Tag: Mercy

Saving Prophet Jonah

Posted on by scott

9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” – Jonah 1:9

Unfriendly Fire

When we think of the Prophets of God, we think of men we hold in high esteem such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.  Men who boldly proclaimed God’s Word under trying circumstances.  Men who often preached unpopular messages which were met with vehemence and violence.  Because of their obedience to God’s calling we like to put these men up on a pedestal.  Although we don’t venerate them to the extent of worship, we “exalt” them for their faithfulness to God.

And then there is Jonah, in a class perhaps by himself.  While we respect all of his peers, we riddle Jonah with bullet holes, shooting him up every time we reference him.  From the theologians in the classroom to the preachers behind the pulpits to the casual pew warmer, Jonah is fair game.  He is an easy target.  I must confess, I have taken my shots at him as well.

While it is easy to focus on Jonah’s obvious weaknesses, it might be wise to glean from some of his strengths.  Looking at the Book of Jonah in it’s historical context while setting aside our preconceived ideas might help.  In other words, we should stop shooting and lay down our weapons for a while.  Or as Jesus would remind us,  “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone…” – John 8:7b

Jonah Background

We do not know a lot about Jonah outside of the Book that bears his name, which means “dove”.  The first verse of the Book of Jonah tells us that he was the son of Amittai and nothing more.  Rather, it immediately records the commission of Jonah to go to Nineveh and “call out against it”.

We are told in Scriptures that Jonah was a prophet and servant in Israel during the reign of the evil King Jeroboam II, who reigned between 792-753 B.C..  Despite the wickedness of Jeroboam II, he did restore the borders of Israel because of the faithful ministry of Jonah.  In addition we are told he was from Gath-hepher, a small border town in Israel that is also referred to in Joshua chapter 19.

24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. – 2 Kings 14:24-25

Nineveh Background

We know from the Book of Genesis, that Nineveh was founded by the mighty hunter Nimrod shortly after the flood.

 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh… – Genesis 10:9-11a

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria and rose to power around 900 B.C., which in time would become the bitter enemy of Israel and begin a systematic process of conquering them.  The Assyrians were known to be extremely cruel and brutal with a reputation for skinning alive their enemies.  Perhaps this is what the Prophet Nahum was alluding to when he compared the Assyrians with lions tearing and feeding on the nations (Nahum 2:11-13).

Pick Your Poison

Imagine you are driving down a road with your child riding along.  As you are driving an oncoming car intentionally swerves at you.  While avoiding the oncoming car your vehicle rolls and your child is thrown out.  Able to exit your car under your own strength you see that the other vehicle has hit a tree.  Not pleasant I know but bear with me.

The first person to arrive on the scene of the accident happens to be a doctor.  Your injuries are not life threatening but after looking at your child and the person that ran you off the road, the doctor determines that neither will live without his immediate attention.  Who do you want the doctor to save, your child or your “enemy”?

I think this gives us a glimpse of Jonah’s decision process.  God’s judgment is looming over Nineveh.  If Jonah takes God’s warning to them and they repent, His beloved Israel may be destroyed by Assyria.  If he runs and Nineveh is not warned and therefore destroyed, his people may be saved.

I am not condoning disobeying God, but in fairness we might want to think twice before we shoot at Jonah for fleeing in the opposite direction of Nineveh.  The thought of seeing my loved one skinned alive might tend to be a powerful motivator.

Throw Me

While the ship that Jonah had boarded for Tarshish was being storm tossed, Jonah slept.  In contrast to Jonah, the mariners on board feared for their lives.  They were in a state of panic trying to appease their gods in hopes that the storm might subside.  While their gods were helpless, Jonah’s God revealed to them through lots, that Jonah himself was the cause of their “evil”.

When the mariners questioned Jonah as to his identity, he gave the response quoted above.  Specifically, he is a Hebrew who worships the True God who is sovereign over sea and land.  While the others on board feared for their lives, Jonah bravely told them to throw him into the troubled waters.  He was willing to die if necessary to save them.  He was willing to die to save his fellow Hebrews.  But he isn’t the only person in the Bible who loves his people so much.  Remember Paul’s shocking words?

3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. – Romans 9:3

Perhaps we don’t understand Jonah because we don’t love so deeply and so selflessly.  Such a love could certainly influence our behavior.

Save Me

Once inside the belly of the fish, Jonah learned a valuable lesson, no one can escape the presence of the Lord.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me. – Psalm 139:7-10

Jonah’s attempt to save his people was foiled by his Sovereign God.  Humbled, Jonah offered a beautiful prayer of deliverance to his omnipresent God.

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,

    and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
    and you heard my voice.
3 For you cast me into the deep,
    into the heart of the seas,
    and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
    passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away
    from your sight;
yet I shall again look
    upon your holy temple.’
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life;
    the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
6     at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
    whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
    O Lord my God.
7 When my life was fainting away,
    I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
    into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols
    forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
    will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Salvation belongs to the Lord!” – Jonah 2:2-9

Jonah’s prayer for deliverance was answered.  Not only was Jonah’s life spared, but God gave him a second opportunity to take His Word of warning to Nineveh.  Although still torn by his patriotic love of Israel, Jonah obeyed.

A Jealous Love

Although unhappy about his task, Jonah walked among his enemies and warned them of God’s judgment.  Amazingly, these cruel people repented; en masse.  Much to Jonahs disappointment, but not to his surprise.

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. – Jonah 4:2

The wrath of God against Nineveh would be stayed, and the threat of Assyria’s wrath against Israel would remain.  Jonah’s reaction, as I have mentioned is well documented, and often ridiculed.

Jonah was angry.  He was an unwilling tool wielded by a merciful God.  But as we learn from Habakkuk, God sometimes uses the most unlikely tools to carry out His will and reach His people.  Jonah and Paul are not the only ones harboring a jealous love.  As Habakkuk learned, God is willing to use a wicked people to “discipline” His chosen.  Despite Josiah’s efforts, Judah was still desperately wicked.  Unwilling to repent more than superficially, God warns Habakkuk that He is going to use the Babylonians to punish them.  God’s love for His children is so great that He cannot allow them to continue living in wickedness.

Jonah knew that God was merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…  Jonah was heartbroken, because despite numerous prophets and and years of warnings, his people remained heard hearted and obstinate.  Unwilling to repent.  Their unresponsiveness to the pleas of God’s love and mercy would be shamed by the repentance of their heathen enemies.  And Jonah was an “accomplice”.

Unlimited Mercy

Like you and I, Jonah was far from perfect.  But despite his weaknesses, there are lessons we can learn from him.  More importantly, there are lessons we can learn from his experience with our sovereign God.  Our God who can extend His mercy to our loved ones and our enemies without exhausting His supply!

Despite his lip service to and experience with the mercy of God, he was ignorant of it’s infinite depth.  He wanted God’s mercy for himself and his people but not his enemies.  Because of his love for his people and his desire for their preservation he wanted to “limit” the mercy of God.  A danger Christ warned us about.

The mistake that Jonah made was also made by the older brother in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.  When the father extended his mercy to the returning prodigal, his older brother was indignant.  Why lavish such love on someone like him?

Jesus taught a similar lesson in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  Although hired at different times of the day, each of the workers were paid the same amount.  Those that toiled the longest begrudged the owner for his generosity.  Despite receiving what they agreed to, they were upset with the employer for what he paid the other workers.  Like Jonah, they wanted to “limit” his mercy.  Which will never happen.

Jonah called out to the Lord in his distress, and in his abounding mercy God saved him.  Just like you and I.

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” – Romans 9:15

Mercy’s Triumph

Posted on by scott

13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. – James 2:13

Mercy

While Jesus was sitting in the temple teaching a crowd of people, His lesson quickly became one about mercy.  As Jesus was teaching, He was interrupted by a passionate and bloodthirsty crowd headed by the scribes and Pharisees.  These men, who were supposed to be doing the teaching and leading were here to test Jesus.  Their object lesson was a woman they had caught in the act of adultery.  Moses commanded us to stone such a woman to death, but what do you say?

Before He opened His mouth, Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground.  I have often heard people accuse the religious leaders of foul play, after all where was the guilty man?  Was this woman framed?  Also, much speculation has been made about what Jesus wrote on the ground.  Some suggest that He began to write down sins that the accusers were guilty of.  Perhaps even affairs.  I don’t know what happened to the man, or what Jesus wrote, but I do know one thing, the religious leaders did not get the response from Jesus that they expected, and the woman did not get what she deserved.  Instead, a crowd of sinners learned from the Savior that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Partiality

James begins his second chapter teaching about the dangers of partiality.  Specifically, he warns against exalting the wealthy and dishonoring the poor among us.  James then reminds us that our objective is to “love our neighbor as yourself”, in contrast to showing partiality which is a sin.  After all, he reminds us, breaking one commandment makes us guilty of violating the whole of the law.  And as we know, breaking the law brings judgment.  But thanks to Christ, we are judged by the law of liberty (James 2:12).

Authority

When the scribes and Pharisees brought the adulteress woman to Jesus, they brought her under the authority of Moses.  Moses said we are to stone her.  Case settled.  But Hebrews chapter three tells us that Jesus is greater than Moses.  As a matter of fact, Jesus created Moses.  Moses was a servant of God, Jesus is the Son of God.  God used Moses to deliver the law, God sent Jesus to fulfill the law.  Moses, as representative of the law, could condemn the woman, Jesus as the Savior could forgive her.  Perhaps when Jesus bent down to write on the ground, He drew a picture of the cross.  The only reason mercy triumphs over judgment is because Jesus endured our judgment when He hung on the cross.  The hand that wrote on the ground would be nailed to a Roman cross.  The lips that said, “neither do I condemn you”, would later cry out, “It is finished”.

We Can Relate

We were once the adulteress woman.  When we were brought before Jesus in all of our shame, He showed us mercy.  When Jesus forgave us, He told us to go and sin no more.  Do we understand what it means that we have been shown mercy when we deserved judgment?  Think about the woman as she was brought before Jesus.  She was guilty.  She was brought before a crowd; as if she wasn’t ashamed and embarrassed enough already.  She is brought to the temple and thrust before Jesus, the miracle-working young rabbi.  Perhaps Jesus bent to write on the ground because this woman couldn’t even lift her eyes.  Moses said to stone her and her accusers had already armed themselves.  They were just waiting for Jesus to acquiesce.  How do you suppose she felt when Jesus turned the tables on her accusers?  What must have gone through her mind when one by one they walked away, carrying judgment with them?   “Has no one condemned you?…Neither do I condemn you.”  Mercy triumphed.

People of Mercy

As forgiven people, we are to be people of mercy.  James tells us that faith without works is dead.  Here he is telling us if we don’t show mercy we don’t have evidence of being saved by grace, and therefore will be subject to judgment.  But, we are people of mercy, and therefore are supposed to exercise it.  Which brings us back to partiality.  James reminds us there is no place for it.  In the culture during the time of James, for all practical purposes, there was no middle class.  You simply had the wealthy and the poor and you knew which side of the divide you were on.  The culture might make such a distinction, but in the church, the dividing wall was toppled.  There was no room for partiality.  Period.  The self-seeking attitude that shows preference to the wealthy and the pride that shows condescension to the poor do not reflect the law of liberty.  Far from it, James writes that when we make such distinctions we have become “judges with evil thoughts” (James 2:4).  Judgment is not supposed to rule the day.

Although partiality is still a problem, I doubt that it is so to the extent that is was during the Roman empire.  While the sins of self-seeking and pride are alive and well, I believe that they are more likely to flesh themselves out in self-righteousness.  I may be wrong, but how many people will not come into our churches because they will have the stones of judgment cast at them?  I understand that sometimes such excuses are fabricated, but I am not so naive as to believe that it is never true.  Shame on us when it is.  Christ went to the cross for the adulteress woman.  He went to the cross for you and me.  He went to the cross so we could worship together as equals.  Jesus “wrote” on the ground with his blood, so we would drop our stones and hold out hands of mercy.  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Especially the “adulteress women” of the world.  Christ has chosen not to condemn them so why should we?  Mercy Triumphs!!

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” – Matthew 5:7

26 “With the merciful you show yourself merciful…” – 2 Samuel 22:26

Crying for Mercy

Posted on by scott

51 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin! – Psalm 51:1-2

Campfires and Fights

It is difficult to always be right!  Especially when you are young.  And small for your age.  And don’t know when to keep your opinion to yourself (i.e. keep your mouth shut!).  I learned this lesson the hard way as a teenager.  I had gone on a weekend camp out with a Boy Scout group.  The weekend was packed with memorable events such as ghost stories, dipping water straight from the creek for hot chocolate over the campfire (the solid particles can’t be dangerous if they’ve been boiled right?) and a midnight walk through a cemetery.  These were the highlights, along with one of the guys falling into the creek in the middle of the night during a storm after leaving the cemetery.  I can still hear him crying for help in the creek bottom as the lightning flashed around us.  Good times!

The low-light was the tussle I got into.  One of the scouts who was a couple of years older than I did something I took offense to.  I knew he was antagonizing me because of the size difference between us, but I also knew that might doesn’t make right.  Rather than turning the other cheek and letting him embarrass me, I decided to embarrass myself and take the bait.  I foolishly accepted his challenge.  Gotta love teenage boys!

Say “Uncle”

I remember vividly, lying on my back with this bully on my chest.  As he tapped his finger into my sternum he kept telling me to say “uncle.”  My pride would not let me.  With a ring of boys around us I could feel my face turning flush and the tears coming into my eyes.  But I wasn’t going to budge.  Literally.  I was willing to lay there with him on my chest tapping on my sternum until his bony finger came out of my back.  I knew I was right and there was no way I was going to cry for mercy.  This was a matter of principle, not comfort.  Some things are worth fighting for regardless of the cost.  The other boys thought I was crazy.  The leader thought I was spunky.  When he knew I had no fight left, he separated us.  For what it was worth, the other boy proved he was tougher.  I walked away strengthened in my conviction to never quit.  Definitely gotta love teenage boys!!

A Time to Cry for Mercy

I am no longer a teenager.  That ship sailed out long ago.  I’ve come to accept that I am not always right.  However, that ship was a little slower in sailing out.  More importantly, I learned that there is a time to cry for mercy.  There is a time to quit.  A time of desperation when we need to realize we are fighting a losing battle.  A time we let our pride give way to humility.  Of course, I am talking about the spiritual realm.  I’m talking about being in the wrong.  I’m talking about living in SIN.

Sin is an enemy we cannot defeat.  The greater our pride, the more dangerous it becomes.  If we try to fight it in our human strength it will knock us down every time.  If we try to hide it, it will expose us as a fraud.  The longer we wrestle with it in our own strength the greater will be our shame and embarrassment.  We need to get out from under sin as soon as possible.  King David wasn’t strong enough to conquer it alone and neither are we.  We need to learn from David and cry out to God for mercy.  It is our only hope.  This is no teenage tussle.  Crying for mercy isn’t a sign of weakness.  It is evidence of wisdom.

The Weight of Sin

The weight of sin can be unbearable.  Like a bully sitting on our chest, it makes it hard for us to catch our breath.  With its bony finger, it brings pain to our hearts.  It plays games with our minds and torments our souls.  Sin turns our camp outs into tussles and our joy into mourning.  It destroys relationships and breaks up families.  How long are we willing to embarrass ourselves and entertain it?  Quit taking the bait.  Give it up.  Look into the mirror of God’s Word.  See the filth?  Seek forgiveness and repeat after David.

51 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

God’s Mercy

When it comes to sin we are out of our league.  We cannot conquer it with good works.  We cannot overcome it with church membership.  Our friends and families can’t save us nor can our wealth.  When it comes to being saved from our sins we have only one option:  God’s mercy.  Thankfully, He offers it to us.  According to his steadfast love.  The love that sent His Son to fight on our behalf.  There is a bloodstained cross on Calvary that proves some things are worth fighting for regardless of the cost.

God in His abundant mercy wants to blot out your transgressions and wash you thoroughly from your iniquity and cleanse you from your sin.  Let Him.

The Bible teaches us that sin is always wrong and God is always right.  It is much wiser to cry to God for mercy than to let sin hold us down.  Humbling ourselves is not always easy, nor is it always comfortable.  But at least one teenage conviction I have to remain true to.  Principles take priority over comfort.

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ – Luke 18:13