The Lord's Compassion (Jonah 4:1-11)

Announcements

Bible Study & Prayer at 7pm, online via Zoom. Contact Natalie for more details

Next week, Sunday, June 27th, 2021—AM Worship will be held under Pavilion 2 at Coldstream Dam in Philipsburg. I noticed in the weather report that there’s a slim chance that it might rain, even if it rains, we’ll still be meeting there, that’s why we have a pavilion. After the service, please plan to stick around for lunch

The church will provide the main portion of the meal—hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, and the condiments for them as well as drinks.

We’re asking that if you’re able and willing to help with side dishes, please do so—we have a sign-up sheet with our suggested sides. Of course, since the meal is right after the service, you’ll have to bring the food with you. If you sign up for cold food, we’ll have an ice-chest for you to place your food in and if you sign up for hot foods, please bring a crock-pot with you to keep the food warm. We’ll have access to a whole row of electrical plugs, so we’ll have plenty of space to keep food warm as well. Just when you get there, find Natalie and she will help you find a place for your food.

In addition, while there is a large picnic table available for us to use in the pavilion, you may want to bring camp chairs with you, I’m sure that sitting at a picnic table for that long might be a little uncomfortable.

Sunday, July 4th, 2021—quarterly business meeting after the morning service.

Sunday, July 11th, 2021—the Dunlop Family, missionaries to France will be presenting their ministry to the church and Michael will preach during the morning service. We’d like to give them a full-house to present to, so please invite you friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.

Last week, some of us had the privilege to hang out together at the Altoona Curve for their Faith Night. It was a short-notice type of event, so not as many as I would’ve liked was able to attend. They’re going to do another Faith Night on August 22, which is in two months. If you have any interest, mark the date down, tickets will be $9 again. And I’m intentionally buying extra tickets to be able to invite visitors to the game as well, so please mark that on your calendar if you’re interested.

Reminder to worship the Lord through your giving. We give because of the great blessings that we’ve received from the LORD, if you’re able and willing to give, we’ve provided three means for you to do so: (1) in-person giving by check and cash can be done through the offering box in the back of the room. If you write a check, please write it to Grace & Peace and if you would like a receipt for your cash gift, please write your name on the outside of an envelope and slide your gift in that envelope. If you’d prefer to give via debit, credit, or ACH Transfer, you can do that by either (2) texting 84321 with your [$amount] and following the text prompts, or (3) visiting as graceandpeacepa.com and selecting giving in the menu bar. Everything that you give goes to building up this local church and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship

Psalm 20 is a short psalm that we would consider a royal psalm because it speaks specifically of the king of Israel. It was utilized frequently but only for two reasons—during times of great national distress and right before war. So, you’ll see the psalm start with the prayer of the people for protection and help in Vs. 1-5, and then Vs. 6-8, is the king expressing his assurance that the LORD will protect him with those that trust in soldiers and warriors collapsing and those who trust in the LORD standing upright. Psalm 20 then ends in Vs. 9, with one last intercession of the people, “O LORD, Save the king!

Read with me responsively, Psalm 20. I’ll read the odd-numbered verses, please join me in reading the even-numbered verses. Please stand as we read Psalm 20 together.

Psalm 20 ESV

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. 1 May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! 2 May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! 3 May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah 4 May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans! 5 May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions! 6 Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. 8 They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. 9 O Lord, save the king! May he answer us when we call.

Congregational Singing

God the Uncreated One

O Great God

His Mercy is More

Scripture Reading

Our Scripture reading is a little bit long, it’s 26 verses, but because I’ve referenced this passage multiple times during our series in Jonah and Nahum, I thought it would be wise for us to actually read the passage outright in it’s full context. Our Scripture reading is John 17 and this is what we call Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. This occurred right after the washing of the disciples’ feet and it actually comes right after Jesus tells the disciples that he’s about to leave them. He ends John 16 with the statement that “In this world [the disciples] will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 17 ESV

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Sermon

Introduction

Over the past month, we’ve been working line-by-line, thought-by-thought through the book of Jonah, which records Jonah’s commission to go to the Ninevites, his initial refusal to do so, but his eventual obedience. Each week, we’ve been able to focus in on different aspects of the events that are recorded in Jonah and we’ve really seen what the LORD’s character is in contrast to Jonah’s own character. We see God, who wants the Ninevites to hear the truth and repent and then we see Jonah who doesn’t want the Ninevites to repent and thus, runs the opposite direction. Let’s take our first few moments to recap everything up to this point and then we’ll dig into our passage for this morning.

The book of Jonah starts by telling us of the prophet Jonah who was commissioned, or called, by the LORD to go to Nineveh and cry out against it “for their evil has come up before me.” Chapter 1 doesn’t really tell us the reasoning for Jonah’s disobedience but it does tell us that Jonah refused to go to Nineveh and he ran the complete opposite direction—he ran to Joppa, boarded a ship, and took sail across the Mediterranean in hopes of running as far as humanly possible from the presence of the LORD.

Of course, we all know the historical account, that “the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea” and out of fear the sailors began to throw their cargo overboard in hopes that by lightening up the ship, they might survive. And Jonah explains to the captain that the storm was a result of his disobedience and that they should throw him overboard to save themselves, which they initially don’t do; but after praying that God won’t hold them accountable for his death, they eventually do hurl him into the sea.

For the sailors, the storm ends at that point, but for Jonah, the storm continues to rage with him being pulled into the depths of the sea and being swallowed by a great fish. In Chapter 2 of Jonah, we read this beautiful prayer from Jonah in which he gives thanks that the LORD sent a fish to swallow him and save him from drowning in the sea, which he ends with the phrase “Salvation belongs to the LORD.” I explained that it was a rather ironic statement for him to make considering the fact that if he truly believed that salvation belonged to the LORD, then he wouldn’t have had an issue with God saving the Ninevites, and yet he did.

Nevertheless, Jonah prays this prayer and the LORD speaks to the fish and the fish throws him up on dry land, which is where Chapter 3 kicks in. God tells Jonah to go again, go to Nineveh and call out against the city. This time, Jonah listens, but it’s clear that he still doesn’t really want to go—and this is definitely seen in the fact that his message to the Ninevites is short and doesn’t even mention that they could repent and avoid the destruction that’s coming. All Jonah tells them is, “yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Which surprisingly, is just enough that the Ninevites believed in God, the mourned their sinfulness, repented, and cried out for God’s mercy.

In our passage for this morning, we’ll see how Jonah responds to the LORD forgiving the Ninevites and it isn’t how we typically would expect someone who believes in God to react when an unbeliever repents from their sins and believes in God. In fact, the way Jonah responds is the opposite of how we typically would respond. We typically would respond to someone’s belief in God as a celebratory time, in fact, Jesus in Luke 15:10 tells us that anytime a person repents, even the angels of God rejoice; but that isn’t how Jonah responds.

This morning, we’ll see Jonah respond in anger towards the LORD forgiving the Ninevites and we’ll also see quite a bit of God’s character in that despite the wickedness of the Ninevites, the LORD still had compassion on them.

Let’s read Jonah 4 together, I’ll explain how we’ll break up the passage, and then we’ll dig into God’s Word this morning.

Jonah 4 ESV

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

As we dig into Scripture this morning, we’re going to take this passage in two parts: (1) Vs. 1-5, shows us the reasoning for Jonah’s anger, which we’ve talked about a bit before, but now the Bible outright explains why Jonah initially refused to go and ran the opposite way. In some ways, it’s actually a little unbelievable that Jonah would respond to God’s plan in this way, but it will show us just how much sin warps our own thinking. (2) Vs. 6-11, ends the whole book with God utilizing an object lesson to prove to Jonah that God was right to send Jonah to the Ninevites and to forgive them when they repented. It really shows us the heart of God to save those who would repent and it gives us a look at to what extent God is willing to forgive. Both sections will give us a clear idea of just how much God cares for humanity and just how much God is willing to forgive while simultaneously showing us that sin warps our thinking far more than what we realize.

Prayer for Illumination

Jonah’s Sinful Anger (1-5)

The final chapter of Jonah starts by showing us the response that Jonah had towards God forgiving the Ninevites. Remember with me that in Chapter 3, Jonah finally obeys the LORD and goes and preaches a brief message of impending judgment to the Ninevites and the Ninevites respond with repentance and belief in God. So much so, that in Jonah 3:10, the Bible tells us that “When God saw what [the Ninevites] did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

This is what Jonah is responding to starting in Jonah 4:1. Jonah sees that the LORD has relented of the great disaster that was going to happen to the city and we’re told in Vs. 1, that:

“It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.” This statement shows us how diametrically opposed Jonah’s attitude towards the Ninevites is in contrast to the LORD’s attitude towards the Ninevites.

Whereas God relents from his anger and turns away from the destruction that he had planned towards the Ninevites, Jonah turns towards anger because he hoped for the Ninevites to be destroyed.

We’ve seen this issue repeatedly throughout the book. In Chapter 1, Jonah intentionally goes the opposite way of Nineveh because he didn’t want to make the proclamation that the LORD had for the Ninevites. In Chapter 3, God had to tell Jonah, again, to go to the Ninevites (even after Jonah had suffered in the belly of a fish and struggled in the deeps of the sea, which you would think would convince him to go to the Ninevites without the LORD needing to tell him again, to go). And when Jonah finally does go to the Ninevites, you can tell in his brief message that he wasn’t really concerned with the idea of them repenting, because he simply tells them that the city would be destroyed without letting them know that if they repented, the city probably wouldn’t be destroyed.

Jonah did all these things because he didn’t want the Ninevites to repent from their sins, so when the Ninevites do actually repent in Chapter 3, he responds with anger and displeasure. And it is in his short prayer in Vs. 2-3, in which we read about his reasoning for anger.

Vs. 2 says, “And he prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disasters. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’” In this prayer, we learn about his reasoning for disobeying, we learn a bit about God’s character, and we learn how warped Jonah’s thinking was because of his sin:

Jonah makes the claim in Vs. 2, that the reason why he ran to Tarshish was because he knew the character of God. He knew that God was gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

This tells us that Jonah intentionally disobeyed because he knew that God would forgive the Ninevites if they simply repented and he didn’t think that they deserved forgiveness.

We discussed this issue towards the beginning of the series, that there are a number of different ideas as to why Jonah would be so against the Ninevites repenting and receiving forgiveness.

In our current cultural climate, those who would push the issue of racism would claim that racism is why Jonah didn’t want them to repent—in other words, he was racist against the Ninevites, but the issue is that the Bible doesn’t actually tell us that he was racist. What the Bible tells us is that Jonah practiced a sin that James calls partiality, which is treating someone differently because of their socio-economic background.

Partiality certainly includes racism, but partiality isn’t just racism—it would also include treating someone differently because of the clothes they wear, the car they drive, or the house they own regardless of ethnicity.

So, while Jonah was definitely committing the sin of partiality in that he treated these people as lesser-than the Israelites, he wasn’t necessarily racist against them.

Some people have the idea that Jonah hated the Ninevites because he accused them of murdering his father. If I remember correctly, this is the view that Sight & Sound Theatre propagated in their production of Jonah.

But the issue is that the text doesn’t actually say that Jonah’s father was killed by the Ninevites.

In fact, the Bible only mentions Jonah’s father twice and it only does it to record the fact that Jonah was his son. The Bible never even mentions the death of Jonah’s father.

So, while Jonah’s father could have been killed by the Ninevites, we don’t actually have biblical evidence to support that reason for Jonah’s hatred of the Ninevites. So, why exactly did Jonah hate the Ninevites so much?

I explained early on and repeatedly in this series, that the Ninevites were known for being exceedingly wicked. They were known for their violence towards other nations, which would have included Israel.

This wickedness and violence was even admitted to by the king of Nineveh in Jonah 3.

My suggestion is that Jonah hated the Ninevites so much simply because they were exceedingly wicked and violent. Jonah is looking at Nineveh and Assyria from the outside and he sees them as extremely terrible people who don’t deserve salvation.

That’s why he hated the Ninevites so much.

So, at this point—when the Ninevites have repented and the LORD has forgiven them for their sins, he responds in absolute anger and displeasure because he hated them so much.

Vs. 2, also tells us that God will forgive anyone who repents, regardless of how wicked they were prior to repentance.

Knowing that Jonah’s primary issue with the Ninevites was their wickedness elevates God’s character. Jonah’s disobedience and anger is a result of knowing who God really is.

Jonah describes God as gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. With each adjective describing aspects of God’s character, let’s look at each characteristic of God briefly.

God is gracious—reflects on God’s grace towards mankind. Grace is that unmerited favor that we talk about so frequently when we talk about the Gospel—we don’t deserve God’s favor, God gives us his favor because of his love towards us. We could say that God longs for and favors others.

God is merciful—this is the idea of God being compassionate towards mankind. Compassion is the idea of having sympathetic pity or concern for the sufferings of others.

God is slow to anger—We can consider this as God being patient towards those who rightfully deserve punishment. You might ask, how patient is God being here when he threatens to destroy the whole city?

Consider how long the Assyrian empire existed prior to God threatening to punish them for their wickedness. The Assyrian Empire started in roughly 2,600BC. Jonah was written in 790-750BC, which was approximately 1,800 years after the empire started. The Assyrians, while not always known as “exceedingly wicked” had a reputation for being violent towards their enemies as they extended their borders throughout their history.

It took God 1,800 years to issue the first warning and he decided to not destroy them because they repented in Jonah. That seems fairly slow to anger to me.

Next week, when we start Nahum, you’ll see a similar warning from God to the Ninevites before God takes any action against the Ninevites, and Nahum was written 100 years after Jonah. That seems pretty slow to anger to me.

Jonah says that God is abounding in steadfast love—the word that’s translated as steadfast love is the Hebrew word hesed. This would be what we would call God’s covenant-loyal love. Which simply means that God abounds in keeping his promises in love. If he says something, he will do it. God heseds the Israelites, which means that he has a covenant-loyal love towards them. Even when it seems like they’re suffering tremendously, God still keeps his covenant with them. In the case of the Ninevites, God will forgive any who repent and believe, that’s part of his hesed. Jonah knew God would forgive them, because God’s character prioritizes his covenant-loyal love.

God relents from disaster—the idea of destroying a whole city usually isn’t God’s first response. The destruction of a city or a nation is God’s last resort, when even in his mercy, patience, and steadfast love, the people still refuse to repent and believe him. This is precisely what Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9 concerning why Jesus hasn’t returned yet, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise . . ., but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

What Jonah realizes and what he tells us in his prayer is that God is a good God who responds with grace, mercy, patience, and love to the extent that regardless of what the Ninevites did prior to this point, if they would simply repent from their sins and believe, God would forgive them.

Knowing that Jonah’s primary issue with the Ninevites is that they’re exceedingly wicked and violent and that he doesn’t think that they deserve forgiveness; and knowing that Jonah knows that God is gracious, merciful, patient, and loving, it starts to clarify why Jonah is so angry; but it brings up the question, how can Jonah hate them so much that he would want them to be destroyed with no hope of forgiveness?

This tells us of how much Jonah’s sin against the Ninevites had warped his thinking that he thought it would be better to be dead than to be alive. Jonah, in vs. 3, prays that the LORD takes his life because he’d rather be dead than alive.

Jonah’s partiality against the Ninevites and his anger towards them and really towards God’s forgiveness of them results in him losing the will to live.

Just the same, anytime we allow sin to fester in our hearts, the sin will warp the way that we think.

God asks Jonah a question that doesn’t actually get an answer, yet. In Vs. 4, “And the LORD said, ‘Do you do well to be angry?’” This is the first of two times that God asks Jonah this, but this first time, Jonah doesn’t actually respond. Rather, what he does is what Vs. 5 says.

Vs. 5, acts as almost a transition into Vs. 6-11. After Jonah prays this prayer in which he explains his reasoning for disobeying God and he expresses his anger towards the LORD for forgiving the Ninevites, “Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.” Read with me 6-11.

The Lord’s Compassion on Nineveh (6-11)

Jonah 4:6–11 ESV

6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Jonah in his anger has set up camp on the outskirts of the city in order to see what would happen to the city. This tells us that his heart still isn’t right.

He responds to the LORD by praying and through part of the prayer, he’s actually saying good things—that God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; but he isn’t saying it in praise or worship. He’s saying these things in an accusatory way.

That if God wasn’t like this, then the Ninevites would have to pay for their wickedness.

The fact that Jonah sets up camp in the way that he did—to watch what would happen to the city, shows us that he didn’t actually want them to repent and that he’s hoping that they’ll still be destroyed.

Which tells us that even after being almost drowned in the sea and swallowed by a great fish—even after being spit back up on dry land and even after preaching to the Ninevites

Jonah is still sinning against the Ninevites

He’s even sinning against God by going against God and even going on a diatribe against God.

Which is surprising, that after experiencing all of the various miraculous events that have occurred within a short, brief amount of time during his life, he’s still continuing in sin—he’s still acting in anger and hatred towards the Ninevites because his sin has warped the way that he thinks.

In Vs. 6-8, it seems as if the Bible is changing gears, but in reality, God is pointing out the same heart issue of Jonah, that we’ve already pointed out.. Vs. 6-8, tell us of this plant that was appointed by God. “God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’”

This is yet another miraculous event that occurs in Jonah’s life. If you’ve ever planted anything during your lifetime, you know that plants don’t suddenly grow to be large enough to shade an entire person within that short amount of time, nevertheless, because the LORD appointed it, that’s precisely what happened.

Remember that Jonah is sitting outside of Nineveh, in the middle-east, and with the exception of a small strip of land called the Fertile Crescent, a large portion of the middle-east is a desert. The Bible specifically tells us that Jonah went to the East of the city, which we know, for sure was part of the Assyrian desert.

So, obviously, it’s hot and uncomfortable, but the LORD miraculously provides some sort of shelter for him in the form of a plant, which covered him and shaded his head from discomfort.

Jonah actually does the right thing to do in this situation, and he’s “exceedingly glad because of the plant.”

Almost as quickly as the plant grew, the following day, “God appointed a worm to attack the plant” and God appointed a scorching wind, and God allowed the sun to beat down on Jonah—to the extent that Jonah was faint from the heat.

So much so that Jonah again says, “It is better for me to die than to live.” Before we think that Jonah is being melodramatic, the abrupt weather change caused by God and the lack of shade is actually significant where Jonah is.

The New American Commentary, explains that “Losing precious shade in this harsh environment was one matter for Jonah. Experiencing this horrible wind was yet another. Most identify this wind as the ‘sirocco.’ When this wind is experienced in the Near East, the temperature rises dramatically, and the humidity drops quickly. It is a constant and extremely hot wind that contains fine particles of dust. It contains ‘constant hot air so full of positive ions that it affects the levels of serotonin and other brain neurotransmitters, causing exhaustion, depression, feelings of unreality, and occasionally, bizarre behavior.’ The Septuagint [the Greek translation of the Old Testament] translates it succinctly as [the] ‘scorcher.’”

God goes from giving Jonah moderate comfort in the desert with the spontaneous growth of whatever this plant is, to killing the plant and changing the weather for Jonah to experience great discomfort.

And this is when God speaks to Jonah again, in Vs. 9-11. “But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you do well to be angry for the plant?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.’ And the LORD said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?’”

God starts this whole conversation by asking Jonah if he does well to be angry about the plant.

What God is asking is if Jonah has a right to be angry about the plant. We know that because God points out how Jonah didn’t do anything to earn that plant or to make it grow and yet, he’s angry that the plant withered and died.

Jonah’s response here might actually be a little melodramatic. “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

I say that this might be a little melodramatic, but remember the high heat and abrupt change in temperature might actually be the reason for his seemingly melodramatic response

Regardless of whether Jonah is being melodramatic or not, the question from God is whether Jonah has a right to be upset about the whole situation.

And Jonah responds by essentially making the claim that he not only has the right to be angry, but he has enough of a right to be angry that he can be angry enough to die.

The response is really a build-up of how Jonah has thought throughout the whole book. From the beginning of the book, Jonah didn’t believe that the Ninevites deserved forgiveness and after seeing God actually respond to the Ninevite’s repentance with forgiveness, which Jonah thinks is unfair and unjust, Jonah is simply responding as someone who “can’t take it anymore.”

Because Jonah still thinks that the Ninevites didn’t deserve the opportunity to repent, he thinks that God is acting unjustly by forgiving them. In Jonah’s mind, God is acting wrongly and in Jonah’s mind, if he can’t trust God to be consistent, then his life might as well be over.

The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary tries to explain what exactly Jonah is thinking during this conversation and I think they provide a fairly decent idea of what Jonah was thinking. “Jonah can take no more. Although he had offered God the opportunity to reverse his decision regarding the future of the Ninevites, God has merely demonstrated how absurd and incomprehensible he really is. His behavior is totally inconsistent. One minute he brings comfort, the next he brings destruction. Jonah can see no rationale to all this; God’s ways are beyond him. If God must act so perversely, then Jonah sees no point in continuing to live; he would be better off dead.”

I think seeing Jonah’s response in this situation tells us just how important learning true doctrine about God is. Jonah only thinks this way because he doesn’t have the right idea of who God really is and until he learns the truth about God, he’s always going to have a misunderstanding about who God is; which is what God seeks to correct in Vs. 10-11.

“The LORD said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?’”

Jonah in this last chapter shows us how hard-hearted his heart is, that he’s more upset about the dead plant than he is about several thousand people who “don’t know their right hand from their left.”

And just like Jonah’s statement in Chapter 2 that salvation belongs to the LORD, there is a sense of irony in what’s happening in this chapter. Jonah expresses anger about a plant that he didn’t plant, that he didn’t water, that he didn’t grow and yet he can’t seem to understand how much more valuable the people of Nineveh are.

Whereas Jonah didn’t plant the plant, he didn’t water the plant, he didn’t help the plant grow, God on the other hand actually created the Ninevites, just like he created all mankind.

It is the fact that God created the Ninevites that causes him to pity them with the statement “who do not know their right hand from their left” picturing their spiritual and moral condition without God.

John Hannah concludes his commentary on Jonah by summing up the whole book, “Jonah is a remarkably tragic example of the plight of the nation [of] Israel. Both Jonah and Israel were accused of religious disobedience and disaffection. What a tragedy when God’s people care more for creaturely comforts than for the interests of God’s will among men. By contrast, God is unselfish. He has a right to be concerned about that great city, a city with many people who needed his grace. . . As the book concludes, Jonah was angry, depressed, hot, and faint. And he was left to contemplate God’s words about his own lack of compassion and God’s depth of compassion. The Lord had made his points: (a) He is gracious toward all nations . . .; (b) He is sovereign; (c) he punishes rebellion; and (d) he wants his own people to obey him, to be rid of religious sham, and to place no limits on his universal love and grace.”

In our last few minutes, let’s take some time to look at some specific application to apply this passage to our lives.

Application

Jonah’s Sinful Anger (1-5)—the first section of Jonah 4 tells us about the great displeasure and anger that Jonah expressed after he preached his brief message of incoming judgment to the Ninevites and left the city to watch from a distance what would happen. It’s clear that Jonah really would rather the city face the judgment that he thinks it deserves, which is why he’s so angry to the extent that he essentially accuses God of being too gracious, too merciful, too patient, and too loving; when he thinks the LORD should judge Nineveh. There’s one application point to be made that I’m going to express in two ways from Vs. 1-5:

You need to constantly renew your mind through the study of God’s Word so that your mind doesn’t remain warped in sin.

The whole account of Jonah in this book is a result of his disobedience towards God. He disobeyed God because he had a sinful attitude towards the people of Nineveh. That sinful attitude came as a result of not knowing God’s Word, which resulted in not really knowing about God.

It is through the Word of God that God’s people are sanctified and built-up. Remember with me John 17:17-19, in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, he asks God to “Sanctify [the disciples] in the truth” what is the truth? “[God]s Word is truth.” The process of sanctification on this side of eternity is tied to our knowledge of God’s Word, which is why Paul tell’s Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Unless we purposefully seek truth in God’s Word, our minds will remain warped because of our sin.

To prevent wrongful thinking, like Jonah’s sinful attitude towards the Ninevites, we need to regularly seek the truth of God in his Word.

You need to be sure that your thoughts and your actions are controlled by your desire to follow God and not your desire to sin.

It is very easy for our desire to sin to control our thoughts and our actions, which is why I started our application with the need to constantly renew our minds through the regular study of God’s Word.

Even though Jesus sets us free from our sins by his substitutionary atonement on the cross, on this side of eternity, we’re still affected by sinful desire. This sinful desire is the reason for several passages of Scripture that tell us not to love sin. 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

It is our sinful desire that causes our thoughts and actions to be controlled by sin; but the gradual process of sanctification done by the Holy Spirit as we delight in God’s Word is the process through which our affection for sin slowly changes to affection for God.

And as the Holy Spirit works within us through His Word, we delight less in sin and we delight more in God.

To prevent being controlled by sin, we need to delight in God’s Word and His truth, which will increase our desire to follow God.

So, the first application for this passage is, to regularly seek the truth of God in his Word and learn to delight in his Word, which will increase your desire to follow God and diminish your desire to follow your sin. You will learn to think like God thinks, love what God loves, and desire what God desires.

The Lord’s Compassion on Nineveh (6-11)—in the final section of Jonah, we see Jonah sitting and waiting in hopes that the city would be destroyed by God, but God utilizes a plant to teach Jonah the reason for his compassion on Nineveh. We see this short epic of a plant growing rapidly to shade Jonah and then within the next day, the plant withers and dies; and Jonah proclaims his anger that the plant died. God utilizes this to point out the absurdity of Jonah’s response to the Ninevites—that he would be so angry at a plant and not realize how much more important the people of Nineveh were to God. There’s two application points from Vs. 6-11:

God’s grace, mercy, patience, and steadfast love is an open invitation to all people to repent and believe in him, including people that you aren’t particularly fond of. So, you need to be able and willing to present the Gospel to all people regardless of your personal feelings of them.

It really doesn’t matter how you feel about a person—whether you like them or you’d rather not be in the same room as them. The truth of the matter is that we’re all in the same sinking boat and without Christ, we’re all drowning.

Jonah allowed his personal opinion about the Assyrians cause him to sin against the Ninevites and against God. Jonah allowed his personal opinion about the Ninevites to cause him to think that the Ninevites weren’t worth salvation.

But the Bible tells us that God loves all people and wants all people to come to him regardless of how you feel about them.

Because God loves all people, even those we don’t like and even those who have a reputation for being exceedingly wicked and violent, we who are believers than have a responsibility to do as Matthew 28 says and to “go make disciples of every nation.”

We can’t do that unless we’re (1) able to and (2) willing to:

Ability to present the Gospel has to do with our own knowledge—do we know the Gospel well enough to articulate it clearly to anyone that we meet? If you went to work tomorrow and the first person you bumped into asked you about Jesus, what would you say?

Would you be able to tell them who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and the need to repent from sins and believe?

Or would you be so out of practice with those types of conversations, that you wouldn’t be able to say anything at all?

Learn to articulate the Gospel clearly—you can do this in a variety of ways and I’d love to teach you, so if you’re curious, please speak with me about it after the service.

Willingness has to do with our hearts—do we care enough about the people around us to learn to present the Gospel in a clear way? Do we love the people around us enough to actually proclaim the truth to them?

Or are we afraid that we might offend them?

Or are we afraid that they might not like us?

Dr. Bob Jones III, used to regularly remind ministry students that the most sobering fact of reality today is that thousands of people are dying and going to hell today. Do you care about those people?

The last application point ties into your care for other people.

Just like Jonah needed to grow in his compassion towards the Ninevites, you need to grow in your compassion for other people—pray that God helps you to love the people that he loves.

If you truly love them, you will have no problem finding encouragement to lovingly present the Gospel to them.

If you truly love them, you will have a growing burden within for their soul’s eternal destination.

If you truly love them, you will do everything in your power to show them salvation through Jesus Christ by what you say, what you do, and how you live.

Put simply, Jonah 4 teaches us to (1) constantly be renewing our minds through the study of God’s Word, which will increase our desire for God and decrease our desire for sin as we learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates and (2) we need to grow in our compassion for all people around us, and (3) we need to be able and willing to present the Gospel to everyone that we can.

Renew our minds through Scripture, grow in our compassion for all people, and be able and willing to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as often as we can.

Pastoral Prayer

Congregational Singing

In Christ Alone