STOMPING OUT

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Jonah 4:5

Matthew 8:1-34

When God moves, as we have already seen, not everyone will be delighted. Matthew’s gospel gives us a remarkable example of this. There was a phase in Jesus’ ministry when He performed miracles all over Galilee. Crowds were mushrooming, amazing physical healings were breaking out – and one whole town asked Jesus to leave the area. Perhaps their hostility was born of ignorance: opposition to God being at work is even more surprising when it comes from those who profess to love Him. In perhaps a flashback to the period between Jonah’s preaching and the response of the Ninevites, we see him stomping out of the place where God is at work. But stubborn Jonah still wants to wait for the hoped-for judgement to fall. Anger drove him away from God’s chosen location for blessing.

FOCUS

Jonah left the city.

Jonah 4:5

Sometimes, we react when new things happen in our churches. Our frustration might be sparked because change makes us nervous; sometimes leaders haven’t taken time to explain or answer perfectly reasonable questions. But let’s be careful not to allow our discomfort to drive us away from what God is doing.

Prayer: Lord, stir and disturb me if that’s what I need. Amen.

Happy And Selfish

I wandered into the church meeting, the guest speaker on assignment. Not spotting anyone I knew, I took a seat in the back row to wait – and was quickly hissed at. ‘That’s where I’ve sat for years – it’s my seat. Please move.’ I fled to another empty seat. I had upset someone by moving into their territory. Earlier we saw that anger may be reasonable. We may find ourselves on an unfamiliar journey – or simply not have enough information to understand. But we have to face the fact that sometimes we get angry because we are being coaxed out of our well-established comfort zones, and we don’t like the feeling that this creates. This scene in Jonah demonstrates the almost legendary capacity we human beings have for selfishness.

Read

Jonah 4:6-7

Philippians 2:1-11

Focus

Jonah was very happy he had the vine.

Jonah 4:6

At first glance it seems that God is messing about with Jonah. First sunshade is provided, and Jonah is delighted. Then another creature under divine commission (this time a worm) shows up and munches its way through the vine that only yesterday had been the gift of God. Jonah’s joy disappears with the plant. But there’s no game-playing here; rather school is in session. There’s a double meaning in the text, because with the shade, God relieves Jonah’s ‘trouble’, which is exactly what He did for the whole city of Nineveh. However, while Jonah was delighted for God to do that for him on a small scale, he was irate that something similar should happen for others, especially pagans. Let’s not try to make petty anger noble.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, deliver me from selfishness. Help me to live as a true servant. Amen.

Judgement

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Jonah 4:7-8

John 3:1-21

Focus

When the sun rose, God sent a burning east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head. It made him very weak.

Jonah 4:8

We have seen repeatedly that Jonah fled from his calling because he had no desire to see wicked people forgiven. He longed for God to send the holocaust of judgement to Nineveh, not good news of grace. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes I’d like to call for something similar. When we hear of the terrible crimes of sexual predators who abduct and abuse children, we perhaps wish these evil stalkers could be vapourised by a well-aimed lightning bolt. Yesterday I spent some moments talking with a Christian couple whose beautiful daughter was murdered just three years ago. Their tears still flow quickly. Couldn’t God have neutralised her killer before he had the chance to take her life so cruelly? She lost everything – and perhaps her parents will never know what it is to fully smile again. But let’s consider the idea of a world where every act of evil, every lustful thought, every error was immediately, instantly punished. Chaos would reign; lightning would be everywhere and humanity would be reduced to being puppets in a bizarre game, with God jerking all our strings. The wind in Jonah’s face was a taste of the hurricane of judgement that he was hoping would blow upon the people of Nineveh. It felt like a blast furnace, utterly exhausting him. If we speak of judgement, let’s do so with tears, compassion, and the offer of grace. And let’s never forget – we didn’t get what we deserved. Thank God for grace!

Prayer: Lord, give me strength to live in a world of injustice and pain. If I speak of judgement, may I do so because of love. Amen.

So Wrong

Christians can be adept at standing up for what is right, and being committed to their principles. We respect Martin Luther, who hammered his theological theses to the door of Wittenberg cathedral and later cried, ‘Here I stand: I can do no other.’ His courageous act sent reverberations around the world. We’d like to emulate his insistence on standing up for the truth.

But sometimes our unwillingness to compromise gets hijacked and we end up being inflexible about things that don’t matter. We rage about the translation of the Bible that others use, the worship songs they sing, or where they place the piano. We even feel authentically Christian in our refusal to change. Some people would rather die than back down.

John 12:1-11

Jonah prayed for death – all because his shady plant died. His prayer is shocking, because he was willing to gamble everything, including his relationship with God and life itself, if he didn’t get his own way. Rather than concede that Jesus was Messiah, the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus and put him back in his tomb! Perhaps some of us have a reputation for our rigid commitment to our principles. Let’s be careful that we don’t confuse smallmindedness with courage, and mix our preferences up with God’s plans. Let’s listen to the opinions of others, and not be quick to dismiss what they say because they see things differently. God may be trying to teach us something through those grating and dissenting voices.

To ponder: From your experience of church life, can you think of an example where much ado was made about nothing?

MON 25 SEPT

We Are Not God

There is a statement I have used in public on a number of occasions, and when I do so, I usually get that ‘Stone the blasphemer’ look from some believers. I will repeat it here, and brace myself for the complaints: ‘Our application to join the Trinity has been turned down.’ We’re not God, and we never will be. There are no vacancies in the Godhead. The sooner we figure this out, the easier life will be. God is our Father, and certainly not our servant. He is the majestic God who retains fully the right to do what He will.

READ

Jonah 4:9

Job 13:1-15

The Lord graciously confronted Jonah with this revelation, as He repeated His question, ‘Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?’ Effectively, God quizzes His furious servant with the question that most of us need to hear from heaven at some time: ‘Who do you think you are?’ Jonah is spectacularly deceived, as he insists he has every right to be irate enough to die.

FOCUS

But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have any right to be angry about what happened to the vine?’

Jonah 4:9

Jesus is Lord. That means that, like Job, we can submit when we don’t want to, trust when we don’t understand, and be faithful when our culture, minds, hormones, or hearts want something different. When we have questions, God may be gracious with some explanations – as He was with Jonah in these final verses – but when heaven is quiet, and answers are elusive, we can still bow the knee. We laid down our rights at the cross when we gave our lives to Christ – we handed everything about us over to Him. Let’s not try to pick those rights up again.

Prayer: Lord, I am Your servant. The title deeds of my life are Yours. Do with me what You will. Amen.

Perspective

Living in Colorado is a joy (three hundred days of sunshine: sorry, but someone has to live there), but the winters can be severe. Just last week we had twelve inches of snow in one night. The fog that comes down is so thick that if you’re driving, you just have to pull over and stop. For a while, the towering mountains disappear into the gloom and you see nothing but darkness.

Jonah 4:10-11

Psalm 31:1-24

Yesterday I alerted us to the important reality that we are not gods, and so it’s okay that we don’t see everything about life and the universe with sharp clarity. Jonah could only see the shapes of powerful, evil warriors in Nineveh. But God saw 120,000 stumbling, confused and weak human beings who were very much in need of help. From God’s perfect vantage point, things look very different.

FOCUS

‘Nineveh has more than 120,000 people.’

Jonah 4:11

Going Deeper

lifewithlucas.co.uk/ goingdeeper

Perhaps some of us are tortured because we don’t understand fully. Paul makes it clear that ‘Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a foggy mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12). It’s okay to say that we don’t know. Often we say that unanswered prayer creates questions, but I find that answered prayer does too. Why did God say yes to that request for healing, while others still suffer? There are some things that we won’t understand until we see Jesus face to face, and in that wonderful encounter, the fog will clear forever, and all tears will be wiped away. Until then, we trust Him.

Prayer: I trust in you, Lord. I say, You are my God. My whole life is in your hands. Amen (from Psalm 31:14-15)

Lost

It’s a familiar rallying cry from atheist Richard Dawkins. The suggestion is that to believe in and follow Jesus is an act of intellectual suicide, a ridiculous pursuit by totally deluded people. Dawkins makes his disdain clear in his book, The God Delusion, where he scoffs at the truth of God’s rescuing work at the cross.

’I have described the atonement... as vicious, sadomasochistic and repellent’, Dawkins haughtily declares. ‘We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity.’ 13

Read

Jonah 4:11

Ephesians 4:19

We Christians can feel intimidated by such comments. More than insulting, they are demeaning, and can sap our confidence. But let’s remember God’s verdict on the ‘wisdom’ of the world. The Lord looked upon the power and sophistication of the great city of Nineveh and issued His verdict. God was not excusing the people of Assyria – they were still responsible for their sin – but His verdict explains their behaviour. They were lost. And so are we all, until we allow Christ to find and enlighten us.

Focus

‘They can’t tell right from wrong.’

Jonah 4:11

Paul elaborates on the lost condition of humanity: ‘They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts’ (Eph. 4:18, NIV).

We might be saddened by the mockery that comes from some quarters, but we should not be surprised. And we should heed the call to us all to grow deeper in the wisdom of God.

Prayer: Lord, help me to not only be confident in my faith, but humbly courageous too: a lost world still needs You so desperately. Amen.

The Tearful God

Jonah 4:11

Matthew 23:35-38

Focus

I think that the Hebrew word shown in English as ‘concern’ is a victim of inadequate translation. The word means literally ‘to have tears in one’s eyes’. We are left with the image of the Lord being moved to tears of compassion as He looks on the ignorance of Nineveh, the lostness of its people, and their utter helplessness. This is not a picture of an unemotional, unmoved God, but as we saw at the beginning of our journey through this story, He is the passionate One. And that portrait comes into even greater focus as we think of Jesus, who also looked at a city, with eyes of compassion and sadness because of their rejection of Messiah. ‘I have wanted to be like a hen who gathers her chicks under her wings’ (Matt. 23:37). He wanted to offer shelter and protection for the chicks (the Jews, and in a wider sense, humanity), but then the chicks acted like chicks usually act – they darted around, oblivious to the immediate dangers, spurning the offer of protection, because they’d rather have fun in the farmyard. What might have happened if the Jews had turned, en masse, in response to Jesus’ kingdom message? History might have gone in another direction, and the terrible fall of Jerusalem in AD70 might have been avoided. But they missed their opportunity, because they were not willing.

Jonah 4:11

When God looks at Nineveh, and Jerusalem, and at us, He does so tenderly, and sometimes tearfully. Let’s always stay close to that beautiful heart of His.

Prayer: You care for me so much, Lord Jesus. Help me cast my cares upon You (1 Pet. 5:7). Amen.

Concerns

Read

Matthew 13:1-23

Jonah 4:10-11

Focus

Others received the seed that fell among the thorns. They are those who hear the message. But then... worries... crowd it out.

Matthew 13:22

As we begin to draw our time with Jonah to a close, there’s a play on words in the text that I don’t want us to miss. Twice the word ‘concern’ is used – a word that includes tearful pity, as we saw yesterday. But God uses the word twice in His dialogue with the still-sulking prophet. Jonah was ‘happy’ about the vine/ sunshade (the only time in the entire story that he is happy!) And he was ‘concerned’ about that plant, whereas God was ‘concerned’ about an entire city. The unpalatable truth is this: Jonah had drifted to a place where all that mattered was his own comfort, and when his shade was destroyed, anger exploded yet again. Notice the absurdity of Jonah’s tantrum: he was angry enough to die. I’m tempted to just shake my head, incredulous at his egocentric immaturity. But then I’m challenged, because we too can be overly ‘concerned’ about the wrong things too, including ‘false promises of wealth’, as Jesus pointed out. Or, like Jonah, we can simply drift into self-centredness. Paul, who poured out his life to reach others, wrote, ‘None of you should look out just for your own good. You should also look out for the good of others’ (Phil. 2:4). And to the Corinthians, he wrote, ’We should not look out for our own interests. Instead, we should look out for the interests of others’ (1 Cor. 10:24).

Asked to send a message to a gathering of the Salvation Army, founder General William Booth sent a one word telegram: ‘Others.’

Enough said.

Prayer: Father, when I am tempted to become obsessed with my own life, help me to remember Your call to echo Your love for others. Amen.

Finishing Well

We like God to give us answers – but sometimes He nudges us towards the truth by asking us poignant questions. Jesus wanted to ease His disciples towards understanding, and so asked them, ‘Who do you say I am?’ (Matt. 16:15).

When the Lord was looking for a prophetic spokesperson, He hinted at Isaiah with a question: ‘Who shall I send?’ (Isa. 6:8). Isaiah got the hint – much faster than Jonah.

When it was time to stop Saul’s bloodletting campaign against the Christians, and begin his transformation into Paul the apostle, it all started with a question: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you opposing me?’ (Acts 9:4).

Now, the book of Jonah ends with God putting a penetrating question that we have been considering, put with patience to His stillpouting prophet: ‘Shouldn’t I show concern?’

Jonah 4:1-11

2 Timothy 4:1-18

Going Deeper

lifewithlucas.co.uk/

Jonah’s reply is not recorded. Perhaps he ignored the question – he’d done that before (Jonah 4:4) when he walked out of revival town, and when he first ignored God’s original call. So, did Jonah ever humble himself and give in, ending the wrestling match with God for good? When we met him, he was a runner; it was not an auspicious beginning. So what of his ending? Would he fight tooth and nail to his last breath? The question was intended to prompt Jonah towards a good finish.

Perhaps Jonah’s answer, if there was one, is not recorded because the author wants us to turn the story around and make a response ourselves. Will we seek to be faithful, whatever the cost? Will we end well?

Prayer: May I run the race to win and finish my life well. With Your grace, it can be so. Amen.