G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to episode 15 of stories of a faithful

God for kids.

This is our last one in the series on Jonah.

We're kicking off something completely new next week.

I hope you've enjoyed the show so far, thinking about the power and kindness of our

faithful God.

If you have, don't forget to tell other people

about it.

If youve ever read the story of Jonah in a

kids picture Bible, a lot of them stop at the end of chapter three, and that would be a

really happy place to end.

Jonah finally obeys God.

The ninevites turn away from their evil, and God, in his wonderful kindness and mercy,

forgives them.

Thats it.

Thats a wrap.

All finished.

Lets go home and have some chocolate cake.

Except that, isn't it?

There's this whole other chapter.

You might remember what I said at the end of

the last episode, that Jonah is really angry that God forgave the ninevites.

Well, that's what we're going to explore today.

And in this chapter, Jonah is a bit funny.

He does some strange things that might mean we

have a bit of a laugh, but be careful what you laugh at.

It may be that by the end, the joke's on you.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a

faithful God for kids.

Can you imagine the celebration in Nineveh?

God's forgiven them.

He's not going to destroy them.

He saved them.

Oh, it'll be such a relief.

How good is it that God is so kind and loving and forgiving?

But that's not what Jonah's thinking.

This is what verse one of chapter four says.

It says, but Jonah was very unhappy that God did not destroy the city.

He was angry.

Isn't that weird?

You think you'd be happy that the people have turned away from evil and that God's forgiven

them.

That's a good thing, right?

Not for Jonah.

He starts whingeing and complaining to God in

verse two.

This is what he says.

He says, I knew this would happen.

I knew it when I was still in my own country.

It's why I quickly ran away to tarshish.

That's interesting, isn't it?

A lot of people think that Jonah ran away because he was scared of the Ninevites, but

that's not it at all.

He just didn't want the Ninevites to be

forgiven.

Which might sound weird because it's not like

God sent Jonah to invite them to be forgiven.

He didn't tell Jonah to say, if you don't turn

back to God, you'll be destroyed.

So turn back now and God will forgive you.

No, the message was much less hopeful than that.

Jonah just had to go through the city calling out, after 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed.

So what was Jonah's problem? Well, to answer that, you've gotta ask why

Jonah was sent there in the first place.

If Jonah goes around saying after 40 days,

Nineveh will be destroyed, that's like giving people a warning, right?

I mean, God didn't have to tell them it was gonna happen.

He could just do it.

But instead, he kindly lets them know it's

going to happen, which gives them a chance to change and ask for forgiveness.

It's like if someone said to you, in ten minutes, I'm going to pour hot boiling lava

all over that chair that you're sitting on.

You're going to get out of the chair, right?

Or they might say, I'm about to let out a really stinky smell and I can't hold it in

much longer.

They're saying it to be kind, to give you a

chance to get away.

Well, God's being kind to the Ninevites by

letting them know the danger they're in.

But even if they listen and turn away from

their sin, how does Jonah know that God will actually forgive them, that he won't just go

ahead and destroy them anyway? Well, it's because God's faithful.

He can be trusted.

Hundreds of years before this, God had told

the prophet Moses what he's like, how he's kind and loving and forgiving and faithful.

And even though that had happened hundreds of years before, God hasn't changed.

God's always the same.

He's faithful.

And so Jonah says in his grumpiest voice, I knew this would happen.

I knew it when I was still in my own country.

It's why I quickly ran away to tarshish.

I knew that you were a God who is kind and shows mercy.

You don't become angry quickly.

You have great love.

I knew you would rather forgive than punish them.

So now I ask you, Lord, please kill me.

It is better for me to die than to live.

Whoa there, Jonah.

Overreaction much?

It's like he's saying, oh, it's so terrible.

How can I possibly live in a world run by a

God who's so good and kind and loving and forgiving and faithful?

I just need to diiiiiiiiii.

Umm.

Okay.

Sometimes you'll hear people say things that

they don't understand about God.

They'll say, oh, the God of the Bible is mean.

And nasty.

He's angry all the time, and he loves

punishing people.

Is that what we see here?

No, we see the complete opposite.

God is so good, but Jonah hates the ninevites.

He wants them to be destroyed.

He doesn't want them to be forgiven.

And so he's really angry with God, which is pretty nasty, isn't it?

Because in chapter two, Jonah loved being forgiven himself.

He was so happy that God had treated him like that.

He just didn't want God to treat his enemies like that.

In verse four, God asks him, do you think it's right for you to be angry?

And Jonah doesn't say anything.

Like when a grown up asks you about something

you've done wrong and you know it's wrong, but you want to keep doing it, so you just stay

quiet.

Well, instead of answering God, Jonah goes out

of the city and finds a place where he can look at it.

He builds a little shelter for himself to give him shade, and he waits to see what'll happen.

It's really nasty just sitting there, hoping that these people will be destroyed.

So God decides to teach Jonah a little lesson.

First, he uses his amazing power to give Jonah

a better shelter.

It seems that Jonah is as bad at making

shelters as he is at being a prophet.

So verse six tells us the Lord made a plant

grow quickly up over Jonah.

This made a cool place for him to sit, and it

helped him to be more comfortable.

Jonah was very pleased to have the plant for

shade.

Aw, isn't that nice?

Jonah's chilling out, enjoying the shade.

Then comes the next part of the lesson.

It's the next day.

The sun comes up.

Jonah's probably thinking, oh, isn't it good that I have this lovely plan to give me shade?

God's already sent the plant, but now he sends something else.

He sends a worm.

He tells the worm to attack the plant.

You can just imagine it smacking its tiny wormy lips, tying a napkin around its little

wormy neck, and eating, eating, eating the worm is so effective that the plant dies.

Then with the shade all withered and gone, and as the sun gets higher and higher in the sky

and the day gets hotter and hotter, God sends something else.

A wind.

Not a wind out of the worm.

Although if it's eaten so much, it might be having wind problems.

No, this is a hot east wind.

Just imagine Jonah sitting there.

His shelter's gone, the sun's beating down, the hot wind is blowing him around.

And verse eight tells us this.

The sun became very hot on Jonah's head, and

he became very weak.

He wished he were dead.

Jonah said, it's better for me to die than to live.

This seems like a pretty common thing for Jonah.

Whenever things don't go his way, he's like a grumpy little four year old kid who says, I

wish I was dead.

Boo hoo, Jonah.

There, there.

Wipe away a tear.

Verse nine says, but God said this to Jonah.

Do you think it's right for you to be angry

because of the plant? Jonah answered, it is right for me to be

angry.

I will stay angry until I die.

Die.

That's when this lesson from God suddenly gets

really serious.

God shows Jonah just how silly he's being.

He's like, hmm, isn't it interesting how you care so much about this thing that you haven't

even looked after it all? He says in verse ten, you showed concern for

that plant, but you didn't plant it or make it grow.

It appeared in the night, and the next day it died.

Isn't it strange that he cares about something so small, so tiny?

It was here one day, gone the next.

Jonah didn't put any work into it.

He didn't care for it.

And yet he was so angry that it was gone that

he wished he was dead.

Wow.

Compare that to God.

Before God made the world, he planned every

single detail of it.

How many hairs you'd have on your head, what

color eyes you'd have, and what color eyes your mum would have, and what color eyes every

single person who's ever lived will have.

He made the world lovingly and carefully

shaping the mountains, carving out the valleys, designing all the different animals,

creating the beautiful clouds with sunsets and sunrises and warm days and cooler days.

And when people turned against him and started sinning, he didn't give up.

He still cares for people today and provides food and rain.

He gives this world so many good things, and he constantly invites people to come back to

him so he can forgive them.

After all that, all that love and care and

work, do you really think God's going to say, yeah, I don't really care about the people in

Nineveh.

Let them be destroyed, whatever.

Of course not.

And so he talks to Jonah about how silly he's

being, caring for a tiny plant, but not caring about God's world.

God says, you showed concern for that plant, but you did not plant it or make it grow.

It appeared in the night, and the next day it died.

Then surely I can show concern for the great city of Nineveh.

There are heaps of animals in that city, and there are more than 120,000 people living

there.

Those people simply do not know right from

wrong.

120,000 people plus all the animals.

How good is it that God actually does care that even though the people of Nineveh have

been so evil, God does want to save them? So, Jonah, stop being grumpy and get excited

that God's so kind.

Yeah, take that, Jonah.

Ha. You're being silly.

But hang on a second.

This isn't just about Jonah, because Jonah's not the only one who doesn't care for other

people.

If we tell the truth about ourselves, we can

find that we sometimes don't care for people.

I mean, you probably care about what happens

to your friends and family, but what about the people who aren't your friends?

People who you might think of as bad people or people who go to a different school or live in

a different country? People who you might find it easy to hate?

What's so sad about Jonah is that he's happy to take God's kindness for himself, but he

doesn't want other people to have it.

We shouldn't be like that.

We sin just like everyone else.

And if we turn away from sin, ask God to

forgive us and save us and make us his.

He will.

But he'll also do that for anyone on the planet who asks the same thing.

He sent Jesus into the world to save people from every corner of the planet.

We should be really thankful that God does that for us, and we should desperately want

that for other people as well.

If you don't think like that, ask God for

help.

Ask him to help.

You love people just like he loves people.

Bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening, adults.

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