Episode Transcript
All right, take God's precious word and turn to the book of Proverbs chapter 15.
God willing we'll be expounding verse 18 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 15, verse 18, the title of the messages, a great problem.
A great problem.
If you see the word spelt G-R-A-T-E, that is not misspelled, you Jeremy kids.
I know what you're thinking.
How to spell that way on purpose, and in January, may know why.
You remember that, don't you?
Starts off with the 3 words of wrathful man, a wrathful man.
When I was a kid, the cartoons, when someone would get angry, it would depict the character getting angry by showing their head getting red hot with anger.
Maybe they would crack an egg.
What happened when they put the egg on the head?
They'd fry that egg.
They'd show the steam coming off of their heads.
And the Hebrew word translated wrathful here literally means heat.
It means heat.
And it's probably because it depicts that raging fire inside somebody.
You know, they get hot with anger or the, we call it in the heat of the moment, right?
So we understand the same way that the Hebrews understood anger or understand anger.
It's the way we understand anger.
It has to do with that raging heat inside us versus the, what do we say when someone's calm, they are what?
They're cool, right?
Calm, cool, and collected, they used to say.
And so a volcano doesn't erupt when it's cold.
When does it blow up when it's hot?
When does water boil over on your uh, and soup boil over on your stove and make a big mess, not when it's cold, it boils over, it makes a mess when it's hot.
In the same way.
When do people erupt and burst out?
When they're hotheaded, right?
In the heat of the moment.
And so some people. have a tendency to be hot heads.
It's like, uh, if you've ever, uh, we don't have that trouble near as much as we used to, but used to, you had a whole lot more radiator trouble than you do today.
I guess the radiators are made better and my dad could probably explain all that, but we used to have a lot more radiator trouble.
And you could have a car that run a little bit hot.
Well, then if it really got hot outside, then it could overheat real easy.
Well, there's some people like that with their temperament.
They run a little bit hot all the time.
And so it doesn't take much. to get them to boil over or to erupt like a volcano.
And uh, and so uh, that's the idea of this wrathful man here.
He's a foolish man.
He's a hateful man.
And he would rather look for a fight than prevent one.
That's the idea of the wrathful man tonight.
And Solomon describes him as a man that looked back in your text, stirreth up strife.
He stirs up strife.
In that word, that Hebrew word translated stir.
It means to great, G-R-A-T-E, which is why we have a great problem here, to great, and to great means.
And the reason I said, Miss Anne, a few years ago.
Anne and Nelda. back during when Trump was running for president, they gave me a little gag gift, they brought a cheese crater to church.
And it said, make Richard great again.
That's something like that, wouldn't it?
Make Richard great again, G-R-A-T-E.
Well, I may have graded with it since then. and I'm sure Tammy has, but what do you do when you're great?
I mean, when you have a grater, a cheese grater or, you know, ingrade a lot more than cheese with it, what do you do?
You take an object that's rough, that's very rough.
And then you rub that rough object against another object.
And that's what a wrathful man does.
He grates up strife.
A cheese grater is called a cheese grater because it's rough.
And it rubs against that other object, that cheese, and it grates that cheese, and nobody wants to be grated like that.
I've spent my fair amount of time in the kitchen, not that much, but I have spent my fare.
Tammy got sick.
I could take up the slack.
Brother Shepherd, I'm an incredible chef.
Incredible chef.
But I could take up the slack if I had to.
And I don't know if this has ever happened, y'all.
But have y'all ever been grating something on a cheese grater and grated your knuckles?
Man, I have two.
I have two.
I bent that greater.
I had to throw that greater away, I've done it.
No, it hurts you, knuckles.
And, uh, you know, nobody wants that, doesn't feel very good.
Well, a wrathful man.
If someone whose attitude, his behavior is rough like that greater.
And you know what happens when when they get close to you?
And they start behaving that way, they're going to rub you on the inside just like that greater rub your knuckles on the outside.
If you were to rub my arm with that greater, it rub me raw and it would irritate me greatly.
Greatly.
No pun intended, greatly.
But when I go home tonight.
That grader is there.
But that greater's not going to bother me one bit.
I won't think about that greater.
I won't worry about that greater.
I'm going to go to bed and I know I'm not going to be great in my knuckles tonight.
Because as sharp as that greater and as rough as that greater is.
A greater can only grate you.
If it rubs against you.
You see?
So, what do we not want to do?
When it comes to our relationship with a wrathful man?
We don't want to let that wrathful man rub up against us.
We can't keep them from being wrathful.
We can't keep them like the cheese grater.
We can't keep them from being rough.
That's just the way they are.
But we can, in most circumstances, avoid them from rubbing up against us like a greater, as long as you keep your distance from a wrathful man, there's no risk of being rubbed by him.
So if you can.
And I know you can't always keep your distance from a wrathful man.
Some people may be married to one or a wrathful woman.
Some people may work. with a wrathful person.
So there's some instances where you may not be able to keep your distance.
But in most cases, I believe we can.
And if we can, we need to keep our distance from a wrathful person.
And if you can't, if you're married to that person, or if you, if you work with a person, or you're in some type of situation where you just can't get away from them, you may be sharing a room in a hospital or a nursing home with them.
We don't know.
If that's the case, try not to give them something to rub against.
Don't let don't give them something to grate on.
And let me explain.
Solomon said a wrathful person stirs.
He grates up strife in that Hebrew word translated strife here tonight.
It has the idea of being someone's opponent, being their opposition.
Being their opposition.
Now, if you were to have block of cheese and you would have that greater.
Tanya, she had, she wanted to minimalize my pulpit back here and I said, I said, I better have my pointer because when I'm ready to point, I'm ready to point.
And I better have my Kleenexes.
Other than that, in my microphone.
Other than that I really don't care.
But we're going to let this be the cheese grater tonight.
If I got that block of cheese, My fist is a block of cheese.
You're great, just like this.
But what if that block of cheese went the same directions that greater?
Look at that.
There's nothing.
There's no rub.
There's no rub.
And a lot of times, all we have to do, It just go right along with the flow.
Not compromise.
We never compromise God's word.
We never compromise our convictions, our standards, nothing like that.
But a lot of times our speech, our attitude, our behavior, can not give them something to rub against.
You see?
It only works if you're going sort of the opposite direction, but if you're pliable in your relationship with people, then you can avoid that opposition.
He stirs up opposition.
He wants someone to grade against.
So wrathful man's looking for a fight, at least he's quick to start a fight rather than prevent one, but if you can't keep your distance from these people. then you can try your best to not be their opponent, to not be their opponent.
Again, we should never compromise on our studying with God's word, but we can disagree a lot of times.
With wrathful people, without necessarily opposing a wrathful person.
And now there's some people that are just plain mean.
And you won't be able to change those mean people.
But for most people.
If you'll show some wrathful people.
The love of God.
And you'll let them know that you're not their enemy.
And they will probably not rub you the wrong way.
A wrathful person stirs up strife.
Look now at the last half of this verse, but he that is slow to anger.
That's the opposite of a wrathful person.
He that is slow to anger, literally he that is slow to getting mad and blowing through his nostrils, like an angry bull.
Brother shepherds taught on that same Hebrew Hebrew word before.
In Sunday school, has an idea that a bull going...
Or a person.
But that's what it means, he that is slow to go.
Someone can keep it in.
And not blow up.
Someone that's slow to anger that has a long, long fuse.
What does that person do who slowed anger?
Look back in text, he, what, appeaseth strife.
He appeases strife.
He appeases opposition.
If we'll just be slow to anger, you know what happens when you're slow to anger, I'll tell you.
Well, the, the, uh, the anger here, the, like a bull, when you get to that point, When your anger causes you to go and you blow up like a volcano or snort out like a bull, when you get to that point, you have gone beyond the point of reason, you've gone beyond the point of thinking things through and trying to problem solve, solve, you've now blown up.
So a person that is slow to go on and slow to blowing up.
That person can have time to pray. about what's going on, even while the conflict's going on.
They'll have time to pray about what's going on.
Time to think through and think, how can I resolve this situation?
without going, and blowing up?
But as soon as you do that, that thinking's over with.
But if you can be slowed anger, you can then appease that strife.
Now, the moment we get angry.
Do you know what happens?
The appeasement ends, and the moment we get angry and we...
We just escalated the situation.
Now we have 2 people snorting out their nose.
You just escalated the situation that you're involved in, but if we can remain calm and kind, then it will probably de-escalate the situation.
Why?
He that is slow to anger.
Now if something is slow.
It takes time. before it blows up, right?
Slow regards time, the length of time, it takes someone to be angry.
When it comes to anger, time is our friend.
When it comes to anger, time has the ability to appease in and of itself to some degree.
Why?
Because remember what we learned at the beginning of this verse, we learned that the Hebrew word translated wrathl means heat.
Now, if, If my wife is cooking me some oatmeal, I eat oatmeal every Sunday morning, it's just what I do.
Do you two?
I thought you said you do.
Yeah, but I love oatmeal on Sunday morning.
Saturday's pancakes, Sunday's oatmeal.
That's just what I do.
I don't know, just what I do.
And when she cooks that oatmeal.
Of course, that water's just boiling, boiling, boiling, boiling, boiling.
And then she takes it off the stove and she sits it over here.
And If I grab an oatmeal too quick.
And I try to eat it.
I'll be having to do that.
But when she pulls it off that stove and set it over here.
What is time?
going to do to that oatmeal.
Time is going to cool it down.
Hot-headed people.
Remember, Hebrew means heat.
Hotheaded people will naturally. begin to cool over time.
So if we can keep from from blowing up.
And we can just ease that out and and for a while and give that person some time without giving them something to grate on, if we can just kind of go along with them.
Not oppose them, not try to come back and have a quick comeback at them, as soon as you have a comeback now, you're grading.
But if we can be pliable with that person holding our conviction to God's word, then time will have a way of taking that blow up and letting it cool off naturally.
So a person that's slow to wrath, just simply being slow to wrath, will help to cool that anger down.
Our calmness and kindness. can have a cooling effect on that wrathful person.
A person that is slow to anger someone, again, who can think through the moment and appease that strife, and the Hebrew word translated appeaseth, means to rest or settle.
I like that.
Think of that boiling water as it cools off, what does it do?
It settles.
It settles.
And so you take a person, and if you can separate them from that heat, if you can give them time, then they're going to settle down too.
People can't blow up forever.
That blowing up has to stop sometime.
It will cool down eventually one way or another.
So a person who's slow to anger, they can give rest to the angry person by settling.
Remember, they appease strife by settling the reason for their contention.
Can you settle that reason for their contention?
I was watching a video a while back and it was impactful to me.
It was a motorcycle rider, who had one of those helmet cameras on.
And he's sitting at a red light, and he's staring down this man in a pickup truck next to him at that red light.
And the man on the motorcycle was very angry.
Had the person in the pickup.
And the person in the, in the, in the pickup recognized this person staring me down.
So the fellow in the pickup rolls his window down and he says, hey, what's what's up?
Did I do something wrong?
You know, And the man says, yeah.
He says, A few months ago, we were going down the road and you cut me off in that pickup.
And he didn't like it.
He remembered that, and he recognized that fella, and he recognized that pickup.
He let him know he was not happy about that at all.
That past event, had stuck in his mind, had been troubling him that whole time.
And when he saw that fella, So When he saw the man, the pickup, he saw opposition.
He saw strife.
And when the man in the pickup heard the motorcycle rider's complaint, you know what he did?
He didn't give him something to rub against.
It was beautiful.
He went right along with that.
Very beautiful.
He put his pickup in park.
Which I imagine at that time, the motorcycle rider may have been thinking, oh boy, you know, he put his pickup in park.
He didn't hop out of that pickup, walked over that fellow on the motorcycle, tuck his hand out.
He said, you know, I remember that day.
He said, that was a bad day for me.
He said, I wasn't, I wasn't doing my best that day.
He said, I'm sorry, I want to apologize for that.
That guy totally took the opposition away.
Has nothing degrade against anymore.
He has no reason for contention.
He, and right there in the middle of the traffic, and the motorcycle rider shook his hand.
Then he hops back in the pickup.
I think he complimented the man's motorcycle.
They exchanged some pleasantries, and they both drove away.
And the man on the motorcycle thanked him.
He said, you know, he said, I appreciate this.
I've been thinking on that a long time. been carrying that around.
It was a beautiful thing to watch.
When he, the moment he extended his hand to the offended party, he put himself on that man's team.
And when he put himself on that man's team, showing him, man, I'm for you.
Suddenly, He was going the same direction that fellow was.
And there was nothing degrade against, but had he allowed the anger of that man on the motorcycle to cause him to and get angry too, he would have escalated the hostility.
We may have been seeing him on the news.
One fellow shooting the other or pick up running over a motorcycle.
We seen it all, hadn't we?
A wrathful man stirs up strife.
But a man who's slow to anger, he finds a way to put that strife to rest.
Before the light changed back on that.
From red to green.
Those 2 men were talking like friends and they drove away.
And that day, Both men won.
Both men won, because a wise man removed an angry man's reason to be offended.
You know, that we'll go ahead and stop tonight.
We'll close with a word of prayer.
Father, thank you for all you've done.
We love you so much.
We pray, dear Lord God, that you'll bless this word, to our hearts, to our lives, that we will put it to action and our lives, and let it change how we deal with people.
Not to be a weak person, dear Lord God, but we'll change how we deal with people, dear Lord God, and to be strong in the Lord.
That strength is not opposing.
Strength is settling.
Strength is appeasing strife.
Strength is being able to deal with a wrathful man and cause both people to win.
We thank you so much.
We pray for every prayer request, Father God, that was mentioned tonight, Lord.
Each and every church member.
Be with us as we go our ways until we come back Sunday morning in Jesus' precious name.
Amen.
