I Don’t Want To Be A Jonah

 

The reason I don’t want to be a Jonah. When God gave Jonah an assignment, Jonah went the other direction. One have to suppose Jonah didn’t want preach to Nineveh of their destruction.

Jonah got on a ship to Tarshish and on their way toward the city God sent a great wind. The wind tossed and turn the ship Jonah was on. It was so bad the crew were praying to their God’s for intervention. Good old Jonah went below and slept. The crew went down woke Jonah up, giving him what for. telling Jonah to get his butt in gear pray to his God. Jonah told them what he was about and suggested they throw him over board. the sailors didn’t throw Jonah overboard until the storm got worse.

You can be sure God wasn’t through with Jonah yet when Jonah was thrown overboard. Along came the famous whale we heard about and he swallowed Jonah. God got Jonah’s attention then. Finally Jonah prayed, telling God what a wretch he been. The Whale vomited Jonah on dry land after that.

Jonah went to preach to Nineveh what God told him to.

I would not want to have God hunt me down and have to put me through trials to get my attention to get what He wanted me to do done. It is too much trouble. It would be better just to go do the preaching in the beginning and act like Isaiah.

Jonah did do more after that.

Jonah 3

1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:

² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

³ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.

⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

⁶ When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.

⁷ This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.

⁸ But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.

⁹ Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

Jonah 4

1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

² He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knewthat you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

⁵ Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.

⁶ Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant.

⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered.

⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

¹⁰ But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.

¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

I don’t want to be a Jonah