JONAH 4:1-11
 

1. HE POUTED BECAUSE NINEVEH WAS SAVED:
1. Though his preaching seemed to be more a pronouncement of doom than an offer of salvation, the Ninevites got saved! The city repented. They turned from their wicked and sinful ways.
2. Imagine this city getting right with God because you hollered at them that in 40 days they would be destroyed! Can you see taverns shutting down; porno shops being converted to art stores; drugs no longer being sold by slinky stinkers; all the cults being deserted like the sinking ships they are?? Can you see that? And if it happened, how would you react? Betcha you wouldn't pout or sulk!
3. Jonah did! Jonah was indignant! Look again at Verses 1-3!
1. "Now look what you've done! You forgave them! I told you this would happen! Now I'm mad enough to die!"
2. He preferred death for himself rather than life for his enemies!
3. How unlike God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son!
4. How unlike Jesus who willingly gave His life to save sinners.
4. Why? Why was Jonah pouting? Perhaps there were 4 underlying reasons:
1. Loss of Jewish national security. These bozo's were arch enemies. Jonah wanted his enemies out of commission. Who doesn't want the Taliban and Al Quaeda squished like a bug?
2. Loss of Jewish national esteem. If these guys repented it would seem that they were as important to God as were the Jews.
3. Loss of personal self esteem: He had predicted doom in 40 days; if it didn't happen they might mock at him.
4. His sense of justice was offended. They didn't deserve mercy; they didn't merit grace! They deserved to be destroyed and to die the death of a dog.
5. He is like a group of women who came to the preacher to complain about a woman who had been baptized. She had been an immoral woman. They said, "If she's in, we are out!" The official "cat committee" said, "We don't want that kind of woman in our church!" The pastor said, "Well, don't have her in your church. Jesus already has her in His!"

2. HE POUTED BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET HIS OWN WAY:
1. He had been thwarted at every turn. Bothered by a call when he was perfectly happy doing what he was doing; caught in a storm at sea; dumped into the drink; devoured by a denizen of the deep; vomited up onto a beach. And now, to top it off, God shows kindness to this bunch of jerks in Nineveh.
2. Jonah, the "Burger King Prophet" wanted it his way. Jonah wanted them blasted into hell. His plan was, "Burn, baby, burn!" and God dashed his plan.
3. We all have cherished plans thwarted, hopes dashed, dreams come to naught. How do we react?
1. Negatively? Pout, shout, throw a tantrum? Feel sorry for us and angry at them? Nothing will darken your day more than that!
2. Positively? "God knows best and He's leading every step of the way!" Nothing will lighten your load more than that kind of faith.
4. Listen to Jonah snapping out:
1. "Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.":Verse 3. And in Verse 8 "Death is better to me than life." He prematurely desired death.
2. And then he irreverently snapped at God: God asked, "Do you have good reason to be angry?' and Jonah replied, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." The NLT puts it this way: "Yes," Jonah retorted, "even angry enough to die!" Verse 9.
5. He is like the man who prayed for something and didn't get it. What he did get was angry at God. In his pouting, sulking voice he shouted, "Lord, if this is the way You are going to act, I won't let You serve me anymore!"

3. HE POUTED BECAUSE OF A FAULTY VALUE SYSTEM:
1. He valued the vine. The KJV says that Jonah had "pity" on the vine. That's what the Hebrew word here means: "pity or compassion!" Can you figure it? He had pity for a vine and none for Nineveh?!?
2. I'm sure that his evaluation was: "The only good Ninevite is a dead Ninevite!" He wanted his vine spared, but "Go ahead, God, and put the hammer down on those sinners in Nineveh!"
3. Jonah was madder than a wet hen when the vine was destroyed and Nineveh was not! That's displaced affection; that's a faulty value system; that's a corrupt priority.
4. It's awfully easy to put the wrong stress on the wrong things.
1. People love things and use people. That's a faulty value system.
2. People value the temporal over the eternal. That's a faulty value system.
3. People esteem the outward appearance rather than the inward reality. That's a faulty value system.
4. People love money more than they love God. That's a faulty value system.
5. People want the approval of their fellow man more than they want God's approval. That's a faulty value system.
6. People are more concerned with their creature comforts than they are with their character. That's a faulty value system.
7. People are more interested in ease than evangelism. That's a faulty value system.
8. People want to be happy more than they want to be good. That's a faulty value system.
5. Some years ago, a man climbed up the face of one of the large department store buildings in Los Angeles. Thousands gathered to watch him perform this seemingly impossible feat. Slowly and carefully he made his way upward, now clinging to a jutting brick, again to a cornice. Up and up he went. At last he was near the top. He was seen to feel to right and left and above his head for something firm enough to support his weight. And soon he seemed to spy what looked like a gray bit of stone or discolored brick protruding from the smooth wall. He reached for it and grasped it. But before the horrified eyes of the spectators, the man fell to the ground and was killed. In his dead hand was found a spider's web! He had mistaken it for a stone. So those who grasp things that don't really matter and let go of things that will last for eternity. They are sure to fall.

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