As we come to look in God’s Word, let me just share this Bible verse and apply our indispensable principle: Trust the Lord.
Psalm 36:7-8:
How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
He has been gracious, and we have been drinking the river of His delights. And it is well.
Let us commit our time to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we thank You again that You have given us this privilege to meet, to trust the indwelling Holy Spirit to open the Word. You said that everyone taught of the Father comes to the Son, and so we want to come to Jesus again.
We ask You to guide us, and we thank You that even though there is a prophecy that there would be a great famine of the Word, You are still feeding us with the Word. And we praise You.
Now we commit this session unto You. I pray that You would protect Your children from flesh and blood, root up what is not from You, and then sink a well in every heart. Dig deep, O Lord. Do Your work.
We pray that this wonderful book, message, and testimony of Jonah might be clinched in our hearts. We commit it unto You in the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.
All right, we have come to our final chapter in the testimony of Jonah. Once again, briefly, let me summarize where we have been in the first three chapters, and then, the Lord assisting, we will look at this last chapter together.
I remind you—and I think it is important—to look at the book as a testimony. It is Jonah’s testimony. He is testifying to what God has done for him. The Lord has worked in his life, and it is very wonderful.
In my Bible—I am not suggesting you do this—but right in front of the book, before I get to verse one, I have written Psalm 66:16. Psalm 66:16 says:
Come and hear, all who fear God,
And I will tell of what He has done for my soul.
That is the book of Jonah: “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul.”
The entire book is in the first person. It is a testimony, and an exciting testimony it is for us to read—not necessarily for Jonah to live through in every detail. I think he experienced much of what Job experienced, because Job did not have the first chapter when he experienced all that.
We have an inside look that Satan was involved and that there was a spiritual war. But Jonah was trying to figure things out without that missing piece. He went through a lot, and he did not understand all of it until after it was done. Then the Lord began to teach him.
Matthew 12:39-40:
An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jonah had no idea that God was going to turn him into a sign. He had no idea what it would take in his life for God to turn him into a sign. As I said, the book is simply his testimony of how God did it.
When you read the book, it sounds as though Jonah had a lot of problems. He was trying to figure things out, trying to understand what was going on and why God would give such a strange commission. But as you go through the testimony, you realize that God discovered to him that he did not have a problem—he was the problem.
Until the problem was solved, he could not be a sign and mightily used of the Lord. The book gives us the steps in that process: how he was brought to the place of the death of self.
Jonah 2:9 records his confession:
I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the Lord.
By that recognition of mercy and grace—“It is all the Lord”—he reckoned himself dead. And as soon as that happened, you know the rest. By a life not his own, he was raised from the dead. He was able to stand again, and now he was a sign.
But I do not think he understood that yet. When we left off, Jonah was still in a bit of a fog, not exactly knowing what was going on in his life.
His single-day ministry is recorded in Jonah 3:4:
Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
If you had gone to Jonah at that time and asked, “Jonah, could you tell us how it feels to be a sign?” I think he would have said, “What are you talking about? I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I just know this: I was as good as dead. I was in the shoes of the heathen. I did not want to have mercy on them, and then I saw that God should not have mercy on me. I was exactly like the heathen.”
“When I saw that, I acknowledged the Lord. I confessed that it is all grace. Here I am on the shore. He raised me up by a life not my own.” And in that, he became a sign.
The sign was not Jonah by himself, and it was not the Lord Jesus by Himself. In union together, it was Christ in Jonah.
Jonah 4:11 expresses the heart of God:
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 left hand, as well as many animals?
Jonah died to himself. Jonah was raised by the life of the Lord. Then God began to use him mightily—very mightily. Maybe more than half a million came to the Lord.
Jonah 3:10 says that God saw their deeds, that they turned. It was genuine. God saw it. Matthew 12:41 says, “They repented at the preaching of Jonah.” It was real, and God did that because Jonah became a sign.
But now let us get back into God’s record of Jonah’s testimony.
Many look at Jonah 4, as I did when I began my study of it, and wish it were not there. It almost seems anticlimactic. It would seem like a nice place to stop at the end of Jonah 3.
The testimony of Jonah would have had a Hollywood ending, sort of. Jonah was in the fish, finally learned his lesson, repented, rose again by a life not his own, and God used him mightily. A whole city was saved, and everybody lived happily ever after—the end.
But that is not how the book, the testimony, ends. Anyone who reads Jonah’s testimony cannot fail to see that it is a testimony of God’s mercy. God’s mercy is all the way through the book.
He had mercy on the Ninevites. He had mercy on the mariners—the Phoenician mariners. He had mercy on Jonah. He had mercy on the children. He even mentions the animals at the end.
Here is a man who was a servant, a prophet, and who rebelled. He hurt many others in his rebellion. He was brought to the bottom. He thought he deserved to be judged, and then he was raised up. He thought he would never be used again. He did not expect to be recommissioned.
Why do we have the fourth chapter? I will tell you why. This is Jonah’s personal testimony, and he said, “I have got to tell the whole story.”
“He had great mercy on me. He had mercy on me before I became a sign, but He also had mercy on me after I became a sign.”
Chapter 4 is Jonah’s testimony, by Jonah, of the mercy God had on him after he became a sign. I want to look at it in that light.
What we are going to look at is rather shocking. Jonah ends with shocking truth. It was shocking to him. In fact, I think one of the most shocking illustrations in the entire Bible is in Jonah 4.
Every brother here, I know you sing, “It Is Well with My Soul,” and it is. Amen. Believe that with all your heart. Pull out all the stops: because of the Lord Jesus, it is well with your soul.
But even those whose souls are well need to see a shocking truth. Jonah said, in effect, “I cannot believe God met me in this shocking reality.”
Jonah 4:1 says:
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
Jonah 4:3 says:
Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.
Then the Lord said—I am going to misread it—“Do you have a reason to be angry?” It does not say that. It says, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?” Jonah had plenty of reasons, and he could have given them. But he did not have a good reason.
Jonah 4:8-9 says:
When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant?”
And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”
I will give you the obvious fact. You already know it anyway. Jonah is a sign, but Jonah is Jonah. He is still Jonah.
In this chapter, he is acting peevish, childish, and selfish. He is pouting. He is accusing God. He is angry. Even though the Lord used him mightily, even though he was a sign, even though he had Christ living in him, even though it was well with his soul—Jonah is still Jonah.
Let me state the principle. This is shocking to many Christians. It was shocking to me when God showed it to me. I did not even believe it. I argued this point. It is a hard principle to discover.
If Jonah really died to Jonah-life, why is he so alive in Jonah 4?
That is a question every Christian faces. If a person has identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ; if they have reckoned themselves dead; if they know that salvation is from the Lord; if they have been raised by a life not their own; and if there is evidence that God is greatly using them, then why can they still act like this?
Why is Jonah acting like somebody who seems never to have had a miracle worked in his life? It is the question that rises in almost every heavenly-minded person.
If my life has been exchanged by His life, how come, when I look in the mirror, I see such abiding corruption in my own heart?
I want to state the principle as powerfully as I know how. First, I will state it in God’s inspired words—that will take the heat off me—and then I will state it in my own words.
John 3:6:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Flesh is flesh. It will always be flesh. Do not forget what flesh is. “In me, that is, in my flesh”—flesh is me.
Many people think flesh is some kind of nature that now and then rises up, some tendency that comes up in them so that they are tempted to sin. It is not a tendency in you. It is you. The flesh is you. The flesh is me. I am the flesh.
Nothing in me—that is, in my flesh—is good.
Here is the principle in my own words: since the flesh is flesh, it can never be improved. It can never be changed. It has to be crucified.
It will never improve. It cannot be altered. No matter how long I have lived as a Christian, no matter how deeply I have drunk from the grace of the Lord, no matter how much I know the Lord, I am still me. Flesh is flesh.
This is the testimony that became shocking to Jonah. God said, “You will never change.” You hear testimonies all the time: “Praise God for the change He has made in my life.” He has never made a change in your life.
Now, that is hard to digest, but I want you to hear it. This is the additional mercy that Jonah is talking about.
Many Christians—most Christians, nearly all Christians, I guess—believe that they are changing. As they are being conformed to Christ, they are becoming more like Christ. They are becoming more like Christ. They are changing.
I have been saved more than forty years—forty-six years. I hope I have changed a little in forty-six years. I hope next week I will be a better Christian than I am this week, and next month a better Christian than I am this month.
However much time God has allotted for me, I do not know. I think I hear the hoofbeats of the pale horse getting closer. But it does matter. I want to grow. I want to mature. I want to improve. I want to get better.
I want to be a better Christian. I want to be more patient, more loving, more giving, and more forgiving. I see the attributes described for a Christian, and I want that in my life.
It was shocking to Jonah. It was shocking to me. It is shocking to every Christian to hear somebody stand up and say, “I promise you, you will never change.”
It looks like you changed. It surely feels like I have changed. But you have not. That is why you have to be replaced, not improved. That is why it has to be His life, not yours. You cannot be changed. It is not possible to change you.
Your change will come. First Corinthians 15 says:
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
But until then, it is Romans 7:18:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
You say, “Well then, come on, Ed. What does 2 Corinthians 3:18 mean?”
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
What does it mean that we are being transformed, if I am sounding as though I am saying we are not being transformed?
Galatians 4:19 says:
My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.
Ephesians 4:13 says:
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
It looks to others as though you have changed. Jonah did not know, but they saw something. And when they saw it, it looked like a change.
Let me give a couple of illustrations from my own life. I am not mechanical in any way. It is really, really bad. I do not even own a cell phone.
I have a wonderful daughter-in-law who lives next door, and she is our angel. She comes and fixes our television, fixes my computer, and every time I have some kind of problem—my air conditioner, whatever—Marcia is over there.
I will tell a story that happened some time ago. Steve, I am going to tell a story on you now.
It was a winter day, and our storm door was all messed up. I had a brother in the Lord who fixed storm doors, and he said, “Let me come over and replace it. I can do the storm door.”
I was upstairs in the study, and it was cold that day. He was out working on the storm door, and I was studying. Steve was lying on the couch watching television.
When the brother left, he did not want to leave without at least talking to me. So he said to Steve, “Steve, is your dad handy?”
Steve said, “No, he is worthless.”
Well, that is true. That is true.
Let me give another illustration. When I used to live in Rhode Island, there was a family across the street. The wife clearly knew the Lord. I do not know where the man was spiritually, but it seemed as though he was struggling with spiritual things.
Imagine my car breaking down. That actually happened one time. I did the most stupid thing in the world: I opened the hood and looked in there. I have no clue about anything, but that is what I did.
Picture my neighbor, who is struggling. He has heard from me the message of the gospel, but he has not yet digested it. My car is in the driveway, the hood is open, and I have a screwdriver in my hand.
He cannot hear me. He is behind the window looking. I have a screwdriver in my hand, and all of a sudden I throw it down on the ground, take the hood and slam it down, and kick the tire. Then my mouth moves, but he cannot hear the expletives because he is behind the glass.
He says to his wife, “Something is wrong with him. He has got a problem.”
But I had another brother named Jim. Jim was a mechanic. Jim came to the house and said, “I will take care of this.”
The hood is up, the screwdriver is in Jim’s hand, and he begins to work. I am out there, and my neighbors are looking out the window. I am smiling. I am not slamming any tools down, I am not kicking any tires, and my mouth is not moving. I am real happy.
He says to his wife, “Boy, Ed has really changed.”
You see what I am saying? I did not change. I had someone as a substitute doing what I could not do.
They could see two people. They could see me and Jim. But now Christ lives inside me. They cannot see that. They only see me, so they say, “Boy, he is changing. Ed is so different today than he was yesterday.”
I am not changing. Jesus is doing more of the work, and I am standing back and watching Jesus do all the work. It looks like a change, but flesh is flesh. It will always be flesh. It will never change.
I gave a testimony once that I hate to look in the mirror, because after all these years it bothers me. How come I get these thoughts? How come these temptations still come in my life? I should be further along now that I have known the Lord so long.
A couple of months ago—perhaps six weeks ago—I was invited to teach at a church fellowship. I had four messages, and at the end they called me to the front. They had a gift for me. It was huge. It was a mirror.
Engraved on the mirror were the words:
This is My beloved Son.
And who am I? Whoa, please.
I love that gift. Every time I look in the mirror, I see, “This is My beloved Son.”
I had a little argument with my wife about where to put that mirror. I wanted to put it every place. She said, “Let’s put it in the guest bathroom.” That is where it is. You come visit us, I will take you to the bathroom.
Anyway, the point is that Jonah does not change. It is an exchange life.
Mark 8:34-35 says:
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
There are two lives: yours and His. One must be denied. I deny me. The cross is simply a picture of rejection.
There are two lives. One must be rejected. Reject me. There are two lives. One must be lost. No brainer—I choose His life every time. That is the Christian experience.
It looks like I am changing. My mind is being renewed. You know what that means? It means I am beginning to see things as God does. That is what the renewed mind is.
My natural mind will never have a God-thought. The natural heart is terrible. But now, as Christ lives in me and I allow Him more and more, they are seeing Him. They do not know that. They think it is me changing.
My family, my neighbors, my friends, and people I meet are seeing Jesus. In reality, it is like when Noah built the ark.
At first they looked out and there was Noah and a bunch of lumber. Then he began to build. The ark became bigger than Noah. Then he built and built and built, and one day God said to Noah, “Get in the boat.”
They looked out and he was gone. They just saw that which pictures Christ. That is what it is all about.
I am the same person I ever was, and that was shocking. Push me hard enough and you will see it. I can fly off the handle. My will, my pleasure—if it were not for Christ living in my place, you would not even want to know me. And I would not want to know you.
Jonah had to make this shocking discovery, and God had to show him. When Jonah 4 opens, Jonah has not changed a bit. He has been raised as a sign. He has Christ in him. He has been mightily used by God. But in this final chapter, once again, the problem is Jonah.
The problem is Jonah. It is not what he is thinking. He does not have a problem; he is the problem. You have got to see that the problem is you, and I have got to see that it is me.
If the problem is not the problem, the solution is not the solution. If you get a solution that solves a problem that is not the problem, you are going to end up with the problem. You follow all that? It is what it is. We are the problem.
Now, we can look for reasons why he was so angry. Jonah 3:4 says:
Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
That probably upset him because it did not happen, and he was a prophet. Jeremiah 28:9 says:
As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, then that prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent.
It did not happen. Did Jonah honestly believe that God was weak on sin? Was he so enthralled with the love of God that he thought God would forgive this wicked nation, even if they did not repent?
Was he angry because God did not do things Jonah’s way? God saves some people I would not save. God does not save some people I would save. God does not heal everybody I want healed. God does not keep alive every person I want kept alive.
Is that why he was angry? Was he angry with God because He was not doing things Jonah’s way? “If only God knew how much good I could do if I won the lottery.”
Many commentators say, “No, it is just his patriotism.” He was Jewish, and this could have meant the end of Israel. God said, “There are 120,000 children. You want Me to kill them?” “Yes, because they are going to grow up and become warriors, and they are going to be against my people.”
He could have been thinking like that. But the problem is not theological, personal, or emotional. The problem is Jonah.
Jonah 4:3 records that he prayed twice:
Take my life, for death is better than life.
Then God said to Jonah in Jonah 4:9:
Do you have a good reason to be angry?
He said, “I have a good reason to be angry, even unto death.”
Now, I know he wanted to be taken out of the picture. He wanted to die. But actually, he hit the nail on the head: “Take away my life.” That is exactly right, Jonah. You need your life taken away so that it can be substituted by the life of the Lord Jesus.
In a previous study, I suggested that perhaps Jonah did not even know that he was a sign. Luke 11 says:
For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Luke 11:32 says:
They repented at the preaching of Jonah.
He was raised by a life not his own and died to the Jonah-life. Galatians 2:20 says:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
That was all true in Jonah’s life in seed form and picture form. He was Christ to them. They looked at him and saw Christ.
I know Jonah did not know that he was a sign. But the question I posed last evening before we closed is this: Did Jonah know that they repented? Is there any evidence of that?
I have a problem here as a Bible teacher. My heart inclines toward what I am going to tell you, but if you said, “On what do you base that thought?” I would have to admit that my authority is rather flimsy.
In fact, if somebody else stood up and gave this kind of authority for what they were saying, I would hold what they said in high suspicion. Some of my argument is based on supposition.
Jonah 3:4 says that Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk and cried out, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” I understand by that verse that his ministry was one day.
Then the question comes: after that day, where did he go? Did he stay in the city, or did he leave the city?
The only reference we have that he left the city is Jonah 4:5:
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.
But when did he go out of the city and make a shelter? Jonah 4:5 seems to imply that after the forty days he left the city. That is when he got angry with God because God did not judge. So the forty days must have been up.
But remember that Jonah wrote the book. He is writing his own testimony, and when you give a testimony, you do not always get everything in chronological order. He knew all that took place. He could have said, “I left the city on the first day, and then I was angry with God.” It could have been.
The argument is also based on another unreliable source: extra-biblical material. There are many books that try to supply background details that are not in the Bible. We are to be men of one Book.
Charles Feinberg said Nineveh was the greatest city in the world at that time. Other commentators describe Nineveh as a large walled city. They say the walls were at least one hundred feet high, perhaps double or triple walls, with many towers.
I do not know if there were walls. The Bible does not say that. But if Jonah left on the first day, and if there were walls one hundred feet high, how could he see over those walls?
It took time to repent. It took time to put sackcloth on the people and the animals. Listen to Jonah 3:5-9:
Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.
When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes.
He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water.
But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.
Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”
Did Jonah know all that was going on? Would he have seen the men, women, and animals covered with sackcloth?
God told them from the start in Jonah 1:2:
Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.
They were a wicked, wicked people. They were a terrorist nation. From Jonah’s viewpoint, do you think he would have thought a wicked nation like that would repent after one day’s ministry?
Again, according to extra-biblical sources, they were polytheists. They had twelve chief gods and four thousand inferior gods. Would they take all their history, all their gods, and all their idolatry and turn to the one true and living God after one day’s ministry?
I guess it is possible. But from Jonah’s mind, that would be like hearing that Putin repented. It would be hard to believe.
I know God’s love is great enough. I know Jesus died for Putin, and I know He longs for him to be saved. But if I heard it, I think I would need some evidence. The church in Acts had that same problem when Saul came to the Lord: “Is that real? Did he really come to the Lord?”
Even if Jonah stayed in the city and saw everyone in sackcloth, including the animals, I wonder if he would have said, “Is that real? Are they just going through some religious thing so they can be saved?”
It appears that Jonah’s view of God’s love and mercy would have an explanation if he did not know that they had repented. He may have thought, “Lord, I knew it. You are such a loving God, so gracious, compassionate, and patient. I knew You would forgive them even if they did not repent.”
Did he have that kind of skewed view of the Lord, without seeing the justice side? Did he think God was soft on sin? Or did he hate the Ninevites so much that he said, “Lord, even if they do repent, take them out. Kill them”?
We do not know what was going on. He does not fill us in on that part. I cannot state it as a fact. My inclination is to think he did not know. You say, “What do you base that on?” Supposition, extra-biblical sources. I do not have a good authority. I do not know.
If Jonah really knew how God had used him and how many people had truly come to the Lord, I think no matter how much he hated them before, he would have been pretty happy.
If I knew they really got saved, if I knew they really came to the Lord, I cannot imagine that Jonah would be angry if he knew that half a million people came to Christ through him. But I do not know.
If somebody else stood up here and said, “I am going to give you a fact based on my opinion, my inclination, extra-biblical sources, and how I feel,” I would be very cautious before accepting that teaching.
I know Jonah did not know that he was a sign. I incline to think he did not know that they repented. But whatever the case, it is often one of the ways of God to keep us in ignorance.
If Jonah knew, maybe God was protecting him from spiritual pride. If you knew God used you to save a whole city in one day, I think there would be a little, “Tell me. Really?”
But Jonah was Jonah. He did not change. He was angry. Whether it was because of a twisted view of the character of God, because he hated Nineveh so much, or because he was embarrassed as a prophet because his word did not come to pass, it does not matter at all.
What matters—and what was stunning to him—is that he was still himself.
At the end of Jonah’s testimony, there is a recurring theme through the book: two lives—his life and Christ’s life; Jonah-life and the life of Jesus. There can only be one.
In this final chapter, Jonah discovered—and God had mercy on him to show him—that he would always be Jonah and would never change. The only thing he could do was get out of the way and let Christ live.
God was not going to improve him, change him, or alter him. Jonah had to let Christ live.
In this last chapter, you have a great contrast. Jonah 4:1 says it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. Jonah 4:3 says, “Take me away. I want to die.”
Whatever Jonah’s reason for feeling that way, it seems clear that he did not have a natural love for Nineveh. I think that is obvious.
How does the chapter end? Look at the terminal point. It begins with Jonah angry, and it ends:
Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?
The book ends with contrast. He says, “There are two lives. Mine is angry. Let me describe my life: I am angry. Let me describe God’s heart: He loves people created in the image of God, who are going to live forever. And He loves animals.”
What a contrast. Jonah is angry. Is my heart that bad, that God loves pigs and dogs more than I love people created in the image of God and who are going to live forever? That is shocking.
I like the contrast at the beginning of the chapter, where Jonah is angry because Nineveh is not judged. Luke 19:41 says, speaking of the Lord Jesus:
When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it.
My natural heart says, “I am angry. I want them judged.” He walked through the city, and He wept. The Greek suggests that, having caught sight of the city, He burst into tears and wept audibly over it—at the top of His lungs. He was weeping, sighing, groaning.
Is my heart that bad?
Let me give you what I consider the most shocking illustration of the natural heart in all the Word of God, at least in my present light. I am talking about the illustration of the gourd—the plant in the New American Standard.
Much is written to explain exactly what it was, and that can be distracting. I am not going into that.
Jonah 4:5 tells us what we know:
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.
By a mighty miracle of God, God caused a plant to grow up overnight and entwine itself around that shelter, bringing more shade.
Jonah 4:6 says:
So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.
When Jonah was rejoicing in that comfort, Jonah 4:7 says that God appointed a worm. When dawn came the next day, it attacked the plant, and it withered.
Now Jonah had no shade. To add to his misery, Jonah 4:8 says:
When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
Those are the facts. What is the contrast? God is contrasting the natural heart—that never changes—the flesh, the me, that will always be that way.
God says, “Jonah, you need to see this. Your natural heart will always gravitate toward something that is rooted in this earth, that can be devoured by a worm, and whose moment is one day.”
I say, “Lord, is that really me? If I take my eyes off of You, will I be more attracted to something rooted in this earth, that worms can eat, and that is gone in an hour?”
God says, “Yes, and you will never change. You take your eyes off Christ.” That is the contrast of the natural heart. To think that is what you are by yourself—that is why you have got to get out of there. That is why I have got to get out of there. It is His life, not mine.
I will always find my pleasure, my comfort, in what is rooted in this world, what worms can eat, and what has a moment of one day.
Now, God have mercy on me. If that really is my natural heart—and it is—I am always the problem. You are always the problem. We think there is another problem and we will solve it. There is not.
The contrast is in Jonah 4:10-11:
You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?
I do not know if I can think of a greater contrast between God’s love for animals, not created in His image, and people created in His image, who will live forever somewhere—and me, wanting to find my pleasure in something rooted in this earth, something worms can eat, and whose life is a moment.
God have mercy on me.
For those who have identified by faith with His death, burial, and resurrection, this is the principle He has given: “Jonah, you are not going to change, but you are going to have to learn, and I will teach you how to take pleasure in what brings Me pleasure, rather than finding your pleasure in what brings you pleasure.”
Until we learn, brothers, that we have got to die to self and it has got to be His life, I promise you this: it may take different forms, but you had better be looking for a storm, a fish, a plant, a worm, a hot sun, and an east wind.
God will blast you. God will blast your gourd until you learn.
I want to close with one other illustration, and we are done. Jonah is a missionary book, probably one of the greatest missionary books. Half a million people get saved today. But I want to give you a missionary story from the Bible—the greatest missionary story ever told. It is our Lord Jesus.
Luke 19:10 says:
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
That was His mission. That is why He left heaven. He had a mission. You do not have a mission; you have a commission. That is great.
His mission was to seek and save that which was lost. We have already heard it quoted today: “God so loved the world.” That is His heart. That is His mission: evangelism, soul-winning, reaching the lost, saving them.
Praise God for that mission, because that is where you came in. That is where I came in.
John 10:37-38 says:
If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me;
But if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.
When Jesus lived in His incarnate body on earth—the body given to Him through the virgin Mary—He said, “I want you to understand: I initiate nothing.”
He said it clearly: “The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.” Jesus lived on earth with the indwelling God living in Him.
According to Philippians, He laid aside who He was by nature, determined never to grasp that again, and depended instead on the One living inside Him. He lived His life that way.
John 4:34 says:
My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
That was His mission—to save the world—but that was not His motive. He said, “I am not going after the world. My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. That is My food.”
John 5:30 says:
I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
His mission was out there. His direction was here. He did not try to win the world; He tried to honor the Father. He listened to the Father. The Father told Him where to go, what to do, and how to do it. The Father did it in Him.
“It is not Me who does it; it is the Father who is doing it.”
John 8:29 says:
He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.
I want you to see the difference between the mission and the motive.
Jonah’s mission was Nineveh. But he had to learn that Jesus, in the way He lived in His first body, has now come to live in you.
“As the Father sent Me, I also send you.” “As I live because of the Father, so you live because of Me.”
Jesus had the indwelling God living in Him, and every step of every day was, “I want to do His pleasure, His will.” He did not look at the mission. We know the mission was out there, but He simply wanted to do the Father’s will.
Then we read 2 Corinthians 5:19:
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
As I set my heart to depend totally on the One who lives in me, God will take care of Nineveh. God will take care of the world.
You say, “How am I going to set my heart on Him?” He works in you both the willing—that is the pleasure—and the doing—that is the mission. God works the motive and the mission in you.
That is what Jonah needed to see. You are the only sign that God has for the world. I am the only sign God has for the world. We have a mission. We have a Great Commission.
If you look at the Great Commission, if you look at the mission, you are going to busy yourself out of fellowship with God, getting involved in all kinds of programs.
Do not try to fix it, brothers. Leave the mission alone. Set your heart to trust in the One who lives in you. You want to do His will. You want to do His pleasure. Where He sends, you are going to go.
You do not have to do something to win the lost. You do not have to get into a program. You do not have to do something to fix your family, fix your wife, fix your kids, or fix your grandkids.
You just live this way: “Lord, I want to know You. I want to please You.” Every time you take your eyes off that, you will gravitate toward something rooted in this world that the worms can eat. That is your natural heart, and that is mine.
May God help us to look to Christ.
There is so much talk about the mission, and we think that because we are commissioned, we have got to go do the commission. Live as Jesus lived. He is now living in your body, and He is living to trust His Father through you. He will reconcile the world through you.
Otherwise, you are going to say, “I want to win my generation for Christ. I want to win my neighborhood for Christ.”
Jesus did not know where that woman at Samaria was. The Father said, and so He must needs go to Samaria, because the Father had made an appointment in eternity past that He would sit on that well to meet with that woman.
He knows where the woman of Samaria is. He knows what tree Zacchaeus climbed. He lives in you, and you are going to know. You are going to know.
Keep your eyes on Him, and He will show you. He will lead you to the pool of Bethesda, and He will show you, among all those cripples, who you are supposed to talk to. He will arrange that.
He knows where Cornelius is. He knows where that Ethiopian eunuch is. Otherwise, you would be trying to get everybody in and trying to witness to everybody, like I did, and I drove so many away.
Psalm 37:4 says:
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Not merely what you desire, but He will put the desires in there.
Do you have a burden from the Lord? Every burden is a prophecy. He is not going to prompt the heart to pray for what He is going to deny. He prompts the heart to pray for what He is going to do.
And the heavier the burden, the greater the miracle when He does it.
The best thing you can do for your kids, your grandkids, your wife, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, and your classmates is to delight yourself in the Lord.
That is the end of Jonah. Do not take pleasure in that which the worms are going to eat. Take your pleasure in what pleases Him.
“I always do what pleases Him.” I want His will, His direction. You be you, and let Him be Him. Stay out of the Godhead. Let Him guide you. He will guide you.
It is well with my soul. We have seen it. We believe it. You are signs. You have Christ in you.
My last appeal is this: do not get sidetracked by the mission. May God work in you the direction and the motive. “I always do what pleases Him. I only want to do His will. I initiate nothing. Whatever He says.”
You are going to turn around and be amazed at how God uses you. You are going to be amazed. Most of it He will not tell you, because you would probably get proud. You cannot believe how God is going to use you.
I do not know what the day of rewards will be like, but I imagine it. You know, my mind is a crazy mind.
Sarah called Abraham lord, and she received recognition for that. Yet the time she called him lord was when she said, “How can my lord, being old, give birth to a child?” God saw something in that sentence to reward.
Jonah is going to be called up. I do not know how rewards will be handed out, what they are, or whether they are literal. But perhaps God will say, “I have a reward here for winning these mariners to Christ.”
Jonah will say, “Really? When did I do that?”
“Just before they dumped you in the sea.”
“Really?”
Or perhaps God will say, “Naomi, come on up here. I have a reward for you. You led Ruth to Christ.”
“When did I do that? I do not remember doing that.”
“Remember when you said, ‘Go back to your gods and your people’?”
And Ruth said, “Your God will be my God.” Naomi led Ruth to Christ.
Your God is marvelous. My God is marvelous. He is using you. He is using you powerfully. Keep your eyes on Christ, because you are not going to change. You have got to get out of the way.
As soon as you take your eyes off Christ, you are going to be running after the gourd. May God bless our gourds.
Let us pray together.
Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the revelation, so shocking to us, that we will never change. But thank You that You will live more and more and more and more in us, so that people will see more and more of Christ.
They might even be deceived into thinking we have changed. Lord, work these things in our hearts.
Work in us the willing and the doing of Your good pleasure. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you, brothers.