Introduction to The Marvel of an Unhappy Servant (Jonah 4)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/1/2015 9:26 PM

My Worship Time                             Focus:  Introduction to “The Marvel of an Unhappy Servant

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Jonah 4:1-11

            Message of the verses:  “1 But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." 4 The LORD said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?"

    5 Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. 6 So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. 7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life." 9 Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." 10 Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. 11 "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?’”

            We have two more sections in our study of the book of Jonah and in our Spiritual Diary for today we will just look at the introduction to this third main point in Dr. Wiersbe’s outline and then begin to look at the different sub-points that cover this last chapter of Jonah’s book.

            I don’t know how many people know a man named Paul Harvey, but he was a great news commentator who had a show on many stations around the US and perhaps even other countries.  He was a believer and in a lot of his shows he did a segment in which he would tell a story and then give the ending to the story where he would say “And now you know the rest of the story.”  As we look at this fourth chapter of Jonah we have the rest of the story, but perhaps we may wish that the story ended at the end of the third chapter, for if it had Jonah may have been seen as one of the greatest prophets because of all the people who came to know the Lord as a result of his preaching, but when we look at this last chapter we will see the rest of the story.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “But the Lord doesn’t look on the outward things; He looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7) and weighs the motives (1 Cor. 4:5).  That’s why chapter 4 was included in the book, for it reveals ‘the thoughts and intents’ of Jonah’s heart and exposes his sins.”

            Dr. Wiersbe points out that in the first chapter Jonah was like the Prodigal Son whose story is found in Luke 15:11-32, and now in chapter four Jonah is like the Prodigal Son’s brother who was critical, selfish, sullen, angry, and unhappy with the things that were going on.  As a servant of God it is not enough to just do the will of God we must do it from the heart:  “not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart (Eph. 6:6).”  We have heard this statement before but worth repeating:  “The heart of every problem is the problem with the heart” and Jonah’s heart was the problem as we read in verse one “But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.”  There is one more thing we need to mention and that is the remarkable way that God still dealt with Jonah as He dealt with His sulking servant and sought to bring him back into the fellowship and joy of serving the Lord.

 12/1/2015 9:48 PM