There must have certainly been some confusion in that country, Here is Jonah, arriving out of the belly of a fish to a kingdom that worshipped a fish god, to prophesy on behalf of Jah’, their imminent destruction.
Here is a paraphrased recounting of the message I heard Clive Doyle teach on Jonah in the first week of June 2001.
“ Jonah 4:5 “So Jo’nah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what might become of the city. VS 6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jo’nah was exceeding glad of the gourd.”
So you got Jonah here, and he’s watching on a hillside, he’s got a ringside seat to witness the destruction of Nineveh this wicked city he has prophesied against. And he’s got him a gourd, and he’s saving it for the show, and he’s watching the people fast and pray, and 40 days pass and nothing happens. And then Jonah get’s angry with God, why? In chapter 4 vs 2 he says to God “were not these my words” “O, Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?” He’s telling God, didn’t’ I say this before I ever left, now there going to call me a false prophet, and he’s mad because God has made him a false prophet, This is how he made his living back in Israel, and he can’t go back there now, he knows they will have certainly heard about all of this, and he knows what they do to false prophets in Israel, if he goes back there they will stone him. So here Jonah’ is stuck in a land with people he hates, who are no doubt laughing at him now as 40 days have passed and nothing happened, He didn’t give any repent or be perished clause, he simply told them what he was supposed to that they were going to be destroyed in 40 days. Now before the 40 days have expired, Jonah has lost his livelihood, he has lost his home and he’s angry with God because here he is a prophet of God, and he had walked into the city of Nineveh yelling and proclaiming that the city was going to be destroyed, now he’s sees Nineveh repent, and he knows God is merciful and already he suspects that God is going to spare the city. and he knows that he has been made a false prophet by the same God he served, and he begins to argue with God in chapter 4 saying “ was not this my saying”…“were not these my words?” didn’t I do what you told me to do? Didn’t I say what you told me to say? How could you do this to me? And ol’ Jonah is just thinking’ about himself, and throwing his pity party, and he knows he can’t go back home, and so he asks God to kill him, and God begins to reason with him, saying in v.s. 4,
“ Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be Angry?” and ol’ Jonah he doesn’t want to hear it and he goes to the east side of the city, and makes himself a little booth and he’s watching, he wants to see this city destroyed, and God sends him a gourd, and does he eat it, no. He could have, I mean he’s out there in the heat trying to shade himself from the sun, waiting to see If God is going to destroy Nineveh, and the Lord God sends him a gourd, and what does Jonah do with it, does he eat it? No, he’s out there in that (Texas) sun, does he tap it and drink the fluid? No, he’s saving it for the show, and God sees the hatred in Jonah’s heart and he sends a worm to the next morning to destroy the gourd. Then in verse 8 we see that not only has Jonah lost his livelihood, he already knows that God is going to spare the city, not only has he lost his home, he knows he can’t go back to Israel, now he’s lost his gourd, literally. And we see in verse 8, that Jonah, who is now homeless, jobless, is now hungry, and God sends a strong wind, so you know Jo’nah ‘ s makeshift little shelter has now blown away, so now here is Jo’nah, stuck in the heat, and what happens? He faints from the heat,
Jonah 4:8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind: and the sun beat upon the head of Jo’nah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
So here is ol’ Jonah, and he’s already asked God to kill him once, now he’s writhing around on the ground asking for anybody to kill him and put him out of his misery, wishing he was dead, and God come to him again and says in verse 9 “And God said to Jo’nah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” and God hasn’t went anywhere he’s been trying to tell Jonah something, and he has already asked Jonah once “ doest thou well to be angry?” and Jonah walks away, and God is waiting to finish the conversation, and here Jonah is for the second time wishing he was dead, and God ask Jonah “doest thous well to be angry for the gourd?” and Jonah snaps at God and say “I do well to be angry, even to death.” Now the real issue is starting to come to the surface, and God begins to reason with Jonah, who doesn’t know his own heart, he wasn’t ready to die over a gourd, he was angry because he lost his job, God had made him a false prophet, his heart is filled with hatred and then God says in verse
10 of chapter 4 “Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should I not spare Nin’e-veh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”
And God tells Jonah, you have pity on a gourd, what about these people, your worried about a plant that came and went with the wind, while there are a hundred and twenty thousand people, you see all Jonah is thinking about is himself, he’s worried about a gourd while God is worried about all those people, this was a large city, there was more than a hundred and twenty thousand people( at this point I tried to show my learning’ and raised my hand to give a report that, I had been taught in bible college, that the city was actually much larger, close to probably a half a million, by reasoning that a hundred and twenty thousand people who couldn’t tell between their right hand and their left would indicate a hundred and twenty thousand children under 4 or 5 years old, therefore illustrating the magnitude of a much larger mass—this was dismissed, and be agreed that at any rate it was a large city and would indicate that they had been taught that the meaning was a reference to the spiritual state of the city translated as…)
You have got this large city, more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who can’t tell between their right hand and their left, God is telling Jonah that these people are ignorant to him and his ways, and here Jonah has the opportunity to minister to these people, to teach them about God but he has all this hatred in his heart, that’s the reason he fled in the first place, he didn’t want God to spare Nineveh, and God is saying they’re ignorant, they don’t know their right hand from their left, and you want me to destroy them for breaking my laws, for being ignorant and God is trying to show Jonah the hatred in his own heart, and he reasons with Jonah saying Your showing more pity on a gourd that you didn’t have anything to do with, more than you are for these people who are blind, and ignorant of me, so I send you to them and they are repenting and turning to me and you have this great opportunity to minister to them but you would rather I destroy them.
So again I ask you, what is the sign of Jonas? Is it a miracle? Is it a resurrection? Is it a message? Perhaps it is all of the above. Is it a messenger which God from time to time has seen fit to use to evangelize a wicked world into repentance?
(Contd NEXT POST)