Jonah’s Regret

Jonah, it's a short one. I'll give you a few moments to get there. Flip past it a few times.

We've spent the last two weeks in this book, and today will be the final Sunday of it.

The books of the Bible were not given titles, so we call this the book of Jonah because it's about a prophet named Jonah.

I sometimes want to add subtitles to these books.

It's Jonah, God's whiny prophet, or Jonah, how not to be a prophet of God.

I've always really liked the name Jonah, and I don't think there's anyone in our congregation with a child named Jonah.

This morning anyway. If you know somebody with a child named Jonah, please don't be offended by this.

I couldn't name a child Jonah after studying this book. What a mess he was.

This morning our text will be Jonah chapter 4, so verses 1 through 11 of chapter 4.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

But before we get into that, I want to kind of give some summary of where we've been,

and then I'm going to read the entirety of the book to you.

It's such a short story and such a wonderful story.

I think you need to hear it in its entirety, especially if you haven't been here with us over the last two weeks.

The way we've kind of structured across the book in these three weeks began with a sermon whose theme was rebellion,

where we looked at the rebellion of the mariners, those who piloted the ship that Jonah got onto as he fleed from the presence of God.

And we saw that they cried out to their various gods.

They weren't worshipers of the one true God.

Certainly see the rebellion of the Ninevites.

God called it a great city and said that their evil has come up before him.

And the message that's given to Jonah to take to the Ninevites is that in 40 days,

Nineveh will be destroyed for their wickedness.

And we saw the rebellion of Jonah as he worked at fleeing from the presence of God,

although was entirely incapable of doing so.

And as we think about these various forms and various accounts of rebellion,

the lesson for us to learn in all of that, I think, goes one of two ways.

And that is either that you find yourself this morning very self-righteous,

that you think you're a pretty good person and that you've done well in the sight of God,

that you're not like the Ninevites and you're not like Jonah and you're not like the mariners.

But what you need to know is that you are.

Even the smallest offense against the holy God, an infinite God, demands infinite punishment.

It's weighted the same before him.

By God's grace, you may not be in human terms quite as evil as the Ninevites.

However, you are found before God condemned because of your sin.

The other side of that is you might be very self-abasing.

You might find that you're never in your own mind worthy of the mercy of God to you.

That you don't think he could possibly forgive the sins that you've committed.

And there's this great measure of mercy in this book that God abounds on all of these various characters.

And I want you to be comforted by that today.

As we looked at the rebellion, particularly in chapter 1, we talked a bit about God's purpose.

That when the gospel of Jesus Christ came to Paul,

and he was given the commission to go and preach it to the Gentiles,

this was not a new revelation.

This was an amazing thing, an astounding thing for Paul in his day to be told to take the Word of God

beyond the borders of Jerusalem.

But God has always had a global purpose for His glory.

He has always wanted His name to be proclaimed amongst the nations.

There's many Old Testament texts that say this.

My favorite is Isaiah 43, 6 and 7.

God says,

And God has always had this intention.

And Jonah is aware of this intention,

which is the very reason that he flees from the presence of God.

This is the reason he takes off and goes in the opposite direction of the city of Nineveh,

because he knows that God has a purpose.

And we ask the question,

do we live in light of God's purpose to the world?

We talk about God's presence and about how living in God's will is to live in God's presence.

And we talk about God's power and the way in which He sovereignly works His will.

To observe that Jonah did not have the power to thwart God's intention for the people of Nineveh.

And God brings about these extraordinary circumstances to reorient Jonah's life

for the preaching of the destruction and therefore good news.

Ultimately, as we consider all the rebellion that's found in this book,

particularly the rebellion of Jonah as the centerpiece of it,

we need to remember that this is primarily, in a very high way,

this is a story of God's great mercy.

You see all of this rebellion,

but you see God's mercy in the proper and right thing for God to do for all of these people

is just to go ahead and destroy them.

Just go ahead and wipe them off the face of the earth.

But yet He brings these great mercies in the form of a great wind that He hurls upon the mariners.

Consider that Jonah being on the ship and God punishing his disobedience

was what turned the mariners to God.

You see in chapter 1, verse 16,

And the men feared the Lord exceedingly,

and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord,

and they made vows.

They repented.

They turned from their ways,

and they turned to the one true God.

God sent great mercy in the form of a great fish

that came along and swallowed Jonah whole.

Jonah certainly would have died in the midst of the sea

had it not been for this fish.

And it's this fish that is used in His time in its belly

to bring Him to repentance.

And God brings great mercy to the city of Nineveh

with the promise of a great destruction.

The call to repent.

Forty days and I will destroy.

And there's this call to repent.

And in chapter 3, you see even the king himself gets involved

in the fasting and the mourning over their offense to God

and calls them to righteousness.

So all of these great mercies leading to proper and right repentance.

Repentance.

Today, I want to talk about Jonah's regret

as the theme for this morning.

Let me read to you the story of Jonah.

Follow along with me, if you will.

I'm reading from the ESV version of the Scripture

if you manage to have a technological piece

that you can flip between translations.

Chapter 1, verse 1.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai,

saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,

and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish

away from the presence of the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea,

and there was a mighty tempest on the sea,

so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.

And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship

and had laid down and was fast asleep.

So the captain came and said to him,

What do you mean, you sleeper?

Arise, call out to your God.

God, perhaps the God will give you a thought to us that we may not perish.

And they said to one another,

Come, let us cast lots,

that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him,

Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.

What is your occupation, and where do you come from?

What is your country, and of what people are you?

And he said to them,

I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven,

who made the sea and the dry land.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him,

What is this that you have done?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord,

because he had told them.

Then they said to him,

What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

He said to them,

Pick me up and hurl me into the sea,

then the sea will quiet down for you,

for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.

Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land,

but they could not,

for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

Therefore they called out to the Lord,

O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life,

and lay not on us innocent blood,

for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea,

and the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly,

and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah,

and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days.

And three nights.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord as God from the belly of the fish,

saying,

I called out to the Lord out of my distress,

and he answered me.

Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep,

into the heart of the seas,

and the floods surrounded me.

All your waves and your billows passed over me.

Then I said,

I am driven away from your sight,

yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.

The waters closed in over me to take my life.

The deep surrounded me.

Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains.

I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.

Yet you brought up my life from the pit,

O Lord my God.

When my life was fainting away,

I remembered the Lord,

and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving,

will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

And the Lord spoke to the fish,

and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time,

saying,

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,

and call out against it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh,

according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city,

three days' journey in breadth.

Jonah began to go into the city,

going a day's journey,

and he called out,

Yet forty days,

and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

They called for a fast,

and put on sackcloth,

from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The word reached the king of Nineveh,

and he arose from his throne,

removed his robe,

covered himself with sackcloth,

and sat in ashes.

And he issued a proclamation,

and published through Nineveh,

by the decree of the king and his nobles,

let neither man nor beast,

herd nor flock,

taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water,

but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth,

and let them call out mightily to God.

Let everyone turn from his evil way,

and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows?

God may turn and relent,

and turn from his fierce anger,

so that we may not perish.

When God saw what they 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.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,

and he was angry,

and he prayed to the Lord and said,

O Lord, is this not 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 were a gracious God,

and merciful, slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love,

and relenting from disaster.

Therefore now, O Lord,

please take my life for me,

for it is better for me to die than to live.

And the Lord said,

Do you do well to be angry?

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 could see what would become of the city.

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.

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.

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.

And should I not 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.

And so we see in the story

this wonderful display of God's mercy.

And let me draw your attention

or your mind's attention

just momentarily

to the great deal of mercy

that He showed Nineveh,

this massive city

that takes three days to cross,

which likely included the suburbs around it.

But this huge populace

of wickedly evil people,

the Ninevites were Assyrians

and were historically horrid, horrid people,

and they turn from their ways,

and God relents from the disaster.

This wonderful revival,

possibly the largest revival ever in history.

And Jonah regrets it all.

I want to structure this morning,

this sermon,

in just two quick and easy ways.

First, the sin of Jonah's regret.

Regret.

The sin of Jonah's regret.

Sometimes I just move right past the mistakes

because it's not worth stopping

and sometimes it's worth stopping.

And secondly, God's merciful response.

God's merciful response.

So, the sin of Jonah's regret.

It's really interesting

that there's this little glimpse of obedience.

We see this repentance on his part

in chapter 2,

this wonderful prayer of repentance.

The beginning of chapter 3,

he's recommissioned to go.

He's obedient now.

He's now following God.

He goes and he preaches this message.

But it's bookended by sin

on both sides.

The fleeing from God's will.

The very beginning,

verse 1 of chapter 4,

you see that Jonah was unhappy and angry.

It displeased Jonah exceedingly.

And he was angry.

The fact that the Ninevites

were actually listening

to what he had to say,

that the Ninevites were doing

all that they could

to flee from the wrath of God

for their disobedience to him,

displeased Jonah exceedingly.

And we see in this

that Jonah's obedience

was not rightly motivated.

He's gone through this epic adventure

of sailing on a ship

and getting tossed overboard

and swallowed up by a great fish

for three days

and vomited back up onto a beach

and journeying across a desert.

And he does the thing

that God has asked him to do

in the preaching of judgment,

but he does not do it rightly.

He doesn't walk in

to the city of Nineveh

hoping for their repentance.

In fact, it would seem

that what he's really hoping for

is their destruction.

I'm going to go and preach

the destruction of God

and I hope that's how it turns out.

You see, the Assyrians

were evil people.

There's a prophecy,

a judgment cried out to them.

I've read to you the last two weeks,

but I just want to highlight this once again

and in a little bit of a way,

I'm kind of getting in Jonah's corner on this

because these people

were the enemies of Israel.

They had done atrocious things in the past

and they still would do atrocious things

to Jewish peoples.

I think the very similar cross-reference

for us today would be ISIS

and the way that ISIS is going after

Christian populations so heavily.

So if you can imagine that

as you're thinking about

who these people are

that he's going to preach to.

Nahum 3, 1-4 says,

Woe to the bloody city.

Talking about Nineveh.

All full of lies and plunder.

No end to the prey.

The crack of the whip

and the rumble of the wheel.

Galloping horse and bounding chariot.

Horsemen charging,

flashing sword and glittering spears.

Hosts of slain.

Heaps of corpses.

Dead bodies without end.

They stumble over the bodies.

And listen to the why

that they're doing this thing.

That they're so viciously brutal.

And all for the countless whorings

of the prostitute.

Graceful and of deadly charms.

Who betrays nations with her whorings

and peoples with her charms.

Right?

They're violent because of sex.

A wicked, wicked people.

But it would seem that Jonah

has misplaced the very character of God

and His mercy.

It would seem that he's forgotten

that God was merciful to him.

All the same, in his wickedness,

being called by God to go

and preach a message,

he flips and goes the other direction

and flees from the presence of the Lord.

And yet, God shows him

this great measure of mercy.

Beloved, our God is a gracious God.

He is merciful.

If we are in Christ,

He has been abundantly,

aboundingly merciful to us.

And I think we too often forget that.

In some way,

we begin to believe

that we deserve God's grace to us.

And deserve grace ceases to be grace altogether.

We were the Ninevites.

It seems that as Jonah repents

and is spit out on the shore,

and it makes this long journey

he would have had to make to Nineveh,

that the desert crossing

dried up his affection for God.

Jonah obeyed God.

This is of great importance.

Good for Jonah.

He obeyed God.

The repentance of the Ninevites come

as a result of God using Jonah's preaching.

His obedience was important,

but God wants not only our obedience,

but He wants us.

He wants all of us.

He doesn't want us just to immediately

go through the motions

of doing the things

that we're supposed to do.

He wants us to do those things

because we have a heart for Him.

Because those things are meant to be

acts of worship for Him.

We are not to be concerned

with the appropriateness

or the inappropriateness

of the outcome of our obedience.

We are to be concerned

with the obedience

and our trust

in God's good and merciful purpose.

We are to go and share

the good news of Jesus Christ.

The destruction of God

being the bad news.

The good news of Jesus Christ.

That there's a way back to God.

There's a way to avoid that destruction.

There's a way to be saved

from the wrath to come.

This is a command given to all believers.

It's not reserved for a few.

It's not reserved for the trained professional.

It's for all of us to go

and to do this thing

and to trust God with the result.

To go where we're called to go.

To preach the good news.

And to do so in a desire to honor Him.

To bring glory to His name.

To praise Him amongst the peoples.

And then God will do what He will do

with our obedience.

Now in Jonah's sinful anger

he did three things that we should note

and we should filter our own thinking through.

Firstly, Jonah tried to justify

his previous action.

Look in verse 2.

He prayed to the Lord and said,

Oh 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 were a gracious God,

merciful, slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love,

and relenting from disaster.

He says to God,

See, that's why I didn't want to come.

I was right in what I did before.

Because the very thing that I feared would happen,

the repentance of the Ninevites,

has happened.

So he starts to try to justify it.

And when we walk in sin,

we always think that we're right.

And we will not be convinced otherwise.

Do you know people that are like this?

You do if you know me.

I'm so often this way,

so convinced that I'm right

in the way that I should walk.

I need God's intervention in my life

to show me otherwise.

We become the standard of what is right and true.

And this is such a dangerous,

dangerous thing.

Try to justify our actions.

There's such a great deal of value

in self-awareness.

And I will tell you that as you mature as a Christian,

you will begin to trust yourself less.

You'll begin to understand

just how deceptively wicked

your heart can be.

Praise God that I am not

the standard of what is right and true.

When I talk to professing believers

who don't believe in the inerrancy

and the sufficiency of Scripture,

it frightens me.

Because if I can't believe that God's Word

is completely true

and that it is enough

to teach me how it is

that I should walk

all of it

in its completion,

then suddenly I become the standard.

What a scary thing.

If you've not found yourself in that place yet,

it's coming.

Just live life a little while longer.

I can remember being in my late 20s

and thinking that I had a lot figured out.

I thought,

I kind of got this life thing sorted out.

And then I had kids

and I realized that I didn't know anything

about anything.

And that's still where I'm at today.

I think I'm beginning to learn

some of the things that I should learn.

But right now I know nothing.

And so I have to go to the Scripture, right,

for the way to live rightly.

I've got to be here

that I might walk in the way

that pleases God.

Jonah tried to justify his previous actions.

Secondly,

Jonah tried to use Scripture against God.

Now this is a bit subtle,

but I want to show you what I mean

and I want to show you the danger of this.

Right?

So in verses 2,

I guess it's just 2, isn't it?

Yep.

Just in verse 2,

he quotes loosely

from Exodus 34, 6, and 7.

The Lord passed before him

and proclaimed.

This is when God hides Moses

in the cleft of the rock

and lets his glory pass,

lets him see the back of God.

Passed before him and proclaimed,

I am the Lord, the Lord,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding

in steadfast love and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love for thousands,

forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

You see that loose quotation of that

in 4.2 of the book of Jonah.

Let me read to you the rest of verse 7

from Exodus 34.

But who will by no means clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers

on the children and the children's children

to the third and the fourth generation.

So God is this God

abounding in steadfast love,

keeping this love for thousands,

for a multitude,

forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin,

but also storing up wrath,

and visiting wrath on those who are guilty.

You see that Jonah didn't believe

that the Ninevites should be recipients

of the first part of Exodus 34, 6, and 7,

but rather he preferred the second part of it.

He saw himself as the arbiter

of God's merciful character.

He goes preaching this judgment that will come,

and it's as if he says,

had I not preached your judgment,

then you would not have had to act

according to your mercy.

If I hadn't said it,

you wouldn't have had to do it.

The Ninevites shouldn't receive your mercy,

therefore I was right in fleeing to Tarshish.

He leverages God's character against him

to try to justify his activity.

Can you think of another attempt in the Scripture

to do the same,

to pick up the Scripture and use it in a way

that it's not meant to be used?

Matthew 4,

Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness

where Satan tempts him.

And Satan uses the Word of God to tempt him.

He warps it to meet his purposes.

And Jesus so brilliantly responds with Scripture

and a right understanding of it.

And in this way,

Jonah acts as a progeny of Satan.

You can see this as an offspring of Satan,

using the Scripture to meet his ends,

to find the justification

for why he didn't want to preach

to the Ninevites.

This happens all the time

in Christian circles.

How have you used the Scripture

to justify your own position?

The Scripture is not a neutral thing

that you pick up

and you make your case from it.

This is God's Word.

God condescending

to become an author

through the hands of many men

across many, many years

to tell us something.

And we too often stand over it

in judgment of it

rather than being under it.

Humble.

God has spoken.

What has He said?

Let me give you an example.

Turn to Matthew 7.

Mark Jonah for me.

We're going to go back into it.

But turn to Matthew 7.

There are many common examples

of this being done.

Jeremiah 29 11.

Amen?

Those of you know

what I'm talking about?

Misused.

All the time.

All the time.

You walk into somebody's church building

in the southeast,

and Jeremiah 29 11 is on the wall,

and walk back out.

Okay?

Because they don't understand the Bible

and they don't use it properly.

I'm going to use

a less controversial example.

Take my foot out of my mouth.

All right.

Matthew chapter 27.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

It's the end of the Sermon on the Mount,

verses 24 through 27.

Everyone then who hears

these words of mine

and does them

will be like a wise man

who built his house

on the rock.

And the rain fell

and the floods came

and the winds blew

and beat on that house,

but it did not fall

because it had been founded

on the rock.

And everyone who hears

these words of mine

and does not do them

will be like a foolish man

who built his house

on the sand.

And the rain fell

and the floods came

and the winds blew

and beat against that house

and it fell

and great

was the fall of it.

I have heard

countless

people use this.

I have heard

many sermons

using this text

to talk about

if you found

your life

on Christ

that your life

will be really good.

There's this

subversive

prosperity gospel

being taught

in so many places.

This morning

being taught

in so many places

that says,

hey,

we're Americans,

we've got a pretty good life.

If you add Jesus to it,

it's going to get

a little better.

Texts like this

being used for that.

The beginning

of verse 24

says,

everyone then

who hears

these words

of mine

and does them.

Here's this

preaching of the gospel

from the Sermon

on the Mount

which ends

just before this

with a number

of warnings

about final judgment.

This is not about

good happy life

that Jesus is talking

about here.

This is about

where does your

foundation sit?

In this day

they would have had

to dig down

through layers

and layers

and layers

of sand

to hit bedrock.

It was a lot

more work

to do that.

He's saying

that the Christian

life is a life

of sacrifice,

of following

Jesus Christ

so that

in the final day

the house

stands.

This is not

about

some version

of kumbaya

that Jesus

gives to us.

A gospel

preached here,

a text used here

in a way

that can't

apply everywhere

in the world

is being taught

improperly.

So many places

in the world

if we did this

on a Sunday

morning

we would be

gathered up

as we left

this place

and jailed

or beaten.

This is not

consistent.

Right?

Your earthly

life could get

worse by following

Jesus Christ.

It could become

miserable

in human terms.

but we have

Jesus.

We have

eternal joy.

We're looking

to the reward.

So we use

Scripture in this

way

quite often.

I tremble

that I do it

sometimes.

I pray

that I don't.

Your job

as the congregation

to hold me

accountable.

If I begin

to do that

I begin

to use

the Scripture

to justify

some opinion

that I have

or some

behavior

that I do

oh charge

me with it

please.

We're meant

to exegete

the Bible.

We're meant

to see what

the Scripture

says.

What does

the Bible

say?

What is it

communicating?

What does

the text

mean?

And how does

it change

the way I

live?

We're not

meant to

eisegete

or read

into it

the things

we want

read into

it.

We are

to read

the Bible

in order

for it

to read

us.

Proverbs

18.2

speaks of

us so

often

and of

Jonah

here

says a

fool

takes no

pleasure

in understanding

but only

in expressing

his opinion.

I on

Sunday

mornings

have

nothing

to say

to you

if I

don't have

the Scripture.

I mean

I gotta

just pat

them on

the back

the men

that can

get up

and preach

and just

talk

and talk

and talk

and talk

and say

nothing

from the

Bible.

How do

they have

so much

to say?

If

my Scripture

was to be

a couple

of verses

that are

going to

get displayed

on a screen

when it's

convenient

for what

I'm trying

to say

to you

I would

clam up

and run

off the

stage

every Sunday

morning.

the Word

of God

is powerful

and it

speaks

and it

moves

and it

works

in us

if we

pick it

up

rightly.

Don't

use the

Word of

God

to justify

your behavior.

And then

thirdly

Jonah wished

he were

dead.

I just

want to

point out

that he

is a bit

ironically

he wished

he was

dead

earlier.

He was

asked to

be thrown

overboard

into the

sea.

He's

fleeing from

the presence

of God.

Just throw

me into

the sea.

I might

as well

die here.

Here's

saying

verse 3

Therefore

now

Lord

please

take

my

life

from

me.

God

has

just

preserved

his

life

and

saved

him

in

this

most

remarkable

way

for it

is

better

for me

to

die

than

to

live.

He

is

so

angry.

He

is

so

extremely

dissatisfied

with the

repentance

of the

Ninevites

that he

just

wants

to be

dead.

So

that's

the sin

of Jonah's

regret.

Let's

look at

God's

merciful

response.

Never

fear,

we're

more than

halfway

there.

God's

merciful

response.

God

asked

Jonah

three

questions

beginning

in

verse 4

the first

question

and the

Lord

said

do

you

do

well

to

be

angry?

And

it

seems

to

be

a

rhetorical

question.

We

don't

have

a

vocal

recorded

response

to this

question

in the

text.

God

is

saying

as he

asks

this

question

we

are

both

looking

at

the

same

situation

you

and

I

Jonah

but

we're

looking

at it

in two

very

different

ways.

Who

has

the

correct

perspective?

Is the

correct

perspective

the one

of the

prophet

of God

or

of

God

himself?

Do

you

do

well

to

be

angry

with

the

purpose

of

God

in

your

life?

Jonah

should

have

had

the

mind

of

Paul

in

Romans

3

4

he

says

let

God

be

true

though

everyone

were

a

liar.

We

get

some

response

to

the

question

not

vocally

but

in

verse

5

it

says

he's

in

the

city

and

he

has

this

temper

tantrum

first

few

verses

God

asked

him

the

question

do

you

do

well

to

be

angry?

And

verse

5

says

Jonah

went

out

of

the

city

I

imagine

that

he

huffed

out

of

the

city

and

he

walked

out

of

the

city

and

he

sat

to

the

east

of

the

city

and

made

a

booth

for

himself

there

now

a

booth

would

have

just

been

a

crude

structure

it

wouldn't

have

been

anything

fancy

maybe

sticks

maybe

a

bit

of

tunic

or

something

that

he

was

able

to

hang

to

give

a

bit

of

shade

obviously

the

shade

isn't

ample

because

God

brings

him

more

shade

but

a

bit

of

shade

he

gets

he

goes

out

he

sits

under

it

in

the

shade

till

he

should

see

what

will

become

of

the

city

that

is

fascinating

because

it

appears

that

he

still

wants

God

to

destroy

the

city

of

Nineveh

40

days

is

have

repented

the

text

says

that

God

relented

of

the

disaster

Jonah

may

not

have

known

this

at

the

time

he

marches

out

of

the

city

and

he

sits

up

on

the

hill

to

see

what's

going

to

happen

to

the

city

and

in

so

doing

he

errs

in

three

ways

first

he

quits

sharing

God's

word

here

are

these

people

that

have

just

repented

!

They

just

turned

from

their

sin

and

he

is

peacing

out

right

Jonah

could

have

been

the

great

pastor

of

the

city

of

Nineveh

part

of

the

largest

revival

in

history

the

first

great

megachurch

and

he

marches

out

of

the

city

his

message

seems

to

end

with

yet

forty

days

and

Nineveh

shall

be

overthrown

and

quits

secondly

he

builds

a

booth

or

you

can

think

of

it

as

a

private

retreat

a

place

of

shelter

and

there

was

plenty

of

shelter

to be

found

in

this

three

day

wide

city

and

its

surrounding

suburbs

Jonah

kind of

seems

to

launch

a

separatist

movement

there's a

whole

city

of

people

who

have

said

we

want

to

follow

the

one

true

God

we

want

to

turn

from

evil

ways

look

we're

repenting

sackcloth

ashes

all of

that

like

we

really

want

to

follow

this

God

and

he

goes

nope

I've

got

other

ideas

a

different

denomination

one

that

will

destroy

you

for

sure

he

builds

a

booth

and

thirdly

he

becomes

a

spectator

he

ceases

to

be

involved

in

the

things

that

are

happening

there

do

you

do

well

to

be

angry

now

there's

a

second

question

before

God

asks

the

question

he

creates

a

scenario

to

prepare

Jonah

for

the

very

question

that

he

asks

in

verse

six

the

Lord

appointed

a

plant

and

made

it

come

up

over

Jonah

so

it's

a

very

rapidly

growing

plant

God

says

later

that

this

plant

was

made

in a

day

and

destroyed

in a

day

if I'm

getting

that

right

it

doesn't

matter

it

came

up

very

quickly

that

it

might

shade

over

his

head

to

save

him

from

his

discomfort

and

we

get

the

first

little

glimpse

four

so

Jonah

was

exceedingly

glad

because

of the

plant

miserable

prophet

the

preacher

of

potentially

the

greatest

revival

in all

history

is

really

glad

for the

plant

and it

just

highlights

the

extremity

of

Jonah's

selfishness

here's

an

entire

city

turning

their

hearts

toward

God

and he

is

happy

he's

got

a

little

shade

when

dawn

came

up

the

next

day

verse

seven

God

appointed

a worm

that

attacked

the

plant

so

that

it

withered

when

the

sun

rose

God

appointed

a

scorching

east

wind

coming

across

the

desert

hot

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

again

he's

asking

for

death

is it

better

it is

better

for me

to die

than

to live

but

God

said

to

Jonah

do

you

do

well

to

be

angry

for

the

plant

or

do

you

do

well

to

be

angry

that

the

plant

was

destroyed

and

he

says

yes

I

do

well

to

be

angry

angry

enough

to

die

!

And

anger

we saw

at the

beginning

of chapter

four

he's

angry

at

God

he's

angry

at

the

mercies

that

God's

working

amongst

the

Ninevites

anger

so often

takes

this

type

of

diminishing

form

it's

foolishness

that he

would be

angry

over

this

plant

he

moves

from

angry

at

God

to

angry

at

the

death

of

a

plant

almost

as a

side

note

if we

are

angry

by

nature

the

very

littlest

things

set

us

off

James

Montgomery

Boyce

wrote in

his

commentary

on this

chapter

first we

are angry

with

God

next we

express

our

anger

at

circumstances

then

minor

circumstances

finally

our

shoelace

breaks

one

morning

and we

find

ourselves

swearing

the way

his

anger

just

is he's