The Rebuke of Jonah by God
Jonah 4 · Miles Driedger · Dec 10, 2023
Jonah, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261933306213

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we are in Lesson 6 of Jonah, and we'll be covering Chapter 4 this morning. But at Bob's request at the end of last week, we started a little discussion on this question, did Jonah die or not? And I guess the... The verse numbering in our lessons was—we kind of had one verse missing there at the end of Jonah chapter 2 that I didn't notice, and so didn't get a lot of discussion. But I came up with, we'll cover this fairly quickly so we can get into chapter four, but kind of three points.

If we look at Jonah chapter two, verse one, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish. So first of all, Jonah was praying from inside the fish. So he wasn't dead, at least at that point. You know, now in verse 2 of chapter 2, Jonah makes mention of Sheol.

And he says, I called out of my distress to the Lord and he answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol. So that's interesting. Sheol being, you know, the place of the dead, to maybe put it one way. And so some have assumed that this meant that Jonah actually died, that Jonah was in Sheol.

However, the Bible never speaks of anyone crying out to the Lord for help after death. It came to mind of the rich man and Lazarus and the, you know, the rich man who calls out to Abraham, you know, across the chasm. But we don't have this concept of people, dead people calling out to God for help and, you know, the Lord bringing him back from the dead, so to speak.

But an example of how David used the word sheol shows up in Psalm 30, verses 1-3. It's kind of similar here. He says, Well, it introduces a song of dedication of the house, the Psalm of David. He says, I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up. You have not let my enemies rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you have brought me up. Sir, you brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive that I would not go down to the pit.

So David was not referring to being raised from the dead, but he was talking about being rescued from the brink of death, we could say. Rescued from the brink of death. And so that reference to Sheol, although it does refer to where people went when they died, David uses it in a very similar way to the way that Jonah did. And David didn't die.

So that's kind of one thing. Another point is that if we read Jonah's prayer carefully, it's actually a prayer thanking God for his salvation. Jonah is recalling his experience of sinking down into the sea. We see that in verse 5. He says, the great deep engulfed me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. So he was kind of sinking down into the weeds at the bottom of the sea. And then in verse six, from inside the fish, Jonah recalls God's salvation. So in verse six, he says, I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever. But you have brought up my life from the pit. Oh, Lord, my God.

So Jonah actually understood the fish, that the fish was sent to save him. not to punish him. And it was the fish that actually saved Jonah from drowning in the sea. So to say that Jonah was then dead inside the fish doesn't, again, doesn't really fit with the fish actually being God's way of salvation. Okay, go ahead. Oh, did someone have something there? I thought I heard some noises sometime. Okay, I'll do the third point. Then if anyone's got any, you know, I want to challenge this, go for it.

Third point here, and I think Andrew is on next week and he's going to be talking about the parallel between Jonah and Jesus, so we won't get into this too much. In a few places, it's recorded Matthew 12, 39, as well as 16, verse 4. But we're going to use the Luke reference here. In Luke 11, 29 through 30, it says, as the crowds were increasing, Jesus began to say, this generation is a wicked generation.

It seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. And the word there, samion, or sign, means that by which a person or a thing is distinguished from others and is known.

So this verse doesn't teach that necessarily that both Jonah and Jesus died. It simply teaches that both Jonah and Jesus were authenticated to a specific group of people by a similar type of sign or a sign of some sort. So Jonah was authenticated as a true prophet of God by the fact that God rescued him in such a miraculous way. And Jesus was authenticated as the true son of God by the fact that God resurrected him from among the dead.

And I just wanted to note that, you know, even if Jonah did die, as some have held, it still wouldn't have been an exact parallel because Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Jonah, I see my phrase is cut off there. Jonah was not resurrected. Think of Lazarus, for example. Lazarus and others were raised from the dead, but not resurrected. So if Jonah had died, it wouldn't have been a resurrection, but a resuscitation or a reviving from the dead. So there's my three points, my thoughts on did Jonah actually die in the fish? Why or why not? Any questions? issues on that.

Yeah, good job, Miles. I think respiration might be a good term. There you go. There's a doctor speaking. Thank you, Dr. Eccles. No, it's not meant to be a bedclothes. No, that's exactly right. Yes, that is exactly it. People have been confused by that.

People don't really sometimes pay a lot of attention to the difference between what resurrection really is. I remember growing up and people making a big deal about, you know, Jesus raised from the dead. And that kind of dawned on me at one point. It's like, there's been lots of people, you know, raised from the dead, you know, um, so in this, well, I mean, a number, you know, a handful of them through a scripture, but, um, but when you understand that, no, Jesus was resurrected as something, this is a new, you know, the new creation, um, something quite different. Yes. So what's the difference? So what is the difference? Okay, good question. So Lazarus, for instance, was resurrected. The same body was brought back into mortal existence, but Lazarus would die again, right? Jesus died and was resurrected into the new creation body.

And it has a connection to this body. There's some similarity, there's some sort of transaction, I guess you could say that happens between this body and that body, but it's a whole new thing. It belongs to a new creation. And of course, we know that the new creation, the new heavens, the new earth is coming. Well, that's what Jesus' body is fit for. And we all will receive that same kind of resurrection body as believers. And it's fit for a whole new created order, a whole new system. Does that kind of answer? In brief? Yeah, that's good. All right. Thanks. All right, let's read Jonah chapter four. This is our text for today.

But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, please, Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in love and kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O Lord, Please take my life from me for death is better to me than life. The Lord said, do you have good reason to be angry?

Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.

But God appointed a worm. Yeah, I know. I'm emphasizing that point. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, death is better to me than life. Then God said to Jonah, Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, I have good reason to be angry even to death. Then the Lord said, You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.

Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals? And it was noted last week that this book answers the question and no response. But let's look at. We're getting from the end of chapter three, God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

And this made Jonah very angry. So Jonah is angry that God did not destroy the Ninevites. And Jonah's first prayer was in chapter two, from the belly of the fish. And there, just by contrast here, Jonah was thankful for his salvation from the sea. Here in his prayer in chapter four, Jonah is angry about the salvation of the Ninevites. I think it's just important to see that contrast that, you know, in chapter two, he's thrilled and rejoicing and praising God and talking about, you know, going to the temple and fulfilling his vows and so forth in the temple. And now he's just bitter to the point of death that God would save someone else's life. Let's look at verses two and three. What is Jonah's complaint? What did he complain about in his prayer?

So Jonah actually complains that God is slow to anger and abundant in love and kindness. But the question came to mind, how did Jonah know that God is a gracious and compassionate God? And this phrase, God is slow to anger, abundant in love and kindness, is actually a common phrase throughout the Old Testament. We could say that Jonah knew about this because of God's dealings with Israel herself as a nation.

And the first time that these words show up, they're actually spoken by God himself. I didn't realize this until I looked it up. But the first time they show up is in Exodus 34, verses six and seven, where God is speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, and he says, or it says, Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Now, the context for these verses is important to understand, because God said this at the time, not the first time Moses came up on the mountain, but he spoke this on the second time, when he told Moses to come back up with that second set of tablets. Israel had, at this point, already broken the law, and Moses had shattered that first set of tablets.

And so God had very graciously dealt with this rebellious nation of Israel in saying, OK, let's try this again. Let's start this covenant over again here. So Jonah knew all about God's graciousness and compassion. But his anger is over the fact that God was now choosing to be gracious to someone other than the Jews.

And that really, really ticked him off. So much so that he wanted to be dead. It's a it's a really deep deep bitterness and and almost hard to understand and I was thinking about this and You know, you may or may not have had this experience But if if you yourself or someone that you love has been abused by someone in some way, um, you may have experienced What it's like to want justice against that that wickedness And it can be a very deep and bitter feeling. And honestly, if you were sent to that person with this Jonah type of message, you may very well, like Jonah, have hoped that they would just be destroyed. But if God showed mercy to that person, I think it would hurt. I think it would hurt quite a lot in herself.

And, you know, that helped me, I think, see a little bit, perhaps, of what Jonah was dealing with. But we can be a lot like Jonah. We can raise our concept or our view of what would be just. We can raise that up above God's own view. And anytime we think to ourselves, well, that's not fair, or how could God allow that? We're raising our own moral standard above God's. And it's really very proud, very arrogant, but it's very easy to do. And like Jonah, we can sometimes have a hard time seeing God extend His grace to others.

And I was thinking, this is honestly what seems to be at the heart, in some way, of the Lordship-Salvation issue. And you know some of the teachers in that. in that realm, but these Lordship Salvation guys, they feel that God's grace would be, and they'll use this term, wasted on a believer who carries on living an immoral or an indecent lifestyle. And what's very telling is that they don't, for a minute, think that God's grace is wasted on them.

Why not? Well, I guess because they must think they have something deserving in them. Um, and, and it's, it's kind of like Lordship salvation is arrogant enough to say that, well, I am, I personally am worthy of God's grace, but that guy who claims to be a Christian, well, he must not be because he's just too bad. He just doesn't deserve.

Yes. I remember Corrie Ten Boom had to deal with that. After she got out of the prison camp, she went to speak somewhere and one of the guards was there. She had to deal with her attitude about that and work that out for herself with that guard. That's a perfect example.

Back to the Lordship Salvation people, that's a one nature view. That's wrong doctrine, isn't it? I don't mean to think that their own self-righteousness would spare them from God's grace. I don't know. It's family theology applied day-to-day. It's self-righteous.

It's also interesting that David, you look at David's life, and how much he loved the Lord. There's such a contrast. He had a lot of issues, but he loved the Lord greatly. And the Lord was so gracious that he didn't say, well, David, you got four against you and two for you. I don't know. God is always the same way, consistently, across all mankind. And yes, we all fall short, and we all are fallen creatures. Yeah, that's so true.

We were just reading this morning, we found a book by a man named Lance Latham. He was a student of William Newell, a friend of his. And anyway, he was writing about At his day, he was talking about Stalin and Mao, and he said if either one of those men at some point later in their life had recognized their need for a Savior and accepted Christ, they would have received the same forgiveness. on the same basis as any one of us. Meanwhile, so many individuals who view themselves as being in some way worthy of something may very well not receive receive that grace. And speaking of William Newell, this quote is in his Romans, verse by verse, at the end of chapter six. He says, grace can and does often place the worst deservers in the highest favors.

So, yeah. So let's look at God's response to Jonah. Verse three, do you have good reason to be angry? And what's interesting is that God kind of cuts through everything else that Jonah said there, about, oh, God, I knew you were like this, and I knew you would do that. And he just cuts through all of that noise, and he goes right to the heart of the issue, like God always does. He says, do you have good reason to be angry? But Jonah... This keeps right on going. He was angry, you know, but he didn't want to talk about the fact that he was angry. He didn't want to talk about why he was angry. He just wanted to throw criticism at God because he was gracious.

But God knew that Jonah's anger was the issue and that's what needed to be dealt with in Jonah. you know, uh, honestly Nineveh by the end of chapter three, that, that story is kind of, that chapter has kind of come to a close. Chapter four is, is really all about Jonah and God's dealings with Jonah.

Um, and, um, and so he is waiting for the city to, you know, it's into, into five. He's waiting for something to happen. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Um, uh, yeah. So we'll, yeah, we'll talk about that in a second here, but, um, But we want to notice that Jonah, he doesn't even answer this question from God.

And I was thinking, have you ever had the experience where someone pointed out to you the fact that you were kind of grumpy? What is the effect? I know what the effect is on me. I instantly become many times more grumpy. I know I am, but don't point it out. I don't want to know. So Jonah doesn't answer this, but God puts his finger right on it. So let's talk about verse 5, Jonah's stakeout, I called it. Essentially what he does, you know, he heads out of the city and he builds himself this shelter overlooking the city. And why would he do that?

I don't know. Watch the show. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. See what would happen in the city it says, right? And notice that Jonah went outside the city, right? He didn't want to be in. In fact, he hoped it wasn't. And I was thinking, you know, sometimes you hear the Calvinists talk about, you know, temporary faith or spurious faith, temporal faith. And that's kind of what Jonah was hoping for here. Jonah was actually hoping that the Ninevites will be judged because, well, they just really didn't have enough faith or saving faith, you know.

So this sort of mindset is actually quite prominent in a lot of churches today. In fact, I know personally of a pastor who he refused to baptize this poor woman because he wanted to see more fruit in her life. And she had come from a fairly rough background, and he just sort of refused to believe that her faith in Christ was genuine. You know, so that I mean, didn't didn't matter that she, you know, trust and put her put her faith in Jesus Christ that she believes the gospel.

No, we're gonna wait a little bit to make sure it's, you know, genuine. Well, that's kind of I think kind of a bit of the mindset that's going on in Jonah here is like, yeah, well, words are cheap, you know, but let's see what's really, you know, God who knows the heart, surely he knows that you're, you know, you still need to be destroyed here. So, so, so we see that Jonah is really still unmoving in his hatred for the Ninevites, but the Lord, uh, hasn't given up on Jonah and he is, um, he's about to give him this, this really vivid object lesson. So, God's divine object lesson, verses 6-8. Now, apparently Jonah's shelter that's referred to there was insufficient against the harsh desert elements.

So God caused a large plant to grow up over Jonah. And in verse 10, we're told that it grew up overnight. So it was obvious to Jonah that this was a miracle. This was a miraculous plant. Plants don't just do that. And the shade of the plant was significant because it says it delivered Jonah from his discomfort. So it must have been giving a pretty good amount of shade.

But very interestingly, this is very parallel to the fish that swallowed Jonah. So in chapter 1, verse 17, we read that God appointed, that's a key word, a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was delivered from the sea. And here we have a very parallel kind of a statement in four six got appointed a plant to grow up over Jonah and Jonah was delivered from his discomfort and as we as I emphasized in reading Jonah was uh extremely happy you know so so angry Jonah just like that is is just jumping up and down excited about his plant And I just, I found it amazing that Jonah is really only happy when God is doing something for him. Isn't that so much how we are? That's exactly how we are. Yeah, I was going to say, he's a lot like us. He's a lot like us. So self-centered, just like all of us.

So, but now God has set the stage for his object lesson. And now we see again, another two things that God appoints. And the third thing here is the worm. And so God appoints these objects to, or these things to carry out tasks for him, to carry out this work. And I just wrote in a note here. You know what? Take courage. If God can use a lowly worm to carry out His work, then perhaps He can use you and me. Amen. Amen. So the worm is appointed, and the worm chews off the plant. And just like that, Jonah's plant is gone. But it wasn't Jonah's plant, was it? Jonah, in all of his self-centeredness, is only thinking of his comfort. And he actually thought he deserved this plant. Like most of us with our possessions, we think we deserve them.

As the last piece of God's object lesson, he appoints a fourth thing, and that's a scorching east wind. And I think the closest thing I have to this experience was traveling through Wyoming in August. That was a scorching west wind, but it was hot. It was 102. At that point, I know that that, however, was probably nothing compared to what Jonah was experiencing. In the commentaries, I noticed there's actually a name for this wind, this hot east wind in that part of the world, and they call it a Sirocco. Sirocco wind.

Yeah, and if we remember where Nineveh is, it's the middle of the Iraqi desert. Yeah, it's pretty brutal there. I mean, I've seen some videos where it's like 130 or something like that, many times. Yeah, yeah. I know a guy, he's a dual citizen, so he ended up going to Iraq in that campaign. And yeah, it's a harsh, harsh environment. But this is a full-on desert windstorm and heat wave.

And just like that, just like a yo-yo, Jonah wants to die. And it seems like he's brought even lower this time. He's begging the Lord with all his soul to die. So Jonah has not yet, at this point, taken his eyes off of himself. He's still focused entirely on himself.

So in verses 9 through 11, we then get God's rebuke. Now, this is kind of, I think, interesting to see how the Lord does this. God set Jonah up perfectly for this lesson, and he's about to use a confrontation technique, if we can use that phrase with God, that we could call entrapment. And it's basically the same method that Nathan used with David after his sin with Bathsheba. And I think if you kind of compare the two, you can kind of see how it's a similar sort of methodology here to get at the heart of a man.

So, you know, we know that Nathan put David into a corner with this illustration. And then he gets David to respond to it. Well, David just naturally responded to it. He didn't even have to ask him what he thought. I mean, he was livid, right? And only after David responds to that illustration does Nathan inform him or make clear to him the fact that the illustration is parallel to his own actions, his own sin.

So that's, I think, precisely what God has done here with Jonah. And so he's used this plant as an illustration. Now, it was God's plant, right? God raised it up, and God had destroyed it. And just like David had compassion on the poor man with the one ewe lamb, Jonah had had compassion on the plant. In other words, he liked it. He enjoyed it, and he rejoiced in it. And the loss of that plant, even though it was just a little plant, well, maybe a big plant, but it really bothered him.

And that's when God drops the hammer. And he's saying, in essence, you know, Jonah, you love this plant. You didn't want me to destroy this one measly little plant, but you want me to destroy the entire city of Nineveh? Do you see your hypocrisy, Jonah?

He says there are 120,000 people in the city who don't know their right hand from their left. And as an interesting note, some commentators believe that might refer to children. You think of the age before which children can distinguish their right hand from their left hand. I don't know if anyone's been an elementary teacher or taught their own kids or whatever, you know, it's always an interesting thing, you know, tell them to put up their right hand and their, you know, know the other right hand, but it could be that it's referring to. Referring to children, or it could be that it's referring to simply. you know, unbelievers who don't know right from wrong. I mean, now we know that in a sense, and Paul makes this clear, that all men have some sense of morality that convicts their own conscience. But in whatever case, whatever he's referring to here. Miles? Miles?

Yes, I was just thinking, yeah, I think he's referring to, and these are innocent in a sense, the adults might not be so innocent, but the children and the animals. Yeah. That's what I thought was children, because he included the animals too, that they're innocent in a sense. Yeah, that's right. So rather the adults, you know, are probably a lot more guilty. But anyway, that's why I took it. I think I do, too. I think I tend towards that interpretation that you're probably referring to the children. Because you're right, he also refers to the animals.

Well, they didn't really, they just lived in the city. They didn't really have a choice. And we still see that today, you know, in families in certain situations where you kind of think, oh, the poor kids, you know. I know Andrew and maybe others are involved in foster care. Well, you know, that's a rescue. a rescue mission for some of these poor kids that are in situations they don't have any control over.

You know, it wasn't your fault you were born into that family or that city. And I think that is kind of what God is sort of pointing out, right? You know, Jonah, you don't care that there are thousands and thousands of children in this city, and you want me to rain down destruction on them, you know? That's always the result of seeing our sinful nature against the backdrop of God's holiness. Job saw it. In Job, he says, when God confronts him, he says, but behold, I am insignificant.

What can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken and I will not answer, even twice, and I will add nothing more. And then in Romans, at the end of chapter three, After three chapters of demonstrating as thoroughly as possible the absolute sinfulness and hopelessness of man, Paul says in 3.19, so that every mouth may be closed and the whole world may become accountable to God. And, you know, man's boastful, self-righteous, self-centered mouth has to be closed before he will ever really accept the grace of God in all of its magnificence. And, you know, so we can ask the question, so Jonah's mouth was closed because that's it. God gets the last word.

But did Jonah get the lesson? And I know we've got one more week in Jonah here, but we're kind of at the end of the book now in terms of going through verse by verse. And so we kind of want to ask, did Jonah get it? I think he did. Jonah is almost certainly the one who wrote the book. And that tells me that he probably did get the lesson. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have written this down. Actually, Miles, it would almost be inappropriate for him to let God have the last word. If he believes in what God has said, he gets to have the last word. Just be quiet.

That's a great testimony to Jonah. Yeah. Well, you know, we often read the book of Jonah and we, and we just point our fingers and shake our heads like, what a guy, what a, what a wreck of a prophet. So either somebody really malicious wrote it or Jonah in humility wrote it, you know? And I think that is, I think that is the answer. Um, and so Jonah let, let this, this book stand as a, as a testimony to the greatness of God's grace and compassion.

And it really does not paint Jonah in a wonderful light at all, you know, other than a few places where he, you know, like in chapter two. But really, you know, other than that, God gets all of the, well, in every case, God gets all of the glory for what he's done, so. Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. So any thoughts, questions, or comments on, now that we've, I have a question. What happened to the shelter that he built? Yeah. Well, I did a little looking into that. That is the same word for booth that, um, you know, the, the, the feast of booths, um, when the Israelites were going to camp out. And, uh, I don't know if you've ever tented in the, in the summer. Um, I mean, it can be chilly at night, but when the sun comes up in the morning, and you're laying there in your tent, the sun's already up early, and it can just be scorching. So, you know, whatever his shelter was, I don't know what he had to make it out of, but apparently it just wasn't sufficient to keep the heat off. So, yeah, I know, I kind of wonder, that's interesting that he mentions that, but I mean, I think that points in part, there may be a small element in there that, that Jonah's effort to save himself from the desert heat was quite insufficient, whereas God was able to provide a totally sufficient means of shelter and shade in Jonah. Apparently, it was really good, because Jonah was extremely happy about it. Well, he did the same thing with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with fig leaf, and God gave them animal skin.

Yeah, yeah. We see it over and over every time man attempts to solve his problems, right? Yeah. Fall quite short of that. Awesome. Well, thanks for your comments there. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us this amazing little book of Jonah. Lord, we thank you that it so displays your grace.

And we get to see this wonderful picture in the Old Testament of where you extended such grace and such mercy, such compassion to these wicked Gentiles, much like ourselves and our own nations. And Lord, we know that you do You do judge evil. You do judge wickedness. You're not a fickle God who is capricious.

But Lord, you've judged sin completely on the cross in the person of Jesus Christ. and and so you are free to extend your grace to whomever will receive it and lord we thank you that uh that we have become um partakers in that in that wonderful grace and we pray that you would uh just cause us to uh that you would, through us, display the life by that grace to those around us so that many more would see and see their need for and recognize and accept that grace. We just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.