Jonah 4 A Lesson in Compassion HTML

A Lesson in Compassion (Jonah 4)

-          | COMPASSION To feel passion with someone, to enter sympathetically into their sorrow and pain.                                Holmon Bible Dictionary  Compassion is what makes a person feel pain when someone else hurts.     - Unknown |

The book of Jonah shows how great the compassion of God is towards people

-          Compassionate on the Gentile, pagan city of Nineveh: sending a prophet, then relenting from judgment

-          Compassionate on the Mariners who were on the boat with Jonah in Chapter 1

-          Compassionate on Jonah: a prophet who has disobeyed the call of the Lord, still struggling with his mission

-          But as we find out this morning, Jonah is not as compassionate as the Lord and the Lord wants Jonah to learn the lesson of compassion

-          | Christianity demands a level of caring that transcends human inclinations.Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )  |

Christians should be the most compassionate people on the earth, but at times we do not show our compassion like we should

-          Let’s learn the lesson of compassion with Jonah in this passage, read 3:10 – 4:5

I.                     Jonah’s lack of compassion (4:1-5)

A.      Anger at Nineveh’s deliverance (1-2)

·         Very angry as the language suggests (1)

Ø       “displeased Jonah exceedingly”: to spoil one’s countenance, to ruin one’s expectations, “Greatly”

Ø       Not just a little annoyed, but greatly displeased

Ø       Angry: charah: to glow or grow warm, to blaze up, to burn, to be hot, very angry with the turn of events brought on by the Lord

Ø       Amazing to me that Jonah would be so angry with this.  Imagine if Billy Graham got angry at one of his crusades when people came forward in repentance.

Ø       120,000 to 600,000 people came forward in repentance at Jonah’s crusade and he was angry that they had done so!

·         Angry at the compassion of God? (2)

Ø       He vividly describes the compassion of God, borrowing from Exodus 34:6, later also expressed by Joel, Nehemiah and in the Psalms

Ø       These words accurately describe the true God of heaven and earth

Ø       Gracious: properly to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior; to favor, bestow;

Ø       Merciful: full of compassion towards people

Ø       Slow to anger: longsuffering, patient

Ø       Abundant in lovingkindness: abundant (in quantity, size, age, number, rank, quality),  hÖesedÔ, “loyal love, or faithfulness to a covenant”

Ø       His love is full and beyond any capacity we can understand

Ø       Relents from doing harm or bringing calamity:  not willing that any perish, wanting to restore

Ø       This is a beautiful description of the true God whom we worship as Christians, so much different than how others try to portray God

·         Jonah was angry at God’s compassion towards Nineveh! (2)

Ø       Jonah was not angry at God’s compassion in general, but rather that it had been directed towards Nineveh

Ø       That is what this whole thing is about!  That is why Jonah disobeyed his call.  These thoughts determined his disobedience.

Ø       Unbalanced patriotic fervor is in mind here.

Ø       He was a prophet of Israel, wanted God’s blessing on Israel, wanted destruction on the enemy nations of Israel.

Ø       The Assyrian empire was a bonified threat for Israel, they were a wicked and evil nation.  He wanted them judged.

Ø       He feared that if the Ninevites learned of the judgment they might repent and that God might not judge them after all, because He is compassionate

Ø       “I knew this would happen God!  I knew you were a compassionate and forgiving God and that you might relent from judgment.  And my fears have come true!  You have relented!”

Ø       The one on whom God had shown such compassion did not have compassion on others.

Ø       Why didn’t Jonah catch this hypocrisy?  Why don’t we catch this hypocrisy in our own lives?

Ø       Are there people or people groups in your life that you don’t have compassion for?  Gang members, homeless, drug addicts, nationalities, ex-spouses, previous bosses, previous pastors or brothers or sisters in the Lord.

Ø       God has compassion on them just as much as He has had compassion on you.

B.       Jonah’s pity party (4:3-5)

·         Saying stupid things and avoiding questions (3-4)

Ø       “Take my life from me, it is better for me to die than to live”

Ø       Come on, Jonah.  Is it really that bad?

Ø       Is Jonah afraid of being labeled a false prophet?  No, he is depressed and very confused in his false expectations.

Ø       Then God asks a question, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Ø       The obvious answer here is no.  Jonah had no right to be angry with the Lord.

Ø       God is not afraid of our honesty.  We might voice our displeasure to him at events in our lives.  But it is wrong to stay angry at the Lord.  We must accept His sovereign wishes and go on.

·         Watching the city (5)

Ø       Jonah did not respond to the question, but rather journeyed outside the city

Ø       On the east side of the city, he built a shelter for himself and sat under the shade

Ø       Must have had a good view of the city because he sat there to watch what would happen

Ø       Jonah was watching to see if the city would be judged after all

Ø       “40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  40 days had not passed.

Ø       Camping out to see.  Amazing, the lack of compassion and stubbornness.

II.                   God gives Jonah an Object lesson (4:6-11)

A.      The Plant, the worm and the wind

·         God can use anything to get us to learn a lesson (4:6-9)

Ø       Jonah is sitting under this shelter, probably poorly constructed, lacking shade

Ø       It is very hot outside, sitting in the sun has to wear you out

Ø       Plant:  may have been a castor-bean plant (Ricinus communis), which grows rapidly in hot climates to a height of 12 feet and has large leaves.

Ø       Like a vine, it grew and covered the shelter with leaves, providing shade

Ø       Supernatural: it grew overnight.  Jonah was very glad for it.

Ø       “Very grateful for the plant.”  Rejoiced over the plant.  NIV & NASB “Very happy about the plant.”

Ø       Next day, God prepared a worm that damaged the plant.  A small worm that gets at the root of a plant can destroy the whole plant.

Ø       The plant withered and stopped providing the shade

Ø       “vehement” East wind:  Not a strong wind, but a scorching wind as the NIV & NASB translate the word.  A sultry, hot wind

Ø       A very hot sultry day in El Paso, in the heat of the Sun

Ø       In Chapter 1 God used a violent tempest and a large fish.  Here he uses a sultry wind, a small worm and a plant.

Ø       He will work in our lives in a variety of ways to make the same point.

Ø       Jonah is completely distraught again, “Better for me to die than to live”

Ø       Again the question from God, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

Ø       Even to death!

·         God makes His point (4:10-11)

Ø       Jonah had pity on the plant.  Was sorry that the plant went away.  He had compassion for the plant.

Ø       Yet, Jonah had done nothing to produce the plant.  He did not labor, he did not make it grow.  He was not a gardner.

Ø       The plant was a very temporary item: lasting for a day or two.

Ø       | Donald E. Baker paraphrases the Lord’s response this way: “Let’s analyze this anger of yours, Jonah.… It represents your concern over your beloved plant—but what did it really mean to you? Your attachment to it couldn’t be very deep, for it was here one day and gone the next. Your concern was dictated by self-interest, not by genuine love. You never had the devotion of a gardener. If you feel as bad as you do, what would you expect a gardener to feel like, who tended a plant and watched it grow only to see it wither and die? This is how I feel about Nineveh, only much more so. All those people, all those animals—I made them; I have cherished them all these years. Nineveh has cost Me no end of effort, and it means the world to Me. Your pain is nothing compared to Mine when I contemplate their destruction”  |

God uses that object lesson to show Jonah that His compassion for Nineveh is warranted and that Jonah should follow suit.

Ø       Nineveh, the great city, 120,000 (if not referring to children), 300,000 to 600,000 if referring to children

Ø       God had created all of those people.  They were more important than a plant. 

Ø       They were in trouble, not able to discern their right hands from their left in terms of spiritual and moral truth.

Ø       They were not temporal like the plant, but eternal souls heading for eternity.

·         What do we see hindering Jonah’s compassion in this story?

Ø       Self centeredness and selfishness:  Look how bummed he gets over his lack of material needs.  Losing his precious little plant (or air cooler)

Ø       So consumed with own needs and forget having compassion on others.

Ø       I have been pouting over Connor’s crying as of late.

Ø       False expectations about how the Lord should deal with others.  In your mind, someone should be judged but God relents and you get bummed out.

Ø       Failing acceptance of who God is.  Jonah knew that God was compassionate but did not want Him to be so towards Nineveh.

Ø       Jonah failed to recognize the great compassion that God had showed towards him.

Ø       This is the key to being compassionate to all people.  Recognizing that God has been compassionate to us.  What if he treated us as our sins deserved?  Who would stand?

Ø       |    General Oglethorpe once said to John Wesley, "I never forgive and I never forget." To which Wesley responded, "Then Sir, I hope you never sin." Very apt, for when we reflect on how much God has forgiven us, it makes our own little grudges against others seem rather petty. |

That’s how Christianity works.  Recognizing how much God loves us brings us to love him and others.  It causes us to be compassionate on others.

·         Did Jonah ever learn this lesson?

Ø       We are not told that he did in this story.

Ø       But he did write this book, and it did become a part of scripture and would have been a very convicting book to Israel.

Ø       Jewish tradition says that after God said what He said in verse 11, Jonah fell on his face and said: "Govern your world according to the measure of mercy, as it is said, To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness." (Daniel 9:9)

Ø       I think he probably caught on

Ø       But more importantly, have we learned the lesson of compassion?  Will we have compassion like God?

I want us to close by reading a parable that Jesus shared with Peter, his disciple.  Our compassion for others was important to God in the OT, it was important to God in the NT and it is still important today.

Read Matt 18:21-35

Conclusion

A lady answered the knock on her door to find a man with a sad expression.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, " he said, "but I'm collecting money for an

unfortunate family in the neighborhood.  The husband is out of work, the kids

are hungry, the utilities will soon be cut off, and worse, they're going to be

kicked out of their apartment if they don't pay the rent by this afternoon."

"I'll be happy to help," said the woman with great concern. "But who are you?"

"I'm the landlord," he replied. Leadership p. 44  1984 5/2