Psalm 38: Anger

Psalm 38 has a specific purpose, the heading tells us that it was written by David, “For the Memorial Offering” or “to bring to remembrance”. David’s heart was stirred, and he wrote to stir the hearts of others. This is a psalm that is meant to discomfort us. It has famously been said that the job of the newspaper, or the press, is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Long before, Jesus told us, in John 16:8, that when the Holy Spirit came, that He would “convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment”, meaning that the Holy Spirit would stir our hearts, comfort our hurts but also confront our wrongs. I use the word wrong here because the Holy Spirit does much more than show us where we have sinned, He shows us where sin grips us, informs us and controls us. He shows us where our thought process, our expectations, belief systems and assumptions have all been shaped by sin. He shows us where we need to be held, but He also shows us where we need to be shaken. This is a psalm written to show us where we stand with God when we let sin stand with us.

David began by asking God not to rebuke him in anger or discipline him in wrath. There are two things that we need to see here. First, rebuke and discipline are givens, rather than hoping to avoid them, we need to learn how to receive them and grow from them. The author of Hebrews confronted his readers (which now includes us), “you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons: ‘My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you”. We forget that the convergence of God’s character and our condition requires God to rebuke and discipline us. There is no “if” written in Hebrews 12 or Psalm 38. The author does not prepare us in case we need discipline and rebuke, he’s stirring our hearts to the fact that we will, we do require them, and we must learn, not how to endure them, but how to receive them with joy and to grow from them into maturity.

The second thing is that God does indeed get angry and He possesses wrath. We don’t like anger we think of it only as a negative emotion and so we have largely removed it from God and God from it. We think of God’s patience as something that keeps Him from anger, but His patience keeps Him when He is angry. We think of His mercy as something that hides God’s anger from us, but it’s something that secures us in the midst of God’s anger. God was angry when He heard Israel singing and dancing around a golden calf. He was angry when Ahab and Jezebel led the nation to worship Baal. He was angry when Saul rejected His leadership and when Jonah sailed away from Nineveh rather than toward it. What did God do in each of those situations when His anger was roused? He sent Moses to rebuke Israel and through intercession He spared them and remained with them. He sent Elijah to pronounce a drought and to then reveal His power to Ahab, Jezebel and the entire nation, giving them an opportunity for repentance. Even after Saul had rejected God, God sent David to comfort him when his spirit was troubled. He sent a storm to rebuke Jonah and then a fish to protect him while conviction worked in his heart.

Someone might think, “those are all Old Testament examples, but the cross settled God’s anger when Jesus bore God’s wrath”. I’d have to disagree, first on the grounds that God is “the One who was, who is and who is to come”; He doesn’t change, He just makes more of Himself known. Jesus was angry when He turned over the tables and made room for the Gentiles in the outer courts of the temple. He was angry when the disciples tried to refuse parents from bringing their children to meet Him. I believe, He was even angry when He confronted Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, “Why are you persecuting Me?” isn’t exactly a friendly question. God gets angry, but His anger doesn’t change His character, in fact, I believe that His character makes His anger necessary. How could a holy God not become angry with the unholiness He sees? How could a God of such mercy and grace not become angry at the venom we spew and the hatred we spread toward each other? How could a God who carefully created all things not become angry as the creation despises and abuses those things which He created?

Our struggle is that we assume God’s anger does to Him what our anger often does to us. When we become angry, we often act without thinking, we speak harshly, react quickly and sometimes lash out violently. That’s why anger has become a negative emotion in our minds. The reality is that anger is not our problem, self-control is. Ephesians 4, speaking in the context of living in Christ and living like Christ says, “Be angry and do not sin”. Being like Jesus doesn’t mean that we never become angry, it means that we don’t allow our anger to become an excuse for our sin. It continued, “do not let the sun go down on your anger”. That means don’t let your anger linger, don’t hide it, lie about it or sit in it. Deal with it, again, in self-control. God’s anger is subject to His character. When He’s angry His holiness doesn’t change, His love doesn’t fade, His mercies remain new and His grace continues to be extended. Hebrews 12 continued, “For the LORD disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens (or rebukes) everyone He accepts as His son.”

God gets angry and we need discipline. He possesses wrath and we will need to be rebuked. The good news is that God’s anger will never diminish His love, in fact, His love may be most fully expressed in how He chooses to give discipline to those who deserve destruction; how He decided to have His mercy triumph over judgment; how when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Don’t fear God’s anger, trust His love, receive His rebuke and be trained by His discipline. Just like David, we need to remember, at times to be reminded of the weight of our sin and the power of God’s love. We earned death He gave life. We went our own way; He came and found us. We rejected Him; He was patient with us. We made Him angry and He gave us grace.