Jonah 4: Do You Do Well to Be Angry?

Good morning, everyone.

It is an honor for me to be able to share the inherent word of God this morning.

God uh has put uh the passage of Jonah chapter 4 in my heart during these days.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

Let's uh read uh from verses 1 to 11.

But uh it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

And he played 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 know that you are gracious, God and merciful, is low to anger and abounding in Estepha's love and relenting from disaster.

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry?

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.

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 discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

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.

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.

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 perish in a night.

And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right and from their left, and also much karu?

Let's pray together, please.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your perfect plan for each of those present here.

Lord, allow your truth to penetrate our hearts and this morning to reflect in our lives.

Thank you for your promise that the work you started would be perfected.

In the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

During my childhood, when I was a teenager, I loved watching a TV series called Hook.

For me, it was attractive to see the transformation of this character when he saw some injustice.

He will react with explosion of anger to defend helpless.

Many men may kill others because of anger.

It can be said that anger is like a nuclear energy, but useful, or useful, but uh at the same time it can be very destructive.

Anger is an ancient sin.

Cain, because anger murdered his brother Abel.

Esau wanted to kill Jacob.

Moses could not enter the promised land because of the same reason.

I really love this uh little 48 verses uh verse book because it speaks of the hardness of the human heart in contrast to God's abundant mercy.

This book is not just a children's story about giant fish.

Jesus Christ Himself validated the story of Jonah as a historical figure by referring to him in Matthew 12.

Let's look at this story briefly.

In chapter 1, God commissioned Jonah to go preach in Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

But God Prophet decided to go as far away as possible and buys a ticket to Tashish.

Possibly he fled to Spain, more than 2,000 miles away.

It was the longest way, really.

The shortest one way to do God's will was around just 500 miles.

So while Jonah flees from God, he raises a supernatural storm that forces the sailor to throw Jonah overboard.

In the meantime, God prepared a large fish that swallowed him, where he remained three days and three nights until he vomited Jonah in dry ground.

In chapter 3, verse 1 and 2, it says, The word of the Lord came a second time to Jonah, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh.

It never ceases to impress me how God gives us second chances, second opportunities.

Probably you fail, God, but He has not given up on you.

Do you believe that?

Hopefully, yes.

Finally, Jonah obeys and heads to Nineveh, where after a short A-word sermon, this is a sermon, this was the sermon, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

Such a long message, right?

By the grace of God, all Nineveh repented.

Repented.

And after Nineveh repented, Jonah, instead of rejoicing and giving glory to God, became angry.

I suggest this morning that Jonah had a deep wound in his heart, which caused him to lose the impartiality in his calling.

It seems that from historical data, Jonah had a problem with the Assyrians, who were known for their cruelty to their enemies.

So if there was one place Jonah didn't want to go and preach, it was Nineveh.

In addition, his anger was based on his nationalism.

But above all of his reputation as a prophet.

Surely he was thinking something like this.

As he thought more about God's call, his heart hardened and became numb to God's voice.

God had to deal with his rebellious heart.

He had him and his feet and a fish for three days and three nights to call him to repent.

How many times God whispered in our heart or to our ears to get our attention?

How many times?

So many.

That is my experience.

When I was two years old, my mother abandoned me.

So I grew up with my dad.

I live in a context of abuse, alcoholism, and bad examples of my father with multiple women.

In that context, when I was about seven years old, God sent a family from USA as a missionary to my city.

God used Mary and Walter Cross to captivate my angry and rebellious heart.

I remember one day they convinced me, my father, to let me go with them to the Presbyterian church in a small town in Chile.

From my childhood, my father fed my resentment, bitterness, and anger in my heart toward my mother.

He constantly told me, your mother hates you.

She abandoned you.

So when you see her, you must speed in her face.

So I grew up hating my mother and wondering why did she leave me?

How can anger affect us today?

Maybe we are captives in a valley of bitterness and cannot see a way out.

Maybe that can be our experience.

How did unresolved anger affected affect Jonah's life?

Let me suggest a couple ideas.

The first one is unresolved anger can lead us to experience unwanted feelings.

Let's read verses 3 and 9 in chapter 4.

Verse 3.

Because it is better for me to die than to leave.

Verse 9.

And I am so angry that I wish I were dead.

Interesting that in chapter 2, verse 2, he asked to leave.

And now he is asking for death.

Can you see her his emotions inside?

How good that God has a loving father knows that with throw childish tantrums from time to time and does not take them into account.

Anger can put us in situations that in moments of lucidity we regret.

It is very evident that Jonah reacted or reached the point of becoming angry with God Himself.

Jonah's problem was not only his wrong concept.

Salvation, he said, is only for the Israelites.

Salvation is only for the Israelites, he said.

If not, Jonah feared losing his reputation in his own country.

In Deuteronomy 18, it is stated that if a prophet spoke in the name of God and the war was not fulfilled, he must die.

Can you imagine Jonah's thought thinking like this?

God wants me to announce judgment to these cruel Ninevites, but I know God will forgive them.

What will that say about my parents, my friends, and my people?

Those were his thoughts.

Also, unresolved anger deceived Jonah.

Deceived Jonah.

Tim Keller makes a very good comparison between the prodigal son and Jonah.

He said that he says the anger made him think he was right according to his human criteria.

The enemies of Israel were to suffer God's judgment and pay for their sins.

Jonah represents the older brother in the parable of Luke 15.

We always emphasize the younger brother, right?

But we forget that the older brother was just as sinful as his younger brother.

And the root of the elder brother's problem was that he considered himself superior.

Similar to the story of Jonah.

When you read the story of the prodigal son, you can smell the angry perfume of the older brother.

How does anger deceive us?

It makes us see mistakes in others without allowing us to see our own ones.

The question for us today is do you do we do well to be angry?

He reacted with prejudice, Jonah.

Jonah's attitude is this Lord, send fire from heaven.

Send stones.

May the earth open and swallow this whole city.

It is sad to admit it, but the truth is that he considered himself better, superior.

His nationalism betrayed him, and he acted without any compassion.

David in Psalm 37, verse 8, exhort us: refrain from anger and forsake wrath.

Psalms 37:8

Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil.

While living with the crosses, I attend a church regularly, like here, like us.

But on the inside, I was very angry with my parents, particularly against my mother.

After a time, I being a Christian lovingly led me to consider that if I wanted to help others, I was necessary, it was necessary to be healed of my wounds.

As time went by, God spoke to me about the need to forgive my mother who abandoned me.

It was difficult, but the Holy Spirit led me to forgive her and then go to visit her for the first time.

At the age of 23, I decided to go and meet my mother for the first time.

I remember I arrived at that place in the north of Chile.

Without warning, in 1984, I knocked on the door, she opened it, and I introduced myself.

And I said, Mother, I'm Joel, your son.

My mother cried for hours.

Nothing I said relieved her.

And I I repeat to her on and on, Mother, I forgive you.

I forgave you.

And I forgave you again.

And she kept praying crying and crying.

But I praise the Lord, after a while, she received Jesus too.

And she now trusted in the Lord.

He she is with him right now.

Returning to our text, the question God asked Jonah in verse 4 and asked today is do you do well to get so angry?

Have you ever wondered why you get angry without a good reason?

Suddenly.

And you don't know why.

The question we are trying to answer is how did the unresolved anger affect Jonah?

First, the anger made his emotion betray him.

Second, anger deceived him.

And my third point is unresolved anger caused him to lose sensitivity for the lost people.

He confused his emotions.

In chapter 4, verse 1 says, he got angry.

In Hebrew, it means to be hot.

That is the original word.

Anger was like a fire within Jonah.

It is said, it is really sad to read verse 2 of chapter 4.

I knew you are merciful and compassionate God, slow to anger and great in love, a God who repents of sending calamity.

Jonah knew the scriptures very well.

Part of the verse 2 is a quote from Numbers 14, 18.

He understood theology and doctrine, but he was insensitive to the lost people.

After coming to Christ, God called us, brothers and sisters, to have a personal relationship with him.

But we don't stop there.

He wants us to share our faith with others who have no hope without God.

Later in chapter 4, verse 11, there is a verse that we must regard with a great fear of God.

Verse 11, and shouldn't I worry about the great city of Nineveh where there are more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish the right hand from their left?

Some commentators believe that the number of 120,000 may refer only to the children of Nineveh.

And that city may have had a population of 600,000 people.

Question again.

Why is it so hard to share our faith with other people?

I could give maybe multiple reasons, but there is one that seems relevant to me, and that is the lack of compassion.

We need to ask God, God, give me compassion for the lost people.

Let me be more sensitive to others.

Matthew 9.36, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.

Calvin says in the institute, the beauty of God's image should move us to help any human being, regardless of race, status, or lack of morality.

Unresolved anger led him to say, I want God to punish them.

Jonah and his spiritual blindness wanted revenge.

Can you see how anger clouds the mind?

In my case, when I remember how my father punished me when I was little, I thought so many times, I'm gonna kill you.

I'm gonna kill my father.

God tells us today in Ephesians 4:31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you.

Ephesians 4:31

Jonah and his frustration and unstable emotions sit down to wait to see what God will do with the city.

In Jonah chapter 4, verse 6, it says, 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.

Jonah 4:6

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

Can you see how God is working in Jonah's life?

In the same way it works it works in our in your life.

God wants to develop your character amid difficulties.

Situation that seems hard to us, yet God is at work in our lives.

It was enough for the Lord to send him to warm that cause the plant to dry up for Jonah to have angry tantrum.

It is a question we must ask ourselves every time anger takes control of us.

Do you do well to be angry?

What to do about anger?

It is clear that many factors can influence us to have a hard struggle with anger, such as trauma, present suffering, or satanic attacks.

However, scriptures tell us that anger originates in the heart.

Not just Mark 7, for example, but pretty much the whole scripture is talking about this.

Especially I want to point out Mark 7, it states that man's central problem is in his heart.

In our heart.

The problem with out-of-control anger is that it leads us to be a slave of it to it, causing us to lose control over our character.

God called us to repent of anger that offends God.

God wants to use us.

God wants to use you.

God wants to use me, but first resolve the anger that controls us.

God is full of mercy.

God is full of mercy.

Amen.

And ready to heal your wounds.

It is key to go to the loving Father with a repentant heart so that you can be useful in his hands.

And Matthew 11, 28 says, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Is there anything in your life that makes you angry?

Maybe it's time to talk with someone about it.

Is there anyone you haven't forgiven?

Today is the day to work that out with God.

Before coming to the Lord's table, talk with Him, with God, and confess and ask for forgiveness.

And 1 John chapter 1, verse 9 gives us a promise that we must believe every day.

1 John 1:9

Says like this: if you confess our sins, he is faithful and just forgives our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Brothers and sisters, there is no sin that God cannot forgive.

If you come with a broken heart before Him, He will forgive you.

Maybe some of us today have come from other places to our Nineveh in Washington, D.C.

God wants to use us in the time we are here to reach those around.

The question is, will we flee to Tarshish for whatever reason is in our hearts?

Remember this.

We can flee from Him, but never hide from Him, as we read in Psalm 139.

John Piper says, if God can use people who do right things for wrong reasons, like Jonah, God can love through you even when you are not loving through.

Jesus also considered Jonah a real person in his account, 100% true.

Jesus and Luke 11, speaking to the Pharisees, use the story of Jonah as a metaphor.

Jonah was vomited after three days, and it represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day.

The suffering on the cross for each of us was far greater than Jonah's suffering.

Christ on the cross bore all resentment, bitterness, and anger.

Why don't you hand it over today and surrender to Jesus?

If you haven't been forgiven yet, believe me, there is no point to continuing to resent.

The only one who is hurt is you.

What is your Jonah story?

Have you asked God to rescue you from your anger?

In the end, I would like to pray for you if you want, if you need prayer.

There is Pastor Tom, Pastor Mike, and Pastor Josh.

We are gonna be willing and able to pray for you if you need prayer.

Let's pray.

Let's finish.

Dear God, create in us the desire to do your will.

Show us our anger and bring us to the throne of grace to repent and cry out for the transformation that seeks those in need who do not yet have hope of eternal life.

Lord, if there is anyone here that does not know Jesus Christ, may the Holy Spirit touch every heart.

I pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.