It won’t be long before we come to another world series and our NY Yankees are in a position to win it. Aaron Judge has 49 home runs and the team is clicking in first place. But, I will never set myself up again for a victory to the World Series until it actually happens. I learned this as an 11 year old rooting for the 64 Philadelphia Phillies who by July 16, were in first place. Then a victory on Sept. 20 gave the Phillies a 6.5-game lead in the National League pennant race with only 12 games to play… Then it happen the 64 Philadelphia Phillies became # 17 in the Hall of Flameouts among the 25 worst collapses in sports history. The Phillies’ collapse is still shocking more than a half-century later. They became over confident and arrogant and that led to ten consecutive losses. They crushed a little boy’ dream as I watched on our 13 inch black and white TV.

With each additional lost the emotions of anger dug the team deeper into their losses. What they believe should have happen didn’t and they stewed in their anger which did not help their performance. Dallas Green was a pitcher at the time and who finally years later as a manager took the Phillies to a World Championship. He said it was those mistakes of the 64 team that help him to guide the 80 team to the World Series. What Jonah believe should have happen didn’t and the emotion of anger robbed Jonah of joy.

Whenever God does something great and moves in a powerful way His adversary the devil will seek to conquer and destroy that good work. Christians, beware, watch, Satan is not happy and he will prey on us, on our emotions, on our weakness to undermine the work of Christ church. How subtle it can be to let our guard down, making us easy targets for our enemy, Satan, to strike.

We need to be alert to the possibilities of an attack and pray to maintain vigilance. Satan preyed on Jonah, on his emotion of hate and it stole the joy of this great miracle. When we stew in anger it leads to stupidity. God gave Nineveh a second chance and they repented and there was a revival. However, after witnessing this great powerful movement of God Jonah regressed he backslides.

There are experiences from this event in the life of Jonah that represents a very pro-longed problem in the church. This same spirit of Jonah is vexing the church today. It will cause you to turn away from the directions sent from God. The spirit of Jonah will cause you to lose sight of what is important and blinded to the wonderful grace of God that was freely given to you. Let’s look at Jonah…

I A Prophet with a Bad Attitude (4:1-4)

1. The Bible tells us that Jonah is not at all happy at the results of his preaching campaign. Things did not go his way so Jonah is furious, burning with angry. Why did Jonah response in this matter?

2. What do any of us do when we can’t control circumstances and get our own way? We can get angry. Jonah preached, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” But the people repented and Jonah’s words did not come true. He is more committed to his own concepts of God and how God should act than he is to God himself. Jonah’s problem is that he wants to be in control and not have God grant mercy. Remember this is a people who were his enemies. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

3. The first thing we must understand is that anger is God given. It can and does serve a useful purpose. It is a God given emotion. The Apostle Paul instructed that we were to, “Be angry and sin not.” He also said “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath”…

4. A Christian couple had experienced a huge disagreement. The husband had hollered and the wife had returned in kind. They dressed for bed and the wife leaned over to her husband and said, “Honey, we promised never to let the sun go down on our wrath.” He replied, “The sun is still shining in China.” Not exactly what Paul meant. This true story of Jonah does highlight the ways in which we express our anger. Satan can prey on our emotions. 

5. Now note his prayer in verse #2 is a criticism rather than an expression of honest devotion to the Lord. He is repeating the words that he has been taught from childhood, the description of the Lord in Exodus 34:6. But Jonah’s awareness of God’s nature becomes the basis not for adoration or submission, but for the audacity. He gets in God’s face and challenges him.

a) But there is a strange, sarcastic twist in the way Jonah repeats the Scriptures back to the Lord. It is as if Jonah feels that he has been done a dis-service because of God’s goodness to these wicked people. Jonah’s anger is caused by his realization that he can’t manipulate God; he can’t get God to change his mind and carry out Jonah’s will that they should be destroyed.

4. In verse three the Lord is ignoring Jonah’s death wish, addresses the issue of his anger. Why does God kind of brush that off? I suppose that most of us at one time or another have said, “I wish I were dead,” and we didn’t mean it at all. We said it because we were miserable or some trouble had come into our life. But nobody, ever died by wishing it. That is as far as I know.

God is calling his prophet to self-examination of his selfishness. Jonah is the most miserable person on the earth at this time. Actually, the most miserable people in the world are Christians out of the will of God. There is no thundering rebuke of Jonah; just a gentle, thoughtful question….And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

5. Let’s think about this logically: If anybody has a right to be angry with the Ninevites it is God; who hates sin, evil, and violence. And yet he chose to offer them forgiveness. “Vengeance is mine, and recompense” (Deuteronomy 32:35). That is God’s call, not Jonah’s. But look at how Jonah responds…

II A Prophet with a Stubborn Attitude vv.5

1. Then Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

I wonder what he expected would happen? Did he think God might change his mind and obliterate the city? Was he perched on that hill to await the fireworks…he knew about God sending fire & brimstone and it would be nice to see a great fireworks display. Of course this would come at the great expense of every life of the Ninevites. He was sure acting strangely for a man with such an admirable history and having the anointing power of God.

2. How could a person experience God so profoundly in so many areas of his life and yet in other areas be so totally given over to despair? This, typically, is the frustrating reality for many Christians even today. We know what is right. Matthew 5:44 / Romans 7:17-21

3. What was true for Jonah is true for all. Jonah turns his back and walks away from God. He doesn’t even answer God’s direct question, but his defiant attitude and actions indicate his reply.

(Notice that he doesn’t kill himself either, by the way.) He leaves the city, builds a little shelter, and sits down under it, peering out over the city.

III God’s Prophet gets an Object Lesson – 4:6-11

1. God teaches Jonah a lesson, but He doesn’t do it verbally. He decides to disciple His fuming prophet. So, God gives a practical object lessons consisting of a prepared plant, a worm, and a wind. These are used to expose Jonah’s sinful rebellion, his misguided attitude, and his wrong-side-up value system. Basically, God is letting Jonah know he needs a serious attitude check.

2. Jonah built himself a little shelter out of twigs and stones that provides very minimal shade. So God appoints a plant to grow that gives lots of shade from the sun. The second half of verse 6 tells us that Jonah was “absolutely delighted” over the shade plant. This is the only time in the entire book that Jonah is happy about anything. People talk to there plants… geranium?

There is an amazing irony here. He is delighted with the shade, but he is still has no more compassionate toward Nineveh despite this evidence of God’s compassion for his own discomfort. Since Jonah is unwilling to connect God’s grace to him with God’s grace to Nineveh, the Lord sends a worm to destroy the plant by chewing upon it and deprive Jonah of his shade.

3. Then comes the scorching heat probably 110 or 120 degrees blasting out of the eastern desert and dehydrating him. The shade is gone now and the sun beats down intensely. In a word play here the Hebrew word for anger is synonymous with heat; we talk about being hot under the collar. It is as if God is saying, “Okay, if you’re going to persist in your angry rebellion against me, I’ll make it so hot for you so you can get the point.” So Jonah faints from heat exhaustion.

4. Next, what occurs is Jonah’s second conversation with God, which concludes the story. “Do you do well to be angry for the gourd?” The plant symbolizes God’s mercy on Nineveh. And God wanted Jonah to understand how wrong it was for him to be angry about God’s intervention to save the city. The death of the plant symbolizes the removal of God’s mercy from Jonah, just as God might have chosen to remove his mercy from Nineveh.

a) Jonah should have been thankful for God’s kindness to Nineveh. However, he is very angry when the plant dies, yet he would have been delighted if the mercy of God had been denied to Nineveh and they had died. God is trying

to show Jonah how confused his thinking is, valuing a plant but disdaining a whole nation of people. God asks the question again, “Do you do well to be angry?”

He can’t stand the thought of God’s extending his grace to the Ninevites; and yet he knows that he can’t live without that grace himself. Since Jonah can’t convince God that his kindness to people who repent is wrong, he wants to die. His answer shows something frightening: He isn’t willing to live with the God who can give grace to or take grace away from whomever he sovereignly chooses Jew or Gentile.

Does he understand that he can’t have it both ways? We don’t have an answer and better yet God leaves us with that question.

Conclusion:

In the Book of Jonah God prepared a fish, gourd, a worm, and a prepared vehement east wind. All of them are miraculous and each one of them is equally miraculous. God is dealing with his backslidden prophet Jonah who has lost his gourd vine and care more for this plant than all the souls of humans is the city.

God is showing how ridiculous Jonah is behaving. 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 we 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. I want you to take the message to them.”