Taking his seat in his chambers, the judge faced the opposing lawyers.

"So," he said, "I

have been presented, by both of you, with a bribe."

Both lawyers squirmed uncomfortably. "Leon, you gave me $15,000. And Earl, you gave
me $10,000."

“I don’t want there to be any questions about a fair hearing here so Leon, I’m giving you
back $5,000.”

Justice! For thousands of years mankind has grappled with the idea of justice. It’s a part
of the human condition that we are wronged sometimes, and all of us want it to be made
right. I’ll bet each on of you right now can think of something going on in your life that
is not fair. Someone has done wrong to you and you want it made right.

One thing common to systems of justice is a judge, a person who ultimately decides what
is fair and right, and has the power to make that so. Many of you have probably been to a
judge for something at some point in your life. If not you’ve had someone else in that
position, the giver of fairness.

In our house I’m often the judge, the giver of fairness. One of the kids will run to me and
let me know what brother or sister is doing that’s unfair. So, I summon all the parties to
court. Witnesses are interrogated, evidence is examined, testimonies are heard. Then
there’s a verdict, and a settlement is made. Sometimes a sentence is handed down. If
you’re a parent of more than one child, you’ve been a judge.

Now when court is being held in our house, usually there’s one thing on the accuser’s
mind. “What can I say so that my brother or sister gets a spanking?” There’s not always
a spanking involved, in fact usually not, but that hope is always there in the back of their
mind. Maybe Dad will spank my annoying brother or sister. They sometimes seem
disappointed that they just get an apology.

Don’t we want our enemies to pay? Isn’t that a basic human instinct? They’ve hurt us.
Many times when we were powerless to stop it. We want to see them pay for it. We
talked last week about Haman, the enemy of Mordecai and the Jews. If you’ve had an
enemy like that in your life, and you breathe like I do, you’ve wished that you enemy
would get what’s coming to him.

I’d like to look today at the story of Jonah. We often think of it as a story for kids about a
guy being swallowed by a whale. But there’s much more to it than that. We covered the
first two chapters about the whale in the children’s sermon. While you are turning to
chapter 3, we’ll review the first two chapters.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and speak out against their wickedness. Jonah didn’t
want to go, he ran away. He jumped on a boat for Spain but it got caught in a storm. The
crew found out he had offended God and threw him over to save the ship. God sent a
great sea creature, we often say whale, to swallow him. Jonah prayed and repented his
disobedience, and God had the whale spit him out on the beach.

Now this begs the question: Why didn’t Jonah go? Was he scared? In truth Jonah was
scared, but not for his life. Jonah was scared because he didn’t want Nineveh to repent.

Nineveh was his enemy. Many people think that Nineveh was the Capital of the Assyrian
Empire. It had been in times past, and would be again in the future, but at the time of
Jonah the capital of the Empire was at Calah. It was Sennacherib who Made Nineveh
into a great city and capital about 80 years after the story of Jonah. But it was, as the
Bible states, “an exceedingly great city”.

Jonah could see that Nineveh was becoming a center of Assyrian power. He could see
Nineveh as a threat to his beloved Israel. In fact the Assyrians would carry off the ten
tribes of the Northern Kingdom shortly before making Nineveh their capital.

Jonah didn’t want these dangerous people to repent. He wanted them destroyed. If they
repented and God forgave them, then his enemies would not be evil. We all want our
enemies to be evil, because that makes us good. We want them to wear the black hat
because it makes ours look white.

Making the enemy evil is common practice. America is the Great Satan. All Americans
are enemies of Islam who are out to destroy and corrupt the world with rock music and
blue jeans. That’s why they must be blown up. All Arabs and Muslims are fanatics with
bombs strapped to their chests. That’s why we should be over there killing them. They
have on the black turbans and we have the white cowboy hats.

So let’s start reading in chapter 3 and see what happens to Jonah.

1
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2“Arise, go to
Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell
you.” 3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now
Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. 4Then Jonah began to go
through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh
will be overthrown.”

Back to square one. Jonah could have gone the first time and avoided the whole being
swallowed by a whale thing.

Nineveh is so big that it takes three days to walk through it. Imagine Jonah walking
through the enemy stronghold, seeing it’s power, realizing that some day this power
would crush Israel. In the midst of this city he preached a simple message. “God will
destroy this city in 40 days.” Jonah didn’t even call on them to repent. He didn’t want
them to repent.
But they did anyway. The King heard of God’s judgement. In hopes that God might
spare them, the King ordered the whole city to repent and mourn. They all prayed and
fasted and asked God’s forgiveness.

Then Jonah’s worst fear came true. God decided to have mercy on Nineveh.

10
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God
relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon
them. And He did not do it.

Man, just when it looked like Nineveh might get punished for sin, God had mercy
on them. Jonah was probably hoping for the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment.
Now that God had spared them, nothing would stop Nineveh from crushing
Israel. Why would God spare the city from it’s sin?

Jonah is about to find out some shocking news. God loved his enemies. God
loves my enemies, and yours too. He loves them as much as he loves us.
When I’m the judge in my home court, I love all the kids the same –even the
ones that may or may not get a spanking.

Jonah 4
1
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2He prayed to the
LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in
my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew
that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in
lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3“Therefore now, O
LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” 4The
LORD said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

What are you angry about Jonah? That’s the central question that is answered in this
story. Why are you angry that I’ve forgiven your enemies?

Israel had repented and been forgiven many times by God, but had never stayed true.
Time after time they turned back to the false gods of their neighbors. Time after time
they allowed injustice, greed, and idolatry into their lives. There’s a message here for
Israel. “Look, even the gentiles can also repent and be forgiven -just like you’ve done.”

Now Assyria didn’t become a godly people. They kept on worshipping false gods and
practicing polytheism. Their repentance was no more long lasting than the repentance of
Israel. But it should have served as a mirror for Israel. The Jews should have said
“Wow, those goyim repented pretty quickly, got forgiven, and went right back to their
old ways. Just like us. We’ve got to do better than that.” But they didn’t.
Jonah went out of the city and sat down to watch. Maybe God would still toast them and
he wanted a good seat. I can’t say that the thought hasn’t occurred to me. SO he waited
for God to drop the hammer on them.

Now while Jonah was doing this, God was already showing mercy to Nineveh. The
hammer wasn’t dropping. He also showed mercy to Jonah by bringing a vine to shade
him from the hot sun. He also brought Jonah a lesson because the next day he killed the
vine.

When Jonah got upset about the dead vine, it was time for the lesson.

Jonah 4
9
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.” 10Then the
LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work
and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished
overnight. 11“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which
there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between
their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

So Jonah, if I’m supposed to show mercy to you, and you’re all worried about this vine…
What about the 120,000 people in that city? Shouldn’t I be worried about them more
than your vine?

We all love mercy when we get it. We even love mercy when our friends get it. But if
we truly love mercy, if we truly enjoy seeing God’s forgiveness at work, we’ll enjoy it
when our enemies get it.

What if the King had pardoned Haman in the story last week, instead of hanging him
from the gallows he built for Mordecai?

Maybe you have an enemy in your life, a Haman, who is as much in need of mercy as
you are. I have an enemy in my life who has a hard heart that needs to be broken by
Jesus Christ. He needs mercy. I need to want that for him.

Maybe you have someone in your life who has hurt you badly. God wants you to pray
for mercy for that person, your enemy. God may want you to be part of his plan for
redeeming that person.

When Jesus was being crucified, he prayed “Father forgive them.” You can be a Jonah,
or you can follow Jesus. I’ve decided to follow Jesus.