A (0:00)

When God exercises mercy. When you see God forgiving people, you cannot forgive, are you not like Jonah, who had more compassion on a gourd than he did on a person?

B (0:20)

The story of Jonah might seem like a fun Sunday school lesson for children, and although there are elements of the story that capture our attention even as adults, it is a story with significant lessons and warnings for you and me. This is the Friday edition of Renewing youg Mind, and with great passion today, RC Sproul examines the life and lessons for us from the account of Jonah. This message is from Dr. Sproul's 13 part series Great Men to Live by, and you can have lifetime digital access to this series plus a hardcover copy of his book on Joseph, another great man to live by. When you donate before midnight tonight@renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes well, to help us understand mercy and compassion from the Book of Jonah, here's Dr. Sproul.

A (1:19)

Right in this session we're going to look briefly at the prophet Jonah. Perhaps there's no prophet in the Old Testament whose work has engendered more debate and more controversy than this prophet with his little book, with the story of being swallowed and delivered by the great fish, the story of the gourd that grows overnight and then is destroyed by the worm. Many have argued in the last hundred years or so that this book represents a clear example of mythology, the mythological intrusion into the sacred scriptures, indicating the kind of style of literature that is found in antiquity in other mythical stories. Others have looked at it as being symbolic through and through, and merely symbolic, and not to be taken as a historical narrative. Some have argued that it is an extended allegory, and so on. Not going to get into any great discussion tonight about that. It just lets you know where I'm coming from. I think that the basis seek motivation for dismissing the integrity of the Book of Jonah has come not through a literary analysis of the book, but rather the judgment is based on philosophical grounds that proceed from a naturalistic perspective that preclude going in any possibility of the miraculous. And if that judgment were to be given to this book in particular, it would for consistency's sake have to be applied throughout the scriptures indiscriminately, but from a strictly literary analysis. Those who argue that the book was intended to be an epic poem or an allegory or simply parabolic symbolism, those who maintain that are very, very embarrassed by the fact that the literary structure of the book simply does not have the indispensable characteristics of those genre. I take the book as history. Certainly it includes a poetic structure in the middle of it, in the prayer, and that, of course, follows all of the characteristics of poetic literature. But the rest of the book has a historical, narrative, literary style to it. That's the way our Lord dealt with the book, and I think that we ought to do as well. But enough of that. Let's get on to the actual message of the book and the story that is recorded for us. We're told at the beginning that the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. Here is the call to the prophet Jonah, this time I'm not sending you to Israel or to the temple in Jerusalem as I sent Jeremiah, or as I will send Jeremiah. Jonah presumably predates Jeremiah. I'm not sending you to my people, but I'm sending you on a most unusual mission for a prophet. I'm sending you to a pagan place, to a gentile city, to a bastion of ungodliness. And I'm not sending you there with good news. I'm sending you there not on a mission of mercy, but on a mission of judgment. I want you to cry against that city, for its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish. Remember the call of Isaiah trembling before the altar, there in the temple, as he had the vision of Yahweh. Whom shall I send and who will go for me? Saith the Lord. And Isaiah says, here I am. Send me. Jonah's saying, there he is. Send Isaiah. I am going to Joppa. I'm not going to Tarshish. He goes in the opposite direction. I'm going to go as far away from that place as I can possibly go. He's not merely reluctant, he is positively rebellious. He refuses steadfastly to carry out the mission that God has laid before him. So he goes and he finds a ship that was going to Tarshish. And we read he paid the fare. He didn't just hitch a ride. He's willing to put his money where his mouth is. If I have to take my life, save if I have to play double or triple fare to get on this boat, I'm going, or it's going. I'm going. Just as long as it's not going to Nineveh. Jonah did not want to preach the word of God to a hostile city. He did not want to proclaim the word of God, when he knew it would be unpopular. And so rather than choose the option of the false prophet and merely continue to preach and keep his vocation going with falsehoods and flattery, as the false prophets did, rather Jonah abandons the ministry altogether and gets aboard ship and sails away as if he could flee from the presence of God. As if he went into the uncharted dimensions of the sea, way from the ports of Israel, that somehow he could escape the Hound of Heaven. But the story tells us that. But that was a vain hope. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and a great storm on the sea. So that the ship was about to break up. And the sailors became afraid. And every man cried to his God. And they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it. But Jonah had gone below to the hold of the ship, laying down and fallen sound asleep. The whole world around him is perishing. And this one who is anointed and called of God to be a prophet is sleeping in. You've heard me use the expression many times. Those of you that are regularly in attendance here. I say, you know, if there is no God, I'm going to sleep in tomorrow morning. I take my cue from Jonah. There's no point to get exercise about anything if God is not God. But Jonah is asleep. And the captain approached him and said, how can you be sleeping? Get up, call your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us, so we will not perish. And then the men decide among themselves what can cause the fury of the seas to be behaving like this. Certainly there is somebody on board this ship. This contraband that was being carried on this smuggling vessel Was so odious to the sea that the sea would not bear that cargo. I said, somebody here is causing them. They cast lots and the lot falls upon guess who, Jonah. They said, tell us, on whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What's your country? From what people are you? And he said, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, God of Heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. And now the other sailors become intensely frightened. And they said, how could you do this? For they knew he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Because he told them, I said, what can we do to assuage the sea? And Jonah says, pick me up and throw me into the sea. Now, it's not like they're cruising the Caribbean and the sea is as glass and the tropical sun is beating down. And you're standing outside in the fantail of the ship. And you're looking at this romantic, blissful ocean. And it's tempting in a situation like that to just dive into the sea as it appears as a deep blue lagoon. Oh, the ship is breaking to pieces. And the winds are beating and howling all about it. And Jonah says, throw me into the sea. One thing I'll say for John, he knew how to repent. I'm the one. Throw me over. So they do. And as soon as he hits that water, like Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, it becomes like glass. Except for the one who is now in the murky depths of the sea. And remember that in Israel the most fearsome dimension of nature is the sea. In verse 17, we read, and the Lord appointed a great fish. Doesn't say it's a whale, just a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. And Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the stomach of the fish. And I remember as I was writing a paper on this in seminary, a professor came in and told us how this is so ridiculous, obviously unhistorical, because the content of this prayer indicates a failure to understand the interior dimensions of a whale or any other great fish's belly. He said, look at this. Currents are engulfing me. Breakers and billows pass over me. Seaweed is wrapped around my head. And this professor went up and said, look, there's no seaweed in the belly of whales. And water is in rushing back and forth over people. And here's Jonah describing his desolate, terrible condition inside the whale's belly when the description doesn't fit the inside. But I miss the obvious. Jonah is not praying to God, thanking him for rescuing him from inside the whale. The whale in this book is not an instrument of punishment. The whale is the instrument of redemption. The whale is appointed by God to rescue Jonah from the sea. Listen to his prayer of thanksgiving. I called out of my distress to the Lord, and he answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol. And thou didst hear my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas. And the current engulfed me. All thy breakers and billows passed over me. And what's the description of what? His experience in the sea. And so I said, I've been expelled from thy sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward thy Holy temple. Water encompassed me to the very soul. The great deep engulfed me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. You see the mountains rising up near the sea coast, and you have the idea that as a great tree where only a part of its substance is above ground, so those mountains that are on the seacoast over there, like Carmel and the other ones, have their roots that go deep fathoms beneath the sea. He said, you sent me all the way down to the roots of the mountains, and the earth with its bars was around me forever. But Thou, O Lord, has brought up my life from the pit. While I was fainting away, while I was drowning, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came to thee into thy holy temple. Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. But I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is of the Lord. And then the Lord God commanded this fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. This great fish was a lifeguard that rescued the man from the sea and pulled him into shore and spit him up. And so now the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. And so Jonah went to Joppa and bought another ticket. And no, that's not what happened. He said, okay, Lord, I'll go. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. Three days walked, and Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk. And he cried out and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. I'll give them the message. 40 days and it's all over Nineveh. You see the preachers walking up and down the streets of Pittsburgh or Chicago, New York. You know the end of the world is at hand. You can imagine how people would respond to that. Here's Jonah. He's preaching it. He's walking down the streets. He's right in the middle of the city. 20 more days. The end is coming. Nobody laughed. What happened? Much to the prophet's consternation, the people of Nineveh believed in God. And they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. Even when the word reached the king, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. And he issued a proclamation and said in Nineveh, by the decree of the king and by his nobles. Do not let man, beast, herd or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth. And let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. For who knows? Maybe God will turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we shall not perish. Now, when God saw their deeds that they repented, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. And Jonah cried out to God, thank you, Lord, for your abundant mercy. That's not in there, is it? That's not what it says. Jonah was greatly displeased, and he became angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? You know the four unkindness words in the English language. I told you so, didn't I tell you, God, I knew it. I knew it all along. You made me come down here and preach to this. But I knew you were going to do this, see? And in order to forestall this, I fled the Tarshish. For I knew that you're a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant loving in kindness, one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now God take my life. For death is no better to me than life. I've been praying down the street telling Everybody they had 40 days. It was all over. And now you're going to. You're going to change the game for you, and I'm going to look like an idiot. And the Lord said, do you have a good reason to be angry? Interesting question, isn't it? Anger in and of itself is not evil, but unjustifiable anger. Is he? And so God said, wait a minute. Now look. What do I have to do with you? Threw you in the sea, brought you out of the sea. Brought you down here. And now you're giving me fits again. And you're angry and screaming at me. You want me to kill you? Now tell me something, Jonah. Do you have a good reason to be angry? Doesn't say what Jonah said. He went out of the city and sat on the east of it, made a shelter for himself and sat under in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. It's like he took his marbles and he went home. And he went over in a corner and he pouts Right. And he just sits there. So the Lord God appointed a gourd. And it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. God is so kind. Jonah is sitting out there. The sun's beating down on him. God miraculously causes this gourd to come up and give him shade. Jonah was extremely happy. His mood changes again. Half an hour before this, he was asking God to let him die. Now he's delighting because he has some shade for his head. But God appointed a worm. When dawn came the next day. And it attacked the plant and it withered. It came about that when the sun came up, that God appointed a scorching east wind to Sirocco. 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. Then God said to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And Jonah said, yes, I have good reason to be angry. Even to death, things were okay. I even accepted. You're changing your mind. I came up here. I thought it through. I was working it through. I was getting my act together. And you gave me beautiful shade to comfort me. That was neat. And then that worm came and killed my gourd. Drove me out of my gourd. Right? That's what he says. I have good reason to be angry. The Lord God said, you had compassion on the plant for which you did not work. You didn't sow it, you didn't cultivate it, didn't water it, didn't trim it. I created it out of nothing. You gave no labor to it, and you had compassion on it. You didn't cause it to grow. It came up overnight, and it perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who don't know the difference between their right hand and their left hand, as well as many animals. What kind of a prophet are you? You have more compassion on a vegetable than you have on a city full of dying human beings. When God exercises mercy, when you stand up and you see people clinging to the garments of Christ in heaven, people that you don't like. When you see God forgiving people, you cannot forgive. Are you not like John, who had more compassion on a gourd than he did on a person? God is saying, these are people. I created these people. I have sustained them. I've nurtured them. I've ministered to them for years. And years and decades and they have refused to come to me. But finally they have repented. Have you no heart, Jonah? I've said it before. It's one thing to preach the wrath of God against sin. It's another thing to preach your own anger. That was Jonah's great mistake. I believe that this is a true story. I believe that all happened just as the book says, and Jesus did too. And he warned the people in his own day, and he said, will not the men of Nineveh rise up on the day of judgment and speak to you, O Israel? For they believed by the preaching of the prophet Jonah. And one greater than Jonah is here now.