When We Are Angry With God Series

Title: When We Are Angry With God

Text: Jonah 4:1-11

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Pray!!!

Introduction:

- Have you ever been angry with God before?

- We all have and expressed our displeasure for being in a situation that God could get us out of.

- Jonah, was angry with God because he believed that God would move powerfully in his situation.

- So a question that comes to mind is why would Jonah be angry with God?

- When God used Jonah so powerfully, why did Jonah act in anger towards God?

- He knew God would deliver the people of Nineveh and for some reason that angered him.

- Those feelings made him leave for Tarshish instead of Nineveh.

- Now we know it’s not wrong to express our feelings towards God, because God knows how we feel.

- It only becomes a problem when we start acting out how we feel, and Jonah gives us that example when he flees to Tarshish in anger.

- Then he gets angry with God for forgiving Nineveh when he obeys God and pronounces God’s message to the people.

- We need to continue to obey God, even when we don’t understand what God is doing.

- We need to continue to be faithful with God and trust in Him, understanding that He has everything under control.

Transition:

- What do we learn about God when Jonah was angry?

Point 1: We Learn That God Is All Powerful (vs 1-3)

I read about a small Oklahoma town that had two churches and one distillery. Members of both churches complained that the distillery was giving the community a bad imagine. And to make matters worse the owner of the distillery was an out spoken atheist. He didn’t believe in God one bit. The church people had tried unsuccessfully for years to shut down the distillery. So finally they decided to hold a joint Saturday night prayer meeting. They were going to ask God to intervene and settle the matter.

The church folks gathered on Saturday night and there was a horrible thunderstorm raging outside and to the delight of the church members lightening hit that old brewery and it burned to the ground.

The next morning the sermons in both churches was on the power of prayer.

But the insurance adjusters promptly notified the distillery owner that they were not going to pay for the damages because the fire was an act of God and that was an exclusion in the policy.

The distillery owner was furious and he sued both churches claiming that they had conspired with God to destroy his business. But the churches denied that they had anything to do with the cause of the fire.

The presiding judge opened the trial with theses words: “ I find one thing in this cause most perplexing-we have a situation here where the plaintiff, an atheist is professing his belief in the power of prayer, and the defendants all faithful church members are denying the very same power.”

- Verse 2 is the key verse for this first point

- It’s one thing to be angry at God when things don’t go right, but to be angry because there is revival and we see the compassion and mercy of God in action is another.

- Jonah is angry with God not because He was doing powerful things, but because Jonah is not committed to God’s plan for mercy.

- We can be committed to God’s moving in church and in our families, but we don’t like the process God takes to get us there.

- Some Christians don’t even like the fact of other people getting saved or coming into the church because it messes things up.

- May that never happen us.

Point 2: We Learn That God Is Concerned For The Church And The World (Vs 4-6)

- We learn from the first point that God is concerned for Nineveh, but in these verses, God is also concerned for your family.

- Jonah represents the nation of Israel, and God is concerned for Jonah’s well being just as He is concerned for Nineveh, a Gentile Nation.

- God is not just concerned for a certain people, but all people.

- God is not just concerned for the Pentecostal people, but is concerned for all people.

- God is concerned for all denominations.

- We should not be angry with God because He is moving in other churches, where people are getting saved and restored, rather we should be happy and rejoice.

In his book, In the Heavenlies, Dr. Harry Ironside tells the story of an attempted assassination of Queen Elizabeth I. The woman who sought to do so dressed as a male page and secreted herself in the queen’s boudoir awaiting the convenient moment to stab the queen to death. She did not realize that the queen’s attendants would be very careful to search the rooms before Her Majesty was permitted to retire. They found the woman hidden among the gowns and brought her into the presence of the queen, taking from her the poignard she had hope to plant in the heart of the sovereign. She realized that, humanly speaking, her case was hopeless. She threw herself down on her knees and pleaded and begged the queen as a woman to have compassion on her, a woman, and to show her grace. Queen Elizabeth looked at her coldly and quietly said, "If I show you grace, what promise will you make for the future?" The woman looked up and said, "Grace that hath conditions, grace that is fettered by precautions, is not grace at all." Queen Elizabeth caught it in a moment and said, "You are right. I pardon you of my grace." And they led her away, a free woman. History tells us that from that moment Queen Elizabeth had no more faithful, devoted servant than that woman who had intended to take her life. That is exactly the way the grace of God works in the life of an individual--he or she becomes a faithful servant of God.