We had a good time yesterday
with Kelly's and with Megan and I think we had some good services
and Elsa Beth said to tell everybody
hello. I'm using great liberty. She
actually sucked on a pacifier and did this. But I took it as
meaning, tell everybody hello. Jonah chapter 4, the last time
we were here, we left with Jonah sitting on a hill outside of
Nineveh, mad because God had shown Nineveh grace. And we begin here in verse 6
of Jonah chapter 4 with, and the Lord God. This is the first
time in the book of Jonah that this name is used, the Lord God. The name Lord is the same with
Jehovah, Jehovah God. And this name together combined
with God, Lord God. is expressive of His being and
His perfections. And in our text, it has a particular
significance to His eternality and His immutability. It has
a particular reference to the fact that He is the covenant
God. The covenant God. So here in
Jonah 4, verse 6, it says, And the Lord God provided something. He always provides that which
His children need. The Lord God prepared a gourd
and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over
his head to deliver him from his grief. So first we see the
Lord God gives Jonah a gourd. Now Jonah has no idea that this
gourd is not so much to to deliver him from the grief of the sunshine,
but from the grief that he's experienced due to his anger,
due to his sin, because God showed mercy and grace to none of them.
The faithful covenant fathers preparing to deliver Jonah from
a captivity of sin and his members from which Jonah has absolutely
no power of delivering himself. You know, in Ephesians chapter
2, it says, God's workmanship. Let me get you to turn over there.
Ephesians chapter 2. In verse 10. For we are His workmanship. The believer is God's workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. And these good works or those
which God hath before ordained or prepared that we should walk
in them." You mean the good works that
I do, God prepared them beforehand for me to walk in them? He sure
did. He ordained beforehand that we
would perform the good works that He's given for us to perform.
So we see here with Jonah how that the faithful father is not
going to allow His children to continue in the captivity of
sin because He's ordained good works for them to walk in. There's
a work. We're going to end this study
and this message today by showing you a good work that God had
before ordained that Jonah would perform. And He's going to perform
it. And God's grace is going to prepare
him for the work that God has ordained that he shall walk in. We'll see that. So Jonah, verse
6, it says, he's exceedingly glad of the goer. Jonah was exceedingly
glad of the goer. Now notice here, Jonah was not
exceedingly glad of the Lord God. It doesn't say that. We read nothing that says Jonah
was exceedingly glad that the Lord showed him this grace after
all his angry rebellion. Or that Jonah's glad that the
Lord asked him the question, do you wail to be angry, Jonah?
Jonah's glad for this gourd, this temporal thing. Because
it's providing him with a temporary ease, a temporary satisfaction
from the Son. Are we glad for what we get from
God? Or are we glad for the Lord God? Think about that. Are we glad
of what we get from Him? Or are we glad for Him? Our religion
is not for selfish gain. God's Spirit makes sinners glad
not only for temporal blessings, we're thankful for them. But
more than that, we're thankful for the Lord God who gave them
by His covenant grace. He's our blessing. He's our chief
blessing. And remember, whenever we come
into any kind of occasion, whether we deem it a good experience
or bad experience, we ought to watch and look and see and wait
to learn, what is it that the Lord is teaching me? What is
it that I'm learning from this? Right now, all Jonah sees is
a gourd and it's protecting him from the sun. You know, he probably
has this thought in his mind, he probably thinks, just like
we all do, he's gone out there and he's fled, and he's angry,
and he's sat on that hill, and he's just sitting there watching
to see what'll happen to Nineveh. And this gourd comes up over
his head to protect him from the sun. And he probably thinks, have
you ever, in our rebellion, we ever done anything and thought,
well, the Lord is sure blessing me, We blame a lot of things on the
Lord. The Lord's blessing him alright,
but it is in no way in the manner in which Jonah thinks the Lord's
blessing him. And it says, next, God graciously
gives a worm. Verse 7. But God prepared a worm,
and when the morning rose the next day, it smoked the gourd
that it withered. Jonah had just began to enjoy
this gourd And it was in the temporary ease that it gave him
and God took it away from him The Lord yields and the Lord
takes away at his discretion when he's pleased to do so and
yet this does not mean just like it didn't mean that God was blessing
Jonah because of what he had done when he put the gourd there
and It didn't mean that God's love for Jonah had changed because
he took the gourd away. God's love for Jonah hadn't changed. All is for Jonah's good. And
then God graciously sends something else, a violent wind to beat
up on Jonah's head. Verse 8, And it came to pass
that when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement
east wind And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah. So much so,
he fainted and wished in himself to die. And he said, it's better
for me to die than to live. You know, before when Jonah fled,
the Lord sent out a wind into the sea. Now he prepares a violent
east wind. Before the Lord used waves to
beat upon that ship Jonah was in. Now the Lord uses the sun
to beat upon Jonah's head. The Lord uses His sovereign power
to break our hard, obstinate, rebellious hearts. And then finally,
the Lord asked Jonah the same question He asked before. Verse
9, God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And Jonah said, I do well to
be angry even unto death. And Jonah answered the same.
I do well to be angry even unto death. Back up there in Jonah
4, verse 1. Jonah is angry because of the
change that God wrought in Nineveh. And here, in this text, Jonah
is angry for the change wrought in the gourd. Back up in Jonah
4, verse 3. Jonah beseeched the Lord to take
his life from him, saying, it's better for me to live than to
die, because he was mad because of what God did in Nineveh, saving
a multitude of people. Here, he says the same thing
because he's mad because God took Gord away from him. Back
in Jonah 4, the Lord asked Jonah, do you do well to be angry for
Nineveh? And here the Lord asked him,
do you do well to be angry for this Gord? I think it's safe
to say the Lord's using this Gord to teach Jonah a lesson
about what he's done in Nineveh. So what's the lesson? Well, first
of all, If salvation were in any way dependent upon me or
you, upon man, we would save based on selfish motives and
selfish gain and not by the free, unmerited, unearned, unalterable
favor called grace. Verse 10. Then said the Lord,
Thou hast had pity on the gourd. Why'd Jonah have pity on the
gourd? Why'd he desire to have this gourd saved, because the
gourd benefited Jonah. Why was Jonah angry at the change
wrought in Nineveh, that God granted this whole large city
repentance? Because in Jonah's eyes, Nineveh's
repentance and faith didn't benefit Jonah. Here's the point. Man has gone
away backwards in sin. And the things that we tend to
value most are usually worthless to God. They're just worthless. And yet what we tend to esteem
lightly is usually of much value to God. By nature, we're simply backwards
from the righteous judgment of God. Jonah would have saved the
gourd and let Nineveh perish. God said of the gourd, it came
up in a night and it perished in a night. It's worthless. It's
nothing. But He said of Nineveh, it was
a great city wherein were more than six score thousand persons
that couldn't discern between their right hand and their left
hand and also much cattle. He said, it's worth something
to me. That gourd's not worth anything.
In our way, in our thoughts, we think something like the gourd
is of much value because it benefits me. But that city Nineveh is
not valuable because it just don't please me that they repented
and are saved. This is an example. Look over
at Isaiah 55.8. This is an example right here. It illustrates this text in Isaiah
55.8 very well. just exactly what the Lord meant
when He said, here in verse 8, He says, For My thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the
Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My
thoughts than your thoughts. That's a good example of that.
Let's be glad that God saves apart from our way and our will
and our works and our polluted desires And he does it by grace
his way That's a good thing Well, here's another lesson if it's
God's glory to save Whom he will it's God's glory to save whom
he will verse 11 He asked the question back in chapter 4, verse
11. He asked the question, and should
not I spare Nineveh? Should not I spare Nineveh? You
see, God may save one in a city like He saved Lot that was in
Sodom. And He may not bring another
one out. Whether we like it or not, God
has to make us like it. But whether we like it or not,
There was one man, one man saved in that whole city called Sodom.
And God would not destroy that city until He brought that one
man out of that city. There was eight people in the
days of Noah that were put into the ark. And Noah alone is the
only one that found grace in the eyes of God. But there were
eight people out of that whole world that were saved. And where
were they saved? In the Ark, in Christ. It's where
God put them and saved them. But there was a multitude more.
He may save all from the least to the greatest like He did in
Nineveh, if He's pleased to do so. He may save a bondman, one
that has just been a prisoner in the offscouring of mankind. like He did the thief
on the cross. Or He may save somebody that
we look at and regard as being a mighty religious holy man like
Saul of Tarsus. But regardless of who it is that's
saved, it's God's right as God. That's His name. His glory, His
very glory, when He showed Moses His glory, He said, I'll make
My name to pass before you, and I'll make all My goodness to
pass before you. The very thing that He declared
is, I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. I will save
whom I will save. That's the only way that sinners
are going to be brought to cry out for mercy. That's the only
way sinners are going to be brought to cry out for mercy. That's
why it says, if it's of grace, it's no more of works. And if
it's of works, it's no more of grace. There can't be a mingling
of the two. Because if there is, brethren,
what does it say? For we would boast. If we could
come to this place today, and we could look into this Scripture
ourselves, and we could come to a mental ascent of it ourselves,
And you walked up to me yourself after this service and said,
I want to be baptized. I want to follow the Lord. And
you turned around and you went right back out into the world.
And your whole confidence in everything you did is because
You came to this place, you looked into this word, you said, I believe
it. You said, I want to be baptized.
And there's no continuation. There's no continuing to be sold
out to Christ and to love Christ and to bow to Christ and to follow
Christ and to love your brethren. You would go through life patting
yourself on the back and saying, boasting, well I'm saved. I know
I'm saved because here's why, here's what I did. And therefore
God says salvation's not that way. Because that's what we'll
do, we'll boast. He said salvation is by grace. Salvation is according to God's
mercy. It's according to God coming
to a sinner that deserves nothing but eternal separation from God
and withholding that from him, that mercy. And it's him coming
to a sinner who deserves nothing but eternal separation from God
and giving that sinner all the blessings of heaven's glory,
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus the Lord. A perfect standing with God.
That's something we don't deserve. Mercy is God holding from us
what we do deserve, and grace is God giving us what we don't
deserve. And that's how God saves. And
He does it for whomsoever He will. It's His mercy to give. It's His grace to give. And we
can't reply against it. Who are we to reply against it?
Not only are we sinners, but before even that, who are we
to reply against Him? Can the thing formed say to Him
that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? It's not just simply
the fact that we're sinners and we're despicable and abominable
in God's sight outside of Christ that we can't question Him, but
the very fact that God makes what He wants to make And he
does with what he's made, whatever he'll do with what he's made.
Don't we all do that? If I came to your house, and
I took something that's yours, and I said, I don't like how
you're using this. I'm going to take it and use it another
way. You'd yank a knot in my rear end and say, no, that's
mine. I'm going to do with it what
I want to do with it. Don't we do that? Well, can the thing
form? say unto him that formed it?
Anything? Can we question him? We can't
question him at all. That's what God says to Jonah
here. He said, Jonah, I made the goad. I made it. It came up in a night. It withered in a night. Here's
this city, Nineveh, with all these people in it. Can I do
with it what I please? Can I do with the gourd what
I please? It's mine. I made it. I'll do with it what
I please. That's what God teaches. That's
what God teaches you and I as believers over and over and over
again. And then, here's the number three lesson. God's going to
receive all the glory in saving sinners. Are these lessons too
simple? Are they too simple? This is the Gospel. He's going
to receive all the glory in saving sinners. The Lord says to Jonah
in verse 10, You had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast
not labored, neither madest it grow. The gourd was prepared
by God. The gourd grew by God. It was
given by God. Though Jonah didn't deserve any
favor, God made it to cover Jonah from the sun. And so when God
took the gourd away, Jonah couldn't say a word. He had nothing to
do with it. He had nothing to do with the
work of creating it or making it. And then in verse 11, he
says there again, And should not I spare Nineveh? The Lord's
saying, I made the gourd grow, I'll remove it. Should not I
spare Nineveh? I did all the work, Jonah. I
did everything. None of them that city there
was there and existed because I made it to grow I prepared
it put it there made said it right there where it's at I Sent you to that city Not with
your word with my word God said to tell them to repent from not
my work repent from their works to me God said And God said,
I gave them repentance, and I gave them faith to believe on me.
So Jonah, who did the work? Doest thou well to be angry?
I'm going to get the glory for it. You're not going to get any
glory for this, Jonah. You might as well stop trying.
You can sit there and pat on that heel all you want to, but
I'm going to get the glory for this thing, Jonah. We've seen through this whole
series of studies in this book, in eternity, Jodah's name means
the dove, the son of truth. God chose the dove, the son of
truth, the Lord Jesus Christ, his son. And God gave the commission,
just like He did Jonah back in chapter 1. And He said, Arise
and go to this wicked Nineveh. That's what God's commandment
was to His Son. Go to this wicked place called
Urk, this wicked Nineveh. And God came in the person of
His Son and He cried against our wickedness. And in the storm of God's wrath,
the Lord Jesus willingly said, take me up and cast me forth
and so the sea shall be calm unto them. In the agonies of suffering,
the righteous servant of God was proven throughly, throughly,
completely, thoroughly faithful and righteous before God. We
saw that in chapter 3, or chapter 2. And then God raised Christ Jesus
again for our justification, declaring to the whole world,
like He did when He put Jonah out on that dry land, that salvation's
of the Lord. That's the type there. That's
the picture that's being shown to us through the whole book.
And we saw in Nineveh how that God's grace is to choose one
wicked city out of all these heathen nations, and all the
cities in those nations, He chose one city, Nineveh. One city,
Nineveh. And there He sent His Word. They
had been rebellious for years and years and years. That city
was huge. It was vast. It took years to
build that city. And yet through all their rebellion,
and all their hatred for God, and all their anger against God,
and all their rejection of God, and all their idolatry in worshiping
the God of their imagination, God was long suffering with them. Why? Because He wasn't willing
that not a one of them perish. Does that mean God's not willing
that anybody in this whole world perish? Nope. It means God's
not willing that any that He put in His Son and determined
to save shall perish. And because He's not willing,
they're not going to perish. Nineveh was a chosen city. Nineveh
was a city set apart from the other cities. Nineveh was a city
where the people were put in Christ before the foundation
of the world. Nineveh was a city chosen of God out of all these
other cities. And God was not willing that
that city should perish. The longsuffering of God, brethren,
That's mercy from God. The long-suffering of God is
what leads a man to repentance. If we're going to be brought
to repentance, it's going to be because in all of our rebellion and all
of our carrying on and all of our rejecting God, God was long-suffering
and forbear with us until the day that He sent forth His prophet
with His Word and made Christ's life in us. And it was all this great kindness
of God that spared Nineveh from destruction. And then we saw
what God does working to keep His children through this whole
book. When we flee in rebellion, God sends a storm. It doesn't
have to be a wind. It doesn't have to be a literal
storm. It's some kind of storm. It's
something that beats against these earthen vessels that brings
us to see that we're going to perish if we don't cast ourselves
on Him. When we sleep in rebellion, when
we're just sleeping and enjoying our rebellion, God sends somebody
to us and says, Awake thou sleeper! What meanest thou? When we see the waves of God's
wrath, His chastening hand coming upon us, God uses some vessel
of mercy, usually somebody that we least likely expect for Him
to use. Like He used those fishermen,
those heathen fishermen that didn't care a thing in the world
about God or know anything about God or know who He was. And He
used those very ones to ask Jonah and say, why have you done this? Jonah told them all about his
God and how gracious his God was and how wonderful his God
was and they said, why on earth did you flee from him? And God uses somebody like that
to speak a word in season and it just takes us from the flying
high as a kite to just pokes holes all in us and we just come
right back down to the ground. And when God brings us low in
chastening, He provides. He reveals to us that He provided
the deliverance. He is the deliverance. Just like
He provided the whale, He prepared a fish. All along we see every
time God turns Jonah, He turns him from himself to what God
has prepared for him. God had before ordained that
he should walk in good works. Guess what Jonah's going to do?
He's going to walk in good works. And you know what the good works
are? He gonna continue in Christ. That's first and foremost what
it is. He's not gonna turn away from Christ. Sin shall not have
dominion over him anymore because Christ freed him. He's free.
Christ is his surety. And he's delivered him from the
dominion. And God's not gonna let him perish. God's not gonna
let him turn. God's gonna keep him. And he's
going to do, there's a good work God ordained for Jonah, and it
was to go to Nineveh and preach the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace. And God did all of those things,
and allowing him to rebel, and bringing him down, and preparing
a fish to deliver him, and prepared him for the work that God had
before ordained that he would walk in. And guess what Jonah
did? He went to Nineveh and preached
the gospel. There's another good work that God has ordained that
John is going to do too. And John is going to do it. John
is going to do it. His unofferable grace comes to
his people a second time and a third time and over and over
and over throughout all our lives. Continually, continually, continually
revealing in us that Christ is all. And then when we see, then when
we have somebody come to our door and knock on our door. And
there's some poor person that don't have any food, that don't
have any clothing, that don't have anything at all. And you
look at that person. And you know what God's grace
makes a believer see when he looks at that person? That's
me. I'm the beggar. I'm the one who
came naked Nothing, nothing to clothe myself with. I came hungry. Are you hungry? And God didn't
turn me away. He didn't say go be filled, be
warmed and turn me away. You know what he did? He clothed
me in the garments of Christ's perfect righteousness. He fed
me with the bread from heaven and said you'll never hunger
again, my son. And so when you see that one
come and he comes to your door, you know what you're going to
do? Because God has before prepared, He's before ordained you to do
it because He's shown you what you are and what He's done for
you and how He saved you freely by His grace. You know what you're
going to do? You're going to say, come in here where it's
warm. Let me fix you something to eat. Here, I got a Coke for
you. Put this on and warm up. And while you have the opportunity,
tell Him about how you was in that same shape. Give Him some
spiritual food. Give Him some spiritual clothing.
Not just temporal. Isn't that continuing in the
perfect law of liberty? Isn't that showing mercy? Isn't
that showing grace? Not because we're trying to obtain
mercy and grace, but because God's shown us nothing but mercy
and grace. Oh, Jonah, this is a good book
right here. And He causes us to rejoice because
in His dear Son, the sea has ceased from her raging. He's
brought us, and He's brought us from our life of corruption.
He's delivered us to the banks of heavenless glory, to the shore
of heavenless glory. And He's shown us salvations
of the Lord. We looked at Psalm 130 yesterday
when we were up in Plymouth. And the message, it just struck
my heart when I read it, which I believe it's David that wrote
it, I don't know, but I think it is. And he said, if thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who could stand? That's where
sinners got to be brought to, to see if the Lord marks your
iniquity, you can't stand. But there's forgiveness with
thee. Why? Why is there forgiveness with
God? That thou mayest be feared, reverenced, submitted to, bowed
to, worshipped, honored, glorified by a sinner. That's why God forgives. That we may fall on our face
and say, thank you, Lord. Thank you. Well, let's wrap this
up. Is God's labor, is His work,
is it ever in vain? You don't think God will correct
His children and make His children not stand corrected, do you?
There's two lessons I see in this book. The chief two lessons
of the whole book. Really three. And we looked at
these three points in the message. It's in chapter 2, verse 7. Not
until God brings our soul to faint within us will we remember
the Lord. And when He does, our prayer
will go to Him. into His holy sanctuary because
He shuts up all of the options for us. The second primary lesson
in this book is verse 8 of chapter 2. They that observe lying vanities,
any other Jesus, any other gospel, any other salvation that's not
totally, completely wrapped up in the full, sufficient glory
of God and God alone and His grace, God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit, it's a lying vanity. I don't
care if it's the treasure of this earth, and riches, I don't
care if it's religion and the treasure we find in religion
or in philosophy, it don't matter what shape, form, or fashion
it is, anything that is not wrapped up in God and He gets all the
glory, it's a lying vanity. And to go to it, we forsake our
own mercy. He's mercy. And the third chief
lesson is verse 9, therefore, salvations of the Lord. That's
what Psalm 130 said. If He marks iniquities, who should
stand? When my soul fainted, I realized
I'm observing lying vanities. When I came to Him, I realized
there's forgiveness with Him. And the reason He did all that
and showed me all that is that I might go on the rest of my
days fearing Him, reverencing Him. Well, I kept telling you,
that there's something else that God had for Jonah that He had
prepared before, ordained before that Jonah would walk in, that
Jonah would do, a good work that Jonah would do. Look down at
verse 11. This book ends and it says, Should
not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six
score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand
and their left hand, and also much cattle?" It ends with a
question to Jonah. It ends with a question to Jonah.
Well, where's the answer? Did Jonah learn the lesson? Did
Jonah understand what God taught him? The answer is the book of
Jonah. Jonah wrote the book. Everything
God did prepared him to write this book. God had to send him through much
trial to prepare him to record. He didn't cloak his ugly sin. He wrote it all out there. He
laid it all out there so that he might show you how gracious
God is in spite of us Jonahs. He, you know why Jonah did that?
You know why he sat down and wrote this and wrote it? Gave
an autobiography just down to the letter. You know why he did
it? Because he loved God and he loved his brethren. And he
loved those that God was going to use this, his writing to call
out. And he said, if I got to write
down every last worthless speck of nothing that I am, I'm going
to put it in here so that they'll see salvation by God's grace.
It don't have nothing to do with me. It's all of God's grace. The answer to that question is
the book of Jonah. All right.