What is the book of Jonah all about? Is it about God’s heart for all the people of the world? Is it about how God wants you to get involved in world missions?

No, it is not about either one of these things, even though this is often the way you hear it taught in sermons and during Mission’s Conferences. In this final study of the book of Jonah, you will learn what the book of Jonah is all about.

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Jonah 4:10-11 contain the final question of God to Jonah. But Jonah does not answer. The ending of the story is very abrupt. We will see why in the final study of Jonah next week. For now, we learn that God loves all people, even those we consider evil.

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https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_4_10-11/

Have you ever been disgusted with God? So disgusted with how God lets evil go unchecked, and how God doesn’t seem to protect you or your family or your plans, or how God seems to bless the wicked people while not helping the righteous?

Have you ever been so disgusted with how God seems to behave that you didn’t want anything to do with Him?

I have felt that way before. And so did Jonah. Jonah was so disgusted with God that he asked God to damn him. This, and more, is what we learn from Jonah 4:9.

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At a conference I attended a while back, I mentioned in passing to someone that I do not believe that God punished people for their sin. The person I was talking to looked at me like I had lost my mind.

“If God doesn’t punish people for their sin,” he said, “then God is just an enabler, letting people get away with their sin.” The man thought I was going to back peddle from my position, but I didn’t. The truth is that I do believe God is a divine enabler. He is the biggest enabler the universe has ever seen.

It’s a challenging idea, I know, but it is what we are seeing here in Jonah, which somewhat explains Jonah’s frustration with God. This is what we discuss in this study of Jonah 4:8.

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Have you ever heard someone say that God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice? Usually this is said in the context of a discussion on hell. You might object to the idea of torturing people forever in hell as being not very loving, and the other person might say, Well, you know, God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice.

In other words, God wants to forgive, but He must be just. He must punish sin. It this true? Must God punish people for their sin? Does God punish people for sin? While it is true that God is both merciful and just, both forgiving and just, the question is “How?”

This is what we discuss in this study of Jonah 4:7.

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What is evil? Do you know evil when you see it? We all think we know what evil is, that we can recognize it, and that we are able to accurately judge between good and evil. Jonah 4:6 reveals that judging between good and evil should be left up to God.

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https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_4_6/

There are lots of calls for justice in the world today. And God is a God of justice, but most Christians are not really aware of how God carries out justice. We are going to learn more about justice today as we study Jonah 4:5.

Jonah wants Nineveh brought to justice, and takes steps to see if God will act.

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Have you ever been angry at how God runs the world?

I was listening to a podcast recently which had an atheist on the show, and he said this to the Christian who was interviewing him, “If your God exists, then your God sucks. I could do a better job running the world than He is. Why doesn’t He stop the wars, and the violence, and the rapes, and the murders?”

Have you ever felt like that? I’ll be honest, I have.

And Jonah did too.

This is one reason the book of Jonah was written. It shows a prophet who is angry at God for how God runs the world. And we see in the book what God says to Jonah about it.

This is what we learn in this study of Jonah 4:4.

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At the very beginning of our study of Jonah, we encountered two questions about Jonah’s strange behavior in the book. When asked by God to go preach judgment against the evil city of Nineveh, Jonah instead got on a boat and headed to Tarshish.

The first question, then, was, “Why would Jonah go to Tarshish instead of obey God and preach judgment against his enemies, the Ninevites?”

And then Jonah’s behavior got even stranger. It seemed that Jonah had a death wish. Through his words and actions in Jonah 1–2, Jonah made it quite clear that he wanted to die. He had a death wish.

So the second question was “Why does Jonah want to die?”

In this study of Jonah 4:3, we finally discover the answer to both questions. And the answer is shocking. So shocking, in fact, most fail to see it. But I will point it out to you in this study.

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Have you ever been angry at God? Come on now, be honest.

Of course you have. Life has a way of crushing us all, and when that happens, we often get angry at God about it.

When you’re angry at God, what do you do? Do you try to handle it yourself? Or do you lash out at God in your anger? This is what we look at in this study of Jonah 4:2, and you will find it very encouraging for your own prayer life going forward.

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https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_4_2/