everybody. If you'd like to turn
over to Jonah chapter 4, Jonah chapter 4. Might have been last month, maybe the
month before that, brought a message on Jonah 1, then Jonah 3, and
I want to kind of finish it this evening with Jonah chapter 4.
This is a, it's an interesting passage of scripture and it's
peculiar. And so I cover your prayers in this, that the Lord
would rightly divide the word to us, that we might see Christ
in it, that what he teaches from this word would actually be brought
out. But look down at verse one of
Jonah chapter four. It says, but it displeased Jonah
exceedingly, and he was very angry. Who's he mad at? You remember? He's mad at God. He's mad at the Lord the same
way he's been through this entire book. Why is he mad? He's mad
because the Lord saved everybody in that Gentile town of Nineveh. And when you get to the end of
this chapter, the Lord describes the population of that town.
He says there's 120,000 people there that can't tell their left
hand from their right hand. What we can deduce from that
is probably 120,000 babies there, toddlers. which means there were so much
more older kids, and teenagers, and young adults, and middle-aged
folks, and old folks. This place probably had millions
of people inside of it. And the Lord saved every single
person in this Gentile city. And this man, Jonah, this prophet,
is upset about it. He's angry at God about the whole
thing. And to add, I guess, insult to
injury, a way of saying it, the Lord used him as a means in all
this. He told Jonah, he said, you're
going down to Nineveh, you preach to him. And he said, I will not.
And he hops a ship going to Tarshish to flee out of the presence of
the Lord. And he says, I will not go down there. And the Lord puts
him through the ordeal in the ship with a storm. Then he puts
him through the ordeal with the whale, three days in, three days
out. And finally, When the Lord sufficiently
teaches Jonah and he utters those words, salvation is of the Lord,
the Lord says, well, spit him out. He's been taught. And he
spits him out on that dry ground. The Lord said, now, like I said,
go to Nineveh. And there he goes with an eight-word
message. Yet 40 days in Nineveh shall
be overthrown. And he walked the roads of that
town and he walked the halls of that town and the alleys of
that town with an eight word message over and over and over
again. It was always the same message
and through that the Lord blessed that message. And he saved everybody
in that town. He brought them all to repentance
and they all believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you would
think He would be excited about this, right? And he's not. He's not excited about this at
all. And I want you to understand who this is. This is not a man
who will, at some point later in the story, be regenerated,
right? This is not a man who starts
off as a retrobate, and then the Lord later on saves him.
He starts out a saved man. This man knew God. This man loved
the Lord Jesus Christ. God knew him. He had fellowship
with God. This man was a prophet. The Lord
spoke to him. He spoke back to him. And still
he sits here. These millions of people have
been saved. He was the one who brought the message. And he is
angry at God about the whole thing. Why? Right? That's the
logical question. And we answered it the last time
we looked at this. And I've read just about every commentary that's
probably worth reading on this. And everybody says the same thing.
It says it's because they were Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles,
they just didn't get along. He hated them all because they
were Gentiles. And that may be. And I've looked
in the Scripture. I can't tell anywhere in the
Scripture it tells us exactly why he hated those folks. And
that may be. It may be he just hated them
because they were Gentiles. But this seems awful personal
to me to be some sort of run-of-the-mill ethnic bias. Because if the Lord
would have went to Jonah and said, these millions of people
in Nineveh I'll do whatever you want me to do with them. I'll
save all of them, every one without exception, or I will sentence
every one of them to an eternity of misery and separation of God
in that awful place called hell. And if he would have been given
that option, he would have said, damn every single one of them. It's a lot
of hatred. It seems awful personal. And
I don't know what happened. The Assyrians were the enemies of
Israel long before this story takes place. And maybe during
a battle, some Assyrian soldiers raided Jonah's village. Maybe
he committed some war crimes, some atrocities against his family. Maybe hurt them, abused them,
slaughtered them. I have absolutely no idea. And if that's the case,
I don't condone his merciless attitude, but I understand it.
I absolutely do. And here's the point of everything
I've said up to this point right here. This man had a limited
capacity, this man Jonah, for mercy and for grace and for forgiveness. There is a circumstance or circumstances
under which he could not and would not forgive. He would not
get over it. And he is absolutely no different
than you and me. Absolutely no different. You
take the one of us that has been given the greatest capacity for
forgiveness. The one of us we revere, we say,
he or she can just get over anything, right? The most merciful person
we know. There is a circumstance or circumstances
under which that person will not forgive. And that is a testimony
to our depravity. And Paul says, we see things
through a glass darkly. And I think of all the things
we see super dark, it's how bad this really is. how bad my sin
is, how putrid that flesh is before God. Because if we really
saw the real story, standing in the light of a holy God, how
putrid this natural heart is and how putrid this flesh is,
we'd never once have a problem forgiving anybody for anything.
Because we would know, whatever that person did to me, however
they offended against me, I have done much, much worse to my master. the one who loved me and gave
himself for me. So if we saw it for what it really
was, we'd never have a problem with that. But if we saw it for
what it really was, it would probably drive us to madness
and despair. So I'm thankful for only seeing just enough that
it leaves me nowhere to look but to Christ alone. Thankful
for that. And here's the other problem
with human forgiveness. There is no justice in it. If I offend
against you, I can come in the right attitude seeking mercy,
and that attitude being, you don't have to show it to me.
I'm the offending party. You don't have to show me mercy.
And I can come on those grounds, and I can try to do everything
I can to make things right. But here's what I cannot do.
I cannot remove the offense. I cannot rewrite history, and
I cannot take away what I have done. And you may be a very merciful
person. and you may be very forgiving,
say, I'm gonna forgive you, I'm just gonna get over this, it's
not gonna change our relationship, I'm gonna forget all about it,
and we're gonna move on, and you will until I fend against
you again. And then you're gonna remember.
Because what you cannot do is you cannot remove the offense.
Here's my point. You and I, everybody in this
room, we have a limited capacity for mercy and for grace and for
forgiveness. Our Lord does not. There is no capacity, there is
no limit to his ability to save, to show mercy, to show forgiveness.
And it's for this reason, when he reaches out with that hand
of mercy and that hand of forgiveness, you know what accompanies in
the other hand? Justification. He actually takes
away the offense. I have purpose to show him mercy.
No matter how bad he is, I can still show him mercy. I can still
be gracious to this man, no matter how bad he is. And here's the
reason why I can show him mercy, because in this hand is full
and utter justification. It's a handful of blood. And
it makes it to where that offense, that sin, that stain, it actually
takes it away. In our experience, folks, this
is the prerequisite for mercy. You need it. And you don't deserve
it. Those are the two. And here's
the reality of the prerequisite for mercy. I'm only going to
get it if there's absolutely nothing for God to forgive me
for. because that stain, that sin was actually put away by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is no more. He has an unlimited capacity.
That means you can't be too bad. If he purposes to save a man,
whatever that man has done, whatever he's thought, no matter how bad
he is, the chiefest of sinners, he can reach down and he can
save that man and be forgiving to him because he does not have
a limit to his capacity. He can do it, and I believe that,
and you do too. Here's what I struggle with.
Is he willing to be merciful to somebody like me? Is he willing
to be gracious to somebody like me? Well, Jonah's gonna answer
that question in the next verse. Look at verse two. 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, you see this man knows God, he knows
something because he knows who this is, he knows God, that thou
art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness,
and repentest thee of the evil. So remember what I did back in
chapter one when I hopped that ship and I would not go to Nineveh? Here's the reason I did it. I
knew exactly what you were going to do, because I know you, I
know your character. You're going to send me down there with this
message, yet 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown. And
I know you don't send a prophet down to condemn men. Men condemn
themselves just fine without a prophet. You send a prophet
when you're going to save men. I knew you're going to save all
these folks because that's your character. You're merciful and
you're gracious and you delight to show mercy. This is a man
who knew God, no mistaking that. And what does he say about him?
What's he like? He's merciful, He's gracious,
He's slow to anger, He's of great kindness, and He will repent
of the evil. That means when the circumstances
are right, He will withhold that hand of wrath, and you can count
on Him to do it. Here's my point. The certainty
of this is so much of a blessing. If you're a sinner with nothing,
works, nothing that would recommend you to God, just a broke, empty-handed
sinner. And you come to the Lord Jesus
Christ seeking mercy, forgiveness, full salvation, entrance, acceptance
with the Father in Christ. If you come seeking those things
from the Lord Jesus Christ it is 100% certain you will have
it. It is His character and He has
promised to do that. Now, let's make good on that
from the Scripture. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4, and look at verse
14. Hebrews 4, 14, the writer says,
seeing then that we, don't overlook that word. The author here is
addressing a certain group of people. There is a we and there's
a them. There are believers and there
are unbelievers. There are elect and those who are passed by.
There are sinners and there are folks that aren't really sinners.
He's addressing the we right now, the elect of God, God's
chosen people. And this is what he says to the
we, seeing that we have a great high priest that is passed in
the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our profession
or our confession. What is the confession of every
child of God? What is the confession of the
we? I would like to know, because I'd like to know if I'm one of
the we. Look at the next verse, verse 15. For we have not an
high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. This is the confession of every
one of the we's. I've got a great high priest.
It is the second person of the blessed Trinity, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And here's what he did, he became
a man. He took on mortal flesh, he lived a full life of 33 years,
just like you and I do. Tempted in every way that you
and I are, big difference here, he was without sin. He kept God's
holy law perfectly, every jot and every tittle. He always believed
his father, he always obeyed his father, even when the sins
of the we, were taken off of them and put in him, and he was
dying and suffering under the wrath of God, he never stopped
believing, never stopped trusting his father, trusted him all the
way to his death. You said if I was the surety, you said if
I sacrificed myself, you would be pleased, you would accept
that, and you would raise me up. And he never doubted his
father, and he bled and he died. And everything he did, he did
as a we and for the we. And that is the confession of
the we. That's my salvation right there. Christ, Him living. Christ, Him dying, bearing my
sins. Christ, raised again. That's every single bit of my
salvation. That is the confession of the
we. And if that is your confession, if that's everything you have,
you're one of the we. You're elect. You're a child
of God, loved of God. What is the we supposed to do?
Look at the next verse. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. He says, go somewhere. Go and
go boldly. Don't be sheepish and don't delay. Go somewhere right now. Go to
the throne of grace. And here's the reason you go
to the throne of grace, because who sits on that throne, the
Lord Jesus Christ does. And this man is the friend of
sinners. And here's the promise. Understand
this, that this is a command. It is also a certain promise.
If you come to this one, this king who sits on his throne,
this man who loves sinners, this man who died to save sinners,
if you come to him seeking mercy and grace and forgiveness and
the faith even to believe on him, you will have every bit
of it because he just promised it. that we may obtain mercy. You know what that means? It
doesn't mean, well, we may, or we may not. No idea. That phrase
is actually one word, and you know what the word means? To
take. That we take it. You're a sinner,
and your confession is, that great high priest, he's everything
in my salvation. It's yours. Mercy and grace is
yours. Go take it. It's yours. When
do you take something? You take it when it belongs to
you. It's yours. It's just for you. Now let me show you an interesting
contrast. Turn over to Psalm chapter 94. The writer of the Hebrews said,
Go to the throne of grace boldly. There is another throne spoken
of here in Psalm 94. Look at this. Psalm 94 and look
at verse 20. Psalm 9420, shall the throne
of iniquity, another throne, have fellowship with thee, which
frameth mischief by a law. Another throne is spoken of here.
The throne of iniquity. What's iniquity? Iniquity is
all the good things we think we do. It is our best works. It's those things we think, man,
if there's anything the Lord would be pleased with, it's that
right there, right? It's sin, it's iniquity, it's filth, and
it's wickedness before God. The throne of iniquity is the
throne of works, folks. It's an approach, approaching
by my best iniquity before God. This is also a promise, and there
is also certainty in this. He says this, shall the throne
of iniquity have fellowship with thee? That one who sits on the
throne of grace, he has fellowship with sinners. The one who sits
on this throne of iniquity, he does not. You know who he is? He's the law, which frameth iniquity
by law. What do you do when you frame
something in your house? You put it on display. And if you
come to this throne of iniquity, if you come to the Law seeking
acceptance based on the Law and what you've done according to
the Law in any way, shape, or form, here's the only thing the
Law is going to do for you. It will have no fellowship with
you whatsoever. It will simply take your sin and it will frame
it. It will put it up for the Lord to see it. And it will declare
the same thing the Law always declares when He deals with a
man who comes on these terms. He's guilty. It's framed up right
here. You can watch the whole thing. Because that is the only
point of the law. It's not a rule of life. It is
not a manner or mechanism of salvation, not in any way. It
does one thing, and one thing only. It declares a man's guilt. That is it. As much certainty
as there is in this, come to that throne of grace, sinner,
and you will find mercy and grace to help in the time of need.
This is certainty. You come to that throne of iniquity,
you come based on your best, the law will frame your mischief,
and you will die. Now, look down at verse 3 of
your text. Go back to Jonah 4. Verse 3 of Jonah 4, Jonah says,
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, do us that well to be angry. This is interesting. Why does
he want to die? He comes to this point. The Lord has used him
in such a magnificent way. He saved all of Nineveh. And
he says, just kill me. Well, what's he so upset about
now? Well, it's this. His message was, yet 40 days
and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And guess what? Nineveh ain't
overthrown. The Lord withheld his hand. He
did not destroy Nineveh. He brought those people to repentance.
And now Jonah says, everybody's gonna think I'm a false prophet.
So you might as well kill me. You saved Nineveh. I'm upset
about that. Everyone's gonna think I'm a false prophet. You
might as well kill me. And the Lord says, gentlemen,
you do well to be angry. Is this doing you any good? And
Thomas said this several times to us. Every time we get mad,
we don't get mad at people, right? We don't get mad at circumstances.
We don't get mad at that truck that cut us off in traffic. We
don't get mad at them. The Lord's in control of all that. He's
either sovereign or he is not, right? We either believe that
or we don't. He is, and we believe that. And that means everything
that happens is His will coming about. And we get mad, we're
mad at Him. And He asked Jonah this very interesting question.
We should ask, is this doing you any good? Do you think, Jonah, that being
angry at me somehow or another deflates my position and elevates
yours? Is this doing you any good? He said the same thing
to Paul. He said, Paul, it's hard to kick against the pricks,
isn't it? You're out here, you're trying to persecute my church,
you're locking my people in jail, you think you're harming me.
Paul, I can't lose. You can't harm me. just like
a man with no shoes on kicking out a thorn bush, you are just
bloodying yourself, you are not doing yourself any good. That
is a good thing to keep in mind. But what I thought was beautiful
about this was this, the way the Lord orchestrated this, this
thing where He saved everybody in Nineveh, He did it in a way
to where there is no mistaking that the only person who gets
any glory in this salvation is the Lord Christ, that's it. And
you think about this, right? The Ninevites, do they get any
credit for their salvation? bunch of pagan Gentiles, they
knew of Jehovah because His country was their enemy, and they absolutely
hated Him. And they were worshiping their idols, and they were content
to do so. They never asked for a preacher,
and they never asked the Lord to send a prophet down there
and preach to them, or anything like that. They were completely
and utterly content to do what they were doing. We are going
to follow our path. We are going to worship our idols,
and everything is going to be. They didn't care nothing about
Jehovah but God. because before the foundations
of the world were built, He loved them. He sent them a prophet. He brought them to repentance.
He caused them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But God,
who gets the credit there? Who gets the glory? God gets
all the glory. You say, well, what about Jonah,
right? I mean, he delivered the message. Does he get some sort
of glory in all this? Jonah didn't even want to be
there. If Jonah could have been anywhere else on the face of
the earth, that's where he would have been. He did not want to
be preaching the gospel to those folks. He just didn't want to
do it. Does Jonah get any credit? No. The only person who gets
any credit in any of this is the Lord. That's everybody's
salvation. Everybody who's saved, there's
only one person who gets any credit because there's only one
person that does any work, and that's the Lord Himself. That's
Christ. Now, let's plow some new ground. Look at verse 4.
Or look at verse 5, sorry. 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. So Jonah doesn't
answer the Lord. He kind of takes his ball and
goes home, right? He leaves Nineveh and he goes east. And so where
this is in modern day times, this is modern day like northern
Iraq, southern Syria. And the heat, the sun, it's this
oppressive, wrathful sun that just beats down on you. You don't
even sweat. It evaporates so fast. You just
get this slime that covers you. That heat, that sun just beats
down and it just pounds you. And so he goes up on a hilltop
and he's going to build himself a booth. And here's what you
do when you build a booth. You take branches and you weave
them together, kind of sew them together, and you make yourself
a structure. Right? You make yourself some
sort of shade, a shelter from that wrathful, oppressive son. He's like, I'm gonna make my
own shelter. It will block this son, and I will be content. Who
needs the Lord? Right? But we're gonna find out
in the next verse, it's not a sufficient shelter. The shelter he made
is not sufficient, but God is a gracious God. Look at verse
six. 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." Now, I used to read that not knowing exactly
what a gourd was, as far as it's referenced here. I used to think
it was like a pumpkin or like a Halloween gourd. And I would
think why in the world would the Lord have a pumpkin grow
up next to Jonah? Worst form of shade you could
possibly get. That's not what this is, right? It would be the
stalks that grow off a vine, and these huge leaves that would
come about. So, supernaturally, remember Jonah is angry at the
Lord. He's rebellious. He's disobedient.
He's not asking the Lord for anything. But the Lord looks
down on him in pity in this pitiful shelter he made that ain't doing
anything for him. And supernaturally, the Lord
causes this gourd to grow over top of him, and those leaves
to come over top of him. And that sun, that oppressive,
wrathful sun, it beats down on that gourd, but it never touches
Jonah. He didn't plant the seeds, he did not tend the vine, he
didn't ask the Lord to do anything for him, because God loved him,
because he's gracious to him, because he chose him, he gave
the gourd. And Jonah's feeling pretty good,
right? He's like, I got that sun off me, this is good, right?
Things are looking up. Let's see what happens, look
at verse seven. But God prepared a worm when
the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it
withered. He had that gourd just a very
short amount of time, and then the Lord sends the worm. Keep
in mind the Lord prepared the gourd. He prepared the worm.
This is all the Lord's doing. And He takes away that gourd,
that gourd that provided that shade for Jonah. And now He's
got that sun beaten down on him all over again. And he's miserable
all over again. He's finally probably at the
point where He's saying, well, at least things can't get any
worse, right? Well, let's see what happens. Look at verse 8.
And it came to pass, when the sun did rise, that the 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. And God said to Jonah,
doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And listen to what
he says. And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
Still rebellious. still angry, still disobedient
this entire time. I do well to be angry, even unto
death. You can hear it seething out of him. And he wants to die,
but the Lord's not going to do that. He's not going to fulfill
the request. He's not going to kill him. What he's doing is he's
teaching him. Everything that had befallen
Jonah up to this point, it was a lesson. everything that's taking
place in chapter 4 here, it was all a lesson. He was teaching
Jonah one particular thing. And we're going to see the lesson
coming up. Look at verse 10. Then said the Lord, Thou hast
had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored,
neither madest it to grow, which came up in a night and perished
in a 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." The Lord's saying, Jonah, it's
all led up to this. This is the lesson. What do you
love? You love the gourd. What do you
pity? You pity the gourd. What do you
want? You want the gourd. Why do you
want it? Why do you pity it? Why do you
love the gourd? Because the gourd is useful to you. That gourd
is good for you. It does something for you. It is a useful thing to you. And here's the big difference
between your idea grace and my grace, Jonah. My grace is not
for the useful things. And my grace is not for the profitable
things, and my grace is not for the righteous things, and the
obedient things. My grace is for the useless things,
and for the unrighteous things, and for the disobedient things,
and the things that can do absolutely nothing for me. That whole thing's
about this, who's God's grace for? We say it's free all the
time. It's free, it's free grace, always saving, always free. Free
to who? Only one type of person. Useless, unrighteous, and unprofitable
people. This is not a religion for good
guys. It's a religion for bad guys. Let me show you a parallel
scripture. Turn over to Luke chapter 6. Luke 6. Before we read this,
I want to say this. Everything the Master commands
here, I want to do. I desire to do it. I never have,
and in this flesh, I never will. Not perfectly. Not as I ought.
What this illustrates right here, what it outlines, is what Christ
has done and what He's like. Pick up in verse 27. But I say unto you which hear,
love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. That's exactly what Christ did.
He did not love the lovable. He did not love the useful things.
He did not love the righteous things. He loved his enemies,
those of us who made himself our enemy through our sin. Verse
28, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you. And unto him that smiteth thee
on the one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh
away thy cloak, forbid not to take that coat also. Give to
every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy
goods, ask them not again. Everybody who asks him for his
goods, His righteousness, His entrance before the Father, His
acceptance. He gives it to them every single
time, and He asks absolutely nothing in return. Verse 31,
And as you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them
likewise. For if you love them which love
you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that
love them. And if you do good to them which do good to you,
what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the
same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive,
what thank have ye? For sinners also lend to sinners
to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and
do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward
shall be great, and you shall be the children of the highest.
For he is kind, that word is merciful, that word is gracious,
that word is forgiving, unto the unthankful and to the evil. Entire book, one lesson, this
is it. Who's that free grace for? That
grace that is always saving is for the unthankful and the evil. It's for sinners. If you're a
sinner, it's for you. Now I will leave you with this
final thought on Jonah chapter four. When I read Jonah Chapter 4 and
I get to the very end there, the Lord says, shall not I save
Nineveh? And then it just ends. How does Jonah answer? Does he
answer? What goes on there? What I start looking for after
I read Jonah Chapter 4 is where's Jonah Chapter 5? Where is the
conclusion to the story? Because the way it ends here,
it's seemingly very discouraging, isn't it? This man starts rebellious,
disobedient, angry at God, And his story ends with him being
rebellious, disobedient, and angry with God. It appears that
his end is no different than his beginning. And that is exactly
the point. Now, if you and I would have
written this story and concocted the ending, how would we have
ended it? We would have said, well, Jonah repented of, you
know, being angry and things like that, and he never had a
cross word with the Lord again. And he fell in love with them
Ninevites, and he pastored a church down there, and they just had
a big time. And he was just a model believer
for the rest of his days, never got mad at God ever again. And
if it ended that way, let me ask you this, how much hope does
that give you? His end was no different than
His beginning in His flesh. Now let me see if I can make
that point home to you. Look at verse 5 all over again. What this story does, it illustrates
the life of every believer. Look at 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. You know what he's doing
there? He's following in his father's footsteps. Adam, all
of our first fathers, when he sinned against God, the Lord
kicked him out of the garden. Which way to go? East. The Lord put that angel on the
east side of the garden with that flaming sword, keeping him
out. He went east. What did Adam do when he disobeyed
God? He saw that he was naked. And
so he wanted to make his own covering. He wanted to make his
own shelter. So he sewed fig leaves together. Just like Jonah
here, when he's making that booth, he's sewing them limbs together
and he's gonna make his own covering to hide his shame before God.
That's what works. That's what we all do by nature.
It's what every man does by nature. He sees something, he understands
something that God is righteous. He will reward righteousness
and he will punish evil. Everybody intuitively knows that.
What am I gonna do? I gotta make myself better. I've
got to atone for what I've done. I've got to sew this fig leaf
apron together, but it never works. It's never an appropriate
shelter. That sun still beat down on Jonah. It could not protect
him. Our works couldn't protect us
either. But every man falls in the footsteps of his first father,
Adam, that fall, wretched, evil nature. And he does the exact
same thing. He tries to justify himself by his works, but God. Look at verse six. 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. We were going
our own way, made our own shelter, very content with it, but God,
because he loved us, he gave the gourd, he gave Christ. And
Christ came up. and He became our sufficient
shelter. The wrath of God came down on
Him, and it never will touch us. He was made the sins of His
people. The wrath fell down on Him, and He is that sufficient
shelter. He is the only sufficient shelter.
He is the only hiding places in that gourd. But look here
in verse 7. But God prepared a worm when
the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it
withered, for Christ to be that sufficient shelter. That shelter
that could shelter us from the wrath of God, what had to happen?
He had to be smitten and he had to die. And if you're wondering
whether I'm interpreting this correctly or not, that word worm,
you know what that word actually means? Scarlet. The color of blood. It gets that name because it's
a particular worm that when it's crushed it leaves an unmistakable red
stain. You can't wash it away. For Christ
to be that shelter from the wrath of God, what had to happen? He
had to be smitten. He had to die. Look what happened
next, verse 8. 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. The gourd was taken away, and
this vehement east wind blew on Jonah." What's that wind? John referred to it this way
in John 3.8, the wind bloweth where it listeth, And thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or
whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."
Because Christ was our sufficient shelter, because He was smitten,
and He died, and we were stained red. Open the door for the Holy
Spirit to come and breathe on us, and breathe life into us,
and give us that new man, that holy man, that man who actually
believes God and loves God for who He is. And you say, does
not fit. Jonah is miserable here. That
vehement east wind blew and he is absolutely miserable. What
are the first signs of spiritual life? It is misery. You find out for the first time
you are a miserable sinner before God. And you have inside you
now two natures. There was no war before. You
still have that old man. And make no mistake he gets absolutely
no better whatsoever. I used to think at some point
that I would mature past these sinful desires, these sinful
thoughts, and this ego that I'm always trying to feed, and this
glory I'm always trying to achieve. I thought at some point I would
outgrow that. I never have. Those same sins I've dealt with
since I was young, it's the same ones I'm dealing with right now.
It's the same ones I'm going to deal with for the rest of my life, because
that old man, he never gets any better. He's rebellious. He's
angry at God. just the way he is and he's not
going to get any better. But something new is there that was
not before, a man who loves God. A man who actually believes on
the Lord Jesus Christ. The man who repents of his dead
works, he wants absolutely nothing to do with that throne of iniquity.
Don't even bring it near me. I don't want anything to do with
that thing right there. But in this flesh, and here is
the point, our end is It's not going to look any different than
our beginning in this flesh, still sinful, still wicked to
the day we die and we actually put it away for good. And here's
the story I thought of. I'll leave you with this. Remember
2 Samuel chapter 9. David's the most powerful man
on the face of the earth. And he says this, is there any
left of the house of Saul that I might show him kindness for
Jonathan's sake? He made a covenant with Jonathan
so many years ago, I'll be merciful to your house. And one of the
servants piked up and he says, there is one. One left, his name
is Mephibosheth. That means a shameful thing.
And here's what you need to know about him, King. He is lame on both
his feet. That means he's useless to you.
He cannot do anything for you, and he cannot do anything for
himself. And if you want him king, you can call him all you
want, but you actually have to go down there, throw him over
your shoulder, and bring him back to your court. That's how
lame he is. He can do absolutely nothing.
And David said, that's just my type. Go fetch him. And he brought
Mephibosheth in. And as soon as they had gotten
to the point where Mephibosheth thought for sure, David's going
to kill me, David showed mercy and he said, here's what's going
to happen. I'm going to restore you everything you lost of your
father. And I'm going to provide for you the rest of your days.
These servants are going to work your fields. They're going to
bring in the fruits. You don't have to worry about a thing. You see that table
over there? That's my table. That's where
I eat. And the king eats good. And here's what you're gonna
do. You're gonna eat at my table every single day. Everything
I eat, you eat. And you're gonna be my son. I'm gonna adopt you. And here's
how the story ends. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem,
for he did eat continually at the king's table, and was lame
on both his feet. Me too, Mephibosheth. Me too,
gentlemen. Lame on both my feet, still rebellious,
still disobedient. What hope could a man like that
have? For Jonathan's sake, for the Gordon's sake, for Christ's
sake. If you have that, that's all
you need. I'll leave you all there.