KESWICK AT PORSTEWART 2025
BIBLE READING - FRIDAY 11 JULY 2025 - MR SAM ALBERRY
JONAH 4
Jonah 4 makes me think of those movies that have a really
good twist at the end eg The Prestige, The Shawshank Redemption, The Usual Suspects,
The Sixth Sense. The thing with a good movie twist is not just a surprise, it
is some new revelation that makes sense of everything that went before. It
makes you want to rewatch the movie and now helps you understand something was
being hinted at all along. Something unexpected that explains everything. We
have lot of surprises in this book. There is Jonah’s call to Nineveh, Jonah’s
fleeing from his calling, his deliverance from the storm, the response of
godless brutal Nineveh. In chapter 4 we have a twist, a bombshell dropped and it
makes sense of all that has gone before. We find out not just why Jonah refused
to go to Nineveh but we also find out why God was so persistent that it had to
be Jonah who went to Nineveh. Jonah’s response is not elation that it has all
gone so well, he is angry. Angry at their repentance and of God relenting in
his anger. Like the best movie twists there are signs along the way that something
like this was brewing. There are signs throughout the book that all was not ok
with Jonah. In chapter 2 when he was describing the predicament he had been in,
what God had rescued him from. He talked about the waves overwhelming him, the
hand of God being against him but at no point did he confess any sins, he did
not admit any wrongdoings. In chapter 3 we see all the Ninevites repent, pretty
much all of them from the king on down through all society but at no point does
Jonah repent. By chapter 3 we see that he had resolved to do the right thing
but we realise his heart had not changed at all. Jonah has gone from being the
rebellious younger son to becoming the resentful older son in the prodigal of
the lost son.
Think of the chapter in 2 parts – Jonah’s anger and then the
Lord’s compassion.
We must realise that we are like Jonah and we need the one
who is the opposite of Jonah, the one who is far greater than Jonah.
Jonah’s anger. We might think Jonah would be humbled
by this point after all he has gone through. He has obeyed God’s call and see
the fruit of preaching God’s word. We would think he would be saying “I now
know Lord your ways are greater than mine, I am going to trust you more, thank
you for being patient with me and being merciful to this city.” But instead we
see Jonah angry. Chapter 4 is an ugly side of Jonah. We are told that the Lord
has relented from this disaster and the very first thing we read is “it
displeased Jonah exceedingly.” In chapter 1 we read the sailors “feared the
Lord exceedingly.” Now we have Jonah being displeased with the Lord exceedingly.
One of the ironies of this book is the name Jonah means dove which is a sign of
peace in the bible. Mr Peace is furious. But it is interesting we are told
Jonah was angry and yet in verse 2 he prayed. I want to commend this one aspect
of his behaviour in this chapter. In his anger with God he prays to God. He realises
he does not have to be stuck in a fish to learn to pray. Rather than running away
from the Lord this time he prays to him. It is not a commendable prayer in any
respect. The bible does encourage honesty with God. There are many examples in
the bible of people bringing their complaints to God. One thing we can from
this chapter is this - if you have a problem with God take it to God. He can
cope with that. That is what Jonah does. He is angry with the Lord so he prays.
He takes his issue to God himself. We see why he is angry in verse 2 – “is this
not what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?” Nineveh was not
destroyed, it was preserved, God held back from punishing their sin. Now we see
why Jonah needed to be there. Jonah is triggered by the compassion of God to
Nineveh. Jonah was expecting Nineveh to repent. He is not angry because he was
expecting judgment because he just knew God would be like this, to shew mercy.
He had articulated this back in chapter 1 – it is not recorded for us but he
knew it would happen. I was going to go there, preach your word and you would
shew mercy. We know now why Jonah fled. He was not worried about them opposing
him. He was worried about them repenting and God loving them. That was his
worst fear and it has come to pass. God has been gracious to Nineveh. The
background of Jonah we see in 2 Kings does make some sense of this. It was his
preaching that had been so instrumental in Israel’s borders being restored.
They had managed to drive some of their enemies back across the old borders and to keep them out. Now God is asking them
to cross that very border and be a means of mercy to one of Israel’s worst
enemies. Jonah’s problem is it is so typical of God to be like that. He says ‘I
knew that you are gracious God and merciful, I knew this would happen, that you
would go soft on those guys.’ He cannot take it, of God being gracious to them.
He quotes back from Exodus 34 verse 6 God declares himself with these words “The
Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to
anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to
thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” This is what God
wants the world to know about him – slow to anger, abounding in love. Jonah
both understands that and misunderstands that. When it comes to his people he
is grateful that God is slow to anger and abounding in love. When it comes to
his sworn enemy Jonah is wishing God was slow to love and abounding in anger.
He is happy for God to be all those things to us but not to them. Here’s what
Jonah has not understood – as a nation Israel had tasted that time and time
again but the Old Testament never said he would be gracious to Israel only. He
had shown his intention that eventually all nations would be blessed. That is
what Jonah cannot stand. He wants God to be gracious to us but not to these
people. We can see how he is gripped by this feeling in verse 3. This has
consumed him utterly. He is so full of contempt for what he has done with the Assyrians
and Jonah is saying “I cannot live unless things go my way on this. It is either
me or them. If you are going to spare them then let me die. If you want to keep
me you have got to catch up with them and judge them.” Again as we look at that
it is tempting to think Jonah is a headcase. And he is. But we are to see Jonah
as a mirror to ourselves. He knew the scriptures. He had been used by the Lord.
His ministry had been fruitful. He had strong theological credentials. If he
could display this attitude we can also. Let us see if we are guilty of the
same attitudes.
Jonah says he now wants to die – verse 3. What would God
have to do, to change in your life to be able to pray verse 3. For you to say “Lord
take my life, I am done. It is better for me to die than live. What would be a
non negotiable in our lives that the Lord is not allowed to mess with? What is becoming
your bottom line? I can cope with this but if you take that I am done.” It is
easy for our faith in God to become conditioned on God pulling through in some
very particular area of life and when he
doesn’t we are out. This was the case with Jonah – something else had become to
mean more to him than his faith in God. When that something else was threatened
he was done.
What has triggered Jonah specifically – God has been
merciful to Nineveh of all places. A question we might need to ask ourselves - Who
is it that we do not want God to show mercy to? Before we are tempted to say ‘no-one’,
we need to be careful – the bible tells us the heart is deceitful above all
things. And normally when we find ourselves reflective and saying “I would
never do those things.” It means we are doing things in a way so subtle we don’t
recognise it. fThere may well be someone who has deeply hurt you, someone who
has profoundly wronged you, someone you have a history with. If that someone started
showing up in your church you might have a problem with it. What if you got the sense that God wanted you
to be the means to bring that person to himself? This works at individual level
– there might be individuals we might not want to be spiritually united with. It
also works in a broader more communal level. Jonah was a follower of the Lord
but he was also a nationalist – back in chapter 1 he was Hebrew first, fearer
of God second. Rather than allowing his faith to moderate and temper his
nationalism, his nationalism actually moderated and tempered his faith. Jonah
could not bear to see Israel’s sworn enemy finding mercy from God. So, is there
a group, is there a subculture, a political affiliation, some demographic we
would struggle to worship alongside? Is there a border we would be reluctant to
cross for the Lord? Is there a class of people we would be far more eager to
see receiving God’s judgment than to see receiving his abundant blessing? One
of the lessons Jonah needed to learn is that God’s love does not stop at the
borders of Israel. There may be people we hold in our heart that actually we
would be ok to see spiritually written off.
We see Jonah’s anger and God responds with that question in
verse 4. “Do you do well to be angry?” A great question. God is asking “Jonah
are you right, are you nailing it as a human being right now, being angry with
me?” The proof that God is really slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love
is that there is a verse 4. The question is left hanging presumably because
there is not a satisfactory answer to it. Instead Jonah moves on. We move from
Jonah’s anger to God’s compassion. Verse 5. We see now what has been
driving God this whole time. Jonah finds a spot to watch the city. He has a
little hut set up and he sits there to see what will happen. ‘Maybe God will
change his mind and bring judgment after all, I want to see it if it comes. These
Ninevites are good for this repentance for a day or two but they will go back
to their old ways so I am going to sit here and see what will happen.’ He is
encouraged by what happens next – verse 6. God appoints a plant and he makes it
come up over Jonah that he might be saved from his discomfort. Jonah is
delighted – “he is exceedingly glad”. Thank you Lord you are doing something
right. He can now enjoy the shade and watch in comfort. His exceedingly gladness
is shortlived – verse 7. Now God appoints a worm that attacks the plant so that
it withers and dies. Just as Jonah is about to blow his top over that – verse 8.
With no protection he quickly feels the heat. The scorching wind and the middle
eastern sun is enough to make him very uncomfortable and he is faint. Again he
says “it is better for me to die than live.” Again God asks “do you do well to
be angry?” Jonah answers and says “yes I do, actually yes, yes.” I am angry
enough to die he says. He is convinced he is right. Come on God I have you this
time. God responds to Jonah in verses 10 and 11. He has gone to great lengths
to get Jonah to this point. He has actually appointed a storm, a fish, a plant,
a worm and wind all because Jonah needs to hear verses 10 and 11. It is the
point of the whole book. “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. 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 your relationship with that plant can be measured in
minutes but you are bothered by what has happened to it. In other words “you are
more compassionate about a plant you have known for 15 minutes than you are for
a city of people. Something’s off.” Jonah is a prophet, he can summarise God’s
character, preach God’s word but he is not sharing God’s heart. He does not
love what God loves. He does not pity what God pities. We can see ourselves in Jonah’s
character. We care about all sorts of things that should care less to us. We
are callous about things that should matter so much more to us. God’s concern
is different to Jonah’s – verse 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?” Those are people I created, I made those people. They are lost, they do
not know right hand from their left hand. They have no idea how to live or how
life is meant to work. 120,000 persons is a lot of God’s image which is why God
cares about it. If God’s image in this sense matters to him it should matter to
us. If we are indifferent to the spiritual plight of people made in God’s image
our hearts are out of sync with God’s heart. The lostness of these people
prompts God’s compassion, prompts his pity. As we look around and see the
spiritual lostness of people we should feel the same thing, Jesus did. We read
in Mark 6 where Jesus has been with his disciples, they have gone out on a
mission and they have come back. They have been overwhelmed with people, no
time to eat. Jesus tries to take them off to a quiet place, just him and his
disciples. They get onto a boat and someone tells others where they are going
so that when they get off a boat there are a crowd of people there. Mark 6
verse 34 “when Jesus went ashore he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on
them for they were like sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them
many things.” When Jesus sees the lostness of the lost he does not get
irritated, he does not scold them, he has compassion and he starts to teach
them about himself. Should that not be the case with us? It is easy for us to
get angry when maybe we should be responding with pity, with compassion. The
Lord pities them. Verse 11 takes the form of a question and it is left hanging
in the air – we don’t know what happens next. There is no resolution recorded
for us. As the viewer in a movie you don’t know what happens next. The point of
chapter 4 is not how Jonah will respond but what is our response. What is our answer
to God’s question? Should not God pity Nineveh, any lost person, our sworn
enemies? Again the question is there to search our hearts. Who are the people
we are tempted to forget are made in the image of God, or think God should not
pity? Who are the people whose spiritual fate is of lest concern to us than
some of our material comforts like Jonah had with the plant? When we search our
hearts we are more like Jonah than we care to admit. The answer is not ‘stop
being like Jonah’ but we need to confess how the ways in which we are like
Jonah we are. The best response is to lift our gaze and fix our eyes to the one
who is the opposite of Jonah, our Lord Jesus Christ. The more we see Jesus’ non
Jonah-ness, the more we see the beauty of how Jesus is, the more that will
change our own hearts. As we love the non-Jonas-ness of Jesus we will find a
growing non-Jonah-ness in our own hearts. Jesus also went to a city to preach a
message of repentance. Like Jonah he stood outside that city and thought about
it. When Jonah was outside the city he longs for its destruction. When Jesus
was outside Jerusalem he longed for its deliverance. Jonah was willing to weep
for the plant but Jesus we are told wept for the people. Jonah wanted to die outside
the city, Jesus did die outside the city. Hebrews tells us he suffered outside
the city gates to make the people holy through his own blood. Jonah was being
driven by self pity, Jesus was driven by self sacrifice. Instead of wishing
judgment to fall on his enemies Jesus took that very judgment and bore it
himself for the sake of his enemies. So that we now who should by all rights be
his enemies are his friends. He is not ashamed to call us his brothers. So the
best way to avoid the heart of Jonah is to cherish the heart of Jesus himself.
May we so gaze on him that we become more and more like him. That our heart
becomes more like his, that our loves become like his love. That we celebrate his
grace in the lives not just of ourselves but others as well.
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