Jonah 4
Resentment, Jonah Goes
Out
Open your Bible to…
Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
Pray
Intro
√ Intro
We closed our last study with the some great news!
Jonah obeyed God and preached to
The people of
God relented and did not destroy the city!
Not bad work for a prophet who didn’t even want the job!
√ Chapter 4 ~ Resentment, Jonah goes out
However, not everyone’s happy about Jonah’s success…
…the surprise, it’s Jonah who is all bummed out!
As we look into chapter 4 we find that Jonah was unhappy and angry with God precisely because the Assyrians repented and God withheld His judgment.
Jonah wanted nothing more than for God to rain His judgment
down on
But God had a very different plan and perspective.
Jonah’s anger with God reveals his inner character, that is, Jonah was filled with…
Self Pity
Self Centeredness
Self Righteousness
…a very poor witness for his God whose character is the polar opposite of Jonah’s.
Ap. Transformation
Jonah’s response to God’s mercy, compassion, long-suffering and grace is an ugly look into the human condition.
That is, Jonah’s problem with self is common to all of us.
As we work through chapter 4 pay extra attention to what it is that God is trying to do in Jonah’s life…
…He’s attempting a work of transformation.
Trying to change Jonah from his self-centered attitude and replace it with the others-centered attitude, what Paul called the “mind of Christ” (ref. Phil. 2:5-8).
God is still doing that today in the lives of all of His people so that we will properly reflect the heart of God to the people in our generation who need to be saved.
Self Pity (vs. 1-4)
Jonah 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.
Jonah 4:2 So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.
Jonah 4:3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”
Jonah 4:4 Then the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
√ Self Pity
Remember that Jonah’s
attitude as recorded in verses 1-3 is in response to God’s decision about
“Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”
That is, the whole reason that Jonah is upset (with God no
less!) is that God did not
destroy
What Jonah wanted was something completely different…
…he wanted
That attitude is made abundantly clear in vs. 2 where we
find that the whole reason that Jonah tried to escape God’s will when he fled
to Tarshish was because he knew that God wanted to extend His love to the
people of
Jonah 4:2 So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.
That is, Jonah’s thinking was that if he didn’t preach a message of coming doom…
…then the Ninevites wouldn’t hear the message, wouldn’t repent, and therefore God would have to destroy them!
So, since God didn’t destroy them we find Jonah wallowing in self-pity because God didn’t do what Jonah wanted Him to do.
√ A merciful God
While Jonah’s attitude is wrong his understanding of God’s character is right on! Notice that he almost directly quotes Joel 2:13 (our theme verse from chapter 3) as he describes God as…
Gracious ~ He wants to give us what we don’t deserve.
Merciful ~ He doesn’t want to give us what we do deserve.
Slow to anger ~ He doesn’t delight in punishing the wicked.
Abundant in loving-kindness ~ He is faithful in His love.
And Jonah’s mad about this!!??
The reason of course is that Jonah wanted God to be all those things to him…
…but not to the
people of
Jonah’s response reveals his personal hypocrisy, but also speaks to us symbolically of
the sinful condition of the nation of
For
Consumed with self interest and lacking all concern for God’s passion to reach the lost peoples of the world with His message of love.
Note the contrast…
God’s compassion ~ chapter 3:10
Jonah’s displeasure ~ chapter 4:1
God’s turning from anger ~ chapter 3:9-10
Jonah’s turning to anger ~ chapter 4:1
Perhaps worse is the fact that Jonah can’t even rejoice in the good that God desires to do in someone else’s life.
√ Transformation
Note how graciously God responds to Jonah’s pity party, He asks Jonah…
“Is it right for you to be angry?” ~ vs. 4
Or, some translate it…
“Do you have the right to be angry?” ~ vs. 4
God’s point was that it wasn’t right for Jonah to be angry
with Him for sparing
Jonah wasn’t in a position to rightly judge what God was doing, or not doing.
Jonah didn’t have the same perspective as God did and
thereby couldn’t make a right judgment about God’s dealing with
But, what strikes me most about God’s response is how gentle He is with Jonah.
He could have smacked him!
Instead God deals gently with Jonah and reasons with him the way that a father would reason with a rebellious child.
Ex. Christmas gifts ~ the race car track
Ap. Watch your attitude
All too often I find that I have the same attitude that Jonah did…
…I want God to extend Grace and Mercy to me, but Law and Judgment to others!
Usually because God isn’t doing things the way that I want Him too!
Thank the Lord that He loves us like a Father and is gracious with us even when we don’t deserve it.
Self-Centered (vs. 5-8)
Jonah 4:5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.
Jonah 4:6 And the LORD God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.
Jonah 4:7 But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.
Jonah 4:8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
√ Self Centered
The first thing we notice is that Jonah doesn’t have a good answer for God’s question in vs. 4…
“Is it right for you to be angry?” ~ vs. 4
Rather, he just walks
off in a huff to find a place to wait and see what would become of
Some Bible students have suggested that even though Jonah knew that God was slow to anger…
…he still wanted to wait around to see if God might heed his prayer and bring judgment quickly!
So, since Jonah seems bent on continuing his pity party, God prepares an object lesson to help Jonah see just how self-centered he is!
√ God prepared
You’ll remember that one of the themes of the book of Jonah is the sovereignty of God and how God works within the framework of Man’s Free Will to accomplish His purposes.
We’ve seen how God prepared a…
Storm
Sign
Tempest
Calm
Fish
…to bring Jonah to repentance and get him to
Now again we see God working behind the scenes to get Jonah’s attention so that He can teach him an important lesson.
God prepares…
A plant
A worm
A wind
…all with the purpose of revealing Jonah’s sinful attitude so that God can bring him to repentance.
√ God’s compassion ~ the plant
Look at Jonah, he’s acting like a child who didn’t get his way.
He’s sitting under a little lean-to shelter outside of the city walls baking under the hot sun.
Vs. 6 tells us that he was miserable.
All because he was mad at God.
He could have been enjoying the best of
The people of
Yet, because he’s mad he’s going to pout in the sun sitting under a little lean-to!
So, God causes a plant to rapidly grow and provide shade for Jonah so that he wouldn’t be so miserable. Vs. 6 tells us that…
“…Jonah was very grateful for the plant.”
Revealing Jonah’s self-centered attitude, for while he was glad for his own relief from the heat of the sun…
…he was not glad
for the relief that God had given
√ God’s instruction ~ the worm and the wind
Since Jonah isn’t getting the point of God’s grace and compassion revealed by the shade of the plant…
…God takes the plant away and sends a “vehement east wind” (read “hot”) to drive the lesson home!
That is, God rebuked Jonah, not through a storm in this instance…
…but by exposing the selfishness of his likes and dislikes through the illustration of the plant, the worm and the wind.
The point is that Jonah was more concerned with the loss of a plant than he was with the loss of human life.
That’s self-centered!
God wanted to transform Jonah’s attitude toward the people
of
…rather than being so self-centered that all he was concerned with was his own comfort.
Ex. Forgiveness
Jonah’s problem was that he was spiritually myopic when it came to seeing sin.
He could see the sin of the Assyrians clearly…
…but was blind to his own sin.
God wanted Jonah to see his own sin with the same clarity
that he viewed the sins of
Then he could recognize the mercy and grace that God had shown him (rescued him from drowning)…
…thereby extend that same mercy and grace to the people of
That is, having been forgiven himself he ought to then forgive those that God has forgiven.
Ap. Forgiving others
We find that same truth in the New Testament where Jesus says…
“But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” ~ Matt. 6:15
One of the reasons that Jesus had to speak that truth is that we all tend to see the sin in others’ lives as worse then how we see those same sins are in our lives.
While the Assyrians were a cruel and wicked people…
…Jonah was no different when he wished death and destruction upon and entire city!
How about in our lives?
We need to recognize the compassion and grace that God has granted to us, in spite of our sin…
…and extend that same forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
How can we withhold grace and forgiveness to others when God has been so compassionate with us? I’d suggest that an unforgiving heart is evidence of a self-centered life!
Self-Righteous (vs. 9-11)
Jonah 4:9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”
Jonah 4:10 But the LORD said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.
Jonah 4:11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”
√ Self Righteous
Is this guy slow or what!? Notice that God asks him a 2nd time…
“Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
That is, Jonah didn’t grow the plant. It wasn’t Jonah’s plant. So what right does he have to be angry with God for taking it away?
The application of the illustration is that just as Jonah didn’t have the right to be angry about the plant (it wasn’t his to grow or to destroy)…
…how much more should he not be angry with God for sparing
the people of
That is, God made the people of
God wanted to save them because He is…
“…gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.” ~ vs. 2
Jonah’s job was simply to speak to the people of
Jonah however is so self-righteous that we find him still arguing with God!
In response to the Lord’s question Jonah says…
“It is right for me to be angry, even unto death!”
vs. 9
I’m surprised that God doesn’t give him his wish!
√ Pity the people, not yourself
In vs. 10-11 God tells us why He didn’t want to destroy
“…should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left…”
That is, there were 120,000 people in the city that God cared for and did not want to destroy.
Some interpret the 120,000 to be children.
Others suggest that it could apply to adults as well, the idea being that they couldn’t discern between right and wrong.
Regardless, God’s point to Jonah is that the people of the city are of greater value than the plant that Jonah was angry about.
He should have been angry with their sin…
…not with the people!
So, God rebukes Jonah for his self-righteous attitude.
Close
√ The end of the story
So, in chapter 4 we read of Jonah’s Resentment, Jonah goes out…
…but we don’t know what happens to him afterwards!
We leave him angry, depressed, hot and faint, left to contemplate God’s words.
The Lord made it clear that He is…
Gracious to all nations, Jews and Gentiles.
He is sovereign over all and will accomplish His will.
He punishes the rebellious and the wicked, but longs to show His mercy and grace.
He wants His people to repent (like
While we can’t be sure that Jonah learned his lesson we can hope that did as we have his humble and transparent testimony of his life recorded for us.
Would you want to write about your miserable failure and attitude unless you’d learned your lesson?
Tradition says that Jonah returned home in Gath Hepher where there is still to this day a tomb that supposedly has his remains.
Ap. The Church
God wants us to heed the rebuke of the book of Jonah and make sure that we are not filled with…
Self-pity
Self-centeredness
Self-righteousness
But would have the mind of Christ and reach out to a lost world before God’s judgment falls.