We come again this morning in our Bibles to the book of Jonah. In our reading again, we look at chapters 3 and 4. Some 31 times we've been turning in the book of Jonah so far. but I hope it is never a bore to you and always refreshing, as it is to me. Let's take the Lord in prayer and ask a blessing on the Word. O Lord our God, as we've sung in this psalm, only You are our God, only You have done great wonders, and only You are worthy of praise. And as we sing your praise, as we meditate in our hearts on the wonder of your love and the power of your grace and your purpose, we rejoice and sing aloud with thankful hearts. And Lord, as we come now to the scripture, having sung it, now intending to read it, to have it preached, to listen to it, Lord, we ask that you would bless it to us each that we might hear it. that we might hear what the Spirit says to the church, and that in hearing, our heart and our mind might be enlightened in the knowledge of your truth, that our heart would be emblazoned to give you the glory and all the praise for it, to lay it up in our hearts, to practice it in our lives, and to speak of these great things that you have done for your people. Lord, bless us now as we give attention to the Word. May it be to us a lamp shining in a dark place, that the name of Christ and our love for Him might be enlarged in our hearts. And so bless us, we pray, in Jesus' and for His sake. Amen. Jonah 3. This is the Word of God. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. A three days walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk. And he cried out and said, yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God. And they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth, sat on the ashes. And he issued a proclamation and it said, in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth And let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands." Who knows? God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish. When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And he did not do it. But it greatly displeased Jonah. And he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, Please, Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish. For I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness. and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." The Lord said, you have good reason to be angry. Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the Lord appointed a plant And it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die saying, Death is better to me than life." Then God said to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, I have good reason to be angry, even to death. Then the Lord said, you had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished Overnight should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals." That's the Word of God. As we head into the final set of sermons on the book of Jonah, we come with this message to Jonah's God. We've seen a lot about Jonah, about his flight. We've learned of Jonah's disobedience, Jonah's ordeal with the sea, Jonah's prayer to God, Jonah's extraordinary rescue from the fish, Jonah's ministry to Nineveh, Jonah's disturbing anger. One might think that the book, though called Jonah, is really then all about Jonah. But Jesus says there's something greater than Jonah here. All that we've studied in the book of Jonah, if we come only to Jonah, well, we've come very short of the mark. Because the book of Jonah is not so much about Jonah as it is about God. It's about God. Indeed, this is a central feature of the book. The sailors each had their own God. That is, until they came to know the true God. The people of Nineveh had their own God. That is, until also they were converted to the true God. And Jonah has his God. He has the true God. He knows God, and yet he flees from God. He disobeys God. He takes issue with God. He seems to want little to do with God, since God does not do as Jonah thinks that God ought to do. There's here another irony with the book of Jonah, and we'll not elaborate, but only drop the point on how similar he is to ourselves at this point. You'll remember that the main point that we've noted is we've studied Jonah. is that as we study Jonah, we come to learn quite a bit about ourselves. And we learn this about ourselves so that we might, as John Calvin had put it in his Institutes, in knowing ourselves, we come truly to know God. And that's something of what the book of Jonah is about. Through Jonah, we see ourselves. We see ourselves so that we might flee from ourselves and take our flight toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, there is something greater than Jonah here. Like a plane with its final preparations, we're approaching the runway to land our series in Jonah. Last week's message serves as an introduction to this week's message about the character of God. There are things in the book of Jonah that we might emphasize, as we have before. We might emphasize his sovereignty, as we have. We might emphasize his authority, his being the Lord over his creation, to work all things according to the counsel of his own will. But we instead turn to Jonah's own profession of God, as you see it there in chapter 4, verse 2. He says, I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and relenting concerning calamity. Now, why should we spend time considering Jonah's profession of who God is? Is it not known already? Is it not a very elementary lesson in the Christian faith? Is this not sort of basic theology that maybe even you boys and girls come to say, yes, I know that God is gracious. I know that He's compassionate. I know that He's slow to anger and He's abounding in loving kindness and that He relents or He withdraws His judging people through calamity. Are we not familiar that this is God? Our God? No less. So why do we have to put our attention on Jonah's God? Well, let it be remembered that Jonah too knew these things about God. He says, I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God. I knew that you were slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. I knew that you were one relenting from calamity. And that's why I fled from you and went to Tarshish." He knew his God. But like you and me, did he always act in accordance with what he knew? No, and God has brought him back to this very reality of who God is in chapter 4. And we need the same lesson. Because most of our sins, if not all of them, have to do with departing from what we know is true about God. That's why we come to look this morning at Jonah's God. God had him to see something about himself. But he had him to see something about God from a different angle, from a different perspective, in a different place, like hundreds of miles east of where Jonah had known God. And here God seems quite different. in the way He had shown Himself before. You see, there's always the reality that we don't know God as much as we think. We don't know God as deeply as we might. We don't know God as thoroughly as God would have us to know about Himself. We need to know God more for our own sake. God wants us to know Him more so that we can take delight in our hearts and have strength in them in God teaching us who He is. Now we need to know Jonah's God. It's sad to say we do not hold to God in such a way that there is a constant and an intimate correspondence between what we know and how we think and what we do concerning God. Jonah shows us this much about ourselves. And God, having shown Jonah, shows us today, you and I need to know God more. It's in this light, then, that we take up our study. First, of the attributes that Jonah comes here to profess. I knew you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and relenting concerning calamity. Surely Jonah could have professed more. There are many other attributes of God given in the scripture through which he's revealed himself to us. He could have said more, but yet he said enough. He said enough to give us a full picture of who God is. There's a rich and a glorious profession that Jonah makes, although with great weakness, in chapter 4, verse 2. We do well first to see that God is gracious and compassionate. He's gracious and compassionate. The Hebrew puts these together in such a way that they're near synonyms. It's like pride and prejudice or sense and sensibility to refer to Jane Austen. These are things that go so closely together. They're virtually one in the same. They're like heads and tails. It's so difficult to differentiate. They both go together so that we have a clear picture. If we're to draw a distinction, they might only be in such a way as speaking of, say, milk and cookies or bread and butter. There are two things that go together, but they are distinct from each other. God is gracious and compassionate. He gives and He's merciful. earn God's grace. We cannot merit it. We don't deserve it. And yet God gives. He is gracious to give us these things we haven't earned and which we don't deserve. The one who is unable to obtain what he needs and yet still must have that from and before God. God mercifully condescends. And what a person is unable to provide for him or herself before God, God provides that for them. He is compassionate. He is Rahum. He is, as the Hebrew says, full of tender mercies. It's the word that's used to describe the womb, where a child is cared for. God is compassionate. And though He is Father, you see some of the tender qualities of God as He relates toward His people. God is showing, as a gracious and compassionate God, that He is concerned for the well-being of people. He cares for the plight of the needy. He has a sympathy toward those in their misery, the afflicted, the needy, the oppressed, those who need to be vindicated. He not only gives what is desired, but as a more special form of His grace, He is concerned to provide what is lacking in them and to make up even for the misery that a person has experienced and lacking as they have. God is gracious and compassionate. He's like the father of the prodigal son. It was grace that clothed his son for the feast. And yet it was compassion that ran out and met him and embraced him and kissed him with affection, to make up, as it were, for all of his wandering ways. God is gracious and compassionate. God is slow to anger. He is abounding in loving kindness. What if God was abounding in anger and slow to loving kindness? We would all run from God. And so that God might have a people who would be drawn to Him, He is slow to anger, abounding in His loving kindness. God is patient with sinners. He is patient. He is long-suffering. How many thousands of years has God been sinned against? How many generations of human history in world civilization, have people raise their fist against God. And if they could stare Him in His face, they would curse Him to His face, and they'd turn around and walk in their own wicked ways. And yet, God is slow to anger. He doesn't wipe out the human race. The moment one enters this world and sins, He's slow to anger. He waited for many, many, many years in the days of Noah before His judgment finally did come. God is patient with sinners. It is true that His anger may kindle quickly. But that is when the cup of iniquity is filled. God comes with a furious wrath in His judgment. But until that point, God is slow to anger. He's patient all throughout a person's life. As the wages of sin is death, God does not require that. The moment sin is committed. Though justly grieved by sin, God strives with sinners. He calls out to them. He has an interest in their salvation. They may not have an interest in Him. They may provoke God to anger. And yet God is slow, even still, to anger. They walk in sin and yet He offers them salvation. They may deny His existence and God yet showers blessings on even the wicked. God is slow to anger. Abounding in loving kindness. He's not just loving. He's not just kind. He's abounding in loving kindness. He is rich to overflowing with loyalty. to especially His people, steadfast in His love toward His own." That's the Hebrew covenant term for God's special love toward His own. And even as He calls to many, He has lavished this love in such an abundance on those who have turned from their sin, those who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God's rich mercies, are especially for those persons. He leads us, even the godly, believers, to know this. Although we who believe are not properly classed as sinners, but as saints. We're saintly sinners and we're sinful saints. And though we are marked by sin, God's abounding riches and covenant loyalty is such that He scoops us up into His arms and He holds us as His own. That even though we sin, God keeps us still. It's abounding in His loving kindness. Luther says that we're simultaneously just and sinner. At the same time, just and sinner. That's loving kindness. God abounding that He would make for us that though our many infrequent sins would be there before our Father every day, just like the dirt on our children's clothes and the grimy goo on their mouths and their fingers and such as they're very little, the Father is abounding in His love. And what does He do? But He kisses and He takes that dirty cheek and He squeezes it because He loves His own. He's abounding in loving kindness. Take yourself as a believer. How many times do you sin against God each day? You fall short of the glory of God. Are you even conscious about God's standard for you to give Him the glory in all things? Is that even what marks you throughout most of the day? We fall so short. God's standard is way up here for us, and we come so short. But yet in Jesus Christ, not only is there the standard met for us, there is abounding riches for us even as we fall short still every day. God's abounding in His loving kindness. He's slow to His anger toward us. Though He chastens the chastening of a father, one who loves us, Why is it that you and I have not been chastened as we might for our sins, even as we should be if God were to be strict in His justice against us? No, God is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. That is why the Apostle Paul said that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. If you look back on why is it that you're a Christian, Is it because God has called you to Himself with a legal force to repent or else? Or is it not with that a sense of His drawing? As the Scripture says, I've loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn you in loving kindness. It is so abounding that it reaches us way out, as far away as we are from God, And God lays hold of us like a fisherman. He throws it out. And He makes it so that the bait, as it were, of the Gospel is appealing to us. He brings us in. I've loved you with an everlasting love. God also is relenting concerning calamity. We look at Nineveh. If we were to go and interview people through the city and be there on a street corner, And say, what is it that you have come now to learn about God? They'd say that God is gracious. God is compassionate. He's been slow to us with His anger. And He's been abounding in His loving kindness. He sent a Hebrew prophet who should have been hundreds of miles away from us. He should have rightfully stayed in His own nation. And God brought him through not only an ordeal on the sea and took him from the bottom of the depths of the sea, but He brought him all the way to the shore, led him to Nineveh, so that we could hear what great things God does for people who are far from Him. God is relented concerning calamity. He threatened us with judgment. And yet, as we've repented and laid hold of the grace He's offered, He's spared us and our city. And we can go about now with our animals, and we can enjoy our livelihood of planting and of eating God's relentless calamity. There are many instances, whether it be King Manasseh or violent Saul of Tarsus, many generations of an unfaithful Israel, where God has shown that He is serious to relent of calamity for those who repent." Now, you might be wondering, is this not an imbalanced view of God that Jonah is professing? I mean, here we have grace and compassion. We have slow to anger and loving kindness, and God relenting of calamity. And you may be saying, where is the justice of God? Where is the holiness of God? Where is the righteousness of God and the vengeful wrath of God? Where is all that? Are we somehow giving a false view of God as this nice God, this friendly God who comforts everybody in the same way? No, we're not. None of these things. These attributes are assuming that God is righteous? It's assuming that God is just, that God is fierce and is burning anger. What is grace except that we receive what we do not earn? That we get what we don't deserve? What is compassion that we do not receive that justice we do deserve for our sins? What is slow to anger? But acknowledging that God is a God of vengeance, a God of justice, that though He is slow, He will one day execute that anger with fullness of force. What is it that God is relenting concerning calamity? That like in the case of Nineveh, He offers salvation. That one day the judgment that He has threatened will come. on those who do not repent. No, all these things are assumed throughout. They're like the sky about us that we know is there. And yet we focus on more needful things as we go about and walk. We assume that the ground is there beneath us. But we don't go and think in terms of the law of physics and science as we go looking at our feet in front of us. We concentrate on other things. And the justice and the righteousness of God is there in the background. But He would have all focus on His grace and compassion. His slowness to that anger He threatens. And abounding loving kindness. All of this is a full presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what Jonah is professing. When he says, I knew that you're a gracious God, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, relenting of calamity, he's confessing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's his profession of faith. It's very interesting that in Ephesians chapter 2, when the Apostle Paul summarizes, he says, we were by nature children of wrath. We were those under the influence of hostility against God and God's righteous anger against us. We were by nature children of wrath, but God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead and our transgressions made us alive with Christ, by grace you have been saved. That's Jonah chapter 4 verse 2 in the New Testament and in a different way. And so God is gracious and compassionate. He's slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. And He relents concerning calamity. The gospel Jonah professes. But it leads us into some applications then from what Jonah is professing. One is this. that being the gospel of Jesus Christ, and having been that which Jonah focused his attention on, and God bringing him back once again in chapter 4, should I not have compassion? We ought, each one of us, to be examining ourselves and saying, do I know this saving God? Do I know this gospel of Jesus Christ? Have these things made an impact on my own heart and life? Jonah professed the same God who subduing the city of Nineveh once long ago still speaks to you today and says, will you too repent? Will you too believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that you might be saved? He subjugated the whole city to Himself under Christ. You and I have ears to hear it today. Do we feel God poking us? Do we hear His voice ringing in our ears? Can we see Him as it were looking us in the eyes and saying to us, do you believe the Gospel? Do you believe the gospel? Will you too confess that I am gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, relenting of calamity for even the greatest of sinners? Thus it's called the living and enduring word of God, Peter says, which begets a new creation. that takes people out of their sin and misery, out from under the judgment of God, and whisks them into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, a new creature for those who look to Christ. So God is gracious and compassionate. So He is slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, relenting. Is that your confession? This was Jonah's confession. It's our confession as a church. But is it your confession in the secret conscience before God? That with God alone looking at you, not the people next to you, not your parents, not your pastor or your elders, you say before God, this is my God. It's not my Father's God, so much as it is my God, to use the language of Exodus. You boys and girls, turning Jonah's words, can you say, I know that God is gracious and compassionate? Do you see it in your life, the way God has made for you to hear the way of salvation? The way in which your sins and be forgiven through the blood of Christ, shed for sinners at the cross? Do you see God's compassion to you? Do you see His slowness to anger? How abounding He is in love. We do well to ask ourselves these things. Do we have a feeling sense of the truth of these words? Another application, as disciples of Christ, Those who, in hearing the call, come and say, Lord, I will follow You. I receive the grace of forgiveness and peace and being reconciled to You as You call through the Gospel today. As disciples of Jesus Christ, like Jonah, we come to see that this confession Jonah makes has everything to do with our worship and our seeking God. Have you ever heard this expression in chapter 4 verse 2 before in your Bibles? Maybe you remember it. You find it back in Exodus chapter 34. And it's interesting that here Moses has gone up onto the mountain. God's speaking to him to lead the people in His ways. And you remember what they made? They made this golden calf as false worship to God. And they rose up, each one, to eat and drink and play. And rather than worship the true God and wait for His Word to guide their life, they start to doubt. And they make this calf, and Aaron, under pressure, having let the people get out of control, says, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. They all knew better. They knew that God was gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love for them. And there's Moses up on the mountain. God is making him to cut out the tablets to bring down to the people once again. The Lord passes by in front of Moses, verse 6, and proclaims, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness and truth, who keeps loving-kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin, and yet who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, but visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children to the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. And Moses, when he heard that word, he made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship." Worship. Do you know that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and relenting? Well, you'll see it in the way in which you worship. When we sing these songs, are the words settling in your mind? Is there joy in the heart for all the dewdrops of thanksgiving in the song? Are there words that make you to tremble as God speaks about His justice? In the way of all that He's provided you, is there a deep sense of love in response to God's first love to you? Moses made haste to worship God. When he hears these words, he falls to the ground before God. And it's no coincidence that we find this expression in the Psalms. We sang it in Psalm 86, verse 15. You, Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth. Turn to me and be gracious to me. There's a personal sense of God needing to be this God toward us. That if we don't have that, We have nothing. And here we're singing of the love of the Lord toward us. In Psalm 145, we once again, in verse 8, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great in loving kindness. The Lord is good to all. His mercies are over all His works. That's a psalm of praising the great and awesome name of God. Well, if you know that God is this God, is it seen in your worship? Or is it somewhat trite and superficial? Also, the statement is seen in many times in the Old Testament where the people of God, having been impacted by these things, call out to God and cry to Him with repentance. In chapter 9 of Nehemiah, the people are coming back from their exile. A long time of 70 years without their praise of God in the temple, without the reminders of the saving purpose and the sacrifices which spoke of Christ to come. Nehemiah says of the history of his people, they refused to listen and did not remember your wondrous deeds which you had performed among them. So they became stubborn. Reminds us of Jonah. They appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. And you did not forget them even when they made for themselves a calf of molten metal." And here's Nehemiah crying out and saying, Our Lord, our people are still coming back. Restore them all to Yourself. Is there not something in you in saying you know these words of God and you know this is your God? Does it impact you on that level and say, Lord, cleanse me. Test my heart and mind. Expose and show and bring bubbling up to the surface under your heating flames all that is not pleasing in your sight. Let my every meditation be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. What makes one worship this way? What makes one be about this kind of repentance? Well, it's knowing in Jesus Christ that God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness, relenting of calamity. And so God is this to you who name the name of Christ. And it's offered to you who do not. And as we continue in concluding Jonah, we're going to need this. Jonah's going to need it. Because where he is, is not where God would have him to be. And as he speaks to Jonah of who he is, should I not have compassion? Those last words that Jonah heard. Well, it leads us into the way we're going to conclude our study of the book of Jonah next week. Let us be about applying these things we've heard today that we might with Jonah return to the Lord in just the way that he would have us to do in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Oh, Lord, our God, it's with great joy and sense of privilege in our Lord Jesus that we hear your word this day. And you could have left us to hear no word from you ever again and to die under your justice. And yet you've had grace and compassion. You've been slow to anger and abundant in your love and kindness. How we praise you that you have relented of that judgment we deserve for our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. And we ask that you would bless this word to us this day in such a way that we might rise to your full worship with all of our hearts, all of our soul and strength and mind. And in Jesus Christ, lay hold of that everlasting love by which you've loved us. To be about the worship of you, our great God, and to seek your pleasure in all of our ways. Father, we confess that many times we're like Jonah. And as Your Word called Him, we are called this day. And we pledge ourselves to You, under Your mercies, and pray that You would lead and guide us in Your ways, and make us to know the joy of knowing You as our God and Savior through Christ, and revive and renew us once again. For in Christ we ask all these things. Amen. We take our handout again and respond with Psalm 103B in the middle of your handout. Again, another statement of who God is to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us stand and confess His name.