# 30 - The Third Death Wish
Jonah 4:8b-9 – “Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”
Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
The heat of the day was undoubtedly quite unbearable, but it’s sad to know that the only option Jonah could think of to deal with the situation he was in was that of a defeatist. He could have done other things like returning to Nineveh and taken shelter from the heat; he could have tried building another shelter or something more creative but instead, he wished he could end it all and die.
How often we’ve either heard of someone talk this way or more closer to home, have we thought this way? Instead of making every attempt to change the situation one is in, the only seemingly available solution is to end one’s life. We know that this is not the solution to the problem in any way. It might seem like the end of our problems, but we create new problems for those who are left behind – a child becomes parentless, a spouse becomes a widow or widower, compounded with other feelings of anger, guilt, and grief. And only the Lord knows what the end result of such a situation would be for us on the Day of Judgment.
This was not the first time Jonah had preferred death to life. The first time he preferred death was during the tempest at sea when the mariners discovered that he was the one responsible for the tempest and he decided that if he was thrown into the sea they would be relieved of the tempest – he had no idea that he would be rescued by a big fish. The second time he preferred death to life was when God had mercy on the people of Nineveh and didn’t send the punishment He had warned them about through Jonah. This time, Jonah prefers death to life because the protection that God had provided him from the heat was taken away by God and he was now exposed to the unbearable heat of the day. Isn’t it strange that Jonah was upset that God had removed the protection He offered Jonah while he sat and waited for the many thousands in Nineveh to die at God’s hands? What love for self and what a lack of love for others!
In all the cases where Jonah preferred death to life, Jonah could have done something he didn’t – he could have had a change of heart and God would surely have been merciful to him. How so like many of us who, when faced with difficult situations, especially ones that require a change from our side, would prefer to walk away from a relationship, from the situation, and sadly, sometimes, even walk away from life itself.
The question to us The Church is what is, “What if all the freedom the Lord gave us to share the gospel was taken away? What if all the comforts we enjoyed were taken away from us? What if the Lord confronted us on our rebellion and lack of concern for the world around us? Would we find ourselves trying to justify ourselves? Would we find ourselves blaming someone else? Would we blame Jesus Himself for giving us the Great Commission in the first place? Would we blame the world around us for not responding to the message? Would we try to flee from the reality we’re being confronted with? Or would we think that it’s better to end our lives rather than to repent and get back to our first love and calling on our lives? Depending on the way we respond, so will be the outcome.
Do we as The Church find ourselves grumbling about the things we might sometimes lose in life as we sail along waiting for Judgement Day when God’s wrath will fall on those who don’t accept Christ? Sadly, that’s the attitude of some in The Church who feel that we were saved and that’s all there was to it. We don’t need to be concerned about the lives of others who have not yet come into the fold. That would make us even more selfish than Jonah because we’ve had the privilege of knowing Jesus in a way that Jonah didn’t. We’ve seen the mystery of God unraveled through the coming of Christ, and in spite of it all, if we still find ourselves being self-absorbed and unconcerned for those around us, then there’s nothing more for us to really wait for except our own Judgement on the Day when Jesus returns and asks us to give an account for all that He entrusted to us so we might serve Him by finishing the task He began of making disciples of all nations.
Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
After Jonah spoke, preferring death to life, it was now time for God to respond, and God responds in a way that He does so beautifully – with a question. God says to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” Who can question a question by the God of the Universe? How could Jonah be angry about a plant that he did nothing to plant or cause to grow? It was God who planted it, and it was God who caused it to grow as well – and miraculously all in a day. So God’s question to Jonah should really have been met with just one word, “No.” He had no right to be angry about something that didn’t belong to him.
While it might be easy for us The Church to look at Jonah and wonder how he could be so consumed with himself, his comforts, and rights, it’s also important for us to ask ourselves the same question. If God were to remove the freedom, the comforts, the rights or any other blessing He brought into our lives, do we have the right to be angry with God about it? Did He not give it to us free of cost in the first place? And if to discipline us, He chose to remove it from us, do we have the right to question Him and/or grumble against Him? While the answer to that question might be a resounding, “No,” how often have we find ourselves questioning and grumbling just like Jonah did?
We have received God’s grace free of cost, but that grace was meant to be shared with others as well and not to be kept to ourselves. Every so often the Lord might have to remove some ‘plants’ from our lives to wake us up to this reality that everything we have we have received. I’m reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:7, where he said, “And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
How unlike the apostle Paul who would rather die than see his Jewish brethren unsaved. We, like Jonah, have come a long way off-track – it’s time to repent and seek the Lord’s favor all over again before it’s too late. Let’s remember 1 Peter 4:17, which says, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” It does not say that judgment begins for those outside the house of God, but rather, that it begins at the house of God – it begins with us who were saved by Christ. Jesus told several parables through which He explicitly warned those who claimed to belong to God but lived otherwise who would be more in danger of judgment than those outside the Kingdom of Family of God.
Let’s stop and search ourselves as individuals and as churches and ask where we stand in our walk with the Lord and in our fulfilling the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. Let’s do all we can while we can, before the doors are closed and the freedom is taken away. If it calls for us to repent of self-absorption or of carelessness towards those who are outside the house of God, let’s repent, while we can, knowing that the same God who had mercy on the Ninevites will also have mercy on us His Church.
And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”
Though one would have imagined that the only response to a question like that from God himself would have resulted in a resounding “No,” from Jonah, that was not the case as it turns out. Jonah responds quite arrogantly and vehemently as well. He says that only does he have the right to be angry about the plant but goes on to say that he prefers death to life without the plant. Was Jonah not thinking straight? Did he not understand the question? Did he really believe what he was saying? We don’t quite know what he was thinking, but it is obvious that he was vehement in his response to God. He feels totally in the right and doesn’t hesitate to tell the Judge of all judges so.
How often we find ourselves doing the same thing with God. We question, we grumble, then we even threaten to take our own lives – the lives that we so freely were given by God. We did nothing to be created, and yet we sometimes feel well within our right to threaten to take our precious lives. It’s like an insult to God who gave us life when someone threatens or attempts to take their life. No matter what the difficulty we face, taking one’s life is never the solution to the problem.
In Jonah’s case, he had no right to be angry and certainly had no right to want to die, because the One who gave him life had a purpose that had to be fulfilled before he passed away. So preferring to take his life was certainly not the right thing to prefer.
I’m reminded of the words by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:20 – “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which is God’s.” If we were bought with the price of Jesus’ death on our behalf how dare one contemplate taking their life? We, The Church are to live each day taking good care of our bodies and our spirit as best we can and to use it to serve the Lord, by making Him known in every possible way to the world around, and eventually to fulfill The Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.
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May the Lord bless you and have a great day or night.
Michael Collins
thechurchcalledjonah@gmail.com
