The Wideness Of God’s Mercy

Jonah 4:1-11                                                                                                                   Lesson 5

Key Verse: 4:11                                                                                                         Shp Kevin Jesmer NIU UBF 5/23/09

“But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

Jonah’s ministry in Nineveh was successful—but Jonah was angry. Jonah had not wanted to go to Nineveh in the first place because he was afraid that the Ninevites would repent and be saved. And that is just what happened. But God taught him a lesson, through a vine, a worm and a hot wind. The point of the lesson was that Jonah should not resent God’s compassion for sinful people, for this was the same compassion which God had shown to Jonah. Through this passage let us repent of our selfishness and learn the wideness of God’s mercy, holding unswervingly to the fact that God loves all people, reflecting that in our own lives practically.

Part 1: Jonah’s Anger (1-3)

God had accomplished a great work of salvation. Jonah should have been ecstatic, but he was not happy. Look at verse 1. “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. Verse 2 reveals why. “He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee 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” Though Jonah’s ministry in Nineveh was successful, he had not wanted to go to Nineveh in the first place because he was afraid that the Ninevites would repent, and that God would relent and not destroy them. He wanted God to judge the Ninevites and remove a people who he despised and who were also a military threat to the nation of Israel. Jonah did not understand that the God of Israel was also the God of the whole world, nor did he understand the heart of God. And so now he was angry and miserable. Are you surprised and even unhappy when “that certain” person turns to God? Is it possible that your heart is as narrow as Jonah’s? Come to Jesus and let him widen it.

Despite of the narrowness of his heart, the man of God, Jonah knew how to pray. Look at verse 2a, “He prayed to the LORD,…” When most people become angry they usually loose all of their senses, especially their spiritual senses. They do not want of pray. I know that when I get mad, there are times when my wife says, “you have to get on your knees and pray to God right now.” I know that she is right. But the angry spirit within me stops me and I simply lay silently until the angry feelings subside. (sometimes taking 2-3 days.) Jonah’s prayer may not have flowed naturally, but he prayed.

      Through his prayer we discover something very important about God. Look at verse 2b, “…O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee 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” People in this world say many bad things about God. One atheist friend told me, “if God allows all the evil in this world then I don’t even want to know him.” But he has a terribly distorted perception of God. From this verse we know that God is a gracious and compassionate God. The facts speak for themselves. God spared the sailors when they pleaded for mercy. God saved Jonah when he prayed from inside the fish. God saved the people of Nineveh when they responded to Jonah’s preaching. God sent his One and Only Son Jesus into this world to die for our sins. (Jn 3:16) Out of his compassionate heart, God answers the prayers of those who call upon him. God desires that everyone would come to him, trust in him, be saved. Those who respond in faith and obedience, will know that our God is very gracious and compassionate and they will receive his mercy. Do you believe this?

Jonah told God why he was angry. Most people, when they are angry, clam up and don’t reveal their true feelings to anyone. Do you do this? It is called, “stewing” in your anger.  Though the prophet felt like this, like his heart was being torn in two, he had a deep and intimate relationship with God and this personal relationship led him to open up to God. Even if you feel that you have no one to share things with, you know that you can always open up your heart to Jesus in prayer. Actually we must be able to open our hearts to others and to Jesus. It is unhealthy to keep it all inside. I believe that is why Julie’s 1:1 ministry is so fruitful. She sits and listens to her Bible students. She allows them to talk and together, they bring everything to God in prayer. May we be shepherds who can listen and help the young people of America to open up to Jesus with all of their struggles of life.

      Working out our struggles in Jesus should help us to rise above the situation and find some resolution, clarity and direction. But when Jonah took his anger to God in prayer, he did not come to right conclusion. Look at verse 3, “Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” His was a very fatalistic conclusion. Jonah did not repent of his lack of compassion towards the Ninevites. He felt so helpless to do anything about his anger. He could not run from God. And so his anger turned inward. He became despaired and depressed and wanted God to end his life. We learn here that if we don’t come to God to resolve our anger in Christ, through repentance and faith, then we will deal with it in very, destructive and dysfunctional ways.

Part ll: The Lesson Of The Vine (4-11)

God did not abandon this embittered prophet. He came to Jonah with kind words of rebuke. Let’s read verse 4, “But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?” This reminds us of God who ministered to Cain in Genesis 4, saying “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you but you must master it.” (Gen 4:6b-7) God ministered tenderly to Jonah just as he had done to Nineveh and to Israel, and just as he does for each one of us. God could have destroyed Jonah for his defiant anger, but instead he gently taught him to reflect on what was in his heart and learn a lesson. We also learn a teaching method from God here. So often God leads us to self reflection and helps us draw our own conclusions. Thank God that he comes to us again and again with kind, gentle and wise words of counsel. Let us take heed, early, before we come to dysfunctional conclusions as Jonah did.

        Jonah made some progress. He went from suicidal to grumpy. Look at verse 5, “Jonah went 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.” He sat down east of Nineveh and waited for God to destroy the city. Perhaps he expected to witness another spectacular judgment such as fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah, with fire and brimstone raining down. But we can see here that Jonah pouted.  He appears selfish, petty, temperamental, and even foolish.  There are times when we feel good about seeing someone fail, stumble and fall. And we wait for it. We are tempted to gloat. But we must be more like Jesus. God is more merciful than we can imagine. God feels compassion for sinners we want judged and he devises plans to bring them to himself.  As Christians we must hope and pray that even our enemies may come to Jesus and be blessed by God. Indeed, Jonah needed to somehow learn the compassionate heart of his God.

The Lord proceeded to help Jonah have an attitude adjustment.  Look at verse 6, “Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.”God revealed his personal compassion for Jonah by providing him with a shade plant that relieved the discomfort of the blistering sun. Last week Iris, our missionary in Sudan, stated that she is getting used to the hot weather. It was 120 degrees that day. Jonah did not deserve to have such a vine. It was purely provided by God’s grace, for Jonah to receive with thanksgiving. Jonah was actually very happy with the vine. Why? Because he, himself was physically comfortable. Though it was selfish thanksgiving topic, Jonah was thankful to God for the personal grace given to him. But this was only the beginning of the lesson. God wanted Jonah to mature beyond being simply happy about his own personal benefits, to hoping that other people may be blessed.

God took the lesson a step further in verse 7. It reads, “But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.”Jonah was angry at the withering of the vine for now he was uncomfortable and inconvenienced. Then things went from bad to worse for Jonah in verse 8a, “When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint….” These high temperatures tend to make even the mildest people irritable and ready to snap for no apparent reason. This made Jonah snap. Again he fell into his old habit of making death wishes upon himself.  Verse 8b reads, “….He wanted to die, and said, ‘It would be better for me to die than to live.’”  The conclusion to God’s training could be seen in verses 9-10, “ But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?’ ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I am angry enough to die.’ 10 But the LORD said, ‘You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.’” God wanted to reveal Jonah’s great compassion on himself and his over concern about this vine, and his lack of compassion on others. That is why God dealt with him as any ordinary person, exposing him to pleasures and discomforts that everyone experiences and making him see that his personal “theology” was making him a cold hearted person.

       Let’s think about this more deeply. Jonah was angry at the withering of the vine, but not over what could have happened to Nineveh. The people of Nineveh were withering in their sins and about to be gathered up and tossed in the fire and burned. (John 15:6) Jonah should not resent God’s compassion for sinful people, for this was the same compassion which God had shown Jonah. Jonah’s condition is not just unique to Jonah. Most of us have cried at the death of a pet or when an object with sentimental value is broken, or when some personal blessing has been taken away from us.  But have we cried over the fact that a friend or a classmate or a family member does not know God? How easy it is to be more sensitive to our own interests, and the loss of our own personal comforts than the spiritual needs of the people around us.

We should not cry over grace given and then taken away. God blesses our lives in so many ways. I have been blessed with family, career, ministry and security. I get great joy from these things. But I must hold loosely to them, lest they become idols in my heart. I must thank God for what he has provided, but also be ready to let go if God sees fit. I must love the blesser more than the blessings. Instead of becoming bitter, I should be thankful for what is given and learn and grow though what God is trying to teach me. Let us hold onto the words of Job in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

         We must always remember that God uses our circumstances to teach us many important lessons of life. God had provided a storm, a fish, a plant, a worm and a wind, all to teach Jonah some important lessons of life. God was manipulating Jonah’s circumstances around to teach him life changing spiritual lessons. This is how God works. We need to stop, look around us in our lives and see what is happening. If we really believe that Jesus is living and that he is the Sovereign Lord, who is control of your lives, then take a serious assessment about what is happening around you. Figure out what God is trying to teach you. You may be surprised at the important lessons that you need to learn.

Verse 11 is a very clear portent into the very heart of God. Let’s read it together. “ But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”Jonah’s compassion extended only to a shade plant and his own physical comforts, but not to lost Assyrians. But God’s compassion is much wider. It extended not only to plants, but to cattle to people. The expression “…who cannot tell their right hand from their left…” means that they were helpless and living in ignorance. The 120,000 people, that God upheld as special objects of His compassion, were probably the entire populace that did not know how to escape their troubles. God has compassion on the helpless. God also has compassion on animals, who suffer at the hands of their owners. Cattle are also beast of burden, used to help “beef up” the local economy, through their labor and their meat. Indeed God cares about the foundation of the local economy because this affects the well- being of the people themselves.

It is so hard to think about our own problems. We are so busy taking care of our own needs. How can we even begin to practice the compassion of Jesus on our friends, let alone a stranger who we may not like?  We can not just wake up and look in the mirror and say over and over again, “I am going to be more compassionate today” Positive thinking only goes so far. It all begins when we realize the God first loved us. Jonah should have realized the depth of God’s love for him personally and then he could have deep love for others. 1 John 4:19 reads, “We love because he first loved us.” The first step is to recognize the grace of Jesus on our lives. If you have not done this then think about writing a long life testimony one day. I know people who have written 100 page life testimonies. Recently a friend wrote 1 13 page life testimony. When you take time to deeply reflect, the grace of God will become clear to you. Then a miracle happens. Your life is changed. You heart of stone becomes a heart of flesh. (Eze 11:19) You can begin to practice the compassionate heart of Jesus.

       In this passage we see the contrast between God’s compassion (3:10) and Jonah’s displeasure, and between God’s turning from His anger (3:9-10) to Jonah’s turning to anger. We learn that we need to overcome our selfishness and become more like God, by expanding the wideness of our compassion to others. May God teach us the wideness of his mercy. May we begin to love all people by taking hold of the grace of God in our lives and then reaching out and loving one person who God has brought near.

In so many ways the students of NIU don’t know their right hand from their left, spiritually speaking. May God widen our hearts to practice the compassion of Jesus on the student of Dekalb.

Part 1: Jonah’s Anger (1-3)

1.  Why was Jonah greatly displeased and angry? (1-2, 2:10) How did he respond to his anger?

(2a) What did Jonah know about God? (2b) What conclusion did he make through all of his

struggles? (3) Who else came to this conclusion? (1 Kings 19:4) What is wrong with this?

Part ll: The Lesson Of The Vine (4-11)

2.  What was God’s rebuked to Jonah? (4) With what kind of attitude did Jonah sit down east of

the city?  (5)  What was he waiting to see?

3.  What did God provide for Jonah? Why? (6) What did God do the next day? (7) How did

things get worse for Jonah? (8a)  How did Jonah respond? (8b) What should have been his

response?

4.  What lesson was God trying to teach Jonah? (9-10) What was God concerned about? (11)

How did he see the people of Nineveh? (11) How did God view the city of Nineveh? Contrast

God’s view point with Jonah’s?

5.  What was God’s purpose for the nation of Israel? (Genesis 22:8; Ex 19:6) How were they to

carry out this mission? How did the Jews respond to their mission? (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)

Why is our world view very important?