Good morning. Morning. I don't know why I just put a mint in my mouth, so now
I gotta have that clogged up. Oh, it isn't. Is it? Oh, good.
That's perfect then. All right. Put this on. There we go. All right, brethren. So this
morning, let's go to Jonah. Jonah chapter four. Jonah chapter four. Now, what
we have here in this chapter, broadly speaking, is Jonah's
response to the success of his ministry. And then we see the
Lord's gracious and wise dealings with Jonah because he will restore
him in grace. And you'll understand when you
see Jonah's response. And this is really an account
about repentance, which the Lord works in the heart of his people. We see what the Lord does. even
after he worked repentance in the heart of the Ninevites. And another thing that we actually
see here is the seasons that the Lord brings his people through
to sanctify them, to work that repentance, to restore them in
grace, because it's something that, if we're honest, we know
to be true about ourselves, that we grow cold, indifferent, foolish,
say foolish things, do foolish things, and things that would
make it appear as though we're not believers at all. And we'll
see that with Jonah, and my prayer is that the Lord enable us to
see it in our own hearts and to turn us to the Lord, to give
us a heart and an understanding of these things and to seek the
Lord in what He's doing for us and how He's ministering this
word to us as well. So I've titled this After Repentance,
After Repentance. And the first five verses, we
see Jonah's anger and his response to the success of his ministry,
which is anger. He's very angry, very displeased
at what the Lord has worked in these Ninevites. And then the
latter half of the chapter is the Lord's grace to him. He's very gracious to him. It
afflicts his flesh, but the Lord is very gracious to him in doing
it. It works for Jonah's salvation
and for Jonah's good. So, as I've mentioned here, Jonah
was used of the Lord, and in his ministering and serving the
Lord, the Lord works repentance in the heart of these Ninevites
there. in Assyria. But the response
that we see of Jonah is actually unique to what's recorded in
the scriptures. We may know of men and or true
of our own selves that have been displeased or angry with their
ministries perhaps I don't know but Jonah here is shown to us
as someone who is actually upset that the Lord brought a success
there to his ministry and he's very angry about the fact that
the Ninevites repented and that the Lord does not destroy them.
It says there in Jonah 4 verse 1, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly
and he was very angry. He was very angry, right? I don't
think he's just using these words carelessly. He says, he's telling
us about himself. He was very angry about it. And so one thing that we see
though in this unique description of Jonah is every great servant
whom the Lord raises up and they're just highly esteemed. I mean,
this is a man who's, work is recorded in the scriptures, but
the Lord has his men that he creates and raises up for that
hour, even those that maybe don't fit the mold or what we think
how they should be. I mean, I've read of things that
Martin Luther has said and done, and you think, wow, that's really
crass that he would do those things. And yet he was the man
for that hour, you know, and men that we esteem and think
highly of because of how the Lord used their ministry to minister
grace in our own hearts and turn us from dead, false religion,
men like Pastor Fortner, right? He was considered by many to
be arrogant or Ralph Barnard, right, was considered to be very
intense and in your face about things and yet he was the man
for the hour or Henry Mahan and others, right? So the Lord does
this and these unique trophies of God's grace proved to be a
help to us because really we're all sinners saved in need of
God's grace and mercy toward us. And so when we hear of this
and we've sufficiently considered, my hope is that as you read Jonah
again in the future and as you contemplate this and consider
it well, that you, brethren, find cause for hope and praise
to the Lord when you consider your own weaknesses and your
own failings and and just how gracious the Lord must be for
you. And then not only for yourselves
to give you hope and comfort, but even with our own brethren,
our own brethren who sinned against us and who trouble us or cause
us pain or hurt. And so we remember and hear what
Peter said. You know, shall I forgive my
brethren, Lord, seven times? And he thinks he's saying something
powerful and glorious. And the Lord says, I say not
unto you seven times, but 70 times seven, which is perfection
continually, never ending, right? Never ending. And so Jonah was
very displeased exceedingly and very angry. And we read now in
Jonah four, verses two and three, And he prayed unto the Lord,
and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I
was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto
Tarshish. For I knew that thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of evil. Perhaps you forgot about it,
Lord, but I knew. I knew what I was doing, and
I am justified for what I did. Therefore now, O Lord, take,
I beseech Thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to
die than to live. And we see this, Jonah is actually
literally trying to justify, or not even trying, he's justifying
himself before God. He thinks that he has a standing
here to which he can stand before God and justify his own sin and
rebellion as though he knew something God didn't know, and he's gonna
teach God something that God needs to learn. And we know that
that's not at all what the case is. Jonah actually records it
here as a prayer. He says he prayed and it's a
pretty sad prayer when we think about it and we can't even judge
Jonah because how often have we prayed prayers that are this
jumbled up and messed up and full of foolish words and full
of exasperation and we're not even thankful. to the Lord or
thinking of the Lord rightly. We're just vomiting out things
that are in our heart because we're so troubled and upset about
something. happens. I mean here it is right
here in the Word of God that Jonah is saying these things
and it's not at all the same kind of prayer if you remember
chapter 2 and what he prayed when he was completely overwhelmed
by the billowing waves of God's wrath there in the sea and and
swallowed up and held captive in the belly of the whale, the
belly of hell as it were, the belly of the grave and and he
couldn't free himself. That was a prayer which the Spirit
ministered to him and breathed out for him. And here's a prayer
which appears to just be of the flesh. It's just of the flesh,
and he's just praying. And God was merciful. God could
have struck him dead right then and there, but he didn't. He
didn't. He had a purpose. in being kind
to Jonah. Now, this isn't the, you're probably wondering, well,
what was Jonah so angry about? And I don't necessarily know.
I'll give you a few reasons, potentially, of what Jonah was
angry about. And you can see the validity
in each of these. And perhaps as we go through,
you'll have a more firm belief as to what that is, perhaps,
but I'll go through them. One of the reasons was that it
was for pride. He was angry for pride's sake. He's a prophet of the Lord. And
now, and we know that when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord
and says something's going to come to pass and it doesn't,
what is he called in the scriptures? He's called a false prophet,
right? And so he could be upset about that, because it doesn't
say anywhere that he said, except thou repent, the Lord's going
to destroy you in 40 days. He said that Nineveh is going
to be destroyed by the Lord in 40 days. And now he sees repentance
has worked in the hearts of these people, and he knows God's a
merciful God, and he's not going to destroy them. And so he's
worried about his reputation being tarnished. And then the
other possible reason is that he held a deep hatred for the
Gentiles. The Israelites and the Jews,
they hated the Gentiles. It's likely that Jonah has heard
the word of other prophets in his day, in which he ministered
as well. There was a number of prophets
at any given time. And it was coming out more and
more clearly that the Lord had a purpose in sending light to
the Gentiles. And now Jonah himself is being
used to bring the gospel to Gentiles. And as we saw earlier in, I think,
chapter 1, that indeed the book of Jonah is indeed showing us
that light is coming to the Gentiles for Christ's sake. And then another
third reason is that it actually looks pretty bad for his own
countrymen. He was from the area of Israel
in the day of their great rebellion and idolatry. They didn't have
a single godly king. And it looked very bad. And the
Lord had sent prophets to Israel as well as to Judah, but to Israel. And it looks bad because these
Gentiles in one message, one message from a foreigner, hear
it and they repent. They repent. And his own countrymen
had profit after profit after profit, and they didn't repent.
And it looked bad. And in fact, he may have even
considered, is this the end of my own land, that these people
should hear the truth from one message and my own people won't
hear it? in spite of all the ministering of the prophets to
them. So I don't necessarily know,
all of them have merit, and I don't know what it is that, why, the
exact reason why Joan is very angry. But the Lord says to him, He says in verse four, then said
the Lord, doest thou well to be angry, right? The Lord knows,
I don't know, but the Lord himself knows, and he's going to get
to the matter of it. He's going to deal, whatever
the issue is, the Lord's gonna deal with it in his child, as
we see in Jonah's sake. And he asks him, doest thou well
to be angry? And so Jonah here is clearly
under the power of his own corruptions, right? He's under the control,
of sin, and he's walking in the flesh. It's very obvious. He's not bearing fruits of the
Spirit here. He's walking in the flesh, and
he's speaking as one in the flesh, and under the power of his own
corruptions. And, you know, we think about
it, you know, the Lord had just dealt with Jonah very recently. He humbled Jonah. He brought
Jonah low. He dealt with Jonah for his own
sin. And from what we can see, the
Lord gave him a new spirit. He had that beautiful, humble
prayer and was brought low. He was sacrificed for those men.
The Lord turned him there. The Lord brought forth a beautiful,
humble and contrite prayer from Jonah, and Jonah then was delivered
by the Lord, miraculously delivered by the Lord, so that he heard
the word of the Lord the second time, and he went and obeyed. He heard the Lord and did what
the Lord said. And so you're wondering, well,
what's going on now? Isn't this man a child of God?
I thought he was a child of God. He has a great testimony about
him and he's serving the Lord. Is he not a child of God? Yeah,
he is a child of God. And even though he was afflicted
and humbled and corrected and set right again by the Lord,
we see yet in Jonah that he still has his flesh, which is every
bit as corrupt and defiled and not righteous, right? It doesn't willingly do what
the spirit would do. He's a new man. a new creature,
and yet we see the corruption of his flesh. You know, Paul
would say of this old man, he says, it's corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts. And we see in this, it gives
us an understanding of what we are in the flesh. and how we
stumble and fall. Even, right, how many times have
you been so encouraged by the grace of God and having witnessed
him do something powerful and miraculous in your own life only
to be so surprised in the next instant where you see your own
sin and flesh inflamed and rise up and you do or think or say
some evil? how quickly it happens. And that's
what we see in Jonah. And so we see it does happen.
It does happen. And this flesh is corrupt. It's
not getting better. Until the Lord comes and raises
this body anew and gives us a new body, this flesh is decayed. It's dead. It's worthless. It's
not your friend. It's our enemy. And it's dead.
So, and now another reading of verse four, notice the emphasis
upon the word thou. Then said the Lord, doest thou? Well, to be angry. Is it good
for you? You're gonna be angry? You the
creature with your creator are gonna be angry, right? Weren't
you the one so recently shown these things? Didn't I just show
you mercy and grace? in the very act of your rebellion
and slumber in the light of the Lord? Didn't I save you and have
mercy upon you? Didn't I turn your wicked and
rebellious heart and now you're going to be upset with me for
showing repentance and mercy to this people here in Nineveh? Is thine eye evil because I am
good? Is what the Lord said to the
Pharisees in the parable. If you're evil, are you upset
because I'm good and you're going to get mad at me, Jonah, when
I've been good to you? And so we can see that Jonah
actually has a spirit very much like the spirit of the Pharisees,
right, in his flesh. That's his natural spirit there
of the flesh. But we don't get a reply from
Jonah. Jonah doesn't record any reply
or what he's thinking. It appears like he cools down,
he calms down, and realizes, yeah, I don't know what I'm so
upset about. I'm being foolish. And so he gets control of his
emotions, it appears. And we read in verse 5, So Jonah
went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city,
and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till
he might see what would become of the city. And so, as a man,
we don't know right now what Jonah's thinking. We can't see
into his heart. Things appear to be well with
him. but God isn't restricted or confined
like we are. He knows the heart. In Psalm
44, verse 21, we read, shall not God search this out? For
he knoweth the secrets of the heart. And then Romans 8, 27
follows nicely, and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the
mind of the spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. And so here we have Jonah now,
he goes out of the city and he figures, well, let me just calm
down. He's seeing repentance and he just assumes that God
is going to turn from it because he knows what Exodus 33 and 34
says when God spoke to Moses, that he delights to be merciful. He delights to be gracious. And
it seems that's where Jonah's drawing his understanding and
interpretation of what he's witnessing there among the people. And so
he calms down, goes out on the hillside, on the east side of
the hill, and he's busy watching what's going to happen to them.
having no concern for himself. He's watching them. He's focused
on what's gonna happen there with those people and whether
God's gonna destroy them or not. Is their repentance gonna be
short-lived the way it was in Israel, where it's like the dew
of the morning? It's there, and then it evaporates very quickly
under the sun. And he's wondering, is this what's
gonna happen? Is things gonna turn out to where God's gonna
destroy them? not and so while he's busy looking
at them we find that God's eye is looking at Jonah and God's
gonna be dealing with Jonah right just like many times when we're
busy judging another person and worried you know busying ourselves
with what God's gonna do with them and yet we don't see the
you know we're worried about the moat in their eye and don't
see the plank the big beam sticking out of our own eye. And the Lord's
dealing now with Jonah and that's what he's gonna do. And it's
for Jonah's good because what if God did withdraw his mercy
and just dealt with Jonah as his sins deserve? He would have
been destroyed in an instant and been destroyed by the wrath
of God. But God's purpose to deliver Jonah from that. just
as his purpose is to deliver us. When we go through trials
and afflictions, it's for our good. It's to deliver us from
the wrath which is coming upon the inhabitants of this world
that know not God, that are not his children, that aren't under
the blessings of Christ and the mercies of God to us in Christ,
all right? So this brings us here to the repentance that God
works in Jonah. And if you go to verse six, We
see the beginnings here. It says, And 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 Jonah
was exceeding glad of the gourd. You know, looking at this gourd,
it may not be a gourd, that's how they interpreted it, but
it would seem it was one of those fast-growing trees. Now, it could have been a miracle,
and the Lord did it overnight. It certainly, I mean, we can
certainly accept that the Lord is able, especially considering
what He did with the whale, but it also could have been one of
those trees that puts out broad leaves and covered Jonah nicely
and protected him from the heat there of the day. And so he's
sitting under a shadow and trusting in this shadow, right? He's glad
under the shadow of this gourd or tree which grew up. And Jonah,
as we know, as he's busying himself, he's a prophet of the Lord and
he's done what he's supposed to do and he feels really good
about himself. And Jonah is really confident
here in his own self-righteousness. He thinks all is well with him. And these people have something
to worry about. But as far as he's concerned, everything's
fine. He had the law. He had the fathers. He was a prophet of the Lord. He had many things that testified
to him that he's a child of God, as far as he's concerned. And
he appears for all intents and purposes to be righteous, self-righteous,
right? He's confident there in this
shadow that he's set himself down under. And the Ninevites,
on the other hand, are heathens, worthy of God's judgment, worthy
of God's instruction. Not Jonah, but these people are,
right? And so this is where Jonah is.
But, you know, did Jonah do anything for that gourd? Did he plant
the seed? Did he water the seed? Did he
cause the sun to shine upon that seed and give it the strength
to grow up and to provide shade for Jonah? No, no, none of those
works are of Jonah. They're of the Lord. And so Jonah
here is sitting under the shadow of God's works, not his own works,
right? And Jonah, it even says, Jonah
made him a booth and sat under it in the shadow. But that's
the last you hear of it. It obviously was worthless. Whatever
he did was not sufficient because he left that in favor of the
shade of this gourd tree that God prepared and brought up. And so Jonah assumed that the
work of God in the gourd was his own work and he gloried in
it. He thought he was wise and gloried
in this work. And so what does the Lord do?
He brings affliction upon Jonah. He has to lay bare the sin of
Jonah to him, and showing Jonah that what he's trusting in himself
is foolish, and the Lord's gonna expose that and bring that to
nothing. It says in verse seven, but God
prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote
the gourd that it withered. And so here's this little tiny
worm that God prepared. He prepared the gourd and now
he prepares this little worm to come and try the patience
and the confidence of Jonah. And through it, he's gonna teach
the Lord that he's not his own. He's not there for himself, he's
the Lord's. He's the Lord's and the gifts
that he has are the Lord's. including the grace that God
is showing him. Now, the worm here is a picture
of Christ. The worm is a picture of Christ. Remember, he said from the cross,
he said, but I am a worm and no man. And reproach of men and
despised of the people, which we see is very fitting of Jonah
because Jonah despised what this worm accomplished in destroying
his peace and comfort there in the gourd. But Jonah has to be
tried and he will be found wanting that he might find his all in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this despised one who's
weak and a small little worm works the works of God and delivers
Jonah from his condemnation and from the debt that he was sitting
under the shadow of it says there in Luke 3 8 and 9 John the Baptist
speaking said to the Pharisees who we know Jonah as that same
spirit he says bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance and
begin not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father
for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise
up children unto Abraham and now also the axe and Just like
this worm is laid unto the root of the trees, every tree therefore
which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into
the fire. And this gourd tree was bringing
forth no good fruit in Jonah. Jonah was at ease, he was comforted,
and he was trusting in these things. And it was not good fruit
for Jonah, and so it had to be dealt with. and God would be
merciful to Jonah in troubling him and removing it. And it says
there in verses eight and nine of Jonah four, and it came to
pass when the sun did arise that God prepared a vehement east
wind, right? So he destroys this gourd and
now God brings an affliction. He takes away the peace and the
comfort of Jonah, and he afflicts him, right? It says that God
prepared a vehement east wind. God's preparing a lot of things.
He's doing it all, right? He prepared the gourd, he prepared
the worm, now he's prepared the vehement east wind. And the sun
beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished in himself
to die and said, it's better for me to die than to live. And
God says again to him, doest thou well to be angry for the
gourd? And he said, I do well to be
angry, even unto death. And so this fiery trial that's
come upon Jonah, it exposes the sin that's in his heart. It exposes
where Jonah is. Jonah is not near to the Lord
from where Jonah really is. He's far. He's in danger of wrath
and destruction against the Lord. And he's talking like that's
what he wants. That's what Jonah wants. He wants
to die. And one thing to think about
is that gourds, they grow in their season. We've all experienced
things like the gourd in our lives, throughout various times
in our lives. And it's been a time where it's
comforting and ease and peace. and we delight in those things. But those times are not, though
they be comforting and pampering to the flesh, are not necessarily
a help to our souls, not necessarily a help to the new man and the
Lord. And so when the worm comes, when
that which is of the Lord in Christ, the spiritual blessing
of our God in Christ, when that comes, it exposes the danger
that we're in, you know, from the perspective of our flesh.
We're always fixed in him, in the election, eternally. But he teaches us not to trust
in the things like the Jews trusted. Well, my father's Abraham. I
have the law. I have all these signs and marks
of being a Christian, a child of God. And he exposes that's
not your comfort, don't trust in that, put your trust in me. And he does this in preparing
the worm to destroy those vain comforts and those things that
distract. And so the Lord spoke to Jonah
now, and he says in verse 10, then said the Lord, thou hast
had pity on the gourd for the which thou hast not labored,
neither madest it grow, which came up in a night and perished
in a night. Now, there's a few things that
we can take from seeing this gourd. There's a few applications
of it that we can see and be benefited from here. You know,
the gourd being something that Jonah valued, right? For the comfort it gave him and
the peace and the enjoyment that he received of it. He valued
it, right? And it suited him for his own
purposes. Well, one thing the Lord shown
to Jonah is he had a purpose for Assyria and for Nineveh,
that great city. If he had taken that out, Assyria
would have been greatly weakened. And the Lord had a purpose for
Nineveh. They were a tool for the Lord
that he would use in dealing with his own children
later. It was going to work good. And so the Lord purposed to do
good to this people here for a generation, but it was to prolong
it that they might make it to the time when the Lord would
use them again for his own purposes. So just like Jonah had a purpose
in it, well, God has purposes in what he does. And we are to
understand that it's not about us. It's not about you and me.
The Lord has a purpose in what he's doing. And he's turning
our eyes to see that. And that's what he's shown to
Jonah here. And so he preserved them because it pleased him to
do so. He's got a purpose in it. And
verse 11 says, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city,
wherein are more than six score thousand persons? I wrongly said
60,000 in other messages. It's 120,000. I'm not sure why. Well, anyway, 120,000 persons
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand,
and also much cattle. And so the Lord, we see there
in it that the Lord has his purposes. And the season of the gourd has
a purpose. But so does the season of the
worm, in which the Lord strikes down those fleshly comforts and
brings us to see His purpose in Christ and takes away that
which isn't producing fruit. but is producing the fruit of
death in us, and he removes those things, though they be a trouble
to the flesh, but he removes those things that our hope may
be fixed in Christ, who is our salvation and our true hope and
glory. And then another thing that we
see witnessed here in the repentance that God grants to Jonah is that
this east wind and sun, it pictures the wrath of God, which instead
of coming upon those people there in Nineveh, it came upon Jonah
now, right? Jonah's being troubled by the
wrath of God here. And the gourd there was picturing
that which those works that Jonah trusted him, which were not the
Lord's He didn't attribute what he had to the Lord. He wasn't
humble about it. He was proud and arrogant and
attributed it to his own flesh. And yet something as small as
that little worm targeted the lying vanities that he was trusting
in. He spoke of lying vanities in
chapter two. They that trust in lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. And so the Lord targeted that
purposely and very specifically and very accurately to remove
that vain false confidence that he was hoping in himself. And so the Lord did it now because
had he not dealt with Jonah, well, what happens in the day
of judgment when Jonah stood trusting in his own works, he
would have been destroyed eternally. then, you know, he would have
no hope. And that's why the Lord deals with us the way he deals
with us, because he is delivering us from the wrath that's coming
upon the inhabitants of this world. And so our Savior does
that, the Lord does that. He prepares these things, both
those gourds that we need, right, to make it very obvious and plain
to us that our hopes are not, that they're misplaced, and that
our confidences are very misplaced, and that they need to be turned
to the Lord. And he does that perfectly. And that's our hope,
and we trust him for that. It's painful to the flesh, I
know, but trust him for that work. All right, now, just very
quickly, so these 120,000 persons that cannot discern between the
right hand and the left, it's probably speaking of infants.
infants and children, those that don't know. And that's a picture
of the Jews. And then also much cattle, as we saw earlier in
the book, that that's a picture of the Gentiles, that the Lord
saves both Jew and Gentile, have only one hope of salvation. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And our God is a God of grace
and mercy, and he will punish the sin of the wicked. And we
see him also correcting the sin of his children. He deals with
us as a loving parent. And as our Lord and Savior, he
deals kindly with us. And it is not as our sins deserve. It is actually kind and gracious
to us. And then we see that God was
effectual in that work because Jonah did repent. And we know
this because Jonah went home and penned this book. exposing
not glory to himself right but glory to God in this work and
himself the sinner the sinner saved and and that is a comfort
to us so brethren don't faint when the worm comes when the
Lord bursts your gourds and lays you low it's for our good and
and he You know it's of Him when He works repentance, when He
draws you to hug up against your Father, your God, your Savior,
your Lord, and trust Him. He does it to warm your heart
toward Him, and that is a good comfort and a good fruit to bear,
which the Lord bears in us. So I pray the Lord bless that
word to your hearts. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for what we've seen, the many glorious
pictures of your gospel, of your salvation, of your grace to us
in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, like Jonah, we see in ourselves
far too much confidence in this flesh and seeking far too often
the ease and the comfort of our own flesh. rather than looking
to and trusting in your work. And Lord, we're thankful. Though it's painful to our flesh,
we are thankful when you prepare the worm and you destroy our
vain confidences and lying vanities. Lord, we ask that you would be
gracious to us. Bless us in Christ. Help us,
Lord. You know our infirmities and
the weaknesses of our flesh. Lord, we ask that you would build
us up and edify us in your Son, Jesus Christ, and that you would
reveal in us the hope of your children and fix our hope upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your people who are sick
and hurting and troubled, both in sicknesses and in sin. Lord,
turn us from the love of this world, that we would find our
all in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen. All right, I see I went long,
so we're gonna have to start about 10 after 11. So 11.10,
we'll begin, all right?