Sulking

[00:00:00] Foreign Chuck Allen here. And I want to thank you for joining me on another weekday podcast. This is my last episode of a series I've been teaching on Jonah. We went from Jonah running to Jonah praying to Jonah preaching, and now we're kind of back in a mess. Jonah sulking. I find it fascinating that Jonah has so many illustrative teachings in here. On the one hand, we get to see. It's kind of a foreshadowing of Jesus. I mean, Jonah, three days, three nights in the belly of a fish. Death engulfs him as he's engulfed in death. Then when he repents, then, you know, comes out of death, just like Jesus was in the tomb for three days and three nights, and he came out and defeated death and beat Satan. Well, when Jonah returns to God, he's expelled out of death, but he does what God wants him to do after praying and preaching. And now, after the whole city of Nineveh that was wicked and evil has turned to God, now we get to chapter four, and Jonah's sulking. Now, you'd think Jonah would be thrilled, right? A whole city turned from violence and evil and was spared from destruction. Revival had broken out, and you would think, wow, he would be celebrating. Look at what God did. But because he's so ridiculously human, he says in Jonah, chapter 4, verse 1, this change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. Like, what in the world? [00:01:33] He prays, not with joy, but with bitterness. Verse 2 says, Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this? Lord, that's why I ran away to Tarshish. I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You're eager to turn back from destroying people. [00:01:52] Jonah hates how generous God's grace is. Think about that. The grace that he got to experience, he's already turned from. He wanted judgment. He wanted those people to suffer. Ever been there? [00:02:08] Those wicked, awful, terrible people? I want them to feel like, blah. [00:02:13] Well, we've been there, haven't we? God tries to teach Jonah through a plant. So in verse 7, verses 6 and 7, it says, the Lord God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there. And soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. [00:02:31] But God also arranged for a worm. The next morning at dawn, the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away. [00:02:39] And Jonah just goes completely bat crazy. And God asks, is it right for you to be angry about this plant in Verse nine. And Jonah then doubles down. Yes, even angry enough to die. Like, doggone it, listen, I've done this. I knew what you'd do. And blah, blah, blah. Maybe he's not getting credit he wants. Or maybe it's like, look what I had to go through. But I think Jonah just. He just wanted a big blue ribbon and people to praise him instead of the one who actually brought deliverance. And then the book ends here in verse 11. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city? [00:03:23] That's it. [00:03:24] Not a neat bow, not a happy ending. An open question. [00:03:29] Further proof that God can handle our questions. Because maybe the real point of Jonah isn't whether Nineveh repents. It's whether Jonah, like me and you, can accept a God whose love is bigger than our categories, more generous than we're comfortable with. [00:03:47] I don't like to think about that, but when I say it again, I'm just reminded of. I act just like Jonah. [00:03:54] It's like, can we accept a God whose love is bigger than our categories and more generous than we're comfortable with? [00:04:02] Because we want revenge our way. We want things to be right our way. [00:04:08] So today, what will you do when God's compassion runs further than you want it to go? When his mercy crashes into people you thought were beyond redemption? [00:04:19] The book leaves it hanging so we can wrestle with. And I think we should. We need to wrestle with this tension that God's deeper compassion than we can humanly fathom is real, and his mercy does indeed crash into people that we think should be beyond redemption. Isn't it good to know that He's God and we're not? [00:04:42] The book leaves it hanging, friend. And maybe that's the whole point. [00:04:46] God bless you. Thanks so much for joining me on today's weekday podcast.