SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/20/2025 9:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “A Prophet, a Plant, and a People”
Bible Reading and Meditation Reference: Jonah 4:5-11
Message of the verse: “Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. And there he made a booth for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. And Jonah was extremely glad about the plant. But God appointed a worm at the breaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and it dried up. Then it happened that as the sun rose up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun stuck down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, “Death is better to me than life.” 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.” Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight and perished overnight. So should I not have pity 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?”
This morning we begin to look at the last chapter in John MacArthur’s commentary on Jonah, and as you can see it will take us a while to get through these last, but very important verses in the book of Jonah. I eagerly look forward to looking at what he has to comment on these verses as they are difficult for me to understand. At the conclusion of this section we will then move on to look at Nahum, which also has to do with Nineveh, but a different time and different circumstances. As per usual for me I will not quote the introduction to this rather long section of Scripture, quoting from MacArthur’s introduction.
“The glorious theme of God’s abundant grace permeates the book of Jonah. In his grace, the Lord commissioned His prophet to warn the Ninevites about His pending wrath. In His grace, He delivered the sailors from the storm, and rescued Jonah from the depths of the sea. In His grace, He restored His wayward prophet to service, and deployed him a second time to Nineveh. In His grace, Yahweh prompted the Ninevites to repent when they heard the sobering message; and in His grace, He restrained His hand of Judgment against them. When Jonah reacted in anger to God’s mercy toward Nineveh, the Lord again demonstrated grace by responding to Johan with forbearance. Repeatedly, God put His benevolent lovingkindness on display—with Jonah, the sailors, and the Ninevites. If not for divine mercy and unmerited favor, the stubborn prophet, the pagan seafarers, and the fearsome Assyrians would all have perished. The lesson is clear. Every sinner stands in equal need of divine grace, whether Jew or Gentile. Moreover, the Lord generously extends His mercy and kindness to all who call on Him in repentant faith (cr. Rom. 10:13).” “For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (ESV)."
“Though Jonah had personally benefited from God’s unmerited favor, he failed to appreciate the scope of God’s saving purposes. Instead of celebrating the salvation of an entire city, the indignant prophet considered the extension of grace toward the Ninevites to be evil. This backward understanding of good and evil reflected the same confusion for which God had condemned the nation of Israel (cf. Isa. 1:4; 5:20, 24).”
Isaiah 1:4; 5:20 and 24: “4 Alas, sinful nation, People weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the LORD, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him.” “20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” “24 Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
“Even so, the Lord responded to Jonah with patient instruction. In this final response to His prophet, God delivered one last object lesson about the wonder of His grace. It was instruction designed to pierce Jonah’s calloused heart.
“The final section of the book of Jonah (Jonah 4:5-11) begins with the prophet’s flawed anticipation (4:5) that Nineveh would yet be destroyed by Yahweh. Instead, the Lord used a short-lived plant as a fitting analogy (4:6-8) to illustrate the hypocrisy of Jonah’s anger regarding the Ninevites. The book concludes with a final admonition (4:9-11) from the Lord to His prophet. That closing rebuke came in the form of a rhetorical question to Jonah: If the prophet had pit on a passing plant, should God not show mercy to a perishing people?”
Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today: I desire to learn from the mistakes that Jonah did, and trust the Lord to work in my heart to do the things that He has called me to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to bring glory to His name as my wife and I deal with her illness of cancer. May we lean upon the Lord in these difficult times, but remember that He is in control, and remember that He has a plan for our lives.
11/20/2025 10:01 AM
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