Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is the title of a famous sermon Jonathan Edwards preached in 1741. Few pastors today would dare use such fiery imagery. Many people picture God only as loving and gentle. They see Jesus as a caregiver holding a lamb. Yet popular culture views the God of the Old Testament as angry, vengeful, and full of wrath. What if that same God is the one who became man in Jesus? The truth is God has always been full of grace and mercy.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. Jonah 3:1-5 ESV
The Merciless Mob
Look at cancel culture and modern politics. Certain sins receive zero mercy. I will take being a sinner in the hands of an angry God over a sinner in the hands of an angry mob every single time. Because unlike the angry mob, God is capable of great compassion and mercy. This includes the God of the Old Testament.
A little backstory on Jonah and how he ended up in the belly of a fish. Jonah is a prophet called by God to speak the words of God to the people of Israel. One day God tells Jonah to be a prophet to Nineveh.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Jonah 1:1-3 ESV
Disobedient Prophets
Jonah heard from God and promptly got up and went to Nineveh… Just kidding. Jonah got up and ran away from God in the opposite direction of Nineveh. That is right, a prophet of God wanted nothing to do with what God asked him to do.
Nineveh is a city of the Assyrians. The Assyrians were an imperial nation of cruelty and conquest. Jonah viewed them as enemies. He was right because eventually Assyria conquered Israel, the northern kingdom where Jonah came from.
After the incident with the fish, Jonah agrees with God to go to Nineveh. He preached “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” At this point the people believed him and Jonah is angry because this was his worst fear realized. The reason he ran from God is because he did not want the city to repent. He wanted God to judge them without mercy.
“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ 11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Ezekiel 33:10-11 ESV
The Hands of an Angry God
The prophets mainly preached repentance to the Hebrew people who should have been living for God. Their sins had piled up to the point that God warned them judgment was coming. The people were sinners in the hands of an angry God, but a God who actively looked for any sign they would turn back from wicked living. God takes no pleasure in anger, yet He cannot tolerate evil forever.
Jonah, being a prophet, had preached a similar message and the people never repented. Yet he knew that if they did, God would relent. Make peace with your Maker and do what is right is the message in that time. How frustrating for him that the city of Nineveh would repent when his own people would not.
And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. Luke 4:24-26 ESV
God’s Mercy is at Hand
Jesus recognized Jonah’s problem as well. We are more willing to listen to someone from outside our circle than inside. Many times in the Old Testament the prophets like Elijah had to leave the nation for God to protect them.
If you are angry at someone or some people group, would you pray for them that they would find God’s mercy and your own? God has forgiven me for my sins against him. I pray that we would be willing to forgive others for their sins against us. If you feel that you are still a sinner in the hands of an angry God, take heart that you are in his hands because he wants to show you grace.
