Jonah's story reveals God's gracious and merciful character, extending compassion even to those outside of Israel. The sermon highlights Jonah's anger at God's pity for Nineveh, contrasting it with God's own declaration of His nature as gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in goodness. The core lesson is that God's love and desire for repentance are universal, and His pity is a covering for sin, harmonizing with His justice. The application calls believers to know God's heart and manifest His graciousness to a lost world, rather than exhibiting the exclusiveness and anger that Jonah displayed.
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Thank you to turn tonight to the book of Jonah. I don't know how far we're going to get in the book of Jonah, but we're going to begin at the last chapter. Jonah chapter four. I'm going to have a very long introduction tonight. Because, and I think you'll understand why as we move along. Now, I want to do something tonight that I don't often do. And that is I want to thank the ladies for their activity in the family. When I say that, it always causes my heart to rejoice when I see them perform as you have in the last few weeks.
I'm thinking of the way in which you rallied around. Mrs. Patton and prepared food and took it over and certainly were a real means of blessing to us. And now with Robin Vestal being laid aside, I thank the Lord for that meeting that was called Sunday night and for the results of it and the ladies who've taken things to Robin to help them as a family. This is the working of the family of God and That, to me, is the outworking of the grace of God in the life. And it's thrilling for me to watch it.
Now, I don't often say anything about things like this, but they're known by God. There's a day coming when the Lord's going to say, you've been faithful in a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. And I often think when... I read workers together. You may not think I read it, but I do. And when I read that little section on the quilters, occasionally I stop in and watch the quilters just a minute or so when they're busy working. I'm always amazed at what they do and how they do it. Those ladies know quite a bit about quilting. They know what they're doing.
And I've been in the workers together office in Wheaton. And the ladies out there know what our ladies do here in regards to the missionary family. And there are good testimonies. Now, not everybody works at quilting, but not everybody works at cooking either. But we all work together for the glory of God, and that's the workings of a family. And I just wanted to pass that on. Jonah chapter four, verse one. where we read, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I know that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Verse eleven, God speaking, And should not I spare in Nineveh that great city wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left and also much cattle?
Only the Lord bless his word. When our Lord told the people of his day when they asked him for a sign, that no sign would be given unto them but the sign of the prophet Jonah, he said much more in those few statements there in Matthew chapter twelve, which we shall read in a little while. He said far more in those few statements than we usually take into consideration. I was tempted tonight to just go around and call on the men. call them by name, and just say, tell me what you know about the book of Jonah. Just one incident. What comes to your mind when you think of Jonah?
I'll tell you what you're going to say. You're going to say the fish, the gourd, the sailors, the storm, the worm, the wind, all those things you have in the book of Jonah. Now what else could you say? What else could you add? What was that, Dave? I didn't hear it. I can't read this. Revival. Oh, yeah, you have revival in the book of Jonah. You sure do. You have revival. But you see, we usually think of the fish, and we usually think of the gourd and the worm and these things.
But they're very incidental to the book of Jonah. they're incidental to the real message of Jonah often when you think of the book of Jonah you get into an argument and you hear an argument did Jonah really die in the belly of the fish and was he resurrected from the dead or did Jonah survive the three days and three nights in the belly of the fish and this becomes an argument and I've heard them and then another way of looking at it there are those who say Was it really three days and three nights? You see, for our Lord said, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the fish's belly, so shall a son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Now we need to settle a few things in relation to the book of Jonah before we move on. We have to first of all turn to the book of Deuteronomy chapter eighteen. Deuteronomy chapter eighteen. And we want to read the last two verses of this chapter. Deuteronomy eighteen is one of those great chapters that deal particularly with our Lord Jesus as the one who would be the prophet like unto Moses, who would be raised up, to whom the people would hearken, and who would be a rich blessing.
In verse twenty one it says, And if us say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath said? not spoken. When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken. But the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him. And in another place, chapter thirteen, it says he's a false prophet, he must be put to death. Now my question is, when Jonah's message to Nineveh was, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed, and Jonah sat in the edge of the city to watch for the destruction.
Now my question was Jonah a prophet of God on the basis of Deuteronomy eighteen. Well let's turn. for the answer to the book of Matthew chapter twelve and then we're going to turn to the book of second Kings for all these things are important Matthew chapter twelve and we want to read verses thirty nine to verse forty one but he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.
And there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. Our Lord designates Jonah as a prophet. And we must keep that in mind. Furthermore, I want you to turn to Second Kings chapter fourteen.
Second Kings fourteen. Verse twenty five. And here it's speaking of the acts of Jeroboam the second, the king of Israel. There were two kings by the name of Jeroboam who reigned in Israel. And in verse twenty five we read that he restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamas unto the sea of the plain according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah. the son of Emmeteah, the prophet which was of Gath-Heifer.
In other words, here we have the Spirit of God placing his stamp of approval upon Jonah as a prophet of God who, when he made a statement, it came to pass. So God put his stamp of approval upon Jonah. Now, if the book that bears his name seems to contradict that, We must look for a reason, because Jonah, according to our Lord, remains unique among the prophets, for our Lord said, He is the one who becomes a picture of Himself. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
When you carefully examine this passage in Second Kings chapter... We find that Jonah exercised his ministry during the days of Jeroboam II. Jeroboam II was about the best of the kings that Israel had. None of them were very good. Israel to the north, when the kingdom was divided, Israel to the north went into apostasy with their first king, Jeroboam, the first. For he set up an image, a calf, and an altar at Bethel, and he set up another one in Dan.
And the children of Israel went, and they lusted after those things. And king after king, and he's written of them, they did like unto the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. It is during the reign of Jeroboam II that Israel was attempting to form alliances with the nations around her, and while they were seeking to do that, which was contrary to the mind of God, also at the same time they were more exclusive religiously than she had ever been. That's a strange combination, isn't it? Israel had come to the place where they held that the religion of Jehovah belonged to them exclusively, and God made her the nation of Israel, his peculiar people, and he didn't care a bit about anybody else.
Furthermore, they had the idea that the attitude of God toward those outside the covenant nation was only that of hostility. Now the book of Jonah becomes very unique when you place it in relation to some difficult text in the Bible. For the book of Jonah reveals the Hebrew contempt for and toward the surrounding nations. And I want to do something tonight in introducing the book of Jonah. I want you to turn to first of all to a difficult passage that is often misunderstood in the ninth chapter of Romans and then we want to look at what God had to say to Moses in Exodus chapters thirty three and thirty four because it's in Exodus thirty three and thirty four that We have a picture here of that which is revealed in Jonah chapter four and in
the book of Nehem. Turn with me first of all to Romans nine. Most preachers are even afraid to read Romans nine, especially publicly, because it deals very definitely with the doctrine of election. but we want to begin reading at verse eighteen and these are difficult verses to many they are verses that I have come because of their difficulty to spend a lot more time on them than others and to notice how they're used elsewhere and to lay hold of the truth that is here notice verse eighteen where Paul says, Therefore hath he that is God mercy, on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repriest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What is God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known? Endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he had called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.
The ninth chapter of Romans, especially the early part of the chapter, which we didn't take time to read, it gives the reasons why God has for saving Gentiles. The Jewish people thought that salvation was only for Jews and for the nation of Israel alone. And the fact that God had chosen to save Gentiles was abhorrent to many in Israel. And God declares the right to have mercy on whom he will have mercy. If he wants to have mercy on a poor Gentile like me, that is his absolute right.
And that is one of the great arguments of the ninth chapter of the Romans. Now I want you to notice how this is first used in Scripture. Turn back now to the book of Exodus. Remember what we read from Romans nine. that God is able to make one vessel unto mercy, and he's making another vessel unto wrath that is fitted for destruction. That sounds like hard speech, but please don't have hard ideas about God. That's where Jonah made his mistake. That's where Jonah made his mistake, and it's possible for us to make that same mistake.
Now, in the book of Exodus, chapter thirty-three and chapter thirty-four, I don't know of two chapters in the Bible that I read with more joy in my soul than Exodus thirty-three and thirty-four. In Exodus chapter thirty-three, we read those words that the Lord spoke with Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friends. I don't know if you enjoy that, but I enjoy that expression. What a delight it must have been for Moses to stand there in that tent that he erected outside the camp at this time.
And when Moses went to the tent, the glory of God came and stood over it, and God spoke with him. Face to face, as a man speaks with his friends, That must have been an experience. I don't know of anything that could take place on the face of the earth. That would be far greater than that. And Moses in the eighteenth verse, when they met together, he said to the Lord, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Verse nineteen, and he said, that is God.
I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I will be, and we'll show mercy on whom I will show mercy. How do we behold the glory of God? We behold the glory of God on whom he bestows his mercy, and on whom he bestows his grace. Now when you get to the thirty-fourth chapter, verse five, and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
Now notice the two things. Verse six, and the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. So here in verses five through seven, we see the mercy and the grace of God. But then, beginning in the middle of verse seven, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and the fourth generation, and Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worship.
When we take Exodus chapter thirty-four and thirty-five and we take two books out of the Old Testament that deal with Nineveh, the book of Jonah, we see the grace of God extended to Nineveh and the mercy of God. And as Dave said, we have revival in that book. When you go two books further in the Old Testament, the book of Nahum, You see the judgment of God that followed later. And the message of Jonah was fulfilled through the message of Nehemiah. And the judgment of God fell upon that place.
So here we see the two things of Romans chapter nine, the goodness of God and the severity of God. And they're the two things that God revealed to Moses as a revelation of his glory. Now, we're going to get eventually to the book of Nehem, but tonight I want to, in the few moments that are left, I want to take off two things from Jonah chapter four, the fourth chapter of Jonah. First of all, the revelation of the divine attitude. Here in the fourth chapter, now I must confess my soul has been blessed studying the book of Jonah meditating over it for the past few weeks.
We begin reading the book of Jonah in chapter one. But I don't believe that chapter one was written first. Now, I believe it rightly should be first. I believe it should go one, two, three, and four just as it is. But I believe chapter four was written first as we know it. And after he wrote chapter four, then he went on and he gave the details leading up to chapter four. Because in chapter four, we have the revelation of the divine attitude. And if you miss it, you're missing Exodus chapter thirty four. And those great verses in Romans chapter nine, in Jonah chapter four.
For he says in the middle of verse two, For I knew that thou art a gracious God. Let me ask you a question tonight. Are you convinced that he is? Are you convinced that he is? I am. I'll go a step further. Who does God use? When do you put Jonah on the shelf and let him there? I'm so glad God isn't like me. I would have put Jonah on the shelf and said, forget about that guy.
But the word of the Lord came to him the second time. Came to him the third time. For here in chapter four, it's a third time that the word of God comes to him. And he comes to him a few times in chapter four. Who does God use? all get this friend he uses men who know that he's gracious Jonah says for I know that thou art gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repent us thee of the evil so here in the revelation of the divine attitude we see the divine pity we see the divine patience and we see the divine power in God's dealings with Jonah God deals with this man And then he says in the eleventh verse, notice God speaking, and he says, should I not spare Nineveh, or should I not have pity on Nineveh?
Here we touch the fundamental truth of the whole book. Should I not spare Nineveh? Now the word pity here in the fourth chapter is very significant. The Hebrew word literally means to cover. And if anyone knows the Hebrew and the meaning of cover in the Old Testament, it is the thought of atonement. that he's there. And you see, this perfectly harmonizes with the revelation of the character of God. You see, God's anger with sin is borne by his pity for the sinner. Never forget that. And when God announces judgment, he announces judgment that it will not be experienced.
But men do not pay attention to God. When God cries out to man, repent or perish? Who listens to God? I couldn't help but think when we were praying tonight. As Brother Rex Trubbden was lifted up in prayer. And the reason I saw just the ending of the news tonight. Peter Jennings. I just saw the ending of it. And in the ending of the news tonight, Zaire was in the news. They have more cases of AIDS in Zaire than any place in Africa, than any place in the world.
And with the way at which this whole business of AIDS, this epidemic is multiplying. What a serious condition. You see, when I was there back in that great work there, the Mission Hospital there at Niyankundi. The patients are flown in from all over the area. When the governor had to go to the hospital, he didn't go to a state hospital at Kinshasa. He went to Niyankundi to get the treatment from the doctors that are there. They're so highly rated, beloved. And I can imagine, I can imagine, And yet I can't imagine the importance of that hospital in a coming day.
And maybe right now, if we only knew it. You see, when Nineveh repented, beloved, God repented. And he repented because he cannot change. Now you may say, well, doesn't repentance mean change? Yes. But remember, God cannot deny himself. God can never be untrue to the central fact of His nature. And the central fact of the nature of God is to have compassion and care and love. While God is just and holy, all these things are never denied, nor are they ever contradicted in the Word of God.
They harmonize. And whenever you read in Scripture that God repented, and then you study the context, we find such a statement either followed or preceded by a declaration and a cause. And the cause is always man. Man either repented or man so disgusted God that God could no longer bear with him. But not only in this text do we have a revelation of the divine purpose but we have a revelation of human responsibility the responsibility we find in the book of Jonah of those who represent Jehovah and their responsibility is that they represent him not themselves see Jonah sat on the edge of the of the city representing himself But Jonah wasn't sent to Nineveh to represent himself.
He was sent there to represent God. And that is very important for God, says the Jonah. Are you greatly angry? And you know Jonah's reply. I do well to be angry, even unto death. And Jonah is the man that we read about. The word of the Lord came to him the second time. The man who failed at first, he had a second opportunity of fulfilling the purpose of God for Nineveh. And he had a third opportunity. Why did Jonah flee to Tarshish? He fled because he knew God.
If any man in the Bible knew the heart of God, it was Jonah. The scripture says so. And it comes from Jonah's own lips. He knew the heart of God. Who does God use? God uses those who know him. That should search our hearts. Do we want to be used in our generation? How well do I know him? How well do you know him? The scripture says in the hundred-third psalm, God made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.
The person who dwells on only the incidentals of the book of Jonah, they only see his acts. They can sing like a world, Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark. Do you remember that old song? The world sings that. We can dwell on the incidentals of the book, the storm, the casting lots. The wind, but when we dwell on knowing God, we learn something. We find that there are three books in the Old Testament that declare God's love in a unique way. There's a book of Ruth, God Christ's love for the church.
There's a book of Hosea, the love of God for Israel. And there's a book of Jonah, the love of God for a lost world. Do you know God? Do you know him? I'm not saying are you saved, but do you know him so that you can speak with him of his graciousness, of the fact that he's slow to anger and reveal it in your desire as you tell the gospel? the poor sinners. You should have been with me this afternoon. I'm not going to keep you.
But I was busy. And I mean I was busy trying to get some work done at home. And two real, well-dressed young men walked up. They had a black tie on and they rode bicycles. And I tell you, they held me up. But what did they like to tell them how to be saved? I didn't deal with peripheral matters. I'll tell you that. I got right to the gospel. Right to the gospel. And he learned that I knew more about his little blue book than he did. Well, let's pray together. Do you know God? Our Father, deliver us from the spirit of this age. Deliver us from any exclusiveness that we might manifest.
Don't give us the spirit of Jonah. We long to know thee, O God, like Jonah did, but we don't want to deal in an exclusive way, but rather we want to manifest your graciousness and your slowness to anger, your tender mercy, and we want to be used by thee. Meet with us. Work in us. That which is well-pleasing in thy sight. For Jesus' sake, amen.