Anger

[bwsmith]

This morning, July 13, words from C. H. Spurgeon shed new light on an old friend, Jonah.

Now I have read Jonah several times, and several times I have been rebuked for my propensity to do the opposite of what I know would honor God. I have been comforted that, though in the depths, God rescues me, and gives me hope and purpose – again and again. And I have been humbled by God’s deep love for those who are (yet) in His fold. But this morning I saw the potency of anger – power that may cause me to run for the wrong cover.

I can become angry over an assignment that is at cross-purposes with my agenda; Jonah did not want to preach to the scary pagans. I can do what God requires – but without a loving, compassionate heart; Jonah was not pleased with the revival his preaching sparked. (Jonah 4:1) And like Jonah, I can become angry when God takes away what I think I must have.

God saw Jonah’s rage, and asked him, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4) Jonah thought he did – the plant that shaded him disappeared because of a God-sent worm. So God asked him again, "Do you have good reason to be angry . . . ?" (Jonah 4:9)

Have you ever felt that restraining question in your spirit before you blew your stack?

Spurgeon said, “Anger is not always or necessarily sinful, but it has such a tendency to run wild that whenever it displays itself, we should be quick to question its character, with this enquiry, ‘Doest thou well to be angry?’"

When God’s character is impugned, or His works mocked, it is not wrong to be angry! However, Mr. Spurgeon described most angry indulgences as “the old evil heart seeking to gain dominion, and should we not resist it with all the might of our newborn nature.”

In the midst of war, why do I think I can loll around, shaded from the heat of battle?

“Many professors give way to temper as though it were useless to attempt resistance; but let the believer remember that he must be a conqueror in every point, or else he cannot be crowned.

If we cannot control our tempers, what has grace done for us? . . .”​

A step we can take is asking the question, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" And waiting for God’s answer. (Psalm 139:23-24)

 

[etexas]

This morning, July 13, words from C. H. Spurgeon shed new light on an old friend, Jonah.

Now I have read Jonah several times, and several times I have been rebuked for my propensity to do the opposite of what I know would honor God. I have been comforted that, though in the depths, God rescues me, and gives me hope and purpose – again and again. And I have been humbled by God’s deep love for those who are (yet) in His fold. But this morning I saw the potency of anger – power that may cause me to run for the wrong cover.

I can become angry over an assignment that is at cross-purposes with my agenda; Jonah did not want to preach to the scary pagans. I can do what God requires – but without a loving, compassionate heart; Jonah was not pleased with the revival his preaching sparked. (Jonah 4:1) And like Jonah, I can become angry when God takes away what I think I must have.

God saw Jonah’s rage, and asked him, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4) Jonah thought he did – the plant that shaded him disappeared because of a God-sent worm. So God asked him again, "Do you have good reason to be angry . . . ?" (Jonah 4:9)

Have you ever felt that restraining question in your spirit before you blew your stack?

Spurgeon said, “Anger is not always or necessarily sinful, but it has such a tendency to run wild that whenever it displays itself, we should be quick to question its character, with this enquiry, ‘Doest thou well to be angry?’"

When God’s character is impugned, or His works mocked, it is not wrong to be angry! However, Mr. Spurgeon described most angry indulgences as “the old evil heart seeking to gain dominion, and should we not resist it with all the might of our newborn nature.”

In the midst of war, why do I think I can loll around, shaded from the heat of battle?

“Many professors give way to temper as though it were useless to attempt resistance; but let the believer remember that he must be a conqueror in every point, or else he cannot be crowned.

If we cannot control our tempers, what has grace done for us? . . .”​

A step we can take is asking the question, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" And waiting for God’s answer. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Thank you! I like that! German-Irish Texan that I am I struggle with my temper. That is good stuff!

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

"Doest thou well to be angry?" is, I think, like "Adam, where art thou?", reflective of the principle that God is long-suffering and patient with us, but he calls us unto a sight and sense of our sin that we might repent (Rom. 2.4). It is a profound question and one worth asking of ourselves daily. A cousin of mine preached on this very text around 1994 or so. It was a good convicting sermon.

George Swinnock, Works, Vol. 2, Chapter 4, "How Christians may exercise themselves to godliness in good company," pp. 367-369:

There is another famous instance, in the Old Testament, and that is God's patience towards peevish Jonah, by which all may see how much he bears with his froward children.

First, Jonah runs from his business; God sends him to Nineveh, he will go to Tarshish. Here was plain rebellion against his sovereign. One would have expected that the jealous God should have given him a traitor's wages, and when he was at sea, have suffered the ocean of waters to have swallowed up his body, and the ocean of fire and wrath his soul. But lo, he cannot permit his Jonah to perish; he will rather whip him to his work, than let him wander to his ruin. But how gentle is the rod! God cannot forget the love of a father, though Jonah forget the duty of a child, but will rather work a miracle, and make the devourer his saviour, than Jonah shall miscarry. It is true he was tossed with a violent tempest, and thrown overboard, but God provided him a shelter before the storm, and prepared a whale to swallow him down, not for his destruction, but his deliverance: "And the Lord spake to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land." [Jon 2:10]

Well, now the child is brought home, you will look that he should make some recompense for his former disobedience, by his faithfulness and diligence for the future; that the danger he had been in, the death he had so narrowly escaped, the miracle which had been wrought for him, and the extraordinary mercy he had so lately received, should have melted him wholly into God's mould, and have made him, like Abraham, to have come up wholly to God's foot. But, alas! he addeth sin to sin, and neither mercy nor misery prevail with him to know himself. Indeed, he undertakes the journey and message he was called to upon a second command, but as unwillingly as the bear goeth to the stake. After he had pronounced a sentence of death upon the Ninevites, and shewed them a warrant under the high God's hand and seal for their speedy execution, how ill doth he take it that, upon their humble petition, a reprieve should be granted them! He frets inwardly against God, and, through the exceeding heat of his heart, his tongue blisters with casting God's mercy in his teeth. He was wroth for that in which he had cause to rejoice. His love to his brethren might have made him glad of their escape, and his love to his God should have quieted him in all his wise and holy proceedings: "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry, and he prayed unto the Lord, O Lord, was not this my saying in my country? for I knew that thou art a gracious God, etc. Therefore, O Lord, take away my life." [Jon 4:1-2] He quarrels with God's providence, and he doth, as it were, twit God with (that which is the glory of all his attributes and actions, and the best friend the poor children of men have) his grace and pity, desiring rather the destruction of above six score thousand persons, than that himself, by the blind ignorant world, should be reckoned a false prophet. Behold impatience in its largest dimensions! Jonah will die, because so many thousands are allowed, out of infinite kindness, to live. Oh what a nest of vermin was in the womb of this disobedience! Here is pride, both in preferring his own will before God's, and in his unwillingness to suffer a little in his repute in the eye of the people. Here was passion to the height, and that against God himself. Here was murmuring against sparing mercy and the divine pleasure. Here was unbelief, as if God could not repair his name, and repay him for the loss of his credit. Here was uncharitableness and want of love towards the poor Ninevites, whose condition called for the deepest compassion. What answer can be judged tart enough to such a passionate prayer? What language can be too harsh, what carriage can be too heavy, towards such a cross-grained child? It is abominable for any man to contend with his Maker. It is bad for servants to strive with their master, or children to resist their father, though both these are their fellow-creatures; but for any to contend with God, whose dominion over us is unquestionable, and their dependence on him indispensable, between whom and them there is an infinite distance, is infinitely worse. But for Jonah—not only a man, but a new man, a child of God, a prophet of the Lord, that should have taught others, by his precepts and by his pattern, to submit to the severest divine pleasure, one that had been signalised, above others, with eminent and distinguishing favours both for this and the other world—to fly thus in God's face, is worst of all. Surely no punishment can exceed the desert of such peevishness, such passion. Some dreadful thunder cannot but be expected as the consequent of such hot weather. But hear, O heavens, give ear, O earth, and be astonished at the calm mild voice of the great God: "And the Lord said unto Jonah, Jonah, dost thou well to be angry?" [Jon 4:9] Mark what love sounds in this language. Such an affectionate voice, after such gross disobedience, might make even marble to weep; and, as that voice from heaven, turn a Saul into a Paul. Could the fondest and most indulgent father in the world be more meek, more mild in his expression? He appeals to Jonah's conscience whether such behaviour was answerable to his oath of allegiance: Dost thou well to be angry? Is this passion suitable to that submission which thou owest to me and my providence? Eli said as much to his wicked sons: It is not a good report which I hear of you, my sons, etc., when God was so incensed against him for his mildness, that he sends him an ear-tickling and a heart-trembling message. And yet God himself is so favourable and compassionate to one whose sin admitted of greater aggravations in some respects than those of Eli's sons, (Jonah sinned after such a miraculous salvation, and that against choosing, calling, pardoning, saving love, which Eli's sons did not; ) nay, and when the malefactor, upon the reading of this gentle indictment to him, instead of pleading guilty, and begging a psalm of mercy, had stubbornly and obstinately justified himself, God, who might have awarded judgment against him, according to law, still forbeareth him; and when his pathetical words would not reclaim him, he trieth if a miraculous work will reduce him to his allegiance. Oh the tenderness of God towards his froward children! I have sometimes wondered at his infinite patience towards so disobedient a prophet; but, alas! I experience it daily in his superabundant grace and goodness towards my own soul, notwithstanding my greater provocations.

Reader, by all this thou mayest see what cause thou hast to bear with thy fellow-Christians, when God beareth with his creatures, notwithstanding those multiplied affronts and disrespects, which they offer to his glorious, holy, and infinite Majesty.