TUE 12 SEPT
ANGER’S INTENSITY
READ Jeremiah 20:7-18 Jonah 4:1
FOCUS ‘Lord, you tricked me, and I was tricked. You overpowered me and won.’ Jeremiah 20:7
Jonah preached one of the shortest (fellow preachers take note) and most successful sermons in the history of preaching, and an entire city was rocked to its foundations by his prophetic onslaught. You’d think he’d be happy. On the contrary, he was incensed. The writer here is keen for us to know just how upset with God Jonah was. He was outraged, just like the prophet Jeremiah. First of all, there’s a literary device used here called a figura etymologia. This is a double emphasis used frequently throughout the book of Jonah to show just how intense something was. So, the terrified sailors ‘feared a great fear’, Jonah was called to ‘proclaim the proclamation’ and now he was ‘angry with a great anger’. Take it from me. He’s very upset. Then there’s the use of the word ‘great’ again. As we have seen, it is a favourite word in this book: Nineveh was a great city, the fish was great – so was the storm, and furious Jonah’s anger was great too. It was also all-consuming, enough to make him ignore God and be tired of living. He even prayed for death twice (Jonah 4:3,9). I’ve spelled all this out because some of us are so utterly consumed with rage against God, we are tempted to think there’s no way back. The fact that we’re reading these words is nothing short of a miracle, because, generally, we aren’t on speaking terms right now. Know that this white-knuckled man has just been an instrument to shake a city. Why don’t we start counting ourselves in again? Prayer: Help me to run to You, and not from You, when frustration and even rage fuels my heart. Amen. 71
