[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, after several hiatuses, we have finally reached the final stage of the commentary on the book of Jonah. In this forthcoming part of the story, I honestly say that I do not know what to admire more, what to admire more: the weakness of the believer, or the patience of God, the goodness of God! For indeed, such poignant depths are revealed in the wake of this story. On the one hand, the depth of the depravity of the human heart, and on the other, the depth of God's compassionate love, that one is almost amazed to ask: Is there such a thing? Yes, there is. Here, then, we see the weak man and the rich God unmasked.As you have heard, twice in the course of the story, God asks his grumpy, sulking servant, "are you angry with me?" But who is Jonah, the man of God, angry with? Guess what: God! A man of faith, a prophet, a child of God who is angry with God. But why? For many things. First of all, simply because God does not deal with the fate of Nineveh in the way Jonah imagined. For Jonah was convinced that this great, sinful city, whose transgression reached up to heaven - as we read in verse 1 - must receive its just punishment. If there is a God, if there is a divine justice, he cannot overlook the many, many wickednesses that are going on there with impunity!
Only in this way could Jonah imagine that some terrible judgment must be brought down upon this heathenism there in Nineveh. And this judgment would not come. Nineveh stands and thrives. And Jonah is astonished. How is this possible? How can it be that God is not only the Father and God of those who believe in Him, but also of those who do not believe in Him; that God not only has children in the church, but has children in the world, and that God not only loves those who claim Him as their Lord with a great, tender and compassionate love, but also loves those who do not care for Him? In fact, those who simply deny Him and live as if there were no God in this world! Yes, because God is somehow a God of mercy in a very different way from the way the Jonahites imagine Him. And God is a punishing God in a very different way from what a Jonahite would expect Him to be. God is a sovereign Lord whose thoughts and ways are quite different in many ways from the thoughts and ways of men. And let me tell you right off, brothers and sisters, that is the luck of this world! For I say this almost fearfully, lest you should misunderstand: if it had been up to Jonah, if it had been up to the believing man, Nineveh would have been destroyed beyond saving. He would have perished in terrible earthquakes and terrible sulphur fires. The godly man would have destroyed it - mercilessly. And it is with even greater anguish that I say - again, please don't misunderstand - that if we believers had had God at our disposal as Jonah would have liked to have had God at his disposal, but many "Ninevehs" would have been destroyed on this earth by then! But God is more merciful than the merciful. God is more merciful to those who believe in Him. More merciful than Christian ideology. More merciful than His servants and prophets. Let no one sulk because God is so merciful, but rather give thanks to Him! The Jonah believer, or let me say the Jonah believer, wants to appropriate God for himself. And, like a heavenly atomic reserve, to trigger it at the touch of a button against Nineveh, against unbelief, against the pagan world. It is as if God were our servant, who must wield His immeasurable power according to our ideas. And if He does not, we will be angry with Him. Or are you justly angry, Jonah? Wilt thou be justly angry because I am as merciful to others as I am to thee? And that I am not only merciful to thee, but also to others? Are you justly angry that I do not wipe out, that I am not willing to wipe out from one part of the earth or another millions of men and peoples, simply because you do not love them, because they are in your way? Because they are somehow different, contrary to your convictions or your interests, Jonah, you man of faith, you child of God!
Oh, how many Jonahs are dissatisfied with God's governing the world, or shaping the destiny of their own little individual lives! Somewhat like when a teacher in school takes out a student's work and corrects it, underlining a word or a sentence here and there in red ink to show that it is not good. It shouldn't have been written like that, it's a bad, careless essay! This is the way many believers would like to correct God's things, to correct, to underline in red ink a sentence of an event. As a sign that, Lord, you made a mistake here, you shouldn't have done it this way, you did it wrong! But, brothers and sisters, what a teacher may justly do in school to his pupils, how dare a man do to God, as if God were the pupil and man the teacher! Isn't this a very unsavoury situation, but it happens very often! How many times has bitterness been poured out of a soul, that: How could God have allowed this? If there is a God, how could this and that happen? And why did it have to happen this way, and that way, when I prayed so much for it, and in vain! Just a few days ago I was talking to a widow. Her husband died a few years ago and she is still in a lawsuit with God. And she cried out almost in an accusatory way: why did God take him away from me? I needed him so much! I shall never be able to reconcile myself to it!
Look, a Jonah can be so dissatisfied with God's thoughts and ways that he gets bored with his life. He would rather die than go on living. "Now therefore, Lord, take away my soul from me, I pray thee, for it is better for me to die than to live". The fate of the world is so out of his taste that he falls to pieces and becomes bored with life because of it. This, brethren, is when a believer cannot accept from God's hand the course of world history or his own little individual destiny that is not according to his own mind. He is filled with bitterness, filled with complaints, discontent, grumbling, accusations even against God, and he says, "I am tired of life, I am fed up with everything, it would be better not to live, it would be better to die!
But would that be the end of misery, if one were to die at such a time? Would it not rather be that the soul would fall from a temporal misery into a more terrible, eternal misery? Besides, brethren, let it be well observed that he who in his despair desires to die is in the most unfit state of mind to die. Imagine: to stand before God like that! With a soul that is at war with God, that cannot be reconciled to Him? How good it is that God does not take the lifeless Jonahites at their word!
Do you know how I often see the goodness of God? In that He does not always grant our requests. What would become of us if we always had things our own way, if we always had our own way of thinking about the fate of our lives! For God sees further than we do. He knows what is good and what is truly in our best interests. And even if you don't understand God's goodness and God's mercy, He is still a good and merciful God! Do not be angry if you do not understand God. How can you understand God always and in everything? Later it will turn out that He was right, and that it was good the way He wanted it, even if it hurt and even disappointed you. Thou sulky, thou discontented, thou morose, thou offended soul: but it would be well if thou couldst now hear that very tender, kind question with which God bows over thee, Art thou justly angry? Isn't it wonderful that when God could well wring our necks, He deals so tenderly with us? When He could chastise His fussy child, He does not. I can so imagine God almost smiling when He bends down to such a teasing Jonah and asks him, do you really think you are justly angry? Do you really think you are justly bitter now? Or are you justly angry, or discontented, or annoyed, or complaining, that you are justly grieved? Do you really think so?
Try for once to be really honest with God about why you are angry with him. I'm sure you won't succeed, and you'll realize you have no reason to. Of course, brethren, I know very well that there are some things in God's world-governing activity that are truly incomprehensible. Just the other day I was asked such a question, to which I can honestly say that at first I did not know what to say. I was talking to a sister who is a believer and she told me that she had been talking to someone about serious things and he asked her the question, "If there is a God, tell me where is God in Vietnam now?! Yes, where is he? What is the answer to that? And brothers and sisters, I think the best way to answer that question, based on the upcoming passage in the book of Jonah, is perhaps another question: Where is the believer in the great conflicts of the world? For look what we see here in Jonah: "Then shall Jonah go out of the city, and from the east of the city, and make him a tabernacle for himself there, and sit under the shadow, until he see what shall become of the city?" What does this mean? It means that Jonah is going to retire nicely, he is going to withdraw from Nineveh, from the world, he is going to withdraw to his own observation post, to some safe haven of his own piety, to be protected in case Nineveh should be destroyed. You know, that is what it is, brethren, when a believer like Jonah says, "I am sorry to see the fate of this world! What do I care for the people of the other side of the earth, it is not my race, it is not my religion, it is not my people, what do I care if it perishes. What do I care for this world! I will not "resurrect" this world! I refuse to shine in this ugly darkness! I will not be salt here! How many "Jonahs" have gone out into small, closed communities like this, out of the world that was supposed to be leaven, that was supposed to be light, that was supposed to be salt, salt that flavors and preserves. But no. Believing people like Jonah, they withdraw, they shut themselves up, they curse this world and sulk, they sulk, they are discontented, while in their hearts they almost ask God, how can this be, Lord? So where is God from the conflicts of the world? I think you will find the answer to that if you first answer another question. Where are you with your faith? Where are you with your redeemed life, with your testimony, with your Christian love and service to your neighbour: where are you in this world? And the acid and leaven and light of the gospel, where art thou in this world? Brothers and sisters, if we believers are always salting each other, salt for salt, it makes little sense. That is not our vocation! Are you surprised that terrible things happen in this world and yet you blame God? Or are you justly angry? The only time you can be justly angry is when you are angry with yourself.
Look at how grumpy this Jonah is. He is like a bad, spoiled child when the particular plant that shaded his head from the sun's scorching rays has withered. So when his comfort has been disturbed by some little thing, he suddenly freaks out again and becomes so desperate, as if some great, great misfortune had befallen him, when no misfortune has befallen him. A small, small annoyance has. A little inconvenience, yes. An inconvenience, but not life-threatening. It's not life-threatening: is it worth mourning over, is it worth self-digestion? Is it worth being morose, grumpy about such trifles? Look, brothers and sisters, is it because the milk has run out, or because the jelly is broken, or because the tram has gone off, or because the parquet has got dirty? Or because a trip abroad didn't work out? Is it worth it to make your life and the lives of others miserable? There are so many little things like that in everyday life, so many little annoyances, so many little inconveniences. It is good to hear this question at times like these. To ask yourself this question: my soul, are you angry now? Is there a reason to be angry now? And if you feel that deep down inside you your soul is smiling in response to this question, then let your face smile and laugh at yourself. And above all, don't be angry with God for taking away something you would have enjoyed, something that would have given you a cool, pleasant shade in the sweltering heat of everyday life, don't be angry with God for it, it's not worth it.
God then shames Jonah very, very severely for his bitterness over the withering of the gourd. Here God is no longer smiling, but is infinitely sad. He is infinitely sad when he says: 'You pity the gourd which you did not labour for, which you did not cultivate, which sprang up one night and perished another night: But shall I not pity Nineveh, a great city, wherein are more than twelve times ten thousand men, which know not the difference between their right hand and their left, and there are many dunderheads? Hast thou come to this, Jonah, that thou shouldest pity a gourd more than men? That you can be bitter about the loss of your own comfort, of the little comforts of your life, and that perhaps at this very hour miserable people are fleeing the bombs if they can, and that you can sleep quite peacefully because of it?! Have you come to the point where, if the beef you get at the grocery store is not tender enough, you complain about it to the grass, and you are completely indifferent to the fact that 70% of the world's population is starving, and perhaps they are turning up from hunger at this very moment, while you are sitting here complaining about the meat? Do you cry over a cheap umbrella if you have lost it, and at the same time, if millions around you are dying or millions are being destroyed, are you not sorry? Do you ask God how He can allow terrible things to happen in this world, and basically you are so indifferent to these terrible things that when you read about them in the newspaper in the morning, by the evening you forget to pray for the people who are actually suffering because of these terrible things? You just read it, they are suffering. How ruthless, how selfish a "Jonah" can be! What is good for him, he cries when he loses it, and beyond that he cares for nothing. His whole thinking is dictated by the need to have what is good for him. What is important is that his comfort be provided, but he no longer cares about what is around him, and certainly not about how God views this world. And God looks on this world, this great Nineveh, with pity.
Can't you love this world a little more? Could you look at this world with God's eyes and God's love? Would that our Lord would grant that instead of our own petty little troubles, we could care a lot more about the much bigger troubles of other people. And we would be able to see, to notice that the other person, born of a mother, whatever the colour of his skin or his convictions, wants to live as much as you do. They want to be happy just as much as you do. It fears death as much as you do. And it longs for someone to love it for once, just as much as you long for it. Oh, if only we could look and pity this world of men with a little of the love that has given this world of men a Saviour of love.
Brethren, if any man had cause to be angry, it could only be God alone. He could be justly angry with you and me and all of us. And He asks, "Are you justly angry?" You know, brothers and sisters, I'd like to make a wall plaque out of that saying and give it to all of you - and myself, of course. The kind of wall plaque that you hang up in a prominent place on the wall, so that whenever you feel bitter or discontent or angry or envious, you look up and think: Am I justly angry now? Am I justly angry that God does things differently than I imagine? Am I justly angry that God dares to love other people the way he loves me? Am I right to be angry that God allows little annoyances to happen in my life? Or am I justly angry that God so ruthlessly exposes the selfishness and ruthlessness of my own heart?
"Or are you justly angry?" Brothers and sisters, the book of Jonah ends with a question mark. God asks. So it's not an entertaining read, it's not an entertaining story in which we learn what ultimately became of Jonah - that's not important. It's God's question, it's God's call to us, and we all have to answer it. I wonder if we can now truly, wholeheartedly answer it:
"You call to me, God, and I am ready to answer.
I am almost moved to trust myself to you,
But see, I'm still bound by my old despondency,
Bless my soul with more faith today, O Lord.
(Canticle 445, verse 1)
Amen.
Date: 28 May 1967.