WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 This is our final story from the Old Testament in our Great Story series. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:12.000 In our Great Story series, we've been looking at the children's storybook stories from the Bible, 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.000 the stories that usually make it into the storybooks, and having an adult's look, if you will, at the theology. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:25.000 And this is the last one from the Old Testament, Jonah definitely deserves to be a part of the series, as we all know. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:32.000 But when you do an adult's look at the stories you know from your childhood, if you grew up in the church reading the Bible, 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:37.000 there's always things to see a little bit differently than you thought about when you were a kid. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.000 And there's two things here immediately. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:46.000 And one, that there is no whale. That's a misconception. There might be a whale. We have no idea. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.000 It's a great sea creature. That's all we're told. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:56.000 Jonah and the whale, it's Jonah and the sea creature, whatever that might have been. Only Jonah and God know the answer to that. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.000 We don't. So the second and more important thing is that Jonah is no hero. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:08.000 Jonah isn't a good guy in this story. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Every story, almost every story, has a protagonist and an antagonist. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 And chapter four is the chapter that frames the meaning for the rest of the book. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:26.000 And what we learn about in chapter four is that the purpose, what the reader needs to see is that the antagonist in this book is Jonah. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:30.000 And that the protagonist, who the story is really about, is God. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:37.000 God is the protagonist in the story. The story is here to teach us something about God, not Jonah. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:44.000 Jonah is a mess the whole time throughout this book. Jonah is a mess. He is a mess of a prophet. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:50.000 And for that reason, a lot of commentators don't know whether to call this book a comedy or a tragedy. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:57.000 Not a comedy exactly in the modern sense. Like if it was made into a movie, it might star Will Ferrell or something like that. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:06.000 But a comedy in the ancient sense in that it has a good ending. Nineveh is saved, but it's saved despite the central character, Jonah. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:14.000 And the last chapter ends in a question in order to convey a tragedy, a question that's left open to Jonah. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000 So we don't really know whether to say, this is comedy, this is tragedy. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:22.000 And so this morning, we're going to try to look at the whole story. We read the whole story. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:28.000 I'm going to try to preach on the whole story on the main ideas, what I think are the main ideas, which is a bold move. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:31.000 Because there are tons of subplots. There are tons of little things. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:39.000 We could preach multiple sermons on each chapter and people have done that. But our mission this morning is not to go to Nineveh, but to preach the whole book of Jonah. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:50.000 So we're going to go for it. Three things. Jonah teaches us about the kingdom of mercy, about the God of mercy, and about the cost of mercy. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:56.000 So first, Jonah's problem in this passage teaches us about the kingdom of mercy. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Verse one, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and says, go, arise, go up to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.000 His mission was to get up and go to Nineveh. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:16.000 Jonah is the subject of that mission. It's Jonah's mission to go to Nineveh. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:22.000 And Jonah is a northern prophet. There's some verses about him in the book of 2 Kings. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:28.000 So we know a little bit about his story. He is ministering in the northern kingdom after the kingdom. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:32.000 The southern and northern kingdom of Israel had been divided. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:38.000 And this is close to 800 BC, sometime between 750 and 800 BC. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.000 And he sent to Nineveh, which is a big, important ancient city. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:46.000 This is the capital of the Assyrian Empire. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:52.000 In Genesis 10, it's mentioned, it's very ancient. It's mentioned as one of the early cities in the table of nations. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:04:04.000 And if you were to go back to 750 BC and read the local newspaper, the Samarian Times, or the Israelite Herald, or whatever they might have had, 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:11.000 you would have known, you would have read on the front page, current affairs, Assyria is the biggest empire in the world. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:18.000 It's the strongest and most powerful. It's the enemy of Israel, and it's on conquest to destroy Israel. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.000 That was what was happening in the 8th century BC. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:30.000 And this book, at the earliest possible date, was written to the next generation of Israelites. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:35.000 Post-Jona's lifetime, which is the late 700s. 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:43.000 And this is the generation that had seen what Assyria, Nineveh, would do after Jonah's lifetime. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:54.000 And that's in 722 BC, Nineveh came down and crushed Samaria and captured the people of Israel. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:03.000 And that means when the original readers of this book open it up and see God say to Jonah, 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:08.000 go to Nineveh because you're the only hope of their salvation, otherwise they're going to be destroyed, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:17.000 the original readers are saying, no, don't do it, Jonah, don't go, not to those people, not to the Assyrians. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Do you know what they've done to us? Do you know who they are? Not those people. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:27.000 They're outside. They're not part of the people of God. There are enemies. They hated the Assyrians. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:31.000 It's the worst culture in the ancient East in the eyes of the Israelite. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:36.000 The original reader is screaming at the text, don't do it, Jonah. And Jonah doesn't do it. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:44.000 He runs away. And that means that Jonah in this book is standing in, representing the attitude of Israel 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:52.000 to the Gentiles, to the Assyrians, to the people that aren't them, to another culture in a faraway land. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:06:01.000 So he becomes a runaway prophet, a prophet in rebellion. And to really get the picture of exactly how big this, how big, 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:07.000 how much of a runaway prophet he was, it would be good. I should have, maybe you should have done this, put up a map so you could see. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000 He decides to go down to Joppa to get on a ship that's going to Tarshish. Now where is Tarshish? 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:24.000 Tarshish is like Neverland in the Old Testament, because nobody ever gets there. If you want to go to Neverland, you're never going to get there. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:32.000 Tarshish for the Israelite is the farthest shore. Isaiah 60 verse 9 literally calls Tarshish the farthest shore. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:39.000 It's as far west as you can go. We don't know exactly where it was, but scholars think it might have been what we call today the south of Spain. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:52.000 It was a long way away. Nineveh is northeast, hundreds of miles. Tarshish is the farthest shore west, beyond what any Israelite has ever known. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:03.000 And so you see, he literally runs in the exact opposite direction as far as he could possibly get away from having to minister to those dirty pagans, 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:14.000 because he hates them. And the question then is why exactly does he do it? Why does he run? Why does he hate him so much? 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:21.000 Why is he so against going and ministering to Nineveh? And the answer is found in chapter 4. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:28.000 Chapter 4 frames the meaning of the rest of the book, and he tells us exactly why in chapter 4 verse 2. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:37.000 He went straight to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country. This is why I ran to Tarshish, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:47.000 for I knew, and this is where the comedy begins, I knew that you're a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding instead fast love and relenting from disaster. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:56.000 So after he goes to Nineveh and the Ninevites repent and God relents from destroying them, Jonah's response is, 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:01.000 this is exactly why I didn't want to go to Tarshish. I didn't want to go to Nineveh and I fled to Tarshish, 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:06.000 because I knew you're merciful and you're loving and you're kind and you're compassionate and you're gracious. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:13.000 I knew that you were like this, and this is why I didn't want to come. I don't want to serve a God that's gracious and loving and compassionate 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:19.000 that will actually forgive people when they ask for it. You see, it's meant to be comedic. It's ridiculous. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:27.000 He's putting God in the dock, as C.S. Lewis says, because of God's compassion, because of God's forgiveness, and why is he saying it? 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:35.000 Well, I think there's two reasons. And the first, he says it, I would rather die than live, is his very next comment. 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:47.000 I would rather die than live. In other words, I would rather die than see these people forgiven to become part of the people of God. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:58.000 I would rather die. In other words, Jonah has a deep hatred for a specific ethne, an ethnic group. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:06.000 Today, we call that racism. He has a deep hatred for a specific people group. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:21.000 And he is not like the prophet that he is the shadow of in the New Testament, who told the parable of the Good Samaritan to break down the barriers between Jew and Gentile 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:28.000 based on nothing but the condition of race, of ethnicity, of being part of a specific people. 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:39.000 But he was not willing to bless those who curse him, like a later prophet would be. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:49.000 And that means one of the basic points of this book is that if you believe in the God of the Bible and you want to be like him, 00:09:49.000 --> 00:10:00.000 there is no place in the kingdom of God for racism, for exclusion of a particular type of people based on some phenotype, some skin color, 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.000 or peculiarity of who they are and the culture they come from. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:12.000 And what we're being told here is that God is not like that, but Jonah was, 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:19.000 because God loves the totality of humanity, Jew and Gentile alike. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:29.000 But the second reason that Jonah doesn't want to go, I think, is because he misses the basic concept of God's nature 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:35.000 and how God's nature plays out in redemption, in salvation throughout the Bible. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:40.000 In other words, he says to God, I didn't want to come because I knew you would forgive these people. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:43.000 I knew you would show them love. I knew you would have compassion on them. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.000 And what he's saying there is, where's the justice, man? 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.000 Where's the justice? Do you know who these people are? 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:56.000 There are legends that outside the city of Nineveh from extra biblical sources that we have, 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:04.000 that they would take people's bodies that they had murdered the Ninevites and they would stake them up 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:11.000 and line the streets that enter into the city as a warning that anybody who dares come to this city 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.000 that's not one of us, this is what's going to happen to you. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:15.000 That's what the Ninevites were like. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:17.000 And he's saying, where's the justice? 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:22.000 In other words, Jonah is saying, your standards are too low. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:25.000 You forgive willy-nilly. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:28.000 You'll give it to anybody that asks for it. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:33.000 In other words, Jonah was saying that I have a higher standard of justice, oh God, than you do. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:39.000 I don't see how it makes sense that if somebody asks for forgiveness, you actually give it to them, 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.000 simply on the grounds that they ask for forgiveness. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.000 Forgiveness, in other words, he's saying, it can't be that easy. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.000 It can't be so simple. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:51.000 They don't deserve it. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.000 And so the irony is that Jonah doesn't actually understand the religion he comes from. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:04.000 He forgot Deuteronomy 8-10 when God said, you, oh, Israelite, have been chosen and forgiven, 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.000 not because of anything, and you don't think when you go into the land of Canaan 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:10.000 that you're better than anyone of the Canaanites. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:15.000 He forgot the religion that he can't, he forgot the nature of the biblical God. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:21.000 The irony is that Jonah actually looks more pagan than they do. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:26.000 He thinks that his religion is one based on two things. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:33.000 Not being from a specific nation and something that you earn through merit, 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:40.000 which is the very definition of all the religions that Israelite came to Canaan to counter. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.000 And that's the irony. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:47.000 He's a missionary to the pagans, but he actually looks like a pagan. 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:53.000 And so the explanation for the whole first half of the book is found right there at the end in chapter 4. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.000 I would rather die than see them live. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:03.000 Now, you've got this, I just want to show you this because the writer here frames the narrative with very specific language 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:09.000 that might not be easy to see at first glance, but that's critically important to understanding the overall point. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.000 And it reveals Jonah's logic. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:18.000 You see in chapter 1, God says to Jonah in verse 2, arise, go up to Nineveh. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.000 It literally says, go up to Nineveh, that great city. 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.000 And then in chapter 2, verse 6, when Jonah is being saved from the well, 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:29.000 here's how he describes salvation in the second half of that verse. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:34.000 You brought up my life from the pit, from the land of death. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:41.000 And so what that means is the writer is framing uscent and decent language. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:46.000 The whole story is an uscent going up language and going down language. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:47.000 Okay? 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.000 His command is go up to Nineveh and save those people. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.000 Or when God saves him, he brings him up. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000 So going up is life and going down, that means going down is death. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000 Now, see how Jonah responds. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:02.000 Verse 3, look at how he frames it. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Instead of going up, he went down to Joppa. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:11.000 Verse 5, instead of going up to the top of the ship during the storm, he goes down, he goes down into the ship. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:16.000 Then in verse 15, they throw him down into the depths of the sea. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:21.000 Chapter 2, verse 1, he sinks down into the sea until chapter 6, the final, and the climax. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000 I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever, which is the land of shield or land of death. 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:34.000 You see, so the whole way the story is framed is that Jonah's mission is to go up and give life. 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:40.000 And instead he chooses to go down, down, down, down, down six times into the place of shield, into the place of death. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:46.000 In other words, what he says in chapter 4 comes true of him in chapter 1. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.000 I would rather die than see them live. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:51.000 And so you see his logic. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:03.000 If I've been called to be the one who brings salvation to Nineveh, then I will go down in order that they might die with me. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.000 This was his prophecy. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.000 This was his mission as a prophet in his mind. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.000 I'll die so that they die. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:15.000 I'll go all the way down to the depths of shield just so that they don't get life. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:25.000 So when he's told to go up and give life, he goes down and chooses death so that he doesn't have to give life to people that he hates. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:32.000 In other words, he's confused about the kingdom of God. 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:44.000 He thinks the kingdom of God is a place and a specific people who have done specific things to earn their place. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:55.000 On August 24th, the year 410 AD, one of the most important events that's ever happened in all of human history, 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:04.000 and that's that King Alaric and the Goths sacked the city of Rome for three days. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:09.000 And it wasn't even that the Goths went into Rome and wanted to take Rome. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:13.000 They went in and sacked it and then left. 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:20.000 And it was a proclamation to the world that Rome wasn't what everybody thought Rome was. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.000 A couple of things happened after that. There were some lessons to the Roman Empire. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:34.000 The first was that if Rome, the eternal city can fall, then anybody can fall. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:40.000 And secondly, the Christians had a very specific response. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:48.000 About a hundred years earlier, the Christians had gained a lot of power in the Roman Empire after the Emperor Constantine. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:57.000 And at this time, the Christians were encouraged because they thought that they had basically foreseen God's great mission through Rome. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:03.000 That because Christians had been given political power in Rome, that now God was going to change the whole world through the Roman Empire. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:10.000 That the Roman Empire essentially was going to become linked hand in hand with as the kingdom of God itself on Earth. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:18.000 And so when Rome fell, what they called the eternal city, they thought of it as the city of God on Earth. 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:24.000 They said, God has abandoned us. What are we to do? The kingdom of God is lost. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:34.000 And enter one of the great early theologians, one of the great church fathers, Augustine, the bishop in Northern Africa, 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:40.000 who wrote a book in response to the way the Christians were acting about losing the eternal city. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:49.000 Supposing that the kingdom of God was in this city, that this was the kingdom of God on Earth, that God had put all the power of the church right here in the city of Rome. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:53.000 And he wrote his biggest book, probably his hardest book to read. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:56.000 It's like this thick, literally, if you buy a copy. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.000 But one of the best books, one of the greatest books that's ever been written in all of history. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:07.000 And this is Augustine's basic point to the people of Rome at that time. 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:22.000 And it's the very thing that Jonah needed to learn, that no city, no nation, no people group is to be equated in this earthly temporal life with the kingdom of God. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:33.000 Every single empire ends, no single nation, no single people, no single race has grounds to call themselves the eternal city. 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:42.000 And so he said, all of that, Rome and every other empire, every other nation, every other people group, this is all part of the city of man, as he called it. 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:46.000 But we are citizens of the city of God. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:50.000 And the city of God transcends every nation. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.000 It is truly universal. 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:59.000 It is in every nation, among every people, across all times. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:19.000 And so he told them, whether you are in or out of the kingdom doesn't depend on what country you're a citizen of, what your skin color looks like, what you've done in the past, what traditions you hold on to, whether or not you grew up in the local church, in the free church. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:22.000 None of it depends on that. 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.000 And this is what Jonah couldn't see. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:31.000 Jesus tried to teach it to the Pharisees in Matthew 12 by illustrating it with Jonah. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:40.000 And Matthew 12 describes in Pharisees, come to Jesus and they say, show us a sign, show us proof that you are truly the Son of God, that you're truly the Messiah. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:56.000 And one of his responses to them is this, when Jonah went to Nineveh, the Ninevites repented, and Nineveh, at the end of time, will stand up and condemn you. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:08.000 In other words, it is not the horror of your sin, no matter what you've done, that can keep you out of the kingdom of God. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:16.000 I can tell you with confidence that Ninevites were worse than you. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:34.000 And it's not on the flip side, your good works, your public reputation, your attendance in a church, the tradition you were brought up in, that will keep you in. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000 What Jonah and Jesus is saying in Matthew 12 is that it is nothing but the mercy of God given as a gift to people who realize they don't deserve mercy. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:51.000 That's the ticket to being a citizen of the kingdom of God. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:54.000 And it's one that Jonah had to learn. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:00.000 Kevin DeYoung put it this way, there's a paraphrase earlier this week actually. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:07.000 He said this, we must always make it clear that the church is not for Scottish people. 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:09.000 It's not for American people. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:16.000 It's not for people of one race or of a particular political persuasion or for middle class people. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.000 It's a church for Jesus people. 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:24.000 And we have to do everything we can to make sure that everybody knows that this is what the church is about. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:30.000 And that the banner over the church is the cross of Jesus Christ, high and lifted up. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:40.000 The only hope, he says, for all is the true eternal city that transcends every culture and people and includes every culture and people. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.000 So that's point one, point two. 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:47.000 And each point is significantly shorter than that point. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:52.000 Jonah's rebuke also teaches us about this God of mercy. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:58.000 So very briefly, Jonah gets rebuke twice in this passage. 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:02.000 The first is by pagan sailors and the second time is by God. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:09.000 And we're just going to focus on God's rebuke because God is more important than sailors and we don't have time to look at the sailors. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.000 God's rebuke, Hamish read it for us. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:14.000 It's incredibly puzzling. 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:16.000 This is the question he ends with. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:31.000 Should I not pity Nineveh, literally should I not have compassion on 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? 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:34.000 What? It's puzzling. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.000 It's actually very simple. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:41.000 Jonah goes out from the city of Nineveh and he says, I'm willing to die. 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:44.000 But he goes out to see what might happen to Nineveh. 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:47.000 Jonah had said, 40 days you have to repent. 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:52.000 So Jonah goes out hoping that God might still destroy them. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:54.000 That's why he goes out to look at the city. 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:57.000 And when he's out there, he builds a tent. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:02.000 And over that tent, God sends a plant. 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:06.000 This is literally, it says in your footnote there, a castor oil plant. 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:09.000 Castor oil plants, we still use them. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.000 Castor oil plants were incredibly important in the ancient world. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:22.000 We use the seeds or fire starters, natural fire starters, but also it was a medicinal plant used for a lot of medicine in the ancient Near East. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:26.000 Farms of it everywhere in the ancient world. 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:28.000 He sends a plant. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:34.000 And the key is in, I think at the end of verse six, Jonah fell in love with this plant. 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:39.000 It says, Jonah was exceedingly glad that the plant had come. 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.000 Jonah loves the plant. 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:47.000 And then God sends a worm and a scorching east wind and the plant dies. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:53.000 And Jonah has lost his love, the plant. 00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:59.000 He's incredibly angry because it was what sheltered him in the middle of the desert. 00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:01.000 And he loved it. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:02.000 He's so angry. 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.000 I mean, we can see that he truly did care for it and it's dead now. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000 And so God asked him, are you right to be angry that this plant is dead, that I've taken away this plant? 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:12.000 And Jonah says, yeah, I'm right. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.000 I'm angry enough to die. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:15.000 I'm angry. 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.000 I'm so mad that I'm willing to die over this. 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000 I'm so mad that you've taken away this plant. 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:21.000 He loved the plant. 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:24.000 And then God says two points in response. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:26.000 Here's God's two points. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.000 First, verse 10, you loved this plant. 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:35.000 You had compassion on this plant, but you didn't make it. 00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:37.000 You didn't sow the ground. 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:38.000 You didn't till. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.000 You didn't sow the seed. 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.000 You didn't watch it grow from birth. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:46.000 You're not the maker of this plant, but still you loved it. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.000 And you feel like you had a right to do so. 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:50.000 That's the first point. 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:53.000 Secondly, the point, second point he's making. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:56.000 You, Jonah, loved a plant. 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:59.000 It's a plant. 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:07.000 Hence the question, should I not show compassion on a city of 120,000 persons? 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:12.000 In other words, people, Jonah, it's people. 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:16.000 Do you not understand the unity of humanity, the image of God? 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:18.000 I love these people. 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:19.000 You love the plant. 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000 I love these people. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:22.000 Not only that, but I love their cattle. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.000 What does that mean? 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:27.000 Some people want to make this into an ecological theology of sorts, 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:30.000 which is maybe the case, but cattle. 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:31.000 What's cattle in the ancient Near East? 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:34.000 Cattle in the ancient Near East are cash money. 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:38.000 Cattle is the economic, is a word for the economy of the city. 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.000 It's society. 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:45.000 I created human beings and the societies. 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.000 I commissioned them to till the ground in the Garden of Eden, 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:52.000 and that's what the Assyrians and the Ninevites have done. 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:55.000 And I love them, even though they don't know their right hand from their left. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:56.000 They've gone the wrong way. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:01.000 In other words, they are redeemable, and so is their culture. 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:07.000 And the way you feel about that plant is so much less than the fact that I created these people, 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:09.000 and I love them. 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:11.000 I raised them up from the ground. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.000 In other words, he's asking, are you, prophet of God, members of the church, 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:24.000 not willing to show mercy to people, even if they don't deserve it? 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:30.000 And the irony, the comedy, did you catch it? 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:32.000 The comedy of the story. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.000 To get it, you have to go back to the middle, to the great sea creature. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:38.000 What happened to Jonah? 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:43.000 He chose in the face of his mission from God to go down, down, down, down, down, 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.000 all the way to Sheol, all to the place of death. 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:50.000 And when he was there, he repented. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:56.000 And he asked for forgiveness, and God brought him back up. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:04.000 And now, the God of compassion who had given Jonah life from the dead. 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:09.000 The only reason Jonah is standing there is because he cared for Jonah enough to that 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:11.000 when Jonah asked for repentance, he actually gave it to him. 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.000 He actually gave him forgiveness. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:19.000 Now, Jonah is unwilling to show the mercy to somebody else that he had received. 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:20.000 You see? 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:29.000 In other words, he's saying, Jonah, you who has received mercy are you merciless. 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:35.000 And so, what the point is, is that the text is pushing us today 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:42.000 against any sense of a church versus world mentality. 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:46.000 And Martin Luther knew this in the 1520s during the time of the Reformation 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:52.000 when he described who we are, if you're a believer today, as justified sinners. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:57.000 Justified sinners, he was so bold to say. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:02.000 In other words, we are recipients of mercy, as was Jonah. 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:04.000 And so, the point of the book is this. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.000 How does the church relate to the world? 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:11.000 Do you see yourself as a sinner who has received mercy 00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:16.000 for those people who have yet to receive mercy? 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:23.000 Or are you merciless, one who has received mercy against those who haven't? 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:26.000 Against them or for them? 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:28.000 That's the question he's asking. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.000 And that's why the question is open at the end of the book, right? 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:33.000 There's no answer. 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:35.000 Jonah doesn't respond. 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:36.000 There's no response. 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.000 Why would you leave it hanging like this? 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:42.000 Why would you leave it the last word being cattle? 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.000 In a book like this, why? 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:46.000 You know why? 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000 Because he's asking you, the reader, the question. 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:53.000 Do you know yourself as a person who has received great mercy? 00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:56.000 Do you get it, Jonah, that you are just like the Ninevites? 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:58.000 You're no different. 00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:02.000 Everybody's the Ninevites, all deserving of death. 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:06.000 And if you have life, it's only because it's been given through the mercy of God. 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.000 Are you able, on your daily mission, Monday to Friday, to be a merciful person? 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:13.000 Do you see yourself? 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:17.000 Do you know yourself that way? 00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:25.000 Okay, so finally, and very briefly, the ultimate point of the passage is this. 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:27.000 Jonah teaches us that God is merciful. 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:28.000 We just learned that. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.000 And that his mercy comes at great cost. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.000 We'll just be a few minutes, just two or three minutes on this. 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:42.000 The overarching irony, the overarching comedy, that's also a tragedy of the book, 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:45.000 is that Jonah is a reluctant prophet. 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:47.000 He's a mess. 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:52.000 He's at odds with God all the way to the very last word. 00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:01.000 And Jonah, at the very same time, doesn't know that he is the drama of redemption. 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:03.000 He is the sign. 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:04.000 He is the symbol. 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:06.000 He is the type. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:10.000 He is the teaching point. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:15.000 This starts in chapter 4, verse 1 and 2, when he looks up to God and he says, 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.000 Where's the justice, man? 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:22.000 How can you forgive like this? 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:27.000 How can you simply forgive people who just ask for it? 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:28.000 It doesn't seem just to me. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:29.000 It doesn't seem right. 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.000 I have a higher standard than you do. 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:35.000 Oh, Jonah, you had no idea. 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:42.000 Jonah had no idea that his story is the drama of redemption, 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:50.000 typified, signaled to answer the question, Where is the justice of God? 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:55.000 Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 12, when the Pharisees and scribes come to him and they say, 00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:56.000 Give us a sign. 00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:00.000 Show us that you are truly what you say you are. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.000 And Jesus says, You want a sign from me? 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:10.000 You will not get a sign until you see the sign of Jonah. 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:12.000 What's the sign of Jonah? 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Here it is. 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:20.000 Jonah didn't want those dirty pagans to live. 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:29.000 But when the sailors were about to die, it was only in Jonah going down to the depths of Sheol. 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:38.000 And rising up again from that grave for three after three days that gave the gift of life to those dirty pagans. 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.000 He had no idea what he was doing. 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:53.000 He had no idea that his death and his resurrection were the mediation of redemption to pagans at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. 00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:04.000 He runs away so dirty pagans can't get saved and he ends up dying for dirty pagans so they might be saved and he can't see it. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:13.000 There's the sign of Jonah, the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of human beings. 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:17.000 That type of redemption was totally unexpected. 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:28.000 That a prophet would go down to the depths of Sheol to the darkness and be swallowed by it and after three days rising again from the dead, Gentiles might have hope. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:30.000 That's the sign of Jonah. 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.000 Where's the justice? 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:34.000 Jonah asked God. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:41.000 God says this, You are the sign pointing to precisely where my mercy and justice will meet. 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:48.000 A better Jonah going to the cross, being swallowed by death and being risen again from the dead after three days. 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:52.000 He is Jesus Christ, the new and better Jonah. 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:55.000 That's the ultimate point of this book. 00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:02.000 The cost of God's mercy is the cost of the death of a better than Jonah in the New Testament. 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.000 How could God forgive the Ninevites? 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.000 Well, how could God forgive you? 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:11.000 In the case of the Ninevites, he looks forward. 00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:14.000 In the case of us, he looks backward. 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:22.000 At what the better prophet did in the worst belly of the well, the true depths of Sheol. 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:24.000 I'll just close with this. 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:30.000 If you are exploring the claims of faith today on the one hand, 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:39.000 if you're exploring this religion and Christianity and whether Jesus might mean something truly, 00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:43.000 or on the opposite hand, if you were actually doing what Jonah did, 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:48.000 and you've been part of the public people of God your whole life, and you've always run from God, 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:58.000 which is easy to do by maintaining reputation and attending and not ever having to face the real questions of life and death. 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.000 Either way, I just want you to see two things. 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:06.000 The first is that this is an old, old, ancient story. 00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:14.000 And no matter what you think about it, it was written hundreds of years before a man in the first century, 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:18.000 on the grounds of historical fact, died on a Roman cross, 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:24.000 and his followers professed and announced him to be risen from the dead three days later. 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:27.000 This story was written hundreds of years before that. 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:32.000 A story about a man who would go to the grave and rise again three days later. 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:42.000 Not to mention the next generation of stories, Isaiah 53, about a man who would be crushed and pierced for our transgressions, 00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:46.000 700 years prior to the man Jesus Christ. 00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:52.000 That has immense prophetic power, and you have to grapple with that if you're exploring the claims of faith. 00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:59.000 It can't be gotten around when these texts were written and the amenity of their prophetic power. 00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:07.000 And that means that the truth of Christianity revealed in this prophecy is that it is completely unique. 00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:10.000 It is unlike any other religion that has ever existed. 00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:13.000 Jonah couldn't even grasp it. 00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:19.000 That God will forgive sinners when they ask for it. 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:23.000 Because he killed God to give it to them. 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:26.000 There's nothing else like it. There never has been. 00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:28.000 And that's an invitation. 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:33.000 It was an invitation to Jonah at the end of this passage, and it's an invitation to you. 00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:36.000 Be like the pagan sailors. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:38.000 Not like Jonah. 00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:44.000 Because the pagan sailors, when they saw the man go down into the depths and the storm calm, 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:51.000 they turned and said, oh Lord Yahweh, the personal name of God, and they vowed to him. 00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:54.000 And they repented. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:57.000 When they saw the prophet go to the grave for them. 00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.000 Let's pray. 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:03.000 Father, we give thanks to you for the gospel in the Old Testament. 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:08.000 We ask, O Lord, that you would open our hearts to faith into mercy. 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.000 We ask this in Christ's name. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:15.000 Amen.