Jonah chapter four. One of the first messages I preached
to you as your pastor was Jonah chapter four. And circling back
to it again, I see it brand new all over again, I see it. Things
are revealed differently now. And I think that's amazing that
the Lord takes the same passage You can have four gospel preachers
preach from the same exact passage, and the Lord will show them four
different things, but it's all the same, really. It's Christ's
salvation for His people. And it's certainly true in the
book of Jonah. The allegory of Jonah is just
a beautiful picture of what the Lord has done for His people
and how He keeps His people and He draws His people. And it's
in spite of us, isn't it? It's despite us. It has nothing
to do with us whatsoever. I say this often, but I rejoice
in these words. I can't mess it up. You can't
mess it up either. Now we heard Wednesday and we
heard the first hour, the account of Jonah, where Jonah is told
to go to Nineveh and he rebels and he goes down to Joppa to
get a ship, get on a ship that's going to Tarshish. And he goes
down to the sides of the ship. He falls asleep. He's very comfortable
in his rebellion. The Lord sends a wind, a storm
of mercy. and wakes up Jonah by the captain.
The captain's voice tells him to call upon his God. And we
see the mariners casting lots and the lot fell on Jonah. And
they asked him his occupation, where is he from? And his confession
was, this is all my fault. The whole reason this storm's
happening is my fault. And your only hope is to throw me overboard.
And they said, well, we can't do that. And so they tried to
lighten the wares. They tried to lighten the burden that they
had of the ship. They tried to fix it themselves by rowing contrary
to the wind. But they could not prevail, could
they? And it's a picture of false religion, isn't it? What men
do when they hear that Christ is all, they try to lighten the
load, so to speak. No, the man has to be thrown
overboard. Christ Jesus had to die for his people. He had to
do the entire work. And we see the men had to lay
their hands upon Jonah, which is the confession that every
believer has, that it's his death is our only hope. We see it as
a picture of the Lord transferring our sin unto him because we could
not. We were dead in trespasses and in sin. We see that Jonah
was cast overboard, and as soon as he hit the sea, the sea ceased
from a raging. He went into the whale's belly
for three days and three nights, because God had prepared it,
prepared the whale for that purpose. We see in chapter two, out of
the belly of hell, cried Jonah unto the Lord, and the Lord had
mercy, and Jonah's confession was salvation is of the Lord. Now, as soon as he was spat upon
dry ground, the third chapter begins by saying, and the word
of the Lord came unto Jonah again, saying, Now this time, what do
you think Jonah did? I'm not gonna go, right? No,
he hastened. He ran. He said, yep, I'm going
to Nineveh. I've decided. Lord changed his
will, didn't he? He gave him a new will to honor
the Lord. That's what he did. So Jonah
goes and he's not doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
I promise you that. He doesn't want to do it, but
he goes on a three days journey through Nineveh and he says eight
words. "'Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'" He's walking
through and telling everyone, and the most miraculous thing
happens, the Lord gives them repentance. From the king down
to the servant, every one of them repents and sat clothed
in ashes, and they cry out unto the Lord, have mercy upon us.
And the Lord spares them. The Lord spares the city of Nineveh. I love the thought. Well, we're
in the fourth chapter, and we're gonna see that that made Jonah
angry. The man just got spat on dry land by a whale. The Lord
spared him three days and three nights in a whale's belly, gets
vomited back out on the dry land, and the man becomes angry at
God for his mercy shown to Nineveh. Is that not so us? How often
are we hearing the word of the Lord, and we're rejoicing in
our heart. And as soon as we leave, we become angry. Understand something,
if we believe God is sovereign, and we do, and we believe he's
the first cause of all things, when we become angry, who are
we angry at? We're angry at God, indirectly, aren't we? We're
angry at God. But what I didn't, I didn't mean
to do that. I didn't know that that's what
I was doing. That's exactly what we're doing. And every one of
us is just as guilty as the next one sitting to us. And I'm just
as guilty as you are as well. I'm so thankful that everything
required for salvation, God prepared. Before the foundation of the
world, God had prepared the well to save Jonah from this storm. He had prepared everything needed.
And we're gonna see three prepared things here in the fourth chapter,
a prepared gourd, a prepared worm, and a prepared behemoth
east wind. Everything needed, God prepared. It's called prevenient grace. It means it's grace before grace.
The Lord came to Philip to call Philip his disciple. He said,
I seen you sitting underneath the tree praying. Before I ever
called you, I seen you praying. I knew your name. See, he knows
his people by name. And before we're ever even called,
everything required, he's already purposed to bring us to the appointed
time where our salvation is revealed, where we are born again, where
we are shown that we are in Christ, where we are made sinners and
Christ has made the Savior. What grace and what mercy the
Lord did not leave Jonah to himself. What grace and mercy is it that
the Lord does not leave us to ourself utterly, that he sends
the wind of mercy. That's what I titled the message
Wednesday night, the wind of mercy. Well, let's read Jonah
chapter four. It's a short chapter. We'll read
the entirety of it. God spared Nineveh. 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 into
Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and a merciful
God, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentant of the
evil. Therefore now, O Lord, I take, I beseech thee, my life
from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then
said the Lord, dost thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out
of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there made
him a booth and sat under it in the shadow that he, till he
might see what would become of the city. 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, but God prepared a worm. When
the morning rose the next day, it smoked the gourd that it withered.
It came to pass when the sun did arise that God prepared a
vehement east wind and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah,
that he fainted and wished in himself to die and said, it is
better for me to die than to live. God said to Jonah, God
said unto Jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And
he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the
Lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd for that which thou hast
not labored, neither mayest it grow, which came up in the night
and perished in the night. And should not I spare Nineveh,
that great city? wherein are more than six score
thousand persons cannot discern between their right hand and
their left hand, and also much counting." That's the end of
the book of Jonah, isn't it? He asked a question to end the
book. I find that interesting. Jonah got angry at God. Got angry at God. That's dangerous,
isn't it? It's a very dangerous place to
be, is being angry at God. Number one, it's not gonna do
us any good. We're not gonna change God. Nothing we can do
can change God in any way. But yet, indirectly, we become
angry at God because of our circumstances. Now, understand that he is the
first cause of all things. I was with a dear brother one
time. We had went to get a hamburger, and he cannot eat onions. It
bothers him. and they put onions on his hamburger.
He specifically made a big deal about telling them, don't you
dare do that. And they did. He got so mad. And I'm using
him as an example, because I don't want to throw myself under the
bus, but I'm no different than what I'm describing. You're not
either. None of us are. We're the exact
same. He threw a temper tantrum, a grown man, because he had onions
on his hamburger. I said, just pick them off, man.
It's not a big deal. And he kept saying, I told them this. I told
them that. I said, you know what? God put those onions on your
hamburger. God purposed those onions to be on your hamburger.
He did, didn't he? The Lord did that, why? To show us that we
think too highly of ourself. That's why he does the things
he does, to cause us to leave us to ourself just for a moment
where we become angry, we realize, oh Lord, I'm in my rebellion,
my rebellious heart has reared its ugly head up again, have
mercy on me, Lord, the sinner. We cry out for mercy over and
over again. Our life, and I said this Wednesday, the believer's
life is literally It's all about rebellion and repentance. Rebellion,
and it's just a ping pong match going on all the time. This is
every day, it's back and forth and back and forth. It's just
how it is. We don't glory in our rebellion, we don't brag
about it, but certainly that's what we see when we look back
over our life. We see the rebellion of our heart wanting to rear
its head up. Aren't you glad that God prepared everything
necessary for our salvation? Everything. We see in the life
of Jonah right here, everything was prepared. Before Jonah ever
rebelled, that fish was prepared. Before Jonah ever rebelled, this
gourd was prepared to come up. This worm was prepared to come
forth. This vehement wind was prepared to blow upon Jonah and
it was going to come to pass. Nothing could stop it. It was
God's purpose. Made to see that every ripple,
men believe they have an ocean. We were made to see that really
it's just a pond. And then we're made to see, well,
it's really just a puddle and it's a cesspool puddle. full
of sewage, and it just keeps getting worse and worse, and
we see less and less of ourself, don't we? That's the way the
Lord does it. He shows us, no, you don't have a big ocean. You're
not that big. No, you don't have a big pond. It's not a ripple
in your pond. It's a little puddle. It's just
a drop in our puddle, and it just makes us so upset. The Lord
says, seek my face. We say, Lord, I repent. I repent. It's you. It's you. Have mercy
upon me. Cause me to rest in your finished
work. Cause me to believe you. It caused me to rejoice in these
light afflictions. Paul prayed unto the Lord and
said, Lord, remove this infirmity that's upon me, to assault the
Lord three times. The Lord said, I'm not gonna
remove it, but my grace is sufficient for you. My grace is sufficient
for you. The Lord calls us to see that
your grace is sufficient. God must teach us something very
important. And I pray he does this morning.
I mentioned this the last hour. But there's a very big difference
in seeing that we're a sinner and being made a sinner. There's a difference between
seeing our sin and being made the chief of sinners. And this
is what I hope the Lord does this morning. I hope he reveals
unto us. I hope he makes us sinners this morning, because if he does,
he shows us Christ, our salvation. Now, I've titled this message,
Seeing Sin Is Not Salvation. Seeing sin is not salvation.
There's plenty of people in the world that will tell you they're
sinners. They will go around saying they're sinners, and they'll
actually make it sound like it's their righteousness. But declaring
that you're a sinner only declares that you acknowledge what the
law states. It's literally acknowledging what the law is stating. It's
not that we're saying that we're resting in Christ as all our
hope. It's saying, okay, the law is correct. The law is true,
I am a sinner. But the believer lives by grace.
The believer flees to Christ. The believer says Christ is all
in salvation. I see that I'm the sinner, yes,
but I glory not in my flesh. I glory in his finished work.
I glory in Christ's righteousness alone. My hope is not that I'm
a sinner. My hope that he is the sinner substitute, that he
put away my sin. That's our hope, isn't it? It's
not that we're walking around confessing that we're a sinner
as our righteousness, that we confess Christ. Christ is our
righteousness. Christ is our hope before God. The difference between seeing
sin and being made a sinner is the difference in day and night.
Brethren, it's the difference in day. It's the difference in
heaven and hell. It really is. God must make us
a sinner. It's an act of grace. It's an
act of mercy. Only when you're made to be a
sinner will you cry out for mercy. Only when we're made to be sinners
will we be mercy beggars. Only when we're made to be sinners
will we cry out for grace. Where our confession will be,
it's by grace alone. It has to be by grace alone.
There's no other explanation. I see myself as the sinner, the
rebel that Jonah is here. I see myself as that, Lord. You're
gonna have to do all the work. We can know the doctrine of salvation
and still not know the Christ of salvation. We can come and
listen to the gospel being declared and not be offended. But that
doesn't mean that we've obtained grace. We must be made a sinner. And even if we confess that we're
a sinner, that's not confessing Christ. We must confess Christ. That is our confession. Yes,
we acknowledge our sin and He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sin, but we confess Christ is all in salvation. The Lord's people, His elected
sinners, live by grace. I've seen grace in believers.
I see the Lord's mercy in not leaving us to myself, not leaving
me to myself, not leaving you to yourself, but I see the grace
that the people of the Lord live by. Can you see that? When you
look around at your brethren, you see the grace that the Lord's
given them. I've seen grace at the very end of a believer's
life. Believers live by grace. We're constantly crying out for
grace. Constantly crying out for mercy, constantly crying
out, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner, been made a sinner. We never justify, Lord's people
never justify. Let me be very clear, we never
justify our sin, never justify our sin. Paul said, should we
continue in sin that grace may abound, God forbid, we don't
justify our sin, we cry out for mercy. We don't justify what
we do and what we are. We cry out for mercy. We cry
out for grace. Paul said, what then, shall we
sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God
forbid. Did you know whenever we say, well, it would purpose
me to do that, we're blaming God for our sin. No, we're guilty
of every single sin that we ever do. We are guilty before God.
Guilty unless, unless he makes us his centers because in doing
so he shows that he's taken that sin and he has put it away by
his own blood and he's made us the righteousness of God in him. Believers don't blame God, they
confess Christ is all. We've been made to say woe is
me. I'm I'm the man of unclean lips. It's not you, it's me. I'm the guilty. I'm the one that
That's the worst, the chief of sinner. That's what being made
a sinner does, is it shows you how bad you are. It doesn't cause
you to justify anything. It makes you loathe yourself.
It's like, it's a weak example, but it's like not putting on
deodorant. You stink, you smell yourself, and you're repulsed
at your own odor. That's what being made a sinner
is, seeing how, Putrid we smell in his sight and needing Christ. That was the sweet smelling savor
that went up before the Lord. I need him as my substitute. I've sinned against the Lord.
I'm the man. True repentance exhibits humility, doesn't it?
True repentance exhibits humility. We stand. We're in the dirt. The way up is down. I heard Greg
preach a message on the way up is down. I'd welcome you to pull
it up and listen to it. It was encouraging to me. The
less we see of ourself, the more we see of the Savior. The way
up is down. When he puts us in the dirt and
we're on our face, flat on our face, that's when we see him
high and lifted up. That's what we must have. We
must, the scripture tells us, let God be true and every man
a liar. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Lord, I'm the liar. I see that now. I've lied to
myself thinking that I'm good enough. I'm not good enough.
I need you to save me. I'm just like Jonah. I get angry at you indirectly
and I repulse myself. This is what he shows us. God centers see themselves as
liars. They don't look around and say,
well, I'm better than this one or I'm better than that one or.
No, I see myself as the liar. I see myself as the one that's
false and full of sin. There's a. passage where the
Lord speaks into his followers, and he tells them, and men misconstrue
this verse often, but he says, judge not that you be not judged. But whatever judgment you judge
with, that's the judgment you're going to be judged with. The
lesson here is that he calls them hypocrites. He's calling
them hypocrites, and then he tells them the problem that they
have. He says, you're beholding the mote that's in your brother's
eyes, but you can't see the beam that's in your own eyes. Cast
out the beam that's in your eyes, and then you can worry about
the mote that's in your brother's eyes. Now the mote there means
a splinter, a splinter. And the beam literally means
a beam, a beam. Now this building is held up
by beams. A beam is big. A beam can carry
a lot of weight. But if you have one of those
in your eye, if I have one of those in my eye, what does that mean?
I'm completely blind. I'm noticing the splinter that's
in yours, but not noticing that I'm completely blind to everything
that's wrong with me. The Lord's, and he calls us hypocrites
for that. What does the Lord do? The Lord
takes that beam and shows us the beam that's in our eye. And
I'm no longer, and you're no longer worried about the splinter
in your brother's eye, are you? You see the beam that's in yours.
Lord, I'm the sinner. Have mercy on me, the sinner.
I'm the hypocrite. I'm the one that would do good,
but does not. I'm the one that has the heart
that's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Lord,
have mercy on me, the sinner. Only double-minded men look to
the physical to justify the spiritual. That's what we would do by nature.
We would do something physically thinking that it will have a
spiritual advantage or a spiritual application, and it's not true.
It's not true. We can do nothing physical that
would change the spiritual. The Lord has to do it. Only God-made
sinners look to Christ, not themselves, not others. They look to Christ. Lord, make me a sinner. Lord,
I know seeing sin is not salvation. Make me the chief sinner. Make
me your sinner. That's what we cry. Make me your
dog. Make me your dog. Isn't that
the Seraphim woman that came to the Lord? She had a need.
The Lord had given her a need that only the Lord could fix.
And you know the account. She comes up to him and she's
not, of the Jewish blood. So everybody said, what is she
doing here? Get rid of this dog. She's an outcast. They were racist
towards her, just as Jonah was racist towards Nineveh. She cried
out unto the Lord and confessed her need. And he said, it's not
meat to take the children's bread and cast it before the dogs.
Called her a dog, didn't he? He said, no, I came not but to
the house of Israel, the house of Jacob. She said, truth, Lord. Truth, Lord, but the dogs desire
a crumb that falls from the master's table. I just want a crumb. I
am a dog, but I want to be your dog. I want to be your sinner
because all your sinners, and I've preached the message before
where I said this, all dogs go to heaven. They made a silly
movie about that, but it's true, isn't it? All dogs truly go to
heaven because the Lord's made them to be thus. The Lord's made
them to be thus. Only God's sinners can acknowledge
that their dogs look to Christ, not themselves or others. Yet
we still have this old man that we contend with that wants to
rear up his ugly head. It's ugly head of pride, selfishness,
rebellion. I'm reminded of a fish. There's
a fish in our account here, our story that we just read of Jonah,
but I like to fish. I don't get to fish very often.
Hopefully we'll get to go soon. It was, I found out one thing,
I'm only going to be able to fish about six months out of
the year because it gets too cold here for me to want to go
fishing. But I like to go fishing sometimes. And when I do, you
catch a fish, you're reeling it in. You're pulling the fish
in a direction towards you. You're bringing the fish in.
You're trying to land the fish. And what does that fish do? Does
it swim right towards you and jump in the boat and thank you
for catching it or whatever? And of course I'm being facetious,
but you understand what I'm saying, sarcastic. The fish fights, doesn't
it? And what does it do? It shakes
its head back and forth. It wants rid of the hook that's
in its jaw. But do you know the Lord's people
have a hook in their jaw? And the Lord is reeling. The
Lord's gonna get those that he died for on the cross of Calvary.
The Lord's gonna bring them in. You can shake all you want to.
I can shake all I want to. We can't mess it up. We can't
snap this line. It's unbreakable. He's going
to bring us, even though it may be painful. Thinking of the hook
in the jaw, it's painful, isn't it? Lord, put your hook in my
jaw, reel me into yourself. Lord, I'm the sinner. Lord, you've
shown me I'm full of sin. You're gonna have to do all the
work. I'm gonna resist the entire way. You're gonna have to bring
me and you're gonna have to land me. You're gonna have to land
me. I'm not gonna come willingly.
The Lord said, you will be willing in the day of my power. I will
make you willing to come to me. I will draw you with cords of
love and it will be irresistible. "'You can't get out of it. "'I
will bring you by my grace and by my mercy.'" I find it amazing that Jonah
had just been vomited. I mean, he was in the belly of
the well. You see his confession. It would appear he has repentance
here. He was just vomited on dry land, just ran to Nineveh,
and now he's angry at God. He's angry at God. He thought
he was in charge, didn't he? He thought, that's the problem
that he thought, period. That's our problem, isn't it,
we think. You remember whenever the leper, Naaman, I used several,
I think I've used this several times, but Naaman was the captain
of the host of Syria. He was a mighty man of valor.
He was an honorable man. He was all the things that men
would want to be. He had to be a big guy in order
to be able to be over this army, strong, intelligent. Probably
had a lot of pride. Well, we know he had a lot of
pride. We see how he responds to the Lord's prophet. But he
had one problem. He was a leper. If the Lord ever
makes you a leper, if the Lord ever makes me a leper, we'll
have one problem, not a bunch of problems. He had one problem.
He was a leper. The Lord let a Jewish servant
that was there, it was captive, tell his wife, say, there's a
prophet down in Israel that can heal him. Naaman said, okay,
well, I'm gonna get my parade of stuff. I'm gonna do it my
way. We're gonna get all the nice things and take it down.
And this prophet will respond to my good things that I'm bringing
him, he'll heal me. And the prophet didn't even come
out to talk to him, did he? Prophet sent the servant. The servant
came out and said, go dip in Jordan seven times and you'll
be cleansed. And he left. Naaman said, I thought,
well, that's our problem. just as it was Jonah's problem,
just as it's every believer's problem, I thought that he would
come out, wave his hands, do all kinds of parlor tricks or
whatever, it would be amazing, and he would heal me. He was
angry. He was angry that he had to go
dip in Jordan. Well, seven's the number of perfection. Jordan
represents death. He had to die the perfect death. It represents
us when we died in Christ, when Christ put away our sin. That's
what he had to confess. Do we see that? And he went. The servant said, well, if they'd
have told you to do something amazing or give a bunch of money
or do whatever else you'd have done it, why not go down to Jordan
and just dip? And so he did. The Lord healed him of his leprosy.
Problem is, as we think too highly of ourselves, don't we? Not the
Lord's sinners. When you are made a sinner and
the gospel is being declared, we see Christ high and lifted
up. Now, our response to things in life should be based upon
that. We won't get near as insulted when somebody starts insulting
us, calling us names. We'll be like, well, if you know
how bad I really was, you knew how bad I really, you're not
insulting me. No, I'm worse than that, actually. I'm worse than
that. We don't respond that way though,
do we? Jonah's pride was involved. He
was worried about being a false prophet. See, the prophet, he
prophesied to them, this is gonna come to pass, and he walked through
the city prophesying this, and whenever it didn't come to pass,
it made him to be a liar. You see that? He was then deemed
as a false prophet. He was more concerned with being
viewed as a false prophet than he was the salvation of 120,000
people. That's a lot of pride, isn't
it? That's a lot of pride. But I would say this to us, are
we not Are we not the same? Our pride gets in the way so
much. We are more concerned with ourself. We are more concerned
with ourself than we are the salvation of others. We're more
concerned with our physical needs and the spiritual need of others.
It's true, isn't it? Lord, woe is me. I'm the man
of unclean lips. It's true, I'm the rebel. I'm
the rebel. We're despicable. That's the word I'll use, despicable.
Thank God for His unchangeable, unmerited, precious grace that's
given to His people. Men talk about growing in grace
after they've heard the truth. That's something that we do.
Exercise faith, and I've used the example of going to the gym
and exercising to gain bodily muscles what men use to say you
should do this and you should do this more and your faith will
increase. The Lord's the one that he's the one that gives
faith. He's the one that grows his people
in grace. And you know how he does it?
By revealing our wickedness more and more, by letting us feel
the weight of our sin more and more, by letting us smell ourself.
more and more and revealing Christ more and more, seeing him as
more and more precious. If you're, if you're a professing
believer, do you not look at Christ as more precious now than
when you first believed? He's more precious now than he's
ever been. Why? Because all the, what he's caused
us to see ourself worse and worse. We were made to be a sinner.
When the Lord comes to say, when the Lord comes to call his people,
we're made to be a sinner. But the older we get, And I know
that I'm young. You don't have to remind me.
But the older that I get, the more I see of this sin that I'm
carrying around, the more I see of how ugly, just ugly in my
heart is, the more I need a Savior. The more we need a substitute,
the more we need to see Christ as our Savior. It causes us to flee to Him more
and more. And the Lord asked the question
to him, do you do well to be angry? He didn't respond the
first time, did he? He said, well, I'm just going
to make a booth. I'm going to sit underneath it. And Lord raised up a gourd.
And he says, I want to watch them to be destroyed. I will
see what happens. Well, we're just like Jonah.
That's what I'll tell us. Just like him. And if we don't
think so, we're deceiving ourselves. But if God's made us a sinner,
he's brought us to the conclusion We're the chief of sinners. We
no longer will say, yes, I do well. We say, no, I can't do
nothing right. No, I can't do anything right. Not compared
to what goodness is, not compared to your holiness, I can't do
anything right. Jonah literally said, yes, I do right. I'm right
here and you're wrong, God. That's what he told God. That's
what he told, that's what our flesh would say, isn't it? Lord,
don't leave me to myself. Don't leave me to myself. Now, in this chapter, we see
by God's grace and mercy that yet again, he reveals that he
is God to Jonah. He revealed it to him on the
ship when he was cast into the sea. He had a prepared well.
He revealed it to him when he was vomited out. And now yet
again, he's gonna reveal it to him again. He's gonna have to
again. Is that what he does for his people? Yes. Yes. How often? I can't count how
often. I don't know. But as often as
required. Every second of every day, we
have to be brought back, don't we? We have to be returned back
into him. Lord, turn us and we shall be
turned. Here I go, I'm wandering off again. I don't even mean
to. I'm trying to follow you and
here's a squirrel I'm chasing after that's irrelevant. Lord,
have mercy upon me. He shows Jonah as he shows all
of his elect. Everything is his choice. It's not ours. See, he is right. He is truth. He is holy. We're wrong, we're
false, we're sinners. Well, how does he show, how does
he reveal this? Well, in this chapter, he reveals it by a prepared
gourd, a prepared worm, and a prepared behemoth east wind. Jonah was
angry, and at the beginning of this chapter, he said, I knew
you were a God of mercy. I knew you were a gracious God,
long-suffering, and that you would repent of the evil that
you were gonna do against them. I knew you would do that. It's
like he's throwing a temper tantrum. That's what he's doing, throwing
a temper tantrum. He says, take my life. I just
soon die since I can't have it my way. I just soon die. This was the man that was just
spared. This was the man that was just vomited. This was the
man that had saw the grace of the Lord in giving him a second
chance, if you will, in being brought back from the depths
of hell, as he describes it. You imagine the weight that was
on Jonah when he was in the well. He was underneath the mountains.
He was in the lowest parts. It would have been crushing,
wouldn't it? That was the picture of the weight of our sin upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt. But the Lord
brought him from that and vomited him out on dry ground. Now he's
angry at him. He's angry with God. The Lord says, do you do
you do well? He says, yes, yes, I do well. I'm right. Aren't you thankful
that whenever we we say stupid things, the Lord is still gracious. I love the word long-suffering,
don't you? He's long-suffering. He's just continually gracious
over and over and over for His people. Continually returning
us to Himself. Well, the first time the Lord
asked Jonah that, Jonah doesn't answer. He just goes and builds
a booth, as I've said before. He's going to sit and watch.
He's going to see what's going to happen. Now, the booth represents His
works. The booth represents His way. Wanting to have it His way. That's what the booth represents.
God gives a shade by a prepared gourd in order to show us the
gospel. If he doesn't call the gourd to wither, first of all,
if he doesn't call the wind to come on the ship, Jonah would
have never seen the mercy of Lord. He ended up in Tarshish,
which is a picture of just us in our rebellion going headlong
into hell. If the Lord doesn't give the gourd and calls it to
wither, Jonah would never seen mercy. And a lot of people base
what they think they know or what they have off of thinking
that they have favor with the Lord, and it's not true. That's
what Jonah would have thought in and of himself. He would have
sat there underneath the gourd and think, okay, well, I have
favor with God because I have this around me. I've done this
and my works are good enough and whatever else. This is what
men do by nature. I'm so thankful that he withers
our gourd. He withers his people's gourd.
That might sound funny, but we get angry sometimes at our gourd
getting withered, don't we? We lack our comfort. We lack
our, our comfort items, our surroundings, our peace. We lack all these
things, and going through trials are painful. I mentioned the
hook before. It's painful, isn't it? And sometimes
we become angry that the Lord withers our gourd, but it's all
for mercy. It's all for grace. It's all
in returning us unto him. And what happened? It was done
by a worm, wasn't it? I've mentioned this to us before,
I think, but that worm translates the crimson worm. Now this is
a very unique worm. It goes up on this gourd or whatever
tree or plant that it's intended to in order to lay its eggs,
its larva. And it attaches itself to the
tree or attaches itself to this gourd. And it lays the larva
underneath itself attached and it dies. It literally dies. And upon the process of time,
when the larva hatch, they feast upon the carcass. of the mother. In the process of this, it causes
scarlet to be shown forth, a stain that's unremovable upon this
tree, that's unremovable upon this gourd. And then the young
feast upon whatever the tree is, and that's what ends up killing
it. This crimson is the same crimson that our color red comes
from in all of our clothing, all of our dye. What's that a
picture of? Well, it can only be one thing. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ who hung up on the tree and covered us by his own blood,
placing a stain there that cannot be removed, placing the stain
upon his people, the covering that the father sees that he's
happy with. And in the process, whenever this gourd dies, our
righteousness is removed. Then he blows his Holy Spirit
upon us. That behemoth east wind that
he's talking about, behemoth means silent. It doesn't mean,
it was a pretty, I thought it meant like boisterous or loud. No, it's silent. It's a silent
east wind that blows. It blowed upon the head of Jonah.
Now that tells me Jonah was a bald man. What does that represent?
He didn't have any righteousness before God. He didn't have any
hair to cover his head. The covering of the head is a
type and picture of righteousness. Did you know that? Scripture
tells us about that. Clearly the women have long hair
for the purpose of being subject under their husbands as their
righteousness. And then you have the man who
doesn't cover his head as not having a covering before God.
Christ is the righteousness. That's the picture there. And
that's what it's saying here. He had no covering for his head.
The wind was blowing upon him and it caused him to faint unto
death. And that's what the Lord does is he slays us and he reveals
the crimson worm that is the reason that our gourd is taken
away. And we see the glory of the gospel. The glory of the
gospel. And the Lord shows us mercy.
And he said, should I not have mercy upon whom I should have
mercy and whom I would I hardeneth? And he asked the question, but
there is no answer at the end of this, is it? Should I not
have spared the 120,000, Jonah? We know what Jonah's answer was.
Truth, Lord. Truth, Lord, you're right and
I'm wrong. Oh, you have the right to do
whatsoever you will, to save whomsoever you will. Lord, I
see now, I repent. Scripture doesn't tell us that's
what he said, but we know that's what he said. The Lord wouldn't
have taken all this time in order to reveal himself to Jonah, just
to utterly, the Lord reveals himself only to his people. That's
the point, isn't it? That's the point. Notice verse nine with me again. God said to Jonah, doest thou
well to be angry for the Lord? And he said, I do well to be
angry even into death. And said the Lord, thou hast
had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored,
neither made us grow, which came up by night and perished in the
night. Do you well? Do you do well? That's the question
for you and I, isn't it? Do you do well to be angry? Do
you do well in your rebellion? Or has the Lord made you, made
you a sinner? Seeing sin is not salvation,
but if the Lord's made you a sinner, he'll show you Christ. He will
reveal Christ. He will reveal the miraculous
work of the crimson worm and how it's covered his people,
how the Lord Jesus Christ has covered his people. We're made to say, Lord, I was
angry at your mercy. That's what I was angry at. I
was angry at your grace would have mercy upon me, the sinner.
I see much better since you revealed the beam that's in my eye. I
couldn't see it, but now I can see you give me eyes to see.
You give me ears to hear. I see I'm the problem. I see
I'm the problem. Have mercy on me, the sinner.
Turn with me in closing to Psalm 51. This is the cry that the Lord
gives his people. If the Lord gives you the grace,
the Lord gives me the grace. He gives us the faith to cry
this out. He's made us to be sinners. Psalm 51, have mercy. upon me, O God, according to
thy lovingkindness." Not according to what I've done, but according
to what you've done. Thy lovingkindness. According
to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. That blot, that's the same as
the covering, isn't it? That's the same as the covering
of the crimson worm. That's the stain. That's the blood of the
lamb. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me
from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is
ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest."
See, when the Lord spoke to Jonah at the end and asked him the
question, he does the same thing to you and I, and we just say
truth, Lord. He's justified in what he says. He's justified. Behold, I was
shaped in verse five. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desire is truth
in the inward parts. It's not my works. It's not the
booth that I've built anymore. I see that now. It's not what
I've made. It's not my way or the highway anymore. Lord, it's
your way. It's your way. You desire truth in the inward
parts, not the outward parts. I can't do anything with this
heart. In the hidden part, thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop. Hyssop was the branch that they
would use to sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat. He's saying,
sprinkle me with thy blood and I shall be clean. Wash me and
I shall be whiter than snow. You're the only one that can
take your red blood and put it over me, my red sin, and it come
out whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thy has broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a
clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast
me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold
me with thy free spirit. Lord, it ain't by my free spirit,
it's by your free spirit. It isn't my salvation, it's your
salvation. You're God, and I am not. I repent in sackcloth and ashes.
Lord, you are right and I am wrong. You are true and I am
false. This is the repenting heart that
the Lord gives his people. This is what we cry out unto
the Lord over and over. He leaves us to our rebellion
for a moment and he brings us back to repentance until the
day we die. That's our hope, isn't it? Lord,
don't leave me to myself. Don't leave me. Lord, if it is
necessary, and it's necessary, Lord, if it is necessary for
my gourd to be withered, wither it. Lord, blow your spirit upon
me, no matter how painful it may be. Lord, do not leave me
to myself, lest I die in my sin and go to hell. Do not leave
me to myself. God's given you this cry by faith,
he's made you a sinner. He's made you a sinner. Sinners
are who Christ came to save. I'm thankful for that, aren't
you? came to save his sinners. By his grace, when we cry out
for his mercy, the Father's reply is, this is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased. Every time a sinner comes to
Christ, crying out for mercy, he said, I will in no wise cast
you out. There's no way I will cast you,
it's not possible. Sinners are received by this
man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Seeing sin is not salvation,
seeing Christ The Lord Jesus Christ is salvation. Amen. Father, cause us to see Christ
is all in our salvation. We ask in his name. Amen.