One of the prominent themes which we’ve seen in the book of Jonah is God’s compassion for the lost. We saw last week how wicked and evil the Assyrians were, and yet God sent His prophet to go and proclaim a message of repentance and judgment in order to provoke the Assyrians’ to repent.
“…God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, 'Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life’.” – Jonah 3:10-4:3
According to Scripture, Jonah didn’t want to tell the Assyrians of God’s judgment and love for them because he hated them. He desperately wanted God to just wipe them out in destruction. Jonah didn’t want them to be saved! He knew how they had treated his people, and other peoples, and he wanted them to pay. He didn’t want God’s mercy and grace for them, only His justice. Jonah was furious with God, to the point of literally wanting to die, because God loved Jonah’s enemies.
Remember what Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount? #enemylove
It’s interesting, because if you examine Jonah’s sermon, it’s kind of a joke. He doesn’t mention God, God’s mercy and grace, etc. It seems he was trying to sabotage his own message and ensure that the Ninevites wouldn’t understand what he was saying, and thus couldn’t repent. But, God foiled Jonah’s selfish, xenophobic, ungodly plans and saved the entire city. Jonah chewed God out and argued with Him. It’s incredible.
Now the reason I’ve named this teaching, “Are We Like Jonah?” should be pretty obvious. Given the current global climate in which we find ourselves I think this is a question we all need to honestly ask ourselves. It’s easy to look down our noses at Jonah for his nationalism and xenophobia, but how often do we do the same?
The tendency of nationalism is to think that God is on the side of my country and my people, and thus my country’s enemies are God’s enemies, and that God totally supports all of the political decisions made by my country. After all, we’re fighting the enemy, and God is on our side, right?
Well, what did God want to do for the people who were oppressing and murdering His actual, covenant people? He wanted to forgive them and show them His mercy and love. Should we be surprised then that maybe, just maybe, God wants to do the same to our enemies? But how often are we like Jonah? God’s people wanting to see our enemies destroyed by God rather than transformed and redeemed by His grace…I know I’m often guilty of this.
To frame this in a political context for us, think about this. The agenda of the Right is Nationalism. The agenda of the Left is globalism. But neither one of those isms are Jesus’ agenda. His Kingdom is not of this world.
Jonah literally cared more about a plant, and about his own comfort, than he did about the eternal salvation of more than 100,000 human beings. Lord help us not be like Jonah.
Check out the lecture I did on YouTube which corresponds to this blog post here.