In one sense, pretty familiar, right? Because when I say Jonah, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Whale. Right? Jonah. Whale. And that is true. I mean, it's here. It's a huge part of the story. But one writer said, sometimes the whale obscures what God is really saying through Jonah. Sometimes the well obscures that, so let's try to move beyond the well. The well's there, the well's important, but let's try to see what exactly is going on here. This is how the book opens, Jonah chapter one, verse one. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Aunt Mattiah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it. It's interesting, it's the same language used in Isaiah 58, verse 1, where Isaiah is saying that he's crying out. What does it mean to cry out? Isaiah says what it was is he was preaching the message from God. That's what he was doing, was crying out. So he tells him, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah arose, to flee to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. Notice it's gonna be repeated here. He went down to Joppa, he found a ship going to Tarsus. We don't know really where Tarsus is. Some think it may be some parts of Southern Spain. But this is the point here. He arose, to flee from Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, he goes to Joppa, he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and he went down into it to go with him to Tarshish again. See, this is repeated, from the presence of the Lord. Jonah's clearly, what's on his mind at this point, once he hears God say, go to Nineveh, and I want you to preach in Nineveh, Now we'll see later on what he was thinking and part of why he says, I didn't want to go to Nineveh. Some have speculated other reasons that possibly he feels, man, I'm going to go cry out against them. I know what that means. When God says, hey, I want you to go cry out against somebody, that means you go preach a message of judgment. They're not going to like that. So some speculated, well, he was afraid. Some speculated that maybe that he thought, well, gee, if, as we'll see later, God truly is gracious and merciful, and I preach, and they repent, and judgment doesn't come, they're going to think I'm some kind of kook. They're going to think I'm some kind of nut. So all kind of speculation. And there's been a lot of speculation about the Book of Jonah overall. But think about this. You ever receive something? You ever receive something that you just totally didn't deserve? Now, I mean something good. I'm not talking about bad. We could all probably say, I remember when I got something bad I didn't deserve. Remember as a kid when I got things bad I didn't deserve, right? That what usually started with go to your room. But no, I'm talking about good things. Man, you receive something and it's just a total blessing. It just blows you away at how Blessed you feel about that. And you know, there's nothing I did to do this. There's nothing I did to deserve this. And we've all had those moments, maybe sometimes big things, maybe just in the small things, but we've had those moments and we're just like, gosh, I'm blown away. I don't deserve this. But what if your enemy, I'm using enemy here, okay, but what if you're, just to make a point, but what if your enemy, what if your perceived enemy, your foe, What if the one that you despise? Again, I'm making a point here, okay? But what if the one who has been against you? What if the one who's caused you trouble? What if the one who's caused you pain? The one who has just been a thorn in your side? Maybe somebody that you look at and they just live a totally ungodly lifestyle. What if they get the same blessing? What if they received the very same thing in the same way? Then what do we start to think? You ever seen that happen? I have. If we're not careful, we start to think, oh my gosh, God, what are you doing? Do you not understand what they do over there? Do you not understand what they believe? Do you not understand how they live? Do you not understand? They're not like me. They got the same blessing. They received the same thing. I want you to keep your finger in Jonah. I want you to go to Matthew chapter 20. Let's read through just briefly a parable that Jesus gave. He's talking about the kingdom of heaven. And what he's saying in this parable is that when the kingdom of heaven comes, the kingdom of heaven's gonna be like this. This is not the way the world operates, understand. But when the kingdom of heaven, what happens when the king, in the kingdom, this is what happens. So this is the parable. It may be a familiar parable. It's the parable of the workers. There's this landowner, he owns a vineyard. Right? Or this landowner. He owns the land. In chapter 20, verse 1, it says, For the kingdom of heaven is like this. It's not like the landowner, but what happens in this parable is what happens in the kingdom of God. Okay? That's the point. For the kingdom of heaven is like this. A landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard, when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius. That's about a day's wage at the time, okay? He sent them into his vineyard. Now this is probably six o'clock in the morning. It's when the work day would start. All right? And he went out about the third hour, which would be about nine in the morning. And he saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said to them, you also go into the vineyard and whatever is right, I will give you. Whatever is right, I will give you. So there was an agreed upon payment with the first group, right? Six in the morning. Nine o'clock group goes out. I'm going to give you whatever's right. I will give you. So they went. And again, he went about the sixth hour. This is about noon, about 12. And he goes out, and he goes again the ninth hour. This would be about three o'clock in the afternoon. And he did likewise. He does the same thing. Go work. I'm going to give you what's right. That's what's implied here. So about the 11th hour, this would be about 5 o'clock. In the first century, their work day would probably be something like this, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun, basically think in terms of sunrise to sunset. All right? They didn't have an eight-hour workday. They didn't have labor unions. They didn't have it. This was basically it. This is what they did. So he goes out the fifth hour, or the 11th hour, which would be about 5 p.m. He goes out and he finds others standing idle, and he said to them, why have you been standing idle here all day? They said to him, because no one hired us. And he said, you go. You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, you will receive. So pretty straightforward, isn't it? There's a group of people who have been hired at different times, and the first group is told you're going to get a day's wage. Go out there. They go out at 6. Evidently, they work all day, right? 6 in the evening, because verse 8 says, so when evening had come, probably 6 p.m., probably 6 in the evening. So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, call the laborers and give them their wages. It's very interesting. He begins with the last and then goes to the first. He knows what he's doing. And when those who came who were hired about the 11th hour, now about five, now keep in mind, they probably work an hour. Probably work about an hour. They each received an arias. This is what was agreed upon with the ones that went out at six. This was a day's wage. For an hour to receive a day's wage? Holy smoke. Man, they would have felt like, we hit the jackpot. We hit the jackpot here. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more. Wouldn't, on one level, isn't that reasonable? I mean, on one level, you go, oh, man, he must have really made a profit today. He's feeling generous today. If these cats got, for an hour, they got a full day's wage. Wow. Hey, you know what? Maybe we're getting two. Maybe we're getting two. Surely, we're going to get more. We've worked 12 hours. They worked an hour. So they come. They suppose they would receive more. And likewise, they each received a denarius. Now, you know what they were thinking. You know what they were mumbling. You know what they were saying. You know what they were fit to be tied, weren't they? I mean, just think of labor disputes today, right? They have burned down stuff over this. Right? I mean, they have rioted in the streets over this kind of stuff. But now keep in mind, this is not the world. This parable that our Lord gives says, this is what it's like in the kingdom of God. This is what it's like in the kingdom of heaven. You have to keep reading. So they complained against the landowner saying, these last men worked only an hour and you made them equal to us who were born to burden in the heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Didn't you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. I desire to give to this last man the very same thing you receive. Which after all, need I remind you that in the very beginning you didn't even deserve it to start with. The only reason you're in the vineyard is because I called you to the vineyard. That's the only reason you're in the vineyard. You could have had nothing. It's my desire that I do this. This is what I want to do. And so he says, take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Can I do what I want? This is my vineyard. I'm the owner, right? Ah, no, this is a dirty capitalist, right? This is a dirty capitalist. This is what's wrong with society. This is what we need to overthrow. This type of system, gaining wealth on the backs of the poor, all that mess that's going on and has been going on for so long. And then he says this, verse 16, so the last will be first and the first will be last for many are called. There's only a few chosen. Now keep in mind, this is a parable in which Jesus is saying, this is what happens in the kingdom of heaven. This is the way things operate in God's kingdom. Not the world, but this is the way things operate in God's kingdom. I had a desire to give the very same thing to each of them, even though in your eyes and in your estimation, this one is not worthy. This one does not deserve what you got. got it now let's go back to Jonah let's go back to Jonah because what we're about to see it is Jonah what screams out from the book of Jonah from the very opening of this story to the very end of this story is that it is all about grace it is all about grace. This is not about what we deserve. And in the kingdom of God, it is all about grace. When it comes to the gospel, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to the church, it is all about grace. It is all about the grace of God here. All about the grace of God. Now, what we're going to see with Jonah, the same thing with Obadiah. The other prophets, again, as I mentioned last week, what we've seen, we've been able to pull out sort of some guidelines. Not so with Jonah, just like Obadiah. There's more truths here that we need to understand, that we need to sort of have in our foundation if we're going to engage a post-Christian culture. There's something, two very important truths that we need to understand here. Now, I want to remind you of two words I used last week in connection with truth. And that is objective truth and transcendent truth. Objective truth means it's true. It's not true because of my subjective experiences or whatever. It's not true because I think it's true or I feel it's true or anything. It's true. It's true regardless of me. This is true. You can reject it. It's still true. You can reject Christ. But guess what? He's still Lord. He's not Lord just because you make him Lord, because you believe he's Lord. And he's not Lord just because I've made him Lord in my life and you haven't. So he's your Lord, but he's not mine. He's Lord over everything. That's an objective truth. That's a reality. That's the reality. And transcendent, meaning that this is not all there is to it. There is something beyond this world, and that something beyond this world is the creator who created everything, and this creator has revealed himself to us, and he's given us truth. He's given it to us in his word. So those are two important, important words in connection with truth, especially given our time. So how are we going to engage? What are the truths that we see here with Jonah? First, let me say this about Jonah. Jonah reads, Jonah doesn't read like the other prophets. Jonah is actually what some, I like this word, some have called it, you know, some have talked about it as being a parable. Some have questioned whether Jonah was really history because of the whale thing, right? Listen, Jonah's history, Jonah was real. We read about him in 2 Kings, Jeroboam II. He's prophesying that Jeroboam II is going to be blessed and his kingdom is going to expand. And it does in 2 Kings chapter 8. Our Lord uses Jonah and takes Jonah when he's talking about, you want a sign? This evil generation is seeking a sign. You want this sign? Well, I'm going to give you a sign. The sign of Jonah. And he talks about how Jonah, three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, and how the son of man, three days, three nights, and so forth. You see what he's pointing at? He's taking Jonah and saying, this is a sign of what I'm about to do. It's a sign of the cross. It's a sign of the gospel. His death, burial, resurrection. And then he says, and one greater than Jonah's here. You want a sign? You're looking at the sign. And our Lord says, you're about to see something. And they did. They did. So Jesus treated Jonah as history, right? Jesus didn't say, oh, you remember that Old Testament parable, Jonah? No, he treated Jonah as history. So we take him as history. This actually happened. He was swallowed by a whale. Now, I'm not going to get into trying to defend this and that and so forth. And there are accounts of people being swallowed by whales and all that. That is true. This actually happened. Besides, if God can create everything that exists out of nothing, He just speaks things into existence. Can't He prepare a great fish? Which is what it says. He prepared. He appointed a fish. Yeah, he can do that. So that's not an issue with me. But Jonah reads like a prophetic narrative. It reads like a story. Some have said when you read Jonah, it's like you're reading in Kings and second Kings and so forth. It's like you're reading those narratives of Elijah and Elisha. It's like the story of these great things that they're doing and this is the way Jonah reads. He doesn't read necessarily like a Hosea or Amos or some of the other prophets that we'll see. Jonah is very, the style of Jonah is very, it's not just a simplistic story. It's got a lot of things about it. It's a well, one writer said, it's a well-rounded presentation of Jonah. Jonah's not just this flat character. You know, Jonah's extremely complicated. In fact, when you get beyond the well, there's not a whole lot to like about Jonah. There's really not. There's not a whole lot to like about him. But man, does he experience the grace of God? Yes, he does. Jonah's writing probably in the late 700s, about 790, because of Jeroboam II. That's when he reigns. So that's kind of where we place this in history. And as we read in the opening of this, he's told to go to Nineveh. This is Assyria. So if he's writing, if he's going to Assyria and he strolls in there in the late 700s, then Assyria is growing in power. They're becoming a threat. Jonah would have known. The Assyrians, they're a threat. If it's the 790s, about 722 BC is when they roll in and destroy the Northern Kingdom. So about 70 years from this point, Assyria is dominating the world and they wipe out the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Now when we get to Nahum, Nahum is going to say this is what's going to happen to Nineveh about 600, about 612 BC. So just give or take rough numbers. About 200 years after the time of Jonah, None of us repents in Jonah, but in Nahum, God judges him and wipes him out. Judges him and wipes him out. So whatever happened with Jonah was over. by the time you get to Nahum. So Jonah's a very interesting book. There's a lot of repetition in the book of Jonah. Words are repeated, and that's for purpose, it's for emphasis. Phrases are repeated. We just saw in the first part of this, from the presence of the Lord, from the presence of the Lord. That's no mistake. This is the point. Jonah's going to unfold, really, in two sections, and it surrounds two calls. You can see this clearly. If you just read through Jonah casually, you can see there's one call, and then in chapter 3, there's another call. There's two different responses to the call. And you also see Jonah interacting with pagans in both calls. You also see Jonah being delivered in both calls. And so that's the way we're going to approach it. And this is the first call we see. God says, go to Nineveh. Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh. What does he do? He flees from the presence of God. And so what does God do? Verse four. This is his interaction with the pagans. The first time we see him interact with pagans. But verse four, but the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea. So the ship was about to be broken up. This was a strong storm. Never been in a hurricane on the sea. Never have. I don't know if any of you have ever been on a boat in the middle of a hurricane. Don't know. But I could just imagine that. You know, you see the movies, right? Remember the movie several years ago, Perfect Storm? And they're out there, and it's when all like three hurricanes came together or something, and they're out there fishing. And it's just, man, you go, my gosh. So it must have been something like that. Verse 5 says, then the mariners were afraid. These are pagans. We know that because of the way they respond in this. So they're afraid. And every man cried out to his God. Hey, you get your God. You get your God. Man, we need some help here. And they threw the cargo that was on the ship. They threw it into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. Jonah was unconcerned. He could care less. This thing could go down any minute. It's almost as if Jonah has a death wish. It's almost as if he has a death wish. I don't care that you guys are about to perish. This is totally opposite of Paul in Acts 27. Paul's being sent to Rome. They get in the storm. The ship's about to explode. And God says to Paul, don't worry, Paul. Nobody's going to lose their life. And then Paul does everything he can to make sure they stay on that ship. And they stay, and they do what they should. Paul wasn't sleeping. Jonah, just the opposite. Jonah, a prophet called by God, running from God. In the midst of this, in a ship where pagans, if they die without God, they don't know Yahweh. They're not part of the covenant. And he's asleep in the bottom of the ship and could care less. You know, Paul's right when he talks about sin searing the conscience. It can sear our conscience so that we not only Not only think, act, do, but we look at other people with contempt. We look at other people that aren't like us. We look at other people who are in messes of sin. We look down our nose in judgment, self-righteous, hypocritical judgment. Sin can so sear our conscience that that's the way we relate to the world. It's exactly what's happened to Jonah. I could care less. So the captain comes, he wakes him up, he says, get up sleeper, what are you doing? Call on your God. We've called on ours and they're not doing anything. You got to have a God, call on him. You get your God to help. And so this thing plays out, you know, perhaps your God will consider us that we may not perish. And then they said to one another, let's cast lots. They cast lots to see who's really causing the trouble here. All of this pagan superstition here. But it's amazing because when they cast the lot, the lot falls to Jonah. It's as if God's using all of this mess. Fingers Jonah. It's this guy's fault. And they said to him, please tell us for whose cause this is. Who's caused this trouble upon us? What's your occupation? Where do you come from? Where's your country? What are your people? Who are your people? Tell us, who are you, man? And he said to them, I'm Hebrew, which is interesting because he uses the ethnic term. He doesn't say I'm an Israelite. He just says I'm Hebrew. I'm Hebrew. But he does say, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. And then what happens? The men were exceedingly afraid. They said to him, why have you done this? For the men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them, what are we going to do with you? What do we do, Jonah? How do we stop this thing? What we would just love to hear, and if this was just some flat story without this complicated character, Jonah, then what we might read is Jonah say, hey, give me a second. And we might hear Jonah going and praying to God and saying, God, I repent. Stop the storm. Save this ship. Save these men. Get me to land. I'll go to Nineveh. That's not what he says. It's not what he says at all, is it? How do we stop this? I'll tell you how you stop it. Throw me overboard. That's why I wonder. I just wonder if he's got a death wish here. Just throw me overboard. Get rid of me. Get me off this ship. And then they're like, well, let's just keep rolling, let's try. And then it becomes obvious that nothing is happening, nothing's working. In verse 14, therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, we pray, oh Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood. Don't hold us guilty for what we're about to do. And what they do, they threw him overboard. And what happens? The storm stops. The storm stops. But notice what else they say. Don't hold us charge this innocent blood. They say this, for you, oh Lord, have done as it pleased you. See, this is going to be repeated too. You remember the parable? Isn't it mine? Can I do with mine what I want to do? And if I desire to do this, don't I have the right to do this? Even these pagans are acknowledging. You have a right to do whatever you do. You're sovereign, and in your providence, you are God. And so they pick Jonah, they throw him into the sea, it stops, and then it says, verse 16, there are these very quick statements here. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took the house. What the narrative leads us to believe and understand is that these pagans were converted. That's what it leads us to understand. Now they've become God-fearers. And then what happens to Jonah? Now the Lord prepared. There's another thing that gets, it's twice this is gonna, we're gonna see this, we're gonna see it here, we're gonna see it in chapter four, the Lord prepared. Actually, it's appointed. He appointed a fish. The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. Was it a whale? Probably. I mean, a whale's about the only thing big enough that we know of, right? that this could possibly happen. But it's a great fish. The fish swallows Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. Again, pointing to Christ. Christ picks up on this, all right? So then we get to Jonah's deliverance, his salvation, in chapter 2. Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish's belly, and he says, he prays, By now, he's earnestly praying. You just wonder, had he prayed before they threw him overboard? Had he prayed this before they threw him overboard? Would it have been different? But now he's praying. What's interesting about the way that this is presented is it reads so much like the Psalms. So much like the Psalms. He says, I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. Your billows and your waves passed over me. Then I said, I've been cast out of your sight. Yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The watcher surrounded me. Even my soul, the deep water closed around me. Weaves were wrapped around my head. Imagine that. weeds wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed behind me forever, yet you have brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord my God, you've saved me. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. My prayer went up to you and to your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay what I have vowed." And then here comes a key phrase in verse 9. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation belongs to God. In His kingdom, He gives it. It belongs to Him. It is undeserved. Now hang on to that phrase. Salvation is up the Lord. So the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out on dry land. So there we are. The first section. There's the first part. The first call. There's this willful rebellion on Jonah's part. Willful rebellion. There's no other way to put it. Jonah just wasn't mistaken. Oh, did you say go to Tarshish? He willfully rejected the will of God and rebelled and went, went, did his own, went, went far as he could, trying to think he could get as far as he could from God. And yet what did God's grace do? God's grace went after him. God's grace used a fish. And in the process, pagans are converted. You see, salvation does belong to God. Now the second part. Here's a call again. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you. Jonah arose. And after reading that, you're like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, what did he do? Jonah arose. And he went to Nineveh. And we breathe a deep sigh of relief, don't we? Man, at least Jonah learned his lesson. Well, he did. somewhat. He obeys, but he's reluctant. How do we know his reluctance? Because what we'll see later after what happens. So he goes to Nineveh and according to the word of the Lord, now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said, this is what's amazing. This is all we have of Jonah's message. This is all we have. Now, he had to have said more. He had to preach more. He's preaching, what, three days here? And he says, you had 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Verse 5, so the people of Nineveh did what? Jonah preaches the Ninevites, these dirty Ninevites, these dirty Assyrians, these pagan Assyrians, They're not part of the covenant. Jonah preaches, they believe. In short, what happens is revival breaks out in Nineveh. And it's just amazing to me, this is all we have. This narrative runs so fast through this, you see? He preaches, they believe, and they proclaim the fast and put sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. Then the word came to the king. The king hears about it second hand. We don't read where Jonah goes in to the king and says to the king, oh great king of Nineveh, You need to believe in the Yahweh. You need to believe in the creator God. You need to believe in God. And the great king says, oh, yes, I'm going to obey you. No, the narrative leads us to imply he hears about it secondhand and he's converted. He's converted. And he proclaims this great proclamation, let neither man nor beast nor herd Flock nor flock, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. It's interesting, man and beast? And cry mightily to God. Yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from his violence that is in his hands who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. So here's another interesting contrast here between Jonah on that boat. Jonah's asleep. He could care less about whether they perished. And yet here in the midst of this narrative is a pagan king who's all concerned that none of them perish. Then God saw their works. They turned from their evil way and God relented. They're saved. Revival breaks out. He relented the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. Now, in one sense, we're like, man, I wish Jonah just ended there. Then we would say, wow, man, but it doesn't end there, because there's something else God's saying. In chapter 4, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. Come on, Jonah. Why? So he prayed to the Lord and said, Ah Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish. For I know that you are a gracious and merciful God. I know this about you. But the question becomes, did he fully understand? Did he fully understand about the grace and mercy of God? The answer to that appears to be he only scratched the surface about how truly gracious and merciful God is. And we'll see that in just a second. And he says, you're slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness. One who relents from doing harm, therefore now, oh God, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than live. He just wants to die, doesn't he? Doesn't this sound so much like Job? Every time Job is just, distraught about his circumstances. And his friends are saying, Job, you've sinned. You've sinned. Confess your sin. And Job's saying, I haven't sinned. It'd been better that I'd never been born. I just wish I was dead. Death's got to be better than this. Well, here Jonah is. Now keep in mind, Nineveh is experiencing a revival of the grace of God And he's mad. He's ticked off. And he says, I'd just rather be dead than to see this. It's amazing, isn't it? And God says, is it right for you to be angry, Jonah? Jonah went out to the city and sat on the east side of the city. God's not through with him yet. And he made himself a shelter, and he sat under it, he sat under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city. I just, I don't know, this is speculation on my part, but I wonder if what's running through his mind is this can't really be happening. God's gonna wipe him out. And so he goes, and he's gonna prop himself up, and he's gonna watch and see. Let's watch this thing play out. But God's not through with him. And the Lord God prepared a plant. He appointed a plant. He appointed a fish. He appointed a fish. He's sovereign over nature. You see? He appointed a fish. Now He appoints a plant. And made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. This is what's amazing about how this narrative ends. He's angry that people created in the image of God have been converted and he's grateful for a plant. It's amazing. But as morning dawned, the next day God prepared a worm. He appointed a worm. A fish, a plant, a worm. Listen, this is just a side note. But I just want to say this to you. You think God can't chase you down? You think God can't find you? Do you understand all of His creation is at His disposal? And if He needs a worm, He'll appoint a worm. And He will find you. He will find you. You can't run from Him. Which in context of understanding this is all of the grace of God, there is no sin so great that His grace cannot find you. Do you understand that? There is no sin so great that His grace You're not too far gone. You may wish you would die, but you're not too far gone. So what happens? The worm comes, he appoints the worm, damages the plant. The plant withers. We'd go, man, Jonah learned his lesson, right? He's not through yet. So then what does God do? God appointed a vehement east wind. And this east wind, this would have been scorching. It was scorching. And the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. And he wished death for himself and said, it's better for me to die than to live. God's not gonna let this man go. You see that? Here's another little side note here. God's not gonna let you go. He's not until he's accomplished what he's going to do. He is beating on Jonah's head to the point where Jonah is about to have sunstroke. And Jonah says, just I wish I were dead. But God answers again. God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? First time, is it okay for you to be angry? Now is it right for you to be angry about the plant? And he said, it is right for me to be angry, even to death. But the Lord said, you have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored. That's the language of grace. You didn't plant the seed and water it and nourish it and fertilize it and grow your plant and sit under it. I gave you the plant. You didn't labor for it, nor made it grow, which came up at night and perished at night. Do you hear a little bit of Job in Job chapter 1 here? When everything Job had was gone, taken from him? And Job sits down, and what Job says is, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall go. And then you remember what he said? The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed Be the name of the Lord. Should I not pity Nineveh, God asking? That great city in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand in much livestock. And then the narrative just ends. It's over. This is one of these movies. This is a movie. This would be one of those movies my wife hates. We just watched one yesterday. It just ends. What happened? What happened with Jonah? Did Jonah go somewhere else? Did Jonah, what, I mean, what, what? It just ends. It just ends. I think what God's trying to get Jonah to understand at this point is this. You know, Jonah, these Ninevites, yeah, they're pagan. The Assyrians, pagan. They do things that I have told my people you better not ever do. They participate in things I've told y'all you better not ever do. I've told you to stay away from them. I've told you to flee from them. I've told you not to have anything to do with them. I've told you not to let your daughters marry their sons and don't let your sons marry their daughters. I have told you over and over and over about how wicked, how vile they are. I have told you to stand firm. I have told you to stand firm in the covenant. But Jonah, you've assumed something about my grace and mercy that you shouldn't have assumed. You assumed That my grace and mercy, and this is the first truth that I think we need to work deep into our minds from Jonah, that will help us as we engage a post-Christian culture. You assumed that there were limits to my mercy. You assumed that there were limits to my grace. That's a dangerous thing to do. You're upset about a plant, and yet here are people who were created in the image of God, perishing in their sin and rebellion. And I graciously save them. I graciously go back to the parable. Matthew 20 parable. Who's Jonah? I would assume that Jonah's there at 6 a.m. in the morning doing a day's work, doing everything he possibly can. He's one who's saying, I'm in the covenant, I'm in the covenant. Who are the Ninevites? Possibly, possibly the 11th hour hirees, the 11th hour laborers who go in. And this is what is mind-blowing about the grace of God. The Ninevites receive the same grace and same standing with God as Jonah. That's what ticked Jonah off. I don't care if you want to bless them. Just don't give them the same thing that we have. Because we're your people. And God says, Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. You can't place those kind of limits on my grace. You can't do that at all. You remember salvation? Jonah 2, 9. Salvation is whose? God's. It's His. You remember Revelation 7? Seeing, which I think is the church, and he sees it saying there's this great multitude. John says in verse 9 and 10, no man could number. And then John describes that multitude. You remember how he described it? from every nation, tribe, tongue, peoples. Revelation 19, there it is again, marriage, supper of the lamb. Who's part of this great throng of people who were there, who were converted, who were waiting to enter heaven? Every nation, tribe, tongue, people. This gets to the book of Acts. Early on in the book of Acts, the gospel's exploding among the Jews. And then as you walk through Acts, it's going to the Gentiles, and every time it goes to the Gentiles, the Jews say, I don't know about this. These Gentiles, to where all of a sudden, it leads to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, in which they're saying, wait a minute, all these Gentiles are floating into the church. And they stand, and Paul stands, and they give testimony to the grace of God in the lives of the Gentiles, and they say, well, blessed be God. Just go tell them don't go crazy. This gets to Ephesians when Paul's talking about the church and what he's talking about the church and what Christ did in this relationship again between Jew and Gentile. What did he drew? He brought the two together in Christ. He broke down the middle wall of hatred, that middle wall of division. And what he did is he brought the two together in Christ and created one new man. Who is that new man? It's the body of Christ. It's the church. If we're going to engage a post-Christian culture, one of the foundational truths we need to understand is that God will call whomever he may call. This is Peter in Acts, the sermon of the day of Pentecost, right? And at the very end of that, he's talking about this promises for your children, your children's children, and so forth. And then he ends with this, and to whoever, to as many as our God will call. That's who this promise is for. Who's the gospel for? It's to whoever God decides to set his affection on and whoever he calls to Christ. That's who it's for. And when he calls him to Christ, he places him in the church. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, he puts in the body those gifts just as it pleases him. So who are you, old man, to look down your nose and self-righteously, hypocritically place judgment upon the very grace and mercy of God. I have to tell you, we have been extremely guilty of that in the church in the West. We have done it. We've been guilty of it. Tim Keller takes the book of Jonah and he does something interesting with it. He compares Jonah to the prodigal son and he says in the first part of Jonah, Jonah is the son who ran away, took everything and comes back. So the first part of Jonah is like that prodigal son returning home and the father welcomes him. Kill the fatted calf. Let's have a celebration. The son who was lost is found and he's come home. Then he says Jonah in chapters three and four, the second part of Jonah, Jonah is the older brother. It's very interesting what he does. Jonah comes home and we go, great, man, he's got it. And then all of a sudden, he's like the older brother. Wait a minute. I've been with you this whole time. How can you do this for him when I've been here? And he just now comes in. Remember the parable? How can you pay them a day's wage? We've been here all day. It's not fair. There are no limits to God's compassion. There are no limits to His grace. In Jonah, He's saving pagans. He's saving Jonah. In the world today, the gospel is saving pagans and all kinds of people. But here's the last point, and I'll close on this. This is the last point in connection with that, the last truth that we need to understand. We must make this crystal clear to a post-Christian culture that there are no limits to the grace of God. And here's why I say that. Because this post-Christian culture is going to go places we've never seen before. This post-Christian culture is going to dive into things we couldn't even imagine. This post-Christian culture is going to be involved in some of the most horrific, some of the most unimaginable, horrifically sinful, if horrifically is a word, I don't know. But you get my point. They're going places we can't even imagine. And we must be crystal clear as we present the Gospel that no matter how deep you go into your depravity, there is hope in the grace of Christ. We will stand on truth. We will stand there. Unapologetically, we will stand in the truth of the Word of God and the Gospel. We will. But in doing that, we dare not judge self-righteously and hypocritically when we look at this dying world. You see, the Ninevites were created in the image of God. And let me ask this question. What are we gonna do when God saves transgendered people? When God saves a transgendered person who has mutilated their body from surgery after surgery after surgery. When God saves a transgendered person who has so seared their conscience because of their own depravity and denial of God. And God graciously saves them and pulls them out of that. Do you know what we've got? We've got a Blood-bought person created in the image of God, blood-bought in the blood of Christ, but we also have a mess on our hands. Because how are you going to untangle that? You remember when we started with Daniel, I told you, in a pre-Christian culture, the gospel goes in. We have plenty of examples of that. It's happening today in different parts of the world. That's one thing. If you're in a pre-Christian culture and the gospel is beginning to flourish, you get your hands dirty with certain things. In a Christian culture, when the gospel flourishes, you don't get your hands quite so dirty. You know why? Because most of the people that would come into the church, most of the people that would be saved during a revival will look a lot like you do, will look a lot like I do, because there's common moral ground there. And they're really going to be running and breaking the commandments of God, but yet they're going to know things like adultery is wrong and those kinds of things. In a Christian culture, that may have been the way it was a hundred years ago here. That ain't the way it is anymore. In this post-Christian culture, When God begins to move, and I believe He will because this will implode, it will fall apart, and I think on the back end of this, there's going to be a great turning to God and a great move of the Spirit of God. And when He does move, we're going to deal with people who have involved themselves, who have sunk to the depths of their sin, and we're going to deal with people who will shock our sense and sensibilities. God saved them. And I will tell you this, there will be a lot of churches who turn their backs on these people. The same way in the 60s and 70s when God began to move in a bunch of hippies, long-haired hippies, dope-smoking hippies, and God began to move in their heart and begin to save them in the Jesus movement, and there were a whole lot of churches who said, uh-uh, cut your hair, look like us, you're dressed the wrong way, you look the wrong way, you people smell, we don't want you in our services. And a lot of them ended up starting their own churches. What's Jonah trying to say to us? What are the truths here that we need to get a hold of if we're gonna involve? Now, we very well could just say as a church, huh, this ain't for us. This ain't for us. We're gonna let other people deal with this. We're gonna let other people, you know, we just, man, we'll, no. I'm gonna tell you what, if that's what we do, God's judgment will fall on this place so fast. He'll do what he told Ephesus, I will come unchurch you. And we'll continue on, but we won't be the church. Paul writing to the Corinthians, pre-Christian culture. He says, listen guys, don't you understand? And this is where we stand on truth. Don't you understand? And there's a whole list of things there. He talks about sexual immorality, he talks about homosexuality, he talks about all of this stuff there, this list, and he says, don't you know that those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God? That's the truth. That is true. You are not okay if that's your life. We stand on that truth. But then after that he says, and such were some of you. But God saved you. Such were some of you. And God saved you. We need to be clear that there are no limits to the grace of God. We need to be clear that in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, He will save. That's the message. that we need to be sending to the nations. That's the message you need to be sharing with your neighbors. That's the message you need to be sharing with your family. That's the message you need to be saying to your co-workers. And don't think, don't think, well, we have been in a bubble here, but it's here. It is here. Don't think somebody else is going to do it. God's calling us to do it. Just like He told Jonah, you better go to Nineveh. I don't want to end up in the belly of a fish, do you? It starts with you turning to Christ and placing your faith and trust in Him. He died for your sins, buried, raised the third day, And all you have to do is turn, call out to him. And you know what he'll do? He'll save you. He'll save you. Let's pray. Let's follow this prophet.