“24 Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, 25 lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.” (Proverbs 22:24–25)
How many times do people willingly fall among the wrong crowd, are influenced by the wrong ideas, or simply like a good argument? No one would really seek out a bar room brawler to have for a friend unless of course they like the thrill and excitement that comes with a good fight. This is not the way of our Master. There were several times Jesus expressed a righteous anger in scripture, when He overturned the money changers tables, when he was confronted by the unbelief of the religious leaders, or the lack of faith in His closest disciples. If we are honest, we liked it when Jesus went after the bad guys with a whip in the temple, but we can trust Jesus because He is the one true living God and will not lead us astray because His anger is righteous and corrective.
While we may not seek out hot-tempered people directly for friends how many of us are influenced by them because we choose to let them speak into our life. The voices of anger and wrath are so much more available today because of our connectedness in social media. At the time this Proverb was written the social media sight was at the gate of the city where people would gather. People then were given to their passions as well from angry and wrathful words, but they were from people they knew. Unlike then today the angry and wrathful words come from sources we cannot validate or verify, from thousands of miles away, and yes, I believe Satan has a Facebook account along with His demons and they are busy, busy, busy. These words of anger if allowed will influence and affect even the best of us. We will become entangled and spread the lies and become entrapped in Satan’s snare of anger. Where there is anger there is no room for love and no room for Christ.
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