Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary

We're going to begin this session by teaching you a new song. It's always wonderful to be here at Grace Community Church and to be here at the Shepherd Conference with so many friends. And we're going to lead you, we're going to accompany as you sing in this session before Austin Duncan comes and leads us.

And this is a new song. This is actually possibly the reason we are here. Over the years, we're grateful for many reasons to be here, but one is the personal encouragement that John MacArthur was to myself, to Kristen, and even in raising four girls and many little cups of coffee and phone calls and texts over the years.

And when he was, I think, when he was going into hospital a few months ago, I sent him this hymn that we had just finished called Christus Victor, and he asked us to come and do it this evening. So we're going to do it this evening, but we thought we'd use this moment now to teach it.

And it's based on two of the hymns of the Bible, the first hymn of the Bible, and then it echoes one of the last hymns in Revelation as well. We called it Christus Victor. So I'm going to teach you the three little sections, and then we'll stand and sing it.

So Kristen's going to sing the verse, verse one, here we go. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne.

Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us.

O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed us. ♪ No other, my soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪ ♪ Two wonders here that I confess ♪ ♪ My worth and my unworthiness ♪ ♪ My value fixed, my ransom paid at the cross ♪ ♪ And I rejoice in my Redeemer ♪ ♪ Greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul ♪ ♪ And I will trust in Him, no other, my soul alone ♪ ♪ My soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪ ♪ And I rejoice in my Redeemer ♪ ♪ Greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul ♪ ♪ And I will trust in Him, no other, my soul alone ♪ ♪ My soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪ (audience applauding) (audience applauding) - Thank you to the Gettys and John Martin for leading us so well this morning.

What an absolute delight that was. I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Jonah. My assignment is to speak on Jonah, the reluctant missionary. And I would like to focus on Jonah chapter four. Jonah chapter four. Start reading to you in Jonah chapter four, verse one.

"But it greatly distressed Jonah and he became angry. "And then he prayed to Yahweh and said, "Ah, Yahweh, was this not what I said "when I was still in my own country? "That's why I fled to Tarshish, "for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, "slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, "and one who relents concerning evil." "So now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, "for death is better to me than life.

"But Yahweh said, 'Do you have good reason to be angry?'" Now Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. He made a shelter for himself there and sat in its shade until he could see what would happen to the city. Then Yahweh God appointed a plant and made it grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his distress.

And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. Then God appointed a worm when dawn came up the next day, and it attacked the plant, and it withered. And when the sun rose, God appointed a biting east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head, and he became faint and asked to die, saying, "It's better for me to die than to live." And then God said to Jonah, "Are you rightly angry, burned up over the plant?" And he said, "Rightly, I'm so burned up I could die." And then Yahweh said, "You have had pity over the plant, "though you did not toil over it or make it grow.

"It came up in a night and perished in a night. "And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, "the great city in which there are more than "120,000 persons who do not know the difference "between their right and left hand, as well as many cattle?" So reads the word of the living God.

Father, help us to recognize in this prophecy all that you have prepared for us and for our hearts. We are blessed ministers to be gathered here under the authority of your word. Do the work that only your spirit can do through your word in our hearts to make us share in the very heart of our God.

I ask this in Jesus' matchless name, amen. When my kids were little, they're high school, college age now, but when they were little, we had eight books on Jonah. When they were infants, we had the puffy books that you could chew on. Their favorite was called Whale's Big Catch.

And I'm here to confess my failure as a father, because as I paged through it in preparation for this message, I realized it lacked some theological accuracy. It's a book consumed with what most children's books about Jonah are interested in, which is the subterranean predicament that Jonah finds himself in the belly of the great fish.

It's full of cartoon illustrations and onomatopoeia like Splish Splash and Pew Stink. My favorite page has Jonah's thought bubble, and he's picturing all the people of Nineveh, including a really angry-looking evil baby in his mind. But it's not just those who try to accommodate the message of Jonah to the youngest among us who miss its point.

The great American novelist Herman Melville puts these words on the tongue of Father Mapple, the chaplain of the ship in Moby Dick. His sermon in, I think, chapter 19 goes like this, ninth chapter. The book containing only four chapters, four yarns, the book of Jonah is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the scriptures.

Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea line sound? What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet. What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly. How billow-like and boisterously grand. We feel the flood surging over us. We sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters.

Seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about us. But what is the lesson that the book of Jonah teaches shipmates? It's a two-stranded lesson. A lesson to all of us as sinful men. A lesson to me as a pilot of the living God as a sinful man.

It's a lesson to all of us because it's the story of the sin-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentant prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. I don't think Melville read the last chapter. A little book, it's only 48 verses long, it tells a story of what happens in the 8th century BC.

But I find in it, the more I think about this reluctant prophet, some sad similarities to the low state of my own heart at times. I find it fascinating that in the synagogue calendar, as the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures were read in the synagogues in the synagogue period, according to the liturgy and the calendar, it was on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, that they would read the book of Jonah aloud and the people would traditionally respond, we are Jonah.

And I wonder if we're there. Because we read this and we laugh at this pouting prophet, at how outrageous it is that he's angry with God, how foul he is after experiencing the incredible commissioning at the beginning of the book to go to a people that were not his own in a period of Israel's sinful idolatry and to go minister in a place that was bloodthirsty and violent and Jonah's white knuckled defiance is shocking to us as he goes the opposite way that God asks him to go and then becomes a coincidental missionary to some pagan sailors who are eager to hear about Yahweh.

Their response is heartfelt and genuine as they cry out to the covenant God by name in chapter one, verse 14, oh Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man's life and do not put innocent blood on us for thou, oh Yahweh, hast done as thou hast pleased.

I mean, Jonah's ministry is remarkable in its fruitfulness. The Mishnah says that these men, after dropping off Jonah, went straight to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and probably have a painful surgery. (congregation laughing) I mean, Jonah's picking up incidental converts and his attitude is so bad he demands death, not just in chapter four but in chapter two.

But as he comes to his senses and announces the reality of God's salvation from the belly of the great fish, chapter two, verse nine, I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay, salvation is from the Lord, we start to get closer and closer to the message of Jonah and how it ought to resonate in our own hearts if we can focus on the right thing.

But then something so grand and spectacular happens. In five Hebrew words, Jonah fulfills his commission and preaches to Nineveh and Nineveh responds and turns, the Hebrew word shub, to turn, to repent, is used over and over again in this chapter and God turns, verse 10, is in a way completely unique to God.

When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way then God turned and concerning the calamity he had declared he would bring upon them and he did not do it. Their repentance was so thorough going even their animals repented. Sackcloth and ashes for everybody, the king, the poor.

And that seems a good place to end the book of Jonah. But if we ended there we would be stuck with the children's book and stuck with Moby Dick because we wouldn't get to the focus, the purpose, the message of the book of Jonah which is found in chapter four.

A book of defiance and deliverance, a defiant prophet who flees the presence of God and prefers death over obedience. A great fish swallowing him, Yahweh rescuing him and vomiting him out into the shore. Jonah's remarkable psalm from the depths of the sea crying out to proclaim the salvation of God, the redeployment of Jonah on this great Assyrian capital, the incredible revival in Nineveh where these bloodthirsty and pagan people cry out to the covenant God of Israel and he turns his wrath away and grants them repentance.

We start to realize as we look to chapter four this isn't a fish story, this isn't a parable of some kind or some morals to take away, what are the whales in your life, brothers? But instead this is a theological book, a book that is not centered on a fish or on a man, a book that tells us what God is like and we need the message of Jonah and there's no better place to find it than in this fourth chapter.

As the entire prophecy is brought into a summary in an unguessable way and it exposes the wisdom of God and his plan in putting all this together and seeing Jonah's stubbornness and recalcitrance at the end and the hard heart leaves us as readers scratching our heads and confused about how we're to respond to this message but if we pay careful attention, especially to this chapter, the very word of the living God, we can see why it's such an important message to learn about this oddball prophet and recognize in ourselves similar deficiencies, similar defiance but make sure our focus is on God and his heart of compassion.

What a book, what a chapter. It ends with a question, a question that just sits there with no resolution. As the centuries passed, Jewish scholarship added all kinds of annotations to the end, dissatisfied with this lingering question and trying to bring resolution either with Jonah sticking to his rebellious position and disposition or Jonah relenting and buying into the logic that God is offering him but that's not what Jonah 4, 11 does.

It leaves us with a question and it's not having us meditate on the ship of sailors or a city of sinners or even a defiant prophet. It's about the character of God. The main concern of this book is brought into focus, a God whose compassion, the key word of chapter four, is put on magnificent display.

A God whose mercy is incomprehensible in its depth and breadth. Jim Boyce titled this chapter, "A God More Compassionate Than His Prophets" and to study Jonah chapter four as a minister and as a missionary, as a pastor, is to look at a careful study in God's compassion. So let's look at chapter four as it unfolds in these three scenes.

Let's start, number one, with the confrontation with God's character. A confrontation with God's character in verses one through three and then verses four through nine, a conversation in God's classroom and then third and finally, a challenge in God's question, verse 10 and 11. Let's look at these piece by piece.

Remember how this opens, chapter three, verse 10. When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way, he relented concerning the calamity which he had declared and would bring upon them and he did not do it. Verse one, but it greatly displeased Jonah. Literally, it was a great evil to Jonah.

This has a Hebrew wordplay in this chapter between the word evil, rah, and the word good, tob. And it brings this concept of evil right into focus and it's not necessarily a moral evil in the assessment of Jonah, but instead, the word evil means a massive disaster, incredible distress, a bad situation.

And Jonah, in his prophecy, we've already seen lots of evil, mainly Nineveh categorized this way. But now Jonah directs his great displeasure and his assessment of the repentance of this pagan city as a total disaster. It was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it burned to him. Verse one.

Combining that other theme in the book of Jonah, that word great. Nineveh's been called great, the storm is great, the fish is great, the wind is great, and now the disaster in Jonah's assessment can only be described as massive, as great. The city has turned from their wicked ways and now God has relented from his judgment.

And this great fish is now followed by a great evil because of the repentance of this great city. And Jonah is concerned about the very character of God. His assessment of the outcome of his ministry is it's all a disaster. In the opening scene of the book, you have a prophet arguing against God's mercy.

A prophet of Yahweh opposed to Yahweh's compassion. He has a problem here in chapter four with God's character and it's easy to punch on Jonah. Please note verse two, it says he prayed to Yahweh and said, and before we're too hard on Jonah, at least Jonah took his theological problem to the right place.

Too many pastors wrongly angry with God. There's nothing excusable about Jonah's anger towards God. Too many pastors have abandoned their posts and abandoned their prayers instead of bringing their sinful problem to God. In that way, Jonah is commendable here, at least in part because he knows where to take his troubles and if you've ever experienced difficulty in the ministry and if you've been a pastor for more than 15 seconds, you have.

If you've ever studied a text and wrestled with a theological problem about the character and nature of God, if you've lived in a fallen world, you've encountered these things that bring us to a place of theological and practical perplexity and to deal with them before God is what's commendable in Jonah's moment of sinful anger here.

Though he ascribes great evil to the decision God has made to grant the Ninevites repentance, at least he takes his problem to God. He prays to Yahweh and though he's sulky and bad-tempered, at least his irritation and annoyance drives him to pray. Does yours? Or do you take it out on the precious people that God has saved?

When we're in trouble, when we've encountered difficulty in ministry, it's our first instinct to bring our troubles in honesty and transparency to the throne room of heaven. Verse two helps me and points me to where I need to go when my thinking is not right. Take it to God, brothers.

It's not clear why Jonah is angry specifically and exactly. Commentators speculate why Jonah is angry with God. Is he specifically angry because God spared Nineveh? Opinions are various. Some consider Jonah to be a straight-up racist. He has narrow exclusivism. Calvin said it's because Jonah didn't wanna appear as a false prophet.

Some say there's political motivation because of Israel's enemies were being spared and what that entailed for the people, the covenant people of God. Some say that Jonah didn't buy the Ninevites' repentance as genuine. Some question it because of a subsequent generation of Ninevites were judged by God. Assyrians would fall under God's wrath, but it wasn't the same Ninevites.

It was a different generation, a different prophecy. My reading of chapter three, I think, is national repentance, and though it was perfunctory and generational, I think it was genuine. At this point in the story, the Ninevites are genuinely repentant, and so Jonah, whether he bought into it or not, I don't think that's the main reason for his anger.

Some say it's Jonah's nationalism because he believed that idolaters deserve judgment or the relationship between Amos and Hosea because Amos and Hosea were the prophets that would denounce Nineveh eventually in a later subsequent time, or perhaps it was because Jonah hopes that judgments on Nineveh might bring true repentance on an idolatrous Israel.

But we don't know the reason specifically behind Jonah's anger except what we're told, and we're told that Jonah is angry because God has been merciful to Nineveh. John McHugh says Jonah did not like God's way of being God. Davis says God is acting in a way that Jonah did not approve of.

And I think these brothers are helping us keep our focus on the text and what it actually says rather than conjecture here and what might or might not be going on behind the scenes. And when we do, we see something of tremendous value start to unfold in verse two towards the second half.

There is this meaty confessional or creedal statement. "In order to forestall this," Jonah says, "I fled to Tarshish, for I knew," here's Jonah's theological, logical response to God's mercy in Nineveh. "For I knew," this is spectacular, "that you are a gracious and compassionate God, "slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness "and one who relents concerning evil." And those words are so familiar to us, familiar to every follower of God because that is the basis of the statement of faith of the people of Israel.

In Numbers 14, it says, "The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, "forgiving iniquity and transgressions, "but he will by no means clear the guilty, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children "to the third and fourth generation. "Please pardon the iniquity of the people "according to the greatness of your steadfast love, "just as you've forgiven the people from Egypt until now." This theological content is all over the Old Testament.

You go to the Psalm, Psalm 86, it says, "Be gracious to me, O Lord, "for to you do I cry all the day, "glad in the soul of your servant, "for to you, O Lord, do not lift up my soul, "for you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, "abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

"Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer, "listen to my plea for grace. "In the day of my trouble, I call upon you to answer me. "There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, "nor are there any works like yours, "but you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love "and faithfulness." Psalm 86, 15.

Throughout the Old Testament, God is praised for these same attributes. In Nehemiah, towards the end of the Old Testament, chapter nine, verse 17, "In the moment of Israelites' national confession, "if they're brought back into their decimated land "with a broken temple, they speak these words. "They refuse to obey, were not mindful of the wonders "you performed among them, "confessing the sins of their forebears.

"They stiffen their neck and appointed a leader "to return to the slavery in Egypt, "but you are a God ready to forgive, "gracious and merciful, slow to anger "and abounding in steadfast love and did not forsake them." Later in the book of Nehemiah, at the end of the same prayer, what do the people say in their contrition?

Well, they talk about God in the exact same language. "Nevertheless, in your great mercy," Nehemiah 9, 31 and 32. "Nevertheless, in your great mercies, "did you not make an end of them or forsake them, "for you are a gracious and merciful God. "Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, "the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, "let all the hardship seem little to you "that has come upon us, upon our kings, "our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, "all your people since the time of the kings of Assyria "until this day." Or Psalm 116, five, "Gracious is the Lord and righteous.

"Our Lord is merciful." Joel 2, 13, "Wren your hearts, not your garments. "Return to Yahweh your God, for He is gracious and merciful, "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, "and He relents over disaster." It's everywhere. And all of it derives throughout the Old Testament. I gave you six or eight examples.

But it's pretty clear that this is the very heart of Israelite theology. Something that's the very foundation of all biblical theology about the nature of God. And every one of these psalmists or kings or leaders or deliverers or builders or prophets or poets or people are all drawing on this same concept.

All of it comes from the same place. It's God's revelation of Himself in Exodus 34. I mean, look at it briefly with me. Exodus 34. I know it's familiar to us, but that might be the problem. Verse six, because it was certainly familiar to Jonah, wasn't it? Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed, it's Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children, the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

And Moses quickly bowed his head towards the earth and worshiped. And here's what's amazing about this foundational treatment of the character of God. The context is idolatry. Isn't that what Exodus 32 is all about? Moses finds the people in their sin and it's in response to their sin that God reveals Himself to Moses and to the people.

Everyone's a theologian. And this text reminds us that there's a difference between what we confess and what we actually believe. To be able to articulate the heart of God in its revelation of Himself in biblical theology, but to not be able to embrace that truth is what's making Jonah so uneasy.

Jonah's doctrine is correct. His theology is impeccable, but he doesn't like where this is leaving him. He's not content with the character of God. Ellison writes this, "What is clear is that Jonah "was finding fault with God as He really is, "not as He imagined Him to be." And that's a common problem.

Lots of people say wrongly, "Well, I think God is like this." Well, God would never do that because I think God is like this. That's not what Jonah's doing. Jonah's a Calvinist. (congregation laughing) He knows his stuff, but he's not living it. The problem was Jonah had not yet adjusted his perspective to match God's perspective.

You see, Jonah understood that God was merciful because God had said He was merciful, but Jonah had grown hard-hearted and resented God's mercy. And this is particularly ironic because Jonah had just been the recipient of God's mercy. But that's not as hard as we think. We live in an evil and fallen world, brothers, and we are becoming increasingly aware of the need for the justice of God.

And we see confusion on every level of society and idolatry and wickedness and rebellion against the very elemental aspects of creation and God's design. Shocking miscarriages of justice, a general disdain of righteousness, a promotion of violence and evil. And it might be mindful for us to make sure that we're not more aware of God's judgment than God's mercy.

And this is what it comes down to is theology has to affect you. It must be experiential. You must believe what God says about Himself, but not just believe it, but embrace it. To affirm mercy is one thing. To embrace mercy is another thing altogether. But maybe that's not the issue because you have a heart for lost people.

But I want you to think about the outworking of the sovereignty of God, not from a doctrinal perspective, but from a wisdom perspective. Maybe the injustice on the television screen isn't bothering you because you know that God will set it all right, but what about when the injustice involves you, brother pastor?

Have you been maligned? Have you been mistreated? Spoken ill of? Falsely accused? How many Mondays have you thought, "Please throw me overboard"? Have you ever been on the brink of recapitulation, pastor? And you wondered, "God, why are you doing this? "I know what you're like, "but I don't like what you're doing in my life, "in our church, in this ministry." We can be very Jonah-like.

The trouble with Jonah continues in verse three. His request is, yet again, he wants out. He knows he can't run anymore, so he just says, "God," he actually is speaking to his own soul. In the Hebrew, he says, "Soul, die." Just die. He wants to be put out to pasture.

He wants to be given his pink slip. He's not interested in a severance package. He just wants to quit. He wants Doge to come get rid of him. (congregation laughing) He wants out of the prophetic business altogether. It didn't work out for him. He's spoiled now in his service to God.

He's done with grace. He's done with compassion. He's done with mercy. The compassion of God has ruined Jonah's ministry, and Jonah wants out. Calvin here calls Jonah's request monstrous. But how many ministers haven't felt this same weariness? The Apostle Paul knew we would feel this way when he penned to the Galatians.

"Don't grow weary in well-doing. "In the proper time, you'll receive your harvest." God is more gracious than we are. God is more compassionate than we are. God is more pursuing than we are. God is more loving than we are, and Jonah thinks God has gone too far in his mercy, and if only Jonah could see us here, bunch of Gentiles eating snacks all week with unwashed hands.

(congregation laughing) Gathered here, worshiping with very little regulations. Goyim. Jonah has no idea how far this would go. It started with Nineveh. It didn't actually start there. It started with Rahab, and Rahab, and then all over the place. There's a widow in Zarephath that gets her son resurrected, a leader of a pagan army named Nahum who's gonna be converted.

There's all these moments. A Moabitess comes in, and not just into God's family, right into the Messianic line. Joel's gonna prophesy about it, and then at Pentecost, the walls and the borders are all gonna break down, and God's gonna save all kinds of people that are disagreeable. People that are different than you, look different than you, talk different than you, come from 10,000 different cultures and areas, speak different languages, because that's what God's mercy looks like.

It looks like God saving all kinds of people, bad people, because it's the only kind that needs saving. This is what God's mercy looks like. God's gonna save people that you don't like, and people that don't like you, Pastor. Amen. And God is more gracious, more compassionate, more pursuing, more loving, and he will go too far in his mercy.

What about you? Do you underestimate the mercy of God as your default, seeing justice rather than grace? Because knowing sound theology isn't enough. You have to embrace it and live it and get your heart like God's heart. That's the outworking. Jonah would have poured out a bowl of wrath on that city.

He would have delighted in God treating them that way, but God poured forth mercy, and right theology has to be mingled with a soft heart. And what's so beautiful about this as we move into verses four through nine is there's a conversation in God's classroom. God is going to do work on Jonah.

He's gonna take him to school. He's got a tutorial, an object lesson, a one-on-one instructive parable of sorts, a little biblical counseling with props. He's gonna put Jonah in a hut. He's gonna homeschool him, hutschool him. And that's scene two, a conversation in God's classroom. Verse four, the Lord said, and if this isn't the grace of God, what is?

He engages Jonah in a conversation at this point. That's incredible. I mean, he could have just sent a big worm, just, oop. But instead, he has a conversation with Jonah in his classroom. Verse four, the Lord said, Yahweh said, do you have good reason to be angry? This passage is framed with verse nine asking the same question.

The object lesson that he teaches him is so clear here. Verse nine of chapter four says, God said to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? The object lesson that God demonstrates in his classroom for his prophet is framed by God's questions about the anger of Jonah.

God's first response to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry? The NAS says, ESV, do you do well to be angry? NLT, is it right for you to be angry? Do you have any right to be angry? Hebrew, rightly does it burn you? What a question, Ellison suggests this translation.

Are you sure you gauged the situation accurately? Yes. How else can you describe a question? It's a further evidence of God's great compassion now directed towards his prophet once again, proving what Jonah knew to be true about God, that God is gracious, that God is compassionate, that he is slow to anger, that he's abundant in that loyal, faithful, unbreakable, affectionate love, and he relents concerning evil, and he does it right here, yet again, not just to the Ninevites, but to his servants.

Aren't you grateful that God doesn't smush you out when you think wrong and act wrong? He's merciful even to his prophet and proves that Jonah knew God truly as God is. I marvel at this because God is still with Jonah. He's not left him. He still teaches Jonah. He still converses with Jonah.

He's teaching Jonah about grace and simultaneously extending grace to Jonah as he builds his tantrum tent. And he hopes to see God rain fire in the city. The verbs in verse five are pluperfect. It reads like this, "Jonah had gone out of the city "and had made a booth for himself there." Sulking in his hut.

And maybe, somebody asked me this question once. Preaching the book of Jonah at a retreat, and they said, "How could you say that Jonah, "how could you say that Jonah was repentant "in the belly of the whale, "when in chapter four, he acts like this?" And I thought it was a good question, but it wasn't a difficult question for me 'cause sometimes I act like this.

All the Christian life is repentance. And after you repent, usually you have to repent some more. Brian Estelle says it this way. He says, "Jonah shows himself to be a man, "still in human skin, prone to wander, "and then inclined to give in to anger, despair, "and self-justification in spite of his transformation "in the fish." Be careful, brothers.

None of us are ever done growing, done learning. We may have finished two years in the Tyrenaeus's lecture hall. I don't think that's how you say it. But we still need seminary. We don't graduate from this one, not until life is through. And the lordship of Christ doesn't mean his followers are sinless or perfect.

That's not what lordship means. It means that they're in a master class of repentance. That's why Luther said, "All of life is repentance." And Jonah, the repentant believer, the pouting prophet, is throwing a hot fit, builds his little hut out of whatever material he could find in the east desert outside of Nineveh, just images of Eden happening there as he expels himself from God's blessing.

You imagine this little meager shelter, and God takes occasion to do extreme home makeover and upgrades Jonah's little villa. And it's all a tutorial on grace. God appoints a plant, and this is all the meticulous sovereignty of God and Jonah appointing fish and appointing winds, and commentators get real scientific.

Is it a rinses plant or a castor oil plant? It's called a kikion plant. Sinclair Ferguson calls it kiki. Because it was so precious to Jonah. It gave him shade. He loved it. It felt good. This is a reminder that there are many prophets in God's economy who are bald.

(congregation laughing) I mean, otherwise it wouldn't have scorched his head if he had good hair. I don't think. And he's loving the shade in this plant. The verb matah, used for the fish, used for a plant, used to appoint the wind. It's the sovereignty of God in this whole thing.

And I love how God constantly drives his people back to the big book of creation, the natural side of theology, the general revelation of God. He wants his people and his ministers saturated in this world that God made. There's something that's a universal experience here to be engaged with the beauty of creation in this moment, and God has shown us a panoply of this in Jonah with the ocean and the seafaring, and now this strange supernatural plant that grows up and forms some beautiful covering for Jonah's shade and drops the temperature for him, makes it nice and in comfort.

There's intervention here. You couldn't have the book of Jonah without God's employment of his creation. You couldn't have the message of Job without the theology of zoology that God employs for his believers to hear something from his big book that he made to remind us that he is sovereign over creation, and this is what Jonah needed in this moment, and his anger is a parable from the world, 'cause Jonah isn't reading his Bible right now, I promise.

And so he's out there in God's creation, part of the natural world. I love that. I love to read missionary biographies. John G. Patton, missionary hero, great missionary in the New Hebrides. He's the guy who was warned about, you'll be eaten by cannibals, the old man told him from the Presbyterian mission board, he responds with, "Mr.

Dixon, we're all gonna be eaten "by worms, you first, 'cause you're old." That's a paraphrase. 48 years after the first missionaries were killed in the New Hebrides, John Patton would land on those islands and hundreds and hundreds of natives would be converted to Christ. His ministry there was so difficult.

His wife died, he remarried. It's just an incredible story. And in his biography, you find so much of that creational theology. The island he ministered on for all those years was soundly converted, it was called Ináhuac. Ináhuac came to see the effect of Christianity. And islanders from an adjacent island, Fortuna, came to see what Christianity looked like in Ináhuac, where he'd been ministering.

And he tells this story to brag on one of his preachers that he trained a native guy. It's a beautiful story, I'll read you just a piece of it. The day spring brought a large deputation from Fortuna, the other island not converted yet, to see for themselves the change which the gospel had produced on Ináhuac.

On Sabbath, the missionaries had conducted the usual public worship. Some of the leading Ináhuans addressed the Fortunas as visitors and said to them, "Men of Fortuna, "you have come to see what the gospel has done for us." They called Patton Missy, missionary, Missy. "You have come to see what the gospel has done for Ináhuac.

"It is Jehovah, living God, that has made all this change. "As heathens, we quarreled and killed and ate each other. "We had no peace and no joy in heart or house, "in the villages or in lands, "but we now live as brethren "and have happiness in all these things." When you go back to Fortuna and they ask you, "What is Christianity?" You'll have to reply, "It is that which changed the people "of Ináhuac," but they will still say, "What is it?" And you won't answer.

It's what that which has given them clothing and blankets and knives and axes and fish hooks and many other useful things. It is that which has led them to give up fighting and to live together as friends, but they will ask you, "What is it like?" And you'll have to tell them, "Alas, you cannot explain it.

"You've only seen its workings, not itself, "that no one can tell what Christianity is, "but the man that loves Jesus, the invisible master," and walks with him and tries to please him. "Now you people of Fortuna, you think that you don't dance "and you think that if you don't dance and sing "and pray to your gods, you will have no crops." It's about to get apologetic, hold on.

"You think you'll have no crops if you don't pray "and sing and dance to your gods. "We once did so too, sacrificing and doing much abomination "to our gods for weeks before planting season every year, "but we saw our missy," missionary, "only praying to the invisible Jehovah "and planting his yams.

"And they grew fairer than ours. "You are weak every year before your hard work "begins in the fields with your wild and bad conduct "to please your gods, but we are strong for our work "for we pray to Jehovah and he gives us quiet rest "instead of wild dancing and it helps us "to be happy in our toils.

"Since we followed Missy's example, "Jehovah has given to us a large and beautiful crop "and we now know that he gives us all our blessings." And then they turned to John Patton and this native preacher says to him, "Have you the large yam we presented to you? "Would you not think it well to send it back "with these men of Fortuna to let their people "see the yams which Jehovah grows for us "in answer to prayer?" Jehovah is the only God who can grow yams like that.

Yam apologetics, sweet potato theology. It's a simple reminder that our God is God over all of nature, winds and waves and storms and sea creatures and sailors and Ninevites and the poor and a king and a vine and a worm and wind and yams and you, pastor, are part of God's creation.

And when we put ourselves in the realm we belong, little, little lower than the angels, made in the likeness and image of God, we can learn so much about our foolish perspective when we think ourselves more than creatures. Thomas Brooks wrote that sweet message on assurance called "Heaven on Earth" and he has a list of arguments about assurance that I've used ministering to college students a bunch of times.

My favorite one is based on the Great Commission and general revelation. He reminds the person wondering if they're truly saved that Jesus said, "Preach the gospel to all creatures," Matthew 28, and his question is this, "Brother, are you among the rank of creatures?" That's a good one. Do you qualify for that when the gospel's for you?

Only Yahweh can grow yams like that. Only Yahweh can grow a plant like this to demonstrate the sovereign nature of God's pure grace. And when you see your entire life as grace, that everything that you have is owed to God, that you are part of God's demonstrating his glory, in creation, he gives Jonah this object lesson that should be real to every pastor who needs to leave his study for a few minutes and go outside and look at the sky.

Not directly at the sun, but look at the sky. And you'll receive from God a gift of being part of his wonderful creation. And this plant grows up and Jonah's mad when it dies. So mad, he demands death yet again. He's God appoints that scorching wind and the sun beats down on Jonah's bald head and he becomes faint and begs with his soul to die.

Better to me is death than life. One commentator says this, "He does not object to the divine compassion "and salvation directed to those like himself, "but when it's also effective for the wicked, "he cannot abide it. "Yet he is unwilling to live without his old belief "and because he refuses to let Yahweh "transform his anger into love, "his pity for plants into the pity for people, "his compassion of what the object of divine mercy "ought to be into what Yahweh has shown him "it actually is, he desperately longs to die." And that's because Jonah didn't understand grace.

Grace says that everything we have is from God, not from our earnings, not from our dessert. We have what we have because of the incredible grace of God and that includes oxygen and shade and salvation. The Lord preserves sailors in Jonah and then he destroys the plant. Emphatic pronouns in verse 10 and 11, the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant "for which you did not work "and which you did not cause to grow.

"It came up overnight and perished overnight." And now we see finally the challenge in God's question. He makes one of these call Yomer arguments, these heavy to light arguments. God's trying to do a lesser to a greater here. You have compassion on photosynthesis and chlorophyll, stems and leaves rather than on a people.

And he's pressing Jonah towards this concluding question, this logical inference, a contrast of value, a comparison. And all the emphasis is on God's freedom to act in compassion. His classroom is a classroom of grace. His character is marked by mercy. And now the challenge is, how are you going to respond to this reality?

Is Jonah gonna keep haystacking at this city until it finally ceases to exist? Or is he going to see the heart of God for his creation that has inherent dignity because they're made in his likeness and image? And you have a theological Copernican revolution and recognize that he's not the center of this, but that God is, and he needs to fix his eyes on the glory of God.

And God is doing whatever he pleases in this world. He's having mercy on whom he'll have mercy. This is the exact truth that Paul wrestles with in Romans 9 through 11. He'll be gracious to him, he'll be gracious. He'll show compassion to him, he'll show compassion. Jonah, can you get in line?

Grace insists on the freedom of God to do what he wills to do, and that's why it's called sovereign grace. God is a God of compassion, and we see it here in Jonah, but Jonah doesn't see it yet. Two things to conclude here. One, this isn't the end of the story.

Not for this prophet from a region that would come back into focus. You see, there's another young man who will grow up in the same region. It'll be called Galilee. He'll never sin, he'll never rebel. He'll be a spokesman on behalf of God as well. And the people that see this young man who takes on the name of that great leader that followed Moses, Yeshua, they'll see in Jesus the tremendous authority as he speaks on behalf of God.

And he too will cry out for people to repent, much like his forerunner Jonah did. And two times in the lips of the Lord, he'll reference Jonah in his tomb of death as a prophecy of his work to come. And the people who will see this Galilean will see something they never saw in Jonah because the compassion of God is seen most clearly in his son.

"He will personify," Jonah 2.9, "salvation comes from the Lord." And the one who brought salvation also brings with him tremendous compassion as he stretches out his hands and touches people and says like, "I am willing to be cleansed." As he reaches out and ministers to complete social pariahs, touching the untouchable, including these outsiders, saving sinners and vile tax collectors.

People would throw rocks at lepers and tell them to stay away. And Jesus would move freely among them in compassion to heal them. He'd look at vast crowds of people, the son of man would, and he would see all these people, Matthew 14, 14, and Jesus felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

And Jesus would go to areas that were unclean, like Gennesaret, and find a demonic man and change him from the inside out and commission him to go with compassion on the 10 Gentile cities. And Jesus would find a widow that needed healing just like Elijah did way back when.

And Jesus would extend mercy to a dying child and restore that precious one to the family. And Jesus would touch the eyes of the blind and they would immediately regain their sight. And he would sit up on that hill overlooking Jerusalem and the son of man would weep and he would say, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets "and stones those who sent her?

"How often I wanted to gather your children together "like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings "and you are unwilling." The magnificent compassion throughout the ministry of Jesus is brought into focus as he is a prophet from this same place that Jonah was. Feeling compassion on large crowds preaching the gospel to lost people in their sins.

And the Bible tells us that Jesus expressed continually the compassion of God, both in emotion and in action. And God's love and his deep display is impacted as God sends his son to a lost world. First to the lost sheep of Israel, and then as he commissions his followers, that mission expands far beyond the borders from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And all of that is reminding us that God is a God of compassion. There is no missionary endeavor to any unreached people that goes beyond God's compassion, God's massive capacity for compassion, because God is more merciful than you think he is. He's more gracious than you think he is.

And if you really understood the holiness of God and the sinful depravity of our own hearts, you would begin to recognize the depth of God's mercy that is far beyond our comprehension. When is God too compassionate for your tastes? Are there people or nations that you believe to be beyond his mercy?

Homosexuals, ISIS, liberals. How do we limit God's compassion? Have we confused the doctrine of election for elitism? Because God's compassion is stunning, and he will stun you with it. His mercy is overwhelming, and Jonah was overwhelmed by it. And as Jesus's ministry unfolded, the compassion of God is seen most clearly on the cross of Christ as he forgave those who crucified him and knew that his disciples would take the message of the one who gave his life for the sins of all who would believe in their place.

Don't question the character of God because his justice is clearly displayed with his sovereignty on the cross of Christ, a place of enormous and extraordinary and eternally lasting compassion. And secondly, without a scribal note to guide us at the end of Jonah, what happened to Jonah? Did Jonah get it?

I think he did. Because where else in the world did we get the book of Jonah from? I think Jonah wrote it. I think the Worm wrote it. Who else was on that blistering, hot field that day? And I think something happened after this confrontation. I think Jonah had to tell his story.

And I think that all biblical writers, he told it straight. He told it honest, he penned it right. I think Jonah came around. And if you've ever questioned the character of God and it's outworking in your life and ministry, his justice, his sovereign plan, if you've ever thought God wasn't there, that he hadn't been generous or he wasn't good, ground your faith in the reality that we've learned from this book.

Become a willing prophet or teacher. Once you're persuaded, Calvin says, that God truly is merciful. And I think Jonah became persuaded that God is merciful. And I think that's why he wrote this book. And I think the unbreakable logic of God lined Jonah's heart to God's heart. And I think if you pursue that same heart of God and compassion, it can happen in your life and ministry too.

One missionary realized this named J. Verkeel writing in a book called The Biblical Foundation of the Worldwide Missions Mandate. He learned something from Jonah and he comments on this final line. And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting for a host of Jonah's in their comfortable houses to come around to his way of loving. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Show them the compassion and love of God in Christ. And never forget that God saves wicked people like us.

Can we trust that God is doing it when we don't understand what he's up to? Can we sit in his classroom as he shapes us and works on us? And can we have a heart become like the heart of our Lord, a heart that loves sinners? Have compassion on the lost and prove it.

Tell them about Jesus. Father, thank you for sending Christ to be a blessing to all the people of the earth. Remove our narrowness, our rigidness, our resistance. Make us eager to see the unfolding of your compassion to lost people. We thank you, God, for the message of Jonah, a message that's unforgettable because it puts on us your extraordinary compassion.

In Jesus' name, amen. (water trickling) (water trickling) (water trickling) you

Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary - Austin Duncan

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