What would Jesus do?

 

READ Obadiah & Jonah1-4

The prophet Obadiah prophesied that Edom would be repaid for mistreating God’s people. He said to them:

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. (Obadiah 3–4)

Obadiah also asserted that God is sovereign over the nations and that the house of Jacob would be restored because of God’s covenant love for his people.

The prophet Jonah is a different case. God sent him to a pagan city to preach repentance, but Jonah rebelled and was swallowed by a fish . . .  

When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. (Jonah 2:7–10)

This reluctant prophet then repented and decided to do what God said:

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:3–10)

When Nineveh repented, the reason for Jonah’s rebellion became clear: he had feared that God would forgive the Ninevites; and when God did forgive them, Jonah resented it.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4:1–3)

Jonah essentially threw himself a huge pity-party. He sat in the hot sun. God gave him shade from a plant that He sent, but God also sent a worm to kill the plant and Jonah was more upset about his situation than he had been about the sinners in Nineveh. So God said to him:

“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10–11)

Both stories are a rebuke to my selfishness. Obadiah rebuked the Edomites who were related to God’s people and should be supportive rather than helping Judah’s enemies take them into exile. My challenge is similar. There are many who claim to be “good” people but when push comes to shove, they show resentment to Christian truths and will not stand up for what is right. In situations like that, I find judgment easier than mercy.

Also, it is easier to “flee to Tarshish” than it is to share the Gospel with the Nineveh’s of this world. Tarshish relates to commerce and profit, suggesting how I could get involved with the concerns of this life rather than talk to sinners about their need to repent and receive God’s salvation. Jonah would rather they got what they deserved than repent and be saved. That attitude too easily lurks in my own head.

Jesus was different. He saw sinners as sheep without a shepherd, sinners in need of a Savior. So He died for them. He asks me which example will I follow?