By Thomas Waters

The days are getting longer and warmer.  Robins are arriving, Azaleas, Red Buds and Dogwoods are budding and blooming all marking the beginning of Spring.  As the days continue to warm, snakes will soon be crawling – including rattlesnakes.  An interesting story is told about a prayer for rattlesnakes.

Preacher Robert Sheffey (1820-1902), a powerful man of prayer who spread the gospel throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia, one day met up with a family with a desperate need.  A young man had been bitten by a rattlesnake.  Spotting Brother Sheffey riding by, the young man’s father sent his youngest boy to bring him to the scene.  Fearing his son would die, the father was counting on Sheffey’s reputation for powerful and effective prayer.  So he said, “Preacher  Sheffey, call upon the Lord so my boy will live.”

Sheffey did not recognize the man nor his family and so he inquired as to whether any of them, father or mother or children, had ever called upon the name of the Lord.  “No, I guess not.  There’s — there’s three boys, ma and me,” the father said, hanging his head.  Now they recognized their desperate need for God.

As the family stood by Preacher Sheffey knelt on his sheepskin beside the wounded man and prayed,

“Oh Lord, please bring Thy healing to this young man, and Lord we thank Thee for snakes and pray that there be many of them.  It is because of a snake that this family calls upon Thy holy name today.  One of the sons has been bitten, and they called upon Thee.   Now, Lord, except for the snake they would perhaps never in their lifetimes have turned to Thee.  What a blessing this lowly, crawling thing has been!  Lord, I want you to send lots of snakes.  Send another one to bite the youngest boy here, and send still another to bite this woman who never had her boys kneel by her chair, that they might hear the prayers of their mother.  And, Lord, above all things, send a great big rattler, a really large one, to bite the old man so that he may call upon Thy name fervently and much.”

What do you really need in your life?  Rattlesnakes?  Most of us want health and wealth.  Often, however, blessings become curses and instead of leading us to thankfulness and worship of the One True God, they become excuses for neglect of worship and prayer.

Folks who seldom or never attend the worship of the Lord, who hardly ever pray or read their Bibles or even think of God or thank Him for daily blessings, often call upon preachers to pray for them when they are sick or in trouble.  Wonder what they would think if the preacher started thanking the Lord for the trouble or sickness that has made them sensible of their need for God and asking the Lord to send more?  I mean really?  Should I pray for a person to get well so they can once again forget God?

Perhaps we ought to pray as John did for Gaius, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul”.  (3 John 2)

By Thomas Waters

A. W. Pink wrote,

It is sad to find so many professing Christians who appear to regard the wrath of God as something for which they need to make an apology, or at least they wish there were no such thing . . .  Yes, many there are who turn away from a vision of God’s wrath as though they were called to look upon some blotch in the Divine character . . .  But what saith the Scriptures? As we turn to them we find that God has made no attempt to conceal the fact of His wrath.  He is not ashamed to make it known that vengeance and fury belong unto Him . . .  A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.  (The Attributes of God, p. 75).

One of the characteristics mankind shares with God is anger. Unlike God, however, our anger can be good or bad.

In Genesis 4:1-7, the Bible states that Cain was angry.  He was angry at God and angry at his brother Able.  At the heart of Cain’s anger was Cain who believed he had been wronged – primarily by God.  His anger intensified and stained his worship and resulted in a murderous rage.

In 1 Samuel 17:19-26, David, a man after God’s own heart, is angry.   He is angered by the criticism and taunts hurled at God and His people. He is angry because he sees the army of God retreating in cowardice.  At the heart of David’s anger is God.  His anger causes him to become involved, to take up the challenge and go out and meet Goliath on the field of battle.

Some people are angry people.  They grumble and complain.  Their nose stays out of joint and they are take everything as an insult. Such people are impatient, demanding, insulting and irritable.  Such anger is ugly, controlling and hurtful.

Some people are angered by sin.  They are angered by the injustice and devastation of sin.  They are angered by political corruption and by a godless culture that is ruled by sex and violence.  They are angry that the church is polluted and has sold the truth for approval and appeal.

We need some angry men.  Not men like Cain, but men like David.  Men that are distressed by evil and engaged for good.

Paul David Tripp notes,

The primary implication is that if God is holy and angry at the same time, then anger is not evil in and of itself. If it were, God would never be angry . . .Therefore, it is not merely possible to be holy and angry at the same time, it is a calling (Broken Down House, 130).

Many of us will become angry this week. Why? Will your anger be petty, self-centered and lead to hurt and disappointment? Or, will your anger propel you to do good?  Our day cries out for people who are “good and angry.”  Angry at sin, inequities, poverty, crime . . .  Angry that God’s word, house, and day are ignored and trampled.  Such anger will not lead to sin, but actions of love and righteousness.