1. “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’

Peace Rejected. That is the headlines after President Trump presented a plan to stop the conflict in the Middle East. Others have tried several times in the past decades and failed. There is no peace when hatred and prejudice run so deeply. The Middle East grew even more explosive this weekend.  We are grieved to see the peace plan for Israel and Palestine go up in smoke when two nations and faiths hate each other and do all kinds of injustices to one another. Religions and national prejudice don’t stop with different religions. Prejudice and hatred run deep in the hearts of mankind that can only be changed by a personal faith in Jesus Christ. God’s love for the world almost seems impossible doesn’t it when people groups within and without are filled with hatred.

Years ago, a movie came out called “The End of the Spear depicting the sacrificial love of missionaries going to an unreached tribe of Waodoni that is keen on killing another Indian tribe in Ecuador. In seeking to tell the good news of God’s love the missionaries are martyred. The criticism that existed against the movie were anthropologists condemning missionaries for trying to change the beliefs of another people group. Don’t people see how animistic belief systems keep people in fear and bondage?

Why does a young Muslim blow himself and others up in an act of violence? Mohammed taught that he would immediately go to Nirvana and get 72 virgins in an afterlife of lustful pleasures. In India there is a sect of Hindus that take a widow of a man who died and bury her alive with him or burn her along with his body because that religion says he will have her as his companion in the reincarnation experience.             

In Australia there are aborigines who used to believe a witch doctor who every so often needed a victim to appease the gods anger and would arbitrarily picks a newborn infant amidst the protests of the crying mother. He takes this baby and fills the mouth with sand until it chokes to death. Why? Because his pagan religion tells him he must do this.

There are mothers in another group in Africa who have twin babies and must put them to death because their religion teaches them that twins are demon possessed.

What right do Christians have to go to these places and preach how God came to earth in Jesus Christ to show them love and die for our sins - to save innocent lives! We accept and believe in the death burial and resurrection of Christ and personally receive God’s Spirit into our lives and be set free when we repent.

The Ninevites needed to know of God to save them from destruction for their wickedness. He instructed Jonah to go and warn them, but Jonah was like the rest of the world, filled with his own hatred and prejudice and ran the other way. God had to change his mind in the stomach of the great fish and bring some repentance in his own life until he obeyed and proclaimed the word of God to them.

The people of Ninevah did convert and cried out to God asking for forgiveness. God’s love for Nineveh was no less than His love for Israel. God is not just concerned for the Jews, but for the world and wants us to express and declare that love and warning to those outside of faith in Jesus Christ who are lost people. That is the call of worldwide missions as well as local outreach.

The book of Jonah is a book of missions. Jonah was still prideful. He still thought that being a Jews was better than being a Palestinian, or Ninevite, or Gentile or whatever people group you want to identify.           

Now Jonah is found pouting under a broom tree and God uses this time to ask him some revealing questions. Those questions are insightful for examining his heart. We might learn things about ourselves as well.

Dale

Prayer:   Lord, we do not ponder under a broom tree by at the cross.   Thank you for the cross.   Remove our pride and direct our path.   In the mighty name of Jesus I pray!