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Don’t Cut Off your Nose to Spite your Face

January 16, 2025

Don’t Cut Off your Nose to Spite your Face

Spurgeon, in the voice of John Ploughman, says” Anger is a short madness. The less we do when we go mad the better for everybody, and the less we go mad the better for ourselves. He is far gone who hurts himself to wreak his vengeance on others. The old saying is, ‘Don’t cut off your head because it aches,’ and other says, ‘Set not your house on fire to spite the moon.’”

This little chapter on Anger in “John Ploughman’s Pictures” says it better than I can, so here are some more quotes:

• “Do nothing when you are out of temper, and then you will have the less to undo.”
• “Let a hasty man’s passion be a warning to you; if he scalds you, take heed that you do not let your own pot boil over.”
• “He who cannot curb his temper carries gunpowder in his bosom, and he is neither safe for himself nor his neighbors.”
• “When passion comes in at the door, what little sense there is indoors flies out of the window.”
• “Anger does a man more hurt than that which made him angry. It opens his mouth, and shuts his eyes, and fires his heart, and drowns his sense, and makes his wisdom folly.”

From whence does anger come? Those who are angry are quick to blame others. “You make me so mad!” But that is not the truth, is it? Anger is our response to the situation, but anger is not a necessary response. A person could just as soon respond with patience, or a desire to see whether one’s own self has contributed to the problem, or with an attitude that you would like to help the person who is in the wrong. Anger does none of those things.

So again, from whence does anger come? Do you remember that Jesus Himself already answered that question?

• Mark 7:20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. 21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

You might argue that you do not see “anger” in this 13-fold list, though I might find it in the entries “evil thoughts” and “murders” (since, when one is angry, we often think that we would be better off if the other person were absent). But let’s compare this list, “which proceeds out of the man,” to the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5:

• Gal. 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Spurgeon says, “A hot-tempered man would be all the better for a new heart, and right spirit.” That fits the Matthew text well. To accord with the second text, we might say that the angry person needs the Lord. Why? Because merely trying harder not to be angry will never work. We cannot change our own hearts, and we cannot conjure up the Spirit. They are both given by Christ to those who have given up on self-salvation and come to Him for the only real help available.

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