Session 7: Standing in the
Way of Grace? (4:1-11)
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, you
treated the Ninevites with compassion and did not bring about
their destruction. They repented and began living new lives.
We often become angry with your compassion. We often
believe that there are those in our world who don’t deserve
Your love. Forgive our selfish anger and
self-righteousness. Help us see clearly with the eyes of
faith that Your Son Jesus died for ALL people. Help us to
have love and compassion as You do. Let us live our lives
guided by Your Word with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Make
us signs of Jonah, that our new lives may bear witness to Your
undying grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Synopsis of Theme
Does Jonah have the right
to be angry? God saw how the Ninevites responded to His
Word-they repented and put on sackcloth and ashes. Jonah
was not happy. But who is Jonah unhappy with? Jonah
considered God’s act of mercy a great evil. A literal
translation of Jonah 4:1 reads: But it was evil to
Jonah, a great evil, and his anger burned.” Now,
like an angry judge, Jonah condemned God. Do we have the
right to feel “burned” when God shows His mercy and
grace?
Nineveh’s repentance
coming shortly before God’s threatened punishment was a type
of last-minute conversion, like that of the dying thief on the
cross. How have you responded, when after sharing the Good
News of Jesus to someone hear the words from their lips, “Not
now! I can always believe before I die?”
Questions: Text
Read Jonah 4:1-11
Why was Jonah so angry
about Nineveh? Against whom was his anger especially
directed? (verse 1)
*Jonah was angry
because he believed the people of Nineveh didn’t deserve God’s
mercy. He was thoroughly disgusted with the Lord’s
ways: “God, why did you show mercy to Nineveh? What
have they done to deserve it? They are not God’s
chosen people like us Jews. They do not submit to
circumcision and live by the other requirements of Jewish law.
They repent at the last moment, and you bless them the same way
you bless us. It’s not fair, Lord, simply not fair!”
Read Ezekiel 33:11
and Luke 15:7 What do these passages have to
say about Jonah’s anger over Nineveh’s repentance?
*He has no real
place to stand in regard to God’s pleasure which is that the
wicked turn from their evil way and live. God is in
control. God rejoices over those who repent. Jonah
has no real right to be angry with God’s good pleasure in
sparing one sinner or many. Read Luke 5:32.
Jonah was displaying a
self-righteous spirit; that which is called “selfish
exclusiveness.” How is Jonah acting like the older
brother in Luke 15:28-30? (see also the parable of the
laborers in the vineyard: Matthew 20:1-16)
* Jonah is angry
over the Father’s open love and compassion just like the
older brother in the parable of prodigal son who was disgusted
with his father’s love of the wayward son. See also Luke
15:10 The vineyard workers who were in the vineyard
longest felt they deserved more pay. How like Jonah they
are! Do we let our standing as a faithful child of God
stand in the way of God’s grace for others?
Jonah could also have been
angry because of his knowledge of certain prophecies regarding
Assyria. Read Hosea 10:6; Isaiah 7:17, 20; Hosea
9:3. Why would these events take place?
* Hosea had
predicted that because of Israel’s idolatry, the nations’
idol (along with the nation itself) “will be carried to
Assyria as tribute for the great king.”
Read Mark 3:5 and Romans
2:8. When is anger sinful and when is it justified?
* Jesus was
righteously angry with the Pharisees over their lack of concern
and love over the man with the withered hand. The Pharisees
were so intent on being “right” that they were wrong.
They would NOT see that Jesus had come to have mercy on all
people, including them. God has wrath and anger over those
who base their lives on sinful things and refuse to repent is
justified. He is a patient and compassionate God but
self-righteous thinkers who “obey unrighteousness” will
have tribulation.
When someone “whines”
about God not being “fair,” as God was in showing
forgiving compassion to the Ninevites, what could you tell them?
* See Psalm 130:3
and John 3:16 The Psalmist in this penitential psalm
(of which there are seven) recognizes that if God would keep a
record of his sins he is doomed. Who is Jonah to say that
the entire city of Nineveh deserves punishment when he himself is
guilty before God? Jesus in John 3 would die for the sins
of the world-even the people of Nineveh. Jonah forgets that
God is in control.
In verse 2 of chapter 4
Jonah and God converse with each other for the first time. He’s
angry because he knows God might have mercy. He knew God
would a “gracious and compassionate God.” Read
again Joel 2:13 and Exodus 34:6.
Jonah’s selfish anger
is expressed in verse 3 when he would rather die than live.
In chapter 2 Jonah prayed and thanked the Lord for sparing his
life. Elijah felt he had failed in his mission for the Lord
(1 Kings 19). Read Numbers 11:13-15 and Matthew
27:3-5 Are these cases similar to Jonah’s?
*Moses hears the
complaint of his people and brings his distress to the Lord.
Because Moses turned to the Lord in his feelings of insufficiency
and frustration, his complaint did not degenerate into rebellion.
Judas’ despair in betraying Jesus leads him to execute
himself (Lev. 24:21).
When we are inclined
toward feelings of despair and hopelessness, we are looking in
the wrong direction and at the wrong person. What does 1
Peter 5:7 say about this?
*Peter writes that
we are to “cast all our anxieties on the LORD,” not on
ourselves. Focusing inwardly will not help our souls
complaint.
Who causes despair, even
in the Christian, to the point of death? Why? See 1
Peter 5:8.
*Satan tries every
trick to lead us to despair and not rely on Christ. Satan does
not want us to have hope in the Christ who defeated sin, death
and his power.
After Jonah’s
complaint the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
What was the purpose of the LORD’s question?
* This is the gentle
voice of the loving and concerned father, “My son, stop and
think about what you are saying. You say I’m unfair in
showing grace and compassion to the Ninevites. Didn’t
I do the same to you when I delivered you from certain death?
Now are you being fair? Is your anger at me justified?”Ask
yourself when you seek to justify your emotions of anger with a
“it’s not fair” attitude. Righteous anger is
determined by God’s will, not mans. Would the LORD
want me to be angry?
Jonah is silent at the
LORD’s words and builds a temporary shelter from the sun and
wind hoping that God would reign down His destruction on Nineveh.
Compare and contrast Jesus’
actions over a city’s spiritual condition with Jonah’s
over Nineveh in chapter 4. Read Luke 19:41-42
*Jonah hoped Nineveh
would be crushed by God’s anger. Jesus (in only the 2nd
time in all of the New Testament) weeps over the city because He
saw its coming destruction by the Romans in AD 70. Real
peace comes when Jesus dies for the sins of the world and rises
to new life.
In Jonah 4:6-8 God
provides a plant, a worm, and an east wind. Three times in
this chapter “God provided.” Read Jonah 1:17 again.
What is God’s purpose in providing all these things for
Jonah?
*Nature acts within itself in that it is “natural.” When God commands/provides it becomes a supernatural act-even a miracle. The object lesson the LORD provides it to get Jonah to see that his anger is unjustified.
In Jonah 4:8 Jonah
says, “It is better for me to die than to live.” What
is the difference between his frustration at this point and from
verse 3?
*Jonah’s anger
and despair in verse 3 focuses on God’s mercy toward
Nineveh; in verse 8 Jonah is physically exhausted. Jonah 4:3 is
comparable to Jonah 1:12.
Up until Jonah 4:6
God had been using his name of covenant grace and mercy, the name
LORD, in His dealings with Jonah. In verses 7-9 what name
does He use and why?
*The name “God”
is used. At this point God proceeds to deal with Jonah as
Jonah wanted him to deal with the Gentiles, using the name God,
signifying his awesome power. He can create a vine, and he
can destroy it. He is the Ruler of life and death. In
verse 10 he will return to the use of his name LORD.
What was Jonah’s real
concern in chapter 4?
*Jonah’s real
concern was for himself and his own self-interest. Nine
times the words I, me, or my are used in chapter 4.
Jonah’s self-pity and
his great concern for the plant were an object lesson from God.
What can self-pity and self-concern do to a life?
*In Jonah’s
case his self-pity was encased in prejudice against the
Ninevites. God is concerned with the condition of all human
beings and their fate. (1 Tim. 2:4)
Read an interesting
parallel in Acts 10:1-16; 22-36, regarding God’s way
of grace for all and man’s way. It is an interesting
coincidence that Peter saw the sheet in Joppa, the same city from
which Jonah had attempted to flee centuries earlier.
The text ends with the
LORD asking the question, “And should not I 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?” (Jonah 4:11) Why does God mention the
“cattle?” See Matthew 10:29; Psalm 136:25;
147:9; Matthew 6:26, 28; Psalm 36:6.
*God’s
compassion extends to all of His creation from the smallest
sparrow or “worm,” to the largest. Animals have
no souls and cannot sin so there was no reason to destroy the
animals in Nineveh. Nor was there reason to destroy the
people in Nineveh. Although they had sinned greatly, they
had repented, and the LORD had forgiven their sin.
Is there a spiritual
danger in becoming overly concerned about the death of animals,
vanishing forests, environmental pollution?
*There can be a
spiritual danger when the “creation” is worshipped
above and beyond the “Creator.” See Romans
1:18-25.
Jonah’s response to the Lord’s loving rebuke of his sin was silence. Why?
*One commentator
has made the following observation: “But his very silence
on this point and the entire tenor of his book speak louder than
words. Jonah would not have written so frank and
self-humiliating a confession of his sin if he had not been
sincerely repentant and had not hoped to preserve and save others
from similar bigotry and grumbling.” Theodore Laetsch, Minor
Prophets, page 243)
How have YOU responded to
the Lord’s rebuke for your sin(s) either in his word or
through a fellow Christian?
What is your reaction to
the ending of the Jonah story?