Do You Do Well to Be Angry? (Jonah 3:10-4:4)

Would you please remain standing as Doctor Brad Voyles from

coveted college reads God's word for us?

Thank you. Please give attention now to the

reading of God's holy inerrant word.

When God saw what they did, how they turn from their evil way,

God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to

them, and He did not do it. But it displeased Jonah

exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and

said, Oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my

country? That is why I made haste to flee

to Tarshis, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting

from disaster. Therefore now, oh Lord, please

take my life for me, for it is better for me to die than to

live. And the Lord said, Do you do

well to be angry? This is the word of the Lord.

It is often said today that we live in an age of outrage and

our polarized and divided culture.

Anger has become one of the default ways that we respond to

the world around us. And let's be honest, there's

plenty to get angry about. And so we get angry about the

direction our country is headed in, Angry with the leaders that

let us down. We're angry with the church that

we sometimes feel has lost her way, angry with people with whom

we disagree, angry with the frustrations, difficulties and

disappointments and life. But we never stopped long enough

to ask, How did we get this way? Where does all of our collective

anger come from? Author and essayist Tim Kreider

wrote about this in an article that he wrote in the New York

Times. I want you to listen to what he

said, he said. Outrage is a lot like other

things that feel good but overtime devour us from the

inside out. And it's even more insidious

than most vices because we don't consciously acknowledge that

it's a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a

disagreeable but fundamentally healthy and voluntary reaction

to negative stimuli thrust upon us in the world that we live in,

like pain or nausea. Rather than admit that it's a

shameful kick, we eagerly indulge again and again.

OK, So what is he saying? He's saying that anger is much

more than a negative emotion, that deep down anger is actually

a pleasure, a strange pleasure that we enjoy.

It makes us feel good. And I want you to listen to what

Crider wrote next, he said. And as with all vices, vast and

lucrative industries are ready to supply the necessary

material. He wrote that back in 2009, just

two years after the invention of the iPhone.

And now, on the palm of our hand, Twitter and the almighty

algorithm is fueling our anger. Outrage has become a commodity.

Our anger has been monetized and every one of us is paying the

price. So the question for us as

Christians living in an age of outrage is this is there such

thing as righteous anger? Can we actually be angry and not

sin? And this morning as we jump back

into the book of Jonah, what we will find is that not much has

changed in the history of the human heart.

God has mercy on Nineveh, and Jonah is angry about it.

He's angry at his enemies, He's angry at God, and he's angry at

grace. And so God asked Jonah a

question, and it's a question that is just as important for us

today as it was back then. God asks, do you do well to be

angry? Do you do well to be angry?

In order for us to honestly answer that question, we first

have to see that underneath it, Jonah answers 3 fundamental

questions about anger. And what we'll find in Jonah's

story is that though our anger has the dangerous capacity to

consume us, the anger of God is not only righteous, but it also

redeems us. The first question the book of

Jonah answers is this. Where does our anger come from?

If you have a Bible, once you turn the book of Jonah, you can

turn there in your bulletin. If you don't have a Bible this

morning, invite you to take the Blue Pew Bible in front of you.

That's our gift to you. We're going to pick up where we

left off 2 weeks ago before our missions conference.

This is Jonah 3 verse 10. We're told that when God saw

Jonah 3:10

what they did and how they turn from their evil way, God

relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them,

and He did not do it. Now, if you're new with us this

morning, we've been working our way through the book of Jonah,

and already we've seen some incredible things.

Jonah is one of the last 12 books of the Old Testament, one

of the minor prophets. God called Jonah not to be a

prophet to his own people, Israel, but to his enemies, the

people of Nineveh. Jonah hated Nineveh and so he

refused. He refused God's command.

He rebelled against God and he tried to run from God.

But God out of his patient mercy, didn't let Jonah run

away, but he chased him down. He sent a storm and they sent a

really big fish to swallow him up and spit him up on dry lands

that he would then go and repent and preach to Nineveh.

And amazingly, through Jonah's reluctant ministry, the people

of Nineveh repented. And what we see here in Jonah

310 is that God saw the repentance and he had mercy on

them. Now, Can you imagine what that

must have been like for Jonah, for any missionary?

He was sent out to a foreign country where they know they're

going to face hostility and to preach God's word and to see an

entire country repent and turn to God.

Wouldn't you be amazed? But Jonah's not amazed.

No, Jonah gets angry. Look with me, Jonah 4 verse one.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly.

And he was angry. Jonah has to be the only prophet

in the Bible who was actually upset that his prophecy worked.

And here he is angry. What's he angry about?

Well, the book of Jonah tells us at the beginning of Jonah 4/1

that God's mercy for Nineveh was exceedingly displeasing to

Jonah. And in the original language in

the Hebrew, the word for this phrase, it displeased him

exceedingly. Literally is the word for

outrage or anger. What that means is that the

mercy of God for Nineveh had become an evil to Jonah.

Jonah saw God's grace as an evil.

And not only does it give us a window into the depths and the

darkness of Jonah's heart, but it also helps us to understand

where anger comes from. You see, anger has to do with

evil. Now don't misunderstand me.

I'm not saying anger is evil now.

In fact, I'm saying quite the opposite.

Anger is the right reaction to evil and sin that we see in the

world. Anger is a cry for justice.

And when we see evil in the world, when we see injustice,

when we see what sin has done to God's creation, it should

rightly fill us with anger. And the clearest example we have

of this is in the character of God himself.

From the very beginning of Scripture, we see that God in

his righteousness, his justice, pours out his anger on sin, on

injustice, on evil. It's one of his attributes.

But it's one of the attributes we don't really like to talk

about, do we? Because in our minds, we think

that God's anger in no way can be congruent with his love.

If God is love, we ask, well, how can he be angry?

And that prevailing question sits with so many of us today,

so much so that theologian Richard Niebor wrote at the

beginning of the 20th century that Christianity in America had

become, quote, a God without wrath, who brought men without

sin and to Kingdom without judgment through the

ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

Do you hear the progression? When we remove God's anger, his

righteous anger for sin from him, then it removes his

judgment. And if it removes his judgment,

it removes any understanding of sin.

And if we have no concept for sin, that there is no reason for

the cross of Christ. You see, love is not just the

central aspect of God's attribute in the heart of the

gospel, but so is his righteous anger.

And if that bothers you this morning, I want you to imagine

the alternative. You see, because God so loved

the world, He loves his creation.

He loves the people that he's made in his own image.

Then when he sees what sin has done to his creation, it should

fill him with anger. His anger flows from his love.

And if he didn't get angry about sin and Satan and death, then it

would make him apathetic. And our God is anything but

apathetic. Out of His love flows his anger,

and the image of the Bible uses to describe the righteous anger

of God is the cup of his wrath. I'm going to give you an

example. This is Psalm 75, verse 8.

Psalms 75:8

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine

well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of

the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

God has prepared a cup of His wrath, His righteous anger for

every Sinner, because every Sinner has committed treason

against the king and his Kingdom.

That includes you and includes me.

There can be no salvation without His love.

There's no gospel without His wrath.

I think one of the reasons this is hard for us is because we

tend to make God in our own image rather than the other way

around. What we need to understand about

anger is that our anger is not like his.

James says that this way. James chapter one verse 19, he

says no. Then my beloved brothers, let

every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger and

listen to this. For the anger of man does not

produce the righteousness of God.

God's anger is always righteous. It's always right.

It's always just. And though we can be as human

beings, and in fact should be, righteously anger about the

fallen world that we live in, our anger is not like God's

anger. And this is because of one

simple and fundamental truth. We are not God, and every one of

us stands under the exact same judgment that we might want to

hold over the world. And deep down, This is why Joan

is angry. He's angry because God is the

judge and he is not. So the second question that the

book of Jonah answers is well, and who are we angry with?

If anger has to do with justice, then who are we angry with?

Look with me verse 2 and when Jonah prayed to the Lord and

said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my

country? Now for just a second time in

the book of Jonah, Jonah praise. But I want you to notice his

second prayer is a far cry from his first.

His first prayer is a prayer of repentance.

Now in Jonah chapter 4, Jonah is praying a prayer of anger.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

It's a prayer of complaint. Well, who is he angry with?

Well, on the surface, Jonah is, of course.

He's angry with Nineveh, his enemies.

And if you know anything about Nineveh, as we've seen

throughout our study, is he had plenty of reason to be angry.

Jonah was violent or the people of Nineveh were violent, and

Jonah knew it. He knew it in his heart.

He witnessed it himself. Nineveh and their violence was

well documented. They were evil.

They mutilated their enemies and put them to torture.

And so if anger is connected to injustice, Jonah certainly has a

case. So the question we have to ask

is, well then why is Jonah's anger so wrong?

How does righteous anger turn into unrighteous anger?

Book of Ephesians chapter 4. Apostle Paul says be angry and

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

do not sin. Be angry to do not sin.

So how do we do that? How can we be angry and yet not

sin? Well, I think we usually ask

that question because we want to justify our anger.

I think John Calvin helps us understand what Paul's getting

at. This is what he said.

He says we comply with this injunction if the objects of our

anger are sought not in others, but in ourselves.

If we pour out our indignation against our own faults and with

respect to others, we ought to be angry not at their persons,

but at their faults. Nor are we be excited to anger

by private offenses, but by zeal for the glory of the Lord.

What Calvin is saying is that though we can be angry for

righteous reasons, rightly angry at sin and evil and injustice,

we never seem to subject ourselves to the same standard,

do we? We're so quick to be angry at

other people and their sin, and so slow to be angry at the sin

in our own hearts. And this was Jonah's problem.

His anger was not righteous. It was self-righteous, and more

often not. If you were like me, that is

what your anger looks like. We are prone to self-righteous

anger, angry at others while failing to see that we suffer

from the same sin that plagues them.

And though Jonah's anger at Nineveh's sin and evil may have

started for the sake of justice, he refused to see his own sin a

rebel against God. And more than that, Jonah failed

to realize that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but

against the principalities and powers of the Kingdom of

darkness. And So what we need to

understand is that as we live in this age of outrage in a broken

and fallen world, not only are we sinners too, but our battle

is not against people. Our battle is for people against

the principalities and powers of darkness.

And so here is Jonah with misplaced anger that even after

everything God had done for him, he's angry not just at Nineveh,

but he's angry at God. Look with me.

The end of verse 2. Jonah says that's why I made

haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious

God, merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,

relenting from disaster. See just how honest Jonas being

in this moment of weakness before the Lord, bringing his

anger to him, admitting that deep down he's not just angry at

Nineveh, he's angry at God. And I think deep down, so many

of us fail to realize that so much of our anger is misplaced.

And deep down, our problem isn't with other people.

Our problem was with God, and we don't like what he's doing.

And Jonah is so angry at God that verse 3 tells us he wants

to die. He wants God to leave him alone,

to leave him alone in his own self-righteous anger and to die.

And that leads us to the third question.

The third question the book of Jonah answers for us.

What good does our anger actually do?

And out of his patient mercy, the mercy that Jonah refused to

show to Nineveh, God actually showed that patient mercy to

Jonah. And just like he didn't allow

him to run away, he didn't allow Jonah to just be alone and die.

No, God meets him in his anger. And out of his grace and mercy

for Jonah, he asks him a question.

Do you do well to be angry? God is graciously confronting

Jonah's anger head on. It's as if he's asking, OK,

Jonah, you're angry. I get it.

How's that working for you? It's actually helping anything.

Do you do well to be angry? In other words, what good does

your anger actually do? Because this is the other

difference between our anger and gods.

We might be rightly angry about the world around us, but our

anger can't even do anything about it.

Our anger is powerless, and that makes us even more frustrated

and more angry. But you see, God's anger is

righteous not only because it's right and just, but God's anger

is righteous because it has the power to make every wrong right.

Again, God's anger not only is good, God's anger does good.

God's anger is both righteous and it is redemptive.

And one of the questions that people often ask is, well, did

Jesus ever get angry? And the answer, of course, is

yes, Yes, he did. And as the Son of God, it was

always righteous, righteous anger.

And you might be thinking of, well, no, there was that one

time where he turned over the tables in the temple.

But actually, I think one of the most profound displays of the

anger of Jesus found the Gospel of John in the death of Lazarus.

John, 11, tells us that Jesus had a friend named Lazarus, and

he was friends with his sisters Mary and Martha.

His friend Lazarus got sick and he died.

And by the time Jesus made it to Lazarus, he'd been dead in the

tomb for four days. And John tells us that when Mary

came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet,

saying, Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would have

not have died. You can almost hear anger,

sadness and grief all mixed together.

And then we're told when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who

had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his

spirit and greatly troubled. Literally, in Greek, it says

that Jesus had become angry. He was angry that Lazarus died.

And then just a couple verses later, we're given what's

famously known as the shortest verse in the Bible.

Jesus wept. And more than a piece of Bible

trivia, we're giving a window into the emotional heart of

Jesus. He was weeping angry tears.

And of course, if you know the story of Jesus, you should

immediately ask, well, why? He's already promised that he's

going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

He knows he's about to call Lazarus out of the tomb.

He knows that everything that he's about to do is so that

every one of us throughout time would see that He is the way,

the truth, and the life, that He is our resurrection, that

whoever believes in him should not perish but have life

forever. He knows what he's about to do.

So why is he angry? He's angry at sin and death.

And here in this moment, he focuses all of his righteous

rage on death. And he tells Lazarus, come out.

God's anger does good. In just a short time later,

Jesus will become emotional again.

And in the Garden of Gethsemane he will be so deeply troubled

down to his soul that he will sweat drops of blood.

And there in the garden he will pray.

Father, if it would be possible, take this cup from me.

What filled him with such agony? The guard of Gethsemane.

It wasn't the physical death that he was about to die on the

cross. No, it was the cup, the very

same cup of wrath that we read throughout the pages of the Old

Testament. Jesus knew that he was about to

drink the cup of wrath so that you and I could drink the cup of

salvation. Jonah was filled with

self-righteous anger, so much so that he wanted to die.

But Jesus are true and greater. Jonah was so filled with

righteous anger that he went to the cross to destroy our enemy

of sin and death by drinking the cup of wrath that belonged to

you and me down to the dregs, so we could drink the cup of His

mercy forever and His Kingdom. Let's pray, Father in Heaven, as

we now come to the table, help us to see the drama of the

gospel put on display for us, that you've invited us now to

drink the cup of salvation, because, your Son, drink the cup

of wrath for us. O Lord, may we be overwhelmed

this morning with gratitude for the love and anger that have

collided on the cross for us. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.