SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible routinely presents life and reality in sets of contrasts.
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus tells the parable of two men at the temple, both apparently there to worship, to pray, to offer sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: One Jesus says was what we might call your typical Christian.
SPEAKER_01: They called them Pharisees then.
SPEAKER_01: The other was a reject, whose job was to collect taxes for Rome.
SPEAKER_01: Both came to worship, both came to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says the reject was sitting off by himself, lifting up his face to heaven and beating himself and saying, Be merciful to me, O God, a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: The other one, Jesus said, looked at the tax collector and said, Thank God I'm not like him.
SPEAKER_01: Then he asked a question, which one of those two men do you think went to his home justified?
SPEAKER_01: Two contrasts.
SPEAKER_01: Opposite sides of the spectrum.
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, in the Gospel of Luke, before that illustration, Jesus told the story of a family with two brothers.
SPEAKER_01: One asked his dad for all of his inheritance and went away to a far country and spent it all.
SPEAKER_01: He returned later, ashamed, humbled, begging for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: The father was so excited to have his son back that he threw a party.
SPEAKER_01: But the older brother, who had stayed home and labored for his dad, heard the party and figured out what was going on, could not believe that his father had shown mercy to his son.
SPEAKER_01: We might ask, which of those two brothers is justified?
SPEAKER_01: And as we do that, working through the last chapter in the book of Jonah, we might ask ourselves, which of those contrasts represents us?
SPEAKER_01: The one who's been humbled, maybe brought to the very bottom, and comes back humbly to God, receiving mercy?
SPEAKER_01: Or the one who can't believe that God would extend mercy to rejects.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bible, I encourage you to open it to Jonah chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: In Jonah, we have a reluctant prophet who finally entered the great city of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: He preached the shortest sermon recorded in the Bible, and he watched an entire city turn around, stopping their evil, and in essence feeling sorry, repenting for their wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: They were humbled before God, the king, the highest of the residents, all the way down to the homeless on the streets, even the animals wore sackcloth.
SPEAKER_01: They fasted, they humbled themselves before a God they barely knew.
SPEAKER_01: And the response was that God relented from the disaster that he was going to bring upon the city.
SPEAKER_01: That's a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: And that miracle makes the book of Jonah's last scene one of the most uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01: Because God showed mercy to a city, to an entire large city, and God's own prophet was furious about it.
SPEAKER_01: The book has been building to this moment since chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that's happened from Jonah running from God's commission to getting in a boat and having to face a storm, being thrown overboard, swallowed by a great fish, his prayer at the bottom of the sea, his being vomited onto the dry ground, his recommissioning, his one-sentence sermon, everything has been driving to this point, to this final scene between an older brother and his father.
SPEAKER_01: Between a Pharisee and his God.
SPEAKER_01: This last chapter is the point of the whole book.
SPEAKER_01: And it tells us that we can hold every right belief about God and still be resentful of how God works.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: The whole time it's confronting us with a God who keeps on pursuing our narrow hearts because he wants them to look like his.
SPEAKER_01: Can you hear that tone in Jonah's voice?
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said, Jonah, do you do well to be angry?
SPEAKER_01: Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there.
SPEAKER_01: He sat under it in the shade till he could see what would become of the city.
SPEAKER_01: Now Yahweh God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah so that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort.
SPEAKER_01: So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
SPEAKER_01: But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
SPEAKER_01: When the sun arose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.
SPEAKER_01: And he asked that he might die, and said, It's better for me to die than to live.
SPEAKER_01: God said to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry for the plant?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yes, I do well to be angry for the plant.
SPEAKER_01: Angry enough to die.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor.
SPEAKER_01: Neither did you make it grow, but it came up in a night and perished in a night.
SPEAKER_01: Should I not pity Nineveh?
SPEAKER_01: That great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?
SPEAKER_01: And also much cattle?
SPEAKER_01: I want to preach about four sermons on this one chapter.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to try to limit it to part of a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to know first is that Jonah knows what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: He knows his God.
SPEAKER_01: It is not inappropriate for us to compare him to a New Testament Pharisee, a teacher of God's word, a believer in God who has been taught all of God's ways, knows God's character, knows God himself.
SPEAKER_01: We must recognize that because the very first thing this chapter tells us is that even theologians are sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Even theologians, those who know who God is, can express who their God is, know what God is like, even they sometimes rebel.
SPEAKER_01: This chapter opens with a two-part description of what we might describe as Jonah's emotional state.
SPEAKER_01: First, we see that God's act of mercy towards this massive city was evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: A great evil.
SPEAKER_01: Verse one, it displeased Jonah exceedingly, literally says, it was exceedingly evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you said to God that something that God did was evil?
SPEAKER_01: Even we wouldn't go that far, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we think we wouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we act that way.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is so upset that he believes God's mercy to this particular group of people is evil.
SPEAKER_01: And he's angry about it.
SPEAKER_01: He's very angry.
SPEAKER_01: God's mercy to a group of people, to a city, makes him angry.
SPEAKER_01: From the very first chapter, we have seen this theme beginning to develop.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter one, the word for evil was used to describe Nineveh's wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh's evil, it said, rose up to heaven and was an affront to God.
SPEAKER_01: It was right there in his face.
SPEAKER_01: God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry out against the city because their evil had come up to him.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same word that the king used in his decree in chapter 3 to tell people to turn from their evil ways.
SPEAKER_01: So God recognizes their evil, and the king recognizes their evil.
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, it's the same word used in chapter 3, verse 10, for the word disaster that God resented or relented of.
SPEAKER_01: So this word evil can be used in the Bible for something that's bad in the sense of it's not, it's morally neutral.
SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily right or wrong, it's just the consequences, the effects are negative.
SPEAKER_01: It's bad.
SPEAKER_01: It can also be used for something that is evil in a moral way.
SPEAKER_01: That is, it's opposed to God's holiness, to God's perfect, righteous standards.
SPEAKER_01: So God is going to bring an evil in the sense of it's disastrous, of such magnitude on the city of Nineveh that it would be very bad for them.
SPEAKER_01: Now the same word takes on a unique effect in Jonah's story.
SPEAKER_01: God leaves off, he turns away from the disaster, this kind of evil, not morally neutral, bad for them kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: He turns away from it, choosing to not bring it on them because they turned from their wicked ways.
SPEAKER_01: And the evil now rests in the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: The disaster God didn't bring on Nineveh is now evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: The evil hasn't been resolved yet.
SPEAKER_01: So it starts in Nineveh in a city.
SPEAKER_01: Then moves to God's realm where God decides how he's going to deal with this evil, and he says, I'm going to be merciful.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to deal with this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to let it go.
SPEAKER_01: The disaster is not going to come.
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't resolve the theme of evil because now the evil is not in the evil people, it's in God's prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah, the prophet sent to the wicked city, now embodies the problem of evil himself.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah prays, sort of starting with, I told you so.
SPEAKER_01: That tells us, going all the way back to the beginning, that Jonah didn't run from God out of fear.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't run from God about doubting God's power to accomplish something.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he ran because he knew full well that God could do this and God would do this.
SPEAKER_01: He understood that if Nineveh turned from their evil, God would be merciful.
SPEAKER_01: So his flight from God in the very beginning was a weak attempt to avoid what he found intolerable.
SPEAKER_01: What was intolerable?
SPEAKER_01: God extending mercy to people Jonah didn't like.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah then quotes in verse 2 one of the most sacred theological passages in Israel's ancient tradition.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's initially from Exodus chapter 34, verse 6, where God is telling Moses what he's like.
SPEAKER_01: So he's gracious and merciful, he's slow to anger, he's abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_01: But there's an additional phrase to what Jonah includes here at the end of verse 2 that makes this more likely a reference to the prophet Joel.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jonah references not just these positive characteristics about God, but an additional thing that says he relents from disaster, which is exactly what we find happening at the end of chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Seems as though whoever's writing the story of Jonah knows the prophet Joel has read that portion of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: These were words that were repeated to Israel as a call to be like God.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who is gracious and merciful, who extends steadfast love, who even chooses not to bring disaster on people who respond to him rightly.
SPEAKER_01: These are the theological foundation of many of Israel's hopes before a holy God.
SPEAKER_01: These were the words that they said, this is our God.
SPEAKER_01: But Jonah now quotes these words as a grievance.
SPEAKER_01: What should have been a praise for God's character has turned into an angry protest.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's received every one of these mercies from God.
SPEAKER_01: He survived a sea storm that he should not have survived.
SPEAKER_01: He's been delivered from the darkness of a fish's belly.
SPEAKER_01: He's been given a second commission without a word of rebuke or correction.
SPEAKER_01: And now he recites all of those mercies as a problem.
SPEAKER_01: But they're only a problem because God gave them to Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: These words are Jonah's version of how could you?
SPEAKER_01: How could you do that?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, Jonah's theology is correct.
SPEAKER_01: His knowledge of God is rich and detailed.
SPEAKER_01: He's described divine character with precision, but what he cannot tolerate is how far that character extends.
SPEAKER_01: It's as though God goes to those on death row and extends mercy to all of them instantly.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah's just dumbfounded.
SPEAKER_01: The only natural conclusion in Jonah's mind is to die.
SPEAKER_01: Take my life, he says, verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: For it is better for me to die than to live.
SPEAKER_01: If you've read your Bible or been in church long, you might recognize that line because it's been used before in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah said the same words in 1 Kings chapter 19.
SPEAKER_01: He was fleeing from the wicked Queen Jezebel, fleeing for his own life.
SPEAKER_01: He's exhausted from an intense period of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And he gets out into the desert and he collapses under a little broom tree and he tells God, just take my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's an intentional parallel going on here.
SPEAKER_01: But Jonah's context points to a slightly different meaning.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah is exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: He's running for his life after a brutal period of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And God responds to Elijah with compassion and tenderness.
SPEAKER_01: He gives him food and water and rest.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah's death wish came from an emptiness up.
SPEAKER_01: He's just exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's plea is different.
SPEAKER_01: He's not exhausted from serving God.
SPEAKER_01: He's bitter.
SPEAKER_01: He's bitter with what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to die because he finds life in a world where God shows mercy to people like the Ninevehes intolerable.
SPEAKER_01: So which of the contrasts does Jonah reflect?
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisee or the tax collector?
SPEAKER_01: The younger brother or the older brother?
SPEAKER_01: God's response is fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: It's not condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: It's a question.
SPEAKER_01: Do you do well to be angry?
SPEAKER_01: Literally, the Hebrew reads, Is it good for you to be hot?
SPEAKER_01: But notice the unwritten contrast.
SPEAKER_01: The Ninevites responded with humility.
SPEAKER_01: They're getting down on the ground, dirty, covered with itchy stuff to represent their humility before God, while Jonah responds with getting hot and angry.
SPEAKER_01: This Hebrew word for angry builds on the intensity of emotion that rises up within us when we're angry.
SPEAKER_01: It's as though heat is building up.
SPEAKER_01: There's a fire within us.
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine Jonah here all red-faced and steaming as he's angry with God.
SPEAKER_01: But God's completely calm.
SPEAKER_01: There's no hint of condemnation or hint of judgment in the words.
SPEAKER_01: The question is almost pastoral.
SPEAKER_01: It's gentle.
SPEAKER_01: It's an invitation for Jonah to examine himself honestly.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is angry with the extent of God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: And God is still merciful to the prophet, even as he's boiling in rage.
SPEAKER_01: But Jonah doesn't respond.
SPEAKER_01: That would be hard for me.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm talking to one of my kids and ask them a question and they don't answer me and they turn and walk away.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really like that.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah doesn't respond to God's question.
SPEAKER_01: He walks east out of the city to learn a lesson, hopefully.
SPEAKER_01: The lesson is that creation itself can reveal how misguided our hearts can be.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah finds a high point on a hill outside of the city.
SPEAKER_01: And he sits down to watch.
SPEAKER_01: He throws together a sukkah, which is a temporary booth, a dwelling place used in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: Israel did this out in the desert during their years of wandering.
SPEAKER_01: And they were supposed to use those, build those every year during the festival of Sukkot each year to remind them of God's provision and caring for them during the desert wanderings.
SPEAKER_01: So Jonah positioning himself as somebody who is appreciative of what God has done for him.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he can't appreciate what God has done for others.
SPEAKER_01: He's not accepting God's mercy toward Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere inside of him, there's still a hope that the reversal that he wants is going to come.
SPEAKER_01: That God will somehow change his mind and destroy Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: And if he does, Jonah wants a front row seat.
SPEAKER_01: God's not like me.
SPEAKER_01: And you can be thankful for that.
SPEAKER_01: I would have been so tempted to just zap Jonah instead of Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: But God is so long-suffering in his patience that he does not even challenge Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he appoints a plant as an object lesson.
SPEAKER_01: Says God appointed, verse 6, a plant.
SPEAKER_01: He appointed a Kikion plant, likely a castor oil plant or something similar, known for its rapid growth in hot climates.
SPEAKER_01: And God nevertheless causes this to sprout and to grow up rapidly overnight so that it's large enough to provide shade for Jonah the next day.
SPEAKER_01: And if you followed our study from the beginning, you're ready for what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: God first appointed a great fish in chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: Now God appoints specifically a plant.
SPEAKER_01: And that appointing action will occur two more times in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: First, it will appear with a scorching east wind.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, first it's a it's a worm.
SPEAKER_01: God appoints a worm, then he appoints the scorching east wind.
SPEAKER_01: Appointed, appointed, appointed.
SPEAKER_01: Every instrument surrounding Jonah throughout this story has been a deliberate act by a sovereign God orchestrating everything around his resistant prophet.
SPEAKER_01: The entire story is an account of a God who rules over every element of his creation and who's been directing them repeatedly to one man.
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh only needed a one-sentence warning of destruction before they were humbled.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah needs specific, directed work from God over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: The plant, thankfully, gives Jonah shade.
SPEAKER_01: And that's another point of irony.
SPEAKER_01: The Middle Eastern sun and heat are evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: The same word is used for how Jonah feels about God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah feels like what God has done is evil, and now the way creation is treating him is evil.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is evil, except for Jonah, of course.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's all right and good.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: God, on the other hand, is merciful.
SPEAKER_01: He provides what amounts to instantaneous shade for the bitter prophet.
SPEAKER_01: And for the first time in this whole book, and the only time, Jonah experiences genuine happiness.
SPEAKER_01: It says he rejoiced with great joy.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just he was happy, he was really happy.
SPEAKER_01: That same kind of intensification of the emotion is found in verse one with how Jonah felt about God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He was exceedingly angry.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's exceedingly joyful.
SPEAKER_01: So Jonah not this emotionally flat kind of person who doesn't really feel things.
SPEAKER_01: No, he's got full capacity for joy and anger.
SPEAKER_01: He experiences both sides of the spectrum, but only towards his own circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: He can't feel joy about God relenting about bringing disaster on 120,000 people that God sent him to reach.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but he can feel perfectly happy about his own circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: As long as they satisfy him.
SPEAKER_01: God's pointed questions can't even break him out of his self-pity.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, our emotions are grounded in our own perspectives.
SPEAKER_01: And they will often lead us away from God's character, not toward it.
SPEAKER_01: We see that in Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: All of his emotions as a human being are directing him not back towards what he knows to be true, but actually away from what he knows to be true.
SPEAKER_01: So at dawn the next day, God appoints a worm that eats away at the plant so that it withers.
SPEAKER_01: There's something divine about all of this, right?
SPEAKER_01: That the plant springs up and grows up large enough to provide shade overnight.
SPEAKER_01: And then the next day it's just all of a sudden withered.
SPEAKER_01: God's doing this.
SPEAKER_01: He's using his creation to teach Jonah, to draw something out of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: He appoints a dry, scorching east wind called the Siroko, and the sun now is beating down on Jonah's head.
SPEAKER_01: His sukkah, his temporary dwelling place, his booth, doesn't provide shade.
SPEAKER_01: The plant is now gone.
SPEAKER_01: He's sitting out on this hill waiting for Nineveh to burn.
SPEAKER_01: But he's the one burning.
SPEAKER_01: Is he gonna get it?
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's bitterness comes out again.
SPEAKER_01: Word for word, the same as before.
SPEAKER_01: It is better for me to die than to live.
SPEAKER_01: Better there is the word good.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing for me to die.
SPEAKER_01: That repetition is intentional in verse 8, because the narrator wants us to see and to feel that nothing has changed with Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: All that God has done, all that God has brought him through, all of the specific appointing of elements to draw him back, nothing has changed Jonah's heart.
SPEAKER_01: The hurricane could not awaken Jonah in the bottom of the boat, either physically or spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: The days inside the fish, going down to the bottom of the sea, humbled him only a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And now the repentance of an entire city could not move him to feel anything for the people standing before God.
SPEAKER_01: But now he grieves something he appreciated only for one day.
SPEAKER_01: He grieves the loss of a plant.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't plant the seed, he didn't water it, he didn't patiently wait for it to grow, he didn't tend it or care for it.
SPEAKER_01: It was just there one day and gone the next, and Jonah's devastated.
SPEAKER_01: Now we have to notice Jonah's pain at the loss of the plant.
SPEAKER_01: His sadness is genuine.
SPEAKER_01: The pain of losing a plant exposes Jonah to more than the Middle Eastern heat.
SPEAKER_01: It exposes his heart.
SPEAKER_01: From the very first sentence of this account, Jonah has shown no concern, no care whatsoever for animals or people.
SPEAKER_01: But he grieves a plant so much that he wants to die.
SPEAKER_01: Now we need to think about that and understand how big of a deal that really was.
SPEAKER_01: Because in their ancient way of thinking, in Jewish thought, plants were non-living things.
SPEAKER_01: So there were categories, right?
SPEAKER_01: There were human beings and animals, which in the beginning of Genesis, God breathed into them life.
SPEAKER_01: So people at the top, animals, those were living things.
SPEAKER_01: Plants didn't have that breath of God, so they weren't non-living things.
SPEAKER_01: And that way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: So Jonah here is caring more about a non-living thing than all of the living things around him.
SPEAKER_01: Whether human beings or animals.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's grieving a plant.
SPEAKER_01: What does God do with that?
SPEAKER_01: Again, if I were God, enough of you, Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: Done.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: But like God pursuing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: He asks questions.
SPEAKER_01: God asks the same question again.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah, is it good for you to be hot about the plant?
SPEAKER_01: This time Jonah answers God's question.
SPEAKER_01: Yes! Absolutely, it's good to be angry.
SPEAKER_01: Angry enough to die.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's one stubborn guy.
SPEAKER_01: Gotta hand that to him, I guess.
SPEAKER_01: So glad I'm not like Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: Before we judge Jonah too harshly, it might be good for us to think about how patient God is with us.
SPEAKER_01: For us to come around to see things from his perspective.
SPEAKER_01: And our narrator gives God the final speech of the book in verses 10 and 11.
SPEAKER_01: It's a special kind of logical argument that moves from a smaller case to a much bigger case.
SPEAKER_01: So the small case is the plant.
SPEAKER_01: The much larger one is the city.
SPEAKER_01: Hey Jonah, you you have compassion and pity for the plant.
SPEAKER_01: That's great and all.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't do anything for that, though.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't make it grow.
SPEAKER_01: It was there one night and it was gone the next.
SPEAKER_01: So if you show that kind of pity and compassion for a plant, doesn't it make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it reasonable that I, the creator of all things, should care about the living things?
SPEAKER_01: Especially a massive number of them.
SPEAKER_01: The force of God's little speech here builds so that it's irresistible.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah didn't have a prior relationship with the plant.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't tuck it into his pocket as he traveled from Israel to Nineveh, taking care of it along the way and then planting it.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah had no prior connection.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: He knew it for one day.
SPEAKER_01: And the intensity of the feeling that he has for that one plant is enough for him to feel like he should die.
SPEAKER_01: If that's what Jonah can muster for something that was not living and didn't cost him anything, then how much more should God care for a city of 120,000 people that he formed and watched across generations?
SPEAKER_01: God's pity is far more warranted than anything Jonah could feel for the plant.
SPEAKER_01: Now there are some confusing things here.
SPEAKER_01: There's that phrase who do not know their right hand from their left?
SPEAKER_01: That could refer to young children who haven't yet learned to distinguish from right from left.
SPEAKER_01: Or it could be a metaphor for the spiritual bankruptcy in Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: But think about that.
SPEAKER_01: If there are 120,000 young children, what does that say about the population of the entire metropolis?
SPEAKER_01: It's massive.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine how many total people Jonah wanted God to just wipe off the face of the planet in an instant.
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, if that represents the overall population of lost, sinful people, it still demonstrates that Jonah has no spiritual compassion.
SPEAKER_01: But God looks at that mass of people and he responds with pity and a desire to be merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Now the cattle get the last mention.
SPEAKER_01: And they're placed last on purpose.
SPEAKER_01: God made these animals.
SPEAKER_01: They're included in the king's decree.
SPEAKER_01: The cattle are wearing sackcloth.
SPEAKER_01: The cattle are fasting along with the people.
SPEAKER_01: They're not eating any food and they're not drinking any water.
SPEAKER_01: They are lumped together with the living creatures who are displayed as responding to God's character.
SPEAKER_01: They're counted among the reasons that God cares for this city.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah's lack of concern for animals doesn't even get there.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah doesn't care about living things.
SPEAKER_01: Even if they're animals.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the prophet mirroring the heart of God.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah knows that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that.
SPEAKER_01: Right there with an unanswered question.
SPEAKER_01: It's unresolved.
SPEAKER_01: There's no answer to the question.
SPEAKER_01: There's no reconciliation of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: There's no moment where he finally weeps over the city.
SPEAKER_01: There's no confession.
SPEAKER_01: There's no repentance.
SPEAKER_01: The story just ends with God's question hanging in the air.
SPEAKER_01: And the way it ends is, I think, the whole point.
SPEAKER_01: That open ending is the author's deliberate theological strategy.
SPEAKER_01: The question that God put to Jonah is the question presented to each one of us.
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to represent my character?
SPEAKER_01: Should I not pity Nineveh?
SPEAKER_01: Now the right answer is obvious, right?
SPEAKER_01: By now we can assume that hopefully Jonah knows the right answer.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, is he going to live it?
SPEAKER_01: If we're honest with ourselves, we live in Jonah's sandals more often than we would like to admit.
SPEAKER_01: Because we live and act as though our perceptions and our feelings are more righteous than God's.
SPEAKER_01: So Jonah functions as a mirror for us.
SPEAKER_01: He is the man with the right theology, but a narrow heart.
SPEAKER_01: He can recite every covenant promise of grace and mercy and be furious that those promises reached further than he wanted them to reach.
SPEAKER_01: Let's point the finger a little more closely at our own hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is every single one of us who wants God to judge another person for how they've hurt us.
SPEAKER_01: Or for how evil we perceive them to be.
SPEAKER_01: Open the door of our hearts so that we might be able to see inside of that door.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, it's easy for us to put Jonah up there as an example of somebody we're so thankful we are not.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe we are.
SPEAKER_01: So open our hearts to see what they're like.
SPEAKER_01: Reveal to us by your spirit those things within us that need to be repented of.
SPEAKER_01: Convict us by your spirit and draw us into a place where we can come humbly to you to actually respond to your questions with humility and thankfulness that you are making us more like you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we recognize that when we come before you, we are exposed, just like Jonah was.
SPEAKER_01: And when we're exposed before you, we recognize that we are so vile before your holiness.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing but the blood of a perfect and righteous Lamb slain for our sins, that can enable us to be forgiven and to stand before you.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.