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[0:00] Well, we are in the final chapter of the book of Jonah.

[0:13] Having done three chapters to this point, we closed the book out, God willing, this morning. What a challenging time it's been to read about Jonah and try to understand this prophet of God and the ways that he's lived his life before the Lord.

[0:39] And hopefully we can see some of us in Jonah in a way that we need to repent. Repent from sin. But before I read from Jonah and we talk more about what we see here in chapter 4, I want to take you to a number of passages, share them with you, show you something about your God that you were just singing about.

[1:02] The God that we've all come to worship this morning. And the first place I'm going to take you is 1 Timothy 4.10. Now, I will have these verses up on the screen for you, but I need to turn there for each one of them.

[1:16] 1 Timothy 4.10. We'll just rehearse these together. 1 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 2 Timothy 5.10. 3 Timothy 5.10.

[1:27] 3 Timothy 5.10. 4 Timothy 5.10. So the apostle Paul, writing to his young protege in the faith, Timothy, is saying, these are the kinds of things that we are giving our lives to because we have fixed our hope on the living God.

[1:44] And notice what it tells us about our God in this passage. He is a living God who is the Savior of all men, men and women, mankind, but especially of believers.

[2:00] That's very interesting, isn't it? There is a sense in which God, the living God, is the Savior of everyone, all of humanity through the ages, but especially of what the text says, our believers.

[2:23] Believers. Then in 2 Peter 3.9, if you're turning with me there, 2 Peter 3.9, the Lord is not slow about His promise.

[2:42] He is slow to anger, as we'll see in a moment, but He is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

[3:05] And then in Exodus, back into the Old Testament, we find a fascinating, at least fascinating to me, account of an interchange between God and Moses.

[3:20] Exodus 33, beginning in verse 18. Then Moses said, I pray you, show me your glory.

[3:34] So here, Moses is asking God to show him who He is, as in, show me the beauty of your countenance. Let me see who you are.

[3:46] I know something about who you are, but let me physically see you. And he said, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.

[4:01] That's God saying this now. I will proclaim my own name before you, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.

[4:16] He goes on to tell him, you can't see my face. No man can see my face and live. And he put him in the cleft of the rock and passed by, and Moses was able to see him from behind.

[4:29] If you drop down then into chapter 34 and look at verse 6 with me, this is what happened. Then the Lord passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed.

[4:43] Notice what God is proclaiming about Himself as He moves past Moses. The Lord, the Lord God. Key in on that.

[4:54] That's going to become very important for us in our message from Jonah this morning. The Lord, the Lord God. Compassionate and gracious.

[5:06] Slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth. Who keeps loving kindness for thousands and forgives iniquity.

[5:20] That's your God. That's my God. And then finally, one other place I'd like to take you is Romans chapter 9. Romans 9 verse 15.

[5:35] For He says to Moses, For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

[5:54] Now I've just given you a series of passages in Scripture that give you some important details and information about the character of your God. He's a God who saves because that is who God is.

[6:11] And that's the title of my message this morning. Because that is who God is. And that's why He does what He does. Now friends, as we conclude the book of Jonah together, I want to spark some wonder in your mind with questions with questions like this.

[6:34] These are typical questions, average questions that any student of the Scriptures would ask about any given book that you're coming to study or passage. This just happens to be about the book of Jonah.

[6:47] So questions like this to spark wonder in your mind as you think about this with me. Why did God move Jonah to write about this series of encounters with the Lord?

[7:00] Why did God move Jonah to write this? What did God want the book of Jonah to convey to the original readers?

[7:14] What did God want the book of Jonah to convey to the nation of Israel who would eventually pick up this book and read it as a nation? And to people like us reading Jonah in these last days, the days after the cross?

[7:33] Another question, why did God put the book of Jonah in the Bible? What place does it hold? Why is it here? And what does the book of Jonah tell us about God and His work of redemption and compassion for sinners?

[7:55] Another way of asking that question is what do we see of Jesus in the book of Jonah? Why does God choose to save anyone from their sins?

[8:08] Not just Jonah, not just the Ninevites that are part of the narrative. Why does God choose to save anyone? Let's make it a little more personal. Why does God choose to save every person on earth every moment of every day?

[8:27] We read about that sense of God saving people, that He saves all people on planet earth. Have you thought about that?

[8:38] That's particularly challenging for people in our church who believe that God is sovereign in salvation. But you need to see both sides of the coin here. The scripture teaches our God saves everyone.

[8:49] We just need to understand what He means when He says God saves everyone, but especially believers. That's the key.

[9:01] That's the book of Jonah. Believe it or not. And to answer these questions, we turn to the Bible.

[9:14] We turn to scripture to teach us about God and His ways because, because, that is where God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. Why did God save you?

[9:28] Why did God bring you to Himself? Now I want to share a quote with you. The following quote is from Dr. MacArthur and it helps explain God's compassion for both unbelievers and believers.

[9:42] At least it gets us started because that's a lot of what we're seeing in the book of Jonah, even as it draws to a conclusion. So all of the emphasis that you'll see in this particular quote is mine.

[9:54] I'm just trying to highlight some things that I want to jump out at you. So here we go. God revealed Himself as a Savior to Israel in two ways.

[10:07] Temporally, not temporarily, temporarily. God saved the people by delivering them from bondage in Egypt and preserving them through the ensuing 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

[10:19] Now the reason that we say temporarily there, if you'll just pause for a minute, is because we understand that all of the people that left out of Egypt that were delivered in that moment, all of those people were not believing in God.

[10:34] They might give lip service to God, but not all of them were believing in God in a saving way. as in, God is my God. This is personal.

[10:46] Not all of them. Paul tells us that. Not all Israel is Israel. And we see that there were a large group of those people who didn't believe God, and what did God do with them?

[10:58] He got rid of them. He judged them, and yet they were standing there in the company of Israel. They were some of the people delivered out of Egypt. And then they wandered in the desert for 40 years as judgment for that unbelief.

[11:14] Now go on with me in this. So temporally, as it applies to this life, God saved the people by delivering them from bondage in Egypt and preserving them through the ensuing 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

[11:27] God did that. Through common grace, the grace that God extends to all people, God, in his kindness and tolerance and patience, gives sinners an opportunity to repent.

[11:44] That's from Romans 2, verse 4. He is, notice now, the Savior of all men in a temporal sense, and especially of believers in a spiritual sense.

[12:00] God delivers people generally from the just and immediate temporal, and physical in this life consequences of their sin.

[12:12] But more importantly, God delivers believers from sin's spiritual and eternal consequences as well. Are you following that with me? Thus, the believing remnant of Israel enjoyed not only God's temporal salvation, the salvation he was providing for them in a physical sense by giving to them all that they needed to stay alive and to be kept like the rest of the nation, but also spiritual salvation.

[12:44] So there was a remnant in Israel that believed in God in a way where God was their God. He's my saving God. It's personal to me. I am looking to him and to him alone to deliver me from my sins, not just from my circumstances.

[13:05] That's the difference. There are people who believe in God because they believe in him long enough that they can get deliverance from their circumstances. You've heard the saying that there are no atheists in foxholes.

[13:17] That's the kind of thing we're talking about when the bullets are flying. Oh, God. Now we become prayers. That's likened to the Ninevites.

[13:29] And yet Jonah is a prophet of God. He is one of the people looking to God for salvation. And it's personal. So as we move through this, I want you to keep that in mind.

[13:41] So let's read in Jonah chapter 4. So for those of you who are visiting, I know you're jumping in right here at the last moment, the fourth quarter as it were, but that's okay.

[13:54] We'll still be able to follow through. But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. Now I'm going to explain the context of that when I get into my message. So let's just keep going.

[14:05] He prayed. Jonah prayed now to the Lord. He's deeply displeased and he's very, very angry. And so he comes to pray to God. And this is what he says.

[14:17] 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.

[14:28] Why did he do that? Because I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, the one who relents and concerns calamity.

[14:41] And concerning calamity. Therefore, now, oh, Lord, please take my life from me. Death is better to me than life. What a brat.

[14:51] The Lord said, the Lord said, do you have good reason to be angry? Then Jonah went out from there.

[15:03] He went east of the city. He made a shelter for himself. He sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.

[15:14] So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade for his head to deliver him from his discomfort.

[15:25] 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.

[15:39] 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 of his soul to die, saying, death is better to me than life.

[15:51] Then God said to Jonah, do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant? And Jonah 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.

[16:14] 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 hand and their left hand, as well as many animals.

[16:30] That's it. Done deal. As the book closes, it might seem like it was left unresolved or unfinished.

[16:42] Now, wait a minute. What about Jonah? What happens to Jonah? I'm going to talk about that in a minute. It moves and it ends. This book moves and ends as the Holy Spirit led Jonah himself to write it and to end it.

[16:59] The flow of the narrative does lead to an abrupt ending, which serves as a helpful, interpretive piece of evidence for what we need to learn about God from this book of the Bible.

[17:15] The way it ends actually puts an exclamation point on what we need to learn about God. This is not a book about what we need to learn about Jonah or the Ninevites or even the Israelites.

[17:28] This is a book that shows us the character in the heart of our God. And we need this message from the Lord. So it's not so much an issue of looking at Jonah to teach us what we are not to be like.

[17:45] If we're honest with ourselves, I think we already know that we're like Jonah. And that's troubling to us. Should be. We uncomfortably connect with Jonah. We see our bratty selves, our pouty selves, our sulky selves, our argumentative selves, our prideful selves.

[18:08] Even the Ninevites, we can see some of us in. And I think because it's Jonah and the Ninevites both moving in this direction that Jonah doesn't even recognize, we see the need for repentance.

[18:23] Both Jonah and the Ninevites need to repent. Jonah is resisting all that. The issue isn't about Jonah or about who we don't need to be like.

[18:39] The issue is about God, who we do need to be like. So the focus is on God's incredible, incredible goodness. Toward people who are wicked.

[18:52] And yet, and yet, made in the image of God. And how God graciously leads these people to repentance. And covers them in his caring compassion.

[19:05] And I hope that you're sitting there now, if you know the Lord and you're walking with the Lord and you're thinking, that's exactly what God's done to me. I didn't deserve any of this. But God has forgiven me and saved me and covered me with the caring compassion of his heart.

[19:22] And boy, I want to stay right there. I want to be right there. It's a good place to be, isn't it? So in chapter four, here's what we're going to highlight together as we move through this passage.

[19:33] All right, we're going to highlight three demonstrations of God's goodness. And they are brilliantly, those three are brilliantly displayed against the backdrop of Jonah's sinfulness.

[19:48] It's like you're putting a really beautiful piece of jewelry, an emerald or a diamond on black velvet. And boy, it just pops.

[20:00] And so as we read through this story, these three wonderful demonstrations of God's goodness just pop right out against Jonah's sinfulness.

[20:10] The first one that we'll deal with and we'll jump right in is God's character and Jonah's prayer. Jonah's prayer is very revealing, but it's very revealing not just about Jonah. It's very revealing about God.

[20:22] It's in verses one through four. We see it here. Jonah was greatly displeased. He became angry and so he prayed. Please, Lord, wasn't this what I told you and what I said that I knew would happen when I was still in my own country before you ever took me out of my country and sent me 500 miles across the desert to be in this place.

[20:41] Therefore, in order to forestall it, I fled to Tarshish because I knew you're a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.

[20:53] Now in verse one, the it in my translation, but it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. What's the it? It refers to God's relenting about destroying Nineveh so that he did not do it.

[21:10] You go back up into the context of verse 10. When God saw their deeds of the Ninevites, the most wicked people on the planet at this particular time, when God saw their deeds that they turned from their wickedness, their wicked way, then God relented concerning what he had told them he would do through Jonah.

[21:29] Forty days from now and Nineveh will fall. I will destroy it, God said. But he did not do it. The did not do it is what Jonah's so upset about.

[21:45] It had two immediate effects on Jonah, and these effects bring out the contrast between Jonah and God. So Jonah is serving as that backdrop to give you that pop for God's wonderful goodness and character in this story.

[22:05] Here's the first one that we're going to look at together as far as an effect. It greatly displeased. That's a strong, strong term that's being used here.

[22:17] It means to be remarkably distressed. I'm remarkably distressed. Have you ever said that in a conversation to somebody? You have me remarkably distressed at this moment. But he is.

[22:27] He's remarkably distressed. So this brought out a deeply wicked, you might think, boy, he's a prophet of God. You sure about that? He brought out this deeply wicked, bad disposition.

[22:38] If you ever kind of walked away from a context where you kind of went, ooh, that came out of me? That's what's happening with Jonah. The situation is revealing Jonah's heart.

[22:50] Jonah's getting squeezed, and what's coming out is very yucky, very unpleasant. It's very different from God's heart, and that's the point. That's the point that we want to see.

[23:03] The second thing we want to zero in on from the text, and he became angry. He became angry. It literally means to be kindled, to burn, or to be hot.

[23:15] So here's the contrast between God and Jonah already, as we see it, displayed for us through this prayer.

[23:25] We're going to do a little more with that in just a second. Here's the contrast. Jonah is wickedly put out, and God is wonderfully compassionate. Jonah is burning with anger, and God's anger is turned away.

[23:41] That's what we're seeing so far as we move toward a close in this particular narrative. Now, verse 2. Look at verse 2 with me because it's kind of the heart of all of this.

[23:56] I was still in my own country. I fled because I knew that you're a gracious and compassionate God. That's first. You are a God who is slow to anger.

[24:07] You are also a God who is not only slow to anger, but abundant in loving kindness. It's not just that you withhold your anger. It's also that you pour out your love.

[24:19] And you are a God who relents, who wants to turn away from calamity. Those are important realities. Now, notice that in his heart attitude of anger and evil, Jonah prays.

[24:36] that's something. That even in that moment, this is a man who is willing to go to the God of the universe and have this cynical, argumentative attitude.

[24:53] See? See? I knew it. I knew it. This is exactly what I knew you would do. Oh, that's Jonah.

[25:06] And he's praying. Man. I'm kind of scared for him at this moment. He, folks, listen to this, please.

[25:21] Jonah sinfully, sinfully despises what he should celebrate. And that's us. That's why we need this saving God.

[25:41] Because this truth about God's character was just fine and dandy when it was applied to Jonah back in chapter 2. When the whale spit him out and he was up on the, and he gave the, gave the prayer to, to God while he was in the belly of the whale.

[26:00] And then the whale spit him out. Oh, that's all fine. Use the whale to rescue me. Use the whale to spit me out and give me a second chance. I'm all good with you doing that. After all, I'm your prophet.

[26:12] That's all fine and dandy. But it's all different story when it's regarding God applying that same grace to Jonah's enemies. That's not fair. That's not right.

[26:23] So Jonah, Jonah is rehearsing what he knew about God's character in, in, in verse 2 from Old Testament passages like I shared with you earlier.

[26:35] There were a few of them. Psalm 30, or Exodus 33 and 34. Psalm 86 that we did last week. Psalm 145 that you saw. There's also a reference to this loving kindness in Joel chapter 2.

[26:48] I mean, the Bible is full of this kind of thing about God's character. So Jonah's rehearsing that. But listen now, in his anger and in his self-righteousness, Jonah admits that God is compassionate.

[27:02] That's his nature. And that's exactly why he fled from God in the first place. Now, can you grasp that with me? I know that you're this kind of God.

[27:13] You're wonderful. You're gracious, slow to anger. You're kind. You're full of love toward people. So I left. I fled. I got out of Dodge. What? Let that do that.

[27:26] What? Because that's how we need to deal with us. When our hearts are being revealed, we need to be before the Lord saying, what? What?

[27:37] Oh, my heart is desperately sick, deceitfully wicked. God help me. God help me. That's a good place to be. That's not where Jonah is. Jonah is saying this as if he's saying this.

[27:50] I knew. Now, listen. I knew you were wrong to do this. That you would do this and I didn't want to be a part of it.

[28:05] Therefore, in order to keep this from happening, I fled to Tarshish. Can you imagine? That's what he's saying. Jonah, in effect, is telling God you were wrong to do this and I don't want any part of it.

[28:23] Here's what we're seeing. God saves because that is who God is. He saves because he is salvation.

[28:38] He is doing who he is. Jesus isn't someone that just does. He is. We turn to him as Savior and Lord because that's who he is, not simply what he does.

[28:54] He is Savior and Lord. He's the treasure. It's not just that he doles out treasure on us as his people. He's the treasure. So as we find him, we find the treasure and hold and cling to the treasure.

[29:08] you're going to see why that's so important in just a second. Verse 2 is what we all need to rehearse about God as we worship him, as we rejoice in him for his sovereignty in saving us.

[29:25] That's so wonderful. That should spur us to sing songs so that when we sing hallelujah, we don't sing it like this. Hallelujah.

[29:35] Hallelujah. No, it's hallelujah. Hallelujah. This wonderful God, this great God, this saving God, I can't wait to say hallelujah.

[29:54] Why don't we do that? Because we're self-conscious, because we're worried about what other people think, because we drag in all of our stuff, and we let our stuff define how we worship.

[30:08] That's what Jonah's doing. Jonah's letting all of his prejudice and his bias and his pride and his stuff define how he's worshiping, and it's terrible.

[30:20] It's depriving God of the true worship he deserves. So we need to rehearse this. We need to rejoice in God, and we need to rightly celebrate and apply truth, passages like these that I want to share with you.

[30:41] I want to share with you John chapter 6 verse 44. John chapter 6 verse 44, and I think I've got a, do I have a, yes, there it is.

[30:57] Now lay this verse aside all the other verses that we've been talking about in terms of God saving everyone, especially believers, that kind of thing. No one can come to me, Jesus says, unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

[31:17] No one can come to the Father except the Father draws him. Why is that the case?

[31:28] Well, that's the case because of Romans chapter 3 verse 11. I don't have a slide for this, but just, just pew. Go to Romans chapter 3 verse 11. This is why we need God to do the drawing.

[31:41] This is why we need God to move on us and take the initiative with us. We could read all of this passage here, 10, 11, 12, all the way down through, but just notice verse 11.

[31:52] There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. We don't do that. We don't seek for God. We live in self-righteousness. So we need a God who will shake us out of our non-seeking for him and draw us to himself.

[32:10] We need that. So don't focus on you in that statement. Focus on God and say, man, thank you, God, that you're a kind of God that draws people to yourself.

[32:21] Why would you even do that? Why would you want any of us to be drawing near to you? And the answer is because he saves, because that's who God is.

[32:34] Hallelujah. And then, finally, Ephesians 1. Ephesians chapter 1. This is another place where it's clearly revealed to us the character of our saving God.

[32:54] God. And here's what it says, starting in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has done this, blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us.

[33:14] He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, God. That we would be holy and blameless before him in love.

[33:25] He predestined, predetermined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to himself. And why did he do all that?

[33:36] Why did he do all that? According to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace. That's why. Say, why does God save anybody?

[33:48] Because it is the kind intention of his will to do that because that's who he is. That's who your God is. Your God is the savior of all people in a temporal sense.

[34:03] They get up, they go to work, they eat, they have clothes, they have cars, they enjoy life. In that sense, God keeps everybody saved.

[34:14] Because in their sin, what do they deserve in an instant? Death. That's what the Bible says. For all have fallen short of the glory of God and the wages of sin is death.

[34:27] And then God is most especially the savior of believers. How so? Because in believer, he's drawn those people to himself. And now they are looking to God and God alone for their salvation and forgiveness for their sins.

[34:42] And so they're especially saved in that spiritual sense. nevertheless, what's in the middle and what's screaming at us in all of that? Our saving God.

[34:55] Our crucified Christ. Our risen Lord. That's who. That's what we need to focus on. Verse 2 of Jonah, chapter 4, if you'll go back there with me.

[35:09] Verse 2 of Jonah, chapter 4, helps balance our view of God in terms of the sovereignty in salvation. So at the root of it, do you know what Jonah is so angry about?

[35:24] At the root of it. Here it is. He's angry because God is sovereign in salvation. That's why he's mad. What do I mean by that?

[35:36] God gets to choose those he shows his mercy and compassion to. I just read you passage after passage on that. God gets to choose.

[35:48] And Jonah's mad about that. God's electing grace forces us to face ourselves. And we don't like that.

[35:59] We don't like to know that God's electing grace exposes our pride. We don't get to choose who gets saved. We don't get to choose.

[36:10] Now many of you know from my congregation that I have three unbelieving children that we raised in the Lord. We love them and tenderly taught them the truth of the Lord and they are not walking with God.

[36:22] I don't get to choose. If I got to choose, they'd all be in the Lord. But I trust my saving God with their souls and I don't know a better place for my soul, the souls of my children to be than me trusting their souls in the hands of God.

[36:44] What would I want? Their souls in my hands? No. Who am I? I can't save them. I'm just like them. I have the same need. And so Suzanne and I go to God and we pray for them every day.

[37:00] God, please save our children. Please have mercy. Don't you do that? Don't you do that with people you love and care about? Your neighbors? We have a gentleman next door to us who's dying of cancer and we pray for him and pray for his soul.

[37:21] We've witnessed and shared the gospel with him and begged him to come to the Lord. God. God. This is why Jonah's mad. The issue that we truly struggle with in terms of God's sovereignty, God's ultimate control.

[37:41] On salvation, the issue we truly struggle with. Is not that it's unfair. That's what people say.

[37:52] It's not fair that God would choose some people to save and not others. that's not what we struggle with when we really look at it. Here's what we struggle with.

[38:05] We struggle with this that God alone gets to choose. We're Jonah. We want to tell God that he's wrong to save the way he chooses.

[38:20] And that he should do it more our way. God help us. God help us. I did the same exact thing. I was there. I think it's especially hard.

[38:33] And I'm a pastor, you guys. I'm a father. I think it's especially hard for us to be drawn to this doctrine of God choosing when we're parents, we have kids because we want so desperately to see our kids be forgiven for their sins and have faith in Christ.

[38:50] We would give our very lives to see that happen, wouldn't we parents? Absolutely. But I tell you again and plead with you as your pastor and your friend and as a daddy, there is no better place for you as a parent to entrust the souls of your children than in the hands of almighty God.

[39:09] Rest there. Rest there and draw the comfort of Jesus. Your friends, your family, your extended family. Pray for them and let them be in the hands of Jesus and trust Jesus to do what is his sovereign will to do and believe that in whatever he chooses to do, he is good and wise.

[39:32] He is kind and slow to anger and patient. Rest there. If you go to the other place, it will be a dark place and it will do dark things to your heart.

[39:44] Please don't do that. Don't rob God of his worship because he's not saving the way you think he should. Who are you or I to tell God how to save people and who to save and when to save them?

[40:00] We can't do that. And Jonah is doing that and he's doing that in a bratty, loud, obnoxious, prideful way. Verse three.

[40:13] Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me for death is better to me than life. My goodness. How deeply into your pride do you have to go? Verse three is a telling and chilling truth about how deeply these kinds of attitudes about God are rooted in our hearts.

[40:33] It's like Jonah saying, I'm so full of contempt right now. I'm so full of anger about what you've done in sparing these people that I just want you to kill me. Death is better to me than living knowing that you used me to spare them.

[40:48] I can't live with that. I can't live with knowing I'm one of the instruments that you use to keep them alive when they all need to be killed. Every one of them.

[40:59] That's Jonah. He hates these people so much. These people have done a terrible, terrible thing to Israel on a number of occasions. And Jonah's just grown to hate them for it.

[41:12] Verse four, the Lord said, do you have good reason to be angry? It's a simple but very searching question aimed at Jonah's heart.

[41:25] Whatever our argument is back toward God, whatever our emotions are back toward God, God is asking us, do you have a right to be that way? In other words, do you have a right to hold on to this in your heart toward me?

[41:42] And not allow me to be the saving God I reveal myself to be in Scripture. Notice in verse four, we're given no answer.

[41:55] God asked the question and there's no answer. The text leaves us to believe that Jonah did not reply. He turned away in a huff and he went off to sulk.

[42:06] So Jonah's response to God's grace and compassion brings out a very important truth for us to carefully, carefully consider, friends. What Jonah says in verse two is great theology.

[42:19] Isn't it? Isn't it beautiful? It's great truth about who God is. When he talks about God being kind, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abundant, that's good theology.

[42:33] He's saying the right thing about God. So, so, so what's the issue? What's the problem? But here's the problem. Here's the problem. Jonah isn't allowing that truth to change and define his heart toward the Lord, not just toward the Ninevites, toward God.

[42:55] The reason he feels the way he does about the Ninevites is because he's getting God wrong in his heart. Jesus identified the same issue in religious leaders as they recited scripture and good theology, but Jesus quoted about them from Isaiah.

[43:15] Isaiah actually said this and Jesus quoted this about the religious leaders. Here's what he said about them. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

[43:26] They give me lip service, but no heart. No heart. Now, as I say that, that's the danger that we all face. This is not about religion.

[43:42] And I'm not saying, please hear me carefully, I am not saying Jonah is an unbeliever. But I'm saying that as a believer, he's not receiving the word of God implanted so that he's being a hearer and a doer.

[44:00] No, he's not. If he would receive the word implanted, then he would be a hearer and a doer. It would compel him to do as he sees God doing.

[44:12] But he's not doing that. Folks, God is speaking to Jonah. Boy, what would it be like for you, for God to have a conversation with you where you're hearing him?

[44:22] Don't tell me that happens. I don't want to know if that happens. No, this God is speaking directly to Jonah. And listen to this. Jonah is seeing the expressions of God's heart in what he's doing toward the Ninevites.

[44:37] So he's got no excuse. He's hearing from God directly. He's seeing God work in this. And yet he's not convicted in seeing that his heart and actions are just the opposite of God's.

[44:54] That's that's not arresting him to realize that God is God has one attitude about this and he's taking action in a different way. And all of that's different from how my attitudes are and my actions are.

[45:08] And Jonah is not saying, man, I better I better get my ducks right here. He's not doing that. What was getting in the way of Jonah thinking and acting like God?

[45:23] You're not going to be shocked. I've said it several times. Here it is. Jonah's pride. We see the care of God. We could if you want another P, we could we could replace care with God's providence.

[45:40] The way that God cares for all of his creation to include unbelievers and animals, all that he's made. God cares. And against God's caring is Jonah's pride.

[45:53] Verses five through eight. Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it and he made a shelter for himself. He sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. Let's just stop right there.

[46:04] In his brooding and angry mood, Jonah leaves the city. He builds this makeshift hut. He sits under it to wait and see what God will do. Well, Jonah, God's already told you what he's going to do.

[46:15] What's going on? Jonah is still hoping God's going to wipe him out. And he wants a front row seat. Man. Now, that's stubborn, isn't it? Verse six.

[46:28] So the Lord God appointed. Now circle that word appointed in your Bibles. If you can, if you mark up your Bible. So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade for his head to deliver him from his discomfort.

[46:42] And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. Well, of course. More grace for Jonah, more grace, more undeserved favor from the Lord to this point in the narrative from chapter one to chapter four, verse five.

[47:00] Two names have identified God throughout the narrative. Jonah uses the name. Look at look at this now. Jonah uses the name Lord or Yahweh or Jehovah, as in salvation is of the Lord or Jehovah Yahweh.

[47:22] And this is why this is important. Let me let me walk you through this and tell you Yahweh or Jehovah means the existing one. It's the personal name of the God of Israel, which God gave to Moses.

[47:35] So God came to Moses and said, here is the name that I want my people to use for me. Yahweh or Jehovah God. That's my name.

[47:46] I am the existing one. God. That's what he's telling him. The second name used for God in our narrative throughout Jonah is Elohim, as in then the people of Nineveh believed in Elohim, God.

[48:06] And Elohim, as you see on the screen, Elohim means God or deity. It's a generic term for deity. Whenever the Ninevites are mentioned, this is the name used for God.

[48:20] Whenever Jonah is mentioned up to this point, it's Yahweh or Jehovah, the personal name for God. So we have we have two distinct kinds of emphases going on here as it concerns Jonah with God and the Ninevites with God. But notice in chapter four, verse six.

[48:42] So the Lord God appointed. The Lord God. What we have in four six is the use of his compound divine name.

[48:56] You remember when I was reading in Exodus earlier, I highlighted that for you. The Lord God, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord God. That's what we're seeing here.

[49:07] A compound divine name for God. And it signals a change. A significant change. And the change is that while Jonah is a prophet of God, he's being equated with a pagan people.

[49:25] And that would have really disturbed Jonah because he thinks he's so above these people. You know, I know Jehovah. I know Yahweh. Whereas you know him as Elohim.

[49:36] Jonah is Nineveh. That's the equation we'll hold in our minds. Jonah equals Nineveh.

[49:48] You see how that would make him really mad. If he wants to die now because he's mad, that would send him over the edge for sure. From this point on in the narrative, even as it concerns Jonah, God's generic name is used along with his personal name.

[50:08] We'll see both as it concerns Jonah. That's new. Why? Because God is treating Jonah like Jonah wanted God to treat Ninevites.

[50:18] Not as Yahweh, who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abundant loving kindness, the one who relents concerning calamity. Treat them as Elohim. The God they don't even know.

[50:31] The God who punishes the disobedience of unbelievers. What Jonah isn't accepting is this. And this is what Jonah is teaching us.

[50:41] The book. Our God is the Lord God. Not Yahweh, Jehovah. Not Elohim.

[50:54] He is Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim. He's both. He's the Lord God. And that's good news for us.

[51:07]  God showed Jonah that he is both. And that God gets to decide.