Jonah 3:10-4.5

Now, this morning, I invite you to turn with me the Book of Jonah once again as we continue to look at this book. We’re going to look at the last chapter. The book of Jonah. But I’ll direct to your attention to the third chapter, verse 10, and then I’ll begin reading into the fourth chapter. But Jonah chapter four, chapter three, verse 10 to begin with. and then we’ll go right into chapter four and read the first five verses of that together. And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying? When I was yet in my country. Therefore I fled before unto Tartius, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die. than to live. Then said the Lord, doest thou well to be angry. Jonah went out of the city, sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, so we might see what would become of the city. God blessed to us his sacred and holy word. This morning, several years ago there was a story about two motorists who were headed for the same parking spot at the same time. Those that were recorded in the newspaper. Both stopped in front of it and refused to let either one of them take the parking spot. Then they got out of the car and tempers, of course, flared, and they started arguing, and curses flew, and suddenly the older man who was 70 collapsed to the ground from a heart attack and died. It’s pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. It was a tragic scene as sinful sinful anger led to a disastrous consequence. As we look at this last chapter of Jonah, there’s something that is deeply disturbing about this chapter. We are kind of used to the fairy taro endings where everything ends happily forever after. And we would like a happier ending, perhaps, than we find here at the end. But after this tremendous spiritual awakening that takes place at Nineva, Jonah is angry. Now, he’s not angry with a human being, but sadly he’s angry with God. And it’s not a trivial matter such as a parking space, but God’s eternal purpose what he’s angry about. This made his anger much more suspect. And so God says to him, verse four, dost thou well, doest thou well to be angry. As we look at this text this morning, I hope that we can benefit from this. I’ll begin by saying this, you may at times be angry with God and resent his actions. Now we know why Jonah is displeased and very angry, because he doesn’t want his enemies, the Assyrians, to be shown mercy. He doesn’t want them to repent. He doesn’t want them to be saved. He wants God to destroy them. He should have been a half. happy man, most ministers or evangelists probably would have been thrilled, have his kind of results. But he’s not leaping with joy. He’s in a blue funk. He’s grumpy. He’s bitter about the situation. He’s angry about what happened, and he’s angry worse still with God. What lies behind is anger? We know the general idea that he’s not happy that God gave a repentance to the Ninevites, but what lies behind that? What is the implication of his anger? Yes. Even though he had gone to Nineveh, he really still hadn’t aligned his heart to the purpose and will of God. He was still really seeking the thing he was originally seeking and running away, which was in the hopes that Nineba would be destroyed by either not hearing or not heeding the message. Yes. And what does that tell us about his thinking versus God’s thinking? About the same issue. He’s completely unmerciful. Yeah, well, yes. It is true as he is. But isn’t he actually indicating that he thinks his decision would have been better? what I’m thinking is better than what you’re thinking, God. It should have been my way, not your way. Isn’t that what he’s saying here? I knew this was going to happen. I knew what kind of God you were. You know, he’s, his thinking is that between my decision and God’s plan, my decision would have been better. It should have followed me, God. and what I was thinking. That you know better than what God does is best. Do you think that’s an unusual case? I think this is like a rare occasion? Or do you think this is a common? It’s very common. You know, I think it’s a temptation for those who are fallen in Adam to somehow think that they’re on the same plane with God and that they’re dealing with another human being or something, that their decision, their opinion is even better than what God’s opinion is. It’s really kind of a scary thing. His thinking, actually, it’d been better for me to have gone to Tarshis than they end up in Nineveh. You should have let me go to Tarsius. What does this tell us? And I think, that Keith has touched on this. What does this tell us about the mortification of sin in our lives? Any thoughts on that? Constant and ongoing battle? And it’s not easily done, is it? You would think, I think this is what Keith was sending it. I mean, you think after all he went through and the, you know, swallowed by the fish and vomited out and the mercy God showed him and all the, you think that would have tantam. down this unmerciful spirit that he has. But it raises its ugly head again in his life. He still is troubled by it. Doesn’t just show us how hard it is to mortify sin in our life. It is difficult. The enemies of his people, than he is the enemies of his people, than he is the enemies of God. Yeah, because most of his people are enemies of God at the moment. Yeah, well, his people are enemies of God, too. He’s thinking more nationally than it is spiritually. Yes, I think you’re right on that. Keith, did you have something to add to it? Yeah, maybe we sometimes sort of go through a first round of humiliation from the Lord where we grudgingly agree to start conforming our lives and their external aspects to what he’s commanding us. But we find that we still haven’t subdued our hearts when he put. puts us in for a second round of humiliation. Yeah. And you can see how sin, even when it’s tampered down, can lay hidden, and then just spring out suddenly. Something happens, God’s Providence, you know, something happens, and all of a sudden it raises itself up again. And you see this in Jonah. I wish I could say it was rare, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s common. I think it’s something we all have to recognize and see. that this is something that’s difficult for us to overcome. God’s providential events occur that don’t sit well with us at times. We can be greatly displeased with God. You can be angry with God. You remember David at one point greatly desired to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He was going to prepare for the temple being built and all this, and he was all excited about bringing the ark to Jerusalem. And he has this great parade. He has this great celebration, and they put the ark on a new cart, and they’re taking it to Jerusalem, and everybody’s celebrating, and you can imagine the music’s playing. Everybody’s all excited. We’re going to give the ark its proper place. We’re going to bring it back from the wilderness situation, and give it prominence here at Jerusalem, which will be my time. capital and so you have he and David and 30,000 people are out there bringing the ark back the music’s being played people are shouting and singing and then suddenly the oxen stumble and ooza puts out his hand to prevent the ark from falling off the car he’s just steadying the ark we can understand that happening and God struck him dead instantly. And what do we read? What’s the next thing we read? David was displeased. He was upset with God. All of a sudden the celebration stops. The ark has to be placed at the nearby house of Obed Edom, and it would not come to Jerusalem as David planned and he’s upset about it. All his plans are dashed. God’s prevented him from doing what he wanted to do. And you can imagine him thinking, well, I’m only trying to give God honor. I’m trying to put the ark in its proper, give it a prominence in Israel, and I’m trying to do the right thing, and all of a sudden God stops me. He wasn’t happy with the turn of events, and yet he had to learn something. When you move the ark of God, you’re supposed to do it according to the law of God, which means the Levi is supposed to carry it with long poles. They’re not supposed to be having it on an ark, on a cart. So God was trying to show him, this is not how you do it. When we’re not going to allow, I’m not going to allow this to happen this work. But David is upset, and he’s upset with God. So we shouldn’t think that a Jonah or David’s sin is unique. And that’s pretty sad, isn’t it? It’s sad that we can become angry with our God. If God doesn’t give us what we want, you don’t give us the job we want, doesn’t provide the income we want, take something away from us, maybe we lose our health. Maybe the church doesn’t increase in numbers as we’d prefer. Maybe there’s a dream that you’ve had, you get stashed by God. And sometimes we say, you know, why have you done this, God? Why have you brought this into my life and we get angry about it? So you may at times be angry with God and resent his action. Secondly, you may angrily complain to God in your prayers. And this is what we see in verses 2 and 3 here. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord. Was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshus, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentus thee of evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. How would you classify John’s prayer here? You know, evaluate it. How would you classify this? Is this a petition? Is it, you know, is he asking God, can I have more understanding? I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why are you doing it? Is he asking for more understanding? Is this even a petition at all? I guess the only petition is the end. Take my life. Let me die. What is it here? What is he doing here? It’s kind of just a criticism, really. He’s lecturing God. He’s actually giving God a lecture or a criticism. That’s even a better word. I use the word lecture, but it’s the same idea. You’re telling God, this is not really a prayer. You see, this is more like, I’m venting my anger with you. I don’t like what you’re doing, and I’m going to tell you so. Isn’t that what this is? It’s not humbly approaching the Lord, is it? the spirit that he comes to speak to the Lord is not right here. It’s not a request, well, God, give me a better understanding. I wish I could grasp this. I don’t know. Why did you send me here and you’re giving him repentance? Not that he would be angry with God, but he just doesn’t understand what God is doing. We don’t see that. He knows exactly what God is doing, and he doesn’t like it. And so he’s telling God I don’t like it. What does this tell you about your own prayers at times? What can we gain from this about our own prayers at times? Doesn’t this scripture indicate to us that we don’t even know what we should pray for as we ought? The truth of the matter is unless we follow the biblical patterns in scripture for prayer, we often go astray in how we approach the Lord and what we say. And he went astray here. And sometimes we see that people vent their sinful passions. in prayer. And, you know, we are reprimanding God or lecturing him in some fashion. Sadly, I think sometimes we attempt to justify our sinful actions, even in our prayers. He should have let me go to Nineveh. I’ve been better if I’d gone to Nineveh. It was sinful for him to go to Nineve. I know him better. But he seems to say, I was justified in what I was doing. Here’s a person, and this is the difficult. we have, that the temptations we are under and the struggles that we’re under, sometimes we end up justifying what we do when we should be looking at it carefully and saying, you know what, God is right and I’m wrong. But, you know, we don’t want to admit that for some reason. We struggle with admitting it. What does Jonas’ quotation here of Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7, tell you about how he feels about the character of God? How does he feel? about the character of God here. Here’s the passage, and the Lord passed by before Moses and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin. He seems to be referencing that particular… Seemed thankful that the Lord was merciful and gracious at the time that the fish spit him out. But maybe he’s changed his perspective now. He actually is complaining about God’s character. But he’s a merciful God. I knew that this is the way you were. Yeah, because he’s been, he’s tasted of it himself. What he doesn’t like is that he wished that God wasn’t sovereign in showing his mercy and showing it to these Ninevites. I’d like to direct your mercy. back to my own country and to the people there. He’s not happy with God. Jonah, in this whole episode, he reminds me of a manager of a baseball team. And there’s a, he thinks there’s a bad call made by the plate umpire. He goes storming out of the dugout to the back of the plate to argue with the umpire. And he throws up his arms and he shouts and he screams and he throws up his arms and he shouts and he screams. slams his hat on the ground and he kicks dirt on the umpire shoes and he vents his spleen and the umpire listens patiently and but in the end the place stands just as the umpire has called it and all he’s doing is just bending his anger the manager set his peace and then he storms back to the dugout he’s still fuming but he knows all along that the umpire is not going to change his mind and that’s the way joan is here he’s God not to change his mind, but he’s just venting he’s so angry that God would show mercy. That’s not something we usually see people get angry about, that God would show mercy. But in this case, he didn’t want his enemy saved. It sort of goes against the idea what Jesus said in the sermon in the mount that we should love our enemies and pray for them. And here we see. in this case the idea that he would prefer that they just be wiped off the face of the earth instead of converted. Yes, there are enemies of God that should be destroyed. No question about it. But our desire would be that perhaps God would be merciful and save them before he has to destroy him. In this case, however, Jonah does not show that kind of spirit or compassion. And so we find him struggling with this whole issue. It’s interesting that Jonah would use God’s own word against him. Quoting verses scripture is an argument against what God did when actually God is saying this is what I’m like. But he’s actually saying, I don’t like what you’re like, and he’s arguing against him. And it’s a sad. indication here of the fact that we don’t always like how God is, who God is. That’s a shame when we would reach that point. I mean God should be loved for who he is. Jonah couldn’t believe that God would ever bless an evil empire. You can imagine perhaps if God sent some type of great reformation in Russia or China or one of the Iran or something like that, one of these countries that are really antagonistic to the United States in many ways. He seems to have forgotten in his quotation here and his thinking about this the promise that was given to Abraham. The final phrase in thee, meaning in his seed, in Christ, show all the nations of the families of the family. of the earth be blessed. Forgot about that part. When spiritual pride takes hold of us, sometimes we think that our people or our nation should be God’s exclusive people. Churches and denominations can do that. When I went to seminary, I went to a Baptist seminary, there were those who held what was called the Baptist bride theory. And that theory was that only Baptists were the Brides of Christ. forget about all the Presbyterians, the congregation, let’s all the rest of it. They can’t be part of it. So the church was made up exclusively a Baptist. You know, people would talk about the first Baptist church in Jerusalem. That was the first church. It was a Baptist church. Oh, man. But that spirit is that nobody else but us. And that’s not the right spirit to have. And I think Jonah has that kind of thinking here in this text of scripture. Some other church or denomination would receive God’s blessing, well, you can’t possibly be happy. If that would happen, why he should be blessing us. We ought to be thankful when God ever blesses His Word and people are converted and God is working. Those who are faithful to teach His Word, even if they don’t agree with us on every jot until, we ought to be thankful that God is prospering His Word. Why does Jonah think it better to die than to live? Where is his focus here? Because he answers his prayer, he basically saying, you know, just take my life. Let’s get this over. His frustration leads to a death wish. It’s the grown-up version here of a little kid throwing himself down on the ground, having his temper tantrum and so forth. And he goes as far as saying, I want to die. I want to out of this situation. Where is his focus here? Is this focus on God’s glory? Or is it a selfish focus about what I’m going? feel and what I want. And if I can’t have what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home. I don’t want to play the game anymore. You know, I don’t want to be involved anymore. You would think that after such a great spiritual awakening in Nineveh, that he would be staying there teaching the people more about God. But he leaves. He doesn’t stay. And he wants to quit. As well, we’ll see what he does after in verse 5 in a moment. moment, but he wants to quit. He doesn’t want to be one and doesn’t want any more of this teaching of the Ninevites. How is his request different than Paul’s who said I have a desire to part and be with Christ in the book of Philippians? How’s his spirit much different than Paul’s? How would you distinguish the two? Yes. Well, Paul said his reason for remaining and his willingness to remain was to do good the people of God while he was here on the earth? I’ll do whatever God wants. I would like to go and be with the Lord, but I think I’ll probably end up staying because I think it would be more beneficial if I do. That seems to be the indication of the text. So he wants to do whatever God would think would be best for the people of God as a whole. Well, Jonah is only thinking about who? Jonah. He’s not thinking about anybody else here. Completely different situation. When you were frustrated, your first desire should not be, Lord let me die, but Lord, what would you have me to do? I think we see here Jonah getting caught up in this situation and being very ticked off. And then you find him questioning God’s right to be angry. What do you think was God’s purpose in verse 4 and asking does thou, there doest thou well, to be angry? Why do you think God asked that question to Jonah? What’s he trying to get it Jonah to do here? Or? Self-respection. Yeah. I think he’s trying to get him to consider the contemplate, well, this is a good thing for you to be angry. this is this justified? Look how patience God is with Jonah. He could have slapped him around a bit and you know maybe you need a couple more days in the belly of the whale, a spirit, you know, but he he just basically says Jonah is this right? this is this a right thing for you? Is this a right attitude for you to have? So it’s sort of a mild rebuke of the prophet. He could have been more I think in his rebuke of the prophet, but he isn’t. He shows a lot of restraint and patience with Jonah in this situation. And it’s a good thing that God is a God who’s great in mercy, because that’s what he’s showing here in the way he’s dealing with Jonah. What do you think the reason for Jonah being spared when speaking in such an insolent manner with God is? Why do you think he was, spare? Why did God just strike him dead? Yes. Well, this excellent mercy of the Lord that frustrated Jonah so much was still being extended to Jonah as well. And there’s an indication here that, is my fall on this, that if the Nineavites would see God strike him dead at this point, maybe that wouldn’t be, you know, it wouldn’t be the message that God wants to show, of how. who he is. And so he continues to extend mercy to Jonah in this situation. What do you learn from Jonah’s response here to God’s question in verse 5, that he went out, sat on the east side that he might see what would become of the city? What do you take away from that? He’s still hoping, isn’t he? he? After all this, he’s still hoping, he’s still hoping that God’s going to destroy the city, so he wants to get out of there and he gets to a good place where he can overlook the city. And that’s what happens. He’s out there waiting for God to throw the lightning bolts. And so we see he’s still not looking at the question that God asked him and responding right to it. He’s still thinking, well, God should still destroy. He’s not thinking, am I right to? To be angry? He’s not contemplating that enough yet. So God’s not done with Him. He’s going to have to contemplate some more on this. Sadly, he still is a tough cell on this one. We’ll see. Any other thoughts on this before we close? All right, let’s close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we’re grateful that you provide the necessary things of life for us. We are thankful for this story of Jonah. We pray that we may understand. it and that you may be pleased to bless us as we ponder his life that we may avoid some of the errors in sin that we see in his life. Help us, Father, for we have a nature it’s like his and are very prone to do similar things. In the name of Christ, we ask these things with Thanksgiving.