Violence & Vengeance (Jonah 3:1-4:5)
Jonah 3:1--4:5 (ESV) --- 1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. 6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.
Violence
Assyria is evil. There is no getting around that fact. They inflict violence on the nations they defeat to intimidate them and prevent future rebellions. They were known for cruel and unusual punishment. So it makes perfect sense to hear Jonah refusing to go into one of the capital cities of Assyria to speak out against their violence. They have methods of torture that are beyond anything we have ever witnessed. Many of us know there are parts of Mobile that we don't go down at night. There are parts of Birmingham, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York that we don't go down at night. If we ever found ourselves lost in one of those cities at night, we would be a little bit scared in the safety of our car. This whole city is full of that kind of evil and violence.
Jonah is told to go there, and it's no wonder he tried to go the other way. This journey is not one that he wants to go on. He tries to avoid it, but God comes for him, and after spending three days in the belly of the fish, he submits. God tells him to go to Nineveh a second time, which is what happened.
It's fascinating that they were so eager to repent because they were wicked. They were horrible. It seems like the greatness of their sin led them to believe that judgment was coming immediately.
Pagan societies make life about the survival of the fittest and seizing the here and now. Their belief system opens the door to this violence. They were trained to believe in pagan gods who fought with one another, and the greater the defeat, the greater their gods. Taking what they wanted from weaker nations out of greed was a way of life.
Thankfully, crime in southern Alabama is not on the level of other cities in our country. But our society is growing more and more violent. People have an enormous amount of greed and selfishness that their spiritual leaders are encouraging them to have. Not too long ago, leaders in this country encouraged the destruction of public and private property. All in retaliation to police brutality and social injustice. Both sides appear to have some level of guilt. It's acceptable to defame someone innocent and shame them for having a different belief. We have become increasingly hostile, proud, and greedy as a nation. We pursue more incredible wealth just because we can without regard to the increasing poverty for others that might result. We dominate the weak and refuse to help them because we want more wealth.
Aren't you thankful that these materialistic and secular people we live around value human life enough to reject cruel and unusual punishment? At least we have that, but hearing people talk about how they would punish people of differing political opinions, I wonder how long that will last. How far are we away from that kind of evil behavior?
Transformation
The first time we stop and look at this, we all think, "Wow! These people did a great turn around!" We are all blown away at the amount of repentance we see in the Assyrians. We think, "How could a group of wicked and violent people go through such a transformation?"
Jonah must have preached a great sermon for this type of change in the hearts of the people. No. His sermon was, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" That was all there was to the message of Jonah. It wasn't full of persuasive language. He doesn't try to convert them to monotheism or the belief in Yahweh alone. He doesn't try to correct their paganism. He points to their wickedness and says you have forty days before you will be destroyed. He doesn't even give them any advice on how to avoid destruction. He just tells them they will be destroyed, and they have to fill in the blanks. The message was not elegant. It wasn't spoken by a heartfelt man who wanted them to turn away their sins. It was just a fact.
This is incredibly amazing, considering the message given. How unreasonable is Jonah's statement? How likely is it that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days? Would we believe Washington, DC, would be overthrown in forty days? Maybe with Elon Musk's revelation of corruption, we would believe there is a reason for that, but it hasn't happened before. Why would we think that it will happen in the future? This warning has no proof to it. It's just a warning to be accepted by faith or rejected. Jonah doesn't perform signs like the ten plagues to show the people God's power and ability to destroy. He just says that it will be overthrown.
It says, "From the least to the greatest," and even the king "arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes." The king of the Assyrians was setting the example of repentance for everyone to follow. We don't typically see this level of obedience. What happened to bring that about?
If they were willing to repent like this, we must ask, "How did they feel about what they have done?" It seems that they knew deep down what they had done was wrong. Their consciences were burning inside of them. They had a little voice inside their heads saying, "This murdering of the innocent and cruel treatment is wrong." They knew they should not have been stealing and murdering like they were. They knew they would hate for someone to come into their town and do the same thing to them, but they did it anyway. But afterward, they all knew that it was wrong. Their hearts burned within them. So when they heard the half-hearted message from Jonah, they were cut to the heart. The message was ringing true in their hearts. They knew they were horrible sinners and felt remorse for that.
When someone comes in and tells us that we have done a great evil, don't we justify ourselves and call them an enemy? Many in our society don't listen anymore, and I wonder if our hearts and consciences are burning within us or whether we are callous and cold toward those who would teach us the truth about the impending judgment.
Vengeance
Now, let's turn our attention to Jonah. Despite being the worst preaching in history, Jonah is exceptionally successful. He may be one of the top preachers in all of the Old Testament if we rank by the successfulness of his preaching. But we don't read about him going on his way rejoicing. Why not? Chapter 4 says, "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." Why is he angry? Jonah doesn't want Nineveh to be saved. He points to God's compassionate nature and says, "I knew it!" He knew that God would forgive them if they turned away from their evil. That makes him angry because he doesn't feel they deserve forgiveness.
Isn't it interesting that he feels this way? Jonah hates the Assyrians. They are evil and deserve to be destroyed. Why would God give them a second chance? Have you ever felt this way about someone? As we see enormous greed and corruption in our government, it becomes easy for us to develop harsh feelings and desire for them to be destroyed. I have heard multiple people say that they would love for Nancy Pelosi to die. That's the kind of passion and hatred that we find in Jonah. He wants these people to die for what they have done. Instead of helping God destroy them, he has helped God save them.
The issue with Jonah is that he has such a strong desire to destroy his enemy, such a strong urging for vengeance, that he can't imagine living with what he has done. I wonder where he gets that from. Do you think that the people around Jonah in Israel hate Assyria? I imagine that his home nation despises the Assyrians. That cultural hatred of racism has become ingrained in Jonah, and he's blind to the evil of it.
There is one more important thing to notice about Jonah here. He never wanted to fight with Nineveh. He just didn't want to help them. He could not forgive them.
I think we all can connect to this on a more personal level. Sometimes in our lives, we don't like someone because they have hurt us, but we are too Christian to attack them. So our solution is to avoid them and reject them. We want them to get what's coming to them secretly. If we were lifted to the judgment seat on the day they made a mistake, we would not deal justly with them because we have not forgiven them. This is the state of Jonah, and his problem is that he has to help the one he secretly hates to avoid judgment. He thinks, "That's not justice!"
How To Handle Enemies
God asks the question at the end of this reading, "Do you do well to be angry?" He will ask this question again, and we will look deeper at the problem of Jonah's anger next time, but for now, consider what God has done. God is telling Jonah that he's not doing well to be angry. God has decided to spare the Assyrians. He saw their repentant hearts and decided something was worth saving about them. Now he expects Jonah to forgive them.
Isn't this an example for us? Does God expect us just to forgive our enemies? Some people walk in these doors and flat-out lie to our faces to get money from us. Should we let them step foot in here again? What if they admit their wrong and tell us they don't want any money? What about the Democrat or Republican that offended me on Facebook? What about the rapist, murderer, or thief? Could we ever forgive someone who has betrayed us? It's interesting how offended we get when God doesn't get so offended.
You see, Jonah was taught all he needed to know when he was at the bottom of the sea. He learned his failure and need for God's grace. He understood his unworthiness and foolishness. But he fails to apply what he learned when he looks at his neighbor. We are all called to follow God's example and be forgiving because God has abundantly forgiven us. The gospel says to forgive those who wrong us from the heart, "Love your enemies." In our prayers, we say, "Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us." We know that "judgment is without mercy on those who show no mercy."
You say, "Casey, what do you want me to do when someone wrongs me? How do we handle this in a way that glorifies God?"
1. We cannot refuse to deal with them at all. That will never relieve the hurt inside of us or inside of them. It's not a loving thing to do because it will never result in reconciliation as God wants. He sought to restore us while we were enemies. He didn't just sit back and watch us suffer.
2. We don't approach them intent on making them feel what we feel. Aren't we thankful that God never does that with us? The bad thing is that our form of justice never results in righteousness. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. We become guilty of violence and worthy of judgment.
3. We confront their sin, but we must have forgiveness ready for them before approaching them. We need to be ready to remove our view of their sins as far as the East is from the West. It's not "Repay evil for evil" or "Avoid all evil people." It says, "Overcome evil with good." God wants to see the wicked turn from their evil ways, and we must confront the evil for that to happen. So many people get angry at people when no one has told them what they are doing wrong. We have to have uncomfortable conversations as God did with Nineveh.
Conclusion
The world around us is evil. There is no doubt about it. This text shows us we tend to avoid or get angry about this. We don't do well in either case. If we have experienced the grace of God, God wants us to work toward the reconciliation of all mankind.
Are you evil? The worst thing about our society is that we deny our sins. We refuse to repent in sackcloth and ashes like Nineveh. What about you? Do you understand that Jesus died because you are evil and need a savior? Will you submit to him, turn from your sins, and receive the promised blessing?