Ungracious Repentance of a Gracious God - October 12th, 2025

If you are able, please uh rise again on your feet, and then let me read Jonah chapter 4, verses 1 to 4 for all of us. It reads, but this was a great evil to Jonah, and he became angry, and he prayed to Yahweh and said, Ah, O Yahweh, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land. Therefore I went ahead to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness, and one who relents concerning evil. So now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life. And Yahweh said, Do you have good reason to be angry? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this wonderful morning where we can come and hear your word.

Father, wherever we are at in our walk, I pray that you would really minister to each and every one of our hearts. That we would be amazed at your kindness, and that we would leave here, knowing and being affirmed that you indeed are real and that you are good. And though you are a holy God, you are a God who is abounding in loving kindness. And Lord, those are things that are difficult for us to grasp. So would you help us to grasp them a little bit better this morning and then to respond appropriately just by your grace? We thank you, Lord, for our time together. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take your seats.

So here's a question. If you were to ask those closest to you, what would they say you clearly delight in? And then what would those closest to you say that you get deeply upset about? Back in the winter of 1999, there was a bit of a panic all over the world over a fear of what was known as the Y2K bug. Most of you guys probably remember it, right? Except Alex, you weren't born yet. There was said to be a programming flaw in older computers where their use of two-digit year codes would cause the software to malfunction at midnight, January 1st, 2000. And people feared that the date would flip from 1999 to 1900, which would then have a ripple effect on software all over the world. And most things that were technologically automated, people feared would malfunction, and then we would have chaos and societal collapse.

Airport transit, cell phone towers, departments of water and power all over the world, national defense systems, and even nuclear reactors would all get hit with this Y2K bug. So people also feared that the Y2K bug would wipe out all bank accounts and make all electronic records of currency disappear. You guys remember that? So while many people were panicking and preparing for the worst, I wasn't really too worried about much. There was part of me that was hoping for the Y2K to happen.

So I had nothing to lose and everything to gain through Y2K. And that's all my mind focused on. My credit card debt and my student loans would be gone overnight. Let's go, Y2K. So on New Year's Eve, I watched all the start the celebration starting place in Europe and then the Asia, then to our East Coast. Nothing. There were no sirens, there were no explosions. So at midnight, California time, that was my last chance to figure this out. I rushed over to my old hand-me-down computer. And it was really old. It had a tape drive and a hard drive space of less than a gigabyte. Okay, so if there was gonna be a computer that would malfunction, it was mine. And then for sure the date would read January 1st, 1900.

So I was super disappointed to find that the calendar on my computer had switched from 1999 to 2000 without any problems. So the Y2K bug was a big hoax. It disrupted nothing, and I was upset. I was disappointed. I was unhappy that the Y2K did not happen. I still have my credit card debt. And while many all over the world breathed a sigh of relief, I let out a groan. So you can tell a lot about a person, but why by what he delights in and what he is upset over. And if you're finding yourself at present judging the 21 version, 21-year-old version of me, wondering why in the world I'm your pastor. Just remember Jesus died for me. He loved me, he saved me, he's changing me, and I'm mostly no longer that man.

What we rejoice over and what we get angry over reveals a lot about what we value. The celebrations that we naturally engage in are windows into our hearts. And the things that greatly upset us also reveal to us who we are at the core. Circumstances do not change us as much as they reveal to us who we already were and what our values truly are. And in Jonah chapter 4, we see that Jonah is angry. And we see what he is angered by, and you actually also see what he is overjoyed about. And at the same time, you get a glimpse into the heart of God, and you gain some insight into who our God is. So today we're gonna close out our sermon series on Jonah with insights into the hearts of sinful man and insights into what delights the heart of our sovereign God.

And so, since we are in the last sermon for the Jonah series, I want to review with us a few things that we covered in the first three chapters. Okay, chapter one. Against his will, Jonah was called to preach to the Ninevites, and then he rebelled against this call. He got caught in a disciplinary storm, and then he requested to be tossed overboard because he knew that the storm was because of him. He volunteered to be tossed to his death into the raging sea, and my guess was that he was glad to do this. I think he really preferred drowning in the sea over having the Ninevites hear God's word. But oh no, God would not let him die. Interestingly, this whole incident led to the salvation of the pagan sailors, and then the Lord appointed a giant fish to swallow up Jonah, and he was stuck in the stinky belly of the fish for three days.

That's chapter one. Chapter two, we don't know exactly what brings about the change of heart, but we do see that Jonah calls out to God in prayer, and in his prayer, he makes a pledge to fulfill a vow. And then the tone of that prayer in chapter two, that we saw that it was generally more pensive and thankful than upset. And the prophet had a moment of repentance and reflection, and it looked like the prophet had turned the corner and was ready to be restored back into the Lord's service. Then in chapter three, it's very interesting. God repeated the charge to Jonah to preach his word in the city of Nineveh, and this time Jonah obeyed. He took a one day's walk into this heart of the city, and then he preached God's word, word for word.

And then upon hearing this message, the Ninevites all repented, from the greatest of them to the least, all of them. And this is a crazy story with strange and unbelievable details. And we looked at that last week. In Jonah's chapters one through three, we learned about God's omnipotence and his omnipresence. We looked at God's compassion on the lost. We also went through how God is the hearer of prayers and the forgiver of sins. Last week we learned that the Lord will never turn away a repentant soul. As long as that soul's repentance is of the heart, not just lip service or just fake tears. We learned last week that repentance is a reorientation and a change of direction. It's an inside out change rather than an outside in change.

And this inside out change took place in the Ninevites. So we looked at Jonah chapters 1 through 3, and I'm hoping that it was a fruitful trek through those first 37 verses of the short prophecy. It would be great if it ended there. Jonah narrative would have a clean, happy ending if chapter 3 was where it finished. And you have chapter 4, a portion of which we just read.

As strange and as unbelievable as the details in chapter 3 are, Jonah's response in chapter 4 is even stranger and more unbelievable. Jonah had just accomplished the absolutely unthinkable, and he's furious. He's so angry that he begs with all of his soul to die. You don't believe me? Let's look at verse 8 to 9. Then it happened that as a sun rose up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun struck down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die, and said, Death is better to me than life. Then God said to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, I have good reason to be angry even to death. Why was Jonah angry enough to die?

On the surface, because God is good. God was gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, as just chapter 4, verse 2. Jonah was furious because the Ninevehes responded in repentance to his preaching. Jonah is livid because revival had broken out. Jonah asked with all his soul to die. So Jonah chapter 4 is strange. And it's so jarringly different that it doesn't fit the rest of the story. And since Jonah's reaction doesn't quite line up to the positive moods of like all of our children's Bibles, many of the older children's Bibles that we've had since the 70s and 80s, they actually don't talk about chapter 4 at all. But Jonah chapter 4 is actually more important for us than the other three.

Super important both historically and theologically.

And chapter 4 simultaneously gives us insight both into the arrogance of man and the heart of benevolent God. And so we're going to close today our Jonah series by looking through chapter 4 in its entirety. So if I were to give you an outline, this is how it structured today's sermon in a way that's hopefully easy to follow and to track along. We're going to just ask just uh walk through this by exploring three questions. The first question is, why is Jonah so angry in chapter 4? Okay, and once you see why, then you'll understand. Second, what do we learn about mankind through Jonah's prophecy? And then third, what do we learn about God through Jonah's prophecy? And we will be looking at what Jonah celebrates, and then we'll be looking at what God celebrates.

Remember, you can tell a lot about someone by what he delights in by what he is angered by. So I want to take a look at Jonah's anger. Verse 1. This was a great evil to Jonah, and he became angry. So here in verse 1, this gives Jonah great displeasure. Jonah's great displeasure leads to rage. The words for displeasure, ra-a, and the word for angry, harrah, are used here together. They're juxtaposed. They're in the verse for our emphasis. So basically, the feeling of this verse reads like this. Jonah was enraged by this evil, and he was raging with rage. You guys following that? He's mad. And in his rage, what does he say? Verse 3, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.

And because he's already so mad, when God takes away the plant that Jonah was using as a shade, then he's beyond furious. And you see in verses 8 and 9 that he asked with all his soul to die, and then again said, Death is better to me than life. And you see by the exchange in verse 9 that Jonah feels justified in his anger. He believes his anger to be righteous. He's so angry that he begs with all his soul to die. And Jonah's desire for death is mentioned three times in this chapter.

So what happened? What is the this that greatly displeased Jonah? Let's read verse 2. He prayed to Yahweh and said, Ah, O Yahweh, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land. Therefore I went to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, one who relents concerning evil. So now, O Yahweh, please take away my life, for death is better to me than life. On the surface, this is almost comical. Jonah is mad because God is nice. And he believes it. But I want to walk through this together. Okay, what is about what is it about God's goodness and grace that enraged Jonah? First, Jonah did not believe that the Assyrians were deserving of God's mercy.

Jonah did not like God's granting them mercy to these wicked, violent, uncircumcised Ninevites. They had committed unthinkable atrocities. They had done historically unspeakable things. Jonah had been hoping for and praying for judgment and wrath on these horrible people. And God answered his prayer, but with the very opposite of what he had wanted.

He was not happy that God was going to be gracious to the people that he wanted to be judged and destroyed. I mean, it's not hard to think about people in our lives that we want destroyed. What if God is kinder to them than to you? Right? Second, Jonah's upset because it appeared that God wasn't going to just spare the Assyrians. He is going to elevate them and have them rule and reign over Israel. Okay, and I'm going to explain. God was going to use the wickedest of all Israel's enemies, one of the wickedest people of all time, to discipline and to judge Israel.

Assyria was going to be God's big old memestic to Israel. Meme means uh corporal punishment, all right. Around this time, the message of Israel's judgment was being preached throughout all of the northern kingdom. The prophecies of Hosea and Amos, contemporaries of Jonah, give us some insights that are helpful. Okay? So Isaiah, Jonah, Micah, Hosea, Amos, were all written during the divided kingdom period. There was a civil war between the north, Israel, and the South, God's chosen people, Judah. Together, they made the nation of Israel. Okay, but there's a civil war. The book of Amos especially has a lot in there about the judgment that was to come to the north. So an aim a prophet named Amos, who's a sheepherder, from the south, walks into the northern kingdom, and he preaches doom and gloom in Israel about its destruction.

Amos 6.14. Behold, I'm going to raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel, declares Yahweh, God of hosts, and they will press down on you from Lebohamath to the brook of the Arabah. The prophet Amos came into Israel with his message from God. So I want you to remember these names, okay? Lebo Hamath and then Arabah. Here it's called a brook. Everything between those borders will be pressed down by a foreign nation. Other translations will say, oppress, afflict, torment. So basically, a foreign nation will subdue and reign over Israel as judgment. All the lands between Libohabmat, the northernmost part of the national border, and Arabah, the southernmost point, all the people within are going to be subdued by a wicked nation.

And God will be doing this. So imagine the shock.

By immoral and pagan and violent enemies. God would really give ungodly people or his godly people, godly people, over to an ungodly people for discipline. This is akin to me standing on a pulpit and preaching to Christians that God is going to take Christians and deliver them into the hands of the worst pagans, atheists, whatever you name it in today's culture, and they're gonna reign over Christians. Wait a minute. Doesn't the Bible say, wait a minute. So this unthinkable. God would give Christians into the hands of non-Christians to be subdued by them, to be oppressed by them. God's people will be oppressed by God's enemies. A nation would rise up against Israel to press down on them all the way from Lebo Hamath to the sea of the Arabah.

That was a prophecy. So Amos the prophet took that message into the king's court, King Jeroboam, the son of Joash. It's a little smaller there. This Joash, who had restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath, as far as the sea of the Arabah. Who's in his ear?

God's servant, Jonah the son of Amati, the prophet who was of Gath Heffer. So this message was a shock. And no one in King Jeroboam's court took it well. You can imagine, right? Now, verse 7 to 10 of, or 10 to 11 of Amos 7, the priest is like, I cannot believe what I just heard. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is unable to endure all his words. For thus Amos says, Jeroboam will die by the sword and will certainly go from the land into exile. And that came true. Okay. Extra biblical history suggests that the prophet Amos was later beaten by this priest Amaziah, and then later returned home to Judah, where he succumbed to his injuries and died.

Now, it is killed the prophet, right? Now it's very likely that Jonah, who was in Jeroboam's service, was aware of what God was saying about the future of the northern kingdom. Make sense? Hosea, another contemporary, also foretold a similar message of the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians. So I don't doubt that all that Jonah knew. He believed those prophecies to be true. He absolutely knew what was coming. And he must have hated the fact that God was demanding that he play a role in all of this. So he begs with all his soul to die. Not the Assyrians. No way. Why, God, would you grant mercy to the Assyrians? Why would you judge Israel, your beloved people, and that at the hand of the lawless Gentiles?

Why would you use me to preach to the wicked and violent people? I know what you're gonna do. They're gonna be repentant. They're gonna turn from their wicked ways. Because you will use righteous people, and you're gonna use them to wipe us out. Your plan makes no sense. Why do I have to play a part in this? This is not fair. This is not righteous. This is a great evil, Jonah 4 1 in my sight. So perhaps Jonah got a glimpse, because you know, God is in the business of showing his prophet visions. Habakkuk 1 1, the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. Okay. He perhaps got a glimpse of not just the imminent future by the judgment of the Assyrians, but probably the more eternal one, where Matthew chapter 12.

The Ninevehites are standing permanently to judge the Pharisees and the scribes and the nation of Israel. We've looked at that in the previous weeks, right? So can you imagine how Jonah would have felt had God visibly shown him this picture? So whatever Jonah was shown, he knew that God, whatever he decreed, he whatever he foretold, it would come to pass. The prophet Jonah knew that God's word could break even the most callous hearts of stone. Jonah knew better than you or I would that God's kindness was effectual and that it would lead to repentance, and Jonah did not like it one bit. So 4 2, he prayed to Yahweh and said, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land. Therefore I went to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting concerning evil.

So now, Yahweh, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life. This reads so comically if you just look at the English.

But if we understood the historical context, we would begin to understand Jonah's misery. What Jonah is taking issue with here is God's sovereignty and his omnipotence. God gives, God takes away, God moves, God causes, and in his sovereignty and power, God extends kindness freely. So what Jonah has a problem with is his election. Why would you choose them? Jonah does not have a problem with God being gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness towards Israel. He had a problem with God extending that same mercy to those he personally thought were undeserving. To Jonah and probably to all those whom the prophet ministered, the Ninevites were the last people deserving of salvation.

So Jonah's upset because one, God is merciful to those who were undeserving of mercy, which is a funny statement. Two, Jonah is upset because God's salvation of these Ninevites would lead to the judgment of Israel. Make sense.

So Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his evil or miserable evil. And Jonah was extremely glad about this plant. But God appointed a worm at the breaking of the dawn of the next day, and it struck the plant, and it dried up. And then it happened as the sun rose up. God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun struck down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die, and said, Death is better to me than life. Before you go like, dude, God is messed up. He's playing games. Poor God. Jeez. Okay, let's let's continue to walk through this, alright? Jonah went out. He camped east of the city. He wanted to actually see whether or not the Ninevites really did repent.

Because remember, verbal repentance is easy for us to see. God's looking at the heart. So he's actually curious. Is God really gonna let them live? Jonah was waiting to see if God would change his mind and destroy the city. He's curious to see how God's plan would unfold. And in these verses, we actually do see Jonah being glad. This grumpy man does have a day where he is actually happy. Do you notice that he's actually extremely happy? What's he extremely happy about? He's not happy about unrepentant souls being reconciled to God. He's happy, he's extremely glad about the plant. Before you chuckle, because the plant brought him comfort and brought him relief. He is happier about his comfort and his relief than he is about filling God's court with worshipers.

That's not that much different from us. And God, wanting to lovingly instruct his disgruntled prophet, takes the plant away. This is not an act of cruelty. It is loving discipline to make a point. Because in Jonah, we get a glimpse of the heart of judgmental, self-righteous, sinful man. So in many ways, Jonah is the prodigal son's older brother, personified in Luke 15. And there may be an element in all of this, in all of us, of this man, especially for those who walk with the Lord for a number of seasons. If we're not sober and awake, we too may find ourselves caring more about our comforts than about souls being saved. All it takes is for the right circumstances and the right discomforts to come and bring to light what's actually really in our hearts.

Because remember, circumstances don't make us who we are, they reveal to us who we are. There may exist in every single corrupted and sin-tainted human being great arrogance, self-righteousness, and condescension. There may exist in your hearts a great distaste for God's will. The cries of that's not fair, actually is in all of our hearts.

We want to be proven right, and our enemies to be put to shame. So here's an important lesson we can learn from this little piece of biography of Jonah's life. Be very careful whom you personally see, whom you personally deem fit and unfit to receive the favor and kindness of God. Be very careful whom you personally deem fit or unfit to receive the favor and the grace of God. What kinds of people? What kinds of tribes? What parties? What individuals do you despise? Would it sit well if God favored them over you? Or if God used them to judge you.

The Ninevites obviously were not good people. The Ninevites, were they a horrible people? Absolutely. Did they deserve to be on the receiving end of the unbridled wrath and the judgment of God? Absolutely. Were the Hebrew people more deserving of the grace of God than the Assyrians? Absolutely not. Are people who lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder, oppress, blaspheme God's name, deserving of the unbridled wrath and judgment of God? Yes, absolutely. Are people who are truly racists, drunkards, those who are aborting and for aborting babies, who are for sexual immorality, trafficking of children for sex, those who con people out of money, those who have horribly scarred and injured you, are they deserving of the unbridled wrath of God?

Absolutely. Are people who go to church, who tithe faithfully, who don't drink, who don't smoke, who don't cuss, who don't cheat, who serve on the mission field, feed the poor, who become pastors, who believe and study the Bible, are those people more deserving of the grace of God? Absolutely not. Amen. Theologically, okay, theologically, we may all have this correct. Right? But if we're not careful, we may come to find ourselves celebrating and all the wrong things. Be careful that you don't celebrate the eternal punishment of certain peoples. We should never delight in the fact that someone went to hell.

Even the Hitlers of this world, we need to be very careful not to say things like, there is a special place in hell for people like this. Be careful that you are never glad that the judgment or discipline of God has come upon someone you despise. Spiritual condescension and self-righteousness are very dangerous things. Spiritual condescension and self-righteousness leads to a callousness of your heart. You cannot worship the Lord in spirit and in truth if you consider yourself a more qualified worshiper than that guy. Let me repeat this. You cannot worship God in spirit and in truth if you think you are more qualified to worship God than that guy in the other denomination, then that guy in that other political party, then that guy of that nationality, or that lifestyle, or that person who cut you really deep.

If you believe yourself to be more worthy to worship God than anybody else, you are arrogant. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. How many of you guys are like, okay, me and Jonah, we the same. You and I belong to what I would like to call a Bible church. Okay. The purpose of a Bible church is that we strive to correctly understand how much God hates sin and how much God loves those who repent, right? For in that paradox is the beauty of the cross of Jesus. And why do we study the Bible? Because we want to know him and revere him and love him and help others to love him accurately. That we may accurately worship in spirit and in truth. That is the point of the study of his word.

Amen? To know God and to make him known. That's it. But in our self-righteousness, if we're not careful, we start wielding the scriptures to tell everyone else why they're wrong about everything. You know what dangers exist for those who are part of Bible churches? I would rather be part of a Bible church than a non-bible church. But the danger that lies is that we start loving doctrine more than we love God. We start loving culture and the stuffiness and righteousness more than God. And we fall prey to the dangers of loving the idea of Bible teaching without loving the God of the Bible. We can fall prey to telling people that they're wrong why they're not saved without grieving over the fact that they're not saved.

Oh, yeah, he's not saved. Anyway, uh huh. Bible churches tend to attract guys like Jonah. Bible churches can ironically be full of biblically illiterate people who may know some things about the word of God, but have very little understanding about the heart of God. So you can have superficially biblical people who are not led by the Spirit of God, but rather by their own sense of spiritual superiority. So here's a warning. Churches like ours, we're small. But in the event we get bigger, our churches, churches like ours, attract spiritual know it alls, and holy molys. Biblically illiterate people who are drawn to Bible teaching churches often can be very dogmatic, ungracious, divisive, and very dangerously passionate and spiritually very condescending.

I see it all over the internet, all over the internet. Of course, I don't like what the left is doing. But I like what the right is doing far less. True biblical literacy will always produce humility, terror, and love. Repeat after me, humility, terror, love. That's a weird combo. Right? But when you get to know the Bible and the God of the Bible, which is the bigger point, it will always result in humility, terror, and love, and on humility, terror, and love, a church of God is built. Are you guys following this? Humility, terror, and love is a response appropriate to someone who's worshiping in spirit and in truth, and the person who's worshiping in spirit and in truth, without even realizing it, they're building the church of God.

There can never be spiritual condescension or self-righteousness in someone who actually knows the Lord. Amen. So Jonah 4 is so interesting because Jonah is extremely happy about the plant. The plant is good. Right? The plant was a blessing from God to be enjoyed. Amen. But in the big picture, it's a trivial, inconsequential thing that sprang up overnight and died overnight. And that's what God says later. But Jonah's so happy about it. Do you see the words? He's extremely glad. But when God shows mercy to a wicked people, Jonah's enraged with a raging rage. So here's a question. What kind of things actually make you happy? What kind of things get you enraged with the raging rage? Is your happiness more involved with your achievements and accomplishments and the size of your bank account?

Or is it truly watching people come to know God? What upsets you? Someone who disagrees with your political viewpoint. Or that someone has drifted and is walking his way into the direction of hell. Someone cuts you off on the street. I have to be very careful when I drive on Sunday. Those of my kids are watching. Especially when there's people going under 65 in the carpool lane. Okay, that's a different sermon. But what do you celebrate? What do you get upset over? This brings us to our third question. What is it that we learn about God through Jonah's prophecy? And I mentioned this before. God is the main character of the book of Jonah. All the verbs are attributed mostly all to God, right?

So first, we are reminded again that God is the source of all things in the lives of his saints. He's a sovereign God who commands and appoints. God orchestrates all the details of our lives for our good. God appointed a plant. You guys see that? Which delighted and comforted his ejected prophet. God appointed the worm at the same time. That wrecked that delight and comfort of the prophet. God was both the source of the sun and he appointed what? The scorching east wind. Can you imagine? How cool is that? I'm without shade.

God did it. So much so that he wanted his with all his soul to die. But God's will is perfect.

He wastes nothing in bringing circumstances in all shapes and sizes to conform, sanctify, to change us to become more like him. And in his sovereignty and in his goodness, God will allow his children for a time, discomfort. And he will allow for a time for us to be surrounded by our enemies. Abundance of enemies, surrounded by workers of evil. Think about this, right? Every person you think is horrible in your life is there on purpose.

God put him there. Every person that's injured you, God's put them there.

But I trust in his goodness.

So here, Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, and this is Jesus' words, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Dude, that's a radical thought. Especially if you start thinking who your enemies are. It's easy to go, amen, when your enemies are nameless and faceless. Yes, enemies, good guys. I love them. No, but if you really think about who your enemies are, you're not gonna be happy that he tells you to love them. Right? Verse 45. Why? So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. Because this Father causes his son to rise on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

That's your God. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same. If you say hello and you're warm and polite and cordial to only your brothers, what are you doing more than the non-Christian who doesn't know God? The Gentiles do the same. Verse 48, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, and he's training this in you as we speak. That's all kinds of spiritual memistics going on in love. Okay. Why do we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? Because we are never more like our heavenly Father than when we do those things.

If there's a person who's a scorching east wind, rejoice. Don't beg with all your soul to die. Okay. So may we count every experience, every circumstance, every person in our lives as joy. Because God uses all of it to perfect and sanctify us. So first, God is sovereign. Second, we learn that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, relenting of evil. And that was what Jonah was actually upset about, right? In verse 2. Verse 9. Then God said to Jonah, Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, I have good reason to be angry, even to death. Okay, he's drama. Okay. Then Yahweh said, You had pity on the plant, which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight, perished overnight.

Should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not even know the difference between their right and their left hand, as well as many animals. There are only two books of the Bible that end with a question. Both concern Assyria. One is Jonah and the other one is Nahum. They're like bookends of God's dealings with Assyria. The book of Jonah is about God extending grace to Assyria. The book of Nahum, which also ends with a question, is about Assyria's utter destruction and the wrath of God. So the book of Nahum is coming. And we do see Assyria's repentance is short-lived, and it doesn't quite get passed down. So Nahum, writing about 120 years later, is writing a message that Jonah would have loved to have written.

But we have both.

Since we are sinful, we shouldn't call out other people's sins. That's what you would conclude from Jonah. The book of Nahum is a full of calling out of woes. Whoa, woe, woe, woe, because of their sins. They will literally get wiped out with a flood. God hates sin. So the book of Nineveh, the book of Nahum is coming literally, figuratively, eschatologically. But right now we are in a time of Jonah. The book of Nahum is coming, but we are living in a time where we need to preach Jonah's gospel of repentance. We are living in a time of grace, waiting for wrath. The question that the book of Jonah ends with Should I not have compassion? That's a rhetorical question, but we can't answer it. Should I have not have compassion?

asks Yahweh. And what's the right answer? No!

He should not. But he does. That's why you and I are here. That's why we gather to worship. Amen. That's why we give thanks. And I don't get him. He is not like us. The God we serve in love is not like us, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts and our thoughts. Isaiah 55. And let me end with a visual of who God is. This is your God.

Who is a God like you forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? He does not hold fast to his anger forever. Why? Because he delights in loving kindness. He will again have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. What do we learn from the book of Jonah? He wants us to be the same. You guys follow that.

And we lead them to do the same. So that who gets glorified? Our Father in heaven. Let us represent our gracious God will. Amen. Let's pray.

Help us, Father, to know more your heart intimately. And just respond with awe and worship. If you love us, how petty a thing is when we get hurt by the people around us. How small a thing when people who oppose us in this world mock us and scorn us. Lord, we confess that our greatest problem is that we don't know you well enough. So I pray that you would increase our understanding of your heart for us and your heart for the lost and your hatred towards sin. Humble us and cause us to be useful. We pray all this in Jesus' name.