Word of Salvation – Vol. 49 No.5 – February 2004

 

A God of Compassion

 

Sermon by Rev J Haverland

on Jonah 4:5-11

Scripture Readings:  Mat.9:35-38, 15:21-28, 28:18-20; Jonah 4

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This sermon is about God showing compassion to Jonah and teaching him about His own compassion for Nineveh. And the purpose of the sermon is to explain that God shows us compassion and to urge us to imitate and declare God's love.

Children, most fairy tales have happy endings. The handsome prince searches the land and eventually comes to the house of Cinderella and finds that the shoe fits her perfectly and they marry and live happily ever after! The story about Snow White and the seven dwarfs also ends happily, as does the story of Sleeping Beauty, who also ends up marrying the handsome prince and they live happily for the rest of their days.

Not all stories end like this. The first movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy ends with the Fellowship of the Ring breaking up: Merry and Pippin are captured; Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas go looking for them; and Frodo and Sam head for Mordor on their own. The ending shows that there is more to come - there's more to the story.

The Old Testament in the Bible ends like this. It looks ahead to the Day of the Lord that is coming when the Sun of Righteousness will arise. Malachi prophesies that the prophet Elijah will come before that great and dreadful Day of the Lord and warns about the judgment to come. In this way the Old Testament closes with both a promise and a warning.

Many of the books of the Bible end like this: the conclusions are thought provoking and challenging; the writers want us to think hard about what they have written.

This is certainly true of the book of Jonah. R T Kendall says the book ends "abruptly but perfectly". It is a sudden ending and it is not a 'happily-ever-after' ending. In fact, it leaves us with a few loose ends. We don't know all the answers to our questions. It leaves us with questions to ponder, matters to consider, issues to think about.

But the main message is clear, and it is a summary of the message of the whole book: It is a story about God's compassion and pity for the lost, even among the Gentiles. God demonstrates His love for Jonah and He teaches Jonah about His love for the lost.

The story of Jonah is well known. He was told to go to Nineveh but disobeyed God and headed in the opposite direction. God went after him in a storm. He was tossed overboard, swallowed by a fish and the spat out on a beach somewhere on the Mediterranean coastline.

Then he obeyed God and went to Nineveh and preached through the city for three days. His preaching prompted a great repentance among the Ninevites and "the Lord had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened."

But Jonah was not happy about this. He thought he knew better than God and argued with Him about His compassion. He justified his earlier disobedience in running off to Tarshish, fell into self-pity and complained that he wanted to die.

Then he went out through one of the gates in the city wall and sat down on the east side of Nineveh to see what God would do. He was angry that God should spare these pagan Ninevites, these Gentiles who were the cruel and hated enemies of Israel. He could not understand what God was doing and he strongly objected to God's actions!

The Lord could have left the prophet to stew in his own juice. He could have said, "Okay, if you want to be left alone, then have it your own way!" Or he could have told him off - got stuck into him for being so self-righteous and bitter. That's what we would have done. We would have "moralised, sermonised, legalised" (Kendall). But God did not do that. God is not like us.

Instead GOD SHOWED HIM COMPASSION.

The Lord did not give up on him. He continued to talk to him and to deal with him. After all, this was one of His children; here was a servant of the Lord; he was a member of God's covenant people, and he was a prophet. The Lord wanted to see him get over this, to learn from it, to work it through, so he kept dealing with him - he disciplined him as a father disciplines his son (Heb 12).

God worked away at Jonah through His providence. Providence is God's almighty control over everything that happens in this world, no matter how big or small. In his providence God made a plant grow. We don't know exactly what sort of plant it was but it was fast growing and leafy.

Children, you've heard the story about Jack and the Beanstalk, about how that beanstalk grew very fast and very big? Well, this is a story like that one, except that this one is true, it really happened. This plant grew over the little shelter, or booth, that Jonah had made for himself, and he was very pleased. It was hot in the open desert outside the city and he was pleased to enjoy the shade. Maybe he thought, "Well, this is more like it! Finally God is looking after me. And about time, too! Things are looking up!"

But the same Creator God who caused a plant to grow also provided a worm. He was in control of the huge fish of the sea that swallowed Jonah when he was tossed overboard, but also controls the worms in the ground and guides and direct them. Jesus tells us that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of our Father in heaven (Mt 10:29).

Early in the morning the worm ate through the root of the vine and it died. The sun came up and the leaves shrivelled up and the plant did not provide any more shade.

Then God provided a scorching east wind. He turned the heat up, as it were. We sometimes have hot winds and we all look for shelter and the shade. But Jonah's shelter and shade had gone and he was sweltering. He felt hot and faint.

Notice how he responded to these changes in God's providence. "He wanted to die and said, 'It would be better for me to die than to live'" (vs 8b). When God questioned him about whether he had a right to be angry about the vine, he said, "I do. I am angry enough to die." He was in a bad mood; He was disagreeable, angry, resentful, argumentative and self-pitying.

This warns us about the danger of letting our emotions get a hold of us. We have all been like this. We've all lost our temper, or become bitter, or griped and moaned about something or someone. We've all let our feelings run away with us and get the better of us. This is sin and we need to be on our guard against it. We have a sinful nature and we must put those sinful passions to death.

This is also a warning against making our happiness dependent on our circumstances. When Jonah had shade he was happy; when the shade died and he grew hot he became unhappy. All of us are inclined to do this. When things are going very well we count this as a blessing from God and we are happy. Then God removes these external blessings and we sink down and become unhappy and despondent. We can certainly be thankful for the good providence of God in our lives, but let's not be dependent on these external benefits. We need to learn to be dependent on God alone.

Like Job, when everything he had and owned was stripped from him, he could say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away - may the name of the Lord be praised."

Or Paul, who wrote, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Phil 4:12).

The prophet Isaiah said, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you" (Is 26:3).

Pray that you will be able to know this peace no matter what.

There is a story about a Nazarene preacher called Bud Robinson who lived in the 1920s. People called him "Uncle Buddy". He was an unlearned but brilliant preacher. One day after he had preached, someone came up to him and said, "Uncle Buddy, that was the greatest sermon I have ever heard!" He bowed his head and prayed, "Lord, don't let me get puffed up." A minute later someone else came up to him and said, "That was the worst preaching I have ever heard in my entire life!" Again Uncle Buddy bowed his head and prayed, "Lord, don't let me get puffed down."

I can identify with that, and I'm sure you can too. But we need to learn to be independent of our circumstances and the comments people make. We need to trust in God and be faithful to our calling no matter whether we are blessed or persecuted. Jonah had to learn that and so do we.

The Lord not only showed his compassion to Jonah, he also TAUGHT HIM ABOUT HIS COMPASSION FOR THE LOST.

God used an argument from the lesser to the greater. He said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight" (vs 10). "Jonah," says the Lord, "you haven't had a long history with this vine and you didn't plant it or water it, yet you were very concerned about it. You were sorry when it died. Well, if that's how you feel about this vine, what about this city. Nineveh has more than 120,000 people and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about this great city?"

There are a number of points to notice here.

God was concerned about this city. The history of the world begins in a garden - the Garden of Eden; it ends in a city - the City of God, the New Jerusalem. God is concerned about cities because they are full of people who need to know Him. God was concerned about Nineveh. The Hebrew of Chapter 3 verse 3 literally reads, "Now Nineveh was a great city to God." The Lord was concerned about this city. He was concerned about the eternal well-being of these people. Today He is concerned about Cairo, Seoul, Johannesberg, Sydney and Auckland.

We are called to minister to the people in this city because God has pity on them.

God was concerned about the number of people in that city. There were 120,000 who could not tell their right hand from their left. Scholars aren't sure what that last phrase means. Some take it to mean the children. If that is so then this city had a much larger population than 120,000. Others refer it to all the adults who were only children in their spiritual understanding. Whatever it means, there were a lot of people in that city and God had pity on them.

Sometimes we are so wary of the church growth movement and its emphasis on numbers that we don't talk about numbers at all. We have a 'remnant' mentality. We use our small numbers as a proof of our faithfulness. We are 'the faithful remnant'. Sometimes that may be true, but not necessarily. The church may also be faithful and growing! On the Day of Pentecost, 3000 people were saved. A short time later this number grew to 5000 (Acts 4:4). In heaven around the throne John saw "a great multitude that no one could count" (Rev 7:9). We are encouraged when we see lots of people coming to worship. We are glad about every sinner that is converted and we rejoice when many come to a saving faith in Christ.

God was even concerned about the animals in the city. They, too, are God's creatures along with the cattle on a thousand hills. God made them and he controls their movements and he cares for them. So should we.

Someone has said that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his dog. That isn't the only test of Christian character but it is one indicator of Christian understanding and compassion.

But this isn't the main point of this passage. The main lesson God had for Jonah was his compassion and pity for this Gentile city. Of course, this is why Jonah was so upset - precisely because the Lord had spared these pagan gentiles, these cruel Assyrians who were a great threat to Israel. Yet God wanted to teach this prophet, and all those who would read and hear this book, that he extended His love even to these pagans.

This was an important time in the history of Israel. The nation was coming into contact with the world powers of Assyria and Babylon. God wanted to teach Israel that they had to be a light to the gentiles. He revealed Himself to those who did not ask for Him or seek Him (Is 65:1) and He wanted Israel to bring his salvation to the ends of the earth (Is 49:6). This is why they existed as a nation: to bring blessing to the nations; to take the good news to those outside of Israel - as Jonah had done; and to rejoice when it had a positive response.

There had been other gentiles who had come to faith through the Old Testament: Rahab from Jericho, in the days of Joshua; Ruth the Moabitess, in the time of the Judges; Naaman the Syrian, in the time of Elisha. But here was a gentile city that turned from sin and cried to the Lord.

The book of Jonah is a very 'Christian' book in this respect; for it anticipates the coming of the Christ and of Pentecost and the broadening of God's salvation to all nations and all peoples.

It anticipates the compassion of Jesus for the crowds in Israel who were like sheep without a shepherd (Mt 9:36) and the extension of that love to all the nations (Mt 28:18-20).

This is the main concern of this book. This is why it ends as it does, with a question: "Should I not be concerned about that great city?" It ends suddenly, abruptly. It is not the 'happily ever after' ending we might have expected.

It ends like this because it posed this question to Israel: Should they not be concerned about that great city? And it ends like this to pose the same question to us: Should we not be concerned about this great city and the people in it?

Do you share the feelings of the Lord Jesus when he saw the crowds and he had compassion on them? Do you feel compassion for members of your family who do not know God? For your neighbours? For the unbelievers at work? For the children and young people at school?

This is an unsettling ending; it makes us a bit uncomfortable, because we don't always have this concern. These people don't feature in our prayers as they should. We don't always share the pity of God the Father and the compassion of Christ and the love of the Holy Spirit.

But this is a challenging ending. It challenges us to mission. To be evangelists. To pray. To be ambassadors of the Lord Jesus. To keep this high on our agenda because it is high on God's agenda.

Let's be thankful that God is compassionate and gracious to us, as he was with his self-pitying prophet. Let's also learn from this compassion of God and share His concern for this great city around us.

Amen.