Jonah
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[00:00:00] Gave a little more of a formal introduction. Gabe and Jenny have been married for 16 years, and, uh, they have three children. They're all with them today. They met at college, and, uh, Gabe is still in college. He's in seminary. There's a satellite in, uh, Spokane, Washington, of Master's Seminary, and Gabe has been attending there faithfully.
Um, he has filled the pulpit before. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Uh, he works in a furniture store, so he knows what hard work is like, and believe me, it will prepare you for ministry. Um, but anyway, again, I wanna thank you and invite you up to the pulpit
Well, thank you, Mike. Uh, it, it is good to be here with you today. Um, it's good to worship with you. And let me turn to the Book of [00:01:00] Jonah
Before we get started, let me pray just to open our time. Father, we thank you so very much for today, for the chance to worship together here today and to, to study your Word. Lord, I, I pray that as we look at Jonah, Lord, you will open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to what you would have to say. Uh, Lord, you would give us grace and you would grow us in our sanctification.
Thank you, Lord. Pray for your blessing on this time, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Everyone is here today because of the decision that you made not only this morning, but maybe last week, last year, five years ago, ten years ago, forty years ago. From today, I can trace decisions that were made in my life back to my childhood to get me where I am today.
And I'm sure you all have those stories where, [00:02:00] like, one thing happened that led to another, that led to another, that led to another, to led-- that led you to where you are right now. Those are great stories, wonderful stories of God's mercy and sovereignty in our lives, and we see this especially in the book of, uh, Genesis in the story of Joseph in Genesis thirty-seven through fifty.
Right? If you know the story, you know that he was the favorite son of his father. He was hated by his brothers. He was then kidnapped by his brothers. He's going to be killed, but before being sold off to a traveling band of Ishmaelites where he was sold to the house of Potiphar, right? Where God was with him, and he succeeded in Potiphar's house, but then Potiphar's wife tempted him, lied about him, and he was thrown in prison.
God was with him in prison as well, where he became favored with the jailer. He interpreted a couple of dreams in prison, which eventually led to his being released from prison, standing before Pharaoh, interpreting Pharaoh's dream, [00:03:00] and then rising to the third highest rank in all of Egypt In preparation for the famines that were to come to preserve millions of people in Egypt and in the surrounding areas.
And it's just a wonderful story, very clear story that we have of one thing leading to another to another to another. And just like Joseph, you know, we don't know how each of these decisions or circumstances in our lives may affect the next, but be assured that God is in every step, God is in every decision in your life.
We'll see the same thing in Jonah's story as well. And as we, as we look at Jonah, Jonah's name means dove. Find that kinda interesting. Um, and Jonah was a prophet to the northern 10 tribes of Israel during a time of relative peace under King Jeroboam II, uh, which was about from 784 to 774 BC, and puts him about 40 years [00:04:00] after the prophet Elisha.
So little bit of history there for you. And then Nineveh, the city to which he went to prophesy, was destroyed about 160 to 170 years after Jonah prophesied. And so it was long enough for a couple, several generations to go by to forget about Jonah, forget about Yahweh, and for Yahweh's judgment to come and destroy them.
Now, of all the prophets in the Bible, only a few of them wrote or spoke against foreign peoples. But only Jonah was called... He was the only one that was actually called to go to a foreign land to preach against them. And as we look at the story of Jonah today, here's my big message, my main point. I want you to see that God's mercy leads to life.
God's mercy leads to [00:05:00] life. And if you know the story, you know that's true about Jonah, you know that's true about the Ninevites, and you know that's true about you, too. So what is mercy? What is mercy? Mercy is often defined as God withholding punishment that is deserved, and that is true. That is a good definition of that word.
I wanna c- I wanna expand on that a little bit, and I wanna say that mercy is God's undeserved, unearned, and unpayable love towards sinners. I'll come back to that definition a couple times throughout the sermon, and I'll repeat that, that mercy is God's undeserved, unearned, and unpayable love towards sinners So n-again, no doubt you, you know the story of Jonah, and there are many different threads, different themes that flow throughout the book, and they're all very good.
But today [00:06:00] I wanna focus on God's mercy. So I'm sure you're gonna think, "Oh, he forgot to say this," or, "You could have focused on that." True, but I'm, I'm picking God's mercy today to trace throughout the s- uh, the whole book. Okay, so let's look at chapter one, Jonah's flight. And I titled it because flight, by flight I mean he fled from God.
And I know it's ironic that he took a boat and I used the word flight, but it worked for the outline I wanted. If you look at your, your outline notes, you might notice the first letter of each point there is highlighted, is bolded And it spells out fish. So Jonah's fish story. It's fun, it's easy to remember, and it works with my outline.
So, uh, as we dive in, let me read Jonah 1:1-3. "Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out [00:07:00] against it. For their evil has come up before me.' Yet Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, and paid its fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh."
The word of Yahweh came to Jonah. This introduces a divine message, a divine commissioning, a divine command to Jonah. Some have said that Jonah is a historical fiction or just some story, but it's not. This was written by Jonah to record God's command to him, God's call to him, and the story that follows.
Now Nineveh, it says God calls him to go to Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the Assyrians. So I, I might use those terms interchangeably Just so you know that. So verse two, he says, "Arise, go, and [00:08:00] call out against them." Three commands, three imperatives, clear, concise instructions to Jonah. Why does God call him to go?
Because the end of verse two, "Their evil has come up against me." In the Old Testament, often the, the sacrifices, the smoke from sacrifices rise up to God as a pleasing aroma. But now God is saying, "Their evil has come up like a stench before me. It's time to do something about their evil. Go and cry out against them."
So Jonah, Jonah goes and obeys God, right? No. Instead Jonah arises, same word in verse three, same as in verse two but instead of going, he flees Instead of going the some 600-plus miles to the northeast, he goes directly west. He [00:09:00] flees thinking that he wants to get away from what God has called him to do.
And you notice that in the beginning of verse three, Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish. He already had that destination in mind. He knew exactly where to go to get as far away as possible from God's command, from where God wanted him to go. He goes down to Joppa. It's this port city in, in Israel, and it was probably the closest way for him to get as far away as possible.
We don't know exactly where Tarshish is, but we know it's along the Mediterranean somewhere. Some have said it, it might be in the north or as far west as modern-day Spain. But either way, we know it's west. God wanted him to go east
Jonah knew that God was omniscient and omnipresent. So what was he doing? Verse three, he's trying to run from the [00:10:00] presence of Yahweh. He knows he can't get away. He's a prophet. He knows Psalm 139, "Where can I go that you are not there?"
So he's not running, he doesn't think he can actually get away from the presence of God, but he's running away from the responsibility of what God told him to do. Instead of going east again, he goes to the ship, he goes down to the ship, and he goes as far into the ship as he can. He goes down to the bottom of the ship to take a nap.
Now, do you remember when you were a kid, some of you are kids, do you remember falling asleep in the car on a trip and you wake up in bed? It's like, almost like time travel, right? It's like, "Man, how did I get here?" It's amazing, right? That, that feeling of like your parents taking care of you and all that.
Now, on the other hand, how many of you have fallen asleep intentionally in the car because you were in [00:11:00] trouble and you wanted to avoid getting in trouble when you got home That's exactly what Jonah does, right? Jonah thinks to himself, "Maybe if I fall asleep on the bottom of the boat, God will forget what He told me to do, or I'll be too far away for Him to tell me to go back."
Jonah's trying to run away from God. Not a good idea. Not a good thing. Not a, a prophet you necessarily want to emulate, right? He wasn't in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, right? And this, i-i- instead of God letting Jonah just go, look at verse four, "Yahweh hurled a great wind on the sea." God sends this storm, and not just any storm, but a storm so intense that the sailors know right away that this is divine judgment.
Even pagan, unbelieving sailors know that something is wrong with this storm. So intense that at the end of verse four it says, "The ship gave thought [00:12:00] to breaking apart," or the ship threatened to break up. And the inference there is that the storm was so bad it would've destroyed the ship, but God is holding it together saying, "Uh-uh, Jonah, you're not gonna get out of this that easy."
In verse five, every, every sailor cries out to his own god and throw the cargo overboard. They were so worried about losing the ship and losing their own lives in the ship that they said, "All the stuff that was gonna make us the money, we're, we're throwing it overboard. We- our lives are more valuable than the money.
Throw it over." But where is Jonah in all this? He's down sleeping, right? At the end of verse five, "He had gone to the innermost part of the vessel, laid down, and fallen asleep. So the captain comes near to him and says, 'How is it that you are deeply sleeping? Arise, call on your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.'"
Arise, call on your God. Sound familiar? [00:13:00] This is exactly what Jonah, uh, excuse me, what Yahweh called Jonah to do to the Ninevites. "Arise, go, call out to the Ninevites." You think Jonah recognizes that? You think Jonah realizes God's trying to get ahold of him?
So when the throwing the cargo overboard doesn't help, when calling on their gods doesn't help Verse seven, each man says, "Come, let us cast lots so we may know whose account this calamitous evil has struck us." And of course, God causes the lots to fall on Jonah
And when the lots fall on Jonah, Jonah finally confesses and s- and, or... I'm getting ahead of myself. The sailors realize that it's him, and they rapid-fire question him, right? "Tell us now, whose account has this calamitous evil struck us? What is your occupation? Where do you come [00:14:00] from? What is your country?
What people are you from?" And he only answers one. He only needs to answer one. "I am a Hebrew. I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." Not like your gods, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. And so now these sailors know That it's because of Jonah that they're in this mess.
And so they ask, "What should we do? What should we do that the sea should become quiet for us?" Verse 11, "For the sea, the sea was becoming increasingly stormy." And he tells them, "Toss me overboard." Right? But let's read verse 13. "However, the men rowed desperately to return to dry land, but they could not." They didn't want to throw Jonah overboard.
In verse 14, they say that. They say, [00:15:00] "Yahweh, do not let us perish on account of this man's life, and do not put innocent blood on us." They don't wanna die because of Jonah, but they also don't wanna kill Jonah. And so already we see that God's mercy is preserving Jonah's life, even for a few minutes, in the minds of the sailors.
'Cause the, the sailors know they throw him overboard, he's a goner In that kind of sea, no one's gonna survive. That kind of storm, no one's gonna survive. So when the sailors called on their god and their gods didn't respond, throwing the cargo overboard didn't work, rowing harder didn't work, they finally give in and they say, "Okay, Jonah, going overboard."
Verse 15: "So they lifted up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea stood still from its raging." When they [00:16:00] threw Jonah in, the so-- the s- the sea, the storm became quiet, just like when Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples when he said, "Peace be still," and it was still instantly.
Same thing here. Imagine being one of those sailors, and you throw Jonah overboard, and all of a sudden, boom, the s- the ocean is quiet, the water is still. What that would do to what you believe. You're like, "Oh, my goodness." And then looking ahead, verse seventeen, right? Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.
You throw Jonah overboard, splash, the sea is quiet. Now this great fish comes and swallows Jonah Those sailors, I bet, were freaking out. And it's no wonder that in verse 16, "The men greatly feared Yahweh." Just like the disciples when they saw Jesus calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee, they feared[00:17:00]
And like you probably know, it's a two-part fear, two aspects of this fear. The fear of the power of God for punishment. God can punish. God has the power to do that, and you ought to be afraid of that. But He also has the power for good. Romans 8:31 states that "If God is for us, who is against us?" Right?
Nothing can stand in God's way. Not the sea, not Jonah's sin, not your sin, not mine
When the sailors saw what happened to the sea when they threw him in, they immediately recognized that what Jonah said about Yahweh was true
They throw him overboard, the sea is calmed, a fish swallows him End of chapter one
Some [00:18:00] have s- have suggested that this confession that the, uh, that the sailors make in verse 16 is just kind of a, a, a foxhole conversion. Just like they were scared and so they said, "God, we'll do anything." And it's possible. But I think that they truly did get saved because there's the three things. They...
Look at verse 16 again. They feared Yahweh, they offered sacrifice to Yahweh, and they made vows. Once the sea had calmed down, they're like, "Man, we gotta do something. We gotta change the way we're living. This now, this Yahweh is the right God to serve."
So
and talk for just a second. What fish swallowed Jonah? What was it exactly that followed-- swallowed Jonah? The word in Hebrew is just the word for fish. Um, so was it some kind of giant fish or like [00:19:00] a whale shark, something like that? Was it a whale? Was it a specifically created creature by God to transport Jonah where he needed to go?
We don't know. The text doesn't say. But here's my, here's my thought. I think it was a whale. Two reasons. One, a whale is a mammal, and it needs air to survive. Jonah needs air to survive. So I think that's one way, one possibility of God keeping Jonah alive in the belly of this fish. And also, Hebrew doesn't have a word for whale.
Hebrew has a word or a couple words for like sea monster, sea creature, something like that, and that wasn't what is used. So anyways, take that for what you will. Either way, God created this fish to preserve Jonah's life in the sea. So God's mercy preserved Jonah for at least a few minutes on the boat.
God's mercy [00:20:00] calmed the sea for the sailors. God's mercy kept Jonah alive in the belly of the fish. And now we get to chapter two, Jonah's introspection. And again, I use introspection 'cause it worked for my outline. But what I want you to see is Jonah's repentance. Jonah's repentance
I wanna read starting in chapter one, verse 17, all the way through two verse three, just to get the context here, get the flow from chapter one to chapter two. "Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, 'I called out of my distress to Yahweh, and He answered me.
I cried for help from the belly of Sheol. You heard my voice. For You had cast me into the deep and into the heart of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your [00:21:00] breakers and waves passed over me.'" The verb used at the beginning of chapter two, "Then Jonah prayed," indicates that Jonah's repentance came after the three days and three nights.
I don't think Jonah hit the water, was swallowed by the fish, and immediately cried out to God. I think he wanted to die. He wanted to get away from God's call. He wanted to get as far away from the Ninevites as he could, and he thought, "If that means I die, great, then I'll die. Anything to go-- to keep me from going to the Ninevites and seeing the Ninevites repent."
The Israelites did not like the Ninevites. They did not like the Assyrians. They were wicked, wicked people. But we know this is true repentance because in verse one, Jonah prays to Yahweh, his God. Jonah knows that this is more than just one of the gods like [00:22:00] the sailors, but this is his God, God's mercy, and he realizes after the three days, God's mercy has spared his life in the belly of this fish He has ti-- he has had time to reflect and to be introspective, and he repents.
Verse two, he says, "I called out of my distress." Again, sounds familiar? It's exactly what God called him to do to the Ninevites, to call out And it's what the captain, uh, on the ship told him to do. "Call out to your God." And now Jonah finally is. After spending three days in the, in the belly of the fish, it's had an effect on Jonah.
Jonah realizes he's not gonna die quickly from the sea or from the fish. He's gonna die very, very slowly being digested in the belly of this fish Those must have been some long hours, if you think about it, being stuck in the belly of this fish, whale, whatever it was [00:23:00] When he realized he wasn't going to die quickly, it must have turned into some sort of panic and torture as he s- as he laid in there sloshing around in the stomach juices of this fish being partially digested w- along with the other food that was in there, right?
You imagine this half-eaten stuff washing over you and how gross that must have been. So all of that God used to help turn Jonah's heart back to Him. Look at verse four. Said, "I have been driven away from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple." I will look again. Jonah changed where he was looking from himself to God.
Martin Luther described the sinner as one who is curved in on himself rather than looking towards God, [00:24:00] and that was Jonah. He was looking at himself. He's pitying himself, and now he finally repents and looks out towards God, towards His holy temple
Jonah absolutely recognizes that it's God who did this, right? In verse three, back in verse three, he says, "Your breakers and your waves passed over me." He realized it was God who controlled the sea, God who controlled the fish, and God who had preserved his life in the fish
It was God's mercy that kept him alive. Romans 2:4 says that it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, and this is exactly what Jonah records for us here, that it's God's kindness through the fish, through the storm, that leads him to repentance. In verse eight, like Mike was talking about before, verse eight, "Those who regard [00:25:00] worthless idols for- forsake their loving kindness," in my translation.
Jonah realizes the worthlessness of these idols, these false gods. The, the false gods did nothing for the sailors when he was on that ship. They're worthless. They're worthless. And those who regard, those who worship idols or false god, false gods forsake their loving kindness. Now, this word is an interesting word.
In Hebrew, it's my favorite word, and you may have heard of it. It's hesed, and it can be translated mercy, faithfulness, steadfast love, even truth. And what this is saying, though, is that those who value, those who regard, those who worship false idols, false gods, give up this, this steadfast love, this faithfulness, this loving kindness from God
Jonah's repentance allows [00:26:00] him to see the worthlessness of idols and the forfeiture of this special love from God. We'll come back to that again in chapter four, so I'll say more about that then. But at the end of verse nine, this leads Jonah to say, "Salvation belongs to Yahweh." Israel was God's chosen people, and they were at times selfish about it.
"Salvation belongs to us." They didn't want salvation to go to the Assyrians, to the wicked peoples who were at times attacking them. But that's not why God chose Israel. God chose Israel and the Jews to be His missionaries to the world God chose his people, his prophets, to go spread his word, to spread his mercy to everyone.
But Jonah is not a great example of that at this point. Jonah finally recognizes salvation doesn't belong to me, it doesn't belong to Israel, it belongs to Yahweh [00:27:00] And for you and for me, if you're holding on to sin like Jonah did, you forfeit God's loving kindness in your life. Maybe not permanently in regard to salvation.
You can't lose your salvation, I don't believe that. But believers in unrepentant sin give up the benefits of God's undeserved, unearned, unpayable love towards them. Jonah gave up the blessing of God's protection while he was in sin Hebrews 12:6 tells us, right, that God disciplines those He loves. That's what He did to Jonah.
That's what He will do to you and I to turn us towards Him to repentance
So at the end, after Jonah finishes his prayer, we have it recorded, "Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto dry land." Man, I'd love to get a peek in on that [00:28:00] conversation. Yahweh spoke to the fish. What did he say? How did he say it? How did he guide him right to where he wanted? But just like we saw in chapter one, the wind obeyed God, the water obeyed God when God cast the storm.
The ship obeyed God when God told it not to break up. Now the fish obeys God. It's kind of ironic that all of these things obey God better than Jonah at this point in the story So again, Jo- God's mercy preserved Jonah's life in the storm, preserved God-- excuse me, God's mercy preserved Jonah's life in the fish.
And we'll see in chapter 3.3, God's mercy gives Jonah a second chance. Jonah's second chance In verse one, "Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, [00:29:00] 'Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out,'" I'm gonna pause right there. Three identical things, identical commands, identical imperatives to Jonah.
Call out to Nineveh this very call which I am going to speak to you. Yahweh adds this caveat, "Only say what I'm gonna say to you," which was implied before, but he adds this in the recording here because Jonah didn't exactly obey God the first time, did he? So God's giving him a little extra instruction, say, "This is what you are to say And so Jonah arises, he goes, and he says exactly what God tells him to say in verse four, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
Now, those aren't the only words Jonah said, but Jonah preached, and that was the, you know, as, as I have my main point, that's what Jonah's main point was to them, "Repent, God is going to destroy [00:30:00] Nineveh."
So Jonah was swallowed by the fish and he was spit up. This is an interesting thought here is where was Jonah spit up? If you know the geography of Israel and the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, uh, Nineveh is 600-plus miles to the east of Israel and there's no direct waterway from Israel to Nineveh.
And it takes way more than three days to swim through the Mediterranean Sea down around Africa, up through the Red Sea and then up through the Tigris River
So it is very likely that Jonah was spit up even the closest spot on the coast to Nineveh was still over 500 miles. And so Jonah's spit up on land. He smells like a fish. His-- very [00:31:00] possible his clothes and his skin and his hair were bleached because of the, uh, the, the stomach acids in the fish. And it's also interesting that several people groups in that area worshiped a fish god.
The Philistines did. They were in that area. The Ninevites, the Assyrians did. And so when-- whether people see him or hear about Jonah's fishy delivery, word is gonna quickly spread about what happened to Jonah and this prophet that came out of a fish. And this would have caused the Ninevites to be like, "Oh, who is this guy?"
And probably caused them to listen to Jonah more than they would have otherwise. So And it would have taken Jonah some time to get over to Nineveh, so it had time for word to spread So Jonah goes to Nineveh. He preaches to that great city Verse [00:32:00] three, chapter three, verse three. It was an exceedingly great city, a three days walk.
It was a big city And when Jonah preaches, the people repent. Verse five, "The people of Nineveh believed God." And they didn't just believe God, they called a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them They believed God. There's m- more than we, we can say for Jonah for some of this, right?
And when word reaches the king, verse six, "The word reached the king of Nineveh. He arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle, his royal garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes." The sackcloth and ashes, if you're familiar with the Bible, you know that this is a sign of contrition, a sign of repentance, a sign of sorrow[00:33:00]
And it's not just the people
But in verses seven through nine, we have the, this decree that goes out from the king. And in verse seven he says, "Don't let any man, animal, herd, or flock taste a thing." It's like, don't let any of your animals eat. Don't let them drink. "Both man and animals," verse eight, "must be covered with sackcloth, and let men call on God with their strength, that each must, might turn from his evil way."
Like this is such, such an intense repentance that the animals are involved. When was the last time you involved your family pet in family worship, right? Much less called your, your pet to repent. Like this is how intense it is. Like they [00:34:00] see their sin, and the king realizes that it's only the mercy of God that it's gonna save them.
It's only this God that Jonah's telling them about, Yahweh, that can save them. Yahweh brought this fishy prophet over to our city. It's only Him that can save us. The mercy of God lead, leads to life, and the king realizes that. Verse 10: "God sees their works. God sees their deeds, that they turn from their evil way, and God relented concerning the evil which He had spoken to them."
he did not bring it upon them. God's mercy caused them to repent. God's kindness brought them to repentance
And he withheld the wrath, the punishment that they deserved. [00:35:00] Now, did Nineveh deserve punishment? On a general sense, everyone is a sinner, yes. But if you know anything about the Assyrians, you know anything about the Ninevites, they were wicked, wicked, wicked people If you were to study what they did, especially in war to their captives, to their conquered peoples, what they did far outweighs the severity of the things that we learn about of our war crimes today.
I'm not gonna tell you what it is because honestly, it's not appropriate to talk about how bad they were, and if you Google it, just be warned, it's bad. Very bad But the severity of their sin only serves to magnify the mercy of God towards them. And what a wonderful verse here, chapter three verse 10, "God saw their works that they turned, they [00:36:00] repented, and God relented."
Honestly, if, if the book ended there, what an amazing book this would be. It's still an amazing book, but it doesn't end there. It doesn't end there. God's mercy leads to life. In chapter one we see God's mercy preserved Jonah on the boat, God's mercy preserved G- uh, Jonah's life in the fish, God's mercy led to Jonah's repentance in chapter two, God's mercy led to the repentance and the, the preservation and the salvation of the Ninevites in chapter three Now, chapter four Jonah's hatred for God's mercy Chapter four, verse one, "But this was a great evil to Jonah, and he became angry."
The word in Hebrew is he burned with anger. Why Jonah? After everything you've been through, you've [00:37:00] seen God preserve you in the storm, in the fish. You saw God- God's mercy allow the Ninevites to repent. Why would this make you angry? Should we not rejoice at the repentance? God says that He does not take delight in the death of the wicked, but that all should come to repentance.
You're a prophet of Israel. You know God. You know His mercy. Why does this make you angry? Let me take a hard left for a second and ask you this question. Of the 600 plus commands in the Bible, what is the greatest commandment? Right? If you know the answer to that, you know it's actually a twofold answer.
Jesus answers the Jews, the Pharisees in, uh, actually the lawyers in Matthew 22:34-40. Jesus is asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" Trying-- They're trying to trip Him up. And He says, "Firstly, you shall love the [00:38:00] Lord your God. You shall love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets." Those are the two greatest commandments straight from the mouth of Jesus. Why was Jonah so angry with the Ninevites? It's because he did not, he was not in obedience to those two commandments.
He loved himself and he loved his Israelites more than he loved God. He loved himself more than he loved God. He loved himself and he loved Israel more than he loved the Ninevites and the Assyrians. He loved his comfort more than he wanted to go and obey God. God told him to arise, go, and call out. Then it infers that Jonah was sitting there, not doing anything.
He was sitting there hating on the Assyrians, hating on the Ninevites [00:39:00] He knew how evil the Ninevites were and the Assyrians were. He didn't want them saved One commentator said that he was prejudiced or racist against them that's why he didn't want them saved. That's why God's mercy made Jonah angry
When, like I pointed out in chapter one, uh, when Jonah heard God's call, he knew right where he was going to go, the furthest point from Nineveh as he can get. In fact, Jonah kind of recounts that. Let's read verse two, chapter four verse two together. "And he," Jonah, "prayed to Yahweh and said, 'Ah, O Yahweh, was this not my word to myself while I was in my own land?
Therefore I went ahead to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, one who relents concerning evil.'" [00:40:00] Jonah did not want God to save the Ninevites
Jonah did not want God's salvation to spread to others Jonah knew his scriptures. This, this kind of the second half of cha- uh, verse two, "I knew that you were a gracious God," that right there and following is a quote from Exodus 34:6. It's one of the most, if not the most quoted verse in the Bible by the Bible
You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, steadfast love, mercy, whatever your translation says. That's the same word as chapter two, verse eight. They forsake their faithfulness, forsake their loving kindness. This hesed, this unearned, undeserved, unpayable love towards God or from God towards sinners in many different [00:41:00] ways God, I knew, Jonah said, "God, I knew that you have this powerful love, and I didn't want the Ninevites to experience that.
I wanted it all for myself
God didn't have to choose Jonah, but he chose to. God didn't have to preserve Jonah's life in the boat and in the fish, but he chose to, to display his mercy to everyone. To first to Jonah, then to the Ninevites, then to us, to everyone
Jonah was angry. How angry was he? Look at verse three. "So now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." Ooh, that's a hard thing to read That was a hard thing to [00:42:00] read. "Take my life, for me to die is better to live." That's how angry Jonah was. And in today's world, in today's economy, today's morals and values, we might say, "Okay, Jonah, here's a physician's assisted suicide.
Here you go. Here's a mercy killing God didn't let that happen God asks, verse four, "Do you have good reason to be angry? Come on, Jonah. Do you have good reason to be angry?" And you notice that there's no response from Jonah. What does Jonah do? Same thing he did in chapter one. He fled. He just leaves. He goes out of the city.
In verse five, and he goes east of the city and sits there to make a booth for himself to sit under it until he could see what would happen to the city. He planned on sitting there for the 40 days and watching the city burn [00:43:00] This is interesting though. In verse six-- verse five, he builds a booth, builds a temporary structure to kind of protect him.
But in verse six, uh, verse six, yes, Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah as a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. What happened to Jonah's booth? What happened to his structure? Apparently, he didn't build it very well. Uh, he was probably so angry that he didn't put it together properly.
You ever been building Legos or Erector Set or whatever else there is, K'Nex, these things today, and you're just, like, so frustrated you can't get things to go in right? I've been there. I think Jonah was there, too. So angry that he-- it didn't last. So God, God's mercy-- in God's mercy, he appointed a plant to grow up literally overnight and to provide shade for him[00:44:00]
Then God appoints a worm to come destroy the plants. And then after that, God appoints a scorching wind to beat down on Jonah even more. All this to remind Jonah that God is in control. God is sovereign. God is the one who appoints and is in control of everything. Everything from Jonah's call to the, the storm, to the ship, to the boat, to his repentance, to Nineveh repenting, to now this, this plant, the worm, and this wind, this scorching wind.
And again, look at verse eight The end of verse eight,
he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, "Death is better to me than life." The second time in chapter four, he specifically asked God, "Let me die." And [00:45:00] just like God in chapter one said, "No, Jonah, I'm gonna preserve your life through all this. I'm not done with you yet God in chapter nine says again, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plants?"
We know it's a rhetorical question. No. But Jonah answers anyways, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." Yahweh says, "You had pity on the plant for which you did not work, which you did not cause to grow, and which came to be overnight and perished overnight." And here it is. "So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left hand, as well as many animals?"
God's mercy, God's pity is so great despite their [00:46:00] sin, despite their atrocities, their evil, the stench of their sin rising up to God. God says, "Should I not have pity on this city and not destroy 120,000 who do not know their left from their right?" Who are these? These are probably children too young to know their left and their right, but also mentally disabled, mentally handicapped, who don't have the cognitive ability to know that, as well as the animals, and this is what gets me.
We know as, as Christians, as believers, that every life is valuable, even in the womb. But God says even the animals. God says the animals, in a sense, G- the animals repented in chapter three, so why not save them? Now, I don't believe animals have souls. Um, they are not created in God's image as we are. But even to the animals, this is how far God's mercy goes to the Ninevites, even to the animals [00:47:00] Jonah wanted to die.
God wanted to save lives
Remember how I said that Jonah, at the beginning of chapter four, you know, if it would be a, a mercy killing to let him die? How ironic that term mercy killing because if God's life, God's mercy leads to life and Jonah's version of mercy leads to death, that's not mercy at all
Any mercy that does not lead to life is no mercy at all No mercy at all
God extended His mercy to Jonah again through the call, through the, the ship, the storm, the fish, his [00:48:00] repentance, the Ninevites, the second chance. And then even through chapter four, the, the plant, the worm, the sun. That's God's mercy saying, "Jonah, wake up. Repent again." You know if you've been a believer for any amount of time that repentance is not just a one-time thing.
You repent every day, every moment sometimes. "God, I know I'm a sinner. Help me. Forgive me." So come and see that God's mercy leads to life But if you were like the Ninevites and you've never seen Yahweh's mercy in your life see that
Jonah was not just a sign to the Ninevites, but in Matthew [00:49:00] 12 and Luke 11, Jesus says that the sign of Jonah is a sign to the Jews as well, and by extension to us The wicked Jews asked for a sign. Jesus, you preach, you preach a good sermon, but what's your sign? What's your attesting miracle that you really are who you say you are?
And he says, "No sign's gonna be given to you except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, the sea monster, for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Saying that Jonah represents what Jesus is going to do.
Jesus continues to say, "The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgen- at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is [00:50:00] here." Did you catch that? Jesus says that the Ninevites who repented at the preaching of Jonah are going to stand up and condemn the Jews who did not repent at the preaching of Jesus
So what is the sign? What is the sign of Jonah? That salvation has come. Jonah's saying to the Ninevites, "Salvation has come to you this day. Repent." See God's mercy, understand God's love for you, that He doesn't want you to be destroyed in whatever fiery destruction God is gonna rain down. But also God does not want you to spend an eternity in punishment, in torment.
And there's evidence in the text too that the sailors when they said, "Don't let us perish," as well as the, uh, the Ninevites who said, "Let us not perish." [00:51:00] It, it's-- There's evidence here that they had eternity in mind, that there may have been some belief that if they died in a punishment to- sort of situation, that they would have continued in that punishment for all eternity.
So they understood that there was more at stake than just their earthly life
You need to understand that as well. Jonah is a fish story, but it's so much more than that. He wants people to be saved. He wants you to be saved. And just as you repent once for salvation and then continue to repent for sin throughout your life, you see God's mercy, see God's love for you, not just in salvation, but every step, every decision in life leads you to where God wants you to be.
We don't always see it, like Jonah, like Joseph We don't always see it[00:52:00]
But I want you to see God's mercy. I want you to love God more because of the mercy that He has shown through the Book of Jonah, and because of the mercy that you see in your life from Him. Cry out with the psalmist, Psalm 34:8, "O taste and see that the Lord Yahweh is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!"
See God's mercy for your life today. See that God's mercy in your life leads to life Take refuge in Him. Let's pray
Father, I thank you so very much for the story of Jonah and the wonderful lessons that it teaches us. I thank you for how you sovereignly ordained every event in Jonah's life and in our lives. And Lord, I pray that you would help [00:53:00] us to see your mercy in our life. H- Lord, cause that to lead us to be introspective and to repent.
And Lord, for us, may it cause us to delight in you, to take refuge in you, and to see your love for us. Lord, we love you. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for Jonah. Pray these things in your name, amen.
