Shepherds Conference - 2025 - Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary

Austin Duncan

General Session 10: Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary

The Book of Jonah Chapter 4

— Many people miss the point of Jonah

— Father Mapple gives a sermon in Melville’s Moby-Dick in chapter 9

— The Chaplin preaches about Jonah and the Whale, drawing a parallel between Jonah’s attempt to flee from God and the fate of whalers and sinners alike

"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the flood surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson: a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to all of us because it is the story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally, the deliverance and joy of Jonah."

— It sounds like Melville never read the fourth chapter!

— Jonah is foul and angry with God after receiving the commission to go to Nineveh

— He becomes a coincidental missionary to some pagan sailors who want to hear about God

Jonah 1:14 “Then they called on the Lord and said, “We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased.””

— Jonah’s ministry is remarkable and fruitful

— The Midrash and Talmud suggest that after dropping off Jonah these men went straight to Jerusalem to offer scarifies

— And probably have a painful surgery

— Jonah prays to God in the great fish (Jonah 2:9)

— And the Lord commanded the fish to vomit Jonah (Jonah 2:10)

— Then he went to Nineveh and they repented from the greatest to the least, even the animals (Jonah 3:5, 8)

— This seems like a great way to end Jonah

— But if we ended here we would be stuck with Children’s books

— And Chaplin Mapple’s sermon in Moby-Dick

— We wouldn’t get to the message of Jonah which is found in chapter 4:

— Defiance and deliverance

— A prophet who prefers death over obedience

— When we look at chapter 4 we realize this isn’t a fish story or parable (what are the whales in your life brothers?)

— Instead this is a theological book that tells us what God is like

We need the message of Jonah. And there is no better place to find it than in this fourth chapter. As the entire prophecy is brought into a summary, in an un-guessable way, and it exposes the wisdom of God and his plan of putting this all together and seeing Jonah stubbornness and recalcitrance at the end and the hard heart, leaves us as readers scratching our heads and confused about how we are to respond to this message. As we pay careful attention, especially to this chapter, the very word of the living God, we see why it is such an important message to learn about this odd-ball prophet, and recognize in ourselves similar deficiencies, similar defiance, but make sure our focus is on God and his heart of compassion.

The book ends with a question that sits there with no resolution

— As the centuries passed, Jewish scholars added multiple annotations dissatisfied with this lingering question

— Jonah 4:11 leaves us with a question and it is not to ponder about the ship of sailors or a city of sinners or a defiant prophet

— We are left to think about the character of God

— The main concern is the key word of chapter 4 - You are a gracious and compassionate God (4:2)

— His mercy is incomprehensible in its depth

Chapter 4 unfolds in three scenes

The confrontation with God’s character (1-3)

The conversation in God’s classroom (4-9)

A challenge in God’s question (10-11)

The confrontation with God’s character (1-3)

Jonah 3:10 “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”

— Chapter 4 starts out by saying that God’s compassion greatly displeased Jonah (4:1)

— The word play between evil and good displays a nuance

— This evil (displeasure, distress) is not a moral evil but a massive disaster

— It was evil to Jonah that this pagan city repented

— It was a great evil

— The wind was great (1:4)

—the storm was great (1:12)

— the fish was great (1:17)

— the city was great (3:3)

— and now the disaster in Jonah’s assessment can only be described at great

This great fish is now followed by a great evil because of the repentance of this great city

— And Jonah is concerned about the very character of God

— The beginning of the book has a prophet arguing against God’s mercy

— Here in chapter 4 Jonah has a problem with God’s character and it is easy to punch on Jonah

— Before we get too hard on Jonah, at least he took his theological problem to the right place

Jonah 4:2 “He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.”

— Instead of abandoning our post, we should bring our sinful problems to God

— At least Jonah is commendable to bring his problems to God

— Jonah says that he fled to Tarshish because he knew that God was gracious and compassionate (4:2)

Numbers 14:18 “The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’”

Psalm 86:3–5 “Be gracious to me, O Lord, For to You I cry all day long. Make glad the soul of Your servant, For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.”

Nehemiah 9:17 “They refused to listen, And did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them; So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But You are a God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness; And You did not forsake them.”

Nehemiah 9:31–32 “Nevertheless, in Your great compassion You did not make an end of them or forsake them, For You are a gracious and compassionate God. “Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness, Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You, Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people, From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.”

Psalm 116:5 “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate.”

Joel 2:13 “And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.”

— It is everywhere; this is the very heart of Israel’s theology

— This is God’s revelation of Himself in Exodus 34:6 “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;”

— We live in an evil world and fallen world, and we are becoming increasingly aware of the need of the justice of God

— We see confusion on every level of society

— Idolatry and wickedness and rebellion

— Confusion about sexual identity against the every elemental aspects of creation and God’s design

— A promotion of violence and evil

— Shocking miscarriages of justice

— We should be mindful and more aware of God’s mercy than God’s justice

— Jonah’s trouble continue and he wants out

Jonah 4:3 “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”

— He just wants to die

— He wants DOGE to come and get rid of him!

— Paul knew this feeling and told the Galatians (Gal 6:9)

“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”

— Jonah had no idea how far this would go

If Jonah could see us here. A bunch of Gentiles eating snacks all week with unwashed hands. Gathered here, worshiping with very little regulations.

— This is what God’s mercy looks like

—God’s going to save people you don’t like

— And people that don’t like you

— God is more gracious, more compassionate, more pursuing, more loving, and He will go too far in His mercy

— What about you?

— Is your default seeing justice rather than grace?

— Knowing sound theology is not enough

— You have to embrace it, live it and get your heart like God’s heart

The conversation in God’s classroom (4-9)

— God is going to do work on Jonah and has an object lesson

— A little biblical counseling with props

— God asks Jonah if he has good reason to be angry? (4:4)

— His question about Jonah’s anger is framed with His question about the plant (4:4, 9)

— Jonah hopes to see God rain down wrath on the city (4:5)

Jonah 4:5 “Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.”

— How could Jonah have been repentant in the belly of the whale when he acts like this?

— Sometimes I act like this

— After you repent, usually you have to repent some more

— None of us are done growing and learning

— When his plant dies, Jonah begs for death again

— He doesn’t object to God’s compassion directed to people like himself

— But he can’t accept that God’s grace extends to the wicked as well

— He’s unwilling to live without his old belief and refuses to allow God to transform his anger into love

A challenge in God’s question (10-11)

Jonah 4:10 “Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.”

— He has pity for plants but not for people; He doesn’t understand grace

— He’s pressing Jonah towards this concluding question: this logical inference, a comparison of values

— All the emphasis is on God’s freedom to act in compassion

— His classroom is a classroom of grace

— The challenge is how are you going to respond to this reality

— Jonah going to keep hate-staring at this city until it ceases to exist?

— Or is he going to see the heart of God for his creation which has inherent dignity because it is made in his likeness and image?

— God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy (Rom 9-11)

Two things to conclude

This is not the end of this story - another young man will grow up in Galilee

— Jesus will cry out for people to repent

— Jesus will personify Jonah 2:9 “... Salvation is from the Lord.”

— And the one who brought salvation also brought tremendous compassion

— He saved leapers, vile tax collectors and had compassion (Matt 14:14)

— When is God too compassionate for your taste?

— Homosexuals, ISIS, Liberals

— Don’t question God’s justice

2. What happened to Jonah?

— Did he get it?

— I think he did, where else would we have gotten the book of Jonah from?

— I think something happened after this confrontation and Jonah had to tell his story

— And like all biblical writers, he told it straight

— I think Jonah became persuaded that God is merciful

References

Duncan, A. (2025, March 7). Lessons from a rebellious missionary [Conference session]. Shepherd's Conference 2025: Proclaiming Christ to the ends of the Earth. Grace Community Church. https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/23406