Hasty Words (7 of 12)

Mike Connell

Look at this, so always when people get angry, they'll say and do things they later on regret. In Psalm 106 - let's read Psalm 106, Verse 32-33. Even Moses is a pretty good man, got upset. Cost him a bit too. Moses, now Moses was a meek man. He had himself under control, but even he got upset. It says, Verse 32, they angered Him at the waters of strife, and it went badly for Moses on account of them. It says they rebelled against His spirit, or the spirit of God, and he spoke rashly with his lips. So what happened was this. Notice this, what happened was Moses got into trouble, because he spoke angrily. What had happened was, the people of God were always complaining, and here's the man who's trying to them get to where they're supposed to get. All they can do is complain, and they complained so much, they got him wound up. So in the end God had spoken to him. He said now the last time you smote the rock with the rod. This time I want you to speak to the rock. Then he comes out, and he says you blimmin' people, you want water, you want water do you? You want water do you? Alright! And he gets the rod and he whacks the stick, he hits this rock twice, calls them all rebels. He gets very angry.

Now the interesting thing was, God gave them the water, but then God had words with Moses. Moses was not able to enter into the Promised Land, because he got angry, and didn't do what God told him to do. I think the thing that was the thing that caused the trouble was, not that he struck the rock. I think it was when he spoke with his words, because it said it was what he said was the problem. When he was angry, he spoke out. He said you rebels, you want us to get you some water, and he hit this rock, and so God honoured the office and honoured the act to get water to the people, but he was accountable for his rash words. That cost him.

Imagine you've been 40 years in the wilderness, and the very place you've got to lead everyone, you can't go yourself. So God was good. God gave him a little glimpse of it - have a look, there it is. You can't get in there, because you were crazy in your speech, and you actually began to accuse people of something. You cursed them virtually, called them rebels, see? Now it's one thing to talk to them about their complaining; it's another thing to brand them, and label them, and call them a name. I think that's what got him into trouble. He began to label, and name, the people of God, and I think that's what got him into trouble, because they're God's people, and God identifies with them.

We've got to be really careful, or we get stirred in our emotions or feel angry, that we don't begin to start to label people, and yell at people, and begin to start to vent our reaction in a way that causes us unseen consequences in the future. Okay, there we go, that was wonderful. That went down well didn't it aye? Oh well, okay. Do you want another one, found in 2 Chronicles 26:18 and 19. Now this one here's Uzziah. Uzziah was a king, and he got a bit uppity. After a little while he got so successful he got a bit proud, and he thought he could do anything. The trouble with success, when you're having successes you can begin to start to think more highly of yourself than you should. So what happened was some good Godly men rose up, and they confronted him when he was wanting to be a priest, so they stood and said you can't do this. You're not called to do that. What they did was right. They blocked him. You know what it did? It said he got absolutely outraged. He got filled with wrath. He become filled with wrath and anger, and wanted to actually then kill them, and what happened was leprosy broke out in his body, so we've got to be careful when we're confronted or blocked in life, when things don't go the way we want, that we don't end up developing attitudes that cause sickness and problems and all kinds of things to emerge in our body.

One of the things that cause people to be sick almost more than anything, certainly a cause of depression, is people being angry. When people are angry, they get depressed. When people angry, they get sick in their body, so there's some examples of it. Ecclesiastes 7:9 says, don't be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the heart of fools. Don't be hasty, or don't allow yourself to be stirred up to get angry, because anger sits in the heart of a fool. He will actually blow out and destroy what he's trying to build. Suppose you had a dream to build a family, and you have great ideas, and you have great things that you want this family to become. Then all the way when you're investing all this time and energy and labour for your 20/30 years, all the time you're doing that, you're then destroying what you're building as fast as you build it. Would you call that stupid or foolish? Pretty foolish isn't it, and that's what it says, a person who can't master this issue of anger, it says it rests in his heart, he becomes foolish in his life.