Introduction
Many have been rejoicing that former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic has at last been arrested and brought to trial. Accused of terrible war crimes, of genocide at Srebrenitsa, of more. If convicted of these crimes, is prison a strong enough sentence for this man? Many long for justice. Justice demands that evil deeds are punished. That the punishment fits the crime. That those who purposely make others miserable should not get away with it.
Nineveh is evil. We sympathise with Jonah.
But 40 Days had passed. And the fire had not fallen, a foreign army had not invaded, there had been no terrible earthquake. Nineveh had repented and God had relented. God is different to us.
What happens when Nineveh doesn’t fall?
What happens when God does something I don’t like?
What happens when my theology doesn’t sit comfortably with God’s Word.
What happens when he begins to show me that my priorities may be religious, but are not his priorities?
In these verses we see a Greatly Displeased Believer, A Compassionate and Gracious God, and A Good Question For us to Ponder...
1. A Greatly Displeased Believer
Verse 1, Quite frankly, Jonah was hopping mad. One translation puts verse 1 like this: “This was absolutely disgusting to Jonah and he became angry.” God had accepted the repentance of those retched Assyrians, those vicious oppressors, those ‘Nazis’.
Verse 3, Jonah wants to die – he’s so angry. Just like before when he wanted to be thrown overboard (1.12). Why was Jonah angry enough to die?
Jonah was angry because the fire of judgement didn’t fall. No earthquake, no invading army, no revolution, no fire from heaven.
Jonah was angry because he thought that evil people should be punished.
Jonah was angry because he’d wanted to be shown to be right – and the Ninevites repentance meant they wouldn’t see God’s terrible wrath and so vindicate Jonah’s message.
Jonah was angry because he thought Nineveh had reacted to God better than Israel had and so Israel was put in bad light. The Lord Jesus actually makes this very point in Matthew 12:41. I.e. that Nineveh’s repentance makes those who don’t repent look bad.
But at the end of the day, the reason Jonah was angry is seen in the words Jonah uses throughout verses 2 & 3... I, I, I, I my, me... Jonah is deeply engrossed in himself and his own world and his own desires. It was all about Jonah. All about Jonah wanting to have God do what he wanted God to do.
How do we react when God does something we’d rather he didn’t?
When His word challenges us to do something we’d rather not?
When he allows us to suffer in some way?
When he doesn’t answer our prayers?
Are we so mad at God we almost want to die? Or do we let the potter mould us like clay?
In Jonah’s wanting to die, we’re reminded of Moses in Numbers 11, when the people complain about the manna, and Moses wants to die rather than keep pastoring these difficult people!
We’re reminded of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, who wants to die when he was afraid after there was a backlash against him following his great victory against the false prophets on Mt Carmel. We’re reminded of Job in Job 7 who desired death rather than the terrible physical and emotional suffering he was going through.
Stress from work, stress from relationships, stress from physical illness and emotional loss. Stress when things don’t go our way.
But God doesn’t grant Moses’, Elijah and Jobs’ requests for death! Instead he helps them through their difficulties; and, arguably, in each case takes them on to even greater fruitfulness. The question is, Will Jonah let himself be picked up and led on, too? And, Will we? You see, when we find ourselves as a Greatly Displeased Believer, God is often waiting to use the opportunity as a step of growth. But will Jonah grow?
2. A Gracious & Compassionate God
Verse 2a. This is Jonah’s second prayer. The first was from the depths of the ocean, the second is from the depths of his anger. Jonah had apparently guessed God would do this and so this was the whole reason he ran away. Doh! I knew that going to happen!
Verse 2b. How did Jonah know God was this kind of God? Because he knew the Scriptures. Prophets were people of the Book. All they were doing was reading the Book. All they were doing was under God’s inspiration calling people to faithfulness to the will and character of God as expressed in the Old Testament/Covenant. And the character of God was expressed in more or less these exact words in Exodus 34.6-7, Num 14.18, 2 Chronicles 30.9, Nehemiah 9.17&31, Psalm 86.5 & 15, 103.8, 111.4, 145.8, Joel 2.13. Again and again these words echo down the centuries... gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love...
Note that the first time these words are used (Ex 33:18-19) it is in answer to Moses’ request to see God’s glory. So this revelation of who God is, is a revelation of the glory of God.
He is...
Gracious. The word is linked to the word used to signify when one bends or stoops down out of kindness to one who is inferior.
Compassionate. In Hebrew is related to the word for womb. It therefore has overtones of motherly care and mercy.
Slow to anger. This is the opposite of being quick-tempered. God didn’t abandon Israel in the desert. He didn’t give up on Jonah when he ran away. And he doesn’t give up on you either!
Abounding in love. Hebrew hesed. Covenant love, the kind which is expressed in the marriage vows, ‘till death us do part’. This love may be severely tested and strained, but it does not fail. Psalm 136, His love endures for ever.
A God who relents from sending calamity. Last time we saw the principle in Jeremiah 18:7-10, that if God preaches judgement and if the people repent then so will he. This is the God whom the NT says is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter3:9).
Contrast a gracious God with an ungracious believer.
A compassionate God with an uncompassionate believer.
A God who is not quickly angered with a believer who gets angry at the wrong things.
A God who is overflowing with love, with a believer who is loveless.
A God who relents from sending calamity with a believer who desperately wants calamity to come to those he doesn’t like.
The thing is, Jonah believed and probably loved this description of God’s glorious character... as long as it described how God would be with him and his people. Jonah’s problem seems to have been that what God was to his chosen people he also was to everyone else. The JV (Jonah Version) of John 3:16 would’ve been, For God so loved Israel and only that he blessed them and not the world.
When will Jonah, Israel, the Church, we... understand that God’s love is not for keeping all to ourselves? When will God’s Missionary priority overtake the Churches’ Maintenance priority?
3. A Good Question For Us To Ponder
Verse 4, God doesn’t agree to the termination of Jonah’s life. He doesn’t get angry with Jonah and say, Die – you unloving worm! He challenges Jonah’s attitude. He says, Have you any right to be angry? I love it when God asks questions! I always have the sneaking suspicion that he already knows the answer...
Jonah was sincere, dedicated, honest, courageous and knew the Scriptures. But he was wrong. He had turned away from God’s Word, turned away from prayer, tried to run from God’s presence and disobeyed God’s command. Yet God had forgiven him. Had the forgiven Jonah any right to be angry at the forgiveness given to Nineveh?
And have I any right to assert my priorities over God’s?
I who am washed clean by Jesus blood – have I any right to judge others or not forgive them? To not do all I can to share God’s love with them?
Conclusion
Corrie Ten Boom writes of the time she met one of the prison camp guards...
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. ...
And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.
"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard in there." No, he did not remember me.
I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us.
"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, ..." his hand came out, ... "will you forgive me?"
And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and could not. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses." ...
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. "
You see friends, the amazing thing is this: God would rather not give us justice. He’d rather give us mercy. He’d rather give us grace. Justice means you get what you deserve. And for sin, that sickness of rebellion we carry around in us like a disease, we deserve death. But through faith in the crucified and risen Saviour we gain access into grace, not justice. God sent his Son Jesus to take the justice for me on the cross. God is different to us.
A Greatly Displeased Believer is confronted with a Gracious & Compassionate God;
A God whose priorities are often so different to his,
A God with a heart for the world,
A God with a heart for Jonah.
But will Jonah get the message?
