Setting – God gives Jonah a lesson on caring
Content – Jonah was not happy that God was merciful to Nineveh (v. 2 ESV) “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” Jonah didn’t want God to be merciful to Nineveh. Jonah still had hoped that Nineveh could be destroyed (v. 5b ESV) “He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.”
God showed grace to Jonah even though he had a bad attitude (v. 6 ESV) “Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.” God used the death of the plant for a lesson on mercy for Jonah (v. 9 NLT) “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?" "Yes," Jonah retorted, "even angry enough to die!”
God now gives the lesson (v. 10-11 NASB) “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and {which} you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know {the difference} between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
Application – Jonah didn’t like the idea that God would provide His mercy for Gentiles. God gave Jonah a lesson on mercy. We see that God wasn’t going to allow for Nineveh to continue to sin (Jonah 1:2 NASB) “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” Nineveh repent and God spared the city.
We see that God executes judgment on sin and we see that God is merciful to people we might not like Him to have mercy on. There are many people in the world that we want God to execute His judgment on and rightly so, but we also need to be willing to execute mercy, grace and forgiveness to those same people. Jesus summarized it (Matt. 7:2 NASB) “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” The question is, would we want to be our own judge?
Content – Jonah was not happy that God was merciful to Nineveh (v. 2 ESV) “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” Jonah didn’t want God to be merciful to Nineveh. Jonah still had hoped that Nineveh could be destroyed (v. 5b ESV) “He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.”
God showed grace to Jonah even though he had a bad attitude (v. 6 ESV) “Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.” God used the death of the plant for a lesson on mercy for Jonah (v. 9 NLT) “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?" "Yes," Jonah retorted, "even angry enough to die!”
God now gives the lesson (v. 10-11 NASB) “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and {which} you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know {the difference} between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
Application – Jonah didn’t like the idea that God would provide His mercy for Gentiles. God gave Jonah a lesson on mercy. We see that God wasn’t going to allow for Nineveh to continue to sin (Jonah 1:2 NASB) “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” Nineveh repent and God spared the city.
We see that God executes judgment on sin and we see that God is merciful to people we might not like Him to have mercy on. There are many people in the world that we want God to execute His judgment on and rightly so, but we also need to be willing to execute mercy, grace and forgiveness to those same people. Jesus summarized it (Matt. 7:2 NASB) “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” The question is, would we want to be our own judge?
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