The Priority Of Persons Series

A little boy who had shown a fit of temper was scolded by

his mother and sent to his room. He was told to pray that his

temper might be reformed. His mother followed him and

listened at the door to see if he would. This is what she

heard: "O, Lord, please take away my bad temper, and

while you are about it you might as well take mother's too."

A bad temper is a problem at any age. It is a dangerous

weapon because it injures both others and the one who has it.

A woman once said to Billy Sunday that she had a bad

temper, but it was over in a minute. He replied, "So is a

shotgun blast, but it blows everything to pieces." The speed

at which evil is done does not lessen the evil. Someone wrote

a poem that reveals the difficulty in finding any justification

for a bad temper.

"When I have lost my temper, I have lost my reason too.

I'm never proud of anything which angrily I do.

When I have talked in anger, and my cheeks are flaming red

I have always uttered something that I wish I hadn't said.

In anger I have never done a kindly deed, or wise,

But many things for which I know I should apologize.

In looking back across my life, and all I've lost or made

I can't recall a single time when fury ever paid."

The first line of that poem describes exactly what Jonah's

bad temper did to him. Jonah's anger had blinded him to the

true values of life, and he became childish. He was like a

baby having a temper tantrum because he is not allowed to

pull the lamp off the table, or poke your eye out with a

ballpoint pen. A bad temper reduces a person to an

irresponsible infant whose own selfish pleasure becomes the

measure of all things. I have known otherwise mature men

smash their arms through a cupboard and throw a wrench

through their windshield because of their loss of temper.

God had to show Jonah just how low his standard of

values had fallen in his awful attitude of anger. To make

sure he gets the message God prepares Jonah for a question.

God has a test for Jonah consisting of just one question, but

before he gives it to him he makes sure that Jonah will know

the answer. We want to consider the preparation for the

question, and then the question.

I. THE PREPARATION FOR THE QUESTION.

In verse 5 we see that Jonah had not given up hope. He

had come a long way to see Nineveh burn, and he wanted a

ringside seat. In contrast to Jesus who wept over Jerusalem

because of the coming destruction, and Abraham who

pleaded for Sodom, Jonah was looking for blood. His only

fear that was the whole thing might be cancelled. Jonah's

system of values had no place for the concept of mercy. It

was justice and justice alone that he looked for. Justice is of

the very essence of God's nature, but it is always combined

with mercy, and God expects the same to be true to His

servants. Justice without mercy gives you what you have in

the elder brother of the Prodigal. If he had come home and

heard his brother screaming as his father was beating him,

he would have felt good. But when he heard his father was

having a party for the returned sinner he threw a fit, and like

an immature child he refused to have any part in the

celebration. Justice without mercy always leads to anger at

the practice of forgiveness. Jonah had this spirit, and he was

hoping yet to see Nineveh destroyed.

In verse 6 we see that God takes advantage of the

situation to give Jonah an object lesson to challenge his

system of values. It appears that God performed another

miracle here. All of the miracles of this book are due to

Jonah's disobedience and God's efforts to straighten him out.

The plant was a fast growing plant of which there are several

in that part of the world. None grow in one night, however,

and so God's direct action was needed. We see how

conservative God is in His use of power. He could have made

a tree that takes 20 years to grow come up over night, but He

uses a plant that naturally grows very rapidly. God is not

extravagant and showy in His use of miracles. He stays as

close to the natural possess as possible. He feels no need to

be spectacular like the stories of magic genies. Jesus would

not gain popularity by jumping off the temple, or turning

stones into bread. God is conservative omnipotence. He does