Let's turn together to the book
of Jonah. The book of Jonah. I'll give you a few minutes.
Turn to Matthew and start turning backwards. The book of Jonah. When you've found your place
there, put a Bible mark or a piece of paper. We're going to look
at these four chapters of the book of Jonah. The title of my
message this evening is The Hand of God in the Life of Jonah. Now Jonah is classified as one
of the minor prophets, but really the book of Jonah is not a prophecy
at all. Rather, it is an autobiography.
It is an inspired autobiography of this man, Jonah. The purpose
of the book is to show us the method of God's grace toward
his servant Jonah, which is the method of God's grace toward
all his people. This man Jonah was an insignificant
man, the son of an insignificant man, from an insignificant place. He was from a place called Gathipher,
a little city that belonged to the tribe of Zebulun in the remote
corner of Israel. But God had chosen Jonah. And
God had ordained Jonah a prophet. And God had ordained a specific
purpose for this man Jonah. I'm bringing this message to
you because I want us to see the hand of God in Jonah's life
and seeing it, I want us to be taught of God to see the hand
of God in our own lives. It is a marvelous instructive
picture of God's providence and grace that we have before us.
As the book opens, Jonah is already a prophet, God's man, a man of
faith, the servant of God, but he had much to learn. Look at
verse 1, chapter 1. Now the word of the Lord came
to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come
up before me. Why Jonah didn't want to go to
Nineveh, we're not told specifically until we get to chapter 4. Hold
your hands here at chapter 1 and flip the page to chapter 4. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh
because of his racial prejudice against the Assyrians who lived
there. He didn't want God to save those
Assyrians. He just didn't want God to have
mercy on those Assyrians. He didn't want God to be gracious
to those Assyrians. He was raised in a society that
hated the Assyrians, and his heart was hard against them.
Look at chapter 4, verse 2. 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 unto Tarsus. For I knew that thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil. Let us learn. Let us learn. Jonathan was a man who must learn
that God's grace takes in people of every race, of every nationality,
of every segment of society. The kingdom of God is not a white
kingdom, nor a southern kingdom, it is God's kingdom. It is a
kingdom of chosen sinners out of every kindred, nation, tribe,
and tongue on the earth. And we must learn to recognize
that God's grace and mercy is not bound up to us, a people
of a specific area, a specific nationality, or a specific race. So we read in verse 3, chapter
1, Jonah rose up and fled to Tarshish, from the presence of
the Lord. And this is where his troubles
began. This is where our story begins. Jonah made up his mind
he wasn't going to do what he knew full well God had ordered
him to do. He made up his mind he would
not go where he knew God had sent him and told him to go.
And so he fled from the presence of the Lord, and he went down
to the coast, down to Joppa, and very conveniently he found
the ship going to Tarsus. I think I can kindly understand
what was going on in his mind. He probably said to himself,
well, looky yonder. There's a ship ready for me to
go sail to Tarsus. It must have been the Lord's
will for me to go to Tarsus. The Lord has provided this ship
right here for me so I can go to Tarsus. I must have misunderstood
him after all. He made up his mind to rebel. And when you make up your mind
to rebel, you will justify your rebellion no matter what stands
before you. So Jonah boarded the ship for
Tarsus. And then we read the next line.
Be sure you read it, and underline it, and remember it. So he paid
the fare thereof. Now hear me. God help you to
hear me. If you choose the rebel's path,
you will pay the fare thereof. If you choose the rebel's path,
You will pay the fare thereof, and the fare is a fare of great
price. The Lord God speaks. Maybe he's
spoken to you. Maybe he's spoken to you by the
gospel. and called you to follow Christ, perhaps. He called you
to some specific area of service in His kingdom, perhaps. He's
called you to some specific work, and you know exactly what it
is, but you rebel against it. You now flee from the Lord, and
God may let you flee for a while. And if he lets you flee for a
while and makes you pay the fare of your fleeing, he will do you
good even contrary to what you do. And he will accomplish his
purpose in you. But you will not fight against
God and win. It's not going to happen. I want
you to keep your Bibles open on your laps and follow me through
these four chapters as we look at five specific things that
we're told in this book God did specifically for Jonah. We're
told in chapter 1 verse 4, the Lord sent out a great wind into
the sea. And then in verse 17, the Lord
had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Chapter 4 verse
6, the Lord God prepared a gourd. And in verse 7, God prepared
a worm. And then God prepared a vehement
east wind. And all this he did that he might
prepare his servant Jonah and make of him an instrument of
usefulness in his kingdom. Let's look first at chapter 1,
verse 4. The Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea. No sooner had the ship set sail
for Tarshish than a storm arose. A storm that nearly destroyed
the ship on which Jonah was sailing. Everyone was panic-stricken,
the captain and the sailors, all the mariners got very religious
and started acting religious in the face of death. And they
began each one to call on their gods. We read in verse 5, Then
the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his God,
and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea,
to lighten it of them. But Jonah was going down into
the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. These mariners were all terrified. They were all panic-stricken.
They're in the face of death, and they do what men do in the
face of death. Each one turned to his own religious refuge and
called on his own God, all to no avail, and he began to start
doing things by which he thought he may escape death. But there
was one man in the ship, only one who knew God. One man in
the ship, though at the time a man full of rebellion against
God, he knew God. He was a man of faith and he
understood the secret of the Lord. He knew what was going
on. Look at verse 12. Jonah said to them, Take me up,
cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you. Now what's these next words?
For I know that because of me this great tempest is upon you.
Anybody got a Bible that reads like that? That's not what it
says, is it? I know that for my sake this
tempest is upon you. You fellows, though you don't
know my God, You fellows know you haven't a clue who God is. You fellows are being dealt with
in this terrible way, brought through this terrible storm and
it's for my sake that this storm is upon you. Be sure you learn
this lesson. Everything that comes to pass
in this world comes to pass by the hand of our God and comes
to pass for the sake of his elect, everything. Everything good and
everything evil. The light and the darkness comes
to pass by God's hand, by God's direction, by God's will, by
God's command, by God's purpose for the sake of his elect. Now I know there are folks who
try their best to conciliate, Arminians and will worshipers,
and they'll say, well, you know, God has his secret will and his
revealed will and his permissive will and his decreed will. You
can call it whatever you want to, it's all the same will. God
doesn't have two wills. He doesn't have two purposes.
What God does, God does on purpose. And if it comes to pass, God
did it. Now listen to the scripture.
Psalm 57 verse 2, I will praise my God, God who performeth all
things for me. God who performeth all things
specifically for me. Does God do everything, everything
specifically for me? That's what he says. Everything. And if that don't sail your boat,
I don't know what will. My God performeth all things
for me. This book says all things are
of God. For all things are yours, and
ye are Christ's. All things are for your sakes. Though Jonah was determined to
forsake God. Though Jonah was determined to
forsake God. Is that what we read in this
first chapter? Jonah said, I'm going to flee from the presence
of the Lord. Jonah was determined to forsake
God. but God was determined not to
allow it. You see, Jonah was God's, loved
of Him with everlasting love, chosen in His free grace, redeemed
by the blood of His Son, that I am slain from the foundation
of the world. Jonah was determined to forsake God, but God was determined
that Jonah wouldn't forsake Him. The foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And
though many times you and I, if He would let us, would forsake
our God in horrid unbelief, though many
times we would turn our backs on God and flee from His presence,
Though many times if he would leave us to ourselves, we would
abandon him altogether, if we believe not. Oh, how I thank
God for these words. He abideth faithful. Though Jonah sought to flee from
his responsibilities as a believer, as a gracious graciously called
and ordained and gifted prophet. Though he sought to flee from
that which the Lord had commanded him to do, God graciously forced
him. He graciously forced him to confess
his faith before unbelieving mob of religious men. Look at
chapter 1 verse 8. Then said they unto him, tell
us, we pray thee, for whose cause is this evil upon us? What is
thine occupation? Which comest thou? What is thy
country? And of what people art thou?
And he said unto them, I am in Hebrew, and I fear the Lord. I fear Jehovah. Look at the next
line, the God. They had each one prayed to his
own gods. He said, I fear the Lord, Jehovah,
the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.
Then were the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him, why
hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled
from the presence of the Lord because he told them. Verse 11.
Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the
sea may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me
up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm
unto you. For I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you. Jonah said, I'm a Hebrew. I'm one of God's elect. God chose
me. And I fear God, the true and
living God, the only real God there is in this universe. I
have rebelled against the Lord. Obviously, he told them what
the Lord had commanded. We're told that Jonah told them
why this plight had come. He told them that the Lord had
sent him on a mission of mercy. And he was absolutely in rebellion
to God, the sovereign Lord God and His justice and His mercy,
this God who does as He will, as He pleases. And then in verse
10 we're told that Jonah told them how he had fled from the
Lord, the only true and living God. Look at verse 14. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let
us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent
blood, for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. They heard Jonah's confession.
They heard who God is. He is that One who is in the
heavens, who hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. And they were
terrified. And before the day was done,
God was glorified before all who were in the ship with this
man Jonah. Look at verse 13. Nevertheless,
the men rode hard to bring it to land, but they could not. They could not. You see, the
will of man and the work of man no matter what it is, and no
matter how united, cannot stand against God. God's will is irresistible,
and men will go in God's direction no matter how hard they row in
the other direction, for the sea wrought and was competuous
against them. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let
us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent
blood, for thou, Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took
up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased
from her raging. I read that just a little while
ago again, and I I thought, oh Lord, what a blessed picture
that is. One man sacrificed for many,
and the many for whom he is cast into the sea are made to live,
and the raging sea is calmed immediately as he's cast into
the sea. So it was with us. Jesus Christ,
the God-man, our Redeemer, taken up in the hands of God's anger
and wrath and justice, and cast into the sea of death as our
substitute, and immediately the storm of God's wrath is over
for us, and we live by Him whom we killed. Verse 16, Then the
men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto
the Lord, and made vows, So great is our God, that even the wrath
of man praises him. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, and the remainder of wrath wilt thou restrain.
Oh Lord, teach me to remember this. Write it on my heart. Inscribe
it with the finger of your grace. And let me not forget, the wrath
of man praises you. And that which will not praise
you, you will not allow any to perform. The remainder of wrath
wilt thou restrain. Jonah, by his rebellion, by his
rebellion against God, by his act of disobedience, brings to
himself pain and trouble and shame, but all the while God
overrules it to get himself the praise even in the midst of Jonah's
shame. All right, look at verse 17,
chapter 1. Here's the second thing. The Lord prepared a great
fish. to swallow up Jonah. I don't know why it is, well
I do know too because folks hate God, Have you ever noticed, do you
remember even when you were a small child, just a small child? Now,
I'm talking about us folks who are old enough that when we were
small children, it was a long time ago, and you go to a museum,
even in those days when folks were conservative, as we would
say, in the good old days, we'd go to a museum or we'd see something,
some skeleton things, and we would be subtly reminded that
if what you see with your eyes is true, then there must be something
fake about the Bible. I remember the first time I saw
the skeleton of a whale. I was just a boy. I was a small
boy. And the brilliant guide in the
museum told us you can see that it's impossible for a whale to
swallow a man. So that story that you read about
Jonah and the whale, you can't really take that the way it says.
Well, let me tell you something. This will come as a shocker to
you. You can take it just the way God said it. You see, this
was a whale especially prepared to swallow up Jonah. A whale
prepared by God for Jonah. A whale prepared to swallow him
up in whose belly Jonah could live for three days. And the
whale spit him out three days later as God ordained. Well,
you don't really believe that, do you? I'll tell you what, if
I didn't, I'd throw this away and I'd go to hell not pretending
to believe God. Sure, I believe that. That's what God said. The
Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. In fact, I
like what our brother Dottie Bell said. He said, if the Bible
said Jonah swallowed the whale, I'd believe it. This is God's Word. This is God's
Word. It's either true or it's fake.
It's either true or you're in your sins. It's either true or
this is all a horrible pipe dream. Somebody shut down your throat.
There's no in-between ground. The Lord prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah. Now Jonah's experience in this
passage is a typical representation of the accomplishment of our
redemption by Christ. You remember our Lord Jesus said,
for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. Our Lord Jesus, when He was made
to be sin for us, was swallowed up in the sea of God's wrath.
He was slain as the object of God's wrath under God's fury.
Because He was slain as our substitute, He was laid in the grave in the
heart of the earth, in the belly of the earth, for three days.
And three days later, the earth spit Him out, and He arose triumphant
over death, hell, and the grave as our mighty substitute. And
His resurrection is the declaration of redemption accomplished. Justification
finished. He was raised again not for our
justification in the sense of having by his resurrection attained
it, but he was raised again because of our justification accomplished
by his sacrifice. Jonah's deliverance from the
belly of the whale is a picture of every believer's experience
of grace as well. Look at chapter 2. Then Jonah
prayed unto the Lord his God, out of the fish's belly. There's
a lot of debate these days about when a person is saved. I don't pay much attention to
those things that get most preachers and theologians all excited,
bent out of shape, ready to split up, draw swords, go to war with
each other, make a new denomination. I kind of laugh at it. In fact,
I'm convinced that all hell roars with laughter and hoots and hollers
while preachers debate about nonsense. The Bible never raises
the question, not one prophet, not one apostle, not one preacher
in this book ever raised the question, well, when did the
Lord save you? How was it that God saved you?
Do you know what I hear when I hear that? Buddy, I'm fixing
to look you over good and find out whether or not you measure
up by my yardstick. And if I think that, I'm going to give you something
to think I don't measure up. I promise you. I'm going to give
you something to put a kink in your yardstick. The scriptures
never raise such questions and never once in this book do you
find anybody answering such questions. But these things are certain.
A person is saved when with the awareness of God's just wrath
upon him, he calls on God for mercy, like the publican. As David did, you read the 107th
Psalm, it said, they were at their wits' end, they reeled
to and fro like a drunken man, and they were at their wits'
end, and then called they upon the Lord. And over and over in
that 107th Psalm, he shows us that when men are brought to
the end of themselves, then they call on the Lord. Here in verse
1 of Jonah 2, Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of
the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction
unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried
I, and thou heardest my voice. Men are saved when from the depths
of their corruption they look to Christ in faith. In verse
4, Jonah said, Then said I, when your billows and your waves passed
over me, when the floods compassed me about in the midst of the
sea, then said I, I am cast out of thy sight. Yet will I look
again toward thy holy temple. I will look again toward the
mercy seat, the place of sacrifice and atonement. For God said to
Moses, I will meet you between the cherubim on the mercy seat
there. I'll commune with you. Jonah
said, I'll look yet toward Christ Jesus, the sacrifice, the atonement
for sin. He said in verse 6, I went down
to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life. from corruption,
O Lord my God, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord
and my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple. A person
is saved when he comes to know the one true and living God. Jonah said in verse 8, they that
observe lying vanities. Now remember We're reading the
words of a man who in rebellion is fleeing from the presence
of the Lord. A man, however, who knows God. And he had just been cast into
the sea three days earlier, swallowed up by a whale, by men who themselves
observed lying vanities. And they had cast him into the
sea because in their superstition, they worshipped gods who were
full of anger and had to be pacified. Jonah tells them to cast him
into the sea, and when he did, The winds were calm in the sea,
and those fellows sailed off to hell, tipping their hat to
God, while they continued to worship their gods. Jonah says,
they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Oh,
thank you, Lord, for delivering us from the lying vanities of
will worship and will religion. A man is saved when God lifts
him up from the miry pit of corruption by his almighty grace. Look at
verse 6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with
her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord. Did we read that right? Pastor, Jonah's still in the
whale belly. And he speaks in the past tense. He said, I went down to the bottom
of the mountains, the earth with her bars was about me forever,
yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. Well, he's speaking prophetically. Doesn't look like that to me.
Doesn't look like that to me. The book speaks of God's people
being justified and sanctified and glorified from eternity in
Romans chapter 8 verse 29. The book speaks of us being risen
together with Christ and seen with Him in heavenly places.
Well, that's talking about things that are going to happen. It's
written in the past tense. It's written in the past tense.
Well, what are you getting at, Pastor? I'm getting at it's written
in the past tense. It's written in the past tense.
Well, if that's the way you read it, then all this was done before
the world ever began. Isn't it that simple? It really
is just that simple. Well, I always thought that's
what it looked like, but preachers have told me all my life it couldn't
possibly mean it was done from eternity. That's exactly what
it means. What God purposed in eternity
was done from eternity and is brought to pass in the experience
of grace for the glory of His name and the joy of our souls.
We were crucified with Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, accepted in the blood, beloved, risen with Christ,
and seated with Christ in glory before the world began because
we're one with Him. And we were crucified with Christ
at Calvary, risen with Christ when He rose again, and seated
with Him when He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high, literally in His body because we are one with Him.
And now we are crucified with Christ. in the experience of
His grace, envisioned with Christ in the experience of His grace,
and seated with Christ in the experience of His grace because
we are one with Him. A person is saved when from the
depths of his inmost soul he acknowledges and confesses that
salvation is of the Lord. Jonah said, I'll pay my vows.
I will make my sacrifice to God. This is it. Salvation is of the
Lord. Once the great fish heard Jonah's
confession, it spit him out. And Jonah hit the ground running
to Nineveh. This is what the book says. Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. What's that mean? God's people, every chosen sinner,
every chosen sinner will be made willing to bow to Christ and
worship Christ, made willing to trust Christ, tickled to death
to heaven. Tickled to death to heaven. Willing
in the day of God's power. When will you believe on the
Son of God? When God brings you down to the
feet of his darling son and not to them. And if that happens
it will come to pass in time because before the world began
there was an appointed time of love at which God said this is
the time and I'll come to you and I'll spread my skirt over
you and I'll say to you later You'll become mine. Folks talk
about the Lord Jesus standing outside a man's heart's door,
knocking for entrance. What a ridiculous, idolatrous
picture. You've seen this picture of Christ,
supposed to be standing outside a man's heart's door. He's standing
there with a lantern. Now, this is the light of the
world standing there with a lantern. And the picture You'll notice
there's no handle on the outside because he can't get into your
heart unless you open the door. Let me tell you something. When
Christ comes knocking, he knocks the door down bolt and bar. And he brings his welcome with
him. And the first time you find out he's knocked, he's already
on his throne inside. And you're tickled to death to
have him there. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy
power. What's this mean? It means that
whatever it is that God Almighty wants from you, whatever it is He wants from
you, He's going to make you willing to give it. Take my life and
let it be only, always, all for thee. Whatever it is He wants
from you, He's going to make you tickle to death to get it. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. Verse 10, The Lord spake unto
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. And Jonah went to Nineveh. carrying
the word of the Lord, preaching that God bid him to preach, we're
told in chapter 3, verse 2. And while he was still a day's
journey outside Nineveh, he began to preach and said, yet forty
days Nineveh shall be destroyed. And suddenly, the people of Nineveh
did something that Jonah didn't like a bit. They believed him. They believed
God. He went down to these Ninevites
and they actually believed God and proclaimed the fast. And
they reasoned, cried mightily unto God. Who can tell, verse
9, if God will turn and repent and turn away from His fierce
anger that we perish not? Lord, O God, I've earned your
wrath. I deserve your judgment. If I
perish, it's only right. If you send me to hell, it's
only just. I acknowledge your righteousness,
your justice, your truth. I have no claim on you. Lord,
if you will, you can have mercy on me. If you will, you can save
me. I cast myself at your feet. and I beg for mercy, for Christ's
sake. And these Ninevites got what only God could give,
mercy and life. Jonah proclaimed God's message
because when God intends to be gracious, he sends his word to
those to whom he will be gracious. And the whole city of Nineveh
repented. Man, what a time of revival! What a message! What a God! A
hundred and twenty thousand infants in the city. Not men and women,
a hundred and twenty thousand. Three score infants, doubled,
who couldn't know their right hand from their left. And the
whole city repented at one time. The whole city. And God saw their
works. Oh, now, I knew man's works were
going to come in there somewhere. Those works of repentance and
faith that God wrought in them showed themselves in works of
repentance and faith, turning from their idols outwardly, and
God seeing His work in them and the fruit of His work in them,
it repented Him and He spared the Ninevites. When sinners hear
God's Word and turn to Him in repentance, they always obtain
mercy. You say, well, you fellows, you
all believe in election and predestination, and the fellow's not elected,
he's not predestinated, he can't get saved. That's right. That's
exactly right. I'm not about to back up and
apologize for that. If God didn't choose you, You're going to hell. It's that simple. If God doesn't
save you, you're going to hell. Absolutely that's right. But
I'll tell you what, if I perish, I will pray and
perish only here at His feet seeking mercy. And if I die with
mercy sought when I, the King, have tried, This were to die,
delightful thought, as sinner never died. If you go to hell,
you go to hell because you will not believe on the Son of God. And it's all your fault. If you go to glory, it'll be
because God chose you. God called you. God redeemed
you. He saved you by His grace and
it's all His doing. And you'll be tickled to death
if so. Then in chapter 4, we read that Jonah got mad at God. Verses 1 through 5, the Lord
said, Jonah, doest thou well to be mad? He said, I sure do. It's right. And then in verse
4, here's the third thing. The Lord God prepared a gourd
and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over
his head to deliver him from his grief. Isn't that remarkable? Here's
a pouting, peevish prophet acting like a spoiled brat, but he's
the servant of a merciful and gracious God. And this gourd,
this pomcus, this is, again, it's kind of like the great fish.
It's not just an ordinary gourd. It's not the kind you see out
there that fellas drill holes in and dry them out and hang
them up for martin boxes. This is a pomcus. It's a great,
huge gourd that God raised up instantly almost. Raised up this
gourd prepared specifically for Jonah. Prepared for Relief from
his grief. Grief that he brought on himself.
Grief that brought on him because he's patent because God was merciful
to none of them. And the gourd prepared by God
to comfort Jonah shows us the hand of God in grace. The hand
of God in all the daily comforts of life. The hand of God in every
good thing we enjoy in this world. It is God that lifts our comforts
high or sinks them to the grave. He gives, and blessed be His
name, He takes but what He gave. God sent this Gord to comfort
His servant Jonah when he was totally undeserving
of comfort. The comfort God gave through
the gourd, though it was only a gourd, was exactly what his
child needed at the time. You can preach on that a day
or two, can't you? Exactly what he needed at the time. Oh man, I'd like to have this,
I'd like to have that. Thank God. for the gourd I need today."
He gives exactly what's needed at the time. God's purpose in
sending the gourd was to comfort and protect his beloved servant
Jonah. He sent the gourd at just the
time it was needed and it fulfilled all its purpose. We read that
Jonah was glad of the gourd. But we mustn't get too attached
to the gourds. They're just gourds. They're just gourds. Look at
the next thing God prepared for Jonah. Verse 7, chapter 4. God prepared
a worm and he smoked the gourd that
it withered." Little word, the gourd's gone. Just as quickly as God raised
up the gourd, God took the gourd away. And He took the gourd away
at a time when He's about to send a vehement east wind with
the burning sun to scorch it. God took the gourd away. As we
see the hand of God in our comforts, let us see the hand of God in
our sorrows, bereavements and losses. Eli, God killed your
boys today, both of them, and the reason is because you spoiled
them rotten. And Eli says, it is the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth him good. Aaron, God killed your boys in
the holy place today because they offered strange fire and
don't you even weep before my people to imply any suggestion
that I've done wrong. And Aaron wept not. Job, your sons and daughters were
out partying today, celebrating And God took them all. Job, all your camels and all
your sheep, all your oxen, God took them away. Job, all that
you possess, God's taken. And in all this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God with folly, but rather, He bowed his head and
worshiped. Here's the fifth thing. Look at verse 7. 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. If we're wise, We'll
see the hand of God in our trials, even our heaviest trials. The
fact is, our greatest trials often come in connection with
the most insignificant things. Somehow we tend to prepare for
big things. Little things are something else.
I recall years ago, I was down visiting Brother Walter Gruber
and his wife, Betty, And Betty had carried around a piece of
crystal, a small insignificant piece of crystal, but an expensive
thing that she had inherited from one of her relatives, had
it for all these years, and she had carried it from Houston,
Texas down to Mexico and moved it from one house to the other.
She had set it up in some special place and one day Walter got
up quickly and hit the shelf and the crystal fell to the hard
tile floors and shattered in a thousand pieces. And Walter,
he thought, well, I've been for a long day today. And Betty came
in with a broom and a dust pad, and she said, well, thank God,
I won't have to worry about that anymore. Oh, God, give me such grace at
the withering of a gourd. Trials often come, one on the
heels of another. And sometimes they appear to
be downright cruel, brutal. I think, looking back at it,
I just had one child, so I don't give advice about raising children.
My one child, she was a boy. I mean, he was a girl. It wasn't
a boy. So I don't qualify for parenting
instructions. But I used to inflict pain on
that girl. Oh, I inflicted pain on her. I insisted that she do
what I told her to do the first time I told her to do it. And
if I had to tell her twice, she was going to hurt for it. And
I'd send her to get the paddle. And I'd bend her over my knee.
And I would wear her butt out. And this is going on international
radio so folks can hear it. I would wear her butt out. And she must have thought, oh,
Daddy, how could you do this to me if you loved me? How could
you be so cruel? How could you be so hard? She
never said it. She never even looked like she
thought it. But I know what the human heart is. It had to go
through her mind. But if you could see her now,
if you could see her now, I'd say that's the reason I did it. That's the reason. That was my
goal. That's what I wanted. God Almighty sows the seeds of
affliction, pain, and toil. These spring up and choke the
weeds that would else or spread the soil. The trials which are
hardest to bear are those in which there appears to be no
benefit at the time. You know if you can You can look
at the trial and say, well, I see what the Lord's doing here. I
understand this. Look what God's doing. But you
look at the trial, and it's hard, and it's heavy, and it's painful,
and it seems cruel, and there's no benefit. You can't see any
good. What's the good of this? You
dare not say it. Then you turn to the Psalms where
the psalmist said it. And you cry in your soul, why?
Oh God, why? And you see no benefit in it.
And it makes the trial doubly hard to bear. Our heaviest trials
usually come when, like Jonah, we're sitting under that gourd
and feel ourselves most secure. But the trials only reveal what's
in us. God's purpose in withering the
gourd was to reveal to Jonah the folly
and the evil of his anger, to make him to see his anger is
not at the Ninevites, His anger's not at what's happening in time.
His anger's not at this thing or that. His anger is at God
who did it. When we're angry with God's providence,
Tommy, it's angry with God. That's it. That's it. That's
it. Well, why'd God do all this?
Turn to 2 Kings, and I'll show you. God reasoned with Jonah. He said,
you're upset because of this gourd. Shouldn't I spare this
city of Nineveh, this great city wherein there are six score thousand
persons to serve between their left hand and their right? Why
did God do this? He did it that He might prepare
Jonah as an instrument for usefulness in the saving of his people.
He did it so that Jonah might be
a vessel useful in his hands for the saving of his people.
2 Kings chapter 14 verse 23. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah,
the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, the
king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and reigned forty
and one years, verse 24. And he did that which was evil
in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the
sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He restored the coast of Israel
from the entering of Hamath under the Sea of the Plague. according to the word of the
Lord God of Israel which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah. Verse 27, And the Lord God said not that
he would blot out the name of Israel under heaven, but he saved
them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash according to
the word of God by prophet Jonah. Oh God, do what you will with
me and yours. Do what you will with me and
mine. Do what you will in this world,
and teach us to bow to your will, for Christ's sake. Amen.