Worm Theology
This lesson shows that a temporal, material, and comfortable lifestyle can stand in the way of the purposes of God. God’s greatest obstacle to reaching the Assyrians was not Nineveh, but His own prophet! Jonah is forced to come to grips with his self-centered ways.
OVERVIEW
If I had written the Book of Jonah, I would have ended it with chapter three. Chapter four of Jonah is perhaps the strangest ending to any of the books of the Bible. But by the time we have completed our study of it, I think you will understand why God had it written the way He did.
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 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. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the LORD said, “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. 11 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 4:1-11 ESV
Throughout this entire story, from the beginning of the first chapter, God’s main problem has been how to control the prophet Jonah. In chapter one, God was able to control the heathen sailors. In chapter two, He was able to control a great fish. In chapter three, He was able to control the entire city of Nineveh. But at the end of this book, God is still working on His wayward prophet, trying to get him back to the proper compassion and the right attitude of heart. The whole book has been a contest between Jehovah and Jonah. In chapter one, Jonah is running from God. In chapter two, Jonah is running to God. In chapter three, Jonah is running for God. And now in chapter four, Jonah is going to run smack into God.
By the time we get to the last part of this last chapter, we will see the point of the Book of Jonah more clearly than ever before. And our teacher is none other than a worm.
The Passion of Jonah
The first thing we discover is Jonah’s passion—unfortunately, it is not a passion for souls. Rather, it is anger:
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry – Jonah 4:1 ESV
What could justify Jonah’s anger? God caused the greatest revival in history to take place in Nineveh and everybody was converted, and Jonah was the one God used. But Jonah preached from a jealous and selfish heart, and when the revival happened he got angry.
What makes you angry? What are the triggers? Is it jusitified?
The word anger in the Old Testament Hebrew language means to boil or to burn. Jonah was really hot. Why? Was it because God made him look bad? Jonah had said the city would perish in forty days, and now God said, “Never mind.” Was it because Jonah was afraid God was making Himself look bad, not delivering the judgment He had promised? Probably neither. Jonah was sinfully mad. He didn’t want the Assyrians to experience God’s grace. He wanted God to deal as harshly with them as He had with him.
If anything, this sad attitude by Jonah is like the older brother of the prodigal son in the New Testament. He was really mad when the prodigal returned home and received his father’s welcome. Jonah was mad that a prodigal nation was being spared, much less welcomed, by God.
What kinds of things do you sometimes feel sorry for yourself about? Do your feelings ever stem from envy of another’s good fortune?
The Prayer of Jonah
This is the second prayer of Jonah recorded in this book. The first, a prayer of confession and repentance, was offered in the belly of the whale. But now Jonah offers a most unusual prayer:
2“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. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” – Jonah 4:2-3 ESV
Jonah’s Confession
In the first part of the prayer, Jonah explains the reason why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place. His confession is centered around five characteristics he knew to be true about God: He is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, loving, and relents from sending calamity.
Jonah’s theology as expressed in his prayer is sound. His thinking about God is not warped. He was a prophet, and he knew from personal experience that if the wicked of Nineveh would only change their attitude toward God, He would forgive them. This was the reason he did not want to go to Nineveh to preach. He was angry at the compassion of God.
Jonah’s Complaint
Jonah’s complaint was, “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Many students of human behavior have noted that there is a definite relationship between hatred for others and pity for oneself. This complaining prayer of Jonah sounds like the prayer of Elijah when he felt he had been a failure in his ministry:
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” – 1 Kings 19:4 ESV
Ask yourself the same “Yes or No” question that God asked Jonah: “Is it ever right for you to feel sorry for yourself to the point of angry withdrawal and pouting?”
Jonah’s Problem
Jonah’s problem was spiritual myopia. All he could see was himself. All he could think about was what was best for him. He was consumed with Jonah. As we look around at our generation, this problem is rampant, even in the church. Here is what Jonah didn’t realize: we get our needs met in life only by meeting the needs of others. Jonah would get over his hatred of the Assyrians only by serving them.
How easy is it to mistake material affluence with God’s blessing?
If God blesses believers in less developed cultures, why aren’t they materially affluent?
What happens to our sense of God’s blessing if we lose our material things?
What happens to our attitude toward God if we think He has withheld His material blessing?
The Probing of Jonah
In verse four, God says, “Jonah, let me ask you a question. Do you have a right to be angry?” The Lord’s attitude toward Jonah was the same long-suffering attitude that He had exercised toward the wicked city of Nineveh. The Lord’s question was designed to restore the backslidden prophet to a proper compassion for people and a right relationship with God. Jonah didn’t say a word. He was no longer speaking to God. He was so mad at God he wouldn’t even respond to the question. Instead, he went deeper into self-pity, staging a sit-down demonstration outside of the city.
When you catch yourself in a season of self-pity, what is a common “root” to the reaping?
The Protest of Jonah
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. – Jonah 4:5 NASB
By leaving the city, Jonah was turning his back on everything God was doing in Nineveh. People everywhere were repenting and calling out to God. Everywhere Jonah looked he saw the results of the mercy and grace of God to these wicked Assyrian people, and he could not handle it. He went up on a hill under a little temporary shelter so he could have more time to pout and pity himself.
Unfortunately, some Christians are uncomfortable being around people in whose heart God is at work. They look at them like Jonah looked at the Assyrians. There are people that say “I don’t know if we want these kinds of people in our church.” That is the Jonah spirit. Jonah didn’t want anything to do with what God was doing in Nineveh.
This whole book is about God trying to get through to the heart of Jonah, which seemed harder now than when he was in the whale. At least in the belly of the whale he had developed a repentant spirit and was crying out to God. But now he was hardhearted again and God was going to teach him the final lesson. What is about to happen now is the whole point of the Book of Jonah.
The Preservation of Jonah
And the LORD God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant. – Jonah 4:6 NLT
This particular gourd vine grew up miraculously to provide shade for Jonah, which made him “very grateful.” For the first time in the book we find Jonah happy and thankful—and it was because he was in the shade. He was more excited about this gourd than he was about getting disgorged from the whale. This gourd was the first of three things God used finally to get Jonah where he needed to be.
What are the most important material things you own.
The second thing He prepared was a worm that gnawed on the gourd and caused it to die so that Jonah had no more shade.
But God also arranged for a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away. – Jonah 4:7 NLT
And then the Lord prepared the third thing:
When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” – Jonah 4:8 ESV
Now Jonah was really mad! God gave him shade, and then He took it away and sent a scorching wind and sun to burn Jonah up. I can just hear Jonah saying, “God, if you were going to take it away, it would have been better if you hadn’t given it to me in the first place.”
We are like Jonah in a lot of ways. We get attached to the gourds of our life and let them get in the way of doing God’s will. When we do that, we need to remember two things. God does gourds, and God does worms. And if we will not release that gourd to the control of the Spirit of God in our lives, He will send His prepared worm to teach us a lesson.
What happens to our attitude toward God if we think He has withheld His material blessing?
To what degree do modern believers expect God to keep them comfortable in this life?
The Pouting of Jonah
Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” – Jonah 4:9 NASB
Jonah got mad, then glad, and now mad again. But at least he was talking to God, which he needed to do. The problem with Jonah right from the beginning of the story is this: He knew a lot about God, but he didn’t really know God. Through all the years of his ministry, he had failed to recognize the depth of the love and mercy of God. He preached to Nineveh, but not out of a heart of compassion and love. It’s obvious he did it just to fulfill an assignment. But God was about to teach him something about His heart that Jonah had not been able to learn up to this time.
The Pity of Jonah
10 Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. 11 But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” – Jonah 4:10-11 NLT
God was using the gourd as an object lesson to show Jonah why He did not destroy the city of Nineveh, its people, and its animals. There was a single gourd, and thousands of people. The plant was a few weeks old; the souls of the people were eternal. Jonah was angry at the loss of a plant, but was unconcerned about the loss of an entire city of people. While we don’t know what ultimately happened to Jonah, I think his heart finally broke over his lack of compassion for Nineveh.
Have you had any breakthroughs where you realize the importance and the preciousness of other people’s souls? How did that come about? Was it long coming? Is it constant or periodic?
It’s a wonder sometimes if God doesn’t want to break our hearts. Look at all the things we get so enamored with, so excited about, the things we wrap our arms around. We live and die with these things, while all around us there are people who need Christ. There are children who need to be taught. There are ministries that need to be accomplished that have eternal value, and we are pouting over the loss of some little gourd. God wants us to get out of the temporal and get back to divine purposes. The whole purpose of this book was for Jonah to learn that he did not have the heart of compassion that God wanted him to have as a prophet.
The Point of Jonah
The Book of Jonah ends without a conclusion. The final question that God asked Jonah in verse 11 just trails off into oblivion: “Jonah, is it right for you to have pity on this gourd, and not right for me to have pity on Nineveh?” And there is no resolution, no answer. I don’t think God wants us to forget this question. Is it right for us to have concern and compassion on temporal things around us when there are millions of people who still haven’t heard the Gospel?
Describe what your response would be to the loss of those valued things you listed earlier.
What happens to our sense of God’s blessing if we lose our material things?
Here are the three points I think God meant by this question to Jonah. And he is asking us the same questions:
Comfort vs. Compassion
Is your comfort more important than God’s compassion? Do you really think that gourd is worthy of your pity and the souls of lost men are not?
Material vs. Spiritual
Is the material more important than the spiritual? A gourd, and all material things, are here today and gone tomorrow. But the souls of human beings are made in the image of God. What about the spiritual things that live forever?
Temporal vs. Eternal
Is the temporal more important than the eternal? Do we have the right perspective on this life versus eternal life? Do we live as if this earth is our home or as if eternity is our home?
It may be thought that God finally got through to Jonah. Jonah could have finally understood that God has a big heart, and that Jonah had a little heart, and that God wanted to grow Jonah’s heart up. And most likely, God wants to grow a lot of our hearts up, too. There are so many people who need the Lord. Does God say we have to love them before we go to them? No, He tells us to go to them, and in the process of our going He will help us love them. May the Book of Jonah have that impact on our lives.
Did You Know?
God prepared a gourd to shade Jonah. This gourd is believed by scholars to be the castor oil vine that rose up along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The vine’s leaves are about the size of a large man’s hands when they are outstretched. This vine grows very rapidly, and it has a multitude of leaves.
Jeremiah, D. (1998). The runaway prophet: jonah (Study guide) (p. 125). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Jeremiah, D. (1998). The runaway prophet: jonah (Study guide) (pp. 116–121). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Tyndale House Publishers. (2013). Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.