Does God being really kind and compassionate make you really grumpy? It certainly did for Jonah, so God decided to teach him a little lesson. Join Dave as he retells Jonah chapter 4; a passage that a lot of kids Bibles seem to skip, but which explains the whole story of Jonah.
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Transcript
G'day, Dave here.
Speaker:Welcome to episode 15 of stories of a faithful
Speaker:God for kids.
Speaker:This is our last one in the series on Jonah.
Speaker:We're kicking off something completely new next week.
Speaker:I hope you've enjoyed the show so far, thinking about the power and kindness of our
Speaker:faithful God.
Speaker:If you have, don't forget to tell other people
Speaker:about it.
Speaker:If youve ever read the story of Jonah in a
Speaker:kids picture Bible, a lot of them stop at the end of chapter three, and that would be a
Speaker:really happy place to end.
Speaker:Jonah finally obeys God.
Speaker:The ninevites turn away from their evil, and God, in his wonderful kindness and mercy,
Speaker:forgives them.
Speaker:Thats it.
Speaker:Thats a wrap.
Speaker:All finished.
Speaker:Lets go home and have some chocolate cake.
Speaker:Except that, isn't it?
Speaker:There's this whole other chapter.
Speaker:You might remember what I said at the end of
Speaker:the last episode, that Jonah is really angry that God forgave the ninevites.
Speaker:Well, that's what we're going to explore today.
Speaker:And in this chapter, Jonah is a bit funny.
Speaker:He does some strange things that might mean we
Speaker:have a bit of a laugh, but be careful what you laugh at.
Speaker:It may be that by the end, the joke's on you.
Speaker:Get ready for our next episode of stories of a
Speaker:faithful God for kids.
Speaker:Can you imagine the celebration in Nineveh?
Speaker:God's forgiven them.
Speaker:He's not going to destroy them.
Speaker:He saved them.
Speaker:Oh, it'll be such a relief.
Speaker:How good is it that God is so kind and loving and forgiving?
Speaker:But that's not what Jonah's thinking.
Speaker:This is what verse one of chapter four says.
Speaker:It says, but Jonah was very unhappy that God did not destroy the city.
Speaker:He was angry.
Speaker:Isn't that weird?
Speaker:You think you'd be happy that the people have turned away from evil and that God's forgiven
Speaker:them.
Speaker:That's a good thing, right?
Speaker:Not for Jonah.
Speaker:He starts whingeing and complaining to God in
Speaker:verse two.
Speaker:This is what he says.
Speaker:He says, I knew this would happen.
Speaker:I knew it when I was still in my own country.
Speaker:It's why I quickly ran away to tarshish.
Speaker:That's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:A lot of people think that Jonah ran away because he was scared of the Ninevites, but
Speaker:that's not it at all.
Speaker:He just didn't want the Ninevites to be
Speaker:forgiven.
Speaker:Which might sound weird because it's not like
Speaker:God sent Jonah to invite them to be forgiven.
Speaker:He didn't tell Jonah to say, if you don't turn
Speaker:back to God, you'll be destroyed.
Speaker:So turn back now and God will forgive you.
Speaker:No, the message was much less hopeful than that.
Speaker:Jonah just had to go through the city calling out, after 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed.
Speaker:So what was Jonah's problem? Well, to answer that, you've gotta ask why
Speaker:Jonah was sent there in the first place.
Speaker:If Jonah goes around saying after 40 days,
Speaker:Nineveh will be destroyed, that's like giving people a warning, right?
Speaker:I mean, God didn't have to tell them it was gonna happen.
Speaker:He could just do it.
Speaker:But instead, he kindly lets them know it's
Speaker:going to happen, which gives them a chance to change and ask for forgiveness.
Speaker:It's like if someone said to you, in ten minutes, I'm going to pour hot boiling lava
Speaker:all over that chair that you're sitting on.
Speaker:You're going to get out of the chair, right?
Speaker:Or they might say, I'm about to let out a really stinky smell and I can't hold it in
Speaker:much longer.
Speaker:They're saying it to be kind, to give you a
Speaker:chance to get away.
Speaker:Well, God's being kind to the Ninevites by
Speaker:letting them know the danger they're in.
Speaker:But even if they listen and turn away from
Speaker:their sin, how does Jonah know that God will actually forgive them, that he won't just go
Speaker:ahead and destroy them anyway? Well, it's because God's faithful.
Speaker:He can be trusted.
Speaker:Hundreds of years before this, God had told
Speaker:the prophet Moses what he's like, how he's kind and loving and forgiving and faithful.
Speaker:And even though that had happened hundreds of years before, God hasn't changed.
Speaker:God's always the same.
Speaker:He's faithful.
Speaker:And so Jonah says in his grumpiest voice, I knew this would happen.
Speaker:I knew it when I was still in my own country.
Speaker:It's why I quickly ran away to tarshish.
Speaker:I knew that you were a God who is kind and shows mercy.
Speaker:You don't become angry quickly.
Speaker:You have great love.
Speaker:I knew you would rather forgive than punish them.
Speaker:So now I ask you, Lord, please kill me.
Speaker:It is better for me to die than to live.
Speaker:Whoa there, Jonah.
Speaker:Overreaction much?
Speaker:It's like he's saying, oh, it's so terrible.
Speaker:How can I possibly live in a world run by a
Speaker:God who's so good and kind and loving and forgiving and faithful?
Speaker:I just need to diiiiiiiiii.
Speaker:Umm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Sometimes you'll hear people say things that
Speaker:they don't understand about God.
Speaker:They'll say, oh, the God of the Bible is mean.
Speaker:And nasty.
Speaker:He's angry all the time, and he loves
Speaker:punishing people.
Speaker:Is that what we see here?
Speaker:No, we see the complete opposite.
Speaker:God is so good, but Jonah hates the ninevites.
Speaker:He wants them to be destroyed.
Speaker:He doesn't want them to be forgiven.
Speaker:And so he's really angry with God, which is pretty nasty, isn't it?
Speaker:Because in chapter two, Jonah loved being forgiven himself.
Speaker:He was so happy that God had treated him like that.
Speaker:He just didn't want God to treat his enemies like that.
Speaker:In verse four, God asks him, do you think it's right for you to be angry?
Speaker:And Jonah doesn't say anything.
Speaker:Like when a grown up asks you about something
Speaker:you've done wrong and you know it's wrong, but you want to keep doing it, so you just stay
Speaker:quiet.
Speaker:Well, instead of answering God, Jonah goes out
Speaker:of the city and finds a place where he can look at it.
Speaker:He builds a little shelter for himself to give him shade, and he waits to see what'll happen.
Speaker:It's really nasty just sitting there, hoping that these people will be destroyed.
Speaker:So God decides to teach Jonah a little lesson.
Speaker:First, he uses his amazing power to give Jonah
Speaker:a better shelter.
Speaker:It seems that Jonah is as bad at making
Speaker:shelters as he is at being a prophet.
Speaker:So verse six tells us the Lord made a plant
Speaker:grow quickly up over Jonah.
Speaker:This made a cool place for him to sit, and it
Speaker:helped him to be more comfortable.
Speaker:Jonah was very pleased to have the plant for
Speaker:shade.
Speaker:Aw, isn't that nice?
Speaker:Jonah's chilling out, enjoying the shade.
Speaker:Then comes the next part of the lesson.
Speaker:It's the next day.
Speaker:The sun comes up.
Speaker:Jonah's probably thinking, oh, isn't it good that I have this lovely plan to give me shade?
Speaker:God's already sent the plant, but now he sends something else.
Speaker:He sends a worm.
Speaker:He tells the worm to attack the plant.
Speaker:You can just imagine it smacking its tiny wormy lips, tying a napkin around its little
Speaker:wormy neck, and eating, eating, eating the worm is so effective that the plant dies.
Speaker:Then with the shade all withered and gone, and as the sun gets higher and higher in the sky
Speaker:and the day gets hotter and hotter, God sends something else.
Speaker:A wind.
Speaker:Not a wind out of the worm.
Speaker:Although if it's eaten so much, it might be having wind problems.
Speaker:No, this is a hot east wind.
Speaker:Just imagine Jonah sitting there.
Speaker:His shelter's gone, the sun's beating down, the hot wind is blowing him around.
Speaker:And verse eight tells us this.
Speaker:The sun became very hot on Jonah's head, and
Speaker:he became very weak.
Speaker:He wished he were dead.
Speaker:Jonah said, it's better for me to die than to live.
Speaker:This seems like a pretty common thing for Jonah.
Speaker:Whenever things don't go his way, he's like a grumpy little four year old kid who says, I
Speaker:wish I was dead.
Speaker:Boo hoo, Jonah.
Speaker:There, there.
Speaker:Wipe away a tear.
Speaker:Verse nine says, but God said this to Jonah.
Speaker:Do you think it's right for you to be angry
Speaker:because of the plant? Jonah answered, it is right for me to be
Speaker:angry.
Speaker:I will stay angry until I die.
Speaker:Die.
Speaker:That's when this lesson from God suddenly gets
Speaker:really serious.
Speaker:God shows Jonah just how silly he's being.
Speaker:He's like, hmm, isn't it interesting how you care so much about this thing that you haven't
Speaker:even looked after it all? He says in verse ten, you showed concern for
Speaker:that plant, but you didn't plant it or make it grow.
Speaker:It appeared in the night, and the next day it died.
Speaker:Isn't it strange that he cares about something so small, so tiny?
Speaker:It was here one day, gone the next.
Speaker:Jonah didn't put any work into it.
Speaker:He didn't care for it.
Speaker:And yet he was so angry that it was gone that
Speaker:he wished he was dead.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Compare that to God.
Speaker:Before God made the world, he planned every
Speaker:single detail of it.
Speaker:How many hairs you'd have on your head, what
Speaker:color eyes you'd have, and what color eyes your mum would have, and what color eyes every
Speaker:single person who's ever lived will have.
Speaker:He made the world lovingly and carefully
Speaker:shaping the mountains, carving out the valleys, designing all the different animals,
Speaker:creating the beautiful clouds with sunsets and sunrises and warm days and cooler days.
Speaker:And when people turned against him and started sinning, he didn't give up.
Speaker:He still cares for people today and provides food and rain.
Speaker:He gives this world so many good things, and he constantly invites people to come back to
Speaker:him so he can forgive them.
Speaker:After all that, all that love and care and
Speaker:work, do you really think God's going to say, yeah, I don't really care about the people in
Speaker:Nineveh.
Speaker:Let them be destroyed, whatever.
Speaker:Of course not.
Speaker:And so he talks to Jonah about how silly he's
Speaker:being, caring for a tiny plant, but not caring about God's world.
Speaker:God says, you showed concern for that plant, but you did not plant it or make it grow.
Speaker:It appeared in the night, and the next day it died.
Speaker:Then surely I can show concern for the great city of Nineveh.
Speaker:There are heaps of animals in that city, and there are more than 120,000 people living
Speaker:there.
Speaker:Those people simply do not know right from
Speaker:wrong.
Speaker:120,000 people plus all the animals.
Speaker:How good is it that God actually does care that even though the people of Nineveh have
Speaker:been so evil, God does want to save them? So, Jonah, stop being grumpy and get excited
Speaker:that God's so kind.
Speaker:Yeah, take that, Jonah.
Speaker:Ha. You're being silly.
Speaker:But hang on a second.
Speaker:This isn't just about Jonah, because Jonah's not the only one who doesn't care for other
Speaker:people.
Speaker:If we tell the truth about ourselves, we can
Speaker:find that we sometimes don't care for people.
Speaker:I mean, you probably care about what happens
Speaker:to your friends and family, but what about the people who aren't your friends?
Speaker:People who you might think of as bad people or people who go to a different school or live in
Speaker:a different country? People who you might find it easy to hate?
Speaker:What's so sad about Jonah is that he's happy to take God's kindness for himself, but he
Speaker:doesn't want other people to have it.
Speaker:We shouldn't be like that.
Speaker:We sin just like everyone else.
Speaker:And if we turn away from sin, ask God to
Speaker:forgive us and save us and make us his.
Speaker:He will.
Speaker:But he'll also do that for anyone on the planet who asks the same thing.
Speaker:He sent Jesus into the world to save people from every corner of the planet.
Speaker:We should be really thankful that God does that for us, and we should desperately want
Speaker:that for other people as well.
Speaker:If you don't think like that, ask God for
Speaker:help.
Speaker:Ask him to help.
Speaker:You love people just like he loves people.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:Thanks so much for listening, adults.
Speaker:If you think this podcast is helpful for your
Speaker:kids and for others, please show your appreciation by donating some money to help
Speaker:keep the show going.
Speaker:You can donate@faithfulgod.net.
Speaker:That's faithfulgod.net.
Speaker:Thanks so much to everyone who already has
Speaker:donated.
Speaker:You make all this possible.
Speaker:Also, kids and adults, I'd love you to go to the website and send me a message.
Speaker:Tell me how you're finding the show.
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