Jonah 4:1-3 - Jonah gets mad

Jonah is both the most successful evangelist and the unhappiest evangelist. He is unhappy because people repented, because they responded to God’s message! Jonah knew what God was like, and wasn’t happy with what he knew. Jonah knew that God was compassionate and would be merciful if the Ninevites repented. He had tried to avoid this by running to Tarshish. Having failed in his attempt to overturn God’s will, he wished he was dead! What we see here is part of the Jewish problem. They did not appreciate or understand that God was a merciful God. They wanted someone who would protect them and destroy their enemies, but God’s plan was much greater than this. Now I have called this “the Jewish problem” or “the Israel problem” (and things have not changed much in the time since Jonah). However, it is a trait that can be in all of us. We misunderstand God’s purposes and heart. He will protect us, and enemies will be destroyed if necessary, but His greatest desire is that all repent. Now Assyria was indeed a godless nation, full of evil, and today we can see groups and individuals who are “full of evil”. We need to do two things. We need first of all to recognise and acknowledge the evil. This is something that a large part of the church will not do, and is therefore just as wrongheaded as Jonah was. The LGBT+ agenda is “full of evil”, it is against God’s word and harmful to society and individuals. But we also need to recognise that God’s desire is that they should repent and receive life. We must not be like Jonah who wanted to see the Ninevites zapped, we must be like God and want to see people saved. This may include preaching a message of repentance! We should also note that just as Israel needed to look at her own life, we should look at our own lives, as individuals and as groups. On the sexual sin side, sex before marriage, the breakdown of marriages are sins that are having far greater and more harmful effects on individuals, churches and society than LGBT+ issues. Now, some of you reading this may react by thinking I am being “judgemental”. If this is your reaction you do not understand God. The love of God is such that it highlight sins so that they can be repented of, and forgiveness and healing can follow. If we react with defensiveness then we are resisting the grace of God.