The Grace of God – Jonah 4:1 – 11.
‘There is an old Hasidic tale about a woman whose name was Anna Kebbitch. She was a complainer. All day long she complained:
“I have so little money, my clothes are like old rags.”
“My health is so bad, my back feels like the walls of Jericho.”
“I must walk so far to draw water, my feet are like watermelons.”
“My house is so small, I can barely move in it.”
“My children visit me so little that they hardly know me.”
One day, Anna Kebbitch woke up with an itch on her nose. All day long her nose itched. She went into town to visit the Rabbi. When the Rabbi saw Anna, he asked her, “How are you, Anna?”
Anna replied, “I have so little money, my clothes are like old rags, my health is so bad, my back feels like the walls of Jericho. I must walk so far to draw water, my feet are like watermelons. My house is so small, I can barely move in it. My children visit me so little that they hardly know me. And now I have this itch on my nose and it plagues me so. Tell me Rabbi, what does it mean?”
The Rabbi said, “Anna, your itch is the Kebbitch Itch – the ‘complainer’s itch,’ Its meaning is this: However you consider yourself, so shall it be.”
The next morning, Anna woke up and her nose was still itching. She could barely move. Her back had turned to stone like the walls of Jericho. When she looked about her she noticed that her house had shrunk until her arms stuck out the windows and her legs hung out the front door. She could not move in it. On the end of her legs were two large watermelons. Her clothes had turned to old rags. When her son and daughter came walking by, Anna called out to them, but they continued walking on, wagging their heads – they didn’t know her.
In despair Anna remembered the meaning of the Kebbitch Itch: However you consider yourself, so shall you be. What does this mean?
Anna began to think: You know, I do have money enough to live on and more. Henceforth, I will give out of my abundance to those who are not so well off. My health is not so bad. Actually, for someone my age, I feel quite well. I’m glad I have such a nice house to live in. It’s not large, but it’s comfortable and quite warm. I really don’t mind my walk to draw water. I love to smell the flowers along the path. And my children – I’m so proud that they have become independent and are now able to take care of themselves.
Miraculously, while Anna was saying all these things, her situation returned to normal – and her outlook on life changed forever. When the Rabbis tell Anna’s story, they end with this statement: May your noses itch forever.’
The Book of Jonah brings us the story of the Prophet Jonah, the reluctant prophet who ran away from the call of God to preach a very solemn message to the city of Nineveh.
What Jonah experienced as God came down and spoke to him is what every preacher would like to experience. Everyone of us would love for God to come down and tell us face to face where He wants us to go, to whom we should preach and what we should say, but that is not the normal experience of the preacher. Many times we have to struggle and as it were, wrestle with God in prayer to get His word for the upcoming Sunday. Not so with Jonah. The call came to him in a face to face encounter with God.
Now, if you follow the story carefully you will soon discover that it is not so much about Jonah as it is about God. What is it about His nature that God wants us to know and understand from this book? Jonah sums it up for us in 4:2, ‘I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love…’ That is a summary of what God wants us to know about Him in this book.
Three times in this book God demonstrated His grace and compassion:
Jonah 1:15, God showed grace and compassion to the sailors;
Jonah 2:2, God showed grace and compassion to Jonah;
Jonah 3:10, God showed grace and compassion to the Ninevites.
This is the picture you find throughout the book and it should be a cause for rejoicing, but it is not. Rather than rejoicing Jonah is angry. Jonah had seen the grace of God displayed in a most unusual way. He saw the kind of revival that you and I long to see today. He got a foretaste of Pentecost, yet he is angry. How can that be? Why is he angry? Why the contradiction?
Before I try to answer that question I want you to notice something unusual here. In 4:1 Jonah is angry. In 4:2 he prays. Is that what you normally do when you are angry? Of course not. Usually we want to stand up and fight back. Jonah, of course, knows that you don’t fight with god. There is just no chance of winning. So Jonah did what we all need to do when we get angry – pray. Talk to God about it and get your answers from him.
Now then, what was the problem with Jonah?
1. Jonah had obeyed God by doing what God wanted him to do, but God had not done what Jonah wanted God to do.
Jonah had come to the conclusion that if he obeyed God then God would automatically do what he desired and what he desired was that God would punish the Ninevites for their cruelty and wickedness against other nations. But God wasn’t about to do that, at least, not at this time. Jonah needed to learn what the prophet Isaiah had learned. In Isaiah 55:8 – 9 we read these words that God sent us through Isaiah: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’ declares the lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’
Jonah needed to learn that. Somehow he thought he had God figured out ant that God would act in a predictable way. He wanted God in a box, not a God who was sovereign and unpredictable.
It reminds me of an incident on the mission field many years ago when a missionary family ran out of money. They had been taught to trust God for their needs so they got together as a family and prayed that God would send them the money they needed for food and other things. Then, having prayed, they sat on the porch and waited in excitement for the postman to deliver the mail. The postman came but there was no mail from home and no money. Had god forgotten them? No, for to their surprise one of the native families from their little church brought them a basket of food from their garden which kept them until their regular support came a few days later from headquarters.
You and I must never put God in a box. God is not predictable. He is too creative to be predictable. He is always doing something new and breaking away from what we call the norm. Tennyson was right when he wrote,
‘The old order changeth and God fulfills Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’
Don’t ever think that God has let you down or forgotten you because He didn’t give you what you asked for.
The second thing Jonah tried to do was this:
2. Jonah tried to justify his anger, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of God.
He argues in 4:2 that this was the reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place. In other words he is saying that he was right in the first place. He had a legitimate reason for running away. This is a complete turn around from when he was in the belly of the fish. In the belly of the fish he thought his life was over and he had no argument with God. God was right and he was wrong and God was justified in punishing him. That was his position. But now he says that he was right in the first place.
We see this over and over in so many human situations. Quite often, when things do not turn out the way we expected them to, we try to justify our disobedience. We decide that, if we obey God, this is what the appropriate outcome should be and when it doesn’t happen we are confused.
Here is what I have learned through the years. God has given to ever person coming into this world a beautiful gift. It is the gift of choice, free choice. It’s a gift we have until the day we die. It is a gift we all exercise within the boundaries of our human nature. But we don’t all exercise it alike and the result is often this, that one bad choice cancels out the result of a good choice.
We see this many times in our children. We bring them up according to the teaching of the word of God. We teach them values based on biblical principles and so on. But when they come of age they make their own choices and there is nothing we can do about except to pray. But God doesn’t take back the gift of choice because we pray and often they choose to do their own thing.
So, don’t get angry with God because thing haven’t worked out the way you expected them to. Rather learn to say with humility and brokenness, “Lord, not my will but thine be done.”
Now here is the third thing about Jonah’s response.
3. Jonah tries to turn God against God.
Jonah complains about God’s action by quoting God’s own words to him – Psalm 103:8, 86:5, 15, Exodus 34:6 – 7. So here is his argument, ‘God, here is what you have said over and over again, that you are merciful, kind, compassionate and forgiving; so why did you send me to Nineveh in the first place to preach doom and destruction when you knew full well that you were going to do the opposite?’ In other words Jonah is saying that he, Jonah is the consistent one, not God.
Now that is an awful prospect because we find some frightening parallels in the Bible. We find Satan in the Garden of Eden saying to Eve, “Did God really say that you should eat from that tree? Maybe he did because he knew you would become like him when you eat,” (my paraphrase). And the result was the fall into sin by the human race.
We find Satan in Matthew 4:6 quoting scripture to Jesus in the Temptation to persuade him to do his own thing apart from the Father’s will Fortunately Jesus didn’t fall for it.
And sometimes people will search the scriptures for all kinds of references to justify some action they want to take which is completely out of the orb of God’s will. As Christians we must learn the great principles of Scripture, most of which are repeated several times in different texts and we must be careful to read them in context and apply them properly to daily life. And we must avoid at all cost the temptation to turn biblical principles into legalistic rules for life.
Finally we find one frightening things happening to Jonah>
4. Jonah asked God to take his life – v.3.
Jonah had tried this before when he asked the sailors to throw him overboard – 1:12. But at that time he was in a state of disobedience and unhappy. Now, having obeyed God, he is still unhappy and would rather die.
Why? Is it possible that we can obey God while our heart is still unwilling and that our obedience is really no better than our disobedience? If God asks you to do something for him and you do it with a disobedience heart you are no better than the person who refuses to do it altogether. Its kind of like the little boy who was told by his mother to stand in the corner for half-an-hour because of his disobedience. He looked at his mother from the corner and said, “I might be standing up on the outside but I am sitting down on the inside.” Unwilling obedience is still disobedience.
Here is another question for you. Is it possible that we can experience the overwhelming power and blessing of God and yet long to be somewhere else – or better, nowhere? That is precisely what Jonah felt. God had blessed his ministry in a mighty way in the city of Nineveh. At no time in Palestine did he ever have that many converts. Nevertheless Jonah didn’t want to be there.
Closing: In closing let me try and sum up what I’ve been trying to teach this morning.
• Don’t put God in a box. Don’t expect that because you have obeyed God you can make demands of Him. He knows what is best for you and you need to recognize that and rest in it.
• It is never right to be angry with God. God does what he does because he sees the beginning from the end. We only see a small segment of life but He sees everything, therefore only He knows what is right.
• Be careful not to turn principles of faith into legal rules for life. Learn to work out those principles in a practical way for yourself without forcing them on others.
• Learn to obey God with a willing heart. You can only do this when you know deep down in your heart that all things work together for good to those who love god and are called according to His purpose.’
Jonah was not the first to give up on god and he won’t be the last, but God was not willing to give up on Jonah. God persevered with Jonah and Jonah found himself caught up between his own self-will and the perseverance of God. And the more he pushed against God’s strong hand, the more God pressed against him. And, in the end, God would make Jonah a symbol of His call upon your life and mine.
