Rock Rage

Alexander the Great conquered the known world of his day, but he never was able to conquer his own temper. One day when he was meeting with some of his troops and the leaders of his army, Kledas, who was a childhood friend, but was also a general in Alexander's army, became drunk and insulted Alexander in front of his men. Alexander the Great reached for a nearby spear and threw it in the direction of Kledas, intending to scare him, but the spear pierced him and killed his lifelong friend. Alexander the Great was overcome with remorse and began a pattern of heavy drinking which would result in his death at age 33. Able to conquer the world but not able to conquer his own temper. Uncontrolled anger has always been the most destructive force of mankind. It has wrought havoc ever since the beginning of mankind. Ever since Cain rose up in anger and killed his brother Able. The effects of uncontrolled anger are seen in our headlines every day, locally, internationally, across our nation, bloody rampages in places of business, neat suburban homes, violently erupting, violence in government buildings and schools and playgrounds and even in churches. The evidence of uncontrolled anger and the effects of it are seen in lives that are scarred by domestic violence and even seen quite often on the highways in road rage like the guy you're seeing on the screen. I suppose that most of us have been guilty, maybe not to that level, but to some extent of getting frustrated and irritated to the point that we were really angry on the highway. I read a story that took place actually in California on the Golden State Freeway in Silmar, California. A few years ago where Delphina Morales, age 42 and her 26 year old daughter, were irritated by an unnamed driver. Other motorists saw them tailgating this van that they were following and making obscene gestures to the van. When the van exited the freeway, Morales followed in her car and positioned her car at a place where she could spin her wheels and throw mud up on that van. In a fit of anger, her car spun around and she took off up the off ramp. So infuriated and so overcome with rage, she didn't realize where she was or what she had done and she pulled into oncoming traffic and she and her daughter were immediately killed as they hit a FedEx truck head on. I imagine all of us have been tempted very sorely with road rage. A couple of weeks ago I was headed home late one Wednesday evening. I think we had a deacons meeting and so it was a little later than normal. I pulled up to the light at Locust Avenue in 460 and there was another car in front of me and someone pulled up beside us and it was obvious there was a lot happening in that car. Obviously one of the guys in the car was intoxicated and he rolled down the front window on the passenger side and he was leaning halfway out the car up to his belt buckle flashing obscene gestures at me in my car. You know what my first thought was? My first thought was if I had a pistol I would shoot that finger off. That was my first thought. You know what my second thought was? Then I would shoot the tire so they couldn't chase me. That was my second thought. It was I'm ashamed to admit this. It wasn't till my third thought that I began to think, John, where's that coming from? Here's here's someone who obviously needs the Lord and you are serious. You're going to react that way. So I mustered enough courage to be able just to smile and turn my face the other way and went on through the light when it turned green. I wish that had been my first thought. We all struggle with anger and today we're going to look at uncontrolled anger in the life of Moses as we journey with Moses through his life the next significant event that we come to is in numbers chapter 20. And it is an example not of road rage but of rock rage. And we're going to see how that plays out in just a little bit. You know you wouldn't expect this from Moses. The Bible calls Moses in in or numbers chapter 12 the meekest man and all the earth. That was God's testimony of him. He was the most humble man in all the earth but he struggled with uncontrolled anger not just on this occasion on several occasions that are recorded in the scriptures. We're going to look at them in just a moment. He had a problem with anger that he never fully conquered and he would suffer the consequences of that disastrous pattern of explosive anger. Now before we jump into the text here in numbers chapter 20 I want us to set a little bit of background because we have to lead up to this if you just take numbers 20 in isolation it's going to seem really bizarre especially the way God punishes Chasen's Moses for his anger. It would just seem out of place but we need to need to lead up to it a little bit. First of all let me explain some different expressions of anger because this will help set the table for all of us and where we fit on this spectrum studies of anger have shown that there are five stages of anger increasing in intensity with each stage. The first stage we all probably face day to day and that's the stage of irritation. That's pretty mild anger. It's a sense of frustration. You're caught the traffic jam. The small children have been noisy all day long. There's something at work that just didn't go right. Somebody said something to you that kind of got under your skin. Those regular irritations of life we all face those probably every day. That's a very low mild level of anger but the second level of anger ratchets up a couple of degrees. It's indignation. That's a deeper level of anger. That's frustration that is mounting and burning inside. Now you can say you're really mad at someone or at something that's taking place in your life. The third stage of anger is a step beyond that. Rath, that's where anger comes flying out. That's where it's expressed. It's no longer held in even on that simmering frustration indignation level. It's no longer held in either in your actions or your words. You'd let somebody have it or you address a situation in your life in an inappropriate way. Jack, a four-year-old boy is playing in the play room at home with his two-year-old sister. All of a sudden mom hears Jack just screaming out at the top of his lungs and she flies into the room to find out what's going on. And little sister has a handful of Jack's hair just pulling for all she's worth. Well mom calmed things down and got them separated and calmed Jack down. I was trying to explain to him. Jack, your little sister is only two years old. She doesn't know that that hurts. So she thought she had things all calmed down. She goes back to work. The kids are playing again in just a few minutes. She hears little sister screams at the top of her lungs. She runs back in but at the time she gets to the room Jack's walking out with a considered smile on his face. She knows now how it feels. Mom, that is wrath. That's when you do something to get even to get revenge. You let your anger fly. But now it gets real serious. Fury. The fourth level of anger is fury. That's where your anger is expressed violently. That's where you really strike out and hurt someone. This is the category where most domestic violence lies. But the last category of anger is extremely dangerous. It's the most intense and most dangerous form of anger. It's rage. What psychologists call rage. It is when a person is so overcome that they will commit acts of brutal violence. It's completely uncontrolled. Sometimes without even a conscious awareness of what they've done. That is very dangerous. But you don't get to rage in a moment. You get to rage at the end of other forms of anger that are not dealt with appropriately. That's the reason why it's so dangerous to not deal with any level of anger. Because it will escalate. It will get worse. And without the Holy Spirit's control, we are all capable of the highest levels of anger. This is a progression that will naturally progress unless we do something to deal with it. And for the Christian, the Holy Spirit is the key as we'll see a little bit later. To those of the different expressions of anger. But I also want us to think about Moses' life in the big picture before we come to numbers 20. We need to do a little background on his life as well to look at the disturbing evidences of anger. If we don't do this, again, numbers 20 is going to sound terribly out of character when in reality it's not. Yes, Moses was the most humble, the meekest man in all the earth. But what happens to him on a fairly consistent basis with anger just illustrates the potential for all of us to struggle with this on a very, very bad level. And so let's look at the instances where there are some disturbing evidences of a trend of anger in Moses' life. There are four evidences of anger clearly described in the scriptures. We don't know how many there may have been other times over the years this may have happened, but four of them that are defined in the scriptures. The first one is in Exodus 2 and that's anger against an Egyptian. You'll remember the story, especially if you've tracked with us on Moses' life in Exodus chapter 2 verse 11. This is when Moses is still in Egypt. One day after Moses had grown up, he went after where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people looking this way in that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. This is anger that quickly reaches the fury stage that Moses becomes so indignant, his wrath is so strong that as he sees this Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews, he expresses his anger violently and kills the man on the spot. So this is a striking out in fury. Now remember Moses was well educated. Education is not the answer by the way. Education is some of the most educated people in the world struggle the most with anger and violent expressions of it. So education is not the answer. Anger is not the sole domain of those who have no education. Moses is one of the best educated men in his day and yet he could not control this area of his life. The second disturbing evidence of anger is found in Exodus chapter 11. This is after Moses has been in the wilderness for 40 years. He had to run from Egypt because of the incident we saw in chapter 2. He's gone for 40 years. God schools him in the wilderness on dealing with people and yet when he comes back to deliver his people, there is an encounter with Pharaoh where he erupts again. It's after the ninth plague. Moses has just finished or God has just finished the ninth plague on the people of Egypt. And at the end of chapter 10, this is said, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. He was not willing to let them go. Pharaoh said to Moses, get out of my sight. Make sure you do not appear before me again. The day you see my face, you will die. I think that pushed a button in Moses and things started escalating quickly in his heart. Moses responds this way, just as you say, I will never appear before you again. Now God had already told Moses to go ahead and announce the tenth plague before he left. And so he does. He announces in no uncertain terms the tenth plague which is the death of the firstborn son of every Egyptian family. But I want you to listen to this as he finishes this declaration. He says, all these officials of yours will come to me bowing down before me and saying, go, you and all the people who follow you. After that, I will leave. Then Moses hot with anger left Pharaoh. So I don't think those last words were spoken very mildly. He was hot with anger. The Hebrew word literally means the strongest kind of anger that is possible. Today we would say he had reached his boiling point or he was fried. He was hot, hot with anger. I mean, it was coming out in his words. He was visibly shaking with anger. Now God had warned Moses that Pharaoh would harden his heart and that God would judicially harden his heart. He knew to expect that, but he is still because of the way he's been challenged by Pharaoh hot with anger as he leaves Pharaoh's presence. The third disturbing evidence of anger is actually against Israel. And the story is one that we've not considered in our journey, but it's when Moses is on the mountain in Exodus chapter 32. He's been up there 40 days. He's been receiving the law of God and the instructions for the Tabernacle and so forth. When he comes down from the mountain, Exodus 32 verse 15 says Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides front and back. And then this next expression is to emphasize the nature of those tablets that Moses had. It says in Exodus 32, 16, the tablets were the work of God. Now in other words, God had cut them out of the rock face of the mountain and prepared them for Moses. And in the next statement, the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. And so these two tablets of the law were cut out of the rock by God, prepared by God, and inscribed by God Himself. These are sacred stones. These are holy stones bearing the handiwork of God Himself. But when Moses comes down from the mountain and sees the people of Israel dancing in a riotous party around an idol, he can lose it. He simply loses it. Verse 19, when Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned. And he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire. Then he grounded the powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. That's anger. He is angry. You say he has a right to be. That's right to say anger, isn't it? Isn't that like the Lord did when he overturned the money changers temples and tables in the temple? No, it's not. You see God is the judge and jury and the one who says vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord. God is the one who rightly because of his ultimate holiness and no influence of a sinful mind or opportunity to misunderstand the situation. God is the one who judges. Moses was becoming judge and jury and it's quite and by the way Jesus is God. So he has the right to cleanse his father's house, the temple. It's clear that God did not approve of what Moses did because in Exodus 34 he calls him back up to the mountain and he says this time, Moses, you cut the tablets out of the rock to replace the ones you broke. It's quite clear that God is saying I'm not going to fix him for you this time. He inscribed the words on them, but Moses in a sense was having to do the hard work because of his own sin. So this anger against Israel seems to continue a pattern that we're seeing in Moses' life that is mentioned enough in scripture for us to become concerned that these are disturbing evidences of a pattern of anger. So that brings us to numbers 20 fast forward 40 years and we come to numbers 20. The wilderness wanderings are just about over. They are at the verge of entering the land and something happens. They've come full circle. They are back at Kedish Barnea. The place where Israel 40 years before had failed to go into the land because of the spies giving a bad report. So they've come full circle and I'm wondering if maybe Moses was thinking about that previous failure at this spot. So there may have been something already churning inside him, but what we find in numbers 20 is a disastrous explosion of anger. Let's look at the circumstances in the first five verses. Now let's read verse 1. In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the desert of Zinn and they stayed at Kedish. This is Kedish Barnea. This is the town just outside the southern border of the promised land where they were before 40 years before that. And the Bible says their Miriam died and was buried. Now verse 2. Now there was no water for the community and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said if only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord. Is this sounding familiar? This has happened over and over and over again. And what they're referring to in verse 3 happens just a few chapters earlier where a man named Kora and some of his cohorts had led an actual rebellion against Moses. And God had caused the earth to swallow up and to open up and swallow them whole. They and their families and their possessions. That was God's judgment in that case. And that's what the people are referring to here. If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord. Why did you bring the Lord's community into this wilderness that we in our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grapes or grain or figs, grape vines or pomegranates and there is no water to drink. Moses is hearing the same thing he has heard over and over and over again. Almost 40 years have passed and it seems that nothing has changed. And I don't think the location helped any. They're right at the spot where they had failed before. And now Moses is hearing the same complaining that he's heard for 40 years. And questioning of his authority and his leadership and why is he leading them this way? Moses quite obviously had had it. He was seizing inside. He's heard this for years. He may not realize it. The people may not realize it, but they are about to push him over the edge. Those are the circumstances that Moses is up against. But notice if you will, the response in verse six. Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell face down and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. Now the tent of meeting is the newly constructed tabernacle. It's a place where God meets with his people and you'll find several times whenever Moses and or Aaron are seeking the leadership of God in his direction and what they should do in a particular situation. They go before the tabernacle and fall on their faces before God. That is that is a posture of submission and of of waiting to hear from God. What will he tell us? What should we do? So that's a good response. But notice next what happens. Verse seven. The Lord said to Moses, take the staff and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Now let me stop right there. You remember that the staff is the evidence of Moses' authority as God's leader. It was that staff that God had given him before he ever sent him to Egypt to use to show his authority to Pharaoh of the miracles. Remember the staff would be thrown down, turned into a snake and so forth. And then it was that staff that was used to hold out over the red sea for the people of Israel to walk through on dry ground after the fire. This was this was the symbol of his authority. So God wants him to take that and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. But then notice what he says at the end of verse eight. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink. Now there was an instance like this before you may recall it back in Exodus 17. We looked at that passage before where the people were complaining about a lack of water and God told Aaron or Moses to take his staff and strike the rock and water would come out of it. That was Exodus 17. But it's very clear there are different instructions here. Moses quite clearly said take your staff because that's the sign of your authority in a sense Israel will see that God is going to do something here but you are to speak to the rock. Very clear instructions that cannot be misunderstood. Verse nine. So Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, listen you rebels must we bring you water out of this rock. Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff water gust out in the community and their livestock drank. Now it seems clear to me what's going on here. Moses has followed what he should do by meeting with God, prostrating himself before God waiting for God to speak and give him clear direction which God does. The direction is very clear. Take the staff show the people of Israel that God's authority is going to work through you to do a miracle. But you are to speak to the rock. What obviously is happening is that Moses is hot again. He's close to losing control. And as he gets to the rock with all of this frustration building up inside of him of more complaining, more gripping on the part of God's people as he gets to the rock that volcano explodes. And with skating words, he levels the people. Listen you rebels must we bring you water out of this rock and then he turns and strikes the rock in direct opposition to what God told him to do not once. But twice it's obvious he is out of control. It is only by God's grace that the water does come to meet the needs of the people even though Moses has seriously violated God's command. Another disastrous explosion of anger. Look at the consequences verse 12. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as fully in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I gave them. Now here's the reason why I wanted to give so much background to this story. If you just read this story and then come to verse 12, whoa, this is shocking. God is not going to let him fulfill his lifelong dream. What God called him to do to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. Wow, this is too severe punishment isn't it? After all, Moses just got a little mad and the people deserve it. This is righteous anger which is the term that we use for most of our anger. It's righteous anger and that the people deserve this. But this is a long term issue that God's been dealing with him all of his adult life. And he is not conquered it. And so there is a sense in which you can read this story as God's saying, okay, Moses, that is enough. That's enough. You will not lead the people into the land. You will suffer the consequences of a long standing problem that even the weakest most humble man on the face of the earth could not conquer explosive violent outbursts of anger. So he suffers the consequences. But I want to dig a little deeper in the verse 12 because I think verse 12 gives us a divine education on anger. God tells us three things about anger here. There are three lessons that he's going to teach us. Let's go to school here and find out what God's teaching us in this divine education on anger. First of all, first lesson is this. God says the root cause of anger is unbelief. It is unbelief. Look at it again, verse 12. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the side of the Israelites, because you did not trust in me enough. So that's God laying his finger at the root of the problem. What happened here, Moses? Well, I got a little ticked off God. Got a little angry. I admit it. No, no, Moses. Here's what's really happened. You did not trust me enough. That is the root cause of anger. What God is saying is Moses, you did not trust me enough that what I said was sufficient. My word to you was speak to the rock. You did not trust me enough to just believe that I would accomplish what I said I would do. So you didn't trust my word. And you didn't trust me enough to believe that I can deal with the Israelites. I mean, God had demonstrated that plenty of times before in the way he judged the Israelites for their complaining. Moses didn't need to do that. Moses didn't need to yell at them and call them rebels and strike the rock at his anger. God can take care of the Israelites. God is the one who takes vengeance, who judges. That's not our place. And so he didn't trust God enough to do what God said he would do by speaking to the earth. And he didn't trust God to do what he knew God could do by inflicting his own judgment. If he saw fit to do that on the people of Israel. You see my friend, whenever you let the flesh have its own way, whenever I let anger take control, we know God's will. We know what his word says. But we want our own way and we want it so bad because we want to give that person a piece of our mind or we want to react to a situation in ways that just blasts out in anger. We don't trust God enough to take control. And whenever we do that, it leaves the door open for anger to take us our own way, which is always away from what God wants us to do. Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter 4. He talks about, and grieve not the Holy Spirit by whom you're sealed to the day of redemption. He talks about putting away anger and so forth in a few verses before that. He says, be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. In other words, what he's dealing with is the progression of this anger that we looked at earlier. Be angry. We're all going to be as a common thing of life. We're all going to be angry. It's going to happen. We're going to get angry, but don't let it progress through those stages to wrath. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. When it gets to that level, you better have dealt with it by then and not let it go another day or it will go another stage. It will ratchet up to another level of development, maybe to fury or to rage. So you can't let it go. And then he says in the very next verse in Ephesians 4, he says, and do not give the devil an opportunity. Don't give the devil a foothold is literally the word. In other words, don't allow Satan to get a foot in the door because if he does, he's going to push it wide open. Whenever you do not believe what God says and you take things into your own hands and decide, I'm going to deal with this in my way. They're going to get a dose of their own medicine. I'll take control whenever you do that. That's unbelief in what God has said. And you're allowing the devil to get a little foothold which will take you further than you want to go as anger progresses. I think Moses approached this with jaw set, teeth clenched, determined to have his say and do what he wanted to do to display what was in boiling inside of him regardless of what God said. Anger is rooted in unbelief. We show a lack of faith in God when we when we explode in anger. The second lesson about anger in this divine education is losing control dishonors God. You see it there in verse 12, because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites. You see, rash action in the flesh doesn't show proper respect for God. It wasn't that Moses was just out of control and doing his own thing. He wasn't showing proper respect for God. You see, God is presence at that rock. God is there. God is the one who's going to allow water to come from the rock. God is the one who's going to perform the miracle. God is present there at that rock. And Moses doesn't act in a way that shows respect for the presence of God at the rock. He strikes out in the flesh and doesn't even recognize that God is there. And so he dishonors the presence of God and his own person and he dishonors the presence of God before the people because he doesn't reflect who God is to the nation of Israel. To lose control, to vent our own feelings of rage, dishonors God, and it shows to the people around us, especially to unsaved people, a distorted view of the God of grace and love who reaches out to them to forgive the clans by the blood of Christ. And so God's presence is dishonored and God's work is frustrated. This is the way James says it in James chapter 1 and verse 19. He says, my dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Here's a formula that's very hard to live by. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Here's the reason why. Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. So our human anger, our racking it up to the level of wrath or fury, does not do the work of God. It does not allow God to work. And it does not advance his cause. Anger simply is counterproductive to everything God is wanting to do in us and to others. And so violent explosions of anger, dishonor God losing control, dishonors God. But here's probably the most difficult lesson for us personally is that anger may leave painful consequences. God will forgive you. And he did forgive Moses. Moses allowed to continue to lead the people. Moses was taken to the mount where God buried him and him in a proper burial. So God continued to honor Moses, but Moses suffered some consequences of his actions. And those consequences would be that he would not lead the people into the land. When we bring reproach to Christ, when we violate the will of God, you can't always undo the damage that has been done. To you or to others, you can seek forgiveness and restoration, but there will be scars there that will make the same level of relationship very difficult. And there may be consequences that come up because of your actions that you cannot undo. I'm reminded of the story that I'm sure I've told you before about the young man who grew up in an affluent neighborhood in an affluent family. And the custom of that neighborhood for the families who lived in that area was whenever a boy or a girl graduated from high school, they would receive a new car. And so this young man who was about ready to graduate from high school just assumed that would be the case. And so he and his dad had gone out, they'd looked at several cars. And a week before graduation, they had seen to kind of finalize, kind of really settle in on a car that was really, really great. The young guy loved it. So he fully expected it to appear in his driveway the morning of graduation instead at the breakfast table that morning his dad handed him a box. And then that small box he opened it up and it was a Bible, a Bible of all things, not the keys to the car, but a Bible. He pulled the Bible out of the box and flung it to the ground in anger and stormed out of the house. He ended up going on to college, did well, had a great career, but was never reconciled with his father. Years later, his father died and here is this boy, now a grown man, up and years himself, going through his father's things. And he pulls out of a closet, a small box that has dust on it. He opens it up and he recognizes that Bible. He began to flip through the Bible. And he got to Proverbs 3 verses 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all that in heart, lean not unto that own understanding, in all that ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. And tucked into that page in his Bible was a cashier's check for the exact amount of the car they had looked at. And the boy broke down in tears, not because of the car, not because of the check he had done far better than what that would have afforded him. But because his greed and anger had caused a broken relationship with his dad, there are some consequences to anger that you can't undo. That's the most difficult lesson of all three. Now I'm not here to judge Moses harshly, the Lord knows I have no room for that. We all have the same potential as Moses. And we all are guilty to some degree of some of those levels, maybe all of those levels of anger. We've expressed it certainly in the wrong ways we've hurt people, sometimes people who are closest to us. And no doubt all of us in this room wish we could go back and take some things back we've said or change some things we've done in the past. I'm sure Moses felt that way. I'm sure that as he led the people to the verge of the land he just wished over and over again, it could only take that day back. If I could only call upon God for his strength to keep those words from gushing out. If I could have only restrained my hand from striking that rock, I'm sure that his God took him up to the top of Mount Nebo and he looked over the land. He had regrets. So we all face that. I'm not here to judge Moses. I'm here to challenge me and you. Maybe you wrestle constantly with a violent expression of anger. Maybe you have the same kind of difficulty Moses did, even though in many areas of your life you may be a meek and humble person like Moses was. And yet you struggle with this violent expression of anger, uncontrolled anger. Or maybe it's more internal with you. By the way, that can do a lot of damage too. Maybe on the exterior you seem calm. But on the inside you are seething and deep levels of frustration and bitterness and resentment are eating away at your inside. Regardless of which kind it is, you know you need to deal with that anger. You can't go back and change what has been done, but God can change you. How does that happen? First of all, you need to make sure that you're saved. You need to make sure that you know Christ is your Savior. That's the place to begin. Because in Christ the Bible says we are new creatures. We're a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. We're new people. Now that doesn't mean you're never going to have those old sins bubble back up because they will. But what it means is that you now have the Holy Spirit's continual presence to help you that you didn't have before. You have something to counter that old nature, that simple nature with and that's the presence of the Spirit. And so you need to check first of all to make sure that you know Christ is your Savior. And then if you do know Christ, you need to ask yourself, am I really living under the control of the Holy Spirit? If you look at the epistles, that is the answer. So that's the answer. Colossians 3 Paul talks about putting on the new men, taking off the old men, and he lists several characteristics of the old men. And four or five of those have to do with anger. Same thing in Ephesians 4. He says, get rid of all bitterness, anger, wrath and malice. How do you do that? It's in the context he says of not grieving the Spirit, of yielding to the Spirit. And in that amazing passage in Galatians chapter 5, he talks about that struggle that goes on inside all of us. He says, walk by the Spirit. It's possible to do that, walk by the Spirit, yielding to His control. And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. But this is not some fancy deal of ABCs as to what to do. The Bible says, yield to the Spirit of God. He's living in you if you will continually, constantly, as you face those temptations of the flesh, yield control of your heart and mind to the Spirit of God. You will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And then he lists those desires of the flesh. Listen to some of them. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, and there are others, but all those have to do with some kind of anger. But he says, if you're walking by the Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is in control of your mind and heart, your thought processes, and where your heart, spirit attitude is, the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence of the Spirit's control is love, joy, peace, forbearance. Forbearance means that you are able to bear things for a long time. You're not quick to anger. You're able to bear with people, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Control over those quick impulses of the flesh. My friend, what Paul says is the key to overcoming the evidence of the sin nature like uncontrolled anger. And he lists it a number of times, is the control of the Spirit of God. He says, well that sounds way out there. How do I do that? Maybe praying a prayer like this would help. In the moments of heated anger when you feel it rising, maybe to commit this prayer to memory, I'm going to put it on the screen for you so you can copy it down, or at least get the verses. Psalm 19, this is a good prayer to pray. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. These are the things that rise up in us before we realize it. Keep your servant also from willful sins. That's when they start getting out. I'm choosing to do this. May they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. That's the kind of sin that has obvious consequences. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Those are great verses. How it would cleanse our way, Psalm 19 says by the word of God. So it is the consistent application of scripture to the moment you find yourself in that give you the power to submit to the Spirit of God and see what God is. See his fruit coming out rather than fits of rage, malice, wrath, all that coming out. That's evidence that the flesh is in control. So if you if you will pray something like this in the moment where you feel irritation, turning into indignation and about ready to explode in wrath, when you start feeling that pray that kind of prayer. Lord, guard my mouth, guard my mind, my heart. May may all of that be pleasing to you. I yield to the control of the Spirit. I recognize his fruit of that control is things like love and joy and peace and long suffering and willingness to bear along with the situation and self control. And so I need all of that right now. I don't have it in myself. I need you to grant me that to help me with that. That's where we have to find ourselves. Moses evidently never got control of that. Some of us haven't either. And we need his help today before there's any more damage to those that we love the most. Would you bow with me in prayer? Father, I pray today, especially for those who are here who may have never trusted Jesus as Savior. And they have no help of the Holy Spirit to give them strength when they're struggling with the raging desires of the flesh that come to the front. I pray, Father, that you would help them to first of all recognize they need to come to you as Savior so that they can have the help they need, the new life, become a new creature. To be able to live a different way. And in order for those of us who know you as Savior, but we're still giving in to the flesh in this regard, I pray, Father, that you would help us to bring ourselves under. Submission and yieldedness to the Spirit of God who is in us and to cry out to you in moments when we feel the flesh rising. That our words and meditations of our hearts would be pleasing to you and that your Spirit would take over control of our responses. Help us in those moments to really apply, live out your word. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.