Truth Encounter: Jonah Podcast Dave Wyrtzen

Ever experienced anger boiling up from deep in your soul? The root of our anger is that we believe that if we were in control, if we were God, then things wouldn’t be so messed up. We could make things right. Jonah believed that God should destroy Nineveh immediately, and he resented God's mercy in forgiving those who repented. Chapter four reveals that he cares more about a castor bean plant than he does about the women and children in Nineveh. When I get on my high horse with anger against those who have hurt me, I need to reread Jonah chapter four and ask whether I care more about castor bean plants than my enemies.

The U.S. battle against ISIS proves that the War against Terror is hardly over. For centuries nations have been forced to form alliances to try and battle bloody, ruthless violence. The Assyrian Empire used terrorism to gather more and more territory, but in Jonah we learned that the Lord gave even these thugs time to repent. In Jonah's day they did, but before we conclude that God is only a God of gracious mercy, we need to look at what happened in 612 BC. God used an alliance between the Babylonians and the Medes to turn the proud city of Nineveh into a heap of ruins. God is slow to anger, but don’t conclude this slowness means He won't justly deal with our evil. It's time now to come to the cross—the only place where God justly deals with sin without justly condemning us forever.

Don’t lose the belief that the sovereign God can change any life. The Assyrians were the "Biker Gangs" of the Ancient Near East only worse. They were terrorists who beheaded their enemies and piled the skulls to intimidate their enemies. But the Book of Jonah tells a story where the Lord gave them time to repent. We must remember daily that Jesus is still in the business of moving "Assyrian hearts" to become His devoted children.

You may have listened to Satan’s voice again and again. He loves to whisper, "The reason you don’t really grow, the reason you don’t go on in your faith, the reason you don’t turn full face towards God and really get close to Him is that you're actually too bad for God. You're evil, and God has rejected you." That is the Liar's lie. Jonah was in the depths of the grave. The belly of a fish is as low as it gets, but Jonah, unlike so many of us, called out. He believed he could still make a connection from the bottom of the sea. There's nothing we have done. There's no place we have been. There's no sin we have ever committed that God can't deal with, except a hard heart that won't cry out to Him for help. Cry out like Jonah! The Lord will never drop the call.

How do we feel about the people around us, especially unbelievers? I’m afraid that some of us don’t really care. Jonah didn’t care about the sailors in his boat. A guy that is asleep in the hold while everybody else on the ship is coming unglued doesn't care about the destiny of others. The sailors pray to any god who might listen—to Dagon, the Philistine god, maybe Astarte, the female consort of Baal, or to Horus, the Egyptian God. Any god that might listen. Anything to stop the storm. What’s God’s man doing? Sleeping! Are we asleep while folks on deck are about to die? Are we asleep, like Jonah, in the hold of our own little ship?

Many unbelievers today hear a lot from Christians about the decline of moral standards in our country, but are they getting the message that we are all sinners and that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from every sin? Philip Yancey challenges us to be like perfume, and not like a destructive can of Raid™. We must go into our schools, our neighborhoods, and our workplaces with the commitment and hope that God can save the most destructive, wicked sinner imaginable. That's the message of the Book of Jonah—God’s heart passion is to save those we would never believe could be saved. God has "Ninevites" in our lives--the people we believe are our cultural enemies—the very people the Lord Jesus wants to reach.