Blinded By Bitterness Series

Most of us have heard the story of Jonah and the whale. We’ve heard how God told Jonah to go the evil city of Nineveh and warn them to repent of their wickedness… or perish. But Jonah didn’t want to go so he got on a boat and went entirely the other direction because he believed he could run from God. But God had other ideas and Jonah ended up in the belly of huge whale.

It’s amazing what spending 3 days and nights in the belly of a whale will do for your state of mind. Jonah ended up praying and repenting, and ultimately he went to Nineveh just like God asked. He preached to that city saying ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And they listened to him, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. END OF STORY… well, almost.

Here’s the rest of the story: Jonah 3:5-4:11 (READ)

The end of the book of Jonah is NOT a pretty picture. It ends with Jonah still sitting around in bitterness and hatred wishing he’d never gone to Nineveh, and wishing they’d have ALL died.

In fact, he even had the audacity to rebuke God by saying: “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.” Jonah 4:2

Believe it or not, Jonah was telling God off! He was NOT happy and he wanted God to know it. Jonah was a bitter man.

But why was he so bitter? Well, the Bible doesn’t say… but I can guess. Nineveh was a nasty piece of work. They were a war-like nation that showed no mercy to those they attacked. If a city opposed them they’d NOT just kill the survivors - they would dismember them and impale them and do other horrible things that I’m not comfortable talking about from the pulpit. Their actions so frightened other cities that… they’d simply surrender rather than face the atrocities of Nineveh.

My guess is, Nineveh had attacked a city in Israel and butchered people that Jonah knew. Perhaps they’d been murdered right in front of his very eyes. So, he doesn’t want Nineveh to repent… he wants them to die. Every last one of them. He’s a bitter man, and you can’t hardly blame him.

Now we’ll get back to Jonah in just a little bit but right now I want to explain the danger of bitterness. Hebrews 12:15 warns us “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.”

God warns us to be careful! There are sins that will rob us of God’s grace in our lives. In verse 16, for example, God tells us to beware of sexual immorality, and in verses 16 & 17 He warns against godlessness. But God kicks this list off with perhaps the deadliest of sins known to man: bitterness.

Why do I say that bitterness is perhaps the deadliest of sins? Well bitterness causes trouble and defiles many. Churches have split because of bitterness. I’ve seen it divide congregations and ruin churches and damage the name of Jesus - sometimes beyond repair.

Someone in a congregation will become SO angry over an offense they’ve suffered (or believe they’ve suffered) that they can be relentless in seeking revenge. They struggle to enlist others in their cause and they’ll bring trouble into the church of Christ. And they will defile many because of their bitterness.

ILLUS: My dad once told me about the time that his church asked him to be Sunday School Superintendent. He and mom talked about it, and prayed about it, and he accepted the job. But a few weeks later, it became apparent why the Elders had asked him to take the job. Nobody else wanted it. Apparently, there was a young couples Sunday School class meeting in the basement that had gotten out of hand. It was taught by a pair of spinster sisters who had apparently developed such a negative and bitter attitude that they’d run off all the men in the class and now only had a small group of women. I suspect the Elders had approached the sisters about their behavior, but the ladies defiantly continued to meet in their basement class. What the Elders wanted dad to do was dissolve the class. And so… he did. One Sunday Morning he went downstairs, pulled aside the dividers they used, and said “Ladies, I’m sorry, this class will no longer meet here.” And he said the ladies in the class literally came at him with claws extended. Even my dad, a big strong man, was a little scared by their behavior. The sisters had so engrained their bitterness and sectarianism into that class that their bitterness had defiled the faith of those other ladies as well.