Scorching Wind

[00:00:00] Let's pray. [00:00:04] Our gracious God and our King, we thank youk that yout mercy and grace are sealed in the blood of youf son Jesus, and that it is for his sake that yout love us and that we can be certain his having died and risen and his sitting at your right hand on the throne. [00:00:33] Because of who he is and what he has done, and because especially of where he sits and reigns, we can be sure that you love us, that you care for us, and that you receive us. So, O God, our King, our Lord Jesus Christ, we come to you and we ask that you would reign in our hearts, that our hearts would be your throne, that by your word and by your Almighty Spirit, you would govern the very motions of our hearts, our thoughts and our feelings, the things which motivate us and drive us, that you would reach into our hearts and that you would govern these things. [00:01:18] For, O God, we confess that though you forgive us and love us again and again, we still have rebellion and sin and trouble in our hearts. So, Lord Jesus, we need you to shine the light of your Word in our hearts and drive out that darkness. [00:01:37] And that you would take the reins of our hearts and that you would guide us into peace, into harmony, into goodness and blessing. That we might learn to rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. That we might learn to have the compassion, care, kindness and gentleness which is in your heart. [00:02:02] That it would be in our hearts also. [00:02:05] So that we might be a blessed people, but most especially that we might shine forth your glory and show your compassion and mercy to a world who needs to know you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [00:02:23] Let's turn to God's word. To Jonah 4. [00:02:29] Continuing our study in the Prophet of Jonah. Jonah 4. [00:02:46] Hear God's word. [00:02:48] But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. [00:02:53] And he was angry. [00:02:55] And he prayed to the Lord and said, o Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? [00:03:06] That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. [00:03:22] Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. [00:03:33] And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? [00:03:39] Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. [00:03:45] He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. [00:03:53] Now the Lord appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. [00:04:04] So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plan. [00:04:09] But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered when the sun arose. [00:04:18] God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. [00:04:27] And he asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. [00:04:38] But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. [00:04:51] And the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. [00:05:03] And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from the left, and also much cattle. [00:05:18] Please be seated. [00:05:32] The story feels like it ends abruptly. [00:05:36] It ends with God getting the last word. Of course, that's appropriate. [00:05:41] But what became of Jonah? [00:05:46] No doubt you've read that and wondered, and I think it's written that way for you to wonder, did Jonah repent and turn to God? [00:06:00] Well, what Jonah did was, if you think about the book that's in your hand that you're reading, Jonah went back from. From Nineveh to Israel. And, you know, there's. Sometimes we're trying to explain something to someone, and we start to explain it, and then we say, you know what? Let me just tell you the story of how it happened. [00:06:23] And that's kind of what Jonah's doing as he writes the book. [00:06:29] We argued in the first sermon, when we looked at chapter one, that Jonah's prophecy, the prophet, Jonah the prophet, doesn't leave us a series of sermons like Isaiah or Amos or the other prophets. Instead, Jonah leaves us his story. [00:06:48] And his story is his sermon, his life. And what happens to him gives us the message of the gospel that he carried. [00:07:03] So did Jonah repent and turn to God? What happened? [00:07:07] Well, let's look at his story together. Jonah says, let me just tell you how it went. [00:07:15] And the story he tells in the whole book, but especially here in chapter four, is a story of Jonah learning God's word, mercy. [00:07:26] That's what's going on here. [00:07:28] God is teaching Jonah about his mercy to undeserving sinners. [00:07:37] We're going to look at God's mercy to Jonah and To us. [00:07:42] First, we'll look at Jonah's anger. [00:07:45] Secondly, we'll look at Jonah's shade out there in the desert. [00:07:51] And thirdly, Jonah's answer. [00:07:55] First, Jonah's anger. [00:07:58] We read in the very first verse, very beginning of chapter four, it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry. Or if you look at a footnote in some of your translations, it will give you what it literally says. You know, when we translate words, we have this in English as well. We have a word that can mean several different things. Things, right. So the word for evil in the Hebrew, that word can mean disaster or destruction. [00:08:32] That word is found in verse 10. God relented of the disaster or the evil that he said he would do to them. But here in chapter four, verse one, where it says that it displeased Jonah exceedingly, it says that Jonah was evil. [00:08:52] Evilly. [00:08:54] The word for displeasure is the word evil. [00:08:58] Jonah was really, really evil. Not that he was evil in the way we think of good and evil, but truly that he was displeased and angry. [00:09:08] Why? Because God had relented about of the evil, the judgment against Nineveh. When he preached and Nineveh repented, it displeased Jonah is referring back to verse 10, that God had relented of the evil or the judgment. In other words, Jonah's really angry that God showed mercy to the people of Nineveh when they turned to him from their sin. [00:09:39] A strange prophet. [00:09:41] Every chapter of his prophecy is strange. [00:09:47] He had fled from God when God sent him to go preach. That's what prophets do. He sends them to preach. Instead, he flees from God. [00:09:57] Now in his frustration, instead of fleeing from God, he throws his anger in God's face. [00:10:06] He gets angry at what God has done and he prays against God or to God in anger. [00:10:17] A strange prophet prophet who runs from God now cries out against God. [00:10:25] The prophet Abraham pled with God not to destroy the city of Nineveh. That's what prophets usually do. They plead with God on behalf of the people they're sent to preach to. [00:10:41] Jonah goes outside of the city and he complains to God against the city. [00:10:51] He grumbles that Nineveh was spared, but he prays. [00:10:59] Before he ran, he was silent. [00:11:03] We detailed that in chapter one. Everything a prophet was supposed to do, he didn't do. [00:11:08] Now at least he comes to God and he brings his problem in prayer. [00:11:14] It's a prayer expressing sinful anger. He shouldn't be doing this against God, but it is a prayer to God. [00:11:26] God, you did exactly what I knew you would do. [00:11:30] And I knew you would do this because I know who you are. [00:11:34] You're a God who shows mercy, who's compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and who relents of disaster. [00:11:43] That's the kind of God you are. And so I knew you would do this if I went and preached and they repented and you did it. And God, I'm angry with you because you did what you do, because of who you are. [00:12:02] What a strange prayer. [00:12:05] But it's a prayer that God hears and answers. And there is a small comfort, no small comfort there, that even when our prayers are sinful, God. God hears the prayers of his children and he answers them. [00:12:24] Now, we want to know why. [00:12:26] There's lots of questions. He said that in chapter one. We're not going to answer all of the questions the book of Jonah raises. We may even raise more questions, but we want to know why. Why does Jonah get so angry with God? [00:12:42] Because God shows mercy. [00:12:45] Nineveh. [00:12:48] He was supposed to preach to Nineveh. That's what prophets do. It's their job to turn people, to warn people of coming judgment for sin, to turn them in repentance to God. [00:13:01] That's what he was supposed to do. [00:13:03] He was successful. And now he's angry that God did the very thing that God always does when sinners turn to him in repentance. [00:13:13] Why? [00:13:14] It's the big question. [00:13:18] We can guess at answers, little hints, maybe, that we can try to pick at here and there in the story of Jonah and thinking about Jonah's own career and life story. [00:13:32] But the more important question is to take the question that arises. [00:13:38] Why does Jonah get so frustrated with God, and particularly with God and his mercy, and ask the question of ourselves. I'm not entirely sure I can give you 100%, give you the answer as to why Jonah gets angry without speculating. And that's not helpful. But it may be helpful. I think it is helpful to ask ourselves, why do we get frustrated with God? [00:14:09] Why do we get angry with God just like Jonah? [00:14:15] Maybe not exactly the same way Jonah did or does, but we do get frustrated with God. [00:14:24] Why do we do that? I'm not going to answer that question for you, but you can answer that question for you, and you can take that to God. [00:14:36] Whenever we get frustrated with God, just like Jonah does, here we are taking issue with God. We are complaining against God for being who he is. [00:14:53] God, I want to live my life this, this way or that way. [00:14:58] You are a holy God, that's who you are. And when you see evil and unholiness, you call it for what it is, and you tell us that we should repent of it. [00:15:09] But I just want to live my life my way, the way that's easy for me, the way that brings me pleasure or doesn't bring me pain. [00:15:20] What are we doing? We're complaining against God for being who he is, holy and just and good. [00:15:28] Because we want to be our own way. [00:15:32] God, you are all wise and all powerful. That's who you are. God. [00:15:38] And then you, God, do things in my life that I don't understand and that I don't like. [00:15:45] And then you tell me to trust you. [00:15:49] God, you are all wise. You know what's best for me and for everything and for your own glory. [00:15:56] And then when you carry out my life and you do things according to your wisdom and your might, I can't stand it. [00:16:06] Our complaints about what he does in our life are complaints against who he is. [00:16:13] God, you are sovereign over life and death. That's who you are. [00:16:18] And you took my loved one and you allowed someone else who I don't think deserved it to live. [00:16:27] We get angry, we get frustrated, we despair. [00:16:31] But it's about who he is that's at issue. [00:16:36] We're railing against God. God, when we complain about our circumstances and why he allowed them. [00:16:46] Now, that's a little broader than Jonah's complaint, but it's the same in principle. [00:16:51] Our problem is with him. [00:16:55] Jonah's complaint. Look at it. Verse 2. [00:16:59] I knew you would do this, because I know. [00:17:03] I know who you are. [00:17:06] You are a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. [00:17:16] God, because of who you are, you forgave Nineveh when they turned from their sin and sought mercy and grace from you, because that's who you are. [00:17:27] Israel won't repent. [00:17:31] Remember Jonah's story. [00:17:33] He was a prophet to the northern tribes of Israel. God first sent Elijah and Elisha 100, 150 years before Jonah. Then later he sent Amos and Micah, Jonah's buddies. [00:17:47] And now he sends Jonah over a hundred years of preaching to the northern kingdom, God's people, Israel. And they don't repent. [00:17:58] But less than one day of preaching to Nineveh, less than one day, the day hadn't finished and the king had decreed that the whole city was to have a day of fasting and to throw themselves on God's mercy and to repent and turn from their wicked ways. [00:18:18] God, I'm angry. I'm angry that you have mercy on these people and perhaps not on others. [00:18:27] Why did that awful person over there repent and receive mercy and forgiveness from God? But this dear loved one of my God, you won't bring him or her to repentance. [00:18:39] That's what Jonah's doing. [00:18:42] And when you give yourself over to these questions, over to the passions that flow from them, the anger that may result from them, Jonah's sentiment is not far off. [00:18:59] If you really give yourself over to them, you'll find yourself despairing. [00:19:05] God, it's better for me to die than to live. [00:19:11] But this story is about Jonah showing you God's mercy. [00:19:18] God's mercy to Jonah is his mercy to all his children. [00:19:22] You ask, why, God? Why are you that way? And why is life falling out the way it is? [00:19:30] And he comes to you in his mercy, in his tenderness, like a father to a little child who doesn't understand what's going on around him. [00:19:41] And he says, do you do well to be angry, my dear child? Do you do well? [00:19:51] I have done well by you. [00:19:55] Do you do well to be angry with me? [00:19:59] Come, come, feel my gentle hand. [00:20:04] Hear my compassionate voice. To you a sinner. [00:20:09] I love sinners. I treat them in kindness and gentleness, and I show them good mercy. [00:20:15] See my love and forgiveness for you. In my son who died for you. [00:20:23] I've shown you mercy. Do you do well to be angry with me? [00:20:31] You see God's mercy even in the midst of Jonah's anger. And Jonah's anger doesn't stop. Jonah doesn't respond. [00:20:38] God says, do you do well to be angry? [00:20:41] And Jonah storms off in a huff. [00:20:46] We're going to look now at Jonah's shade. He sets up a booth to give himself some shade outside of Nineveh while he waits to see if God's judgment will come on Nineveh. [00:21:01] Here in his bitterness and his anger, sitting in his booth as the sun beats down on him in the Iraqi desert. [00:21:10] You get this picture of Jonah stewing, waiting, his heart churning in anger, in doubt. [00:21:23] What's he waiting for? After all God has said? [00:21:27] He's relented. You have that in verse 10 of chapter 3. God has relented of the disaster. He's not going to destroy Nineveh. [00:21:36] Why is Jonah out here waiting for that judgment to come, giving himself over to his anger at God's mercy to sinners? [00:21:49] He begins to doubt God's mercy to sinners. Maybe God will still come and destroy the city. [00:22:00] If Jonah seems so far off here, if this seems unrelatable, tell me, as a sinner, has God ever humbled you in your sin? [00:22:16] Has he ever shown you how awful your sin was, how terrible your plight was like Jonah. He pursued you. [00:22:28] He hurled a wind after you, and a storm came after you. You fell into the midst of the storm. [00:22:36] You sank to the bottom of the ocean. He appointed a fish to come in and deliver you. [00:22:45] And there, in the midst of all that difficulty, God finally brought you to repentance of your sin. [00:22:53] You cried out in joy, in thanksgiving. You have Jonah's prayer of God's delivering him in chapter two that we looked at. [00:23:04] And then you got up and you marched forward in life, praising God and thanking him. And maybe it was a few weeks later, maybe it was a few years later, maybe it was a few minutes later, like a pig that's had a bath and been washed clean, you went right back into the mud. [00:23:23] You went right back into that sin that God had just forgiven you of. [00:23:28] We've done it, haven't we? That's all Jonah's doing. [00:23:32] That's all he's doing. He's turning right back, right back to the sin that God had just forgiven him from. He ran from God because he didn't want to preach God's mercy and see his mercy come to pass in Nineveh. Now it's happened, even though he repented of it. And he goes right back to it. [00:23:54] Praise the Lord that there is grace. Always more grace for sinners. [00:24:01] We turn back to our sin, and God is there to draw us back out of that misery. [00:24:08] But here's Jonah wallowing once more in the mud of his sins, stewing in his anger under his little booth, hoping that it will give him a little bit of shade as he gets the pleasure and satisfaction of. Of seeing God's judgment. Come on Nineveh. And there's the darkness of our hearts. [00:24:30] But God is true to himself. Jonah made his booth. Jonah gave himself some shade. [00:24:37] But God's the true shade for sinners. [00:24:41] God. [00:24:43] God is true to himself. We rage at him. We wallow in our sin in and misery. [00:24:49] But he remains unchanged. [00:24:54] He saw Jonah in his distress yet again that word evil. [00:24:59] He saw Jonah in his distress. And God appointed a plant to grow up overnight and shade Jonah. Whatever Jonah's booth shade was wasn't enough. The sun was still getting through and beating down on him. God saw him in his misery, not just the affliction of the son. He saw Jonah wallowing in his sin. And misery. And he brought shade to cover. [00:25:23] Jonah, even in the midst of the sinner's misery caused by his own sin, that he gives himself over to God, looks on the sinner in compassion, in love, in kindness, and he offers his children shelter. [00:25:45] This is how God deals with us, not as we deserve, but in his grace and mercy. [00:25:53] Here he sends us good things, shade, shelter. [00:25:58] We call them creature comforts, things that ease our pain, whether it's physical pain or pain of the soul. [00:26:06] He sends people to us to comfort us. [00:26:10] He comes and he eases the miseries we bring ourselves. [00:26:16] He makes life a little less miserable for us, a little more bearable for us. [00:26:22] Will we see his hand in those gracious providences? [00:26:26] Will we turn to Him? [00:26:29] Will we find joy in the One who gives the gifts that bring comfort? [00:26:38] He says to us, come, find shade in my grace. [00:26:44] Come find shade from the heat of sin, from the heat of misery, the heat of God's displeasure with sinners. Come find shelter from that. [00:26:55] Find shade under the shadow of my wings. [00:27:03] But where does Jonah find joy? [00:27:05] Oh, the sin sick heart, right? [00:27:08] Jonah's joy is not in God, not in God's grace. There's no psalm of thanksgiving here that God would have mercy on a miserable, rotten sinner. No, he continues persisting in his anger against God's mercy and compassion. Here he is experiencing the shade of God's grace. [00:27:28] And he says, I'm going to keep being angry that God is who he is, merciful and compassionate. [00:27:37] His joy is for the creature, the weed that grew up to shade him, not its creator who shelters him. [00:27:48] So God removes the creature comfort. He sends the worm to remove the shade. He sends the scorching east wind to beat down on Jonah's head. [00:28:00] The plant shrivels, the shade disappears. Jonah shrivels, his joy shrivels. [00:28:09] A joy found in earthly things, a joy found in the circumstances of life. In people around us, even that joy will shrivel. [00:28:21] When those things disappoint or are taken away, we complain, God, why are things the way they are in my life? [00:28:31] Perhaps he's removed them that we might learn to find joy in Him. [00:28:38] You see, the joy that God gives and the joy that we find in him never shrivels. It never dies. It never goes away. It never dries up. Because God does not change. His mercy does not change. [00:28:54] His goodness does not change. [00:28:59] We wonder why. [00:29:00] Why that question? Why do we get angry with God? Why do we rail against Him? [00:29:09] Why do we do that when he takes away creature comforts? [00:29:14] One reason he does that is that we might learn to look beyond them to him, to look beyond the gift to the giver. [00:29:24] That we might grow beyond joy in earthly comforts and find joy in our Heavenly Father who rejoices over us. [00:29:35] Jonah rails on in his anger, anger against the kindness and mercy of God to others. [00:29:47] And he adds to this anger the destruction of his shade. The plant dies, and now he's angry because of yet one more thing. [00:29:57] And now he wishes to die because a weed shriveled up and is gone. [00:30:05] Take it all away and just let me die. [00:30:10] Once again. [00:30:12] God comes to Jonah in his mercy. [00:30:16] Do you do well to be angry for the plant? [00:30:19] I gave you the plant and its shade from the fiery sun as I sent the fish to save you from the watery grave. [00:30:30] Dear sinner, I showed you grace and mercy you did not deserve. [00:30:36] Do you do well to be angry? [00:30:42] We looked at Jonah's shade. We looked at Jonah's answer, the answer that God gives Jonah and sinners when we rail against him. [00:30:54] His answer is, if you haven't caught it already. [00:30:58] From his first two questions, he asks Jonah God's answer to Jonah's prayer to our complaints. His answer is, see my pity. [00:31:11] You think you are compassionate and merciful. You think that in your pity you get to choose who gets mercy. [00:31:21] And you criticize God because he doesn't show it to whom you will. [00:31:29] God says, come and take a look at my pity. [00:31:34] You pity the plant, but you did not create it. [00:31:39] You pity the plant, a weed that lasts but a few days. [00:31:44] You pity the plant, but you really pity yourself. [00:31:49] And you pity your own misery. [00:31:54] God says, come and see my pity. I pity the souls of men, women and little ones. [00:32:01] I pity the souls of men and women made in my image. [00:32:07] Men and women who I made. [00:32:10] You didn't make the plant, but I made. These people of Nineveh. They bear my image, my glory. [00:32:21] You pity one plant. [00:32:23] I pity a city with over 120,000 little ones. Little ones who don't yet know right from left. [00:32:34] Little ones who have yet to contribute to the evil of the city of Nineveh. [00:32:41] Abraham pled with God. [00:32:44] Will you spare Sodom if there are 10 righteous men? [00:32:49] God says there are 120,000 little ones who have yet to commit evil deeds worthy of the destruction of the city. [00:33:00] I have pity on them, Jonah. [00:33:04] I pity the cattle more than the weed. At least the cattle have breath in their lungs. [00:33:12] God is saying, I pity eternal souls. Jesus says, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world? But Lose his soul. [00:33:24] God says, I pity the souls of men, women and children, each of which is worth more than the whole world. [00:33:33] Jonah, you charge God with error. [00:33:38] You question God. You are angry with God, you doubt his wisdom, you doubt his mercy, but you cannot begin to comprehend the mercy and pity of an infinite God. [00:33:54] God says, my pity is not like your pity. [00:33:58] My compassion is not like your compassion. [00:34:03] It is not a thing to be doubted or questioned. [00:34:07] It is a thing to be trusted. [00:34:12] The real question. [00:34:13] The real question is not whether God has shown his compassion or mercy to this person or that person, but the question that Jonah needs to ask and to meditate on is, has God shown me compassion and mercy? [00:34:35] And if he has, why me? [00:34:39] If you know the Lord Jesus Christ and you know the mercy of God towards sinners, that he put his own Son on the cross, that he might not just save one city or one people, Israel, but that he might offer his Son as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of of the world. [00:34:59] He offers compassion and mercy to a whole world full of sinners, a whole world full of eternal souls that God shows mercy and compassion to. And he says that whoever believes in my Son will have eternal life. [00:35:16] If you know that son, Jesus, and the mercy and compassion of God in Christ, then the answer to all of your questions is, why me? [00:35:28] Not to question God's wisdom regarding anything else, but why has God loved me? And the answer to that is, it has nothing to do with anything you have done, but it's his mercy, his infinite mercy and love for sinners. [00:35:45] That's the answer to all of these questions and all of these problems and all of these troubles is to look to God and say, God, show me more of your mercy and more of your love. Help me to know more of that. [00:36:01] And if you say, well, I don't know Jesus at all yet. I don't know his mercy and his compassion and his love yet. [00:36:08] I'm not even where Jonah's at, questioning or doubting or struggling. [00:36:15] I just don't know any of that yet. [00:36:18] You need to come and meet him in the cross. [00:36:23] Jesus is the Son of God. [00:36:26] God sent his own Son and put him on the cross so that all of the misery and all of the sin and then all of the guilt and the punishment that sinners deserve for that sin, Jesus would bear it all on the cross so that whoever looks to him might be forgiven and have eternal life, not just the judgment of one city, but Jesus bore the wrath of God for sinners, an eternity of wrath that we deserve. Jesus bore all of that. [00:36:57] You need to come and meet Jesus and the compassion of God shown to you in Jesus as he bears sin on the cross. [00:37:09] So we began with a question. [00:37:11] Did Jonah repent? [00:37:16] The answer is yes. [00:37:19] He left that booth, he left that plant, he went back and he wrote this book so that you would read it one day. And as you read it, you would come to find the fullness of God's love and mercy to sinners like yourselves and in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. [00:37:40] Merciful heavenly Father, we confess that you are holy. [00:37:48] That you have done nothing worthy of our criticism or our doubt. [00:37:55] But we confess, O God, that many doubts and problems arise in our hearts because we do not understand. [00:38:04] We are small, we are weak. And furthermore, our hearts are tainted by our own sin. We have pride by which we elevate our own knowledge. And our sin distorts our thinking so that we don't see the truth clearly. And out of all of this, O God, and out of the circumstances we encounter in our lives, we raise challenges against you. And we confess that sometimes it even rises to the level of anger and despair against you. [00:38:36] And at our situation, O God, we ask that you would have mercy on us. That you would open the eyes of our hearts, take away the blindness of sin, remove our pride and all that distorts, and help us to see clearly that you are a God who does not change. And you do not change as especially in your mercy and your compassion to sinners. [00:39:02] We ask that you would draw us to yourself, that by your spirit you would grant us faith, that we would lay hold of Jesus, that we would find in him forgiveness, that we would find in him peace, that our hearts would no longer be troubled, but that instead we would begin to learn to find joy in you. [00:39:24] Bless us in these things. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.