“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools” (7:9). These words seem particularly harsh, especially the naming of people as fools. But truth is truth, and the Bible is truth. Paul counsels us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31). Now, there are many reasons that unrighteous anger is bad, among them the fact that, according to the Preacher, only fools are quick to get angry. And not only that, he seems to imply that, once anger arises in the heart, it tends to remain or “lodge” there. I suspect we have all known someone who, for no good reason at all (thus, not a righteous anger), quickly is angered and seemingly never gets over the anger. The person just lives with it. It eats him up. The damage is done not so much to the one against whom his anger is directed but to himself. You can see it when you are around him. You can feel it. You just don’t want to be with him. Isn’t it wonderful that our God has not remained angry at us. With Isaiah, we can declare: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away, and you comfort me” (Isaiah 12:1).
Happy soul who sees the day,
The glad day of gospel grace!
Thee, my Lord (thou then wilt say)
Thee will I for ever praise;
Though thy wrath against me burned,
Thou dost comfort me again;
All thy wrath aside is turned,
Thou hast blotted out my sin. –Charles Wesley (1742)
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