Reaction of Jonah to Mercy of God

Introduction and Prayer for Illumination

0:03 Let us give careful attention to the reading of the Word of God from the book of Jonah, chapter 4. The book of the prophet Jonah, chapter 4.

0:22 Perhaps we should read verse 10 in order to catch the thrust of the conjunction with which chapter 4 begins. And so I shall begin the reading in the last verse of chapter 3. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them, and he did it not.

0:50 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O God, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish. For I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

1:18 Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city.

1:39 And there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. Let us again look to God in prayer, asking the help of the Spirit to give us understanding in his own word of truth. Let us pray.

2:04 Our Heavenly Father, we are made once more to feel and to own our helplessness. Your word tells us that without you we can do nothing. Who knoweth the things of the mind of God save the Spirit of God? And we pray, O blessed Spirit, that you would grant unto us to understand the mind of God this night.

2:35 Come and illuminate our minds as we take before our eyes the very words which you inspired the penman of Scripture to write. We pray, O Lord, that this word may not be so much more information passing into the various file-draws of our minds, but may it be a living word finding its mark in the deepest recesses of our hearts, and there demanding and eliciting the responses of faith and love and rebuke and obedience, and every holy response which that word gives. We pray, O Lord, that this word may not be so much more information passing into the various file-draws of our minds, but may it be a living word finding its mark in the deepest recesses of our minds, and there demanding and eliciting the responses of faith and love and obedience, and every holy response which that word may not be so much more information passing into the various file-draws of our minds, Come to us, O God, in our weakness and our need, and glorify yourself by ministering to us an unworthy company of men and women, boys and girls. Come, we pray, even now in the preaching of the word, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jonah's Reaction to God's Mercy: Essence and Expression

3:48 As we proceed in our study of this fascinating book of the prophet Jonah, we come to another very important point. We come to another very strange episode in the life of this very strange preacher. And our attention tonight will be focused upon the first five verses of the fourth chapter which has been read in your hearing.

4:13 And in this episode, which will be the focus of our attention tonight, we are once again struck with the major theme of this book, or one of the major themes of this book, namely the largeness. The largeness of God's heart, and something of the largeness of the heart of God is set before us in stark contrast to the narrowness of the heart of the man Jonah. Remember the facts that have already preceded. Originally commissioned to go to Nineveh and cry out because of the enormity of its sin, the prophet disobeys, and he makes his way 180 degrees, in the opposite direction, finds himself upon a ship, and there God has dealings with him. And in the process of those dealings, the Lord is pleased to draw to himself some of the pagan sailors. He brings Jonah through that ordeal of a, we might call a symbolic death and resurrection, three days and nights in the belly of the great fish. He recommissions him.

5:24 He goes to Nineveh. He preaches the message which God entrusts to his care, and God is pleased to own that message with great power, and the entire city is brought to repentance, brought to these very vivid external manifestations of brokenness before God. And God himself then changes his disposition of wrath to a disposition of mercy, and turns away the promised judgment that was to come in 40 days. And it is at that precise point in the unfolding of the narrative that we find the portion that we now consider together.

6:07 And what I would encourage you to do is to think of these five verses under the general heading, The Reaction of Jonah to the Merciful Dispensation of God. We considered in verse 10 of chapter 3, God's reaction to the repentance of the Ninevites. When God beholds that they turn from their evil way, God himself repents of the evil which he had pronounced upon them. Now then, beginning with chapter 4 and verse 1, we see Jonah's reaction to God's reaction to the repentance of the Ninevites.

6:47 The Ninevites repent, God repents of the evil that he pronounced upon them, and now we have the record of Jonah's reaction to this merciful dispensation of God. Perhaps it would not be out of order to say what that reaction should have been had Jonah been in a healthy state of soul. After coming from a land with a history of rebellion to the messengers of God, a land which again and again had despised God's goodness in sending messengers to that country to preach and to call them to repentance, one would think that Jonah would have been filled with holy joy to find that one message preached over the course of a very short period of time became instrumental to the conversion of an entire city. One would think that having come from the ranks of prophets who rose up early and late and preached, as it were, to people with deaf ears and with adamant hearts, Jonah would have literally danced for joy when he beheld everyone from the king to the lowest inhabitant of the city crying to God for mercy, sitting in sackcloth and in ashes.

8:13 Furthermore, in the light of Jonah's awareness that God is a merciful God and that the display of his mercy is the display of his crowning glory, one would think that if there burned in the heart of Jonah any jealousy for the honor of God, he would have rejoiced not only that his own message had been received, but that God had given such a singular display of the glory of his mercy. For you'll remember, as recorded in Exodus chapter 34, when God proclaims his glory to Moses, he proclaims it in these very terms, as a God merciful and slow to anger, a God who repents of the evil. And surely being knowledgeable in the history of his own nation, Jonah realized that again and again God made these marvelous displays of his mercy when judgment, as it were, was hanging by a thin thread from crashing down upon the nation. God turned away his wrath and manifested mercy again and again. Well, in the light of these things, the reaction of Jonah should have been one of joy, personal joy that his own ministry as a prophet was not like the ministry of so many prophets in Israel,

9:36 in which they became just a nuisance sound in the ears of an impenitent people. Surely if he had any desire for the glory of God, he should have rejoiced that God's glory was manifested in this amazing display of mercy. If we can put it in the language of the New Testament, if God rejoices at the repentance of one sinner, how much more does he rejoice at the repentance of a whole city of notorious sinners. And if Jonah were anything like God, which is the essence of holiness, his heart would have rejoiced with the living God.

10:17 But alas, this is not what the record holds before us. And I would ask you to examine with me now what that reaction was in reality. And first of all, we shall consider the essence of his reaction as it is described in verse 1, and then the expression of that reaction as it is given to us in verses 2 through 5. Having expounded these passages or these verses, we shall then consider something of the application of all of this to us who sit in this building tonight.

10:52 First of all then, what was the essence of Jonah's reaction to the merciful dispensation of God to the Ninevites? Well, the language of the text is this, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. The essence of Jonah's reaction was nothing less than displeasure or vexation which degenerated into carnal anger. Now, it's important to establish this point, for very good and godly men have greatly erred in their commenting upon this passage for failure to come to grips with the plain language of verse 1. This word for anger is the word which is used again and again in the Old Testament to describe the fierceness of the anger of God. In Exodus 22, 24 we read, And my wrath shall wax hot. The root of this particular word means to glow or to grow warm or to blaze up.

12:10 And again and again it is used of the blazing up of the fierce anger and fury of the Almighty. So to use contemporary jargon, the text says that Jonah was angry. He blew his cork. He got mad at God.

12:31 And there is no other meaning that can possibly be placed upon Jonah's reaction if we are to be true to the language of the Holy Ghost. And furthermore, this is underscored by the fact that when God comes to deal with him, he focuses upon that precise disposition. Verse 4, And the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? Now you will notice it does not say that God's sparing of Nineveh perplexed Jonah and filled him with questions such as, What will my people back in Israel think about the promises of God to judge a sinful people? If he didn't fulfill it at Nineveh, will they begin to think that my threats of coming judgment to my own nation are baseless? There is no record that he was filled with such perplexing thoughts. Other commentaries say, well, he was concerned that the heathen might think that Jehovah was like their gods.

13:38 For you see, the gods of the heathen are fickle. They have human passions and emotions and they change their mind on the spur of the moment. And some say, well, Jonah was vexed and disturbed for fear that the heathen Ninevites might think wrong thoughts of God. Well, you see, all of that is mere human speculation.

13:55 The text says that the essence of his reaction is one of displeasure and vexation culminating in this spirit of carnal anger. He is displeased, he is vexed, he is angry with God. So much, then, for the essence of his reaction. Now notice in verses 2 to 5 the expression of that reaction.

The Petulant Prayer of Jonah

14:23 And the expression has two prongs. There is a petulant prayer and then there is recorded a perverted hope. First of all, then, a petulant prayer. Look at the language.

14:37 And he prayed in this spirit of hot anger and vexation of soul. And he prayed unto Jehovah and said, I pray thee, O Jehovah, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

15:17 The anger of the prophet, first of all, finds expression in prayer. But we must put before the word prayer this adjective, it was a petulant prayer. Now we must commend the prophet that in the midst of his anger and his controversy with God, that he had sense enough to pray. That's better than what he did before.

15:45 When he had a controversy with God before he ran. No record that he prayed. Well this time at least he stays by his post and he prays. But surely this is not a spiritual or a scriptural prayer.

15:58 It is a brattish, jaundiced, peevish, churlish, petulant prayer. And any other adjective you can stick in front of it is certainly fitting. This is not a prayer which we are to emulate. But the Holy Ghost has recorded it for our instruction.

16:17 He prays to God, and to paraphrase his prayer it goes something like this, O God, I refuse to obey your commission at the first, because I knew that you were a merciful God. And I knew that as long as you are God, you are merciful. And therefore if you send me to Nineveh to pronounce to them your judgment and to let them know that there is a period of reprieve, I had a sneaking suspicion that the very reason you were sending me to Nineveh was not to be the harbinger of judgment, but to be an instrument of mercy and the turning away of your wrath. I knew that you were a just God. I knew that you were a merciful God. I knew that when I was back in Israel. For that truth is stamped upon the very face of the history of my nation, way back at the founding of my nation, when the people were in the midst of idolatry, and Moses is upon the mount, and you are committed to consume the nation, and Moses prays and you turn away your anger, and that becomes, as it were, a specimen of your dealings with us again and again.

17:32 O God, I knew what you were like. I knew you were such a God from my knowledge of the history of my own nation. I knew you were such a God from the history of your own dealings with me. And, O God, I had a sneaking suspicion that if I ever came and preached, this is exactly what would happen.

17:50 You would turn the hearts of the Ninevites, you would withhold your judgment, and mercy would be shown. Now, Lord, in the light of all of that, I have a gripe with you. And so his petulant prayer contains, first of all, this confession of his gripe with God. As Luther rightly observes, here we find the prophet once again expressing that Jewish and carnal view of God.

18:23 Once again, this feeling of antipathy to the Gentile dogs, the sneaking suspicion that if mercy is shown to a Gentile nation, perhaps somehow that nation will rise in prominence and influence beyond his own nation of Israel, and he is blinded by the prejudice of his own carnal Jewish bigotry. Then the second part of this petulant prayer, he not only gives vent to his main gripe with God, but he then expresses a carnal desire to die and to end it all. Verse 3, Therefore now, having poured out his gripe, now he is going to ask God to do something. You see, the first part, he wasn't really asking God anything. He was informing God of that which God already knew. But he was getting it off his chest to at least feel better emotionally and psychologically.

19:20 Now he prays with a carnal desire to die and to end it all. Look at the language. Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Now you see the poor mixed-up man again.

19:40 As a regenerate man who has a love for God's law, he dare not take things into his own hands and end his own life. He knows that that would be to add sin to sin. But at the same time he is so vexed and angry that he has to behold a city under the smile of a benevolent and a gracious God, rather than a city smoldering under the tokens of divine vengeance, that he says, God, I'd rather die than live to behold mercy upon this whole city of Gentile dogs. O Lord, take me out of the whole mess.

20:19 When he should have been amongst the people, furthering, further instructing them in the ways of God, and, oh, how I long for that privilege, to minister on the heels of a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God when people are hungry and teachable and can't get enough. I've had just a little taste of it. Early in my own Christian experience, when God was pleased to move upon a little group of young people, and all they wanted to do was pray and preach and read the Bible. I mean that, literally.

20:51 And they did it hours on end. It was nothing to pray two and three hours on end, study the Bible two, three, four hours, have half nights of prayer.

21:01 We heard that there was a preacher somewhere that had any unction and had any blessing on his ministry. We were in the car, driving to go here and preach, and when he was done preaching, we'd pester him until weary-eyed, and his tongue hanging out of his mouth for thirst or for sheer weariness, we'd let him go. But there was that hunger and that thirst. What a privilege this man of God could have had, going through the streets and lanes of that city where people have been humbled and giving them instruction in the things of God and instead of that he's saying, Oh God, take me out of the whole mess.

21:39 Now surely there is a contrast between this prayer and the prayer of Elijah. You remember as is recorded in 1 Kings 19 after Elijah sees the apparent turning of the nation on Mount Carmel, only to go back to the seat of wickedness and to see that Jezebel still fumes and rages in her hatred to God and His truth. And he becomes discouraged and he says, Oh Lord, let me die. I'm no better than my fathers.

22:08 Well you see that was the prayer of dashed hopes and discouragement. The man had hoped that he had begun to see the beginnings of a true revival when in reality he did not see subsequent to that what he'd hoped to see. And so his prayer is not in any way like the prayer of this man Jonah. Or you have the instance of the Apostle Paul.

22:30 He says, I'm in a strait. I don't know whether to stay or go. I long to depart and to be with Christ. Here you have the prophet Elijah.

22:39 He wants to die because he has disappointed hopes for mercy and revival. And you have the Apostle Paul who wants to die for birth pangs. I'm sorry, for love pangs for Christ. He has such pangs to see his Savior face to face.

22:56 He said, I find myself longing to depart. But this prayer, this prayer for death was nothing short of a carnal desire to get out of a situation that vexed the remaining corruption in the heart of the prophet of God. Well then the reaction is not only expressed in this petulant prayer in which he gives vent to his gripe and a carnal desire to die. But the second major manifestation of this reaction is what I've called his perverted hope.

Jonah's Perverted Hope

23:29 A petulant prayer, now a perverted hope. Look at verse 5. Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city and there made him a booth and sat under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city. There is every indication that the forty days have come and gone.

23:51 Destruction has not come. But now Jonah leaves the city, makes himself a little booth, a little lean-to, and sits there filled with this perverted hope that maybe this repentance was just a thing of a night or two and a thing of a few weeks and perhaps they'll go back to their wickedness and he can sit there and watch God consume the whole shoot and match.

24:18 And I say that's a perverted hope. Even after God has manifested mercy in turning the hearts of these people he goes outside the city and sits there and I know not what else to call it but overcome with a form of spiritual strength and sadism, almost waiting to delight in the judgment that perhaps may yet come to this people. Well, I suggest that that is the teaching of these first five verses. The record of Jonah's reaction to the merciful dispensation of God to the Ninevites.

Application for Believers: The Danger of Unmortified Sin

24:56 The reaction itself, verse 1, carnal anger. The expression of that reaction, a petulant prayer and a perverted hope. Now then, since all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, what does all of this say to us? May I suggest, first of all, by way of practical application, this contains a very vital word to us who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and it is this, Behold what miserable creatures we are when left to the predominating influence of any area of remaining sin. Behold what miserable creatures we are when left to the predominating influence of any area of remaining sin. In reading the account of Jonah 4, 1 to 5 we are reading the record of a regenerate, justified, saved man. But there was one major area of unmortified sin in this man.

26:20 It was his blind Hebrew bigotry and exclusiveness. It was that sin that plagued him all the way through the book. And when he is left at the mercy of this predominating, unmortified sin, what a mess of a man he becomes. It was this remaining sin that originally turned his feet away from the path of obedience.

26:49 When God said, Go to Nineveh, he set his face to Tarshish. It was that remaining sin that led to the ordeal of the three days and nights in the belly of the fish. It was that sin that produced the unrighteous anger, the pouting, petulant prayer, the inordinate desire for death. That one sin became prolific and produced one terrible child after another in the heart and life of this man.

27:24 What a warning it is to us. Here is a holy man. Here is a holy prophet. Here is a man who is an instrument in the hands of God through which an entire city is turned away from sin to righteousness.

27:41 Yet when he comes under the power, under the predominating influence of an unmortified lust, what a terrible, terrible man he becomes.

27:54 And that is not the only incident of such a reality given to us in the word of God. When David, the man after God's own heart, comes under the predominating influence, the influence of his unmortified lust for strange flesh, what happens to David, the man after God's own heart?

28:18 Adultery, murder, duplicity, tragedy upon his entire household. Why? You trace out the pattern. Way back in the beginning of his days, God had said in Deuteronomy 17, 17, when you come into the land and when you have kings, the kings shall not multiply unto themselves wives.

28:47 God forbade polygamy among the kings of Israel. And David began to be a connoisseur of fine female flesh. And at the time he lusted after Bathsheba, he had six courses on his table. He had six wives at that time.

29:09 Why not a seventh? He became a gourmet of beautiful women. And because that lust was not mortified, in an hour of weakness it rose up and made him as it were a veritable beast.

29:33 And my friend, whatever lust you leave unmortified, it may yet cause you to have a history as did Jonah and David. Oh, it may not be something as obvious as David's lust.

29:55 It may be a spirit of envy. Some of you young ladies, God has not endowed you with the attractiveness of physical appearance that he has given to some others. And you may find yourself sitting in this very congregation. I wonder sometimes what some of you think as I watch your eyes look across the congregation and fasten upon one here and one there.

30:18 Are you, when you fasten your eyes upon that person, saying, Oh God, bless that dear sister, help her? Or is the spirit of envy burning right here in the sanctuary of God? Is there an unmortified spirit of envy and covetousness concerning someone else's physical appearance, concerning someone else's privileges and blessings in life? My friend, you allow that spirit of envy to go unmortified.

30:50 God alone knows what it may lead you to do in the proper circumstances.

30:58 It may be a spirit of ambition. Whatever it is, the lesson of this passage is, leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul. Take every virtue, every grace, and fortify the whole.

31:23 That lust. That passion. That disposition. That attitude that is contrary to the norms of Scripture.

31:34 If allowed to go unmortified, may eat like termites at the foundation of your spiritual structure until the proper wind blows upon that structure and down you go and become as it were a heap of spiritual rubble. Even as we see Jonah, you say, how can it be a man preserved by a perpetual miracle for three days and nights in the belly of a fish, forgiven and recommissioned and sent to Nineveh and wonderfully blessed in his ministry, and now he's mad at...

32:19 prays this kind of prayer and sits outside the city with his spirit filled with this perverted hope. My friend, the great lesson I repeat is, what miserable creatures we all are when left to the predominating influence of any area of remaining sin. Oh, how we need to be humbled in the face of this reality, how we need to be watchful and prayerful, and if God is pleased to give us grace to be kept from coming under the predominating power of any remaining corruption, how thankful to Him we ought to be and how compassionate we ought to be to others. I do not stand here tonight and throw stones at Jonah, for I know that left to myself, my history would be far worse than that.

33:26 You see, a Christian is like a man coated with dry leaves, walking through fire every waking moment of the day, and if he comes through unscathed,

33:42 somebody's been monkeying around with the leaves or with the fire, and that's the preserving grace of God.

Application for Believers: God's Mercy and Patience

33:52 But then there is a second word to believers in this passage, and it is this, Behold the mercy and patience of God in bearing with the sins of His children. It's a good thing, Jonah, had some good theology even in his petulant prayer. In his prayer he said, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger.

34:23 And it's a good thing God was. Or he just stuffed that prayer right back down in Jonah's throat and said, shut up. I mean, if one of my children ever talked to me this way, they'd have only gotten half through the sentence. They'd have had a crack across the side of the mouth.

34:39 I don't mean in rashness. When our children were smaller and dared to talk in a way that was petulant and smart-alecky, sometimes we'd just take the finger and flick the mouth and say, don't you dare do that again. How merciful that God even let this prayer get out of His mouth. And how merciful God didn't answer the other prayer.

35:02 Lord, let me die! Thank God for unanswered prayers.

35:09 Thank God for unanswered prayers. Behold the mercy and the patience of God in bearing with the sins of His children. And we sang of it tonight from the 103rd Psalm. The Lord knoweth our frame.

35:23 He remembereth that we are dust. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He is slow to anger. And as I've already intimated, graciously refuses to answer some of our foolish prayers.

35:43 What an amazing display of the grace of God is this paragraph. Not only amazing that God bore with that bratty prayer, and God didn't answer the selfish prayer, but that God then turned around and put such grace in Jonah's heart that he wrote this tale about Himself.

36:05 I mean, if you're writing your biography, this is one of the chapters you'd leave out. You don't find men writing autobiographies unless they're writing sordid stuff to appeal to the prurient. But you see, God's grace not only bore with this, but then so worked in Jonah's heart that he was willing to be honest about his sin. Well, I say this is a word to us as believers.

36:28 A word to make us tremble at the thought of how dangerous it is to tolerate any remaining sin. Be it a spirit of bitterness, a spirit of unforgiveness, a spirit of lust, of pride, of envy, of ambition. It may bring us to the kind of tragic thing to which Jonah's unmortified nationalism brought him. But then behold, in it is well, dear child of God, the mercy and the patience of God that is the same to you and to me as it was to Jonah.

Application for Preachers: Success vs. Heart Condition

37:08 But now, this passage contains not only a word to all believers in general, but it contains a word to preachers. And because we have men whose heart and mind are set upon the work of the ministry, we have a congregation who pray for them, it is good for us from time to time to make specific application to preachers and would-be preachers. And the great principle that's in this passage is simply this. A man's usefulness, measured by immediate success standards, may bear little or no relationship to the true condition of his heart before God.

37:54 Want me to run that by again? A man's usefulness, measured by immediate success standards, may bear little or no relationship to the true condition of his heart before God. If all we had was the record of chapter 3 and there the story ended, we would probably assume that after the ordeal of the three days and nights in the belly of the fish, and the recommissioning of the prophet and his apparent alacrity in obedience, he goes according to the word of the Lord and he preaches what God gives to him, we would rightly assume that when God owned that preaching with such power that Jonah was altogether a different man, not only in the outward steps of his feet, but in the inward disposition of his heart, we could well assume that perhaps he spent the nights as he was traveling to Nineveh, out before the open heavens, pleading with God for success upon his preaching, pleading with Jehovah, whom he knew to be merciful. For remember, the marks of divine mercy were upon his very skin and countenance as he had come through the ordeal of divine preservation from that judgment of being thrown into the sea and preserved for the three days and nights.

39:24 We might assume that he came to Nineveh with a heart pregnant, with holy yearning for the Ninevites, reluctant to pronounce judgment, yearning and pleading that the announcement of judgment would be effectual to turning them from sin unto righteousness. Chapter 4 reveals that this was not so to the least degree. Jonah is driven to Nineveh by the pressure of an external providence that scared all of the fight out of him. But that's apparently as far as it got.

40:07 He preaches, hoping for non-success. He preaches that there will be no success from his preaching. That is, that the announcement of judgment will not accomplish what God always announces judgment to accomplish. But God's announcements of judgment are always a calculated call to repentance in order to avert judgment.

40:41 And yet, what did God do? Here's a prophet with no heart for the people to whom he preaches, no yearning for their conversion and repentance, and I believe it is right to assume, no prayer, no fasting, no pleading with God that God would have mercy, and he simply goes, as it were, held him by the bonds of fear as to what might happen to him if he doesn't go. And a whole city is brought to its face before God. Now, what do we learn from that?

41:15 We learn that we do not judge a man's spirituality by his apparent success in preaching. That principle cuts in two directions. It's a principle that ought to bring consolation to some of you in the days of ministry that may lie before you.

41:38 There are some of you to whom God will give large hearts. He'll give you a heart that finds it natural to pray. Not natural in the sense that it will be easy, but natural in the sense that you will have such an affinity for the spiritual well-being of that flock into which God will lead you, that your greatest yearnings will be the yearnings for their conversion. You will find yourself in the closet praying, O God, bless the preaching of the Lord's day.

42:11 Bless the personal counsel and admonition of the study and of the opportunities for social contact. O God, use me not to be famous, not to be known by men, but O God, use me as an instrument of salvation to turn sinners from the wrath to come. And not only will you pray and plead with God, you'll plead and yearn over men. You'll stand in the pulpit and feel at times as though your heart will literally break.

42:45 God the Holy Ghost will give you such a touch of His own yearning for sinners that you will feel that your mortal frame cannot contain one drop more of holy yearning or something will burst within your spirit.

43:05 Yet you may pray and plead and weep and yearn and cry to God and entreat men and have very little to show for a very lengthy period of time. My friend, if God puts you in such a circumstance, take comfort, take comfort, take comfort. That is no necessary indication of God's judgment upon some defect in your character. For when all is ultimately, when the issue is ultimately resolved, we come back to 1 Corinthians 3, one sows, another waters, but God gives the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. You know what one of the most heartbreaking things to me as a preacher is? God owns my preaching to the salvation of sinners more away from this place than he does here in this place.

44:17 And I tell you that breaks my heart.

44:25 By the grace of God I preach the same biblical truths by the help of the Spirit with the same yearning of heart and sometimes with even less prayer because the demands of ministry when I'm elsewhere are often such that there simply is not the time to pray as much as I pray for you people in this place.

44:50 My only comfort at times has been, Lord, your sovereign in your saving work.

44:57 For I wonder if I could stand and plead again only to see people go out of this place impenitent and unbelieving. And then I ask myself, O God, is there some sin that's grieving and quenching the spirit? Is the desire not there? Is the yearning not genuine?

45:14 Is it all a sham?

45:17 And I come to a passage like this and I take comfort. Here's a man who had no heart, no yearning, no prayers, no pleading, and God was pleased to bear his arm.

45:31 But that principle also cuts in the other direction by way of conviction. Some of you may be blessed with great success,

45:41 but that doesn't prove a thing about your character.

45:45 God may be pleased to bless your prayerless efforts with great success in the proclamation of the gospel. God may save, genuinely save, far more people through you as a prayerless, careless preacher than he does through another. But remember, the measure of where you are is not the measure to which God blesses your preaching with conversion work. For many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not preached in thy name and cast out devils in thy name?

46:23 And I will profess unto them, Depart from me, I never knew you. They had ministering gifts and manifest success, but they had no sanctifying grace. And so I say to you, young men, aspiring to the work of the ministry, covet a useful ministry, yes, covet to be used of God in the salvation of sinners. I do not understand the man who hides behind the sovereignty of God and says, well, salvation's all of God, he must do it, I'll just preach it, I'll just dump the load of truth and trust the Holy Ghost.

46:55 No, no, my friend. The uniqueness of preaching is that God not only puts His word in the mouth of His true servants, but He puts something of His own heart in the hearts of His servants. And as they proclaim the message, they yearn with the God who's given the message.

Application for Unbelievers: Salvation in Christ Alone

47:16 God may or may not bless that in varying degrees, in varying stages of your life or ministry. May God plant a seed from this principle that will stand you in good stead in that day. And then finally, this passage contains a word to you who are yet in your sins. Have you ever wondered why God is so honest in recording the sins of some of the best of His servants?

47:45 Have you ever wondered that? Why did God move Jonah to be so honest about his petulant prayer? Isn't that a blot on the name of God that a servant of Jehovah should be like that? Why does God risk His own honor and, as it were, lay out fuel for His enemies to take up and to throw at Him?

48:07 Why did God move Samuel to be so honest about his own sins? And the writer of the life of David to be so honest about the sins of David? And the Gospel writer so honest about the sins of Peter and even Luke, about the sins of Paul? Why?

48:28 Well, there are many reasons, and one great reason is this, to remind us that our salvation is not in the best of men. You remember what Jesus said? Behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Thank God the prophet to which we point you in the Gospel is not like Jonah.

48:50 If you read Jonah in chapter 3, you say, look at that courageous man. He goes all alone into this great military and powerful city. He's willing to risk his neck for the sake of the Gospel. You're almost ready to elevate him to sainthood and call him Saint Jonah, patron saint of all travelers upon the sea.

49:13 Well, you come to chapter 4 and you see that the patron saint has clay feet. Why? Oh, to remind us that a greater than Jonah alone is worthy of our trust. There is only one who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and that's the Lord Jesus.

49:38 And oh, my unconverted friend, it is He that we set before you tonight. It is the Lord Jesus in the perfection of His sinless glory as God and man. It is the Lord Jesus in the ordeal of the three days and nights in the deep that we set before you. Jonah was in the belly of that fish three days and nights as a judgment of God for his own sin.

50:09 The greater than Jonah was three days and nights in the depths, not for sins of his own, but for the sins of all who will turn to Him in trust. Oh, my unconverted friend, I'm glad, not for Jonah's sake, but I'm glad the Holy Ghost records the imperfections of the best of the saints, that we might know that our only sure resting place is the Lord Jesus. Have you seen any beauty in the Son of God? Oh, my friend, are you trusting in your church?

50:52 Are you trusting in the sacraments? Are you trusting in your morality? It's all a stench in the nostrils of God. There is only one whose perfection is acceptable with God, and that's the Lord Jesus.

51:08 And our call to you tonight is to repent, to turn from all confidence in everything and everyone else, and to rest the whole weight of your guilty soul upon the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners. As Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the fish, so must the Son of Man be three days and nights in the heart of the earth. Why? That sinners might be judged, that sinners might have a just peace formed in the blood of the Son of God.

51:50 Oh, may we learn from this account of the reaction of Jonah that there is no salvation in the best of men, but salvation is to be found in Christ and in Christ alone. Let us pray.

Concluding Prayer

52:20 Our Father, we are indeed grateful that we have the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments, this blessed lamp unto our feet and light to our pathway. And we are conscious again that though it is our responsibility to expound and to proclaim and to apply, it is not our prerogative to enter that deep, inward citadel of the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. Oh, blessed, living, almighty God, will you not enter that realm where we cannot go, where we would if we could? Oh, Lord, go in that realm, and there create soul thirst for the Son of God. Work in the hearts of your people who may be tolerating some unmortified sin, which, like Jonah's unmortified, nationalist, nationalism, begat so many ugly sins in his life. Oh, God, have dealings with any of your children who this night are dallying, playing, flirting with that which will rise up and cripple them and even send them crippled and scarred to their graves.

53:46 Oh, Lord, have dealings with your children. We pray for those who aspire to the work of the ministry, those already engaged, engaged in ministry. Give them comfort, oh, Lord, if they've yearned and prayed and preached and pleaded with men and see so little. Oh, God, strengthen their resolve to plead on and to preach on and to pray on until you are pleased to grant life to dead sinners.

54:17 Seal them the word to our hearts. Seal the word that has been preached throughout the four corners of the earth this day, and may that last day, the great day of unveiling, may that day reveal that many were brought out of darkness and into marvelous light because you were pleased to own your word with power. We do thank you for the privileges of this day. We praise you for the worship that has ascended into your presence in this place today.

54:53 We thank you for one another. We thank you for the communion of the saints. Oh, God, the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places. We have a goodly heritage.

55:06 Receive the praises we offer at the conclusion of this Lord's Day. Sanctify the further fellowship that many of us will have as we speak with one another in this place, as various ones will gather in each other's homes. Grant that the day may be crowned with blessing, that we may be strengthened to face the temptations, the duties and responsibilities of the coming week, having been strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man because we have met in the way of your appointment. Hear our prayers, receive our praises as we offer them through Jesus Christ our Lord.

55:51 Amen.