An Angry Nation

 

“Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.” Ecclesiastes 7:9.

 

Anger rests in the bosom of fools. How appropriate is this verse in Ecclesiastes when we’re talking about our society’s anger today. Where does anger come from, and why do we become angry? There is a type of anger demonstrated by our Lord Jesus in the Temple of His Father when He drove out the money changers. This is commonly known as righteous anger. Jesus had every right to be angry with those people. They were making the Temple of God a marketplace instead of a place of worship, “The eyes of the LORD [are] in every place, beholding the evil and the good,” Proverbs 15:3. 

 

It’s not that type of anger I want to address here; it’s the kind of anger that Solomon is describing in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Not God’s righteous anger, but our foolish anger. We all, at times, display some sort of foolish and irrational anger, some more than others. Everyday, somewhere in the U.S., someone is murdered out of anger. A life is destroyed out of anger. Why? Because hatred tends to follow anger very closely. Have you ever been driving in rush hour traffic and noticed a display of anger from one of your fellow commuters? Perhaps it was you who, acting out of anger, gave your neighbor, whom you are to love as yourself, an inappropriate hand signal. It’s foolish to get angry with someone over a simple lane change. Yet this type of anger occurs daily all over the country. It even leads to what is commonly referred to as road rage. Some have killed others out of this anger and rage. This type of anger is quick and deadly. It’s a debilitating anger that consumes the heart of those who allow it. “The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness,” Proverbs 15:14.

 

What we see in the wake of foolish anger is devastation. One of Jesus’ admonitions from the Gospel according to Matthew was “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them…” Matthew 7:12. The new adage in this country seems to be “Do unto others as they do unto you”, in other words “get even”. How many people try to “get even” after being the brunt of a neighbor’s foolish anger? Foolish anger leads to sin.

 

In the Bible sin is likened to leaven. It takes very little leaven to affect the whole loaf. In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus tells the parable of the woman who adds a little leaven to three measures of meal until all is leavened. Same goes for sin. It starts small but festers like an unattended infection until, finally, the whole body becomes contaminated. Out of anger sin is brought forth. 

 

As I stated previously, hatred follows closely behind anger. If anger and hatred are allowed to replace reason, patience, caring, charity, or even brotherly love, the ultimate outcome of such a change is a complete moral and spiritual decay of society. When anger is allowed to overcome us, there is then no place for love. Anger, if left unchecked, will eventually destroy an individual’s life. The same can and will occur where the life of our nation is concerned if we aren't careful.

 

Love of self is turning once loving and caring individuals into angry monsters. Our land is full of them. Many pastors all across this land are now advocating a self love doctrine. Christ commanded us to love one another as we love ourselves. This doesn’t have anything to do with any sort of a self love doctrine. We’re not to be angry with one another but to love one another. Jesus made His command clear over and over again as He taught His disciples. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,” John 13:34.

 

If we harbor anger in our hearts how then can we love one another? Because the Bible and the Ten Commandments have been removed from our public schools and the Ten Commandments systematically removed from our government institutions, it can now be said that many Americans have never read or even heard Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Quite matter-of-factly, from what we see happening in our society today, God’s word is considered irrelevant by too many people.

 

Without God’s word, man’s recourse for any alleviation from their anger falls to a humanistic “specialist”. Sinful angry man seeking answers for their problems from sinful angry men. Man's ways are not God’s ways. Only through God’s word can the anger in our hearts be held in check. The prophet Jeremiah tells us, “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:11.

 

Daily attention to God’s word is the only answer to an angry heart. Everyone has the propensity for anger inside them because all are sinners. Only through the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can we find the cure.   

 

As a culture we are heading down a very slippery slope. Since many in our country won’t attend Church or read the Bible, anger becomes a natural path because we aren’t allowing God to direct us. What can be seen quite clearly now throughout this nation is a blatant attempt of satanic magnitude to completely destroy our once Christian culture and replace it with a society built from the foundation of humanistic and socialistic bedrock; a new society which has no heart, no conscience, and, for the most part, no feelings of remorse as it commits indecent crimes against its fellow man, much of which can be attributed to a foolish anger.

 

We Americans live in a country that has turned its back on the God of the Bible, the only true God. The fear of the Lord is no longer of value among Americans. Satan has had a free reign for the last forty years or so and has taken complete advantage of that situation. Satan spreads hatred and anger; it’s his mantra. He thoroughly enjoys seeing God’s children filled with anger. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Romans 6:16. Anger is the playing field of Satan, and he will defend his turf with vigor.

 

Anger ignores God’s will. It moves us out of fellowship with our Lord and onto a path that will lead, if left unchecked, into fellowship with God’s enemy. If you’ve never enjoyed fellowship with God, you don’t have a clue what you’ve been missing. Fellowship with God has to be experienced; it can't be explained.

 

As Americans abandon their love for their fellow man and inevitably grow closer to the opposite, which is anger and hatred, a stronghold for the enemy forms. The enemy is allowed to take up occupancy of that stronghold; and it will become increasingly more difficult on our part to control that anger. The enemy becomes more and more entrenched in his stronghold to the point that that individual is completely overtaken by demons and his occupancy becomes permanent. Without God, will that person ever be able to escape the inevitable and ultimate consequence of allowing Satan control over them? No. There will be no coming back from that satanic state of being without God. Anger has become quite pervasive in our culture today. Anger will cause a hardened heart. The harder the heart becomes the harder it is for the Holy Spirit to have any influence over that heart.

 

There is a point that the Holy Spirit will stop its prodding. it’s when a heart becomes completely corrupt and full of foolish anger. Anger is manifest in many different attitudes. For example, our countenance can be a display of anger, and our facial expressions can exude anger but the worst culprit of all is the tongue, “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness, Proverbs 15:2.

 

When there’s a lack of control over our tongues all sorts of ugly things can occur. God gives us all the examples we can possibly use to teach us of how anger destroys. “His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue [is] mischief and vanity,” Psalm 10:7.

 

Many examples are given by God of the different characters in the Bible so we who read His word can have examples of how to control ourselves. Many examples are given on what happens when men allow anger to control their actions. Many evils have been committed throughout history because of a lack of control regarding this foolish anger. There is only one way to combat this evil. God’s word must become the dominant source for truth and teaching in America just as it was at one time in the not so distant past. There will be no turning from this angry satanic blight on this culture until God’s word reigns supreme.

 

The writing is on the wall people. Do the research for yourself. Look at the statistics of how far we as a nation have fallen from grace. Just look at the immorality of this nation, the drug and alcohol use, and the prisons which are overflowing and cannot possibly hold all the future inmates that this nation seems to be producing at a phenomenal rate.

 

Every bit of the downfall of this nation can be attributed to the elimination of God’s presence from our lives. “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward,” Isaiah 1:4.

 

God have mercy on America for the anger that rests in the bosom of fools.

 

And God? Please bless America once again.

 

Ron Graham

 

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