Anger and Our Confused Priorities
Jonah chapter 4 says: But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
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It’s amazing what we get angry about. Most of the time our anger is not righteous anger, it’s borne out of selfishness and everything that comes with selfishness.
But being righteously angry, or what we consider to be righteously angry, can cause us to confuse our priorities, and even trying to out-think God and His ways.
Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh. He was already the living embodiment of God’s grace and rescue from the storm and then from being swallowed by a great fish. His message of repentance was so good, that the people of Nineveh, 120,000 of them, cried out for forgiveness and it was granted. One of the amazing things about the story of Jonah is how quickly the entire city received that message and turned from wickedness to fasting and repentance; Jonah proclaimed that destruction would occur in 40 days if there was no repentance. Wouldn’t it be great to see half of the population of Akron proper repent and come to the Lord for forgiveness in about a month? What a victory of the Lord’s doing that would be, and praise and thanksgiving to the person the Lord raised up to bring that message to the city.
So Jonah goes up to a vista point to watch the utter doom that God has ordained for this entire city. The text gives us the idea that he lived between two realities: (1) there’s no way all of those people would seriously repent in that short span of time, and (2) what if they did?
It turned out they did, and that made Jonah angry at God. The Assyrians (of which Nineveh was one of their chief cities) were known for great atrocities, atrocities that Jonah and the people of Israel had seen firsthand. Why would God want to save these people for all they had done to His people? Wouldn’t it be a better witness to the world if He laid waste to the entire city? Sacrifice 120,000 for the sake of millions that might come to repentance and bow down to the God of all things? I don’t suppose Jonah cared if the rest of the world repented or not. Most in Israel had forgotten that they were to be a light to the Gentiles, wanting all to be saved by throwing off the gods of this world for the God of all things eternal.
So God helps Jonah get his priorities straight. God helps him see things from His perspective. If God took care to create all those people who would not be Israelites, but who would grow up being enchanted by false gods and corruption of the soul, why would He not grieve and intervene to give them the opportunity for mercy?
Self-righteous anger usually clouds our judgment. We believe that we can be like Jesus when, in His righteous anger, He chased the money changers out of the temple. We believe that we can do the right thing because our anger is justified. But we often don’t take into account the circumstances that people are struggling with, and we’re too quick to try to teach people the lesson we want them to learn without considering what the Lord’s will and intentions are. For them, and for us.
One of the beliefs that we hold true is: hate the sin but love the sinner. Jonah hated both the sin and the sinner. In today’s world, when we see acts of local savagery, or ISIS and Boko Haram doing unspeakable things, we are “commanded” by the world to hate both the sin and the sinner. There is no mercy that they are worthy to receive. But even the Son of Sam killer repented and became a Christian, understanding that with God and His mercy, all things are possible.
Hate sin, every day. Pray for mercy to be extended to those who seek God’s forgiveness, even those who have committed horrific acts. We are all sinners, whether we want to admit it or not. Paul was able to confess that he was the chief of sinners and Jesus still redeemed him. He can do that for everyone. Amen.
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