Mad At God: A Case Study Of Insanity - [Jonah 4:1-4]

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Well, there are lots of ways to outline the book of Jonah. Some are funny, some aren't so much.
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I love Howard Hendricks. I think I need to be louder. I always tell sound people, don't need to be louder.
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Too loud? All right. I always tell sound people two things. Thank you for serving and louder.
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Those are the two things I say. Howard Hendricks has a memorable way to outline
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Jonah. Chapter one, God has a whale of a plan for your life. Chapter two, prayer is spiritual breathing.
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In whale, ex -whale. Chapter three, the world's greatest revival by the world's worst evangelist.
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And chapter four, Jonah chapter four, God has a plan to drive you out of your gourd. I didn't write that.
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Let's turn to Jonah this morning as we continue to go verse by verse through this book. Jonah chapter four this morning, but let's have a quick review of chapters one, two, and three.
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As you know, in Jonah chapter one, God had sent Jonah to go preach a message to the
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Ninevites and Jonah didn't want to go, but God arranged for a fish to get him to the right place.
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Jonah chapter two, as you can see in your text, even with all the white space between the verses on the side of the verses rather, there's a prayer that Jonah prays in the belly of the fish highlighted by chapter two, verse nine, salvation belongs to the
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Lord. And then God has Jonah vomited out onto the dry land.
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Chapter three, there's a revival. The king gets saved, the people get saved. There's repentance from the masses, repentance from the royalty, and God relents in what he said he would do.
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And what if we ended the book of Jonah in chapter three? I mean, just take a look at it.
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Verse eight of chapter three, let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God.
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Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
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When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.
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What if we just ended right there? Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, a little abrupt, a little anticlimactic, but the people get saved.
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What a great heartwarming ending, Jonah chapter three.
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I mean, think about it. When you get to preach the gospel to other people, when you get to evangelize or share the gospel on the plane,
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I get happy just knowing the fact I got to tell them about the riches of forgiveness found in Christ Jesus, the only
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Savior who would love sinners and demonstrates that love on Calvary, dying on the cross for sinners being raised from the dead.
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I feel good just telling people. How do you feel when you preach the gospel to someone and they respond with belief, with affirmation?
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Yes, that's true, I do believe. Would that make you happy? Would that just thrill your soul? All that thrills my soul is
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Jesus. I think you'd be very, very happy. Is there anything better? I mean, that's really the theme of the book where Yahweh, this great
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God saves not just Jews, but Gentiles as well based on his sovereign mercy.
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How does Jonah respond though? Let's find out, Jonah chapter four, verses one through four.
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Let's call this the day after the revival. That's one man called it, the day after the revival.
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How would you respond if sinners get saved? How do you take it spiritually when those folks who are gonna go to hell receive sovereign mercy?
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Jonah chapter four, verse one. But, I mean, it's just gonna go downhill from here.
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But, it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry.
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Wasn't Jonah forgiven much? Wasn't Jonah the receiver of much grace? Didn't he have lots of mercy in his life?
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The answer is yes, but Jonah wanted them damned. He wanted the Ninevites to go to hell.
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It greatly, the NAS says, displeased Jonah. James Montgomery Boyce, a preacher, would say when he preaches or when he does evangelism, he says it's like throwing time bombs out into the congregation.
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And all of a sudden when the Spirit of God wants to sovereignly quicken people unto salvation, he does it through the word.
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And you might preach a sermon and 10 days later somebody gets saved. You just throw out time bombs and people are awakened to salvation.
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But for Jonah, it was a bad time bomb. He threw the time bomb and set it off in Nineveh and he didn't want it to save people.
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He wanted it to damn people. Now, put yourself in Jonah's sinful shoes.
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All right, Lord, after some disobedience, I finally obeyed. But you didn't do what
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I wanted. I finally did what you said I should do, but you didn't do what I wanted you to do.
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You're letting me down. I wanted you to damn the city, to make those people perish.
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40 days and your city's gonna be overthrown and you didn't overthrow it. Put yourself in Jonah's shoes that he should have been wearing.
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They got saved. They got delivered. I experienced sovereign grace and forgiveness and I wanted them to.
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I know they're Gentiles. I know they're not Israelites, but I can even go back to Genesis 3, verse 15 or the
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Abrahamic Covenant and see that God's plan of salvation includes Jews and Gentiles and I'm thrilled that these image bearers are saved.
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Instead of redeemed how I love to proclaim it, these people were redeemed by the blood of the
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Lamb. I'm mad, God. I'm hot, literally, that you didn't send them to hell. And by the way, the writer is writing in such a way that you're going to see the compassion and mercy of God on one side and you're gonna see just how selfish
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Jonah is on the other side. I mean, what a little temper tantrum.
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What a baby. Have you ever seen a temper tantrum? You ever seen a kid do a temper tantrum? I mean, just stomping their feet.
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I've even seen adults do it. I was really sick a few years ago and had to go to the hospital and you're in a room and you're kind of half sedated and you're watching things go on.
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And I remember a guy in another bed close by to me needed some care and so the nurse came over.
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Can I help you? And the man stood up, got out of the gurney and then he said this. He looked at the nurse and he said,
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I want an acute nurse. I wanted to get up out of my bed and be the pastor.
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Sometimes I think I'm in charge of everything. Like the hospital rooms. I mean, can you imagine?
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I thought that was bad. How about Jonah? I don't want those people to be saved. What a baby.
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What a temper tantrum. Now, there's a little theological principle. Here's a principle.
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If God is angry at something, it's good if we would be angry at the same thing. If God hates pride, if God hates slander, if God hates lying,
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Proverbs 6, we should hate those things too. And the flip side is true. The positive side is true.
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If God loves to save people, we should love it when people are saved as well. And what made
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God pleased, delighted, what his will was, Jonah hated.
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I hate it that this happened. And the text, if you noticed, says Jonah was angry, literally hot.
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This has got a word that means emotional passion, burnt up with a passion, a negative passion.
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It's like when I get stung by a hornet on the bike. The hornets usually hit my chest and then drop down right on my thigh and then whack.
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And you can just feel on your leg. On my leg, it's about like that, just burning hot.
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Except this isn't physical. See, most of you are paying attention now. Notice that? This is spiritual.
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I can't stand it. I'm so mad you would save these people. Now Jonah, weren't you a man who was destined to hell and you couldn't earn salvation.
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You couldn't merit it. You'd been affected by the fall too. And God was merciful to you and gracious and forgiving.
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And even when you were a prophet, didn't he forgive you and didn't he have kindness towards you and show compassion?
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I mean, who are you to complain? But the Hebrew literally says it was evil to Jonah with great evil.
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Oh, interesting. I thought the Ninevites, chapter one, were doing evil. Jonah, you're the
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Ninevite. You didn't want the Ninevites to be rescued because they were evil. And then now the evil is really in the heart of the supreme
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Ninevite, Jonah. What could make him so mad?
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Why would he be so hot and bothered? Well, some think it's because he was a
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Jew and they were Gentiles. It's this nationalism. It's this, we're myopically the
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Jews and we don't want salvation for anyone else. Let everybody else be damned, as Jonathan Swift said, we can't have heaven crammed.
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This jingoistic, we are Jews. That probably had something to do with it.
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Others think, and there's probably truth here as well, if Assyria is strengthened by God's blessing of obedience, right?
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When people do what they're supposed to do, their nation is stronger. And Assyria, according to both Hosea and Amos, would be
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Israel's punisher, would be Israel's destroyer. So let's have a weak punisher.
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And the way to have a weak punisher is to have a disciplined punisher. And so here's Jonah's thinking.
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They're going to repent and believe. And they did repent and believe. Now God will bless them. They'll be stronger.
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And when they come to discipline us, it'll be worse. I think that's true.
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I also think that Jonah is just one selfish man. What do you do when you're a preacher and you say something will happen and then it doesn't happen?
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40 days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown and it wasn't. Calvin said the reason for Jonah's anger was, quote, because he was unwilling to appear as a vain and lying prophet.
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I mean, even the rabbis back in those days would quote Deuteronomy 18, and you may say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the
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Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the
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Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.
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They're going to think I'm a false prophet. They're going to think I said it's going to be destroyed. It wasn't destroyed. But I think underlying everything is
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God is so compassionate and gracious, selfless, sacrificial, and it doesn't take long for us to just journey to Calvary to see the incarnation and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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And Jonah was compassionless. He was selfish. I cannot believe you could have compassion on the
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Ninevites. Can't get it through my mind.
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Verse 2, and he prayed. Well, at least he's not going around talking to other people.
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I guess that's good, but that's about the only thing good. And now Jonah is reverting back to good old old
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Jonah, kind of Jonah 1 .0. And he prayed to Yahweh and said,
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Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That's why
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I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You were a gracious God. Nine times in Hebrew, not in English, but nine times in Hebrew, I am
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I. It's all about Jonah. Isn't this what I said? Selfish, I'm short -sighted.
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I told you this was going to happen and now I'm offended what you would do, God. What you did is odious in my sight.
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It's offensive to me. There was a man who had two sons.
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Younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the property that's coming to me. And he divided his property between them.
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Not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property in reckless living.
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When he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to the citizens of the country who sent him into the fields to feed pigs.
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He was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. When he came to himself, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish with hunger.
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I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.
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I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.
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While he was still a long way off, what did his father do? His father saw him, felt compassion and ran and embraced and literally the
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Greek says fell on his neck, kissing him. That wasn't the right thing to do by the way, back in those days, the father running to the repentant son.
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First of all, fathers don't run. Well, let me rephrase that. Fathers, old fathers can't run.
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Ever see your dad run? I'm now to the stage, I'm 54 years old. I can't catch one of my kids.
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Not a one of them. They all can run faster than dad. And when dad runs, I hate to make all these personal confessions here.
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Dad lopes. Dad kind of like hop, skip and lopes. Dads don't run back in those days.
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Not because they can't, because it just is not done. And of course the parable of the lost sons, you see the love of the father going out and intercepting the son and arms wide open, loving the son.
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And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
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And before he can say, treat me as your hired servant, the father interrupts the son.
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He won't even let him get those words out. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best row, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, bring the fatted calf, kill it, let us eat and celebrate.
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For this son was dead and is live again. He was lost and is found and they begin to celebrate.
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And the older son, Jonah, the older son, the
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Pharisees was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music, dancing, called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
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Your brother has come home, your father's killed the fatted calf because he has received him back safe and sound.
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But he, the son along with Jonah was angry and refused to go in.
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His father came out and entreated him. He answered his father, look, these many years
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I've served you, I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a goat that I might celebrate with my friends.
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But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him.
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Son, you're always with me and all that is mine is yours. I appeal to you as a generous father.
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It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for your brother was dead and is alive.
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He was lost and is found. Shouldn't Jonah have responded like the person who had a lost sheep?
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And in Luke 15, it says there'll be more joy in heaven over how many sinners who repent?
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Over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.
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Same section in Luke 15. Just so regarding the lost coin that was found, there's joy before the angels of God over how many sinners that repent?
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One sinner who repents. Because Jesus comes not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
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The Savior, God the Savior, salvation is from the Lord, Jonah 2 .9. He's the same
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God, the same triune God, and He calls sinners to repentance and when they repent, there's joy, there's happiness, the love of God saving sinners.
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Amen, praise the Lord, or I'm mad. In Jonah 4, verse two,
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Jonah prays to the Lord and he says some amazing things about God that are all true, yet Jonah's not using them for praise.
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He's using them with this, I knew you were like this attitude.
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Now let's think about it, you ever talk to somebody and say, let me teach you how to pray? So if you're gonna teach someone how to pray, maybe you would go to the fundamentals of the faith book, chapter eight, and there's a little acronym.
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What's the acronym? See the second letter, confess, that's good to do, 1 John, Proverbs 28.
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T, Thanksgiving, it's God's will for you to give thanks, 1 Thessalonians 5. Supplication, Philippians chapter four.
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But there's a first letter that we're missing, C -T -S, what's the first letter? A, and it stands for adoration.
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And so you, instead of just running to God, God I need, God I want, can you do, please? You go to God and say,
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God, you're gracious, you're merciful, you're slow to anger, you abound in loving kindness, and you just relent from calamities.
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You're just a great God to be praised. And Jonah takes this old creed, Jonah takes this formula of the attributes of God and uses it against God.
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I knew you were like that, how could you? This is complaining against God, using the attributes of God to complain against God, how's that?
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Now, if I were to ask you this question, could you please give me eight attributes of God from the Old Testament?
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The Old Testament, revelation of God, tell me eight things about God. Or you could say, well, what does the world think about the
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Old Testament God? And give me eight, why? Because I'm thinking about pie right now, maybe some homemade blueberry pie or something like that, eight slices.
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And so there's eight pieces, eight slices, eight attributes of God. I wonder what the world would say of the
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Old Testament view of God. Here's probably what they would say, wrathful, full of indignation, holy, righteous, just.
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Wouldn't they say that? This old angry Old Testament God. Turn, if you would, to Exodus chapter 34, please.
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And I want you to see the basis for Jonah's theology. Although torqued, still it comes from this formula that you can see in Numbers 14, you can see in Nehemiah 9,
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Psalm 86, Psalm 103, Psalm 145, and even the prophet Joel.
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But it all comes from Exodus chapter 34. What is informing
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Jonah's sarcastic complaint? Exodus 34, Moses has been tucked by God in the cleft of the rock and the goodness of God and his attributes passed by God.
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I wonder if there was a pie chart describing God in the Old Testament, what would each of the eight pieces of pie look like?
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Exodus 34, verse six. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, the
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Lord, the Lord God. Slice one, compassionate. Slice two, gracious.
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Slice three, slow to anger. Slice four, abounding in loving kindness. Slice five, abounding in truth.
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Verse seven, slice six, who keeps loving kindness for thousands. Slice seven, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.
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And of course, we know the Old Testament God is the New Testament God because God doesn't change. And there is judgment, verse eight, there is a slice that says, he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.
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Back to Jonah, please. I knew it all along. I know who you are.
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I know that creed from the Psalms, from Exodus, and I knew you were going to do it. I could see it coming.
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You ever play basketball? And if you're going to pass the ball, you don't look at the guy you're passing to because the defender will steal it.
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It's called telegraphing the pass. You don't want to telegraph the pass because everyone knows where that ball's going.
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And so when you have Pete Maravich, for instance, and he wants to pass the ball over here, he doesn't look there to pass.
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He looks to the side and with the all -time famous wrist pass, type it up on YouTube, Pete Maravich wrist pass.
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I know you all have to love Pete Maravich around here. Why? He played for the Celtics when he was older and decrepit, you know, but he still did.
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Or if you have to think of another passer, a better passer maybe, Magic Johnson, you don't look toward the person.
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You look one way and pass it another way. And Jonah is saying, I could tell you telegraphed the pass.
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I knew it was a bounce pass and it was a slam dunk that you would save these people. I don't want them saved.
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Can't stand it. I knew it all along. I'm going to just take the orthodox creed and formula of graciousness and mercy and long -suffering and compassion and throw it in the face of God.
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I don't like who you are and what you've done. And how unlike Jonah are these slices of the pie.
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Look at the first one found in chapter 4 verse 2. You're a gracious God.
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What's grace mean? God favors people that don't deserve it. And we know, of course, that that grace comes through and only through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice for sinners, the atonement for sinners, the risen
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Savior. People don't deserve grace. They don't merit it. They can't earn it. There's nothing they can do to get it.
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But God has benevolence towards the undeserving. That's what grace is. I know you can't have any claim upon me,
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God says, you Ninevites, but I can give you grace if I'd like because I'm a gracious God.
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How unlike Jonah. Jonah was the exact opposite. He wasn't gracious.
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He wanted to receive mercy but didn't want anybody else to receive mercy. That's the second one. Merciful are translated in some
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Bibles compassionate. It means tender affection.
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It means a mom who has a son in the hospital having seizures and that mom, out of pity and compassion, wants to help, wants to intercede, wants to solve the problem, wants to do something about it.
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That's the word compassion. Pity. Doesn't sound like Jonah to me.
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By the way, grace and mercy are only used of God in the Bible. These are words exclusively used of God.
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Grace and mercy in Hebrew. I mean, can you think about it?
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Grace and mercy means that God would just as soon forgive as He would damn. I'd just as soon be kind and merciful and forgive sins as I would to send them to an everlasting hell.
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Number three, do you notice the text? Slow to anger. How patient is
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God? How longsuffering is God? Slow to anger. When did Jonah sin?
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How often did Jonah sin? When did the Ninevites sin? How often did the Ninevites sin? Yet, God is not up there saying, yeah,
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I can't wait to punish people. Abounding in steadfast love.
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That's the fourth thing, the covenant love of God with loyalty, unfailing love, unbounding love, unlike Jonah, unlike the
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Ninevites, unlike me, unlike you. And then the God who relents.
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Relenting from disaster. How unlike Jonah is that?
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Jonah wants the disaster. He's hankering for the disaster. He can just taste it.
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God, You conform to my theology or else, I'm not going to be happy.
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Mad at God for who He is. You know, I thought about that this week.
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You know, our society, they love the love of God. They love it that God is love.
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And it's true. 1 John 4, God is love. But you know what they don't like? They don't like the definition of this love because it's a sovereign love.
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The world wants a love of a sentimental grandmother or a sentimental grandfather versus the sovereign love of God.
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Why do you love the Ninevites? Well, the sovereign love of God is uninfluenced. Listen to Arthur Pink.
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I don't just think of the Ninevites. I think of the believers here. There is nothing at all in the objects of His love to call
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His love into exercise. Nothing in us to attract or prompt His love.
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When we love people, it's because there's something in them that makes us want to love them. But the love of God is free, spontaneous, and uncaused.
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Pink says the only reason God loves anyone, even you, is found in His own sovereign will.
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Deuteronomy 7, the Lord did not set His love on Israel, nor choose them because they were more in number, but they were the fewest, but because the
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Lord loved you. Why does God love? Because He wants to love. It's a sovereign love. That's why it's so amazing.
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We're dead in trespasses and sins. What's in us that's lovable? What's in us that's worthy?
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What's in Nineveh? What's in Jonah? We love true or false because He first loved us.
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Before we had any love for God, before we moved a nanometer, which I don't even know what a nanometer is.
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A millimeter is what I was after. God loved us. God's love is sovereign.
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Obliged to no one. He didn't have to love the Ninevites, but He did because God's character is gracious.
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Ephesians 1, according to the good pleasure of His will. Not the Ninevites' will, not
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Jonah's will, not my will, not your will. Ephesians 2, God being rich in mercy because of His great love with which
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He loved us. Mercy I can get. He's pitiful. He's showing pity, rather, towards us.
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He's certainly not pitiful. He's showing pity to us. He's showing pity to the pitiful. But love,
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John Brine said, not John de Brine, but John Brine, no tongue can fully express the infinitude of God's love or any mind can comprehend it.
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The love of God seeking the welfare of its object. Verse 3, therefore.
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He's mad. He prays. What do you do when a bunch of people get saved? You get mad and you...
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No. No. But Jonah, therefore now,
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Jonah 4 .3, O Lord, please take my life for me. It's better for me to die than to live.
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If you would have killed them all and sent them to hell, I would have been happy. But you saved them.
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I want to die. Sounds like Elijah to some degree.
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It is enough now, O Lord. Take my life for it's... I'm not better than my father's.
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Despair. The writer wants you to say, God has love, God has kindness, God has graciousness, and Jonah doesn't.
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It's black and white. You can just see it. God loves and Jonah just has selfish desires.
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He prayed earlier in chapter 2, verse 2, do you notice? I called out of my distress to the Lord and He answered me.
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I cried for help from the depth of Sheol. You heard my voice and now I want to die. Here's what he's saying.
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Over my dead body, I don't want to live. I can't accept it that you've been kind to people and forgiven them.
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Sinclair Ferguson, the scholar, calls this attitude, the attitude,
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I'm not going to play with you anymore kind of attitude. In his book he calls it three things fascinatingly.
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This is spiritual, infantile regression. And you can just hear the feet stop.
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Now if you were God, how would you respond? You saved Jonah, you saved the Ninevites, then you forgave
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Jonah even as a prophet. Prophets have been killed for less. How would you respond if you were
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God? Well, Luther said, if I were the Lord God and these vile people were as disobedient as they are now,
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I would knock the world into pieces. If I were God, I'd knock Jonah's teeth out.
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And then God, with a question in verse 4, is merciful.
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He doesn't wipe him out. He begins to teach him. He begins to take him to school.
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Theology 101. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry?
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NAS, do you have good reason to be angry? You're a rebel, do you have a cause or don't you?
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Lots of times God uses questions to help us see who we are. And it's good to ask your kids questions as well, especially when they're younger.
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And it's out of help, it's out of love, it's out of concern. Adam and Eve, where are you? Who told you that you were naked?
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Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat? To Cain, where is your brother
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Abel? What have you done? To Saul, what have you done? To David, why did you despise the word of the
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Lord by doing what is evil? To Judas, are you betraying the
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Son of Man with a kiss? To Saul, who would then be Paul, why do you persecute me?
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Do you have any right to be angry? Jonah was mad.
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He was mad at sovereign love. Do you have any right to be angry? So here's where I want to go and then end.
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For our culture, listen, have you ever met anybody in your life who is mad that God saved somebody?
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I've never, I mean, maybe I don't get out much, but I've never met anyone who's mad at God for saving people.
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Not a one. Have you ever met anybody? Has anybody? I'm mad that you would save people. I'm mad that your sovereign love went toward these people.
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I'm mad you saved my husband. I'm mad you saved my kids. I'm mad you saved my neighbor. I'm mad you saved these people.
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I'm mad. Have you ever met anybody like that in your life? I never have. People aren't mad today at the sovereign love of God exercised to salvation.
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Here's where they're mad. The opposite side of God's sovereign love, why don't you save other people?
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So let's turn to Romans 9 for some more questions to help us think rightly. We would agree,
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Jonah, don't question God. Jonah, God is to be God. Jonah, you're a creature.
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You're finite. You're sinful. You have no claim on God. Jonah, don't be mad at God for Him being
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God. Don't be mad at God for being gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, or anything else.
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And you know what? Evangelicals today have no problem with the love of God toward believers, toward people to get saved.
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But they are angry and they are arrogantly mad against God for not saving everyone.
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To be more specific, how can God be sovereign on who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?
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That's where the rub is. God's right to do with creatures in whatever
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He wants to do to them. So Romans 9, where we just parachute into these three chapters on sovereignty and response.
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Chapter 9, verse 13, Paul appeals to Scripture to talk about God can do whatever
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He wants. His sovereign love is not earned or deserved.
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God has an absolute right as Creator to do whatever He wants. Chapter 9, verse 13, just as it is written and stands written,
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Jacob I loved, this is God speaking, but Esau I hated.
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See, I get the love part down. I get the unmerited favor. I get the kindness down. I understand love.
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But what about hate? What is hate? Now some trying to minimize hatred explain it this way.
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It's a Semitic word that means to love less. God loved Jacob the most. He loved
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Esau less. They explain the hated word because they don't want God to hate. So they say it just means to love less.
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And I would say to you if you take that view, you're still in a big problem because the point of the text is
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God sets His love on Jacob and He doesn't set it on Esau. Jacob gets the love and Esau doesn't.
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If you don't want to call it hate, if you want it to say love less, there's love, salvific love for Jacob, but not
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Esau. What Paul is trying to say is God can do whatever He wants with sinful creatures.
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God is the one who's in charge. Spurgeon said, when a lady was not understanding it, as to Jacob I loved and Esau I hated,
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Mr. Spurgeon, I cannot understand why God would say He hated Esau. And you know the response of Spurgeon.
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That is not my difficulty, madam. My trouble is to understand how God could love
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Jacob. It did not please God to save Esau.
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It was not God's will to save Esau. God freely chose Jacob and not Esau. And the reason wasn't in Esau.
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It wasn't in His will or His works or His merit. The choice is found in God. And you can just see the questions go up.
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The hands go up. Sometimes when I teach classes, I don't want to answer questions right away because I want to stay on my role of teaching.
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And so, sometimes I've had students before, they're so tired now they have to just hold their arm up.
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And I just keep on going. And then sometimes they get so tired they do this one. I could never understand it, especially as an elderly man.
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They do this one. Just holding the arm up. All these questions because, see, we live in a merit world.
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We live in a works world, a wages world. And breathing the sovereign air of grace, unmerited grace.
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Unmerited grace. Questions start going up. Paul says, verse 14, you know people are going to say
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God's unrighteous because Esau didn't get something. What should we say then? He's anticipating that arm that's going up.
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Is there injustice on God's part for saving Jacob and not Esau? By no means.
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God was not unfair to Esau. Some people say, this text cannot be in the
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Bible because it's immoral. It's ungodly. It's sinful. And Paul is saying, whatever
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God does, there's no injustice. If you've got a view of justice that makes God unjust, you better redo your definition.
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God does whatever He wants to do. And what God did with His choice of Jacob and His rejection of Esau wasn't because He looked down the corridors of time and saw
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Jacob and Esau to do either good and or bad things. You know what
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I love about God? Through Paul here, the writer. Excuse me, there's a sovereignty issue.
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How can God be sovereign and man be responsible? And you can almost think when people ask you the question, well,
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I better back off of that. I better not talk about that so much. It's divisive. And I better not really discuss it.
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I better not wear that on my sleeve. I just better kind of tone it down. And Paul does the opposite. He turns it up because God's nature is at stake.
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Look at verse 15. He says to Moses, this is
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Scripture, if you have a problem with the sovereignty of God unto salvation or damnation, you need to run from your emotions, run from the world, run from charts and graphs and go to Scripture.
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What does Scripture say? I always remember James Boyce at Bible study fellowship teacher training when people's hands would go up and say, well, what about this?
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What about free will? What about this? He said, teachers, you are to say to the students, please put your finger under Romans 9 verse 15 and say the
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Bible says, I have mercy on whom
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I have mercy, whether it's Ninevites or Jonah or Jacob or us.
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And I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. No defense, no apology, no rationale.
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Scripture. What does Scripture say? Is anybody wronged if God doesn't give grace?
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Is anybody wronged if God judges sin? Who deserves salvation? And aren't you glad, by the way, the text does not say
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I will have mercy on none, but I will have mercy on whoever I will.
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I am what I am and I'll do what I'll do. Sovereign grace.
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Yes, but why doesn't God give salvation to everyone? He ought to. He should.
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You know, language like that destroys grace. Language of ought and must.
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God must save people destroys grace. Verse 16, so then it depends not on human will when it comes to salvation.
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Truth has inferences or exertion. Salvation depends on God.
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The answer of who's saved and who isn't is found not in people, but in God, thankfully, who has mercy.
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Who has mercy. For the Scripture says, verse 17, for this very purpose
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I've raised you up, Pharaoh, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then, he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.
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Individual language, not language of nations. And it does you no good to say, well, he's talking about nations with Jacob and Esau.
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Nations are filled with people. That exacerbates the problem. If it's not individual salvation, national salvation is even more problematic because nations are filled with tons of people.
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But the language here, whomever, do you see it in verse 18? Singular. Problem in our society today is not,
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I can't believe you saved people. Our problem is, I can't believe you damn people. Yeah, but at least
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I'm not accountable of God's sovereign. Verse 19, really? You will say to me then, if all the destiny of all the people in the world are in the hands of God alone, how can
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I be accountable? Why does He still find fault? Who can resist His will? We can't resist His will. How can we be to blame?
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Verse 20, now God has the questions. Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?
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Will that, or will what is molded say to the molder, why have you made me like this?
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Because if we talk like that, we can hear an echo of ourselves in the prophet Jonah. I told you that was going to happen.
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Some questions we aren't to know. Some questions we can never criticize. And the answer here to quote
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James Boyce because we'll quote him so you don't think I'm the rude one. The answer to the question in Romans chapter 9 verse 20, why have you made me like this?
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The response is from God, it's none of your business. You have no right to act. You have no right to ask.
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It's right in God's eyes. Verse 21 has the potter no right over the clay. To make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use, another for dishonorable use.
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No robot language there, no automaton language there but clay, potter.
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So what about you? Do you think God has rights over everything and every person, that He's sovereign over it all?
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And if you ever have that feeling where you want to get mad at God or change the word of God to fit your sentiment or emotions or get some loved one into heaven who is deceased or whatever it might be, you say to yourself, whatever the
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Scripture says and I'm going to use Jonah as an illustration of the heart of the problem is the heart of the prophet and the problem would be my heart problem as well.
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God saves gloriously, wonderfully, graciously and if He doesn't save people then my response should not be
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God, how could you? My response should be but I'm thankful you saved me. I'm thankful you saved me.
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My only other response is just like Jonah chapter 4. It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry.
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I mean, can you just imagine for a second what you've earned, what I've earned.
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I have the heart of a Ninevite but worse and God has given me salvation. He's given me forgiveness.
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He's given me grace and if God has given me those things, my response when an unbeliever doesn't respond should never be to God.
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God, how could you? Damn them. It should be God. There but for the grace of God go
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I and you saved me. To Him be the glory. Salvation belongs to the Lord. No wonder
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Jonah is called the John 3 .16 of the Old Testament. Luther is on his deathbed and he said, what
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Spartan saying can be compared with this wonderful brevity of John 3 .16?
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It is a Bible unto itself. And then in his dying moments, he repeated the words over three times.
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I'll repeat it just once or I'll say it just once. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
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Son that those believing in Him should not perish but have what? Everlasting life.
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Amen. Let's pray. Thank You, Father. What shall we say to these things? If You are for us, who could be against us?
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We praise You this morning that You have not spared Your own Son but gave Him up for us. And that means
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You'll give us everything else. Father, for me, I see sinful people like Jonah and I think,
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I'm not like him. I don't want to be like him. And Father, if I look deep enough, I am
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Jonah but worse. And so we're thankful that You would save people like Jonah, like the Ninevites.
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We have loved ones. We have relatives that are maybe with us here today or friends that are here today or loved ones at home during the holidays who seem like they'd be unsavable in our eyes.
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But You can save Ninevites. If You can save Jonah, if You could save us, You could save them. We're thankful for that.
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We thank You that You're a God who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.