Christian Living

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The benefits of rage

“Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked, which forsake Your law” [Psalm 119.53 NASB]

God, as His word makes known to us, feels both love and wrath to the immeasurable depth of His eternal Being. Very often, we as His children also feel very strongly about certain moral and spiritual issues, especially when it affects our kith and kin.

Now this response, in itself is not wrong. One of the most successful tactics of the enemy is to blind us to the moral decay of society and bring us under bondage to apathy. But David was a man of great moral character and set himself apart from following in the steps of wicked men. He was sensitive to God's pure sense of justice that follows those who deliberately turn away from His word (Psalm 1:1-6).

This was one of the issues, which the Lord raised with the Pharisees. What they were doing was not wrong by and in itself, but they should have paid more attention to other matters.

Is this, or, has this been true in our lives? We only get one attempt at life; and bearing in mind the consequences of our actions for time and eternity, we need, like David did, to reject apathy and have recognition of God's judgmental character forever in the forefront of our minds.

What concerned David at this time was that the wicked had turned away from God. Not only may we also get upset at the arrogance, ambitions and advance of the wicked, but we very often desire to see God's judgment fall upon them because of their evil deeds.

Why does God feel angry? God, being the Creator, is fully aware of the joys of the redeemed and at the same time, the horrors of the damned. Therefore, He is angry when He sees many people continually deny His word as they travel on the broad road to destruction. David too understood their rejection of our Creator.

To the Corinthians, Paul said that he knew, “The terror of the Lord.” This is something like David felt, the horrible consequences of the eternally lost had been laid upon this sensitive man and consequently, he was left feeling extremely shaken and trembling.

Anger, if it is not utilized properly, is a wasted emotion. So how can we channel the kind of righteous indignation that David understandably felt so that, in some mysterious way, it will produce fruit?

David was a holy man (in-spite of his few recorded failures) and he was sensitive to God's righteous character of judgment. But he didn't know the same power of grace at that time (at least in the same measure) as we now do through Jesus Christ. We should do as the Lord did after the death of John the Baptist. Instead of bringing down judgment against Herod (righteous indignation), He used His God-given commission and anointing to put the enemy behind Herod (the devil) to death by fulfilling prophecy through His own death on the cross (Heb. 2:14).

How can we do something similar? As Paul taught, live as though we have been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). We need to genuinely sense and understand God's heart and give ourselves to intercession, basing our prayers on the fundamental truth that God has no pleasure in the rise and fall of the wicked. Even though David's heart was sensitive to God's holy judgment at the writing of Psalm 119, we need to remember that God is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" [II Pet. 3:9, KJV].

David understood that God's anger will burn and be felt by millions for eternity. But may God help us to fulfil the exhortation of Jude, which is, to "Show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment." [Jude 22-23 NLT]. [David McArdle]

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