In this blog, I will answer the following question, submitted by Chris. “Today there are quite a few things in the world that God would be angry about—abortion, slavery, abuse of children, immorality, etc. So getting angry about these things would be normal and good, because “Evil exists because good men do nothing.” So how can you be angry in a righteous way and still express this appropriately?”

To limit myself, I’ll give bullet points with short comments. If you can’t follow my thought, please ask more questions.

• “Evil exists because good men do nothing” is not from the Bible. There is truth to it. Its goal is valid: to encourage us to take action. However, in our zeal to follow through, we tend to act in our own strength. That’s dangerous.
• In contrast, I believe God would have us depend on Him and join in on what He is doing. If we fight to destroy evil in our own strength, we can—and often do—cause more harm than good.
• Anger is not wrong, bad, or evil. There are many mentions in the Bible of God getting angry, so we know it is not bad in and of itself. Therefore, it seems logical that it would be good to use the energy of anger to fight evil.
• However, our anger does not flow from a pure heart. It is contaminated by Self and Self’s expectations, judgments, and desires.
• Furthermore, I don’t know of any incident where the Bible speaks of God being angry at those who were not His children.  He didn’t seem surprised or offended that the heathen/unbelievers did things that did not honor Him. Though unbelievers suffer consequences of their sin, God didn’t seem to expect them to honor Him or His laws.
• The Bible does speak frequently about the Lord being angry at His children, for idolatry, disobedience, and so forth, even for grumbling (see 1 Corinthians 10:1-13). God calls His children to be a blessing to the world, to be salt and light that sets the standard of the culture. I believe the Lord is more anger at the apostasy, apathy, and idolatry among those who claim to love Him than He is of the abominations in our world today.
• We tend to expect non-believers to value the same standards of conduct that we follow because we want to honor God. Our anger grows out of the expectation that they hold the same standards. But if God does not have the same expectations, are we representing Him when we become angry because they break our code of conduct?
• “The anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). If we respond to abortion, slavery, homosexuality, and child abuse in anger, what have we gained if it doesn’t achieve the righteousness of God? Our campaigns against things that God hates have not turned the tide of evil. Instead, it’s clear that the harder we’ve fought, the stronger anti-Christian sentiment has grown. Have our efforts produced righteousness?
• We justify ourselves as having righteous anger when it is anger at evil, but I can’t find any reference in the Bible that speaks of righteous anger.  Even though we are righteous through Christ’s blood, our hearts harbor unrighteousness. I’m reluctant to say our anger can ever be untainted from Self and thus be termed righteous anger. (Daniel 9:16 is the only verse I find that uses righteous and anger in the same verse. However, in it, Daniel is pleading with God, “in accordance with all Thy righteous acts, let now Thine anger and Thy wrath turn away from Thy city Jerusalem.” God is righteous and He is angry—over the unrighteousness of His people.)
• God said,” Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Eph 4:31). Note the word all. If God said to put away all anger, I don’t believe He intended for us to use it to fight evil. In Colossians 3:8, we’re also told to ”put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.” If we are to put it all away, how can we sometimes call it righteous?
• Why would God say to put it aside? Simple. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). God looks at the heart. He seeks righteousness, hearts that are aligned with His and that lead to righteous actions. If our anger produced righteousness, we wouldn’t need to put it aside.

To answer the underlying question of how you fight the things that the Lord hates, I have another question. Jesus lived in a very evil time. How did He fight the evil around Him?

What about other Bible heroes? We aren’t the first to face these problems. How did they fight the evil of their times? 

• Jesus went about preaching and teaching the kingdom of God. He reached out to sinners. He healed them, had compassion on them, and loved them.
• Jesus confronted the scribes and Pharisees, and He preached righteous living, but He did not directly confront the evil of the world in which He lived. Instead He offered an alternative and gave His life to make it possible.
• Abraham apparently avoided Sodom and Gomorrah, but when he learned that God was going to destroy them, he pleaded for mercy.
• Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego faithfully served an evil king, but continued to honor God above service to the king, even when it put them in danger.
• Moses’ zeal led him to murder an Egyptian task master and resulted in him fleeing and staying in hiding for 40 years. When his zeal had faded, God used him to deliver Israel from slavery.
• When Jesus was betrayed, one of His followers cut off the ear of the slave of the high priest. Jesus’ response was to say, “Stop! No more of this,” and to heal the slave’s ear (Luke 22:50-51).
• The Spirit of the Lord came on Saul and he became angry, cut up a yoke of oxen and sent pieces throughout Israel, raised an army of 330,000, rousted the enemy, and became an instant hero (1 Sam. 11).

Saul’s response breaks the pattern. What do you think? How does God want us to fight the evil in our midst?

What other passages do you think speak to the question?

How do we fight evil? Are we suppose to lay down while evil abounds? Or respond like Saul?

Stay tuned. I will share my conclusions next Tuesday.