Jonah chapter 4 and reading from
verse 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,
and he was very angry. 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 the evil.
Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it
is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord,
Doest thou well to be angry? Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading from his word also. The Lord Jesus Christ told the
people of his day. This is in Matthew chapter 12,
verse 41. He told them, The men of Nineveh
shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn
it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas. And behold,
a greater than Jonas is here. When the Lord spoke these words,
the minds of his hearers must surely have returned to this
Old Testament passage that is before us today. They all knew
how the ancient city of Nineveh had repented in sackcloth and
ashes, cried to the Lord for forgiveness and reformed their
lives for fear of judgment. Nineveh stood even then as a
testimony to repentance and faith in Christ. The Lord knew, as he spoke, that
despite a greater than Jonah, the Lord himself, because he
is the one who is greater than Jonah. The Lord knew that despite
a greater than Jonah preaching and ministering the gospel to
these people, despite the signs and the miracles that he performed,
that the Jews of Christ's day would not repent and believe
the gospel because it was not in their heart to do so. Under the sovereign grace of
God, a single sermon on a single day from the lips of a stranger
transformed Nineveh and gathered a multitude of God's elect into
the kingdom of Jesus Christ. I suggested a number to you a
few weeks ago, and I don't have any reason to alter that number. It could be approaching a million
people that we are talking about here. But Israel, for whom so much
had been done, and to whom so much had been given, and to whom
so many had been sent with a message of peace from the Lord, Israel would not believe. These self-righteous hypocrites
flaunted a religious pedigree as long as your arm, but they
hated God. They hated the God of the Bible.
They hated God who had blessed them so richly. They despised
his truth and they rejected his Christ. They'd die in their sin
and the men of Nineveh who repented and were delivered from judgment
and delivered from sin by the grace and mercy of the Lord would
rise in judgment against them and condemn them. And they will condemn all believers,
all unbelievers in every generation who refuse the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Let us be clear. The one who
is greater than Jonah has never gone away. Yes, he is in heaven
today. There he intercedes for his people
but he is on earth with his people. The testimony and the presence
of Christ is still here. Christ's words Christ's Gospel
are as relevant and valid today as they were back then. And he
speaks to you and he speaks to me. And this is what he says,
I tell you, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. I tell you, says Christ, except
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. The Jews required a sign. The Greeks sought after wisdom. What will it take for you to
repent of your sin and trust Christ? What will it take? You know, it doesn't matter if
you have listened to a hundred sermons or a thousand sermons.
It doesn't matter if you have heard all the finest preachers
preaching with the earnestness and sincerity that they can muster. If we do not repent and believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be lost. What will it take? If you go to your grave unsaved,
you will go to hell unforgiven. And you will carry the consequences
of your sin for the whole of eternity on your own soul. Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish. As far as our passage is concerned
today, I'm not going to speculate too much about why Jonah was
so very angry. I mentioned some possible reasons
in my little introduction yesterday. I hope you give that a bit of
attention because it is formative to how we progress in our sermons. It's not essential, but it's
helpful, I think. It's like reading the introduction
of a book. It would surprise me if Jonah
did not realise the opportunities that Israel had had over the
centuries to repent of its sin were fast running out. It would
surprise me greatly if Jonah did not look at these Ninevites
sitting in sackcloth and ashes and think to himself, what is
it going to take for Israel to repent before God? Perhaps Jonah even sensed that
someday God would use this very incident of the deliverance of
Nineveh. It was extraordinary what Jonah
had observed. It was unprecedented what he
had seen. had been sent to a Gentile city,
a foreign city. He had been sent to people who
were idolatrous and who knew nothing of the Lord and he had
preached a simple declaration of impending judgment and lo
and behold they had humbled themselves before God, they had repented
in sackcloth and ashes, they had sent a command from the throne
of the city down to the very poorest in the community that
they were to turn from their evil ways and appeal to God for
mercy. And Jonas saw that happening.
And I wonder, I wonder if he compared what he saw in Nineveh
with what he knew was the case in Israel and in Jerusalem. And
I wonder if he imagined that God in the person of Jesus Christ
would use this very incident as a judgment upon his own people
in a day to come. I wonder if Jonah realised that
Nineveh would be a witness against those who did not repent. And I wonder if that contributed
to the anger that he now felt. Before we get too judgmental
about Jonah, let me say We all have to come to terms with the
fact that God's sovereign mercy is distinguishing. We all have to come, we who are
believers, we all have to come to terms with the fact that God's
sovereign mercy is distinguishing. It is according to God's will
and not ours. And some whom we love and wish
to see repenting of their sins and believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ may never do that. And they are fast running out
of opportunity to repent and believe the gospel. We may have
to come to terms with that fact, as Jonah did. I've got a rather
solemn sermon today for a rather puzzling passage of Scripture. I don't know that there is quite
another passage of Scripture like this in the whole of the
Bible, nor indeed a man as puzzling as Jonah. But I've got four headings
that I want to leave with you. The first one's the longest,
as is often the case with these sermons, but four headings that
I want to highlight because I believe that they contain lessons that
are useful for us. Not only that we might have some
insight into what this passage means, but that we might apply
the lessons of it to our own understanding. This isn't just
an intellectual exercise. I want us to think about what
it is to be angry with God. I want us to think about Jonah's
desire to die. I want us to think about the
implication of sovereign grace. And finally, God's gentle rebuke. So these are the four things.
I'll mention those titles again as we go through. But here's
the first one. Being angry with God. I imagine
our first reaction to Jonah's anger is astonishment. We could list many reasons why
the prophet might have been, on the contrary, full of praise
towards God, full of gratitude at what had transpired, wonder,
joy, admiration, awe. but anger. We didn't expect anger. Jonah
was exceedingly displeased and very angry that God had spared
Nineveh and in doing so saved, as I've suggested, perhaps hundreds
of thousands of people. How can a believer, how can a
minister, how can a prophet and a preacher of grace feel this
way? And as I thought about it, I
realised being angry with God, being angry at God is perhaps
not so unusual as we might imagine, even for believers. I don't think
there's another passage or another character in scripture quite
like this, And I accept that trying to generalise from exceptional
cases is fraught with difficulty. Yet let me press this example
just a little. And may the Lord forgive me if
I get this wrong. But perhaps there are times when
the Lord's people become angry at God precisely because we understand
that God is the Sovereign Lord, that he is the first cause of
all things. Now, ordinarily, this truth that
God is the sovereign Lord gives us immense comfort and confidence
when we look around the world and see the sin and the chaos
and the confusion that exists. And how often have we said, I'm
just glad God is in charge and that all things work together
for our good. and right, that's good, that's
right and good and proper, that's how we should view the sovereignty
of God. But what happens when the providences
of God touch us where it hurts the most? And I mean the most, I mean the
most. Consider the loss of a child.
Consider the death of a spouse or some life-shattering event,
something that just rocks our lives. Sometimes believers, sometimes the Lord brings awful
experiences into our lives. And even in saying these things,
the reality could be aggravated. If, for example, the loss is
suicide, or abuse, or kidnapping, when these things are so egregious
that we don't know where to turn. When we understand God's dealings
with us, as his children are personal and particular? Is it not conceivable that anger
in our flesh bubbles up through the confusion and the grief? And then what of those of our
children and our spouses and those that we love dearly? who
have no interest in the things of the Lord, who have no interest
in Christ. We've prayed for years, but they
seem harder now than ever. They seem less interested in
the things of the Lord than they have ever been before. And we
know that grace is a gift. We know that salvation is of
the Lord. My goodness, Jonah is the very one who taught us
that. And you can see where this ends. In our head, we know that
man is responsible for his own sin. And we know that we can
blame Adam for the fall. But do we sometimes blame God?
Have you ever felt angry at God that he has never showed his
grace to your child? That he didn't answer your prayer? I've been explicit enough, but
some of you know what it is to wrestle with God on deep and
troubling matters. And it is easy in our flesh to
let our zeal burn too hot. Perhaps Jonah felt like a father
to Israel. Perhaps he saw his child turn
his back on God, only to see God favour, greatly favour, this city of Nineveh. And perhaps Jonah was wrestling
with the implications of the eternal significance, the heaven
and the hell of this matter. And he wondered why Nineveh and
not Jerusalem? Why these idolatrous Gentiles
and not God's own people? And the old man won a victory
over the new. Jonah's own soul. Do you see
how the devil can manipulate our thoughts even when we know
what is true? Do you see how scripture can
be used against us and even God's grace, his wisest, his kindest
gift to sinners can be made a cause of pain and distress in Satan's
attacks? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not
alleviating Jonah from any crime here. Jonah was wrong to be angry
with God and so are we. It was a sin to speak as he did.
Whatever the reason, the prophet showed himself to be in error.
He lost his temper and he argued with God under the pretense of
a prayer, even defending his original decision to flee to
Tarshish. Where now was the humility and
the reverence that he'd expressed in the fish's belly? Where now
was the worshipper at the altar in Jerusalem who stood before
the mercy seat that is Christ? Where now this one who spoke
so clearly of the fact that the Lord would show mercy to whom
he would show mercy and the Lord was long-suffering towards his
people? Had Jonah learned nothing? He showed little reverence for
God or for His grace and His mercy. And he had no respect
for the act of mercy shown to Nineveh, nor indeed for his new
brothers and sisters in Christ, because that was the reality. Jonah let his physical, his natural,
his fleshy bonds of union with his people Israel get in the
way of his bonds with those men and women who are of faith in
Christ. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
in a day to come would be dying, would be dying for the souls
of these Ninevites. as well as for Jonah's. One might
have thought that Jonah's own experience in the belly of the
whale would have humbled him forever. It didn't last but a
few days. And here perhaps the Holy Spirit
shows us the true nature of rebellious hearts, even our own heart. If we are left for a moment without
the upholding and preserving power of grace. Let us learn from Jonah's sin
to guard our thoughts in such matters as these and lean upon
the arm of Christ. Jonah was a prophet but his faith
was weak and his temper was hot. He's a picture of many of us
May the Lord give us grace. Here's a second thing that I
want to think about. Jonah's desire to die. Another manifestation of Jonah's
weakness here, the weakness of his faith, was his request to
die at the hands of God rather than to live on. Whose prophet was Jonah? Was
he not God's servant? Was he not God's servant? Was the day of his death not
appointed by his creator as with us all when our journey is run
and our service is complete? Jonah knew that. We may long to be in heaven with
the Lord, Many of us do. And as we struggle with age and
the weaknesses of our bodies, those longings become more and
more intense. We may long for the end of pain
and the weariness of weakness in these bodies. But let us take
this truth as a principle of God's providential dealings with
us. He will take us to himself when
the time is right. And until then, we should aspire
to live each day in this world as an opportunity to serve him,
even if only in silent worship and prayer. We dare not desert the battle
because the fighting is hard. That's what Jonah was trying
to do. We rather draw strength from our captain because we know
his victory is assured. And there's no place for suicide
in the Christian's life. There should be no wish to leave
this world before our appointed time. God grant us all the grace
to face the trial of our weakness the weak humanity that we are,
with the strength of Christ's Spirit, and to use each day as
an opportunity to serve our King. In both these matters, Jonah's
witness left a lot to be desired, and yet, Do we not see God's
wisdom in recording these faults and failures in the lives of
his saints, just as he did with David's? We've been reflecting
upon that. And now Jonah's. This is a pretty dark period
in the considerations that we're having from the scriptures of
the examples of the Lord's people. But these things are recorded
for our learning, for our education, for our instruction in righteousness,
that we might be warned and wise. Let us seek to learn much of
the Lord in the school of Scripture, because sure it is, the trials
will come sufficient to overwhelm us. except for the comfort and
protection of our Lord and Saviour. The third thing I want to draw
our attention to is an implication concerning God's sovereignty.
To my mind, there's no doubt that Jonah's errors arose despite
an implicit belief in God's sovereignty. Jonah knew that God was sovereign,
there's no doubt about that. Anyone who looks at scriptures
and thinks that any of the Lord's people did not understand the
sovereignty of God is looking at scriptures with their eyes
closed. Jonah knew predestination and God's providences were completely
in the hand of Almighty God. His anger was because he understood
God was in full control of all things. And yet, knowing that
the Lord was in full control, knowing that the outworking of
providence was according to God's will, because it did not agree
in Jonah's experience with what suited Jonah, he felt angry towards
God. And is this not true for us all
as well? We say we believe in God's wisdom
and power, but we grumble and groan under his leadership. How
often do we spend our time second guessing ways that the Lord could
have improved the situation and done things better? Shame on
us. What a witness to the world we
are when we grumble constantly about how bad things are and
imply that we could order things better. Remember, politics is in the
hand of God. The economy operates to his rules. Health and well-being is ordained
by our all-wise God and even the weather serves at his will. And what of election? God has
chosen a people from all eternity. They were loved before time.
They were set apart from the rest of humanity in Christ. They were joined to Him and placed
in His care and in His charge. Under the terms of the covenant
of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ undertook to redeem this people
from their sins by carrying their sins on His own shoulders, paying
their debt with His own blood, and removing all punishment from
their account. He has borne our sins and carried
our sorrows. And this purpose of grace, this
plan of salvation, this election of grace, this is sublime. This is sublime. It is holy and it is perfect
in every part. It is impeccable in its design
and execution. It honours and it glorifies God
by exhibiting every attribute of his character and nature.
And it lifts men out of eternal ruin and it presents them as
trophies of God's grace and goodness. In every way, the wisdom, power,
holiness and goodness of the triune God is displayed to his
honour and glory and our blessing. And when we speak of sovereign
grace, we are acknowledging that the Lord has done all things
well in the matter of election and predestination and conversion
and glorification. And if we believe in sovereign
grace, we accept the wisdom of God both for the sum total of
his elect in terms of the great congregation of the redeemed and in terms of those individual
members of our very own families. This does not mean we have no
longings for mercy. This does not mean we have no
natural feelings or fear. for our loved ones. But it does
mean that we accept that the ways of God are right and holy
and just and good. Jonah knew better than to act
the way he did. And we shall do well to learn
from the prophet's mistake and to trust the wisdom of God in
these most intimate of matters as well. And finally, here's
my last point and then we're done. It's just a gentle rebuke
that the Lord gives to Jonah. And I want to close by mentioning
the kindness of the Lord to this man. Notwithstanding the prophet's
defiance, his impudence, his sin, How blessed we are to have such
a long-suffering, forgiving and patient friend in God our Saviour. As Jonas sulked and indulged
his selfishness, the Lord gently prodded him with a simple question,
Dost thou well to be angry? Is this a proper way to act? Is this befitting a child of
God? How gracious is God's grace? How kind is his kindnesses? How patient his forbearance?
Brothers and sisters, there is not one of us can say our attitudes
and our mindsets are without flaw. All of us are guilty of
thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, and more critically
of God than we should. God forgive us. There is cleansing
blood sufficient for sinners like us, and there is forgiveness
broad enough to reach the most shameful, darkest notions that
fill our foolish heads. Jonah's expressions may have
been extreme, but they are given to show that there is mercy for
us as well. Mercy for us too, who hear the
Lord's consoling word. Dost thou well to be angry? How
contrary we are in attitude, in our own heart, how contrary
in the prejudices of our minds, one against another and even
against the Lord himself. How merciful to hear Christ say
to us, come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. May the Lord
teach us not to be angry, but to reason out our troubles and
our doubts and our complaints under the guidance of God's wisdom
and truth. Amen.