Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes. You are feeling miserable and resentful. And here you are, sitting in the sand outside a city you really don’t like. The sun is beating down on you, so you make a shelter. Then God steps in.

The Vine
“The LORD God appointed a plant… that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort” (4:6). The vine was a gift from God, an expression of His kindness. Notice, Jonah was “exceedingly glad because of the plant” (4:6). God’s gift brought comfort, joy, and blessing.

The Worm
“God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered” (4:7). Jonah woke to find that the vine had been chewed up. “God, what are you doing? One day you pour out your blessing, the next day you take it away!” The worm brought sorrow, loss, and disappointment.

What is your worm? You want children, but a child is not born. The person you love is taken from you. Your ministry sees success, but then the worm destroys your good work. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. That’s what Jonah is learning, and it’s painful.

The Wind
“God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint” (4:8). It’s bad enough to lose your vine. But now the sand was blowing into Jonah’s face, and the sun was beating down. “God, if you are going to take my vine, you might have done it on a cool day.”

What is your vine? Your worm? Your wind? Think about the gifts of God that bring you comfort, joy, and blessing, and thank God for them.

Here are three common reactions to the grace of God:

1. God’s grace makes some people angry
Some folks believe that God must treat everyone the same, opening the door of salvation and waiting to see who will come in. But the Bible speaks of a greater love, in which God takes the initiative. Why did God set His love on you? Because He loved you. No other reason. God extended this saving love to Nineveh. Why Nineveh? Our God does whatever pleases Him (Ps. 115:3). And that made Jonah angry.

2. God’s grace makes some people worship
If you are a Christian, why is it that you believe and someone else in your family does not? Here’s why you believe: God set His love on you. He drew you to Himself. He gave you new life, and you did nothing to deserve it! Apart from God’s grace, you would never have come to Christ. Let God’s grace lead you to worship. You will find yourself asking, “Why me?”

3. God’s grace makes some people pray
If all God could do is open the door of salvation and then leave it up to us, there would be little point in praying for the lost. The reason we pray is that God takes the initiative. If God can swoop into your life uninvited, He can do that for others as well.

God’s grace will either make you angry or lead you to worship and prayer. God gently led Jonah away from being angry about grace and into worship and prayer, which is why he ends his great song of praise with “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jon. 2:9).

Are you more inclined to be angry, worshipful, or prayerful in response to God’s grace?

Why is Jonah complaining to God? What is going on in his heart? “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.” This is a marvellous example of undermining your own repentance.

Jonah repented, and God forgave him, but now Jonah wants to explain why he went to Tarshish. He feels that there was some justification, some defence for what he did. As soon as you start explaining why you sinned, you undermine your own repentance.

Repentance says, “I did this. I am sorry, I take full responsibility, and I trust myself to the mercy of God.” Self-justification says, “You need to understand why I did this. There is a good reason. Let me explain my disobedience.”

A great struggle goes on in every human soul between repentance and self-justification. You think, “Well, there’s another side to this. Look at the pressure I was under, the lack of support. It would have been amazing if I hadn’t fallen!”

Does this sound familiar? A man has an affair. He repents. He takes responsibility, and he says he is sorry. But later, he begins to explain himself. And the explanation undermines the repentance.

There’s a subtle change going on in Jonah. He used to see himself as a sinner who finds hope in God. Now he sees himself as a man who can explain the wrongs in his life before God!

“I went to Tarshish, and I know that was wrong, but actually, God, it’s your fault! If You judged the wicked like You should, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but I knew that you are a God who relents from sending calamity. That is why I was so quick to flee.”

When you feel that there is an explanation for your sins, you undermine your own repentance, and you will become angry toward God.

Can you think of a time when you undermined your own repentance with explanations?

Let’s begin by noting something that Jonah did right. “He prayed to the LORD” (4:2). In chapter 1, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he ran from the Lord. In chapter 4, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he prayed to the Lord. That’s progress.

But Jonah’s prayer is a complaint against God—not just about what God does, but about who God is! “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” He is quoting one of the great statements of the character of God. It comes from Exodus 34:6-7, and it was regularly repeated among God’s people as an expression of praise.

But Jonah turns it back to God as a complaint: “God is too slow in dealing with evil.” The people of Nineveh were wicked, and they would return to evil even if they stopped for a time. Jonah was sure of this, and he was right!

A later generation of Ninevites destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel with great brutality. The book of Nahum lays out the excruciating evil that could have been avoided, if only God had destroyed Nineveh. Jonah saw this coming, and God’s mercy made him mad!

Haven’t you wondered about God’s strange providence in ordering the world? Think of the evil and suffering that could have been spared if God had wiped out Hitler or Stalin or Bin Laden early in life. Yet He let them live! Why?

Reflect on the ways God has been gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love in your own life.

You would think that a man who had seen miracles of grace in his own life and in his ministry would be full of praise and thanksgiving. Here we see something different.

Jonah was a mature believer. He was a prophet. He was a missionary. You would think that he would be filled with joy in serving God. But he is angry and frustrated and out of sorts with the God he served.

Jonah was not the only one to experience this. Asaph was the director of worship for King David. He says, “My feet had almost stumbled.” Why? “I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Ps. 73:2-3). It seemed that God was kinder to His enemies than to His friends! So, Asaph said, “All in vain have I kept my heart clean” (73:13).

There is a particular darkness that can come to those who work hardest in the Lord’s service. Resentment towards God is the special temptation of mature believers who serve Him well. It is easy to feel that God owes you.

How is it that we can experience God’s grace in our own lives and ministry and still struggle with the God we love? How is it possible to be in the middle of a great work of God and yet to find no joy in it?

Jonah shows us one of the most common ways in which a mature believer can avoid a God-centred life. You serve God and end up resenting the God you serve.

If you have sacrificed much for Christ, you are likely to experience this trial. And you need to know how to deal with it. We will see how this resentment grew in Jonah’s life and how God dealt with Jonah to deliver him from it.

When have you felt this temptation of resentment towards God?

What happened in Nineveh was remarkable. This kind of transformation does not always happen when we bring God’s message. Why not?

There’s God’s Word, and there’s God’s man or woman, but there is also God’s time. You can’t force that. But you can pray for it. You never know when He is going to change a person’s life.

Some may say, “We should just sit back and let God do what He wants to do in His own time.” No! Revival is God’s gift. Evangelism is His command. We don’t sit back and wait for God’s moment. We follow Jonah’s example. We bring God’s Word, and we pray that in His mercy He will move in the hearts of those who hear.

Some question if there was a genuine revival in Nineveh. One generation later, the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel, and God’s people scattered. A century later, Nineveh was destroyed. That’s what the prophecy of Nahum is about—God’s judgement on the city.

In heaven, you will meet many people who lived in Nineveh during the time of Jonah. But you may not meet many who lived there a century later. When Jonah went to Nineveh, it was God’s time for that great city.

All we can do is offer all that we are and all that we have for the advance of the gospel in our time. Every generation stands responsible before God for what we have done with the sacred trust of the gospel.

Are you sitting back and waiting for God’s moment, or are you offering all you have for the advance of the gospel?

Did Jonah tell the people of Nineveh about his own experience? It seems likely he did, for two reasons:

1. The words of the king
“Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish” (Jon. 3:9). Where did the king get that idea? How would he have had any hope in the mercy and compassion of God? If the king knew Jonah’s story, he could say, “If God saved Jonah, perhaps He will have compassion on us.”

2. The words of Jesus
“As Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation” (Lk. 11:30). How was Jonah a sign to the Ninevites? Jesus says, “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mat. 12:40). If being in the fish was a sign to the Ninevites, Jonah must have told them about it with a passion born from his own experience:

“Let me tell you what happened to me! When God called me to come here, I did not want to come. So, I got on a boat headed for Tarshish, but God sent a storm. I felt sure I was finished. But the God whose judgement I deserved saved me. He sent me to tell you that your wickedness has come before Him, just as mine did. Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

God never wastes a thing. He can use your failures, your trauma, your shame, the desperate moments of your life to advance the gospel.

Is there a failure in your own life that God could use to reach others?

Nineveh was a large city. People in the great cities of the world live relentless lives. We are consumed with what is happening now: running businesses, raising families, enjoying sports.

Jonah arrives and says, “Let me tell you what’s coming. Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

Authentic gospel preaching always engages people with eternal issues. That is where Jesus began: “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:15). Paul begins Romans with the awful reality of God’s judgement: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18).

Jonah begins there too: “Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Whatever you are doing now, there is God, and there is eternity, and it is nearer than you think.

This probably wasn’t the only thing that Jonah said. But it was the core of his message, and everyone knew it. God burned that one sentence into the hearts of the people of Nineveh.

Cities change when people hear the Word of God.

Even if people are not converted, hearing the Word brings an awareness of God into the culture, and “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7). More than that, where God’s Word is heard, lives will be changed. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).

So many people in our cities are comfortably absorbed in their daily lives and do not think about eternity. It would be a good thing if more of them heard God’s Word.

How might you share God’s Word in your city?