Jonah 4

CHAPTER 4THEME: Jonah’s displeasure; God’s gracious dealing with JonahThis fourth chapter is like an addendum to the Book of Jonah, because at the end of chapter 3 the mission is accomplished. As you know, I arranged each chapter of this book according to a timetable. In chapter 1, Jonah left the northern kingdom of Israel, probably from Gath-hepher, his hometown. His destination was Nineveh, and it took him three chapters to get there. But he accomplished his mission, and the entire city turned to God. It would seem that the book ought to end there. But the problem no longer is Ninevehthe problem now is Jonah. Jonah was a problem child. God had more trouble with a backsliding prophet by the name of Jonah than He had with an entire city of brutal, cruel, pagan sinners. If I had had the privilege of being the one who brought God’s message to Nineveh and had seen the result that Jonah saw, I believe that I would have gone down to the Western Union office and sent a telegram back to my hometown. I would want to tell people what had happened and cause them to praise and thank God for what had been accomplished. I would rejoice in it, but that is because of where I am and because I am under altogether different circumstances. If I had been in Jonah’s shoes, if I had been in Jonah’s fish, I might have had the same feeling that he did. Yet his reaction is something that seems unbelievable. In fact, I have no problem with the fish, but I have a lot of problems with this man Jonah.

At the very beginning, he was called to go in one direction, and he headed in the other direction. I don’t understand thatuntil I look closely at my own heart and see that I have headed in the wrong direction several times when it was very clear that God wanted me to go in the opposite direction. Jonah now has a new destination. He is going to leave Nineveh, and he is glad to get out of town. His destination now is a gourd vine or, as I would like to imagine, a trailer court outside the city. Jonah goes out of the city and finds himself a little spot where he can park his camper for awhile. As he leaves Nineveh, his destination is a little spot outside the city, and he is going to arrive in the heart of God. I do not know of a better place for anybody to arrive than in the heart of God, and that is where this prophet is going to arrive. God is going to seek to win Jonah over to His viewpoint. This chapter will demonstrate to us the fact that God will never interfere with your free will. He is not going to force you on any issue whatsoever, for you are a free moral agent. God has actually moved heaven and hell and has come by way of a cross to knock at your heart’s door. But, my friend, He will not come any farther than that until that door is opened, and it must be opened from the inside. He will never crash the door of your heart; He will never push it in; He will never come in uninvited. God is now going to have to deal with a backsliding prophet who has a pretty strong will and who hates Ninevites. He is going to try to win Jonah over to His viewpoint.

Jonah 4:1

JONAH’S DISPLEASUREIt didn’t simply displease Jonah a little bit; it displeased him exceedingly. He wasn’t angry just a little bit; he was very angry. What is this man angry about? He’s angry because the city of Nineveh turned to Godhe didn’t like that.

Jonah 4:2

“And he prayed unto the LORD"the last time Jonah prayed he was inside the fish. Here he is outside of Nineveh, with his camper parked up there in a little trailer court, and as he sits in the shade of it, he prays. He’s very unhappy; in fact, he’s miserable. You may have felt that I was inaccurate in the Introduction when I said that Jonah had hatred and bitterness in his heart against the Ninevites, that he probably had justification for it, and that it was one of the reasons he did not want to go to Nineveh. But listen to him now: “O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” Years ago I heard a liberal lecturing at Vanderbilt University who said that Jonah’s problem was that he did not know God. I don’t like to say it like this, but the problem with that lecturer was that he didn’t know the Book of Jonah. It is very clear that Jonah did know God and that he knew Him very well, probably better than that lecturer knew God. Jonah says to God, “I knew You were gracious, I knew You were merciful, I knew You were slow to anger, and I knew You were of great kindness. And I knew that although You said You would destroy Nineveh in forty days, if Nineveh would turn to You, You would save them because that’s what You always do.” Jonah knew God and, knowing God, he said, “I hate Ninevites. I don’t want them saved.

I want God to judge them.” So he had headed in the opposite direction from Nineveh. Jonah said, “If those Ninevites would turn to God, God would save them, and you just can’t depend on Ninevitesthey might put up a good front. They might say that they’ve turned to God.” Jonah should have known that God knew their hearts and knew whether they were genuine or not. But Jonah did know how merciful and good and gracious God is. Jonah is in great bitterness and anger. Listen to him

Jonah 4:3

Two of the great prophets of Scripture said the same thing, that they wanted God to take their lives. In other words, they were actually on the verge of suicide. When the prophet Elijah ran from Jezebelanother man running away, and it was unlike himhe went all the way to Beer-sheba, which was the jumping-off place for the Sinai Peninsula. Elijah left his servant there and kept on going as long as he could. When he was out of breath, he crawled up under a juniper tree and he said, “Oh, Lord, let me die!” When God’s man does that, that man is exhausted and drained physically, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. Every drop is drained out of him.

That was true of Elijah. He had been busy, and I mean busy, friend! He had withstood the prophets of Baal way up at Mount Carmel. He had been before the public. Although Elijah loved the spectacular and he loved the dramatic, it drained him after awhile. So when he heard that Jezebel was after him, he simply took out for the far country. Now I think you’ll agree that Jonah has really been through the millin fact, he’s been through a fish. He had quite an experience. Then he came into the city of Nineveh, he gave out God’s Word faithfully, and the city turned to God. This man is now overwrought, overstimulated. He is exhausted, absolutely drainedand he wants to die. Many of us reach this stage sometimes. We get to the place where we feel like saying, “This is it. I give up. I quit. I don’t want to go any farther.” We’re tired; we’re exhausted. But to wish that you were dead is just about as foolish a thing as you can possibly do. As far as I know, no one has ever died by wishing. People die of cancer, of heart trouble, and of all kinds of things, but they just don’t die of wishing to be dead. Jonah is wasting his time.

Jonah 4:4

GOD’S GRACIOUS DEALING WITH JONAHNotice how graciously God deals with this man Dr. G. Douglas Young has given us what I believe is a much better translation here. He has translated it like this: “Is doing good displeasing to you?“that’s what God meant. God says, “Jonah, I have saved Nineveh because I’m in the saving business and I save sinners. I wanted you to bring them the message of judgment to see whether or not they would turn to Me. If they turned to Me, I would save them. They did turn to Me, and I have saved them.” My friend, if there is joy in heaven over one sinner turning to God, they must have had a real big time up there when all the folk in Nineveh turned to God. God asks Jonah, “Is this displeasing to you that I have saved these Ninevites?” Jonah is in a huff, and he’s pouting. Notice what he does

Jonah 4:5

“So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city.” The east side of the city was up in the hill country, up at an elevation. Jonah got himself a good spot where he could look out over the city. Why? Because he didn’t trust the Ninevites. He thought they would go right back into their sinning; and if they did, he knew God would destroy them because God never changes. Jonah wanted to be up there if the fire fell. That’s the kind of man we are dealing with hereand he’s the man who had brought God’s message. “And there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.” He didn’t believe Nineveh would stick by their conversion, their confession of faith. He’s up there, and he’s waiting for the fire of God’s judgment to fall. God is now going to move in on this man Jonah, and He’s going to deal with him personally. We are going to have an answer here to the question that is often asked: Do you have to love people before you can bring the Word of God to them? Do you have to love a people before you can go as a missionary to them? Jonah may be a good example in this particular connection, for one thing is sure: Jonah didn’t love the Ninevites.

Jonah 4:6

“And the LORD God prepared a gourd.” This gourd was prepared in the same way that God prepared the fish. If you don’t believe in the fish, you ought not to believe in the gourd. I believe in the gourd; I believe in the fish. “And made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.” Jonah is made happy at last by this little green gourd growing up. Every day Jonah would go down to the Tigris River, fill a bucket with water, and come up and water this gourd that was growing in that dry country. He trained it to run up over his camper, you know. He sat under the shade of it, and he became very attached to it. If we understand a little about human nature, we can understand Jonah a little better. It is amazing how people can get attached to living things other than human beings, especially if they are lonely. If they have no person to love, they will have a dog or cat or even a vine to love. Several years ago I visited a friend in Chicago who lived in an apartment. She had several plants, and one of them was a geranium. She took me over to show me the geranium which was just a little old stub sticking up out of the pot.

In my yard in Pasadena I have to cut back the geraniums with a hoe in order to keep them from taking over! But this lady said to me, “Dr. McGee, look here at this little geranium. I know you grow them in California, but this one is such a sweet one. It grows up each year and has flowers on it. It dies back in wintertime, although the apartment is warmI don’t know why it does that.” I told her. “Well, geraniums have a habit of lunging out in a spurt of growth at times.” But hers hadn’t done much lunging, you can be sure of thatit was just a little, bitty thing.

As we walked away, she patted that little geranium and said, “You sweet little thing, you!” I thought, My gracious, does she talk to the geranium? I guess she did. She certainly was a very sensible and intelligent woman, but she lived alone and really did not have many friends. Jonah has no friends, he doesn’t like Ninevites, and there’s not a person in that city whom he cares about visiting. He’s alone, and he’s out of fellowship with God at this time. So God lets him get attached to a little old gourd. I have a notion that Jonah would come panting up the hill with a bucket of water every afternoon and would say to the gourd, “Little gourd, I’ve brought you your drink for today.” Can you imagine that? Well, people can get attached to dogs in that way also. One evening when my daughter was just a little thing, I took her for a walk.

We came to a corner where there were a lot of vines, and we couldn’t see around the corner, but we could hear a woman talking. I have never heard such sweet talk in my life! I thought we were interrupting a romance; so I took my daughter and started to cross the street. But then the woman came around the corner, and she was carrying a little dog. Imagine talking to a dog like that! I do not know if she was married or not, but if she was, I’ll bet that her husband wasn’t hearing sweet talk like that.

We speak of some people leading “a dog’s life"there are some men who wish they could lead a dog’s life! Jonah talked that way to this gourd vinehe’s attached to it! Watch how God is going to move in on Jonah

Jonah 4:7

“But God prepared a worm"this worm is just as miraculous as the fish. “And it smote the gourd that it withered.” This worm cut the vine down because worms just don’t fall in love with gourdsthey like to eat them.

Jonah 4:8

Here he goes again, wishingbut it won’t do him a bit of good.

Jonah 4:9

Jonah says, “The only thing that I had that was living and that I cared for was this little gourd vine that grew up here and that You gave to me. And now the worm has cut the thing down, and here I am all alone.”

Jonah 4:10

God says to Jonah, “Jonah, a gourd is nothing.” My friend, I hate to say this, but a pussycat is nothing, a little dog is nothing, but a human being has a soul that is either going to heaven or hell. And God didn’t ask you to love the lost before you go to them. He said, “I love the lost, and I want you to go to them.” That is what He is saying to Jonah: “Jonah, I love the Ninevites.”

Jonah 4:11

God says, “I have spared this city.” What does He mean by “sixscore thousand [120,000] persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand”? He means little children. God says, “You wouldn’t want Me to destroy that city, would you, Jonah? If you can fall in love with a gourd vine, can’t you at least fall in love with Ninevite children?” Now may I make this application? When I was teaching in a Bible institute, I used to say, like all the other teachers were saying, that if you are called to go as a missionary, you ought to love the people to whom you go. I disagree violently with that now, because how can you love people before you know them? I first applied that to myself. I have never accepted a call to a church because I loved the people; I didn’t know them to begin with. I went because I felt that God had called me to go there and preach.

But I also have never been in a church in which I didn’t become involved with the people. I have stood at their bedsides in hospitals, I’ve been at their gravesides when death came, I’ve been with them in the marriages that have taken place in their families, and I can truthfully say that I have never yet left a church where there wasn’t a great company of people whom I lovedand I really mean that I love them in the Lord. But I did not love them when I went there because I did not know them. God is saying to a great many people today, “I want you to go and take the Word of God to those who are lost.” And they say, “But I don’t love them.” God says, “I never asked you to love them; I asked you to go.” I cannot find anywhere that God ever asked Jonah to go because he loved the Ninevites. He said, “Jonah, I want you to go because I love them. I love Ninevites. I want to save Ninevites. And I want you to take the message to them.” Again may I say that I am afraid there are a great many people in the church who are caterpillars. Church members are either pillars or caterpillars; the pillars hold up the church, and the caterpillars just crawl in and out. There are a lot of people just crawling in and out of the church, waiting for some great wave of emotion, waiting for some feeling to take hold of themand they have never done anything yet. God says that we are to get busy for Him. I remember talking to a missionary who was home from Africa, and he was showing me a picture of some little black boys in the orphans’ home there. I could tell by the way he looked at the picture that he loved those little boys. I said to him, “When you first went to Africa, did you love the Africans?” He said, “No, I really wanted to go to my people in Greece, but at that time the door was closed, and I could not go; so I had to go to Africa.” As he held that picture, I said to him, “But do you love those little fellows now?” Tears came down from his eyes. He said, “I love them now.” God says to you and me, “You go with the Word. I love the lost. You take the Word to them, and when they are saved and you get acquainted with them and know them, you will love them, too.” Since Jonah wrote the book, I think it is reasonable to say that after this experience, Jonah left the dead gourd vine and went down to where the living were walking the streets of Nineveh, and I think that he rejoiced with them that they had come to a saving knowledge of God. My friend, what a message this is! Why don’t you get involved in getting the Word of God out to people? Don’t wait for some great feeling to sweep over your soul. Don’t wait to be moved by a little picture of an orphan. There are so many people waiting to be motivated by things that are emotional. Take the Word of God to them because God loves them; and if you’ll do that, I will guarantee that you will learn to love them also.