We come for the last time to the short book of Jonah, this minor profit of only four chapters which has so much to say about the character of God. We will begin this morning by reading the fourth chapter as we seek the lesson God has for Jonah and what he has for us.
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” The Lord said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?” Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.” Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
Two weeks ago we looked at the picture of repentance painted for us throughout the book of Jonah. A picture that serves to adorn the greater purpose of this book which is to display the character of God. Jonah is not a book about a fish, it is not a story about Nineveh, it is not even a book about Jonah, it is about God. It is a book about in part about the sovereignty of God. A God who moves men and animals and nature itself to accomplish His purposes.
In chapter 1 God spoke to Jonah in order to send him with a message to Nineveh. When Jonah refused and headed the opposite direction, God hurled a storm onto the sea and continued to increase its severity until finally the pagan sailors recognized him and obeyed him by throwing Jonah overboard. And in that moment the sea stopped its raging. Then at the end of chapter 1 we read “the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.” That word appears over and over again throughout the short book; the word “appointed.” God appointed the great fish to swallow Jonah and then commanded it to vomit him back up on dry land. We see in chapter 4 that God appointed a plant to grow up over Jonah and then appointed a worm to attack the plant the next day.
The sovereignty and involvement of God within His creation is on grand display throughout all 4 of the short chapters. The storms and the seas obey, the fish obeys, the pagan sailors obey, the people of Nineveh obey, the plant obeys, the worm obeys, and even the reluctant Jonah obeys. Throughout this narrative, God has remained in complete control even when His chosen tool decided to rebel, God still accomplished His redemptive purposes.
But even the sovereignty of God is not the main focus of the book of Jonah. The final lesson, the lesson Jonah is to learn all the way down in verse 11 of chapter 4, the lesson that we are to come away with at the end of this book is about the mercy of God. Not a whale, not a prophet, this is a book about a God whose compassion is put on magnificent display. A God whose mercy is incomprehensible in breadth and depth. A God whose grace goes far beyond all that we could imagine or would be capable of emulating and is extended to all those He has chosen to experience it no matter what may come up against Him.
To understand this lesson, we see how the prophet Jonah, who has served as the antagonist throughout this book, is taught the same lesson. We are going to start with looking at Jonah’s reluctance that has been a feature of this book throughout as its true source is finally revealed in verse three. Will look at Jonah’s sin and understanding the accusation within God’s questions and then finally Jonah’s lesson that God drives home with His very experiential plant-based counseling.
Chapter 4 begins with the line “but it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.” We open chapter 4 with an angry, sulking prophet of God. Why? Why was Jonah greatly displeased? If you remember back 2 weeks ago to chapter 3, we left Jonah on day one of a three-day tour of Nineveh after he began delivering his message from God. He was a delivering a message of warning of the coming judgment of God, a common fair for God’s prophets throughout the Old Testament. Something Jonah would have been accustomed to doing while he was in Israel. And what is absolutely amazing is that Nineveh repents. On day one, from the least to the greatest the city goes into mourning over their sin. Fasting and sitting in sackcloth and ashes. From the king all the way down to the barn animals with just a hope, a hope that God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that they would not perish as the king says in verse 9.
So why is Jonah displeased? He was at the head of the greatest evangelism campaign ever recorded in Scripture. If this happened today you would think Jonah would react to the great work of God in Nineveh by emailing everybody in his contact list, sending off letters to the denominational headquarters or missions organization the number of decision cards that had been signed. Maybe he would have called in the news reporters and bloggers to go on TV and the Internet to talk about the amazing work of God that had been done. Any and every effort to publicize what happened. I am sure he would have followed it up with a bestseller or a “how to on evangelism: Nineveh style.”
But that is not where we find Jonah in chapter 4. We open Jonah chapter 4 and we find the prophet displeased. And that is a very gentle way of putting the Hebrew into English. It is more literally translated “it was evil to Jonah with great evil and it burned to him.” There is a play on words here with the root ra’a. Which can refer to wickedness as it does over and over again in this book such as in the wickedness of Nineveh in 1:2 and the “wicked way” that the king calls repentance from in 3:8. It can refer to suffering, and it can refer to the greatest of malice toward something or someone. Jonah is not just displeased Jonah is fuming.
Why was Jonah displeased? Because in 3:10, “God saw their deeds, that they turn from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them. And he did not do it.” Why was Jonah displeased? Why was he burning with anger? It was the mercy of God, the compassion of God, the deferred judgment of God from the city of Nineveh that was the source of Jonah’s displeasure. Jonah is disgusted, he is burning, and he wants it to be known. And do not miss this, Jonah describes the actions of God’s character as evil.
In verse two Jonah finally reveals why he ran away from God after the first calling in chapter 1 verse one. The reason Joe know ran away, the reason Jonah disobeyed God was not because he was afraid, it was not because he felt himself incapable, it was not because of the distance, it was because Jonah knew the character of God. Jonah knew that the LORD was a God of mercy and compassion and he may just extend that mercy to the Ninevites. And he calls it a great evil.
We do not know why Jonah did not want God to show mercy to Nineveh. There is a lot of speculation, and for every 10 commentators there are 11 opinions. It could be his narrow exclusivism, he might not have wanted to appear as a false prophet having prophesied about the coming destruction of the city in 40 days, some look to the political motivations, the hostilities between Israel and Nineveh, some speculate that Jonah wanted the Israelites to see the destruction of Nineveh as a warning about the judgment of God and return to him, but none of that is there and in the end the silence on this issue helps us to see that the “why” is not important, what is important is that Jonah is angry with God because God showed mercy.
We know that Jonah had a right theology. He states the clear truths of Scripture that is as abundant in the Old Testament as it is in the new, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” And what is more amazing is that Jonah’s use of this pristine theology is that he is using it as a complaint against God. The prophet knows his theology, that is not the problem. His doctrine is correct, he just didn’t like where it takes him. Jonah is finding fault with God for who He really is, not as Jonah imagined or wanted Him to be.
And the irony I am sure is as apparent to you as it should have been to Jonah as he has just been the recipient of the amazing mercy of God in chapter 2. The fish was an act of grace after the hardhearted rebellion of Jonah took them all the way to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Jonah may not have been as wicked and violent as the people of Nineveh, but his rebellion was far worse because he knew who God really is. He knew God’s sovereignty, he knew God’s omnipresence, he preached God’s justice to Israel, he preached God’s mercy, he spoke the very words of God given to him directly and then ran away. Stone hearted rejection that took him to the point of death before he repented.
And I do believe there was real repentance. Some people question whether or not Jonah truly repented in chapter 2. How could Jonah have repented, truly repented, and then acted in this way? If anything it should be something of a comfort for us to continue to struggle with sin in our lives after having come to repentance ourselves. The repentance, and grants does not automatically cut us off from our old habits and failures. Even after a lifetime of struggle we will never be perfect.
But I do believe Jonah did truly repentant in chapter 2. First, I say that if his repentance was not real then God would not have sent the fish. The evidence of his repentance, the foundation like our own is not in himself but in the act of God, in the case of Jonah, through a fish. The next piece of evidence I see is that he fulfilled his the how. In 2:9, in his cry of Thanksgiving and show of repentance he promises “that which I have vowed, I will pay.” I believe that this refers to his decision to go to Nineveh which he obeys though he still does not want to.
And finally, I want you to see in 4:2 that though Jonah is burning with anger, he takes his anger to God. Jonah’s right theology has not changed, his heart may still be hard in some places, but he still knows the truth of who God is and goes to the right place to express his frustrations.
And I will stop here a moment for something of a side note. We do not have time to go into this as fully as it deserves but we cannot pass over it. The question comes up more often than you would think, especially in counseling contexts “is it okay for me to be angry with God?” “Can I be angry with God?” Life is frustrating, things do not go the way that we want them to, people get sick, loved ones die, the events of life bring pain and misery and if God is truly sovereign and in control we asked the question “why me God?”
I have asked that question before, when I was struggling as a teenager with the difficulties of life, and for a long time I believed the answer that I was given, “it is okay to be angry with God, you can yell at him, you can be mad at him, he can take it, and he will still love you.” Did you ever hear something like that? Did you ever get an answer like that? Maybe they pointed you to the Psalms and David’s pain and frustration that comes out there.
It’s wrong. As I have grown in my understanding of who God is, I have come to realize that the answer is “no.” Emphatically “no.” We can be angry, anger is not sinful in and of itself. We can be angry at the sin in our life, at our failings and faults. We can be angry at the sin around us, when we see the name of God profaned and His Word misused or maligned. We can hurt, we can feel the pain that comes from suffering in a world of sin and we can express that to God, he desires to hear that.
But we cannot be angry with God because to be angry with God is to feel that He is somehow not right. That there is something is wrong with Him, with His character or with his plans for us. He is not acting how we think He should, He is not doing something we want Him to, He allowed something we did not like. To be angry with God is to find fault with the character of God and there can never be one to find. If you are angry with God, it is reveals something wrong with you, not with Him.
And that is where Jonah is here as his anger burns against God. His anger at the character of God, his anger at the mercy of God. And it has ruined his ministry. The mercy and compassion of God has blackened all Jonah accomplished in his own eyes. Right theology has to be mingled with a soft heart. And this is Jonah’s great sin. I think there was real repentance from his running from God in chapter 2 but he has still held on to a lack of mercy that tarnishes all that he has accomplished.
I do not think we can blame Jonah too much for this, it is not something unique to him. You should feel great discussed having seen the mercy Jonah experienced from God and his complete lack of it, but I think we all suffer from this same thing in some form or another. There is a great deal of warning against the utter lack of mercy that is shown by so many God followers. It is important enough that Jesus made it one of the Beatitudes, “blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
This lack of mercy is rears its ugly head for Jonah through some form of nationalism, racism, superiority, as he looks at the people of Nineveh and decides that they do not deserve the mercy of God. He is so angry in fact that in verse three he says “take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” That is harsh. He would rather die than see this hated city receive mercy from God.
That is the lesson that God sets out to teach Jonah in chapter 4. The sin of Jonah that was present from the beginning of this book. Jonah is angry with God, not because God has done something wrong but because Jonah does not want to see his mercy poured out on the Ninevites, he would rather die.
So God sets out this little object lesson. A simple plant and a little worm. After seeing the repentance of Nineveh, Jonah heads out from the city to find a nice little hill where I am sure he still hoping he will have a good view for the coming destruction. A good seat for the show. And sitting up on this hill Jonah is exposed out in the heat of the desert and so he sets up a little shelter. Now this could not have been much, the area around Nineveh is quite arid and dry so I am sure the best he could do was a few sticks and maybe some drying grass. Not much of a shelter. So little in fact that this plant God appoints to grow over Jonah is enough to give him shade that made him extremely happy about the plant.
Day 1 finds Jonah on this hillside putting together his makeshift shelter that does not work well. Day 2, this miraculous plant grows large enough overtop of the sulking prophet to give him shade and deliver him from his discomfort. But day 3 brings a worm. And this wretched creature appointed by God destroys the one thing giving Jonah the least bit of joy in his life, that little plant the provided shade. And after his plant withers in the scorching East wind and the hot sun beat down on Jonah’s head, we have the prophet here begging for death again, “begging with all his soul to die, saying death is better to me than life.”
I do not know if you are thinking it or not, but as I read through this book and reached verse 8 what came to my mind is that Jonah is something of a drama queen. Anything bad happens and Jonah just wants to die. I’ve never been one to put up with drama queens.
The more I thought about it the more I think he is just an all-in kind of person. He was willing to die in his stubbornness in chapter 1, he so angry with God that the Ninevites received the mercy he wants to die, and then when his only joy, his only comfort, his precious little plant withers and dies he begs with all his soul to die.
The other thing that occurred to me was that if it was anyone other than the most merciful God dealing with Jonah, I am sure they would have finally obliged. Jonah will not listen, he will obey, he is angry at the great work and Nineveh, and he can even deal with the plant dying on him, time to bring on the next prophet. Where is Micah, is Obadiah. But no, God extends his mercy even to a person like Jonah.
And he does so with a simple object lesson. An object lesson showing Jonah two simple things with a single question. God uses this plant and Jonah’s feelings about it first to reveal something further about his character. God’s first question is simply to reveal the heart of Jonah, “do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” It is almost verbatim to the question in verse four “do you have good reason to be angry?” You are angry, that is obvious, do you have a reason for it? Why? God is trying to get this brooding prophet to think about the hypocrisy of his mentality, the ridiculousness of his sin and anger. Jonah does not give an excuse, he does not give a reason he just says “I have got one that I wanted to die.”
And then God says “you had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between the right hand and their left, as well as many animals.”
There are emphatic pronouns throughout this statement that are broadcasted in the Hebrew. “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow.” “And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city.” God is using an argument from the lesser to the greater. Contrasting that which has little value to that which has great. This little plant to the great city with over 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals.
The real contrast comes though with the pronouns, “you had compassion on the plant that you had nothing to do with, should I not have compassion on the great city of Nineveh? It is not just a contrast of the value of a plant to a city it is a question of God’s freedom. God is showing Jonah that he can exercise his mercy however he sees fit. And the contrast is really between chapters 3 and 4, in chapter 3 the city of Nineveh is under God’s threat, they repent and God chooses to remove his threat of destruction. In chapter 4 it is just a simple plant that grew up overnight. And God chooses to destroy it. The city is spared and the plant is destroyed and it is all dependent upon the sovereign choice of God.
The first part of the lesson is that which God has repeated over and over again throughout Scripture, as Paul writes in Romans 9:15, God says “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Grace insists on the freedom of God to do what he wants to do. God is a God of Compassion.
And we are left with the question ringing in our ears, “what are you going to do about it?” The book ends on an unanswered question. We don’t know what Jonah did next. I think the message propably hit home or else he would not have written this account. But what Jonah did is not nearly as important as the question we are left with. You see I do not think we can hold Jonah up as some extreme case of hypocrisy as we all demonstrate this same lack of mercy at times.
Our lack of mercy may come in different places. It may be against a group of people or an individual. Maybe the frustration you feel as a patriotic American drives you to wish God would just wipe out all those terrorists who would attack our country. Maybe someone has wronged you in some way, sinned against you, and in your pain you cried out to God wondering why he had not brought judgment down against them. Punish them in some way. Or worst of all we see someone suffering the consequences of their sin and we think “they deserve every bit of it.” “It serves them right.”
A lack of mercy, which often times is indistinguishable from a lack of forgiveness, is as hypocritical in the life of a Christian, as blatant and damaging, as a log sticking out of your eye. It has a desire to see the justice, the wrath of God poured out on others when we are called to show mercy as God has shown mercy to us. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
Before you call down God’s judgment on someone, before you look at someone else’s sin and wish God would deal with them justly, or see someone suffering as a result of their sinful lifestyle and scoff at the rightness of their pain, remember the words of the English reformer John Bradford who saw the misery and pain of the judgment of God against others and admitted with equal thanksgiving and humility in light of the mercy he had been chosen to receive “there but for the grace of God, go I.” (X2)
In his gracious mercy, the Lord has instituted the celebration of communion as a way of constantly reminding us of that mercy we have received by causing us to see the fullness of his wrath carried out against Jesus in our place. “There but for the grace of God, go I.” It is a celebration. A celebration of the mercy that we have been granted by God through the sacrifice of Jesus. Forgiveness that has been granted on the basis of the grace and mercy of God that has let us into repentance and the beginning of the process of sanctification throughout the rest of our life. It is to be a time of reflection. A time to examine ourselves for any unrepentant sin, to confess that sin to God and resolve ourselves to continue in repentance.
We practice open communion which means if you are visiting our church today we welcome you to join in this celebration of the sacrifice of Jesus. Celebrating the Lord’s table is only for those who are in a right relationship with God. It is only for those who have repented of the sin that dominated their life, submitted themselves to the Lordship of Christ and accepted the forgiveness that he has granted.
I will ask the Elders to come up and pass out the elements, and while they do that, take this time to reflect on the Forgiveness that you have been granted and any sin that you are continuing to struggle with.