Anger and Compassion – Jonah 4:4 – 8.
Let me begin today by pointing out three things about Jonah which we have looked at over the past number of weeks.
• Jonah is displeased and angry – 4:1.
• Jonah makes his complaint to God in a prayer – 4:2.
• Jonah makes a request of God – 4:3. He wants to die.
Now we come to verse 4 and God asks a simply question of Jonah, ‘Have you any right to be angry?’ He is really asking, ‘Jonah, is your anger justifiable?’ It is a good question. It is one we ought to ask ourselves when we get angry. Can we justify it? Have we really thought it through or are we just reacting to circumstances we don’t like?
Now we need to know that God is a God who often asks questions. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned and tried to hide from God, God came walking in the Garden and he asked these questions, ‘Adam, where are you? Who told you were naked? What have you done?’
When Cain, in an angry jealousy, killed his brother Able, God appeared to Him and asked, ‘Cain, where is your brother? What have you done?’
When Saul the King of Israel disobeyed God and took the spoils of war and offered sacrifice to God, God send the Prophet Samuel to ask Saul, ‘What have you done?’
When the Prophet Isaiah saw God in a vision in the Temple and fell on his knees in repentance, he heard God asking, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’
I point this out to us for this reason that our God is a God who is always asking question and part of the image of God in us is that we ask questions. We ask question in order to discover truth. We ask them of ourselves and we ask them of others. When we fail to ask questions we end up making assumptions and usually those assumptions are wrong. And yet we sometimes make important and life changing decisions based upon assumptions. If our God who knows all things is always asking questions how much more ought we to learn the art of asking in order to discover and learn. I will teach more on that at another time.
Now back to Jonah. The question God asked of Jonah was, ‘Do you have any reason to be angry?’ What did that question mean to Jonah?
1. First of all, it was a challenge from God for Jonah to judge who was right – God or Jonah.
Why is it important for Jonah to answer that question – who was right, God or Jonah? For this reason, both God and Jonah are looking at the same situation and the very same circumstances, but seeing it from two different perspectives. God, who is all seeing, sees it from the perspective of eternity while Jonah who is finite sees it from the limited perspective of time, geography and personal preferences.
Whenever God asks that kind of question you and I must always remember that God is right and we are being invited to reaffirm that truth to ourselves. God is always right. I’ve already quoted Isaiah 55:8 – 9 several times in these messages on Jonah. Here is another text for us to receive and rest upon – Romans 11:34 – 35, ‘Who has known the mind of the lord? Or who has been His Counsellor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from Him and through him and to him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever! Amen!’
The question of who is right, God or me, is one we often face and when we face it we are often amazed to discover how much of Jonah is really in us. We need to settle the question once for all in our hearts and mind – God is always right. Paul states this very clearly in Romans 3:4, ‘Let God be true and every man a liar.’ When we receive that as settled truth in our hearts then we do not become frustrated and angry and depressed because God doesn’t do things we way we do them and doesn’t always answer prayer the way we want Him to answer it.
2. What was Jonah’s response to God? 4:5.
Jonah did not think through God’s question to him. Instead he went on sulking and became even angrier, so he leaves the city of Nineveh and somewhere outside the city limits he built for himself a small shelter. In doing so Jonah made three errors.
A. He abandoned his mission.
He gave up – he quit. God did not tell him to leave Nineveh. He did it all on his own. He was a prophet. His job was to stay and instruct the people, but he didn’t. He gave up.
One of the ways in which some people react when God doesn’t do what they want is that they give up. I have seen missionaries abandon their mission when God didn’t do what they asked. I have seen students quit school because they didn’t get the grades they asked God for. I’ve seen parents give up on their children because God didn’t lead them into the career they wanted for them. I have seen couples give up on their marriages because God hadn’t brought one spouse to faith. And it goes on and on. People, many of them good Christians, give up and throw in the towel because they couldn’t understand the ways and movements of God.
Listen carefully, I am not saying that we should never change courses in life or that there are not times when we have to walk away from thing. But when we are involved in doing something we know to be the will of God we don’t walk away from it. There may be serious difficulties with our circumstances but we need to find out from scripture through prayer what it is that God is asking of us and hold on to it for dear life.
The second error Jonah made was:
B. he built a private retreat.
He made a little shelter for himself. It was his way of saying, I am not going to become involved. God had used Jonah to bring grace to the city; surely there was some one in Nineveh who would have provided grace for Jonah in terms of a place to stay. But Jonah was not interested. Instead he built his own little private retreat outside the city and away from the people. Could it be that Jonah still secretly despised the people of Nineveh?
The danger and the direction that I have seen in many Evangelical churches including those I’ve pastured is this, that the church becomes a place of retreat. We use it to hide away from our neighbours and from our community. We are called upon, as Christians, to be involved with people and things which are happening in our community. It’s important to get into our schools and join some of the groups there which are working to improve the work of the school in the community – the PTA, Big Brothers, the Lunch Program and so on. It’s important to get into other organizations in the community and help – the Chamber of Commerce, the Lion’s club, the Library, etc. You could join the Coffee Club at Coffee Time at 10:30 in the mornings and be a Christian presence there. You can be the Christian presence there that will make a difference in whether or not people ever see Christ alive in others. Do use your attendance at worship on Sunday morning as an escape from rubbing elbow with the world. We need to out there with the world. We are a part of that world and we become the presence of Jesus to them.
The third error that Jonah made was this:
C. Jonah became a spectator.
In the beginning of the crusade he was at the very centre and all eyes were on him. Now he is on the outside looking in. Christians can become that way too. We sit at home, watch the news, read the newspapers and we see all that is happening. If we like it we are happy. If we don’t we criticise. We are fans at a baseball game. We cheer when our side is winning and we complain when its losing, but we are never involved. We are spectators.
Here is a challenge. Think about it. Pray about it. Take action. Over the next week watch the news and read your local papers. Ask God to show you one thing that is happening in your community that is contributing positively to the people around you and then seek to be involved – just one thing. Commit yourself to being a presence for God in that group and see how God can use you.
We have looked at God’s challenge to Jonah as to who was right – Jonah or God; and we have looked at Jonah’s response. He simple walked away, quit his mission and built himself a private retreat where he became a spectator instead of a player. The last thing I want us to look at is:
3. God’s gracious Illustration to Jonah.
First of all God caused a ‘broad leafed plant to grow up over Jonah to give him shade from the sun. The RSV says it was ‘a castor plant.’ How appropriate! What Jonah needed was a dose of castor oil.
Whatever the plant was it made Jonah very happy. Why? Because, at last, it seemed that God was doing something good for Jonah and not just for the people of Nineveh.
But the next day God caused a worm to chew and destroy the plant and to make things even worse the sun was hotter than ever that day, so hot that Jonah almost passed out. Again Jonah wanted to die.
Here is what’s happening. At first Jonah was angry at God for something huge, the conversion of a whole city. Now Jonah is angry at God for something small and petty, the withering of a tiny plant. And again God asks the question, ‘Jonah, do you have the right to be angry about the vine.’ Jonah answers honestly, “I do…I am angry enough to die.”
How much of Jonah is in us? Would you want to live your life in that way? Would you want to spend the rest of your life being angry over petty, insignificant things?
The application if far greater than that and we are going to take a final look at the book next Sunday, But for today consider these things:
• When you face questionable issues in your life, who is going to be right, you or God.
Are you prepared to trust God even when you don’t understand the why, when, how and what of the issue?
• How are you involved in your community today?
Is there something you can be doing to reach out to help and be the presence of Christ to people around you? Or are you going to spend your life just being a spectator?
• Are you a person who gets angry every time something doesn’t suit you?
Anger is energy and if energy isn’t channelled right it becomes wasted energy. Here’s my suggestion.
