Living With Anger | Dr. Conrad Vine

[Music] [Music] [Music] okay everybody we'll just get our evening meeting underway it's right on 7:00 um before we have our first home there's just a few nightes I want to run past you uh now that we're quite a bulk of you are here um the mo the meetings in the morning will not be here all right um they will be at KIRO 7th Adventist Church company group it's for the benefit of those who want to come get there early because it might be full it's at 53 Fuller Street KIRO it's on the corner of paraki and Fuller streets so you're welcome there for the morning there'll be a Sabbath School there'll be divine service and Andreas will be taking the Divine service there'll be a church lunch there together and 2:00 meeting will be back here for the rest of it 2:00 4:00 and 7:00 Sunday morning there are two meetings 9:30 is it 9 or 9:30 9:30 and 11 and then it's finished so I just remember that now the Autumn leave shop will be open for you Sunday afternoon we're going to open that up especially if any of you want to come up and get books or whatever you're welcome to do that we obviously haven't bought them here so feel free boxes of Bibles will be a available there on Sunday as well that's just an amazing project that's just gone so far and wide we even had a request from Idaho they're wanting Bibles for prison ministry incredible it's just gone out and uh someone's asked Conrad can you bring a box of Bible I think they want a pallet of Bibles by the sound of it he's going to sponsor his own 747 and take them home so there's big interest and I think Damon mentioned southern Ireland got in touch with us folk we knew well from years 20 30 years ago in Oakland he shifted to southern Ireland and he's wanning 160 Bibles another friend from gazley Bible Fellowship Richard Humphrey's he contacted he said I've been watching the program good to see you still kicking along he says one of the presentations of Conrad the Catholic state of America has now had 27,000 views wow it's just incredible I think the second one you took had 14,000 777 um so that from that within hours of that going up there was hundreds of views so there's been big interest in these meetings people are hungry they're looking for something and the north Ireland Camp reflected that people are looking for something anyway so I think that's all any questions at all okay Sabbath will be coming in about 9: after Conrad's finished we'll have a prayer and a hymn and then you can go and rest we're going to have a hymn now and that is number no it's not it's a request who's got a request 33 373 ladies and men you'll be sharing in this one the men sing the first part of the chorus the ladies the second seeking the last okay let's stand and sing with a hearty voice sing up [Music] Shing the lost on the mountain of come unto me his message repe which of the ladies the mountain [Music] the J [Music] sh Jesus we lady all in ways of Salvation pointing of us upon the mountain bringing [Music] the again the Jesus [Music] the I would go missions of Mery foll Christ from to cheering the Fain and praising the falling pointing the Jesus the upon the mountain bringing the rede Jesus the we invite you to kneel where you can as we open up our evening our dearest Heavenly Father we come to our knees this evening as Souls hungry for truth I pray that each one of us would realize the weakness of our Humanity in our great need of your Divine strength father I pray please that all the forces of evil would be expelled from this premises and that your sweet love would be out here and take the hearts of these dear men and women and children into your hands and lead us forward to that Heavenly Trail please father I just pray that our hearts would be receptive to the message that our dear Dr Conrad has for us may you bless his mind and his lips as he delivers may we be uh willing to accept the messages and father may we apply them to our hearts and lives we're here for a short time and I pray we'd feed off these speakers who have come to share with us all of them and father may we leave here a different people to when we came but may it be lasting may it not be till we get out the door and the secular thoughts take over Keep Us Faithful father thank you for this opportunity may we all make the most of it and enjoy sweet Fellowship together for we ask it in jesus' name amen now Conrad has um he's he's come to the four of of lat years and the invitation we put into Conrad was two years ago to get him for this year he couldn't come last year you were going to um UI Pines I think yeah and he said I'll come for 2025 whether we were going to have a camp or Not Who would know at that stage but um our brother here has gone through hell on Earth still going through it and as we've been traveling to together he's revealed some things that are I just said to him hold your head up this too will pass Harden all of do to accept but truth will always win error will always fail it may take time but error will always fail so I think here you are not canceled out in New Zealand thank you very [Applause] much don't applaud give glory to God um and it's just such a pleasure to have you with us Conrad and the only thing we'll ask you back but you have to bring your wife thank you I will do God bless you all the very best thank uh thank you everybody for your warm welcome here to uh New Zealand and uh it's a privilege to come and share with you on this beautiful Friday the Sabbath house almost upon us and I was looking at the weather forecast this morning cuz nothing I dread more than sitting all day in a shirt and tie and jacket and plus plus 70° and I thought oh good it's going to be a cooler day today so I'm grateful to God for the small mercy of a cold summer here in New Zealand and um my wife wrote to me this morning it was minus 20 Celsius where she is and that's that's on the nippy side and um she was saying you need to come back soon to shovel the snow so I may extend my stay by another week so uh anyway sorry home oh thank you thank you thank you so um what while I was up in the north Ireland I did uh one sermon on a doctrinal topic that was the state of the dead and today I did one on the Sabbath I also did one on living with um sexual Brokenness and porn addiction and this evening I want to do another kind of topical sermon that's related to something that goes on in many of our homes and I've entitled this sermon living with anger because many people live with anger in their homes they live with anger in their hearts and many people um they kind of almost lose their religion getting to church on time on Sabbath morning um they're just getting the kids ready I see a few nods around the room here and uh and so um I understand from a pastal perspective that anger is an issue that many of us deal with but we're not sure how to deal with it we live with it uh sometimes it becomes a part of who we are it colors all of our relationships it influences every relationship so I want to talk to this evening about anger um because it it's h it affects all of us and affects us in very negative ways and unless we deal with these things in emotionally and spiritually healthy manner these things become a curse that will poison everything that is near and dear to us in our marriages and affects our children as well so uh tonight's topic is is more um more from a pastoral perspective I see this in many people's homes and so I want to talk tonight about the topic of anger and so our journey tonight you see on the screen um with we're going to look at what is anger the positive and negative results of anger how not to deal with anger and actually most of the time this evening is on is actually on how to deal with anger and at the back of the con the hall there I have a little sheet here that includes like a little cheat sheet for a lot of what I'm talking about tonight um that includes um uh steps to forgiveness and also um a lot of comments on on biblical principles of forgiveness on the back there you know forgiveness is something that is almost unique to Christianity um in many of the other religions in the world because of Shame and honor um if you hurt me I hurt you back and maybe the most um or the unique image of all the founders of the world religions today um is actually Jesus washing the disciples feet you don't find that kind of humility and offer of forgiveness um any in any other religion today and uh when I used to serve in the Middle East Union we do many chip programs in Dubai and the the night that was always best attended by uh large groups of Muslim ladies was uh Dr Hansel would speak would speak about heart forgiveness at the end of that series which is dealing with with um forgiveness and that was an intriguing concept those Muslim ladies because in Islam they don't really have the concept of forgiveness at all you have to maintain honor that means you hurt people back then they hurt you back then you have to hurt them back and that cycle never ends the cycle of Vengeance seeking and revenge and so forgiveness is something that is um pretty unique to the world religions today and it comes from the teachings of Jesus as we're going to see today it was practiced by Jesus himself so um let's get into our introduction today I want to talk about this is a true story um it was her only daughter was the light of her life the source of Joy love and happiness and Mrs Hannah she had a little daughter her only child and she watched her little girl grow with a sense of wonder and and joy that only a loving parent can experience her Joy her daughter had dreams of a bright future she dreamt that she would study and maybe become a doctor one day and so uh her mother and L's little daughter they played together they walked together they shopped together they they told stories with each other um they sat on the couch on the evening together and the mother made sure her daughter went to all the necessary classes and that little girl was growing up very nicely and they were working and studying for their common and shared dreams but one day those dreams came to an end uh when When a sheriff came through the door that night not the daughter and the sheriff announced that the daughter had been killed and her only daughter her precious princess was gone forever and the alleged murger was now in police custody so Mrs Hannah went through the full range of emotions that you go through in such a situation shock denial bewilderment resentment anger rage then cold bitterness and finally when her daughter's killer was sentenced to life in prison Mrs Hannah arrived at an unexpected and all consuming destination called hatred she got a picture of her daughter's killer she put it in the basement and every day she would start the day and end the day by throwing darts at the Killer's face at times her face would be set in a frozen mask of hatred and she could barely see through her the tears coming down through her eyes at night she found it more and more difficult to sleep her B her body was tense there was an inner rage like a forest fire reaching through her peace at night she experienced unexpected back pains her doctors couldn't explain this her friendships gradually withered away families and friends steered clear of her her demeanor was contorted by this cold inner rage her cold hatred became her only companion and her unresolved anger was the focus of her life now this is actually a true story we'll get to the rest of the story when we get to the conclusion so you have to wait okay it guarantees you say listening all right but her experience is not unique and if you are involved in pastal Ministry you will realize just how many of your members are living with anger unresolved cold anger the anger manifests itself in different ways some people describe anger as you go to bed at night and there's like an electric current running through your body it stops you from sleep sleeping for other people um anger manifests itself as depression because unresolved anger can manifest in psychological terms as a chronic depression uh there are different symptoms of unresolved anger but I've discovered as a pastor is that many many people live with anger rather than deal with their anger and living with anger is is a one-way ticket to a self-destruction so we're going to ask tonight just some brief questions firstly what is anger well anger is an emotionally intense response to a given situation now actually any negative situation person or event can make you angry and our anger is generally related to our perception of events people and uh situations but negative situations people and events don't automatically lead to anger it's our perceptions that leads to an emotional response and that response may be one of peace or of anger the Apostle Paul describes anger in Ephesians 4:26 he says this be ye angry and sin not let not the sun go down on your wrath or wrath so Paul recognizes that anger is actually a genuine and natural human emotion but he warns against sinning in our anger that as we should be in control of our anger our anger should neither control nor dominate us now typically people experience anger when they feel taken advantage of ignored frustrated abused or neglected many people when they experience a significant loss in their Liv such as a divorce or a death the breakup of their business or the home repossession will also respond with anger sometimes your anger can mask other feelings such as fear or helplessness and at times uh other emotional responses such as sadness can mask a dee rooted and hidden anger or bitterness of the Soul it eats you away from the inside out so anger is an emotion God has given us such a thing as anger it is in the human spectrum of emotional responses and Paul recognizes that while we may be angry we may be care we must be careful not to sin in that anger we get into bit that in a bit more detail now there are some positive results of anger feelings of anger can signal there is something troubling in a situation that needs to be resolved and some of the greatest reformers in history acted out of a sense of righteous indignation that things were happening in their society that should not be happening we think of uh William Force who fought his entire life to stop the scourge of slavery in the British Empire we think of the Victorian reformers such as Lizabeth fry who fought for prison reform for men and women to be housed in separate prisons and to be given food in prison we think of the reformers even Charles Dickens the great novelist from Victorian England he wrote Oliver Twist as a protest Against Child poverty and child slave labor in the East ends of London in the Victorian era it is we we thank those reformers who established hospitals for the poor extended the vote to women via the suffrage acts and in America we've just celebrated Martin Luther King Day and the Civil Rights Movement may be understood in this in this context that anger if can be channeled in a positive way to form a positive response within society and that may be a sense of righteous indignation responding to anger with constructive words or actions will often alleviate the immense emotional response of anger and reduces the possibility of a later explosion of uncontrolled anger and what is righteous indignation well anger is an emotional response to a negative personal situation that affects me personally we understand that righteous indignation is a neg is an emotional response to a negative event personal situation that does not affect us personally in any way so when you are indignant that somebody else has suffered an injustice that would be considered righteous indignation so when I was small I had a twin I have I had I have a twin brother and um sometimes um he would win a prize and he would receive let's say a jam Donut from my mother and I would be filled with a deep sense of righteous indignation but how could my mother poison my brother in such a way better that she give it to me and I sacrifice my body so my brother is no longer hurt now the point that I'm making here is it's easy to delude yourself that you're really experiencing righteous indignation it's easy to think that you're being angry on behalf of somebody else whereas in reality you're you're acting out of selfishness which according to Sister white is the origin of all sinfulness selfishness is the heart of sinfulness when we see that God is Dishonored or his character or his service is brought into distribute into distribute or the innocent are oppressed and the injustices are perpetrated on the powerless and voiceless often a deep sense of righteous indignation stirs the heart and such anger born of sensitive morals is not a sin because it leads to a constructive and a powerful response in society and so as I said some of the great reformers social reformers in history and I don't know New Zealand history well enough to know any of your own reformers here but certainly in in say Martin Luther King um uh some of the great reformers in Victorian England they were motivated by a sense of righteous indignation that the poor were suffering in such a terrible way and so they launched social Crusades the women's Christian Temperance Union was a was an was a respon positive respon response to the scourge of alcoholism Across America in the 1830s and the 1840s um in Mark chapter 10 verses 13-6 we see here that Jesus Jesus manifested you might say righteous indignation on behalf of small children and this is a very famous passage it says they brought young children to him that he should touch them and his disciples rebuked those that brought them but when Jesus saw it he was much displeased and the verb there means like to be angry so I put it and read there and said unto them suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God verily I say unto you whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child he shall not enter therein and he took them up in his arms put his hands upon them and bless them now in this passage here Jesus is indignant because his disciples are rebuking the parents to bring the small children to Jesus and that verb rebuked in the in the gospel of Mark is pretty much exclusively used when Jesus is rebuking an evil spirit and so when the disciples are rebuking parents for bringing children to Jesus for a blessing they're implying that these parents are acting under satanic influence and Jesus is greatly displeased when Jesus saw it he was displeased he was displeased with his disciples because they were preventing the small children from coming to him so Jesus in this pass In this passage exhibits a Godly indignation when somebody prevents another person coming to the person of Jesus Christ you may play that today if through our life and through our actions we impede somebody else's walk to Christ there is the same righteous indignation from our heavenly father that God does not want us putting barriers in the path of those who would otherwise come to Jesus Christ and if you look in the same chapter if you have your Bibles with you in Mark chapter 10 that same verb appears just a few verses later in Mark chapter in Mark 10:41 and this is where James and John decide that they want to sit at the right and left hand side of the Throne of God when Jesus comes in glory in the future and they come to Jesus and they ask can we sit at your right hand can we sit at your left and Jesus has a conversation with them but when when the other 12 disciples heard about it they were Furious and Mark 10:41 says when the 10 heard it they began to be much displeased with James and John it's the same verb as you have here so James the the 10 disciples are angry because they think somebody's going to get ahead of them in the kingdom of God think nominating committee time and your laughter is a guilty laughter the disciples are angry when they think that somebody else will become the head Elder and not them the disciples were angry when they wanted to be the head Deaconess and somebody else got the job oh sister is that a guilty laugh there no I don't know that is in contrast to Jesus in the same chapter what what causes Jesus to be angry is when people are prevented from coming to him Jesus is not concerned about position or Prestige or power he's concern that people receive the gift of eternal life so the question is what makes us angry in our local congregations what stirs our soul what causes us have a sense of righteous indignation I'm telling you nominating committee time is not a good time for some people when you are asked or when you are told thank you for your service but not next year it's a very difficult thing for some people to take and when they say and you chose that person in my place how could you do you not know anything about that person uh from a pastor's perspective you see you see how PE people you see the depth of their Christian experience when they no longer have the jobs they always wanted in the church and somebody else gets the job in Matthew chap 211 12-13 this is the story of the cleansing of the temple Jesus was angry here at the moneymaking in the temple which had turned the temple from a house of prayer for Pilgrims from all around the world into a vast animal market and slaughter house and if you went back to Jerusalem the time of Jesus there was the holy of holies there was the building itself and around it there was a courtyard and that was the court of the Israelites that that was where the Men Jewish men could go and then there was a colonade and outside the colonade there was a larger Court called the court of the women that's where the Jewish women could come but they couldn't come any closer than that and outside the court of the women there was a wall literally a wall on the outside of that wall that was where the Gentiles could come the court of the Gentiles and so when the Ethiopian unic travels for months in the back of a cart or a chariot from Ethiopia up to Jerusalem which is not a task any of us would voluntarily want to do when he travels for months in the Heats and dust and he gets to Jerusalem and he comes to the temple and he W wants to worship God in spirit and in truth and he comes to the temple and he discovers oh I'm in E I'm an Ethiopian I'm a gentile I can only come into the court of Gentiles I'm the furthest from where the center of the action is and in those days where did they slaughter the animals for the Passover in the court of the Gentiles so if you have an a conservative estimate two to three million people in Jerusalem at the time of Christ for Passover and each each family of um a lamb or a goat is for 10 persons so they're killing about quarter of a million sheep lambs and goats in the outer Temple there on the outer courts of the Gentiles all the day of the Passover celebration and you come from Ethiopia and you're standing in a slaughter house listening to the screeches of the dying animals standing in their blood is it any wonder that Jesus is upset about this and he drives out these money changers and not only that but the the the temple had this system where you had to buy the animals for the sacrifice using the temple currency so they had they had a rigged exchange rate so they were making profit on the exchange as well as on the profit of the animals and so Jesus drives out the M money makers you see there Jesus went into the temple of God cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrow the TA overthrew the tables of money chamber chamber Changers and the seats of them that sold doves and said unto them it is written my house shall be called a House of Prayer but ye have made it a den of Thieves and so the disciples in our passage in Mark um 10 and uh the in the passage here the cleaning of the temple the disciples and the temple authorities were putting barriers between people and God and that is what made Jesus upset when his people put barriers so that people find it hard to access God when people are held away from the presence of the Living God Jesus anger was a righteous indignation that had nothing to do with personal hurt love of self or wounded ambition that's the kind of model we find in scripture for righteous indignation and before you indulge in righteous indignation I'd encourage you to ask yourself what's really motivating this am I being motivated because this is my friend who's been slighted or am I motivated if it were my If This Were happening to my enemy would I still have the same emotional response am I doing this because I want to stand up for somebody who's close to me or am I genuinely concerned about the oppression of the marginalized the voiceless the weak in our community and so we like to delude ourselves when we are angry that it is righteous indignation like myself my twin brother and the jam Donuts but righteous indignation is often a convenient excuse but the tragedy is we often deluding ourselves for generally we only respond with anger to something that impacts us on a personal level so what are some of the negative results of anger well there are some physical results of living with unresolved anger high blood pressure stroke heart disease stomach ulcers cancers back ache back spasms and premature aging all are associated with an inability to deal with anger in a spiritually healthy Manner and none of us wants that for ourselves would that be fair nobody wants those physiological symptoms of of anger the psalmist wrote about anger and the effect of what happened in his childhood here in Psalm 129 1 through3 says many a Time have they Afflicted have they Afflicted me from my youth May Israel now say many time have they Afflicted me from my youth yet they have not prevailed against me the plowers plowed upon my back they made long their furrows and so now Israel can look back as a collective group and they can look at the damage that was done to them at an earlier stage of their life and this damage leaves a physical impact when they are afflicted it left a physical scar in on the on the people of Israel the psalmist is recognizing that emotional pain often leads to physical pain we reflect this in our vocabulary we say that somebody who hurts hurts us emotionally is quote a pain in the neck anybody use that expression yes and when we break off a relationship with loved one we say that we experience heartache yes heartache or a pain in the neck so anger may be manifest passively in behaviors such as psychological manipulation evasiveness self- flame and self-sacrifice it can be manifest actively as bullying acting out blaming others Vengeance seeking making threats selfishness destructive behavior and gaslighting particularly in interpersonal relationships anger can be transferred from one person to another a father comes home Angry from work and if you're the dog or the cat you're advised to move as far away from him as possible a father comes home drunk a wise child goes and Heights they know that anger is often transferred from an angry person to an innocent person the consequences children will often suffer when a parent comes home from a bad day at work and uh in America when your NFL team loses on the weekend there's research that talks about up surgeries and domestic violence for the next week that the men take it out on their wives with when their teams lose in football in the Scriptures it was Cain's unresolved anger with God's refusal to accept his sacrifice that led to the murder of his brother Abel who was innocent Cain's anger with God was displaced onto innocent Abel in an act of extreme violence showing the danger of unresolved and uncontrolled anger so how then should we not deal with anger I want you just for a minute here just to close your eyes and point to yourself just do that just close your eyes and point to yourself all right you're can open your eyes now now let me ask you this did you point to your head or to your heart everybody pointed at their heart nobody pointed here everybody pointed right here when you point to the real you you point to your heart our bodies are the living reality and accumulative expression of everything we are and everything we experience Matthew 1235 says this a good man out of the good Treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things and Proverbs 15:13 says this a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken so Hardness of Heart is not just a euphemism for a stubborn attitude a refusal to deal with anger leads physically to a diseased heart and emotionally to broken relationships and emotions such as anger do not simply die with the passing of time emotions such as anger seek a resolution and expression precisely because they are emotions when we refuse to acknowledge our anger or deal with our anger we're simply burying a living emotion but it's still there when we bury our anger the B the tension is turned inward rather than outward the tension of the anger is often transferred to our muscles we wake with a stiff neck a painful neck pain in the pain in our lower back or heartache the anger has now found an outlet for physical expression this is like filling a jug with water I don't have a jug up with me here but we can we can have an empty cup and we can pour cup after cup after cup of negative emotional responses Into The Jug until finally it is full then even in slightly negative experience just to tip The Jug a little bit and the whole thing Falls over and those who've buried their anger their hostility their bitterness over the years then experience an outburst of anger that is disproportionate to what caused that recent incident they often extremely violent and damaging and this is not a normal emotional response so in the US military they find various ways to help soldiers cope with PTSD and the anger that goes with PTSD and many people here in New Zealand I think also experience or suffer with PTSD I was chatting with a very F famous Colonel and he wrote some books on this topic actually we had lunch together a couple of years ago and he was explaining to me how in the US military they help soldiers um overcome PTSD and he said what we do is we recognize there is a relationship there's a trigger that's the story and then there's there there's a trigger is related through a neural Pathway to a negative U um emotion in your brain in the memory banks and so when you for instance hear a car backfiring the brain thinks it's a rifle going off and immediately you fall to the ground because you think you're being shot at and so soldiers have the coming home from war have these triggers then they have these very negative emotional responses and often times the soldiers that their trained response is if they're in in in in on um in Patrol in an Iraqi City for instance something goes off and they're trained to respond in an aggressive Manner and when they come home they have those same triggers and they respond immediately in an aggressive manner so how does the US Army deal with this well he was explaining to me um how they deal with he said well well we we want to break the neural pathway between the trigger and the memory and how'd you do that he said well we put a soldier in front of a TV screen a computer screen and you know those old screen savers had a ball bouncing around on it it just kind of bounces at random we say to the soldiers tell your story repeatedly of what happened on that Patrol the explosion the killing the loss of your teammate etc etc tell your story repeatedly while with your brain and your eyes you're following the ball around the screen and what you're doing is as as you first tell the story you have a very negative emotional response but after a couple of days of just watching that ball going around the screen while you tell the story The Brain now creates a new Neal pathway between a bouncing ball and the story so now when they tell the story their brain goes straight to a bouncing ball which has no emotional response so that way they can cure the symptoms of PTSD but those negative emotions are still in the memory banks they're not dealing with the underlying cause which is transforming the thinking and transforming those memories so they can be understood in a positive way rather than experienced in a negative way so this is one way that the US Army is dealing with with anger particularly among soldiers so how then should we deal with our anger and uh this is coming to really the the heart of what I want to share with you here this evening how then do we deal with anger and I'm going to give you a kind of a series of things here um and then I'm going to get into more practical things as well relating to forgiveness but um I want to encourage you to take this seriously because you may not think you're an angry person but your spouse knows the truth about you people may think they have righteous indignation but the spouse knows the truth about who you really are and you may not think you're angry but if your kids disappear when you get home that may be an indicator that your kids see you as an angry person so you may think that I don't suffer from anger as a general rule let other people around you give that answer because they know the truth about who you really are so the first thing I would say is this we need to understand the Eternal consequences of anger anger can lead to the loss of eternal life it's not something we want to play with the text I've chosen I've chosen two texts for this from 1 John 4 1 John 478 says beloved let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God he that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love goes on to say if a man says I love God and hateth his brother he is a liar for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen and this commandment have we from him that he who loveth God love his brother also we're to recognize that unresolved anger is often expressed as hatred for a brother and this means that we cannot love God nor is the love of God within us so to maintain anger against a brother is a sin because it breaks one of God's Commandments unless we resolve our anger such anger will be the cause of Eternal destruction so I just want to start out by saying before we talk about you know how the process of forgiveness Works recognize that unresolved anger can be your passport to Eternal fire and eternal destruction I'm not saying you're going to burn forever in fire just saying the fire has an eternal consequence you understand what I mean here but unless we deal with anger in a spiritually healthy way if you allow the anger to turn into hatred of a brother then you cannot possibly love God because how can you say you love God who you never seen if you can't love your brother who's in front of you every day next thing PR principle is remember Christ's forgiveness for your own sins little humility goes a long way when it comes to resolving anger and the Apostle Paul wrote this in Colossians 3 he says for forbearing one another and forgiving one another If any man has a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye and above all things put on charity which is the bond of per of perfectness and so this principle here is we are to remember that Christ is first for for given us and before we start reciting all that person's evil actions against you maybe be helpful to maybe recite all my own sins that I've been forgiven of and to recognize that I'm not perfect and that God has been forgiving me from the day I was born and I'm upset about one thing that somebody's done to me and so we are to remember that Christ has forgiven us as a general rule far more than we been called upon to forgive forgive somebody else we are recipients of God's grace and because we live in the atmosphere of Grace the Apostle Paul is reminding us that we are to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us the next stage is to Proverbs 15:1 is to work to prevent anger if you have a forest fire and normally the government will cut out fire breakes in the forest yes they clean out all the undergrowth the government is working to prevent fires and a successful fire prevention program is where there is no fire and likewise we are to work to prevent anger Proverbs 15:1 says this a soft answer turth away wrath or WTH what do you say here WTH or wrath oh okay you are A House Divided on this yes so I I I will call it I'll use Roth for now in America we say wrath but here I'll say wroth so a soft Anor T turth away Roth but Grievous words stir up anger so work to prevent anger um James put it this way we should be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry as a general rule most people have one tongue and two ears it's a good indication of what percentage of time is spent listening and what percentage of time is spent speaking and so we are to work to prevent anger and So Soft answer does turn away anger it does turn away anger and um rather than if somebody comes at you like a dog with his hackles up a soft Anza goes a long way to avoiding a dangerous or difficult situation so learn to practice giving a soft answer to turn away from wrath and uh you may may something like I I recognize that you're upset and angry and I understand you probably have good reason for it but I'm not the cause of your anger maybe there's another way to resolve it it's so when you recognize that somebody's coming maybe from a legitimate position of anger rather than simply telling them to shut up and sit down which doesn't work or if a gentleman says to his wife calm down doesn't work you know that if you say the words calm down you're going to get a forest fire on your hands all right so a a a a a um a soft answer does turn away anger to a large extent and it helps that person come to terms with what they're dealing with Proverbs 29 and: 11 says this it says a fool utth all his mind but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards the principle here is start to practice self-control acknowledge that you have anger yes but this is talking about patience the wise man recognizes that in front of your children is not a good time to have an emotional Outburst Visa your spouse you know learn to walk away to count to 100 to practice deep breathing phone a trusted friend turn to exercise agree with the person you're angry with on a later time to resolve the matter get adequate sleep and rest maybe pray and fast before you meet up again with that person a relaxed body and mind will reduce your vulnerability to angry outbursts when you actually resolve the situation so this passage here is talking about practicing self-control and if you think in your anger that you're losing self-control it's better to walk away at that moment you can resolve the matter tomorrow but when you lose self-control you're going to say things and do things you will regret and those words will take root in the other person and they may destroy your relationship with your children or with your spouse um or with your mother-in-law um you may think that never was good in the first place but anyway um the next principle is this deal with your anger quickly we read about this earlier on in our evening here be angry and sin not let not the sun go down on your wrath so deal with anger quickly so I'm not saying deal with it in the next 30 seconds but recognize when you have anger that that you are angry but seek to control it and seek to deal with the cause of your anger as soon as possible don't let that anger become your constant companion it will poison the rest of your day or you're weak to be angry with someone but then to refuse to address your anger is like drinking poison and hoping somebody else dies so learn to deal with your anger in in as Speedy manner as possible and not just with the emotions but try and go to the underlying cause of what's causing the frustration Colossians 3:8 is our next verse says but now you also must put off all these anger wroth malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth the point about this is to avoid angry talk recognize that you have anger but anger wroth malice slander and abusive language all of these are spoken and all of them are sinful we are to consciously avoid sins in our lives so how do we do this avoid pity parties you know there is somebody in your life and when you speak with them the conversation evitably goes downhill do you have that kind of person in your life you start talking and within a couple of minutes you're just saying everything is rotten in this world or you're attacking somebody else that is not somebody you want in your life you want somebody whose speech is Noble who's going to see uh speak graciously and somebody who may seek the benefits and give the other people the benefits of the doubt so avoid people or groups whose conversation is characterized by unresolved anger towards their brothers and seek the company of those whose conversation is Christlike gracious and forgiving one of the hardest things to do is this passage here giving your anger over to God when you give your anger over to God God you're recognizing that a wrong has been done but you're going to give it over to God for him to take care of when we give things over to God for him to take care of we recognize that only he knows the motions and motives of the heart and he is the only just judge and he will deal with it in a just way and so Romans 12:9 it's a very famous passage say 19 through 2 19- 21 says dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give Place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay sayith the Lord therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing Thou shalt Heap coals of fire on his head be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good now there was a time in my life when I was really angry and I was reading my Bible hoping to find a text where God would Smite them with Leprosy and genital herpes that's what I wanted I want of them struck down with a mixture of rheumatiz arthritis and st vitus's Dance just an awful combination of medical conditions okay I I was reading the scriptures waiting for some Waiting for God say don't worry Conrad their houses will be burnt to the ground I will salt the land with salt and they shall disappear off the face of the Earth that's what I wanted to find some of you are laughing have you gone through this yes but in this passage here we learn that one of the best things we can do with anger is to recognize that we are hurt but also Al to recognize that God Alone is the true judge say God I'm giving it into your hands and uh if you have your Bibles with you there is a series of Psalms called the imprecatory Psalms the imprecatory Psalms are Psalms where the psalmist expresses their just their outrage to God utter outrage but in each of the imprecatory Psalms they give the matter into the hands of God so Psalm 117 is a very famous psalm and I've got the wrong Psalm here by the Rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept 149 is it let me try and find it here well it's disappeared here I thought it was 117 by the Rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we WT 137 let's see if it's there there it is 137 by the Rivers of Babylon there we sat down yay we wept when we remembered Zion so these are the captives from Jerusalem singing um with in in in the fields of Babylon they've been taken captive and says we we hanged our hearts upon the Willows in the midst thereof for there they that carried us away captive required of us a song and they that wasted us required of us mirth saying sing us one of the songs of Zion so in this story here the the Jewish captives are saying we're Exiles in a foreign land we're slaves in Babylonia and that the Babylonians are demanding that we sing them the songs of Zion to entertain them the psalmist goes on how shall we sing the Lord's song In a Strange Land If I forget the old Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning if I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief dooy and then the psalmist says something that is really hard to take this is the psalmist pouring out their heart to God about what they really want to happen remember O Lord the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said raise it raise it even to the foundation thereof so these are the who are cheering on the Babylonians as they destroyed um Jerusalem verse 8 oh daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou Hast served us I want Vengeance blessed is the man who does to you what you did to us and the next verse is shocking happy shall they be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones because this is what you did to my children and I want your children's brains to be dashed out as you did to my children this is an imprecatory Psalm and the psalmist is actually putting it in God's hands the psalmist is saying is expressing here that my children's brains were dashed out in front of me and happy will be the person that does it back to those people that did it to me but this is a Psalm so the psalmist is telling this to God and is placing the call for justice in God's hands and actually you read read these Psalms another Psalm of this you turn back to Psalm 109 another good example and in in these Psalms you know we we we think the scriptures Are Holy yes but they include the most Roar of human Expressions here they they're pouring out their heart to God they've gone through the most um cruel bloody oppression you could imagine and Psalm 109 begins verse oneold not thy peace oh god of my praise for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me they've spoken against me with a lying tongue they Compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause for my love they are my adversaries but I give myself unto what unto prayer so I'm Circle by my enemies and go on um verse 18 talking about enemies as he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garments so let it come into His bowels like water and like oil into his bones let him let it be unto him as the Garment which coverthe that is the Garment of violence and for girdle wherewith he is girded continually let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord that's a key point from the Lord and you go on to finish off that Psalm verse 29 let mine let mine adversaries be clothed with shame and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth yeah I will praise Him among the multitude for he shall stand at the right hand of the poor to save him from those that condemn his soul so this is another imprecatory Psalm and the psalmist is saying Lord we have been dealt with in a terribly unjust manner we have experienced oppression and violence but I'm giving it into your hands and so the honesty about these Psalms is that even though they're expressing blood cursy blood th blood curs Ling sentiments you know Lord I wish you'd just smash their children against the Rocks they're giving the justice and the final action into God's hands and so when you follow this imprecatory Psalms even though they sound bloodthirsty and violence they're leading to a world of forgiveness and peace because they putting the final matter into God's hands and so when Paul talks about it on the screen um this um vengeance is mine sayith Lord I will repay that means we're letting go of that anger saying God it's in your hands I'm not going to exact Vengeance I'm not going to engage in revengeful SE Revenge seeking behavior I'm not going to engage in the cycles of violence that plague so much for our world today and the vendettas I'm just going to give it into God's hands and he's going to take care of this one day so you're not denying the wrong you're not denying the call for justice but you're saying that the one who is a a true and just judge he's going to figure this out the next thing we find in Scripture is Matthew 5 21-24 that is to seek reconciliation but Exodus 20:30 says this Thou shalt not kill and murder is The Logical conclusion of anger we may hide our anger from our fellow men and this is the Paradox of the courts in which we live in in New Zealand and America the most that Earthly courts can do is punish the acts that result from anger but God Alone is able to go to the root of the matter and to condemn the anger that we nurture within our hearts and that is why Jesus gives us this teaching in The Sermon on the Mount you've heard it said that it was said of them by them V time Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the Judgment that's what the Earthly courts can do because they can only judge the outward results of the of the inner anger but Jesus goes on to say but I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a call shall be in danger of the judgment and whosoever shall say to his brother raka that means fool shall be in danger of the counsel but whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of Hell Fire therefore if they if thou bring thy gift to The Altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift what's interesting about this passage here is Jesus says and you remember that your brother has something against you that means it's not that you're the wronged party but if you're in a relationship and you're aware that they have something against you maybe they're so consumed by their anger they're not going to come and seek reconciliation they need somebody else to take the first step so if you are in a church and you understand that somebody has something against you but they don't want to come and talk to you about it you have a spiritual responsibility to go and seek reconciliation with them at least to try to seek reconciliation you may not find it just yet but we are to seek reconciliation the inner living out of Christlike Prin principles in life is more important to God than practicing a merely external form of religion Matthew 6:12 forgiveness about to freely forgive and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors now this is really hard isn't it to forgive and the implication of this verse here is that if we don't forgive God will not forgive us Jesus has three teachings on forgiveness that go along these lines but the bottom line is that we are to forgive as God has forgiven us if we want full forgiveness from God we off we are to offer full forgiveness to others if we do not forgive others what they've done to us then God will not forgive us so forgiveness is a core Christian Christian principle it's not an optional extra in your anger you may not want to forgive but God is teaching us through this teaching of Jesus that we need to forgive when Jesus was nailed to the cross on Calvary Luke 23:34 he said father forgive them for they know not what they do the soldiers did not ask for forgiveness was Jesus condoning their treatment no was he asking his father to not hold them responsible no he was saying effectively that I hold no resentment against any of you for what you are doing to me I am not bitter I'm not looking for vengeance no one has ever been made H Happy by harboring anger resentment or bitterness it doesn't lead to Joy in life what Jesus was offering was relational forgiveness that means you forgive the other party when they do not ask for forgiveness treating them as if nothing happened legal forgiveness happen when somebody repents and accepts what God has done for them on Calvary the soldiers would only could could only receive God's forgiveness if they were to confess and repent Jesus teaches us in the sermon on the mounts that blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God I want to encourage you to say to think about what it means to be a peacemaker after the way of Jesus when I was in Iraq in 2015 uh I was in bbal and uh Isis was like 50 miles away in mosul and I went down to the city of solania which is where the Eastern bands of the Kurds are is where um Saddam Hussein was spraying chemical gas at alh Haba in the mid 1980s and I was sitting in the airport there and this Iraqi army colonel came up to me and um he he the the the departure loue was full and he walked right up to me and said why are you here why am I here I said well I said well I'm waiting for a plane sometimes I've learned in life it's best to give an obvious answer particularly in marriage gentlemen particularly in marriage I was once asked in Turkey I had I had my green card I was going through immigration there to get into the US and and this this immigration official she said and did you get your green card sir I thought what am I supposed to say to that you know I I I bought it in a bar what what should I say I said well it came in the mail and and that was apparently a good answer to give and so I that was a a safe answer to give it came in the mail which was absolutely true by the way it just simply came in the mail I said to the Iraqi Colonel I'm here because Jesus is the prince of peace and you have nothing but War out here because Muslims and Jews have rejected the Prince of Peace therefore you will never experience peace in your communities Jesus came to Earth to restore the peace that sin has been broken Romans 5:1 says this being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ so whoever repents of sin and of anger and opens their hearts to the love of God becomes a partaker of that Heavenly peace our spirit of peace is proof that we have become children of God and we can only become peacemakers with our brothers and sisters when we have first experienced peace with God and when Jesus made peace with us in Ephesians chapter 2 the Apostle Paul talks about Christ is our peace and um he has broken down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles that we mentioned earlier he's broken down the Dividing Walls of racial and ethnic hatred and hostility by being willing to see himself sacrificed on Calvary Christ was innocent but he as a peacemaker who's willing to sacrifice himself for the good of The Wider Community when we make peace we like you know if if I have an an argument with our brother here and we make peace I want the whole Community to know that I was 100% right I was completely innocent I did nothing wrong and I'm an absolute moral Paragon and he's a real moral stinker and everybody should think of him in the worst possible way from this day forward that's how we like to make peace it's on my terms so everybody thinks he was innocent and that scoundrel over there is entirely guilty and he's should be L grateful to have got away with his light of punishment as he has had but Jesus made Peace by saying Jews and Gentiles hate each other and hate God so I will sacrifice myself so that all might find reconciliation it's a whole new way of peacemaking and that's the model of peacemaking that Jesus asks for us sometimes like Jesus we are to offer ourselves you might say as a sacrifice so that two Waring parties can be reconciled sometimes we have to pay the price that other people can be brought back one to another and so what are the some of the steps in the Forgiveness process and this stuff here is written out on the form at the back there you can pick it up when you leave and this is on one side of of the paper there put it that out there for you but I want to encourage you today don't SLI with anger but practice forgiveness you know in in the parable of Matthew 18 on forgiveness um those who own there's one man who owns 10,000 Zari to the king and and the other slave owns him hundreds um hundreds and re and essentially Jesus is saying is we should live in a debt-free church and the debts he's talking about are anger and lack of forgiveness and he wants us to live in a debt-free church not just financially free of financial debts but free of spiritual debts that's what Jesus wants for his kingdom to be and so these are some of the steps in the Forgiveness process because forgiveness sets the wounded person just and free the firstly is realize how much you've been forgiven by God and maybe just bask in the wel with the wealth of his compassion for you we all know that we're Sinners we all know we've messed up we all know the depth of our sinfulness and before we start to get angry with somebody else maybe just pause and recognize the depth of forgiveness that God has already given to me or in some cases recognize the depth of forgiveness I want God to give me because I've yet to receive it second stage in the Forgiveness process is to recognize and admit my anger and my pain and the need to be rid of it a failure to confess bitterness will become a defilement to others according to Hebrews 12:15 third thing is to do is to grieve your loss before God In Prayer Jesus modeled this for us in Gethsemane all the most powerful chapters in the book Desire of Ages is chapter 74 which is the story of Jesus in Geth Jesus grieved in Gethsemane and his forgiveness was then exhibited while on the cross we can grieve we can admit uh we can de prieve we can grieve our hurt our deprived rights the abuse we've gone through before the Lord in prayer this is what so and so did to me this is what so and so has cost me and I can never get that back my stolen innocence my broken marriage my destroyed dreams whatever it may be when you Grieve Your deprived rights before God you're being honest with God by all the things you've lost and in reality most of the things you can never get back stolen innocence an abusive marriage you can't undo that effect but you can grieve it before God the Bible gives us an example of this it's called The Book of Lamentations and Christians have a model in the book of Lamentations for grieving before God for what somebody has done to you writing it out and affirming this is who I was this is what I've lost and this is the impact upon me as a person all my emotional state upon all the dreams I had in life it is a Biblical thing to lament before God we don't talk about it much but if you can write out your lament before God the second the next stage is to choose to release the debt the other person owes you and this is a choice you make it's not an emotional response we choose to release the person from the debt that they owe you the person who wronged you can never fully restore or make right for the wrongs you can never grow a you can never grow a leg back you can never restore your physical innocence but you can choose it to Bear it long enough to give it to Jesus it's a debt that has already been written off by the King of Kings I choose to absorb the pain rather than being a victims put on in the future and so I want to encourage you here to choose to relink the debt and to give it over to God next thing is to ask God to be the defender of your rights there are some texts up on the board that relate to that particular thing there but ask God to be your Defender and it's amazing what God can do when you put these things in his hands there are times in my life where I've gone through extreme pain and I look back on them and I'm not happy I went through those experiences but with hindsight I'm grateful I went through those experiences and as you grow and as you mature you realize that when you go through those painful experiences and you give it into the hands of God God sometimes brings incredible blessings out of what appeared to be a terrible curse and that requires patience and spiritual maturity emotional maturity involves trusting God that he would not lead us in any way other than he would we would have him lead us when we get to heaven and we see how God has led us we will not want to be led in any other way than how he has has led us so In this passage here ask God to be the defender of your rights and then let go of the hurt the resentment the bitterness and the anger and start to heal even if you are not reconciled with that person at least with forgiveness you're starting the healing process you're starting the process of those emotional wounds will start to heal and in place of bitterness you asking God to give you an inner peace you can't change the past but you can change or God will change your emotional response to it and one day he'll help you understand why and how those things happened and his greater purposes for you and this requires time we don't like giving time to this why because we we live in an instant Society don't we we want everything to be done immediately so the next thing I would say is make forgiveness a daily practice in life start and end every every day by committing to forgive everyone who might make you angry just as in the Tabernacle there were morning and evening sacrifices to remind us of the Lamb of God who is slain for the sins of the world so make it a daily practice every morning and every night to by committing to forgive anyone who might have hurt you this is a hard thing but make it a principle that you live by because life is too short be carrying burdens of anger it will destroy you the bitterness will eat you like cancer from the inside so if somebody has hurt you don't give them the satisfaction of them destroying you don't let them walk away because if they walk away they'll probably never think of you again but you may carry that anger for 30 years and it will destroy everything that is good and beautiful in your life so practice forgiveness then we come to the other side of the form here just want to share a few of the thoughts from there forgiveness is St that God is faithful and he is going to do what is right for you forgiveness means letting go of your resentment and forgiveness is the spiritual antidote to anger forgiveness doesn't make you weak it actually sets you free from the past motivation and the ability to forgive flows out of the fact that Christ first forgave us forgiving is not forgetting or pretending that things did not happen those things did happen and we need to retain the Lessons Learned without holding on to the associated pain forgiveness does not excuse bad behavior we excuse a person who is not to blame we forgive somebody because a wrong was committed and forgiveness prevents their behavior from destroying your heart forgiveness is not about giving permission to continue their hurtful behaviors nor is it condoning the behavior in the past or the future and forgiveness is not reconciliation it takes one person to forgive but it takes two to rec recile we have to make a separate determination about whether to reconcile with the person we are forgiving or whether we believe it is safer for us to maintain our spiritual and physical distance from them going forward we are not required to reconcile but we are required to forgive holding a grudge does not present us protect us from harm or make another pay for what they've done to us not forgiving is like drinking poison expecting somebody else is going to die and holding a grudge doesn't make you strong it makes you bitter and if you need to apologize for what you've done in the events that led up to the pain there are three parts to a good apology first you say what I did was wrong secondly I'm sorry I hurt you and thirdly how can I make this better it's a recognizing that wrong has been done it's a recogniz recognition they are upset about it and it's an affirmation that you will do all you can to restore the damage damage that has been done those are the components of genuine forgiveness and not saying sorry so I've spoken about anger and forgiveness tonight because many many members struggle with this and I want to encourage you tonight to give these things over to God vengeance is mine sayith God I will repay he is the only true and just judge he will judge to make things right one day if we seek Vengeance if we seek revenge if we seek to tear somebody else down we ourselves will be caught up in a cycle of violence and vendettas and that will destroy both them and us and maybe our children who didn't ask to be involved in the original situation so let's return to Mrs Hannah shall we in conclusion it's a true story one day a man came to her home and he worked for the Gideon Society he asked her if he could if she could write an endorsement in the Bible that he was planning to give to the murder of her daughter when he next visited her in prison Mrs Hannah was Furious how dare you she said he killed my daughter I will write no such thing on the Bible she showed him the door my anger is too deep and too painful and she forced him down onto the street the Gideon's worker gently responded to Mrs Hannah he said if we can't forgive others how can we receive God's forgiveness for ourselves so that thought haunted Mrs Hannah for weeks and months months as she thought about the life death and burial of her daughter she realized that two people were now imprisoned the murder of her daughter was sitting in prison and she was a prisoner in her own cell of toxic emotions her thoughts went back to those confusing words of the preacher at her daughter's funeral it was meant for evil but good may come of it and finally the day came when Mrs Hannah was able to say a short prayer of repentance for her own unresolved anger and her hatred of the murderer and she felt as if a had been taken from her the next day she called the Gideon society and asked them if she could write a note to the murderer man from the mid Gideon Society came back she took the Bible and she wrote with a trembling hand these words Mrs Hannah Loves You Not Just I forgive but Mrs Hannah loves you the Gideon Society took the Bible to the murder in prison he opened and read the words and tears rolled down his cheeks for he had been an orphan and nobody ever expressed love to him and that one expression from Mrs Hannah that Mrs Hannah loves you turned that man's life around he became a prison chaplain and became a highly respected chaplain of Life prisoners he spent the rest of his life as a minister to his fellow prisoners serving those who harbored anger and range and bitterness but helping them to find peace the most important lesson of this story is that both prisoners were set free as she wrote that note the old and bittered Mrs Hannah died and God brought about a new creation and why is this because to let go of anger and to forgive the other person is to set the prisoner free and to discover that that prisoner is you is to discover that you are the prisoner of that anger so don't deal with anger don't live with anger live with forgiveness and who do you need to forgive tonight who do you need to at least tonight go home kneel down and say Lord I may not have a chance to speak to them just yet but as the Sabbath hours begin the day when Jesus healed so many hard Hearts I'm asking you to heal my heart tonight and I'm asking you to give me the grace to offer full forgiveness to that person I preached a sermon last year and um I made an appeal at the end there was a lady watching in Spokan Washington she was a 50 55 years of age she was watching with her mother she was a lapsed Adventist and I made appeal at the end and that lady collapsed in front of the TV where she was watching with her mother and she confessed to the murder of her son this was last January she drove with her mother that Sabbath afternoon to the Spokan County Sheriff's Office and she turned herself in for murder and she showed the Spokan Sheriff where her son was buried they found the body and she was put in the county jail awaiting her sentencing she confessed to the murder at that point I got a letter from her mother asking me to write to her daughter in prison so I wrote her a letter and I got a letter back from her and it was a fascinating letter it wasn't very long but essentially she said this when I was free on the outside I was a prisoner on the inside now I'm a prisoner on the outside of my body but I'm free on the inside so she confessed murder and she went through a born again experience in the prison she started studying her Bible and when she came before the judge and the prosecution were asking for a a life sentence the judge recognized that her son had been very abusive to her and he gave her I think it was a 4-year sentence would time serve for good behavior she'll be out in two years and the judge recognized in the sentencing that he was looking at a changed woman a woman who' recognized that she had been a victim and she'd acted in violence but she confessed and found the grace of God I then received another letter from her not so long ago expressing her plans for when she gets out and she would you like to be a chaplain for other women prisoners for the rest of her life this is what God does when we recognize that we may contributed to the anger to the cause of the problems we confess and we forgive God can work a miracle in the most difficult of circumstances so who do you need to forgive tonight who do you need to reach out to tonight don't live with anger it will kill you spiritually it will destroy you physically it will cut through your family and Those whom you love live with forgiveness is the only way for followers of Jesus Christ and God will work a miracle for you as you put these matters in his hands because he is good and he can make you a new creation SP our our heads and close with a word of prayer heavenly father I want to thank you that on Calvary Jesus modeled for us the principle of forgiveness father forgive them for they know not what they do father maybe in our own lives we've been hurt by people who also know not what they do maybe they themselves were deeply hurt at some stage of their life and we know father that hurting people hurt other people so tonight father we're we sitting here we're coming into the Sabbath hours and father I ask that you will wash away the hardness and the anger in our hearts tonight you'll Wash It Away there's no trace of it left father we give it into your hands we're asking that your holy spirit will give us peace instead of anger and joy instead of rage and long suffering instead of a a short fuse we're asking tonight tonight father for a new heart experience and Lord if there's somebody we need to forgive maybe somebody who's done unspeakable evil to us somebody who's done things to us that have CA caused a shadow to hang over our life for many decades father we're giving that person into your hands vengeance is yours you will repay you alone are the true and just judge but tonight father we want to forgive them because we know no longer want to be a prisoner of our past as well so father give us the grace give us the courage give us the discernment give us tonight the ability to forgive as we place these matters in your hands we thank you in advance for the newness of life that you're going to give to each one of us thank you Father for forgiving us may we extend that forgiveness to others and in so doing May people catch a glimpse of a god of love and a god of forgiveness in the coming King of Kings you ask these Mercies in jesus' holy name amen e for