Jonah (Jonah 1-4 Tim Robinson)

Save themselves.

Then

the sea,

your grace is deeper still.

You alone can rescue.

You alone can save.

You alone can lift us from the grave.

You came down to find us, let us out of death.

To you alone belongs

the maid, a way.

The great divine, you

are

for love.

When

you can rescue, you alone can save.

You alone can lift us from the grave.

You came down to find us, let us out of death.

To you alone belongs the highest praise.

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes, you're the giver of

life.

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes, you're the giver of life.

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes, you're the giver of life.

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes, you're the giver of life.

You alone can rescue, you alone can save,

you alone can lift us from the grave.

You came down to find us, led us out of death,

to you alone belongs the highest praise.

We

are

so thankful that we are able to stand before you and sing praises to your

name.

Thank you for the song they give to us in our hearts.

We know, Lord, that if we trust in you with all of our heart and lean not on our own

understanding, and then in all our ways, we acknowledge you, you will direct our paths.

And that is what we're asking, Lord Jesus, direct our paths to go wherever you lead us, wherever

you want us to go.

Bring

joy into my

life.

You make it easy to trust you.

You have never left my side.

You've been faithful every time.

Jesus

to trust you.

Nothing

to

fear for you are

by my side.

I'll follow you anywhere.

Jesus, you came to my rescue, took

my place upon death.

You redeemed what I had lost.

Now my whole world revolving around you.

You're the center of love.

You're the treasure.

There's

a

million

reasons

to trust.

Nothing

to

fear

for

you

are

by my

side.

Everybody, let's pray.

Good to see everyone.

Father God, you truly are the God that saves.

Salvation truly belongs to you.

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to have eternal

life and forgiveness of all our sins through your son Jesus Christ.

Thank you for sending him to the earth to die a death that we deserved.

Thank you for raising him from the dead and giving us such hope of eternal life

and hope that we might be with you forever and that our life isn't a waste

but we have purpose now.

You've called us to do things for you.

You've called us out of the world to live for you.

You have ordained many things in life to accomplish your will.

We pray that you would be able to use us and give us the Holy Spirit to do the things that you've called us to

do and I just pray today that you would speak through us and

speak to us by your word and that we would be able to apply what we read today

and that we would go out and be able to be a light into a dark world and that you would cause a

revival to happen because you can do it, Lord, and you are the one that can orchestrate that.

Thank you for all you do for us and we pray that we would truly have hearts that would follow you anywhere.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

All right, so today we're going to be speaking or I'm going to be teaching through the book of Jonah.

It is a story that I've really come to love.

Some people say this story sounds a little fishy.

They would be correct, actually big fishy.

It's the world's greatest fish story and some of the

themes of Jonah are revival and

revival is a doing of the Lord and we thank God for the revivals he's

had and we think that revival could happen now and we're seeing victories won now even at the

abortion mill.

A lot of people from our church go out and we try to save innocent lives and we're

seeing some victories being won lately if you've been watching the news.

Roe versus Wade has been overturned and a lot of people are stirred up about that, right?

That's good.

That's something we can clap for.

Yeah and that's really exciting to see but the cool thing is that we know

who wins in the end.

If you guys watched Pastor Jeff's message through the email, you guys should watch that video because it was really

encouraging.

I mean we know who wins in the end.

We know how the story ends.

We know that the Lord is going to return and judge the earth.

We know that we're going to have eternal life.

We know that we're on the side of truth so we can go out and we can proclaim it boldly

and preach it like it's the truth because it actually is, right?

And another theme is compassion.

We need to warn people about judgment and speak the truth but also to reveal the

compassion of the Lord.

This story really does reveal just how compassionate the Lord is.

Even in the Old Testament, He's very, very compassionate.

Some people think the Old Testament God is a God of wrath and then Jesus came and He's this

God of love but Jesus says, you know, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

So God really truly is their one.

So if you have seen Jesus and you've come to know Jesus, you know the one true God and you know His

one and only Son.

That is eternal life.

So themes are compassion and revival and another theme is that

God has truly created the world.

I know that's obvious to a lot of us because God has opened up our eyes but even if He hasn't, it's kind of

just, you know, take a look out and see all the wonderful things that God has made.

All the trees and the stars and the moon and the sky and just me and you and how we're able to talk.

Some people think that happens by chance and they got, you got to be crazy to think that.

Obviously after we heard Drew last week, I think we're all convinced of intelligent design

that God is in control.

So that is a theme that God not only created the world but He's completely in control of it.

That He could interact anytime He wants and that He is completely sovereign and that He

ultimately is the deciding factor of how things play out and how the future unfolds.

And then also He not only created and controlled the world but God also cares for the world.

He has deep compassion on people.

Some people more than others and to people who come and believe in His Son, we know

that He has great, great compassion on us because we have sinned against Him but He is still willing to be patient with us.

He's willing to be kind to us.

He's willing to love us and He's willing to forgive us of our sin if we're willing to repent and believe the

gospel.

The gospel is a message that saves anyone who hears and believes that message is granted eternal life.

If they truly, truly believed, God will change their heart.

God will open up their eyes to see the truth and they become a new creation.

The old has passed away and the new has come.

So I have no story but I guess we'll just get right into reading the word.

If you were seeking a story, the only story be given to you is the story of Jonah.

So let's just start reading.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Mittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great

city, and call out against it, for the evil has come up before me.

So the great city of Nineveh, God calls it great and God is calling Jonah the

prophet, the man of God, to go and preach a message of judgment to the

Ninevites.

And this should be an easy task, right?

Because Jonah's a prophet.

He's supposed to be a man of God and God's calling him to go preach.

That's what prophets do, right?

Not so much for Jonah.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went down into to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the

Lord.

So this man, Jonah, is apparently a prophet of the Lord, but he is in rebellion

against God.

He wants nothing to do with what God has called him to do.

He's clearly getting a clear call to go to the Ninevites and preach a message of judgment.

But Jonah runs from the presence of the Lord.

I don't think it's possible since the Lord is omnipresent.

Wherever you go, the Lord is there.

You can suppress the truth and suppress what he's called you to do, but he's always there.

You can't run from him.

He will find you because he's already there.

So Jonah actually does the complete opposite of what he's called to do.

He's called to go to Nineveh.

So Jonah is here in Israel.

Nineveh is about here.

And the Mediterranean Sea is a huge sea right here.

And then Tarshish is here.

So Jonah is supposed to go here, but he says, no, I don't want to go there.

Like a child, and then runs the other direction.

So Jonah kind of has a childish, rebellious attitude.

It's kind of like when you are with a disobedient child and you tell him, like, Johnny, go clean your room.

And then he doesn't want to clean his room, but he just runs and goes and sits and watch cartoons or does whatever he wants to

do, right?

He's called to go do something, but he doesn't want to listen.

So that's kind of how Jonah is.

He knows that God is calling to do it.

It's clear, and he just does not want to go, and he leaves.

Flees and gets into a boat and tries to run from God, trying to go

all the way the opposite direction to Tarshish.

So he gets on a pagan ship.

But the Lord, when he got on the ship, you would think that the Lord would just let him go do whatever he does.

He can go serve pagan gods now because, you know, it's all the same.

No, not really the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and then there was a mighty tempest on the sea,

so that the ship threatened to break up.

So a tempest is just a violent, windy storm that the Lord

sent.

And this is no just violent, windy storm that we've seen, but this is from the Lord.

So it's a supernatural, violent, and windy storm.

And the people on the ship know that it is a violent and windy storm, and they know that it is

a supernatural storm.

They know that someone's God is offended, and they know that God is angry, or some sort of

God is angry with them, and it's obvious to them.

And I know that because the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.

So each cried out to his God.

So there's no atheists in foxholes apparently, and apparently there's no

atheist on a sinking ship, right, in a storm.

So, and there was no atheist on this ship.

They're all trying to call out to their pagan God, or whatever God they follow, or whatever of their God of their own making,

whatever they're doing.

They're calling out, and they recognize that they need to be saved.

They're in danger of death.

One thing that we all can be afraid of is death, right?

Especially if you don't know the salvation of Jesus Christ, and you don't know the salvation of the Lord.

I mean, everyone is afraid to die.

Everyone has to come to terms that 10 out of 10 people eventually die, and that this life isn't all there is, but

that there is a sense that death is scary, and these people are scared for their lives.

And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it

for them.

So they're hurling cargo out of the ship because, you know, cargo doesn't mean anything when you're

scared for your life.

It's, I mean, what does it profit a man to lose his, or what does it profit a

man to gain the whole world and lose his soul, right?

So possessions are not that valuable when you're talking about your life, saving your life, and it's the

same way with our soul.

That nothing out there is more valuable than your eternal soul.

Everything here is just so temporary.

That's just a message inside a message.

But verse, the end of verse five, but

Jonah had gone and had gone down to the inner part of the ship and

laid down and was fast asleep.

So while everyone's in a big panic, scared that God is mad at them, running around throwing things off the ship,

Jonah somehow just is sleeping in the inside of the boat.

I mean, this man doesn't have a care in the world.

Everyone else has woken up realizing they're in danger and Jonah just does not care.

He's not even thinking about anything.

He just is, if he dies, he dies.

He's just there.

But Jonah had gone down in the inner part of the ship and laid down and was fast asleep.

So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper?

Arise, call out to your God.

You would think this would be a wake -up call for Jonah, not just physically, but spiritually.

That he's supposed to be a prophet, a man of God, and he's running from God and he finds himself on a ship

and he's sleeping.

He's woken up to a violent storm, realizing that God is angry and then some pagan captain is

yelling in his face to call out to his God.

And this is a guy that's running from God.

So this should have been a wake -up call to start calling on his God, but Jonah does not.

He's rebellious and doesn't see the danger like everyone else is seeing the danger.

And the captain also says, perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.

So the captain is still hoping that maybe God can rescue him and Jonah should

know that the God can rescue and his God can save, but Jonah doesn't pray.

And it's ironic because the captain of the ship, of the pagan ship, is calling an Israelite prophet to prayer.

It's the prophet that should be calling people to prayer and to worship the Lord and to follow the Lord and

relay his message, but it's actually Jonah who's being called by this pagan to pray to the Lord.

So there's a lot of irony in the book of Jonah.

Verse 7, And they said to one another, come let us cast lots that we may know

on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So of course, they're trying to figure out whose God is angry.

All the people serve a different God, all kind of different gods.

Jonah is the one that serves the one true God who's actually real.

And back then in the ancient times, they would cast lots to decide the, uh, to determine what the

will of God really is or the divine will.

And it might have just been a pagan way of finding things out, but God is in such control that he's going to use

this lot casting.

And casting lots is basically just if I walked around with a bag of rocks and

a hundred of them were black and one of them was white and we all picked one out, the one with the white stone would.

The lot fell on them, right?

So Jonah, it just so happens that the lot lands on Jonah

from the one.

True God who made the sea and the dry land and he's running on the sea, which God created.

So how is he going to escape the presence of the Lord?

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the because he had told them.

So the men on the ship realized like, what is this guy doing fleeing from the God?

And they begin to be afraid of Jonah's God.

And Jonah is just saying that he's afraid, but the pagan sailors actually are afraid.

They're experiencing the fear of the Lord.

And that's kind of where we all begin, right?

The fear of the Lord.

Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

You would think that he would say, let's just pray to the God because he's able to save us, the one true God,

Yahweh.

But he just says, for the sea grew more and more tempest.

He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea.

Then the sea will quiet down for you.

For I know it is because of me that the great tempest has come upon you.

And it was because of Jonah that the great tempest has come upon him.

So he gets hurled into the sea.

Nevertheless, well, he wants to get hurled into the sea.

So Jonah just wants to die.

He doesn't really care.

He doesn't do the right thing.

He just says, I want to get thrown into the sea.

And he makes a prediction that the sea.

Will stop when he gets thrown in.

So he's a prophet.

So I

must not perish for this man's life.

And lay not on us innocent blood for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased

you.

So they they don't really want to throw Jonah in because these men are not actually

horrible, horrible men.

They actually do not want innocent blood to be shed on their account.

So they try to row even harder and not want to listen to Jonah and try to save Jonah, even though Jonah is

saying to throw him in.

But they were fighting a fight that they could not win.

The sea just became to get more and more violent as a supernatural storm.

Eventually, verse 15 says,.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

This was like the most amazing part of the story for me, because this is something I missed when I read it a few different times,

that Jonah was called to go to Nineveh, but he rebelled against God, went the

opposite way to Tarshish, and God still used him on the ship to preach to these people.

And these pagan people were praying to other gods, serving other gods, and now they're

worshiping the one true God.

And it says they even made sacrifices and made vows to the one true God.

That was an amazing thing, that there was a revival on the ship, that even though he wasn't supposed to go there, the

Lord saved the people on the ship anyway, because even though Jonah might have planned that trip to do evil or

plan that trip out of his own doing, the Lord used it for good.

And that was an amazing thing to me, that the people on the ship actually repented.

But they threw Jonah in, and it says when they threw him in,

the tempest stopped.

So Jonah was correct, the Lord did stop the rain,

stop the wind.

But it says, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly

of the fish three days and three nights.

So if you've ever been on a ship and you get seasick, I can't imagine what it's like to be in the belly of a fish for

three days and three nights.

I mean, that sounds horrible.

But Jonah gets swallowed up by the fish, just so it wasn't the fish that saved him, right?

But the Lord has appointed this all to happen, he's in control.

So Jonah is in the fish three days and three nights, he's very rebellious, unrepentant, but

he finally prays to the Lord, and he is reflecting on a prayer that he prayed right away

when he first got cast into the sea.

And it says,.

So he was heading for death, Sheol is a place of death.

So Jonah is in the fish three days and three nights, he's very rebellious, unrepentant, but he finally prays to the Lord, and

he is reflecting on a prayer that he prayed right away

when he first got cast into the sea.

And it says,.

So Jonah kind of repents inside the well, and he has a time of worship, and he prays this prayer to the Lord, and it ends with,.

And he also knew in this prayer that it wasn't just the men that threw him in, but he knew it was the Lord that actually casted him

into the water.

And he thanks God for saving him, and he says that salvation belongs to the Lord.

And he knew it wasn't just by chance that the fish captured him and saved him, and he didn't start praising the

fish or anything like that, but he knew it was God who was orchestrating things, and he knew it was God who saved

him.

And it's God who's having such great compassion on this man, who doesn't want to do anything for him.

He's running away from God, he's suppressing the truth of God, and yet God is still showing him grace, even

in the belly of a fish.

So God, so Jonah prays to God and makes a vow that he's going to start following Him, that he

repented, and he's making a commitment to actually do what the Lord has called him to do.

So I don't know how close Jonah was to the land, or how far the fish could spit,

but this man probably got projected onto the dry land, and it just so happened that he landed

three days journey from Nineveh, so where he was supposed to go, and it says that actually he made it there in one day.

So he made it, so the Lord ordained it that the fish spit him out, and now

the Lord in, in verse three is going to recommission Jonah.

And then, so verse three says, Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great

city, and call out against it the message I tell you.

So the Lord still has the same purpose for Nineveh, He wants, and the same purpose for Jonah.

He wants Jonah to go to the Ninevites and preach a message of judgment, and it's the word of God, the word that

God has told Jonah to preach.

That's what we do today, we preach the word of God.

It isn't our made -up words that save people, but it's the word of God that people hear that word, and then it gives them faith,

and it's through the preaching of the word that God saves people, and it's, it's always been that way, and it's God supernaturally

working through the word of God going out, and it's, and the word of God is sharper than any two -edged sword.

So when they hear the word of God, that the words that God tells people to preach, that's when people start being

saved, and people repent.

But let's talk about Nineveh.

Nineveh was a great city, God called it a great city.

It was huge, it was probably over 600 ,000 people total, but

Nineveh did represent everything that God hated.

It represented everything that Israel hated, they were Israel's enemies.

Any sin you can think of was probably present in Nineveh,

and the Ninevites were, were so, so wicked.

They, they even tortured their enemies in, in crazy different ways,

and they, they weren't compassionate people, they weren't good people, and the wickedness that was going on

there has caught up to the Lord, and the Lord, and this is a serious thing, because this is the same type of

wickedness that has came up to him from Sodom and Gomorrah, and God did not have mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah,

and none of those people repented, and God destroyed the whole city, and so this is a very serious

thing, that Nineveh is in danger.

So the Lord calls Jonah again to go preach, so no, Jonah actually goes this time,

and Nineveh is actually the residence of Nimrod,

and it also means, uh, Nunu, and Nunu means fish, so, and Nineveh

is also, um, 500 miles from the water, so, um, so why is it called,

uh, Fishtown if it's 500 miles from the water?

It's because the people there worshipped, um, fish gods and goddesses,

and gods that were part fish, part god, and things like that, so they worshipped, um,

fish basically, so, and, and it would seem like Jonah, you

know, being in the belly of the fish, um, probably had a good fish story for him, right?

So he's gonna go and preach to these fish people, and to make it even better, Jonah probably, since he was in the belly

of the fish, the great fish, for three days and three nights, his skin, um, was probably bleached white, and

then, so he's appearing to them, and he probably appeared like a little ghostly to them, so he's coming with this, um, fish

story, and he preaches to them,

and what he says to them is, yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be

overthrown.

So he's going around preaching a message when he goes through Nineveh, it's only five words in Hebrew,

so he's preaching, yet 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.

No message of hope or anything like that, it's a message of judgment.

Not elaborate, Jonah doesn't really even like these people, um, so he's not really preaching

very good, he's just doing it because God told him to do it, he doesn't have, um, a good heart

about it, he's just doing it.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

That's amazing.

The people of Nineveh believed God.

He didn't have any mention of God or anything, they, he just said that, um, yet 40 days, Nineveh

will be destroyed.

And the people began to fear, and they believed in God.

They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least

of them.

That is amazing.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from this throne, removed his robe,

covered himself with sackcloth and satin ashes, and he issued a proclamation and published

through Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor

flock, taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them

call out mightily to God.

Let everyone turn from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows, God may, may turn and relent, and turn from his

fierce anger, so that we may not perish.

So they repented in Nineveh from the king on down.

They all feared the Lord.

120 ,000 plus people, probably 600 ,000 people, all feared the Lord,

repented, and turned from their evil ways.

That's what repent means, turn from evil, and they believed God, all of them.

And just like there was no natural explanation for the storm, and there was no natural

explanation for the fish just so happened to get Jonah and then vomited onto dry land right near Nineveh, there was no

natural explanation for this revival that happened in Nineveh.

It was a five -word sermon, and it was the Lord, who's God of salvation, who saved and had compassion

on this, on these wicked people.

God has compassion on whom he has compassion, and he will show mercy on whom he wants to show mercy.

He didn't show mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah, but he did show mercy on

these people of Nineveh.

They repented.

They turned from their sin, and they put on sackcloth and ashes to show mourning.

They were deeply affected by the preaching of Jonah, and it wasn't

just the preaching, it was the Lord working supernaturally in the hearts of these people to change their hearts.

God can do that.

God is the creator of the world.

He can interact with his creation anytime he wants, but he does it through the preaching of the word.

It was God's words that he told Jonah to preach, and Jonah wasn't like he was preaching it good.

It was God working in the hearts of people and the word of God convicting them.

So this is amazing revival.

So Jonah just completed every modern -day

missionary's dream.

You go to a nation that doesn't know the Lord, and you hope that some people might believe.

Jonah went there, didn't care if they believed or not, and everybody believed.

Everyone turned, the king, his servants, everyone in the whole nation repented and believed in

God.

You would think Jonah would be happy about this.

I mean, after all, in Luke 15 7, it says that Jesus says, I tell you there is joy before

the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

So the angels in heaven rejoice when just one sinner turns from his wicked ways and follows the Lord.

And yet there's thousands of people that just did this out of Jonah's preaching, and

you would think Jonah would be ecstatic about this, right?

You would think Jonah's joy would be complete.

You would think that he would be amazed in all of God, that

God has saved his people, and that he used him to do it, and that he would just be praising God.

Nope, in verse 1 of chapter 4, but it

displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, it is not this what I said when

I was yet in my country.

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.

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than

to live.

And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry?

So Jonah is angry that the people repented.

This is why Jonah ran from God to begin with.

He wasn't because he was afraid of God.

It was because he did not want these Ninevites to repent.

He hated them.

And when you do not want people to repent, and these were Jonah's enemies, right?

The Bible teaches us to love our enemies, no matter how hard it is, we're supposed to love people.

But Jonah has a deep, deep hate for people, and deep, deep hate for especially these

Ninevites.

And if you ever find yourself in that position where you don't want someone to repent, even if he's your enemy,

you yourself need to repent, right?

So Jonah right now is the only one in the story that actually hasn't truly repented.

And the crazy part about this is that everyone he went to weren't even people of God.

They were pagan people.

They were, they weren't Israelites.

They weren't Jews.

Back then in the Old Testament, a lot of people think that, you know, the Jews are

the chosen people, and they were.

But even in the Old Testament, people who were not Jewish did get saved.

And Jonah is a, is a story to prove that people in the Old Testament

were getting saved who weren't Jewish.

But people who did come to know the Lord, to know the one true God, that is how you have eternal life.

And now today, to know the one true God, and to know his son is the way to eternal life.

So Jonah basically chews out God for being good.

He's like, this is why I didn't go to Nineveh, because I knew you were good.

I knew you were compassionate.

I knew you were going to save those people.

That's why he didn't want to go to Nineveh.

He didn't want them to be saved.

So God asked him, do you do well to be angry?

Do you think that's okay, Jonah, for you to be angry right now?

So Jonah doesn't answer.

So Jonah went out of the city, because he's angry, and sat to the east of the city,

and made a booth for himself there.

So Jonah is actually still hoping

that the city is destroyed.

He leaves the city, and he sets up a little booth so he can watch the city.

And he still has this hope that it's going to be destroyed for its wickedness, even though they just repented.

So Jonah is a poor attitude, bad attitude prophet.

Who wants nothing to do with what the Lord wants him to do, but he's just trying to make things happen the way

he wants to happen.

And he's still hoping for evil things to happen to Nineveh, which is very

sad.

So Jonah went out of the city, and sat down to the east of the city, and made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Now the Lord God appointed a plant, and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade

over his head, to save him from the discomfort.

So the Lord saves Jonah again.

The Lord saved Jonah with the great fish, and now he saves Jonah from the sun scorching him.

So the Lord is showing grace upon grace upon grace upon grace to Noah, even though

Noah doesn't deserve it, because that's how good the Lord is.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

So Jonah comes to love this plant.

He's so happy that the plant saved him.

He's so happy that he has this plant, that he can sit in the shade, and he can hope that Nineveh is destroyed.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant,

so that it withered.

It must have been a powerful little worm that the Lord sent, because the plant that was shading Jonah, was

destroyed now by this worm.

So God is kind of giving Jonah a little object lesson.

So when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah, so that he was

faint.

And he asked that he might die, and said, it is better for me to die

than to live.

Jonah, throughout the story, wanted to die many times.

But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant?

So he's asking him, are you, is it okay for you to be angry about this plant, Jonah?

And he said, yes, I do well to be angry.

Angry enough to die.

So Jonah still sounds like a little kid to me, and he's arguing with God, and he's not

winning, because the Lord's going to show him that it's not okay for Jonah to be angry at all.

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 the night, and perished in a night.

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 their left, and also much cattle?

So Jonah is angry with the Lord, and the Lord is showing him, you're allowed to be angry by this little

plant that I grew for you, and it died in a day, and it's just a plant.

But you wouldn't be basically happy that the Ninevites repented, and the

Ninevites weren't destroyed.

So the Lord says, you're allowed to have compassion on the plant.

Am I not allowed to have compassion on Nineveh, that great city, who I created, who I love?

And not only, he's still trying to reason with Jonah, not just the people that you hate, but also the cattle.

If you have compassion on the plant, how come you don't love everything else in Nineveh, right?

So the Lord is still being so patient and so kind with Jonah, and Jonah

is probably the author of this book, which is only our only hope for Jonah.

The story ends just like this, with the Lord showing him this object lesson.

Nineveh did not get destroyed right then and there, and the Lord saved them because they repented.

When people repent, the Lord relents his anger.

But the story of Jonah is meant to really reveal to Jonah and all of us who we might actually

have hate for enemies or hate for people, especially wicked

people, people who do the wrong thing, you know what's wrong, but you hate them, and you don't understand

why they're doing it.

And it might be because they don't know their right hand from their left.

God has revealed things to us that the world has not come to know yet.

So we ought to have compassion and mercy on people, just like the Lord had compassion and mercy on

us when we didn't yet know him.

We didn't know his truth.

So anyone out there, whether they're your enemy or people that are just so, so wicked,

we are really hoping that the Lord does call these people to repentance and they actually do repent, and we're

praying for revival, that God could do that.

Because eternity in hell is a very real thing, and a lot of people are not aware of it, but us as a

church, God has revealed the truth of heaven and hell, and we know the weight

of rejecting Jesus Christ, and we know that if you reject Jesus Christ and reject his

word and reject the truth your whole life, you will be punished.

But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus did come and die on a cross for our sin, and that he did pay

the penalty that we deserve.

So our penalty for sin, we all have sinned against God, and we all have been rebellious against God and ran from

God in our life, but our sin has been paid for by

Jesus Christ.

And either your sin has been paid for by Jesus Christ, God's one and only son, whom he sent to save the world.

Jesus wouldn't have to come to the world if we didn't need to be saved, right?

So Jesus came and died on a cross for our sin.

So Jesus paid the penalty that we deserve, and if Jesus didn't pay the penalty that you deserve on

the cross, then you're going to have to pay for that penalty yourself in hell forever, and that's the

reality, and that's part of the judgment that we need to go warn people about.

That there's hope, that you don't need to go to that place that God has ordained it, that if you believe in

his son, and that he will give you everlasting life, and he will forgive all your sins.

Your sins can be forgiven past, present, and future by putting your faith in Jesus Christ alone.

And Jesus actually did

talk about Jonah when he was here on earth.

He referred to Jonah a few times, and one of them was Matthew chapter 12, verse 39 to

42.

He says, he's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes, and

they're asking him to see a sign, because they want to believe in him if they see a sign.

And to be honest with you, Jesus has already done a lot of miracles and signs, and they didn't believe, but they're still asking for a

sign.

And Jesus says to them, but he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a

sign.

Sounds like our generation, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet

Jonah.

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be

three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with the generation and condemn it, for they

repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

So Jesus said that to Israelite Jews, and they probably hated the story of Jonah

because the story of Jonah, everyone who wasn't a Jew got saved, and the only Jew in this story never repented.

So they probably hated hearing those words, but Jesus is saying that he's a greater

prophet than Jonah, and Jonah preached, and we know Jonah wasn't that good of a prophet, and he preached to Nineveh,

and the whole city repented.

But Jesus is saying to these people that the city of Nineveh is going to rise

up in the judgment and condemn the Israelite Jewish leaders, the religious

leaders, because Jesus is there, and he's better than Jonah, and the Ninevites repented at Jonah's

teaching, so Jesus is here.

So that means that if they have any clue at all, that they should repent, and they should believe

Jesus' teaching, because Jesus is much better than Jonah.

And Jesus also says that he's much better than Solomon.

If you continue in verse 42, the queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the

generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold,

something greater than Solomon is here.

So the queen of the south came to Solomon because Solomon was the wisest man on earth, and his fame was growing,

and Jesus is here now, and he's saying that basically he's wiser than Solomon, the wisest man that's ever lived.

Jesus is claiming to be wiser, and he's saying, I'm better than Solomon, and this lady searched far and

wide for this wisdom, and she's actually going to come up and condemn us who

have known Jesus Christ and have been, and Jesus has revealed himself, and to these

Jewish people he's come to, Nineveh and the queen of the south

are going to condemn these people for not believing.

So the greatest sin that you can commit in life is actually rejecting Jesus Christ.

Those who reject Jesus Christ will not make it, but those who accept Jesus Christ as savior and believe in

his name and keep the faith till the end, who are truly his sons or daughter of God

will remain.

And there's just so much that happened in the book of Jonah

that the Lord, you can tell the Lord was completely in control, and there's just truth in the book of Jonah and

truth out there that you just can't suppress.

It just so happened that God hurled a great wind upon the sea, and it just so happened that the

men cast lots to see whose God was angry, and a lot just

so happened to fall on Jonah, and it just so happened that the storm stopped right when they threw Jonah overboard, and it just

so happened that the fish came right when Jonah was about to die to eat him and save him, and it just so happened that Jonah

was spit out right near Nineveh where he was supposed to go, rather, all these things didn't just

happen, but that God is in control, and the people recognized that God was in control in this

story, and then Jonah eventually recognized that God was

in control the whole time too.

And there's things that happen in our life that have been mysterious that we need to recognize as well.

When I was, I'll tell you a story, when I was on the beach for Father's

Day a few years ago, I was with my dad and my brothers and sisters, and I

see my dad sitting next to me, and he's laughing, and I'm wondering why,

why is he laughing?

He's clapping his hands, he's laughing, and I'm just like, dad, what are you laughing at?

He was like, and he's looking out into the sea, we're on the beach, and he's like, my life was planned out

before, ahead of time.

That's what he said.

My life was planned out ahead of time, and I'm just looking at him like, how did you come up with that

conclusion?

He's looking out on the beach, and he says, well, and I don't remember the story completely, but it was something along the lines of, he

went out with, when he said, well, when I was your age, I was here on the beach with my friends, and I went out into the ocean,

and I was with your uncle Mike, and they went out in the ocean, and I think they were trying to get to a sandbar or something like

that, and they were in the middle of the water, and they realized that the water

was stronger than they were, and they were pretty strong men.

My uncle Mike's one of the strongest dudes I know.

My dad used to be pretty strong, but the water was stronger, and they could not

get free from the water, so they needed help, and eventually the lifeguard came, and they were really struggling, and my dad was

really struggling, he said, but the lifeguard came to my uncle Mike, and my uncle Mike said, oh, no,

he's going to need your help pointing to my dad, and then my dad said, that's

why my uncle Mike has been his best friends over these years, because he put his life ahead of him when they were both in

danger, and I'm thinking to myself, well, yeah, the Bible says there's no greater love than he who lays down his life for

his friends, and they both ended up making it.

The lifeguard, I think, came and rescued both of them, if I remember correctly, but I'm thinking, like, my dad

doesn't, like, he's no theologian, he's no expert in the Bible or anything like that, but he was able to figure

out, just by somehow remembering that story, realizing that God was in control,

and that his life was somehow planned out ahead of time, and that was amazing to me, because I

was thinking, like, I knew that because I know the Bible, and I know that from other situations, but I was like, for him to

realize that, I thought that was, that was grace from God revealing to him that he was able to discern that,

but there's some great theologians out there, and there's a lot of people that do not realize that, that God really is in

control of every single thing in life, and he really is behind everything, and mysterious things happen, and

a lot of people suppress that truth, but some people recognize it, and they realize that there is a God up there, and God does love

us, and he really did have such great compassion and mercy on his people, and that

he really did send his son Jesus Christ for salvation, and those that do trust in his son, and do

believe the words of Jesus, and believe the words of God, and believe the words in the Bible, they

do receive eternal life, and all their sins are forgiven, and then

now we have such a greater message than what Jonah had.

We have the whole Old Testament and New Testament, and we should be going out preaching the message of the

gospel to people, and proclaiming the good news of what Christ has done for us, because otherwise we're just

wasting our lives, right?

This life is so temporary, and God is so real, and hell is so real, and it's all going to end, and

we have this great message of hope in Jesus Christ.

So as a church, we know the truth, and we can't act like we don't know it.

We can't rebel.

We need to go preach, and we might not have the results that Nineveh had, but people might

throw stuff at us, or hate us for believing the word of God, but our allegiance is to God now,.

Who saved us,.

And saved our soul, and loved us from the beginning, and planned out our life.

So there's a message out there that God wants us to send to people, and it is the gospel.

So we as a church need to go send that message, and hope that God could cause a revival,

just like he did with the Ninevites, and the people on the ship, and everyone in the story.

That's what we ought to be praying for, a church revival.

Amen?

Okay.

Lord, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for the word of God.

Thank you for your servant Jonah.

We pray that people would go out, and preach a message that you would want preached, and that

you would work in the hearts of people, that they might believe the message, and they might give your life to you, that

they would make a commitment, just like the people on the ship did, a commitment like Jonah made in the ship to

follow you, even though we may not like it all the time, it might not be what we want to do, but we want to please you.

So give us hearts that want to follow you anywhere you want us to go, and please send us

wherever you want us to go Lord, and that we might be a light to people, that they might come to know you,

and that we might see revival Lord.

How amazing would that be?

That's what we live for Lord.

We want to see you work, and we know that you're going to come, and judge the world one day, and there's judgment

coming, so I pray that we would go out, and warn people of this judgment, and that we might see people

get saved, and give their lives to Jesus Christ, realizing that he is the only way, the truth, and the

life, and no one does come to the father, except through your son Jesus Lord.

Thank you for all that you've given us, and we pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Fix our eyes on him, our souls reward, till

the race is finished, and the work is done,

by faith and not by sight.

The prophet

saw the power to break the

chains of sin and death, was

triumphant from the

grave, the church was called to go.

In the power of the spirit to the law,

to deliver captives, and to preach good news.

We'll stand as children of the prophet,

we will fix our eyes on him, our souls reward,

till the race is finished, and the work is

done, by faith and not by sight.

The mountains shall be moved, and the

power of the gospel shall prevail,

for we know in Christ all things are possible,

to call upon his name.

We will stand as children of the promise,

we will fix our eyes on him, our souls reward,

till the race is finished, and the work is

done, we'll walk by faith and not by sight.

Amen.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

Amen.

Have a great afternoon and a great Lord's Day.