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The Compassion of God-Jonah 4:4-11

By Larry Kirk | April 24, 2007

On his eighty-ninth birthday, National Public Radio’s senior news analyst Daniel Schorr discussed something President Bush had said about presenting public school students with evidence for the intelligent design of the universe. With evident scorn, he linked the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with the concept of intelligent design, saying, “[Bush] might well have reflected that, if this was the result of intelligent design, then the designer has something to answer for.”

When I hear something like that I have conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I sympathize with what Daniel Schorr is feeling, because I share his heart-ache and compassion for all those who have suffered through such a hurricane. On the other hand, I’m concerned that people who scoff at the idea of a Creator are showing that they don’t really understand the biblical view of creation.

The Bible is clear that the world we live in today, with its sin and suffering and natural calamities, is not the world as it came from the hand of God. The Bible tells us that mankind’s sin plunged the whole world into a state of rebellion against Him that has changed the condition of nature itself. Critics of the idea of creation, and even of God, rarely take that into account.

But the thing that is most troubling about criticizing God in the face of natural disaster and human suffering is the arrogance with which we so easily shake our fist at Him and demand an accounting.

One thing the Bible tells us and the cross of Christ shows us is that God often works in mysterious ways. Human beings have limited perspective and finite understanding. There is a lot that we simply do not understand. We often do not understand why God ordains what He ordains or allows what He allows or how He intends to bring good out of it or be glorified in it. Christian faith is unapologetically a life of faith, but it is also important to understand that faith is not just a wish. Faith is a willingness to trust in God based on what He has revealed about Himself. Christian faith has content. It is based on truths about God that have been revealed by God in the Scriptures.

A central truth revealed about God in Scripture is that He is a God of great compassion. That’s one of the key themes in the book of Jonah. O. Palmer Robertson wrote a book on Jonah in which he said that the whole book is a study in compassion. In Jonah 4:2, Jonah describes God as “gracious, compassionate and abounding in love.” The book of Jonah ends with a question that stresses His compassion. At the end of verse 11, God says, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

God wants us to recognize His compassion, and one thing He shows us about that compassion is how purposeful it is.

The Compassion of God Is Purposeful

It is clear in the story that God has compassion on Jonah but is not going to leave Jonah alone if that means letting him stay the person he is. God wants to change his heart. God wants to do the same thing in us. His compassion accepts us as we are, but it is purposeful in that He works in us to change us.

Jonah 4 begins with the prophet angry with God because He hasn’t judged the people of Nineveh. They had repented. God showed them grace. That’s what God loves to do. But Jonah is angry. He wants them judged.

Jonah 4:4-5 says, “But the Lord replied, ‘Have you any right to be angry?’ Jonah went 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.” Jonah storms off to see if God is going to get His act together and destroy Nineveh after all. He goes outside of town, builds a little shelter, and waits. But it’s hot. The world is hot, and Jonah’s heart is hot. He’s an angry man in a hot world, so he’s miserable physically and emotionally. Verse 6 says, “Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.”

You could read this and think, because God takes the vine away in the next verse, that God was just setting Jonah up. But that’s not the case. Verse 6 is clear that the reason God provided the vine was “to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort.”

There is a play on words in verse 6 that helps us understand God’s purpose. The key Hebrew words sound similar. In English it would be something like this: “God provided the shade to help him shed his misery.” Jonah’s misery, or discomfort, is not only outward but also inward. He’s as hot on the inside as the desert is on the outside, so God shows him compassion. The compassion has a purpose; it is a kindness designed to soften his heart.

Sometimes God’s Compassion Comforts us

for the Purpose of Softening Our Hearts

What was Jonah’s response to God’s kindness? “Jonah was very happy about the vine” (verse 6). Jonah was happy because God did something for him that he liked. But what did Jonah do? Did he soften his heart and surrender more fully to God. Did the kindness of God cause him to look more humbly at his attitude? No, it did not.

A warning the Bible gives over and over again is the warning about how easily we misinterpret the kindness of God. We do something wrong, God doesn’t come down immediately with discipline, and we think, Hmm, I guess He doesn’t mind. We sin in attitude or action, and He, because of His grace, blesses us anyway. We think, Cool, I guess God doesn’t care. Or worse, in our pride we think the kindness God shows that His patience and ongoing blessing somehow vindicate us and prove that we were right after all. In Romans 2:4, the apostle Paul asks this question: “Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?”

If you are out of step with God, if your life doesn’t revolve around His love for you and your love for Him, then don’t think, just because things are going OK with you, that things are all right between you and God. As in Jonah’s experience, He may be showing you kindness to soften your heart so you will repent and change.

It’s possible to be, like Jonah, very glad but not very grateful. It’s one thing to be glad for good things; it’s another to be grateful for good things. There is nothing here in the Scripture about Jonah’s thanking God or turning from his anger. Sometimes we are so glad for the good things that we actually turn them into idols instead of allowing them to turn us toward God. The best way to keep safe the good things in our lives is to envelop them in heartfelt gratitude that keeps us centered on and sensitive to God.

What if we are glad for all the good things but they move us no closer to God? What if we actually make those things the center of our lives instead of Him? When we allow good things to take the place of God, sometimes He takes those good things away; He wrecks the vine and sends a hot wind.

That’s what God did with Jonah. If he had repented, things would have been different. But Jonah didn’t, and Jonah 4:7-8 says: “But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 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.’” You see God’s sovereignty, His control, over all that happens throughout this story. The same God that provides the vine provides the worm and the scorching wind.

What is God doing? C.S. Lewis said: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Sometimes God’s Compassion Takes Away Our Comforts

for the Purpose of Changing Our Hearts

God’s compassion for Jonah and God’s compassion for us both have an agenda. In each case, God is working to change the heart.

As a new Christian I was asked to help teach a Sunday school class at a local church. They needed the help, but they also wanted to help me by involving me. I enjoyed helping when there was nothing else I wanted to do on a Sunday morning, but I didn’t like giving up my freedom to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

One weekend the word got out that there was a hurricane way off in the Gulf of Mexico and the surf was epic at Naples on the Gulf coast. So I got the keys to my dad’s car, picked up three friends, and we left early on Sunday morning to drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples across Alligator Alley. I was so excited about surfing that I had no trouble ignoring the nagging questions that kept popping up about my Sunday school class.

There’s a moment of great excitement for surfers when you pull up over a little hill and first see the ocean. Well, I was so full of anticipation because it looked like the ocean was almost in view, that I never saw the stop sign or the oncoming car as I crossed an intersection. I slammed on the brakes and almost missed the car, but not quite. The rear bumper of the 1950-something tank caught the left front headlight of my dad’s brand-new, pristine, white Mercury Cougar. It crumpled and then peeled off the whole fender from headlight to door panel, then dropped it like a used tissue on the asphalt.

We all got out. No one was hurt. The first thing the driver of the other car said was that he was all right–he just hoped he wouldn’t miss the Sunday school class he was scheduled to teach.

The police came. They let the man go to Sunday school and helped my friends throw my dad’s fender in the trunk. Then my friends went off surfing while I went to jail for a day until my parents could wire bond money. As I rode to jail in the cruiser, it seemed everyone was on their way to church except me. And I felt God speaking to my heart saying, “You are My son now also, and you can no longer just do whatever you want to do.”

This may sound strange, but I remember thinking, This is a good thing. I knew I needed that kind of care in my life. I was like a little Jonah, without anywhere near the drama, running away from God and finding that God cared enough to pursue me and teach me.

Maybe you think that doesn’t sound compassionate, God’s providing worms and scorching winds, auto accidents, and jail for a day. Is that really compassion? Yes, it is. It’s compassion with a purpose.

Have you ever cared about someone who is drunk, and you want to save his life? First you speak kindly and say, “Hey, buddy, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to drive. Why don’t you give me your keys, and I’ll give you a ride home?” But the person doesn’t respond to kindness and reason. So what do you do? You snatch the keys if you get a chance. You can’t reason with him. So you have to do something that you know might make the person mad. You snatch his keys, and what does he say? “Oh, you’re so wise and loving. You know that I can’t walk a straight line, and you have my best interest at heart”? No, he says, “Give me back my keys, you idiot. What right do you have to take my keys away? You’re no friend of mine. You very bad person you.” Or maybe different words to that effect.

It’s the same thing with children. Children can be like drunken people. I heard someone say a child is someone who is mildly inebriated until he turns a certain age. A good parent is continually doing to his children something like what God did to Jonah–occasionally getting them angry. If you are a selfish parent and just don’t want your kids to ever get upset with you, then you always give them their way and just figure that later on they will be selfish undisciplined, maladjusted adults. Or you can decide, I’m going to work in love to help my children become the people God wants them to become. I am going to look beyond the present to the future. I will let them be mad at me today because I want what is best for them. My love is purposeful.

God does the same thing with us. When He goes to work in your life to change your heart, trust Him. Stop fighting Him. Surrender to Him and the lesson His love is teaching you. Jonah is like so many of us. Maybe he’s like all of us at least some of the time. He wants his own will and often resists God’s will and God’s wisdom. He runs from God. And when he doesn’t run away, he drags his feet. When he doesn’t understand, he gets an attitude and sulks off in anger and bitterness with a hard heart. Is it possible that some of you, like Jonah, are struggling with some area of surrender to God? What you don’t realize is that you’re fighting against a love and wise and purposeful compassion that is beyond your understanding.

You don’t have to understand everything to surrender to God in love and trust. You don’t need a doctorate in medicine to submit to surgery. Imagine you were going to have major surgery and you demanded only a local anesthetic so you could stay awake and challenge the doctor on his every move. He goes to make an incision, and you say, “Whoa, wait just a minute. What’s that you’re using? Why are you using that? Are you sure it’s sharp enough? Is that the right spot to make the incision? Are there any other accepted approaches? You have no right to do anything until you explain everything.” At a certain point, the doctor is going to say, “Until you are willing to take the role of a patient, I cannot assume the role of your doctor.”

Realize that God is working compassionately and purposefully in your life. Surrender to His will and His compassion. Learn His lessons. Don’t resist Him.

Maybe you are thinking, “I hear what you are saying. I see this in the life of Jonah, but I don’t know how to do it. How could I ever learn to trust God like that?” If you look at the end of the chapter, what you see is that God goes for our hearts by revealing His heart. What the end of the chapter shows is that not only is the compassion of God purposeful, but . . .

The Compassion of God Is Great

The compassion of God is big enough to melt our hearts and warrant our trust. Look at verses 10-11: “But the Lord said, ‘You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?’”

Notice two things:

There Is Great Breadth to God’s Compassion

Verse 11 again: “But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” God is saying, “These people, the sinful people of Nineveh, I have compassion on all of them. I even have compassion on the animals. Do you see how big My compassion is?”

It’s possible that verse 11 is talking about young children when it says, “But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.” But most scholars believe that this is a Hebrew expression describing adults who are so spiritually ignorant and morally immature or damaged that they can hardly tell right from wrong. God says He sees these people trapped in their own sinful ignorance, and He has compassion on them.

That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t hate sin. After all, the background for the whole book of Jonah is that if the people of Nineveh had not turned away from their violence and all their other sins God would have judged them. There came a time later, in another generation, when God did judge them. Don’t deny the reality and seriousness of God’s judgment, but right next to it place the reality of His compassion. It’s compassion wide enough for everyone willing to receive it.

In fact, in verse 11 God tells Jonah that He even cares for the cattle. He is saying, “Jonah, you were grieving over the loss of a plant, but willing to kill all those animals without a second thought. Animals are more precious than plants, and people are more precious than animals. I even care for the animals; how much more do you think I care for the people created in My image?” There is great breadth to the compassion of God. It’s big enough for any one of us and every one of us willing to receive it.

There Is Great Depth to God’s Compassion

God’s compassion is heart deep. You can feel the emotion in His question to Jonah, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?” The word translated “concerned” is a Hebrew word that paints a picture of God. It’s a word that can mean “to have tears in your eyes.”

One commentator writes, “In these final words of the text we are left with the image of the Lord being moved to tears of compassion as he looks on the ignorance of Nineveh” (Rosemary Nixon, The Message of Jonah, p 200).

This image of God with tears of compassion is an image we find again on the pages of the New Testament. When Jesus comes to the house of His friend Lazarus, who has died, He weeps. God in human flesh weeps real tears over heartbroken sisters who have lost a brother.

Then, when Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the last time, Luke 19:41-42 says, “As He approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it and said: If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes.” He looked at that city and wept with compassion.

It was because of this same compassion that God, in Christ, ultimately went to the cross to pay the penalty for all our sins. He not only shed tears for us, He shed His blood for us, giving Himself in our place to pay for our sins. He died for people such as Jonah, hard-hearted and self-righteous, and he died for people such as the Ninevites, who were sinfully and spiritually ignorant. He rose again, because this tearful compassion of almighty God is a triumphant compassion that will ultimately triumph over all sin and evil. He offers forgiveness, redemption, His presence now, and eternal life forever to everyone who is willing to trust in Him.

Throughout the book of Jonah we have seen two main things: on the one hand God showing compassion to Jonah and at the same time God working purposefully to teach compassion to Jonah. That’s what He does in our lives also. He shows us compassion, and He teaches us compassion.

Trust in the compassion He is showing you. Learn the compassion He is teaching you. Build your life on trust in the compassion of God. Live your life for the purpose of sharing that compassion with others.

I want to acknowledge that through out this series of messages I drew freely from several sources. First the book, Salvation Through Judgment And Mercy: The Gospel According to Jonah (Gospel According to the Old Testament) by Bryan D. Estelle (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing) This is one installment of the very helpful series The Gospel According To the Old Testament D.A. Carson says that “one of the most urgent needs of the church is to grasp how the many parts of the Bible fit together to make one story-line that culminates in Jesus Christ…(and) this series of books goes a long way to meeting that need”. Sinclair Ferguson was quoted as saying “at last a series on the Old Testament designed to provide reliable exposition, biblical theology, and a focus on Christ”. O Palmer Robertson’s little book on Jonah, Jonah: A Study In Compassion, published by Banner of Truth, also proved especially helpful. While preaching this series I also listened to sermons on Jonah by Dr. Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll. Their sermons often suggested helpful ideas which were adapted to fit my approach and my congregation’s needs. Both of their sermon series are available through their web sites at www.redeemer.com and www.marshill.org respectively.

Topics: Jonah |

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