You may not realize that Jesus got angry several times in the Bible. Some of you are probably wondering how can that be? All of the stories you have been told are of Jesus healing the blind and helping the crippled walk again. You may have even heard the story of Jesus healing of the lepers. If you have not studied your Bible, you may have missed several instances where Jesus got angry.
The Old Testament has many verses showing the anger of God. Rightfully so, the emotion of anger was created by God. The difference between humans and God is that God stays with-in the boundaries of holiness. Most every time we act out in anger, we cross the line and sin. It is easy to sin when we let our emotions control our thoughts and actions. So, how did Jesus demonstrate anger in the Bible while remaining holy? There are several instances of Jesus' anger in the New Testament. The clearest example of anger exhibited by Jesus is found in the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four gospels show Jesus got angry at the money ex-changers in the temple.
John 2:15 NASB And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables;
Matthew 21:12 NASB And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
Mark 11:15 NASB Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves;
Luke 19:45 NASB Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling,
Jesus got angry at the religious leaders.
Mark 3:5 NASB After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
All of the instances of Jesus' anger found in the Bible are there because someone was found in contempt for God's law's. He never got angry because someone personally attacked him. Jesus got angry when people would commit sins against God. Jesus was so appalled by the behavior that he became mad at these individuals.
How often do we find ourselves angry because of someone trespasses against God? Most of us get angry when someone does something against us. We find ourselves defending our self interests. The moral of my message tonight is we should be slow to anger. Unless we are supporting God without our self interests at heart, our anger turns to sin. We all need to work on holding our anger back and in turn our focus to honoring God instead.