The book of Jonah, chapter 2, ended with the description of the great fish spitting up Jonah onto the dry land at God’s command. God caused this to happen because of what Jonah said at the end of his prayer of thanksgiving. To put it in today’s language, Jonah was saying, “I’ll do what you command” and “You can save whomever you choose.” Let’s see what happens in chapters 3 and 4.
III. JONAH’S PREACHING AT NINEVEH (Chapter 3)
We find God repeating His initial command to Jonah in chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, and this time Jonah obeys God’s command and walks through the city over a period of three days crying out and saying, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The result was that the people believed in God and repented of their sins. They demonstrated their repentance by proclaiming a fast and putting on sackcloth. That would be like wearing a large burlap sack over your bare body. Can you imagine how much that would itch and irritate your skin. Even the king of Nineveh took off his royal robes and put on sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He also issued a decree, beginning in verse 7 saying, “. . . Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be clothed in sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent, and withdraw His burning anger so that we shall not perish?”
It doesn’t say how long they did this. It may have been for days, or weeks, or even the full 40 days. They were appealing to God’s mercy and they found that God is a merciful God. In verse 10 it says, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”
II. JONAH’S DISCONTENT AND CORRECTION (Chapter 4)
There must have been great rejoicing in the city of Nineveh. But one person wasn’t rejoicing. He was angry. And that person was the prophet Jonah. Was Jonah mad because his prophesy didn’t come true? Was he embarrassed? No. The real reason why Jonah fled from the Lord, and why he was angry with God is found in 4:2-3. Jonah was willing to die for the sailors. He thanked God for sparing his own life. But Jonah didn’t want God to spare Nineveh because they were a very wicked people; they weren’t Jewish, and Nineveh was the capitol of the nation of Assyria. The prophet Isaiah had already prophesied that Assyria was going to someday destroy the nation of Israel and take the remainder of the people back to Assyria as captives. This prophecy is found in Isaiah 7:17-20 and following. In Jonah 4:2 he even accuses God of being “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness”, as if those were God’s faults or weaknesses!
Jonah is so angry that he asks God to take his life. He would rather die than have God spare the lives of the people of Nineveh, and God questions his anger. Jonah leaves the city and builds a booth “outside” the city; waiting to see if God will come to His senses and decide that these people don’t deserve to be spared. While Jonah sleeps God causes a gourd plant to sprout out of the ground overnight and grow big enough to provide shade for Jonah. This makes Jonah very happy! He must have been thinking, “God has finally come to His senses and has agreed with me that these people don’t deserve to live!” But then God causes a worm to destroy the vine, and Jonah becomes very angry again. There is an important lesson here. God is in control. He caused the storm. He caused the fish to swallow Jonah and later spit him out. He caused the vine to grow up overnight, and He caused the worm to kill the vine. Everyone and everything obeyed God except the preacher. The storm, the dice, the sailors, the fish, the Ninevites, the east wind, the gourd plant, the worm! Everyone and everything except . . . Jonah! Sometimes God allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions so that we might know that He is in control.
A second lesson is found in 4:10-11. Jonah lacked God’s compassion for people. There’s a little bit of Jonah in all of us sometimes, isn’t there? Sometimes more than a “little bit”? It is the Jewish custom on the annual celebration of the Day of Atonement to read from the book of Jonah. And at the end of the reading all would say, “We are Jonah!”
If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, the book of Jonah is saying that God loves you and wants to show you mercy, no matter how sinful you have been. God wants to receive you into His family if you are ready to turn from your sins and let the Lord Jesus Christ take control of your life. The Controller of the universe gives you the freedom to give Him control over your life, and you can do that right now.
If you are a Christian, the book of Jonah is saying that people are precious because God considers them to be precious. God wants us to lay aside our prejudices and let Him fill our hearts with His compassion for the sinning and suffering people we meet. Do you remember that person I asked you to bring to mind at the beginning of this message? What are you and I going to do this week to reach out by the power of God’s love to that person we’ve been avoiding?
I’m closing this message by reading a portion from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The Lord Jesus says it better than anyone else. The passage of Scripture is Matthew 5:43-48. The Lord Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”