God’s grace and a prophet’s anger

Jonah 4

Who are you like?

Who do you take after? Who is it that you are like? Are you like one of your parents?

• We can physically resemble our parents

Of course, we often inherit physical features from our parents. We might have the same colour eyes as our mother or the same colour hair as our father?

But it can be more than just the way that you look, your physical appearance. You might have the same sort of sense of humour as one of your parents. You might laugh at the same sort of jokes or find amusing the same sort of things as your mum or dad. I think that both my sons have the same sort of sense of humour as me. We roll around laughing/giggling until it hurts, and a soon as we look at one another we set one another off on another round.

• We can do things in the same way

We can also pick up our parents’ way of doing things. We sometimes try to be like them. My dad seemed to be able to fix or repair or build anything around the house that needed fixing our building. I’ve always wanted to be like that, good with tools and able to fix things that needed fixing, the house “handy man”. .

While I’m nowhere as good a “handy man” as my dad, it has always been something I’ve aspired to be like. When you have something, you admire about one of your parents you often grow up wanting to be like them in that way. Of course there are ways that you don’t want to be like them.

• We are called to be like our God

As children of God, we are called to imitate our heavenly Father. Paul can write to the Ephesians…

Ephesians 5:1-2

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

God’s people have always been called to be like their God. God’s old covenant people, the Israelites, were called to be holy, like their God is holy (Leviticus 19:2). Today as we consider together the conclusion of the story of Jonah we need to consider how much like our God we really are – are the things that God is cares for or his concerned and does are they what we care about and getting on doing or not. I think this is the challenge that the book leaves God’s people with.

Angry with God

In this final chapter of the book of Jonah we discover that even though Jonah was a prophet of the LORD, he was nothing like the God who he served. He had served God very reluctantly and even after he did what he was told to do he became angry with God because of what the Lord then did. We are going to look at the passage under two headings: (1) Angry with God [verses 1 to 9] and (2) Unlike God [v10-11].

In verses 1 to 4 we read how Jonah was angry with God over him sparing the Ninevites and in verses 5 to 9 he was angry with God over him not sparing the plant that had withered and died. In verses 10 to 11 we see the big difference between the prophet and the Lord.

(1) Over sparing the Ninevites

In the last chapter we read how when Jonah went to the city of Nineveh, the people of Nineveh believed the message and repented. They gave up their wicked ways and violence. They did this, from the least to the greatest, in the hope that God might relent and have compassion on them and turn away from his fierce anger so that they would not perish. And God did show them compassion.

Jonah 3:10

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

• Jonah was furious

But Jonah wasn’t happy about this outcome. Instead, he became very angry with God. The CSB translates verse 1 he “became furious” and I think that captures something of intensity of what the prophet felt.  He was so angry with God that he said that it was better for him to die than live.

Jonah 4:1-4

4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 But the LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

• Jonah had gone hoping the Ninevites wouldn’t have repented

The second time the word of the Lord had come to Jonah, he had obeyed and gone to Nineveh. But he’d gone hoping that the Ninevites wouldn’t repent because he knew what God was like and what he might have done if the people had repented.

• Jonah knew what God was like

Jonah knew that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. God’s people knew this. The Lord himself had revealed that this was what he is like to Moses and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:6). It is a truth that is threaded through the OT and a truth that they sang about and rejoiced in (see Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13). It’s something that the people of God knew about God.

• Jonah knew that the Lord was giving them the opportunity to repent

And Jonah knew that by sending him to the people of Nineveh to warn them about the coming judgment the LORD was giving them the opportunity to repent.

The Lord had done this plenty of times with the Israelites. Jonah and the people of God just didn’t know this intellectually but experientially. It had been his people’s experience time and time again and it had been the prophet’s own experience when he ran away from the Lord. He knew that the Lord is a God who is compassionate and gracious and relents from sending calamity.

• Jonah regarded this as a great evil.

But now Jonah is furious with God for sparing the city of Nineveh. He said that it was “a great evil”. This is perhaps a more literal translation of it “seemed very wrong” in verse 1 which I think puts what Jonah was thinking very mildly.  The Hebrew word “evil” that is being used in verse 1 to describe what Jonah thought about what God had done “is a play on the word ‘evil’ in 3:10”^[1]. In chapter 3 it used to describe the evil ways that the Ninevites.

And now Jonah thought that God was doing‘a great evil” by sparing the Ninevites and he was angry about it. He was furious with God.  “And God asked him whether he had any right to be angry? But before we find out the answer to that question, we are told how Jonah became angry about something else that God then did.

(2) Over not sparing a plant

Jonah became angry with God over not sparing a plant that had sprung up overnight. We are told what had happened in verses 5 to 9. What occurred here must have happened sometime while Jonah was still waiting to see what God would do to the city of Nineveh.

• An object lesson

While waiting God gives Jonah an object lesson. An “object lesson” is where you use a physical object to help you teach someone something that they need to learn. I did this the other day when giving my children’s talk here in church. I used my satellite communicator that can be used to call for help from anywhere in the world to introduce the way that Jonah called out for help by crying out to the Lord in the middle of the ocean. In this case the Lord used a plant to teach Jonah something about himself.

Jonah 4:5-9

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

• Jonah was happy about the plant

Trees weren’t plentiful in Mesopotamia even then and even if his shelter had a roof on it, it wouldn’t have been much of one. Therefore, when God provided this leafy plant to provide some shade, Jonah was pleased about it because it eased his discomfort. He was happy about the plant.

• When it died, he grew angry

But, when the next day the plant withered and died Jonah grew hot and faint and very angry again, angry enough he said to die. Jonah was hot and became angry with God about the destruction of the plant. And God asked the question again whether it was right for Jonah to be angry about the plant.

The plant was an object lesson that highlighted the fact that the prophet was more concerned about the plant that sprung overnight than he was about the people of Nineveh.

Unlike God

The vast difference between God and his prophet God is brought home in the final verses of the book and it highlights that the prophet is nothing like the God he was meant to be serving. The Lord contrasted what he (the Lord) cared for or was concerned about with what the prophet cared for and was concerned about to highlight the difference.

Jonah 4:10-11

10 But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

 Jonah cared about the plant

 

The Lord pointed out that Jonah had been concerned about the plant though he had not tended or done anything to make it grow. The word that the NIV has translated as “concern” the CSB translated as “cared”. But why was Jonah so concerned for this plant? It wasn’t because he was a horticulturalist who had discovered some new amazing species of plant life. It wasn’t because he had spent time establishing and nurturing it but it was  because of the benefit it was to him.

 

When it sprang up in the way that it did he was happy about it because it had provided shade for its head. It’s like when we used to go camping in the summer holidays as a family. We always looked to pitch our tent and tarp under the shade of a tree. It just offered you that extra protection that a tent and tarp alone didn’t do. It was always that little bit cooler under a tree. Why Jonah cared so much about the plant was because he cared about his own comfort.  He was concerned about the plant because he was chiefly concerned about himself.

God cared about the Ninevites

But God’s concerns were different. God was concerned for the great city of Nineveh and its people and even the animals in it. He was concerned for the hundred and twenty thousand people who didn’t know their right hand from their left. The Lord probably wasn’t just talking about the young children in that city who hadn’t learned to tell left from right yet. The expression probably has more to do with the Ninevites’ lack of understanding and knowledge, their ignorance in the things of God. They had not had the privileges that the Israelites themselves had been given to know God and his ways. They needed a prophet like Jonah to come to them. They need the people of Israel to be a light to the nations like they were called to be.

The difference

Of course, this is where the book ends. It has ended pointing out the enormous gulf that existed between God and his prophet. Jonah is nothing like his God.

• God is gracious and compassionate

God is gracious and compassionate. He cares and is concerned about the people of this world who don’t him and wants them to turn around and be saved from the coming judgment. Paul wrote to Timothy that he “wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). He was concerned for the 120,000 people in Nineveh.

And, although Jonah knew this, and had experienced God’s grace and compassion first hand in his own life he was unwilling himself to extend the same sort of grace and compassion that God had shown him to others. He didn’t care less about the 120,000 people of Nineveh and he became angry when they were not destroyed. He just wanted them gone because of the things that they had done and perhaps yet might do.

• Jonah cared most about himself

What Jonah was most concerned about was himself and those things that directly impacted his life. He was incensed when the plant died. He quickly became angry about the plant not because he cared about the plant, but because it offered him relief from the sun. He was really concerned for himself and those things that made him comfortable. He cared and was upset about things that in the scheme of things didn’t matter. And when things didn’t turn out the way that the prophet wanted them to go, Jonah became angry/furious with God. The Lord was slow to become angry with his disobedient prophet, but the prophet was angry with God and the last words we hear from Jonah in the Scriptures are “I am so angry I wish I were dead”.

These are not the sort of words you want written on your tombstone:

Jonah,
son of Amittai,
prophet of God
“I’m so angry I wish I were dead”

Well at least you could say he got his wish. But these are not the sort of words any of us should want on our tombstone. The words that we should want as our epitaph ought to be something like – “a man who became like the God that he served” or “a woman who bore the likeness of her Saviour”. That’s how God’s grace should impact us.

• What are we most concerned about?

But if that is to be true of us, we must ask ourselves what is that we are really concerned about? Are we spending our lives concerned about things that in the scheme of thing will not matter? Do we have God’s concerns on our heart? Do we care about what God cares about? Do we have the same burden that God has about the lost? How do we see the people around us? Do we see them as people needing to be saved? God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). The Lord Jesus said that he came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

What is that we are concerned for? Are we just concerned about God keeping ourselves and those we love safe and comfortable? Or are we concerned for the 5.6 million people of this great city of Sydney who don’t know their right and from their left and are stumbling around in the dark facing death and hell? Do we care enough to put ourselves out for the sake of others?

• How will you finish the story?

We don’t get to hear how the story of Jonah ended for the prophet and that’s intentional for as much as the story was about the prophet it is here in Scripture for it is being directed now at us. How will you end the story? What are you going to be like? Are we going to be like the God who we claim to serve? What epitaph will be written for you when life is over?

The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save the lost! He gave himself on the cross so that those who believe and repent might be forgiven and live.  If that was what he came to do shouldn’t we also be concerned for the lost? Shouldn’t we  be doing whatever we can so that the people of this great city have that opportunity to hear the message and heed the warning and believe and repent? What is that we are going to be really concerned about as God’s people? Who are we going to be like?

• Who will you be like?

I don’t think that Jonah is an example of someone that we are meant to imitate because in the end he was nothing like the God who he was called to serve. Of course, he might have had a change of heart, we don’t know. But the question is whether we are going to have a change of heart. You and I are called to be like God. If I had to pick someone to be like (apart from the Lord Jesus). I think the apostle Paul is a much better person to imitate. He wrote…

 1 Corinthians 10:33-11:1

For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.11 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

As God’s people, follow the example of the apostle, who is following the example of the Lord Jesus and together let’s not just spend our lives seeking our own good, but let’s seek the good of the many, so that they might be saved.

^[1] John L. MacKay, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, page 61.