What Jonah Teaches

Last Sabbath, we went over the topic of why God provides prophecy. Why He places it in the Bible. How it is that understanding a good amount of the prophecy in the Bible helps us. What the benefits are. And certainly, as I mentioned in what Mr. Kubik wrote, we can see the pattern. We can see what's going to happen. We have to wait to see exactly how it occurs. But we do want to be motivated by that.

We want to be motivated in our relationship with God. Now, we mentioned, last Sabbath I mentioned in the sermon that I covered some of the book of Jonah. And I told you you might want to read Jonah because we'll go through some more of that today. But the lessons that we covered were simply that our Creator God is able to relieve our fears of the unknown. He's in absolute control. Even though we find a lot of distress, a lot of chaos, a lot of calamity, a lot of death, a lot of destruction, a lot of anger, a lot of evil in this world, God is going to bring that to a peaceful solution.

And secondly, unlike Jonah, an appointed watchman must proclaim the warning from God. That's our job. We have that as a mission, proclaiming God's warning and hoping that people will listen, hoping that it'll have an impact. Third, we mentioned God's immense mercy desires everyone to repent and turn to God. See, that's good for everybody. That's good for all of our neighbors around us. That's good for people here in Fulton, over in Columbia, over in Kansas City.

It's good for everybody. Clearly, it's very good for us. And then finally, our watching and praying must lead to being motivated, motivated to draw close to God, motivated to be patient with God, and certainly be thankful for the information that God has revealed to us in His divine Word. Now, I want to further expand on the chapters in Jonah today. And perhaps we can think about what Jonah can teach each of us.

All of us are familiar with the story of Jonah. At least the story of Jonah and the fish. I mean, even our probably the youngest children understand or know or have been told or heard the story of Jonah and the great fish.

But what is it that Jonah can teach each one of us? Jonah was a prophet in Israel. And it says in 2 Kings 14, verse 23, that at that time, King Jehoram, or Jeroboam, this was Jeroboam II, so this wasn't right at the beginning of the divided kingdom, but this was later on, quite a bit later on. And Jeroboam was an evil king. He wasn't doing, as many of the other kings did not. They weren't obeying God. They weren't teaching that people should listen to God. And yet, in verse 25 it says, the word spoken by my servant Jonah, the prophet. It mentions Jonah here, and I'm only referencing that because you don't have a lot of other references to Jonah in the Old.

Or, you know, you have his one little two-page book, four chapters that we can easily study or read. And yet, very importantly, I don't really see any other prophecies that Jonah made or that he gave to Israel and whether they paid attention to him or not, but he was involved in a very important activity that we read about in the book of Jonah. And, of course, his activity had to do with the city of Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria at the time. And, ultimately, I might just mention, if you jump on over to chapter 17, you'll see here in 2 Kings, you can see how God ultimately would bring Assyria to their knees.

He would ultimately do that. Or, actually, no, I'm missing the point on that one. God would ultimately allow Israel to fall to Assyria. I guess that was what I actually do want to point out later, that God will also bring Assyria to its knees. But, in chapter 17 of 2 Kings, you can read through a good part of the first chapter there or the first part of the chapter, and you can see why it was that Israel was overthrown. They were overtaken because they refused to obey God. They were overtaken by Assyria. This is probably what Jonah feared.

He pretty well knew that, boy, we don't pay any better attention than it looks like we are. That's all that's going to happen. And, clearly, that's what did happen. But, see, this little inset about Jonah going to Nineveh, and what God says about Nineveh, what he says about their response, what he says about Jonah's reaction.

Those are all teaching. And maybe even far more, what God was doing was setting up a type of something that later would occur in the life of Jesus or in his death and then awaiting his resurrection, the three days and three nights that that occurred.

So let's go to the book of Jonah. Like I told you last time, it's on page 753. So you can look it up. You know kind of where the book of Jonah is there in the latter part of the Old Testament and in the minor prophets. And I want to be able to go over the four chapters here because there are lessons in each one of them. The first chapter, as you can easily read, and I'm not going to read through each one of these, but you can easily read the first chapter and you can see that Jonah flees from God. He was given a mission.

He refused to do it. And so you have the story of the great fish, Jonah and the great fish, that ended up with Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Now some people think that's the funniest thing that they could ever read. They scoff at that. They think that's ridiculous. This has got to be some kind of fairy tale. And yet, of course, it is not. It is not as verified by Jesus Christ.

And also, as we can read this story, and as we have faith in God and in His Word, we know that what it says is true. And verse 17, after Jonah's pitched into the sea and kind of floats to the bottom, it appears and ultimately is scooped up by the fish, it says in verse 17, the Lord provided, or He prepared, a large fish, a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights. Sounds pretty yucky. Sounds, you know, just pretty smelly, pretty slimy. Not a very impressive thing to have to go through. With God, anything is possible. And clearly, that's what Jonah was going to learn. Now, we've written about this in our Bible commentary. Mr. Robinson, I think, probably was involved in writing this. It points out, in regard to this fish or whale, whatever kind of a sea creature it was, that God prepared to preserve Jonah for these three days and three nights. It says, and this is out of our Bible commentary, it says, while the throats of most whales are too narrow to swallow a man, a certain type of whale, a sperm whale, can.

Even other species of whales can preserve a man alive, where the man able to reach the large Larnagile pouch. And so it's talking about at least some fish and what we can look at and learn. This structure with this thick elastic walls is large enough to contain a man and to supply him with enough air for breathing. A.J. Wilson in the Princeton Theological Review records a case of a man swept overboard by a harpooned sperm whale in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands.

And the whale was eventually killed and cut apart, and after three days, the missing sailor was found in the animal's stomach, unconscious. He was successfully revived, although the skin of his face and neck and hands were bleached by the whale's gastric juices.

Now that's our report. I mean, that is something that you can read, at least you can look up. I also found in another article that is online. It's an article by J. Carl Laney. And it's about Jonah and the great fish. And he notes he does mention that incident, but he also says, have you ever wondered about the possibility that someone could survive being swallowed by a great fish? In Sir Francis Fox's book, 63 Years of Engineering, again, this was cited in the Princeton Theological Review, it's reported that the sperm whale can swallow lumps of food eight feet in diameter.

That's a pretty big chunk of food, I guess. And one of these whales was found the skeleton of a shark that was 16 feet long. Harry Rimmer, in the Harmony of Science and Scriptures, suggests that Jonah's fish may have been a rindon shark, which had no teeth and feeds on by straining its food through large plates in its mouth.

A large fish of this type could certainly be capable of swallowing a man. He goes on to say, what would be the chances of surviving inside the fish? Rimmer reports that whales, being air-breathing mammals, have in their heads a large air storage chamber. The chamber is an enlargement of the nasal sinus, and in a large whale can be as large as 14 feet by 7 feet and 7 feet high. And so this amounts to a pretty cavernous area. Rimmer explains that if a whale takes into its mouth an object too big to swallow, it thrusts it up into the air chamber.

If it finds that it has a large object in its head, its whims for the nearest land lies in shallow water and ejects it. It's also reported that a sperm whale always ejects the contents of its stomach when dying.

So again, he's giving some facts about what they know or knew at that time regarding Big Sea creature. Rimmer tells of an English sailor. So this is a different one than the one we referenced before, an English sailor who was once swallowed by a giant, a Rinedon shark, in the English Channel.

The sailor fell overboard, attempting to harpoon the shark, and before he could be picked up, the man was swallowed. The entire trawler fleet sought to hunt the fish down so the sailor's body could be recovered and buried. 48 hours after the accident occurred, the fish was sighted and killed. The carcass was towed to shore and the body cavity opened. Much to his friend's surprise, the sailor was unconscious, but he was alive.

He was rushed to the hospital, where he was found to be suffering from shock alone. A few hours later, he was discharged as being physically fit. Rimmer reported that he met the sailor in person and was able to corroborate that incident. The man's physical appearance had been affected by his experience.

Again, his body was entirely devoid of hair, with odd patches of brownish-yellow covering his skin. So you can imagine, with these kinds of incidents, and of course, these are simply reports of things that we could identify that could actually happen. It really makes no difference about Jonah, because clearly what we see here in verse 17 of chapter 1, that God prepared. He provided that fish, whatever kind of fish, whatever kind of whale, whatever kind of creature it was. God had prepared for, in a sense, a tomb or a womb for Jonah to be encased and to be there for an exact period of time.

Why didn't the whale or the fish just spit him out as soon as he figured out, this is not food? That's not the case. God rules over his creation. He could do that very easily, and we clearly see, as Jesus verified about Jonah, that that was the case.

In chapter 2 of Jonah, you see Jonah, verse 1, praying, to the Lord is God from the belly of the fish. Now, that must have been an earnest prayer, you would say. You would almost imagine that he was probably thinking, now I've really done it. I've spurned God, I've run off, I've created a scene for the guys in the boat, they've had to throw me in, and here I am. If he recognized where he was at all.

But what I want to point out is that throughout this prayer, from verse 2 on down to verse 9, you see what Jonah's prayer was. It's actually very significant. I want to mention several of these verses and several of the... Actually, what you find in this example of Jonah being a prophet of God, being in the people and nation of Israel, he was very familiar with the Word of God. He was familiar with the Psalms because that's what you find him, in a sense, praying to God.

You see the whole account here, from verse 2 on down to verse 9. You can read almost exactly the words that Jonah is praying in different sections of the Psalms. It starts off, and maybe I should just read the whole thing here. And then he says, And then he answered me, Out of the belly of Sheol the grave I cried, And you heard my voice, You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the sea, And the flood surrounded me, And all your waves and billows passed over me.

And then I said, I'm driven away from your sight. He says, I'm done. I'm finished. In a sense, he was saying, I don't have a lot of hope here. How shall I look again upon your holy temple? Verse 5, the waters closed in over me, And the deep surrounded me, And weeds wrapped around my head at the root of the mountains, Seemingly at the bottom of the ocean, or the sea, it would have been. I went down to the land, Those bars closed upon me forever, Yet you brought up my life. I'm from the pit. Oh, Lord, my God! See, it would appear in that statement that he's realizing I'm still alive.

I can't believe this. But I'm crying out to God in my distress. I'm realizing that I've been dealt with by the Creator God. And I am now, or I feel like I've just about done it. Why would God be merciful to me? Why would God want to help me? Well, he says, well, it certainly appears that God could. And clearly, what you see in verse 6, You brought up my life from the pit or the grave.

See, these are what Jonah was thinking. This is what he was praying. This was what he was beseeching God. And in verse 7, as my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord. Sometimes when we're in kind of dire straits, we tend to remember the Lord a little more than what we might focus on at some other time. As my life was ebbing away, I remember the Lord. My prayer came to you and to your holy temple, and those who worship vain idols forsake their mercy.

But, verse 9, I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed to pay. He says, in a sense, you kind of see a change in Jonah's resistance, in his rebellion, in his defiance of the Creator. And he realizes, well, I'm still alive. I better pray, I better remember. And of course, he closes, verse 9, I'm offering to you the voice of thanksgiving as a sacrifice, and what I have vowed I will pay because deliverance.

If I'm ever going to get out of this, which you wouldn't think you would have any idea, how long am I going to be here, and am I going to just simply die here, or am I going to be delivered? Well, I'm asking God for deliverance. He says, deliverance belongs...if I get to survive this, it's totally up to God.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord. And so, in verse 10, as God rules over his creation, the Lord spoke to the fish and spewed Jonah out on the dry land. Now, wouldn't Jonah have been amazed?

Would he remember everything he prayed? Actually, again, I'll give you some of these references. In verse 2, I called to the Lord out of my distress. In Psalms, all of these are in the Psalms, and you can go back through, and there's quite a list of the Psalms that I won't cover in entirety. But in Psalm 120, verse 1, that Psalm writes, In my distress I cried to the Lord, that he may answer me. See, this is what Jonah was remembering.

We drop down to verse 4. He says, I said... Excuse me, I'm jumping back to Jonah here. In verse 4, Jonah also said, I'm driven away from your sight. See, he realized, you know, I'm in a real mess here. I'm in a terrible situation. And yet, that's what David thought. If you go back to chapter 31 of Psalms, there have been different times when different of the servants of God have been in dire circumstances.

And David said, verse... Psalm 31, verse 21, Bless be the Lord, for He has wondrously shown His steadfast love to me when I was beset as His city under siege. I was in distress. And he said, I even said in my alarm, in verse 22, I am driven far from your sight.

See, that's exactly what Jonah was recalling. But, here in verse 22, you heard my supplication when I cried out to you for help. See, that's a... it's an amazing thing to see how much Jonah, and actually you can look up, and I will let you do that.

You can look up each one of these verses in Jonah 2, and you can see references to the book of Psalms. Verse 6 in Jonah 2, he says, I went down to the land whose bars covered upon me forever, and yet you brought me up. You brought up my life from the pit. You see in Psalm 50, Psalm 50, verse 14, Psalm 50, in verse 14, well, we can back up a little bit. Yeah, in verse 14, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Now, this perhaps is... I'm jumping ahead here. Yeah, it's in 56, I'm sorry. Chapter 56, verse 12, is connected with chapter 2, verse 6 of Jonah. Psalm 56, verse 12, says, My vows to you I must perform, O God, I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life.

Again, that was what we read back here in Jonah's thoughts. And then in verse 7, you find, when it got really difficult that Jonah chapter 2, verse 7, he says, I remembered the Lord. And that is a continual refrain that you see throughout a good part of the Psalms. Psalm 107 has three or four of these incidents where people were in difficult straits. And it talks about them being the redeemed of the Lord. Psalm 107, we can read, let's see, starting in verse 4, some wandered in desert places, finding no place or no way to an inhabited land.

They were hungry, they were thirsty, their soul fainted within them. But in verse 6, he says, then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. And you see that repeated three or four times here in chapter 107, that whenever things got really difficult, He didn't just give up. He didn't just say, well, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. I need to remember the Lord.

And of course, in Jonah chapter 9 verse 2, or excuse me, 2 verse 9, with the voice of thanksgiving, I will sacrifice to you. And then he mentions how the deliverance is really up to God, which he fully understood. He realized at this point that even though he's seeing he's still alive and that he is praising God and thinking that I need to thank God that I'm even still alive, I know my deliverance is yet up to God.

And you see those reference to, we can go to Psalm 50. That's what I was looking at before. Psalm chapter 50.

And in verse 14, he says, Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

See, we have a great reason to not only praise and worship and honor God, but to thank God for everything, even our own lives. And that's what Jonah was realizing. And in chapter 3 here, if we go back to the early part of Psalms, here in chapter 3, Psalms 3, verse 8, it says, Deliverance belongs to the Lord. May your blessing be on your people. See, now I would say that Jonah, as he was in a predicament that, you know, he could have never have imagined, and yet that was being brought about by God to create a setting that would not only be referred to in a little book in the back part of the Old Testament, but that would connect to the Father and the Word's plan of salvation.

That Jesus Christ would be in the grave three days and three nights, and then be resurrected from the dead. See, Jonah, you know, was thinking about these Psalms. He was thinking about how that, well, I need to remember so many times, and perhaps, you know, the things that stand out so much, perhaps to us, to others, you know, they often don't want to give credit to God regarding the flood or regarding the Red Sea or regarding Jonah.

You know, they don't want to recognize God's able to rule over things that are simply very simple to Him. He rules the wind and the waves. He is over all, and He can do anything with His creation. So I guess the question we could pose here regarding Jonah chapter 2 is just simply, are we studying the Word of God and trying to make that word a part of our lives, a part of our thinking, because there may come a time when we can't really easily read it.

And even sometimes at night, whenever we may be trying to sleep if we're still awake, you know, we may be referring to and thinking about and rehearsing at least familiar Psalms, and maybe even many others. It seems like Jonah was referring to many of the Psalms that maybe he was quite familiar with, but not only the Psalms, but many other parts of the Bible that we ought to be able to have in mind.

I think it's important for us, even as we come to church services and as we, you know, today even sing hymns. See, it's really helpful to praise God with Psalms, even in our services, and to help us remember them. We often remember them a little easier whenever it's in a song, or we remember at least some of the verses, or I get the verses mixed up and sing different ones, but at least you can recall some of those.

So, to think about Jonah, to think about what he prayed, to think about his familiarity with the, particularly the book of Psalms, and how it is that that helped him. That helped him in a dire circumstance. He had no control over what was going to happen. But, as we get to chapter 3, and Jonah finds that he's still alive, and he's there on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and God tells him now, go to Nineveh.

Now, I'm pretty sure he got to it this time. He at least headed that direction. Go on to Nineveh and proclaim the message that I told you. So, Jonah in chapter 3 of Jonah, he said out, he went to Nineveh. And, of course, he was going to proclaim to them that in 40 days, you are going to be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh, in verse 5, believed God.

They proclaimed to fast everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. And so here you find an example in chapter 3 that tells us a lot about God. Tells us a lot about God's desire. Not only for Jonah. He got Jonah's attention.

He sent him back. He made him do the job, in a sense, even though he may have still grumbled about it, because he still in the back of his head knew a serious supposed to overthrow Israel.

And I think he was aware that they are an enemy. They are a likely tormentor of my people. And yet, since God was telling him what to do, he went ahead and did the job, and yet the people believed God and they changed. In verse 6, when the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from the throne and removed his robe. He covered himself with sackcloth. He sat in ashes, and he had a proclamation made in all of Nineveh.

By the decree of the king, no human or animal or herd or flock shall taste anything they shall not feed, and they shall not drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth. They shall cry mightily to God, and also turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.

They were a violent people. Yes, they were a corrupt people. Yes, they were wrong, and they were the enemy of Israel. But he says in verse 9, who knows, God may relent and change his mind. He may turn from his fierce anger so that we will not be punished.

And of course, verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from the evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring, and he didn't do it.

So what does that tell us? Well, that was a very temporary solution to the problem that Nineveh faced right then, because they, yes, would later be overthrown. But right now, God would spare them. Right now, God would not bring in this 40 days that Jonah had predicted God would not bring that calamity upon them. And of course, what they mentioned about, well, maybe God will repent, maybe he will turn back, maybe he will not bring that destruction upon us. You see this referenced in Jeremiah 18, and it's good for us to keep in mind how God desires that everyone repent. Here in Jeremiah 18, verse 7, the Word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah, and verse 6, verse 6, can I not do with you, O house of Israel? Just as the potter has done, the potter had shaped some clay and then smashed it, and then reshaped it and smashed it and fixed it to where he exactly wanted it. The Word of the Lord came to me, can I not do with you, O house of Israel? Just as the potter has done, says the Lord, just like the clay in the potter's hands, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel, at one moment. I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck it up and bring down and destroy it. But if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. But he follows that up in verse 9 at another moment. I may declare concerning a nation or kingdom that I am building or planting. If it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do it. Now therefore say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord, look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn, now all of you, turn from your evil ways and amend your ways, amend your doings. So this is God's appeal, his appeal to all humanity. He wants to extend mercy. He wants to extend repentance. Actually, repentance is a step. In many ways, it's a first step to conversion. Not that they were being brought to conversion at that point, but conversion comes about through a process that begins with repentance. It begins to receive the mercy of God. And so what we see in chapter 3 of Jonah is just a response that Jesus emphasizes. He later talks about what an inebud did was right. He doesn't say anything about what they did later when they forgot about that and then ultimately were destroyed. But he did say their response is what I want all people to come to see, to see that example. And then finally here in Jonah chapter 4, we read this, a little bit of it last week. And yet whenever Jonah didn't get his way, he said in verse 1, chapter 4, when God changed his mind, Jonah didn't get his way. He demanded, he wanted his way, but he didn't get it. And so he was really mad. This was very displeasing to Jonah. He became angry. He prayed and said, oh Lord, is this not what I said while I was in my own country? This is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning. I knew you were a gracious God. I knew you were merciful. I knew you were slow to anger. I knew you abounded in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing. See, Jonah was just fit to be tied. He was so upset.

See, now when you read the book of Nahum, there are three chapters in Nahum. All of it's about the destruction of Assyria, or Nineveh directly, but Assyria. When you read in Zephaniah chapter 2, verse 13 to 15, it talks about a destruction of Assyria. See, perhaps Jonah was even aware of some of that. But he didn't want them to change. He didn't want them to receive mercy. He didn't want them to receive benefits that he thought, I'm the exclusive prophet of God in Israel. He didn't want others, especially enemies, who were repentant. See, this is a big part of this. Whenever they were repentant, God was willingly merciful. He was clearly merciful. And yet we read in verse 4 a question that God would ask Jonah, is it right for you to be so angry? And then you have a little incident there about the gourd and a bush, or whatever it was that grew up and then died. And of course, all of that, how could that happen? Well, God rules over his creation. He caused the bush to grow quickly. He caused it to die. It sent a worm to cut it down. And yet in verse 9, God says to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about this bush? See, he repeats to Jonah a lesson. Are you right to be angry about my mercy? Because in verse 10, he says, the Lord says, you're concerned about this little bush. You're concerned about yourself. You're concerned about your own comfort. You're concerned about the shade, which of course all of us like whenever it's hot. And yet Jonah couldn't see beyond his nose. He couldn't get out of his head that God needs to be... You would have thought he could have figured out God can do whatever he needs to do, and yet he needed to get in line with God. The Lord said, you're concerned about this bush for which you didn't labor and which you didn't grow. It came into being in the night and perished in the night. He says in verse 11, should I not be concerned about Nineveh?

See, now clearly God was concerned about the Ninevites. He wasn't dealing with them right then. In a sense, he actually used them to punish Israel. And we see that throughout the history of the Old Testament. How it is that God dealt with the people of Abraham, and how it is that God taught lessons, and how it is that they should have examples for us. And so, I think we could say about Jonah, and I think it's particularly important to realize where God asks, why are you so mad? Why are you so angry? Jonah's response, his unrestricted, it looks like, anger, didn't allow him to express the mercy and the love that God had for even this enemy. See, he was so tied up with his anger that he could not grow in the mercy of God. And so, I think we have to ask ourselves, do we allow anger to prevent God from extending mercy through us to others? See, because sometimes that's what happens. Because of our own opinion, because of our own selfishness, because of our own distress. And it's easy to get angry, and it's easy to let that anger rule into other areas of our lives. And we're becoming indifferent to others. That's clearly what Jonah was doing. He was so angry that he was completely indifferent that even God says, I want to show mercy. Jonah couldn't appreciate that. So do we allow anger to prevent God from extending mercy through us to other people? Do we really want other people to repent? See, we should. We should want others to repent.

You know, I think it's interesting to see, if we go back to Genesis chapter 4, at the very beginning of the demise of mankind at that time, of course Adam and Eve began as God created them, the first human parents, and they had Cain and Abel. And of course, Cain's problems rose whenever his sacrifice was not accepted, and Abel's was. But here in Genesis 4, in verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, Why are you so angry?

Why are you so angry? Why has your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And yet if you do not well, then sin is lying at the door, and its desire is for you, and yet you must rule over sin. See, this is what God told Cain. Cain didn't pay attention. Cain continued. He continued in his revelry against God, his rebellion. He would kill Abel, and he would begin a line that was completely distorted from God's point of view. But see, one thing God identified about a problem that Cain had was that he allowed his anger to rule him. And that's what God was telling Jonah. Why are you so mad? Why are you so angry? It keeps you from really understanding the mercy that I have, not only for you, but for Nineveh and for other people who are my creation.

But he had said this type of thing to Cain back in Genesis. Why are you so angry? See, he was so self-centered, so self-focused that he couldn't see beyond. I want to go to several other verses here in James chapter 1. This is not an Old Testament example, of course, but here in the New Testament you see James making mention of how important it is that we rule over our anger. He says in verse 19 of James 1, you must understand this, my beloved. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger because your anger does not produce God's righteousness. See, James 1, verse 20, tells us in essence, the anger that comes with living in this deceived world, having the nature that we have, and even though we're overcoming that with the help of the Holy Spirit of God, we certainly want to recognize the danger that anger can be.

And as it says in verse 20, your anger does not produce the righteousness. We're trying to grow in the righteousness of God. That is our purpose. That is God's desire for us. He's preparing us for something in the future that we are yet to fully understand. But he wants us to rule over our anger.

And in verse 21, he says, Therefore rid yourself of all-sortedness and rank-growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that is the power to save your soul. See, we want to fill our mind, our thoughts, our activity, our action with the Word of God.

And yes, yes, we fail. Yes, we sin. Yes, we need to repent. Yes, we need the mercy of God. But that doesn't negate what God tells us to do. I want us to look at another verse here in Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15 is a parable. There are several parables actually in Luke 15.

But the one that is unique to Luke and the one that is the longest, it talks about a young son who goes away and who takes his inheritance and blows it. He finally figures out whenever he's hungry enough, I'd better get back. I'd better come back to my father. I need to just tell him I don't deserve to be a son. I just want to feed the pigs. I just want to feed the animals. Or maybe it's not pigs that his father had.

Anyway, he was with the pigs earlier when he was in his real demise. And he was going to come back and I just want to be a servant. I just want to fit in. I see that I've really messed up and I'm wanting to change. And of course, whenever you see the son returning, verse 17, he came to himself. That's a statement that seems to indicate the repentant attitude he was in. He came to himself and in verse 20, he went to his father and while he was still way away, his father saw him.

His father was waiting. He was wanting for him to come back. His father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. And the son started telling him, he said, no, no, no, I don't hear any of that. He just said, quick. Verse 22, bring the robe, bring a ring, get the fatted calf, let us celebrate. Eat and celebrate. This is the son of mine who was dead. And is now alive again. He has come to this point by being repentant.

And he was lost and is now found and they began to celebrate. See, that's a marvelous example of the way God is toward us. The mercy of God toward his people, but the mercy of God even toward Nineveh or toward others who are willing to repent. And of course, we also want to see the older brother's reaction. The older brother, whenever he heard what was going on, verse 25, when the older son in the field heard the dancing and the music, he called out and said, what's going on? And he said in verse 27, your brother is coming and your father has killed the fatted calf because he got him back safe and sound.

But verse 28 looks a lot like Jonah. It looks a lot like Cain. It looks like an unacceptable response because his older brother became angry. He was filled with rage and he refused to go in and his father came out and began to plead with him. See, his father wanted him to accept his brother. He wasn't about to accept his brother. He wanted, just like Jonah, he wanted him to be punished. He'd already been punished. He'd already been hungry for some time. He'd already been in poverty. He had come to see his need for God and he was repentant. That's the only thing the father was looking at. He says he was lost and he's back. He needs me. And so, of course, this older son had no desire for the father's mercy toward his brother. He just didn't get it. And see, that's, I think, an important lesson that we should learn from the book of Jonah. Because as Jonah was so angry over God's mercy, you also see that in these other examples. And we want to be appreciative of the mercy God's extended to us, but we should desire that others would repent and that God's mercy could be extended to them. Now, there are going to be different time frames. There's going to be the end of the age. There's going to be a millennium. There's going to be a time beyond that. There's a lot yet to happen in the plan of God. And yet God's mercy isn't going to change. He may need to crush those who oppose Christ as he returns. Yes, that's for good reason. And yet he says he's going to resurrect those who have not understood what I'm doing, and I'm going to give them understanding. I'm going to grant them an understanding of their need to be close to me, and I'm going to ask them to repent. And if they repent, then I'm going to accept them. I'm going to welcome them. So, in conclusion, what does Jonah teach each of us?

Certainly one thing, we need to do God's work. We need to continue doing that work until Christ returns. We need to fill our mind with God's Word because we may need it in the future. If we find ourselves in the belly of a whale, if we are finding ourselves being protected in the belly of a whale, we might not have our flip phone with us, or our not-so-much flip phone. That's what I use. The smart phone that many of you have. You might not have that where you can just flip up and, oh, I need to read that. You know, God was protecting Jonah. You see different examples of God protecting his people, and he talks about providing some protection. He doesn't say what? He doesn't say how? This is one way God protected Jonah during that little period of time. But I would think we want to fill our minds with God's Word. We also learn that God wants everyone to repent, including us. And he is a merciful God. And finally, growing in God's mercy requires that we rule over our anger.