Today we conclude our incredible journey through
the book of Jonah. What’s interesting is
that this book could have ended in chapter 3.
This book began with Jonah running from God’s call to go to Nineveh
chapter 1. God then came after Jonah in
power and in mercy and Jonah broke at the bottom of the sea. God then appointed a fish to swallow Jonah
and kept him alive in that fish for three days until he was vomited up on the
shore. God’s call then came to Jonah a
second time and this time he obeyed his God and a massive pagan city turned to
God as a result. You can almost hear the
music and see the credits rolling, right?
But this is not how the book of Jonah ends. As in any good story, a plot twist comes in
the last chapter that is meant to drive the message of this little book deep
down into our hearts. Rather than end,
“and they lived happily ever after,” the book ends on a question that we are
all supposed to answer. Watch how this
happens: [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?” (Jonah 4:1-11 ESV)
In Jonah
4:1-11, Jonah’s anger is contrasted with Yahweh’s compassion in order to
call God’s people to share Yahweh’s compassion for and with all peoples,
even those we consider our enemies. This
is a message that the church desperately needs to hear today. If we are going to reach a world that
desperately needs God, then we are going to have to learn the lesson of the
book of Jonah: that God’s people must
share His compassion for and with all peoples. My prayer this morning is for the way this
book ends to stir us up to ask God for a heart like His and to pray for grace
to show His compassion to all peoples, even our enemies. Let’s consider two ways in which this passage
beckons us to know and share the love of God.
I.
We Must Repent of Our Prejudices (4:1-4)
Jonah is not happy about the revival in
Nineveh. Their repentance and God’s
turning away from His “fierce anger” (3:9) “displeased Jonah exceedingly,” and cause him to become “angry” (1). Jonah then prays an angry prayer (2-3) in
which he expresses his anger over God’s mercy to the Assyrians (contrast with
chapter 2, where Jonah praises God for His mercy towards him). In Jonah’s anger prayer, he supplies the
reason for His anger and His initial attempt to run from Yahweh. He tells God “I told you so!” and says that
he “made haste to flee to Tarshish”
because he knew that God was “a gracious
God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting
from disaster.”
What’s interesting here is that Jonah is quoting Exodus 34:6-7, which is a crucial
passage in the Old Testament for understanding God’s character. This is the passage where Moses asks God to
show him His glory and when the Lord passes by and declares Who He is, here is
what He says about Himself: [6] The
LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
[7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the
third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus
34:6-7 ESV)
There is a lot of irony in the fact that Jonah’s
ACCURATE view of God caused him to run. The
irony is that though he knows his theology, he still doesn’t know his God very
well. His view of God is accurate, but
what he knows about God has not caused him to recognize and submit to God’s
sovereign right to extend mercy to whomever He will (Exodus 33:19). His view of
God also hasn’t made him a person who is like Yahweh in his compassion for
others. Rather than submitting to God
and becoming more like God, Jonah is playing
God, because that’s what we do when we start telling God whom He has the
right to show mercy to.
At this point, Jonah asks Yahweh to take his life,
saying, “it is better for me to die than
to live” (3). He would rather die than
see the Assyrians’ live. Most
commentators see a contrast here with Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4, where he too wanted to die. If so, we again see the use of contrast and
irony: Elijah was distraught with failure,
but Jonah is distraught over his success.[1]
Now you will want to pay attention to Yahweh’s
questions for Jonah in this chapter because they are the keys to the chapter. God asks Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?”
Notice that Jonah does not answer. The reader is meant to supply the answer. The answer is NO; Jonah is NOT doing well to
be angry over God’s display of compassion towards the Assyrians. He is in the wrong.
Rather than sharing God’s compassion towards the
Assyrians, Jonah acts like the elder brother in the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Why does Jonah act this way? He does so because he hates the
Assyrians. As we have said in this
series, they were notorious for being a wicked and ruthless people. They were also the nation that God had warned
the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom (where Jonah is a prophet) about. They would eventually take the Northern
Kingdom into captivity. The last thing
Jonah wants is to see them live long enough to take his own people into
captivity.
Now before we are too hard on Jonah, let us remember
that we all have our prejudices. It may
be skin color, gender, social status, family, or some other category (like
homosexuals). We could ask these
questions: Who are the Assyrians in your life?
Who are the people that you have the hardest time caring about? Who are the people that, though you would not
say it out loud, are really undeserving of God’s mercy in your mind? Like I said, we all have our prejudices, and
we must recognize them and repent of them if we are going to share
the love of God with a world that desperately needs it. Remember that one of the greatest miracles of
the gospel is that God now gives us new hearts and calls us to love even our
enemies (Matthew 5:38-48). Watch how Jonah teaches Jonah this lesson.
II.
We Must Contemplate the Great Compassion of Our
God (4:5-11)
In this section we are going to see God showing
His compassion to Jonah (5-9) and declaring His compassion towards the
Assyrians (10-11). Jonah leaves the
city, sits to the “east,” and makes “a booth for himself there” for shade in
order to “see what would become of the
city” (5). He still has hopes that
Yahweh will “come to His senses” and change His mind! It is Jonah, though, who needs to come to his
senses, and God displays His sovereign power over His creation three times in the next three verses in
order to get him to. First, Yahweh “appointed a plant” to shade Jonah’s
head in order to “save him from his
discomfort” (6). Now here is another major point of irony. This
phrase can also be translated, “to deliver
him from his wickedness.” Wow, God
is not only trying to make Jonah comfortable with this plant, He is also at
work again to save Jonah from his own stubbornness and rebellion. God is being compassionate to Jonah even in
his hatefulness.
Jonah becomes “exceedingly
glad” because of this plant, but his gladness soon withers like the leaves of
this plant! The next day, “God appointed a worm” to attack the
plant so that it “withered.” Once the sun comes up, “ God appointed a scorching east wind” and the sun beats down upon
Jonah’s head, causing him to be “faint.” He then asks again that he might die: “It is better for me to die than to live” (7-8). So God then asks Jonah again, this time
concerning the plant, “Do you do well to
be angry for the plant?” This time
Jonah answers! “Yes, I do well to be
angry, angry enough to die.” Wow!
Have you ever been that mad?
What is really going on here? I think that, rather than actually pitying
this plant, Jonah is pitying himself and projecting his self-pity onto this plant.
Don’t we do this? We get angry or
throw ourselves a pity party and then totally project that and exaggerate
something else. But watch how God uses
Jonah’s pity party here. God has set Jonah
up, right? First Jonah questions God’s
right to deliver, and then through
raising up and destroying the plant, God gets Jonah to question His right to destroy.
That’s when God drops the hammer.
God in effect tells Jonah that since he pities “the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow (he
doesn’t have the relationship that a gardener would with this plant), which came into being in a night and
perished in a night (he doesn’t have a very extensive relationship with
this plant),” then certainly God
should pity a mass of people who are spiritually ignorant and in need of His
mercy, whom He did create and care for every second of their lives.
It is monumental to see that this book ends in a
question. We are again meant to supply
the answer. YES, God should pity the
Assyrians. This is the author’s way of
declaring God’s great love for the wicked Assyrians. And what about their animals (11)? I think this
highlights the greatness of God’s
compassion. He even cares about the
livestock in this city. According to Psalm 145:9, God cares for all of His
creatures. God is a God who even takes
notice when a single sparrow falls to the ground (Matthew 10:29).
Another reason that this book ends on a question
is because it seeks to do in our hearts what God was seeking to do in Jonah’s
here. It is meant to invite God’s people
to join this great God in His great compassion for all peoples. We’re meant to answer this question, “Yes,
God, You should pity the Assyrians, and so should we.” We should share Yahweh’s great compassion for
and with all peoples. Also, be careful
here, because some of us are getting as mad as Jonah about God’s compassion and
patience with Jonah! We need to ponder God’s great love here for a
stubborn & hateful prophet, a wicked people, and even their animals. Yahweh’s compassion is great indeed!
“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment
made;
were every stalk on earth a quill,
and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love
of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song."
We also need to ponder His great love in our own
lives, because we have all been Jonah’s and Assyrians’ at some point in our
lives. The gospel is the good news of
how much God loves His enemies. [6] For while we were still weak, at
the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For one will scarcely die
for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to
die—[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. [9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by
his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
[10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his
life. (Romans 5:6-10 ESV)
Finally, in pondering God’s great love for all
peoples, we also need to ponder how we can reflect that love for and with
others. We all know Jonah’s and
Assyrians don’t we? We cannot ignore
them. John says that if we do not love,
then we do not know God (1 John 4:7-21). We
cannot properly reflect God’s character without sharing His compassion for and
with others. The gospel calls those who
have experienced God’s love to share that love with all peoples, even their
enemies (Matthew 5:38-48). Will you seek out ways to share His greatest
expression of His compassion (the cross of Jesus) with the nations so that they
can be saved? What about your enemies? As
we said at the beginning of this series, Jonah is not mainly about a man and a
great fish but is about a man and an infinitely
great God. Do you know Him today? If so, will you show His love to a world that
desperately needs it?
No comments:
Post a Comment