Jonah Part 4: A Prophet Blinded by Disdain
Welcome to Grace Outpost,
I am so glad that you decided to join me here today. We are in the final week of our 4 week look
at the book of Jonah. Last week we saw
how the people of Nineveh repented of their sin, we also saw that true repentance
is what God desires from us. This week
we will be moving on to chapter 4, the last chapter of the book. Before we get into it let me share a story
with you.
I once knew a business owner who was constantly behind on
their bills. Sometimes they would let
things go so long that the accounts were on the verge of going to
collections. Only once things would get
to this point would the business owner speak to those whom he owed money and
argue for an extension and additional accommodation. Yet this business owner’s customers who did
business with him year in and year out would desperately need a small extension
to pay off their accounts and he would not grant it. He would demand payment in full, in spite of
doing the very same thing to those whom he purchased services and goods
from.
This behavior is not far off from what we see from
Jonah. Chapter 4 begins with Jonah
becoming angry with God and praying to God to tell him how mad he is.
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. 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?”
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. 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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 we know from previous weeks the vile deeds of the people
of Nineveh were well known and that they were enemies of Israel. Their actions had earned the wrath of God,
which is what Jonah was sent to warn them of.
Here we see from the text that Jonah did not want to go because he knew
that God would forgive the people of Nineveh should they repent. It is very telling of Jonah’s hatred for
these people and his desire to see God’s justice brought upon them. The thought of the people of Nineveh enraged
him to the point of wishing that he were dead.
I can’t help but point out the obvious hypocrisy of Jonah, who was
thrown overboard to be left for dead because of his disobedience and God had
mercy upon him. That same disobedient
prophet who was given a second chance is now infuriated that someone else is
being given mercy.
We can shake our head at Jonah, sure it is easy to see here
in the narrative. However, don’t we do
this very thing? Sure it isn’t
Ninevites, but it is the drug addict, the woman who just had an abortion, the
homosexual, or whatever the pet sin to rail on is today. When people come to repent and seek grace, we
are need to follow God’s example. We
must not be given grace only to hold others to a standard that we ourselves
were not held to. If we woke up tomorrow
to news that ISIS had converted to Christianity overnight and were on their
knees in the streets asking for forgiveness, could we forgive them? Could we welcome them into the fold?
Our God is loving and compassionate, we are told repeatedly
throughout the Bible that he is slow to anger and abounding in love. Grace is radical, forgiveness can only be
given when it is undeserved, it can never be earned. My friend Aaron Sherrell summed up grace like
this: “Grace is an undeserved gift, given by an unobligated giver.”
We have been given the full revelation of the extent of God’s
grace and mercy through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We are called to emulate this grace in our
lives, forgiving those who sin against us.
Jonah was blinded by his cultural hatred for the Ninevites, he thought
of them as vile pagans, though Israel was already well on its way down the road
to idol worship.
As we look at the last half of the text we see that God
gives Jonah an object lesson with a plant.
God points out to Jonah that he cares more for a plant that he had
nothing to do with, than the people in the city of Nineveh. People, made in God’s image, people who didn’t
understand right from wrong.
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. 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?”
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. 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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?”
The reality of the cross is that God has forgiven the
unforgiveable in us and we are to follow in kind. To do this we must love God and seek him with
all that we are, when we live like that we trust in the promises that God will
work all things for good (Romans 8:28).
We are called to love our enemies and to pray for them. God reminds us that we only know love because
he first loved us while we were still enemies to God (Romans 5:10, 1 John 4:19).
Are we willing to let God lead us and teach us? Our natural state is to be blinded by our
cultural bias. Will you let God begin to
remove that blindfold from your eyes?
When we come across challenging passages of Scripture, when we are
confronted with our behaviors from the pulpit and otherwise, will we trust God’s
wisdom above our own?