AGAIN OR STILL?
Is it bad to be mad?
I spoke to a couple pastor friends from the Twin Cities of Minnesota this week. I asked if things were really on edge up there or if the media was just overstating it. They assured me that most people are very tense. Folks are angry, scared, and tense regardless of their political stance. It’s a mad, mad world in land of ten thousand lakes.
Recently I pulled into a Chevron station to get gas. Two vehicles were blocking the entrance—a pickup and a sedan–their windows were down and they were talking. So I waited a bit, then I backed up and saw that I could maneuver my car around them—with three feet to spare. I drove around and stopped at the pump. Suddenly the driver of the pickup gunned his truck and pinned me in. He jumped out of his vehicle screaming and yelling. “You almost hit my truck! You almost hit my truck!”
I was startled. “Did I hit anything?” I asked. “Almost!” He was livid. He shouted again and then stormed into the Chevron store.
I started to get angry, then caught myself. The other guy was mad enough for the both of us. I wondered what he was so mad about, then it hit me. There is a lot to be mad about these days.
Life in our culture is pretty maddening. If you turn on the news, you will invite anger. The news will incite us toward picking sides, and the fact that the news people are lying to us and provoking us makes us even more angry. I’m getting irritated just talking about all of this.
Is it bad to be mad?
Let’s look at Psalm 109 for an answer:
Psalm 109
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause.
In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.
Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy; let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him.
(David is getting angry!)
May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. (Wow!)
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
(David goes after his family!)
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
(Now he goes after his enemy’s money)
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.
(He even goes after this guy’s descendants!)
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
(What did his mother do to deserve this?)
May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may blot out their name from the earth.
For he never thought of doing a kindness but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted.
He loved to pronounce a curse—may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing—may it be far from him.
He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil.
May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him.
May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me.
But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.
I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads. Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love.
Let them know that it is your hand, that you, Lord, have done it.
While they curse, may you bless; may those who attack me be put to shame, but may your servant rejoice.
May my accusers be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.
With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.
For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save their lives from those who would condemn them.
–Psalm 103:1-31 (NIV)
Yikes!
David is clearly infuriated. So he wrote a song, and the song made it into the Bible, the book of Psalms.
This is one of what is known as the Imprecatory Psalms. To imprecate is to call down curses, calamity, destruction, and judgment on another person. The Imprecatory Psalms are filled with anger. And there are quite a few of these Imprecatory Psalms.
And they raise quite a few questions. Are we supposed to pray these Psalms? Should we sing them? Is it okay to be this angry? How do they mesh with what Jesus says in the New Testament?
But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. —Luke 6:27-28 (NIV)
What are we supposed to do with these Imprecatory or Judging or Cursing Psalms?
Here is my answer. You might want to write this down because it is really good. Here it is:
I’m not sure!
I do not know exactly what to do with Psalm 109 or the other Psalms where David—and other authors—call down destruction on their enemies.
We don’t know. Some commentators got so frustrated with Psalm 109 that they added a line: In verse 6 of the New Living Translation they put in, “They say…” “We don’t get it,” they thought. “Maybe David was quoting someone else.” Fake news! Look at the footnote: “The Hebrew lacks, ‘They say…’”
We don’t know everything about Psalm 109. But there are some things we do know. Let’s walk through some truths about anger and God and other people and ourselves that we actually can know and do know from Psalm 109:
1. We all want justice
My God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause.—Psalm 103:1-3 (NIV)
David wanted justice!
Scientists have discovered when our anger begins: Birth. We were safe and warm, and then boom! A traumatic entry, we came into this world screaming. And no one needs to tell us to want justice. It’s in our genes!
“Listen to the young child who is beginning to put words into sentences, and you will soon hear the child say, ‘That’s not fair, Mommy.’ Where did the child obtain that moral judgment? I suggest that it’s stamped deep within his nature, tempered by parental teaching to be sure, but the child knows when he/she has been wronged and will express it freely.”—Gary Chapman
Good News: God is just
“Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.”—Matthew 12:18
2. Evil exists
Jesus told us to pray that the Father would deliver us from evil.
Evil exists–the Dodgers won the World Series…
Evil exists, and it exists in people. We know evil people. Throughout history we’ve learned of Hitler, Mussolini, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin. We know there is evil because we have all these fictional characters, Cruella Deville, Hannibal Lecter, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
One clear example of evil is Judas. In Acts 1, the Apostle Peter quotes this Imprecatory Psalm as a prophecy about Judas.
Consider Judas, he was one of twelve, so evil people are rare, less than ten percent. Judas wormed his way into a position of power—he was the treasurer. Often, evil people become powerful so they can destroy much. He was overly concerned with money. The love of money is the root of all evil. And he went after Jesus. Evil people often target leaders. They tried to destroy David, and they tried to destroy Jesus and his appointed leaders.
Good news: God is good.
“Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.”—Romans 12:21 (NLT)
3. We all want Revenge
When his case comes up for judgment, let him be pronounced guilty. Count his prayers as sins. —Psalm 109:7 (NLT)
Douglas Horton advised, “While seeking revenge, dig two graves – one for yourself.”
Here is some bad news: we are not good at revenge. We’re not gifted for it or equipped to do it.
Good news: God is good at revenge.
“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.” — Romans 12:19 (NLT)
4. It is okay to get mad, just don’t stay mad
David seems to lose momentum to his anger as this Psalm continues. He punches himself out.
Paul warned:
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. —Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)
Wife: I’m mad
Husband: Again or still?
That is the big question, again or still? Do the people in your life feel that you simply got angry again, or are you still an angry person?
I’m going through Dan Sullivan’s book, “Not Being Bothered” with my teenage grandchildren. Dan suggests:
“We create many of our own problems. We create our own bothers…Something happened to me in the past that was negative or a failure. And something that just happened, something that somebody said, something that I just noticed, and I get this flashback and I am bothered in the situation. Because if you look at situations that bother you and you gain some objectivity, there is no real reason why you should necessarily have been bothered by what just happened. And therefore, it is uniquely your bother, and it is explained by something that happened in your experience. My feeling is that people who have a lot of problems, the problems they have are an accumulation of bothers they are not handling.”
That’s a long thought asking, “Am I upset again or still?”
Is it bad to be mad? Again or still? It is natural to get mad, it is not good to stay mad.
Mark Twain observed, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
Dr. Frank Minirth says, “Pent-up anger is probably the leading cause of death.”
How do you get rid of anger?
Look what David did:
But I am a man of prayer. —Psalm 109:4 (NIV)
But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. —Psalm 109:21 (NIV)
Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love. —Psalm 109:26 (NIV)
Ask God for help! If we learn anything from the Imprecatory Psalms is that it is okay to cry out to God in prayer! He can handle it!
Look what Paul says:
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. —Ephesians 4:31-32 (NIV)
Forgive. God forgave you; you can forgive others.
Lewis Smedes concluded, “When we forgive, we set the prisoner free, and we discover that the prisoner we set free is us.”
When we forgive, it significantly reduces our anger. When we let it go, it won’t jump up so fast again.
Have we forgiven? Have we prayed?
There is a lot to be mad about these days. And it’s okay to be mad again. Let’s quickly let go of that aggravation and not be angry still.