Let's turn to the word. If you have your scriptures, I would ask you to turn with me and stand as well for the public reading of God's word. First, from the New Testament, Matthew chapter 12, beginning with verse 38, continuing down through verse 42, and then from Jonah chapter four. So first, from Matthew 12, 38 through 42. Here, Jesus is questioned by the scribes and the Pharisees. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And indeed, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And indeed, a greater than Solomon is here. and our Old Testament reading Jonah chapter 4. Jonah chapter 4, just to set the context for you, in verse 10 of chapter 3 of Jonah, we read this, regarding the repentance of Nineveh. Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. Let's continue into chapter 4. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, 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, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore, now, oh, Lord, Please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.' Then the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, so he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared 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. But as morning dawned the next day, God prepared a worm and it so damaged the plant that it withered. And it happened when the sun arose that God prepared a vehement east wind and the sun beat on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself and said, it is better for me to die than to live. Then God said to Jonah, 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, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left and much livestock. This is God's word. As we come to the word this evening, let's bow our heads together in prayer, bow our hearts before the throne of grace and ask for the Lord's help to rightly understand, rightly apply his word. Let's all pray. Oh, Lord, our gracious God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have spoken and that you have condescended to us, that you have come near to us and made yourself known. We thank you for the promises, the commands and the warnings of your word. We pray now that you would feed us with the rich food of your word, that you would fill me with your spirit, fill every hearer with your spirit as well. We pray that Christ would be glorified, that your church would be strengthened and that the lost would be converted. We pray these things for the honor and the glory of Jesus alone. Amen. I want to begin by simply expressing my gratitude to the session of our church for the privilege that it is to get to stand before you and exhort from God's word. I'm deeply grateful for this privilege, for the opportunity to exhort you from God's word this evening. As we study, particularly Jonah chapter four this evening, I want to begin with a simple question. Have you ever stopped to really think? about the way that God communicates to us in His Word. Have you ever stopped to really think about the way that God communicates to us in the Word? that the triune God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the One who sustains all things, upholds all things, has come near to us, and He has condescended to us. He has revealed in His Word the truth about His character, His glory, and His works. Have you also meditated upon the rich variety of God's Word, that you have such a rich variety set before you from Genesis through Revelation, all bearing a single message, all pointing to this message of faith and repentance in Jesus Christ alone, but yet a message and a Word that has rich variety to it, historical narratives of the Pentateuch, of the law, the failure, the rebellion of Israel, so sad that we read in the prophets and the historical books, the beautiful poetry of the Psalms. The Gospels that proclaim to us the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. And then the epistles that give us doctrinal indicatives and practical commands for our lives. That from Genesis to Revelation, just as a chef would prepare a meal for His guests that is well-seasoned with a variety of foods, a variety of different processes. So God has given us a Word in which there is, yes, rich variety, but yet it bears a single message, a single message to be proclaimed of faith and repentance, salvation through Christ alone. Such is our confidence now in the Word of God, that when we come to Jonah, this short and somewhat strange prophecy, 48 verse prophecy, somewhat strange book, such is our confidence in God's infallible Word. that even here, no less than in other portions of God's Word, God communicates to us His unfading glory, our own sinfulness, and the wonder of redemption through Christ. So as we study Jonah chapter four this evening, let's look at this portrait of God's boundless compassion, a portrait of God's boundless compassion. You're all familiar, those of you who have been in the church, have grown up in the church and you've learned this story even from the earliest age. Even our youngest children know the story of Jonah, that here is the wayward, disobedient prophet who, when he is commissioned to go preach to Nineveh, that wicked city, and preach this message of judgment to them, he goes the other way. He goes the opposite direction to Tarshish. And you know that then a great storm is set, and Jonah argues and bargains with the sailors and is cast overboard. And then the great fish swallows him and delivers him. You know as well that in Jonah chapter 2, Jonah cries out to the Lord. He thanks the Lord for his deliverance. And he owns the reality that salvation is of the Lord. Finally, in chapter three of Jonah, he arrives in Nineveh, finally to preach this message, this somewhat strange message. It's a very short sermon. In fact, it may be the shortest sermon in all of Scripture. It's only five words in Hebrew, eight words here in English. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Despite the brevity of this sermon, this short five-word sermon, The entire city of Nineveh turns to God in faith and repentance. Even the king of the city turns and humbles himself, proclaims a fast and repents along with the city. And as we read a few moments ago at the end of chapter three, God saw their works that they returned from their evil way. And God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. The narrative has been building to a crescendo at this point, as it were. And in chapter four of the prophecy, we really see the ultimate point of what God is driving at here in this short prophecy. Here in chapter four, you see both Jonah's reaction to the repentance of Nineveh and God's own object lesson of his own compassion. So in our meditation this evening, what I want to do is briefly walk through the narrative itself, then observe the truth about God that we see in the narrative and then conclude with a few lessons for the life of the church. So the narrative itself, the truth about God that we learn from the narrative and a few lessons. So here in Jonah, chapter four, as we've read, you would think that Jonah would react with with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, with gladness, that here, as he's uttered his five-word sermon, and there's been a massive, wide-scale repentance and faith in Jehovah, you would think he would offer thanksgiving to the Lord. But what does he do? What is Jonah's reaction? Verse 1 of chapter 4, But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. We begin to see Jonah's heart, his sense of justice has been utterly violated. That here, these pagans, these Gentile dogs, as it were, have received the mercy and the compassion of Jehovah, and it has utterly violated his sense of justice. We learn even more from Jonah's statements in the next two verses, verses two and three. So he prayed to the Lord and said, ah, Lord, is this is not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish, where I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness, one who relents in doing harm. Therefore, now, oh, Lord, Please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. So do you hear what Jonah is saying here? Lord, I know that you are merciful and gracious. I know that you're long suffering, that you're abundant in goodness and truth. That's why I went the other way. That's why I fled. I did not want these wicked Ninevites to repent and turn from their evil way and be delivered. Jonah was not merely motivated by this desire to avoid social rejection or even physical harm at the hands of the Ninevites. He was motivated by proud legalism, by a proud heart that said, I don't want the mercy and the compassion of God shown to the wicked Ninevites. But the Lord reacts in boundless compassion, compassion even to his stubborn prophet. Jonah, is it right for you to be angry as we read in verse four? We see Jonah's reaction as one of pride, one of stubbornness, one that is not submissive to the ways of God, one in which he believes that there should only be judgment for this wicked city, Nineveh. But there's more here in chapter 4. we see the Lord's object lesson of his own compassion. For Jonah, the Lord presents this object lesson, this picture, in order to demonstrate a point about his own character. So as Jonah sulks outside the city, perhaps wondering, looking for an indicator of some kind of impending judgment on Nineveh, This plant, God causes the plant to grow up over Jonah. And Jonah, as we read in verse six, he was very grateful for the plant. The ESV translates this phrase that Jonah was exceedingly glad. because of the plant. So just as he was exceedingly angry because of the repentance of Nineveh, now he's exceedingly glad, exceedingly joyful because of this little plant under which he can find some shade. But his gladness is going to be short-lived because the next day, as we have read, a worm comes up and destroys the plant. and now a hot Middle Eastern sun is beating down on Jonah's head, and there's this scorching east wind. Jonah expresses his desire to the Lord to die. However, God uses Jonah's pitiful concern over this little plant to highlight his own pity and his own compassion. He says, Jonah, you've had compassion on this little plant. Is it not right? We read this at the end of the chapter. We read this in verse 11. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left and much livestock? It's as if the Lord is saying to Jonah, you've had pity. You've had pity on this little plant that you really didn't have anything to do with. You couldn't plant it. You couldn't sustain it. You couldn't keep it alive. Is it not right? Is it not good for me to have compassion on my creatures, on 120,000 who aren't even old enough perhaps to know their right hand from their left? along with livestock. God demonstrates here that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He'll have compassion on whom He will have compassion. And over against the stinginess, the narrow-mindedness, and the stubbornness of His prophet, God displays His own boundless compassion and His own free and sovereign grace. So what is the truth? That's the narrative here. Briefly, what is the truth about God's character that we learn from this narrative? Well, let's focus on the description that Jonah gives us of God's character in verse two. Let's go back to verse two. Jonah here confesses that he knows that God is gracious and merciful. I apologize. I'm actually I'm actually looking at verse. No, it is verse two. I apologize. So Jonah confesses here, I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. So here Jonah confesses what is known throughout the Old Covenant Scriptures as liturgical formula, or as a formula that is used in worship for the people of God. This hearkens back to Moses. and His encounter with the Lord in Exodus 34. That's the first time in Scripture that you see this liturgical formula, as it were, appear. In Exodus 34, the Lord passes before Moses, and He displays His own character to Moses. He says this, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. So that's Exodus 34 and God's revelation of his own character to Moses, that he's merciful and gracious, that he's slow to anger, that he will by no means clear the guilty. He will judge iniquity. And you see this truth about God's character repeated throughout the Old Testament. It comes up again in Nehemiah 9. We read it as well in Psalm 103 and Psalm 145. We read it in Joel 2 as Joel calls the people of God to repentance. He uses the same truth about God that the Lord is ready to pardon, that He's merciful and gracious, slow to anger over and over again. The refrain comes back that God is a God of grace, of rescuing and transforming and pursuing grace for all who will repent, for all who will turn from their sin and trust in Him and rest in Him alone. He is a God of grace, a God of mercy, a God of long suffering. It is proper for us to understand these various descriptions of God's character. His mercy, His grace, and His long-suffering are all functions of His goodness. They're all displaying His goodness as that overall, that overriding attribute that He has. Herman Bobbink says this, that the goodness of God, when shown to those in misery, is called mercy. The goodness of God which spares those who are deserving of punishment is called forbearance or patience. It's translated in our text as long-suffering. God's goodness is much more glorious when it is shown to those who only deserve evil. It then bears the name grace. Grace is the voluntary, unrestrained, and unmerited favor that He shows to sinners. And that, instead of the verdict of death, brings them righteousness and life. So God's mercy, God's grace, God's long-suffering, they are all demonstrations of His goodness and His goodness to sinners. So as we read here in Jonah 4, we read this confession of God's own character. And we understand that God has been compassionate. He's been merciful to wicked Nineveh, a country and an empire that, just to maybe help us put it in context, would be like North Korea of our own day, or like Hitler's Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Soviet Union of the last century. Here is a wicked and a pagan empire, and God has displayed His own compassion and His mercy upon them. We also know from Scripture, we know that God is merciful, that He's gracious, that He's slow to anger. Yet we also know that He is holy, that He is just, that as Habakkuk tells us, that His eyes are so pure that He cannot behold evil. He will by no means clear the guilty as we've read in Exodus. We read from the Westminster Larger Catechism a few moments ago that God is most holy and most just, as well as most merciful and gracious. We know that we are sinners. We know that in us dwells no good thing, that we've gone our own way, that we are, by nature, apart from grace, we are rebels. So how can we reconcile this justice of God with the grace of God, the purity of God. with His goodness. Brothers and sisters, I hope that these questions put a giant spotlight for us on the cross of Christ, that it's in the cross of Jesus Christ that we see both the justice and the purity and the holiness of God magnified, and also His mercy, His grace, and His compassion. As we read in Romans 3, Paul declares in verse 26 there that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. You see, God doesn't sweep our sins under the rug. He's not capricious. He's not arbitrary in His application of that grace. Our sins have been laid on Christ. Jesus bore the full weight of our sin's penalty, the full wrath of God against our sin. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul proclaims the heart of the gospel when he writes that He, God the Father, made Him, Jesus Christ His Son, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Our sins were laid on Jesus and He suffered the full weight of their penalty of God's justice against them. And now His earned righteousness, His perfect obedience to the law is imputed to us by faith alone. This is the glorious and the good news of the gospel. And even here in the shadow lands of Jonah 4 in the Old Testament, we are pointed forward to the goodness and the justice of God on full display in the cross of Christ. In contrast to the narrow mindedness of his prophet, God delights to display his gospel compassion, his gospel love, his gospel grace. to even the wicked there in Nineveh. So we've looked at the narrative here before us, the truth about God that it teaches. What are some practical lessons for the life of the church? How can we take this truth about God and seek to apply it to our everyday lives? Well, in the first place, Jonah 4 confronts us with our fundamental mistrust of God's goodness. Jonah 4 confronts our fundamental mistrust of God's goodness. You see that Jonah confessed very accurate truth about God, but yet his street-level application of that truth was completely different. He was able to confess that, Lord, you are merciful, you're gracious, you're long-suffering, and yet he goes the other way. There's a serpentine whisper, as it were, in Jonah's ears and in all of our ears that questions even the goodness of God. that questions that if we embrace His promises, if we follow His commands, if we heed His warnings, that somehow we will be missing out, that somehow God is holding out on us. He's withholding what would otherwise be good for us to have. He whispered, the servant whispered these lies to Eve long ago, bringing doubt on God's good word and on God's goodness, his infinite and eternal and unchangeable goodness. But these are lies that bear false witness against the God of the Bible, who is infinitely gracious, infinitely glorious, and infinitely good. He is gracious in rescuing us from ourselves and restoring us to communion with Himself. He is merciful in removing our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He is long-suffering. He's not short-fused. He calls us to repentance. He is patient in dealing with us. He is abounding in steadfast love. He is a God of goodness. So when he gives us both his promises and he gives us his commands, we know that they come from a father who is infinitely good. He calls us to himself and we can trust him. We can trust him that he is a good father who knows what we need, who has ordained both the way of salvation and the practical commands of his law for our everyday lives, for his glory and our good. So Jonah 4 confronts our fundamental mistrust of God's goodness. It also exposes our lack of love for the lost. It exposes our lack of love for the lost. And this lesson goes right along with the first one. and our brother Pastor Ellis dealt with this actually in his message this morning, that if we fail to understand God's grace in Christ in saving us and removing our sins and demonstrating His mercy, His grace, and His compassion to us, then we will fail to extend love, extend compassion, to the lost souls around us, those who, like the Ninevites, are opposed to God and to His law and to His good way. We should note that it was not a problem with Jonah's message. Jonah's message of impending judgment was an accurate message. What he declared to the people of Nineveh was the message that God had ordained for him to give. But yet he was motivated not by love for their souls, not by care for their eternal good, but rather by his own pride and being an ethnic Israelite. Let us wonder at God's grace in saving us, His compassion that He has demonstrated in the gospel, and then let us extend true love to those who are lost around us, not compromising the message, telling and boldly telling this message, this glorious gospel truth that faith and repentance is absolutely vital in Christ alone, and that apart from such faith and repentance, there is nothing but impending judgment. But let the motive for declaring that message be one of love, and let our deeds of love match the message we proclaim. A third lesson is that Jonah 4 calls us, and the entire prophecy, calls us to confidence in the sovereignty of God. Jonah 4 calls us to confidence in the sovereignty of God. Our study here in Jonah should cause us to think about God's eternal saving purposes, that all along God designed a gospel that would go to the nations, that it was not reserved for mere ethnic Israel. that long ago God had promised Abraham that he would be a father of many nations and that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. God's plan in calling Abraham and establishing his covenant with him was to bring life and blessing and salvation to the ends of the earth. So here in Jonah 4, this portrait of God's boundless compassion, we see in a shadow form, what is written large in large letters in the New Testament. Go and make disciples of all nations. The book of Jonah unfailingly declares to us that God is able to deliver on what He has promised, that if He's able to take an unwilling and stubborn prophet, if He's able to take a storm and a fish and convert an entire city to Himself, then COVID-19 and the social unrest that we see in our own culture and a culture that has largely rejected God's law and the truth that he has laid out for us in this word. If God is able to convert Nineveh, he's able to convert our culture. He's able to convert the nations. Salvation is of the Lord. So this should encourage us that nothing will stop the onward advance of the gospel, certainly there's opposition, certainly there's persecution even, and certainly we may be called to live in very dark days. We should take heart, Church of the Lord Jesus, that God is a God who saves. So let's keep on worshiping, keep on serving, keep on discipling our children, in the covenant of grace and keep on declaring to our neighbors the unsearchable goodness of Jesus Christ. Our God saves. And then one final lesson. is that Jonah 4 warns proud sinners who think that they can earn salvation on their own. Jonah 4 warns proud sinners who think that they can earn salvation on their own. As we read in Matthew 12 a few moments ago before the message, Jesus himself declares that the men of Nineveh will rise up at the last day of judgment, at a specific time in history. And they will condemn those who have turned away from the gospel, who have said, no, not for me. Not for me, I can, I can earn this, I can, I can, by my own works, by my own ethnicity, my own backgrounds, by my own efforts, I can win the kingdom. Jesus says that the men of Nineveh will rise up who have repented at the preaching of Jonah, and they will condemn such a rejection of the gospel. So if you're outside of Christ tonight, I urge you, repent of your sins, embrace Jesus as he is freely offered to you in the gospel for the glory of God and for the good of your eternal soul. Let's all pray. O Lord, our gracious God and heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the way in which it displays your compassion, your boundless compassion to ruin sinners. Thank you that you have been so merciful and kind to us and bringing us from death to life and demonstrating your mercy to us in misery, your long suffering to us as you brought us to yourself, your grace and forgiving our sins and bringing us righteousness and life in Christ. We pray that you would bless your word to our hearts, that we would reflect on these things, that we would truly love our neighbors around us who are who may be outside of Christ, that we would declare to them this message of salvation through Christ alone, that we would glory in you alone, our Redeemer, and that we would declare this message to the ends of the earth. We pray for any who are lost among us, that your spirit would come and that he would that he would compassionately change their heart and bring them from death to life, bringing them a heart of flesh in the place of the heart of stone. Lord, continue with us now. Thank you for your word. We pray these things for the honor and the glory of Jesus Christ alone. Amen.