We’ve made it! We started looking at the book of Jonah six weeks ago, and today we conclude this series.
As we’ve dived into the text in some detail, several key themes have repeatedly jumped out:
· God is in control: of the storm, of the fish, of the hearts of people, and we’ll see His control again today
· God is concerned about everyone: the sailors, the people of Nineveh, our enemies, and even Jonah, and again, we’ll see that compassion today
· God desires obedience: Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach…means just that, and it’s better to obey the first time. Today, we’ll see Jonah continuing to wrestle with a disobedient heart
· God gives second (and third) chances: Jonah was able to get back on track to finish the original assignment God had given him
Last week, we looked at how after being given the command to Get up, Go to Nineveh, and Preach, that Jonah did just that. He went to Nineveh, went through the community, preached, and the people repented from their sins and chose to follow the Lord.
The third chapter closes like this:
Jonah 3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
OK…quick quiz question: If a prophet of the Lord was told to go and preach the good news to a group of people and everyone from the King down repents and accepts the Lord, what SHOULD the prophet do? If Billy Graham or Luis Palau did a huge crusade at Soldier Field or Busch Stadium and tens of thousands of people trusted in Christ as their Savior, what do you think they would do?
RIGHT…REJOICE, CELEBRATE, GIVE GLORY to GOD!!!
But, as most of you are familiar with this story, our dear friend Jonah had a slightly (alright…VERY) different response to the change in the Ninevites’ lives and God’s subsequent forgiveness of them.
Jonah 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
I love the way the Message Version puts these verses:
Jonah 4:1 Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. 2 He yelled at GOD, “GOD! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
How do you like that? A genuine man of God, a prophet, gets ANGRY at God?!?! The Hebrew word translated angry means “hot”. He was HOT! Burning angry! Not miffed, or frustrated, or irritated, FULL BLOWN ANGRY!!
Remember, why was he angry? He was so mad because God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and merciful, full of steadfast love. Now, I know that sounds silly, but that’s how Jonah responded!
This is an amazing passage. Jonah, like so many other Israelites, really wanted God just for themselves. God shouldn’t be allowed to be kind to other countries. God should reserve His love and kindness for ME not THEM!
I think we as Americans can fall into that same pattern ourselves. We proudly proclaim God Bless America, but do we ever pray for God to bless Iraq or China, or even Canada? Do we think of ourselves as Americans first and Christians second, or do we look at ourselves as citizens of Heaven first and Americans second? A large part of Jonah’s problem was that he flat out didn’t want God to show grace and mercy to his enemies.
As a heart check, how would you feel if this afternoon’s news reported that Billy Graham was doing a crusade in Kabul…the capital of The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and at last night’s crusade, everyone in the country trusted Jesus and the whole country renounced Islam, laid down their weapons, turned over the members of the various extreme terrorist groups and begged for Christians to send professors and pastors to come and teach them about following Christ?
Would we rejoice, or would we question if it could happen? Would we call people to celebrate, or would we call to complain that God couldn’t change their hearts?
That’s one level of how we respond to God extending grace to others. Let’s look at it from a much more practical and personal perspective. How do you feel if I mention that Faith Baptist Temple in Eureka has grown from nothing five months ago to averaging around 70 each week; or Crosspoint Community Church had nobody ten years ago, and runs around 300 today; or Rock Creek Bible Church in Congerville (Congerville Mennonite) has grown like crazy in the past five years and they’re parking cars all over their parking lot and across Rte 150 at the school. Here we are, we were running about a hundred or slightly more about ten years ago, and now we’re running 15-20.
Oooh…does that hit a little closer to home? It does for me! I have to admit, I ask those questions…what am I doing wrong that our church isn’t growing? Is it safe to have a business meeting? At the last one, emotions, actions and attitudes got out of hand and nearly a dozen adults and children walked out the door and have not returned…and have made it clear that they won’t. Why are people so interested in attending churches that have great children’s ministry, great bands for worship, intimate small groups, creative outreach ministries, people “my age”, etc…? Is it that I’m a really bad preacher and I’m scaring people off?
You see, it’s VERY easy to get self-righteous in our condemnation of Jonah for his lack of celebration at what God was doing “somewhere else”. However, if we’re honest, there may be a part of ME that resents if someone has a successful ministry…whether in Afghanistan…or in Eureka.
Coming back to the text, I hope that none of us have gotten to this point, but Jonah was so intensely hot and angry that he asks the Lord to kill him.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
Think about the irony of all of this, God gives Jonah a very important assignment…Get up, Go to Nineveh, Preach. On the second attempt, Jonah actually makes it there and preaches and is HIGHLY successful. In fact, this could be one of those times when someone should nominate him for Prophet of the Month for how many Ninevites he got to repent.
Then, instead of celebrating, he wants to die. REALLY?? Jonah is so mad that God didn’t kill off the Ninevites, that he wants God to kill him instead. The idea here is that since you didn’t kill them, the world isn’t big enough for both of us…either You kill them or You kill me.
It seems a little extreme, but that is indeed how angry Jonah is at this point. I love God’s response, “Hey, what are you so mad about?”
Sometimes, I think Jonah is a little slow. In the group of kids I work with, we’d call this a processing delay. He thought he could run and hide from God. He thought he could get all “nicey nice” with God when he was in the fish so he’d get out. He thought if he went to Nineveh with a terrible attitude the people wouldn’t repent. Now, he thinks God will flip flop on not destroying these terrible enemies, so he goes up on a hill somewhere to wait for the Lord to use “shock and awe” to firebomb all of Nineveh like He did to Sodom and Gomorrah.
In my mind I think of that high bridge on the east side of the river in East Peoria. Jonah climbs up there where he has a great view of the whole city to see God wipe Peoria off the map!
Jonah 4:5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.
I love it…what in the world was he thinking to put up one of those picnic tent things to wait for the coming judgment?
Now, maybe, living in that part of the world was hot like it is here today (think of it…a city in Iraq…anybody know someone who has served over there…what’s the weather like?)
6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.
At any rate, the God that Jonah is so angry about shows his loving kindness and grace to Jonah by causing some kind of plant to grow up and give him some extra shade from the heat. The Hebrew here is a funny play on words that can mean both “shade him from his discomfort” and “save him from his wickedness”. God continues to demonstrate that He is in control of everything. He causes this plant to grow supernaturally fast over night to give Jonah another clear opportunity to dialogue with the Lord who cares for him just like He does the people of Nineveh.
I thought about bringing a weed in today for show and tell. Yesterday, we were working in the yard. Johnmark cut some weeds down in the dog pen area. I noticed a couple hours later that they were REALLY withered! They would NOT have provided shade for anything!
So, our friend Jonah put up his little shelter thing that wasn’t doing a very good job of shading him. God made a shady plant grow to help him out. God then caused a worm to eat the stem of the plant, and it withered and no longer sheltered the prophet! To make matters worse, God then turned up the temperature in the oven of attitude refinement.
8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.
Have any of you ever been out in the heat long enough that you felt faint from it being so warm…that’s where Jonah is.
Now, most of us would figure out how to get up and get into some better shade or a cooler place. But, Jonah was so stubborn that he held his ground up on that hill so he could see God wipe Nineveh out. Instead of giving in, he once again asks the Lord to kill him. Can you imagine the intensity of his anger at God that he continues to basically shake his fist at the Lord?
And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”
At this point, God “calls him out” and confronts him about the absurdity of Jonah getting upset about a plant that he didn’t plant or fertilize or help to grow, and it only was there for a day.
10 And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.
The Lord goes on to push the issue further by comparing the utter worthlessness of the plant in comparison with the eternal souls of all the people in Nineveh.
11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Now, the commentators differ on how to interpret this last verse. Were there 120,000 young children who didn’t know the difference between their right and left hands…making the population of Nineveh in the hundreds of thousands since not every family would have a preschooler. Some say it’s more likely that it was 120,000 people who didn’t have a moral compass to tell the difference between right and wrong. Obviously, some people in the country would.
So, whether you put the size of Nineveh as a metro Bloomington-Normal number or a metro Peoria area, or bigger, the point here is that God has every right to be concerned about and to show mercy to the eternal souls of people there. This is in a strong contrast to Jonah’s goofy concern about a shady plant.
The moral difference is so huge!
That ends this brief book. Most commentators believe that whether it’s after this particular discussion with God or maybe even sometime later that Jonah again repented and then wrote this autobiographical story of his own life so that others can learn from all of his huge mistakes.
What are some of those mistakes that we can look at today?
1. We need to celebrate God’s mercy and loving-kindness!
a. Look around you…where do you see the Lord dishing out grace?
b. Stop and give thanks when you see it!
2. We need to celebrate God’s work with other Christians!
a. As you see Vermeer of Central Illinois building it’s new complex on the other side of the road, do you stop and pray that it will go fast so Crosspoint Community Church can get into their building soon?
b. As you drive by the strip mall on the south end of Eureka, do you pray that God will cause the Baptist Temple to grow fast and reach many people that we aren’t?
c. When you see one of the former members of our church around town, do you ask with expectancy how they’re doing spiritually…and really hope they’re doing well?
3. We need to celebrate God’s work in our national enemies’ lives
a. I subscribe to several email updates that give me information on what God is doing around the world so I can pray well
b. We need to pray that God will send missionaries to various parts of the world to bring the Gospel to them.
c. We need to rejoice if God sends our community a missionary from somewhere else…who could reach the Indian tech support guys at State Farm better…one of us, or a missionary from India?
4. We need to celebrate God’s successes…even if they aren’t what we expected
a. Have you seen God do something or lead you somewhere you weren’t planning on going?
b. Getting so mad at God for working out His plan that you’re ready to commit suicide isn’t a good idea.
c. We need to work to make sure our heart is beating in sync with Gods. Henry Blackaby had it right, “Find where God is working, and join Him”. Think how much better chapter 4 would have been if Jonah had been working with instead of against God.
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