Exploring Jonah with Christ-Like Eyes

About 25 years ago, I had a conversation with a young man down in Garden Grove, somebody that you might know, but we'll leave the name out of it for now, because what he shared with me was more important than actually his name. We were at a graduate club evening, and we were kind of milling around, talking around, and all of a sudden the young man came to me. He said, you know, when we ultimately meet Jesus Christ, he's not going to ask us what we knew, but what we did with what we knew. And I'd like to build upon that today. It sounds very simple. I've just simply said it in five or ten seconds, but it is actually something that shaped and molded my life and changed my life to a degree, recognizing that opportunity, challenge, will come to us, and will I be open, and will I be available, and will I be willing at that moment? As that heart, as that person, as that opportunity, as that challenge comes into my life, it will not only be what I know, but by what I do, that will ultimately be important to God the Father and to Jesus Christ. And in that sense, that is what I will be judged upon. With that, as a foundation, I'd like to build upon that for a moment, because at times people that are in a church society know a lot of Scripture. They know a lot about the Bible. They know a lot about the mind of God. They have heard about the love of God, but just simply knowing that and saying that you know that is different than putting it into practice, especially when it looks dark and you're not quite sure what God would have you come out on on the other end. That leads me into the message then that I'd like to bring to you today, and we're going to go to a Scripture as a foundation. If you'll join me, if you would, in 1 Corinthians 13, let's open up our Bibles, because when we do open up our Bibles, that tells me that we want to also have our hearts open on this day. We're going to go to an epistle written by Paul, 1 Corinthians, and join me in what we commonly call the love chapter. And in 1 Corinthians 13, let's take a look here for a second. It says, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could even remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Let's go back and unpack this set of two verses a little bit for a moment, where Paul here mentions, though, that though I have the gift of prophecy, the Greek word there is prophetia. Prophetia can either be, in the sense, the foretelling of what God has done. And another handle to put on that Greek word, or the interpretation thereof, is to foretell what God is yet to do. So when we talk about the gift of prophecy, it can be rehearsing what God has done in the past, and perhaps even in the present, but also can move to the future as to what God says that he will do, as he himself says, I have declared the beginning from the end, and the end from the beginning, and I will do it. But it's very interesting that a contrast—and the Bible is so often about contrast—Paul contrasts a starling contrast between inspired teaching, whether it might just be foretelling and or foretelling, and godly love. In other words, not just simply what you know or think you know or hold on to, but what you are, what you do with that knowledge, and expand upon it and to build upon it. Question here, can an individual have one and not the other? Can an individual have one of these gifts and not the other? Can they in that sense then have the gift of prophecy, of prophetia, of foretelling, or foretelling, and yet not have the other that Paul focuses on? Is one better than the other? Big question. That's kind of get your mind rolling. Is one better than the other? And I say, indeed, based upon Scripture, yes. Do people that have only the gift of inspired teaching think they are not loving?

I've met people over the decades that believe that they are very loving, but all their actions tell me that they do not understand the love of the Father or the love of Christ. They think that they are loving, but no, no, no. They think they are doing their God a service and themselves too. So thus, let's ask one more question, then we'll move into the message. Can a Christian in the 21st century be privy to inspired teaching, revelation, even the knowledge of prophetic events? Can they offer a stirring message of warning to this world and also have godly love? I think that they can. But we're going to go through an example today to lay that out for a moment. The bottom line is you can have the gift of prophet to be a Christian. It's called exploring Jonah with Christ-like eyes.

Some of us that are in the Church of God community know very well verses about Jonah and how they are linked to Christ. We're going to touch upon some of those. But there are amazing similarities between Jonah and Jesus of Nazareth. We might say that we find one in the Old Testament, we find one in the New Testament. There's a type, there's an anti-type. We might say that Jonah was the lesser Jesus and Christ was the greater Jonah. But there are things that break down along the way that only Christ could come as the Son of God and the Son of Man and complete. So the purpose and reason I'm going to use up a few minutes of your life this afternoon is to help us learn how to handle God's prophetic revelations and also how to handle our hearts by studying the efforts of this one man, Jonah. And what happened when the Word of God came to Jonah? What happened? How did he handle it? We know that he knew a lot. He was a part of the chosen people. He was of the house of Israel. He was a prophet. But remember what that young man told me 25 years ago? It's not what you know, but it's what you do that is going to count at the day of judgment. And in that time when we are welcomed into that kingdom by none other than Jesus Christ. Very interesting as we begin this message that the man's name, amazingly in Hebrew, that is Jonah, literally means dove. You might want to jot that down. It means dove. And when we think of a dove, we think of peace. But it's really kind of interesting that when you go through the book of Jonah that Jonah almost is, well, the one bird that comes to mind is a chicken.

Another one as you move into chapter four is a vulture. And yet his very name means dove. And here was a man, and you think about your life today in whatever you're going through, here was a man who was sent to be a problem solver who turned out to be the problem. You know, it's interesting, and you might want to jot this down, that when you have these full four chapters of Jonah, there's only two verses in Jonah about the commission. Did you know that? Two verses out of four chapters. The rest is about him. And so often isn't that life when we think that God has called us to work on other people when he's actually going to work and molding and shaping us through the conditions that come. Bottom line is simply this. Here is a man, a man of Israel, a covenant man, a man who preached a message of repentance that everybody got. The audience got, as we're going to go through in a few minutes, and everybody understood. Everybody turned. Everybody changed. Except one person.

That person was the dove man. That person was Jonah. And like I said before, a man who biblically is associated as being a type of Christ, but only a type. So we're going to explore this example now. We're going to expand upon and recognize how important Paul's words are in 1 Corinthians 13. That though we have all knowledge, though we have been given revelation, if our hearts are not bigger than our brains, if our existence is not bigger than the moment in sharing that with other people, I want to say something simply.

Our calling is in vain, and we need a wake-up call. What we're going to do is we're going to simply do this as we go through the Book of Jonah. We're going to look at five major themes. We're going to kind of keep it succinct and practical and some takeaways from each of these five. Okay? So that's what we're going to do. Number one, let's go to the Book of Jonah.

It's always good to go to the source. Let's go to Jonah if you open up your Bibles. And Jonah, we're just going to read through it just in an expository sense. We're going to kind of draw right out of the Scriptures. And let's just begin to read it here in chapter 1, verse 1. And now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amatai, saying, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.

Very important word that comes up is simply this. A word, and I kind of build on this a little bit, how he looked at certain phrases. The word now. How often does the word now come into our life when we were not prepared for the now that came into our life? God does not operate on our time schedule. He operates on his molding schedule of our lives to see that we will operate and we will move beyond simply what we know in our time schedule versus what he's doing with us to complete us in Christ.

And so now, you know, no, no, God, excuse me. It's 3 12 and I'm not going to be ready for now until after I have prayed and fasted and supplicated and meditated, fasted again, and then I'll be able to deal with now. Doesn't work that way, does it? When God intervenes in our lives, he intervenes. And there's three themes that I want to kind of give you right now.

Three words. If you want to jot them down, that way we'll all stay together. And if I didn't mention them again, you're going to mention them later on in the message. Here's the three big takeaway words out of the book of Jonah. It's simply this. Number one, sovereignty. Sovereignty. God is sovereign. That's two words, which is think of the word sovereignty. Number two, God has incredible compassion. He has passion, compassion. And the great underlying theme then of Jonah is surrender. Not everybody else's surrendering, but our own personal surrender as God comes into our lives now.

So he says, he came into the life of this man and said, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against her, for their wickedness has come up before me. Now, again, Nineveh was one of the great cities, not the only city, but one of the great cities of the Assyrian Empire. And the Assyrian Empire at that time in the eighth and seventh century was at its zenith, great empire.

They were people that, frankly, you did not want to mess around with. They were not a nice group of people. They were known for their brutality. They were also known to be the enemies of Israel. Israel, in that way of the sea, within that fertile crescent, was basically situated between two superpowers. Over here in Mesopotamia, at that time, the major superpower was Syria. And then over down here in the southwest of Israel was Egypt. So they had to kind of learn how to kind of play both of these empires and both of these great civilizations off one another.

And he was told to go, and he was going to tell Nineveh to cry against it because of their wickedness. That'd be a little bit like for us that are baby boomers going back to the 50s and 60s when we used to see the cartoons before the movies, when the movies were only 25 cents.

Remember, we used to watch Tom and Jerry, and we used to watch, you know, The Mouse and the Cat, and it'd be like all of a sudden, you know, you are we're always used to the cat chasing the mouse, and all of a sudden God says, mouse! You will now tell the cat to change from being a cat. He is no longer going to be a mouse eater. He's going to become a carrot eater. He's going to become a vegan. You go now, and you tell these people on my behalf that they are to repent. But then notice verse 3, But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

But, and you're going to notice that the word but, b-u-t, comes up again and again in the book of Jonah, but Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish. God said, young man, go east. Go east, young man, go east. And this was two thousand years before Horace Greeley. But Jonah had a better idea. He says, I'm kind of dialectic. Instead of going east, I'm going to go west. I'm going to take a Mediterranean cruise, and I'm going to go to Tarshish. I'm going to go to Spain. I think I'll like it better there. Nobody knows that I'm there. That was kind of like the end of the world. That's where the pillars of Hercules were, one of them being the pillar of Gibraltar at that time. And nobody will miss me, especially God, because notice here, verse 3, He arose to flee to Tarshish. Notice this is so key, so key in the book of Jonah, from the presence of God. My question to you as fellow Christians is simply this, and when you think of Psalms 139, you can jot that down and look at it later, where David the Psalmist says, where shall I go from your presence? If I go up, yep, you're there. If I go down, yep, you're there. Where can I go? St. Jonah had, and here is a covenant man, a covenant man of a covenant people, and yet he had localized God. He'd made God into the image of this earth, into the image of man, something that was portable, something that was local, something that was small.

And he didn't recognize the expansiveness and the sovereignty of God over heaven and earth, and recognize that there was no way of fleeing that presence of God. And he went down to Jaffa and found a ship going to Tarshis, so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshis. Notice again, twice, from the presence of the Lord. Dear brethren, here in Los Angeles, this is so germane to our growth as Christians and followers of Jesus Christ before the Father, is to recognize that we are always in the presence of God.

That should not frighten us. That should encourage us, that he has his eyes on us, just like an apple. We are the apple of his eye. We are in his presence. Now, here's the first great theme that we have now running in the book of Jonah. Jonah is given great opportunity, but turns around with great refusal. Great opportunity, but he turns around and turns it into great refusal. But then again, but the Lord sent out a great wind of the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. And then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried out to his God, and through the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But notice what happens here. But, there's that word again, but Jonah had gone down into the lowest part of the ship, had laid down, and was fast asleep. I have a question to ask you. Do you think that being in the hull of that ship, in the dark of that ship, that once again that he thought that he was away from the presence of God? And here was a man of God, a man that knew God, whose ancestors had been liberated from slavery, from Egypt, who his God had delivered the people again and again and again. And even when they sinned against that same deliverer, God would ask them to return, would be there for them to come into his presence. This God, the sovereign God, the intervening God. If there was anybody that should have been up helping with the ship, it should have been Jonah. So the captain came to him and said to him, what do you mean, sleeper? Arise! You notice how often the word arise comes up here in Jonah. Arise! Please, call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us that we will not perish. And they said to one another, come let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause, for whose cause this trouble has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lots fell on Jonah. And then they said to him, please tell us for whose cause is this trouble upon us, what is your occupation? Where did you come from? And what is your country? And of what people are you?

Now notice what he says in verse 9. So he said to them, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. Now in one thing, it's interesting, he, Jonah, laid this out properly, that all creation is in God's hands. Heaven and earth are one existence before God. And that's how the Israelite mind and the Jewish mind looked at it. It's basically over the last 2000 years where we've divided heaven from earth when the Bible continues to tie in heaven and earth together, whether it be in Genesis 1, whether it be in the prayers of Jesus, whether it be in Revelation 21, that God is sovereign and he does intervene and he knows where his people are. But notice what he says, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord. Now let's stop a moment. How shallow is that witness from the dove man who's running chicken, who is not open to God's intervention, who does not make himself available to the great opportunity, but instead engenders the great refusal and is not willing to do God's will for the enemy of his people? And let's understand that's a big task, right? Let's just kind of put this in perspective and be like you right now with the geopolitics that we have today. It'd be like you going over to Tehran and walking down to that big boulevard in Tehran and you start, you know, telling the mullahs, telling the theocracy, telling the people that think we're the big Satan to repent. So you got to kind of, to a degree, put yourself into Jonah's hands and Jonah's life and Jonah's shoes. One of the things I want to share with you today as we look at this, friends, is simply this. Jonah defined himself as a Hebrew and as a man that feared God. And when the great moment came of disclosure, his witness was shallow. His actions betrayed what he knew. Remember, it's not what you know, it's what you do.

What have we done this past week and or if we want to stretch this past month to where our our witness of who and what we are has rung true through and through. That we practice what we preach. That we are who we say that we are. We can get real hard on Jonah. It's not too hard. He's in the book for years yet to come. But what about our own lives? What lessons do we learn here? And then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, Why have you done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord. There it is again. The men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. And then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more tempetuous. And he said, Pick me up, throw me into the sea, then the sea will calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me. Never the last...you know, suicide wish. He just thought that God wanted him done in and dead. Just...God is no longer my God. God just wants me dead. God wants to send me into situations where I'm going to die. Let's just get it over here. Throw me overboard. Nevertheless, men, the pagan, the pagan people, nevertheless, the men rode hard to return to the land, but they could not for the sea continue to grow more tempetuous against them. Therefore, they cried out to the Lord and said, We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood. For you, O Lord, have done it as pleased you. So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. And then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Up to this point, you see nothing from Jonah, where he offers a sacrifice, where he petitions God. But here are the pagans. They give a sacrifice to the Lord, and they take up vows. Now verse 17. Let's take a deep breath for a second here. Move forward. Now, there's that word again. Now, the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. First of all, the first point was that God prepared a great opportunity for Jonah to be his tool and to preach a message of repentance that Nineveh might turn. But that great opportunity was met with great refusal. Point number two, then, is simply this. God prepared a fish. Now, we often think of the whale, but there's no point of being a whale in this sense. Actually, it's very interesting that there are certain sharks that have been discovered in the Mediterranean. I've got the fancy Latin word here. I'm not going to bore you with it. But they have actually found in that sense a situation similar to Jonah in that sense. I'm not saying it was three days or three nights, but that there are great fish. And God prepared this fish. It was specially delivered in that sense to swallow Jonah, and he was in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights. Now, you know, and I know, that Jesus used this later in Matthew 12, and we're going to turn to it later in Matthew 12 and about 38 through 40, where a sign was asked, well, what is the sign? The sign is going to be that the Son of Man is going to be in the belly of the earth, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Can you imagine—I'm just asking you a question—can you imagine being used by God in spite of yourself?

Don't you want to be utilized by God for all the right reasons as a living and a loving servant, not bucking, not fighting His will? But even so, God's will will be performed one way or the other by a willing and or an unwilling witness. God's will is not going to be stopped, and God was going to use this, ultimately, 700 years down the line. See, that's the thing about Jonah. Jonah was only thinking about himself, and only for the minute. God was, who is God, who owns past, present, and future, and, one to Him, he was thinking down the line of how this was going to be used, about the Son of God being in the grave for three days and three nights. So God prepared this great fish. And then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the fish's bell, and he said, I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and he answered me, out of the belly of the sheal I cried, and you heard my voice, for you cast me into the deep and into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All your billows and your waves passed over me, and then I said, I've been cast out of your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The water surrounded me, even to my soul, and the deep closed around me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. Now let's look at verse 5 for a second. I kind of smile at this verse because here was Jonah. Today we would call him a flight victim. A flight. That's the word I want when they try to flee. They're putting a flight risk. He was not a flight risk. He was in flight. The dove was in flight because he was a chicken. And he thought he was going to get away from God. And God said, no, I'm just going to put you in the belly of this great fish. And by the way, I'm just going to wrap you up in seaweed.

You know, it's... I'm molding you for service. Just a little bit like the Apostle Peter. Remember Peter was on the run. Peter was going to do this. Peter was going to do that. Peter was always on the go. And then Jesus at the end of his life said, you know what? I'm going to tell you what. There's going to be a time when you're not going to go anywhere. You're going to be stuck in my service. When you were young, you did this, you did that, you went hither and yon. But there's going to come a time when you're going to be stuck for my sake. And we know what that meant for Peter. Here is Jonah being molded. God is working with him in the belly of that fish. He's wrapped up. And then in verse 6 says, I went down to the moorings of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed behind me forever. Yet you have brought me up. You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. And when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer went up to you into your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. You might want to circle that. Salvation is of the Lord. But he had not broadened that to other people. He knew he was chosen, chosen of God. His people were chosen. He was a chosen prophet. He was a chosen man. He was a government person. But it was about his people and about him. And he says right here, notice, salvation is of the Lord. God will call whom he will call. He will call what people he wants to repent and to come to him. So the Lord verse 10 spoke to the fish and it vomited chona onto dry land.

I want you to think about that for a moment. What a glorious arrival to the rest of the mission.

That's a real word picture, isn't it?

Welcome to the rest of my service. Thank you, Lord.

Jonah had been in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. He was as good as dead. And in this sense, we have, in a sense, a type of resurrection after three days and three nights.

Interesting. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. There's that word again. You can circle it. Now is going to be the most important word out of this entire message. Because God declares the now, not us. God is molding us. We're not molding God. God is sovereign and he intervenes when it's in his time, when it's in his way, when it's his molding that's going into effect with in a way that we would not even plan because God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. The now belongs to God, not to you and me. When God's now comes into our life, we only have three questions to ask and three answers to supply because it is not what you know, it's what you do. Will you be open? Number one. Number two, will you be available to whatever you ask you to do? And number three, will you be willing to go through it? That's it.

This is simple religion, but it's hard to do without God's Spirit and without the example of Jesus Christ. That greater Jonah before us because he is the exact opposite. Jesus later on was given a message. He was given a ministry. He was to tell a story.

He was to go to a people. He was to sacrifice himself. Jonah was not willing to sacrifice himself. Jonah was not willing to lay down his life for anybody else other than himself and for his people. The message of Jesus Christ that God the Father gave him was of salvation to all of humanity. It was not just to be ziploc around a special racial group or ethnic group or somebody that you kind of like because all of humanity is made in God's image. And what Jonah did is he see these windows over here. He kind of just shut the shades. If there were shades and said, nope, it's all done. Just Israel. God had bigger plans because he's sovereign. So let's take a look at here then what happens. He said, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach it to the message that I tell you. So Jonah, there it goes again, he arose and went to Nineveh according the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, a three-day journey in exile. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. And then he cried out and he said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. This is only the second verse in all the four chapters that tells about the commission. There's only two verses that talk about the commission. This is the other one that we link with the verse one. Otherwise, the man that was to be the problem solver became the problem. So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. This leads us into the third point of Jonah. Number one, the first point is Jonah was given great opportunity, but he offered up great refusal. Number two, God prepared a great fish. And this is so exciting. I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. The third point is simply this. God prepared a great king. God prepared a great king. Listen to this. Then the word came to the king of Nineveh about what Jonah was talking about. And he arose from his throne and he laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth. And he sat in ashes. He sat in ashes and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. And cry mightily to God, Yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands, not the other guy's hands, in his hands. And who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his first anger so that we may not perish? Question. But the thought is this, dear friends, the king was going to guide and to lead his people. That's what a leader does.

A leader doesn't just simply sit on what he knows, but does action. It's what he does. It's what you do. It's not what you know. It's the example, the example that comes up against pressure, the pressure that allows us to grow and to allow God to know that we get it, that he is with us, that we are in his presence at all times, that he is sovereign, that we come to understand his compassion and his way of doing things and his mercy. The king asked an open question. He did not know what necessarily was going to happen, but he was going to guide and to lead his people through that. This is somebody that God can do business with.

That's the kind of individual man or woman that God can do business with. Then God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God relented from the disaster that he said he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. First Corinthians 13. It says, prophecies shall fail. There are prophecies that will not come to past.

At times we put God in cement and don't fully understand the great mercy, the great compassion, the great love that God has for all of humanity, not just for me and mine, but for thee and thine. And to recognize that God wants everybody, Jew and Gentile, Israelite and Gentile, to be a part of his family.

Is everybody happy? Is Jonah ready to pass out the happy pills?

I think you know the rest of the story. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And he became angry.

So he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish, for I know that you are a gracious and a merciful God. Slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. And therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

See, Jonah was going to have to go back to Israel and say, you know what? Something happened along the road. I thought I was going to be God's instrument to get rid of these people. Our enemies, can you imagine going back and having to tell the rest of the Israelites, they're still around. He would have been thought to be a failure.

Then the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry?

See, God will ask us questions, and only we can fill in the answers. It's a very Jewish way of teaching, just like Jesus. Jesus would ask questions as a rabbi would, and the answer was in the question. And you notice that here in Jonah, in that sense, is it right for you to be angry? He was trying to make Jonah think. So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city. And now notice what happens here as we go to another point that I want to bring up. That we recognize then that we have this great God that is going to spare Nineveh, and now he begins, this great God begins to further mold the prophet. And we notice that he goes outside of the city until he might see what might become of the city. You know, when we were growing up, you know, we'd all have the televisions wheeled into our our classrooms back in the 60s with the space program. Some of you will remember that are young, that are younger like me. Just joking! And that remember how the televisions would come in and we'd watch everything coming out of Cape Canaveral and the Apollo program. You know, we'd all be there 10, 9, 8, 7. And by the way, for those that are, it was all in black and white then, okay? 9, 10, you know. And this is what Jonah's doing. He's doing his own Cape Canaveral countdown. He's at the edge of the city. 10, 9, 8, 7. He still wants none of it to go down. And it says here, God began, and the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. So God began to mold and to shape a situation. He created this plant to give Jonah shade. But as morning dawned the next day, God prepared. What this tells us is that you and I, in the presence of God, worship a God that is active and knows exactly what he's doing and molding and shaping us. He then noticed he prepared the plant, and then in the morning he prepared a worm.

And it so damaged the plant that it withered. That must have been quite a... that must have been like a prehistoric worm. But anyway, it damaged the plant. Enough already, we might say. No, no. And it happened when the sun arose that God prepared a beam in east wind, and the sun beat on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. And then he wished death for himself and said, it is better for us to die than to live. Guy was suicidal.

Then God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? And he said, it is right for me to be angry and even to death. But as the Lord said, you have pity on this plant for which you have not labored nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity... see, contrast, contrast. And should I not pity none of that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left. And much livestock.

The book of Jonah, you might want to jot this down if you're a note taker, ends with a question. It ends with a question.

A question to Jonah. And God asked a question which is really in his answer.

I want to share in conclusion great lessons that can be learned by and from this ungrateful prophet. Because again, the message is titled, simply this, exploring Jonah through the heart and the mind and the eyes of Christ. Simply put, brethren, we must practice what we preach. And our good example will always speak volumes over all of our good arguments. To cry aloud and to spare not. Isaiah 58 verse 1. Must always start with us. Must always start with us. For God will use us in spite of ourselves. Oh, to live life.

You know, like Whitman said, O me, O life, with the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of the cities filled with the foolish, what good amidst these, O me, O life? Answer that you exist, that you have identity, and that the powerful play goes on and that you might add a verse. When the now of God comes into your life, when that but comes into your life from God that you were not quite prepared for, what will you do? What will you say and how will you respond to the will of God, the sovereign God, that comes into your life?

This Jonah was told to go east. He went west.

He wanted those that he spoke to to die.

He was willing to sacrifice them. That greater Jonah that came, the greater Jonah, Jesus of Nazareth, he had a ministry. He was given a commission. He was told to go out and to speak to the people. And he said, and he came into Galilee and he said, repent and to believe the gospel.

But he didn't put their life on the line. He put his life on the line. He didn't want others nuked, but allowed himself to be sacrificed and to be crucified. That there might not be death other than his own, but that there might be life for all of humanity. Jew and Gentile. Black, brown, white, and everybody else in between. We are all the children of God. We all go back to Adam. And in Luke 3.38 it says, an Adam, which is a cool verse if you've never seen, but an Adam, the son of God.

God wants all of us to come before him, all of us to repent, all of us to change our hearts and become like the example of Jesus Christ. Practice what we preach. Number two. Jonah, who was extended such mercy, could not extend it beyond himself.

He was selfish for himself and for his own. He misunderstood the intent of prophecy.

He had the gift, but he misunderstood it. He didn't know how to open it up. He didn't know how to unwrap it. It's not about prophecy is given to the nations, not for revenge, but for salvation. As the Apostle Peter says in his epistle, with all of these things then that are going to occur, what manner of men ought we to be?

Interesting. And as we go out and we live our Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays, shed our heads, how merciful are we as a people! How excited would we be if this world did repent? We know the GPS of prophecy. We know some of the big pillars that are out there. We know that. Those are not going away and I'm not saying that they are. But wonder if people do repent. Wonder if our nation does repent. Wonder if this world did repent. What would we say? But that's not in our booklet. Not here.

Come here, God. Come on down. Oh, I'm in your presence now. Come on down. No, right here we said that you said this about them.

It happened before.

We'll see what happens in the future.

Let's remember that as people of the book, and people of the book have done this for thousands of years, too often we make God over into our image rather than being made into God's image. What is God's image? He is sovereign. Absolutely. Number two, He is merciful. Number three, He is loving. And number four, He is all present.

Another point I'd like to give you about prophecy. Let's remember, looking at Jonah, that first and foremost, prophecy is not about dates. It's not about seals, and it's not about plagues. And I've gone all through the United States and Canada on prophecy tours and talked about scriptures and plagues and dates and seals. But this is what prophecy is about at the end of the day. It's about people. It's about people. People like you and me, people with hearts, people that have not been yet invited to know what you and I know, but it's not what we know, it's what we do, it's the measure and the strength and the expansiveness and the capacity of our hearts and not our brains. And when people see that, they will be attracted to that light. Let's fully appreciate and come to understand that mercy allows us to be flexible. It allows us to think and crawl out of the boxes of our own man-made self-limitations.

That was Jonah's whole problem. The book of Jonah is basically that Jonah did not understand the presence of God. He had put God in a box of his own making, as his people had done.

The people of God can put their God in a box and lose their ability to be flexible in the moment when the but, when the now, when the so comes into our scriptures and our lives and to recognize what we can be for other people. That's why, if you'd join me if you wouldn't look at Luke 21, 36. Luke 21, 36.

All of that prophecy. Luke 21, 36.

Watch therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things, that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. I've always looked at this verse and I see two responsibilities.

I think oftentimes over the years we've just centered on the first responsibility. Watch therefore so we become super glued to the news. If you just become super glued to the news, you can become depressed. Period. But notice what the second responsibility is, and it's to pray always. To pray. Why does God ask us to pray? Because that's when we come into communication and conversation with Him. It is in that prayer, it is in that talk, it is in that belonging, it is in those words, those thoughts going back and forth, that we begin to be able to think like God thinks. To pray, to soften our hearts, to mold our hearts.

It's not enough to be like Jonah and to go through a city and say, Behold, your God is looking down upon you and you are going down because you're evil. Were they evil? Yes. Were they going to go down if they didn't repent? Yes.

But where was the love of God? You know, you can cry aloud and you can spare not and show my people their sins. But if it's just fastball after fastball after fastball without the change up of putting the love of God and the mercy of God and the return to God in that mix. To where it's not just a dead end, but there is an opening. There's an opening.

There's a window. You know, when you look at these windows, it's all the cover. This is called the PowerPoint. We look at these windows. We need to have a life, a Christian existence before God that is full of windows, that is full of doors, that is full of bridges to other people. That's how Christ was. You know, when Christ went into a village in Galilee or Samaria or Judah, he went in and the people gathered. There was something magnetic about him. There was something about him that people of all sorts just wanted to be around him. There was something there. There was a bridge. There was a door. There was indeed the light of the world.

And he told them some pretty tough things, didn't he? Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why he came. He came into Galilee saying, repent. But it was not just to repent, but to believe, to turn, to be different. There is access to the kingdom of God. He gave them hope.

A Christian is a leader that is a dealer in hope.

Another lesson out of Jonah. Two more to go and I'll conclude. God's word comes when we least expect it. So expect it. Come to expect the unexpected from God.

Not by your time frame, but by his sovereignty into your life.

It will ask us to do new things.

I think having been in the Church of God community now for 56 years, over the years, it's been such a blessing to be able to do new things as a Christian, as a minister, as a pastor, with congregations. Be ready to do new things that you've never thought about, that your God, our God, is going to ask you to do. It's coming up. Be ready.

Last point. God will continue working with us until we get the point.

Wow! And sometimes that will take us right back to the starting block. God is always going to work with us. He worked with Jonah. He brought him out of the drink. He brought him out of the belly of the whale. Not the whale, but belly of the fish. Just like his people, Israel.

How often did God ask the people of Israel to return? Have you ever read the book of Ezekiel? Return, return, return, return.

God never gives up on us. God will never give up on you. He sure has not given up on me.

He always has the door open every turn.

And sometimes he'll take us right back to the same spot. I'll conclude with this little side bit.

It's very interesting that 700 years after this, another Israelite was sent to Jaffa. Did you know that? Jaffa. His name was Peter.

Peter was told to go down to the centurion. Where was the centurion? Where was the Gentile? Where was the opening of the Gentile church to come into the body of Christ? It started in Jaffa. I've got great news for you, and you can read that story in the book of Acts. Peter did not head east. He did not head west. He went right to Jaffa. Took a little convincing, but he did go. God will sometimes take us right back to the geographic spot, even, to show us his will, to show that first century Jonah named Peter. Peter, who was known to run, Peter, who was known to do his own thing, but then Peter surrendered. And it was going to take him really great guts, just like Jonah was going to have to go back and tell his fellows, well, they didn't go down quite like I thought they were. I'm sorry they're still there. Peter had the raw spiritual guts to go to Jerusalem and say, this is the news. God sent me. And I walked into the house of a Gentile and with his family, and they are now a part of the body. They are under the rule. They are under the sovereignty of God Almighty. They believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they have received the Spirit, and we are to be one before him. Is there a Jaffa in your future? Is there a place where God wants you to return that you didn't get it the first time, but this time you will come to expect the unexpected from God and be open, be willing, be available. And just as the greater Jonah himself prayed to his father above, not my will, but your will be done.