Fourth Quarter 2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Jonah"

Insights to Lesson 10
A Wind, a Worm, and a Plant
November 29-December 5, 2003

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

Jonah’s Pouting; God’s Pity
God’s Message of Grace is Revealed Through a Weed, a Worm, and a Wind.

4:1-4 The Ninevites were forgiven, but the pouting prophet became furious! When Jonah saw that God spared Nineveh, he became depressed and angry and asked God to kill him (4:1, 3). Jonah’s original fear that Nineveh might repent (4:2) revealed his intense hatred of the Assyrians. Jonah held onto his anger even though he knew it was radically different from God’s attitude. He even admitted that God was “slow to anger.” (4:2). So God gently reproved Jonah in the question: “Is it right for you to be angry?” (4:4).

4:5-11 A weed, a worm, an east wind, and God’s grace. In bitterness, Jonah camped outside Nineveh. He hoped God would change his mind and destroy the city. God was concerned for the salvation of the Assyrians. His prophet was not. God was also concerned about his prophet. Accordingly, He caused a large plant to grow to shelter Jonah from the hot sun. The weed, the worm, and the wind like the great fish (1:17) answered their Creator’s call and performed their prophetic service of grace.

It was God’s grace that caused the worm to destroy the plant, and then sent a suffocating hot east wind, exposing Jonah to the heat of the wind and the sun. This manifestation of grace plunged Jonah once more into self-pity. God simply revealed His overruling grace to Jonah as He did to the Ninevites. Grace resisted in the salvation of the Ninevites, by Jonah, came to him in another way. But again, the prophet missed the lesson and repeated his death wish (4:5-8).

God confronted Jonah once again: If Jonah was so concerned about the death of a single plant, should not God be concerned more about the hundreds of thousands of persons in Nineveh who were dead in sin (4:9-11)?

The more than 120,000 undiscerning people of 4:11 represented all the Ninevites who lacked knowledge of God. Probably several hundred thousand lived in Nineveh during the time Jonah preached there. Historians estimate Nineveh’s population at 600,000 at the time of its fall in 612 B.C. (about 150 years after the time of her repentance). This is probably a reasonable figure, considering its 60-mile circumference (3:3).

Whatever the number, it is evident that there were more than 120,000 persons more in tune with God than this sulking prophet.

There are several lessons we should learn from Jonah:

1. In his quarrel with God, because of His mercy to Nineveh and upon their corporate repentance, we may assume that Jonah had delivered only a message of doom and wrath against the Ninevites for their transgression of God’s law.

2. Jonah resented the concepts of universal grace and corporate repentance.

3. Jonah wanted God to belie his character and destroy the Ninevites from sheer vindictiveness.

4. Jonah’s experience illustrates those who today think the same way.

5. Jonah did not care for those unworthy people. He got no comfort from their salvation.

6. He hated God’s message of salvation toward people who did not deserve it.

7. His message was one concerning the close of Nineveh’s probation and of its imminent destruction.

8. It is evident that Jonah preached only the commandments of God, and not an equivalent message of “the faith of Jesus.”

9. He then became angry with God because His goodness led the Ninevites to repentance.

10. Similarly our forefathers preached the commandments of God and also became angry with God because of His message of mercy and goodness as sent though His messengers of grace—A. T. Jones, E. J. Waggoner, and E. G. White.

11. Some of us are sitting outside the gates of Babylon, piously pouting, and waiting for God’s wrath to strike that harlot as she deserves.

12. God’s message of grace will again be preached in times of adversity. It will be revealed through the weed, the worm, and the wind.

13. God’s dealings with us are like His dealings with Jonah. He rebukes us because He loves us. He reasons with us even in our resentments.

14. The fact that Jonah included the information, recorded in 4:11, in his report shows that he had been brought once more to repentance and, in the end, agreed with God in His message of mercy and that Nineveh should be spared.

15. May the points in number 14 above be fulfilled in us. May we too repent before God and agree with Him in His message and rejoice in the salvation of the Babylonians (Revelation 18:4).

I want to close this "Insight" with an observation on the questions from the Teacher’s Edition of this week’s lesson, page 119, and an answer :

“Read 2 Timothy 1:8-10. Grace has been given to us before the beginning and was revealed through Christ Jesus. We constantly receive God’s grace, but do we actually recognize it when we receive it? What are the many forms God’s grace can take?”

The answer, among others, is a weed, a worm, and a wind.

Read the study notes for Lesson 11