[0:00] We are starting series going through the book of Jonah, if you guys want to turn there. If you ask a group of kids to tell a story from the Bible, chances are Jonah is going to be one of those stories.
[0:16] The book of Jonah is an exciting book with unbelievable characters and situations. We have God. We have Jonah, the horrible missionary.
[0:27] We have God's mission. We have a storm. We've got Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. We have the fact that Jonah lives in a big fish for three days.
[0:38] We have Jonah being stewed out onto dry land. We've got a plant that God provides for Jonah. There are just some extreme situations to this book. With all the unbelievable things, this book is a great story of redemption.
[0:52] In fact, each chapter, four chapters, each chapter has a different story of redemption in it. It's a great story of adventure, of God's power, a great story of God's sovereignty, a great story of the human heart, who we really are.
[1:10] It's a great missionary story. With God's mercy shown to Jonah, a Jew, to the Ninevites, Gentiles, and to sailors who are pagans.
[1:22] It's a great story. And a lot of times with great stories, we kind of dismiss it for Sunday school lesson material. But this is a great story for all of us this morning.
[1:33] So I'm going to read the entire book. And then we'll dig into the first five verses. Verse 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
[1:54] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
[2:11] But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.
[2:23] And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship, and had lain down and was fast asleep.
[2:34] So the captain came to him and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.
[2:46] And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots, and a lot fell on Jonah.
[2:57] Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
[3:13] Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing for the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?
[3:29] For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, Pick me up, and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.
[3:43] Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not. For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood.
[4:00] For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
[4:13] And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me.
[4:27] Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.
[4:41] Then I said, I am driven away from your sight. Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life.
[4:51] The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought me up my life from the pit.
[5:05] Brought up my life from the pit. Oh Lord, my God. When my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
[5:19] But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Today, salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto the dry land.
[5:36] Then the word came to Jonah. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise. Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.
[5:47] So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. Three days' journey in breadth.
[5:59] Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God.
[6:10] They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
[6:25] As he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.
[6:35] Let them not feed or drink water, but let them and beasts, covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
[6:48] Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
[7:06] But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That this is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish?
[7:19] For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
[7:32] And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry? Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.
[7:46] Now the Lord appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
[8:00] But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.
[8:13] And he asked that he might die and said, It is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry for the plant?
[8:24] And he said, Yes, I do. Well, to be angry, angry enough to die. And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow which came into being in a night and perished in a night.
[8:38] And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle.
[8:53] So, a little bit of background to the book of Jonah. The book takes place in the 8th century B.C. Nineveh was a capital of Assyria. They're not sure if it was the capital, but it was definitely a capital.
[9:08] There were a lot of nobles who lived in this city. And it was a great city. Large city. And the Assyrians were well known by all of Israel for their brutality and cruelty.
[9:21] They were known to tear off lips and hands of their victims. Lips and hands. The lion's den. Torture were regular practices for this brutal people.
[9:33] Historically speaking, Jonah is a prophet of God. This isn't the first time that the Word of the Lord came to Jonah.
[9:44] In fact, we see in 2 Kings, where God spoke and used Jonah to speak to the people of Israel. So, Jonah is not new to hearing the Word of the Lord.
[9:57] This book is very important to us. Not because of the story, although that is important. It's important because Jesus Himself spoke about Jonah and the big fish.
[10:10] Jesus Himself spoke and said that this happened. And if Jesus said it, and these things did not happen, then we must discount the rest of the Scripture and just go on our merry way and forget about this Christianity thing.
[10:28] C.S. Lewis wrote it this way. He says, A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
[10:40] He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something worse.
[10:57] You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. The idea there is that what Jesus speaks and has spoken has to happen, has to be real.
[11:16] And so Jonah, spoken from God's mouth in Matthew 12, has to have happened. Which makes our time studying it all the more important.
[11:32] See, in it we learn about God. We learn about God's desires. We learn about His characteristics. We also learn, as if we didn't know already, ourselves, the heart of man.
[11:47] And it's always good to remind ourselves who we are or who we were. Because, because who we were and who we are always elevates who Christ is if we're Christians, if we're believers.
[12:01] If we truly look and see who we were and what Christ did, then it elevates Christ. And that makes this book very important.
[12:13] I've titled this message, God's Mission Versus Man's Heart. And if you know anything about the Bible, then you know that God trumps man's heart. God always trumps.
[12:27] As Creator, as Mercy Giver, as Holy, as Justice Maker, He trumps us. But the book of Jonah, as we've just read, is filled with great hope.
[12:40] Great hope for us in the world. And that excites me. And that should excite you as well. There are three points to the sermon this morning.
[12:52] And each point has two parts. So don't get confused. We have God speaks and Jonah hears. We have God's message and Jonah's reaction. We have God's response and Jonah's pretense.
[13:07] I want to make it clear that God's mission, and this is going to be repeated as we go through this book, God's mission is completely dependent upon God. Not dependent upon you, not dependent upon me, not dependent upon Jonah.
[13:22] It is dependent upon God. What God wants to do, what He desires, it happens. What He creates, it becomes. He gives a mission and it happens.
[13:36] So God's sovereignty is clearly displayed in the book of Jonah. All right, so the first point this morning. God speaks and Jonah hears.
[13:47] Verse 1. It says, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. We have the two characters. We have God, we have the Lord, and we have Jonah.
[13:58] God speaks and Jonah hears. As I've said already, this is not the first time that God spoke to Jonah. In 2 Kings 14, we have the only other place where Jonah is mentioned in all of Scripture.
[14:19] And God has spoken through Jonah to the people of Israel. Now in my opinion, before studying this book, I thought Jonah was just a goober.
[14:30] I thought he was an idiot. That God spoke to him clearly, however that was. Voice, word, picture in the sky, who knows? It doesn't tell us. But God spoke to him clearly, and he goes the opposite direction.
[14:44] What a fool! But honestly, he's quite different than that. Because in 2 Kings, he was already a prophet, and the word of the Lord came to him.
[14:57] And he spoke to an evil king, an evil Israel. Israel was not godly. They were not God-fearing at this time. So he speaks to the people of Israel, and King Jeroboam does exactly what Jonah says.
[15:13] And God blesses Israel. In fact, the land of Israel had grown under this king to the size that it originally was under King Solomon, which was the biggest that it had been up to that point.
[15:26] So God used Jonah to bless Israel. There's a chance, a great chance, that Jonah was wealthy and popular. That maybe he was hero-like to the people of Israel. So he was familiar with God's voice.
[15:42] He knew if God spoke to him. As we know, Jonah didn't really hear God, though, right?
[15:52] In Hebrew, in Deuteronomy 6, we have the, it's called the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. In Hebrew, obedience is always connected with hearing.
[16:08] Kind of like us today. Sometimes we say, I listened, but I didn't hear you. I heard the noise, but I didn't really hear you. In Hebrew, obedience was always connected with hearing.
[16:23] So that, if you didn't obey what was told to you, then clearly you didn't hear. If you didn't do what God had said, then you didn't really hear. Jonah didn't really hear.
[16:37] He listened. He picked out what he wanted to. Go to Nineveh. Oh, I'm going to go the other way. He didn't hear what God had said. And I think it happens to us a lot.
[16:50] We read Scripture. We read the Word of God. We listen. But do we really hear? Do we really follow what we've read with obedience? So God spoke.
[17:03] The Word of the Lord came to Jonah. And Jonah listened. The Word of the Lord fell on his ears, but he did not hear.
[17:14] All right, so that's the first one. The next two points we're going to spend a little more time with. So that was God speaks and Jonah hears. Verse 1 clearly tells us the two characters in this spot.
[17:28] Next we have God's message and Jonah's reaction. Verse 2 tells us God's message. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it for their evil has come up before me.
[17:43] Clearly, we don't have the exact message of what Jonah was supposed to say.
[17:54] We see what he said in chapter 3 where he said, 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Not a real articulate message.
[18:05] Probably a little Jonah sided there. We have not been, it has not been clearly told to us, but what we do know is that Nineveh heard the message.
[18:18] They repented. They repented and they started worshipping the Lord, Yahweh. It was a call to repentance, to turn from their sin and turn towards God.
[18:34] And it's the message that Peter preached at Pentecost. It's the message that Paul preaches. It's the message that Jesus preached. It is the story of the Bible. God's redemption to a repentant people.
[18:49] When Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church in Wittenberg, number one on his list, the Christian life is to be a life of repentance. Because that is the message of Scripture.
[19:03] Scripture. This is where we stand. This is the message to us. In this story, this is where we sit. We must be a people of repentance.
[19:14] This message is not just to Nineveh, it is to us. Look at verse 2 again. Look at it. It starts with two commands. Arise, go.
[19:25] Go. To give a sense of urgency. Not just get up at your leisure, make your way over to Nineveh.
[19:37] Arise and go. In other words, hear your orders, now move. Hear your orders, now go. As I've talked about the Assyrians, and I've talked about the people of Nineveh, this would be like in 1944, for God to tell you to go to Nazi Germany and preach against Hitler and the people of Germany who are buying into the Nazi regime.
[20:08] That's probably pretty accurate. We would say, that's crazy. What would make it worse is if you were Jewish and God told you to go do that. That would be even better.
[20:20] God has sent me to tell you, Hitler, that you are going to hell unless you repent. Five seconds maybe, you'd be dead. Unless God had a plan for the Nazi Germany, like he has here for the Ninevites.
[20:37] You remember when you were a child and you played hide and seek? You know, if somebody was trying to find you and you happened to be just around the corner, you maybe would close your eyes because, you know, if they couldn't see you, or if you couldn't see them, they couldn't see you.
[20:53] You guys relate to that? We do it in class and in prayer time, you know, when you don't want to be called, we put our heads down. No, I really don't want to pray, so I'm just going to, I can't see him, he can't see me.
[21:07] We do that. We, as people, tend to take that same practice and apply it to our theology.
[21:20] We apply it to what we think God is. We think that if we're not looking at God, if our eyes are closed, that he doesn't exist, or that he's not paying attention, or he doesn't care.
[21:37] If we just ignore him, and this isn't just non-Christians, this is believers, too. These are Christians who do this.
[21:48] I do this. You know the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian here? Is that the Christian knows he's doing it. The non-Christian has no idea. And that's what the Ninevites were doing.
[22:05] They were existing with their eyes closed, so to speak. They were existing without knowing God's God existed, without knowing that he was watching them.
[22:21] And honestly, this is the reason why Jonah didn't want to go. Chapter 4 tells us he didn't want to go because God was going to show mercy on them. But think about where Jonah's coming from.
[22:33] He's coming from Israel, who are practicing evil things. Idol worship. their being evil. So, if God showed mercy on the pagans of Nineveh, how much greater is the judgment going to be on a people of Israel who knew God existed, who knows that God is there?
[23:03] How much greater is that judgment going to be? And for us, it's the same thing. It's scary. If we continue to go on, if we are children of God, and we continue to practice immorality, if we continue to be evil and deny the existence of God, because we do that, guys.
[23:31] We do it. We do it. God will get your attention.
[23:50] He will get my attention. We have to repent. The Christian life is a life of repentance for God's glory and for our good.
[24:03] End of verse 2. It says, Call out against it for their evil has come up before me. God is the only audience that matters.
[24:18] He is it. He's the one who judges. He must live, we must live to an audience of one. Not our mom, not our dad, not our girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, boss, pastor.
[24:36] We must live to an audience of one. No one else matters. And here, it doesn't say that their evil has come up against you, Jonah, so I'm going to get them.
[24:49] Or their evil has come up against Israel, so I'm going to get them. Because their evil has come up before me. The actions of the Ninevites, denying the existence of God by their practices, tells us they thought God did not exist.
[25:12] And verse 3 tells us that Jonah thinks God is small. Look at verse 3. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
[25:27] He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. So that was God's message.
[25:38] Go to Nineveh. Preach to them repentance. Here we have Jonah's reaction. Jonah rose. He rose.
[25:48] He got the first commandment right. Remember it says arise go. He rose. But he went, opposite direction. Tarshish is repeated here three times.
[26:04] And I don't know if you guys noticed that when I've read it. I mean it's a clearly obvious word Tarshish. It's three times repeated. And that's to show the severity of Jonah's disobedience.
[26:19] The author makes it clear that Jonah disobeyed in a big way. Jonah's message was to go to Nineveh.
[26:29] Which from where Jonah was we're not exactly sure but was to go northeast. So Jonah was to go northeast. And Joppa is southwest. Joppa is southwest.
[26:41] That's pretty much opposite. On top of that Tarshish most people say was a city on the coast of Spain. Now he's got to go through the entire Mediterranean Sea to get there.
[26:56] And that was his place he wanted to go. So not only was he going the opposite direction but he was going 1500 plus miles away from where God wanted him to go.
[27:09] Crazy. He knew he did not want to go to Nineveh. He knew and he went the opposite way. And we say what a fool.
[27:21] What an idiot. And yet we do the same thing. What was the last thing that God told you to do? What was the last thing that you know clearly God wanted you to do?
[27:36] Did you do it? Have you been faithful in all things? Because poor Jonah, this is one situation. We only have two in the Bible so he's shooting 50%.
[27:48] Now you and I, how many times has God told you to do something? What are we shooting? 30%?
[27:59] 80%? And we're given this. We're given the revealed Word of God.
[28:10] We're given the revealed will of God by His Word. We know what we're supposed to do a lot of times. Yet we still deny.
[28:28] This was Jonah's mistake. He thought he could run from God. He thought that if I just go far enough, if I just pick a destination, I'm going to go to Australia.
[28:40] He just picked a place that was opposite. He thought that he could run from God. from the presence of the Lord is what verse 3 says twice. Again, the author is repeating himself to show the ridiculousness of Jonah and the utter disobedience of this man.
[29:06] From the presence of the Lord. The author is not telling us that Jonah thought he could run from the presence of the Lord. Verse 9 of chapter 1 tells us that Jonah knew who God was.
[29:19] I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. He knew who God was. God was. It's more like Jonah is saying, or the author is saying that Jonah is no longer standing in God's presence.
[29:35] He's no longer standing with God. He's no longer doing the will of God. Kind of like Elijah who said, I am standing in the presence of God.
[29:48] I am doing what God has commanded me to do. It's kind of that same language. Jonah is not standing with God. And the funny thing with this story is that Jonah probably thought he was doing good.
[30:07] He thought he was doing okay. I take back good. Okay. Because God tells him what to do, wherever his location is, and he has to go southwest to Joppa.
[30:19] And a long journey, I'm sure. Everybody walked back then. However long it took him, he got to Joppa. And in his head he says, I'm going to go to Tarshish before he gets to Joppa. And there happens to be a ship there who's going to Tarshish.
[30:33] So, not only has he gotten through the long journey, he now has a ship that's going to Tarshish. And lo and behold, he's got enough money to pay for the ship to go to Tarshish.
[30:44] However long this journey is, he probably thought, God is surely blessing. Everything is working out. this is great.
[30:56] But, we think this too. We do this as well. You buy a car that stretches the budget, that stresses the finances, and because you haven't had a wreck, you say, God wills it.
[31:14] God is blessing. Or, you're dating a non-believer, and things have been going great. You haven't gone too far physically, and she or he loves me, and we have good conversations, we support each other.
[31:32] We haven't got pregnant yet, so God wills it. God is blessing. Or, what about not really buying into this Christian thing?
[31:45] What about going to church? Going to eat afterwards with church people? Talk about spiritual things, but deep down, you know you're not even a Christian.
[32:04] But, I haven't lost a loved one yet. God hasn't really got my attention yet. I'll wait. I haven't fallen deep into sin, into whatever that may be. God still blesses.
[32:17] Incredible! See, Jonah had a smooth ride to Joppa. A smooth ride to Joppa. Doesn't say he had any trouble.
[32:30] He thought he was going to have a smooth ride to Tarshish. So, there's Jonah's reaction. Now, we have God's response and Jonah's pretense.
[32:41] verses 4 and 5. I call this God's oh yeah moment. You're going to go that way? Oh yeah. I'll show you. Verse 4.
[32:52] But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. This verse has become fascinating to me.
[33:06] God's sovereignty is displayed in the obvious. God is in control of the obvious things. The wind, the sea, but he's also sovereign over the not so obvious, the ship in this verse.
[33:22] And we'll get to that in just a minute. Jonah disobeyed. He disobeyed God. But, the sea, the wind, and even the ship obeyed God.
[33:35] They did what God commanded. Look at verse 4. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. This language is like a man hurling a spear.
[33:47] Hurling a spear at a target, at an animal, or whatever, an enemy, with strength and intensity. God hurled this wind at Jonah, at the ship that Jonah was in.
[34:02] The wind obeyed. Went where God commanded. the sea obeyed and created a storm like nothing the sailors had seen. Now look, the ship obeyed as well.
[34:17] So that the ship threatened to break up. The ESV translation is correct. To kind of say it this way, the ship in Hebrew is personified.
[34:28] destroyed. So that the ship considered breaking up. Considered tearing in half because the storm was so great. So whatever that looks like on the ship, I have no idea.
[34:42] But the storm was so great, the wind obeyed God, the sea obeyed God, and the ship considered to break apart. They're God's sovereign hand.
[34:55] And when the Lord gives a mission, when He commands you to do something, that something is going to get done.
[35:07] Whatever that is, God will have His mission complete. Here, the storm that God threw at Jonah, and that they had to endure, was a storm big enough, and great enough, that it scared the sailors, these guys who sailed for a living, these guys who lived on the Mediterranean Sea.
[35:35] It scared them. Verse 5, the mariners, the mariners, however you say that word, were afraid. The sailors were afraid. And they went into survival mode.
[35:49] Let's throw this off. Let's throw this off. Let's lighten the load. We have to survive this great storm. Jonah's pretense, or his assumption was that everything was good, that everything was okay.
[36:05] I made it to Joppa. I found a boat. I had enough money. Here I go off to Tarshish. He closed his eyes while God was sending a storm.
[36:19] God was orchestrating a great symphony while Jonah had his eyes closed. How many of you guys are doing that?
[36:32] How many of us are doing that? How many are ignoring the existence of God when in reality, God is working? God is sovereign, then you know that he does not need you or me to fulfill his plan, to fulfill his mission.
[36:54] But yet, God invites us to join him. He invites us into his kingdom work. He invited Jonah, Jonah, and he decided he was still going to use Jonah, and he got his attention.
[37:08] Have you fulfilled the mission that God has for you? Are you sitting down below while a storm is raging, while your eyes close thinking that God does not exist or care or that even everything is okay because nothing severe has happened?
[37:29] No big storms have happened in my life. For some of you, fulfilling the mission of God is receiving the free gift of salvation.
[37:43] Right now, for some of you, it is receiving this gift of salvation. God's mission for Jonah was to go to a pagan Assyrian city and preach to them repentance.
[38:00] Your mission might just be to repent right now. Nineveh was not a Jewish city. They were an enemy of Israel and of people who practiced brutality on the Jews.
[38:16] In my opinion, Jonah is warranted for not going. He's right on for not wanting to go. But my opinion does not matter.
[38:31] Your opinion does not matter. God's mission is not dependent on us. It is dependent upon Him.
[38:46] God desires that His creation, that His people, that people would know His Son and be His children. Praise God for the book of Jonah.
[38:56] Praise God for this experience, this time, that we're able to read that Jonah was to go to a Gentile nation, a pagan nation, a non-Jewish nation, and preach repentance.
[39:10] Because that's you and me. We are Gentiles. Unless you're a Jewish, we are Gentiles. We are outside the chosen people of God.
[39:22] We are not of Israel. And in the book of Jonah, before Christ, Jonah was to go and to preach to Gentiles.
[39:34] What a great story. What a great mission. Praise God for His mission. Praise God for calling a people to Him who are not Jewish.
[39:47] Praise God for calling based on Him alone. Because I guarantee if I'm Irish, I bet no British person is going to come and preach to Irish people back in the 1400s or whatever.
[39:59] Clay, you can correct me later. It's not based on anybody but God alone.
[40:13] His message, Jonah didn't like. He didn't like it. Jonah worshipped himself and his desires instead of worshipping the Creator.
[40:31] And here's the bottom line. I'm going to close in just a minute. But if we truly understand the mercy of God, if we truly understood the mercy of God, then we would not act like Jonah.
[40:45] God, we would act like another prophet. One who went in the presence of God, where his sin and God's holiness was revealed, knew exactly what he had to do.
[41:01] So, turn to Isaiah chapter 6. We've gone here a few times in the last couple years, but it just clearly illustrates to us what our proper response is to the gospel.
[41:20] We're going to read just a few verses. Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6.
[41:53] And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke, and I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
[42:13] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.
[42:27] The gospel. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And Isaiah's response is, then I said, here am I, send me.
[42:43] Here am I, send me. Jonah didn't really understand the mercy of God. He knew that God was merciful. He knew that it would happen.
[42:55] But Jonah's Jewish. Jonah's the chosen people. And he decided that what God was going to do, I don't want anything to do with that.
[43:11] Guys, if we truly understood the mercy of God, if we truly understood the gospel, our response would be, here am I, send me. Wherever that is, whatever that looks like.
[43:29] The gospel that puts your sinfulness, your depravity, up against God's holiness and His justice. Justice that determines we are guilty.
[43:45] That we deserve the wrath of God because of our sin. Ephesians 2, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
[44:06] For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus died and rose from the grave for you and for me so that we, if we repent, if we do as the Ninevites did, that He will show us mercy and that we will be, as the Logos questioned, we will be righteous in Christ.
[44:35] We will be made right because of what Christ has done. Christ will be mediating on our behalf. He is mine.
[44:46] I pay for Him. He is right. God is merciful and He alone is worthy of all praise. Let's pray.
[44:57] God is