What kind of prophet gets angry because the message of God which he proclaimed, impacted the lives of the listeners and they repented and turned to God?

Believe me when I say this to you.  I will not get angry if everybody in the church practiced what I preached. If you have been holding back your stewardship of time, of talent and treasure, because you think I would get angry. I promise I won’t.   I thought that was the whole purpose of preaching God’s Word, so people would listen to it and live it.

So what is Jonah’s problem?

Why would he become so angry, angry enough to say

"It is better for me to die than to live."

Jonah was angry because he thought God should not freely give His salvation to the wicked heathen nation of Nineveh.

Do you find this to be strange?

It was OK for God to give His salvation to the Jews.  It was OK for God to show mercy to the sailors who threw Jonah overboard.  It was OK for God to rescue Jonah while he was on his journey of disobedience, BUT it is not OK for God to be merciful to the Ninevites who heard the Word of God, repented and fasted and turned toward God.

"This was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry."

It certainly sounds strange, however not unusual.  It is a behavior or thinking which is part of everyday life, even our life.

We become envious, even angry, at the good fortune of another?

We question why the other person always seems to get all the luck?

We attempt to justify why good things should happen to us and not to them, because after all we are church goers and they aren’t.

We wish God’s judgment and destruction would come upon sinful people whose wickedness seems to demand immediate punishment.

All too often our attitude is like the first man, not the second man, in the following story.

The story is of a voyaging ship which was shipwrecked during a storm at sea Only two men were able to swim to a small desert island.  The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agreed that they had no other recourse but to pray to God.  However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food.  The next morning, the first man saw a fruit bearing tree on his side of the island.  The second man’s land remained barren.

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife.  The next day, another ship was wrecked and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the island.   On the other side of the island there was nothing for the second man.

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food.   The next day all these were given to him.  However, the second man still had nothing.

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship , so that he and his wife could leave the island.  In the morning, he found the ship docked at his side of the island.  The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island.  The first man considered the second man unworthy to receive God’s blessings since none of his prayers were answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

"My blessing are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "The second man’s prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything."

"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered.  If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."

The first man asked, "What did he pray for?"

"He prayed that all your prayers be answered."

The second man would have been happy for the first man.  If the sides were reversed the first man would have reacted like Jonah did, "This was displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry."

How come when we do something wrong, we deserve forgiveness.  When someone else does something wrong, particularly if we have been the person they wronged, they deserve punishment.

It the movie, The Green Mile a man, wrongly accused of murdering two children are strapped into the electric chair for execution. The father of the two children angrily yells out, "Burn him twice."

Compare this to the reaction of Misty Bernall. Her daughter was killed in the Columbine HS shooting.  She has publicly stated that she has forgiven the youth who killed her daughter. She said, "It would be easier to devote her life to being angry at her daughters killer.  To do so, however would destroy her because such anger would eat away at whatever peace she would have in life and only cause her greater pain."

What is your attitude toward those who are especially wicked? Do you wish for them to be destroyed or do you wish for them to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness?

When they receive God’s mercy, do you praise God or do you react like Jonah did,

"This was very displeasing to Jonah and he became angry.

Every time we hold back forgiving someone else for their wrongs. Every time we begrudge someone God’s mercy we are reacting as Jonah did.

More important we forget that God forgave and still forgives us of our sins and disobedience; that we pray, "Forgive us our sins, AS we forgive those who sin against us."

One constant theme woven through the entire book of Jonah is God’s steadfast faithfulness and mercy.  We saw it when Jonah was on the boat, we saw it when Jonah was swallowed up by the whale.  We saw it when Jonah was spit out of the whale.  We saw it even after Jonah complained to the Lord.  God ministered tenderly to Jonah.  God could have destroyed Jonah for his disobedience and his defiant anger, but instead God taught Jonah a lesson.

The lesson he learned was that his God, the God of the Israelites was also God of the world; that God’s mercy and forgiveness is extended to everyone who repents and believes.

Robert Scott Peck tells a story, in his book The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, about a young businessman who was making a trip through the South for the very first time in his life.  Stopping at a roadside diner for breakfast, he ordered scrambled eggs and sausage.  When the waitress brought his order he noticed a white blob on his plate.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Them’s grits, suh," she replied.

"But I didn’t order grits," he said.

"You don’t order grits," she answered. "They just come."

A minister, telling the story later, said, "That is very much like God’s grace.  You don’t order it.   It just comes."

God is more merciful than we can imagine. He feels compassion for the sinners we want judged.

God will always work His will and He desires that all come to Him, trust in Him and be saved.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8,9.

amen