Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Ephesians 4:26-27
The English words ‘emotion’ and ‘motion’ both stem from the Latin root ‘movere’, meaning to move. As oxygen is necessary to vitalise blood and muscle, emotion is vital to rouse a man to action and spur him on with zeal to accomplish the task at hand. Indeed, man has been granted a broad spectrum of emotions that he may be animated for every circumstance. And these emotional endowments would be deficient without the essential quality of anger. It was righteous anger which stirred David’s heart to destroy the giant who defied the armies of Israel. It was a holy zeal that impelled Phinehas to stay the plague at Baalpeor by the tip of his spear. It was righteous indignation that moved the man Christ Jesus to rebuke the hypocrites in Jerusalem.
But of all the emotions, anger is the most volatile. Like a highly flammable liquid, we must treat it with utmost care. Just as we would not walk around with a shirt soaked in petrol, anger should never be retained in the heart, as it takes but a word to be ignited. Of the charged substance of anger, the wise man declared:
Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9
It is unsafe to let the sun go down on our wrath, to retain our anger by brooding over the source of our annoyance. For if we do allow anger to rest in our bosom, it inevitably leads to hasty outbursts of rage. The uncontrolled ignition of this fiery pitch is the delight of Satan.
Such blazing infernos may be prevented by heeding the counsel, ‘let not the sun go down upon your wrath’. But what does this mean in a practical sense? How are we to deal with our wrath so that it does not take up long-lasting residence in our hearts? The verse that Paul is quoting from in his epistle provides further counsel in regards to this matter:
Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Psalm 4:4
The Hebrew word for ‘awe’ is râgaz and means ‘to quiver (with any violent emotion, especially anger or fear)’. Thus, David provides specific instructions as to how we can be angry, and sin not. The solution is twofold: ‘commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still’, or, as other translations put it, ‘be silent’.
When caught in the storm of human passion, we may give place to the devil by yielding to the lightning and thunder. Or we may let the storm pass by communing with our own hearts, silently listening for God’s voice.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Christopher Sparks