20 Oct JONAH: A STORY OF REDEMPTION PART Three

Welcome to the third and final installment of the Book of Jonah lesson series.  I am blessed to have you on this journey with me.  We see at the end of the second chapter in the book, that Jonah’s pride has been broken. God has humbled Jonah. Now Jonah is ready to not only hear God, but to obey God. To hear God and not obey is just simply prideful arrogance. Again, I can relate to Jonah. We all should be able to relate to Jonah in many aspects in this book.  

We see at the end of part two of this lesson series, that Jonah has humbled himself under Gods authority. The once proud man has now been brought down to his rightful position.

Once a prophet gone awol , Jonah is now back on the job and under the command of God. He’s willing and able to carry out the charge, but he is still not in agreement with the plan. The heart is the toughest muscle in the body. It’s the toughest muscle to burn, and it’s the toughest to change. Though Jonah was now being obedient, he was still not in agreement with Gods plan for the City of Nineveh.

We practice this sort of two-face decision making everyday.  We agree to pay taxes, but we don’t agree with the amount, because it’s always too much.  We agree to go to work and do our job, but we don’t agree with the pay, it’s always too little.  

Jonah obeys Gods command and goes to the City of Nineveh and declares the words God put in his mouth to speak: “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And verse 5 says “And the people believed God“, and they repented. The King called for a national fast for the entire City, in the hopes that God would turn away from their sin and withhold judgement.

The Bible says the people believed God.  The Bible doesn’t say, “The people believed Jonah”.   The Ninevites believed that the words spoken by Jonah came from God, so they believed that Jonah was a Prophet.  The first hurdle of faith is belief.  The Ninevites cleared that obstacle.  They believed.  And their belief caused them to repent.  Belief in Gods words require an action by the person hearing it.  In this case, it required the Ninevites to repent from their idolatry.  

                                           “We serve a compassionate God”

The King declared repentance on the whole nation, in the hopes that God would turn from bringing judgement upon them. So they knew, part of Gods character was to show compassion. We serve a compassionate God. We know we do. That’s why we do some of the things that we do. God is so compassionate, that we take his compassion for granted, and when he removes his compassion and allows us to experience consequence, it is alarming.  But why are we alarmed at what should take place when we disregard Gods commandments?  It’s because we’ve become accustomed to his Grace.

That’s how good God is to us. If God brought his judgement upon us for everything that we did or thought, we would be miserable every minute of the day.  . The Bible said that. No Man is good, no not one, in Romans 3:10.  As bad as your neighbors may be behaving, in contrast to how you live your life, still does not give you declaration to declare yourself as being “good”.  

Not even if you who go to Church every Sunday. Not even you if you fast once a month. Not even you if you lead the Deacon board. Not even if you sing lead in the Chruch choir. Not even you if you teach Bible Study to thousands of people.   Not even you if you pray 6 times a day and pay tithes.

When we walk with God it has the potential to make us feel special.  This is the area where most of us can become dangerous.  So God always has to leave a reminder, a struggle, a troubling thing, to remind us that it is not us, but him who is the focal point.  There’s nothing special about a hammer if there’s no one who can pick it up and use it properly.

We are all tools in the tool box, and Jesus is the builder.   He is the only reason God can look on you and I without disgust and wrath.  No Christ, no life. No Christ, no relationship. No Christ, no hope. No Christ, no forgiveness of sins. No Christ, no redemption. Glory to God.

He’s not only the Son of Man and the Prince of Peace, but he’s also the Lord of Hope. When everything’s bleak and all else has failed, we look to him for deliverance. He’s our hope, in the abyss when hope has fleeted. 

The Ninevites knew that the only person who could deliver them out of Gods hand is God himself.  So that’s who the King appeals to. They did not try to reason in their own mind, nor did they seek council from one of their idols. They believed God, and believed there was no other God they could go to who could deliver them out of the judgement that was to come.

The whole city fasted under repentance, and verse 10 says: “God was compassionate over the evil that He had said to do to them, and He did not do it“. The Bible doesn’t tell us how long they fasted and relented from their sinful activities. But God does not turn away from judgement over the appearance of gestures. You can’t please God with gestures. Save that for the religious folk who like gestures and rituals. Who are pleased by colorful lights and sounds and fancy displays, and prayers with big words that sound so articulate. 

God shows compassion when a person’s heart has turned towards him. And at that point in time, the Kings heart had turned towards God. No different from today. We strive in Christ for a little while, then slide backwards into things we shouldn’t be doing, things we shouldn’t be thinking, things we shouldn’t be watching, things we should be listening to, fellowshipping with people we shouldn’t be hanging around.

While God decided to show compassion towards the Ninevites, let’s see what Jonah was doing.

Chapter 4 verse 1 says “it was a great calamity in Jonah’s sight, and it kindled anger in him”. The definition of calamity in this sense is grievous affliction or great misery. Jonah was grieving with misery and burning with anger. Two extreme emotions. Not at the people of Nineveh, but at God. The same way some of us get when God doesn’t do what we expect him to do, or what we want him to do. Have you ever had God do something that was so displeasing to you that you just stopped talking to him? Not forever, but for a time?  

You were so displeased with what God did, or what God didn’t do, you just stopped praying. This is a relationship. That’s how you know your relationship with God is a real relationship, because sometimes in relationships there are disagreements, and times when there is a break in communication.  Spouses disagree and stop talking for a time.  Siblings get upset with one another.  Friendships break. Our relationship with God oftentimes follows similar patterns as are Earthly relationships.

When God does what we expect, we are happy. When he doesn’t we potentially get upset or perturbed. Or worse, disappointed. Disappointment, I believe, is one of the greatest emotions you can ever experience that will test your faith. Jonah is so afflicted with misery and anger, that he asks God to take his life in Jonah 4:3:  “And now, O Jehovah, I beseech You, take my life from me. For better is my death than my life“. Jonah is seeing a City of people who lived un-righteously, receiving a gift that was historically bestowed upon those who lived righteously according to God;  which is compassion and forgiveness.  Jonah is taking this way too personal.

“Gods compassion towards the City of Nineveh was an offense to Jonah”

What the Ninevites are worshipping God for at this moment, in an offense to Jonah!  We see it in Ch.4 verse 2. “He prayed to Jehovah and said, Please, O Jehovah, was this not my saying when I was still in my land? On account of this I fled before to Tarshish. For I knew that You are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and One who repents over calamity“. Jonah prayed to God. He didn’t throw an accusation at God. He didn’t throw a charge at God. He prayed to God.  The word “pray” is not just us speaking to God.  But it is the manner in which we speak to God.  Involves humility, reverence, and honesty.   

Jonah approached God in a humble manner.  He was humble in his request, which means he was earnest in his request. You’re not hearing me. The reason why Jonah made such a request to God isn’t as important as why Jonah made the request. If you’ve never been in a situation in your life where you felt it would be better for God to take your life while walking with God, then you haven’t been walking with God long enough.

You may have never asked God to take your life as Jonah did, but you may have experienced times where not waking up tomorrow wouldn’t be the worse thing that could happen to you, in contrast to something you may have been facing and struggling with in your life.

Whenever such a request is made to God, it is always driven by a crushing circumstance(s) or situation(s). No one wakes up, and asks God to take their life, if they’re having an “easy go” at life.  It’s when you’re put in a tight place, wedged in between a rock and a wall of thorns, and every which way you turn there’s discomfort and agony. The Bible said Jonah was grieving with misery, and burning with anger. So he was stuck between misery and anger, and he saw no relief in sight.

That’s why many people quit their ministry. That’s why many people stop walking with God. That’s why people leave their marriage. That’s why many people take their own lives. Because they are wedged into a space of circumstances and situations, that they can’t see any way out of. God is going to give Jonah a way out, but it’s going to hurt, because he’s going to have to squeeze through the wedge of rocks and the thorns. When we pray for God to deliver us, we expect to be “taken out” of the affliction.  But God’s way of removing us from an uncomfortable circumstance or situation, is by pulling us through the affliction.

Change happens when we go through, not when we are taken out.

When a woeful request is made to God to take our life, it is the general prayer prayed by those who are suffering in an uncomfortable circumstance and situation. What they are really seeking is for the suffering to end. Jonah was unable to calm his anger, and he was unable to eliminate his misery. We only suffer in things which we cannot control.

You may say “well these are Jonah’s emotions, he should be able to control them”; but you can’t control your emotions if you have not first yet fixed the thing in your heart that brought about those particular emotions in the first place.

If you’re a jealous person you can’t just become an unjealous person. You can’t magically wish away emotions that you feel. But when your heart changes, so do your emotions. So does your thinking. Jealousy and bitterness can’t thrive in a person’s life if those ideas don’t have roots in a person’s heart.

Show me a person who struggles with lust, I’ll show you a person who has lustful roots planted in their heart. Notice Jonah didn’t ask God to change his heart, he asked God to take his life. We feel justified in our thinking, even when the thoughts are unjustifiable. God said to Jonah “Is anger rightly kindled in you“? Do you have a right to be upset Jonah? Have they sinned against you, or have these people sinned against me? What have these people done to you, that they haven’t done to me a hundred fold! If anyone had reason to be angry it was God.

We get more angry at things sometimes then God does. Too eager and quick to pick up stones. God hates sin. I want to make that perfectly clear. God is not “easy” on sin. Sin hurts the person who is committing it more than it does God, because God does not reap the consequences of the person’s sin. God’s motivation for a sinful person to repent, is driven by love and compassion.  

So God’s desire for the Ninevites to repent was for their benefit, not Gods. Ch.4 verse 5 says Jonah left the city after God refused to destroy the Ninevites, made himself a booth and sat under it in the shade and watched the people in the City from afar.  

Jonah left the city to pout.  Pouting because God decided not to destroy the City.  Jonah was watching the City from afar, but why?  Was he watching to see if perhaps the people of the City  would back slide and God would destroy them like he originally intended?  Or perhaps God would see his misery and bring his judgement upon the City to appease the prophet?  

Jonah already felt miserable, so he decided to make himself even more miserable, by staying to observe the very thing that is causing his distress.  Have you ever watched something that made you upset, or did something that made you angry, and instead of turning away and not watching it, not listening to it, not doing it again, you watch it again, you listen to it again, and you do it again?

We, as people, do this all the time.  Instead of starving these feelings, we feed them.  Jonah is feeding his misery and his anger.  We often “feed” our miseries by continuing to consume and meditate on the very things that made us miserable in the first place.  

If you have a problem dealing with “jealousy”, then I would suggest strongly staying off of Social Media altogether.  Because according to Facebook timeline, and Instagram post, everyone has the perfect life except for you.  

                                      “We Feed the things we should starve”

There’s something in us that draws us closer to the things we should be trying to separate ourselves from. There is a relationship between our flesh and the serpent in the guardian. They have established an alliance against God and his Holy Spirit. We not only have to resist the outside pull of sin, but also the pull of sin on the inside of each and every one of us that is bursting and struggling to get out.

Instead of fighting it, many of us feed it. In this, our flesh and the external pull of sin, have created a tennis match, one playing off the other.

The Bible says Jonah sat under the shade why he was looking at the city to see what would become of it. The fact that God chose mercy over judgement made Jonah miserable. Instead of Jonah walking away, and accepting what God had chosen to do, although against his desire, Jonah chose to sulk!

And he did it, by watching the City of Nineveh from afar, provoking himself to become even angrier.

How many times do we watch a news program or read something on social media that makes us angry, only to keep watching the same program and keep reading the same material to provoke us to stay angry and get us even more upset?

One of the reasons why you can’t let it go is because you keep feeding it. You cannot overcome anything that you constantly feed. It only grows bigger.

You can’t fight sexual lust if you watch things that cause you to lust sexually. We have a hard enough time shutting off the thoughts in our mind, why provoke and temp yourself further by watching things you shouldn’t be watching?  So instead of Jonah going home, he decided to go outside the City and watch in anger what would happen next. 

The Bible says in verse 5 of chapter 4: “And Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east of the city. And he made himself a booth there and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would happen in the city“. And God caused a plant to come up out of the ground and give shade to Jonah from the heat of the sun, in order to deliver him from his misery.

Jonah already knew what was to become of the City. God spared the City of Nineveh. We see this in Jonah ch.3 verse 10, but Jonah, being displeased in Gods decision, may have been hanging on to some modicum of hope that God would relent and follow through with his original plan. Causing himself further misery when God does not relent.

The plant God sprung up was to deliver Jonah from his now physical misery that was being brought on to him by the heat of the sun bearing down on his head and face. Jonah rejoiced when the plant came up. The bible says with great joy. He took extreme delight in the sprouting of this plant, and it was externally visible. Like when your favorite sports team scores a point, you rejoice with a loud outburst. Jonah did not contain himself when that plant came up and gave him cover. If you’ve ever been out in the sun, on a hot humid day, with the sun beaming down on your head, then you’ll understand Jonah’s rejoicing. But on the next day, God took the plant away by causing a worm to come out and kill the plant, leaving Jonah exposed once again.

The Bible says God took the plant away on the next day, that means Jonah stayed out there all day and all night sulking.  Have  you ever gotten angry at God, because you wanted him to do something that he’s not doing,  and hoped that he would change his mind once he realized how upset and disappointed you were about it? I feel like this is what Jonah is proposing to do. I’m gonna sit out here angry, let myself bake in this sun, until you do what it is I “think” you should do. I don’t care if it kills me, that’s how strongly I feel about it! I’ve tried this tactic with God before, and this method never works. So don’t even waste your time with that. And if you’ve ever tried it, then you know what I’m talking about.

Not only did God take away the plant that Jonah fell in love with, but he caused a scorching wind to come up, and the sun to beat down on Jonah’s head, this time with no cover. And the Bible said that the heat from the sun on Jonah’s head, caused him to faint within himself, or to faint literally. I will not argue the semantics here, though I strongly believe the faint here means to lose all logic and mental capacity due to extreme exhaustion and weariness. 

Again, Jonah declares: “better is my death than my life”.

God is used to hearing such things from us. What Jonah said was not profound to say the least. We are all born with the same tongue. You will not say anything that God has not already heard. You will not have a thought that God has not already seen. Jonah is 100% laser focused on himself and what it is he wants.  It has been this since God spoke to him. The only time we see Jonah think outside of himself, was on the ship to Tarshish. But we come full circle to how this story began.

Jonah had an expectation and a desire for “one thing”, while God had a desire for “another thing”. God’s will for these people was not Jonah’s will for these people. Jonah believes he is justified in his anger. Not only against the people, but also against the plant, in which he did not grow and has no stake in. God produced the plant and grew the plant.  It was all Gods laboring.  But plants were not created to give man cover from the Sun. It was God who willed this particular plant to grow in a way, so it would do something different then the original creative design of plants

Just like pets. They have a creative design, an intention that God had in mind when he created them. I grew up with dogs. I’m a dog lover. When I was a kid, we had a cat as well for a time. But I’m allergic to cats, so I’m not a cat lover. I love dogs, but I understand their pets. They are not people.  They are not meant to take the place of a child, or a spouse, or a friend, or a loved one. But some people treat them like they’re people. They feed them like their people. Dress them like their people, even kiss them on the mouth like their people.

Dogs can be great pets.  Their loyal to the end. But as loyal as they are, and as reliable as they can be, Jesus didn’t come and die for them. Jesus didn’t come and die for the plants, the trees and the grass. Some of the most viral videos you will see on social media are animals being rescued from abusive or neglectful situations. When you watch these videos they tug at your heart strings. In all the videos I’ve seen of dogs and cats being rescued for being battered or malnourished, I never seen a comment or a response saying “I wonder if the dog did something to deserve being beaten like this“. “I wonder if the cat was scratching on the furniture, to be put out of the house and left in the rain like this“.

God asks Jonah, “are you right to be angry at this plant“? Jonah replied “My anger is rightly kindled, even to death“.

What we see here is not a political matter, not a social matter, not a class matter, but a “heart” matter. Jonah was more distraught over the withering of this plant, then he was over the potential destruction of more than 120,000 Men, not including women, children and infants. There are many people among us, in church and out, that have the heart of Jonah. They do more mourning over plants, animals, and the environment than they do people. They dedicate their lives, time, and resources to saving the environment, to save the wildlife, while being nonchalant towards the things God desires to save.

God shows Jonah the deficiency within his heart. You cannot be a servant of God, if you do not love the things that God loves. You will just be a disgruntled servant or worse. Using the word of God for Earthly gain.

Up until now, Jonah has had push back for everything God has spoken to him, but in the final verse in the Ch. 4, there is no recorded response from Jonah. What is the prophet to say? When a mirror is being held up to your face, do you deny the image? Can you say: “It is not me”?

God exposes the heart of Jonah. God exposes the hearts of all men. He exposes the foolishness, the selfishness, and the prejudice of all men. We must not dictate within ourselves, who deserves forgiveness and who deserves judgement. Who deserves mercy and who deserves punishment. But we do this daily, some more than others, in how we treat people and how we interact with them.

The Book of Jonah is not about a man being swallowed by a fish, it is about a man’s disobedience to God due to a heart of discontent and prejudice. If you have never in your life at some juncture, experienced one or both of these things, you are either the second coming of Jesus in the flesh, or a person who has never let the word of God thoroughly examine you. The word of God, though very enlightening, is very critical. It does not spare the guilty with soothing talk and soft words. It is sharp and pierces deep! Those who hear and receive, become doers of the word. Those who hear and justify become observers of the word. We have more observers than we have doers.

I pray that the study and break down of the Book of Jonah was a blessing to you as it was to me. It was not easy getting through this book. Many things outside of the faith, were of great distraction to me. Causing me much delay in releasing each part later then I would have liked. 

Some were unavoidable, and others were mere stumbling blocks that for the moment gained an advantage. I seek nothing more then the edification of the saints, which in turn gives God glory. He’s worthy of the honor. He’s worthy of the time. He’s worthy of the effort. He’s worthy of the sufferings. He’s worthy of the tears. I pray Gods favor over your life. And please stay connected! 

God Bless