1/28/26. CBB
Our Sunday School class at Christ Methodist Church Montgomery, AL, has been digging into Jonah. This morning as I read, I was struck by how Jonah knew God’s sovereignty over all circumstances AND he knew God’s goodness, compassion, mercy, patience, and lovingkindness. He was thankful for those things for himself. He also seemed fine with God showing mercy and compassion on the sailors. In spite of them having worshipped other gods, they came to know the true God through Jonah’s witness. He was willing to witness to them about God and to sacrifice his life so they could live.
However, he had resented and resisted God in not wanting to witness to Nineveh and having God show compassion toward evildoers, so much so that he’d rather resist and run away than see Nineveh’s people saved, particularly if he was the instrument God intended to use.
After his obedience in going to Nineveh, he sat down to watch the outcome. When God saved Nineveh he was angry. When God gave him a shady vine, he was happy and comfortable. But when God took it away, he was also angry at God. Afterall, he’d done what God called for, didn’t he deserve some credit, comfort and rest?
Jonah seems to expect reward for his obedience, at least, but also to desire God’s punishment for evildoers, at worst. He lacked thankfulness for God’s goodness toward others. His entire life was exposed as a self-interest based endeavor with a heavy dose of wanting to “call down” God’s punishment for those he didn’t see as worthy of mercy.
In his prayer in the whale’s belly Jonah said, “Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. (Reference to the sailors, perhaps?) But I will sacrifice to You with thanksgiving. That which I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.”
Jonah then obeyed in going to Nineveh; he sacrificed his personal desire to avoid seeing them saved and he fulfilled God’s will. But he was NOT thankful. He violated his own vow to sacrifice to God with a voice of thankfulness (for the glory of God and the gainful benefit of others.) But it didn’t do him much good, as he selfishly set himself up to watch the outcome of his prophetic warning to Nineveh. Against Jonah’s own desire, God spared Nineveh. And God also blessed Jonah with unexpected shade vine. Then he was angry when the shade vine died. Jonah was in it all for himself, at least in this particular narrative case, perhaps because he perceived such a gulf between Jonah’s status as a prophet who had served God and Nineveh’s widely known unrighteousness. The salvation of Nineveh was God’s desire and God willed it to be accomplished with Jonah as messenger, but it was not Jonah’s desire. He did it, but there was no sacrifice with a voice of thanksgiving, only resentment. He saw God bless them. The worm came after Jonah’s failure to be thankful in his sacrifice and obedience to God.
I am reminded of this quote from Jesus:
“Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. “ Matthew 5:7
And this from Paul:
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. romans 5:6-8.
I had written previously about “sign of Jonah” and I am even more convinced that Jesus was pointing to something far more related to the sinfulness of the generation asking for a sign that to the obviousness of 3 days of darkness for himself and Jonah. Below is the link to the previous post. When asks for a sign of the end times from Jesus, Jesus dessentislly replies that he himself is the sign. Why would Jesus simply tell these blind Pharisees and sadducees that what would become the sign of end times would be the Son of Man being 3 days in the grave? That event, of course, facts of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but it describes also a scenario similar to what would be demonstrated with Lazarus and observed by them in their near future, to the 3 days of Jonah in the whale. Then, he followed it in Matthew 12: 41-45 with three examples of things pointing to something greater than Jonah. One: bringing about something greater than and pointing them to the repentance of Ninevites and how the Ninevites themselves would judge this evil generation, perhaps for hearing the warning but NOT repenting. Two; condemnation by the Queen of Sheba who sought the wisdom of Solomon when a greater wisdom was available . And, three: how the failure to fill a purged soul from evil with the fullness of righteousness is like leaving it open to a worse filling with even more evil.