You're angry with each other all the time and never learned to how to process their anger in a constructive way that will build their relationship. Do you know what's so wrong with overlaying anger in a relationship where between a husband and a wife, you've got two major, major competing emotions. One's love and the other one's anger. They can't compete. They're mutually exclusive. You can't, well, you perhaps could love to be angry, but that's not going to help the relationship. If you've got anger and you've got love, it's like oil and water. It's not going to mix. You're going to end up with a standoff, as it were. You can't combine the two to work effectively together. Why? Well, what's love look to do? Love looks to provide the best for your companion. And what's uncontrolled anger seek to do? Well, it seeks to hurt, to cause hurt and damage and to justify my position with no reference to how you feel about it. So they're mutually exclusive. You can't have both of them in a relationship. It won't work. So what do we need to do? Well, actually, just think about it for a minute. If you look at society around about us, our government are grappling with the concept of how do we manage domestic violence? And by the way, domestic violence doesn't mean one person thumps the other. It means a whole range of things from, well, I don't give any money to my husband or wife so they can buy the groceries right the way through to just shout at them,

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    whatever it might be. But you see, the society's saying, well, it's all falling apart. It's not working. What are we going to do? They don't turn to the Bible. They don't say, well, the answers here are provided by God. How can we actually look at it? But the challenge is where there's physical or verbal abuse or a controlling behaviour in a relationship where everything's controlled and managed by one party for the exclusion of the other, it leads to serious anger issues. And sadly, within the ecclesial world, we know that our relationships aren't immune from that either.

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    We'd all agree that controlling behaviour that cuts off money supplies, that actually manipulates what's happening for the other person is not acceptable, should find no part of a relationship between a husband and wife who are trying to mirror what? They're trying to mirror the bride and bridegroom. The Lord Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and us as the bride. The Lord controls us, the Lord manipulates us, he abuses us. No, never. Would we even think to do that to the Lord Jesus Christ? No, we wouldn't. We'll step it back a level. Why would we do that in our personal relationships?

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    Or if we are doing that, or if we even thought we might try to do that, we should look then at the example of Christ and the ecclesia and say, well, that won't work. That can't work. That's doomed. The world doesn't recognise that because their whole relationship's based on the fact that we all descended from monkeys out of trees at some point and there's no morality, it's just if it feels good, do it. We don't subscribe to that because we've got our Heavenly Father's view in the word. And it's the way that we actually interact with each other. Because if you do try that practice, there'll be anger in that relationship. And as we said, if there's anger in the relationship, there can't be true love. There's not an opportunity to bond and build together.

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    And so one party will get angry or the other party will just bury it and go quiet and say nothing. That's not going to help anything. What do we know about that? Well, let's go to the quote we often look at. 1 Peter 3, verse 7. Peter's saying, likewise ye husbands. It's an interesting chapter. If you look at it, it starts off by saying likewise ye wives in chapter 3 and verse 1. And it's likewise what? Well, if you go up a few verses in your Bible, you get the point that be following the Lord Jesus Christ and follow in his steps. Because of what he's done, likewise, wives do this, says Peter. Likewise, verse 7, husbands do this. Because of what? Because of what our Lord and Master's done. That's who we're trying to follow. But he says, dwell according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. What's this mean? Prayers hindered.

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    Well, you know what? If your prayers are hindered, God's not listening to your prayers. So if in a relationship of a husband and wife there's anger and friction, then Peter says, God's not going to listen to your prayers. And if you sit there thinking, well, what's that mean? Well, that means you can't pray for forgiveness. And if you can't be forgiven for your sins and I can't be forgiven for my sins, we stand in a dire consequence when the Lord Jesus Christ returns.

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    So you see, if you thought that just Peter's being a bit hard to get along with here and doesn't understand life in the 21st century, of course he understands life in the 21st century. What he's saying is these principles are godly. Don't let any disputes hinder the opportunity for a husband and a wife to be offering prayers together to God. Example, 1 Samuel 25 verse 36. Abel, Abel, Abigail and Nabal. We know the story. Nabal was a fool. He conducted his whole life in just pure folly. Abigail was obviously a woman of great understanding. And what happens? Well, I like this because it's a good example of probably how to talk to a fool and how to talk to someone who gets extremely angry. After the issue with David, who was going to destroy the whole family and Abigail through her wisdom managed to intervene and stop that. And actually it was God's providence, as we know, that caused that to happen. Abigail goes home. What's Nabal done? He's had a huge party and he's drunk and all his mates are there. So she walks in, kicks over the nearest table and says, listen you lot, I'm going to tell you something. You are a fool and this is what almost happened. No, she doesn't. She doesn't do anything like that. She just leaves the issue, says nothing, more or less till the morning. Why? Because if he's not laying in a drunken stupor under the table, he's probably no fit in mind to receive anything. And she's probably only going to get a mouthful of abuse. So she leaves the situation. The next day she explains it to him.

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    What happens? He has a stroke and dies. I'm not saying you leave it to the next day hoping that your partner has a stroke and dies. That's not the point. The point is that she chose her time to rebuke him or to speak to him in a fashion that she hoped would change the way he behaved. It did change the way he behaved. He never behaved like that again. But that was in the sphere of how God wanted things to happen. You see, if we're going to speak to someone who's angry, pick your time, particularly if it's your husband or wife. A quiet word after an event with a smart husband or a receptive wife will go a long way. In the middle of a discussion, debate or dispute, to actually launch into telling them what they're doing wrong may not be the right time to do that. You need to be thoughtful of what you're doing. So what about anger in children? We've talked about anger in husbands and wives and families. What about children? Well, all children experience anger at some stage in their growing up and they develop, that word's too hard, as they develop. As they develop, they will experience some sort of anger. It's up to us as parents to be able to work them through those issues, to talk them through it. And of course, if you're talking to a two-year-old who's having anger issues, it's a little different to talking to a 10-year-old having an anger issue.

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    However, if you haven't talked to your 10-year-old when they were two, I really pity you because your 10-year-old's not going to understand or want to understand what you're trying to say. What's the point? Start early with your children. Speak to them. Understand that your responsibility God's given you as a parent is to show love and concern and discipline and get them to understand that certain behaviour isn't applicable. Anger and exhibiting anger is not suitable for a child.

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    How do we react to our children? Well, they're the heritage of Yahweh, aren't they? And perhaps you could answer that by saying, well, how much sleep did I get last night as to how I react to my children? Well, actually, how much sleep I got the night before depends on probably how I react to lots of things. But that's an excuse, not a reason. We need to be able to work with our children. They're a blessing. The reason we actually even talked about this subject is quite unusual. We ran the marriage seminars and we've done it with your ecclesia, which is lovely.

42. 33:46

    And a sister came up, not out of this ecclesia, and said to us in the break over coffee, she said, I'm really worried. I get so angry. I fear I'm going to harm one of my children. And her husband came and said, yeah, yeah, we're really worried about it. What have we got in the community, Christodelfian community on anger? And that was like, oh, sure, there'll be tons of stuff.

43. 34:03

    There's not tons of stuff. It's okay. But she was so concerned about it. She said, I have to put my baby down because I'm fearful I'll shake her and harm her. That's a little confronting when someone comes and says that. However, I'll give them an incredible amount of courage to be honest and come and talk to people they don't even know about it. You see, it's what are you going to do? You might say, I can't understand any mother feeling like that. I could say that perhaps as a father, except I know as a father, I've got angry too with my children.

44. 34:32

    I don't tell them they're sitting over there somewhere, but I have. Occasionally, I get angry with them. Not now. They're very big. You see, we can get angry. It's what do we do about it? How do we relate to it? And the real question is, how do we help each other? How do you help that mother? Do you just go, oh, goodness, we'll get more sleep? No, that's not really a good answer.

45. 34:51

    It's actually like, let's look at the scriptures together and see what we can discover. You know, from my experience in my life, and I'm not talking about you, I'll talk about me. One of the things that can make me quite angry about my children is when I see my bad traits and my bad habits coming out in one of them, and I can actually be very hard on them.

46. 35:12

    And when I stop and think about it, it's actually because I'm scared because I know that's my weakness or that's the thing that I don't get right, so I don't like to see it in them. Well, that's fine if it's part of developing a character which is going to be more used to our father, but if it's just because I'm angry because I can see you reflecting me back at me, it's not really fair. As parents, we need to set the example. It's no good expecting our children to behave in a different way. As one young person said to me, it's about what we see.

47. 35:42

    They said, my parents yell and scream at me, telling me not to yell and scream. Get it? If you're yelling and screaming, your kids tell them not to yell and scream. It doesn't matter what the words you're using are. The message you're giving them is, well, I'm yelling and screaming, but don't you? It doesn't work. And this is not easy to do. A child, by virtue of the fact that they're a child, they're immature. Their ability to manage issues around anger hasn't developed. They're going through a growing process, mentally and physically. We accept that. We're the parents or older uncles or aunties in the ecclesia.

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    And as an older person, at least we've had time to develop with the word of God as to what is acceptable behaviour. We should have a mature response to being angry. And if we haven't developed that mature response, let's at least recognise this and not blame our issue on our children and say, well, it's the children, they make me angry. Hey, be mature. You're the adult. They're the child. No good blaming them for making you angry. They don't have the capacity as young children to work out, this is going to make mum and dad angry. Let's try this.

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    I used to think sometimes that my kids did that really well. But I worked out, no, they're not doing that. They're just being kids. It's no good me transferring my anger and saying, well, it's their fault. They've made me angry. I'm actually the adult that God's put in charge of my family to say, you need to manage that. You need to help them understand what's important.

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    You know, when I was a child, I had a favourite verse we used to do in the readings. And when it came around to this verse, I used to think this was so good.

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    Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. I think, good, good, a message for my father. I really hope he's taken a hint and linked to that. I had no idea what it meant. And then someone pointed out to me that, well, actually, the word anger's in italics. It's not really there. Luckily, along came Ephesians 6 verse 4. It's the same concept, isn't it? Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What's it mean? Well, it might mean it's a great point to say to dad, don't make me angry. You know, don't provoke me. That's not what that's saying at all, is it, as we realise as adults. It means that if, as parents, we're not listening to our children, and I don't mean the children dictate the terms for your family, and if they do, you need to be very afraid. No, I mean, you need to listen to your children. I need to listen to my children. The child needs to feel that mum and dad actually listen. And sometimes you'll hear the most ridiculous things. We know that. But you're prepared to listen. Because if you don't listen, when the child becomes angry over an issue, they'll internalise it. And guess what? If they internalise at 7 or 8 and it turns up at 14 or 15, it's not pretty. It's actually known as passive-aggressive behaviour. It sounds funny, doesn't it? It's where a child internalise it. They're passive on the outside. Everything looks just fine.

52. 38:38

    Nice going. Everything's going well. But internally, they're really aggressive and upset and angry. Why are they angry? Well, they feel, rightly or wrongly, they feel they haven't been listened to. It's really a responsibility for us to listen to our children. They don't give them what they want. You don't let them run the family. They don't decide at 8 that we're not going to Bible class tonight. They don't decide at 18 we're not going to Bible class tonight. But you see, you've got to be able to discuss things with them. When a child from a young age, and I mean a young age, has learnt that they can talk to mum and dad about anything, anything, and mum and dad aren't going to go, you've done what? They go, you know, this look, all right. Inside they're going, you've done what?

53. 39:22

    But you actually let the child tell you. Because otherwise, you don't have the ability to be able to deal with it. You haven't got the facts. Remember, if you go angry without the facts, it's folly. We've seen that a few times. You need to be able to create an environment where your children feel they can discuss any subject with you. You've created a conduit. It might be whatever's worrying the child. This mightn't apply to anyone sitting in the front hall, but perhaps it applies to those in the back hall. If your little three-year-old comes to you and says, I can't find my fire truck, dad, and you go, I'm busy, I'm busy. Look, I'm busy. I'm doing a Bible study. Go away. It's okay. The most important thing in their life at that point of time is finding their fire truck. When they're 15 and they've got the most important point in their life they want to discuss with dad, they're probably not going to come and talk to you because, well, you were busy last time, so you're probably still busy now. The fire truck was so important to me when I was three. And now I want to have a discussion about, is it okay to all go and get drunk in a pub on a Friday night? But I wouldn't. But what's the point of talking to dad about that? Because, well, he didn't listen to me when I'm three. Now that's an exaggeration, but you all know what I mean. If you can't make time for your children now when they're little, how's it going to be when they're older? They need to have the opportunity to be able

54. 40:34

    to talk to you. And of course, children's anger is often distorted. Their idea of what's right and wrong needs to be shaped by the word of God. They're little people and they think, well, this is right and this is wrong, and you've got to shape them. The word of God helps shape us all. Do you know, families can learn by putting quotes around the walls, things like these.

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    Perhaps they're not the right quotes to put around your house, but they're things you can think about in helping your children to understand that being angry, he that's soon angry, dealeth foolishly. He that's slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that's of a hasty spirit, exalted folly. You see, you could put those up in your teenagers or your 10, 11, 12 year olds can read that and you could start to teach them those principles. And it helps them to understand a godly way of thinking. They're going to run into issues that have to be confronted. That's fine, we all do. But it gives them a basis, a bedrock, a foundation that is the word of God, which is important in this family. And this is what this family does. A word of warning.

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    If you're going to put those quotes up around your house, and yet you're going to conduct yourself in a manner where those quotes don't mean anything to the kids who see things in black and white, because they go, what? That quote says, don't get angry quickly. And there's dad getting angry again. Save the trees. Don't cut down any more trees to print the quotes. Your children will see straight through it. What do we need to do? We actually need to lead by example. Well, actually, nothing wrong in that. We're trying to develop those characters in our life, aren't we? What about when we're angry with ourselves? Ever been angry with yourself? It's an emotion. Usually it relates to an issue which we think is unfair or unjust, isn't it? We've talked about this. We feel angry. Well, but hang on, what about we feel angry with ourselves? Well, it's probably because we see ourselves as a guilty party. You know, we've done something wrong. We think, oh no, I've missed my wife's birthday.

57. 42:22

    I haven't brought home flowers or a card or whatever you do for your wife's birthday. And you've forgotten about it. And you feel cross with yourself. It's not good being cross with the kids who forgot to write a note on your calendar and tell you. That's silly. You cross with yourself. You think, I've done that to myself. Or it might be something we've been careless with. You know, tonight, whoever's due to lock up the hall or the last one out, drives off, having locked the front door and the side door, gets home. And just as you're pulling the driveway, you think, oh, I forgot to lock the back door. Don't know if you have a back door. I forgot to lock the back door. Oh, and I'm 20 minutes away. And who are you cross with? Yourself. Oh, I've got to go back to the hall and lock the door. Well, I hope you do that. Go to bed. It's probably not very good. You cross and you drive down here and you cross because that was, oh, it was stupid of me. If I hadn't have been thinking about that or talking to that person, but it's no good blaming the person you were talking to.

58. 43:14

    I've mucked it up. There are areas we can be cross with ourselves. What about this, brethren and sisters? We can feel cross with ourselves because once again, we've committed a sin that we sought forgiveness for last Sunday. And here we are and it's Wednesday and we've done it again. And we feel cross with ourselves and we feel disappointed with ourselves. And we've asked for forgiveness. We feel angry with ourselves because you know what? We've failed. Something really reassuring and positive in that. The option is you don't even notice you've committed a sin and life just goes along and it's, oh, we've done that again. Oh, what a nuisance. The reason you're cross with yourself is because it actually, you know, it upsets God and it upsets you because you've upset your heavenly father. That's actually not a bad thing. But anger and guilt will lead us to repentance, to seek forgiveness. But if we weigh ourselves down with anger and guilt, we're not recognising that point we discussed a little while ago, God's forgiveness. If we just bury ourselves in anger or self-pity for ourselves and berate ourselves internally, and perhaps it's with comments like, I can't believe I did that, said that, thought that. Or how could have I been so stupid? Or what will they think of me after I said that? How good have I done that? How can I ever face people again?

59. 44:33

    I wish I could just die. Now this type of thinking, actually pick up that last thought. I wish I could just die. Let's just digress for a minute. If you're thinking that, you might need to talk that through with someone. More importantly, if someone comes to you and says, I'm just so upset about this, quite frankly, I don't know how I'm going to cope. I'd be better off dead and everyone would be better off if I was dead. Don't just think, ah, stupid person. We know the tragedy of people who self-harm themselves. You need to grab that and listen to it and talk them through and see if they actually need some professional help. Don't just go, oh, well, I just probably say that to everyone because probably they've never said it to anyone and you might be the first person they've said it to. And scarily, you might be the last person they ever speak to. Do treat that sort of behaviour and comment seriously. No, don't run around like a chook without a head and panic, but seriously think about who you're going to talk to to help that person. Because if they've got themselves in such a state that they are so depressed, they probably won't get themselves out of it by themselves.

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    Be there as a brother or a sister to work through those issues. And if you think that's too heavy, I'm sorry. I just think all of us know that experience has happened within our community and we would pray to God it doesn't happen again. But what if it is you're saying, well, how could have I done this? Or people will think I'm stupid or whatever. Well, actually, yep, you're looking at yourself and you're saying, I can't believe it. If you're angry with yourself, first of all, recognise that's not unusual. Actually, we all get angry with ourselves.

61. 46:04

    You know, we can get angry with ourselves because, oh no, we've broken our diet that we put ourselves on. Or whatever it is, we get angry with you. Oh, bother, now I've got to start tomorrow. What? Doesn't matter. Let's eat chocolate tonight. No, actually, that's a personal confession. It just doesn't fit into a Bible class. But recognise it's not unusual to actually feel like that.

62. 46:22

    And secondly, then confess our wrongdoings to God and ask forgiveness. And we're back to that forgiveness piece that we talked about a few minutes ago. Why? Because John says to the Ecclesia and to us, brothers and sisters, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God wants us to acknowledge our sins. And when we repent, he will forgive us. As far as the east is from the west, remember, we looked at it a minute ago. Psalm 103, verse 12. When our sins are not only against God, but against another person, Paul gives us some very good advice. This is how he lived his life.

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    Acts 24, verse 16. He says, and herein do I exercise myself to always have a conscience void or void, empty, empty of offence towards God and towards men. Paul says, my conscience is not burdened because I said this to that brother or flew off the handle of that brother, or I felt this towards God, or I didn't actually care to hoots about God and I went and did it anyway. No, he said, I've got a conscience void or empty. It's not burdened down. Every one of us gets burdened down by issues that confront us, things we've said, things we've done. Let's try and follow Paul's example to say, let's get to a point where once God's forgiven us, then let's move forward.

64. 47:36

    Let's understand that. You know what? We wish we'd never sinned. You know, there might be consequences for our sin. We might suffer the consequences. It might mean that there's things that we can do, can't do. Life changes for us. However, God will forgive us if we've asked for forgiveness. And there's no point then continuing to berate yourself and beat yourself up over a sin that's forgiven. Actually, it challenges whether you believe God's forgiven you or not. And then we need to be positive in action going forward. It's no good being frozen like a rabbit in a set of headlights. You need to actually say, yep, we're going to move forward on this situation. What about confronting an angry person? I bet you've never had to worry about this. What do we read in Proverbs?

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    Proverbs 15 verse 1. A soft answer turns away wrath. Grievous words stir up anger. It's our theme. You know what? All of us probably have been confronted by an angry person at some stage.

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    You've thought about it? You probably have. So what's going to happen when you're confronted again by an angry person according to what we should do following scripture? Well, first of all, just depending on how angry they are, check you're in a safe place. I mean, if they're waving an axe at you or threatening your physical well-being, just before you go to quietly talk them around, it might be best to check your physical safety. You say, oh, John, that's stupid. Why would you even say that? Well, because you're not just talking about interacting with brethren and sisters. We interact in the world. We interact in our workplace. We interact with people at university. And a lot of those people aren't rational and aren't what we would consider normal people as judged by the word of God. So if you're in a safe place, there's three things you need to do as you confront or as you talk to someone who's angry. And they're really important. And if you want to get a pen and write them down, I'll say them slowly. And it's really important to do them in this order. Number one is you need to listen. And then number two is you need to listen. And then number three is you need to listen. There's three things you need to do. Why listen three times? Because we're not usually good at listening. We're very good at telling the other person where they're wrong. We've got an angry person talking to us. We need to listen because, well, what do we know? If we respond before we've actually heard something, he that answers the matter before he hears it, it's folly. And sometimes we think, no,

67. 49:56

    we've got the answer. We'll tell this person who's really upset about whatever it is. No, no, no. That's not what the scripture tells us to do. Listen, listen, listen. Why? It shows that person you take them seriously. And he that heareth the matter, sorry, answers the matter before he hear it, it's folly and shame. You need to be able to do that. You know, try and understand the person's plight. And if you listen long enough, you'll probably be able to understand or get some things you can actually work with. It's really not the time when they're really angry and they're talking to you to actually try and argue with them. That won't go well. It's best just to listen.

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    You know, often that person won't have all the facts or they'll misrepresent the facts to you. And they may do that intentionally and they may do it unintentionally. And you'll work that out if you keep listening. But we do a great disservice to that person when we choose to share our perspective with them in the very early stages of them being angry. We need to listen. We need to hear why they feel like they feel. And if they're angry at you, then you've got to be prepared to say, I'm sorry. It might be you that they're really angry at. Remember, sometimes people mask what they're really angry at behind a reason that I'm angry. Perhaps you've just got to say sorry and let that person settle down. So you can explain why you did what you did, which maybe it's not necessary. Maybe it's just you say sorry because you are sorry. What's the wrong way to confront an angry person? Oh, John, why would you bother telling us? We've all probably done it. Well, there's two really wrong ways to do it. One, trying to put a cap on it. You know, trying to lock it down.

69. 51:39

    The person's angry. What's an example? A parent says to a child, we've talked about this enough. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Go to your room. What have you done? Well, I'll help you think about it. Get a two litre Coke bottle, full bottle, drain out a third of it, screw the lid on as hard as you can and shake the living daylights out of the bottle. That means shake it a lot if you don't know what living daylights means. Shake and shake and shake and shake and shake it. Because all you've done is you've just made that person internalise something and get very angry. Do you know what's going to happen? You've put a cap on it. But when that cap comes off, that result is going to take a lot of effort to clean up. You're going to have Coke absolutely everywhere. I'll tell you what, though. That's far better than it sits like that for five years and then ruptures the side of the bottle and completely explodes and takes out a lot of other stuff on the way through. Don't cap the situation. Shutting it down is not a solution. Oh, just shut it down. It's finished. No, it's not finished. For that person, all you've said to them is really, I don't respect you enough to even want to talk about this anymore. Certainly as a parent with a child and you've had them going on for a long period of time, you've got the prerogative to say, stop. We're not talking about that anymore.

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    We'll talk about that later. But think about what we're doing with each other. If we lock it and cap it and the pressure keeps building, we haven't done a service to that brother or sister. The other really wrong way to confront an angry person is to mirror them. Do you know what I mean by mirror them? The person's angry. Usually when they get angry, what do they do? They raise their voice.

71. 53:14

    So they speak loudly to me. So I start speaking loudly to them. They start speaking loudly to me. So I speak even louder to them. What do we got? We've now got two angry people. I'm yelling at them. They're yelling at me. That's going to be anything but happy. It's not productive. Yeah, before we had one angry person. Now you've got two. Because why? I've got angry. I'm trying to get them to understand.

72. 53:34

    What I'll do is I'll shout back at them. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. I guess you could say to someone who's really angry, don't suggest this perhaps. Well, I'm going to give you a scriptural reason. I won't talk to you anymore. I'll quote that. But it probably won't work really well for you. So what's the point? Listen, listen, listen. Then you've got the information. Once you've gathered some information, as we're told in scripture, we can actually make some scriptural reasons as to what we want to do to go forward.

73. 54:02

    James' advice. Everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. We all say that. We understand that. But why? Look at the rest of that verse. James 19. Sorry, 1 verse 19 and 20. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. That's Paul's point. Be angry, but don't sin. And we say, oh, well, we're going to work the wrath of man and that will represent God's righteousness. No, it won't. No, no, it won't have anything to do with God's righteousness.

74. 54:29

    When I'm angry and I'm telling you something, I run the grave risk that I'm going to stray from being angry and righteous to angry and unrighteous probably in a nanosecond, a very small amount of time. So what do we need to do? Well, Proverbs said, well, don't answer a fool according to his folly. Just listen, listen, listen. You know, a fire will burn out if you starve of it of oxygen. Don't take that analogy too far. You don't want to starve the other person of oxygen. That's not a good idea. But the point is, if you just kill wading into that discussion, you know it's going to keep going forever. I have four children.

75. 55:04

    Two of them are great to have an argument with because they keep coming back at you. The other two go, yeah, Dad. Yeah, but I'm not... Yeah, Dad. Sorry, Dad. You can't even engage in argument. That's like not to speak that we should engage in arguments, but you know, you meet people who are very good at just saying, yep, that's it. And other people want to engage arguments about everything. Probably the two who are very good take after my wife and not after me. Okay, I said to you one other thing we wanted to talk about is when we're angry with God. And I said last week that I would suggest that most people at some stage in their life have been angry at God. And I had a number of people come to me and say, yep, we're really angry with God. It's not because I'm clever. It's not because I knew you're all angry with God because you're not all angry with God. But in our community, there are people at any given time who are angry with God. Now, you can take that word anger and say, well, disappointed, frustrated. Yep, we talked about frustration turning into anger. Actually, it's pretty honest to say, I'm struggling with God. And they'll say, I know I shouldn't be, but I am. I'm really unhappy. And the reasons that people are unhappy with God are as varied as the number of people sitting in this room. But here's some that may be challenging to you and have challenged me. Why did God let that brother, sister, young person die? We prayed, we believed, we know

76. 56:30

    he had the power to stop that person dying. And yet they died. Why didn't he heal my father or my brother or my mother? I know the kingdom's coming, but why? Why did they have to die? Or why did they have to endure this suffering? Why is this happening? Now, it's often in the face of tragedy, we can find ourselves asking that question, isn't it? And perhaps we think we're not allowed to ask that question. We're going to see some brethren of caliber, which their caliber is amazing, who asked that question, who asked God, why? Why has this happened? I'm angry. I'm upset. In fact, just kill me. Just kill me because I'm so disappointed about what you've done. It all seems so unfair. Job was one of those men.

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    Think about Job's life. We're not doing a study on Job, but Job 1 verse 8. You know, there's none like him in the earth, a perfect, upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. Characteristics I think we'd all desire to be able to have said of us by our heavenly father. Yet God allows Job to suffer all sorts of horrors. He allowed him to suffer it.

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    Look at those verses there. Job says, God delivered me to the ungodly and turned me over to the hands of the wicked. This is how Job saw it. When a few years are come, then shall I go the way whence I shall not return. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. I mean, here's a man who's depressed, who's saying, why God?

79. 58:01

    He's angry. He's upset. He's disappointed. He's trying to work through that issue with God. We'll come back to see what happens with him in a minute. We talked last week about Jonah, incredibly angry. And when a big gerd dies that protects him, he says, well, take my life too. What's the point? He didn't listen to me and now I'm angry. Jonah, this is the prophet God saved in the belly of a great fish. If you're sitting there thinking, oh, well, these were brethren who really, yeah, you would have thought Jonah would have acted like that. Anyone who knew him as a prophet would have never thought Jonah would have acted like that. What's the point?

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    Brethren and sisters, they act sometimes like we do. They think thoughts like we do. They're concerned and have anxieties like we do. What happened to Job? His three friends turned up. Wonderful. That was good. And then they thought he was a great sinner. And Job says, what's the point? God, what are you doing to me? And God says to him, Mike, you know what, Job?

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    It's not a man to understand my ways. You can't understand it. Chapters 38 and 39, what's he do? He lays out a whole picture of creation. He said, Job, where were you when I did this? Where were you when I put the planets and the stars here, put the great fish in the oceans?

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    Where were you when I did all this? I don't remember you being here. And you're asking, saying you're angry with me. Chapter 38, verse 4. Where was thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare it, if thou hast any understanding. What's God saying to Job? You weren't here. He reminds Job that actually I'm a God of justice. And Job, what did he do?

83. 59:41

    Ultimately, he trusted God, even though he didn't understand. What God said to him is, trust me, Job. You don't have to understand this. You'll never understand this. This is beyond your comprehension. Just trust me. What's Job do? He says, okay, I trust you, Yahweh. I don't understand. I will probably never understand, but I trust you.

84. 1:00:04

    God calls on all of us, brethren and sisters, to trust him in the dark periods of our life. He's not changed. He's consistent, reliable, predictable. We said that last week. And when we find ourselves in dark places, whether it's of our own making or whether it's like Job, God just says, trust us, trust me. It's going to be painful. Trust me. And the problem with Job wasn't his anger. That wasn't a problem, but rather how he handled it. When he finally challenged God as to why have you done this? You know what? Our anger with God will always be distorted anger. Remember we had two types of anger last week. Distorted.

85. 1:00:39

    God's never done anything wrong. But our feelings of anger are real. We feel angry about something. Maybe a response to great pain, great turmoil in our life. You might believe God could have averted it. That's true. He could have. He knows the beginning of the end. He could do that. In your mind, you think God treated you unfairly. Brethren and sisters, God's never treated anyone unfairly. We're angry. Do you know the real key is now what we do with it.

86. 1:01:09

    We feel anger. What we do becomes incredibly critical, I'll say, to our eternal well-being. We either say, in our response to God, well, I'm angry at him and I won't talk to him. In fact, how could I tell the creator of heaven and earth that I'm angry with him? Well, let me tell you something. He already knows what you're thinking. He knows you're angry with him.

87. 1:01:35

    And he's waiting for you to come in prayer and say, God, I don't understand this. You're not going to shock him. It's not like you walk up to a friend and say, I'm angry with God. And the person falls over and says, you've lost your faith. You're probably not even a Christadelphian anymore. God knows exactly what we're thinking. He knows it. It's what we do with that. Because we've got two options. And this is where it's critical. You either pour your feelings out to God and ask for help, or you stop praying and walk away from God and say, I wouldn't bother. And we all know what option number two will mean for us eternally. And secondly, it's not fair and it's not right because God's done nothing wrong by us.

88. 1:02:13

    So what about examples of people who were angry and spoke with God? Look at Elijah. We're not going to go through this. We've run out of time. But 1 Kings chapter 18, Jezebel is going to kill Elijah. Yep, he goes for his life. It doesn't tell us anywhere in that record that Elijah is angry, but here's a man who's incredibly depressed. And I'd suggest to you, he's very angry. He requests he might die. He's not going particularly well. The angel strengthens him. He goes on to Horeb.

89. 1:02:35

    God shows his strength and power. What happens? He comes out and he says, yeah, but you've done this, God. I've been very jealous and you've failed me and you've failed your promise. And quite frankly, we're standing down here at Horeb because you've failed all the promises you made. That's what I believe Elijah's saying to God. Is he angry? I think he's angry. Is he distressed? I think he's distressed. Do you know what happens? God doesn't argue with Elijah. God never needs to argue with any man. He doesn't need to argue with us. He doesn't need to explain anything. He sends the wind, the fire, the earthquake. And at the end of that, Elijah's still going, well, I'm jealous.

90. 1:03:11

    And God says, I'll tell you what I want you to do. You go back up there. I want you to anoint three people. And by the way, there's 7,000 brethren and sisters of yours who haven't bowed to bail. So you get back and you work. I've got work for you. You need to get involved.

91. 1:03:29

    What's that do? Well, here's the value in speaking to God about why we're angry. God is compassionate. He knows what we're thinking. He's waiting for us to talk to him. But at the same time, he's a sovereign, almighty creator of heaven and earth. He's never made a mistake and he's never done anything wrong. And he's either going to do two things. He's either going to help us to understand the perspective on the present situation as he did with Elijah and help him and get him working or without explanation and anything because he said to Job, just trust me. Our first step is to talk to God in prayer. And when God says, just trust me, we know in Revelation, he said, you know, I will wipe away all tears and all sorrow and sowing will go.

92. 1:04:09

    How's that going to happen? I don't know. Yeah, I know theoretically, but how does it mean that there'll be no more sorrow and sowing, but I trust God? And he's saying that to people who have bereaved of all their children like Job and the people like Elijah think, what's the point? And the ultimate message is there'll be no more sorrow and sowing. Every eye will be dry.

93. 1:04:28

    And we either choose to believe God or not. Once we've spoken to God, we need to listen to him. How do we listen to God? Well, it's going to be through his word. It's going to be a faithful brother and sister who comes and says something to you, which at that particular time means a tremendous lot to you. And that brother or sister might not even have known what they've done, the way they've encouraged you. But actually, they've come and shared his passage with you. They've come and spoken to you about God's principle. What happens? God's actually using someone to say, come on, keep going.

94. 1:04:59

    Just trust me. I'm in control. Yes, I understand you're upset, but I'm in control. And we have to trust him. Philippians chapter 4 verse 7, and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. We need to then turn our energies to serving God, don't we? Just like Elijah did. And he went and did what he was told. He wanted to die only a few verses before, and now he listens to God and he goes off and he's energized to do things.

95. 1:05:29

    Jeremiah 29 verse 11 says, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Yahweh, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you an expected end. We're challenged with the captivity of sin and death, aren't we, brethren and sisters? Sin because that's what our nature does. And where does it end? It ends in death. We've always got choices. We can actually affect things in our life. We can follow God or we can fall to just doing what we want to do. Elijah was able to move forward from his anger and actually be productive for God. Contrast Cain, who couldn't move forward from his anger and killed his brother.

96. 1:06:09

    Every one of us is called to face these issues in our life. Elijah heard the still small voice and acted upon it. It's a broad subject, the subject of anger in the scriptures. We've flown through it in two nights and I've probably gone over time. It's a challenge for all of us because I think it affects all of us in our life. We need to live the principles we've discussed, don't we, brethren and sisters? It's not academic. It's about how we live this. The appeal for each of us in our daily lives, not how we interact here on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night because, as we said last week, we do that very well. Good manners dictate that we all speak nicely to each other. It's how we interact with our husbands, our wives, our children, our fellow workers, our university people we study with.

97. 1:06:56

    Do you know what we need to do? We need to be able to replace anger, and you might not have anger in your life, but we need to replace it with the peace of God which passes all understanding and will keep our hearts and minds. Thank you for listening to the Good Christ Adelphine Talks podcast. Please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever service you are listening from to help people find the show when they search for it. If you enjoyed this talk, share it on social media so other people can find it too. For show notes and links to the talk that you just listened to, visit our show page at anchor.fm slash gct. We want to encourage everyone to share their thoughts from the talk this week on Facebook or Instagram, where we are at Good Christ Adelphine Talks, or on Twitter, where we are at gct underscore podcast. If you know of a great talk, we want to know about it too. Send a suggestion to goodchristadelphiantalks at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media platforms. Thank you for listening. God bless and talk to you next week.

98. 1:08:03

    God bless and talk to you next week. God bless and talk to you next week.