Jonah 4 - Displeasing Grace
- Alan Salwei
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Who don't you want to see repent?
Jonah 4 (NASB95)
1 But it (Nineveh's repentance) greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
2 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 lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
3 “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”
4 The LORD said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”
5 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.
6 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.
7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered.
8 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.”
9 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.”
10 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.
11 “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?”
Belgic Confession
Article 20: The Justice and Mercy of God in Christ
We believe that God—
who is perfectly merciful
and also very just—
sent his Son to assume the nature
in which the disobedience had been committed,
in order to bear in it the punishment of sin
by his most bitter passion and death.
So God made known his justice toward his Son,
who was charged with our sin,
and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us,
who are guilty and worthy of damnation,
giving to us his Son to die,
by a most perfect love,
and raising him to life
for our justification,
in order that by him
we might have immortality
and eternal life.
Summary
It is in this final chapter of Jonah that we learn the reason for Jonah fleeing from
God’s command. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he feared that
the people there would repent and that God would forgive them.
This is exactly what happened, upon hearing the warning from God the people
repented. God then forgave and withheld destruction from the more than
120,000 people of Nineveh.
Jonah was displeased with this and expressed his anger with God. He did not
want Nineveh, one of the most hated enemies of Israel, to be spared from
destruction.
Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die. He sat in the shade of a plant, which
God later took away with a worm and scorching heat. While God was gracious
towards the people of Nineveh, Jonah cared more about the destruction of the
plant than the wellbeing of the Ninevites.
Dig Deeper
The Book of Jonah is a contrast between God’s compassion and the resentful
attitude of Jonah towards the people of Nineveh. The book ends without
resolution to this difference in mindset as God was merciful to the Ninevites and
Jonah remained angry about it.
God did not treat the Ninevites according to the desires of Jonah. He also did
not deal with the Ninevites in line with what they deserved.
Nineveh was a hated enemy of God’s people, the Israelites. The people were
guilty of evil and wrongdoing. The actions of the Ninevites made them worthy of
destruction, yet God was gracious towards them.
Be grateful this day that like the people of Nineveh, God does not give you what
you deserve. We all have sinfully rebelled against the Lord our God and are
therefore deserving of being objects of his wrath. So again, spend time this day
praising God that he does not deal with us according to what we deserve,
instead offering his love and forgiveness to all who trust in Him.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who does not give us what we deserve, but has compassion and mercy;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that unlike Jonah, you would desire all people to repent and be saved;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
