Captain Tim Gardner
Text: Jonah 3 & 4
Introduction:
Melodrama: Joe and the Wannafights by “Spontaneous Melodramas” book
There are so many things we can learn from the bad attitude of Jonah, but this morning we will just concentrate of three. His willingness to be unwilling. His fearless fear of God. And his undying spiritual death.
Let’s pray!
I. Jonah’s willingness to be unwilling
Here we have Jonah. Poor old faithful Jonah. He was such a great prophet and upright man of God. As a matter of fact many theologians believed Jonah was one of the most astounding prophets in his time. One commentary writer states: “Jonah was “mirabilis homo”, or an “amazing man”. He was the strangest, oddest, and most out of the way man, for a good man and a prophet, as one shall ever hear or read of (John Gill. Gill’s Exposition of the Bible; Jonah 4:1). So what happened? Why is Jonah all of a sudden willing to be unwilling to God’s plan on his life? Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been willing to be unwilling to God’s plan in your life? So here we are. Jonah, this well known prophet from God has just been asked to go and preach a message from God to the Ninevites. Instead of practicing his normal habit of following orders, he bails. He argues with God a little, then like a wanted man he is quickly running away without notice the opposite direction, and the furthest place he could go in that direction. This is so true in our own lives. We walk around showing how incredibly Christian we are by the way we talk, and quote, and wear our smile and our “holy” outfit or jewelry, but in an instant we are gone when God asks us to do something we are not comfortable with at all. Do you agree with this statement? By a show of hands how many have bailed when God said go? Or when God started making you feel uncomfortable? Jonah was uncomfortable. He bailed when God said go. You know the events to follow. A storm brews. His shipmates are scared. He admits his fault. He is thrown from the boat. He sinks. Something big swallows him. He repents. He prays hard. He is called again. He does what God asks him to do. Why wouldn’t he? Would you still say no after all of that? Now we find ourselves looking at the reaction of the Ninevites. Chapter three says that they fasted, covered themselves with sackcloth and prayed. This was custom back then to show your honor and respect to God in order to be brought back into His favor. This was something they knew how to do, and may have practiced before in there past, but since they have fallen away so much from God, they stopped custom completely and relied on there own ability and intelligence. Have you ever fallen away from God so much that you literally stopped your Bible reading and praying and praising and only depended on yourself to get you through the day? How silly! The Ninevites repented, and God had mercy!
Which brings us to
II. Jonah’s fearless fear of God
Chapter 4 verse 1 says, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” As I was studying this verse I asked myself “What does the word angry mean in this particular verse?” Well the Hebrew word here for angry is khaw-raw’, which is a verb that means: “furious, burn, competing, distressed, fret, kindled, rage, zealously (Vines).”
So my next question was, “Why was Jonah angry?”
Usually when we win the hearts of so many people or even just one person to the message of Christ we rejoice and praise God in our happiness. Jonah was a part of the greatest conversion known to man at that time. So why was he so angry?
The late John Gill, an amazing Bible scholar who attended and preached many times at Spurgeon’s church wrote:
But Jonah is displeased at the repentance of the Ninevites through his preaching, and at the mercy of God showed unto them:… reasons of this strange conduct, if they may be called reasons, are supposed to be these: one reason was, his own honour, which he thought lay at stake, and that he should be reckoned a false prophet if Nineveh was not destroyed at the time he had fixed;… another reason was his prejudice to the Gentiles,… A third reason supposed is the honour of his own countrymen, which he thought would be reflected on, and might issue in their ruin, they not returning from their evil ways, when the Heathens did: a poor weak reason this!...
Now look how Jonah reacted in his anger. Verse 2, “He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” Looking deeply at this verse I wondered exactly how Jonah was praying. If you look at his attitude up to this point, it is hard to imagine that Jonah would be praying.
See praying is a verb that means “to speak to God, a deity, or a saint, e.g. in order to give thanks, express regret, or ask for help 2. to hope strongly for something 3.to ask somebody for something, especially earnestly or with passion 4. to attempt to achieve something by prayer or by wishing very hard (MSN Encarta).” But this is not how Jonah was praying at all. Here’s what Gill had to say in agreement with many other scholars:
But in a very different manner from his praying in the fish’s belly: this was a very disorderly prayer, put up in the hurry of his spirit, and in the heat of passion: prayer should be fervent indeed, but not like that of a man in a fever; there should be a warmth and ardour of affection in it, but it should be without wrath, as well as without doubting: this is called a prayer, because Jonah thought it to be so, and put it up to the Lord as one. It begins in the form of a prayer; and it ends with a petition, though an unlawful one; and has nothing of true and right prayer in it; no celebration of the divine Being, and his perfections; no confession of sin, ore petition for any blessing of providence or grace; but mere wrangling, contending, and quarrelling with God:
Have you ever done such a thing? I know I’ve found myself trying to tell God what to do instead of listening to His plan. Have you ever corrected God? How often do you tell God what to do? Is following God’s plan ever on your personal agenda?
Now look how this has changed Jonah.
III. Jonah’s undying spiritual death.
Verse 3 “Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah didn’t want to live anymore. But he didn’t want to take his own life. He still believed that God was the creator and preserver of life, but he also believed that God was the ender of life as well. He wanted God to take his life away from him. The word life in this passage comes from the Hebrew word neh’-fesh. It is a noun that means “soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion that which breathes. He was done. He not only makes this statement once, but three times throughout this passage. Have you ever wanted to give up to the point of death? Well I’m here to tell you that Jonah was right. God is the creator and preserver of life, but not only that God is merciful and patient and helpful and caring and loving and joyful and able to give you strength, because you are His and you have made Him yours. God isn’t a God of life ending! He is a God of New beginning! Don’t you ever think like Jonah! Stay on track with God!
Jonah goes through this pattern again from verses 5 to 9. 5 “Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." 9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
This is such an immature and kid-like pattern. But oh how often we do the same thing. God teaches Jonah a lesson through all of this, which is one we can apply ourselves in our own life. Verse 10 “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?”
The pattern of attitude toward God: We bailed when God says go. A storm brews. Our shipmates are scared. We admit it’s our fault. We are thrown from the boat. We sink. Something big swallows us. We repent. We pray hard. We are called again. We finally do what God asked us to do in the first place.
God teaches us that our lives have been planted already. God has helped us grow to where we are now, but we need to tend to our growth as well. If we aren’t in the word, praying, meditating, and studying it, and if we aren’t keeping in touch with God, then how can we have the attitude or desire to go where God wants us to without the humiliation of sitting in the belly of a big fish?
The moral of this story is
“Don’t have a bad attitude
Or you’re not gonna have the aptitude
To get a higher altitude” - Tim Gardner October 1, 2005
