I’m preaching through the Old Testament Prophets on Sunday nights. We began last night with Jonah. One has to be careful when attempting to make modern applications using Scripture. The original message cannot be snatched from its historical context. I have seen many preachers take passages spoken directly to Israel and somehow suggest that they have the exact same meaning to us today. While there are eternal truths taught in the Bible (God is One) that carry over to us today, often times we have to look for the universal application that can be gleaned from a passage. As I was studying for last night’s message the first three verses jumped out at me.
Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:1-3 (CSB)
If you are unfamiliar with the book of Jonah, it is about a Hebrew prophet who is told to go preach to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Jonah refuses to obey and jumps on a ship heading in the opposite direction. God sends a storm and after a tense encounter with the pagan sailors, Jonah is thrown overboard. God then sends a great fish to swallow him. Jonah spends the next three days in the belly of the fish having a heart-to-heart with Yahweh. He comes to his senses and the great fish spits him out. God once again tells him to go to Nineveh and preach. Jonah reluctantly walks through the streets telling them that they have forty days before God destroys them. Jonah’s worst nightmare happens and the city (including their king) earnestly repent and call out to God for salvation. That is the story through the first three chapters.
Jonah’s response amazes me. He says that the reason he disobeyed and ran away the first time is because he knew how gracious and compassionate God is. He knew that God would hear the prayers of the Ninevites and save them. He is now so upset that he tells God that he would rather be dead than to deal with it. God puts him in his place and the weird thing is that the book ends without any sort of resolution. Jonah is still pouting and God basically tells him that he has no right. It seems like a very strange way to end the book but that is what we get.
I believe there are many things we take away from the book but the one that gnaws at me is how much like Jonah we can be. Jonah did not want to preach because he was worried that these people he despised would hear the message and be saved. He knew that God is gracious, compassionate, patient, loving, and forgiving. He knew God would forgive the Ninevites and he did not want Him to. Jonah wanted to see them all die. Even after witnessing the revival he sat and watched, hoping that God would strike them down. Even after God confronted him he sat and sulked.
Are there people we think are beyond the grasp of God’s grace? Are there people we think cannot be saved? Are there people we hate so much that we want to see them destroyed? God id still gracious, compassionate, patient, loving, and forgiving. We are all created in His image and He loves us so much that Jesus died on the cross to bring us salvation. If Almighty God looks at us and desires a relationship with us regardless of how broken we might be; then who are we to think that we can exclude anyone from that? As Christians we should desire to see all people come to Christ no matter what. We should live our lives in such a manner that the love and grace of Jesus is evident through the things we say and do.
Grace and peace.
That 80s Pastor Dude 