Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Well, let's read one more time
from the book of Jonah. I had
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planned to be done, but surprise, just just one more, I think,
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one more Jonah, Chapter Four.
So I had finished and a certain
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farmer asked me, aren't you going
to preach on my favorite verse? And
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as I what versus that, he
said and also much cattle, and I
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said, oh well, okay,
so that's what we're going to do today.
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But so those are the last four
words of this chapter. But I'm
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going to read all of chapter four
just to remind us of the context.
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Let's give our attention to God's most
holy word. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly
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and he was angry and he prayed
to the Lord and said, Oh Lord,
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is not this what I said when
I was yet in my country?
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This is why I made haste to
flee to Tarshish, for I knew that
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you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
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love and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, oh Lord, please take
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my life from me, for it
is better for me to die than to
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live. And the Lord said,
do you do well to be angry.
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Jonah went out of the city and
sat to the east of the city and
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made a booth for himself there and
he sat in it the Er and he
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sat under it in the shade,
till he could see, or till he
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should see what would become of the
city. Now the Lord God, appointed
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a plant and made it come up
over Jonah that he might that it might
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be a shade for his head,
to save him from his discomfort. So
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Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the
plant. But when dawn came up the
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next day, God appointed a worm
that attacked the plant so that it withered.
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When the Sun rose, got a
point to the scorching east wind and
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the Sun beat down on the head
of Jonah so that he was faint,
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and he asked that he might die
and said it is better for me to
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die than to live. But God
said to do it to Jonah. Do
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you do well to be angry for
the plant? And he said yes,
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I do well to be angry,
angry enough to die. And the Lord
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said, you pity the plant for
which you did not Labor, nor did
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you make it grow, which came
into being in a knight and yet and
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perished in a night. And should
I not pity Nineveh, that great city
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in which there are more than a
hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not
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know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle. He may
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be seated. So Jonah didn't want
to preach, he didn't want to go
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to Nineveh. He didn't want to
do it. He ended up doing it
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anyway, and he thought, and
the thought, I should say the thought,
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of preaching the word of God to
this powerful city, to this enemy
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of God's people, was something that
repelled him. Nevertheless, God propelled him
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to the city and the word of
God was accomplished. This great city of
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Nineveh, this confused and evil people
repented of their sins from the top of
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the city of the king all the
way to the bottom. They sought the
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forgiveness of God and they found it. Not just the people were saved,
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but the whole city, the buildings, the plants, the roads, and
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also much cattle. Now this made
Jonah very upset. So God takes him
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through a an object lesson, if
we could put it that way. Jonah
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goes out of the city. He
he you know, I imagine him sort
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of crossing his arms and pouting and
he squats down underneath this booth that he
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makes and kind of waits to see
what happens and God a points this plant.
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It grows up over Jonah and he's
exceedingly happy about it. He was
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a moment ago. He was exceedingly
angry because of God's mercy to this city,
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but now he's exceedingly, it says, exceedingly glad and he's happy for
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this plant. But then the sun
goes down, got a points of worm,
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the worm eats the plant, the
sun comes up and Jonah's mad again.
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And God uses this to ask him
this question. He brings this event
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into his life, as he has
brought many events into Jonah's life over the
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last or many obvious ones. Always
say and but anyway, he brings this
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this thing about that he uses to
teach a Jonah something. He says,
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Jonah, you pity this plant,
in which you have almost zero investment.
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You didn't do anything to make it
happen. You didn't tend to it,
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you didn't water it, you didn't
Labor for it, you didn't make it
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grow. It was there and it
was gone, and yet you have this
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for this little plant and which you
had almost nothing to do with or nothing
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to do with you, are expressing
all of this deep sadness and and pity
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and anger and and are emotionally attached
to in this extreme way. And yet
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should I not pity Nineveh, this
great city, in which there are more
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than a hundred and Twentyzero persons?
Confused people, that's sort of what is
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meant by this. They don't know
their right hand from their left. And
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not just con fused, but sinfully
confused fools, people that are constantly working
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against the grain of this world and
falling into sin, a plunging themselves into
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sin. This people, and also
much cattle, this amazing place, this
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great and powerful city. This is
an amazing question. A consider what's happening
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here. God, the Supreme Judge
of all the world, takes off his
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judge's robe, heaps it up on
the shoulders of Jonah in a way,
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and asks Jonah to think about things
from God's perspective. God Asks Him a
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question, asks him to judge him. Of course, God is not bending
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the need of Jonah, but he's
sort of like a like a father might
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say to his children. Well,
what is it that you want me to
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do? Right, think about this
from my perspective. God wants Jonah not
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to think about the situation out of
his selfishness, but out of God's generosity.
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And what we see from this perspective
is the Lord's incredible mercy. This
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one who made the world and has
the right to demand obedience from every single
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thing in the world, man and
beast, is constantly denied this. God
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is constantly, constantly denied what is
rightfully his. He is the master,
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he is the Lord. If you
go and and, let's say, get
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a new pet and your pet does
everything that you don't want it to do,
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if your pet, let's say,
eats all your food and destroys your
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house and bite your children and then
starts, not let's say it's a dog,
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starts attacking you and your guests,
and do you? What do you
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do? Well, at the very
least, you ask this question. What
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right dog do you have to do
this to me? I'm the Master,
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God is our master. He deserves, he is owed all obedience. And
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yet Nineveh and Jonah and you and
me, we don't give him that thing
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that it rightfully belongs to him.
And yet, like perhaps you have done
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with the things that are under your
power and even the creatures that are under
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your power. You have exercised a
measure of forbearance, certain number of pitals
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on the carpet and other kinds of
things. God does this as well.
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God, who is owed perfect obedience, pities Nineveh and when they repent,
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he saves them, and also much
cattle. This phrase, and also much
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cattle, I think, does a
couple of things. One of the things
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it does is it's sharpens. It's
sharpens our perception of who God is and
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how gracious he is. It be
like learning more about how much strategy goes
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into baseball. I'm assuming their strategy
and baseball. I don't really know these
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things. Sorry, sorry, you
baseball fans, but I know that every
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time I've learned something about sports I'm
always amazed. I'm always amazed at how
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much people train for things, how
much thoughtfulness goes into things. Videos are
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reviewed, replays are watched, books
are read. There's study that goes into
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this and when you come to appreciate, even in a game, the strategy
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and the the the the way wisdom
is applied and these kinds of things,
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it gives you. It impresses you, impresses me, even in things I'm
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I'm not as interested in or take
a piece of furniture, a fine piece
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of craftsmanship. Maybe you don't know
anything about woodworking, but if a wood
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work or sits down next to you
and starts talking you about the various kinds
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of joints that are used Ben exactly
what it takes to make that particular angle
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and how those things are held together
and how this particular thing is going to
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last hundreds of years, where another
thing might not. When we learn about
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the details of things, it impresses
on us the workmanship or the skill or
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something about the maker, the one
who is involved in in the task,
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and I think that's one of the
things this phrase, and also much cattle,
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does for us. It asks us
to pay attention to a detail of
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God's grace that perhaps often goes unnoticed
or unremembered by us. But when we
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remember it, when it is pointed
out to us in this way, as
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God does hear, it, gives
us all the more reason to praise him,
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to seek his salvation, to trust
him, to hope in him.
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And so that's why I think it's
is worth focusing on this phrase. God
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is bringing it out. It's a
surprising set of words. It's a remarkable
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set of words. It ends the
book it's meant to be paid attention to.
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So what can we learn from it? What is God impressing on us?
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Well, he's impressing upon us the
depth, or the greatness, we
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might say, of his mercy,
of his pity, of his intentions and
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plans for the salvation of this world. And to help us understand this and
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remember this, I want to point
you to some scriptures this morning that remind
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us of God's plan for history.
And as we look at this and as
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we remember various plat places in the
Bible, we will be reminded that God's
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plan of salvation doesn't just involve people, but animals too, even the whole
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of creation. That's how far his
mercy goes. The Sun, we might
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say. The son of God came
to redeem the elect but not in a
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way that is abstracted from the world
that they lived in or they live in.
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God has placed them in a world
that is intended to be glorified along
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with them, in a way that
is different from them in some ways,
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but nevertheless, God promises Un New
Heavens and a new earth. He doesn't
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save us into some kind of I
imagine a sort of cartoon body floating out
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in some kind of abstraction of nothingness, just a a saved person, not
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in any kind of context or creation. If that's what you imagine, and
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if or if you imagine our salvation
is a kind of intellectual ascend into the
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mind of God or something like that, then you're really missing something. You're
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missing the way that God is himself
has described what our salvation is to be.
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He has created us to be a
part of creation and when he saves
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us, he saves us into,
as the Bible says, a new heavens
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and a new earth. We don't
become a disembodied souls or abstractions or,
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I don't know how else you might
put it, thoughts or ideas. We're
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people, people that will one day
enjoy resurrected bodies that will live in some
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kind of world that God has made. But to think about these things,
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let's go back to the beginning and
remember who would it, how it is
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God made us and who it is
that created us. We begin in the
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garden Veeden, place in which God
first placed man. We remember that God
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did not create Adam and Eve,
is bodies floating in nothingness of time or
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space, but he placed them in
a world, as the use of borrow
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some words from him, of rocks
and trees and skies and seas. Right,
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this world that God has made us, a world that also, clue,
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includes animals. Now, this world
that God placed us in was one
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that was a suitable habitat for mankind, and it served us in this way.
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It was a place for us to
dwell in. And what do the
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Scriptures say about it? They say
it was very good, very good.
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It was perfectly, perfectly matched to
our needs, and we were perfectly matched
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not just to live there, but
to tend the garden, to serve and
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to work in it. As those
who were made in God's image, we
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were called to show forth God,
as images do, to show forth his
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glory in the world, by imaging
his pattern, by showing forth his pattern.
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That's what an image does. It
shows something. God had placed a
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Royal Commission on us to fulfill,
something to do, a work to complete,
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and as he filled the world with
good things, so mankind was to
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be fruitful and multiply and have dominion
over this world, to expand the garden,
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to tend to it, to serve
the Lord in this way, and
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as God worked and then rested,
so man too was to work and to
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fulfill this duty, this commission that
God had given to him and then,
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one day, rest from his labors. Part of that we remember from the
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beginning of the Bible was Adams naming
of the animals. This wasn't, as
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kind of a merely a scientific exercise, it was a royal task. It
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was one in which he exercised his
authority in his dominion. This is approved
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in a lot of different ways.
I'll just sort of state it for now,
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but this way of naming things is
a way that we placed ownership on
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things. It's a way of designating
our control and also manifesting it and also
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controlling things. This is a wonderful
thing that we mean when we say that
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God has placed his name on us. It means that we belong to him,
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we are owned by him, possessed
by him. When we are adopted,
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for example, as sons and daughters
of this great God, our heavenly
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father, he puts his name on
us in such a way that we now
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belong to him and to his family. It's a way of expressing authority,
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of of ruling, and this is
what Adam and was called to do.
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The world was very good and it
would be even better when man passed this
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probation and he fulfilled this mandate that
he had been given to or it had
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been given by by God. You
remember, however, that Adam failed into
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this task and, instead of ushering
in a great and glorious new world,
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a new creation in which their work
would no longer be done to earn a
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reward, but instead would only be
about enjoying that reward and resting in this
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state of consummation. Instead, man
sin, he failed to do the thing
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that he was called to do and
instead of bringing blessing and glory into the
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world, he brought curse and death. And, as we read in the
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curse that fell upon man, it
didn't just fall upon him or the woman,
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but it fell upon the serpent as
well, it fell upon the ground
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as well. The entire world was
cursed and all of the beauty and the
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order and the goodness that God had
made was now corrupted. Man and woman
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would fight one another, father and
fathers and mothers and sons and daughters would
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fight one another. Man and animals
would be at war. A man would
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go into the field, to work
the ground, and it would cross its
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arms and say no. Over and
over. In every aspect and every relationship
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of creation, there is this conflict
now and death. Why? Because of
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sin. That's what sinned does,
is it leads to death. Why?
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Because it leads away from God,
and in God is life. But this
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God promise to set things right what
Adam had failed to do. God promised
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that he would do through a second
atom. But in order for that to
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happen, in order for a second
atom to be born, one that would
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come as a man and fulfill the
duties that man had failed to do,
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but, more than that, not
only fulfill those duties but also take away
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the sins that man had now earned
for himself. This world had to be
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preserved, attracting the story so far. The world had to be preserved.
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This became, of course, very
obvious immediately after the fall, as the
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sins of humankind piled up more and
more and became so intolerable that God said,
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the whole world has to be washed
clean, and that's what he did
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in the great flood in which he
a flooded the earth. He washed away
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sin like staying out of a garment, except for Nolah, his family and
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the animals. God saved the world
through the ARC and through his promise to
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know that he would say save him
and his family. God pitied them and
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saved them and brought them through this
overwhelming flood so that the world might be
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preserved, so that his promise to
humanity might continue. And that's exactly what
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he did. And when Noah left
the Ark with his family, a sort
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of recommissioning happened. The Covenant With
Adam had been broken, but God would
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establish a new covenant, not the
New Covenant that we think about when we
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talk about the new covenant in the
New Testament, but another covenant. And
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he does this with Noah, a
kind of recommissioning that in many ways sounds
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very much like the commission that had
been given to Adam, but this time
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it was not for the ushering in
of the new heavens and the new earth,
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but a preserving of this world.
God would take Noah and his family
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and he and from them he would
preserve an order out of which would come
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a saving order, the second Adam, who would bring all things in to
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fulfillment. I want to read that
covenant to you now because this is the
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basis on which we now live our
lives, the whole world now lives,
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and it's unfortunately often forgotten. And
chapter nine of Genesis, they exit the
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arc just there at the end of
Chapter Eight, and then in chapter nine,
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verse one, we read this.
And God blessed Noah and his sons
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and said to them. This will
sound familiar if you remember the words from
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the beginning of Genesis. Be Fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth. The
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fear of you and the dread of
you shall be upon every beast of the
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earth and upon every bird of the
heavens, upon everything that creeps on the
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ground and all the fish of the
sea into your hand. They are delivered.
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Every moving thing that lives shall be
food for you. And as I
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gave you the green plants, I
give you everything. But you shall not
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eat flesh with its life, that
is its blood. And for your life
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blood I will require a reckoning from
every beast, I will require it.
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And from man, from his fellow
man, I will require a reckoning for
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the life of Man. Whoever sheds
the blood of Man by man shall his
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blood be shed, for God made
man in his own image. And you
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be fruitful and multiply team on the
earth and multiply in it. Then God
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said to know and to his sons
with him. Behold, I establish my
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covenant with you and your offspring after
you and with every living creature that is
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with you, the birds, the
live stock and every beast of the earth
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with you, as many as came
out of the Ark, for it is
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for every beast of the earth.
I will establish my covenant with you that
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never again shall all flesh be cut
off by the waters of the flood and
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never again shall there be a flood
to destroy the earth. And God said,
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this is the sign of the Covenant
that I made between me and you
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and every living creature that is with
you for all future generations. I have
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set my bow in the cloud and
it shall be a sign of the covenant
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between me and the Earth. When
I bring clouds over the earth and the
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bow is seen in the clouds,
I will remember my covenant that is between
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me and you and every living creature
out of all flesh, and the waters
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shall never again become a flood to
destroy all flesh. When the bow is
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in the clouds, I will see
it and remember the everlasting covenant between God
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and every living creature, of all
flesh that is on the earth. God
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said to know of this is the
sign of the Covenant that I have established
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between me and all flesh that is
on the earth. Amazing, isn't it?
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You see what this means? This
means that every single creature, including
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there's a squirrel out there that keeps
distracting me, and I'm sorry if you've
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noticed that, but every living creature, the squirrel out there, the birds
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that fly, the lizards, you
see, is in a covenantal relationship with
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God. That's what it says,
and not just once. Maybe you heard
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it. I didn't count it,
but he says it a lot of times.
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This covenant is established between me and
every living creature. He even explicitly
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mentions the different kinds of creatures that
he has made. God makes this promise
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to the squirrels and to the birds
and to us that he will preserve the
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world, that the world will not
only be preserved but it will have an
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order to it. The world will
not descend into anarchy, into complete chaos,
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in such a way that God has
to wash it clean again with a
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flood. One day justice will come
and all sins will be paid for but
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until that day God will preserve the
order of this world, in the order
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is seen there at the beginning of
nine. There is of this principle of
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man's life in particular, of humanity
being preserved, and particularly under a sense
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of justice, fairness for man's blood. If man's blood is shed by man,
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his blood will be shed, whether
that's by an animal or another man.
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He gives but man in animals,
they'll all cut. The Covenant is
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made with them together, other as
a group. There is an order to
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it, isn't there? You catch
it in the words where he says I
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give to you everything, I place
them into your hands. Man is to
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continue, is to now, and
is our as to continue exercising this rule
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over the animals and through this the
the world will be sustained. But though
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it was a unilateral promise that could
not be broken and would not be broken
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by God, there are still obligations
to us, and these things describe those
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obligations. God did not create a
disorderly and chaotic world and we, as
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into image bearers, are called to
reflect that. That's why God puts the
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fear of man into every beast.
It says. That's why we are that's
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why these things are placed into his
hands. And in all this God preserves
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human life and animal life, and
animal as food for human life. But
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in giving US animals, even animals
to eat, there's still an order to
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it and, we might say,
a humanity to it. Though he gives
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us animals into our hands, he
doesn't give the animals to us to abuse.
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He doesn't give us license to abuse
them. He doesn't want us to
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act as be beasts, and that's
why he says you shall not eat flesh
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with its life, that is,
with its blood in it. We're not
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to go out into the fields and
just start devouring animals like the animals do.
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Instead, in our care and our
dominion, even are eating of the
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animals. We are called to exercise
a humanity. Why? Because we are
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image bearers of God. God's rule
is a benevolent rule, a good rule,
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and ours should be as well,
not one marked by cruelty and inhumanity,
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but one marked by the one who
made us. John of for in
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a way teaches us that, and
in many other places, scripture teaches us
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that God's dominion over these animals is
a good one. We, as those
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commission to rule or under him ought
to act in this way. That's why
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proverbs twelve ten says whoever is righteous
has regard for the life of his beasts,
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but the mercy of the wicked is
cruel. Now that sin was in
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the world, however, this commission
that God had given to Noah and to
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the animals and all of us,
this these obligations that he placed on us,
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we know that they would not be
fulfilled. That's why we depend on
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God's grace and either his constantly looking
to his covenant promises and even to the
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Rainbow, the sign of the Covenant. We know from experience and from the
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testimony of scripture that this world would
be constantly fraught with challenges, though God
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promised to preserve the world and to
keep it in justice and order. Both
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man and animals, man perhaps in
particular, would constantly fight against this.
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Conflict would be at every turn.
There would be no hope for us were
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it not for God's preserving and preserving
us. But this preservation of the world
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was not for its own end.
It was so that the promises that were
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originally made to Adam and Eve would
come to pass. And until that day,
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two things remained. On the one
hand, the sinfulness of man remained
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in the reality. Disorder and chaos
and brokenness and conflict with enemies would continue,
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but also the promise of God that
a day of redemption would come was
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also a reality. And then,
as you continue throughout the scriptures, you
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have constant testimony to this that one
day, through this Messiah, this anointed
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son of God, everything would be
set right and a new world, and
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orderly world, would be set in
place, one one that in many ways
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had continuity within with the old but
in other ways was marked by something very
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different. Listen to the words of
Prophet Isaiah and Chapter Eleven. The Wolf
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shall dwell with the lamb and the
leopards shall lie down with the young goat
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and the calf and the lion and
the fatted calf together, and a little
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child shall lead them. The cow
and the bear shall graze, they're young
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shall lie down together and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox. The
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nursing child shall play over the whole
of the Cobra and the weaned child shall
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put his hand into the adders den. They shall not hurt or destroy in
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all my Holy Mountain, for the
Earth shall be full of the knowledge of
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the Lord, as the waters cover
the sea. Amazing. This is the
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plan that God has for our salvation. You see what I mean? It's
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it's not us sort of floating abstractly
in the great nothingness, it's US belonging
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to a world that God has made, one that will be in many ways
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connected with the old but in some
way so radically different it's hard to even
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imagine what that would look like and
how that would work. The old promise
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of preservation and the strange new promises
of consummation are all including this amazing thing,
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God's salvation of the animals in the
old order, preserved in the new
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world order, something wonderful, almost
unimaginable and permanent. And Jonah, the
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story of Jonah and the Ninavites,
anticipates that future. And that's why it
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says and also much cattle, because
when God saves the city, he doesn't
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just save the people, he saves
the whole world. The whole world was
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plunged into sin and under the curse
of God, and the whole world will
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be made new. We sang this
earlier in Psalm thirty six, and I'll
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repeat it now. Your steadfast love, oh Lord, extends to the Heavens,
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your faithfulness to the clouds. Your
righteousness is like the mountains of God.
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Your judgments are like the great deep
man and beast you save, Oh
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Lord. So it take us back
to my point at the very beginning.
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One of the things that these four
little words, and also much cattle,
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does is a remind us of how
far God's mercy extends, just like Psalm
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thirty six says, his steadfast love
extends even to the clouds, not just
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in distance but to them, and
the way that God has made this world,
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has called it good and desires to
save it. God doesn't care about
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the animals more than you, but
he has. He does care for you
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and he brings the animals into that
salvation, the whole world into that.
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And when God creates a new heavens
and a new earth, you can count
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on the fact that this will be
a wonderful and blessed place. God's power
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is not only demonstrated in the creation, but also his mercy. Remember that
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when you look at the animals,
remember that when you anticipate and wait for
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your hope of Heaven, that God
will make all things new, that he
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owns it and preserves it all now
and one day he will bring it to
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complete and final consummation. All praise
to the glory of God and to his
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son, who he has, whom
he is sent to accomplish these things.
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Put Your faith in him. Let
us pray.
