READ:
EPHESIANS 4:25-32
Satan is
adept at making counterfeits. He counterfeits every good thing God makes.
Currency counterfeiters work very hard to ensure perfect deception, by making
the fake money look very much like the real thing. It is the same case with
Satan. When Satan propagates his own gospel, he backs it up with the Bible. We
would look at some of the Bible passages Satan often uses to send people to
hell. Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun
go down on your wrath.” Satan loves to use this passage to confuse
people that what the Bible really means here is that they can be angry only
they should not prolong the anger. He knows too well that five-minute anger can
spoil all that a man has spent thirty years building up. Satan has deceived
many with this Scriptures. Once, while conducting a prison fellowship, I met a
brother who was serving a life sentence for slapping a person to death in
anger. That anger did not last till the second day, nor did it last for five
minutes. Yet, in the split seconds that it lasted, he became a murderer. There
are many verses of the word of God that admonishes us not to be angry at all.
One is in Ephesians 4:31: “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor,
and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.” Also,
Proverbs 14:17 says, “He who is quick-tempered acts foolishly, and
a man of wicked intentions is hated.” Proverbs 16:32 says: “Who
is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he
who takes a city.” Again, Ecclesiastes 7:9 admonishes us: “Do
not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.”
Anger is temporary madness. Anger is terribly bad and it spoils a lot of
things. Satan knows that when you are angry, there is nothing you cannot say.
He knows that whatever comes out of your mouth is recorded in heaven. He knows
about Matthew 12:36: “But I say to you that for every idle word
men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.”
Why then does the Bible tell us to be angry but not to sin: When is it allowed
for a child of God to be angry? This is when he comes across someone
blaspheming the Almighty God. This is because you know that what such a fellow
is doing constitutes an affront to the Almighty. At such times, you can rise up
to defend the glory of God.
MEMORIZE: EPHESIANS 4:26 –Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun
go down on your wrath.
