# 31 – The Divine Reasoning
Jonah 4:10-11 - “But the Lord said, ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night, and should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right and their left – and much livestock?’”
“But the Lord said, ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night…”
In our last devotion, we looked at how Jonah preferred death when the Lord removed the plant that offered him shade from the heat of the sun. We looked at how the Lord asked him whether he had a right to think the way he did about the plant and how Jonah had answered in the affirmative, adding that he even had the right to be angry to the point of preferring death to life.
Today we’re going to look at the Lord’s response to Jonah – a thought-provoking response that left him thinking. The Lord begins by recognising Jonah’s feeling of pity on the plant and then goes on to remind him that he had done nothing to plant it or water it. In fact, it was God who miraculously caused the plant to grow overnight and it was God who caused it to wither overnight as well. All Jonah did was enjoy its shade. It’s not sure whether Jonah had realised that fact earlier, but this was the perfect time for him to ponder this fact. If he had done nothing to cause the plant to grow, why was he so concerned when it withered?
Before we begin to condemn Jonah for his attitude, let each of us in The Church stop and search ourselves to check whether we have the same attitude that Jonah had. Do we receive blessings from God, with no work on our part? Yes, we do. The gift of Salvation is the best gift ever one can receive, and we who know the Lord have received this gift without doing anything to receive it.
Jesus lived the righteous life that all of us should have lived, but could not live, He bore the punishment of a shameful and cruel death that each of us should have borne on account of our sin, he was buried, went down into the heart of the earth, and rose again from the dead, and now makes this amazing gift of Salvation available to anyone who will just believe.
The question we need to ask ourselves is, “What did we do?” The answer is, “Nothing.” Jesus did it all – we merely trusted in Him and received this gift free of cost. We’ve been forgiven of our sins, we’ve been adopted into the family of God as His children, possess the freedom to live a sin-free life, have received the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us live this amazing new life, we’ve received spiritual gifts so we may serve one another in the body of Christ. We’ve been given the eternal hope (assurance) that when we die we will go and live with the Lord forever, (if He does not return to take us home before we die). We’ve received a peace that surpasses human understanding, we’ve experienced and continue to experience God’s amazing love, grace and mercy daily in our lives – if not for which we would have been history a long time back. We’ve received all this and more and all for doing nothing on our part, but for merely believing and trusting in what Jesus has done on our behalf.
“…And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city,
The Lord goes on to tell Jonah that if he feels entitled to anger concerning a plant that he did not plant or take care of, how much more should God, who created the people of Nineveh. Jonah seemed to have forgotten that just as he was created in the image of God, so also were the people of Nineveh created in that same image. Just as God loved him, the Lord loved the people of that great city of Nineveh.
The Lord had caused the plant to appear overnight and shrivel overnight just to make a point to Jonah that he was not entitled to feeling anger concerning the plant, and neither was he entitled to feel anger towards God over relenting from sending His wrath on the people of Nineveh. This is one of the many incidents of Experiential Learning (as we call it today) recorded in the Bible. Sometimes it calls for an activity or an experience to learn a lesson, much better than words alone can teach.
“…In which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right and their left – and much livestock?”
When God said that Nineveh was a great city, He went on to give some information about the city as well. Firstly, it was a city that had one hundred and twenty thousand people living in it – not just a handful but quite a lot of people.
The Lord adds yet another detail about the people living in Nineveh – they “cannot discern between their right and their left…” While many believe that this refers to infants who have not yet learned to differentiate between right and left, I believe the Lord was referring to the fact that the people had become so sinful that they no longer knew what was right and what was wrong. In fact, this is how the CEV reads this verse – “In that city of Nineveh there are more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot tell right from wrong…”
The Lord adds yet another detail with which the book of Jonah concludes - “And much livestock.” The Lord was not only concerned for the sinful people of Nineveh, but He was also concerned about the livestock – the cattle and sheep that He had created, which would also have died, had the Lord inflicted wrath on them. This is an interesting detail for us to bear in mind – the Lord cares for both humans as well as for animals because they were all created by Him. Humans of course were created in God’s image, so we are far superior to animals, but animals were created to serve man in many ways. In other words, the Lord seems to be saying that there are a lot of people who are confused who live in Nineveh, and there are a lot of cattle and sheep as well.
Let’s ask ourselves, The Church, the same question the Lord asked Jonah. Shouldn’t God be concerned about the people around us whom He created in His image as He did us? Shouldn’t He be concerned about the salvation of the souls of the people around us as He was concerned about ours when He sent Christ into the world? The answer is certainly a resounding, “YES.” The question that seems unasked is, “Shouldn’t we care too?”
What’s our attitude as The Church, to the world around us today? Are we concerned that their souls should be saved just like ours was? Do we feel hatred and anger towards them because the Lord is being merciful and patient with them hoping they will come to repentance? Or are we completely indifferent to them, not caring whether they get saved or not, just as long as we get saved and spend eternity with the Lord? Firstly that’s a very dangerous place to be and secondly, that’s wishful thinking. We who are saved will be held accountable for what we did not do in sharing the love of God and the Gospel with the world around us, and there are umpteen passages where Jesus warned that such a careless attitude to the world around us will result in us spending eternity in hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In fact, that’s what the parable of the talents is all about – not using what the Lord entrusted to our care to serve the Lord by continuing what the Lord began – making disciples of all nations.
Let’s do all we can to befriend our non-Christian friends and genuinely love them – not seek to convert them without first loving them. Let’s take time to share with them the Gospel that has transformed, and continues to transform our lives. We don’t have much time; each of us has but a few years ahead – let’s make the best of it. Let’s not hold the good news to ourselves, because it was meant to share with the world around us.
The Lord in His love corrects us, The Church, at times to open our eyes to our selfish attitudes towards those who are outside, and in such times, instead of seeking the Lord all the more, loving Him and loving our neighbours as ourselves, so often we find ourselves raving and ranting at God, desiring death to discipline. We grumble against the numerous lockdowns and our inability to meet as churches, as though something terrible has happened to us and us alone. We forget that the whole world is in a worse situation because they face all this tragedy with no hope. We grumble against God’s Divine and brief withdrawal, forgetting that one of the reasons for this was perhaps for our own discipline and for the opening of our eyes to the world around us. Let’s look at this global pandemic as a wake-up call for us The Church, to get busy with what we were saved to do in the first place – make disciples of all nations.
I hope these devotions on the book of Jonah have been a blessing to you personally, as it has been to me as I wrote them. May we do all we can while we can to fulfill the purpose for which each of us was saved by the Lord Jesus.
If you were blessed by this devotion, please share it with others
Have a great day or night and May the Lord bless you abundantly
Michael Collins
thehchurchcalledjonah@gmail.com
