Don't Sin

Psalm 4:4-5 (Opening) 4  Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. 5  Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord. Introduction Life is difficult. That’s not news, but it’s important to keep reminding ourselves that life is difficult. We shouldn’t expect that things are going to go smoothly or even close to the way we want them to go. There will always be challenges, and there will always be difficulties; bumps in the road. Sometimes, we get upset when we’re confronted with those challenges. Things don’t go the way we have planned, and we start to get a little steamed. Then maybe someone does something that adds a little more fuel to the fire. Before long, we’ve been pushed off the edge of the cliff of anger, and we’re on the verge of blowing up. Or we do blow up, and then we have to deal with the consequences of what we just did. Anger can be a positive thing; we can channel that anger into productivity and get good things accomplished because of it. But that’s not usually what happens. Usually we just let it go, and it causes a horrible mess that we need to clean up. Maybe that mess is so bad it really can’t be cleaned up. You could lose friends because of it. You could push family members away because of it. Anger that is out of control can ruin families. Unchecked anger can lead to depression. You are angry so much that you don’t see a way to get away from your anger, and that can deepen the depression. Depression can cause many other problems, including self-medicating with drugs or alcohol, or could even lead to suicide. There’s no difference between Christians and non-Christians when it comes to anger, and the issues associated with it. But Christians should be able to deal with it better because we’re not dealing with it alone. We should be able to take these anger issues we have to God in prayer and release all that anger to Him, to let Him be the one to deal with it, rather than keep it bottled up inside. We should be able to share our problems with fellow Christians, so they can help carry the load, and maybe lessen the impact of what’s causing the anger. Angry I think Jonah had an anger problem. We don’t see it in the first three chapters of Jonah, but I think it’s there, lurking in the background. In the beginning of the book, Jonah didn’t obey God the first time He sent him to Nineveh. After being properly chastised in a fish for three days, Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. He preached the message God gave him for the Assyrians: Jonah 3:4b “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The people of Nineveh reacted in a way that Jonah didn’t expect: they repented, fasting in sackcloth and ashes. Because of their reaction, God relented from the disaster He had planned for them. Jonah’s reaction was equally unexpected. Jonah 4:1 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. I don’t think this is the best translation for what the Hebrew says here, but the Hebrew here is difficult to translate. Literally, it says “This was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it burned to him.” The word evil in this verse parallels the word evil that describes the behavior the people of Nineveh repented of, and the evil that God relented of in the previous verse. Jonah was angry about how the Ninevites reacted to the message from God. Why should they be reacting like this? They don’t know who God is, and they don’t just act evil, they are evil! We know what God’s reaction to the Ninevite’s contrition and humiliation was, but Jonah doesn’t know yet. Jonah is still in the city, delivering God’s message, but it’s the reaction of the people to that message that starts upsetting Jonah. Anger is a normal human emotion, but it can get the best of us sometimes. I think Jonah’s anger eventually got the better of him. There are a few other places where we read about people in the Bible being angry. The first place we find is very early on. Genesis 4:3-5 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. Cain’s sacrifice wasn’t acceptable to God, and that made Cain angry. He was angry at God, but it was his own actions that caused the anger. Cain brought some of his produce, but Abel brought what God regards as best; the fat portions from the firstborn from his flock. Not that grain offerings aren’t acceptable, but that Abel brought the firstfruits, and Cain didn’t. Cain’s anger burned so strong he killed his brother. Like I said, sometimes anger can get the better of you. It can make you do things you wouldn’t normally do, and things you will regret later. Part of Cain’s punishment was that he had to live with the regrets of what he did, and that his fields wouldn’t be productive anymore. Then, Cain built the first city. Maybe that’s why bad traffic causes so much anger. There are a lot of people in the Bible who got angry. Like I said, it’s a normal human emotion. Moses got angry; in fact, there are several places where we read that Moses got angry, he even got angry with God. Saul, the first king of Israel, had a problem with anger. He eventually got David to play music for him to help him keep calm. But when David was his lead general, Saul was jealous of his successes, and that jealousy led to anger. 1 Samuel 18:8-9 8 And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” 9 And Saul eyed David from that day on. Saul’s jealousy of David caused him to try to kill David on several occasions. David eventually ran away and gathered a small army to protect him. Saul’s anger cost him the kingdom, and David became king. Grace and Mercy When Jonah was angry, he shared the reasons for his anger with God. Jonah 4:2-3 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.” Basically, Jonah said, “I told you so!” Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to repent, but they did, and He know God’s nature to be gracious and merciful, but he didn’t want the Ninevites to be on the receiving end of God’s grace and mercy. It makes sense, in a way, that Jonah hated the people of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and the Assyrian army had been conquering nations all around Israel. The Assyrians were oppressive, taking the people from conquered nations and moving them to wherever the Assyrians wanted them to live, killing the ones that weren’t compliant. They were an evil people. Why should they be on the receiving end of God’s grace and mercy? They had done nothing to deserve it. They were still just as evil as they were before. But they had repented of their actions and shown humility toward God because of His warning through Jonah. At least for a short time, their hearts had changed. But Jonah didn’t see it that way. He told God that was why he ran away to Tarshish; because he knew God would have mercy on them, and Jonah didn’t think they deserved Gods mercy. When God presented himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, He explained who He was through what His behavior was like. Exodus 34:6-7 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Maybe Jonah was focusing on the last part of that, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the third and fourth generation and applying that to Assyria and Nineveh. Whatever Jonah was thinking, God had other plans, obviously. Jonah had experienced God’s grace and mercy. When God told him to go to Nineveh the first time, and Jonah chose to disobey, God didn’t abandon him. He provided a big fish to save Jonah from the depths of the sea and bring him back to dry land. God didn’t let Jonah drown in the sea, He saved him and gave him a second chance. The prophet Joel delivered a message from God, and it included a message of grace and mercy for those who repent and humble themselves. Joel 2:12-14 12  “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13  and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. 14  Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Joel may have been a contemporary with Jonah. There’s very little information on when Joel lived and gave his prophecy. But Jonah knew the nature of God, that He is gracious and merciful. That’s what bothered him about the message that he took to Nineveh. He didn’t want them to have a second chance, and he knew that God would be merciful to them if they humbled themselves and repented. That’s why he got so angry when they actually did it. He knew in his heart that God was going to relent from the disaster He had planned for Nineveh. Did it help? God knew Jonah was angry, even before Jonah told Him what he was thinking. God responded to Jonah’s prayer. Jonah 4:4 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” This is a good translation of the words written here in Hebrew, but it doesn’t really help us understand the question God is asking Jonah. I think the NIV actually has a better translation here in this verse; easier to understand what God is saying. Jonah 4:4 (NIV) 4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” “Is being angry going to do you any good? Is that going to change anything? You’re not going to convince me to change my mind by being angry about the result you knew was coming.” God is a lot more succinct than I am. God understood why Jonah was angry. God knew Assyria was going to be His weapon of destruction against Israel. But He also knew Babylon would be His weapon of destruction against Nineveh and Assyria, and later against Judah. Why was God doing this? Why was He going to be merciful to this unmerciful nation? Why? I think this was the root of Jonah’s anger. They don’t show mercy, so they don’t deserve mercy, they deserve destruction. We don’t know how long Jonah stewed on this; how long he was angry about the reaction to the message from God he delivered to Nineveh. I think his anger toward Nineveh and Assyria in general had been building up in him for some time. Like he said in his prayer, that’s why he fled toward Tarshish instead of obeying in the first place. Maybe Jonah was angry at God for even sending him there in the first place and giving them the opportunity to repent and seek God’s grace and mercy. He knew, because of God’s nature, there was the possibility of God being gracious, even though these evil heathens didn’t deserve it. Maybe there was a little ember of anger burning deep in him, knowing what could happen. Like I said, anger is a normal human emotion, but we need to be careful with it. When Paul wrote to the congregation in Ephesus, he quoted from the Psalms as a warning about anger. Ephesians 4:26-27 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. How do you do that? How can you be angry and not sin? It can be difficult, but the important thing is to not act on your anger. As we’ll see in the last half of chapter four of Jonah, Jonah acted on his anger, and in a self-destructive way. If you act on your anger in any negative way, you are sinning. Conclusion Anger is a difficult emotion to deal with. Some of us deal with it better than others. Some of us have a really long fuse, and some of us have a really short fuse. Each of us needs to realize our own limitations, how we react to situations, and how well or how poorly we handle our anger. We need to do the best we can to keep ourselves out of situations that will cause us to react in a sinful way. Most people react to their anger in sinful ways. Cain’s anger got the better of him and caused him to murder his brother. Moses’ anger got the better of him, and that’s part of the reason why he wasn’t allowed to enter the promised land with the rest of the children of Israel. Saul’s pride and jealousy led to his anger, which led to God taking the throne of Israel away from him and giving it to David. Anger can be used in constructive or positive ways. Anger can give soldiers the strength to keep going in life and death situations, saving the lives of their teammates. Anger can be used to get away from dangerous situations we find ourselves in, so we aren’t hurt by others. But anger needs to be channeled and used in a positive way, otherwise we could be sinning, and we could also be hurting ourselves. People who hold in their anger tend to die sooner than people who don’t get angry easily, or don’t hold their anger in. Holding in your anger and letting it stew, like Jonah seems to have done, can cause health problems on top of causing you to be more likely to sin because of your anger. Society today seems to be more and more angry, and less tolerant of differing viewpoints. When someone says something that is disagreeable to someone, they don’t discuss it in a civil manner anymore, the tendency is to lash out in anger. As Christians, we make a bad impression on others if we do that. Our angry outbursts reflect on us as Christians, and on all Christians in general, because we are all generalized to be the same. If we want to have a positive impact on the people around us, we need to learn to overlook some inconvenient behaviors that are sinful and realize that non-Christians really don’t know any better. The old standards of right and wrong have been blurred and many people need to be taught the truth about right and wrong. As Christians, we should have enough knowledge from the Bible to be able to share with non-Christians, and with new Christians, the truth about right and wrong, and encourage people to do what’s right. And we need to be able to do that in a way that is positive; that encourages them to do the right thing. We don’t want to do it in a negative way, because that will discourage people from ever wanting to learn about what being a Christian is all about. And that’s what we should be trying to do, right? Encourage other people to want to be like Jesus? The only way we can do that is to develop some kind of positive relationship with them, so they can see that our lives are different; that we react in different ways than most people do. We need to find a positive way to demonstrate that their sinful behavior is wrong, and they need to change. Maybe you’re the one who is just learning that you’ve been living wrong, and you need to change. We can help you learn more about Jesus, learn to believe in Him, and obey what He said. Part of what He said was to repent from your sins and be immersed to wash your sins away, and then continue to learn to be more like Him. If you want to get started on that road, or you need help continuing, let me know. James 1:19-21 (Closing) 19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.