Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

[This is part two of a series on the Book of Jonah. See part 1 and part 3 here].

It is easy for us to grow angry at the injustices in our world and the workers of iniquity who carry them out as their full-time “jobs” (e.g., Pharaoh’s law enforcement officers who have signed up to use violence to get men to obey the kings’ decrees). Those who understand the libertarian ethics of God are bound to experience righteous indignation at what they see around them in our statist society, and even let it get the best of them sometimes. Sometimes we may wish to see our enemies destroyed by God. They would certainly be deserving of it. 

In my last article on Jonah, I tried to show how often we forsake God’s calling to preach His word to people and how we can find the courage to do so in a world that’s hostile to the truths of the scriptures. This was Jonah’s first problem. But there’s another lesson we can learn from the traits of Jonah that could be applied to those who wish to see all the statists punished for their sins more than they would like to see them turn from their old wicked ways.

As evil as the men who rule over us are, it is the will of God that they repent and turn from their ways rather than that they be destroyed. As God told one of His prophets,

“Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezekiel 33:11).

God is always calling on wicked men (eg., state rulers and their servants) to turn from their wicked ways, rather than wishing that they be destroyed.

“Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

Though God always plans to destroy all statist societies, as they are all raised up in rebellion to Him, in His mercy He will also pardon those who repent and turn from their ways.

“At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed. / But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring” (Jeremiah 18:7-8).

Those who make God out to be some evil, unrelenting tyrant for punishing wicked statist systems as ours that refuse to repent and deserve every bit of judgment that comes down on them always leave out His merciful character — the side of God that “is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9) and “who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Our typically hard-headed people

Before destroying anyone, God, in His mercy, sends forth prophets to warn people of the consequences for their evil. If you want to worship kings, for example, you should expect to get absolutely plundered by them (1 Samuel 8). In most of these stories, the people never learn. 

“From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again. Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers” (Jeremiah 7:25-26).

This is much like our people today, who don’t want to admit to the evils and recognize the sinful nature of statism, but want to remain in their idolatry and ignorance. We point out the evils of statism—worshiping the rulers, apologizing for their violence, joining in their evils for a paycheck, cheering on their wars, trusting in men rather than God for protection, singing their national anthems, voting for these thieves and murderers—and yet “they have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent” (Jeremiah 5:3). 

God’s word warns people of the evils that necessarily—as part of God’s causal law—result from the sin of statism, and still men “have returned to the sins of their forefathers who refused to obey My words. They have followed other gods to serve them” (Jeremiah 11:10). 

Even though God gives the warning and tells us how to live (i.e., freely among one another), men most often refuse to obey God’s word and, therefore, fail to avoid the destruction of their violence-based (i.e., statist) societies. 

“This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’ But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing. They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of Hosts. And just as I had called and they would not listen, so when they called I would not listen, says the LORD of Hosts. But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation” (Zechariah 7:9-14).

These stubborn, unrepentant people’s inability to humble themselves—say, to give up their foolish and prideful “patriotism” and worship of Pharaohs—invites destruction of themselves and their societies.  As one scripture says, “A man who remains stiff-necked after much reproof will suddenly be shattered beyond recovery” (Proverbs 29:1). 

The exception in the Book of Jonah

Nineveh, however, the subject-kingdom of Jonah’s prophesy, did something that most people don’t do when a prophet comes along and shows them, e.g., that statism is idolatry is sin is the path of destruction: They repented! When Jonah prophesied their destruction (Jonah 3:4), “the Ninevites believed God” (Jonah 3:5). The “king of Nineveh…got up from his throne, took off his royal robe” (Jonah 3:6) and told his people, 

“Let each one turn from his evil ways and from the violence in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:8-9). 

He was right. 

“When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them” (Jonah 3:10). 

Jonah’s anger

But Jonah wasn’t happy about this decision to relent from destroying what was, to be sure, an exceptionally evil society. He became angry with God for deciding upon mercy for the people of Nineveh when they repented upon hearing his prophesying, rather than continue in their ways and be punished, because he wanted to see them destroyed instead. Upon seeing God relent in destroying them, “Jonah…was greatly displeased, and he became angry” (Jonah 4:1). Jonah thought he knew better than God what should be done with a people who he wanted to see burn. God disagreed and showed His mercy.

Jonah hoped God would destroy them. And he was excited to see it done. He even set up a lookout point to watch the expected fireworks show. “Jonah left the city and sat down east of it, where he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city” (Jonah 4:5). God raised up something as unimportant (relative to a city of humans) as a vine to protect him from the sun, which Jonah was happy to have provided to him (Jonah 4:6). Then he took it away and Jonah was angry again (Jonah 4:7-9). 

God exposed Jonah’s hypocrisy: Having no concern about a city of fools, yet thinking that God owed him a shade tree that should not (compared to the city) wither way. 

“The LORD said, ‘You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in the night. So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?” (Jonah 4:10).

Moral of the story

We should not wish destruction upon ourselves and others, but nor should we forsake our duty to tell people when they are on the road to serfdom, as our statist society is today, and that this road is one of God rendering judgment and justice against such evils. This was partly Jonah’s problem. As one teller of the story said, “He wished Nineveh to die in its sins, and not to turn to God and live” (Marshall, Wonder Book of Bible Stories). 

We need to do better than Jonah, who first ran from his duty to prophesy against the evil, and then set up camp in anticipation of God destroying them. What kind of Christian would want men to stay unrepentant? We should know that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). 

It’s often hard to see something wrong with praying to God for the destruction of these tyrants who have taken up “jobs” to oppress us at our own expense. This sentiment is common in the psalmists’ calls to God for aid. “Cut off my enemies. Destroy all who afflict me” (Psalm 143:12). 

But if we wanted to do better than that and truly show the spirit working within us, we would call for the Lord to transform these men and bring them to repentance, to show them of their evil ways, and make them turn from the path of darkness that they had found themselves walking in. 

This is rare, to be sure, as we have seen the many cases of people refusing to hear God’s prophets in the scriptures. Most of Pharaoh’s agents who “make laws” and enforce them do so proudly and with great commendation for their “service” from family, friends, and other fools. And when they retire, they sit around and comfortably collect payments from taxpayers for their decades of plundering God’s people. They convince themselves that they worked for the “public good” or “public safety” as they spent their careers bringing in money for their earthly kings and taking men captive for Nebuchadnezzar’s dungeons, say, for not registering their property with the king of getting his permission slip to travel.

But we must always hold out hope that, with the grace of God, some men will truly repent for their evils. Let us pray that even more of Satan’s agents, as well as those who worship them, will realize the evils they have taken part in and have the ability to admit that they were wrong their whole lives. It’s so hard to admit that you were fooled for most of your life, that most people decide its safer to remain in their ignorance than admit they were lost souls who had forsaken the truth in God’s word.  

God is always calling His people back home, if only men would listen and hear the call. Those who have served the state plunder system can always repent and return to God. They can say, “I considered my ways and turned my steps to Your testimonies” (Psalm 119:59). Everyone of us, at all times, should say, “let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD” (Lamentations 3:40). 

Prayer 

Lord God, if You would hear us for just a minute here. Our people are so stupid, lost, and consumed by pride and the false teachings of men that they have stopped up their ears to the things we have to say. They’ve been manipulated by the evil one into partaking in his system of political violence, which they have been tricked into believing is the source of social order. They approve of most of the evils before them and barely see anything wrong with our world, which they think is the height of freedom and civilization. And they don’t even know any better. They’re so consumed by the darkness and so out of touch with Your word that they are out voting on Pharaohs, worshiping his agents as they beat us on the side of the road, and clamoring for his military to go crush some more fake enemies across the world. Destroy us if You must, if it’s Your plan. We would deserve it. Punish the wicked if it pleases You, and save us from their oppression. But please consider that our people are insanely hard-headed and ignorant as they have always been, and soften their hearts instead if You can. Remember Your remnant. Keep our hearts gentle enough to teach others of their evils. Please let us be tactful enough that we don’t drive the idolaters into greater sin and close-mindedness. Help us learn how to show others their follies in a way that helps them to realize the truth. Help us fall back on Your word when we do it. Make them listen to what we have to tell them, and for them to see that it comes from You. We’ll keep doing what we can to wake others up from the great sins of statism. Bear with us, Lord. Bring our brothers to Your word and allow them to give up their hearts of stone for a heart of flesh again. Because they have utterly rejected You, and it would be no surprise if You were fed up with what our people are doing down here. Amen.