we saw that Jonah is part of the minor prophets, right? He's not minor because he's insignificant, but he's just shorter in length. And so he's four chapters in which we've seen. And what we've seen in these four chapters is much gold. And so we're gonna just overview this. And the focus is, I wanna focus us on the mercy of God, that he is the author of salvation, that he shows mercy even to his enemies. And then I want us to reflect on that as well, and how does that apply to us? The big idea I want us to really get is this, because God has promised that through Israel, the nations would be blessed. He will save those whom he wills, and in the process, teach and show his people of his grace and mercy of salvation. Now, as you look at the outline, five ways. You're probably thinking, we're not gonna get through with that, but hopefully we'll be surveying this And we're gonna see just the first four chapters by way of survey. And I titled chapter one, Jonah's Rebellion and God's Grace. Chapter two, The Prayer of Salvation. Chapter three, Nineveh's Repentance. And chapter four, God's School of Mercy and Grace. From that, I want us to consider Jonah as a book of prophecy. And through that, we'll see how it prophetically speaks of Israel, but also Christ. So let's consider first Jonah's rebellion. Look at verse one of chapter one. As we've seen this, this is the classic formula for introducing a prophet. The word of the Lord came to so-and-so, to Isaiah. to Amos, to fill in the blank, whichever prophet, we see generally, this is the formula to introduce a prophet. And this is how God gives his message through the prophets, right? The prophets are meant to be a spokesperson for the Lord, right? They're not to make their own message, but they're just to deliver it as God gave it. So here we see the classic formula, and Jonah is that prophet. And as we study it and look at his name, we actually realize, well, he seems like the perfect prophet for the task. Right, notice his name means dove, which as you recall within the ark is what? A symbol of peace. After God had shown his wrath on the world for sin and flooded everything in the judgment waters, you see Jonah, the dove, the peace is here. but he's also the son of Amittai, which means faithful. So this is the dove, the peace person who is son of the faithful. So as the word of the Lord comes to this person, to this person represented by dove, who's the son of the faithful, we expect obedience. We expect he's the perfect man for the task because the task before him, God says, arise, go to Nineveh and proclaim against it. God has seen the evil of Nineveh. And now it's time to proclaim judgment is coming. Nineveh was a capital of Assyria. And this would be the superpower of the day who would one day overthrow Jerusalem and he'd take them into captivity. The Ninevites were notorious for violence. They were notorious for their idolatry. In fact, they would go on their mission to make it a goal to torture people. They would even make statues and sacrifices showing how they tortured people. And so this is an evil people and much less, they did this especially to Israel. They were a thorn in Israel's side. The people of Israel hated the Ninevites. And you're being set up here as the perfect man, the one of peace, the faithful one who's gonna proclaim God's word. And so we'd expect obedience, but then we see verse three, Jonah here breaks the pattern that we expect for prophets. Prophets, you expect, here I am, send me. You think of Isaiah, when the word of the Lord came to him. And what happened? He goes the opposite way. He doesn't obey the Lord. This faithful peace person that we see here doesn't fulfill his name. God called him to go to Nineveh, to go west, to proclaim to these people. What does he do? He goes east, away, in the exact opposite direction he was called to be. And we could be quick to say, Jonah, you're so foolish. How could you do this to God? But we'd do well to put ourselves in the shoes of Jonah and just understand how wicked the Ninevites were. Again, we said evil, murderous, violent people, idolaters. Like we said, they were notorious for their torture, for their murder. And there would one day actually be a prophecy against Assyria that would conquer Israel. And God's assignment is to you go to that city and proclaim judgment in 40 days. This is unthinkable for a Jew. We're not even gonna step foot in that unless we be corrupted. So Jonah runs away from God. Notice, away from his presence. And Jonah should know better than this, right? There's nowhere you can go apart from God's presence. And Jonah knew that. He knew Psalm 139, where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? Right? Shall I go to the heavens? You are there. Make my bed in Sheol? You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea? You are there. Yeah, Jonah runs to the seas. And literally we can say, he didn't flee from his presence, but literally we can translate as from before his face, which was the office of prophet. They stood before the face of God and received God's word and they proclaimed it. So Jonah here is resigning from his office of prophet. He's basically saying, God, if this is your assignment for me, I'd rather quit. Jonah knows that by preaching 40 days judgment, you might be thinking, well, Jonah, that's a good message. You don't like these people, you want judgment. Shouldn't you go proclaim that? Well, he knows God's merciful, and he wants his judgment to come on these people instantly. By giving them 40 days advance warning, it's to say, I'm giving you opportunity to get your act together, to be judged if you don't. It's a warning. So it's giving them opportunity to repent. And Jonah knows this, and in chapter four, as we saw, he said, Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was in my country? That's why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster. Jonah doesn't want mercy and grace for his enemies, for these evil people. He sees the evil that they've done, and he says, they deserve judgment now. No opportunity to repent. He wants a serious judge now. But God had his plan, as we were talking Sunday school, for Israel to be a blessing to the nations. So any idea from the Jews that excludes the nations is contrary to God's original plan. And God's meant to include them from the beginning. That you are to be a light to the nations. You'll be a blessing to the nations. But Jonah says, no, I want the mercy and grace just for me and my people. So he refuses, instead he runs. Notice he runs to Joppa, which was a very Gentile city. A very Gentile city. This was actually a port, a seaport area where all the nations would come and be there. And so Jonah runs, he's supposed to run to one Gentile area, he runs to another Gentile area in the Jewish mine. to go away from Israel was to go down, right? Because Israel was to be a city on a hill, where the temple was, was to be on a hill. So to leave Israel would be to go down in their understanding. And so Jonah in his rebellion is pictured as going down, down, down. And so as he runs away and rebels in his downward descent, the Lord pursues him, verse four. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. There was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God. They hurled cargo that the ship was into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So God is pursuing Jonah. He's stopping him in his tracks. And so he sins, notice he hurled a great wind. So God is sovereign over the winds and the waves and Jonah in his rebellion provokes the Lord to come and stop him. So he sends a sea. Jonah isn't concerned, he'd rather die and perish in the sea than to obey what God is calling him to do. And so what does he do? We find him asleep. Not that he was just super tired, he just didn't care. He didn't care if he perished, He didn't care if the sailors perished, so he's asleep in the bottom part of the ship. And the sailors, who are expert sailors, who have seen many storms, see this storm, and this is different. This is threatening their life. They realize we're about to die, and so what do they do? They go ahead and start throwing things overboard. They're very livelihoods, right? They're taking all this cargo to Tarshish so that they can make money and profit, and they're throwing that overboard. This is a great cost to them. And they realize, despite all our efforts, we're still sinking. We're still gonna perish. So they cry out to their gods. These are pagan sailors here who don't know any better, who haven't heard anything. And what do they do? They cry out. And they try to make sure, let's go to everyone, make sure they're praying to their god. Maybe one of their gods could help. So they come to Jonah. In fact, the captain, the pagan captain comes to Jonah and sees him. What do you mean you're sleeper? In other words, what are you doing sleeping at a time like this? Call to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us and that we may not perish. So the captain comes here, a pagan captain, and speaks similar words that what God spoke to Jonah earlier. He said, arise, go, call out. This should be a subtle rebuke to Jonah. But what do we see here is Jonah doesn't pray, he keeps silent. He's like, nope. If it means I have to go to Nineveh, I am not praying. So Jonah's asleep, he doesn't care. Jonah refuses to pray. And as a result, the sailors are panicking. So they cast lots. Whose fault is this? God is angry at them. So they cast lots, and in God's sovereignty, he arranges the lots to fall on Jonah. Jonah's trying to keep his mouth shut, he's trying to hide, but God exposes his sin and has the lot fall on him. So they question him, extensively. Who are you? Where are you from? What's your occupation? Jonah answers, he's been caught red-handed, and he has to speak out. And as he speaks out, you notice the irony in what he confesses. He confesses true things about God, but he's not living by them. Verse nine, and he said to them, I'm a Hebrew, I fear the Lord. Really? You're running away from him. Who made the sea and the dry land. Okay, you're running away on the sea that he created. Jonah, are you thinking clearly here? 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 Lord because he told them. So Jonah says, I am fleeing Yahweh, the covenant keeping name of God, the one who created everything, the land, the sea. I am rebelling against him. He called me to do this. I'm going the other way. And all this storm that you see is a result of me. What are you doing? Don't you care about us, about your own life? So they ask, what do we do to satisfy this God's wrath? The waters are going crazy, the winds, this chaotic judgment waters as we saw a picture that the scriptures paint of the waters being a form of wrath and judgment. We saw this with Noah and the flood and the chaotic waters. And so God's wrath needs to be satisfied because his sin has been committed. And Jonah would rather die in judgment than be obedient and go and do what God said. God seeks to discipline his wayward child, right? He's a loving father. He wants to teach him. And every good father would want to discipline his son if he's wayward. And in so doing, he exposes sin. Proverbs 15.10 says, there is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way." Jonah's forsaken the way. He's going away from the Lord and God's trying to get him back on his path. Yet Jonah refuses to do God's will here. And Jonah says, well, if you want to satisfy this wrath of God, if you want to calm the seas so that you may live, throw me in. Just throw me in. Jonah would rather die than be obedient. He is suicidal here, but he doesn't want to do the deed himself, knowing his Jewish religion and what happens with that. Yet despite this, despite Jonah's ill motives for speaking here, God is gonna use this as a miraculous picture of salvation for these sailors. They refuse. They cherish his life more than Jonah cherishes his own. So they refuse and they try to paddle even harder to their own lack of effort there. What happens? They paddle, nothing's happening, and finally they cry out in hope. They realize this is the only way. We either have to trust in the provided means by which this prophet said, or we're gonna die. They refuse at first. Every man in their own strength realized we cannot escape God's judgment. By our own efforts, we must trust in God's prescribed means. They realized that's their only hope. Look at verse 14. They called out to the Lord. Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not innocent blood on us. For you, oh Lord, have done as it pleases you. So they pick up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. So the men here cry out to God and say, forgive us. Don't count us as murderers for this man's sake. They had greater regard for his life than his own, and they toss him in. And what happens, the Judgment Waters are calmed, but they don't see Jonah anymore. From their perspective, the sailors see, we tossed this man into these waters, he sank down into the watery deluge, and what happens here, this man died so that we may live. A picture, a picture of salvation. The one must die for the many. He faced the judgment for us so that we could escape and live. And that's what they saw. As we know, that resulted in faith. Notice they called out to the Lord, Yahweh, capital L-O-R-D. Jonah had told him about it. They call out to him. They ask for forgiveness. They go and have faith in the appointed means, and as a result, Out of their gratitude, they offered sacrifice and made vows. This is conversion. Jonah didn't want the Gentiles to be converted, and despite his efforts, God's plan of salvation still happened. God showed mercy to these sailors. Which shows us the next point, a prayer of salvation. Look at verse 17, and then the chapter two. 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 away from the sights of the sailors, under the waters, God appointed a great fish. This fish swallowed Jonah, rescuing him from his watery descent. He was going down, down, down, down to the depths, and God rescued him. Notice he appointed a great fish. Again, at the end of chapter two, what do you see? The Lord spoke to the fish. And this isn't just any word for fish. It's a word for like Megas fish. In other words, if you remember back in Genesis, one of the first creatures God created in the seas was the great Leviathan, the one who cannot be controlled. Yet here it says, this fish obeyed God. He spoke. Yet Jonah here, the rebellious prophet, doesn't obey God. So you have this fish that swallows Jonah. One person, I heard one preacher say this, when a man catches a fish, it's not a big deal. But when a fish catches a man, that's a huge deal. Just like God appointed the storm, he appoints the fish and so he's sovereign over all creation. Jonah was saved by grace. What did he deserve? The wages of sin is death. He deserved to face God's judgment. And he faced it to an extent, but God saved him, so rather than judgment, it became discipline. He was in the belly of the great fish for three days, three nights, and while he was there, he had time to think. He's reflecting on the mercy he just experienced. And it's there he has this heartfelt prayer. He realizes that this fish that was sent ended up being the vessel of salvation so that he might live. to bring him through the judgment water. So God gave the sailors a picture of salvation. Now he gives Jonah a picture of salvation here, in his grace and mercy. Notice, then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God from the belly of the great fish, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me, out of the belly of Sheol I cried out, and you heard my voice. In this prayer, what do we see is, as I brought out last time, we see the reflection of the Heidelberg Catechism here. Question two, which brings out about, you know, how do we live for God, a life pleasing to Him? It starts off the motivation. The question is, what do I need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort, of pleasing the Lord? Answer first, how great my sin and miseries are. Second, how I am delivered from all my sins and miseries. Third, how I am to be thankful to God for such a deliverance. And it's a thankful heart that motivates a heart of obedience. And that's what we see here in Jonah's prayer. He meditates on his sin. He meditates on his rebellion. He meditates on his descent and how he was facing judgment. He was getting exactly what he deserved, but God in his grace and mercy delivered him from that sin and misery, preserving his life. And now he shows thankfulness at the end of the prayer. So let's just briefly look at the prayer here. Jonah is at a low point, right? He is descending further, further down. He hits a very low point. In fact, he hits the very bottoms of the sea, the sandbars, as we could say. Jonah sees this fish as an answer to prayer. He sees it as the salvation of the Lord. He was descending, and notice he says, and the Lord heard my prayer. I called out, the Lord heard my distress. He answered me. And so he's descending, and the answer to his prayer is the fish. He's not praying in the fish, Lord, deliver me from the fish. He's praying as he, notice, for you cast me in the deep, in the hearts of the sea, the floods surrounded me, all your ways and billows passed over me. Then I said, I'm driven away from your sight. He thinks he's dying and he's gonna be cast out, cut off from the presence of the Lord forever. But then he calls out, he says, yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. So just like the ark was a vessel of salvation that brought Noah through the judgment waters to a new life, so too the great fish was the vessel to bring Jonah through the chaotic waters back to dry land, which Christ says is a picture of the resurrection. His prayer reflects much of the Psalms as well. So what we see in Jonah, if you remember chapter one, The word of the Lord came to Jonah, and he ran away from it. The captain asked him, pray. He was silent. In chapter two, we see a reversal of that. Now the words come from Jonah's lips, saturated with the word of God. Now he's praying once again, because he's experienced the salvation of the Lord. And he's quoting much of the Psalms. We recall Psalm 120, verse one, 18.6, 16.10. much of the Psalms because his heart has been informed by the scriptures. He studied these things. And as he meditates on the scriptures, he's understanding and reflecting some of the things people have gone before him, like David, as he suffered as well, as he understood what it was to be judged and things like that. Jonah here reflects those. In fact, he's literally reflecting some of those things. And he acknowledges, it's because of my disobedience that you cast me in the sea. Notice, you cast me into the deep. He realizes this is God's hand here. Even though it was the sailors who threw him in, they were merely instruments. As he descended, he felt like he was being cut off. But in his descent, he cried out for mercy. He remembered the Lord was gracious and merciful. He said, yet I shall look upon your holy temple. In the darkness and despair, as he's hit rock bottom, he remembers the Holy Temple. He says, I'll see that again, because God's merciful to me. He believed in the Lord's mercy. The Holy Temple was the presence of God. That's where the Ark of the Covenant was, and he's remembering that. He says, I will be in your presence once more because you are merciful. But as Jonah recalls that, he's also remembering the temple reminded him of how God deals with sin. Yes, I sinned, but God spared my life. The wages of sin is death, but he spared me. That means someone must die in my place. There must be a sacrifice to atone for my sins. And so he's remembering what the temple signified and pointed forward to. In the midst of that Jonah remembers his watery descent. Look at verse five, the waters closed over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me, the weeds wrapped about my head, the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. He's speaking of Sheol, the bars, and it was pictured as a cell. Once the bars close, you're eternally there. You're done. And he realized as I hit rock bottom, literally, where the mountains are at the bottom of the seas, He thought his life was over. But notice, yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. This reminds us of Psalm 16, verse 10. When his life was fading away, he realized and remembered the Lord and prayed and cried out and the Lord saved him. And so in this prayer, notice Jonah's repeatedly reminding himself of the temple, of God's presence, of how God deals with sin. Once again, he looks upon his temple. He's reminded of these things. God didn't let him die. But then he says a peculiar thing in verse eight. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. It's a peculiar statement because Jonah's maybe repentance, if you will here, is not perfect. He makes this statement here as if he's still holding a grudge against the Ninevites. Those guys though, yes, I experienced the Lord, I'm one of your chosen ones, I'm a righteous person, I serve you, Lord, and yeah, I messed up here, but I'm not as bad as those people. Those who regard to vain idols, they forfeit any hope of love. He paints them in a bad light. He goes, they're pagans and they don't deserve salvation. The irony here is Jonah's not realizing that he too doesn't deserve salvation, that he's just experienced the mercy of the Lord, that he was a sinner, he rebelled against the God of the universe, and he too is just like them. In fact, he was idolizing his own desires and his own will. And in this sense, he didn't deserve it. Yet God showed him mercy. But even though it's not perfect repentance, he is thankful for his salvation. Look at verse nine. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. The grace and mercy he's just experienced has overflowed into gratitude. As he's meditated on his sin, as he realizes that God has saved him from those sins, he's now overflowed with gratitude. And gratitude, a grateful heart, is an obedient heart. And so now he says, I will vow what I have vowed I will pay. In other words, what you've called me to do, Lord, to be a prophet, to go and do your work, I'll do it. I'll go do what you called me to do. And then he says this, salvation belongs to the Lord. This is the main message of Jonah. He had to learn this lesson the hard way. This means salvation comes from God alone. We can't do anything to merit it. He gives it as he wills. Salvation's not up to Jonah. He doesn't give it to whom he wills, he gives it to whom God wills. It's entirely up to God. Yet we'll see he quickly forgets that. So verse 10, the Lord spoke to the great fish and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land. So God gives a divine, a watery, fishy taxi to take him right back to where he should have been, to where he should have went. And he spits him back on dry land on the shore This is the great fish who obeys God, obeys his word, delivers Jonah back to where he should have gone in the first place. Which brings us to chapter three, Nineveh's repentance. So the word of the Lord comes again, and this is a gracious thing. It's gracious that God preserved Jonah's life, but to actually reinstate him as prophet again after this? Surely there's people more faithful that he could have resorted to, yet he goes back to Jonah. Says, you know, Jonah, you're not outside of my will. You didn't forfeit your job. You know, maybe he's thinking, maybe he, who knows where he's thinking this fish is actually gonna take him. Maybe he said, oh, I'll see your holy temple again because this fish is gonna take me back to Israel and I'll be with my people. But he opens up and he's back on dry land and he realizes this is not Israel. This is Nineveh. This is where God wants me to go. And so Jonah, though, arises and goes to Nineveh. Quite different from chapter one. He's no longer a man running away from God, but a man who's now obedient. Now he doesn't preach perfectly, he doesn't have his motivations perfect here at this point, but God is still using broken but humble minister to proclaim his word. And it's a gracious thing for God to go back and allow Jonah to speak for him. It's also a gracious thing for Nineveh, right? He goes to Nineveh and proclaims warning. Here's what's gonna happen, 40 days. Notice he says, he brings out, Jonah began to go in the city, and he called out, you have 40 days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. So we're not told the fullness of the message here. This is likely the summary of what the Holy Spirit wants us to know. And you can think of the message that happened. People are hearing about this man who was in a fish for three days. He definitely looks different. He's probably bleached and all this different stuff, which provokes the question, what on earth happened to you? And surely, he would tell people, well, God told me to come here. I refused. I cried out for mercy as I was being thrown into the sea and he granted me mercy and now I'm here to tell you judgment is coming. And so now, notice the people follow his pattern. Well, if he's speaking of judgment, then maybe this God will show us mercy if we cry out for mercy too. That's what happened to Jonah. And it reminds us that God is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and he gives advance warning to them for the purpose of them changing their ways. It's a merciful thing for warning to go out. So you're prepared, so you can change. It's a call for action, do this or else. And there's a timeframe given and God was patient and his patience is meant to lead to repentance. Isaiah 55, six, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Well, 40 days you have. Verse five, and the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. God uses this broken prophet's word and message to bring about conversion of these people. And this is true repentance, and it's something that God alone grants. These people were dead in their sins, Ephesians 2, but God being rich in mercy made them alive, to which they can see their sins and cry out. It's an evidence of conversion here, and the message even reached the king. And we see further evidence of true repentance here, because what does he do? He takes off his royal robe, and that is unthinkable for a king to do. It's unthinkable for him to leave his throne, and what does he do? He gets on his knees. He puts on sackcloth and ashes. What king does that? This was the cultural practice of mourning and humility and shame. And he does this as an example also for the people. And he issues a proclamation saying, everyone repent. Everyone put on sackcloth and ashes, even the animals. You know, we don't fully know what this God is wanting. Surely we can appease this somehow. Maybe, maybe he'll show us mercy. He exhorts them all to cry out to God for mercy. Maybe he'll turn from his anger towards us. So God grants repentance and as we know at the end, he doesn't bring his wrath, which makes an angry prophet, Jonah. Which brings us to the next point, God's school of mercy and grace. Notice, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly. He was angry and he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew you are gracious, God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live. Jonah was not happy with God showing mercy to these evil people. They have done sins that were atrocious in his eyes, that were unforgivable because his people and himself were affected. Imagine if someone murdered someone in your own family and God decides to show mercy and grace to them. That's what Jonah's feeling here. It's unthinkable how we want justice. So Jonah's not happy and he's having a hard time understanding how can God forgive and show mercy and still be a just judge. So what does he do? Notice we can translate this verse, exceedingly displeased, this way. It was exceedingly evil in Jonah's sight and he burned with anger. So Jonah attributes God's mercy to these people as evil. He's basically saying, God, you're not being just. They deserve judgment. They've broken your law and they've sinned atrociously. He's also tarnished because of his reputation as a prophet, right? He proclaimed 40 days, 40 days came and there's no judgment. So now he's looking like a false prophet. So Jonah throws a pity party. He draws a line in the sand and says, God, just kill me. If this is what you're gonna do, if you're gonna show mercy to these pagan idolaters, these evil murderous people, then just kill me because I'd rather die than live according to your will. He's thinking he can maybe manipulate God here. God, who are you gonna choose? Your faithful prophet who went and did what you said, or are you gonna choose these evil people? The Lord said, do you do well to be angry? Are you done yet, Jonah? Your pity party isn't gonna change me. I have a will, a purpose. Yes, you don't really see it yet or appreciate it yet, but do you do well to be angry? Do you have a reason to be angry, Jonah? Verse five, Jonah went out to the city, sat east of the city, made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade till he should see what become of the city. So Jonah sets up a booth, and if you're familiar with Israel's ceremonies, they have the Feast of Booths, which as we said, is a symbol of Israel's mercy and grace that they were shown by God by rescuing them out of Egypt. Yet rather than sitting in a booth that symbolizes mercy, he sits under the booth and wants justice and judgment. He wants to see hellfire rain down from heaven and consume the city just as it did Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, he uses a very similar word here, the word overthrow. And this is the word that also describes Sodom and Gomorrah, being overthrown here. And so Jonah is angry and he sits there to see, okay, what's God gonna do? Is he gonna choose me? and destroy the city, or is he just gonna kill me? Jonah waits, and to Jonah's shame, he sees the city still there. Yet he's decided, I'm just gonna stay here. And God decides to give him a lesson, an object lesson. So he brings up a plant. And God here is showing, obviously your little booth here, Jonah, that your makeshift is insufficient in the desert. So let me provide a little bit more for you. Let me show you grace and give you comfort. Notice it said to save you. Let me give you another picture of grace, another picture of salvation here. So God here gives them an object lesson, a little lesson about grace. Look, here's something that you did nothing to work for. Here's something that arose and you benefit and you endure the blessings of it. And it was just provided for you as a gift. And Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. So the irony here is he loves this plant and what it does for him. But fellow image bearers, made in the image of God, he could care less for. He wants judgment. So God says, okay, well, step two, you want judgment on people. Let me give you a little taste of judgment. So what does he do? He brings up the worm. The worm consumes the plant, the plant dies, and now is exposed to Jonah to the heat, but not only that, he brings that scorching east wind. Notice God appointed these things. He appoints the plant, he appoints the worm, he appoints the wind. God is sovereign over all the elements and over creation, and he uses them for his purposes. In scripture, we see the worm as a symbol of judgment. Deuteronomy 28, 39 speaks of them making vineyards, but God will send a worm to eat them. Another sign of judgment is heat, right? We can see the scorching heat. When it speaks of hell, it always speaks a bit about fire and heat and brimstone. So God's point is, let me give you an object lesson. First, grace, something you didn't deserve. And you're wanting judgment against that, against these people. So let me give you a taste of what you're asking for. I'm gonna take that away, something you didn't deserve, something you weren't given, you didn't work for, and now it's taken away, and now you experience the worm, and you experience the heat. And that's really a description of hell, right? Where the worm never dies, where the fire is never quenched. And Jonah here is getting a taste, and so what do we see? The sun beat down on Jonah's head. Jonah was faint, and he asked that he might die, and said, it's better for me to die than live. But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? He said, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. Jonah's anger is ignited because Nineveh was spared, but when the plant comes, he's exceedingly glad for the first time ever in the book, but with the destruction of the plant, he's angry again, and he pities the plant. And we too can be angry at times when God takes things away from us, things that maybe we cherish most, Things that we feel like we can't live without. Sometimes God is teaching us an object lesson. We need to cherish him above all things. Verse 10, and the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. Should I not pity Nineveh, the great city, in which more than 100,000 persons who do not know their right from their left hand, and also much cattle? The book closes with God's summary statement here, and a question. God gets to the point of his lesson, it's an argument from the lesser to the greater. He goes, Jonah, you pity this plant, this plant you did nothing for, you didn't work for, you didn't till the ground, you didn't plant the seed, nothing, it just sprouted up, you benefited from it. This is grace. You pity that plant. The plant doesn't have a soul, it isn't made in the image of God, and you have no claim over this plant. You did nothing to this plant, you didn't create it. So why are you pitting over it if it's gone today? If it's here today, gone tomorrow? God's saying this was a gift. Rather, see it from my perspective, Jonah. From that argument to the greater, look at Nineveh. God's saying this is my city, whom people I created and made in my image, whom I cultivated. I should have pity on them. And if I wanna show grace to them, I can show grace, because I'm their creator. God, as creator, has more compassion for those things that are made in his image. And he shows it. God cares for the Jew, but he's also saying, I care for the Gentile, the nations. I have compassion. And salvation is of the Lord, Jonah. Don't you remember? You said that? Psalm 103, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Why? Because he understands man's like grass. You're here today, gone tomorrow. And he can have pity and show mercy on whom he wills. And God's reminding Jonah of his original plan. You're a part of Israel, Jonah. The plan was to bless the nations. The plan was for you to be a people that's gonna be a light that shines on a hill, yet you've left that hill, you've descended down the depths, and I'm trying to bring you back, Jonah, but your purpose is to be a light to the nations. He also says, look, shouldn't I have compassion on, you know, yes, the fathers, the mothers, they have all sinned and done atrocious sins, but there's also 120,000 children there. Can I not have compassion on them? Well, even the cattle. Look, if I destroy everyone, there's much cattle that are affected too. God even has special care for his creation. And so he ends with a question so us, we can reflect and answer that question. Should not God have mercy and compassion on those whom he wills? Is not salvation of the Lord? For he says to Moses, I have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. And God's saying, Jonah, I have compassion on the lost and on the nations, and as an Israelite, you should too. As a child of God, you should too. And the same is true of us. How do we feel when God's mercy happens to those who maybe were once our enemies? Maybe to those who maybe have done us wrong? We all have people in our mind who think, man, I just wish they would get judged. But what happens if God shows mercy to that? How do you feel in light of that? You can kind of get a brief idea of maybe how Jonah felt. And so that's Jonah, that's the survey. But now I wanna just lastly consider Jonah as prophecy. As we look at the book of Jonah, we're reminded that Jonah was a minor prophet. But as you read this, usually we see a thrust says the Lord and we see the prophet proclaiming the word of the Lord and different things like that. And we don't really see that here in Jonah. It's more of like a story. It doesn't mean it's not prophecy. The book of Jonah was very much prophetic. It was prophetic on multiple levels for what it pointed to and anticipated. And it does so a few ways. First, let's just consider Israel. God's plan was for Israel to be a light to the nations. God was using his, in redemptive history, was using Israel for his purposes to draw the nations to himself, to bring about the Messiah who will bless the nations. But let's just consider Israel here. Consider who the original audience would have been reading Jonah. The original audience for Jonah, if you remember kind of the timeframe in which this was all written and stuff, would have been Israel in captivity, after the Assyrians have conquered them. They're reading this. And what do you think the message, the prophetic message they're getting? Assyria had already come, and they conquered the 10 northern tribes, and then later Babylon comes and conquers the southern two tribes, takes them into exile, and not only that, destroys the temple. And then you're given the Book of Jonah. Then you're given the Book of Jonah, which says God shows mercy to those who are your enemies, those who hold you captive right now, those who destroyed your temple. How would that make you feel? Probably anger, jealousy. Many commentators noted that Jonah here actually represents Israel. Jonah is in the belly of the fish here, and it's a picture of something. So Jonah, obviously, he didn't want Israel to, he didn't want Nineveh to experience salvation. He was jealous, he was angry when that happened, and most likely, Israel can relate to Jonah here as they're reading. But notice also, when Jonah excluded the nations, God pursued Jonah so that Jonah could do what God called him to. In a similar fashion, God disciplined Jonah for that. So the vessel of the fish, was a means of salvation, but also a means of discipline. Jonah was running away from the Lord. Where did the vessel of salvation take him? Back to where he should have gone. So it was a form of discipline too. And basically what God had told Israel, you're to walk in my ways, you're to do my statutes, you're to be a light to the nations. And when they didn't, what happened? The land would vomit them out. They would go into exile. They'd hit rock bottom. And so Jonah here, while he's in the belly of the fish, is actually a picture of Israel in exile. Jonah is a type of Israel who was angry, resisting God's showing mercy, and God had to discipline Jonah for him to see his way. And as Jonah went away, down, down, down from the presence of the Lord and would hit rock bottom in the sea, so too the Bible describes Israel being led into captivity as going down, being led away. away from the presence of the Lord. Why? Because that's where the temple was. And much more, the temple was destroyed. Another evidence kind of for this, that Jonah is kind of a picture of Israel here too, is Amos 9 speaks of Israel being taken into captivity. And it describes the destruction of Jerusalem and describes it this way, Amos 9 verse three. If they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent and it shall bite them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword. So this idea of serpent here is the picture of Babylon. The word here for bite is better translated swallowed. And so he's picturing that this serpent or this, they actually had a god that was a fish god kind of thing, you think of Dagon. and they worship these things. So you could say this were the people of the fish who are then swallowing up Israel in captivity. Jeremiah 50 verse 17 says, Israel is hunted, sheep driven away by lions. First, the king of Assyria has devoured him, right? That's a word that describes like consuming, devoured. Last, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has gnawed his bones. So it's this picture of swallowing. It's this picture of consuming. That's what the captives of Israel did. Babylon and Assyria were the ones that took them away and conquered them. And Jonah's a picture of that. And as they're reading this, they're really realizing, wait a second, we too were not including the nations. We too were disobedient to God's law. And if you follow and just kind of do a word search about God leading them out by, notice fish, God uses the imagery of a hook. Whenever the Assyrians would destroy a city, they would use a hook to drag out the king by the nose into captivity, and that's actually what happened. And here what we see is there is a picture here, Israel should say, that sounds a lot like us in our situation. And the purpose for that is God's giving them a message of hope in the midst of their captivity too. There's a message of hope. As they read and get to chapter two, it's a call for them to pray and call out to God. Yes, you've gone into the descent, yes, you've gone into this captivity, but there's no place that's too dark and too far down that God doesn't hear. Just like he heard Jonah from the depths of a fish. Just as Jonah said, I will one day again see your holy temple, Think of what that meant for a Jew in captivity. That's holding on to the promises of God. It's reminding him, remember, God said he will give you this land, he will be a God to you, he will dwell with you in this temple. Yes, you're captive, you're facing the discipline of the Lord, and his discipline is meant to lead you to repentance. But in a similar way, you can rest in the promises. You'll see the temple again, even though it's been destroyed. And so that would have been a call to faith for these people, a call to faith. Just as Jonah was vomited out back in dry land from the death of Sheol, right? You seem like you're in death right now. You're around your enemies. God's gonna take you out of that eventually. He'll return you back to your land. Just as he returned Jonah from death to life, you too, as you read this, will experience this. And how does he, Excuse me, how does he encourage them in the process? Well, he showers Jonah's prayer with Psalms, things that they should be familiar with, things that they can relate to. And he says, remember the word of the Lord. It's a call to prayer. It's a call to faith, to believe in the promises of God for Israel. to echo the very words themselves. Jonah refused to be a prophet at first, so God had him learn about these things. Jonah is a metaphor, a picture for Israel here. It's a prophetic book to speak and give hope to Israel during this time. And it's to also say, in the midst of your captivity, around your enemies, who are the nations, try to be a light to them. Preach a message of salvation and hope to these people. It's a call to Israel to, in the midst of their captivity, to pray, to hope in God, to preach the gospel of his grace to those around them, even if they're persecuting you. Sounds similar to kind of what we're called to. Jonah's response to God's commands also foreshadowed Israel's response later on. When Jesus returned, when Jesus comes, and he preaches to the Gentiles, the Pharisees are offended at that. In fact, they are very angry. The Pharisees demanded a sign. They said, prove to us that you're the Messiah. Jesus says no sign will be given except for the sign of Jonah. And in fact, if we understand the context for which that came, it came right after Jesus fed the 4,000 who were all Gentiles. He's taking the message to the Gentiles. He's doing what Israel should have done, yet the Pharisees, those who were supposed to be the prophets of Israel, are growing angry and hostile towards that. They don't want it going to the nations. They want it for themselves. They're reflecting much of Jonah's attitude here. And it's funny too, the more you mind the book of Jonah, it just keeps coming. In fact, if you do a word search for Joppa, It's amazing what else comes up from that. If you're familiar with Joppa, there's another Jonah involved. In Acts 9, 10, 11, you see Joppa come out once again, and Joppa, again, the Gentile town. There's another Jonah who is called to go to the Gentiles. This is Simon bar Jonah, son of Jonah, who is Peter, who we know as a disciple, right? He was sent to Joppa to preach the gospel to Cornelius, a Gentile, and it's through that that the gospel ends up exploding to the nations. Finally, an obedient Jonah. But there's a much greater Jonah pictured here. And Jesus is saying that he is the greater Jonah. This is meant to point us as we've done so throughout this whole book, we have seen through the types and shadows and pointing us to Christ. And I just kind of want to recap some of that real quick. These Pharisees were so concerned about their national identity, they lost the promises of the nations. So the book of Jonah teaches us salvation belongs to the Lord, that the Lord is faithful to keep his promises And he does so ultimately through the greater Jonah. In Luke 11, Jesus says this, this generation is an evil generation. It seeks the sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so too the son of man shall be to this generation. The queen of the south will rise up at judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something greater than Solomon. Let's pause right there and ponder that. In light of the nations, the queen of where? The queen of the south. Is that in Jerusalem? No. It's in the nations. The queen from the nations is coming to recognize, she recognizes God's appointed king. You should too. is what he's telling the Pharisees, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The nations are recognizing this, why don't you, is what Jesus is saying. And so, the men of Nineveh will rise up at that generation. In other words, they repented. True repentance. They'll rise up and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah's here. And Jonah says, the only sign you're gonna see from now on, he's done all these miracles that testified of him, the only sign from now on you're gonna see is when I die and rise from the dead. So Jonah is a type of Christ, but like we said in types, there's similarities and differences. Both Jesus and Jonah were prophets that spoke for God. Jonah disobeyed, Jesus obeyed. Jonah ran from his assignment. Jesus went and embraced his assignment and volunteered for his assignment. Both slept in the midst of the storm, as you recall, while the rest in the boat were panicked. Jonah slept because he could care less. He didn't care about his life or theirs, but Jesus rests because he's fully embracing the Lord's will, and he knows he has control over all the storms and the seas. In other words, he's telling the people, he says, hey, you remember Jonah? Remember when they cried out and they had to throw Jonah in? Watch this. Peace be still. Something greater than Jonah is here. In other words, he's saying, I am God, and yes, I will satisfy the judgment waters, not because I'm just gonna speak it and they stop, but because I can say that because I'm going to the cross where I will satisfy God's wrath and there will be peace for all who trust in him. Jesus is the greater Jonah who truly satisfied God's wrath. Jonah just pictured it, right? It looked like he was doing one person's life must die for the rest to be alive, for the rest to live. Jesus really did that. Jonah didn't pay for anyone else's sins, he was paying for his own. Jesus never sinned and paid for the sins of his enemies so that we can become his own. Jonah looked at that city as he sat above it on the hill. He looked down and he prayed for the judgment. He wanted judgment. Jesus looked at the city, he looked at the multitudes, and it says, he saw the crowds and had compassion on them. They were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus is the true, better Jonah who shows compassion. When Jonah was angry, angry enough to die, God's grace, because of God's grace to his enemies. Jesus was compassionate enough to die because of the love for his enemies. The great fish was a sign of judgment for Jonah because it disciplined and took him to where he should have gone, but also a sign of salvation because it took him through the judgment water so that he may live. And in similar fashion, the cross is a sign of salvation to all who look by faith, but also a sign of judgment to all who reject and disobey. And the command is to believe. So as we close, what did the book of Jonah teach you? This is something that you saw the riches of the mercy of Christ and saw that maybe even you seeing, man, if he can save the worst of sinners, he can even save me. Maybe you should see yourself like, Paul, I am the chief of sinners. And if you understand God's mercy, like how he wants us to show it here in Jonah, that's exactly the conclusion we'll make, that no one is beyond God's mercy. that God is the author of salvation. So who are you more like here as we close? Are you more like Jonah, who was angry when God showed people mercy, who he thought were worse than him? Maybe he was self-righteous, religious, and he looked down on those who God was saving. In fact, you look at Jesus' day, he was saving the prostitutes, the sinners, the tax collectors, the drunkards, he was saving them, and the Pharisees looked down and hated that. Or are you more like the people who actually recognize we are sinners? We deserve the wrath of God. We repent and we cry out for mercy, like the sailors, like the people of Nineveh. Have you come to the point where you recognize your sin, that you have offended a holy and righteous God, that He demands absolute perfection? The wage of sin is death. And have you turned to God? embracing Christ, the one appointed means so that you may live. Have you experienced his mercy and his grace? Outside of Christ, we're all enemies of God, and Jesus is trying to say, it's like that whether you're Jew or Gentile. But it's Jew and Gentile that he came to save so that they may be one, and it's through Christ that the promised one, the seed who will cross the serpent's head, the true seed of Abraham who will bless the nations. It's through him, through faith in him, where all the nations are blessed because he paid for their sins and credited righteousness by his obedience. So Jesus came as the one true greater Jonah. Maybe you're here and you, like Jonah, realize, yeah, I've experienced that grace once before, but I've been in rebellion. I've been running away. I haven't been fully obedient. Well, the book of Jonah should teach us that there's hope for us too, that God continues to shower grace and mercy on us. It's not a one-time thing. Neither is repentance a one-time thing. We should constantly be repenting, turning to Christ, looking to him. And then lastly, if that describes you, you have experienced the mercy of the Lord, Do you have compassion for the lost? Like the Lord did. We're called to shine his lights, we're called to proclaim the good news of the gospel to the nations and God sees fit to use broken messengers who trust in him ultimately and he will do his work. So are we gonna be faithful to our calling or run the other way? May we be faithful. May we not have to be given object lessons in order to learn to love God and obey Him. But may we look to our Savior who was faithful, who never sinned, and then out of love and gratitude, then seek to be faithful to Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for the book of Jonah. There's so much here you can go on for a long time in it. Lord, I thank you for what it meant for us. I thank you for how we see it in the context of redemptive history. Lord, I'm just amazed how we can focus narrowly and broadly and see how it benefits different people, different times in history. Your Word never returns void and it's profitable for us. So we're thankful for that. It's far beyond human comprehension to see how the Word works like this. It testifies that of a divine author, no mere human man could have written this on their own. And so Lord, we are thankful in your infinite wisdom, you have given us your word so that we can mind the depths and love you and worship you all the more. Help us then out of love and thankfulness for what you've done to seek to serve you and love you and proclaim you to a lost and dying world, we pray in Christ's name, amen.