HE WAS VERY ANGRY. AND HE PRAYED

Jonah’s bigoted anger at God’s sparing the Ninevites found expression in complaining prayer, vv. 1, 2. The presumptuous audacity of the prophet is matched only by God’s astonishing patience toward His servant. We see in God’s patience, with such an extreme case as Jonah, why he is long-suffering with His servants still today, whose tantrums are sometimes as fleshly as Jonah’s. From Jonah’s angry prayer, v. 2, we discover he fled to Tarshish not for fear of the fierce Ninevites, but for fear of the great grace and mercy of God which he suspected would forgive them. In Jonah, we learn it is possible to serve God with seeming success, and yet be completely out of touch with His love and pity for the lost, and even resent His compassion for the distant sinner.

Jonah’s story teaches us there is always a way out of spiritual responsibility when the task is distasteful. We all have our personal Nineveh, the place and people to whom God would send us, but how often we prefer a ship going to Tarshish! Yet, as with Jonah, so with us; still God will use us and patiently remonstrate with our folly, vv. 9-11. God’s pity is especially seen in the case of the children in Nineveh, v. 11. There were 120, 000 children there not yet grown to years of accountability in the matter of guilt and judgement. They are innocent of actual sin although not of original sin, and this moves the pity of Jehovah’s heart. Who can doubt such innocence will always be saved on the basis of divine pity, their inbred sin being covered by the sacrificial power of the blood of Christ.

The purpose of this book is, (1) to manifest God’s grace and love for Gentile sinners, even the worst; (2) to show His immense long-suffering toward His servants in their disobedience and pride; (3) to reveal His absolute sovereignty over creation to accomplish His purposes of grace; and (4) finally, to turn history into prophecy, for Jonah is a type of Him who was ‘greater’ than he, Matt. 12. 41. Thus, in chapter 2 we have types of the sufferings, death, and burial of Christ, His resurrection, and His grace to the Gentiles in the message of life.

Ere we presume to approach God in prayer, let us despatch any angry thoughts that we might hold within us. Then let us freely acknowledge in His presence that it is only ‘by grace’ that we are ‘saved‘, and that our salvation is ‘the gift of God‘, Eph. 2. 8.