Epheshians 4
verse 26
Be angrey and don't sin.  Don't let the sun go down on your rath nor give
place to the devil.

Now the bible's 4 don't's of disarming anger.
If you're going to be able to disarm anger there are 4 things the bible says
not to do.
number 1,  Don't deny your anger.
Be angrey, accept your emotions whether they are good or bad, regardless of
whether you can justify it or not.  You need to let your anger come into the
light.  Don't bottle it up and don't be unrighchous about it.
number 2 don't is,
Don't let the sun go down before you've resolved your anger.
Understand, we are the temple of the holey spirit and we were never made to
be a repository of anger.
And, whenever you go to bed on anger the bible says that you give the devil
a place.  The word used for devil here is deobalos which means the slanderor
or, the accuser.
And the way that a couple goes from being madly in love to being bitter and
hostel is, they go to bed on anger and the devil takes opportunity in that
to accuse them and convince them that they married the wrong person, that
their spouse has evil motives in what they're doing they'll never change and
to give you all the wrong answers but his open door according to the bible
is unresolved anger.
One of the best disaplins in every marage or in any business or relationship
is never go to bed on anger.
Deal with it quickly or it becomes very distructive.
number 3 is found in verse 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth
but what is good, necessary for edification that it may impart grace to the
hearors and do not greave the holey spirit of god by whom you are ceeled for
the day of redemtion.
Let all bitterness rath anger clammor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all mallis.
number 3 don't in dealing with and disarming anger is don't use angrey words
carelessly or unrighchously.
What greaves the holey spirit is when you treat people like they are not as
valuable as they really are.
The most important thing to god is people.
God loves everyone.  The person you would look at in this world and find a
reason to hate, they are god's child and god considers them to be precious
in his sight.  Unfortunately I think all of us could be guilty of devaluing
another person without even thinking about it.  If someone cuts you off in
trafic, or dishonors you or hurts you in anyway or even if they don't look
right or act right in your opinion and you say something unpleasant about
them, you are greaving the holey spirit as soon as those words leave your
mouth.  Another thing to remember, anger, when it is unresolved, it always
affects your speach.  It always comes out in what you are saying.  In verse
31 it talks of 3 levels of anger and 3 ways that it manifests itself within
our words.
The 3 levels of anger are, anger, bitterness and rath.
Anger is the first level of anger.  The word used in the greek means the
emotion of indignation or anger.  What it says to do with this anger is, to
admit it, don't let the sun go down on it but put that out of your life and
don't keep it inside.
The second thing is to put away bitterness.  Bitterness is simply aged
anger.
It begins to affect your personality.  If you have ever seen these people
who stew on or store up anger, they will have a  look on their face, as
if they have been sucking on lemons.  That's bitterness.
The third thing is rath.  these are vilant people.  Rath means a person who
through word or through deed have become vilant.
then it goes into 3 levels of negative or destructive comunication.
The first thing it tells us in verse 31 is about speach, it says clammor.
The greek word for this means yelling or shouting in anger.  One of the
first warning signs of anger in your speach is volume.  It is saying, do
not raise your voice.  With children or anyone else, the only time you need
to raise your voice is when their is danger or when you are in a croud
situation and you are encouraging them on, as in a ball game or something.
Go Johnny or Go Mary.
Or, if they are running out into the street and you yell STOP!
Yelling is impersonal and vilant.
If you have to yell at a child to control them, you do not have control.
We should try to control relationally, put your arm around them and explain
this is why you do or don't do that.
God's voice is called the still, small voice.
He isn't yelling at us from hevin to control our behavior.
Number 2, it says put away evil speaking.
The greek translates to Damaging speach that misrepresents the nature of
another person.  In other words, we get cut off in trafic and we say "you
idiot, you jirk so on"
It's the venim, you don't love me, you don't understand me, on and on like
that.
The next is malis and the greek word for this means Wicked speach that is
designed to enjer and is not ashamed to break all rules.
You have made me so mad, and I am now so frustrated with you that I am going
to say the worst thing that I can possibly say to damage you.  All I care
about right now is to get to you and to hurt you.
The devil understands the power of words.
proverbs 18 21 and 22
Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat
it's fruit.
The second part is,
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the lord.
The context of that is,
Any man can either give his wife life with his words or he can kill her.
The power is in his mouth.
Because one of the deepest needs for a woman is the need for open and honest
comunication.
The devil wants to come and poison a man with bitterness and anger toward
his wife so that it becomes clammor, evil speach and ultimently malis.  So
that rather than giving her life with his words that he will produce death
with his words.
Ok, so what do you do about these problems in marage?
number 1
Choose the right time and setting for confrentation.
It should not be in front of your kids.
You are their life and arguing in front of them causes them encredible
stress.  Your children need to see you loving one another and if you're
angrey with one another, fake it.
You are responsible for showing them the kind of life which is propper to
live and also of making that life true by fixing problems in your marage
relationship.
However, you do not have to argue in front of them to achieve this.
Give your spouse advance notice that something is bothering you and you want
to talk about it even if you have to wait until later to do so.
If you deal with your anger everyday, you will not have the bottled up,
distructive anger.
Understand this, if you have a problem in your marage which you can not get
passed.
You have comunicated it to your spouse and they won't respond or they roll
their eyes and won't deal with it with you and it is damaging you.  It has
become a big issue and they won't resolve it, seak counciling.
It is not unusual to come across problems like this in marage and sometimes
a word from a person who is not involved can e the solution or a step in the
right direction.
It is not a sign of weakness to get help, it is a sign of strength as it
helps you to continue your relationship in a more healthy way.
Intervention is when you go and find someone who you will both respect and
ask their help with solving a problem.
It's not always comfortable but when nothing else works, it is worth a shot.
Also, understand there is not just marage and divorce available to you.
There is a place inbetween the two called constructive seporation.  This is
encouraged when real damage is going on.
We all have to suffer when we are married because everyone that we are
maried to is a human and they're imperfect so don't do this for every little
problem but when the real damage is going on and there seems to be no way to
work it out, try getting an apartment, and then from that place telling
them, I love you and I am comitted to the marage but I am not going to live
with you under these cercomstances because it is damaging me.
Even from their you can agree to go to counciling and work things out and
come back together.
There's always a positive way to deal with negative situations.
Don't take the devil's advice which I think is to turn and run, consider
your spouse defective or stay and because of your own hurting and bottled up
anger, abuse your spouse and/or yourself.
Always begin every confrentation with your spouse with afirmation of your
love and commitment to your spouse.
You do this by letting them know that you are upset, choosing the propper
time and beginning with I love you and am devoted to you and that is why I
am letting you know that I am hurting over...
Epheshians 4 15 says Speaking the truth in love, we grow up.
In John Gotman's research which he has done for 17 years in watching couples
fight he says that one of the number one danger signs of divorce in a marage
is what is called harsh start up in a conversation.  That is when you begin
conversation with name calling or threats or verbal abuse.
They found that you never rise above the first 3 minutes of a conversation.
If the first 3 minutes of the conversation is negative, you are going to end
up at a negative place.
proverbs 15 verses 1 through 4 says A soft answer turns away anger but a
harsh word stirs up anger.  The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly
but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness.  The eyes of the lord are in
every place  keeping watch on the evil and the good.  A holsom tongue is a
tree of life but perversness in it breaks the spirit.
The bible says, We enter into god's gates with thanksgiving and enter into
his courts with praise.
The courts of god are his very presence, where he is.
We are created in the image of god and we won't let a person into our gates
unless they are thankful and we're not going to let anyone into our courts
unless they are praising us.
In other words, if you are critical of me, I may listen to you but I will
keep my guard up.
By the way, this John Gotman's research is secular but the findings match up
with what the bible has said all along.
When we feel as though we are under attack or being mistreated we want to
respond fire for fire but the bible suggests that the only thing we can do
is to respond water for fire.
Proverbs 16 says, The heart of the wise teaches his mouth and adds learning
to his lips.  Pleasant words are like a honeycone sweetness to the soul and
health to the bones.
There is a way that seems right to a man but the end is the way of death.
The context of this is There are people who think that angry words will
produce good results but it devistates.
If you start a conversation with anger, stop yourself, opologise and tell
your spouse that you want to try again later.
number 3 is
Comunicate your complaints feelings and perspective to your spouse without
fixed judgments on them or final inturpritations of their intentions.
You saw something they did which upset you but you can't come to them and
say, this is what you did and this is what you meant by it!
This brings up several issues.
First understanding the difference between complaining, crittisizing and
contempt.
The way to get anger out of your relationship is to give the other person
the right to complain.
Complaining means, this is how I feel.
That is about I me my perspective of events.
Crittisizing is the next level, it starts with YOU!  And what I think you
did wrong and how you did that expressly to harm me.
In this case, you only have two options, either confess and I might forgive
you or you suffer!  An, I will make you suffer!
Ok, so you can tell me how you feel but don't try to tell me what I was
thinking because you can not crawl inside my brain.
Another thing is spacific complaints or globalizing.
Spacific complaints are where you tell someone a problem you are having with
their behavior, and how it is affecting you where as globalizing is angrally
accusing a person of never doing anything right because you saw something
that they did which affected you in a negative way.
Example, you talk and agree ahead of time that it is your job in the house
to take out the trash and then next day you forget and they see the trash
piled up and attack you saying you never do anything around here.
Question, how do you eat an elephant?
Answer, one bite at a time.
If you've got this elephant of anger in your marage, the temptation is to
walk it over to your spouse and say open up!  And then to shove the whole
thing down their throat.
This won't work.
In gotman's research this is called flooding.  Anytime you give your spouse
more than they can handle emotionally you flood them.
When you globalize like this it feels as though all of the air has left the
room.
Men are the worst about stonewalling when they feel as though they have been
globalized.
By the way, it is proven in Gotman's research that anytime a man's heart
rate goes above 100 they become disoriented and they can't hear anymore.
When women get upset it is easier for them to calm down and deal but when
men get angry it is not as easy.
Gotman wired these people in his study and found this to be true in
observing them during heated arguments.  What has to be done, when so much
anger has built up over an issue is that you have to get a knife and,
figuring out how big your spouse's mouth is, you feed them the elephant
piece by piece, conversation by conversation until, over time, and many
conversations, you deal with this anger.
4th
Let your spouse respond to your complaints and perspective without
interuption, letting them know that you are listening carefully to
understand what they are saying.
Also, repent for anything you have done wrong.
End your conversations with afirmation, I love you.  Don't stomp away.
The 4th don't of dealing with anger is
Don't allow the anger of the past to lessen your love.
Epheshians 4 32
Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another just as god
and christ forgave you.
In Matthew 19 Jesus was asked, Can we devorce our wives for any reason at
all?
Jesus responded, it's your hard heart that causes you to devorce.
That's not the way god designed marage.
Hard heartedness comes from anger laying on your heart.
Here are worning signs that you are not forgiving and having a hard heart.
Sarcasm, negativity, silance, being unwilling to meet your spouse's needs
until they perform to a certain level, detatchment and withdrawl from the
relationship, bringing up the past in a negative manner, pourposeful harm
and revenge.
In closing, remember, we are not bottles for anger.  God did not design us
to store it up unresolved and when we do it allows the devil to destroy us.
Step back, calm down, relize that you love this person you are having
problems with, tell them that you love them, listen, pay attention, admit
when you have been wrong, opologize, work to become better and someday you
can meet with god and say, I did it!
I took propper care of this relationship you gave me and I am happy, healthy
and at peace with them and with you and with myself.
In dealing with your problems this way, you will affect those around you
posatively, not negatively and they will learn from your example and you
will have a better life.