If you would turn with me to Jonah. We're going to conclude our series in Jonah this morning. I'm actually going to start in Jonah verse chapter three, verse 10, and then read to the end of chapter four, but focusing on chapter four here this morning, Jonah, chapter three, beginning in verse 10, and reading to the end. But let's go to the Lord in prayer, asking for the Lord's blessing upon his word before we read it.
Let's pray, Father, we come to your word, and Lord, we recognize that in many ways we are just like what we see here, presented in Jonah, the word of God coming to a distant Gentile people. And Lord, we pray that you would work in us what you worked in the Ninevites, repentance, and that you would work in us what we desire, that you would work in Jonah, a repentance of self righteousness, and that we might have a humility to see that we deserve justice. But let us look to the cross again this day.
Open up our eyes and our hearts to see our Savior, Jesus Christ, and hold fast to him, to flee to him, to rest on Him and Him alone. Lord, be merciful. We plead to your people. Bless us, comfort your people, for Christ's sake, and it's in Jesus's name, Amen. People of God hear God's word this morning for us from the book of Jonah.
I'll begin in verse chapter three, verse 10, reading to the end, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry, and he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster, therefore now O Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry. General went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. Now, the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant, but when dawn came up, the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint, and he asked that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came in the being in a night and perished in a night, and should not. I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle. He who has ears, let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated. There are some things children are really good at doing. They are really good at playing and learning creativity.
They're also really good at asking questions. Why you've heard that? And if you had children, you have even played this game, why? And you answer the next question is followed, why? And it goes on and on and on. And eventually, if you play that game long enough, it leads you to an end and you'll end up having to say something along the lines of because that's how God created it, or for God's own glory. And it's interesting that if you play the why game, and if you follow questions so far till the end, it always leads you eventually to God. What's interesting in the text that we have just read is that it's.
However, that's asking the questions of Jonah, and we might ask, Why? Why is God asking questions? God already knows all things, so why is he the one asking questions of Jonah and not the other way around? Well, God's questions are meant to teach us and to teach Jonah something, or to expose us or Jonah's heart, kind of like a good counselor, and that's what we really see. God functioning in this role, is this divine counselor, this divine friend, as one might do to you, who might ask you a question to help you better understand your own heart, to better understand your own motives, to uncover what's happening inside. And God has done this in the past. In the Scripture, we go all the way back to the garden, where God asks Adam and Eve, where are you? Who told you that you were naked. Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? Was it that God didn't know any of these things that he was just pleased? I need to figure out if you ate because I made an agreement that if you did eat, well, these consequences would happen. So if I'd appreciate your honesty, if you just told me, because I'm trying to figure this all out.
Right now, of course, not right.
God knows all these things, but he's trying to draw them out to show them now their condition and their rebellion, that they might turn to Him in faith.
That's what we see God trying to do for Jonah, and also, as we will see what God is trying to do for all of us this morning, that we might turn from our sin and put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In our text, we have three questions, it just still happens, and that'll be the way we structure this sermon with these three questions that God asks. The first is, do you do well to be angry? Or why are you angry? Jonah, or pouting.
The second is, do you do well to be angry for the plant, or why were you happy or pleasuring in the plant? And then the third is, may or should God or I not have pity on Nineveh, this is the pity of God. And so let's first look at this first question, do you do well to be angry? And here we have this pouting prophet. Why is Jonah angry? So many men would love to be in Jonah's position. They show up to a city and they give a five word sermon, and the entire city is converted.
Wouldn't that be amazing, don't we pray for that kind of thing?
So many ministers and churches would love to see the results that Jonah has just had. I would enjoy it. Be delighting in it, praising God for it. But what do we have Jonah doing? He is angry, angry enough to die.
Also, just what is happening here in Nineveh is this is actually a little foretaste of Pentecost. What were happening the the Gentile world, converting and turning to the Lord the verse one, it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. It was as we talked about last week. It can even be translated. It was exceedingly evil to Jonah. It's not right, God, the Ninevites were, in fact, evil. We've talked about this before, but just as a reminder, and it's really their evil that started the whole book out. Remember, we go all the way back to chapter one, which wasn't all that long ago, and it's their evil that has come before the Lord that God is now telling Jonah, go to Nineveh. Their evil has become before me and tell them they're going to be destroyed. The Syrians too. They are. Nineveh is a major city in Assyria, and they are constantly at war with Israel, that the Assyrians are the enemies of God's people, not their friends. They don't deserve grace. They don't deserve mercy. So Jonah thinks they deserve justice.
And Jonah fled from Nineveh in the first place, we are told not because he's afraid to go to his enemies, though I probably would have been, but he says I knew that you're a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. And we see he's defending his actions all the way. In chapter one, if you remember, in chapter one, he runs away, and then he gets swallowed by a fish, and then it seems that he's maybe remorseful and turning from the Lord well that now in chapter four, he's doubling down and saying, I knew I should have done that. I see I knew this. I should have ran away, because I knew you're merciful. And God, I get that you're merciful, and maybe I'm even grateful for the Mercy you've shown towards me and that whole fish thing, but not them.
I'm bad. I get it. I should have done that, but not them. They're the worst. Your grace must have a limit somewhere, right? God, I mean, and certainly the Ninevites have exceeded that.
They've done terrible, terrible, terrible things, and therefore terrible things deserve to happen to them. Do you ever think like that too, kind of like Jonah's thinking that, you know, sooner or later, the hammer of God's going to fall on my sin eventually. You know, God's been merciful to me, but you know one day I'm just going to sin that, that millionth time sin that I've sought to repent from again and again and again.
But eventually God's going to just say, enough. I've had it with you. I've been gracious far enough with you, and now it's over, and that's kind of what Jo Jonah's thinking. You know, Nineveh has crossed the line.
God's mercy can only go so far, so far for him and the other Israelites, at least there's they're trying to pursue the Lord, but not the Ninevites.
They've crossed that line.
Justice must be on them. God, If I was God, and I ought to be, because I know better. This is what Jonah is all saying in his response to God. This is how he's responding. And I would say this is how often, how we think towards God, too. The Ninevites should be gone. They don't deserve to be around anymore and make Israel's life, my life, so much easier. But Jonah isn't God, and he doesn't have the power to wipe them out. And so he just asked God to wipe him out. He says, oh, Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live. God, if this is how you're going to be, just take me out. I don't want to live in this world. Jonah is angry and he is disappointed with at God. He's having a tantrum. Jonah is like us, and we too have tantrums. We get pouty and irritated and disappointed and angry at God, maybe not like a three year old who collapses on the floor like a rag doll, if you have any of those. But we have tantrums.
We've just learned to hide it better from each other. God, why haven't you sanctified my spouse more? God, why haven't you matured my children more? And if my family was godlier, I wouldn't be getting so angry at them all the time. God, why haven't you done that? Well, now I'm angry at you, God, because I'm angry and you haven't sanctified me more, and I've asked you to not make me angry, but now I'm angry and it's your fault you haven't made me not angry anymore. Do you ever have those kinds of thoughts, just disappointed in how God's even responding to you? Change me quicker. Come on. Do it? Do it.
Change this other person quicker. Do it. Do it. God, you're not doing what I want you to do. What are you doing, God?
Because I know what you should be doing and you're not doing it. We all have those thoughts.
We know what God should be doing and he's not doing it, and that brings us anger and irritation and frustration at our lives and ultimately towards God, because we don't like what's happening in our lives, and it's really God's fault. Are we not like Jonah in this way, angry at God because we know what he should be doing in our lives and the lives of others around us, and he's not doing it. And God asked Jonah this question, Do do well to be angry. And again, note, Jonah isn't angry out of his failure, but he's angry in his success. The fact that God asked Jonah, though a question, I think, is just amazing. The fact that God asked Jonah a question, here is. It just shows the amazing patience and compassion of God. Because, again, if I'm god, I happily give Jonah the desire of his heart by Jonah, and that ends Jonah, and that would end our sermon series. But God, thankfully, is not like us in that way. He is perfectly compassionate, perfectly patient with us, as he is with Jonah.
And God's grace is the only reason, again, Jonah continues to be alive, and God Jonah is even using his grace that God has given to him to complain against God. And God asked this question because he's inviting Jonah now, as we began to examine his heart, and maybe to even now, for you to examine your own heart and your own life. Is your anger good? Is your disappointment or irritation? Good in life? Can you be angry and it be good?
Well, yes, we see Jesus get angry in the temple. When the temple was made into a place of commerce rather than a place of prayer and worship, we see Jesus get righteous anger against the hardened, hardened hearts of the Pharisees when he healed a man with a withered hand. But is your anger good? Is your anger for the glory of God, an offense towards God, or is it just a righteous rage, an irritation, and you want to be God like the Pharisees? When Jesus asked them a straightforward question, do you remember what the Pharisees would often do, nothing. They were silent. And if you notice here, Jonah doesn't answer. He doesn't respond to God at all.
He's silent. How about you? I'm right. I know I'm right, and others just can't see that I'm right. That person cut me off on the way to church, and I know they don't have an important place to be and or I just don't want to feel this pain anymore, whether that's external or internal, and God just isn't answering me. Is it good? Is our anger motivated for the glory of God or motivated by destructive rage? Is our anger in submission to the will of God. And we say not My will, though, Lord, but Your will be done, or rather, my will, my will, my will, and until it's my will, I'm going to be angry and disappointed and frustrated. God's seeking to reveal our hearts to us, even by that question, is your anger good? He's merciful. Don't be silent, but cry out to the Lord, and He will forgive you. He'll give you peace. The second question, do you do well to be angry for the plant or kind of the opposite is what made you happy? What brought you pleasure? Verse five, remember, Jonah doesn't say anything this question. He's just he's pouting, having a temper tantrum, and he goes out of the city and makes a little shelter for himself to get out of the heat of the sun, but it's apparently lacking to relieve him from all the intensity of the heat. But he sits there and he's hoping his silent anger and his silent treatment to God may be able to convince God to change His mind. Because Jonah actually doesn't know what's going to happen to Nineveh just yet, he maybe has heard some of the things that they have happened, that they have done, but I bet Jonah is secretly thinking inside his heart is okay, they've repented, but hopefully, God, you see that it's not enough. It's not sufficient. And or maybe they just, you know, there's something a little bit lacking about the repentance. They maybe weren't as genuine as they ought to be. And so even though I see this whole sackcloth and ashes thing going on, and this declaration going out to the king to turn from your evil ways. I'm really still hoping that God's going to see that I'm right and judgment is going to come. So I'm going to wait for that 40 day period. I'm going to sit outside the city and hopefully God hears my prayer and judgment comes. So that's what Jonah is doing now on the outside. And so while Jonah is waiting, we have then verse six, God appoints a plant to deliver Jonah from the scorching heat.
And again, just consider the mercy and patience and the compassion of God towards. Jonah in doing this, there is only one time in this book that we are told that Jonah is happy, and it's when he is divinely air conditioned by this plant. And we get that here in Florida, right? I mean, our air conditioner breaks, and the upcoming seasons of the months of seasonal depression, as my wife likes to call them, and that's very irritating. The heat makes us angry. But when that air conditioning gets fixed, it's like, everything's right in the world again, right? So Jonah gets this divine air conditioning. He's like, thank you God, because now now I can sit in comfort and watch this city be destroyed. Thank you, God, that's that's what's happening. He says he's exceedingly glad because of this plant. The Prophet, who was angry with great anger at the mercy of God, to Nineveh, is now rejoicing with much joy over this incredible plant that God grew in a day and provide a great shade for him. Now I can watch my enemies be destroyed in comfort. The next day. God then appoints something else, a worm, to attack the plant. And as you're reading Jonah and you realize this little worm, you might feel a little disappointed, because so far in Jonah, we've seen a great fish, right? Crazy miracle, and then we see this great plant, just in a day, sprouts up and it's large enough to provide wonderful shade for a full grown adult.
Wow, amazing. And then what you might expect is just like some giant locust and just like eat up the plant, right? Because that would kind of be in character for these incredible actions in Jonah. But what we have is not that, but this itty bitty worm gotta points to attack this plant and kill it.
Well, it's disappointingly ordinary, isn't it? We've never seen a gigantic fish that swallowed a man alive and gets the live to tell about it. I've never seen a plant grow so fast, and it provides great shade like that in one day. But in Florida, we've seen lots of bugs that eat things and plants and us. And this is a very ordinary we get this part, don't we? And as you even heard from Nathan, this is pointing us to God's providence, both big and small. God has appointed them all, reminding us of God's sovereignty over all things, His perfect providence.
It's not just over the large events of life, but over the smallest of life. God isn't just guiding us to the big decisions of life, of of you know where we go to college, or you know who we marry. God is in control of the smallest events of life. I like how we read in the the Heidelberg Catechism, it says he rules over every leaf and blade, every blade of grass God is ruling over in charge of whether it grows or whether it dies, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, Food and Drink, Health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things what's out of is there anything outside of all things? No, all things.
Is all things. All things, in fact, come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand, the fish, the plant, the storm, the worm, and then also something else God appoints. In verse eight, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. God providentially rose Jonah in the sun. God, again, is not over, just big and small things, but he's also over good and bad things as well. God is not just over miraculously healing someone from cancer, but God is also over that first mutation of a cancer cell. God's in control. Yes, indeed, of all things, God decreed creation. He also decreed the fall. He also decreed redemption. He's decreed at all. God is not the author of sin, but He rules over all things, even this scorching heat that Jonah is facing. God is over it in. Jonah may not realize it, but God is being merciful to him, because there's a hotter, more terrible place that God could be sending Jonah right now, and he's he hasn't this providential heat is being used by God again, to direct Jonah away from his stubborn, self righteous heart, and that he would be, that he would turn towards God and refreshing mercy and grace that is found in his savior. And he asked this question in verse nine, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And it would be so nice if once God asked this question that Jonah then recognizes his hypocritical heart, and he repents, and he turns from God, from his sin, to God, and then he devotes his, his rest of his life, to the service of God.
Wouldn't that be wonderful? But instead we get verse nine. Yes, I do well to be angry, which is also, I think, a more accurate picture of our lives as well too, because I get very irritated and angry when the difficulty and heat of life comes my way. I don't want God to change me using ways that are uncomfortable to teach me a lesson. If you want to change my heart, just I pray that you would just do it. Don't use difficult circumstances to do it. Don't use the heat of life to do it. Just do it already.
And I get really frustrated when he makes it really difficult to teach me a lesson. I don't want that. What makes me exceedingly glad is when things go my way and when I get to do it in a very comfortable way. That makes me exceedingly glad. Does that make you exceedingly glad? Well, what makes you glad Florida winning the national championship. Well, you know, it's not only what makes you angry that exposes your heart, actually, what makes you glad also exposes your heart too. If you value attention and fame, you'll be exceedingly glad when someone notices you or talks to you. If you value money, you will be exceedingly glad when you get more of it. See our joy can direct us to our idols of our hearts as well. Does Jonah finding gladness and doing the will of God? No, he's finding gladness in his comfort. Like Jonah, we are glad when our will is done rather than God's. And then last, we come to this final question. And should or may I pity Nineveh Jonah ends with this last question in verse 10 and 11. I'll read it. And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night, and should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the right hand from their left and also much cattle.
God's argument here this question is argument from the lesser to the greater. Jonah cared more about this plant, although he never tended to it or watered it, he cared about the plant because of what the plant provided him, which was great shade AC and he's caring more about his own comforts than caring for people, which could also be a question we put to our church. Do we care more about our own comforts than caring for people that God's called us to care for. You can think about that he wanted the plants spared from judgment of death, but not others to be spared from the judgment of death. And Nineveh, not only has plants, but we're told they have cattle, and cattle and cattle are more valuable than plants, and cattle or people are more valuable than people, and so should you not show compassion, Jonah, to these people? If Jonah felt that it's right for this plant to be spared and he didn't do anything to create or grow it, the question that thing that God poses as this, why? Why? Or may I not, spare the people of Nineveh, for whom I did work to create, whom I do work to uphold and to sustain. Doesn't that give me some right, Jonah, to show mercy to whom I will show mercy. This is God, and His question is really kind of posing, or really saying, what, what? Paul iterates in Romans chapter nine, that God has the right the prerogative to to show mercy to whomever he wants to show mercy. He creates all things. He sustains all things.
He. Rules over all things, may I not, Jonah, show mercy to these people who are much more valuable than plants or sparrows or cattle? The Lord doesn't have to show compassion to anyone.
And Jonah, do you really just want justice and judgment to fall on the enemies of God? Is that what you really want?
Jonah, do you really want me to be a God that is all justice and there's no mercy whatsoever, and such were some of you, and this is God's point, is that God is holding up now a mirror to Jonah as he holds up a mirror to you, to show us that we're are the rebels. We are the sinners, the great sinners in need of the great grace of God. The Ninevites deserve to die, and so do we. The wages of sin is death, but there is mercy to be found in God by turning from our sin and turning to our faithful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, as I begin this series, you might recall me saying, There's something I'm going to say again. I don't know if you remember that, but I'm going to say it again that Jonah's story here is actually really a historical, real life parable. Do you remember this?
Jonah is a real life parable.
It's very much like the parable of the prodigal son. Nineveh is like the younger brother who has really squandered everything in their prodigal living, living in a far country, but arises and goes and seeks mercy from the Father, and the father happily gives it to them. And Jonah is like the older brother. The older brother is not celebrating. We're fact and told that. We're told that he's angry. His self righteousness is keeping him from sharing in the feast and celebration of the Father. And that perceived insider in that in that parable, is the really an outsider as well, trying to get from the Father, just the stuff, trying to manipulate the Father through his righteous living in that parable makes us long for a good older brother. Remember, in that series, in the parables that God's that Jesus is telling with, with the prodigal son, and you have the lost coin and the lost sheep, and there's always someone who, who's going to seek and save that which, which was lost, and then is found, and then the celebration begins. But in that parable of the prodigal son, there's no one that goes and seeks and saves the younger brother, and it makes you long for that. Well, just like Jonah, too, it makes us long for a better prophet. That parable in this book is all again, pointing us to Jesus, Jesus who is the better, the best, the perfect older brother who goes and seeks and saves, a loss, and Jesus who is a perfect and better Prophet than Jonah, who goes and seeks and saves the lost. Jonah is at what we call a type or a shadow, pointing us to Christ. Jonah was grieved to the point of death for justice on his enemies. But Jesus goes into the garden of Gethsemane, and he's grieved, because he knows that he's going to face the judgment of death for his enemies, out of love, why we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Jonah goes inside and gives us five word little sermon, and quickly exit it, and then sits outside, sits outside, hoping and waiting it for it to burn, and this being Palm Sunday, Jesus goes into the heart of the Lion of Jerusalem, and he willingly does It, proclaiming the gospel, but his message is not received, but he is rejected, and he is tossed outside the city and nailed to the cross outside the city, bearing the city's guilt and sin upon himself. And that is us, beloved. Jesus came and died for our sins, that he might now be our shelter from judgment, that he might now be our shelter from the heat of hell, because he faced the heat and the scorching wrath of God himself, and he is a person. Perfect insufficient shelter for us, and he not only dies for us, but he lived for us, giving us his perfect righteousness and makes us perfectly acceptable and lovely to God, washing us and clothing us and celebrating us. Remember, God doesn't just wipe sins under the rug. He is a just God, but he's able to be merciful to any and all in the Old Testament, as well as us, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you remember, in the parable of the prodigal son, it ends with the Father pleading for the older son to come into the party, to come celebrate the work of the Lord, to come celebrate the mercy of the Father. And what's interesting is Jonah ends just in that way too, doesn't it, the father pleading with the older brother, Jonah, come in and celebrate and party, celebrate the mercy of God, not only towards your younger brother, but also you to repent of your self righteousness and to celebrate that God has saved you. And the parable doesn't tell us what the older brother does, and Jonah doesn't actually tell us what Jonah does. And the point is, it really doesn't matter so much what they did.
The point and what matters is, what will you do? What will you do right now with this gospel message? Will you reject it?
Will you continue to live in self righteousness? Will you continue in your prodigal living? Or will you turn from yourself and you turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved?
And that is what God is calling you all, and us and me to do this day, to turn from our sin and to turn to Him and find mercy, mercy, mercy, in his Savior and ours, our Savior that he gave to us, the Lord Jesus Christ, Do not remain in your sin and self righteousness, to turn from her angry ways, but to all who did receive Him, who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, let's pray. Thank you, Lord for ruling over all things, over a blade and leaf, every rain drop and Lord, I pray that even in the difficulty of our circumstances, that we would praise you. The Lord gives the Lord takes away, but blessed be the name of the Lord. Lord, we often feel like Jonah, and we just we want to be free from this world, but help us as we wait to be patient, to rest in your perfect providence. But even Lord, even as Jonah does, even in our anger, to bring it to you, to confess to you, Lord, I pray that your spirit would wash over us today, that we might see our great sin, that we deserve great judgment, but that this is what Jesus Christ came to do for us.
Lord, be merciful to us. We thank you that it is not our will or the will of man that saves us, but it is yours.
Please do your work in us this day, and it's in Jesus's name we plead, we pray, Amen.