In the sermon 'Two Kinds of Anger,' Carl Provost explores the biblical distinction between justified anger and wrath, as discussed in Ephesians 4:26-27. He emphasizes that being angry in a righteous manner is commanded in the scripture, highlighting the importance of passions as God-given motivators for action and standing against evil. Provost contrasts this with wrath, which he describes as an exasperated form of anger that can lead to sin, bitterness, and a desire for personal vengeance. Through examples like Jesus' actions in clearing the temple, Provost illustrates how righteous anger is controlled and purposeful, motivated by a zeal for God's holiness rather than personal grievances. The sermon warns against allowing anger to give the devil a foothold, urging believers to forgive others as they have been forgiven by God, and to rely on the Holy Spirit to transform their hearts. Provost concludes by urging believers to turn over their anger to God, to not let it fester, and to focus on overcoming evil with good.

God's word and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. And for context, beginning in verse 17, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto a shiviousness to work all in cleanness with great greediness but you have not so learned Christ if so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus That you put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Heavenly Father, we come before you, Father, as we open your Word and as we again see this concept of things that we should put off and put on for the sanctity of the broad of Christ, knowing that we have this flesh that we deal with, Father.

And we pray that as we study this word, that your Holy Spirit would sanctify us, would open our hearts and minds to the truth of your word, and that you would transform us and make us more like Christ Jesus. In His name we pray, Amen. For those who were at the conference yesterday or those who were streaming, obviously we know the topic ending the American Holocaust, ending abortion. And in the beginning of Peter's message, he referenced many different avenues that those seeking to end abortion have resorted to, to end this great evil in our nation. And one man he mentioned was Paul Hill.

Now, Paul Hill was a passionate man. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1984, and he was associated with the PCA and the OPC. He was trained at Reform Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and studied under Bonson. He was passionate to end abortion in this nation. He protested at abortion mills and he had a great passion for the unborn.

However, in his passion, he got off track. And in 1994, he murdered an abortion doctor and the bodyguard. He was convicted and killed by lethal injection in 2003. What happened? How does this man who was ordained a Presbyterian minister, who had a passion to end evil in this nation.

How did he get off track and commit this great evil himself? Now I won't pretend to be able to get in the heart of this man and to explain exactly what was going on, but just by looking at his exterior actions and looking and comparing it to the word that we're given here today, I think we can draw some insight. As we look at today's text, we're going to focus on 26 and 27. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

Neither give place to the devil. The title of the sermon today is Two Counts of Anger. And what we see here is a statement to be angry and sin not, but to not let the sun go down upon your wrath. Some modern translations actually translate wrath as anger also. And so if you were to read it in those that say, be angry and sin not and let not the sun go down upon your anger.

But I would say that in order to distinguish the two words, the New King James version and the authorized version, rightfully so, distinguish these words by giving them a different English word. And I think this is important to understand the difference here. And what we first see is that there is such thing as justified anger. Be ye angry and sin not. Now this is a command.

Be ye angry. We would not be commanded to be angry if there was no such thing as a justified anger. And so what is a justified anger? First of all, I want us to look at just passions in general. See, God has given us passions in our life.

And passions are important. If you listened in to some of the speakers yesterday, you would have noticed that there was a great passion in the room. These men had a passion for what they were doing. They had a passion for the truth. They had a passion for the unborn.

And they were standing up there giving these messages with passion because God had put this upon their hearts. And so passions are what lead us to action. And one of the things we see and one of the things that several made reference to that is in our church today, oftentimes in the American church, you don't see passions. People don't have convictions for anything. They tolerate sin.

They tolerate murder. They accept it. They have become callous, complacent. But God has given us passions for a reason. Passions are useful to motivate us to do difficult things.

It's not easy to stand upon the truth of God's Word when everyone is against you. But it's those passions that well up within our heart that God gives us that allows us to be One willing to stand for truth even when our enemies persecute us or murder us. Passions motivate us to make right choices when everyone else is against us. Now let's look at a couple of these passions. And I want you to see that there's two sides to passions.

Just as there are two sides to anger. Jealousy. There are countless verses throughout the Bible that talk about the evil of jealousy in man's heart. And what it leads to, jealousy leads to murder, envy. But we're also told that there are those that were jealous for God.

And first kings were told that Elijah said, and he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain the prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away." He was jealous for the things of the Lord. We're told that David was jealous for the things of God. A man after God's own heart. And Paul in his letter to the Corinthians said, for I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

And so what we see there is that when the motive is correct, these passions can be used in order to motivate the person towards more godliness, towards righteousness, towards like Elijah being one to stand for the truth even when many were against him, when he himself felt that he was the only one. We also see in this love. Love also is a great motivator of evil in this nation. But we also see that there is a good side to love. See, we should have love for God.

Love for our wife, love for our children, love for the poor, love for the widow and orphan. That's what motivates us to minister to our families. That's what motivates us to minister ministries of mercy to those in need. It's that love. And it's that love we clearly see displayed in Christ Jesus who came to save sinners.

Yet for the compassion he had for the people, he fed many, he healed many from sickness. And that's that same love that should motivate us. But when we look around us far too often, we see love for self, love for money, love for power. And we see the destruction that is brought around us. We see families broken apart.

We see people murdered. We see nations oppressed and millions murdered for this love of self and money and power. See, when we look at anger, Anger is no different. We see the results of anger all around us. We turn on the news and we see the anger.

We see those who hate us cutting off the heads of Christians. But yet, when anger is a righteous anger, it is used to motivate us for the holiness of God, for the holiness of His bride. We're told that Jesus made a scourge of small cords and drove the money changers out of the temple. He poured out their money. He turned over their tables.

Now maybe some of us have turned over a table, but this wasn't an act of just uncontrolled anger. He had time to take time to make this whip of many cords that He was going to use to drive them out of his father's temple. And we're told that he did this as a planned action because of his motivation and his zeal for his father's house and the anger at those who had defiled it. And so in this we see a display of anger that's controlled, that's purposeful, and that made a point. He was driven by this passion of Holy anger to clear the temple of those that were defiling it.

Again we're told in Mark chapter 3, a story of when Jesus showed anger towards the Pharisees. It says, And he entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him. And he saith unto them, The man which had the withered hand, stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or to do evil, to save a life or to kill it?

But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. What we see here in these examples of Jesus is that the proper motivation for anger is a zeal for God's house and a love for others.

We see Him showing a love towards this man with a withered hand. And even showing His love towards the Pharisees by being angered by the hardness of their hearts, recognizing that they were unwilling to see the truth of the work of God on the Sabbath in healing this man's hand, but only to think of a way to trap him and to impose their legalism upon him and to destroy him. Their Messiah, the one they were looking and waiting for, but their hearts were hardened against God. We see the focus of His anger is targeted on their sinful behavior and on the true injustice of them, not concerned at all about this man with the withered hand, and not concerned that he was healed, but only concerned about how they might destroy the Lord. We see that His anger is controlled.

His anger did not turn into bitterness. And He dealt with each situation with control. And ultimately we see that His anger was used to accomplish God's will. And so looking at that in the example of Christ as a criteria of what righteous anger is. We recognize that it is never self-motivated.

It is always God-centered and God-motivated. It's for the glory of God. See, the church in America today has become a passionless church. In fact, I think the letter to the church of Laodicea describes many of our churches today in America. It says, I'm sure the angel of the church of Laodicea write, these things saith the Amen, the faithful, and the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.

I would thou work cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because thou sayeth I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knoweth not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness Do not appear and anoint thine eyes with I salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in the throne even as I also overcame and then set down with my father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. The church in America today is that church that says we have no need we have riches we have comforts and we don't want to stand on anything that's too difficult because it will bring persecution upon us. And God says that that type of church is a church that He will spit out of His mouth.

For He desires for us to be a zealous people, as He said there to that church, those who have zeal for the holiness of God. See, there has been a steady decline of the morals in our nation, and our churches merely shrug their shoulders and allow sin to go unrebuked. Martin Lloyd-Jones in speaking to this in his own time said, An absence of a sense of shame and of anger and of righteous indignation is always a hallmark of deep degradation and sinfulness and of a loss of the sense of God. Our Lord was angry when He observed manifestations of sin and what measure of approximation to Him is that we manifest a similar reaction when confronted by similar things. It is our duty to be angry at certain points and with respect to certain matters.

Sin, especially sin in God's people, should anger us with a righteous anger, a desire to see it removed from our midst. We should be angry when the Bride of Christ is defiled. When we see churches in the acceptance of homosexuality, and the acceptance of same-sex marriage, and the ordination of homosexuals to the office of elder, leaders in the church who live sinful lives, that should anger us. And when the culture comes upon us and tries to muzzle us and keep us from telling the truth and threatens us, that should anger us with a righteous indignation. And we should be willing and motivated to stand on truth, stand against the evil in this world.

We should be angry when the poor and the weak are oppressed. We should be angry when the unborn are murdered. See our passions should drive us to seek the glory of God. Our passions should drive us to seek the glory of God. Our passion should drive us to seek the justice of the oppressed.

Our passions should drive us to stop evil in the world. A complacent lukewarm church is a church that God has no desire of. But if we are not careful, anger can lead to sin. It says, be angry and sin not. The command, be angry and sin not.

And then he goes on and says, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. I have heard this verse wrongly used to teach that all forms of anger are sin and that all of them should be dealt with before the sun goes down. But as we have seen here, there are two different words used here. The word for wrath, which is also sometimes translated anger, and the word anger have different meanings. And the word wrath is much stronger than the first use of the word anger.

We have already seen that there clearly is a righteous anger that we are called to. So what does the second word mean? The second word, wrath, can be translated, it can mean exasperated. Anger that is nurtured until it becomes the condition of the heart and breeds hatred and bitterness and vindictiveness. It means one who is determined to get their own vengeance.

It's an anger that has so much become a part of the person that they are consumed with anger until it becomes a permanent condition. We have met people like this. People that are just always angry. People that don't understand the joy of the Lord. They're consumed with anger.

See, we are responsible for our passions. We are called to keep them in control. That's why we are told here to do not let the sun go down upon your wrath. We're not allowed to blame others for our anger. We're not allowed to blame others for any sinful passion that we have.

We have to take ownership of them ourselves. Yes, people do things that bring about righteous anger, but we can't let those things turn into bitterness in our hearts. We have to take those things captive, and we have to use what the Holy Spirit has given us to overcome that and to not allow it to become sin. See, sinful anger results in nurturing a grievance that leads to a desire for revenge. Sinful anger is self-seeking, not God-seeking.

It's worried about your own reputation and not focused upon the glory of God. It's worried about what somebody, how they have wronged you, and you want vindication. And it's a vindictiveness that is an absolute denial of the Gospel itself. See, this type of anger forgets that we were unworthy sinners, forgiven of a great debt ourselves. That we were those who were haters of God, and He chose to save us and to set us apart for Him.

See, God forgave us while we were ungrateful, rebellious haters of God and haters of one another. Many of us have forgotten where we came from. And to harbor anger and to allow it to become bitterness in our heart is to forget the gospel and the power of the gospel to transform a sinner. How can we pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us if we let the sun go down on our wrath? That's the point there.

That's what it means to not let the sun go down on our wrath, is to remember to forgive others. Because of the great debt that we've been forgiven. The parable of the servant owed a great debt illustrates this. We all know the story. This man that owed a great debt went before the king, and the king was going to imprison him.

And he pleaded before the king, and it was a debt that he would have never been able to pay in his lifetime. And the king had mercy on him and forgave the debt. And that same man went out and grabbed a man that owed him a small debt by the throat and demanded payment. And when he wasn't able to give it, he threw him into prison. And when the king heard of this, he called him forward.

And he asked him, why did you not show him mercy after the great mercy that I showed you? And in Matthew 18.35 it says, So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. He threw him, he delivered him over to the torturers and it's saying that what we learned there is that we have been forgiven a debt we never could have paid ourselves. And to harbor bitterness and hate in our hearts towards another person, even our enemy, even an evil, wicked person, is to forget what we have been forgiven of. In Romans chapter 12, speaking to vengeance, Paul said, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.

For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith 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 with evil, but overcome evil with good." Here we see the pattern given of how you turn over that anger.

You allow God to have His vengeance upon the evil of this world. We're motivated by righteous anger to end evil when we can. But it's not to consume us. It's not to build the bitterness in our hearts and overtake us with sin. Because we are to trust in the sovereign God and give it over to Him.

And so we are to overcome evil with good, meaning that we stand against evil with righteous anger, with the truth of God to glorify God, but that sovereignly we leave the vindication, the vengeance to God. We don't exercise that vengeance ourselves. So how do we deal with this type of anger? Remember the concept that we've been given in this text that we've looked last week at speaking the truth. And this whole concept of laying, putting off, and putting on.

Now here he sort of flips it around and gives us what we should put on first. But the concept here is that we should be putting off sins of the old flesh, passions from the flesh, those self-serving passions and putting on passions that are righteous. Those who seek the glory of God. We are to give our anger over to God and to let Him vindicate. And we see that we are to do it at once.

We are told to not let the sun go down. What it means is we shouldn't harbor these sins. Don't allow this to build up in the heart. Don't let the sun go down on this type of wrath, give it over to God, recognize that He is the one who brings vengeance. We are never to sleep without settling our accounts.

That means that Each and every day we go to God, and we turn to Him and we look at what He's accomplished for us. And we give our weaknesses and our sins over to Him. We thank Him that He has given us a Savior that saves us from ourselves. We remember where we've come from, and we remember what He's done for us, and we recognize that He can do the same for even the most wretched of sinners. We are to give it to Jesus and let his blood cover it, recognizing that we are cleansed from all unrighteousness by the blood of Christ Jesus.

We are to never go to sleep with a bitter, hateful, angry heart, or the devil will see an opportunity and a foothold in your heart. The last point I want to look at here is in verse 27. Neither give place to the devil. Neither give place to the devil. Neither give place to the devil.

Don't give the devil a foothold in your heart. See, Satan is the great deceiver and the father of lies. And we are warned here, this is a warning attached specifically to this anger here, don't give him a foothold. See, Eve gave the serpent a foothold, and Satan deceived Adam and Eve, and turned them to justify themselves in disobeying God's command. That's the kind of foothold, that one little bit of doubt, and you give him a foothold.

Mark Lloyd Jones again is speaking to this verse. He said, Paul adds verse 27 to verse 26, neither give a place to the devil. What he means by this is never open the door to the devil. When you lose your temper you open it wide. It could not be wider.

Nothing opens the door more widely than anger. And for this good reason, the moment you are controlled by your temper, you are no longer able to reason. You are no longer able to think. You can no longer give a balanced judgment, for you are altogether biased on one side and against the other side. In other words, the power to reason and to think and to equate and to evaluate, all that makes man man is gone.

For the time being, he is like a beast, the creature of his own passion and of an instinctive kind of power. And of course, that is just the very situation in which the devil sees his most glorious kind of opportunity. See what we see here is this idea of letting the sun go down on your wrath and giving a foothold to Satan to come in and to twist your thinking, to use this anger and bitterness in your heart and to start to twist your thinking about how you view the truth of God's Word and to allow you to start to justify your decisions and what you're doing. In fact, when we look at God's Word about murder, we see that God's Word differentiates what we would call premeditated murder and an accidental death, accidentally killing someone. Even in our own law code, We recognize the difference between premeditated murder and manslaughter, or even murder in the second degree.

We give a stricter and harsher punishment to Those who dwell upon what they're going to do. And this is exactly what we see taking place here. When someone lets the sun go down upon the wrath, they give a foothold to Satan. He comes in and he starts to justify their actions, and he starts to twist God's Word in the way that they think. And they meditate upon this evil that they're about to do.

See, Paul Hill justified his unrighteous anger. There were men as he began to develop this position who tried to bring about correction, but he refused to be corrected and was defrocked and possibly even excommunicated From the church because of this position, but he justified it. And even after the murder, he continued to justify it. And 10 years in prison before he received the death penalty, he continued to justify it, not recognizing that he had allowed this anger, which I believe started off as a righteous anger, to develop into a bitterness in his heart, and for Satan to come in and to twist his understanding of God's Word, to where he could justify standing with a shotgun and killing an abortion doctor and his bodyguard and justify it to his death. See, this is a simple command to understand, but that does not make it easy to keep.

It's simple to understand that we are to be angry when we see the Bride of Christ defiled. We are to be angry when we see people oppressed. We are to be angry when we see people oppressed. We are to be angry when we see the murder of the unborn. But to not let it turn into sin is the hard part.

And it's the new man, the Spirit of Christ in us, that allows us to be angry but yet to sin not. See, you may have a great struggle with anger yourself. Remember to not sleep until you have given it over to Christ. Reflect upon the love of God who sent His Son to save you. Reflect upon Christ bleeding and dying on the cross.

And remember that it was your sins that He was atoning for. Dwell upon the cross until the root of bitterness has been rooted out of your heart, and that the love of Christ replaces it and overflows, even for your enemies. Pray for your enemies. Do not give a foothold to the devil, but when you have fully given your anger over to Christ and can lovingly pray for your enemies, you can sleep a peaceful sleep in the resting arms of Christ who has atoned for all of your sins. The command that we're given here today is be angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.

Heavenly Father we come before you Father and I pray that you would help us empower us to be obedient to this command and that we would live as those who do have a righteous anger that are motivated to end the evil in this world, but that we would recognize that the only power we have is the power that you've given us in the truth, and that we would be those who are bearers of truth and that we would allow you vengeance and Father I pray in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Amen