Jonah 4
COMMENTARY:
: 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest you of the evil. (2587 “gracious” [channuwn] means merciful, benignant, friendly, or compassionate.)
DEVOTION: There are many verses in the Word of God that give us insight into the attributes of God. HE is sometimes characterized in the Old Testament by those who are not believers as a God who loves to kill groups of people. HE is not noted by some as a loving God until we move into the New Testament. This is not true.
God is the same in both Testaments. HIS attributes don’t change over time. HE is consistent. HE loved HIS people throughout the Bible. HE chastens those who are followers so that they can become better followers. HE judges people who will not repent with death many times. Even HIS own people, Israel, experienced death because of disobedience.
The New Testament states that if those who are believers don’t examine themselves on a regular basis they can experience death as well. HE will first chasten with sickness and weakness before HE allows death. HE states through John in his first epistle that there is a sin unto death for believers.
In this verse we see the compassion of the LORD toward a heathen nation. HE sends a prophet to warn of coming judgment unless they repent and they did repent and HE didn’t send the judgment.
HE would like us to manifest these characteristics in our life. We should be gracious to those around us. We should be merciful to those around us. We should be slow to anger to those around us. We should be kind to those around us. If those around us change their ways we should be willing to forgive them.
Jonah was not willing to forgive them even after they repented in sackcloth and fasting. He didn’t care. He was not acting in a manner that was pleasing to the LORD.
CHALLENGE: We need to act in a manner that is pleasing to the LORD regarding those in our world. We can’t condone sin. We can warn those who outside of Christ to enter into a relationship with Christ before judgment come.
: 4 Then said the Lord, Do you well to be angry? (menacing, stormy, feeling or showing angry.)
DEVOTION: The LORD asks a lot of questions throughout the Bible of people who think that they know better than HIM. HE asked Job if he was there when HE created the world. HE asked Job if HE needed counsel of anyone. We all have questions about what is doing in our world. Sometimes HE is doing things to us but sometimes HE is doing things to other people.
I have had incidents in my ministry where I have asked God why. It wasn’t in relationship to something that happened to me but to others. Two come to mind.
I had a man in my second church who I considered a saint of the LORD. The LORD allowed him to have a stroke and stay in a nursing home for years and yet there was another family member I thought the LORD should have done it to instead of him. I was wrong.
Another man in my third church had a stroke and died within a short time and I wondered why the LORD took him so young with children to raise. There were others in the church who were older that HE took but I didn’t understand why this younger man was taken. I was wrong. The LORD always knows what is best but we allow our feeling to get in the way of our understanding of God’s plan for our world.
Jonah was not right about being angry because the LORD spared these heathen people who believed in HIM after the preaching of Jonah. He should have been happy. He should have been praising the LORD. This didn’t give glory to the LORD.
CHALLENGE: We are to give glory to the LORD. Anger of this type doesn’t give God glory. Jonah needed to confess his sin of anger and start praising the LORD.
: 10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. (2347 “pity” [chuwc] means have compassion, spare, look upon with compassion, or regard.)
DEVOTION: Three times the LORD prepared something to influence Jonah’s life. First the LORD prepared a gourd. Then the LORD prepared a worm. Finally the LORD prepared an east wind.
Jonah was happy to have the gourd protect him from the sun. He was not happy for the worm. The east wind caused him to wish he was dead. Jonah was angry about losing the gourd.
Now the LORD comes along side Jonah to ask him to think through the three things that HE prepared. HE pointed out to Jonah that he had nothing to do with causing the gourd to be available to give him shade. The LORD caused the gourd to grow. The LORD is in control of the gourd, worm, and wind. The LORD is in control of the peoples of the earth. The LORD chooses when HE will allow things to happen in our lives and in the life of Jonah. If the LORD wants to allow a people to stay in existence then that is HIS decision. The based HIS actions on the decisions of the people of Nineveh. HE knew what they would do before they did it. This was a lesson for Jonah, as much as, one for the city of Nineveh.
We are responsible to do what the LORD tells us to do no matter what the outcome. The outcomes belong to the LORD. We are to be faithful.
Are we being faithful to the LORD or are we getting angry when the LORD does something we think is wrong? Are there some people we think the LORD should deal with today?
What about those people in other countries that are killing Christians? What about those countries leader who will not let missionaries enter their country with the witness of the LORD? What about that person/persons who hurt us?
CHALLENGE: The LORD sends object lessons into our life to teach us truths from HIM word. What is happening in your life to teach you a Biblical truth today? HIS lesson to Jonah was to have compassion for others.
: 11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? (to see, or make out through any of the senses, to perceive with the mind.)
DEVOTION: This is the final question the LORD asks Jonah. There were 120,000 children in the city. There was much livestock in the city. The LORD was concerned about the children and livestock. HE wanted to see them become followers of HIM. HE sent a prophet to preach a message that would save the city from destruction.
Jonah on the other hand didn’t care about any of these people. He seemed to hate the people and want to see them judged for their sins. He didn’t have a forgiving bone in his body toward the people of this city.
Can you imagine a pastor that wouldn’t want to see this type of results from his preaching in a city he came to start a church? He would be overwhelmed with the results of three days of preaching. He would be praising the LORD for all those souls who were going to heaven.
CHALLENGE: Yet, Jonah was angry at the LORD because he didn’t like these people. Can we get that type of attitude toward some people in our world?
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