I think that one of the most incredible, humble, genuine Christians who ever lived is a lady called Cornelia Johanna Arnolda ten Boom, better known as Corrie ten Boom. During the second world war Corrie and her family (her father, and brothers and sisters) were heavily involved in the Dutch Underground hiding refugees in what later became well known as ‘the hiding place’. They rescued many Jews from certain death at the hands of the German SS. In fact in December 1967, Corrie was honoured as one of the Righteous Amongst the Nations by Israel because of her efforts in world war 2.
However, one day an informant gave them away and on 28th February 1944 the entire Boom family were arrested and sent to Scheveningen prison where her father died just 10 days after his arrest. They were then sent on to Vught Political Concentration Camp and then finally in September 1944 to the notorious Ravensbrook Concentration Camp in Germany where Corrie’s sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on Christmas Day of December 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, Ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."
After the war Corrie made a name for herself as an author and an international speaker appearing in over 60 countries with her message about the Christian Gospel and specifically the message of forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of how, after she had been teaching in a church in Germany in 1947 (just 3 years after her release), after the service she was approached by one of the cruellest former Ravensbrück camp guards. She writes:
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood
guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first
of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face. He came up
to me as the church was emptying, smiling. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” He said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people about the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
And she goes on to write, ‘For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I have never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.’
Forgive? Could you forgive somebody who had inflicted so much pain, and destruction and death not just to people in general, but to you and to your family. Forgive – really?
Belsen
When we were over in Germany on holiday recently we paid a visit to Belsen Concentration Camp, and we went into the museum part. We looked at the pictures. We listened to the personal testimonies of people who had suffered at the hands of their captives in the camp. We watched video footage that was taken by the British Army in the days following the liberation. The scenes were horrendous, beyond description. How could one human being do something like that to another human being? How can one person treat another person in such a way? Stripped of all their clothing. Stripped of all their pride and dignity, treated like animals. Forced to walk around in the bitter cold and rain, naked. Beaten black and blue. Raped, starved, diseased, murdered! You know the video was so horrific, and so graphic that a couple of teenagers who were on a school visit walked out. And what made it even worse were the smiles on the faces of the camp guards – even after their capture. No sign of remorse for what they had done. Forgive – really?
And you know, Corrie Ten Boom and Jonah found themselves in a very similar position. Both of them were servants of God, both of them proclaimed the word of God. And both were faced with an enemy who had caused them so much pain, and hurt, and destruction – both of them were faced with an enemy who they hated beyond description – and yet both of them reacted in very different ways. Corrie forgave – Jonah couldn’t.
Jonah the sponge/refused to change
Now you will notice that most of the major characters in the Bible grow and develop in their relationship with God. Certainly, as they go through life they have high points and low points, but generally speaking by the time you get to the end of their story they are far better people, far better servants of God then they were when they started.
You know my prayer for everybody in this church is not that we are perfect. It is not that we are faultless. It is not that we live blameless lives (although that would be great – especially when it comes to Church meetings!). But my prayer for every person of Orchard Baptist is that we grow to be more like Jesus today than we were yesterday. That we become more like Jesus tomorrow, then we were today. That by the time we come to the end of our story we are better people, better witnesses, and better servants of God than we were when our story began. More humble, more faithful, more spiritual, more patient, more loving, more forgiving, more graceful.
But that is not true of Jonah. By the time we get to Chapter 4 we discover that Jonah is the same person that he was in Chapter 1. You know, if you go home and into your bathroom and pick up a sponge – you can crush it, and you can squeeze it, and you can mould it, and you can shape it however you want – but the moment you let go it will go straight back to it’s original shape.
And in Chapter 1 we meet Jonah who is an arrogant, self centred, self opinionated, unforgiving, unsympathetic person. And then by the end of chapter 1 and into chapter 2 we see the hand of God beginning to crush him, squeeze him, reshape him, remould him into the person God wants him to be, into a person that God can use. And he sends that violent storm and Jonah is hurled into the deep and ends up having to sit inside the guts of a fish for 3 days until he has a change of heart, a change of attitude. Until he is humbled enough to be obedient to the call of God on his life.
But then in Chapter 4 when the pressure is off, when the storm has gone, when his desperate situation is history – he goes right back to being the arrogant, self centred, self opinionated, unforgiving, unsympathetic person that we met right at the beginning of the story.
I know a few people like that. When the storms of life begin to blow, when the credit crunch begins to bite, when the sickness gets a hold, when redundancy looms, when their marriage is at breaking point, when they’re in the pit of blackness and depression and desperation. When all around looks hopeless and the enemy is pressing in and there’s no-where to go but down - they cry out in desperation to God. Like Jonah in the belly of the fish – ‘from the depths of the grave I called for help – I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again towards your Holy temple. You brought my life up from the pit… I with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord’.
In their hopelessness and in their desperation they cry out to God and his hand of mercy. And they never miss a Sunday, they never miss a home-group, they never miss a prayer meeting. In the darkness of their desperation all they want to do is to seek God’s face and dwell in His presence. ‘Lord deliver me from my enemies, save me from my foes, you are my fortress and my rock – in you I put my trust’. And then the storm passes, and the wind subsides, and for a short time (a very short time), like Jonah in Chapter 3 (for him it was 3 days), they remain obedient and faithful and committed. But as the sky of life becomes blue again, and the birds begin to sing and there’s a sweet aroma which begins to fill their life of prosperity, of good health, of being nice and comfortable – church on a Sunday becomes unimportant. Prayer meetings become history, home group non existent (there are better things to do with their time). And they return to being the person that they were before the storm came and that’s the person they will remain – at least until the next storm when God will become useful again. Does that describe you this morning? God is ok in times of trouble – but otherwise you will live your life on your terms.
Let’s just look at a couple of points that I want to highlight this morning from Jonah Chapter 4.
Jonah got angry (1)
Number 1 – Jonah got angry – verse 1 ‘Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry’.
Now anger is a natural human emotion. It is part of our chemistry and our make-up. It is how we respond to a to a real or perceived injustice or wrong doing. And it’s not always wrong to get angry – there is such a thing as a righteous anger.
Moses was filled with a righteous anger when Pharoah relented on his promise and refused to let the Israelites go. Ex 11 says that Moses, ‘hot with anger’ left Pharoah. When he came down from Mount Sinai after receiving the 10 commandments and saw the people dancing and worshipping the golden calf it says that ‘his anger burned’ and he threw down the stone tablets, breaking them at the foot of the mountain.
Jesus when he went to Jerusalem for the passover and found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money in the temple courts – he got angry! He was so angry that he made a whip out of cords, and drove them out of the temple area. He said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market.” There is such a thing as righteous anger. Righteous anger is anger that is aimed toward any kind of genuine wrongdoing: mistreatment, injustice, or breaking of God laws.
But for most of us – most of the time – if we are honest – we get angry because our own sense of value, our own sense of worth, our own sense of right and wrong, our own sense of justice has been violated. Rather than having anything to do with God (and don’t try to fool yourself that you’re angry because somehow God has been violated) – 999 times out of 1000 it’s nothing to do with God’s hurt it’s to do with my hurt. It’s because what I think, what I believe, what I hold dear – has been violated. And that type of anger is sinful and dangerous. You know:
It was anger that made Cain kill Abel.
It was anger that made Saul lose his throne.
Moses knew what ‘righteous anger was’ but it was a ‘sinful’ anger that made him smite the rock and forfeit his place in the Promised Land.
Can I say this morning, if you suffer with an anger problem, if you find it all too easy to loose your temper and to verbalise your frustration – or go off in a sulk, let me tell you if you don’t deal with it, if you don’t take it captive, and bring it to the foot of the cross – one day it will kill you. If it does not kill you - physically - it will kill you - emotionally – and ultimately it will kill you - spiritually. It did Jonah. Jonah got angry – not because God’s will, or God’s glory, or God’s name had been dishonoured – but because what he wanted to happen wasn’t happening. And this anger began to consume him and fill him with rage and bitterness and hatred. And he lost all sense of God’s heart.
There’s an old proverb says, "The emptier the pot, the quicker it boils." The less water there is in the pot, the quicker you reach boiling point. What is it Jesus says about giving streams of living water? The more of Jesus you have in you – the longer it will take you to boil – the less of Jesus you have in you, the quicker you are to boil – to blow your top – to lose your temper.
Jonah got angry.
Jonah’s ministry was more about him than about God (3)
Number 2 – Jonah’s ministry was more about him than it was about God. Verse 3 Jonah says, ‘Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
What’s his problem? It’s the fact that what he said was going to happen didn’t happen. If you go back to Chapter 3 you see that Jonah’s message to the people of Ninevah was not a message of repentance. It was not a message of God’s love and saving grace. It was a message of damnation and condemnation. Chapter 3 verse 4, ‘Forty more day and Ninevah will be overturned’. That’s it, that’s your lot. God has seen your wickedness, God has seen your evil ways and now he’s going to blot you out of existence – no escape, no second chances – you’re all doomed!
But even so the people repented – and verse 10 says that God had compassion on them and did not bring about the destruction he had threatened. But hang on a minute – that’s not the message Jonah the prophet was told to give. And it’s not the message he gave. And we all know that the proof of a true prophet is that what he says comes to pass. And that’s his complaint in verse 2 – ‘I knew you would do this to me – I knew you would have a change of heart – I knew you were gracious and compassionate’. Well of course he does the scriptures are full of it – Ex 34:6 ‘The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’. Numbers 14:18 ’The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.’ Nehemiah 9:17 ‘But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.’ Psalm 86:15 ‘But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’.
‘I knew you were a soft touch that’s why I didn’t want anything to do with this in the first place!’ And now he has been made to look a fool, to look like a liar, to look like a false prophet! Never mind the fact that 120,000 people have been saved by the grace of God through his preaching! I know a lot of preachers who like to have that kind of statistic on the CV! ‘And tell me, what have you achieved for God?’ ‘Well, I once did a 3 day crusade and 120,000 people got saved’. If there is great rejoicing among the angels over the repentance of one sinner, can you imagine the party that was going on in heaven the day that Nineveh repented? But Jonah feels he’s been made to look an incompetent fool and he cries out ‘take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live’.
Now I am sure that when God first called him to be a prophet his heart was in the right place, his attitude was in the right place. But somewhere along the way he became filled with pride about his own position and his own ability. We know from 2 Kings that he was a respected prophet amongst his peers and somewhere he lost sight of his calling and his ministry became all about him and not about God.
How sad – but how common. It’s a real danger. Maybe you have a calling to some kind of ministry in this church and in the beginning you did it for all the right reasons – but somewhere along the way it became more about you than it did about God. Maybe getting up on this platform these days is more about your own self worth, your own self-fulfilment, then it is about your calling or serving God. I’ve said before – if you want to know if someone is called to the job they’re doing, if you want to know if they’re doing it for God’s glory or for their own glory – just watch how they react if it is taken it away from them. Just give yourself a reality check - If I came to you and asked you to stop whatever it is your doing for God – what would your reaction be?
Jonah still hopes for destruction while Nineveh prays for deliverance (5)
Number 3 – Jonah hopes for destruction while Nineveh prays for deliverence. Verse 5 - Jonah goes outside the city, builds a shelter and becomes a spectator. His thinking probably went something like this: “Once a Ninevite, always a Ninevite…Once a sinner, always a sinner. God you’re being too hasty with this forgiveness stuff. Just give them a little time and they’ll hang themselves.” Their true selves will eventually show through and God will realise that Jonah was right all along. And so Jonah sets up camp to watch the execution of 120,000 people. We do like to watch a good blood bath don’t we. You know often, when there’s an accident on the motorway, it’s not very long before there’s another accident on the opposite side – because people just love to look at carnage. When we had our accident in Germany, everybody slowed down to have a good look – but nobody stopped to help!
And remember the message. The sermon was what, 40 more days, and he spent three days telling the message. And Jonah is prepared to sit there for 37 days. This is how bad he feels about the whole thing. I’m going to sit out here and I’m going to sulk for 37 days and see if I can get my own way. I’ve always found that to be quite effective. Tell my wife what I want, and if she doesn’t give it to me, I go off and sulk until I get what I want and she says gives in.
And that’s what Jonah’s doing – he’s sulking until he gets his own way! Do you sulk until God gives you what you want?
Jonah’s concerns were not God’s concerns (10)
Final point – Jonah’s concerns were not God’s concerns. V10 ‘But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
Jonah was concerned about a vine, about a plant that offered him some protection. Back to his own selfish desires again. In fact he is so concerned about it that he is ready to die because he is so angry over it’s destruction, but he feels nothing for a whole city of people made in God’s image.
We do get overly concerned with incidental, trivial, unimportant matters. We get ourselves locked into all kinds of petty arguments and discussions over the most insignificant things. We tell God what we are concerned about, and he comes to us and says, “do you want to know what I’m concerned about?”
There are millions of people in the world who are daily facing starvation, death from disease, war and disaster. There are millions who are facing a Christless eternity. There are thousands in our own town who don’t know there moral right hand from their left. God comes to us and says “Should I not be concerned about this great city?”
There are 163,400 people at the last count within 10 miles of our building who need to know Jesus, and we’re the ones that are supposed to tell them. And that’s what I am challenging you to do. I’m not asking you to be comfortable. I’m not even asking you to like anything. I’m asking you this morning to make what’s important - important. Should I not be concerned about this 120,000 people who do not know their right from their left? It’s the most profound question in the book of Jonah, and it ought to haunt us all. Until at least our neighbor knows that we are christians, until our co-worker knows that we know Jesus, until the man on the street at least has an opportunity to hear about Christ it ought to haunt us.
How many of the thousands of people who drive by this building every single day don’t yet know Christ? How many? Does it break your heart, because let me tell you it breaks God’s heart. So who has God put in your path? Who are you praying for? Who do you need to talk to?
When Henry Ford purchased a large insurance policy, the news papers reported it and the story was read by one of Ford’s old friends, who I happened to be in the insurance business. The old friend went to confront Ford to see if the story was true. When Ford told him that it was, the friend asked why he had not purchased the policy from him, since he was a personal friend and had been in insurance for many years. Ford’s reply was, "You never asked me."
How many of your friends can say to you, "You never asked me,"
God’s concern is people. And He uses you and me to reach them. Do you share God’s concern this morning? Do you share His passion for people. Or are you more wrapped up in your own concerns. Too busy fighting unimportant, trivia. Consumed by your own well-being, your own desires, your own comfort levels – and like Jonah - waiting and watching for your Ninevah to be destroyed.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
