The Sovereign God

Jonah 4:2-4 ESV

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?”

I remember a time a few years ago when myself and an old friend of mine were driving to Ohio for a church conference. And of course, on the way there, we made a few pitstops. And if you don’t already know it, I am an avid coffee drinker, I love to drink coffee, so, I think it was while we were somewhere in Indiana when my friend and I stopped at a Starbucks to get a cup of coffee.

When we pulled into the drive thru, I noticed that there was a man panhandling in an area across the street where the cars pull out of the drive thru to get back on the highway.

I ordered myself two cups of coffee and after getting them, I drove over to the man who was panhandling and gave him one of the coffees that I had bought and then drove away.

It was at that point when my friend looked at me and said, “Why did you do that?” I shrugged my shoulders and I said, “I don’t know, I thought that maybe he would want a cup of coffee too.” Then, in an angry tone, he said, “You shouldn’t give stuff to panhandlers, that just encourages them to keep doing what they’re doing!”

He then went on a little rant for a few minutes telling me how it’s wrong to give money or food or drinks to panhandlers. Then once he stopped talking for a minute, I jumped in and said, “It’s my money and I can do what I want with it. I wanted to buy a cup of coffee with it, so I did. And because I bought the coffee, it was then mine and I could do whatever I wanted to do with it, and I wanted to give it to that guy, so I did… I can do whatever I want with what’s mine.”

At that point, my friend knew that the conversation was over, so we just started talking about something else.

Well, in our reading for today we’re going to look at a similar dialogue between the prophet Jonah, and God Himself.

Last week when we began looking at this narrative, we found Jonah in a very disgruntled state as he viewed what God had done concerning those who dwelled in the city of Nineveh to be very evil.

What God had done is He commanded Jonah to prophesy to the people of Nineveh and to warn them of the coming judgment if they refused to recognize their sinful ways, repent of their sins, and desire to follow after Him.

Well, Jonah didn’t want to initially do this, but after some forceful persuasion on God’s part, Jonah eventually went to Nineveh to do as God commanded him.

And when Jonah did as God commanded him, the exceedingly wicked people of Nineveh did the unthinkable; they recognized their sins and repented, thus evading the judgment and wrath of God.

Well, this displeased Jonah, and he even went so far as to accuse God of being evil in that He forgave such a wicked people.

So, Jonah felt inward displeasure at what had gone down, but he also expressed outward anger as a result of his inward displeasure.

And we see this anger begin to manifest itself as we read where Jonah began to make his feelings verbally known to God in the first part of verse 2 of our reading, where we read:

Jonah 4:2a ESV

2a 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;

You see, in this particular situation it was God’s intent to offer reconciliation to the people of Nineveh instead of judging them and expending His wrath upon them without giving them one last chance to repent.

Well, Jonah didn’t think that was necessary, in fact, he thought it was unjust and evil. He was increasingly joyful to hear God say that He would judge Nineveh in 40 days. But he wasn’t so happy to hear God say that He would judge them only if they refused to repent.

So, Jonah said that if God was going to use him to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh, then he just wouldn’t make himself available, because he felt as though the people of Nineveh should not even receive the opportunity to repent, even if it was God’s will to offer them repentance.

So, once the people of Nineveh repented, Jonah says to God: “See! This is why I didn’t want to come here in the first place! This is why I took off in the opposite direction when You told me to go to Nineveh! Because I didn’t want these people to repent! I wanted to see them suffer and pay for their sins!”

What Jonah believes is that because the people of Nineveh are so evil, if there is anyone, even if it is God Himself Who offers them the chance to avoid what they have coming to them, then even He must be as evil the Ninevites are!

Now let’s dig a little deeper as to why Jonah was so angry at God here. Let’s take a look at the second half of verse 2, which reads:

Jonah 4:2b ESV

2b for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Jonah says that he is angry at God because He is a God Who is merciful. To be merciful means to not give someone or something the evil that they deserve, and to hold off passing judgment on them.

And because God is merciful, He is slow to anger.

One of the most famous sermons ever preached was entitled; “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards in the 1700’s and in it, Edwards says: “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”

What this means is that there is nothing that anyone does to keep God from wanting to execute His judgment upon them. The only reason why He does not is because it is His loving, merciful will to not hand such people over to judgment, yet.

People who are unsaved and who will inevitably die unsaved are sustained on this earth and do not experience immediate judgment not because they’ve done something to impress God or to appease His anger towards Him, but merely because it is His desire to strive with them for a while longer.

So, God is merciful, He is slow to anger, and He is also gracious.

To be gracious means to go beyond not giving someone the evil that they deserve, but to even bless that person in spite of the fact that they are naturally evil and deserve judgment.

God is gracious to all people in that He causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust, He causes the rain to fall on the crops of both the wicked farmer and the righteous farmer, He causes both the just and the unjust to wake in the morning with breath to breathe.

But God is particularly gracious to grant salvation to those whom He chooses to save. Those whom God chooses to save have no right to His salvation, they too deserve the judgment of God, yet God graciouslysaves them.

And because God is gracious, He also holds off passing judgment.

God is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love, extending His grace to all people to certain measures and in an infinite measure to those whom He saves… these are all things that we naturally love about God… when they are applied to us.

Jonah loved the fact that God was merciful to him, slow to anger towards him, abounding in love for him, exceedingly gracious to him… but not to his enemies!

Jonah says, “This is why I didn’t want to come here! Because I know You God, I know that You are merciful, loving, gracious, and I knew that if You desired to forgive and bypass your judgment on Nineveh, then that would happen! But they don’t deserve Your forgiveness! They deserve Your judgment!”

And because Jonah is so upset about this perceived injustice, he asks God to end it all for him.

We see this in verse 3, where we read Jonah saying to God:

Jonah 4:3 ESV

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

You see, when it comes to God handing out mercy, forgiveness, and love, Jonah is perfectly fine when he and the people that he likes are the recipients, but when God is merciful and gracious to those whom Jonah deems to be unforgivable, even by a gracious and loving God Who shows mercy and grace to anyone He wills to be merciful and gracious towards, he deems that death is preferable to life.

Now, when we remember what had happened to Jonah in the days before he reached Nineveh, when we recall how Jonah was dead in the sea when God appointed a great fish to swallow him up and how Jonah was then resurrected in the belly of this great fish, we realize that the words of Jonah towards God in this verse are more wicked than we probably initially imagined.

What Jonah is essentially saying here is that it would have been better for God to have just let him remain dead at the bottom of the sea than to give his life back to him so that he could preach repentance to Nineveh.

Jonah essentially says that he wishes that God would have left him alone then, and just let him rest dead at the bottom of the sea than to cause that great fish to swallow him up and give him another chance to accomplish what God had commanded of him.

And so, now he says, “You wouldn’t let me die then and I wish You would have! And now that the deed is done, I’m more miserable than ever! So, kill me now! I don’t want to live in a world where there is a gracious God Who has mercy on whom He wills and Who hardens whom He wills!”

So, we see thus far in our narrative that Jonah has certainly been causing a ruckus, but thus far, God has been silent on the matter, so we need to ask, “What does God have to say about all of this?”

Well, in the last verse of our reading for today, we see God speak for the first time in this narrative where we read:

Jonah 4:4 ESV

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

God says to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?”… There is indeed such a thing as righteous, godly anger. We should be angry when sin runs rampant, justice in the civil courts is not served, and when the wicked seem to prosper.

But something that I have come to find throughout my time in this world through my own personal experiences is that when we are angry, our anger is typically not founded on godly principles, and such is the case in this narrative.

When God asks Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?” it’s kind of like the dialogue that I spoke of at the beginning of this message between my friend and I and my decision to give the panhandler a cup of coffee.

I essentially told my friend, “This is my cup of coffee that I bought with my own money and so I have the right to do whatever I want with my cup of coffee, and I don’t owe you an explanation. And furthermore, you have no right to be angry about it.”

And in the same way, God told Jonah, “I created this people, these Ninevites, they are Mine. And My mercy, My forbearance, My grace, I can give those things to whomever I want to give them to, and I can also forbear giving them to whomever I decide to not give them to. They are Mine, and I don’t owe you an explanation Jonah. So, do you do well to be angry? Do you do well to be angry that I gave what is Mine to those who are Mine?”

Beloved, what we can be most thankful for today is that God was and is merciful towards us, not giving us what we truly deserve.

What we can be most thankful for today is that God has determined to be gracious towards us, simply because it is His good pleasure to do so.

What we can be most thankful for today is the fact that God put off our eternal punishment and instead gave to us eternal life, not because of what we have done, but because it pleased Him to do so.

God owes us no explanation for doing what He does, for determining how He determines, for saving whom He wills, and hardening whom He wills… even when we don’t agree with what He determines.

Rather, what we must do is humbly recognize that when our thoughts, when our judgments, when our determinations are at variance with God, we are always wrong! And He is always right!

Therefore, may we humbly accept His judgment, His determination, and may we live in the constant remembrance of the fact that the only reason why we enjoy His blessings today and why we will enjoy His blessings for all eternity is because He chose to first love us.

Amen?