Sunday, January 26, 2014

Rejecting the Call

Jonah 4
Welcome! Today we conclude our series on the book of Jonah. Let me start with a quick summary of where we have been. Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, is called by God to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, because, God says, “their wickedness” has come up before Me. Jonah, for reasons not yet given in the book, refuses and instead goes in the opposite direction, towards Tarshish, obtaining passage on a ship with non-Jewish sailors to do so. Along the way, the Lord sends a terrible storm on the ship, causing the sailors to cry out to their false gods. Jonah, asleep through all this, is wakened by the captain who calls on him to cry out to his god. The sailors, who already have heard that Jonah is fleeing his god, learn that this god is the Lord who made the sea and the land, and becoming terrified, ask Jonah what they should do. Jonah tells them to throw him into the sea, but they refuse to do so, instead trying to row back to land. The storm becomes even more terrible, and so, feeling that they have no other options, the sailors do throw him in, and the sea does in fact grow calm. The sailors then give thanks to Jonah’s god and even make vows to him. God then sends a huge fish or whale to swallow Jonah, and in this fish he remains for 3 days. Jonah then prays to the Lord, a prayer that is filled with thanks for saving him (seemingly from drowning through the provision of the fish), but does not show any real repentance at all. At any rate, God then commands the fish to spew out Jonah onto dry land, and, unlike Jonah, it obeys.

Last week Tim took us through chapter 3. Here we see the Lord, once again, tell Jonah to go to Nineveh. This time, Jonah agrees, and he shouts through the city, “40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown [or fall].” The Ninevites heed this message, perhaps because Jonah’s adventure in the fish has preceded him, and perhaps because the Ninevites worship the god Dagon, half man, half fish. In any case, the Ninevites fast and wear sackcloth and ashes, traditional signs of mourning, and even the king does this, making a proclamation for everyone to do this, even to the point of putting sackcloth on the animals. And this brings us to the last verse of Chapter 3:

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened. – Jonah 3:10

It says here that they “turned.” The word used for repentance in the Bible means turning. There was genuine repentance here.

It is interesting to note that from archaeological evidence from that time period in Assyria, the common practice when a king was threatened by the “gods” was to appoint a substitute king, dress him in the kings clothing, and have him sacrificed (killed) to appease the gods. But this practice really reflected insincerity; it was more about appeasing the gods than truly repenting. But here, the king himself repented – no substitutes, no “smoke and mirrors,” no games – it really does appear that their repentance was genuine. Of course, this is what it basically says in Jonah 3:10; they truly turned from their evil ways.

A very relevant verse to this discussion is Jeremiah 18:7-10. God is speaking:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in My sight and does not obey Me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. – Jer. 18:7-10

I think the end of chapter 3 could have made a good ending for the book. It’s a story filled with surprises: a prophet who doesn’t obey at first, a wild storm, the great fish, but then the prophet doing what he is supposed to be doing and a people genuinely repenting of their sins. Book closed.

But the book isn’t finished; there’s one more chapter. And it’s a doozy. Let’s look at it:

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” – Jonah 4:1-4

Wow! Again, we have perhaps read this so many times that it doesn’t shock us, but to a first-time reader or listener, it is a shock on a par with any of the greatest surprises in literature. Jonah actually wasn’t afraid of going to Nineveh because of fearing for his life; that is, he wasn’t afraid of failing. He was actually afraid of succeeding! He was afraid that the people actually would repent, and then God would forgive them!

Jonah in his tirade even quotes scripture back to God – the only other person I can think of offhand who did this was Satan, to Jesus when He was in the desert. The “slow to anger and abounding in love” appears in Numbers 14:18, and the whole phrase, including the “gracious and compassionate” part is in Psalm 103:8 and in Psalm 145:8 (both psalms “of David”).

Jonah’s reaction is extreme, even asking God to kill him. Wait – I’m a little confused; in chapter 2, wasn’t Jonah praising God for saving him, for preventing his death?  The reality is that Jonah is having a full-blown tantrum. It’s almost like one of those “reality” TV shows where you see adults acting like children and you know it would be better to just turn it off, but you can’t because you are so amazed at what you are seeing and hearing. This too is reality that is painful to read.

But for a moment let’s try, just a little, to get into Jonah’s head, to understand why he is so upset. The Ninevites, and indeed, the entire Assyrians, were a brutal and evil people. We know from archaeological evidence that when they took over a new area, they loved to torture the leaders as well as members of the opposing army. I don’t want to be too graphic, but they flayed people alive, decorated their temples and palaces with the heads of the losing leaders, and much more. In some ways they were almost the opposite of what the Babylonians later did when they conquered; the Babylonians tried to assimilate the new people. In the account of Daniel, for example, we see that they took people (including Daniel) into captivity but gave some of them an education and trained them to be people with important government jobs. They hoped that by treating people well, the old cultural traditions and especially the cohesive identity of each people group would weaken. The goal really was assimilation, to become a, to use a modern term, “melting pot.” But the Assyrians instead liked to destroy. They ruled by terror.

Here are some quotes from ancient writings regarding their practices:

“I destroyed, I demolished, I burned. I took their warriors prisoner and impaled them on stakes before their cities. …flayed the nobles, as many as had rebelled, and spread their skins out on the piles [of dead corpses]… many of the captives I burned in a fire. Many I took alive; from some I cut off their hands to the write, from other I cut off their noses, ears and fingers; I put out the eyes of many of the soldiers."  


“I slew two hundred and sixty fighting men; I cut off their heads and made pyramids thereof. I slew one of every two. I built a wall before the great gates of the city; I flayed the chief men of the rebels, and I covered the wall with their skins. Some of them were enclosed alive in the bricks of the wall, some of them were crucified on stakes along the wall; I caused a great multitude of them to be flayed in my presence, and I covered the wall with their skins. I gathered together the heads in the form of crowns, and their pierced bodies in the form of garlands." – Assyrian War Bulletin (around 1000 B.C.)


Earlier in the series I gave the analogy of a Jew being asked in the 1930s or 1940s to go into Nazi Germany and ask the leaders to repent, and I think this is a decent analogy. Jonah saw them as the evil empire, and seeing them being given God’s grace seemed unfair, because they weren’t receiving any punishment for their many crimes and sins. But God’s grace is in some sense “unfair” by its very nature, because to be treated as our sins deserve would mean that we all would be condemned, without hope – including Jonah, a point that he utterly fails to understand. Let’s continue with the account:

Jonah had gone 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. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” – Jonah 4:5-9a

Again, this is actually painful for me to read. Jonah is sitting outside of town, waiting for fire and brimstone, or a giant earthquake, or something. He is waiting for the people to get what he felt they deserved. While waiting, God caused this plant to grow up and shade Jonah from the heat – this is desert in Iraq – but the next morning, the plant had withered, and Jonah no longer had that shade, at least not from his present vantage point. God was behind this – it says He provided a worm to cut down that plant, and He also provided a hot wind. Once again, Jonah has a temper tantrum, again saying he would rather die. Just as with the previous verses, God again asks Jonah a question, and it is almost the same question. His previous question was “Is it right for you to be angry?” – referring to Jonah’s anger that the city wasn’t destroyed. Now He again asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?” – this time referring to Jonah’s anger that a plant had been destroyed.

I think it is worth pointing out at this point that God, who knows what is in people’s hearts, who knows what people are capable (and incapable) of , chose to use Jonah as His prophet on this mission. Could God have found someone who behaved better, who obeyed the first time around? I have to think so. But God chose to use Jonah, in part because, even with flawed Jonah, the people did repent and turn to God, and while doing all this, God was able to speak to the flaws and sins in Jonah’s life as well as in the lives of all the people that would go on to read this account.

So, although on one hand it is painful for me to read Jonah’s tantrums, so much so that I would almost rather read something else, on the other hand I am encouraged because I know that even with all my flaws, even with all the ways I fall short of God’s standards for behavior and character, God can use me too, all the while working on me as He does. This is not meant to excuse sin – far from it – but I am encouraged by God’s patience, by His desire to put flawed people “in the game” of reaching out to a lost world, and by the knowledge that He can use even our flaws to draw people to Him and advance His kingdom. Let’s read the final verses:

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” 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 4:9b-11

I’ve lost count of how many times Jonah wants to die. It’s ironic if you compare Jonah to Elijah; Elijah too once asked God for death, but Elijah did this because he felt like a failure. Jonah, however, is asking to die basically because he has succeeded! A whole city has repented! But Jonah is fixated in his anger, in his pain, in his belief that it is wrong to allow these people to live, to see them forsake their evil ways and begin to worship the true God.

God rebukes Jonah with yet another question. He uses Jonah’s love of the silly plant against him. If you have such love for a plant, which is just – a plant, how do you think I feel, Jonah, when I see these multitudes whose sin has been so great that I felt the need to destroy them, people I love and made in My image? It is a stinging rebuke.

By the way, the phrase “who cannot tell their right hand from their left” may be a figurative reference to the people as a whole in the sense that they haven’t really been exposed to the true God; they don’t know His laws, they haven’t seen His miracles, etc. Some commentators think it is actually a literal reference to young children, in which case the total size of the population would have been much larger than 120,000.

If Jonah had truly had the heart of God, he would have been overjoyed at this mass repentance, unprecedented in scale. He wouldn’t be waiting outside the town hoping for fireworks, but he would have stayed in the town, teaching people more about God. He might have spent the rest of his life in Nineveh; the task was big enough for 100 Jonah’s, for 1000 Jonah’s, not just one.

How did Jonah respond to God’s question? This is another shock of the book of Jonah. There were multiple places earlier in the book where it seemed like a good stopping point; after Jonah’s being saved and his prayer in Chapter 2, and after the city repented in Chapter 3, for example. But instead, the book ends here, on God’s question. This kind of thing just wasn’t done!

As a result, we don’t know how Jonah responded, but we are invited to think about our own response. On one hand, I don’t think anyone here is quite as messed up as Jonah, wishing for their enemies, real or imagined, to die and spend eternity in hell. But we can be indifferent to what is going on all around us. Do we really have God’s heart for the lost? Do we understand God’s pain in seeing those He loves, those He created, not turn to Him for salvation? Or do we care more about our “broken plants,” whatever they are? We may not get angry with God or go into tantrums like Jonah,  but do we reject God’s still small voice calling us to be salt and light and reveal God’s love to the lost around us?

Do we really understand our salvation? On multiple occasions in this series I mentioned that there are gigantic ironies in this story of Jonah. Really in this story there are three groups of people: the sailors, the Ninevites, and Jonah. By the end of the story, the sailors are happy and filled with awe and godly fear at the true God. They are entering into relationships with Him, as best as they can with their limited knowledge, making vows and offerings to Him. And the same is true of the Ninevites – they have truly repented of their sins and are eager to worship this God of grace. But the one man who has had all of the education, all of the exposure, who has repeatedly heard God’s voice, is miserable, angry at God, wanting to die. How can this be?

Jonah doesn’t get that he is a miserable sinner just like the sailors, just like the Ninevites. He doesn’t get what it says in Romans 3:

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” – Rom. 3:10-12

Even as believers, we can fall into a bit of Jonah’s thinking. When we see families out in public whose kids are horribly behaved. When we hear of or meet people addicted to drugs, or unable to hold a job, or who have previously served time in jail or prison, or whose every other sentence includes swearing, or who live immorally with regards to the opposite sex (or the same sex), or, or, or… These people are sinners, yes, absolutely. But God still loves them and desperately wants them to turn to Him. Just like He loves us and desperately wanted us to turn to Him, and still wants us to do so.

Let us not be like the good son in the story of the prodigal son. Let us not be like the man who prays boastfully, thankful that he is not like the wicked sinners. Let us not be like the leaders who refused to help the robbed and beaten-up man that was finally helped by a Samaritan. Let us not be like the Pharisees who thought all their law-keeping made them righteous. Let us not be even the tiniest hint like this!

Finally, let me return to the comparisons I made in the first message between Jonah and Jesus. Jesus referred to His own death and resurrection in veiled terms as the “sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matt. 12:39) and said He is a greater-than-Jonah (Matt. 12:41). “Greater-than” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the comparison. Jonah was ultra-picky about who he shared his message to; Jesus actually sought out the riff-raff, the prostitutes and tax-collectors, the Samaritans, the demon-possessed, and so on. Jonah wanted God to punish the evil sinners; Jesus offered salvation through His voluntary sacrifice of Himself on the cross. Jonah was petulant and angry when the Ninevites repented; Jesus – and indeed all of heaven – rejoices when even one sinner comes in faith to salvation. And in a great irony, sin-ridden, disobedient, immature Jonah had near-universal success in that just about everyone he came in contact with repented and turned to God; Jesus, who was without sin, who was God Himself, only had a handful of true converts, and most of the people He spoke to not only refused to repent, but at the end wanted to see Him crucified!

But we don’t come here today to worship Jonah – perish the thought – we come to worship Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We now remember Him as He instructed us, with the bread and the cup, remembering that His body was broken for us, that His blood was spilled for us. We are like the Ninevites, recipients of God’s grace. We do not deserve salvation; but by faith we receive it, worshiping our Savior, Jesus. Let us remember Him and worship Him now.

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