Good evening, everybody. It's
good to be home. Before I forget, your brethren
in Crow send their greetings. Several of them told me to make
sure to tell you hello. They're a very sweet little group.
If you will, turn back to the book of Jonah. I want to look
with you tonight at Jonah chapter 4. And in case you didn't know,
I had the privilege of teaching the kids Sunday school back in
February, and I felt led to go through Jonah with them, and
it was a great blessing to me, and I felt led to likewise go
through it with you, and I've never studied a book before,
so just bear with me, and I pray we can learn some things together.
Now in Jonah chapter 3, we saw something glorious. We saw God,
He sent His prophet to Nineveh. We know He rebelled the first
time, but He put him through the wringer, so to speak, and
gave us a beautiful picture of Christ and then He sent him to
Nineveh and He used Jonah mightily in that city. This was a great,
wicked city. God said their wickedness was
great in His sight come up before Him, but God was pleased to use
His prophet to save them. Jonah came preaching the gospel.
He preached judgment. He said, yet 40 days and Nineveh
shall be overthrown, but no doubt he also preached Christ to them.
It's when we hear Christ crucified preached that we believe God.
And that's what it said in verse 5 of chapter 3. It said, Nineveh,
the people there believed God. And what God did for them is
what God's still doing today. He's still sending His prophet,
His preacher, with His message from His Word of Christ and Him
crucified, calling out His people. And I rejoice to know that it's
so. You know, one day, one day this earth is gonna cease to
exist. God said He's gonna destroy it,
but it's not gonna happen until He calls each of His sheep out
of it. He said, them also I must bring. There's gonna be one fold,
one shepherd. And He's calling His people out
to this day. Now look with me here, the last
verse of chapter 3, it says, that they turned from their evil
way, and God repented of the evil that He had said that He
would do unto them, and He did it not." Now, it doesn't mean
God changed His mind and decided not to destroy them. God, we
know this from God's Word, He purposed from eternity to save
them. He loved them, like He told Jeremiah,
with an everlasting love. He made a covenant of grace before
we ever existed in which Christ agreed to come redeem us from
our sins. He saved them from their wickedness,
just like He has saved us according to His mercy. Now, look at chapter
4 and verse 1. It says, But it displeased Jonah
exceedingly, and he was very angry. Now, the very start of
this chapter makes it a tough chapter to deal with, because
I still have a hard time understanding this. I mean that. You read chapter 3, you read
of God's goodness to those people. You read how God used Jonah to
save these people, and our Lord told us in the New Testament,
He said, these men are going to rise up in judgment. They're
going to condemn the religious lost people of this world because
they repented at the preaching of Jonah. They believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ and they were saved. They are saved. And yet
we read Jonah's reaction to God doing this was anger. Anger. It displeased him exceedingly. That's very strong language.
How could this anger him? Honestly, you think about it.
I hope it troubles you like it troubles me. As one who is honored
to stand here and speak to you on behalf of God's word. I can
tell you that the earnest, sincere desire and prayer of my heart
is that everyone who hears the gospel preached will believe
it, will need it, will hear it, crave it, and cling to Christ
like it's all they've got. That's what happened when Jonah
preached to Nineveh, and yet it angered him. How could this
be? How could this possibly displease
him? We're not told. We're not told exactly why, but
we do know Jonah was a Jew. He was a physical child of Abraham,
child of Israel. Nineveh was a Greek Gentile nation. His country and Jonah's country
were at enmity with one another. Maybe that's why. I don't know.
I don't know. But I do know it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what Jonah might have not liked them for.
It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant because in Christ,
when God saves a person, there's neither Jew nor Greek. It says
Christ is all and in all. There's no difference. You're
a sinner, I'm a sinner, Christ is all. We're not glorying in
ourselves. If we are, may God help us. Look
at verse two here. He said, You would have honestly thought,
if Jonah really believed that, you'd have thought he'd have
been so excited to go, so ready to go preach to Him. If he really
expected God to save him, wouldn't you think that? If I knew God's
gonna bless all of you tonight, I'd be so excited. And by His
grace, I am excited. But it's so sad to me to read
how Jonah was so upset that God saved him. He said, this is the
whole reason I did what I did when I fled under Tarshish. This
is the whole reason I fled from the presence of the Lord because
I knew you were going to have mercy on him. What a sad admission. What a sad thing for Jonah to
honestly admit. He said this as a prayer before
God. Amazing. Amazing. You know, he
prayed a beautiful prayer in chapter 2. Absolutely beautiful. And to read this prayer now,
it's sad, honestly. And I don't want to harp on Jonah. I want to see Jonah and see myself. Okay, we need to see ourself
in this. Jonah's prayer was complaining. It was finding fault with what
God was pleased to do. And it was defending himself.
This is why I did what I did. That sounds like us, doesn't
it? Honestly, our first reaction to things is to complain and
defend ourself. I know it is with me. Just ask
Rachel. It's not good. It's not good. Jonah, he foolishly
thought that he knew better than God. He thought he knew who God
should save. Oh, I'm telling you, we just
don't know. I know this, whatever God does
is right. Whoever God saves, he's right to save them. God
would be right to save me or to damn me. And Christ is our
only hope, I know that. Jonah, he said here, he gave
a good description of who God is when he said, I knew you're
a gracious God. I knew you're merciful. I knew
you're slow to anger. I knew it repents you of the
evil. You're a great, kind God. You know Jonah knew that by experiencing
it, right? That's the only way we know who
God is, is by experience. He who had experienced God's
grace, God's free, amazing grace, he who had experienced God's
mercy, didn't want God to show it to these people. If there's anybody, and I say
if, but I know there are people, if there's anybody who we would
just assume God leave to themselves, for whatever reason, whether
it's somebody who's personally wronged us over the years, or
if it's someone holding an office we don't agree with, May God remind us what He's done
for us. I mean that. May God remind us how much we've
been forgiven, and that we're no more deserving of His mercy
and His kindness than anybody. If anything, we're less deserving
of it. Verse three, Jonah, therefore
now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it
is better for me to die than to live. Now, for the believer,
it truly is better for us to die than to live. For me, to
live is Christ, to die is gain. Paul said, I'm in a strait betwixt
two to depart with Christ, to depart and be with Christ, which
is far better. He told us it's better. But he said, for you,
it's more needful for me to stay right here. But that's not the
same as what Jonah's saying here. He's saying, I'm so miserable,
I'm so upset, Lord, just kill me now. Just take me now. I'll
tell you this. It's not a good thing to die
angry at God. We know that, don't we? That's
not a good place to be, not at all. Now, how Jonah could feel
this way, again, we're not told. And I hate speculating. But it's
believed that Jonah was afraid, and we're afraid of a lot of
things, aren't we? But it's believed that he was afraid that he would
be deemed a false prophet. And we can understand that because
he came with a message, God's gonna overthrow you in 40 days,
and it didn't happen. Well, I preached the lie. You know, when thinking about
that, I think about, well, who would be the first one to condemn
him as a false prophet? Would it be the people that he
told that to? Because I can assure you, they didn't hate him. God
used him to save them. I'm sure they loved him. And
here he goes out, gets out of that city as fast as he can away
from them, angry at God for saving him. Oh my, and again, I know
I'm speculating, but whatever the reason for Jonah to feel
this way and wish to die and angry at God, it's inexcusable. Absolutely inexcusable. Now let's
bring this home a little bit. Whatever it is that you and I
are angry about, we need to understand God is sovereign. So when I am
angry about anything, I'm angry at God. because He's having His
way. He's doing His will, accomplishing
His purpose. And whatever it is we're angry
at Him for, like Jonah was here, we're wrong to be doing that. We're wrong to feel that way.
And I'll just be honest with you, that's me all the time.
There's probably nobody on this earth that complains as much
as I do, and there's no excuse for it. None whatsoever. Look
here, verse four. Then said the Lord, doest thou
well to be angry? Jonah, are you right to be angry
at me? I love the fact that he asked him that, honestly. Are
you right to be angry at God? Look with me here in Romans chapter
nine. Romans chapter nine, verse 20. The book of Jonah will give us
a lot of needful correction. I know it has for me. Jonah,
I'm sorry, Romans chapter nine, verse 20. It says, nay, but oh
man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing
formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay Of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honour And another unto dishonour? What
if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His
glory on the vessels of mercy which He had aforeprepared unto
glory, even us, whom He hath called not of the Jews only,
but also of the Gentiles? God's right to save whomever
He will. We're all from the same lump,
no better than one another. God saves Jew, God saves Gentile,
He saves His people. Christ came to save sinners,
and that's all we are. And we're not right to be angry
at God for saving someone because we don't like them. That's our
brother. That's our brother. I can see God talking to Jonah.
Are you right to be angry at me, Jonah? Are you right to be
angry at me for making known the riches of my glory on vessels
of mercy, which I had aforeprepared unto glory? These sinners which
I've purposed to save for my glory, are you right to be angry
at me for doing that? And I can see Jonah being reminded
you're one of them you're one of these vessels of mercy jonah
rejoice so silly to be upset rejoice look back in our text
verse four again then said the lord doest thou well to be angry 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. Jonah didn't respond with words.
But his actions made it very clear how he felt. Yes, I'm right
to be angry. And out he goes, marches out
of this city, finds him a little booth. He sits down to pout and
watch the city, hoping maybe God will destroy them after all.
Oh my. When he should have been praising
God. There's no telling how many people
God just saved. It was a great city, and it says
the people of Nineveh believe God. He saved no telling how
many, and instead of praising God and thanking God for blessing
His Word and piercing their hearts and saving them, He was angry
and pouting. And honestly, how often is this
us? I realize not in the same exact
manner, but all God has done for us is goodness. The book
of Jonah is sin and mercy, sin and mercy, over and over and
over. Jonah had experienced nothing
but God's goodness, and then what did he have in return? Complaining
and murmuring and wishing to die. Wishing for God to destroy
these people. Amazing. Honestly, this is still
puzzling to me. But I pray God might teach us
something here. We, just like our brother Jonah,
and that's who he is, he's our brother. He's no less saved than
any of us. We, like our brother Jonah, constantly
need our God's correction. Constantly. Constantly. And I
love the means our Lord was pleased to use to correct him. This is
absolutely beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Verse six. And the Lord God prepared a gourd
that's a plant, a large plant, 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. Jonah's sitting here, pouting,
angry at God, and what does God do? Did He let him just sit there
and sulk and feel sorry for himself? No. God met him in his sin, and
He comforted him. He gave him a plant to cover
him, to deliver him from his grief. God made it to come up
over him. What's that gourd make you think
of? To me, it makes me think of God's grace. A free gift. We don't deserve it. We don't
even desire it. And yet God freely gives it to
us. Freely gives it. Sovereign gift,
sovereign grace. And His grace, He makes it to
come up over us. And it comes up over us, doesn't
it? When we're troubled, anything make you feel as good as God's
grace? You think of Paul when he was
afflicted by that thorn in the flesh and he prayed three times,
Lord, please take this away from me. And God said, Paul, don't
worry about the thorn. He said, my grace is sufficient
for you. We need to stop focusing on the
thorn and focus on God's grace. His grace is greater than our
sin, greater than all our sin. And His grace is able to deliver
us from whatever it is we're going through. And I love how
it says Jonah was exceeding glad. He was so happy in this gourd. And that's how we feel as a result
of experiencing God's grace, isn't it? Truly happy. Happiness
that this world knows nothing about. Happiness that we never
knew we could possibly have by God's grace in Christ. Now, in
Jonah's case, he was actually rejoicing in this plant. I mean,
it really made him happy in the moment. But in this moment, he
was missing God's grace altogether. Now, he was a believer. But he
wasn't being mindful of God's grace, and that's gonna be proven
here in just a minute. Look at verse seven. But God
prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote
the gourd that it withered. God sent this gourd, and then
one day later, didn't last very long, God killed this gourd.
And he did this to teach Jonah something. Jonah needed to be
corrected. This is how God was correcting him. Now, notice who
prepared both of these things. God prepared the gourd, and then
God prepared the worm. He prepares the storm. He prepares
the calm. God has His way in everything. And that comforts me so much
to know that. I can go off and do just... Idiotic things like Jonah here,
and yet God's going to have his way with me. I'm glad to know
it. He'll sometimes let us wander.
You live this life long enough, you realize that by experience.
I know I have. We wander, we go off and do our
own thing, think we're doing what's right. God will correct
us. He will. We're His children.
He's our Father. He will chasten and correct those
whom He loves. All His children will wander,
but He won't let us go. And just like Jonah, just like
Jonah needed this worm, we need God's grace every single day. It lasted one day. One day, when
God sends the trials, we need the trials too. That's part of
God's grace, did you know that? God graciously sends us trials. Why? To make us feel our sin
and feel our need of Christ. That's the purpose of the trial,
is to point us to Christ. Bring us back to Christ and believe
on Him, trust in Him. Verse eight. And it came to pass,
when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east
wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted,
and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me
to die than to live." Third time Jonah wishing to die here. Somebody
told me this, that Jonah's the only person they know of who
talked back to God and live to tell about it. Well, maybe that's
so, but I know this applies to all of us. When we murmur and
complain in the least bit, that's exactly what we're doing here.
And we're no different, no different than Jonah. After God sent this
worm to smite this gourd, He sent this vehement east wind
and this scathing heat. What He's doing is, He's bringing
Jonah to the point of despair. He's making him flat out miserable. Absolutely miserable. Just like
He did when He put him in the whale's belly. You think the purpose in this
might be for him to remember the Lord and that salvation's
in him? I'm sure it was. I'm certain of it. Certain of
it. Here Jonah is, fainting and wishing
to die again. Aren't you glad God didn't let
him? Aren't you glad God didn't let him have what he wanted?
Let him have his way? I'm so glad he didn't, and I'm
so glad he doesn't let me have what I want, because I don't
know what's best. I don't know what's best for
me. I don't know what's best for you, but God does, and whatever
he does is right, and it's best. I'm so thankful salvation's not
dependent on me, because if it was, then I, like Jonah, would
have no hope. I'm so thankful salvation's of
the Lord. Look here, verse 9, And God said to Jonah, Doest
thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well
to be angry, even unto death. Now, again, in reading this,
I think this is about as low as we can go. Honestly, four times, four times,
back to back to back to back, wishing to die, angry at God. If his salvation were dependent
on him, can't you see Jonah would have been a goner? I mean, it's
obvious, isn't it? Absolutely obvious. And it's
so with us. I hope we can clearly see that.
No matter how sinful we are as believers, no matter how rebellious
we are, no matter how ignorant we are, foolish. If God has saved us, we shall
be saved. Our Lord said, I give unto them
eternal life, they shall never perish. It's not up to us, not
up to us. Like Jonah, we may endure painful
correction after painful correction, but it's gonna be for our good,
and it's ultimately gonna be to our salvation. I thought about how safe Jonah
was when he was in the belly of that fish. He may not have
felt safe, but he was as safe as he could be because God purposed
for him to come out of there on the third day. God recorded
that in His Word. He's going to be in there three
days and three nights, and that's it. And what a glorious picture
of Christ. You and I are as safe in Christ
as we could possibly be, as safe in Christ as Jonah was in that
whale's belly, and he should soon be spit out on dry ground.
Oh, brethren, we're so safe and secure in Christ. Now I wanna
show you the last two verses here, 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 the night
and perished in the night. And 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." That's
the title of my message, Should Not I Spare Nineveh? I want to
close by giving us four quick lessons from this Gourd. The
first lesson is this, we do nothing to save ourselves and we do nothing
to keep ourselves. The Lord told him, he said, Jonah,
you didn't prepare this gourd. You didn't make it grow. He said,
I did it all. Jonah, again, he was God's prophet.
He knew this. He knew salvations of the Lord.
He knew he did nothing for it, and he proved by his sin that
he could do nothing to keep himself. And I'm here to tell you it's
the same for us, brethren. Can't save myself, and I can't
unsave myself. I'm kept by the power of God.
I'm kept in Christ. He said, I prepared the gourd
for you, Jonah. He's reminding him who's in charge.
I prepared the gourd, I prepared the worm, I prepared the wind
and the heat. And I'm sure he reminded him
by correction, I prepared an eternal salvation for you, Jonah.
I prepared a place in heaven for you, Jonah, and look at you.
I'm doing all things, I'm running this world for you, Jonah. What
a great reminder. I need to be reminded of that.
I get so discouraged. But when we remember that God,
He said, I perform all things for your sake. Everything He
does is for the elect's sake, for Christ's glory, the glory
of His name. Let's not look to ourselves for anything, but look
to Christ for everything. The second lesson is this. Don't
pity yourself. Don't be so concerned with yourself.
pity others. He said, Jonah, and this is a
sad rebuke, but he said, here you are having pity on this plant,
a plant, and yet you don't have the slightest concern for this
city that has more than 120,000 babies. Can't tell the right
hand from their left. And all you care about is your reputation,
your comfort, and this plant. How sad. Is that not us? Is that not us? We all take our
salvation for granted. Every single one of us, every
single day. I know I do. I know I do. And may God forgive
me. And may God truly burden our hearts for the salvation
of others. You know, we pray for this city
all the time. We pray for the surrounding area.
We pray for people all over this world. Pray for your enemies.
We're commanded to. Pray for people that God might
do for them what he's done for us. May God help us to. The third lesson is this. God
saves whomsoever He will. This question, it's a glorious
question. Should not I spare Nineveh? Should I not save them, Jonah?
In light of what I've done for you, Jonah, should I not save
them? I've been merciful to you. You've
been the recipient of my grace and my mercy and forgiveness
in Christ. Shouldn't I do this for them? Who made you to differ,
Jonah? What makes you any better than
them? What do you have that you haven't received, Jonah? What
makes you so special? I'm telling you, we're all sinners. We don't deserve for God to look
our way. None of us. We just don't deserve
it. We don't deserve it, but I pray that what we've seen through
this is God has sovereignly chosen to save a people, and it's in
spite of every single one of us. None of us deserve it in
the least. But may we rejoice in the fact
that God's been pleased to be merciful at all. The fact that
any of us would stand in heaven one day is amazing, honestly.
Never ceases to amaze me that God would be merciful to a sinner
like me. Now, if the end of this book, we just read the last verse,
if the end of this book puzzles you, and it does me, honestly,
we don't read of Jonah's answer. It ends with, and also much cattle,
strange ending. But we know to an extent what
happened after this. I don't know when, I have no
idea, but sometime before Jonah went to be with the Lord, and
that's what he did, he was saved in Christ, at some point the
Holy Spirit moved upon him to sit down and pen these four chapters. Now, how do you think Jonah must
have felt when he was writing these things? The word of the
Lord came to Jonah, said, go to Nineveh, and Jonah fled from
the presence of the Lord. And all this, God saved Nineveh,
they believed God. It displeased Jonah exceedingly.
How do you think he must have felt when he had to record his
sin? Oh my, it's so humbling, isn't
it? I can't imagine. I can't imagine,
but I'm so glad God recorded this for us because this gives
me great hope. All God's people are sinners.
I heard it said that about preachers, you know, we tend to kind of
glory in our preachers and we're to think very highly of them
and honorably and love and honor them and pray for them. But the
best of men are men at best. And the scripture says every
man at his best states altogether vanity. We're nothing. We're
nothing. Now the final thing I'll tell
you here is the fourth lesson. This is no doubt the theme of
the book of Jonah and the theme of the word of God as a whole.
God's mercy endureth forever. It endures forever. What that
means is it will always be enough to save me. It will never cease
to be enough. His mercy's my hope now, it will
be my hope on my last day. God's mercy in Christ, freely
given to sinners. Every sinner who needs it, do
you need it? Are you a Jonah? Do you need God's mercy? I pray
we do. Honestly, I pray we do. When
Christ died, he poured out his blood, his holy blood, to purchase
mercy for sinners like you and me, and like Jonah, like the
sailors, like the Ninevites. Praise God. Should not I spare
Nineveh? Lord, spare Nineveh, and spare
me too, for Christ's sake. Amen. May God bless you.