If you listen often to “conservative” commentators, you hear them regularly discuss the evils in this world, sometimes doing a good job of exposing those evils. Often they get angry—disgusted—indignant! Some of them go on rants and tirades against the problems they see.

Do you realize that their anger is not godly anger? It doesn’t come from the Spirit of God, but from human nature!

It is good to recognize the evil for what it is, and even to have godly indignation. God’s Spirit in us makes that possible!

“But right here is where the carnal nature begins to assert itself,” Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in the December 1961 Good News (emphasis added).

Our carnal nature is competitive. It likes to take sides—it relishes rivalry! That is exactly what you hear from the commentators: us vs. them. One party is always right, and the other is always Adolf Hitler! These commentators do make good points, and God’s Work sometimes uses them in researching for publications. It’s not wrong to listen to them. But we must be careful. Absorbing too much of those carnal attitudes will rub off on us! Some radio programs are two to three hours of bitterness, arguing, party spirit, arrogance, self-righteousness and contempt!

The Apostle Peter warned against people who “despise government,” who are “[p]resumptuous … selfwilled … not afraid to speak evil of dignities” (2 Peter 2:10). Some commentators fit this description very well. They can be dangerously cavalier about ridiculing, lampooning and speaking condescendingly of people God has allowed to be in office.

Gerald Flurry often speaks about this world’s evils and condemns them strongly. But you never hear bitterness or hatred for people. You never hear disrespect or contempt—or arrogance or self-righteousness.

Be sure to follow that godly example!