{"id":33598,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-your-enemy-prospers\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"when-your-enemy-prospers","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-your-enemy-prospers\/","title":{"rendered":"When Your Enemy Prospers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18896.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">When\nYour Enemy Prospers<\/span><\/h2><p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">by Bruce Larson<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">God spares Nineveh, and Jonah is\nangry. He said: God, I knew you&#8217;d do that. That&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t go, because I know\nyou&#8217;re gracious and forgiving, and you forgive sins. I knew it, and you did it.\nNow let me die.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Think of the one person or family\nor group of people in the world or the land that you hate the most. Think of\nyour ultimate enemy at this moment in your life.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">&quot;Ah,&quot; you say,\n&quot;but I&#8217;m a Christian. I don&#8217;t hate anybody!&quot; God bless you. If you\ndon&#8217;t hate anybody, I&#8217;ll give you a second choice. Think of the person you love\nthe least. Some of you say, &quot;I&#8217;m a Christian. I love everybody.&quot;\nOkay, that&#8217;s pretty neat. Number three then: Think of the person you <em>like<\/em>\nthe least. You&#8217;ve got to answer that one. Or if you can&#8217;t answer that one, who\nis the person or group you fear the most?<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The point is, I want you to think\nof the person you know is your enemy, the person who does not mean you well,\nthe person who has no done you well. Think of that person right now\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyour enemy.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Suppose you had it in your power\nto help that person or that group of people to prosper enormously, spiritually\nand materially. If it were in your power, would you do it? Or if without your\nhelp they prospered, how would you feel right now if this enemy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis group of\npeople or this person\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsuddenly flourished spiritually, were healed, were\nabundantly blessed financially?<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now you understand Jonah&#8217;s situation.\nHe did bless those people, and they did prosper and respond.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">&quot;Love your enemies&quot; is\nso clear all through the New Testament. We see it here in the Old, but also in\nthe New Testament\u00e2\u20ac\u201din the fulfillment of God&#8217;s gracious plan for our lives\nthrough Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit, the wind and the fire, God in us and\nwith us right now. Over and over again it says &quot;love your enemies&quot;\u00e2\u20ac\u201da\nclear command.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Never mind liking them. The\ncommand is not to like your enemies, because you can&#8217;t do that. Liking is involuntary.\nYou can&#8217;t control who you enjoy being with. If you go to a certain dinner party\nand you&#8217;re bored or angry or resentful, you can&#8217;t help that. But love is an\nact, and Jesus says anybody can love anybody they choose to, because love means\nyou work for that person&#8217;s well being. You can love your enemies. You can&#8217;t\nlike your enemies, so forget liking.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">But if we love them, we will\ncause them to prosper through our prayers or maybe through some direct\nintervention, or maybe, like Jonah, a witness. He simply stands among his\nenemies, and he says, &quot;Listen, God doesn&#8217;t like what you&#8217;re doing.\nChange!&quot; and they changed. His witness is used by God to bless his\nenemies. If we are faithful and obedient like Jonah, God will bless our enemies\nthrough us.<\/span><\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">God blesses our enemies with his grace<\/h2><p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">What we are dealing with here,\nfriends, is the grace of God. Jonah is confronted in no place more clearly in\nthe Old Testament than right here. The New Testament abounds in it, but in the\nOld it&#8217;s as clear as in the New Testament. In &quot;Oh for a Thousand Tongues\nto Sing,&quot; the first line is about the glories of God&#8217;s grace. I wish I had\na thousand tongues to sing my awe and wonder and gratitude for the revealed\ngrace of God.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Think now about your enemies.\nThink of the prodigal son and the elder brother. Who is the enemy to the elder\nbrother who stays home, works the farm, is dutiful, is moral, is obedient to\nthe father? It&#8217;s the younger brother, who goes off and squanders in riotous and\ndebauched living his half of the inheritance and then comes home and wants to\nshare in what&#8217;s left. To the elder brother, the enemy is the younger, prodigal\nson. Could the elder brother bless him? No. He did not. The tragedy of that\nstory is not that the younger one stayed lost; he comes home. The elder grinds\nhis teeth and is angry; he could not bless his enemy.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Think of that incredible story of\nthe laborers in the vineyard, in which a man goes out and hires a bunch of\nworkers, and each hour of the day as he finds more unemployed, he hires them.\nAt the end he pays them all the same wage, and the ones who worked all day for\na <em>fair<\/em> wage said, &quot;This is not fair that those who came one hour\nfrom closing time get the same wage that we get. We don&#8217;t like your grace. It&#8217;s\nterrible. Don&#8217;t do that.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">We see something of what our\njudgment is. In our Lord&#8217;s prayer every Sunday (and every day in your private\ndevotions, I hope) we pray, &quot;Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our\ndebtors.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Who is our enemy, our Nineveh, as\na nation? I suppose Iran comes as close as anybody. How would we feel about a\ngreat spiritual blessing and great financial prosperity in Iran? It would test\nus, wouldn&#8217;t it? In the Christian Conciliation Service they say to the two\nChristian parties, &quot;Is it so important that you get your pound of flesh,\nthat you get your due reward, that you make that person pay what he owes you?\nOr can you, for your sake as well as his, forgive and move on with\nliving?&quot; That&#8217;s the grace word as over against the law and the just word.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">&quot;But it&#8217;s his fault!&quot;\nand &quot;He doesn&#8217;t deserve . . .&quot; are the attitudes that undermine our\nunderstanding of and living with God&#8217;s grace in terms of our neighbors.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">But does it matter? If, as I&#8217;ve\ndone, you&#8217;ve lost money invested with a Christian friend, whether he squandered\nthe money, he was evil, or he stupidly went bankrupt, it doesn&#8217;t really matter.\nThe money is gone. For me to say, &quot;Well if he had done . . .&quot; or\n&quot;I think in his heart . . .&quot; or &quot;He was evil or maybe just\nstupid or maybe not a good business person,&quot; is unnecessary. In God&#8217;s eyes\nit doesn&#8217;t matter. He is my enemy; he betrayed my trust. But God says,\n&quot;Forgive. Forgive.&quot; That&#8217;s a hard word for any of us.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jean Anouilh, an amazing writer,\ntalks about the final judgment. He says that all the good people are gathered\naround the gates of heaven, waiting for what has been promised to them as their\nreward from God. The rumor leaks out that God is going to forgive all the other\npeople that weren&#8217;t good. Suddenly there&#8217;s rumbling and anger. People curse God\nfor his stupid way of living, and by so doing, they are lost.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The final judgment is: Can you\nand I forgive those who have no reason to be forgiven? That&#8217;s what this Book of\nJonah is all about, and what the gospel is all about.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Who are your enemies as you were\nthinking about your enemies? I have no trouble thinking about my enemies, but\nif you have trouble, I hope you thought of somebody. Maybe it&#8217;s your parents,\nwho failed you because maybe they died on you when you were born; you never had\na mom or dad. Or maybe they were abusive\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsexually, verbally, emotionally. Maybe\nthey were withholders. Maybe they lied to you and said you were the darling of\nthe universe, and spoiled you\u00e2\u20ac\u201dindulged you\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor real life.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe it&#8217;s an ungrateful and\nrebellious child, a child in whom you poured everything you\nhad\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlove and caring and money and help\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand that child now has done the\nunspeakable and turned on you or betrayed you.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe it&#8217;s a spouse, who\nwithholds his or her love from you, knowing how desperately you need that one\nto hold you and cherish you and care for you when you least deserve it.\nBut he or she doesn&#8217;t. Maybe your enemy is your spouse who cheats on you. Maybe\nyour enemy is your spouse who left you for somebody else.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe your enemy is a friend whom\nyou trusted and who betrayed you, told about you, gossiped about you. Maybe\nyour enemies are political enemies. You believe strongly in certain causes,\ndealing with life, death, abortion, war, whatever, and the people who oppose\nyour  view, your logical view, your godly view, become your\nenemies. Maybe your enemies are theological, ecclesiastic enemies: people in\nthe church who do not call truth what you and I call truth. So we say these\npeople are polluting, diluting the church, and they become our enemies.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Maybe your enemies are\ninternational enemies. You feel strongly about equality; maybe South Africa is\nthe abomination in your sight because of their rigid apartheid and unbending\nways. Maybe it&#8217;s Soviet Russia. Maybe your enemy is either the Contras or the\nSandinistas, depending on your politics.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The amazing thing is that our\nenemies vary. Do you know that in 1982, for example, Iraq, in its bloody war\nwith the Iran, was selling tanks to Iran so Iran could fight them with those\nsame tanks? Iraq captured about 150 Iranian tanks\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAmerican, C\ntanks that we supplied earlier to Iran. But Iraq has a Soviet arsenal and\ncouldn&#8217;t use the tanks. They needed money desperately. Since Iran couldn&#8217;t buy\nany more arms from us, Iraq sold the tanks back to Iran, because they needed\ncash to continue the war! Maybe that&#8217;s biblical: you bless your enemies! I\ndon&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s seems strange to me.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Who would the enemy be for the\nsurvivalist? There are hundreds of thousands of them (we know, because they buy\nsurvivalist goods) who have hidden in  places, in caves and bomb\nshelters, in tight little cabins with guns and arms. Hundreds of thousands of\npeople are preparing for nuclear war or a great world depression. They&#8217;ve spent\ntheir life and their savings getting ready.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Suppose it never comes. Won&#8217;t\nthey look foolish? Their enemy then might be the peacemakers, whose existence\nmight signify that the survivalists wasted their lives. It&#8217;s interesting\nto think who your enemy might be. <\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">I was saddened recently, as you\nwere, to read in a feature story in the newspaper that our\ncasualties in Vietnam were 58,000 dead, but there have been 75,000\nV&#8217; suicides since the war\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmore than our casualty list. Who is\nthe enemy? Is it us\u00e2\u20ac\u201dour attitude? I don&#8217;t know, but there is some enemy out\nthere, stalking our beloved Vietnam veterans.<\/span><\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Maybe\nthe enemy for you are the people who make illogical demands on your\ntime\u00e2\u20ac\u201dinterrupters. If you have a busy job or busy life, people who knock on\nyour door or call you and make demands are the enemy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthose who don&#8217;t know how\nbusy you are.<\/span><\/h2> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">There&#8217;s\na wonderful story that took place years ago in Philadelphia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dW. C. Fields&#8217;s\nleast favorite city. An old couple come into a hotel at 11:00 on\na rainy night and asked for a room. If you were that night clerk,\nyou could say, &quot;Are you crazy! It&#8217;s raining outside, 11:00 at night; you\nhave no reservation. Why are you bothering me? I can&#8217;t help you. We&#8217;re filled\nup.&quot;<\/span><\/h2> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Instead, the night clerk said,\n&quot;We don&#8217;t have any good rooms; they&#8217;re all gone. But I&#8217;ll tell you what: I\nhave a room here. It&#8217;s not much, but I&#8217;ll have Mary, the night housekeeper,\nclean it up and put some flowers in there. Wait here a few moments. I&#8217;m sure\nyou&#8217;ll be comfortable for the night. I hate to send you out in this rainy\nnight.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Mary came back and said,\n&quot;The room is clean.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then the clerk said, &quot;Now\nyou two can go upstairs, and I&#8217;ll have some hot tea sent up for you.&quot;\nThat&#8217;s one way to handle your enemy if they make unreasonable\ninterruptions.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The strange thing is that a year\nand a half later, when the great Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York was built\nand finished, John Jacob Astor, who was the man who with his wife came to the\nhotel that night, said, &quot;I want that night clerk to manage my hotel.&quot;\nYou never know when your enemy might bless you if it&#8217;s an interrupter.<\/span><\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">The blessing of our enemies should cause us to rejoice <\/h2><p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me give you a test for\nspiritual maturity. How do you feel about your Nineveh, that person you have a\nhard time praying for, blessing, or being a blessing for? Do you rejoice in\nthat person&#8217;s blessing? If you do, you have come a long way in the grace of\nJesus Christ. You are extraordinary.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jonah\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis man of God\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddid not\npass the test. Jonah begins this book as a nerd. He rises to greatness and goes\nback full circle to being a nerd again. That&#8217;s <em>my<\/em> story, too. I have\nmoments of greatness. (It&#8217;s kind of hard to believe, but I do.) Then I come\nfull circle back to being a nerd again, and I flunk the test of believing in\ngrace. So the sad thing is, Jonah has become like Nineveh. The scary thing\nabout having enemies is that when you fight them and don&#8217;t wish them well, you\nbecome like the very person you fight. Jonah has become like an unlovely alien\nempire.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">See your enemy through God&#8217;s\neyes. God says to Jonah, &quot;And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city\nin which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their\nright hand and their left?&quot; (Jonah 4:11). That almost sounds contemporary,\ndoesn&#8217;t it? They don&#8217;t know their nose from their elbow. God is saying: Listen,\nif these people knew more or were more or were more healed or had more\n or something, they wouldn&#8217;t have done these dumb things. So can&#8217;t\nyou, along with me, pity your enemy?<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">If your parents had been more,\nthey could have blessed you more. If your friend, your spouse, your boss, had\nbeen more, they could have blessed you more. But they were crippled. They were\nhurting. God is saying, &quot;Listen, they don&#8217;t know their right hand from\ntheir left. Out of their own pain, their ignorance, whatever, they&#8217;re evil.\nThey have hurt you, but now can&#8217;t you, with me, pity them? Can&#8217;t you pity\nthem?&quot; <\/span><\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">When we believe God&#8217;s grace for ourselves and for our enemy, we really live<\/h2><p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The real question is, do you want\nto live? There&#8217;s a very moving story about Sid Caesar, who was the highest paid\nentertainer in America when he was in his twenties. Then barbiturates and\nalcohol got him, and he was off the boards and television screen for a long\ntime. His faithful wife stuck with him, but he says in his own story (a book\nthat was a best seller) that the question came to him alone: <em>Sid, do you\nwant to live or do you want to die?<\/em> And he said, <em>I<\/em><em>want to live! <\/em>And\nthat meant changing his ways.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Spiritually, God is saying,\n&quot;Do you want to live or do you want to die? Do you want to live? Then\nbegin to believe grace for yourself and grace for your enemy.&quot; <\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Clarence Darrow, one of the\n great criminal lawyers, wrote to his fellow lawyers in an article\nentitled &quot;Attorney for the Defense,&quot; and said, &quot;If you want your\nclient to be judged guilty, then fill the jury with Norwegians or northern\nEuropeans. If you want them to be acquitted, fill it with southern Europeans.\nBeware of Lutherans, especially Scandinavian Lutherans; they are almost sure to\nconvict. If you have a Scandinavian Lutheran jury, plead your client\nguilty.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Well, that&#8217;s me. My parents were\nLutherans and Scandinavians. That&#8217;s me! He has observed that for some reason\npeople who come from my ancestors&#8217; part of the world believe more in law than\ngrace. So I&#8217;ve got to work extra hard. Now you people whose roots are in\nsouthern part of Europe have more going for you.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">But the point is, understand this\nis not an easy thing. God is saying, &quot;Do you want to live or do you want\nto die? Then believe in grace. Believe in grace. You don&#8217;t have to like your\nenemies.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">We love our enemy by helping them\nto prosper<\/span><\/strong><\/p><p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">There&#8217;s a wonderful story about\nMr. Johnson, the founder of <em>Ebony Magazine.<\/em> Every year a big advertising\nfirm in Chicago would invite Mr. Johnson to their offices for tea, always for\nBrotherhood Week. One day they&#8217;re there for tea in a big ad exec&#8217;s office. As\nthey&#8217;re leaving, the ad exec puts his arm around Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson\nunwound his arm and stepped back two steps and said, &quot;You know, you don&#8217;t\nhave to love us. Just give us your business.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">God is saying. You don&#8217;t even\nhave to like people, but give them your business. Give them your prayer. Give\nthem your witness. Help your enemy prosper for your own sake.&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">If I die and never preach another\nsermon anywhere, hear this: Don&#8217;t turn down the grace of God, which we see\nfulfilled in Jesus&#8217; life, death, and resurrection, and his Holy\nSpirit. Don&#8217;t turn down the grace of God or deny it to another. That sums up\neverything about the Word of God.<\/span><\/p> <p>The gospel ought to be Jonah 5. Jonah ends with 4,\nobviously, but 5 could be God saying, &quot;Jonah, now you are Nineveh, and I\nwant to forgive you. Go back and forgive your enemies.&quot;<\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">You see, God still loves Jonah\nthe jerk. God is still talking to him. As he forgave Nineveh, he forgave Jonah\nand said: Jonah, don&#8217;t you understand? Try to get it. Love your enemies.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Can you be a Jonah and say,\n&quot;I flunked the test again.&quot; God says: Yes, you did. You will pay\ntwice for that. I won&#8217;t do it to you, but try again, Jonah, a second chance. <\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me close with a story from\nNative American lore. An Indian brave found an eagle&#8217;s egg. Since he couldn&#8217;t\nfind the nest to put it back, he did the  thing: He put the eagle&#8217;s\negg in a nest with prairie chicken eggs. So the eagle was hatched and began to\nlive with the prairie chickens. All it saw were chickens, so it clucked and\nscratched and pecked around and was a chicken for years. And then one day it\nsaw a glorious sight in the sky, a great bald eagle soaring up there. He said,\n&quot;What is that?&quot;<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The chicken said, &quot;That is\nthe eagle, the king of birds. But forget it. That&#8217;s not for you; you are a\nchicken.&quot; And he lived the rest of his life clucking, pecking, and\nscratching, and not flying.<\/span><\/p> <p>Listen, friends: by the grace of God, you and I are called\nto be eagles to soar. That means loving your enemy. That&#8217;s the law and the\ngospel.<\/p>  <p><em><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Bruce Larson is \nof Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. His books include <\/span><\/em><span style=\"\" class=\"\">My Creator, My Friend<em> (Nelson,\n1986).<\/em><\/span><\/p>   <p>(c) Bruce Larson<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Preaching Today Tape # 78<\/h2><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a><\/p><p>A resource of\nChristianity Today International<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1019],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3454,3504,3648,3867,4011,4074,4088,4089,4179,4397,4460,4461],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33598","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-bruce-larson","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-attitude","tax_ctp_tags-blessing","tax_ctp_tags-compassion","tax_ctp_tags-enemy","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-golden-rule","tax_ctp_tags-grace","tax_ctp_tags-grace-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-human-forgiveness","tax_ctp_tags-love-for-enemies","tax_ctp_tags-mercy","tax_ctp_tags-mercy-of-god"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When Your Enemy Prospers - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-your-enemy-prospers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Your Enemy Prospers - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Your Enemy Prospersby Bruce Larson God spares Nineveh, and Jonah is angry. He said: God, I knew you&#8217;d do that. That&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t go, because I know you&#8217;re gracious and forgiving, and you forgive sins. I knew it, and you did it. Now let me die. 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